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Dear Socrates
Dear Socrates
Having returned from the turn of the Fourth Century B.C. to the turn of the Twenty-First A.D., Socrates has eagerly signed on as a Philosophy Now columnist so that he may continue to carry out his divinely-inspired dialogic mission.
Dear Socrates,
Several readers have wondered whether you are really Socrates, but you find the doubt bothersome since it gets in the way of the discussions you would like to have about matters of importance to the soul. So I have a different question: Do you know that you are really Socrates? After all, it is exceedingly odd that you have come back to life, even you have admitted. So what makes you sure that ‘you’ have? Maybe you are a madman, unbeknownst even to yourself. And even if you really are Socrates, this is not an issue which you should consider a diversion from your main task, is it? For you have traced your mission to an utterance of the Delphic oracle, whose motto is “Know thyself!”
Sincerely,
Sid Arthur
Deer Park, Banaras
Dear Sid,
I see your point. Besides some circumstantial evidence, I have mainly my own memories to go by when I assert that I am Socrates, even to myself.
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