I’ve decided to quit putting it off and explore a little Greek philosophy. One thing I’ve already decided is I really like Socrates.
I’ve only read a few of Plato’s Dialogues, but I’m getting a sense of Socrates’ personality.
He was humble, funny and brave. I like how he stating how he doesn’t know, the way he insisted he wasn’t wise despite what the Oracle said about him.

It’s funny how time and time again, he starts out saying he doesn’t know a subject, then leads these people who claim to be experts down the primrose path, till they’re forced to reveal that they don’t know either.
He makes a good case that much of what we think we know slips away once we start to define it. You can’t have too much ego if you want to root out the ways you’re fooling yourself.
I can see why he wound up in trouble. Bruised too many puffed up egos. I find it very moving the way he refused to escape prison or knuckle under to save his own life. The way he refused to give up philosophy. He loved wisdom that much.
In your 50s is awfully late to start getting into philosophy, but I want to make sense of this thing called existence while I still have it.
One response to “Reading philosophy for fun”
[…] mentioned a while back that I’d been getting into Socrates. Obsessed is a better word, trip down the rabbit hole is fully under […]
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