Seneca, Letter 108:
He who studies with a philosopher should take away from him some one good thing every day; he should daily return home a sounder man, or in the way to become sounder.
I’m translating Socrates’s Protrepticus in Plato’s Euthydemus. He distinguishes something I hadn’t noticed before: using things well (eg, expert builder) and acting well (eg, expert musician). Plato anticipates Aristotle again.
I’m against making English even more complicated. No names should be exempt from the apostrophe s.
Beautiful songs and singing
Making something from material ingredients, rather from ideas only, gives my body, especially my legs, a welcome break from sitting before a computer. This is a brown sugar layer cake with cranberry Swiss meringue buttercream frosting, Yossy Arefi’s recipe—a pre-Thanksgiving treat.
The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was an embarrassment to the citizens of the United States and to all freedom-loving people. Mr. Trump lost that election. He should have accepted the result like a civilized person. A lie repeated is still a lie.
As an undeserved break from grading, I made a starter pack. I've no doubt made lots of mistakes, and I hope you'll help me correct them. But I also hope it's helpful to some people who are interested in ancient Greek philosophy.
I'm going to post this video every day so we never forget
In Plato’s LAWS, girls and boys of all citizens, not just those of a ruling class, are to be given the same education, including military training, and women are to be compelled to participate in public life (770b–e, 781c, 785b, 794c–d, 804d–805b, 806e, 813d–814c, 829b–e, 833c–d).
Did Plato think women should rule?
In Plato’s REPUBLIC, Socrates argues that sex differences are irrelevant to whether a woman should be in the governing class. What matters is her potential for virtue and wisdom, the same virtue and wisdom that male rulers should have (451d–457b).
Man is born for mutual help; anger for mutual destruction. The one desires union, the other disunion; the one to help, the other to harm; one would succor even strangers, the other attack its best beloved.
Seneca, On Anger 1.5
Plato’s philosophy of punishment was influenced by Socrates’ theory of justice. For Plato, punishment should make people more just. Punishment is not for retaliation.
Should our enemies be destroyed?
The philosophy of Socrates held that justice is a skill that makes people more just, never less just.
Socrates held that to harm someone is to make them less just. It is never just to do that.
Stroll 113
#philosophy
