Hello and welcome to classical stuff you should know classical podcast but on by class educators My name is Thomas Maggie and I'm joined as always by mr. AJ Hanover. That's me and mr. Graham Donaldson.
Hello hello Hello, and welcome to I'm not super self-conscious about how I agree myself that you sound like you're walking to a bank I'm just sounding like I'm walking to a friendly Canadian bank, but then you sound friendly. This is a compliment Graham. Oh, this is fine I don't know if I do know I did really do it as a bad thing. Okay.
Hello Graham you are the other topic for the day. That's right boys today We are going to learn about a very classical dude somebody who you could say started it all well at least for philosophy Today we're learning about Socrates who was Socrates. What's the deal with Socrates? What are the books that Socrates wrote?
It's why there's not none and why do we as classical people need to know about Socrates and is philosophy just All there is to the classical world or is there like a war going on between classics and mythos? I know we talked about some of these things before This is starting to sound like a long time. So he's an important dude. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about who he was So Socrates was a Greek philosopher roughly around that they trace his years back to he was born about 470 BC Before Christ or BCE before common era for you moderns out there and then he died in 399 BC And he died because he was prone trial and he was tried guilty for a number of crimes corrupting the youth corrupting the youth and atheism Were his two crimes and he was his sentence was death and he had to drink poison He had to drink him lock and he killed himself.
I mean it was forced to do it by the courts So it was it suicide? I don't know probably I don't think he would call it that but he was forced to kill himself by drinking poison because the courts Thought of him as dangerous to society Was he degree of that? I don't think you are no I mean yes in some ways He was dangerous to society but not but it's a danger It was attention and a danger that society needs as opposed to it Yeah, I mean when change comes isn't that always a danger to society? Yeah, his was a grand change change a lot dangerous to status quo They said that he was challenging the status quo and I mean yes He wasn't away but another way he was just wanting to understand the status quo He's also kind of a jerk ball, doesn't he?
He was a jerk ball. Yeah. Anyway, so Socrates things you need to know about him He was reportedly tremendously ugly Oh, not attractive and people have said one of the ugliest men to have ever walked the face of the earth Just just an ugly like specific like he had a big nose or I Don't know about like the specifics about his nose or whatnot I do know that he was a soldier when he was a young man Oh, and he was reportedly impervious to like cold or hot He was just someone who could really endure the elements more than your average man He could endure being hungry. He could sort of endure physical hardships more than others and he was just ugly dude And he was Like he didn't care.
Yeah, and he had a wife Oh, the wife was terrible, but she wasn't very good person Legendary she was a shrew He spent a lot of his time in the streets asking questions because he didn't want to go Yeah, and there if you look her name up in the dictionary it has become a word meaning ill-tempered or shrewish woman Her name was Zantippes X A N T H I P P E Yeah, Zantippes, and she was the worst she was a very good So he was a ugly guy who couldn't do a lot and was married to someone who was not a very very happy person and he had kids But he was a philosopher and he loads of bread on the table and the Exactly and he sort of had this one guiding philosophy and I was sort of baiting how we were to stretch this podcast if I saved it for the end but I'm gonna leave off with it and In the the speech or in the dialogue that we have that was where Socrates is his trial It's called the apology apology meaning defense Socrates says that he had this guiding philosophy this guiding mission that drove his life and was why he was a philosopher And it was that somebody went to the oracle at Delphi and said to the oracle at Delphi Who's the wisest person out there? Who's the person that knows the most the wisest man in the world and the oracle said Socrates and word got back to Socrates and Socrates was like No, no, there's no way that I'm the wisest person And so he decided that he was going but he was in a bit of a concern because well the oracles aren't gonna lie But sometimes the oracles like say things that are true But they're kind of like wishy washy true to get you to screw up because oracles go sometimes jerks And so Socrates was concerned and he really wanted to test this so he went off and he was in quiet He went in search of anybody who had any sort of claim to wisdom in any field to ask them about their wisdom and Socrates always left those conversations disappointed and towards the end of his life Socrates realized that he was the wisest person in the world Because he realized he realized he didn't know anything and they all thought they knew stuff They didn't know and everyone thought they knew stuff they didn't know so Socrates was wise because he knew he was not wise Whereas the people who thought they were wise weren't wise because they thought they were wise So this was Socrates guiding mission was to try to find the wise man What's the specific things he was tearing down like I don't know like what are the things that he so someone would come into town He would say I know so red red philosophers philosophers and red rotations and they would say you know what justice is Thomas Justice is helping your friends and harming your enemies That's justice and Socrates would be like people come to start to say be like hey This dude is talking about what justice is he seems to know what it is and Socrates would say if somebody really knows what justice is That would indeed be a valuable thing. Let's go talk to him and ask him and so we'd sit him down and the guy would say Yes, I'll tell you what justice is helping your friends and hurting your enemies and Socrates would be like huh? And then he would begin questioning him and he would ask the guy questions who are your enemies who are your friends who are your friends?
