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Socrates; Dr Miles Clapham
It was wonderful that Socrates was discussed on 'In Our Time'. However I was a little disappointed at the skim over the depths of Socrates, the nature of 'knowledge' that he put forward, the relationship between one's ideas and one's life, so missing today - Kiekegaard and to some extant Wittgenstein were more modern examples. Wittgenstein - have you done him? - would be a great subject for the series. Yes Christ also professed that there should be no distance between one's deepest convictions and one's life, and death. There is a wonderful book, Thomas McEvilly, "The Shape of Ancient Thought" which discusses many connections in the ancient world and shows the place of Socrates and Plato, also in relation to eastern philosophy, and of course a the great synthesiser of the 'pre-socratics'. There is also a 'lost' strand of western thought present in the Stoics, Cynics and Sceptics - all influenced by Socrates and his bare feet in the snow - which was therapeutic philosophy, which reappears here and there especially in Wittgenstein and some ideas in psychotherapy. John Heaton writes on this. Anyway thanks, Socrates still provokes much thinking.
Per Dahl, Kalmar, Sweden, general view
The podcast is continuing! Wonderful! In our time is one of the radio programmes I listen to regularly. It is five times better than any programme in the same genre produced here in Sweden. I was afraid that the series was closed when no more podcasts came to my computer.Of the programmes I enjoyd most the one on Greek and Roman love poetry was outstanding. Not only was the subject discussed in an enlightening way. The time dimensions were intrermixed, with one participant still in av cab when the programme started and then joining the others.As a listerner one really felt beeing part of a live discussion here and now!I hope that yor intelligently and elegantly made programme will have a long BBC-life!Per Dahl
Krister Rajendra Sairsingh
What I found lacking and disappointing in the discussion of Socrates was the disregard of Socrates’ unbending commitment to the notion of unchanging and eternal truth in his culture war, if you will, against the Protagorean relativism afflicting Athenian society. Surely this has some relevance to the crisis over values and moral meaning raised Stanley Fish and Richard Rorty, the great sophists of our time.
Nadine
Melvyn,perhaps it would be interesting to explore the most important philosophers today so we can recognise in real time. How do you think the history of philosophy will evolve given changing geo-economic dynamics and ease of communication? Is it easier for ideas/philosophies to gain traction today than ever before due to number of competing philosophies and communication?
anonymous
I agree with one of the previous comments....if commentators can't reduce principles or explanations of philosphers to a level one's grandmother would understand, it means they hide behind the associated received language re a philosopher /subject and that they really don't understand. Melvyn, your programme is a lifeline to sanity to my life in an intellectually impoverished South African media community.
John Sharman-Socrates
An excellent discussion.It seems the Pre-Socratics were very much like modern scientists,physicists and neo- Darwinians preferring to concentrate on Cosmology or underlying structures and marginalising man,whereas Socrates wanted to bring such abstract speculations down to earth by concentrating on man,happiness and virtue.We must remember Socrates was the last great figure in human consciousness before Jesus and prefigured, as your guests pointed out, the Sermon on the Mount.I feel they also missed an emphasis on his humour and his famous socratic irony. Is this because of the academic emphasis on evidence,the writer(Plato) as opposed to the speaker(Socrates).He is very much the wellspring of Western civilized dialogue and he leaves an imprint of his real presence in some of Plato's dialogues as the historical Jesus does in the Gospels.I remember when I read Socrates in Plato as being like the great midwife of thought leading things out of people which they could not have done by themselves and at their astonishment at the results.This is extraordinary.
Bruce Nicholson
Sir George Cayley - Father of Aeronautics, great inventor, & all round top Yorkshireman. December marks 150 years since Sir George's death. A pioneering inventor who receives little credit and recognition in his home country for his great efforts in laying the foundations for modern aeronautics - amongst many other varied achievements. A worthy subject for consideration ?
Chris Hayward - Socrates
I very much enjoyed the programme (as ever) and would love to hear a future programme linking the ideas of the time with the later Jesus stories. How about looking at the Buddha, too? Closer in time to Socrates, and again some strikingly similar ideas.
