‘Socrates in 90 Minutes’ by Paul Strathern is a good introduction to Socrates’ life his and his philosophy. This book introduces from history of Greek philosophy from Thales (the pre-Socratics), background of Socrates’ philosophy, connection with Plato and pure philosophical and antiscientific approach by Socrates differ from Pythagoras and Democritus, to Socrates’ ethics, marriage with Xanthippe, his later life, trial (described in Plato’s ‘Apology’) and death.
The important respect of this books is Strathern point out good and bad impact and influence to philosophy and the Western Civilization by Socrates.
Socrates created pure philosophical idealistic thinking and its tradition of philosophy differ from philosophy as a total science. Such as ‘Reality is an illusion.’ and ‘The world of forms is the only real world, and is universal’. And Socrates thought absolute goodnesses are valuable like ‘This world of forms has a hierarchy which rises to a peak in such universal ideas as Good, Beauty and Truth’. It’s a kind of doxa (used by Roland Barthes) of philosophy. This tradition of thinking succeeded by Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Bergson and Sartre. Thus Wittgenstein terminated the tradition.
But in good point, Socrates questioned about myself, being and knowledge itself. ‘Socrates believed that a person’s true self his soul (psyche).’, ‘He believed we should try to make our soul as good as possible, in oder to make it like God.’ and he said ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’, thus ‘Only good souls achieve happiness’. Socrates’ attitude toward philosophy was certainly psychological. (Psychology means ‘the study of mind’ in Greek.) This thinking by reason resulted in today’s (modern) humane studies, humanity and common sense.
In this book, Strathern not only introduces and admire Socrates and his philosophy, but also he points out problems of Socrates’ philosophy and way of thought and criticizes to them. ‘Human learning owes Socrates an immeasurable debt. He showed us how to use reason. But at the same time he limited our vision of where to use it. As a result, human learning was to suffer from a colossal blind spot.’
This book good brief and essential introduction to Socrates’ life and philosophy. I recommend this book to the people who wants to know about Socrates and his philosophy, and the origin of the Western philosophy.
Socrates in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)
Paul Strathern
Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1 April 1997
89 pages $9.95
ISBN: 978-1-56663-148-8
Contents:
Introduction
Socrates’ Life and Works
Afterword
Some Observations Attributed to Socrates
Chronology of Significant Philosophical Dates
Chronology of Socrates’ Life
Chronology of Socrates’ Era
Recommended Reading
Index