Sunday, September 26, 2010

How to ask awkward questions and annoy people




from Spiked:
Socrates’ relentless questioning of received moral wisdom and authority, his struggle to apprehend real existence in consciousness, would make him many enemies.

This argument, that all that mattered was care for one’s soul, is, she points out, possibly the one thing that the young democracy could not rightly accept. It was, in effect, a rejection of the people in the name of the individual and conscience. Only Socrates was wise - he tells us in Plato’s Apology (an account of his defence during the trial) - because he knew he was ignorant. Everyone else was simply ignorant.