After Socrates Episode 2 - Socrates, The Monstrous
Dr. John Vervaeke
The Irony of Socrates
Socrates often speaks and presents himself ironically. He's not ironic in our modern cynical sense of irony, but he's often saying something that's opposite to what he actually holds to be the case. Just as a child you needed to internalize adults, as an adult you need to internalize a sage. Socrates's irony seems to thwart the function of the dialogues - which is to help us deeply internalize Socrates.
Welcome back to episode 2 of After Socrates. In this installment, Dr. Vervaeke continues to add insight into the Socratic Way as we go deep into dialogue and the practices of "Finding Your Root" and "The Humble Wonder Practice." Please consider joining my patreon to support our work: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke
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You are invited to join me live, online, at the next Circling & Dialogos Workshop where we discuss & practice the tools involved in both Philosophical Fellowship & Dialectic into Dialogos.
You can find more information, and register, here:
https://circlinginstitute.com/circling-dialogos/
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Thinkers Referenced:
Drew Hyland
Erich Fromm
Robert C. Fuller
Harold North Fowler
Christopher Mastropietro
Aristophanes
Iris Murdoch
John R. Wright
Francisco J. Gonzalez
Sara Ahbel-Rappe
Sean D. Kirkland
Show Notes:
[0:00] Introduction to episode
[0:23] "Socrates the Monstrous"
[1:06] Socrates described himself as atopos, which means "strange" or "out of place," not belonging to any known category. It resembles the modern word "atypical" but is deeper and more powerful.
[1:48] Metaxy: as fundamentally in between the human and the divine
[2:17] Finitude and Transcendence
[2:35] Eros
[3:26] The monster distorts the normal categories in a way that is startling, challenging and disruptive.
[4:57] Questioning
[7:12] By practicing this kind of dialogue, Socrates has come to know that he does not know.
[7:48] "One has been pretending - deeply, unconsciously, automatically, reactively - to know."
[8:25] Learned Ignorance
[12:03] Horizon of Wonder
[12:17] The psychoanalyst and social psychologist Erich Fromm successfully combined psychological and sociological thinking in a social psychological theory and method. World-wide known are his books Escape from Freedom, The Art of Loving and To Have Or to Be? and his humanistic concept of man.
[12:25] Professor Fuller's research concerns the relationship between psychology and religion as well as the study of contemporary religion in the United States
[13:00] Wisdom begins in Wonder
[13:30] Educe: to bring out, or draw forth. Closely related to the word "education."
[13:59] To be on the Horizon of Wonder is to be in a place in which you are calling yourself and your world into question. So a new self in a new world can deeply be born.
[18:48] The process of dialogos is not something we do. It is something we participate in, the way we participate in love and friendship. It is between us, and between us and the world.
[19:13] Harold North Fowler was the original translator of a number of Plato's works for the Loeb Classical Library collection.
[21:07] we seek to bind ourselves to things
[21:30] We seem by nature to be looking for things other than ourselves, to complete us. Self-transcendence; I'm looking for something that's other than me to become me so that I am more than me, but completed as me.
[30:15] The unexamined life is not worth living.
[34:49] 1) The best life is the life of virtue.
[35:33] 2) Virtue depends on knowledge.
[35:44] 3) He does not have the knowledge needed for virtue.
[36:06] Aristophanes was a famous comic playwright of ancient Athens. His play The Clouds gives a critical portrayal of Socrates as a man of nonsense and deception. Socrates addresses the slander in Plato's Apology.
[41:50] Iris Murdoch was a prominent British philosopher of the second half of the 20th century, best known for her moral philosophy. She combined her grounding in Wittgensteinian and linguistic/analytic philosophy with a strong influence of 19th and 20th century Continental philosophy, Christian religion and thought, and Hindu and Buddhist philosophy.
[45:47] Is Socrates just Plato's mouthpiece?
[59:11] Practice Intro.
[59:44] Finding Your Root.
[1:11:16] The humble wonder practice
[1:12:08] There is so much I do not know about myself because of all of the facts.
[1:12:49] There is so much I shall never know about myself because of all of the fate.
[1:13:45] There is so much I refuse to see about myself because of all of my foolishness.
[1:16:32] There is so much I am unable to see about myself because of all of my faults.
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After Socrates is a series about how to create the theory, the practice, and the ecology of practices such that we can live and grow and develop through a Socratic way of life. The core argument is; the combination of the theoretical framework and the pedagogical program of practices can properly conduct us into the Socratic way of life. We believe that the Socratic way of life is what is most needed today because it is the one that can most help us cultivate wisdom in a way that is simultaneously respectful to spiritual tradition and to current scientific work.
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