The Wisest Man Alive (Yet Not Without Flaws)

0:00I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$149 a pound if you have Prime with organic birds at$299 a pound. And they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials, whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends.

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1:20Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

1:59Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I'm just sitting here, I'm editing the last bit of the Wisdom book, which will hopefully come out next year, the fall of 2025. And one of the characters in this book about wisdom is Socrates. Socrates is considered the man who brought philosophy down from the heavens. He made philosophy practical, accessible, urgent. But he's also a contradictory, confusing, frustrating guy. There's a quote from this English writer. He says, the more I learn about Socrates, the more I understand why they killed him. I always love that. I had Donald Robertson on the podcast a while back to talk about it.

2:46But I was really excited because I loved his book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, which is all about the philosophy of Marcus Rullus. When my agent sent me a note, he said, hey, you know, Donald has a new book called How to Think Like Socrates, Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Modern World. He's one of my favorite writers, one of my favorite thinkers, one of my favorite guests on the podcast. And I reached out and asked if we could run a chunk of the book on today's episode. This is a section from chapter five. It's titled The Wisest Man Alive. I think you're really going to like it.

3:20Donald's a great writer. Socrates is a fascinating guy. You can stay tuned for my chunk on Socrates in the forthcoming book. But in the meantime, let's listen to Donald dig in on what makes Socrates tick and why he was so smart. Check out How to Think Like Socrates. Check out How to Think Like a Roman Emperor. And also check out Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic Emperor, his biography of Marcus Aurelius, all available at The Painted Porch. Thanks to his publisher for letting us run this excerpt. You can find How to Think Like Socrates as an audiobook on Audible and iBooks and all the places that you get your audiobooks.

3:57Check it out. Support Donald's work. He is awesome. Hope you enjoy.

4:04So why do they do it? Why do thousands of people all over the world sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge? Maybe it seems crazy to you. Maybe it doesn't make any sense. It's like, oh, I could do without it. I could do it by myself. Well, I thought maybe I'd just let you hear it in their own words. Here are some folks that signed up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge over the years. I'm really loving the challenge. And everyone I'm talking to about it's really kind of enjoying hearing about it. So I just want to say thank you for everything. This was a really cool way to start the year.

4:36Thank you. About three years ago, I discovered youth. So I've been through Ego is the Enemy fairly recently. And of course, this year's challenge, I've been doing the challenge for three years. I'm kind of a real life embodiment of some of the stuff my wife passed from cancer. But just learned that it's day by day process, kind of cliche. I've been reading the Stoics and participating in your challenges the past few years. And look, I'll give you one testimonial on top of that. It's worked really well for me. I get something out of making the challenge, but I also do it alongside all of you. It's one of my favorite things.

5:10It kicks off the year right for me. So if you want to kick the year off right with a challenge, well, join us in the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge. You can sign up right now at dailystoic.com slash challenge. It's going to start on January 1st. Why don't you challenge yourself right now to stop procrastinating and do it, and I will see you in there.

5:33The wisest man alive. One spring morning on his way to the Agora, Socrates, now in his thirties, noticed a group of boys playing knucklebones in a narrow alleyway. Suddenly the youngest leapt up and yelled, Rotten Cheat! at one of his playmates. After a brief quarrel, they resumed play. Just as the lad who had shouted was about to take his turn a cart pulled by two oxen rounded the corner rumbling toward the boys They scattered, all except this youngster who was so determined to win the game that he refused to budge He raised his hand for the cart to stop but the driver paid no heed Scowling, the boy threw himself in front of the advancing bull's hooves.

6:26The driver yelled out in anger, but was forced to halt his cart abruptly. Anyone could see this boy was fearless to the point of foolhardiness. He possessed what the Greeks called philotemia, a passion for victory, honour and fame. Such a child was destined either for greatness or catastrophe Socrates quietly asked one of his young playmates Who is this child and what is the name of his father? His father was killed in the war, came the answer And now he's being raised in the house of Pericles They call him Alcibiades About a decade earlier, Aspasia, along with her father and their extended family, had sailed from her home in Ionia.

