Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization
    Unavailable
    The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization
    Unavailable
    The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization
    Audiobook25 hours

    The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization

    Written by Arthur Herman

    Narrated by Paul Hecht

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Plato came from a wealthy, connected Athenian family and lived a comfortable upper-class lifestyle until he met an odd little man named Socrates, who showed him a new world of ideas and ideals. Socrates taught Plato that a man must use reason to attain wisdom, and that the life of a lover of wisdom, a philosopher, was the pinnacle of achievement. Plato dedicated himself to living that ideal and went on to create a school, his famed Academy, to teach others the path to enlightenment through contemplation.

    However, the same Academy that spread Plato' s teachings also fostered his greatest rival. Born to a family of Greek physicians, Aristotle had learned early on the value of observation and hands-on experience. Rather than rely on pure contemplation, he insisted that the truest path to knowledge is through empirical discovery and exploration of the world around us. Aristotle, Plato' s most brilliant pupil, thus settled on a philosophy very different from his instructor' s and launched a rivalry with profound effects on Western culture.

    The two men disagreed on the fundamental purpose of the philosophy. For Plato, the image of the cave summed up man' s destined path, emerging from the darkness of material existence to the light of a higher and more spiritual truth. Aristotle thought otherwise. Instead of rising above mundane reality, he insisted, the philosopher' s job is to explain how the real world works, and how we can find our place in it. Aristotle set up a school in Athens to rival Plato' s Academy: the Lyceum. The competition that ensued between the two schools, and between Plato and Aristotle, set the world on an intellectual adventure that lasted through the Middle Ages and Renaissance and that still continues today.

    From Martin Luther (who named Aristotle the third great enemy of true religion, after the devil and the Pope) to Karl Marx (whose utopian views rival Plato' s), heroes and villains of history have been inspired and incensed by these two master philosophers-- but never outside their influence.

    Accessible, riveting, and eloquently written, The Cave and the Light provides a stunning new perspective on the Western world, certain to open eyes and stir debate.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books Audio
    Release dateNov 29, 2013
    ISBN9781470379537
    Unavailable
    The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization
    Author

    Arthur Herman

    ARTHUR HERMAN is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the author of nine books, including the New York Times bestseller How the Scots Invented the Modern World and Gandhi and Churchill, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Washington, DC.  

    More audiobooks from Arthur Herman

    Related to The Cave and the Light

    Related audiobooks

    European History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Thick as Thebans

      Mar 25, 2021

      Thick as Thebans
      6 min read

    • Article

      Seeing The Big Picture

      May 26, 2022

      IBN KHALDUN (1332-1406) WAS A PIONEERING Arab scholar and one of the most important historians of the Middle Ages. He is best known for his three-volume masterwork the Muqaddimah, written in 1377, which integrated politics, sociology, economics, demo

      7 min read

    • Article

      From Worms To Woke

      May 26, 2022

      HAVE WE BEEN HERE BEFORE? Now, in 2022, with war abroad and woke at home, we contemplate the bitter dissolution of the hopes of the late twentieth century. Five hundred years ago, in 1521, Martin Luther’s appearance at the Diet of Worms signalled the

      5 min read

    • Article

      True Romance

      Jun 1, 2022

      True Romance
      5 min read

    • Article

      ARTS & CULTURE

      Jan 28, 2021

      ARTS & CULTURE
      5 min read

    • Article

      Who Said Science and Art Were Two Cultures?

      Nov 17, 2021

      On a May evening in 1959, C.P. Snow, a popular novelist and former research scientist, gave a lecture before a gathering of dons and students at the University of Cambridge, his alma mater. He called his talk “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revo

      8 min read

    • Article

      Building Bridges

      Jul 2, 2023

      Building Bridges
      3 min read

    • Article

      We Are All Ancient Mapmakers

      Jan 30, 2020

      In the first half of the sixth century B.C., a Greek man named Anaximander, born in Turkey, sketched the world in a way no one had previously thought to do. It featured a circle, divided into three equal parts. He labeled those parts Europe, Asia, an

      9 min read

    • Article

      Commentary: US Should Build A Memorial 'Plague Column' For COVID-19, But Where? Here's An Idea

      May 8, 2020

      Plague columns don't exist in the United States. The nation was founded too late, after the 17th and early 18th century European heyday of memorials built to mark the end of a blistering contagion. An epidemic's brutal cost in human lives and its myr

      5 min read

    • Article

      OK Doomer: Why Spengler Matters

      Apr 27, 2023

      PERIODS OF UPHEAVAL ALWAYS bring their own prophets, divining doom or salvation for those around them and for the world at large. We have our fair share today, with various tellers of dire fortune warning of imminent environmental apocalypse, technol

      7 min read

    • Article

      Books

      May 22, 2023

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      On My Radar: Carlo Rovelli’s Cultural Highlights

      Oct 28, 2023

      Born in Verona, Italy, in 1956, theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli is known for his writing on the philosophy of science. His books include the bestselling Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time and Helgoland and have been translated into

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Schlock Of The New

      Sep 22, 2021

      Have you noticed that, as a group, prophets tend to be a grumpy lot? From Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah, right down to Carlyle, Ruskin, Spengler and beyond: gloominess and bad weather as far as the eye can see. There are many reasons for this, beginni

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Brilliant Biography Of An Elusive Genius

      Jul 27, 2023

      IN MEDIEVAL SCHOLASTICISM, ARISTOTLE’S reputation was such that he was usually referred to simply as “the Philosopher”. Among the moderns, this book makes the case for treating Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) similarly. And if there is no philosopher but Sp

      6 min read

    • Article

      Brave And Barmy New Worlds

      Jun 24, 2021

      Brave And Barmy New Worlds
      4 min read

    • Article

      Art And Architecture Of The Middle Ages: Exploring A Connected World

      Nov 11, 2023

      By Jill Caskey, Adam S. Cohen, Linda Safran ISBN: 978-1501702822 Cornell University Press, 2022 $69.95 (paperback) www.cornellpress.cornell.edu For a long time, the field of Medieval Studies began and ended in Europe. In the past few years, medieval

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Hunt For Atlantis

      Jun 16, 2022

      The Hunt For Atlantis
      8 min read

    • Article

      When Science Was the Best Show in America

      Nov 18, 2020

      On May 29, 1810, Katherine Fritsch, a sister in the Moravian Church, boarded a coach in Lititz, Pennsylvania, along with a group of her friends and began the 75-mile trek to Philadelphia. Fritsch noted in her diary the one city site she most wished t

      9 min read

    • Article

      All Sweetness And Light

      Nov 24, 2022

      All Sweetness And Light
      8 min read

    • Article

      On The Beauty Of Math

      Jun 27, 2019

      On The Beauty Of Math
      6 min read

    • Article

      Welcome

      Aug 7, 2019

      Who are you? What is this magazine about? Why would I want to spend some of my valuable time and money reading it? We are people like you, passionate about life, the arts and ideas that make a difference; we like the playful and thoughtful interactio

      4 min read

    • Article

      Why Do So Many Scientists Want to be Filmmakers?

      Mar 22, 2018

      For the past five years, Nautilus has asked scientists what they would be if they weren’t a scientist. I can now report what, above all, they want to be. “Film director,” says physicist David Deutsch. “A filmmaker,” says neuroscientist Antonio Damasi

      9 min read

    Reviews for The Cave and the Light

    4.5/5

    10 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Really great. Gives a very broad view of history and society.