Tom Barraclough Socrates
Thankyou Melvyn for your excellent program,please use your influence and ask Radio3 to re broadcast "The Last Days Of Socrates" I think last broadcast in the 90's in 3 episodes.The late Leo McKern was wonderful in the role of Socrates. I cannot understand why such a superb production has not been repeated.
Oliver/Socrates/risky suggestion
I really enjoyed this week's programme and hope that IOT continues to produce these pithy yet informative discussions of the world's great philosophers. The initial thoughts on Socrates' refusal to inscribe his thoughts on paper were taken up by Derrida in the twentieth century in his deconstruction of the phonocentric/logocentric canon, the legacy of Plato/Socrates. Whilst I realize Derrida is a controversial figure in philosophy (provoking often vehement hostility in a majority of academic analytic philosophers - many of whom I would bet have never actually bothered to read Derrida), his early work is profound in its focus. Is there anyway IOT would risk a programme on this latter-day philosopher who despite popular misconceptions is a (perhaps disruptive) figure rigorously working very much within the tradition inherited from Socrates?
Ian Buist CB. Socrates
An excellent programme, but I was very disappointed that no mention was made of Socrates' most significant public act as a citizen. This was during the trial of the admirals/generals after the battle of Arginusae, which despite being an Athenian victory was followed by a storm, in which the admirals abandoned the many Athenians left clinging to their wrecked vessels to their fate. A vengeful trial took place in which they were charged with cowardice and dereliction of duty, and it was obvious that a guilty sentence would be voted and they would be subject to the death sentence. Socrates' cohort had the monthly Presidency of the Boule, and the lot (to which he was opposed) made him President of the trial for the crucial day of the vote. Socrates refused to put the matter to the vote while he held this office. But the next day, after he had stood down, it went ahead and the sentence and penalty were duly voted through.
Joe Jones - Socrates
I have a memory of a story about the death of Socrates that I've not heard since in documentaries about him, including Bettany Hughes' programmes about him.I remember the story as follows: on the day of his execution, Socrates was just one of a great many who were to be similarly executed. When the time came for Socrates to imbibe the hemlock, the executioners had run out of the poison. Being the man he was, Socrates (or Socks, as Blue Peter might call him!) called one of his mourning followers and told him to go to his (Socrates') house, get some of his money and buy more hemlock. The follower duly complied, handed the executioners more hemlock and Socrates did his 'duty'.Did I dream this, or does anyone have a source?
Hayden Clark: Socrates
What are the chances that the historical Socrates was either nothing like he is described, or even did not exist at all? What if a "conversation with Socrates" was simply the fashionable way at the time of writing up a philosophical discourse?
Peter Household - Socrates influences
Did Jesus get his idea of non retaliation from Socrates? Did Socrates get his idea of the soul from India? Does the way his life has been viewed by some subsequently, - eg the Stoics who wondered how he achieved enlightenment - have any parallels with the Buddha? The contributors appeared to have Socrates using God in a monotheistic sense - am I right to draw this inference? If so, was this his innovation, or was it already in the air, from Zoroastrianism, or invented in Greece? These questions are all asked taking due account of the advice to be cautious about attributing views to the historical person called Socrates (John Arnott's post).
Brian Warburton--Aristotle,Plato and the Dialectic
In his book, Eye and Brain, Prof. Richard Gregory, makes the interesting point on page 15, that Plato thought 'of vision as being due to light not entering the eye, but rather to particles shot out of the eyes...'This was a very great pity because if he had used his observational skills,he might have advanced the scientific method by more than 1000 years!
John Kennedy
Absolutely wonderful! George Steiner has a briliant essay on Socrates and Jesus, called "Two Cocks". Your programme conveyed beautifully the stunning naivety of Socrates' views on the power of knowledge to change behaviour. Diogenes knew better, as did St Paul and David Hume, that we are moved by our desires not our reason, and that reason is simply the mask of human desire. More! More!