7:22Shortly after their arrival, her niece, who lived in Athens, gave birth to a boy. He was named Alcibiades, after his grandfather. Aspasia's brother-in-law, an Athenian noble who had been living in exile. The family lost Alcibiades the Elder though Next his son, Cleinias, who was still in his thirties was slain in battle at Coronea fighting against the Boeotians At the age of four, therefore the now fatherless child was taken into the household of his father's best friend Pericles, who became his legal guardian Pericles later divorced his first wife and Aspasia moved in with him, becoming his consort and eventually his second wife.

8:17Pericles and Aspasia would go on to raise her great nephew, the young Alcibiades, as if he were their own son. In the years to come, Socrates would watch as the whole of Athens became entranced by the son of Clinius. Aspasia, the boy's great-aunt, was like a stepmother to him and inevitably took an interest in his education. As the boy reached adolescence, Socrates began to notice him in the company of prominent Athenian intellectuals. Alcibiades retained his youthful good looks as an adult, for which he became famous throughout Greece. Later in life, just like other nobles, he would keep his hair long, a symbol of status, because the poor found it more practical to cut theirs short.

9:09He spoke with a lisp, which made him pronounce the letter rho as if it were lambda, so that instead of Socrates, he would say Socrates. His speech impediment was thought of as charming, precisely because, in the eyes of many, it seemed to be his only imperfection. Socrates did not approach the boy, although they were often in the same company. The two had seldom exchanged words. Instead, the philosopher listened with interest, as Alcibiades argued with his friends and even his teachers. The rest of Athens treated Alcibiades like a celebrity. They flocked around him and gossiped about him. They loved him, indulged him, and heaped praise upon him.

10:00He could be reckless and arrogant, but he was also charismatic, intelligent, courageous, and a born leader. The names of Alcibiades' illustrious ancestors were on the lips of everyone he met. His father's side of the family were nobles of the Salaminioi clan, who traced their ancestry back to the legendary hero Ajax. The Alcmeonids, his mother's clan, were one of the wealthiest and most powerful dynasties of ancient Greece. Through them, Alcibiades claimed descent from Nestor, the legendary king of Pylos, who like Ajax was immortalised in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. In the 6th century, some of the Alcmeonids played a crucial role in overthrowing the last tyrant to have ruled Athens.

11:00By tyrant incidentally, the Greeks meant a sole ruler who stands above the law like a dictator or absolute monarch. Cleisthenes, one of the Alcmeonids, established Athenian democracy for which the city had since become famous. Despite their noble blood and great wealth, therefore, Pericles and other Alcmeonids remained leading figures in the Democrat faction which sought to keep power in the hands of the people. Alcibiades, who was born into the same noble clan and had since become the ward of Pericles, was expected to follow in his footsteps. Pericles was an early populist whose exceptional power came, ironically, from his claim to give the common people more control over the governance of their city.

11:56The Athenian citizens loved him and looked up to him as their leader. Whereas political tyrants impose obedience with threats of violence, Pericles exercised almost as much authority because the citizens freely offered him their support. He was also a master of international diplomacy. Throughout their growing empire, he was respected for saying that Athens made allies not by receiving benefits but by bestowing them on others. His motions had to be put to the vote, like anyone else's, but he almost always got his way. The greatest political orator of his era, he held the assembly in the palm of his hand.

12:46Whereas Pericles had built his authority over decades Alcibiades, desperate to outdo his guardian Quoted controversy as a shortcut to fame While learning to wrestle, he once sank his teeth Into an opponent who was getting the better of him The boy yelled at him, you bite like a girl Alcibiades stood tall and retorted shamelessly No, like a lion. This piece of theatre became legendary. In the years that followed, Alcibiades would often be compared to a lion. If Pericles was effectively the ruler of a great empire, then his young ward resembled an imperial princeling. All of Athens wanted Alcibiades to be the next Pericles, or even greater than Pericles.

13:42When he reached his late teens and entered military cadet training Alcibiades began looking for a mentor who could prepare him to become Athens' next great leader It was no job for the faint-hearted A few years earlier, he had asked one teacher to give him a book of Homer's works When the man stammered that he had none to hand he received a punch in the face and other prospective tutors were no match for the teen either. Like many Athenian youths, Alcibiades idolised Achilles, the tragic Homeric hero, whose father had implored him always to be best and to surpass all others. Achilles, according to legend, had been tutored by Chiron, the wisest of the centaurs.

