It is easy to judge Socrates now, how ignorant was he about Zeus.
Downvoted for making an unsubstantiated claim that Socrates believed in Zeus. This is sheer clumsiness. You make assumptions about what every ancient Greek must have believed because you underestimate them—though some of them were indeed rational enough to not believe in Zeus. And then you use that false assumption about false failings to support the argument that we must excuse away Arthur Conan Doyle’s real failings.
Also, it’s you who argued that A.C. Doyle “was one of the great rationalists of the 19th century”—that’s a rather strong claim that argues he exhibited significantly better reasoning than most of his contemporaries.
If he was taken in by spiritualism, when Houdini wasn’t, and he was taken in by crude child-produced fakes of fairies, when many of his contemporaries weren’t—what’s even slight evidence that he can be called a rationalist, let alone a great one?
That he was executed for it does not necessarily mean it was true, particularly in this case. I don’t think we have reliable enough reporting to tell one way or the other what was actually going on inside the man’s head.
Oh, come on. Thomas wrote a comment on the assumption that because Socrates lived in Greek times, he must have believed in Zeus. I’ve read about half of the many surviving primary sources on Socrates’ life (the dialogues of Plato and plays of Aristophanes). According to that evidence, Socrates would be classified today as an atheist, agnostic or at worst Deist, and both his detractors and his students claimed he disbelieved in the Greek pantheon.
I wasn’t making a claim with 100% certainty, because you can’t do that, but if Omega had me stake my life to that assertion, I’d feel a lot better about it than about plenty of other historical claims.
I was not demanding 100% certainty, I was demanding reasonable certainty. I am certainly not a scholar of the period, but I have done more than a little reading of my own, and my recalled interpretation clearly differs from yours. I don’t know if we’ll get further without citing sources in detail.
I did some readings, too! Socrates, for example, refers to accusations of being a believer in a Moon as a rock as ridiculous. For those ideas were commonly known as cheap and can be (text) bought on the market in Athens for a little money. Socrates was not keen for a cheap knowledge to distribute.
At least, that was his defense.
My dear Meletus, do you think you are prosecuting Anaxagoras? Are you so contemptuous of the jury and think them so ignorant of letters as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae are full of those theories, and further, that the young men learn from me what they can buy from time to time for a drachma, at most, in the bookshops, and ridicule Socrates if he pretends that these theories are his own, especially as they are so absurd? (26d)
However popular spiritualism was, there was plenty of evidence against it by 1920, and many people did indeed reject it. Thus demonstrating that they were greater rationalists, at least in this area, than Arthur Conan Doyle.
He could not have known everything we know now in his times. Spiritualism was much on the table in those days.
It is easy to judge Socrates now, how ignorant was he about Zeus. Despite, he was more rational than most.
As was A. C. Doyle.
Downvoted for making an unsubstantiated claim that Socrates believed in Zeus. This is sheer clumsiness. You make assumptions about what every ancient Greek must have believed because you underestimate them—though some of them were indeed rational enough to not believe in Zeus. And then you use that false assumption about false failings to support the argument that we must excuse away Arthur Conan Doyle’s real failings.
Also, it’s you who argued that A.C. Doyle “was one of the great rationalists of the 19th century”—that’s a rather strong claim that argues he exhibited significantly better reasoning than most of his contemporaries.
If he was taken in by spiritualism, when Houdini wasn’t, and he was taken in by crude child-produced fakes of fairies, when many of his contemporaries weren’t—what’s even slight evidence that he can be called a rationalist, let alone a great one?
Socrates didn’t believe in Zeus- he was executed for atheism and corrupting the youth.
(His Ideal of the Good did have a theistic flavor, but you can’t accuse him of believing in the Greek pantheon.)
That he was executed for it does not necessarily mean it was true, particularly in this case. I don’t think we have reliable enough reporting to tell one way or the other what was actually going on inside the man’s head.
Oh, come on. Thomas wrote a comment on the assumption that because Socrates lived in Greek times, he must have believed in Zeus. I’ve read about half of the many surviving primary sources on Socrates’ life (the dialogues of Plato and plays of Aristophanes). According to that evidence, Socrates would be classified today as an atheist, agnostic or at worst Deist, and both his detractors and his students claimed he disbelieved in the Greek pantheon.
I wasn’t making a claim with 100% certainty, because you can’t do that, but if Omega had me stake my life to that assertion, I’d feel a lot better about it than about plenty of other historical claims.
I was not demanding 100% certainty, I was demanding reasonable certainty. I am certainly not a scholar of the period, but I have done more than a little reading of my own, and my recalled interpretation clearly differs from yours. I don’t know if we’ll get further without citing sources in detail.
I did some readings, too! Socrates, for example, refers to accusations of being a believer in a Moon as a rock as ridiculous. For those ideas were commonly known as cheap and can be (text) bought on the market in Athens for a little money. Socrates was not keen for a cheap knowledge to distribute.
At least, that was his defense.
However popular spiritualism was, there was plenty of evidence against it by 1920, and many people did indeed reject it. Thus demonstrating that they were greater rationalists, at least in this area, than Arthur Conan Doyle.