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Dear Socrates
Dear Socrates
Having traveled from the turn of the Fourth Century B.C. to the turn of the Twenty-First Century 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,
I know that your ‘dialogic mission’ was to learn the nature of wisdom by having discussions with prominent Athenian citizens. But I wonder … have you ever learned anything of value by speaking with just plain folk?
Yours truly,
Hoi Polloi
Dear Hoi,
Indeed I have. In fact much more so than from the ‘experts,’ who, you may recall, consistently disappointed me, at least whenever they attempted to expound upon matters outside their area of professional competency, which was almost always! But I am continually enlightened by encounters with ordinary people, whose wisdom far exceeds my own. Many of them are not desperately seeking wisdom, as I am, since they already possess it. Hence they are able to go about useful work, while I continue to make my infinite preparations, as it were.
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