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How To Read Plato
Academic philosophy ought to be teaching this but unfortunately it has become shallow and stupid. Or perhaps it thinks that students have become shallow and stupid and are only capable of understanding superficial arguments. Either way, it neglects what really matters, and too much is lost in that. When reading any of Plato’s dialogues, to understand them properly you need to remember these three things […]
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Harvest Festival
How philosophers are treated: The people, when their bellies are full, turn to the farmers and say: ‘You have grown us food, and we are grateful, but now we are full and have no need of you.’ They will think differently when the next harvest is needed.
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The Value of Everything Depends on Ethical Goodness
Socrates says that virtue can make bad things good, whilst vice only makes good things bad. On the basis of this, he claims that virtue is sufficient for a good life. Socrates’ claim is very challenging. It’s often laughed at by his interlocutors, as if it’s expressing a kind of simple-minded childlike innocence, not worthy of a grown up. It’s too easy for us to take the same attitude. It’s too easy to dismiss Socrates as a kind of arch moraliser, telling us to ‘be good’ from a place of idle words. This would miss Socrates’ point entirely. Socrates isn’t…
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Nothing is Hidden in Philosophy
Mystics say ‘there is a profound and mysterious truth that I know, but you cannot know because you are not a great master, like me’. But Epicurus says ‘anyone can know this’, and Socrates says not only that anyone can know this, but you already know this and have forgotten!
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Serious Contradictions
We have forgotten to take these things seriously. We lecture about how philosophers should not lecture but ask questions. We demand honours and titles for a discipline that claims to renounce honours and titles. We charge fees for something that we say is priceless. We live in contradiction with ourselves and then call ourselves logicians.
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What is a Good Life?
This is a difficult question. To answer it, you need to make sure you’re asking the right question in the right way. Consider any part of what you might traditionally (or stereotypically) think of as being essential to living a good life: wealth, property, success, family, love, confidence, popularity, freedom, power, status, productivity, etc., etc. These are the things that most people aim for […]
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What is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? ‘The construction of arguments.’ You may as well say that music is the activity of plucking strings. Some musicians do this, of course, and it can be done well or badly, but that is hardly the point.
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Like Playing Music
Philosophy, when done properly, is like playing a musical instrument. The outsider only sees the music written down and thinks that this is all it means to play music. But the player reads the music and plays.
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Out of the Pit
Rousseau says we cannot complain that God does not drag us out of the pit because He has given us everything we need to not fall into it in the first place; but the philosopher has also been given everything they need to drag themselves out!
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
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