New Humanists Socrates and the Sophists, feat. David Talcott | Episode CIX
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In his comedy Clouds, Aristophanes turns Socrates into the arch-sophist of Athens: financially voracious, obsessed with verbal trickery, and preoccupied with irrelevant investigations. In most of the dialogues written by his student Plato, however, Socrates is not an arch-sophist, but the archenemy of the sophists: unmotivated by money, able to disarm their semantic wordplay, and concerned above all with living a virtuous life.
That is what makes the Euthydemus dialogue so fascinating. In this Platonic dialogue, Socrates meets his friend Crito, and in an enthusiastic fluster, he tells Crito that the two of them simply must go become the students of the two sophists who are visiting Athens. In order to convince his skeptical friend, Socrates recounts his conversation with them, and the sometimes bizarre demonstration of their supposed wisdom.
Dr. David Talcott, Fellow of Philosophy and Graduate Dean at New Saint Andrews College, joins Jonathan and Ryan to discuss the dialogue, and what it shows us about the role of education and philosophy in political life, and to draw some parallels with other Socratic dialogues.
Plato's Euthydemus: https://scaife.perseus.org/library/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg021/
H.I. Marrou's A History of Education in Antiquity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780299088149
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Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com