Xenophon's Socratic Education

Xenophon's Socratic Education PDF Author: Dustin Sebell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812252853
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
It is well known that Socrates was executed by the city of Athens for not believing in the gods and for corrupting the youth. Despite this, it is not widely known what he really thought, or taught the youth to think, about philosophy, the gods, and political affairs. Of the few authors we rely on for firsthand knowledge of Socrates—Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle—only Xenophon, the least read of the four, lays out the whole Socratic education in systematic order. In Xenophon's Socratic Education, through a careful reading of Book IV of Xenophon's Memorabilia, Dustin Sebell shows how Socrates ascended, with his students in tow, from opinions about morality or politics and religion to knowledge of such things. Besides revealing what it was that Socrates really thought—about everything from self-knowledge to happiness, natural theology to natural law, and rhetoric to dialectic—Sebell demonstrates how Socrates taught promising youths, like Xenophon or Plato, only indirectly: by jokingly teaching unpromising youths in their presence. Sebell ultimately shows how Socrates, the founder of moral and political philosophy, sought and found an answer to the all-important question: should we take our bearings in life from human reason, or revealed religion?

Xenophon's Socratic Education

Xenophon's Socratic Education PDF Author: Dustin Sebell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812252853
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is well known that Socrates was executed by the city of Athens for not believing in the gods and for corrupting the youth. Despite this, it is not widely known what he really thought, or taught the youth to think, about philosophy, the gods, and political affairs. Of the few authors we rely on for firsthand knowledge of Socrates—Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle—only Xenophon, the least read of the four, lays out the whole Socratic education in systematic order. In Xenophon's Socratic Education, through a careful reading of Book IV of Xenophon's Memorabilia, Dustin Sebell shows how Socrates ascended, with his students in tow, from opinions about morality or politics and religion to knowledge of such things. Besides revealing what it was that Socrates really thought—about everything from self-knowledge to happiness, natural theology to natural law, and rhetoric to dialectic—Sebell demonstrates how Socrates taught promising youths, like Xenophon or Plato, only indirectly: by jokingly teaching unpromising youths in their presence. Sebell ultimately shows how Socrates, the founder of moral and political philosophy, sought and found an answer to the all-important question: should we take our bearings in life from human reason, or revealed religion?

Xenophon the Socratic Prince

Xenophon the Socratic Prince PDF Author: E. Buzzetti
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137325925
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
An interpretation of Xenophon's Anabasis of Cyrus, paralleling the text to Machiavelli's The Prince, and focusing on the question: How did the Socratic education help Xenophon reconcile morality with effectiveness, the noble with the good, as a ruler?

The Socratic Way of Life

The Socratic Way of Life PDF Author: Thomas L. Pangle
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022651692X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
The Socratic Way of Life is the first English-language book-length study of the philosopher Xenophon’s masterwork. In it, Thomas L. Pangle shows that Xenophon depicts more authentically than does Plato the true teachings and way of life of the citizen philosopher Socrates, founder of political philosophy. In the first part of the book, Pangle analyzes Xenophon’s defense of Socrates against the two charges of injustice upon which he was convicted by democratic Athens: impiety and corruption of the youth. In the second part, Pangle analyzes Xenophon’s account of how Socrates’s life as a whole was just, in the sense of helping through his teaching a wide range of people. Socrates taught by never ceasing to raise, and to progress in answering, the fundamental and enduring civic questions: what is pious and impious, noble and ignoble, just and unjust, genuine statesmanship and genuine citizenship. Inspired by Hegel’s and Nietzsche’s assessments of Xenophon as the true voice of Socrates, The Socratic Way of Life establishes the Memorabilia as the groundwork of all subsequent political philosophy.

The Socratic Turn

The Socratic Turn PDF Author: Dustin Sebell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812292243
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
The Socratic Turn addresses the question of whether we can acquire genuine knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong. Reputedly, Socrates was the first philosopher to make the attempt. But Socrates was a materialistic natural scientist in his youth, and it was only much later in life—after he had rejected materialistic natural science—that he finally turned, around the age of forty, to the examination of ordinary moral and political opinions, or to moral-political philosophy so understood. Through a consideration of Plato's account of Socrates' intellectual development, and with a view to relevant works of the pre-Socratics, Xenophon, Aristotle, Hesiod, Homer, and Aristophanes, Dustin Sebell reproduces the course of thought that carried Socrates from materialistic natural science to moral-political philosophy. By doing so, he seeks to recover an all but forgotten approach to the question of justice, one still worthy of being called scientific.

