1. Socrates

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, Nakul introduces the historical figure of Socrates, the philosopher who lived in Athens during the second half of the fifth century BC. Despite his influence, however, Socrates never wrote anything down himself, and we rely heavily on his protege, Plato, to get an idea of what kind of person he was: Socrates features as an interlocutor in many of Plato's dialogues. In the end, Socrates' incessant questioning of his fellow Athenians - including the claim that he was the wisest of all Athenians - led to a trumped-up charge of impiety and corrupting the youth, which resulted in his conviction and execution in 399 BC.

Course

This course examines the life of Socrates, before looking at his famous philosophical method and asking, why was Socrates so interested in defining what things mean? After this, we look more closely at two early dialogues of Plato which feature Socrates as a character: Euthyphro and Meno. After introducing this dialogues, we explore an important episode in each dialogue, each of which is now considered one of the most important moments in the history of Western philosophy: Euthyphro's Dilemma and Meno's Paradox.

Lecturer

Nakul is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. In addition to Plato's Euthyphro and Meno, he also teaches Plato's Republic as well as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.