I'm pretty sure I have more people who follow me on here than who knew who Socrates was when he was alive, after reviewing the actual enfranchised population of Classical Athens
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One of them finally just blurts out "Who is Socrates?!" and then the actual Socrates just stands up in the front row and silently points to himself
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That story honestly gives me far more respect for Socrates than any of Plato's writing about him Because that story, in and of itself, is far more hilariously humiliating to Socrates than any specific mockery in the play could be
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It's just bewildering how much of Western culture has been shaped by one relatively tiny span of time in one poleis - one which has managed to shape everyone's conceptions of Hellenic culture to a grossly disproportionate degree & enshrine their flash-in-the-pan as the ideal.
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Yeah - this is a really striking point. And, I mean, it's not even a particularly significant moment politically, even though it was amplified by Alexander's conquests. They weren't really connected.
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my potted take on this is that intellectual history is littered with these figures who seemed like giants to their contemporaries but left little to no impact of their own on long-term scholarship bernard williams, to take a recent example
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this sounds like i'm talking shit, but these people did contribute to intellectual history! but they mostly did it by being really good at helping other people build up their own theories, and themselves (with notably rare exceptions) wind up entirely forgotten
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