Abstract:In books 2 and 3 of the Republic, Socrates criticizes Homer and Hesiod for telling the greatest falsehoods about the greatest things; in book 1, he assumes that Simonides is a 'wise and blessed' bard who knows the truth. Socrates' position on the authority of poets seems contradictory. Can this tension be resolved? I argue that it can be. Building on but revising Nicholas Pappas' suggestion that Socrates' charity in interpreting poetry is a form of disrespect, I show that the contradiction in his position is n… Show more
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