Started listening to it on my iPod today. Librivox recorded a huge number of books, both classical and modern, as short podcasts. My commute is 30 minutes, and I run for about that amount at least every other day, so I can get through 2 or 3 chapters a day. It's refreshing to get back to Socrates' method of analysis, keeping you on edge with false conclusions and long lines of questioning to reveal his true opinion. Becoming reacquainted with the Platonic ideal is nice as well; it has been quite a while since I read anything of Plato's, unfortunately.
A few things stood out to me. Firstly, Cephalus' speech on old age being a burden to 'bad rich men and good poor men' has a lot more substance than it seems at first glance. You could write a whole other line of questioning just based on that. Secondly, justice seems to be 'the paying to each man what is due to him - evil to evil men, and good to good men'. Definitely in line with Plato's yearning for an ideal concept of justice, but it has been complicated in the second chapter. We'll see what the third chapter brings. Finally, I find it interesting that Plato wrote, through another man's lines, a fairly critical assessment of Socrates. Strange.
I read a couple more chapters of the Leviathan. Hobbes is discussing what angels are, and what prophets are, and how God speaks to men, etc. Good insights, as I noted before, but concision was probably a foreign concept to him.
My Latin word of the day included a pretty interesting sentence. Non scholae sed vitae discimus. We learn not for school, but for life. How true.
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