Philosophy Talk. Friday 29th March. Boğaziçi Philosophy Colloquium. Ömer Aygün ‘Socrates without Plato: Evaluating the Images of Socrates in Non-Platonic Sources’

Boğaziçi Philosophy Colloquium Talk 

Friday 29th March 17:00

Ömer Aygün (Assistant Professor, Galatasaray University)

‘Socrates without Plato: Evaluating the Images of Socrates in Non-Platonic Sources’Abstract 

The main source of our idea of Socrates is Plato and his followers. Nevertheless, in the 20th century, Plato has often been accused of distorting the figure of Socrates in his works in order to make an overly sharp distinction between philosophy and sophistry, and to dissimulate his own repressive political agenda behind the more democratic and ethical figure of Socrates. The aim of this paper is to evaluate this accusation by reviewing the accounts of Socrates in non-Platonic sources, particularly in the Laks & Most 2016 Loeb edition of Early Greek Philosophy and by comparing them with the “Platonic image of Socrates”. Is this dePlatonized, so allegedly undistorted, image of Socrates philosophically reliable, or at least more reliable than the “Platonic image of Socrates”? We shall suggest that the images of Socrates in these sources do not substantially contradict the Platonic images of Socrates, and that, when they do contradict them, the non-Platonic images of Socrates mostly prove themselves to be less reliable than the Platonic ones. If our mistrust in the “Platonic image of Socrates” is unfounded, then we may question Socrates’ characterization by Laks and Most as a “sophist” as well as his removal from his pivotal position in the history of Ancient philosophy.

Location 

Boğaziçi University

South Campus 

John Freely Building 

JF 507

Bebek

Istanbul 

Security Policy 

Due to campus security policy, anyone planning to attend the talk who does not have a Boğaziçi University ID should send me their name at least 24 hours before the event, so that I can I pass it onto campus security, who will have a list of guests at the main gate. 

Please send your name to my institutional email: barry.stocker(at)Bogazici.edu.tr