ML166: Armand D'Angour on Socrates in Love, Reviving The Classics and Rediscovering Ancient Music
Armand D’Angour is a Professor of Classics at Oxford University, a musician and the author of several books, including his latest, Socrates in Love.
His research explores a number of themes across ancient Greek culture and he has written poetry in ancient Greek and Latin - he was even commissioned to compose odes in ancient Greek for the 2004 and 2012 Olympic Games.
When you think of the Greek philosopher Socrates, the foundational philosopher of the western world what kind of a man do you imagine? Probably an old, ugly man in a white robe, from humble beginnings who was more of a thinker than a doer.
But what if that image of Socrates is limiting or even wrong? That's the question Armand explores in his book Socrates in Love, where he presents a radically different image of Socrates and his influences, based on neglected parts of core sources from Plato and Xenophon.
In this episode we discuss:
- Armand's revisionist biography of Socrates including an account of the woman who helped him shape his ideas on love
- The value of reviving ancient music and the methods for doing so
- What the Greeks’ attitude to the new can teach us about technology in the modern world
This was a wonderful conversation that will give you fresh insight into the foundations of Western philosophy and the connections between music and the classics.
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