Esoteric Roman v. Greek Ranting (was Philosophers)

[Ironhawk]

Has anyone else noticed that Philosophers are not effected by Drain scale? I was playing around with some game settings and just happened to pick EA Arco. Recruited some philosophers and noticed that they had a full 5rp even in the drain-3 dominion of my cap. Moved one out to a province where I had 0-drain and he still had 5rp.

[Rytek]

They are affected by drain. You must of had sloth in the province which gives bonus that was off setting your drain.

[Ironhawk]

Uhhh... what? Sloth has no effect on magic scale. Unless there is some wierd bug I have never heard of.

I'm quite certain that Philosophers were immune to Drain. All my other mages had 1-3rps because they were losing it all to drain. But my Philosophers had their regular 5rp. I have a feeling it has to do with the fact that Philosophers have RP but no magic paths. Perhaps you must have a magic path in order for Drain to effect you?

[BigDisAwesome]

Yeah Philosophers get the sloth bonus added to their RP. So if you take sloth 3 and magic 3, they have a RP of 10. Not bad for 50 gold.

[atul]

Philosophers get one additional RP per sloth scale. For example, magic-3 sloth-2 philosophers have whopping 9 RPs. Which is a lot for 50 gp unit. Don't know what (if anything) you could pull off with them, but there's gotta be something weird.

Edit: Ninja'ed by awesomeness. Could be worse.

[thejeff]

It is a peculiarity of Philosophers that they get a research bonus in a sloth dominion.

I guess if they don't have to work, they've got more time to loll around on couches eating grapes and having insights into the nature of the universe.

[Meglobob]

Read the nation description for EA Arco. I think they have a unit that gets a bonus from sloth and ignores the effects of drain scale.

[Nix]

thejeff said:
It is a peculiarity of Philosophers that they get a research bonus in a sloth dominion.

I guess if they don't have to work, they've got more time to loll around on couches eating grapes and having insights into the nature of the universe.



You call Blade Wind "insights into the nature of the universe"? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[thejeff]

Of course not, Blade Wind is merely a mildly interesting side effect of a more fundamental aspect of the nature of Earth that happened to get mentioned to a more practical Mystic.
Hardly worth wasting your time thinking about. You'll progress much faster if you stop being distracted by all these flashy effects.

[Ironhawk]

Well well! Learn something new every day. I'm surprised that my philosopher still had 5rp when I moved him out into other provinces, but of course I wasnt even bothered to look at sloth scales. Wierd!

[noname]

I imagine the sloth scale has to do with the state of society in general. The greatest philosophers of Classical Greece were not lazy. If anything, the philosophers worked harder as the rest of society became lazy around them. Socrates was a hard-working stone mason who fought for Athens in the Peloponnesian War, and acted as the "gadfly" for them. He also was a very poor man and could not have just "sat around eating grapes." Plato was a teacher who left Athens after his teacher, Socrates, was executed, and he founded the Academy. As for Aristotle; he went on to found or develop so many things (everything from zoology to botany to literary criticism to founding the Lyceum), that there's no way he could be called lazy.

Of course, those philosophers were Socratic and afterwards. The philosophers described in the game appear to be presocratic, in spite of the presence of the academy. Socrates said that the best subject of philosophy was that of the human being, not the nature of the universe. I suppose that some of those Sophists could have been lazy... To complete my argument, I leave you with an anti-laziness quote from Aristocles (Plato's real name):


"Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness."-- Plato

P.S. Has anyone ever considered making a philosopher-hero in a patch. Maybe he could be the greatest researcher who ever lived?

[DrPraetorious]

I made an undead philosopher hero for MA Arco.

He put up 16RP before bonuses for sloth, I think.

He was a philospher who was cursed with undeath for pondering things that the previous pantokrator thought should be forbidden. I kept changing my mind about giving him magic.

