In this highly original and provocative book, Sara Ahbel-Rappe argues that the Platonic dialogues contain an esoteric Socrates who signifies a profound commitment to self-knowledge and whose ...appearances in the dialogues are meant to foster the practice of self-inquiry. According to Ahbel-Rappe, the elenchus, or inner examination, and the thesis that virtue is knowledge, are tools for a contemplative practice that teaches us how to investigate the mind and its objects directly. In other words, the Socratic persona of the dialogues represents wisdom, which is distinct from and serves as the larger space in which Platonic knowledge—ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics—is constructed. Ahbel-Rappe offers complete readings of the Apology, Charmides, Alcibiades I, Euthyphro, Lysis, Phaedrus, Theaetetus, and Parmenides, as well as parts of the Republic. Her interpretation challenges two common approaches to the figure of Socrates: the thesis that the dialogues represent an "early" Plato who later disavows his reliance on Socratic wisdom, and the thesis that Socratic ethics can best be expressed by the construct of eudaimonism or egoism.
In all the Socratic literature-by Plato, Xenophon, or Aristophanes-Socrates is shown conversing with a woman in only one instance: the conversation with the hetaira (or courtesan) Theodote presented ...in Xenophon's Memorabilia, book III, chapter 11. This puzzling passage is often interpreted to be a metaphor or parody of Socrates' effect on his circle of philosophically minded friends. Without disputing that interpretation, this article argues that attention to the surface-Socrates' only conversation with a woman in the entire literature-yields insights into Xenophon's thought on the nature of sex differences and the causes of erotic attraction. More specifically-drawing not just on the Theodote passage but also on the "gynaikologia" passage of the Oeconomicus and the Panthea episode recounted in the Cyropaedia-this article argues that certain of Xenophon's insights are strikingly similar to assertions made in our time by self-styled "pickup artists."
In this paper we attempt to understand what Socrates says about expertise and virtue in Plato’s dialogue
Laches
in the light of Socrates’ idea of “human wisdom” in the
Apology of Socrates
(20d8, ...23a7). Conducting a good life requires both “knowledge about good and bad things” (
Laches
), that is, knowledge about human well-being, and “human wisdom” (
Apology
). Socrates aspires to epistemic autonomy: Trust in your own reason, and don’t let any expert tell you anything about your own happiness.
In 2016, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), the organization responsible for much of the Russian state-sponsored social media campaign documented in the Mueller report, created a Facebook group ...called "Being Patriotic." In September of that year, the group posted an image of a weathered veteran prompting readers to "Like & share if you think our veterans must get benefits before refugees." The caption claimed that "liberals" wanted to invite 620,000 refugees across the US/Mexico border while over 50,000 homeless veterans were "dying in the streets." The claim about refugees came from one of then presidential candidate Donald Trump's stump speeches; it has since been refuted by Politifact. Nonetheless, the meme was shared by more than 640,000 Facebook users. This is just one example of how the IRA worked to undermine democratic functioning in the United States and throughout Europe. Its campaign targeted social media users on both the right and the left by producing and sharing misleading and intentionally divisive images and other content-up to and including manufacturing and selling "Black Matters" (sic) T-shirts and "LGBTpositive" sex toys. The scope and audacity of the Russian influence campaign, both in the lead-up to the 2016 election and since, have revealed startling and unanticipated ways in which new technology, particularly social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter and apps such as Whatsapp that permit peer-to-peer dissemination of content, have made society more vulnerable to disinformation. These emerging vulnerabilities demand a policy response. But their distinctive character also creates new challenges. Social media propaganda is different from other forms of propaganda, and this matters for how it should be regulated.
Izlaganje razmatra suštinski odnos filozofije i glazbe u njihovom zajedničkom podrijetlu i izvornosti, otkrivajući ga u svojoj očiglednosti koji, zbog toga, ostaje i dalje prekrasan u svojoj suštini ...i nadasve tajanstven. Taj je odnos ‘dobro’ sačuvan u svim ritmičkim elementima poezije, plesa i glazbe, posebice metrike antičke kulture. Nit vodilja ovog izlaganja je promišljanje o glazbi kroz filozofske načine, i to one kroz koje se filozofski može misliti i o izvornoj filozofiji. Odgovor do kojeg se tu dolazi neminovno se iznova pretvara u postavljanje novih pitanja. Radi se, dakle, o ‘igri’ koja se danas nastavlja ponovnim vraćanjem na prvotno, izvorno pitanje. Jer kako kazuje Heinrich Heine: „I ne završavamo upitati se, opet i opet, dok pregršt zemlje nam ne zatvori usta. Ali i to je odgovor”.
