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Plato 9.7 Socrates’ Philosophical Legacy
Plato 9.7 Socrates’ Philosophical Legacy
Plato sees himself as a product of Socrates’ education. Socrates claimed not to be a teacher or to have students. But he certainly had…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Aug 5
Plato 9.6 Plato’s Re-Creation of Socrates
Plato 9.6 Plato’s Re-Creation of Socrates
It is an important historical and biographical fact that Plato started out writing his dialogues as part of a movement by the followers of…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Aug 2
Plato 9.5 Plato’s Portrayals of Socrates
Plato 9.5 Plato’s Portrayals of Socrates
Now instead of meeting one Socrates, we are in danger of meeting many. This work, however, is a study of Plato, not of his fellow…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 31
Plato 9.4.4 Socrates as a Moral Philosopher
Plato 9.4.4 Socrates as a Moral Philosopher
Plato’s Socrates (as the student portrays his master in his early or Socratic dialogues) is an ambiguous figure. He seeks tirelessly to…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 29
Plato 9.4.3 Socrates as a Perpetual Seeker
Plato 9.4.3 Socrates as a Perpetual Seeker
One important and viable interpretation of the historical Socrates is as a perennial seeker of wisdom, particularly an adequate…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 26
Plato 9.4.2 Socrates Among the Natural Philosophers
Plato 9.4.2 Socrates Among the Natural Philosophers
Before there were sophists, there were natural philosophers. Starting with Thales around 600 BC and continuing down to Socrates’ time, a…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 24
Plato 9.4 Who Is Socrates?
Plato 9.4 Who Is Socrates?
It is easy to get lost in the marvel that is Socrates. Affable, idiosyncratic, self-deprecatory, incurably curious, logical to a fault…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 22
Plato 9.3 Socrates Imprisoned
Plato 9.3 Socrates Imprisoned
In the sequel to Plato’s Apology of Socrates, the dialogue Crito, we meet Socrates in prison.[9] Executions in Athens occur soon after a…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 19
Plato 9.2 Socrates’ Mission
Plato 9.2 Socrates’ Mission
After distancing himself from natural philosophers and sophists, Socrates goes on to talk about his special mission, in quasi-religious…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 17
Plato 9.1 Socrates on Trial
Plato 9.1 Socrates on Trial
Socrates stands before us in Plato’s portrayal, The Apology of Socrates, defending himself against the charges levelled against him by his…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 15
Plato 8.7 The Outlook in 399 BC
Plato 8.7 The Outlook in 399 BC
When Socrates died in 399 BC, the world that he had known was passing away. The middle of the fifth century BC presented a world of endless…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 11
Plato 8.6.2 What Is the Role of Justice in a Technological World?
Plato 8.6.2 What Is the Role of Justice in a Technological World?
The sophists could pride themselves on offering knowledge to a relatively large audience — not free of charge, to be sure, but to anyone…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jul 8
Plato 8.5 The Road Not Taken
Plato 8.5 The Road Not Taken
As the conversation winds down, Protagoras refuses to answer any more questions. He recognizes that Socrates has won the day. But Socrates…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jun 24
Plato 8.4 What Is Courage?
Plato 8.4 What Is Courage?
One way of distinguishing between courage and other virtues is to note that the possessor of the virtue must overcome fear. Those who have…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jun 19
Plato 8.3 Is Virtue Teachable?
Plato 8.3 Is Virtue Teachable?
When the preliminaries are over, Socrates raises a fundamental question: can virtue be taught? Socrates has his doubts. In areas of…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jun 17
8.2 The Sophist’s Pitch
8.2 The Sophist’s Pitch
“Young man,” Protagoras says to his prospective student Hippocrates, “if you come to me, your gain will be this. On the same day you join…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jun 14
Plato 8.1 Socrates among the Sophists
Plato 8.1 Socrates among the Sophists
In Socrates’ lifetime the big new thing intellectually was the Sophistic Movement. The sophists were self-proclaimed experts who offered to…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jun 12
Plato 7.5 Plato’s Socrates at Large
Plato 7.5 Plato’s Socrates at Large
Socrates’ life is an enigma; the views that he on occasion advances as his own are paradoxical. His method, if he has one, seems totally…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jun 10
Plato 7.4 The Magnet
Plato 7.4 The Magnet
So what made Socrates so special? We can identify a few salient traits from Plato’s Socratic dialogues.
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jun 7
Plato 7.3 The Enigma
Plato 7.3 The Enigma
We see here many of the traits of a Socratic dialogue: Socrates, professing to have no special knowledge, seeks it from a companion, often…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jun 5
Plato 7.2 What All the Gods Love
Plato 7.2 What All the Gods Love
If piety is what all the gods love and impiety is what all the gods hate, we have removed the potential for conflict in our account of this…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Jun 3
Plato 7.1 How to Prosecute Your Father
Plato 7.1 How to Prosecute Your Father
At some point perhaps soon after Socrates’ death and after the retreat to Megara, Plato seems to have put pen to papyrus and begun crafting…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
May 30
Plato 6.4 Recovering Socrates
Plato 6.4 Recovering Socrates
How could Socratic schools arise? In some ways it was perhaps inevitable, given the enigmatic character and charismatic personality of…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
May 28
Plato 6.3 Centrifugal Forces
Plato 6.3 Centrifugal Forces
The growth of the Socratic movement had immediate repercussions, as we shall see, resurrecting Socrates and keeping him at the center of…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
May 24
Plato 6.2 The Socratic Movement
Plato 6.2 The Socratic Movement
Socrates’ disciples were young, gifted, intelligent, and some of them at least were well-connected. They were deeply hurt by recent events…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
May 20
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