[BigDisAwesome]

I'm glad you reminded me of this Ironhawk. This makes me wanna play around with EA Arco. 10 RP for 50 gold!!!!!

[Mind Elemental]

On the other hand, sloth will cut down on your recruitment of myrmidons. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I guess you could still use chariots, if you had an order scale.

[Sombre]

I think sloth scale just points to a lack of backbreaking mind numbing labour. Philosophers are more numerous and free to pursue their thoughts when there isn't a constant need to labour and put their minds/resources to physical production.

[thejeff]

I've never quite figured out how to use philosophers. They're great researchers, sure, but they're capital only. For a long way into the game I want potentially useful mages, not just researchers. Especially since I'm trying to get the good combinations of randoms.

I guess the strategy is to get other castles up early to recruit mages and concentrate on philosophers at home?

[noname]

Perhaps... anyway, the whole sloth thing is probably reflective of some Western European attitude towards work, one that is unseen in the United States of America, where I live. Our political philosophers generally worked hard, even if some of the earlier ones were slave owners in the late 1700's (Benjamin Franklin was a scientist, Jefferson was the founder of the University of Virginia and third president, plus the writer of much of the constitution, etc.) Anyway, as I said before, Socrates was a stone mason, so it's hard to see how the philosophers themselves could be lazy, unless you are talking about the Sophists, who charged exorbitant fees for lessons on how to manipulate others using false logic and verbal trickery.

[Meglobob]

All my best ideas come well lazing around with nothing to do and all my worst well under stress and pressure.

So does that mean I should have been a philsopher?

[Halancar]

noname said:
Perhaps... anyway, the whole sloth thing is probably reflective of some Western European attitude towards work, one that is unseen in the United States of America, where I live. Our political philosophers generally worked hard, even if some of the earlier ones were slave owners in the late 1700's (Benjamin Franklin was a scientist, Jefferson was the founder of the University of Virginia and third president, plus the writer of much of the constitution, etc.) Anyway, as I said before, Socrates was a stone mason, so it's hard to see how the philosophers themselves could be lazy, unless you are talking about the Sophists, who charged exorbitant fees for lessons on how to manipulate others using false logic and verbal trickery.



I think it must go back to that old Greece vs Rome thing. While the Greeks were busy thinking deep thoughts, pondering the secret of the universe and the meaning of beauty, the romans came along and conquered them.

An exageration perhaps, but there is no doubt that the Romans as a nation had a far more practical (and therefore productive) turn of mind that the Greeks. And conquered them. Which is just what might happen to a sloth-3 arcoscephale, particularly if it's full of philosophers but no real mages, if a production-3 ermor is next door http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Now if you really want a "slothful" philosopher, go look at the stereotype of the Eastern Asia guru, living as a hermit in some mountain cave, disdaining mortal possessions and unravelling the mysteries of the univers.

[SelfishGene]

Ack you guys are overthinking things!
It even explains the logic in the nation's flavor text. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Think of EA Arco closer to Sparta/Athens combined.

[Ironhawk]

Hey, speaking of EA arco: what do you all know about Seduction?

I started messing around with it using the EA Arco top mage - the Oriead or something? And I'm finding it very strange that she is able to seduce undead commanders??

[Kristoffer O]

She is?

Who said undead have no feelings http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Ironhawk]

Yeah. I've got three living and three undead commanders seduced so far.

[Baalz]

I'm sure there's a pun about a boner in there somewhere...

[noname]

Romans? Practical? Maybe at first, during the Republic of Rome, but under the Empire, they degenerated into an orgy of "bread and circuses", used slave labor on a scale which made the Greek notion of slavery seem minuscule, and depended on tribute from foreign lands to keep their economy afloat. That said, they did manage to build aquaducts, roads, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, huge forums, and control a land area that stretched from England to the Middle East. The Greeks, by comparison, managed to build five of the seven wonders of the world (one of those five was in Alexandria, to be fair), constructed the Parthenon and Delphic Oracle, and continued on AFTER Rome had fallen as the Byzantine Empire (Pythium in this game), and the capital was shifted to Constantinople, which was originally a Greek city named Byzantium. And Greece is still a country today. The Romans only managed to conquer the Greeks because the Greeks were disunited and lived in a small, rocky country with little fertile land. As it was, even under the Empire, Greece continued to be vitally important, and possessed many of the Empire's largest cities, as well as exports of enslaved teachers.

