Every great thinker kept notes. This one honors the man who believed that an unexamined life was not worth living.
This hardcover journal features a bold portrait of Socrates on the front cover and a biographical tribute on the back - the story of the man behind the art, printed where you'll see it every time you pick it up. Part of the Great Minds of Classical Greece collection. Designed for the work of serious thinking - study sessions, research, reflection, the pursuit of questions worth asking.
ABOUT SOCRATES (c. 470–399 BC)
Socrates never wrote a word. Everything we know about him comes from others - principally Plato, who idolized him, and Aristophanes, who mocked him. That a man who left no written work became the most influential philosopher in Western history is itself a kind of philosophical provocation.
He spent his life in the streets and marketplaces of Athens, engaging anyone willing to talk in conversation designed to expose the limits of their knowledge. His method was simple and devastating: ask questions until the contradiction reveals itself. Politicians, poets, and craftsmen all submitted to it. Most walked away unsettled. Some walked away changed.
In 399 BC, Athens put him on trial for impiety and corrupting the youth. He was seventy years old. He refused to flee, refused to stop philosophizing, and refused to beg for mercy. The jury condemned him to death by hemlock. He drank it without hesitation, continuing to discuss the immortality of the soul with his friends until the poison took hold.
He died as he had lived - asking questions. The Western philosophical tradition begins with that refusal to stop.
PRODUCT FEATURES
- Hardcover with matte laminate finish
- Full wraparound portrait print
- Biographical tribute printed on back cover
- Flexible casewrap binding
- Perforated pages for clean tear-out
- 150 lined pages
- Wipe clean gently with a dry cloth if needed
- A tool for your ideas. A tribute to his.