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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 eagerly signed on as a Philosophy Now columnist so that he could continue to carry out his divinely-inspired dialogic mission. Now, a decade later, he hears a distant summons…
Dear Socrates,
How does it feel to be so great and historic a personage? I feel unworthy to be writing a letter to you. Instead, if I were capable of it, I should be composing a paean.
Yours in deepest humility,
A Mere Plebeian
Dear Plebe,
By this ‘paean from a plebeian’ do you mean to praise me … or pee on me? The latter would be closer to the mark, believe me. I remember a friend in ancient Athens laughingly telling me what had happened when he pointed me out to a distinguished visitor as a highly virtuous man. “Why, he looks like a mean sort,” the visitor had remarked.
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