Her unpleasant rendition of many philosophers is, hopefully, done for comic effect. On the other hand, Aristotle as ace poker player does seem intuitively plausible!
Possibly also not all philosophers are very nice people. I hear Kant was, albeit very uptight. Plato probably was; anyone who loved dialogue as much as he did was probably fun to talk with. Socrates was beloved by his friends, though obviously not by everyone!
"By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." Socrates
There's a causality question here. The "bad wife" could sometimes be the result of somebody being a bad husband. That could induce the correlation suggested above. :-)
Socrates claimed the causality went the other way:
"It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: 'None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me,' he says; 'the horse for me to own must show some spirit' in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else."
She turns up a couple more times, once in Plato and once in Xenophon. She's said to have been a devoted wife and mother, though one of her sons says she was a harsh disciplinarian.
7 comments:
Marx does get a lot of play.
Some of those folks are not people I'd want to have dinner with.
Her unpleasant rendition of many philosophers is, hopefully, done for comic effect. On the other hand, Aristotle as ace poker player does seem intuitively plausible!
Schopenhauer, Marx, Rand, ...
Possibly also not all philosophers are very nice people. I hear Kant was, albeit very uptight. Plato probably was; anyone who loved dialogue as much as he did was probably fun to talk with. Socrates was beloved by his friends, though obviously not by everyone!
"By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." Socrates
There's a causality question here. The "bad wife" could sometimes be the result of somebody being a bad husband. That could induce the correlation suggested above. :-)
Socrates claimed the causality went the other way:
"It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: 'None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me,' he says; 'the horse for me to own must show some spirit' in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else."
She turns up a couple more times, once in Plato and once in Xenophon. She's said to have been a devoted wife and mother, though one of her sons says she was a harsh disciplinarian.
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