Rethink.

Part 1 | Part 2 From Part 1: there may be a con­flict between poetry and the city. Poetry often­times works on the assump­tion “virtue is knowl­edge:” isn’t it the case if you read a poem well, you will be bet­ter for it? The city, on the other hand, has laws and enforcers of the …

Below is an out­line of the Pro­tago­ras that should make things clearer even to those who have not read the dia­logue. If you are really pressed for time, the most impor­tant sec­tions are “Pro­tago­ras’ myth,” fol­lowed by “Pro­tago­ras’ logos,” and the Socratic con­cerns about virtue which pre­cede Pro­tago­ras’ myth. This post is about 1400 words. Out­line …

Orig­i­nally, I wanted to post com­ments regard­ing a reread of the Repub­lic I am sup­pos­edly doing. But so many issues went over my head I broke away from the reread and started read­ing the Greater Hip­pias. While a shorter dia­logue, the dis­cus­sion of “the beau­ti­ful” and how it relates to how we use “both” and …

The dia­logue this is a com­men­tary on is rea­son­ably short — a copy with sec­tion num­bers is here if you’re inter­ested. The trans­la­tion quoted below is Jowett’s. The Menex­enus ends with Socrates promis­ing to tell more grand polit­i­cal ora­tions to a young up-and-coming politi­cian if the lat­ter will not reveal to the source that he …