## Metadata - Author: [[Anthony Gottlieb]] - Full Title: The Dream of Reason - Category: #books ## Highlights - Socrates was no politician. He felt he could play his part only by debating with individuals, one by one or in small groups: ‘I know how to produce one witness to the truth of what I say, the man with whom I am debating, but the others I ignore. I know how to secure one man’s vote, but with the many I will not even enter into discussion.’ Over the years, the votes for Socrates have steadily accumulated as Plato’s dialogues have carried his debating, or a semblance of it, far beyond fifth-century Athens and its dinner-parties. There are now at any rate few who would disagree with one thing that Socrates told his judges: ‘If you put me to death, you will not easily find anyone to take my place. ([Location 3025](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0045Y23P2&location=3025)) - It was Socrates who had stressed the practical relevance of philosophy. Its point, he urged, was to change your priorities and thereby your life. The Hellenistic philosophies tried to deliver on this Socratic promise. In particular, they claimed to be able to produce the sort of peace of mind and tranquil assurance that Socrates himself had conspicuously possessed. ([Location 5100](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0045Y23P2&location=5100)) - Socrates had argued that a good man cannot be harmed, because the only sort of harm that matters is the harm you do to your own soul by being bad. The new Hellenistic philosophers gave this a more subjective twist: the wise man will not let himself be troubled, for the key to wisdom is knowing what not to care about. ([Location 5106](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0045Y23P2&location=5106)) - In 1840 a British philosopher and historian, William Whewell, coined the term ‘scientist’, thus providing a neat way of distinguishing between those who produced the raw material for investigations of nature and those who tried to stand back and say something about what it all added up to. ([Location 5184](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0045Y23P2&location=5184)) - The ‘new’ philosophies which arose to challenge Aristotelianism in the seventeenth century had in fact very old Greekroots. Early in that century, physics was transformed by the rediscovery of Epicurus’ version of atomism–his vision of an infinite and mechanical universe of interacting particles–and of his ‘empiricist’ approach to knowledge, with its emphasis on the importance of observation and experience. These were crucial components of the scientific revolution that overthrew the Aristotelian world-picture. So was the growing influence of scepticism. If modern philosophy had an official birthday, it would be on the day in 1562 when a key sceptical text was published in Latin, thus beginning a rejuvenation of the subject after the big sleep of medieval scholasticism. ([Location 5201](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0045Y23P2&location=5201)) - The social philosophy of Epicurus, such as it is, is the main ancestor of the ‘utilitarianism’ of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–73). ([Location 5274](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0045Y23P2&location=5274)) - Epicurus warned his followers against any direct involvement in public life: ‘We must liberate ourselves from the prison of routine business and politics.’ Epicureanism might well have made a fine system for running the world; but Epicurus and his friends were inclined towards less stressful occupations. Epicurus preferred to fight dangerous beliefs rather than rival politicians. He was after all a practitioner of philosophy, ‘an activity which by arguments and discussions brings about the happy life’. ([Location 5283](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0045Y23P2&location=5283)) - Lucretius noted that for the dead person himself, being dead will be no different from not yet having been born. ([Location 5305](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0045Y23P2&location=5305))