Yale Lecture on Plato

This is a lecture delivered by Anthony Kronman, philosopher and law professor at Yale University, where he provides a nice explanation of part of Plato's Republic. For our purposes, the stuff we are concerned with is that concerning the reality of the Forms vs. that of individual things (beauty itself vs. beautiful things). He explains, and critiques, the metaphysical assumptions which support and explain Plato's views on democracy in a very interesting way, and why Plato could not possibly favor democracy as a good political ideal.

It's a very good lecture, in my opinion, until he starts arguing for creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) as a solution to the problems faced by Plato, which takes place toward the very end, but everything up to that point is rather interesting.

I hope it helps you better understand Plato.