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periphrasistic t1_j3yxnkr wrote

Reply to comment by newbiesaccout in [Image] Quote by Socrates by joki5ing

There are no such historians in the extant Greek literary corpus. My purpose in listing off the three extant Greek authors which portray Socrates was to note that of our existing literary depictions, none would have said the trite shit that is at the head of this thread. But yes thank you for reminding me that that Socrates himself wrote nothing down: I also took a high school survey of philosophy class.

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newbiesaccout t1_j3zc0bj wrote

I don't quite get the sarcastic and aggressive tone here, but ok. I don't think we much disagree here. I'm pointing it out for those who might not know. I do agree with you that these are the accounts that'd typically be taken as 'quotes of Socrates', as the anecdote about Socrates' wife being a tamable horse in Xenophon's Symposium is taken as though he said it.

And if you think that 'Plato is not an accurate depiction of Socrates' is known by all undergraduate philosophy students, you'd be surprised how many tenured classics professors seem to hold the opinion.

There are a few scattered anecdotal accounts of Socrates that are intended to be accurate (even if not from historians). I'm not sure if one could derive a quote from them.

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periphrasistic t1_j3ze9bw wrote

Perhaps you’ve caught me on a bad day, but your comment felt needlessly pedantic when, as you note, there’s no underlying disagreement here. If your intent was to expand upon what was implicit in my comment for the sake of those who don’t know what Xenophon or Aristophanes (or even Plato) wrote about Socrates, then fair enough. Apologies for being aggressively sarcastic.

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