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Well, look at Socrates. Read Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. It's pretty clear that he believed his philosophy, and both lived and died by it. Although,
by sorbus 16y ago
Well, look at Socrates. Read Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. It's pretty clear that he believed his philosophy, and both lived and died by it. Although, if you insist on being doubtful, we only know about him through the dialogs which Plato recorded (or wrote), and he could have simply been used as a mouthpiece for Plato's views, though he certainly did exist in some form.
But really, if you doubt and think that the belief is hero worship, you should probably spend some time reading the wikipedia articles (or whatever else) on them, and come up with your own refutations. Figure out how their lives contradict their philosophies, and then come back and tell us.
- grandalf 16y agoThat's my point, we know so little about them that it's impossible to compare. Everyone, no matter how great/influential has a mundane, humdrum, petty aspect to his/her existence. We are just privy to the biographies of the philosophers you mention filtered through the lens of centuries of hero worship. Rand lived in the television age. When I first saw her in a video interview after reading her books I was disappointed at first glimpse. It's inevitable. Nobody can ever live up to their creative achievements.
- wazoox 16y ago> Everyone, no matter how great/influential has a mundane, humdrum, petty aspect to his/her existence. Sometimes, I think like you, and at some other times, I think this is just an easy excuse for us petty people :)
- wazoox 16y ago> Although, if you insist on being doubtful, we only know about him through the dialogs which Plato recorded... And Xenophon, too. What stroke me reading them is that though Xenophon "philosophy" is much more shallow and dull than Plato's, Socrates' character appears extremely similar and /true/ both in Plato's and Xenophon's dialogs. He sounds real.