Socrates: A Very Short Introduction
C. C. W. Taylor
Language: English
Pages: 122
ISBN: 0192854127
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In this book, Christopher Taylor explores the relationship between the historical Socrates and the engaging and infuriating figure who appears in Plato's dialogues, and examines the enduring image of Socrates as the ideal exemplar of the philosophic life--a thinker whose moral and intellectual integrity permeated every detail of his life, even in the face of betrayal and execution by his fellow Athenians.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
designate exclusive categories, ‘Socratic conversations’ are neither works of fiction nor works of biography. They express their authors’ responses to their understanding of the personality of a unique individual and to the events of that individual’s life, and in order to understand them we must seek to make clear what is known, or at least reasonably believed, about that personality and those events. 1. Bust of Socrates – a Roman copy of an original made shortly after Socrates’ death.
thinking, represented by Thrasymachus, who is himself a sophist, and Callicles, who is an associate of Gorgias. The basis of those views, explicit in Callicles, implicit in Thrasymachus, is the dichotomy between what is natural and what is merely conventional. Both assume an egoistic view of human nature, maintaining that, in common with other animals, humans have a natural tendency to seek the maximum self-gratification, from which they conclude that, for the individual, success in life
Theory 84. Locke 85. Modern Ireland 86. Globalization 87. Cold War 88. The History of Astronomy 89. Schizophrenia 90. The Earth 91. Engels 92. British Politics 93. Linguistics 94. The Celts 95. Ideology 96. Prehistory 97. Political Philosophy 98. Postcolonialism 99. Atheism 100. Evolution 101. Molecules 102. Art History 103. Presocratic Philosophy 104. The Elements 105. Dada and Surrealism 106. Egyptian Myth 107. Christian
containers were found in a cistern in the state prison. The lack of any record of the trial makes it impossible to reconstruct precisely what Socrates’ accusers charged him with. The explicit accusations cited above are sufficiently vague to allow a wide variety of conduct to fall under them, and in addition Athenian legal practice sanctioned the introduction of material which, while strictly irrelevant to the letter of the charges, might be expected to influence the jury for or against the
think to be wise; and when he seems to me not to be so, I help the god by showing him that he is not wise.’ Why is Socrates ‘helping the god’ by showing people that their conceit of wisdom is baseless? The god wants him to reveal to people their lack of genuine wisdom, which belongs to god alone; but why? It was traditional wisdom that humans should acknowledge their inferiority to the gods; dreadful punishments, such as Apollo’s flaying of the satyr Marsyas for challenging him to a music