Video and Podcast Resources On Plutarch's Moralia
20 lecture videos and 20 podcast episodes on the works of this great Middle Platonist philosopher
One of the later ancient philosophical authors who I consider to be quite underrated and well worth reading is someone who is better known to many for his biographical works, Plutarch of Chaeronea, specifically for the Parallel Lives that many of us were assigned back in high school or college. As it turns out, he also authored a vast number of philosophical works, often concerned with matters broadly falling into the sphere of ethics, so the collection of them are often called the Moralia.
Why read them? Well, one key reason would be to get a solid sense of what Platonism looked like in its “middle” period. There are other middle Platonist writers whose works you can (and if you’re interested in this stuff) should read, like Alcinous, who wrote a Handbook of Platonism, and Apuleius who we have a few works by. But with Plutarch, we have an entire body of work, ranging over many subjects, and engaging with much of the other philosophical schools of his time. So his texts are really the place to go to see what a robust reinterpretation of Platonic thought, before the neo-Platonic movement, looks like.
As a side-note, I authored a partly tongue-in-cheek piece some time ago, a contribution to the “Journal of Hot Takes”, arguing among other things that Plutarch is in some respects a better Platonist than Plato himself (and similarly for Alexander of Aphrodisas in relation to Aristotle), which you can read here, if you’d like.
In the last five or so years, I’ve started incorporating some of Plutarch’s texts into my classes, and that leads to me producing lectures in video and podcast formats as resources for my students. So far, I’ve only done that with three of his texts, for classes that were topically focused, one of them on theories of friendship in the ancient world, and the other on understanding and managing the emotion of anger. But I do have plans to do the same with some of his other works in the near future, and as I do that, I’ll add those resources here to this page (or perhaps create additional resource pages, or both).
Here are the video and podcast lectures on Plutarch so far:
How To Tell A Flatterer From A Friend
Vulnerabilities To Flatterers | watch video | listen to podcast
Pleasure, Praise, And Services | watch video | listen to podcast
Flatterers And One's Own Friends | watch video | listen to podcast
Assistance And Services | watch video | listen to podcast
Friendship, Similarity, And Flattery | watch video | listen to podcast
Tricks Flatterers Employ | watch video | listen to podcast
Friendship And Frankness Of Speech | watch video | listen to podcast
Flatterers' Imitation Of Frankness Of Speech | watch video | listen to podcast
Moderating Frankness Of Speech | watch video | listen to podcast
On Having Many Friends
What Genuine Friendship Involves | watch video | listen to podcast
Trying And Testing Friends | watch video | listen to podcast
Problems With Having Many Friends | watch video | listen to podcast
On Controlling Anger
Training Oneself Away From Anger | watch video | listen to podcast
Examples Of Anger And Mildness | watch video | listen to podcast
Anger And Distortion Of Appearance | watch video | listen to podcast
Anger, Contempt, And Neglect | watch video | listen to podcast
Anger, Mildness, And Simplicity | watch video | listen to podcast
Breaking Anger's Tyranny | watch video | listen to podcast
Cheerfulness As A Remedy For Anger | watch video | listen to podcast
Anger And Righteous Indignation | watch video | listen to podcast
So there they are: 20 video and 20 podcast lectures on three key works by this insightful author. If you find their topics interesting or the resources helpful for studying these sort but rewarding philosophical works, feel free to leave a comment on this page!
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