3 ideas
468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
7811 | Sophoclean heroes die terrible deaths when they oppose the new Athenian values [Sophocles, by Grayling] |
Full Idea: Sophocles has Ajax (in 'Ajax') and Hercules (in 'Trachiniae') die terrible deaths because of the opposition they represent to the values which are the new values of Periclean Athens. | |
From: report of Sophocles (Women of Trachis [c.430 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.2 | |
A reaction: Presumably they are tragic heroes, who hence invite our sympathy, like Othello and Hamlet, who also die following an older moral code. It is only tragic if the code they follow has something 'higher' about it. |
21058 | Enlightenment requires the free use of reason in the public realm [Kant] |
Full Idea: The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men; the private use of reason may quite often be very narrowly restricted (…in a particular civil post or office). | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Answer to 'What is Enlightenment?' [1784], p.55) | |
A reaction: The private aspect seems to be the common restriction on speech by employees of the state. Does free speech have only instrumental value? Is the life of virtue possible without it? |