Did he exist? Or was he invented by Plato?

Did he exist? Or was he invented by Plato?

>Did he exist?
My guess is probably not.

He existed. Xenophon was another student of Socrates that also wrote his own Apology. Aristophanes was a playwright that was a contemporary of Socrates and was harshly critical of Socrates in his plays.

Xenophons account of Socrates contradicted Plato's though.

does it matter? why?

I'm building a time machine in order to go back and chit chat with him. I don't want to build this fucking thing if he's not real.

>yfw Aristophenes invented Socrates as a parody of a philosopher, and Plato and Xenophon adopted the character ironically

The question is, was Plato actually any kind of student of Socrates or was he just tropin' on him like everyone else at the time.

Agreed. Plato was frontin'. He wasn't actually Socrates' student, he was just a charlatan.

That's not what I said.

Save Annie please

I think he was real. It explains the massive difference in philosophical quality between Plato's works: the good ones were Socrates's beliefs, which he refused to write, and the bad ones were Plato's own original content.

Plato was, himself, a shit philosopher, but an excellent writer.

Were the ideas in the Republic of Plato, or Socrates?

I'm inclined to say Plato because the Republic is pretty garbage compared to the Sophistic and Socratic tetralogies

lol thank you for outing yourself as a pseud

good day

I'm actually inclined to agree with you. The Republic was pseudo drivel

Instead of going on the attack, you should debate me kiddo.

He does look black.

There is pretty good evidence that he was.

i dont debate """""""people"""""" who cannot properly use a comma

lel, talk about battle of the pseuds. You just lost a debate to a pseud who can't use a comment properly.

Well yeah, Plato didn't write what Socrates actually said. He used him to push his own ideas. That doesn't change the fact that he was a real person.

I've heard that earlier Plato dialogues are more representative of what Socrates actually thought, and the later ones are all just Plato just puppetimg for him. Is this true?

There's endless speculation about the order and the develepoment of Plato's own ideas through his dialogues.
Hell there's speculation about the fact that the core of Plato's philosophy lies outside his written works.

There's a certain consensus that Plato acted a metaphysical raadicalization of Socrates so that Socratic concept (ti esti) became Forms and his "learning as rememebrance" got anchored to the metempsychosis

Anyway Socrates exixted unquestionably, Plato Apology isn't the only one, there were other which haven't survived, and many of his disciples went on to found schools of their one (nothing subtantial has survived)
Xenophon wrote a apology too and Aristophanes takes the piss out of him in his works so he must have been a somewhat known figure in his days.

no, considering we have evidence of other plays being performed about Socrates; in fact, The Clouds lost in the City Dionysia to one of these plays. We also have a story from Aelian that Socrates was in the audience when The Clouds was performed, and enjoyed the performance.

That a guy named Socrates annoying people with philosophical/sophistic discourses existed in that historical time is beyond any possible doubt.
Plato did not 'invent' Socrates' - though he may have depicted him in a way that is not completely accurate.

Main documents are Socratic dialogues. Contrarily to what usually believed, shortly after his death, Socratic dialogues were a literary genre. Almost everyone of his friends was writing them. Plato and Xenophon were only some of them.
We only have Plato's because he outshadowed all the others.

Moreover, there is Aristophanes. Public comedy referred to known characters, therefore not only Socrates existed but he must have been known enough in Athens to be referred to as a character in a comedy for everyone to know.

If we didn't exist, it wasn't Plato who invented him, but basically the whole city of Athens would have agreed of making up a fictional philosopher, inventing a bunch of anecdotes about him, invent the whole story of his trial and death (which is not good for the image of the city but whatever), etc.

hahahahahhaha

Was Zoroaster real or was he just an invention of Nietzsche?

does it matter?

Zoroaster was objectively real.

>objectively

>objective

No, guys, you're not getting it right: IT'S NOT LIKE YOU CAN HAVE AN OPINION ON THIS, it's like doubting whether Julius Caesar was real - YOU CAN'T there are fucking documents.

Read these two posts and stop being plebs.

I know it's difficult to understand for you pseudo-philosophers who spam Derrida in every thread and wank over Foucault's bald shiny head, but truth exists.
And he/she/it is not fascist.

Oh, oh, I'm sorry, it's not like there's this thing called the FUCKING SOCRATIC PROBLEM, where intellectuals (ASIDE FROM YOURSELF OF COURSE) question his fucking existence. Keep trolling, kiddo.

Annie are you ok?

Socrates was a nigger

A nigger with a smart ass mothafucking mouth.

he existed there was a trial for corrupting the youth of athens and there are records of that and him dying from hemlock.

What records?

He existed, only an extremely ugly man like him could invent something as asinine, gay and inferior as philosophy.

eg.
>When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
This is something only an extremely ugly faggot would believe, as all real humans know that handsome men can do no wrong and that insulting a persons appearance is the greatest weapon in any debate (apart from of course an actual weapon)

Did you watch Fight Club?

Yeah the Republic definitely feels different.

Wuz he kangz?

>How's Annie?

Aristophenes' account of Socrates is the most accurate imo

Plato/Socrates hated the Sophists so much, but yet they/he couldnt see that they/he was just like the Sophists, twisting his words to convince the listener they/he are/is right

The difference between Plato/Socrates and the Sophists is that the Sophists at least were honest to themselves they werent sure if they were correct (even if they could use rhetoric to convince the Other they were right)

Plato, who is really some kind of Socrates Lite, combined with his own Platonic mumbo jumbo, something about Forms, a Cave, philosophically searching in the dark, hated the Sophists because he saw a challenge. A group of people who he thought were unfit to have a voice because they are wrong and because they arent trying for the Truth.

Plato knows the Truth, right? Wrong. Plato is a Sophist. He spins and twists his own words in an attempt to convinc me you he's right. The most deceitful of all Sophists really because he claims to not be one

>He spins and twists his own words in an attempt to convinc me you he's right
Example?

He looked black

But that user was your student.

Most argumentation behind philosopher king and and Republic and how he destroyed the Greek notion of praxis/acting to ruling and serving.

Lol you are retarded.

THE SOCRATIC PROBLEM IS NOT THE EXISTENCE OF SOCRATES YOU FUCKING IDIOT IT IS THE CORRESPONDANCE BETWEEN HISTORICAL SOCRATES AND THE SOCRATES OF PLATO

NO ONE DOUBTS SOCRATES EXISTED YOU RETARDED PLEBS

there's no point in getting warmed up, friend
there's only idiots and memes here, not people who read.

Jeeze, all second hand accounts of anything can be doubted. When talking about the past it comes down to degrees of uncertainty. (Where most people tend to be really sure about many things)

But then how will Jeff Magnum create his masterpiece?

No it was common after Socrates death for people to write works with him as a main character

Aristophanes was friends with Socrates, as you can see in the Symposium. He used Socrates's name on the play because any other would get him on court and Socrates wouldn't mind.

The supposed "existence" of Julius Caesar is nothing more than a Jewish conspiracy. Stop being brainwashed by the commie media.

Of course he existed

>anime picture
>retarded question
What a surprise.

>harshly critical

lolno, Aristophanes was the definition of a troll.