The Romans possessed a greater ability to unite themselves. This is how they were able to build a large Empire, rather than live in a bunch of disunited but talented city-states.
This has to do with geography; Greece's mountains make it hard to conquer and hold large areas, and even small cities could defend themselves up on a tall hill behind walls. When Rome came in, Greece was unable to pull together, and thus fell, but the Greeks had the last laugh in the long run...

P.S. I'll stop this line of historical content now.

[SelfishGene]

Heh.

You vastly underestimate the construction prowess of the Romans - they were civic engineers on a scale the Greeks could only dream of.

And the Greeks were never able to set aside their love of fratricadal or civic conflicts even in the face of a conquering enemy, and it's no coincidence the "great" Byzantine military Emperors were not Greeks but Anatolians and Armenians. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.

[noname]

I thought I said this was done with... anyway, the Romans had a larger amount of land under control under one political order than any Greek or Macedonian ever did (with the exception of Alexander the Great.) That's how they were able to build such monumental roads and aquaducts. Most Byzantine Emperors were indeed Greek, and even the ones who weren't were under the influence of Greek culture. Oh, and the Greeks did set aside their differences when faced with the Persian threat under Xerxes (31 Greek city-states and regions fought together against the Persians, even though the Persians did have some small number of traitorous Greeks to assist them.)

P.S. Are we done yet??

[Tichy]

noname: I don't know about the Roman v. Greek debate, but I do know that you're accepting Plato's account of the Sophists as gospel. Socrates is a complicated figure: Able warrior, stonemason, but also client of the moneyed, landowning (anti-democratic, pro-spartan) class of which Plato was a member, that possibly subsidized his langourous gadflying about the city and invited him to exclusive parties like the one fictionally depicted in the Symposium.

One problem is that 'philosopher' in ancient greece meant different things at different times (and to different people with different political interests). Think of Diogenes living in his tub, "no dogs or philosophers allowed," etc. To many it was synonymous with penniless bum, or skygazing goofball, such as Aristophanes' depiction of Socrates in The Clouds. The pro-philosophy anti-sophist side had their idealized image of the philosopher and jaundiced image of the sophist, and vice-versa. But even Plato recognizes that sophists like Gorgias teach a particular skill -- persuasive public speaking -- and only gives them the caricature treatment when they claim to teach "wisdom" that's more than a useful skill.

[noname]

Pro-Spartan? Socrates fought the Spartans at Delium and Amphipolis and opposed the thirty tyrants which were pro-spartan. When Socrates was sent to get Leon of Salamis by the tyrants, he simply went home. This behavior does not look like that of a pro-spartan individual. As for public speaking, Plato said that philosophy was the only suitable rhetoric. As for the true image of Socrates... well, he left no writings, but both Plato and Xenophon seem to agree that Socrates was no enemy of democracy.

Socrates was even a part of a citizen's council which had to try some generals for failing to collect the bodies of the dead after battle, and the rest of the council wanted to try them as a single unit, rather than as individuals (the laws of Athens stated that each person must be tried individually .) Socrates was the only one who wanted to obey the democratic laws, even if it meant that he would be unpopular as a result. I find it hard to believe that Socrates and/or Plato were truly anti-democratic. Just look at some of these quotes:

"Because of the liberty which reigns there, they have a complete assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made his choice, he may found his State." -- The Republic

"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -- Plato

P.S. These forums are supposed to be about the game, not philosophy or history. While this conversation is all and good, it would be best if we could stick to the topic. I know this sounds odd, but it would be best if we let this tangent die off with this post.

