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EN
The paper examines validity of the First Complaint against Socrates as it was formulated by Plato in the 'Apology'. A close examination of the indictment demonstrates that the accusation did not contain a compelling evidence of the presumed fact that Socrates was an atheist. The complaint used an inductive argument, which was fragmentary and therefore inconclusive. The accusers only insinuated that Socrates was omniscient and that he refused to believe in gods. They did not construct a strong case to support their assumptions. So if the accusation is read literally, as it was pronounced, ie. without assuming that there might have occurred some facts unknown to us today, the traditional interpretation, which fully exonerates Socrates, sounds credible and convincing.
EN
Protagoras belongs to one of Plato’s most commonly staged dialogues of Plato. Ancient Greeks characterized it as agonistic (competitive) and endeictic, i.e., merely hinting at, but not offering the final settlement of the dispute in question. In the dialogue, we face an incredible controversy (agon) between Socrates and Protagoras. While the controversy concerns the value of the Sophist’s teaching of civil virtue for money, it is combined with numerous other themes and tensions which culminate in the philosopher’s ensnaring of his interlocutor. Thus, the dialogue is characterized by its dramatic composition with a (double) prologue, four agons (controversies), a humorous interlude, an ingenious anagnorismos and an epilogue which concludes with a perplexing reversal of Protagoras’ and Socrates’ positions. At the end, there are several remarks about possible interpretations of this and other dialogues of Plato.
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2014
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vol. 69
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issue 10
824 – 834
EN
The basic author’s assumption is that the common characteristic of the corpus of Socratic literature is its therapeutic function. Accepting this assumption means that in the interpretation of Socratic dialogues the dramatic structure of the text and the analysis of the ethical problems would be equally important. The paper elucidates Socratesʼ own explaining his role in selected dialogues of Socratic literature. Socrates repeatedly and in various situations declares himself as one who has no knowledge, and is not a teacher. Despite his disavowal of knowledge he is able to help young men to find a better way of life thanks to love he feels toward them. Socrates’ role in dialogues is a therapeutic one: He does not offer any universal solutions to the problems but rather encourages young men to take a permanent care of the self.
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2022
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vol. 77
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issue 3
151 – 164
EN
The article deals with the historical reconstruction of Aristippus’ philosophical activity. The first part shows that the ancient reports distinguish between Aristippus and his later followers, whom doxographers place in the Cyrenaic school. The next two sections analyse the oldest texts that portray Aristippus as a Socrates’ follower and compare them with the reports of later doxographers. The penultimate part returns to the genealogy of the opposition between Antisthenes and Aristippus, which places two ways of life, asceticism and hedonism, in irreconcilable the opposition. The last part asks what we know about the historical Aristippus, and what his relationship was to the Socrates’ legacy.
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2017
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vol. 72
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issue 2
103 – 113
EN
After disproving Meletus, Socrates begins the next part of his defence in the court by explaining his activities. He explains to a hypothetical opponent what he considers to be really shameful (αἰσχρόν). To illustrate his speech, he uses the analogy of demi-gods who fell in the Trojan War. He focuses on the son of the goddess Thetis, i.e. Achilles, the most famous fighter in Homer’s Iliad. According to Socrates’ interpretation Achilles preferred to avenge the death of his friend Patroclus rather than undergo something shameful (αἰσχρόν) although he knew that he would die. Did Plato’s Socrates aim to arouse anger or outrage of his judges by being like Thetis’ son willing to die for a rightful cause? What was the real purpose of his comparison with Achilles? The aim of this paper is to examine the reason why Socrates drew a parallel between his own and Achilles’ pursuance.
EN
The paper follows from new collection of Socratic studies Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue (2018) edited by Alessandro Stavru a Christopher Moore. The author points to increased interest of scholars in re-examining Socratic philosophy, presents so-called “minor Socratics” as important figures of the Socratic movement, and reflects their significance for the study of Socrates՚ philosophy and its legacy. Final part outlines philosophical relevance of Aeschines of Sphettus.
EN
Both in ancient sources and present-day commentaries we can find many evaluations of Socrates' behavior in court. According to some researchers his behavior contributed towards his death sentence. The article presents a review of standpoints, and tries to answer the question, why did Socrates want to die? Some consider Socrates' attitude as fanatical, others believe his stubbornness in court was suicidal. However, one seems certain: if he had not died a voluntary but violent death, he would not have become so interesting and would not have been considered a crucial figure in the history of philosophy. It seems that Socrates did not regard philosophy as an activity separated from life. He believed his methods of training your mind and reflecting upon a sense of life carried an important message: life is not the most precious value and you should not hold on to it at all costs.
8
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The Zen Master Socrates

80%
EN
In intercultural comparative studies there is a tendency to emphasize differences in the development of solutions to similar problems; but in this short article I am trying to present a stand, where the actual pursuit of truth based on the innermost experience of our lives transcends the limitations of a particular culture, and enables us to benefit; not from the alterity of different forms, but the unity of genuine philosophical endeavor. Based on that, we may notice an alternative; such that instead of westernizing Zen, we may as well try to understand and follow Socrates; a great master who we already have in our tradition; to help us appreciate what genuine Zen is about.
