There was a chapter, but it kept having its "pilot light" go out, and it was a struggle to keep it going. I have found, having done a number of alumni seminars over the years, that knowledge and life experience are very helpful in participating in seminars.
Plato makes the first systematic formulation of philosophy. Indeed, he practically invents it, since people like Parmenides used the oracular mode, writing doctrinal poems, instead of showing their reasoning and helping to examine the issues. Interestingly, according to Diogenes Laertius ("Lives of the Eminent Philosophers"), the Socratic Dialogue became a literary form, used by various schools, including the Parapetetics and the Stoics. Aristotle wrote a number of them, according to Laertius, and Plato wrote a number of lectures. It just so happens that different portions of the work of each survived.
According to Laertius, the primary thing that the various schools had in common, besides an admiration of Socrates, was that they were all dedicated to determining what was the best sort of life. This is not a bad topic to return to, at various stages of life...... |
