61. Plato Establishes His Academy – The Greatest Philosopher 5

This is part five of a fictional dialogue amongst friends discussing the life of Plato. Please read the previous post for immediate context. If you want to start at the beginning, see post 57. Plato fled Athens after the execution of his friend and teacher Socrates for obvious reasons. Plato traveled for almost two decades […]

60. Plato’s First Visit to Sicily – The Greatest Philosopher 4

This is part four of a fictional Plato’s dialogues discussing the life. If you wish to start at the beginning, please see post 57. Young Plato fled Athens for obvious reasons after the death of his teacher Socrates. He spent some time in Cyrene where he learned mathematics. And then, he lived in Egypt for […]

59. Plato in Egypt – The Greatest Philosopher 3

This is part three of a fictional dialogue discussing the life of Plato. In the previous post, Plato fled Athens after the execution of his friend and teacher Socrates (I suggest also reading the first part of the story, if you haven’t already). After traveling for almost two decades, Plato spent his most significant time […]

58. Plato – The Greatest Philosopher 2

After publishing the previous post, not surprisingly I received some email inquiries concerning the virgin birth of Plato. I will comment on that later, but first I would like to finish the dialogue-story about the life of Plato that I started in Post 57. Please see that post if you wish to read this story […]

57. Plato – The Greatest Philosopher

Many consider Plato (428–347 B.C.) to be the greatest philosopher who ever lived. He is my favorite personally. I consider myself a Platonist, albeit with some modifications, of course. In this regard, I consider the previous 56 posts to be simply a prologue to this post. A.N. Whitehead (1861–1947), an English mathematician and philosopher, said […]

56. The Hope of Resurrection and the Hopelessness of Reincarnation

In the West, we have three main beliefs concerning the afterlife – materialistic annihilation, reincarnation, and resurrection. Before continuing with this post, stop briefly for a moment and consider what your view is of the afterlife, if indeed you have given it much thought. Please leave your comments below.

55. Man Is the Measure of All Things

Is man the measure of all things? And what does Protagoras mean by this exactly? Some have called him the father of relativism, but we will see in this article that Protagoras actually meant something very different by his famous statement. Read on to see how this relates to issues such as the Civil Rights […]

54. Protagoras – The First Sophist and Philosophical Revolutionary

“Man is the measure of all things.” This famous dictum is familiar to most of us, yet I imagine that most people have no idea who uttered those words. You can probably guess by the title of this post that it was none other than the philosopher Protagoras. But what did he mean by it […]

53. The Greek Sophists – Authentic Philosophers or Purveyors of Deception?

For those familiar with philosophy, the word “Sophist” brings to mind a highly articulate snake oil salesman who, through eloquence and smoothness of speech, is able to manipulate people into doing what he wants. In the ancient world, it was said that the Sophists could convince people it was night when it was day. This […]

52. From Democritus to Einstein – Atomists Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Atomic theory has a long, rich life in human history. The Presocratic atomists developed a metaphysical theory to explain the idea of change, which was in contrast to Parmenides’ idea of constant Being. This theory eventually led to the modern scientific application of nuclear energy and nuclear warfare. The dynamic duo of atomism was Leucippus […]