As I said before, I disapprove of the death penalty, but if ever there was a legitimate instance, it was Socrates.
But of course that assumes that there is some relationship between the Socrates of the Dialogue and Socrates the stonecutter.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Eric Beck Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 2:32 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Christopher Hitchens dead
On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 8:56 AM, Catherine Driscoll <catherine.driscoll at sydney.edu.au> wrote:
> I truly believe the world is just better for the presence of people who
want and further intelligent debate
Maybe. I always got the feeling that Hitchens's goal in debate was to vanquish his foes, like Deleuze and Guattari's Socrates, which is not very compelling, and is politically problematic, to me.
"Philosophy has a horror of discussions. It always has something else to do. Debate is unbearable to it, but not because it is too sure of itself. On the contrary, it is its uncertainties that take it down other more solitary paths. But in Socrates was philosophy not a free discussion among friends? Is it not, as the conversation among free men, the summit of Greek sociability? In fact, Socrates made all debate impossible, both in the short form of questions and answers and in the long form of a rivalry among discourses. He turned the friend into the friend of the single concept, and the concept into the pitiless monologue that eliminates the rivals one by one." ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk