Socrates

Curated Books

Plato’s Severed Lovers: Alkibiades and Sokrates

The Symposium’s tale of Alkibiades and Sokrates and its historical implications—of war and philosophy, of a shattered imperial democracy and a god-like leader driven out for supposed impiety and assassinated in exile, as well as a trial and execution of a philosopher for impiety and dissent—is dramatic in its own right. But its large and continuing public significance is only understandable in the context of some unexpected debates about Plato …… Read more

CHS Learning Module

CHS Dialogues | Socrates, his inner voice, and "theorizing" as a sacred voyage

In this episode, Gregory Nagy and Keith Stone explore the following questions and more: * Does Socrates really believe what he says about a daimonion as some kind of an inner voice that communicates with him? *How is the “theorizing” of Socrates as he engages in dialogue with his followers in the Phaedo relevant to the theōriā or sacred voyage of the Athenian ship of state from Athens… Read more

CHS Learning Module, News

CHS Dialogues | Socrates, his inner voice, and “theorizing” as a sacred voyage

In this episode, Gregory Nagy and Keith Stone explore the following questions and more: * Does Socrates really believe what he says about a daimonion as some kind of an inner voice that communicates with him? *How is the “theorizing” of Socrates as he engages in dialogue with his followers in the Phaedo relevant to the theōriā or sacred voyage of the Athenian ship of state from Athens to Delos… Read more

Hellenic Studies Series

Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception

In his Symposium, Plato crafted a set of speeches in praise of love that has influenced writers and artists from antiquity to the present. Early Christian writers read the dialogue’s “ascent passage” as a vision of the soul’s journey to heaven. Ficino’s commentary on the Symposium inspired poets and artists throughout Renaissance Europe and introduced “a Platonic love” into common speech. Themes or images from the dialogue have appeared in paintings or… Read more