What does it mean to help a friend or does it mean to hurt an enemy do enemies have friends if your two enemies hurt each other Is that justice because your enemies are being hurt? Yeah, and so he would go on and he would get these people He would basically probe them with questions and he would get them to the point where they were either saying conjuratory things At which point Socrates would say you're saying something contradictory or he would get to the point where they would say I Hate you Socrates and they would come off a one of two and so Socrates would be like I guess he didn't really know what justice was and of course this did not win him very many friends I was wondering if people change their mind, but it probably just makes people angry This is there's actually I was talking about irony with my class the other day And there's a thing called Socratic irony and is the pose of ignorance to get someone else to show that they are It's what Socrates did all the time and I drove people crazy be like I'm I'm a dummy Can you please tell me what this is and they would say it? He's like what about this? What about this?
What about this? And then you end up feeling like an idiot and he would look up smart and then you get frustrated exactly because there's sometimes where In Plato's writings where Socrates will give an answer, but yes I'm just tearing apart to say you know this is the difficulty So we have Socrates who never wrote anything and then we have Plato who was Socrates people and he wrote all of these various different Dialogues of Socrates and they're all on various themes And so some scholars say that when Socrates is giving a positive answer I'll tell you what justice is that's Plato using Socrates as a mouthpiece And we don't really know what Socrates believed or what Plato is just you putting in Socrates Right because Socrates is primarily just the character in Plato's writings But we know he was a real guy and that's who played a learn from and so I would imagine that Plato wouldn't Mar the good name of his great professor by putting things in his mouth that he wouldn't have otherwise said but he does say a lot like Socrates does take stances on a lot of things that appears that justice is the following well I'll say it was probably the best version of Socrates that Plato was presenting right because he respected Yes, exactly and there's lots of scholars out there that try to distill maybe the core Socrates beliefs and some of them are the immortality of the soul and the And that knowledge because your soul is immortal that knowledge and learning is just a recollection So when you're learning something you're actually just recalling something that you knew before you were born kind of thing That this is probably what Socrates taught But there's all these sorts of things that like get filled up in these in these dialogues And it's and we don't really know when is this platonic when is this so credit so generally in history when we talk about Socratic we are generally talking about that method of asking questions fainting ignorance and doing what is this we call the Socratic method which we'll talk about Plato requires a whole other podcast and what is platonic and what do we mean when we talk about something being Platonic is is a whole other thing because that's his own his own philosophy, but today we're talking about Socrates so The big there are some big dialogues and some of the big dialogues were republic so Plato's republic where Socrates is Asked by some interlocutors. What is justice? They're just hanging out at some games right?
There's there it's like they're a festival they're all hanging out in the bleachers and then they're like hey They go home to one of the interlocutors dad's house And he's lived a good life and they're sitting around chatting and then they say what's justice? But people come in and come out of the conversation like dudes will get up and storm off Yeah, here's my take on it and then you know Socrates makes look like a do for things like I don't know The things to attend to it. They leave so there's usually conversations. There's usually two kinds of interlocutors Oh, yeah, Plato was really really accessible people think like ancient philosophy.
I can never read that Plato The republic incredibly readable. Yeah, it's very fun. Um, so it's usually two kinds of interlocutors those that think they know something and Socrates tears them down. They're like I gotta go to market And then there's the interlocutors that at the end of it.
They're like yeah, I guess I really didn't know anything Or even something will be like now that guy's left Socrates I didn't want to bring this up when he was around but I have another question that is kind of wrinkling and may have frustrated that guy But here's another question so there's there's like people have good intention There's people of sort of proud proud. What is he answering the questions or is he giving? He does he answers the questions and he will lead to an answer by asking questions and so And so a lot of the dialogue is saying like well isn't it true that X and your lockers like why yes? It is and he says okay So if it is true that it is X then surely it follows that why and they'll be like of course Socrates How could it be anything else and then it goes back and forth and then there are these passages where Socrates is posing these rhetorical questions But he's actually saying something positive about an issue or after he poses a bunch of questions eventually They sort of work with it and figure it out and then he'll come around and say okay So after all of our questions it appears that justice is the following right He'll say this is kind of where we've landed then I'll be like but I get myself into trouble because now there's remaining questions He'll sort of outline those and then be like yeah I get into some difficulties and yeah So republic is all about what is the nature of justice this symposium is a drinking party where everyone has come around and they're all drinking Oh, and this was another thing about Socrates.
He could out drink everybody He was known so he was an ugly guy He had a shrewish wife he could endure heat hot and cold and bouts of hunger so he was a great soldier and so if you didn't think And take what he was accessible. Yeah, you should find something to identify with and he hit out drink everybody And so he's at the symposium and the question was what is arrows? What is love and they all have these different takes as to what arrows is some say it's you know The love between sort of erotic love sexual love. It's the thing that inspires courage and valor There's this one guy that says before we were human beings We used to be mushed together and then we were separated and then we find that soulmate.