[Tichy]

I didn't say that Socrates himself was pro-spartan or anti-democratic. He is presented in all of Plato's dialogues as acting on principles of justice that rise above any particular political interest. It's just that those who championed *him* had political interests, arguably pro-spartan. Members of Plato's family who are treated very gently in the dialogues (Charmides, Critias) were in the "thirty tyrants".

You're using Plato's Apology as your primary source for an account of Socrates' beliefs and actions here, and I'm arguing that Plato has his own motivations for using Socrates, with his reputation for sincerity and principled conduct, as his mouthpiece. It's rhetorically smart to claim that people with a reputation for rising above particular interests happen to agree with your particular interests. The Apology is likely closer to Socrates' own views than anything else in Plato's oeuvre, but it's still Plato's words.

Aside from this, it's obvious that Plato is no friend of democracy -- at least as practiced in Athens in his time. Read the rest of the Republic: Democracy is the second-worst kind of government, second only to tyranny. And look more closely at your long quote: We go to a democracy as to a bazaar, but then once we discover the best kind of state, we found it and run it. The ideal state Plato describes in the Republic is not democratic in the least, nor is the state he describes in the Laws. We should be ruled by those who know the Good, not by those who know how to persuade a crowd that will then go vote (hence the anti-sophist stance).

Now we could get into a discussion of just what Plato means by "democracy" and the form it took in Athens but that would be extending this thread even further in an un-game-like direction, wouldn't it? And since I like getting the last word, too, I'll also say we should really get back to talking about EA Arco.

So sorry for the continued thread derailment by a cranky philosopher. RRrrrt!CRASH.

[Rytek]

philosophers are nice to use in the early game when you are short on money. Once money is plentiful you will always want to buy an oried instead.

[noname]

"sigh." People who read Plato often have polarized views on the matter. Some people who read his work are convinced that his ideas have led to the democratic republics the free world has today, while others (i.e. Karl Popper), think that his ideas have led to tyranny. Of course, the states describes in his works were probably not actually endorsed by Plato, but were merely used as ideas to get the reader to think for himself about politics. Furthermore, there are multiple states described in the republic, some of which are better than others. Democracy is shown to be happy for a time, but is place just above the state of tyranny because it has the capacity to turn into one (like the Weimar Republic turning into the Third Reich.) Also, Plato was invited to join the thirty tyrants, but refused. Here is an excerpt from his seventh letter about democracy and what the thirty tyrants did:

"And seeing, as I did, that in quite a short time they made the former government[democratic state] seem by comparison something precious as gold-for among other things they tried to send a friend of mine, the aged Socrates, whom I should scarcely scruple to describe as the most upright man of that day, with some other persons to carry off one of the citizens by force to execution, in order that, whether he wished it, or not, he might share the guilt of their conduct; but he would not obey them, risking all consequences in preference to becoming a partner in their iniquitous deeds-seeing all these things and others of the same kind on a considerable scale, I disapproved of their proceedings, and withdrew from any connection with the abuses of the time." -- Plato, the seventh letter.


P.S. Are orieds better at research, though? And aren't they meant for combat purposes more than they are for research?

[thejeff]

Oriads (sp?) may be better for combat than research, but they also open up magic paths (or levels) not available in non-capital mages, including randoms I believe. And can forge or cast rituals when needed and research when not.

Even for combat you're going to want a bunch of them in the long run.

That's my problem with philosophers. They're one trick ponies. Cheap researchers, but that's all. They can't site search, summon, forge, go into combat. If you concentrate on philosophers, you'll have good research, but you won't have built up a pool of mages to draw from as magic becomes more powerful.

And, one for one, I believe Oriads are better at research. Not more cost-effective, but more rp each. So philosophers aren't even good at research, they're just cheap. I buy them when I'm low on cash, but that's about it.

