My book

Below you can find a presentation of my book, Socrates, moral philosophy in everyday life. I am also offering parts of that book as short ebooks. These are:

My book is called Socrates – moral philosophy in everyday life

Download here

The book is divided in two parts.

The first, short, part is about Socrates seen from a generic viewpoint – what he said and didn’t say, his cultural environment, his religious views, his relation to the Sophists and the issue of the sources (since he didn’t write anything himself, how can we know what exactly he was about?).

In the second part I take every Socratic dialogue Plato wrote, I analyze it and I comment on it.

The book is intended for the general reader. He/she is not required to have read one single line of Plato’s. This does not mean that the reader will be presented a superficial view of the philosopher, as I take care to offer a comprehensive and insightful view of Socrates.

You can find some chapters of the book posted on my site.

Here’s the contents of the book (which numbers roughly 260 pages – still being edited):

You can click on some chapters and read them

Prologue

PART ONE – GENERAL SCOPE

• Introduction
• The basic hypothesis
• So, what did the man who knew nothing know?
• The Socratic problem
• The method – examination, the birthing process, irony
• The sophists and Socrates
• The daimonion and Socrates’ gods

PART TWO – THE DIALOGUES

• The laws and the power of the state
• The real cause of Socrates’ death
• Socrates on the opinion of others
• On death
• Socrates’ stance against the impending death
• The impasse of divine morality
• On the nature of friendship
• On courage
• On the concept of sophrosyne
• Plato’s Symposium and the army of lovers
• Morality and legitimacy of love
• The deceitful fascination of daydreaming love
• Homosexuality in the Platonic myth
• Use of myth in Symposium
• The ideal lover
• Alcibiades’ love for Socrates
• The Socratic Method and the elusive concept of virtue
• Can virtue be taught?
• The power of persuasion
• The correctional power of punishment
• The law of nature and the value of the examined life
• Socrates against ancestor worship
• Aristophanes against Socrates – A misconstrued attack
• Socrates and Jesus – A misconstrued correlation

Bibliography