14:35Alcibiades wanted to be tutored only by the wisest of the Greeks. Since Anaxagoras' exile two decades earlier, the celebrated orator Protagoras of Abdera had become Pericles' most trusted political advisor and envoy. Protagoras was the first person to adopt the title of sophist, meaning expert or wise man. He had avoided Anaxagoras' mistake of making claims about the celestial bodies and being charged with impiety by insisting that such things were unknowable. Instead, he specialised in teaching oratory, virtue and general improvement of one's character. The English word sophistication derives from the sophists and that is what they offered to impart to the ambitious young sons of wealthy Greek families along with the ability to speak persuasively in the courts and before the assembly For a course of lectures, Protagoras charged 100 minai more than a craftsman such as Socrates might earn in his lifetime Despite such exorbitant fees, he had become a celebrity and attracted many devoted followers, including apprentices, seeking to become sophists themselves.

16:05Having come back from Delphi, still vexed by the oracle's pronouncement, Socrates went in search of a wise man. There could be no better candidate than Protagoras, whose followers claimed that he was the wisest man alive. For many years, the great sophist had been away on political service in Magna Graecia, or southern Italy. When Socrates heard of his return, he set out immediately for the house of Callius, a famous patron of intellectuals, with whom Protagoras was staying.

16:48We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker, they had a snow cone, and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that, but I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

17:23My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for good inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It over the holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr.

18:00Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

18:21Socrates' friends had always admired his philosophical acumen, although he remained unknown for the most part beyond a small circle. Now, as news of the oracle's pronouncement spread, despite his relatively humble origins, his name began to reach the ears of Athens' most celebrated intellectuals and their elite students. Nevertheless, when he arrived at the villa of Callius the doorman didn't recognise him and refused at first to let this nobody in He only changed his mind when Socrates implied that he had a friend who was interested in paying for Protagoras' services as a tutor Socrates entered, eventually to find the great orator dressed in crimson robes pacing up and down Callius' lavish courtyard.

19:17Some foreign sophists in training and a group of prominent young Athenians walked behind Protagoras, hanging on his every word. Among them were the sons of Pericles, Paralys and Xanthippus, nicknamed the Cabbage Suckers by those who considered them slow-witted. As Socrates observed Protagoras being followed around by his students, he was reminded of having seen a beautifully choreographed dance in which the devotees of Orpheus were portrayed falling under the spell of his voice. To crown it all, Alcibiades arrived, accompanied by a wealthy nobleman named Critias, about ten years his senior, who had invited him, for the first time, to hear Protagoras speak and perhaps become his student Socrates was most intrigued by the claim that an orator could teach wisdom and virtue Protagoras encouraged his followers to use reason as their guide to living wisely His most famous slogan was Man is the measure of all things Of those that are, that they are Of those that are not, that they are not Despite its oracular nature it earned him the reputation of being the first ever humanist.

20:44Later he wrote a book called On the Gods that opened with the following words. About the gods I am able to know neither that they exist nor that they do not exist, nor of what kind they are in form, for many things prevent me from knowing this, its obscurity and the brevity of man's life. According to some, it would eventually lead to Protagoras' exile from Athens on charges of impiety, like Anaxagoras before him Whereas the natural philosophers were perceived as atheists, however Protagoras thought it was safer to position himself as an agnostic Socrates approached Protagoras and told him of a young man he knew who was looking for the best teacher available The sophist replied that he was old enough to be the father of anyone present and had pursued this profession for many years.

21:44He added that he must be cautious though, as he travelled between cities persuading the finest young men to leave their previous teachers and follow him instead. My wisdom can arouse jealousy, he said. Sophistry was an ancient art, according to Protagoras. The writings of great poets, especially Homer and Hesiod, taught virtue, as did the mystery religions, such as the cult of Orpheus. Many athletic coaches and musicians, he claimed, secretly taught virtue. The most prominent students were young noblemen from wealthy and powerful families who sought to acquire the qualities of a future leader.

