ellauri096.html on line 291: When on trial for impiety, Socrates traced his inquisitiveness to the Oracle at Delphi (Apology 21d in Cooper 1997). Prior to beginning his mission of inquiry, Chaerephon asked the Oracle: “Who is the wisest of men?” The Oracle answered “No one is wiser than Socrates.” This astounded Socrates because he believed he knew nothing. Whereas a less pious philosopher might have questioned the reliability of the Delphic Oracle, Socrates followed the general practice of treating the Oracle as infallible. The only cogitation appropriate to an infallible answer is interpretation. Accordingly, Socrates resolved his puzzlement by inferring that his wisdom lay in recognizing his own ignorance. While others may know nothing, Socrates knows that he knows nothing.
ellauri099.html on line 215: The Lyceum was clearly the intellectual projection of Macedonian political and military hegemony. In 323 B.C.E., when news of Alexander the Great’s death in Babylon at the age of 32 reached Athens, simmering anti-Macedonian sentiment spilled over, and the popular Athenian leader Demosthenes was recalled. Aristotle left the city for the last time, in fear of his life, after a little more than a decade in charge of the Lyceum. Seeing himself justly or unjustly in the mirror of Socrates and fearing charges of impiety, Aristotle reportedly said, “I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy.” Aristotle withdrew to his late mother’s estate at Chalcis on the island of Euboea and died there shortly after of an unspecified illness, at age 63.
ellauri142.html on line 609: Spencer's reputation among the Victorians owed a great deal to his agnosticism. He rejected theology as representing the 'impiety of the pious.' He was to gain much notoriety from his repudiation of traditional religion, and was frequently condemned by religious thinkers for allegedly advocating atheism and materialism. Nonetheless, unlike Thomas Henry Huxley, whose agnosticism was a militant creed directed at 'the unpardonable sin of faith' (in Adrian Desmond's phrase), Spencer insisted that he was not concerned to undermine religion in the name of science, but to bring about a reconciliation of the two. The following argument is a summary of Part 1 of his First Principles (2nd ed 1867).
xxx/ellauri166.html on line 219: “This is spoken of God,” says Dr. Dodd, “after the manner of men, to denote his utter contempt of the opposition of his enemies; the perfect ease with which he was able to disappoint all their measures, and crush them for their impiety and folly; together with his absolute security, that his counsels should stand and his measures be finally accomplished; as men laugh at, and hold in utter contempt, those whose malice and power they know to be utterly vain and impotent. The introducing God as thus laughing at, and deriding his enemies, is in the true spirit of poetry, and with the utmost propriety and dignity.
xxx/ellauri176.html on line 63: The best known event in Phryne's life is her trial. Athenaeus writes that she was prosecuted for a capital charge and defended by the orator Hypereides, who was one of her lovers. Athenaeus does not specify the nature of the charge, but Pseudo-Plutarch writes that she was accused of impiety. The speech for the prosecution was written by Anaximenes of Lampsacus according to Diodorus Periegetes. When it seemed as if the verdict would be unfavourable, Hypereides removed Phryne's robe and bared her breasts before the judges to arouse their "pity". Her beauty instilled the judges with a superstitious fear, who could not bring themselves to condemn "a prophetess and priestess of Aphrodite" to death. They decided to acquit her out of "pity". Pity ja piety on sama sana. Molemmat tulee sanasta 'pipu' (lat. penis).
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