The dramatic nature of PlatoтАЩs dialogues is delightfully evident in the "Symposium." The marriage between character and thought bursts forth as the guests gather at AgathonтАЩs house to celebrate the success of his first tragedy. With wit and insight, they each present their ideas about love тАФ from ErixymachusтАЩs scientific naturalism to AristophanesтАЩ comic fantasy. The unexpected arrival of Alcibiades breaks the spell cast by DiotimaтАЩs ethereal climb up the staircase of love to beauty itself. Ecstasy and intoxication clash as Plato concludes with one of his most skillful displays of dialectic. Plato lived in Athens, Greece. He wrote approximately two-dozen dialogues that explore core topics that are essential to all human beings. Although the historical Socrates was a strong influence on Plato, the character by that name that appears in many of his dialogues is a product of PlatoтАЩs fertile imagination. All of PlatoтАЩs dialogues are written in a poetic form that his student Aristotle called "Socratic dialogue." In the twentieth century, the British philosopher and logician Alfred North Whitehead characterized the entire European philosophical tradition as "a series of footnotes to Plato." Philosophy for Plato was not a set of doctrines but a goal тАФ not the possession of wisdom but the love of wisdom. Agora Publications offers these performances based on the assumption that Plato wrote these works to be performed by actors in order to stimulate additional dialogue among those who listen to them.