Well, if you ask me, when I relate what is being said, I normally use phrases like "They say that ..." etc. and I know of no other way of putting it in everyday language. "They say that", "as they say", etc. simply indicates that something is being affirmed. It by no means signifies that what is being said is a mere "story". — Apollodorus
Hence my question to you (which I have asked multiple times):
How does one speak of things said without using phrases like “as they say”, “according to things said”, etc.
— Apollodorus — Apollodorus
Well, I DID attempt to answer this question in my previous post, but you obviously either didn’t notice I was answering, or just ignored it. — Leghorn
But you also, judges, must regard death hopefully and must bear in mind this one truth, that no evil can come to a good man either in life or after death, and God does not neglect him (41c-d).
Well, I WAS going to say that your “answer” looks like Straussian hermeneutics to me but I resisted the temptation .... :smile: — Apollodorus
But let’s try to simplify this. If I lived in 4th century BC Athens, where belief in afterlife was the prevalent position,... — Apollodorus
...and wanted to discuss the postmortem possibilities of (1) dreamless sleep (or “nothingness”) and (2) migration of the soul to another place, I would phrase it exactly as Socrates does. Wouldn’t you? — Apollodorus
Socrates, on the other hand, though begrudgingly, accepted his fate without appeal to a god for salvation. — Leghorn
But I may and must pray to the Gods that my departure hence be a fortunate one; so I offer this prayer, and may it be granted (Phaedo 117c)
one who has knowledge of these things. (117a)
Socrates, on the other hand, though begrudgingly, accepted his fate without appeal to a god for salvation.
— Leghorn
I don't think this is entirely accurate.
Socrates does actually pray to the Gods before drinking the hemlock:
But I may and must pray to the Gods that my departure hence be a fortunate one; so I offer this prayer, and may it be granted (Phaedo 117c) — Apollodorus
I just don't think your interpretation sounds very convincing. — Apollodorus
But "in accordance with things said", it would not be Socrates' departure, but "a sort of change and migration of the soul from the place here to another place.” A soul that would no longer be Socrates'. — Fooloso4
I don’t see, O Morosophos, how it follows that his soul would no longer be Socrates’ after this “change and migration” of it. — Leghorn
In the Phaedo he says that the soul of a man might be that of an ass in the next life, or an ant, or other animal. — Fooloso4
You quoted my words, and they are before your eyes, and yet you seem not to be able to make out the last two: “for salvation”. — Leghorn
Don’t I deserve then to learn from you where exactly it fails to convince? And I am not speaking of the large question, whether Socrates was an atheist, but the small one, whether he would ordinarily be expected to employ all those phrases reminding us that the popular Greek account of the afterlife consists of “things said”. I have been arguing that he would not be so expected. You appear to have given up attempting to refute my evidence. Does that mean we have come to a tacit agreement on that small point? — Leghorn
Again, reincarnation was an ubiquitious belief of the ancient Indo-European cultures. Pythagoreans certainly accepted it, and it was arguably accepted by Plato, hence the myths concerning recollections from previous lives. — Wayfarer
arguably accepted by Plato — Wayfarer
Do you take that phrase (Apology, 40c) to mean that the soul changes its form or essence after death? — Leghorn
Socrates does pray to the Gods, does he not? And he believes in “salvation” (soteria) or “release” (lysis) of the soul by God or through righteous conduct (Rep. 621c; Phaedo 67a). — Apollodorus
And anyway (just out of curiosity), if you are not arguing that Socrates is an atheist, what is it that you hope to achieve? — Apollodorus
So since Socrates 1) prays to the gods, and 2) believes in salvation, it follows that he prayed to a god for salvation after his conviction? Is that what you are saying? For what I said, in contrasting him and Jesus, was that the latter did, according to the Gospels, explicitly ask God for deliverance from his fate, while the former never did such a thing in regard to his own. — Leghorn
But one possibility is more favorable to Socrates than the other, and gets longer shrift in the dialogue. I mean the possibility that life after death is spent among the dead in Hades. — Leghorn
Personally, I prefer to read Socrates (or Plato) on his own terms — Apollodorus
...and one of the differences is the way they endured death: Jesus prayed to God to relieve him of the necessity of having to undergo his sacrifice: “Take this cup from me,” he said, “if it be according to your will.” Socrates, on the other hand, though begrudgingly, accepted his fate without appeal to a god for salvation. — Leghorn
?Socrates, on the other hand, though begrudgingly, accepted his fate without appeal to a god for salvation. — Leghorn
Your reminder that Socrates is not asking for a different life after death than the one he is having while alive does suggest he does not expect to be wandering around outside the cave of the Republic after his death. — Valentinus
The point of view reminds me of Unomuno in The Tragic Sense of Life where the desire for immortality is continuing to do the groovy things one was doing rather than turn the experience into anything else. — Valentinus
Have some scholars interpreted the metaphor of being led out of the darkness and opinion of the cave into the light of the natural sun as a migration after death into heaven or Hades? I am not familiar with that. — Leghorn
Your consideration in reading the above should not be what Socrates’ or Plato’s idea of salvation or swteria or lysis is, but what Leghorn’s is; for it is Leghorn, not Plato, neither Socrates, who said that. — Leghorn
Is he someone worth reading? — Leghorn
the biggest lies about the biggest things (Republic 377e)
Even if they were true ... the best way would be to bury them in silence, and if there were some necessity for relating them, that only a very small audience should be admitted under pledge of secrecy ... to the end that as few as possible should have heard these tales.
When anyone images badly in his speech the true nature of gods and heroes, like a painter whose portraits bear no resemblance to his models. (377e)
Shall we, then, thus lightly suffer our children to listen to any chance stories fashioned by any chance teachers and so to take into their minds opinions for the most part contrary to those that we shall think it desirable for them to hold when they are grown up? (377b)
And the stories on the accepted list we will induce nurses and mothers to tell to the children and so shape their souls by these stories ... (377c)
I am not familiar with that work or author, Mr. Valentinus. Is he someone worth reading? — Leghorn
And this relation with God, this more or less close union with Him, we call religion.
Yet what is religion? How does it differ from the religious sense and how are the two related? Every man's definition of religion is based upon his own inner experience of it rather upon his observation of it in others and it is impossible to define it without in one way or another experiencing it. — Unamuno, translated by Anthony Kerrigan
... tipping his waiter on the way out. — Valentinus
Or, what might be the same thing, one hard-working Athenian saluting the virtue of another. — Valentinus
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