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Part 13 of 14
(Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here, Part 8 here, Part 9 here, Part 10 here, Part 11 here, Part 12 here, Part 14 here)
Power vs. Wisdom
We have seen that Callicles is more philosophical than Gorgias or Polus. So it comes as some surprise that the second part of Callicles’ speech is a critique of philosophy. (more…)
Gorgias (Image source: Wikimedia Commons, from an Italian book published in 1818)
Gorgias (Image source: Wikimedia Commons, from an Italian book published in 1818)
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Part 4 of 14 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 5 here)
Ethics as an Afterthought
Is Socrates right that sophistry is essentially amoral and technocratic? After all, the sophists were widely seen as not just teachers of rhetoric, but also as teachers of morals. However, as we shall see, both Polus and Callicles strongly embrace the amoral and technocratic idea of sophistry. Moreover, in the Meno — which is set in 402 BCE, after the Peloponnesian War and the latest possible date of the Gorgias — Meno tells Socrates: (more…)
Gorgias of Leontini
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Trial of Socrates here.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Trial of Socrates here.
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The trial and death of Socrates is one of the most compelling places to begin one’s philosophical education. — Greg Johnson, The Trial of Socrates
Everyone strives to obtain the law. — Franz Kafka, The Trial
Philosophy in the West has been withering on the vine for decades. A combination of Jacques Derrida’s “death of the civilization of the book” and the replacement of that civilization with Guy Debord’s “society of the spectacle” has rendered philosophy outmoded, antique, and frankly too much like hard work for an intellectually undemanding generation. (more…)
Aristophanes
Aristophanes
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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
Strepsiades Flunks Out
It hasn’t gone well. First Socrates bursts out of the Thinkery swearing an oath: “By Respiration, by Chaos, by the Air.” The usual places of gods in his oath are occupied by three natural forces. Socrates then rants about a particularly bad student who is “rustic . . . resourceless . . . dull . . . and forgetful.” Then he calls this student to come out. And out comes Strepsiades.
Socrates then quizzes Strepsiades on what he has learned. (more…)
A sixteenth-century engraving of Strepsiades, his son, and Socrates in Clouds.
A sixteenth-century engraving of Strepsiades, his son, and Socrates in Clouds.
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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
“The Thinkery, a likeness of death, teaching Whirligig and Bamboozle, ‘back to nature’ without families, without the old paternal gods, and without nomoi (not paying back money owed and using unusual forms of words) . . .” — Thomas Prufer (more…)
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Author’s Note:
This is a substantially edited transcript of a 1998 lecture on Plato’s Apology of Socrates. The translation is from Plato and Aristophanes, Four Texts on Socrates: Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes’ Clouds, trans. Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984). Paraphrases are placed in ‘single quotes,’ whereas actual quotes appear in “quotation marks.” (more…)
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The following essay on Plato’s Theages is based on a transcript of a taped lecture, which I revised based on notes for two later lectures on the same dialogue that offered a more complete interpretation. I want to thank V.S. for the original transcript.
The Theages is a short Platonic dialogue that can be read as a response to Aristophanes’ Clouds. In both texts, Socrates is approached by a country gentleman to educate his son. In the Clouds, the father is insistent, the son reluctant. (more…)