EN
The author raises the question about philosophical importance of a well known excerpt of the dialogue 'Teaetetus' which contains 'Socrates' dream' ('Teaitetus' 201d 12 – 206b 12). The prevailing interpretation of this dream is that some forms of immediate and intuitive insight into reality defy objective understanding (Gillespie, Hicken and Burnyeat) or that they resist scinetific analysis (Morow). The author argues that these readings are incorrect and proposes the view that the dream in the 'Teaitetus' is analogous to Plato's treatment of dialectics in the 'Parmenides' and the 'Sophist'. He contends that the theme of dialectics is characteristic for Plato's late dialogues.This interpretation is supported by considering what is knowledge 'per se' - a dialectical question, in the sense of dialectic expounded in the 6th and the 7th book of the Republic. The 'Teaetetus' does not provide an answer to this question, and the dialogue ends in a aporia for which neither Socrates, a philosopher who is accustomed to strict analysis, nor Teaetetus, who is a young matematician, can find a way out. This can be interpreted as an indication that knowledge must be understood dialecticaly, or as an ouitcome of a debate, and as such it cannot be presented clearly and distinctly in any other form but a dream.
EN
The paper’s aim is to claim that Socrates’ philosophy according to Plato’s dialogue should be taken as a dialectic therapy. Socrates’ dialectic therapy as a care of the self is not an isolated inspection of the individual conscience. As long as the Socratic therapy is dialectical, the possibility of the interlocutor’s self-transparency is possible through dialogical cooperation. This self-transparency is not the possessing of the good, but the very dialogue and mutual examination of the self. The therapeutic dialogue demands that the interlocutor be able to recognise himself in the dialectic of defining what he wants. Therefore, the dialogue enables the person to know his own good through the dialogue’s activity.
EN
The name of Socrates that since the 13th century had appeared hundreds of times in the writings of medieval university scholastics most frequently carried no personal or doctrinal connotations, and was only a logical symbol, replacing the notion of a human individual. Socrates was also the subject of humanist rather than philosophical interests of such authors as Pierre Abelard or John of Salisbury who saw him as a historical personage, as a live man preaching some philosophical views, but also perceived in him some personal traits. Beginning with the 13th century, this kind of interest in Socrates penetrated into the more popular literature, for example John of Wales' Compendiloquium or Walter Burley's De vita et moribus philosophorum. Both these writings, parallel with the classic university scholasticism, and the earlier writings by medieval humanist philosophers drew their information on Socrates exclusively from ancient Latin authors. Their interest in the person of Socrates was, however, more lively than that of medieval humanists, and embraced a wider spectrum both of his activity and personal traits, as well as everything that concerned the pertinence of Socrates to the Christian world. This is shown by the description of some features of Socrates in Petrarca's writings, the eulogy of Socrates as a forerunner of Christian saints in those by Coluccio Salutati, and especially in Giannozzo Manetti's Vita Socratis of 1444, the philosopher's first separate humanist biography. The picture of Socrates, compiled from various sources, shows, perhaps, some traces of the knowledge of the Greek writings by Plato; especially striking is the picture, isolated from Plato's Symposion, of Socrates as the Silenus. A much fuller picture of Socrates emerges from the characterizations of both his teachings and personality, taken up several times by Marsilio Ficino. Their dominant is the comparison of Socrates not to the Christian saints, as in Coluccio Salutati, but to Christ himself, for whom Socrates is, in Ficino's opinion, a 'prefiguration'. This comparison is, in a way, continued by Erasmus of Rotterdam in his adagium Sileni Alcibiadis. However, in contrast to the use earlier made of this picture by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, confined to the Silenic character of Socrates' conversations, Erasmus concentrates on the moral personality of Socrates who due to his external poverty and internal richness resembled both Christ himself and the chosen Christian saints.
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2022
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vol. 77
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issue 3
192 – 204
EN
Socrates is commonly viewed as a model of rational argumentation and ascetic behaviour. However, there is a different way of Socratic thinking – the Cyrenian School with its founder Aristippus of Cyrene. This philosopher was considered a radical hedonist for whom good life was fulfilled only with pleasure. Our paper has two main goals: 1) in the first part of this study we will answer the question whether Aristippus' hedonism corresponds to other forms of Socratic approach to virtue; 2) in the second part of our text we will deal with the problem of what the Aristippean education through pleasure might look like.
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2022
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vol. 77
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issue 5
325 – 338
EN
This article aims to analyse and elucidate Nietzsche’s concept of decadence, which has often been mentioned in Nietzsche studies and thus feels familiar, but in fact has not been thoroughly analysed. As Nietzsche describes many phenomena in terms of decadence and the extension of the term may be seen as too broad, some would think we cannot construct one picture of decadence from Nietzsche’s various descriptions and consider that it is sufficient to say it has a general meaning of decline or decay. However, this article seeks to combine Nietzsche’s scattered remarks on decadence together into a coherent picture. I argue that the essence or the fundamental principle of decadence is the lack of self in the sense of the loss of the fundamental instinct as the centre within the person. Grasping this principle, we can understand how the various phenomena Nietzsche describe as a decadence belong together; furthermore, we can understand why Nietzsche sees Christians or Socrates, despite their struggle for improvement, as decadents.
