Category: Text

Posted on

‘Plato in 90 Minutes’ by Paul Strathern, Ivan R. Dee

‘Plato in 90 Minutes’ by Paul Strathern is a good introduction to Plato’ life and his philosophy. Main content ‘Plato’s Life and Works’ is a Plato’s biography with his theory of philosophy, age and background. It describes from Plato’s early life and Socrates’ pure philosophical approach influenced on Plato. The assertion is “philosophy is not a theory but an activity.” And, Strathern comments theory of Ideas and Forms and the theory influences on Christianity and the Medieval philosophy. Then he describes Plato’s teaching at Academy, political theory of ‘The Republic’, such as concepts of justice and
philosopher-king, which lacks individual freedom and was a precedence of totalitarianism. In the end Strathern comments Theory of love in “The Symposium”.
‘Afterword’ describes some influences by Plato, especially Neoplatonism.

Strathern’s commentaries on Plato’s theory of Forms and political science are excellent and concise. On the other hand, In this book, Strathern points out Plato’s ruins and mistakes as it is. Idealism of Socrates and Plato lost and broke natural scientific viewpoints and approaches to philosophy by Pre-Socratics. And, Plato’s ‘ideal republic’ ruled by the philosopher-king or philosopher-rulers is strange and odd. In this Plato’s utopia, there’re no individual freedom, family life and personal interest. It’s a functional and mechanical state like communist communities or countries, and a root of totalitarianism.

Commentary and description of this book is essential and to the point, and well-balanced of between praise and critic, but it’s only a brief introduction to Plato and his philosophy.

Plato in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)
Paul Strathern
Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1 September 1996
89 pages $9.95
ISBN: 978-1-56663-127-3
Contents:
Introduction
Plato’s Life and Works
Afterword
From Plato’s Writings
Chronology of Significant Philosophical Dates
Chronology of Plato’ Life
Chronology of Plato’ Era
Recommended Reading
Index

Posted on

‘Socrates in 90 Minutes’ by Paul Strathern, Ivan R. Dee

‘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

Posted on

‘Hume in 90 Minutes’ by Paul Strathern, Ivan R. Dee

‘Hume in 90 Minutes’ by Paul Strathern is a simple and brief introduction to David Hume and his empiricism philosophy. Former part of ‘Hume’s Life and Works’ comments Hume’s background and his solipsistic and skeptic view to the world and beings in ‘A Treatise of Human Nature’, and hid illness and private life. Later part of it describes from his public career, ethics and affairs of England, to the ambassador in France, his relationships with and influences to Rousseau and Adam Smith, and his end of life.
In ‘Hume, His True Successors, and Modern Science’, Strathern comments Hume’s epistemological thought impacted on the hypothesis based approach by Ernst Mach and the empirical proposition by logical positivism.
Strathern comments empiricist epistemology of Hume concisely as follows.
‘In Hume’s view, experience consists of perceptions, of which there are two types. “Those perceptions which enter with most force and violence we may name impressions; and, under this name, I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning.”’
‘He explains: “Every simple idea has a simple impression, which resembles it.” But we can also form complex ideas. These are derived from impressions, by way of simple ideas, but need not necessarily conform to an impression.’

This book is useful and interesting. Because Strathern comments splendidly Hume’s epistemology, ethics and political theory influenced to and were influenced by scientific, religious and political situations in his era. And his empiricist view to the world connected to today’s our view to the world.

Hume in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)
Paul Strathern
Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 15 August 2007
96 pages $9.95
ISBN: 978-1566632409
Contents:
Introduction
Hume’s Life and Works
Afterword
Hume, His True Successors, and Modern Science
From Hume’s Writing
Chronology of Significant Philosophical Dates
Chronology of Hume’s Life
Recommended Reading
Index