classics digests, reflections and reviews
Socrates the Snake Charmer In Book I of Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle makes a constructive criticism of Socrates for once, rightly pointing out that knowing (objectively) what is good and just is not the same as being good and just. [Socrates] thought that all the virtues are forms of knowledge, so that knowing justice and being just must go together, for as soon as we have learnt geometry and architecture, we […]
Read moreKierkegaard evidently read Descartes, because he objected to the latter’s famous argument, “I think, therefore I am”, and the notion that doubt is derived from knowledge. It might appear that the two of them belong to different camps, but I have reason to believe that Descartes influenced/inspired Kierkegaard in his conception of “subjective certainty”. Descartes’ Certainty It was Descartes who first brought “subjective certainty” to the forefront of philosophical thought, […]
Read moreSocrates and Xanthippe “Socrates,” asked Antisthenes, “how does it come that you don’t practise what you preach by yourself educating Xanthippe, but live with a wife who is the hardest to get along with of all the women there are—yes, or all that ever were, I suspect, or ever will be?” “Because,” he replied, “I observe that men who wish to become expert horsemen do not get the most docile […]
Read moreThe word economics is derived from Greek roots meaning literally “household management”. Praise of Husbandry For the pursuit of [husbandry] is in some sense a luxury as well as a means of increasing one’s estate and of training the body in all that a free man should be able to do. For, in the first place, the earth yields to cultivators the food by which men live; she yields besides […]
Read moreI find it very interesting to read the respective accounts of Socrates’ life and teachings by Plato and Xenophon. It is sort of like reading in the Gospels the life and teachings of Jesus, from four different perspectives, which provides not only depth of perception, but also the manifold meanings that a single narrative lacks. Xenophon and Plato correspond well with one another in their interpretation of Socrates, the former […]
Read moreCompared to the Socrates of Plato, a dialectician with irony and inwardness, Xenophon’s Socrates is more of a rhetorician, direct and assertive. Nevertheless, their respective accounts of the trial and death of Socrates create a compelling and lasting image of their master, whom I would consider myself fortunate to meet. Socrates’ Self-Approval Who is there in your knowledge that is less a slave to his bodily appetites than I am? […]
Read moreAgainst Humanity Jesus and Socrates have much in common, according to Kierkegaard: Both were terrible robbers and both were sentenced to death for their robbery. “What is assaulting a lone traveler on a highway perhaps a half-dozen times compared with his assault upon the whole human race and upon what it means to be a human being! A thief can steal my money; in so doing we are in disagreement, […]
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