We are one again That's a I think it's a play I think it is there stuff in his who was drunk at the party Yeah, and air stuff in the air stuff in his and some Socrates were not buddies They hated each other or at least air stuff at ease hated Socrates He's not alone in that and then in the symposium El Cebaidis who is a politician who's super handsome rushes in drunk as a skunk and Tries to use poetry to seduce Socrates Because he was a man who seduced all the man of the town and Socrates was the only one that didn't get seduced by him So just intellectually or seduced like seduced seduced like seduced seduced. Yeah, and Socrates wanted none of that and wanted to continue philosophizing El Cebaidis says this is lame Let's get drunk everyone gets drunk and the play or the dialogue ends with everybody drunkenly waking up the next morning And sartis is like alright, you guys are wait. Let's keep talking about this He'd been up all night talking to people about love and philosophizing about the nature of love and asking questions So so because it's a dialogue and it's a conversation there are views in the books that Plato would not help correct So there's so I don't know the air stop the only reason I know about that one is that it gets cited a lot of the Greeks thought this Yeah, that's not how it's presented Yeah, every Plato could have been lambasting air stuff and he's saying that air stuff and he's thought we were marshmallow people back in the day that got separated Just because it's in the book doesn't mean doesn't mean that they believe it yeah in the Republic There's a guy who thinks that it is better to have the appearance of virtue rather than actual virtue I want everyone to think I'm a good guy while I'm actually not a good guy because I get all of the respect and all the advantages of being evil And so Socrates actually has to go out to beat that claim repudiated No, that's not good for us at all and so yes to go through and yeah That's what he talks about like the ordering of man reason Well, the next dialogue is me know and this is where Socrates is talking to me know and they're talking about what is the nature of virtue Not specific individual virtues, but what is that thing is virtue? What is that thing that?
Is present in all of virtues that make us call it a virtue? What is airtay? What is excellence so general virtue and in this dialogue? This is where Socrates talks about the immortality of the soul and that knowledge is a recollection and then we have the famous me knows Paradox so here's a quiz show for you boys.
You cannot google this. What is me knows paradox? It's often confused with another paradox is another thing of which is not the same thing. It's often confused with Zeno's I don't know sorry.
So you were talking about virtue I mean my best guess is that it would be something about virtue being the mean between two things Though the paradox is me know says wait we're searching for virtue and none of us know what it is how will we know when we find it? That's the paradox if we don't know something How will we know when we find it and if we know when we find it does that not mean that we know it? Yeah, and Socrates's answer to that is well. We knew it before and now we're just remembering.
Yeah, what's Zeno's paradox? I mean Zeno's paradox so there's distance between AJ and me So if I were to want to walk over to the standing next to AJ I need to pass through the halfway point to get there and so I reach that halfway point Well to reach from that halfway point to where AJ is standing I need to pass another halfway point and there are infinite halfway points between me and AJ and I must cross each of them to get to AJ but if I keep approaching by going at the halfway point I never actually reach them here go Motion is an illusion. That's like stoner talk. That's like you know And I feel like that's the reason that people toss out and you know classes and with the bathwater They're like that is ridiculous because I clearly walked over to the jukebox.
So everything else is stupid You box if you're going somewhere might be the two-talk cop I Don't know where you do your philosophy, but I'm just like it I mean it's that sort of thing where people think intellectual is full it's not useful and it's too rare if I It's not doing anything whereas like a lot of philosophy like really matters like what is just is how do we be good people? You know is there are you mean things to your enemies? That's a good question. That's me.
No, sorry. Sorry. Just because you said that age is the justice question answered in what is justice kind of Justice oh man See is justice in republic because he talks about justice in a couple of different times And in republic he starts talking about the way a city should be run And the way a city should be run is the way our souls should be run and justice in a city is like the right relationship Between the different parts of the city and justice in the person is the right relationship between the parts of the soul It's kind of like every every person being in his place and getting what he deserves Yeah, and not sticking his nose anybody else's business And that's I think understood to be what it is in man as well Right the soldiers don't aren't the craftsmen in the craftsmen aren't making political decisions and political decisions aren't soldering Is what's justice in the city? Right?
