What would Plato tweet? Probably less about what he had for lunch and more about justice and wisdom. Rebecca Goldstein suggests Facebook and Twitter are ways we try to show that we matter … and then suggests philosophy is a better way to matter.
Plato
More about Plato and Google
What would Plato think of TV? And now Plato is on Twitter.
Why study philosophy?
To challenge your own point of view. An interview with philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away.
Philosophy … the great conversation
Talk with me. “Western philosophy has its origins in conversation, in face-to-face discussions about reality, our place in the cosmos, and how we should live. It began with a sense of mystery, wonder, and confusion, and the powerful desire to get beyond mere appearances to find truth or, if not that, at least some kind of wisdom or balance. Socrates started the conversation about philosophical conversation. … The point of philosophy is not to have a range of facts at your disposal, though that might be useful … rather, it is to develop the skills and sensitivity to be able to argue about some of the most significant questions we can ask ourselves, questions about reality and appearance, life and death, god and society. As Plato’s Socrates tells us, ‘These are not trivial questions we are discussing here, we are discussing how to live.'”
Rationality as a kind of escapism?
Occam’s moisturiser. “Out there is the messy chaotic suffering of humanity, but the philosopher, like Plato, retreats to the safety of his academy, and polishes his concepts.”
Examined lives
What it means to lead a good life. A. C. Grayling’s review of James Miller’s Examined Lives. “His conclusion is a negative one: the combination of wisdom, self-understanding, and self-possession that Socrates’s successors took to be the gold standard for the philosophical life proved impossible for most of them to attain, and, in some cases, what they preached and what they practised fell widely apart.” Sarah Bakewell’s review in New York Times.
Socratically Speaking 