플라톤 - [소크라테스의 마지막 날들] (Plato - The Last Days of Socretes)

#Plato, The Last Days of Socrates, Penguin [발췌]

 

*In a sceptical age he [Socrates] believed firmly in moral goodness as the one thing that matters; and he identified it with knowledge, because to his straightforward nature it seemed inconceivable that anyone should see what is right

without doing it. --Hugh Tredennick, Plato, [The Last Days of Socrates], 8, Penguin

 

*The Forms are not mere concepts (hence the traditional alternative name 'Ideas' is undesirable, as being

misleading); they are ultimate facts, intelligible to our minds but quite independent of them. The things of our

sensible world exist in a secondary sense, only in so far as they approximate to the corresponding Forms. (15)

 

 

*Thus Socrates' thought is characterised by an uncompromising dedication to knowledge and a moderation that

stems from the philosopher's awareness of his own ignorance. Socrates' achievement, which deserves our careful

consideration, was to combine rigor with skepticism without succumbing to the temptation of absolutism on the one extreme or relativism on the other.

              --Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West, Plato and Aristophanes, [Four Texts on Socrates], Cornell, 12