7 October 2007
Socrates
Posted by Adrian under History, Philosophy
The 2007 series of In Our Time kicked off last week with a safe, reliable topic - Socrates (audio stream/wiki). Experienced contributors, a reinvigorated Melvyn and a subject that I have a vague feeling has already been covered - what could go wrong?
Nothing, as it turned out. This was a very pleasant yet oddly unremarkable edition. Possibly this is because I’ve already read up on basic philosophy (try The Dream of Reason by Anthony Gottlieb - it’s an excellent starter) but it was nevertheless an interesting refresher.
Some choice quotations on non-violence that stuck with me:
Angie Hobbs: This is [Socrates'] big move: he says, we all agree that we want happiness - the ‘flourishing life’ and what I’m telling you is that you’re not going to get the flourishing life unless you live virtuously because otherwise you’re going to be harming yourself more than the other people you hurt, because you will harm your own soul. You can only hurt other people’s bodies or their possessions; only the agent can harm his or her own soul. That was the controversial claim.
David Sedley: In fact what Angie’s talking about is one of Socrate’s most distinctive doctrines … that it’s never, in any circumstances, right to harm another person. You should not return wrong for wrong, you should not return harm for harm. This rejection of retaliation, he makes it quite clear, is a rejection of a whole moral tradition.