General Submission

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Crito. Who was the person, Socrates, with whom you were talking yesterday at the Lyceum? There was such a crowd around you that I could not get within hearing, but I caught a sight of him over their heads, and I made out, as I thought, that he was a stranger with whom you were talking: who was he?

Socrates. There were two, Crito; which of them do you mean?

It is so intellectually important that men become conscious of their most basic objective being. It is what you are, beyond whatever choices you are able to find for yourself, yet it is the last frontier found after searching through a sea of trivialities, if it is found at all. I would never say it is easy, or obvious. Never trust anyone who is so heavy handed about their own viewpoint. Nevertheless, when you seek it out, and you have put in your time and duty to understand, it is waiting to give you ground. This ground is observable in the continuity between all men, and animals alike.

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Socrates. My dear Phaedrus, whence come you, and whither are you going?

Phaedrus. I come from Lysias the son of Cephalus, and I am going to take a walk outside the wall, for I have been sitting with him the whole morning; and our common friend Acumenus tells me that it is much more refreshing to walk in the open air than to be shut up in a cloister.

Soc. There he is right. Lysias then, I suppose, was in the town?

Why is it that those who are pro-choice when it comes to pregnancy are anti-war advocates? Why is it that those who are pro-life, are also pro-war advocates? Is this an exhibition of the underlying hypocrisy that not even the power of contradiction has the hope of eradicating? So, perhaps, the most virtuous position is pro-life and anti-war? Is there anybody out there living this life? How about pro-choice, pro-war? Anybody? How about the option unstudied folks would not be able to realize, that this is all just linguistic sophistry, and that nobody is really anything at anytime?