Platonic Dialogue | Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History

Anders Nygren, On Christian Agape-Love and Eros-Love in Gospels and Pauline Epistles

03/20/2024 Bruce Strom 2

Anders Nygren emphasizes that “Old Testament piety with its devotion to the Law was by no means the external legalism it is often assumed to have been. There was an inward bond that held the godly man to the Law. The righteous felt no sense of external compulsion when confronted by the Law, but a sense of inner solidarity with it. Its observance gave him value and made him acceptable to God. His prevailing mood was expressed in Psalm 1,” the Psalm that sings of Law as Gospel. […]

Summary Platonic Dialogues on Love and Friendship

Summary of Platonic Dialogues on Love, With Commentary by Copleston and Anders Nygren

11/24/2023 Bruce Strom 2

How can we benefit by reflecting on Four Platonic Dialogues on Love: Lysis, Alcibiades, Symposium, and Phaedrus? How similar are they? Was it possible for men and women, and husbands and wives, to be friends in ancient Greece and Rome? Did the Platonic dialogues on love condone or encourage homosexuality […]

Platonic Dialogue: Protagoras and Socrates Debate: Can Virtue Be Taught?

09/29/2023 Bruce Strom 0

Socrates wants his students to think for themselves, so we cannot assume that Socrates really believes that virtue cannot be taught. After all, at the end of the dialogue, Socrates asserts that true knowledge leads to virtue. Perhaps he seeks to dissuade the youths in Athens from studying under the Sophists, who claim to be able to teach anything, for a fee, a generous fee, of course.
What example comes to mind if we assert that virtue can be taught? We need to go no further than the Book of Judges, which is filled with horrible stories that atheists love to parade as proof that God is not a loving god. We must keep in mind the constant theme of the Book of Judges: Everyone in Israel did what was right IN HIS OWN EYES. Which is the slogan of the Sophists. […]

The Sophist Protagoras in Plato’s Dialogues, His Biography and Fragments of His Works

09/27/2023 Bruce Strom 1

Protagoras begins one of his works with “Man is the measure of all things, of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.”
The ancient author Sextus Empiricus also quotes this fragment, continuing the quote from Protagoras: “And for this reason he posits only what appears to the individual, thus introducing relativity.” “What Protagoras states then is this–that matter is in flux,” “and the senses are transformed and altered according to the times of life and to all other conditions of the bodies.” […]

Platonic Dialogue Alcibiades 1, On Friendship, Leadership, and Love

07/14/2023 Bruce Strom 1

In antiquity through the Renaissance, Alcibiades I was a highly regarded Platonic dialogue, and was often the first dialogue serious students of philosophy studied. However, many modern scholars deprecate this dialogue, arguing that it was not written by Plato. We demur, we tend to side with the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance scholars in such judgments, who tend to be inclusive, whereas modern scholars tend to be exclusive, demanding absolute certainty of proof. Our translator agrees with us, he says that the German scholar Schleiermacher first doubted its authenticity based on scholarly taste and a superficial reading. IMHO, although it does appear to differ from his other earlier dialogues, Alcibiades I was likely either written by Plato, or maybe by one of his brightest students, with his input. […]

Lysis, Platonic Dialogue on Love and Friendship, Where Old Men Ogle Boys at the Gymnasium

07/12/2023 Bruce Strom 2

SOCRATES asks whether “only good men can be friends with one another? Can true friendship exist between a bad man and either a good man or another bad man?” (214d) The response of St John of the Cross would likely be that friendship with a bad man will draw you further away from the Love of God, poisoning your soul, leading you away from salvation. Friendship with a good man leads you to love and compassion, friendship with a bad men leads you to hatred and cruelty. […]

Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Moral Sayings of Cyrus the Great, King of Persia

06/30/2023 Bruce Strom 5

Was Xenophon’s Cyrus the source of Benjamin Franklin’s response to the question of what sort of government the delegates of the Constitutional Convention had created: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Xenophon’s Cyrus the Great observes, “It is a great work to found an empire, but a far greater work to keep it. To seize it may the fruit of daring and daring only, but to hold it is impossible without self-restraint and self-command and endless care.” […]

Plato’s Dialogue of Phaedrus on Divine Love and the Heavenly Chariot, Part 2

03/24/2023 Bruce Strom 5

In his memorable metaphor for the nature of the soul, Socrates describes “a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed; the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him.” […]

Plato’s Dialogue of Phaedrus on Carnal Love and Rhetoric, Part 1

03/22/2023 Bruce Strom 4

Although Socrates does not condemn homosexual love in either dialogue, he is also depicted as being above carnal love, only capable of a philosophical divine love that is only concerned with the goodness of the soul. In the Symposium, the rowdy Alcibiades crashes the dinner party quite drunk, proclaiming how though he and Socrates were the best of friends, even saving his life in the thick of battle, in the end Socrates refused to become his lover. […]

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