ellauri052.html on line 224: In the naked bed, in Plato’s cave,
ellauri079.html on line 243: This book aims to recast the way we think about ethics by defending an alternative to more conventional approaches and illustrating its plausibility through detailed discussions of several important cases. The book is styled as an attack on “Plato’s Thesis”.
ellauri096.html on line 120: Probabilistic skepticism dates back to Arcesilaus who took over the Academy two generations after Plato’s death. This moderate kind of skepticism, recounted by Cicero (Academica 2.74, 1.46) from his days as a student at the Academy, allows for justified belief. Many scientists are attracted to probabilism and dismiss the epistemologist’s preoccupation with knowledge as old-fashioned.
ellauri099.html on line 172: We are less attracted to the idea of the wealthy aristocratic philosopher sequestered in his research facility and making occasional overseas trips to visit foreign tyrants than the image of the poor, shoeless Socrates causing trouble in the marketplace, refusing to be paid and getting killed by the city for his trouble. But our captivation with this image, once again, is overwhelmingly fatass Plato’s clever branding.
ellauri099.html on line 192: We do know that after having served as Lector in the Academy and being described as its “Mind” by Plato, Aristotle was not chosen as the latter’s successor. The job of scholarch, or head of the school, by sheer happenstance, went to Speusippus, Plato’s nephew. Aristotle left Athens shortly after Plato’s death and stayed away for around 12 years. Was he angry or disappointed not to have been chosen as head of the Academy? By being ordered round by big butthead´s nephew, who was an even bigger butthead?
ellauri099.html on line 205: Two things hit you when you visit the site of the Lyceum and look at its architectural plans. First, it is a direct copy of Plato’s Academy. And second, it is much, much bigger. The relation between the Academy and the Lyceum is a little like that between a twee medieval Cambridge College and the monumental architecture of the University of Chicago.
ellauri099.html on line 207: The reason Aristotle was able to do this was simple: money. If Plato was rich, then Aristotle was wealthier than Croesus, right up there with the Jeff Bezos-es of his day. He received the sum of 800 talents from his presumably grateful former student, Alexander, which was an enormous amount of money. (Consider that the Plato’s Academy cost about 25-30 talents.)
ellauri099.html on line 219: In the northeast corner of the Lyceum, there was a garden, which possibly led to the peripatos, or shaded walk from which the promenading Peripatetic school derived its name. Indeed, there were gardens in all the earlier philosophical schools, in the schools of Miletus on the present-day Turkish coast, and allegedly in the Pythagorean schools in southern Italy. Plato’s Academy also had a garden. And later, the school of Epicurus was simply called “The Garden.” Theophrastus, a keen botanist like Aristotle who did so much to organize the library and build up its scientific side (with maps, globes, specimens and such like), eventually retired to his garden, which was close by.
xxx/ellauri122.html on line 794: Brod’s memoirs spoke about Kafka’s gentle serenity, describing their relationship almost as if they were lovers. He also recalled the mystical experience of both men reading Plato’s Protagoras in Greek, and Flaubert’s Sentimental Education in French, like a collision of souls. While there is no evidence of any homosexual feeling between Kafka and Brod, their intimate relationship appeared to go beyond typical camaraderie from two straight men of their era.
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