Killing Socrates: Plato's later thoughts on democracy

Thoughts on the later career of Albert Szent-Gyorgyi.

I did not know Albert Szent-Gyorgyi well. We were a generation apart and I did not work in his laboratory. However, for almost forty years I observed his activities each summer in and around the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole and enjoyed his zest for science and living. I admired his past achievements as a master biochemist and listened to his joyous dramatic lectures. He had people...

Open Government, Technological Innovation, and the Politics of Democratic Disillusionment: (E-)Democracy from Socrates to Obama

There is an intriguing dissonance between the optimistic democratic vision underlying the open government movement, which seems to be driven by a belief in the transformative power of technology, and the actual achievements of the e-democracy movement in changing the praxis of democratic engagement. The present article explores this dissonance in order to develop a better understanding of the p...

Socrates and Plato on Poetry

Socrates and temporal lobe epilepsy: a pathographic diagnosis 2,400 years later.

PURPOSE Some enigmatic remarks and behaviors of Socrates have been a subject of debate among scholars. We investigated the possibility of underlying epilepsy in Socrates by analyzing pathographic evidence in ancient literature from the viewpoint of the current understanding of seizure semiology. METHODS We performed a case study from a literature survey. RESULTS In 399 BCE, Socrates was tri...

Misunderstanding Socrates

THE NOTION OF A Socratic PHILOSOPHY, as distinct from what is commonly known as Platonism, has its origins in the work of Gregory Vlastos1 and continues today through the scholars he has influenced.2 The Socratic movement in Plato studies maintains that one can identify in certain Platonic dialogues a philosophical method and a collection of philosophical theses which may properly be attributed...