Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Xenophon's Socratic Education: Reason, Religion, and the Limits of Politics

Xenophon's Socratic Education: Reason, Religion, and the Limits of Politics

Sebell, Dustin

Paperback

PhilosophyGeneral Political Science

ISBN10: 1512826847
ISBN13: 9781512826845
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: Sep 24 2024
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.75
Height: 0.52 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

A careful reading of Book IV of Xenophon's Memorabilia and a demonstration of a Socratic education

It is well known that Socrates was executed by the city of Athens for not believing in the gods and for corrupting the youth. Despite this, it is not widely known what he really thought, or taught the youth to think, about philosophy, the gods, and political affairs. Of the few authors we rely on for firsthand knowledge of Socrates--Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle--only Xenophon, the least read of the four, lays out the whole Socratic education in systematic order.

In Xenophon's Socratic Education, through a careful reading of Book IV of Xenophon's Memorabilia, Dustin Sebell shows how Socrates ascended, with his students in tow, from opinions about morality or politics and religion to knowledge of such things. Besides revealing what it was that Socrates really thought--about everything from self-knowledge to happiness, natural theology to natural law, and rhetoric to dialectic--Sebell demonstrates how Socrates taught promising youths, like Xenophon or Plato, only indirectly: by jokingly teaching unpromising youths in their presence. Sebell ultimately shows how Socrates, the founder of moral and political philosophy, sought and found an answer to the all-important question: should we take our bearings in life from human reason, or revealed religion?

1 different editions

Also available

Also in

Philosophy

View All