In Book II of the Republic, Glaucon and Adeimantus strengthen and defend Thrasymachus’s earlier claim that justice is merely an instrumental, and not an intrinsic, good. Though Thrasymachus has conceded to Socrates, Glaucon observes that he has perhaps done so too hastily, being charmed by Socrates “as if he were a snake.” (358b). Socrates case …
Human life, finite and incarnate, burns with desire, craving not only physical necessities such as food and drink, but yearning also for an ever elusive wholeness. As the poet Novalis observed, “we seek the unconditioned, but all we ever find are things.” Man’s life is thus one of love and longing. We learn much about …
In this essay, continue my analysis of Book I of the Republic by examining Plato’s use of the classical concept of excellence to defend the claim that justice is an intrinsic rather than merely instrumental good. After arguing that justice is not, as Thrasymachus contends, merely as the advantage of the stronger, Socrates attempts to …
Plato is one of the most influential philosophers in the history of western philosophy and the Republic is one of his most memorable works. New readers of Plato’s Republic are often surprised to learn that while it does contain important reflections about what constitutes an ideal city, they are not the primary subject matter of …
Friedrich Hölderlin was a German poet and philosopher (1770-1843) devoted to classical Greek culture. Much of his work concerns the memorialization of classical antiquity, blending its mythology with the exhausted Christian mythos of his day, and attempting to clear a space for the departed gods to walk once more with men. As a result, he …
Empedocles (c.494-c.434 BC), like Pythagoras, is a presocratic philosopher whom contemporary expositors either deride or ignore. Because he is a philosopher who sings, invoking the muse and articulating his doctrines as hexameter poems (D7)[1], if it is presented at all, he is presented as an object of either pity (for his alleged ignorance) or scorn …
Pythagorean Myths: Classical and Contemporary Pythagoras is one of the most elusive and intriguing figures in the history of Western philosophy. He is the rumored source of many of the core doctrines of Platonism such as the idea that the soul is immortal and reincarnates after death, that our empirical world constitutes a harmonious cosmos …
Having grown up in a Christian family, I am familiar with the fact that spiritual teachings can come in the form of letters. Every week we would go to church and hear sermons derived from epistles (letters) said to be written by apostles such as Peter, Paul, or John. Rather than being confined to a …
Just as Marcellius was aware of something rotten in the state of Denmark when Hamlet exited the stage to confer with the ghost of his murdered father haunting Elsinore castle, so too are we aware of a rot growing at the core of the neo-liberal order. As the body politic decays, and the social fabric …
“I would prefer not to.”