[Tichy]

(Warning: more babbling about Plato, scroll down for Arco!)

-=-

Please stop sighing. I'm trying to talk about a fascinating and complex individual and you're going back to the sanitized heroic Plato from a thousand Phil 101 classes and then claiming that I'm giving the Popper Plato what leads to tyrants.

I said nothing about what Plato has "led to." It seems obvious that his ideas can be mined by democrats (e.g. his arguments against democracy likely influenced - by way of Rousseau - the arguments against the tyranny of the majority in the Federalist papers) as well as would-be dictators (oddly enough, again by way of Rousseau). What Plato himself was after is a separate issue entirely, and has to be understood not only by his own words, but in terms of the interests and the political players of the day, and the crises and recriminations associated with the end of the Peloponnesian war. Like any player in the polis Plato wants to claim the high ground here, as do his opponents, so we can't read any of their writing uncritically.

You're right that the Republic can be interpreted as an ethical analogy. When one does parts of it are second only the Nichomachean Ethics as the foundations of the whole discipline. The Laws, on the other hand, is pretty straightforwardly an account of the founding principles of a state; the Athenian Stranger repeatedly argues that civic life should be directed by those who know the Good, and not just whoever shows up to vote. Is that pipe-dreamy, dictatorial, or a recognition that the state needs a way to avoid tyrannical majorities? Open to debate, but not in a games-forum...though I have a feeling that our presiding educator-gamemaker doesn't mind that his game attracts debates like this.

(Ok, I'm really done now...unless there's more sighing.)

--=--

As for Arco:

Orieads are sneaky, versatile, seductive but fragile. With the sloth scale philosophers come out of the box with rp9, more than Oreiads, but Oreiads come with a lot more. (A possibility, however remote, for A4 or N4 out of the box...and awe, recuperation, sacred...)

I tested EA Arco with sloth in an SP game on impossible. It's not pretty. It may be different in MP or in a no-independents SP game, because vanilla impossible is all about dealing with massive amounts of chaff *now*. But I'd much rather have more strong troops for expansion and defense early and mystics researching until I can afford multiple Oreiads, than slightly faster research.

[Cor2]

I feel like i just had a History of Philosophy class. Can I get credit for reading this?

[llamabeast]

To be fair I really quite enjoyed reading all this. It's great the variety of backgrounds you get in this forum.

[Cor2]

thejeff said:

And, one for one, I believe Oriads are better at research. Not more cost-effective, but more rp each. So philosophers aren't even good at research, they're just cheap. I buy them when I'm low on cash, but that's about it.




Without checking, I dont think that is true, if you have taken sloth 3.

My problem with them is that they have old age, otherwise I swear by them. in the Clash mp game I had no fewer than 15 at a time. Needless to say I was light years ahead of the compitition in research

[noname]

I don't have much more to say, except that, in the Laws, Socrates doesn't appear. This is important to note because Socrates was used as Plato's mouthpiece in so many of his dialogues. This means that he has no character which expounds his viewpoints in this dialogue. Personally, I've always thought that the Laws were a dialogue on what law was, what the role of intellect was in making laws, the natural laws, and the connection between philosophy and politics. Although a Cretan city is mentioned, the book was probably not intended to be a literal, step-by-step guide for making a city.

[tibbs]

I always use Oreiads for home province research. If your capital is sieged you have good casters for defense and you can also use their lure ability to convert/kill enemy generals.

[Tichy]

I'll accept that in part; the Laws are a very late work, and since at least the middle period of the Republic "Socrates" was at an almost explicitly critical distance from Socrates. My take is that in the Laws Plato finally abandons the ironic use of "Socrates" to offer his own view more directly. (Plato is the Athenian stranger, much as he was when he went to Sicily to try his own hand at statecraft...) A lot of what you say about the Laws seems right -- it's not a how-to manual for statecraft -- but it still seems that an aristocracy (in the meritocratic sense of rule by those whose intellects are capable, disciplined, and trained in philosophy) is supposed to be empowered to make and enforce the laws meditated upon in the dialogue.