22:28Fearing persecution by their political enemies, these tutors practised sophistry under various guises, but thereby risked being accused of dishonesty if they were discovered. Protagoras, to avoid this charge, became the first to openly assume the title. He therefore wished to answer Socrates' questions before a larger audience, because it gave him a chance to turn the conversation into a public performance, demonstrate his expertise and defend his art. Callius and Alcibiades quickly gathered the others. Socrates repeated before the assembled crowd that his young friend, who was looking for a teacher, wished to know what Protagoras actually taught.

23:17Protagoras smiled and, with a voice as sweet as honey, addressed his pitch to the room. From the very first day that he becomes my student he will go home a better person and the same will happen every day thereafter The sophist was pleased with his answer as he earned a round of applause Socrates, unimpressed, responded with a shrug The same would be true, he argued whatever is learned as all education improves us in some regard Protagoras had spoken too vaguely about how his teaching was meant to improve his students. Physicians teach medicine, musicians teach music, but what exactly, asked Socrates, does a professional wise man teach?

24:09Protagoras replied that although some of the younger sophists taught everything from astronomy to poetry, he focused on teaching the ability to have good judgment and give good advice. His students learned how to manage their own private lives and their estates well. They would also study the art of politics and excel in public life in both their words and actions. This piqued Alcibiades' interest. Protagoras seemed to be implying that he could teach one how to emulate his friend Pericles' greatness as a political orator and statesman. If I understand correctly, said Socrates, you are in effect promising to teach the art of good citizenship, which surely amounts to the same thing as teaching virtue or how to become a good person.

25:01Protagoras nodded in assent. Although Socrates had received an answer, everyone could see from the expression on his face that questions still troubled him about Protagoras' response. A few moments of silence followed Then Socrates said something so bold that it caused a few gasps The truth is, Protagoras, that I have never believed that this could be taught by anyone Although if you say you can teach it, I assume you are sincere All eyes were on Socrates as he began to elaborate He told them that he had two key reasons for calling Protagriss' statement into question. The first was that the Athenian assembly did not appear to believe that virtue could be taught.

25:56When it was making decisions about matters such as building triremes or fortifications, the assembly only consulted experts who had knowledge of the relevant technical arts. Yet Pericles had seen to it that every male citizen had a right to speak on general questions of governance and justice. None of these men were expected to have specialist training in the art of good citizenship. This, said Socrates, implied that the assembly thought the virtues relevant to public life were common property rather than being the product of education. The same goes for private life, which Socrates introduced as his second point.

26:38If virtue could be taught, as Protagoras claimed, why did the greatest Athenians not teach it to their own children? Look at these two young men, he exclaimed, gesturing towards Paralys and Xanthippus. Pericles, their father, has provided the best education for them in everything that can be taught. Yet with regard to virtue, said Socrates, furrowing his brows, they're left to browse like stray cattle, picking up nourishment wherever they may find it, and the less said of their relative, young Alcibiades, the better. Nobody made a sound. Though most in the room were aghast at his candour, Socrates continued.

27:20There are many men who, despite being good themselves, have never made their own children or anyone else good, observed Socrates casually. Nobody, except perhaps Alcibiades, wanted to hear any more controversial examples, so out of respect for Protagoras, Socrates concluded. When I consider the matter in this way, he said, turning to the sophist, I doubt that virtue can be taught. However, he added, I may be mistaken in this, as I know you are a man of great learning with much experience in education, so please explain how it is possible to teach men wisdom or any other virtue. Protagoras smiled for a moment.

28:06His followers, unsure what to make of this eccentric former sculptor, exchanged glances. A few had taken offence. Protagoras was growing slightly irritated with Socrates but attempted to conceal the fact. I would welcome the opportunity to explain my views to you, he said in a voice so charming that the whole audience appeared to fall back under its spell. Rather than developing an argument though, I think it would be most pleasing if I simply told you a story. Socrates was about to object to what seemed like a diversion but everyone else applauded Protagoras, begging him to speak. What followed was one of the most remarkable speeches in the history of philosophy.

28:56It would come to be known simply as the Great Speech of Protagoras.

29:15And I'll see you next episode.

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