The Symposium: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Symposium, credited to Plato, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Symposium, by Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett. Read by Geoffrey Edwards. The Symposium (Ancient Greek: Συμπόσιον) is a philosophical book written by Plato sometime after 385 BCE. On one level the book deals with the genealogy, nature and purpose of love, on another level the book deals with the topic of knowledge, specifically how does one know what one knows. The topic of love is taken up in the form of a group of speeches, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking party at the house of the tragedian Agathon at Athens. Plato constructed the Symposium as a story within a story within a story. This architecture creates the space for Plato to build his philosophy of knowledge. The speech of Socrates points out that the highest purpose of Love is to become a Philosopher, or Lover of Wisdom. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Symposium
• Author credits: Plato
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 3
• Listed recording duration: 2:15:06

Catalogue topics

• philosophy
• Plato

Track guide

1. 1 - Symposium — 34:38
2. 2 - Symposium — 41:02
3. 3 - Symposium — 59:28

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.