He's not trying to rule anybody else and he's not and he's getting what he deserves and he's not getting anything extra and he's not taking What anybody else has so he can keep his nose in his own business and what he deserves And in order to man is you're not letting the appetites rule and you're not letting the brain just do brain things But you're letting your spirited soul take over at some point and do actions and that kind of thing so he does answer it In that sense Really like we've got to answer but maybe we're not there yet Yeah, and then in credo or credo, I can never remember how to pronounce it They talk about justice again, but this is in the context of Socrates and jail awaiting his his punishment Yeah, we're waiting his or his trial and then they're asking so Socrates now that's coming down on you like what is this Just what's justice and they have a conversation about justice there And I don't know what the bases. I don't know what the details of that conversation is The fatal is where they talk about the immortality of the soul is the soul immortal the gorgeous is Sounds like like a great about all the ladies Beauty the gorgeous this is the defense of rhetoric because apparently gorgeous was a sofist and Remembering correctly and so a sofist was somebody that taught people how to speak and reason and Maybe philosophize but dress up their words in order to convince people of things and do it in a way that that I think it was an Aristotle who hated this it was making the weaker argument appear the strongers already It's essentially what we do in our justice system a good chunk of the time And they even the way they talk about judges is different He said why would I lie to a judge? I am asking him in his judgment to figure out what is right here and if I lie to him or if I try to mislead him It's like it's like breaking a ruler before you use it to you know build a house It's just not a good idea That's the way they viewed their justice system was a little bit different than the way we do and usually the classical philosophers Hated the sofist because they for them philosophy wasn't the pursuit of the truth It was the use of truth to make money or the use of words because yeah They would sell the dressing up to make money and if truth is hit great if truth's not hit whatever as long as I get paid And you get trained right they were they were shopping around what Socrates and Aristotle and these guys were thirsting for and trying to find And they would get this thing and then they would sell it and and they were probably cynical about they'd be like you know what? Like there's probably virtue out there There's probably truth out there but like Athens needs to protect itself from Sparta And if we don't get these people convincing these people to pay for the army then who cares about truth because Spartans are gonna make us Our slaves right so there's probably like these these sort of cynical real practical Motivations behind the sofist and the philosophers were like yeah But if we don't know what truth is Athens shouldn't exist right so there's that kind of war between these these sort of pure philosophers and Kind of politicians and red retitians and that's really interesting tension Yeah, and one that kind of needs to exist and I mean doesn't that kind of mirror I mean this is sort of derailing so I'm sorry audience But it kind of mirrors the tension between modern education and classical education where modern education the goal is to is essentially money Right take all of these things that have been handed out from for years and learn how to go to a good college and get lots of cash Right a good job.
You're part of the work of a consumer even teachers are agents there of right? We're not necessarily we are trying to teach them how to get get what's theirs right make some ends rather than the pursuit of truth No matter what so yeah, and so that tension. Yeah exists today as it existed then The euphoria sorry the youth of row is the defense of piety. What does it mean to be pious?
What does it mean to believe in the gods not believe in the gods and be pious to the gods? Can gods ask you to do things that are moral that make you be pious? So every day I have a good conversation about that and then the last one it's not the last one that played a Rope, but it's the last one for Socrates because it was the apology and this was his defense his trial there are men that put him on trial and Socrates was put on trial for two crimes the crime of being an atheist not believing in the gods and the crime of corrupting the youth I'm taking good young men from political careers and making them useless by having them sit in the streets and think about Yes, but he goes about it So he he defends himself and so he so that the main there's really one guy that hates Socrates And I can't remember his name, but he's the guy that puts him on trial And there's another guy that's there because it's like kind of cool to be in court And then I can't remember if heres Dauphinese is at the trial or not But heres Dauphinese wrote a play about Socrates like 20 years before the trial of Socrates And he made Socrates be like a giant sort of fool a pumpkin in the play called clouds And Socrates was a character and he comes across and he says sort of silly foolish dumb things and all the kids are like yay And they follow Socrates and Socrates is saying these ridiculous things like gods don't exist and all the kids are like We love Socrates and so everybody grew up knowing Socrates from this play it was like a really famous thing anyway So that's an important part of the trial because the court of public opinions really against Socrates and they bring up the play They do and so the apology that's a real thing right that they actually read it interesting. Did Socrates believe in the gods?
