[Buddha-l] it's not about belief

[Espen S. Ore]

Richard P. Hayes skrev  04.01.2006 17:52:

>Exactly the same could be said of Socrates. Did he really exist, or was
>he a fictitious character invented by Plato? Doesn't matter; what
>matters is the method of dialogical inquiry exemplified in the dialogues
>in which Socrates was a character. The same sort of thing could be said
>of Huineng.
>
>  
>
Now Socrates (the person) is better documented by his contemporaries 
than Jesus not only did Xenophon in addition to Plato write about him, 
but even more important in my eyes is that in his (Socrates') living 
time he was used in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds. On the other hand I 
agree: was Socrates the person described in Plato's dialogues or in 
Xenephon's, or was he the swindler running his school in the Clouds? 
Plato claims at least in the Symposion that Aristophanes and Socrates 
appeared in the same circles in Athens, but then he also has Socrates in 
his Apology defend himself from the image shaped by a writer of comedies.

Espen Ore
National Library of Norway/University of Oslo