In a bid to push beyond "common sense", The Irish Times explores important ideas of the past, present and future through conversations with different thinkers. The new column starts today, on foot of ...

In Benjamin Franklin’s famous list of thirteen virtues toward personal perfection, he urges his readers to “Imitate Jesus and Socrates.” As a teacher, I try to live up to this call. We hear a lot ...

Socrates’ claim that the unexamined life is not worth living makes a satisfying climax for the deeply principled arguments he presents on behalf of the philosophical life. The claim is that only in ...

The Greek philosopher Socrates as imagined in this statue in Athens. It is made of white marble by sculputer Leonidas Drosis. Socrates is famous for saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” ...

Review of Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life. By Agnes Callard. W.W. Norton & Company. 405 pp. $35. Many of us know that Socrates declared that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” ...

If there is one philosophical nugget most people know by heart, it is “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates, who coined the phrase, is often called the founder of Western philosophy, his ...

The shining names of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Archimedes have left a permanent mark in the annals of human civilization". These are not my words, but those of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, and ...

In the light of its recent disasters, is there an argument for saying the basis of the issue with the BBC is that it stopped being able to engage in cool, rational, objective analysis? Could ...

Like the generals he had defended many years before, the manner of his execution was to be the drinking of hemlock. As the hour drew near, everyone in the room broke down and wept except for Socrates ...