Socrates. The Man and His Philosophy.

Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langj�igem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - altersgem�sehr guter Zustand / very good condition for age - The accepted date for Socrates' birth is the year 469 B.C., that is, the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad; his execution is believed to have taken place in 399, when he was seventy years of age. [1] His historical and political context belongs therefore to that of Athens in the second half of the fifth century, a time curing which the Greek world in general and Athens in particular were undergoing profound transformations and experiencing enormous convulsions. Undoubtedly, every person is a child of his time, and this, as we shall see, was particularly the case with Socrates. We are justified in saying that he embodied in his person the polity in which he was born and under whose command he was executed. We shall therefore begin this examination of Socrates, the man and his philosophy, by reviewing in a sketchy form the social and political conditions that prevailed during his life. Our success in grasping the essential elements of the Socratic presence in the history of ideas will depend to some extent on our ability to gain an adequate understanding of his world. Like most of his contemporaries, Socrates functioned in every way as an integral and vital component of the State whose demographic, geographic, and political characteristics promoted far more than in our own times the full incorporation of the citizen into the matrix of his political and social context, especially since by the middle of the fifth century an indisputable process of democratization had become a reality. Accordingly, not only the details of Socrates' life, but the very substance of his contributions will gain in significance once the context in which he lived becomes elucidated. ISBN 9780819148551