This podcast places special emphasis on the idea of freedom. The search for a moral foundation on which to build democracy leads to two major versions of The Enlightenment — the Greek Enlightenment of the 5th Century B.C. and the 18th Century Enlightenment that spawned the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Throughout his dialogues, Plato practices a form of inquiry he calls dialectic “the way of knowing that is appropriate for free people.” Plato’s character Socrates opposes the Sophist Gorgias, who defends the art of “ruling over others,” and introduces the idea of “ruling over ourselves,” which he applies both to individuals and to societies.