Tag: Aristophanes
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The trial and death of Socrates is one of the most compelling places to begin one’s philosophical education. — Greg Johnson, The Trial of Socrates
Everyone strives to obtain the law. — Franz Kafka, The Trial
Philosophy in the West has been withering on the vine for decades. A combination of Jacques Derrida’s “death of the civilization of the book” and the replacement of that civilization with Guy Debord’s “society of the spectacle” has rendered philosophy outmoded, antique, and frankly too much like hard work for an intellectually undemanding generation. (more…)
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6,912 words
Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
Strepsiades Flunks Out
It hasn’t gone well. First Socrates bursts out of the Thinkery swearing an oath: “By Respiration, by Chaos, by the Air.” The usual places of gods in his oath are occupied by three natural forces. Socrates then rants about a particularly bad student who is “rustic . . . resourceless . . . dull . . . and forgetful.” Then he calls this student to come out. And out comes Strepsiades.
Socrates then quizzes Strepsiades on what he has learned. (more…)
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Author’s Note:
This is a substantially edited transcript of a 1998 lecture on Plato’s Apology of Socrates. The translation is from Plato and Aristophanes, Four Texts on Socrates: Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes’ Clouds, trans. Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984). Paraphrases are placed in ‘single quotes,’ whereas actual quotes appear in “quotation marks.” (more…)
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October 28, 2022 Greg Johnson
Plato’s Theages
The following essay on Plato’s Theages is based on a transcript of a taped lecture, which I revised based on notes for two later lectures on the same dialogue that offered a more complete interpretation. I want to thank V.S. for the original transcript.
The Theages is a short Platonic dialogue that can be read as a response to Aristophanes’ Clouds. In both texts, Socrates is approached by a country gentleman to educate his son. In the Clouds, the father is insistent, the son reluctant. (more…)
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1,683 words
1,683 words
Miss Anthropocene is the fifth full-length release of Canadian avant-pop songstress Claire Boucher, known professionally as Grimes, and it’s considerably darker than much of her previous work. This is fitting — Grimes has stated that the concept of Miss Anthropocene, a triple-entendre, is that of an “anthropomorphic goddess of climate change.” If this sounds like a bunch of woo nonsense to you, you’d be (mostly) correct. (more…)
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January 14, 2014 Greg Johnson
The Trial of Socrates:
Plato’s Theages -
Part 5 of 7 (other parts here)
5. Can Biology Explain Ekstasis?
I have already mentioned that scientists speculate that cave art (and religion, language, etc.) comes about as a result of some kind of genetic mutation, perhaps a “sudden, serendipitous, genetically-based brain reorganization.” (more…)