John Arnott: Socrates
We should be pretty cautious about attributing views to the historical person called Socrates. As someone said on the programme, the hinterlands of our ignorance about that person are vast. We have only two first hand accounts of his life - Plato's should be treated with caution because it so obviously serves his agenda, Xenophon's because he was no philosopher and plainly didn't understand what Socrates was on about. That said, Xenophon's account should be treated with more respect as a factual account - what Socrates did, as opposed to what he thought) - than it usually gets. He was, after all, a successful man of action, whereas Plato's only venture into the real world of political action (in Syracuse) was a dismal failure. So Xenophon's account should lead us to question the status of secular sainthood often visited on Socrates. The freedom of Athenian debate in the 5th century BC, and its willingness to entrust judgement to the people at large (as it was then understood) remain potent inspirations for the modern world. Plato loathed all of that, and would have preferred a Spartan oligarchy. His poisonous views on politics, the arts and intellectual freedom should be rejected with contempt. Whether these views can fairly be attributed to the historical Socrates, we simply don't know.
Josephine Rogers : Socrates
If only schools hadn't abandoned daily morning assemblies-a small dose of Socrates every day might begin to remedy the sad lack of respect , for themselves, each other and their teachers which children seem to demonstrate. We are so aware of malign influences constantly working on them via the TV etc - why not a drip-feed of something positive !
Peter Fennell: Socrates
It was disappointing to hear the consensus on Socrates as 'chilly', deriving from a sentimental treatment of the notion of personal affections. The sacrifice of such private attachments is one that statesmen and women have made again and again in the service of a greater good. Elizabeth I and Shakespeare's Henry V provide obvious examples.While praising in Socrates the possibility of penetrating the meaning of philosophy through living it, it was evident that none of the three commentators could have taken their own advice very far. It was left to Melvyn, to his credit, to raise the possibility of authenticity in the accounts of Socrates' trial. Academic scepticism is a valued tool in the search for truth but it is astonishing that the most obvious academic test was overlooked - that of self-consistency. Plato's accounts of Socrates' stance through trial and death are entirely consistent with the philosophy he espoused. Which is not to say that the account is factually accurate but remains the element with most academic, and to those genuinely interested in the philosophy, philosophical force.
Eric Robson / Philosophy
The fact that Socrates committed nothing to writing is itself sound philosophy. It reflects the earliest philosophy of the ancient Egyptian creation myths, specifically that the decline of mankind began with the invention of writing. Oral traditions kept human enlightenment within the boundaries of human conciousness preserving its integrity. The artificial storage of knowledge has proliferated beyond control taking us into an artificial cyber-space, and will ultimately exponentially lead to our spiritual, physical and temporal destruction.
Peter Bolt : Socrates
Now I know where the words `aggravation` & `aggro` come from.It was said by your experts that the great man spent his time accosting shoppers in the market of Athens "The Agra".They were wanting to get on with their weekly tasks and he was stopping them by asking them pointless questions much to the annoyance of both them and the local merchants.
Duncan Williamson: Jesus and Socrates ... what did
I was interested to hear Melvyn say at the beginning of today's programme, 27th Sept 2007, that neither Jesus nor Socrates ever wrote anything down. Now, how on earth can anyone be so certain of that?
karen wright - Socrates broadcast
An excellent and well developed beginning to the year's programming! My only quibble is that nobody represented the very real 'downsides' to the values Socrates represented - a complete rejection of any concrete responsibility to his family in his choice re: exile vs death, an arrogance bordering on obnoxiousness, etc. He was a real pain. Aristophanes had a bit of a point. ps - There are many interesting ideas for programmes and I would find the Ottomans/Renaissance link particularly compelling.
James Baring - Socrates
First rate discussion on Socrates, got to the head and heart of him. A fully rounded man with first hand experience, who described his work as a philosopher as that of a 'midwife' to emerging civilisation. I am sure that the agora was lively and noisy but not necessarily as dirty and unhygienic as the panel implied. Monty Python for once got it slightly wrong: clearly a lovely *big* thinker who *never* got pissed.
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