Xenophon's Socratic Education

Xenophon's Socratic Education PDF Author: Dustin Sebell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812297849
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
It is well known that Socrates was executed by the city of Athens for not believing in the gods and for corrupting the youth. Despite this, it is not widely known what he really thought, or taught the youth to think, about philosophy, the gods, and political affairs. Of the few authors we rely on for firsthand knowledge of Socrates—Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle—only Xenophon, the least read of the four, lays out the whole Socratic education in systematic order. In Xenophon's Socratic Education, through a careful reading of Book IV of Xenophon's Memorabilia, Dustin Sebell shows how Socrates ascended, with his students in tow, from opinions about morality or politics and religion to knowledge of such things. Besides revealing what it was that Socrates really thought—about everything from self-knowledge to happiness, natural theology to natural law, and rhetoric to dialectic—Sebell demonstrates how Socrates taught promising youths, like Xenophon or Plato, only indirectly: by jokingly teaching unpromising youths in their presence. Sebell ultimately shows how Socrates, the founder of moral and political philosophy, sought and found an answer to the all-important question: should we take our bearings in life from human reason, or revealed religion?

Socrates Founding Political Philosophy in Xenophon's "Economist", "Symposium", and "Apology"

Socrates Founding Political Philosophy in Xenophon's Author: Thomas L. Pangle
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022664247X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
The oeuvre of the Greek historian Xenophon, whose works stand with those of Plato as essential accounts of the teachings of Socrates, has seen a new surge of attention after decades in the shadows. And no one has done more in recent years to spearhead the revival than Thomas L. Pangle. Here, Pangle provides a sequel to his study of Xenophon’s longest account of Socrates, the Memorabilia, expanding the scope of inquiry through an incisive treatment of Xenophon’s shorter Socratic dialogues, the Economist, the Symposium, and the Apology of Socrates to the Jury. What Pangle reveals is that these three depictions of Socrates complement and, in fact, serve to complete the Memorabilia in meaningful ways. Unlike the Socrates of Plato, Xenophon’s Socrates is more complicated and human, an individual working out the problem of what it means to live well and virtuously. While the Memorabilia defends Socrates by stressing his likeness to conventionally respectable gentlemen, Xenophon’s remaining Socratic texts offer a more nuanced characterization by highlighting how Socrates also diverges from conventions of gentlemanliness in his virtues, behaviors, and peculiar views of quotidian life and governmental rule. One question threads through the three writings: Which way of life best promotes human existence, politics, and economics—that of the Socratic political philosopher with his philosophic virtues or that of the gentleman with his familial, civic, and moral virtues? In uncovering the nuances of Xenophon’s approach to the issue in the Economist, Symposium, and Apology, Pangle’s book cements the significance of these writings for the field and their value for shaping a fuller conception of just who Socrates was and what he taught.

Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue

Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue PDF Author: Alessandro Stavru
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004341226
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 941

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Book Description
Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue assembles the most complete range of studies on Socrates and the Socratic dialogue. It focuses on portrayals of Socrates, whether as historical figure or protagonist of ‘Socratic dialogues’, in extant and fragmentary texts from Classical Athens through Late Antiquity. Special attention is paid to the evolving power and texture of the Socratic icon as it adopted old and new uses in philosophy, biography, oratory, and literature. Chapters in this volume focus on Old Comedy, Sophistry, the first-generation Socratics including Plato and Xenophon, Aristotle and Aristoxenus, Epicurus and Stoicism, Cicero and Persius, Plutarch, Apuleius and Maximus, Diogenes Laertius, Libanius, Themistius, Julian, and Proclus.

Xenophon of Athens

Xenophon of Athens PDF Author: Noreen Humble
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781108810470
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Xenophon of Athens (c. 430-354 BCE) has long been considered an uncritical admirer of Sparta who hero-worships the Spartan King Agesilaus and eulogises Spartan practices in his Lacedaimoniôn Politeia. By examining his own self-descriptions - especially where he portrays himself as conversing with Socrates and falling short in his appreciation of Socrates' advice - this book finds in Xenophon's overall writing project a Socratic response to his exile and situates his writings about Sparta within this framework. It presents a detailed reading of the Lacedaimoniôn Politeia as a critical and philosophical examination of Spartan socio-cultural practices. Evidence from his own Hellenica, Anabasis and Agesilaus is shown to confirm Xenophon's analysis of the weaknesses in the Spartan system, and that he is not enamoured of Agesilaus. Finally, a comparison with contemporary Athenian responses to Sparta, shows remarkable points of convergence with his fellow Socratic Plato, as well as connections with Isocrates too.

Xenophon’s Theory of Moral Education

Xenophon’s Theory of Moral Education PDF Author: Houliang Lu
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443871397
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Xenophon the Athenian, who is well known both as a historian and as a witness of Socratic philosophy, developed his own systematic thought on moral education from a social and mainly political perspective in his extant works. His discourse on moral education represents the view of an unusual historical figure; an innovative thinker, as well as a man of action, a mercenary general and a world citizen in his age. As such, it is therefore different from the discourse of contemporary pure philoso...

The Cambridge Companion to Xenophon

The Cambridge Companion to Xenophon PDF Author: Michael A. Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107050065
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
Introduces Xenophon's writings and their importance for Western culture, while explaining the main scholarly controversies.