My interest in all of this has been to avoid both the one-sided hero Plato and the villainous anti-open-society Plato, because both make him less interesting than he is. I got a bit rankled when you claimed me for a Popperite. And then the thread derailment began in earnest.

[Tichy]

And a game question: how successful are Oreiads at seduction? As good/better/worse than Succubi?

[noname]

I never meant to call you a Popperite. I apologize if I came across that way.

[Jazzepi]

What's a Popperite?

Jazzepi

[noname]

A Popperite a follower of Karl Popper, a writer who blasted Plato in his book "The Open Society and its Enemies", calling Plato a proponent of tyranny in spite of the fact that Plato considered tyranny to be the worst form of government. Of course, Popper's work is rather limited to science and his political philosophy is rather limited due to his distrust of historicism. Of course, Popper saw himself as a liberal, and yet his ideas on society were, if anything, degenerate and possibly Marxist.

[johan osterman]

Noname: Just curious, are you an objectivist noname?

[Tichy]

I can't envision a possible world in which Popper is a Marxist, the attack on historicism seems to preculde it. But I don't have any particular rancor about Popper's politics, and I haven't studied them carefully. I've always thought of him as a garden variety liberal. I just think his interpretation of Plato is one-sided.

Popper's best known as a philosopher of science. He coined the idea of 'falsification': that a scientific theory can only be legitimate if it is possible to be falsified (i.e. that it's possible for there to be concrete evidence *against* it).

In terms of his relation to Plato I've always thought of him as the opposite of Leo Strauss. Both point to the manipulative or elitist features of Plato's politics (rule by the 'best', the legitimacy of 'noble lies' told to the people by the leaders if they move society towards the Good, etc.) Strauss lauds these things in a roundabout way: he's a subtle (or subtilizing) reader, and doesn't treat the Republic as a blueprint for a state, but a meditation on politics more generally. Popper straightforwardly attacks them as the seeds of tyranny. I'm not a fan of either of them as readers of Plato.

[noname]

Plato once said that lies infected the soul with evil, and he didn't support the noble lies, as that kind of state was rejected as insufficient (to be fair, Plato rejected all existing states as insufficient.) Also, rule by the best doesn't mean rule by a few or by the rich; it means that those who can comprehend reality and morality best ought to be able to rule. Of course, a few people DO rule modern countries (a few hundred legislatures plus an executive and a supreme/constitutional court rule of states with many millions or even over a billion), and those people tend to be rich. So what I'm saying is, when people criticize Plato, they are really criticizing the world in which we live today, as Plato's philosophy and its ideals (republican government, rule of law, the social contract, etc) have defined the political landscape.

P.S. I called Popper a Marxist because, like Marx, he seems to be upset at the existence of a social contract, or that a state can be guided by an agreement between the government and its people, rather than a monolithic set of ideals as expounded by a single, all-powerful political party. Of course, a single party isn't 100% necessary for Popper, so how Marxist he is is indeed in question, to be fair.

[Tichy]

Right: an earlier version of my post specified how Plato thought of the "best" but I yanked it to not go on too long. Best = morally and intellectually disciplined, motivated by the Good, undesirous of wealth and physical pleasure, and uncorruptible. Oh, and, to *not* want political power.

But Plato is maddeningly ambiguous about lying; in general he comes out utterly opposed to it, but then seems completely willing to have leaders tell followers things that aren't true as long as belief in those things will lead the people towards what is truly good.

If someone criticizes elitist or undemocratic elements in Plato's politics, they're not critiquing present-day political ideals -- according to you, they're just misreading Plato. That's been the nature of our debate. I think it's misreading Plato to take him as straightforwardly advocating modern democratic political ideals. There are things in his dialogues that strongly influence those ideals, but he also says things that seem to advocate top-down, undemocratic governance -- and have influenced thinkers who favor those types of governance.

