The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog
Continuing on the dialogue, where Socrates argues that Protagoras doesn’t actually know what virtue is, because he thinks that the various virtues (especially courage) are distinct, a claim that Socrates refutes in several (logically suspect) ways.
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End song: “Make It Clear” by Feelies; hear Glenn Mercer on Nakedly Examined Music #41.
On the Platonic dialogue written around 380 BCE about an encounter between Socrates and one of the leading Sophists of his day.
What is virtue (“the political art” according to Protagoras), and can it be taught? What are the relations of the various virtues to each other? Do they really amount ultimately to one and the same thing, i.e., wisdom? In this entertaining dialogue, Socrates and Protagoras swap positions, and Socrates seems to parody the Sophists’ style.
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On the Platonic dialogue written around 380 BCE about an encounter between Socrates and one of the leading Sophists of his day.
What is virtue (“the political art” according to Protagoras), and can it be taught? What are the relations of the various virtues to each other? Do they really amount ultimately to one and the same thing, i.e., wisdom? In this entertaining dialogue, Socrates and Protagoras swap positions, and Socrates seems to parody the Sophists’ style.
End song: “Make It Clear” by Feelies; Mark interviewed Glenn Mercer on Nakedly Examined Music #41.
How a single Greek word can explain why we don’t like the Sophists, why Socrates was accused of being one of them, and what makes rhetoric successful.
Were Sophists really the immoral truth-benders that Plato portrayed them to be? Classical scholars don’t seem to think so.
On the later Platonic dialogue. What is a sophist? These were guys in Ancient Greece who taught young people the tools of philosophy and rhetoric. They claimed to teach virtue. In Sophist, “the Eleatic Stranger” (i.e., not Socrates) tries to figure out what a sophist really is, using a new “method of division.” This Plato era provides a nice transition to the category man Aristotle, and the whole concern with sophistry is certainly still relevant today!
End song: “Dumb,” by Mark Lint and the Fake from the album So Whaddaya Think? (2000).
On the later Platonic dialogue. What is a sophist? These were guys in Ancient Greece who taught young people the tools of philosophy and rhetoric. They claimed to teach virtue. In Sophist, “the Eleatic Stranger” (i.e. not Socrates) tries to figure out what a sophist really is, using a new “method of division.” This leads to a long digression on the nature of “not-being” as a necessary component of false beliefs, which is what the Stranger claims that sophists provide.
End song: “Dumb,” by Mark Lint and the Fake from the album So Whaddaya Think? (2000).
Listen to the episode. Back in ancient Athens, the big-name intellectuals were not the philosophers and proto-scientists we remember today, but the sophists, who taught people how to argue and make speeches in front of courts of law and groups of people. Plato (speaking as usual through his teacher Socrates) thought this to be a vastly overrated skill, because it’s Continue Reading …
If you believe Plato, then the answer is “yes”. If all of philosophy is a footnote to Plato, then the artists have been subordinated to the philosophers for about 25 centuries. According to Plato’s Republic, especially the last section, the artists present a danger to society and to your soul. Two of my favorite thinkers disagree with Plato and Socrates Continue Reading …
