Socrates remarks to Phaedrus, I can't help feeling feeling that writing has a fault in common with painting – the creations of the painter stand there true as life, and yet if you ask them a question they maintain a solemn silence. And the same can be said of written words. If you ask for an explanation of something that has been said, they produce the same unvarying answer over and over again.
(Phaedrus 275d)

Socrates would have been a great blogger, but he preferred meeting people breath to breath, eye to eye.

In lieu of the agora, my way will be to post your comments and my responses, should I have any, here. Write us at contemplatingsocrates@comcast.net.

Patricia Robinett has some profound comments we'll post soon. On a slightly lighter note she writes:

what i DO get from chapter 10 and now, from reading more in
SYMPOSIUM is that socrates was given Knowledge by a woman.
:) that is very interesting to me.
siddhartha was also said to have been given Knowledge by a
girl as he sat under the bodhi tree.
:) girl power!

Rick Gleason has also written deeply, and like Patricia is way ahead of the story without having read it. More from them both later. By way of introduction Rick writes:

There was a time in my life when I looked around and saw not only the emptiness of others but more so the emptiness of myself.  I started singing that song "What's it all about Alfie".  My kinship to Socrates is in my not blindly accepting widely-held doctrines. Many times the questions I would ask made me believe how many people were like the people of Socrates' times. But instead of just trying to show them where their doctrine breaks down, I realized that if I had none to offer myself it was a wasted time, not only for them but more for myself. For it was not philosophical activity that I was pursuing but the meaning of life based on truth...

Gina Bradford wrote:
 
I do so wish that this was a historical novel.  ...It really moves when you're in Greece.  The autobiographical stuff, while interesting, interrupts the flow of the story of Socrates.  Have you read "Galileo's Daughter"--I envision "The Trail of Socrates" to be of a similar genre.  Just a wish--not meant to be a criticism.

Hopefully everyone will get their wish...

©2006 CATHERINE GLASS