POLS 2900 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Socratic Dialogue, Law Abiding Citizen, Polemarchus
30 Sep 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Socrates is the central character in plato"s republic. There is no writing from him personally - we know what we know only through plato. Socrates philosophizes in the marketplace by simply walking up to people who had a reputation for wisdom, for knowing something and then he began to ask questions. Socratic dialogues - socrates would ask the wise people question and would lead them to contradict themselves. This was called the socratic eclectic - the kind of dialogue, an exchange of view, and we see it on display in this dialogue - particularly in the first book. Much of it consists of socrates speaking at length - the other people in the book ask short questions or give short responses as agreeing with what. The republic was a late dialogue - wrote it late in his life, even though it describes the early life.