If what you say is true about Popper, he shares one feature of Marx's view, but not the essential stuff about alienated labor, class conflict, and revolution. And to be fair, Marx considered the one-party 'dictatorship of the proletariat' to be a temporary waypoint on the road to freedom...it's just that no existing or extinct communist state ever seemed to get past it.

Going on too long my specialty...

[noname]

Not to mention that just about every communist state killed millions in purges, gulags, and artificially induced famines.
It's funny that we should be debating this... your location reads Moscow, but it isn't Russia; it's Idaho. Are you at the university there, Tichy?

[Tichy]

Yessir.

[Tichy]

And it's also funny we've gone full circle, from is Plato a "Platonist"? to is Marx a "Marxist"? (Or at least is Marx responsible for Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot? He certainly wouldn't have been happy to find out about them...)

[HoneyBadger]

If this quite fascinating debate ever does get thrown off this thread for being off-topic, you're more than welcome to move it over to my history of the multiverse thread.

My opinion on Socrates is that he simply envisioned the "best" government being one in which he would have a place he would most enjoy.

He was a teacher of morality. One either becomes a teacher of morality by believing that "God" has made you "right"-which was clearly not the case with Socrates, and has it's own set of problems attached to it, or you do by being driven to it by your consciousness because you're able to see the evil around you, compare it to the evil inside yourself, and come to a conclusion that, through reason, and reasonable men, there's got to be a better way.

He didn't want to lead society as a leader, he just wanted to teach the leaders of the society, and turn them into men "who know the good" so they could go forth and lead society in good directions, and make his own life less complicated in the process.

This national vision gave him a place of value and respect in a society where he'd be able to live a life he'd enjoy living, while at the same time, separating him from those aspects of leadership he found undesireable-namely, absolving him from taking the head spot and all the headaches, etc. that would go along with it.

Democracy was a path to the position he desired in the society-as opposed to strictly an end result-because, as a poor mason/soldier/laborer/whatever, he was limited by his position in an arbitrarily classed society, but less so if he were able to drive the vehicle of an established democracy-wherein, we must remember, military service was required-and which he already had done his time.

Socrates was building a nation around himself, to fit himself, in my opinion, thus invoking the old maxim that "everybody wants to rule the world."

(Keeping in mind that he just wanted to rule it in a more abstract way, as part of a greater, and less fallable, governing machine.)

He wanted what he wasn't ever really able to obtain-a comfortable life of less stress and more respect where he could just exist, occasionally advise, and seek happiness, rather than having to fight for ideals he was driven to fight for by both his intellect and reasonability, and his consciousness as a "man who knew the good".

Plato, in the end, was smart enough and perhaps disillusioned enough by the death-and manner of death-of Socrates to understand that, despite all of Socrates' hopes for himself and everyone, and for all his upstanding character and ideals, ultimately the world would not allow such a society to exist within Socrates' lifetime, if ever, thus we come to Plato's concept of a "Utopia".

[Tichy]

I think a lot of that is right, HoneyBadger, but what it leaves out is the dirty Athenian politics on both sides and the crisis facing Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War -- and the role of Socrates being supposedly the teacher of Athens' greatest traitor, Alcibiades.

To oversimplify, there were two factions in Athens, the oligarchs and the democrats. From all appearances there are both honest men and hypocritical political gamers on both sides. The oligarchs perceive or present themselves as opposed to a democracy gone corrupt in terms like Plato's "Socrates" diagnoses sophistry. The best analogy he gives in the Republic is something like: "Athens is like a ship that has two kinds of people on it, people who know how to steer the ship and want to steer it well, and people who know how to personally profit by convincing people they know how to steer the ship. Guess who's steering the ship?"

