What is Beauty? Socrates doesn’t give a definition of beauty, though he does drop some hints at an approximation of the idea, but instead, by the method of elimination, he exhibits what is not beauty, and exposes with abundant sarcasm the ignorance and conceit of him who claims to know the beautiful. “Beautiful things are difficult”, indeed, perhaps because Beauty cannot be defined due to the limitation of language itself. […]
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“Cleitophon” by Plato
The Limitation of Socrates Cleitophon gives Socrates a dose of his own medicine. Socrates has exhorted men to devote themselves to virtue and pursue knowledge of justice. What is the next step? What is the art which deals with the virtue of the soul? “Socrates, while you are of untold value to a man who has not been exhorted, to him who has been exhorted you are almost an actual […]
Read more“Parmenides” by Plato
The Being Or the Not-Being of One A discourse on the relations among being, not-being, whole, part, one, many, same, other, rest and motion. Of all twenty-four Plato’s dialogues included in the Western Canon, this is the most abstract and mind-boggling to me, partly due to my lack of training in abstract reasoning, and partly due to a lack of clear definition of each abstract term, the root cause of which […]
Read more“Cratylus” by Plato
There are two intertwining themes in this dialogue. On the one hand, Socrates discourses on the origins and mutations of words, and whether names exist by convention or by nature; otoh, since names express the essence of the things signified, he delves into the names of Gods and heroes, making a long and elaborate parody of those who posit motion as the true attribute of well-being, only to deliver the […]
Read more“Laws” by Plato
Excessive Love of Self Causes Errors of Judgment Whereas the excessive love of self is in reality the source to each man of all offences; for the lover is blinded about the beloved, so that he judges wrongly of the just, the good, and the honourable, and thinks that he ought always to prefer himself to the truth. But he who would be a great man ought to regard, not […]
Read more“Statesman” by Plato
The second dialogue of a trilogy, which also includes Sophist and Laws. The Lawgiver and the Law Law-making certainly is the business of a king; and yet the best thing of all is, not that the law should rule, but that the king should rule, for the varieties of circumstances are endless, and no simple or universal rule can suit them all, or last for ever. The law is just […]
Read more“Theaetetus” by Plato
The Origin of Knowledge and Error When the wax in the soul of a man is deep and abundant and smooth and properly kneaded, the images that come through the perceptions are imprinted upon this heart of the soul; when this is the case, and in such men, the imprints, being clear and of sufficient depth, are also lasting. And men of this kind are in the first place quick […]
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