I guess um so Socrates comes he so his defense is that Socrates does believe in the gods He believes in the demi urges these sort of lower gods and he believes in the gods and he believes in this oracle So this is in the apology it says Socrates doesn't believe in the gods He's like no the only reason you think that is because of this play where it says I don't believe in the gods But I do One of his last acts is to say hey I still owe a sacrifice rooster to this god yeah, and then he says so Socrates says I owe the oracle of Delphi more to God than to anybody else So if you let me go I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing Which is try to find the wise man because this is my life's mission the gods said that I'm the wisest I don't buy it so I'm gonna go find the wisest and And if it means that in the end on the wisest because I realize that I'm not wise Then he's he sort doesn't buy that he says I can come to the answer just by continuing to ask these questions So obviously I believe in the gods because I've dedicated my life to an oracle from a god And so he actually uses the method of questioning so this is that's the conclusion that he has but he gets his interlocutor Who's hostile to him to make the claim he basically gets the interlocutor to say the sentence Socrates is an atheist who believes in gods like that That's essentially the conclusion that he gets to and Socrates is like okay, so obviously that's bunk And so then the next one is corrupting the youth do you corrupt the youth have you taken the youth away from if you corrupted them and he says If I've corrupted the youth where are the youth where are the youth who are corrupted who hate me and are coming in saying like sorry He's corrupted me there are none and then they say well Maybe they don't realize they're corrupted so sorry And we are the families who realize that they're corrupted saying that I corrupted them There are none in fact the men who are here Plato and some of the other glaucon and some of the other interlocutors who are favorable to Socrates They're here in support of Socrates and so This is basically it comes down to yeah, well Socrates you talk to people and you make people man they hate you So how about you stop doing that and this is where Socrates says I'm never gonna stop doing that I will always go to the city square I will always pull people into conversations and anybody who claims to know anything I will always ask them to to show me to lead me to how they know it So I too can know it and if they don't know it I will expose them as to not knowing because don't we want people who? That's a good thing for all of us We actually want people who know things in power if we got some guy who's claiming to know something and he doesn't that's bad And then he says yeah, but Socrates every person you talk to leaves realizing they don't know anything So they're not going into politics because of that because they feel guilty or if they are going into politics They're like bad people in politics So stop it and start he says I'm not gonna stop it and it's on that that he gets killed Oh, so they come back and you had to have something like you had to have two-thirds of the vote to Convict if you had less than a third the person who brought the suit had a huge penalty Wow and And I think in the end soccer team they what is it? in the end Not everybody can fix Socrates and so they tried to talk about what should be his punishment and Socrates is like my punishment should be five bucks And then they say no your punishment should be tens of thousands of dollars and then eventually I mean I should have looked up this my memory on this is real fuzzy That's punishment to be a hundred-droc may yeah, which is like nothing and then it gets raised to three thousand Yeah, and then seems like a pretty big difference and Socrates is like a lot of honey money Yeah, I'm never gonna get any money because I don't work I stand in the square and talk to people And then but not when it's not sufficient punishment. It's not so there so and then it comes back down They do another vote and they're like sorry Socrates.
You're gonna care yourself Yeah, it's like fine I'll do it but I'm not stopping what I'm doing and then he and then there's this big old passion scene at the end of the apology where he makes a defense for this life of knowing yourself and this life of asking of living this Socratic way of asking these questions and he says that if if Since the souls immortal there's one or two endings oblivion at which point that's fine because life is hard and you know Sometimes you're cold and hungry and it's difficult and if it's oblivion, okay Or you're gonna continue on in some capacity and if you continue on in some capacity And I can find there's somebody there Then there's somebody to talk to and there's someone to try to get to truth through these questions And so he's like and I'm cool with that It's kind of nice that in Dante in limbo Socrates is there and he is talking to people and asking them those questions up Just like you know people are like oh my god This forever isn't there there's a part in the apology where his buddies try to help him escape like they breaking to his cell And they're like dude get in the boat. We gotta get you out of here And he says no to go where to go where and they're like we have to leave He's like look I have spent my entire life pursuing this philosophy I left now it would betray everything I have worked worked up to like what is my philosophy if I don't actually practice it Yeah, so he says I'm gonna stay here I'm gonna do this I'm gonna submit to the court that I support and give my sacrifice to the God So even one of his last acts was to prove that he was totally pious and this was a bogus trumped-up charge And then he did what they asked him to do and it's even like kind of a funny scene Like the guard is really sad that he has to happen that he has to give him He's like if it was my will I wouldn't do this to you Socrates and he's like dude it's chill I had my choice and then he like lays down thirsty anyway Like there's some sort of yeah, he's just like a cheesy old dude And then he like lays down and puts this covers over his face and he pops up goes Oh, I forgot I owe a chicken to this God would you take care of that the guys like it's great And then he goes back to sleep and so it's this really dramatic scene But so he is held up as the person the man who uncompromisingly is looking for truth wherever it is He doesn't care if it comes from a rich person He doesn't care if it comes from a poor person and he is convinced that you find it by doing this dialectic method this asking questions back and forth and we we've talked about dialectic before it is essentially a Corrosive or deconstructive way of understanding Someone says I know what virtue is and then you ask questions and you sort of chip away and pull apart at it And you can you can often chip and chip and chip until you know nothing and you can do that to every definition of justice until you Don't have a definition that's the thing you need a solid point You need something that is a priori or you need something that is an axiom So take this as a given to build a philosophy on it can't just be purely dialectic But if you chip away and there's nothing there wasn't that a bad definition of justice in the first place Yes, yeah, and then or if you chip away and you actually come to up some sort of absurdity where the absurdity is Socrates But isn't atheist who believes in the gods and you're like okay well Obviously then your this was a bad I'm sorry to do this and I'm continuing to look going on with this and Socrates does build things up And I remember the first time reading Socrates look loving the method I was like and I got real kind of ticked when Socrates would make definitive statements about what is because I'd be like How do you get there like how do you know what that like how can you say that the the socratic method is getting to this unmoved? point that How you know sort of how can Socrates say something definitive about something? and And this is where it's like Plato's coming in and Plato's philosophy or Plato's trying to say something positive where Socrates is saying things negative Not negative in terms of his a downer but negative in terms of he's saying we're gonna find what is by telling what showing what isn't Yeah, and I'm I'm sort of it's been a long time since I've spent two time thinking about this but I don't have two minds about how effective just dialectic is and this is sort of the central tension of Life is that you need to be a dialectical person you need to be someone who can pull things apart And you need to be able to deconstruct things to understand how they work But there also needs to be a genius part there needs to be a putting together there needs to be a synthesis there needs to be a a Living in the world so one of the one of the claims against Socrates is that he is pulling people out of practical life And I think that's a fair criticism.