EN
In the antiquity two components entered the concept of philosophy: intellectual investigation of the ultimate reality and application of the ensuing findings in the life of a philosopher who had determined in his mind what the ultimate nature of the world is like. Unlike most students of history of philosophy the present author focuses on the second problem. When commenting on the unusual life style of Greek thinkers he uses the term that was originally applied by the Athenians to the peculiar and erratic behaviour of Socrates. A strangeness of this kind could be manifested in a philosopher's contacts with other philosophers or between any one of them and the ruler. In each case bizarre behaviour inspired popular suspicion, invited disfavour from the ruler and occasioned numerous squabbles among the philosophers themselves. Such clashes did not necessarily prove that the oddly behaving philosopher was in the wrong, while his society was in the right. But the conflict of standards could occasionally lead to the establishing of a reputation of a divine inspiration that presumably had affected the mind of a man of unorthodox ways.
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2017
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vol. 72
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issue 2
81 – 91
EN
The concept of philosophy as an art or a way of life is an invention of Socratic philosophy. During the Hellenistic era, later Stoics developed the original Socrates’ conviction of the care of the self into a systematic attitude called “art of living”. The paper deals with differences we see between Socratic and Stoic concepts of philosophy on the background of the lectures on ancient problematization of life given by Michel Foucault. The main purpose of the paper is an interpretation of Epictetus’ concept of art of living as a philosophical attitude to the life of the individual, which is not primary connected with philosophical knowledge (mathēsis) but rather with constant work of the self on the self (askēsis).
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2016
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vol. 71
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issue 5
357 – 368
EN
A therapeutic approach to reading the Socratic literature of the 4th century B.C. is based on the assumption that Socrates appears in Socratic dialogues not only as a persistent investigator or as a paradigm of ethical behaviour, but also as a therapist. Socrates cures the souls of his loved companions. Therapeia in Plato’s Charmides is a mask which Socrates deploys to force the young Charmides to examine the excellence (aretê). At the same time therapeia is a metaphor for Socratic dialogue as an art of curing through speeches (logoi). Reading the prologue 153a-158d of Charmides as a dramatic genre the paper tries to outline the possible meaning of Socratic “speech therapy” in the context of a profound examination of excellence (aretê) as the care for the self and the others.
EN
The critique of the poetry in Plato’s Ion unfolds in a clearly political context in which, in contrast to the old model of knowledge represented by poetry, Plato presents a new model, identified with philosophy, which questions the legitimacy of poets and rhapsodists as competent guides of the polis and citizens. In this critique, the characters and dramatic elements of dialogue are fundamental. Thus in Ion and Socrates the Athenian philosopher brings together all the characteristics that describe a real rhapsodist of that time as well as the philosophical activity of the historical Socrates.
18
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Descartes’ Socratic Method

70%
EN
Descartes considered himself as an originator of the method of methodical doubting, but, at the same time, he viewed his ideas as most ancient of all. In fact, he fairly closely followed in the footsteps of Socrates and his maieutic method of extracting the truth from an interlocutor in two phases: the elenctic method to demolish the interlocutor’s convictions and then coaxing the truth from him. Descartes’ methodical doubt is but a version of the elenctic method. Descartes also shares with Socrates the conviction of the existence of truth independent of the cognitive subject, which assured the possibility of successful conclusion of methodical doubting as well as the maieutic method.
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2018
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vol. 73
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issue 2
97 – 107
EN
In 489e3-491d3 of Plato’s Gorgias one can find various derivatives of the adjective “wise” (phronimos) in two Callicles’ cardinal triads. In the first triad he adds two comparatives: “better” and “superior”. In the second triad he adds “manly” to “superior”. These triads represent the necessary characteristics of a true ruler, which enable him to rule appropriately as well as to fulfil the strictly hedonistic claim “to have more”. Socrates tries to persuade Callicles that there is no direct proportion between “to be wise” and “having more”. Socrates uses various examples to show him that his connecting “wise” with the principle of “having more” could bring about the unacceptable identifying the claim of being “wise” with techné.
Filozofia (Philosophy)
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2010
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vol. 65
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issue 7
622-630
EN
Many scholars suggest that one of the main differences between Xenophon's and Plato's portrayals of Socrates is in their emphases on the self-control or self-knowledge respectively. The aim of the paper is to examine the role the self-knowledge plays in Xenophon's Memorabilia. In its first part Xenophon's conception of the self-knowledge is analysed. Then it tries to answer the question whether the self-knowledge requires any preconditions. The last part is focused on the possible obstacles precluding the self-knowledge.
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