4,386 words
Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
4. The Ascetic Ideal
The third essay that makes up On the Genealogy of Morality is concerned with asceticism, as it has exhibited itself in religion and in philosophy. Nietzsche writes:
I can think of hardly anything that has sapped the health and racial strength of precisely the Europeans so destructively as [the ascetic ideal]; without any exaggeration we are entitled to call it the real catastrophe in the history of the health of Europeans. (more…)
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Trial of Socrates here.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Trial of Socrates here.
2,181 words
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…)
You can pre-order Greg Johnson’s The Trial of Socrates here.
You can pre-order Greg Johnson’s The Trial of Socrates here.
4,731 words
Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
The following is an excerpt from Greg Johnson’s forthcoming book, The Trial of Socrates, which is available for pre-order at a $5 discount from now until its release on June 30. See here for details.
Socrates’s Flight to the Logoi
Socrates literally calls his second-best method his “second sailing,” which is an allusion to a comment made earlier by Simmias: (more…)
You can pre-order Greg Johnson’s The Trial of Socrates here.
You can pre-order Greg Johnson’s The Trial of Socrates here.
4,171 words
Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
The following is an excerpt from Greg Johnson’s forthcoming book, The Trial of Socrates, which is available for pre-order at a $5 discount from now until its release on June 30. See here for details.
Plato’s Phaedo depicts the final conversations and death of Socrates. The Phaedo takes place the day after the Crito. While Crito was trying to convince Socrates to escape, other friends of Socrates were waiting outside the prison to spirit him away. Among them were two Pythagoreans from Thebes, Simmias and Cebes, who had brought the money to bribe the guards. (more…)