Tag: Ancient Greece

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Socrates: Tell me, boy, do you know that a figure like this is a square?
Boy: I do.
— Plato, Meno (more…)

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CHAPTER 9
AUTOGNOSIS

Know thyself 2.0

The beginning of philosophy is to know the condition of your own mind.
Epictetus

“Know thyself” was famously inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and seen by Socrates’ friend Caepheron on a visit there to enquire as to whether Socrates was the wisest of men. Socrates himself tells the story at his trial, and Plato’s Apology represents one of the greatest acts of self-knowing in the history of literature. (more…)

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Chapter 8
ICE AND HIGH MOUNTAINS

Nietzsche as Meta-philosopher

[M]any disapprove of all philosophers, because their aims are not ours; they are those whom I call “strangers to us.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (more…)

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CHAPTER 1
GOING UNDERGROUND

Who killed philosophy?

Philosophy bestows this boon upon us; it makes us joyful in the very sight of death, strong and brave no matter in what state the body may be, cheerful and never failing though the body fail us.
Seneca, letter to Lucilius. (more…)

Plato’s cosmology as depicted by Calcidius in his commentary to his fourth-century Latin translation of the Timaeus.

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I am embarrassed by the world. I cannot believe that a watch exists and has no watchmaker. — Voltaire

Which of the patterns had the artificer in mind when he made the world? — Plato

Given the world we have created, or rather a world which has been created for us, whoever “we” are could do a lot worse than take advice from the Classical world. For the vast majority of us, our world is one we never made, and those who did are becoming intentionally isolated, remote from those whose lives they control, living as they do in a dry and ideological gated community. (more…)

Gorgias of Leontini

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Part 1 of 14 (Part 2 here)

An ancient commentator on Aristotle tells a story about a farmer who got ahold of Plato’s Gorgias and was so stunned that he gave up the life of farming, trudged to Athens, looked up Plato, and put his soul in Plato’s care. (more…)

Kristian Zahrtmann, Socrates and Alcibiades, 1911 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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Part 7 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here)

Having established that the true self is the soul and defended philosophical dialogue as the best path to self-knowledge, Socrates wraps up his argument.

Statesmanship & Moderation (more…)

John William Waterhouse, Psyche Opening The Golden Box, 1903

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Part 6 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 7 here)

The final part of the Alcibiades I deals with the self and self-knowledge. Most ancient commentators held that this discussion is the core of the dialogue.

From Self-Cultivation to Self-Knowledge

Socrates has finally gotten Alcibiades to admit that he needs to pursue self-cultivation. But what is self-cultivation? We must answer that question lest we mistakenly cultivate something other than ourselves. (more…)

Condordia on the Jubilee Column in Stuttgart (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

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Part 5 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 6 here)

In our previous installment, we examined the speech Socrates made to break Alcibiades out of his complacency and spur him to educate and cultivate himself if he wishes to attain world renown.

Back to Dialogue

To borrow a term from classical music, the Alcibiades I has a “sonata” form: ABA. The first part (A1) consists of Socrates’ initial dialogue with Alcibiades. Part B is the speech about the Persian and Spartan queens. The third part (A2) is a return to the dialogue form. Socrates and Alcibiades first return to the idea of justice. Then they discuss self-knowledge. (more…)

Xerxes I of Persia and his wife, Queen Amestris

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Part 4 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 5 here)

In our previous installment, Socrates has convinced Alcibiades that he is ignorant of justice. Therefore, he should not go into politics until he is educated. But Socrates undermines his argument by pointing out that none of the other eminent Athenians, even Pericles himself, knows what justice is. From this, Alcibiades concludes that if his rivals for power are equally ignorant, he has no need to waste time on education, because he is confident that he can beat them based on his superior nature. (more…)

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Part 3 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 4 here)

In the second part of this series, Socrates shows Alcibiades that he doesn’t know what justice is, so he should not be too eager to get involved in politics before he gets an education. But Alcibiades thinks he’s found a way around Socrates’ argument. Granted, he doesn’t know what justice is. But politics doesn’t really deal with justice (δικαιοσύνη). It deals with the expedient or advantageous (συμφέροντα). (more…)

A seventeenth-century engraving of Diogenes Laertius (image courtesy of Wikipedia).

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The Milesian philosophers were wrong about everything, but they asked the right questions, and for the first time sought natural explanations instead. — Luke Mueshaller, Pre-Socratics: A Painless Introduction

The limit of all wisdom is in me. — Epigram on Pythagoras, Boundaries, Duris

Although the twilight is darkening around Western philosophy, she is still just visible through the gloom. She had already been demoted from her role as theology’s handmaiden and queen of the sciences to a kind of antiquarian pursuit, like collecting moths in glass-covered frames or old jazz records. (more…)

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Part 2 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)

In the first part of this series, Socrates accuses Alcibiades of wanting to be a tyrant and argues that if he wishes to fulfill this ambition, he must study philosophy. Alcibiades won’t admit that he aspires to be a tyrant, but “if” he did, he wants to know what Socrates would teach him. (more…)