Comments for Paul Johnson’s Socrates at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 9 out of 9 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Mon, 20 May 2013 15:20:53 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/paul-johnsons-socrates.html#comment-14134 I got much pleasure out of Johnson's book. I found it easy to read and of course, doesn't cover everybody's view on the issue of Socrates. I have already digested many of Plato's Dialogues concerning Socrates and I found it bringing a refreshing view. - Larry L. McFall Wed, 31 Oct 2012 04:34:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/paul-johnsons-socrates.html#comment-10957 Tony, an interesting take on the painting. Thanks for sharing. - Grump Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:35:13 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/paul-johnsons-socrates.html#comment-10931 "He thought the people were basically good and, if they did not act that way, it was because they lacked education." Father, Paul Tagliabue, the former NFL Commissioner, currently serves as the chair of the Georgetown Univ. (your employer) board. He recently gave $1,000,000 to fund a LGBTQ center at Georgetown. Now, do you think Mr. Taliabue's problem is a lack of education? Or do you think he think he is just another vain self-aggrandizer seeking to push an abomination on what was once a Catholic university? Thank you in advance for your reply. - Manfred Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:31:31 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/paul-johnsons-socrates.html#comment-10930 Dear Fr. Schall, I have greatly appreciated your chapters on Socrates and Plato in your book The Mind that Is Catholic. I'm sure that if I had more intellectual heft to bring to it, I would get more out of it, but, alas . . . Mr. Grump and others should perhaps read that instead of Johnson, I think. Your sentence about your students', after reading about the trial and death of Sacrates wanting to go out and change the world without considering the necessity of changing themselves, is certain fitting for and descriptive of those in the so-called occupy movement. - Louise Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:23:15 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/paul-johnsons-socrates.html#comment-10928 Socrates was accused of being a Sophist, but actually he had set his face like flint against the Sophists. He was not a Richard Rorty of the ancient world, because he did in fact believe in truth, moral and otherwise. The quest for truth makes no sense at all unless there is a truth to find. Thus the Rortyan relativist / sophist is like Lysias, in the Phaedrus: when he speaks of love, what he really means is that he wants someone for his own narrow use; it is not love he feels but the lust for power. Plato saw Socrates, correctly, as the truest lover, not because he possessed the fullness of truth already (he didn't, and Plato himself knew it), but because he longed for that fullness of truth, as he longed for the light. Grump -- very nice reference to one of the great paintings of all time. Aristotle is pointing outwards and slightly downwards, towards the things of the world, and the book he's holding in his hand is the Nicomachean Ethics. That's a portrayal of active virtue, right there, and of the embodiment of truth in the human world. Plato (portrayed as the elderly Leonardo) is pointing upward, towards Heaven, and he's carrying under his hand the Timaeus, the dialogue on creation. Yet Raphael has placed the center of the arch behind them as a point above and between the two philosophers, as if to say that the two both complement one another and point -- this is a Catholic understanding of the relationship of grace to nature -- to a reality they do not quite grasp. That reality is made manifest in the painting directly opposite, on the Eucharist, which does occupy the center of the composition ... What these artists could do! - Tony Esolen Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:53:20 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/paul-johnsons-socrates.html#comment-10926 Nietzsche succinctly summed up his feelings: "Plato was a bore." Inasmuch as Socrates admitted he "knew nothing," his sagacity is suspect to say the least. And since he wrote very little (Plato was his stenographer), we cannot know how much "spin" was supplied. Aristotle, on the other hand, who is not mentioned in this otherwise fine essay, pointed downward rather than upward (in the famed painting, The School of Athens), suggesting that answers do not come from above but from below. - Grump Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:32:12 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/paul-johnsons-socrates.html#comment-10925 A good and timely essay. Thank you for this. Speaking of analogies, does this work: Plato was to Socrates as Paul was to Christ? - will manley Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:35:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/paul-johnsons-socrates.html#comment-10924 The last line is key. Once an individual breaks through the thin eggshell of self-reference (so difficult for contemporary man) the fact of transcendence seems self-evident. With the new perspective, final judgment becomes a certainty rather than a suppressed anxiety. In that light, behavior becomes a serious matter and a lie is deadly. No wonder the worldly spinners feel threatened by the virtuous and when mockery fails, judicial murder is solution of choice. - Other Joe Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:26:21 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/paul-johnsons-socrates.html#comment-10923 I would argue that what makes Socrates great was precisely his fluidity - that is, his lack of commitment to some particular systematic set of doctrines allowed him to interact dextrously with a wide variety of opponents. I think that Plato was committed to his master's quest but not so much to his master's methods. I think the article is right that Plato meant his forms and related theories "to explain both the immortality of the soul and its continuation until it is restored in the resurrection," as well as produce a structure within which to contextualize Socrates' search. However, I would also argue that the construction of such a dogmatic system, while useful and enlightening in some respects, is also dangerous and actually stands against Socrates' methodology; a system always has weakness, flaws which Socrates spent his life exploiting in debates in order to reveal the ignorance of his interlocutors and the imperfection of their beliefs. Insofar as someone is aware of this, a system of thought can still be a good tool because its imperfections are always kept in mind. One can use it while not being restricted by it in a way that obscures the incomplete status of Socrates' quest. Insofar as it is believed dogmatically - that is, insofar as the system is believed to be perfect and identical representation of reality or is even mistaken for reality itself - it actually represents a narrowing of the soul and a true impediment to Socrates' quest. I have been inspired by this article to perhaps reread a dialogue or two when the situation permits and may be making a purchase of Johnson's book. - Scotty Ellis Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:49:50 +0100