He was pulling people out of the affairs of Athens But he was pulling them out because he wanted them to know the truth and so There I think that tension needs to be in the heart of every person you need to have a little Socrates inside of you There's always saying do you understand this? Do you really know what this means? Can you define it pull it apart understand it like Give it is the definition that you have for something a good definition for it Why but then you also need to have a vision on the other side of what is and what should be and what the good life is and this is often supplied by the stories the mythos the the Hercules the Odysseus the Achilles the heroes the people that you look up to and so there's always there's this tension between the mythos and the Dialectic running through antiquity and it's sort of supposed to be these two horses that are pulling at opposite sides that Provide the tension that sort of raise up a person And they're kind of on the same team right there's like it's a good life It's all good life there that conversation is the thing that bears up a lot of antiquity And I think there's a few things like I was always of the Socratic method style Right I pull it things and pull it things until they unravel and I think the goal and this is what Socrates did He would convince people to leave the shore so that they could find the bedrock at the bottom of the river Right he pulled them out in the boat and then asked them questions and eventually they would stand on solid ground I think there's always the danger of pulling them away from the shore and then they find themselves in the ocean Right yeah, and there's no solid ground to be found there there Maybe they're not smart enough maybe they don't have people around them horse-mark enough or maybe it's a question that you can't answer or even worse It's something that logic just can't tackle like GK Chesterton points out that There are there are a lot of complete philosophical systems out there about who we are and what we are and all of them are totally and complete But the same is true of someone who's totally insane and thinks that they're the king when they're not the king And we're not he's like that's just what you server would say and we say yes But if you were the king why are you in here and why do we think you're crazy? He's like clearly because I'm actually the king and you guys can't handle that like he has an explanation for everything It's just that his you know his little ring is complete.
It's just a small ring It doesn't really account for everything and so there's always that danger with logic and reason right we talked in my podcast about how Virgil can only Go so far he cannot he cannot go into heaven at the end of the good the divine comedy And it's because logic sometimes can't get you there And I think that's always the danger with the dialectic is you are you are trying to use logic to find everything But there's certain things about ethics and justice that we understand right? It's it's something that is real intangible and is outside of us and makes demands upon us that we feel and can know without proving it Philosophically like if I see someone weak being abused by someone who is strong I know that that's injustice whether or not I can ask questions about it and whether or not Yeah, you're not gonna before you act. I shouldn't come in and say whoa Hanenburg before you help that weak person. What is justice?
Yeah, I should go and there and because I know I have in my mind examples from mythos from antiquity and that's why our myths are important Right? That's why we read some of the old things That's why I mean we read home or not necessarily for like the idea of justice But we read it partially because these are the stories in the mythos that built us right? Yeah, and built up the ancient world and this is what they understood to be worthwhile right? The Odyssey is proving that glory is not more important than the home and that it's remains place is raising his kids and with his wife Right, so that's why we do these things.
