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The Plan of Life: The Timaeus
Everything makes more sense when you look at the plans. Like assembling flat-packed furniture. Open the box and it looks, at least to the untrained eye, like chaos that makes no sense. You study the parts and see no meaning in them. But study the plans and now you can see that this particular shape […]
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The Ship
Imagine you are a ship. The hull, mast, and sails are your ‘body’; your feelings, thoughts, ambitions and aversions, wants and fears, everything that makes up your ‘soul’, are the crew. The ship needs to sail, but in order to do so the crew needs to be organised. You need to hoist the sails, plot […]
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Relationship Advice from Socrates: The Phaedrus
The Phaedrus is an outstanding example of a Platonic dialogue. It is really a dialogue about the dangers of trying to achieve philosophical understanding through listening to (or giving) grand rhetorical speeches or writing extended philosophical theses in essays or books. Socrates is predictably sceptical about these methods. They are far removed from the ideals […]
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How to Die Well: The Phaedo
What is the Phaedo? Most summaries will say that it is a dialogue about the immortality of the soul. In it you will find some arguments for and against this claim (mainly for). Whilst dying, Socrates argues that he is not dying but only being separated from his body. His body is dying, for sure, […]
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Ask the Right Question: The Laches
Socrates is always asking questions. But not just any questions: he wants to ask the right questions. Understanding which, of all the questions, is the right question, and how to ask that question in the right way, is one of the most important things you can learn from philosophy. If you ask the wrong question you will always get the wrong answer.
An experiment with philosophy as a way of life
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