In this book, the first systematic study of Socrates's reflections on self-knowledge, Christopher Moore examines the ancient precept 'Know yourself' and, drawing on Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon, and ...others, reconstructs and reassesses the arguments about self-examination, personal ideals, and moral maturity at the heart of the Socratic project. What has been thought to be a purely epistemological or metaphysical inquiry turns out to be deeply ethical, intellectual, and social. Knowing yourself is more than attending to your beliefs, discerning the structure of your soul, or recognizing your ignorance - it is constituting yourself as a self who can be guided by knowledge toward the good life. This is neither a wholly introspective nor a completely isolated pursuit: we know and constitute ourselves best through dialogue with friends and critics. This rich and original study will be of interest to researchers in the philosophy of Socrates, selfhood, and ancient thought.
P. Erlangen 4 is papyrus fragment of an ancient Greek, "Socratic" dialogue discussing cures for the (desire) of the beautiful-and, by implication, the meaning of moral beauty itself. Previous ...discussions have made general comparisons with the works of Plato, Xenophon and Aeschines. Prior to its philosophical analysis, I will re-examine the fragment, suggesting new reconstructions of the text, accompanied by an English translation. Although the precise authorship still remains a mystery, I will attempt to show that its philosophical language, argument and dramatic background are closer to the remains of Antisthenes than other Socratic writers and in particular to one of his Alcibiades compositions. The possibility will then be considered that it originated in one of his works or with one of his immediate followers.
Abstract
Taking a cue from the interpretive difficulties faced by Socrates and his interlocutors in Plato's Theaetetus as they struggle to determine the meaning of Protagoras' homo-mensura doctrine ...(HM), I argue that Protagoras, or early Protagoreans, used HM to speak on the relativity of literary criticism. For evidence I adduce an overlooked passage of the anonymous Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi, which contains an ethical formulation of HM. This formulation of HM, compatible with the portrait of Protagoras from Theaetetus, explains the concern for literary interpretation latent in two sections of the Certamen. From the evidence in the Certamen, we may infer that HM was directly related to Protagorean education in civic virtue, part of which included a study of how to read and listen to texts.
Die Beiträge zur Altertumskunde enthalten Monographien, Sammelbände, Editionen, Übersetzungen und Kommentare zu Themen aus den Bereichen Klassische, Mittel- und Neulateinische Philologie, Alte ...Geschichte, Archäologie, Antike Philosophie sowie Nachwirken der Antike bis in die Neuzeit. Dadurch leistet die Reihe einen umfassenden Beitrag zur Erschließung klassischer Literatur und zur Forschung im gesamten Gebiet der Altertumswissenschaften.
I propose an account of exemplarity based on the (neo-Aristotelian) ontological distinction between individuals and properties, and on the corresponding semantic distinction between singular terms, ...which single out individuals, and predicates, which designate properties. I shall focus on indexicals as paradigmatic singular terms. For instance, "this man" is an indexical, whereas "man" or "red" are predicates. I shall define an example as an individual used as a constituent of a predicate, as when one says "The color of my car is like this" pointing at a particular sample. An example, so understood, is a sort of virtual finger or wand, which turns an individual singled out by an indexical ("this") into a predicate ("like this"). I shall develop this conception of exemplarity in order to account for the normative force of examples. First, I shall characterize a normative claim as a sentence that connects a subject to a predicate through a deontic verb (should, ought, must, can, may etc.). Then, I shall call "normative exemplarity" the case in which the predicate of a normative claim is an example, as when one says "You should behave like this man" pointing at Socrates. Finally, I shall argue that some norms can be enforced within a certain community through normative exemplarity, provided that the relevant features of the exemplar individual (that to whom the indexical refers in the expression "like this") remain accessible to the members of the community. I shall show that if the exemplar individual does not exist anymore, the community can still keep such norms in force by relying on documents that allow the community's members to steadily preserve the relevant features of that individual. Ultimately, understanding such processes of generation and preservation of examples can contribute to explain how normative systems emerge from the historical content of the times.
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