/lit/ - Literature

you assume the dust settling implies a verdict

>>23052471
The verdict is that this nigga was fictional

>>23052471
he was a retard. went around asking dumb questions and criticizing his interlocutors' dumb answers while subtly implying his own still dumber answers. you should omit Plato and everyone between him and Descartes for that matter because real philosophy starts with him

>>23052471
When I was younger, I used to be more similar to him in the fact that I asked a lot of questions, and I asked them in similar ways, hoping to really figure shit out. Turns out adults hate that, because most are retarded. As I’ve grown, I’ve become jaded. I’m now pretty conscious of the fact that most adults know very little about why they do what they do, and that change has pushed me away from my one-time similarities. I just let people think what they want. The big takeaway: nobody ever changed their mind because of a well-reasoned argument; it just makes them mad. You can either play the game or avoid it entirely. Socrates avoided it, and he wound up drinking poison in a cell with his friends who loved him. He died with his values in tact. I’ve noticed I have some similar, some different values, and I try to live by mine even when people push me on them. Might end up dying because of them someday, who knows.

My ultimate verdict on him: he was admirable, irritated most people he knew, and if you dislike him, I probably won’t get along with you very well. This is not because I try to force people to answer questions, just because I think people who don’t ask creative questions are unbearably boring.

>>23052471
Guilty.

>>23052471
perfect place to ask is a website filled with public school educated 20 year olds.

>>23052471
One of the Sophists, those 5th century thinkers that gravitated to various Greek centres, in particular Athens, and were especially interested in ethical/political questions and epistemology. Killed because he was cozy with the thirty and people associated with them.

>>23052679
People might change their minds subtly when you ask the right questions but even if this happens they are loath to acknowledge it, especially right away. To acknowledge that they've changed their mind would be basically sending a signal of mental instability on their part, which is why it's rare to get acknowledgement of having changed anyone's mind on anything. Doing so is a big risk, and that's true even if they did change their mind about something. One easier method is to guide someone into answering these questions themselves, though that approach isn't strictly necessary either. And sometimes planting a good idea will be like a seed that takes root and grows slowly, and you won't necessarily be around to see where it goes either. You plant an idea that they keep in the back of their mind, and later those people see things that verify that idea, making it become more prominent in their thought processes if they remembered it and it then reinforced that notion, even subconsciously. It doesn't happen right away.

>>23052679
>Socrates avoided it
what are you talking about, he's questioned people to the very end

>>23052471
He knew more than his contemporaries were willing to admit, and his one humble truth paved the way for philosophy as we know it. In this context, Socrates is comparable to Christ.

>>23052679
You probably annoyed people and are mistaking disdain for people loathing you because you made them change their minds

>>23052471
If you ask scary questions you get scary answers, Socrates. Now drink your hemlock.

>>23052471
Groomer. Ban this disgusting groomer’s works from schools

>>23052471
I cannot teach anyone anything. I can only make them think.

>>23052471
Guilty yet not death-guilty.

>>23052471
>Wherefore I have not thought that it stood in need of an empty hypothesis, like those subjects which are occult and dubious, in attempting to handle which it is necessary to use some hypothesis; as, for example, with regard to things above us and things below the earth; if any one should treat of these and undertake to declare how they are constituted, the reader or hearer could not find out, whether what is delivered be true or false; for there is nothing which can be referred to in order to discover the truth.

-ancient medical doctor from Cos on the “dubious” and skeptical field of philosophy

Things above and below the earth and after death are fun to speculate on but it’s not as if you can really check any of the insane things he articulated for.

>>23054204
yeah but it's okay not to lift a finger to save him, just like he didn't lift a finger to save Leon of Salamis. "I'm not gonna kill him, but you guys go ahead, I'm goin' home to drink more wine and hang out while you guys burn down the city lmao" - socrates (paraphrase)