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Why does philosophy matter?
Why does philosophy matter?
Here is another blog on philosophy. This one is about early Greek philosophy.
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 6, 2022
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 1: The Right Stuff
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 1: The Right Stuff
There is a story about how philosophy emerged in Greece in the sixth and fifth centuries BC. It has a good source, in Aristotle’s history…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 12, 2022
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 2: A funny thing happened on the way to Elea
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 2: A funny thing happened on the way to Elea
Material Monism?
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 13, 2022
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 3: where have all the monists gone?
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 3: where have all the monists gone?
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 14, 2022
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 4: between a rock and a hard place
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 4: between a rock and a hard place
Parmenides’ Criticism
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 15, 2022
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 5: Parmenides 2.0 and Eleatic Pluralism
The Beginnings of Greek Philosophy 5: Parmenides 2.0 and Eleatic Pluralism
Parmenides’ Theory of Elements
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 16, 2022
Aristotle on Storms
Aristotle on Storms
Storms can be scary. High winds, lots of rain, lightning, thunder, hail. In Greek mythology, Zeus is a storm god hurling thunderbolts at…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Nov 18, 2022
The Genius of Heraclitus: What He Really Said
The Genius of Heraclitus: What He Really Said
Heraclitus the Obscure
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Dec 9, 2022
The Socratic Revolution
The Socratic Revolution
Imagine a world in which there is no morality. There are platitudes about how to act and how to treat other people. There are customs and…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Feb 16
Socrates and Athens
The Moral Revolution
The Moral Revolution
In 399 B.C. the most enlightened city in the world put the most innovative thinker in the world on trial for speaking his mind — or rather…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 7, 2022
1.1 Opening statement
1.1 Opening statement
On the seventh of Munychion in the year that Laches was the archon of record [399 BC], the infamous trial took place. The prosecution had…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 9, 2022
1.2 Day of Judgment
1.2 Day of Judgment
On that fateful day, one group of partisans demanded justice that was long overdue for a malefactor. Another group declared the proceedings…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 12, 2022
2.1 Invasion
2.1 Invasion
The world in which Socrates grew up was born in 480 BC, a mere eleven years before Socrates’ birth. The city whose duties and…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 13, 2022
2.2 The Battle of Salamis
2.2 The Battle of Salamis
Confrontation
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 15, 2022
2.3 Retaliation
2.3 Retaliation
Soon after the battle Xerxes ordered the remainder of his fleet — still a large force, but demoralized and in disarray — to return to the…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 19, 2022
2.4 Restoration
2.4 Restoration
After the Persian invasion, Athens herself was in ruins. The houses and public buildings had been burned and much of the city wall torn…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 20, 2022
2.5 Partnership with Sparta
2.5 Partnership with Sparta
Just before the Athenians had made their retreat to Salamis during the war with Persia, a young nobleman on a personal mission led a…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 23, 2022
2.6 The Birth of Democracy
2.6 The Birth of Democracy
Throughout the turbulent era of the Persian wars, Athens built a powerful democratic political system that held the city together and made…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 26, 2022
3.1 The Childhood of Socrates
3.1 The Childhood of Socrates
Socrates’ childhood was probably fairly typical for a boy from a family of modest means. He was born to Sophroniscus and Phaenarete in the…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 28, 2022
3.2 School Days
3.2 School Days
At school, Socrates had three teachers: a grammatistēs, or reading instructor; a gymnastēs, or physical education instructor; and a…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Sep 30, 2022
3.4 Coming of Age in Athens
3.4 Coming of Age in Athens
Socrates’ borough or deme was Alopece, located in the immediate suburbs of Athens to the southeast. In his constitutional reforms of 508…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 3, 2022
4.1 Things Above the Earth
4.1 Things Above the Earth
On February 17th, 478 BC, at Athens, a little before noon, the sky grew unusually dark as though it was twilight. The bright disk of the…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 4, 2022
4.2 Heraclitus’ World
4.2 Heraclitus’ World
Heraclitus of Ephesus, an important city just to the north of Miletus, meditated on the ideas of his predecessors. In his enigmatic…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 5, 2022
4.3 Parmenides’ World
4.3 Parmenides’ World
A turning point in the succession of cosmologies occurred when Parmenides of Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy, wrote a poem…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 6, 2022
4.4 Anaxagoras’ Discovery
4.4 Anaxagoras’ Discovery
Writing after Parmenides, Anaxagoras saw the importance of his predecessor’s conception. In a month Anaxagoras could verify Parmenides’…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 10, 2022
4.5 The Comet and the Meteor
4.5 The Comet and the Meteor
A luminous fire appeared in the morning sky before sunrise one day in the summer of 466 BC. Morning by morning the fire grew larger…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 12, 2022
4.6 Herodotus on the Nile
4.6 Herodotus on the Nile
Around the time the meteor fell, a young Greek tourist was traveling up the Nile River in Egypt. Armed with the latest theories and a…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 13, 2022
4.7 Aeschylus and Anaxagoras
4.7 Aeschylus and Anaxagoras
Meanwhile, back in Athens, Aeschylus wrote a play which featured both the question of the Nile’s floods and Anaxagoras’ new theory:
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 14, 2022
4.8 Archelaus and Socrates
4.8 Archelaus and Socrates
Anaxagoras left behind a student, Archelaus. Probably a native Athenian, Archelaus continued the tradition of his master, seeking…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 17, 2022
4.9 Socrates and Melissus
4.9 Socrates and Melissus
The question arises, why would two philosophers go to the island of Samos? Samos was the birthplace of Pythagoras about 570 BC. Yet…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 19, 2022
5.1 The Sophists Have Come to Town
5.1 The Sophists Have Come to Town
After Socrates’ voyage to Samos we hear nothing of his exploits for the next decade. We meet him next at a gathering of educators set in…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 24, 2022
5.2 The Great Sophist
5.2 The Great Sophist
Undeterred by the warning, Hippocrates is still dying to meeting the sophist, and Socrates leads him to the house of the rich young patron…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 26, 2022
5.3 Teaching Virtue
5.3 Teaching Virtue
Socrates replies to Protagoras’ claim to teach virtue that he did not think that such knowledge could be taught or communicated to another…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 28, 2022
6.1 The Wisdom of the Poets
6.1 The Wisdom of the Poets
Protagoras has offered a rhetorical tour de force: a story built on a traditional myth, with a moral, which he then uses as the basis of an…
Daniel W. Graham, PhD
Oct 31, 2022
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