I was just like for Chester to he talks about there You'll get to a certain point where I think it's good because it's good Like you'll get to a point I think as example is like why is civilization better than savagery and at some point You just be like it just is like there's not a logical argument to make for that thing So guess there's a bedrock like there is I think that it's good and you just can't prove it's good through logical There are there are assumptions and really that's I mean we're getting a little bit into the weeds here But one of the assumptions for reason is unprovable like reason reason depends on it being functional kind of on its own and And when you try to this is this comes with one of the arguments against for the existence of God is that if you are You that our brains have been developing from from creatures and at some point our reason was not sufficient right? We did not reason well right as monkeys then basically We are proving that we have had faulty reason in the past and believed it was good reason and who's to say our reason now Is any better than it was and is you know is not faulty? So you're basically sitting on a branch and then actively sawing it off as you try to reason your way to Towards no God right so there's there's all these different levels where yeah, sometimes reason can't prove itself You just have to say that it's there and so even Socrates's questions depend on certain assumptions that are unquestionable Just something that wants to say that there's a value to the socratic method to so like there is I mean we base our classes off Yeah, well we're presenting the other side simply because Socrates Pounded Western culture like this is the guy that started at all and and I think it's really easy to think especially in the classical world That the socratic method is the end all and be all right We ask questions and we get to the heart and the root of things but to close yes Lewis You can go on seeing through and seeing through and seeing through until there's nothing to see you can't just tear down for the kids like they need to and so earlier we were talking about there needs to be a like a An a priori thing or there needs to be an axiom and for most of human history there was this understanding or a belief in We're sort of one of the fundamental beliefs of the classical world and of the classical education movement is that? The world makes sense yeah that we can make sense of the world another we believe that in the modern world and another sort of Fundamental belief was that human beings throughout history are the same like there is a human nature And yes, we can act in different ways But there is a general idea of what it means to be a human person that we all access through our conscience I don't know if we still have that same impression.
We don't we think we're better than to get a degree in those guys were dumber And by the way, so that's yes, Lewis talks about this in the abolition of man's the third chapter He says we've been away a certain way humans have been this way for as long as we can remember and he was facing You know conditioning right prenatal conditioning where you would listen to tapes and stuff before you were born or just conditioning in general And you could figure out how to make man react a certain way, but we're facing gene conditioning where we will create something that Will definitely do a podcast on is is completely different Yeah, but that that nature that man has had is in danger now in a way that has never been before but so then the balance that comes between the Socratic method of dialectic and this and I don't mythos isn't a really great word for it but this sort of synthetic method of Building up instead of tearing down your talk building up and turn down It's more like uncovering what it means to be a human person through the studying of history and through the observation of other human beings You may not be able to get a perfect definition as to why that act of saving the child from the river was brave But gosh darn it when that child comes out and that fireman's arms and you have that feeling in your notes, right? And you know it's brave and you feel it It's not just a quote-unquote emotional or instinctual response It is something about being a human person that is glorious and worth praising more than than what an animal would feel Which is just instinctual and so Both of those things can be trained in the hearts of people you can be trained to be dialectical and we should we should train School of logic children to be able to pull apart and understand something and they love doing it Which is what makes them in sufferable like Socrates? Especially seventh and eighth graders and I feel like right in that area they really want to talk to you But there also needs to be the training in the appropriate responses to Situations as they call for it. So I mean if I said Thomas it is not right to just laugh at a funeral It is it is wrong if you go to somebody's funeral and you just and you just have a great time Look at his big dead face and I Don't know if you ask me other questions of well Why and we really walk through it if we could get to an answer a dialectical answer or an answer using dialectic to say it's why at some point We say it is a wrong thing or it is an unseemly thing or it is a It is the wrong response to the gravity of the situation for you to be doing that There is value in going through the dialectical and asking the question I mean if you get to the place where you like it insults the widow and then you could ask well What if the widow isn't present then can you laugh?
Mm-hmm probably not what if no one who actually knew this nobody's there and I come across a dead body Can I laugh at it? You know and then you're like no you still can't because there is a sanctity that comes with a person He's not there anymore right so that's where we start getting into the weeds But you but so maybe we can't get to the answer with dialectic But the correct answer is still no you do not laugh because that's what makes you a human being and I feel like in the modern world We really reject that thing where we say no I should be able to have the response to whatever comes my way the way that I choose it and there I am not appealing to some sort of form of Civilized civilized nature or some sort of higher form of how man interacts with with the world But the funny thing is we don't we don't like the idea of their being this sort of unquestionable ethos Oh, we love civilized people but we really like people who are civilized and we really despise those who don't follow these rules If someone came and laughed at a funeral we would be mad at that we would all be super angry It's just not appropriate and if somebody said up and said no no no it is that man's right as a Autonomous individual to choose what he thinks is appropriate for this world We would say no it's not stopping a doofus sit down Get out of my funeral yeah, or like if you wore a t-shirt to a wedding that had like the F word Just really big across the front like I don't love stinks Yeah, that's just that's not okay And even people who madly support an individual's right to choose would probably want that guy out of the wedding right? And it's and it's not it's not okay not just because you're insulting other people if even if everybody's cool with it They're still a not okay. Nis to the knit to laughing at a funeral Even if everyone's like thinks the things that you're saying are super clever on they're all laughing with you if everybody laughs at that funeral Even the widow they're like actually that's pretty clever.
