The fact that Socrates wrote nothing, himself, but made such an impression on others, makes him pretty easy to write about. Moreover, the fact that Plato’s central arguments about the Realm of Pure Forms cannot stand up to rational scrutiny makes discussions of his ideas relatively straightforward. However, when it comes to philosophers who have a vast range of good ideas, matters become much more […]
Illusory Forms
In his desire to come up with objective definitions of concepts such as “justice”, “virtue” and “beauty,” Plato (as Socrates before him) struggled with the reality that the definitions of those terms seemed, at least on the surface, to vary a lot from one culture to the next – and even from one individual to the next. That seemed to loan the expedient ethics of […]
An Imperfect Genius
Socrates may have resisted the title of “teacher,” but he nonetheless had students, and the best and brightest of them made such profound contributions to Western philosophy that, arguably, every work written since his day has amounted to a series of critiques and rebuttals of Plato. Unlike Socrates, Plato (a nickname that meant “broad,” given to him by his wrestling instructor because of his strong, […]
The Gadfly
At last, we come to one of the most pivotal thinkers in the history of Western Civilization; a man who, ironically, claimed vast ignorance of just about everything, and who spent his time ostensibly asking questions of other people to try to learn what might actually qualify as truth. We don’t actually know all that much about Socrates, the son of the stonemason Sophroniscus and […]
The Sophist Quagmire
Before I start with the ideas of Socrates, I need to discuss the ideas of his primary opponents. As the power of Athens spread, and Athenian ideas flowed out while the wealth of imperial subjects flowed in (voluntarily or not), the ability engage in persuasion gained in importance. As something of a democracy, the ability to persuade Athenian juries and assemblies of the benefits of […]
The Rise and Fall of Athens
After the victorious battles against the Persians at Thermopylae, Artemisium, Marathon, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale, Athens lay in ruins and the Greeks understood, in no uncertain terms, that they’d have to work together to keep the Persian Empire away from colonies in Ionia (what is, today, the Anatolian Peninsula and its coastal islands) and even mainland Greece. Once the initial Persian attacks had been rebuffed, […]