Socrates: Blackwell Great Minds

"A remarkable book. A treatment of Socrates that is both original in its approach and lovingly crafted to make Socrates accessible to a contemporary audience." Debra Nails, Michigan State University

"A stimulating, eloquent, and highly original work of scholarship that breaks new ground in the search for an understanding of this most puzzling and elusive of philosophers. It is no mean feat that Rudebusch has written a book that is both accessible to beginners in philosophy and required reading for scholars of ancient philosophy." Mark L. McPherran, Simon Fraser University

Can we learn, through the model of Socrates, practical wisdom that we can apply to our lives? What are we to make of the paradoxical and strange gure who claimed that the unexamined life is not worth living, that only knowledge can save our souls, that love is nothing but the desire for wisdom, and that knowledge of human excellence is such that only a god can possess it?

Protesting against traditional interpretations that tame the ancient philosopher by observing him through a lens of conventional wisdom, George Rudebusch's Socrates presents a compelling case for taking Socrates' arguments and wild conclusions seriously, not merely as abstract exercises in cross-examining ideas of human excellence, but as a heavenly way for human beings to live.

Original in approach, lovingly crafted with humor, thought-experiments, and literary references (from the Iliad to Harry Potter), and with close readings of key Socratic arguments, the book brings the strange gure of Socrates and his divine mission to life, philosophizing at the center of human concerns.