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Article: Dateline Athens: I.F. Stone Reopens The Socrates Case
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- February 14, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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THE TRIAL OF SOCRATES
By I.F. Stone
Little, Brown. 282 pp. $18.95
SOCRATES, the very embodiment of philosophy as a way of life, was
tried and executed by the Athenian democracy for not believing in the
city's gods and for corrupting the youth.
Every important thinker since has had to come to terms with this
most portentous of intellectual events. Is there a tension between
man's high aspiration to know what is natural and the concern for the
conventional opinions of men and the imperious demands of the
community? All have seen in the story the profoundest statement
about the human condition, and all but Nietzsche believed that the
preservation of the splendid, dangerous, theoretical ...