In the Euthyphro we might take Socrates’s great delight in meeting Euthyphro at the courthouse with a grain of salt. Euthyphro is a professed expert in piety who came to the court house to prosecute his father for murder - an... Continue Reading →
At the beginning of the Republic, Socrates piques the interest of the group of young men he is speaking with, suggesting that to know justice is to know the only way of living that is worthwhile. However, as he begins... Continue Reading →
In the “Symposium,” Diotima, who is described by Socrates as the women who taught him all he knows about love, but also as a sophist, describes a ladder of love. Desirous of beauty, she says that individuals ascend from limited... Continue Reading →
The Divine Comedy, Dante wakes up lost in a dark woods. He has to take a terrifying and arduous journey - first through Inferno, then up Mount Purgatory and finally through the dizzying spheres of Paradise before he can finally... Continue Reading →
In the Republic, a dialogue about justice, Socrates and a group of young men put poetry or artwork on trial. One of the primary pieces of evidence against art is that it is deceptive. For instance, one can paint a... Continue Reading →
At the end of the Symposium, Alcibiades bursts in and drunkenly declares his love for Socrates. To him, Socrates is both the beautiful and the good. Alcibiades, however, doesn't understand the poetry of love. He seeks the good for his... Continue Reading →
In the Symposium, Socrates recounts what his teacher, Diotima, taught him about love. In her speech she indicates a relationship between the act of loving and the act of creation, or, as she says, of poetry. We all, she says, love... Continue Reading →
In the middle of Plato's dialogue the Symposium, Aristophanes follows several others, all of whom have been tasked with giving speeches on love or eros. Aristophanes prefaces his speech, once his hiccups have subsided, by saying that he will speak in... Continue Reading →
In the Republic, Plato argues that an education in poetry or art more broadly understood is essential to the education of children. In one of my favourite passages, he says that we must "seek out craftsmen who are by nature... Continue Reading →
