Dear Socrates

Dear Socrates

Having returned from the turn of the Fourth Century B.C. to the turn of the Twenty-First A.D., Socrates has eagerly signed on as a Philosophy Now columnist so that he may continue to carry out his divinely-inspired dialogic mission.

Dear Socrates,

You are always talking about dialectic as the path to wisdom. This method is logical and verbal, but it never gets you anywhere. Your rational dialogues with the eminent personages of Athens end up in a tangle. Yet, if Plato’s writings are to be believed, you were also somewhat of a mystic. For instance, you spoke of the blinding light outside the cave, and you rhapsodized about the vision of love, and you considered only the Forms to be real.

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