Quote:
Originally posted by Geoff332@Sep 3 2003, 08:27 PM
Yes, everything we have from Socrates was written by Plato. We do, however, know that Socrates was a real person. Common (informed) opinion is that the early dialogues in particular were fairly accurate reports of Socrates teachings -- the later we are less clear about. The common parlance is to refer to the Socratic dialogues (which I did; except when I said that Socrates put it better) and to Socrates stories to seperate them from the works of Plato as himself -- which is very useful to highlight the rather significant differences between the two streams of thought. The analogy of Socrates to Karamazov is misleading, Karamazov was a purely fictional character; Socrates was not.
(And if you really want to be technical about it, then I would have to point out it's an allegory, not an analogy) |
I know Socrates was real, but to the best of my knowledge (an a-level in philosophy an ethics, got a B) there is nothing solid for what is Socrates own stuff within Plato's works. It is entirely possible that Plato is using him to strengthen his own works within the philisophical community.
My comparison to Karamazov is that the philosophy is only that of the character, it cannot be proved any further.
And I'm not that picky over my words when I'm ranting.