Tag: plato
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Considering Plato’s Sophist
The Sophist, a favorite of Martin Heidegger, begins without introduction and takes place morning after the end of the Theaetetus. Unlike the Theaetetus, it has no introduction from the Megarians many decades later. Theodorus, a man who ‘meets his obligations,’ opens the dialogue: “It is in accordance with yesterday’s agreement…” (116 A). He has brought with him an unnamed […]
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Examining The Platonic Dialogues
The word “dialogue” comes down to us from the Greeks. It means to converse with one another, or to meet with one another. Thus Plato’s “dialogues” are conversations between people, and they also inspire gathering and conversation. In examining the kind and character of each Platonic dialogue, we proceed as biologists as if dissecting contents […]
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Initial Thoughts on Plato’s Laches
In Plato’s short dialogue called the Laches we encounter the question of courage. Lysimachus and Melesias are seeking guidance from some of Athen’s older and more experienced men on the best way to raise their sons so they will become good. Both Lysimachus and Melesias are ashamed because they did not fight in battle the way their forefathers […]
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Socrates’s Failure In The Lysis
Plato’s Lysis dialogue is unique for several reasons. It is one of the shortest Platonic dialogues and it is recounted by Socrates to an unknown individual or individuals after the fact. The dialogue explores the question of friendship and it ends inconclusively with an insufficient definition of friendship. It begins with Socrates in a hurry to get […]
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Thoughts On The Gorgias
In the Gorgias dialogue, Socrates travels with his friend and follower, Chaerephon, to the house of Callicles, whose name means “famed for visible excellence”. At Callicles’s house a distinguished guest and self-proclaimed rhetorician from Sicily named Gorgias resides, along with his follower, Polus. Callicles, the host, is important to the dialogue because he is also a […]
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What is Love in the Symposium?
Plato’s famous dialogue, the Symposium, takes place the day after the tragic poet Agathon wins his first and only award at the Lenaia in 416 BC (the year before Alcibiades’s failed quest to Sicily). The dramatic setting occurs among a group of Athenians gathered at Agathon’s house in Athens to celebrate his victory. The party is […]
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