Ha ha ha ha ha Let me still not right not laughing at death But if someone's giving a eulogy and makes a joke about how this guy really used to love his Pokemon Everyone's gonna cap a little chocolate, but there's still respect for the man right it's where it's where you sort of cross those lines of ethics Mm-hmm, and I'm saying that you can't come to that conclusion with dialectic and because you the problem with being too Scratic is because you can't come to that conclusion with dialectic you don't act and that's was what Socrates was sort of You condemn for and that's also something that I think we need to be careful of in our own hearts Just because we can't come to the rational answer doesn't mean that we can't act like a citizen of heaven Just because virtual can't get into heaven doesn't mean that nothing can get into heaven and shake I mean Socrates himself was incredible right I mean to draw the man down, but he did spend a lot of time in town It's been a lot of time away from his wife wife I mean couldn't he have also like he pursued truth But also I mean would we have respected a little bit more if he also put a lot of work towards charity or towards building something and also Try to pursue you know truth on the side like there there would have been opportunity for him to do something productive with his life And use that philosophy doing what he thinks is the greatest good Which people think about themselves and help people think about what is real and true and worth doing I was wondering if we would remember him wrong on the doofus I think what you're saying AJ is more the example for us if like you don't you don't only have to Leave society and champion truth like you can do both that's um the book I don't know you a long time ago Graham that intellectual is all about this balance between you kind of got to make money because you know You have to pay bills, but you should also develop as a human pure philosophy that spins off from the world So philosophy is also not practical like if I think it's something that you shouldn't you should not be champion Yeah, people's argument also from leaders that philosophy is useless and must be useless Otherwise, it's a tool of tyranny that makes me uncomfortable Why yeah, philosophy is you say that in so far as philosophy is useless Like if you have gone into the philosophical life and you completely spin yourself off from the world and you are no longer doing anything That is a bad thing. Yeah, I agree But or and especially if you're doing philosophy that has no bearing on normal life But if you were somebody that never thinks about what is true and real and you just sort of unthinkingly accept everything around you Yeah, or you just sort of go along to get along and you never have any critical thinking that's all spent you're in a dangerous position to Well, I think we're talking about it in balance I hate to always bring it back to play those trying soul But I mean on one side if you're all cerebral and no will then I think that's a problem Right and if but then on the other side if you're all will I'm just gonna do this well You're you can do silly things like boxer from animal farm. He was all will he was gonna do the work no matter what and he didn't notice that Yeah, he didn't notice that he was under tyranny and he wasn't doing anyone any good But he was the glue that helped them all together Thanks for listening everybody Anyway, just a wrap up so the war between the apology between Socrates and the interlocutors of his trial really is this battle between Well, I don't want to identify Us like grumpy dudes that hated being proven wrong. Yeah.
Yeah, but it's yeah, there is this tension in the classical world between Philosophy that brings you to inaction and I like an unthinking action. Yeah. Yeah, so both of them need to be present in the healthy man And we hope to do that as teachers. Yeah, so be I guess be okay with certain assumptions like reason is sound There's a funny spot in GK Chesterton's father Brown mysteries.
It's like Sherlock meets Thomas Aquinas, right? He's a theologian that solves crimes and it's the very first story and he sits down with this guy who's pretending to be a monk And he's like you weren't a monk right away and he's like, how did you know? He's like you questioned reason that's just bad theology He's like reason the church gives the good soil for reason to virgin because we can land it in the bedrock of a deity right of something That is unchanging an eternal whereas if you try to land it in just the development of man That's not a good soil for reason to live and so yeah, I forgot where I started with this Where was I going with this? I don't you know, there's some sometimes you can take things as givens Yeah, so yeah, you have to take things as as givens But then on the other side like actually do something with them.
Yeah, I think I think of nature and so Nietzsche said all these things about how we like morality We don't actually want to leave in God and so if we were really like honest with ourselves we would do whatever we wanted to I don't know Socrates was not The question I've been trying to answer for myself in this discussion is what Socrates a nihilist and he'll believe that there was nothing that could be known That's not true. No, I don't think so and I don't think Nietzsche was that either nothing can be known We thought power was like the yeah power was the truth. I mean in Socrates defense. He does sort of Land what he thinks can be known in God.
Okay, so in many ways like there's always been this well What would Socrates have done if he had talked to Jesus and there's books he's written about that kind of thing And because so Socrates does kind of come up to me like well in the end like the things that are givens are must be God and it must flow from him and since he's not here we're gonna keep doing what I'm doing and ask you talking to people who claim to know something Oh, sorry, that's not me. Sorry. I forgot that I kicked off this podcast. So thank you all for joining us if you have any questions comments topic ideas Pictures pictures funny YouTube videos send those two classical stuff at veritas academy net you can follow us on Twitter at clss C al stuff.
Isn't that right? Yeah, it's cool stuff. Hey if you're in the podcast, would you share with a friend? That'd be really cool.
That's sure with your friends. Would you please? Yeah, I think it'd be really cool Yes, it'd be great any classical stuff. We got wrong or anything.
We want to oh, I know I can't think of any I'm sure they're we'll hear about it But I think that's gonna wrap it up. So yeah, this has been Thomas screaming a job very well