/lit/ - Literature

Are Socrates' beliefs in dovine inspiration in Ion at all related to the voices he heard that told him what to say and what to do (not enter politics for example)? Is that why he was so quick to defend the concept?

I think the thread is archived but there was one yesterday where a guy asked about philosophers who put beauty above morality. I was going to interject with something relevant that might not be obvious at first to people readong translations. In ancient Greek, Virtue (Arete) translates more as cunning and physical attractiveness. That is very important to keep in mind. Characters like Odysseus were generally seen as virtuois men (see Hippias Minor).

>Some persons have one favourite, Socrates, and some another, he said.
>And who is yours? I asked: tell me that, Hippothales.
>At this he blushed; and I said to him, O Hippothales, thou son of Hieronymus! do not say that you are, or that you are not, in love; the confession is too late; for I see that you are not only in love, but are already far gone in your love. Simple and foolish as I am, the Gods have given me the power of understanding affections of this kind.
>Whereupon he blushed more and more.
>Ctesippus said: I like to see you blushing, Hippothales, and hesitating to tell Socrates the name; when, if he were with you but for a very short time, you would have plagued him to death by talking about nothing else. Indeed, Socrates, he has literally deafened us, and stopped our ears with the praises of Lysis; and if he is a little intoxicated, there is every likelihood that we may have our sleep murdered with a cry of Lysis. His performances in prose are bad enough, but nothing at all in comparison with his verse; and when he drenches us with his poems and other compositions, it is really too bad; and worse still is his manner of singing them to his love; he has a voice which is truly appalling, and we cannot help hearing him: and now having a question put to him by you, behold he is blushing.

>Will you tell me by what words or actions I may become endeared to my love?
>That is not easy to determine, I said; but if you will bring your love to me, and will let me talk with him, I may perhaps be able to show you how to converse with him, instead of singing and reciting in the fashion of which you are accused.
>There will be no difficulty in bringing him, he replied; if you will only go with Ctesippus into the Palaestra, and sit down and talk, I believe that he will come of his own accord; for he is fond of listening, Socrates. And as this is the festival of the Hermaea, the young men and boys are all together, and there is no separation between them. He will be sure to come: but if he does not, Ctesippus with whom he is familiar, and whose relation Menexenus is his great friend, shall call him.
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/lysis.html

>>16126759
>the suburbs are where you go to get away from the degeneracy of cities to raise your families
American atomisation be like "lets avoid the problem and cuck ourselves out of community life"

>>15551285
Rossellini's Socrates

In Meno, Socrates uses a slave doing math problems as proof of recollection or reincarnation. What I fail to see is how the one leads into the other. Adding four and four would be common sense that even a slave could do. It's not as if he could remember specific names or places. What was Socrates getting at here?