But the democrats perceive themselves as opposing first of all turning Athens into a Spartan client-state -- the oligarchs came to admire the Spartan manner of government, hence Plato's claim in Republic that the second *best* style of government is rule by militarily-disciplined "guardians." Secondly they perceived themselves as opposing rule by a wealthy elite, which is what most of the oligarchic supporters were.

Alcibiades expertly played these two factions off of one another -- for a while -- first being one of Athens' greatest generals, then, either perceiving defeat looming, or more profit elsewhere, collaborated with the Spartans and corresponding with oligarchic elements in Athens. Later on, after he ticks off the Spartans for reasons I can't remember, he takes up camp with the Persians and tries to rehabilitate himself in Athens by convincing the Persian king to send aid. (While of course telling the Persian king to only send enough aid to *prolong* the already 20+ yr war instead of allow Athens to win it.)

Long story long, by the time the Athenians had finally restored the democracy and ousted the second oligarchy, the "thirty", anyone associated with the oligarchs, and especially with old Al, was in for it, unless they embarked on a lickety-split under the table rehabilitation with the new old regime. (Exactly the kind of thing Socrates wouldn't do. Which is why if you read the dialogues surrounding his death, his friends are constantly saying 'this doesn't need to happen, just let us, um, *talk* to some people for you...')

But also by this time both sides had committed political purges and all other manner of evil, so no one's hands were clean. Except *maybe* Socrates', if we take his defense in the Apology at its word and he scrupulously held himself above the fray.

This is one reason why Plato always draws a distinction between "teaching" and what Socrates did. Socrates didn't *teach* Alcibiades, he went around town asking prominent people questions that revealed their ignorance of things they really should know if they're going to run a government (and thus revealed their hypocrisy in claiming to know it)...is it his fault that young men of leisure enjoyed listening to these exchanges, and followed him around?

[HoneyBadger]

I find it very interesting that, considering the life he lived, he had so many friends around him.

In today's society, can you imagine a bunch of prominent citizens attending not only the funeral, but the suicide of a politically dissident, atheistic, out of favor troublemaker?

It says something about his personality, that not only were they all trying to stop him, but that he went along with it anyway.

There's maybe a distinction between what he did and teach, but if I were a teacher, I'd much rather 1: be teaching politically important individuals, and 2: I'd much rather give them reasons and opportunities to learn the answers to questions themselves, than force-feed them knowledge. It's a lot more efficient, and generally more effective.

[Tichy]

You're right about the aim of the Socratic manner of questioning as education, but the distinction Plato drew is intended to show that Socrates couldn't be held responsible for the things that Alcibiades did, whereas he could if he was considered Alcibiades teacher. When the Athenians claimed that Socrates 'corrupted the youth', they had that one very particular youth in mind.

This is also why Plato later keeps returning to the question of whether or not virtue can be taught (e.g. in the Meno), asking implicitly how it was possible that the virtuous Socrates could have had such a strong effect on Alcibiades, and Al turn out so badly. Also check out the last speech of the Symposium, when Al crashes the party and goes on and on about how Soc drives him crazy. It's really entertaining.

But I'm not so sure Socrates was completely out of favor, and he definitely didn't present himself as an atheist. ("I am obeying the oracle at Delphi", "I am attached to this city by the god as a gadfly to a noble but lazy bull.")

He had his very strong supporters, and it's pretty clear the Athenians didn't really want to kill him. The vote to convict him was razor-thin, and, if the Crito is accurate, up to the very day of his execution the regime would have happily looked the other way and let him skip town so as not to have to play the game to its ugly conclusion and become the people who *Executed Socrates*. Also, if he skipped town he'd look guilty, whereas by staying and submitting to the sentence he looks like the principled citizen he claims to be, and the regime looks corrupt, killing an innocent man. Even his death is argumentatively and rhetorically masterful.

[noname]

While the guard may have wanted Socrates to flee, it is obvious that the state wanted to Socrates dead, as his sentence was carried out, instead of being reversed. It must also be known that the vote to put Socrates to death was much wider than the vote which convicted him.