Socrates: Don't you realize that the errors in our conduct are caused by this kind of ignorance, of thinking that we know when we don't know?
Alcibiades: What do you mean by that?
Socrates: Well, we don't set out to do something unless we think we know what we're doing, right?
Alcibiades: Right.
Socrates: But when people don't think they know how to do something, they hand it over to somebody else, right?
Alcibiades: Of course.
Socrates: So the sort of people who don't think they know how to do things make no mistakes in life, because they leave those things to other people.
Alcibiades: You're right.
Socrates: Well, who are the ones making the mistakes? Surely not the ones who know?
Alcibiades: Of course not.
Socrates: Well, since it's not those who know, and it's not those who don't know and know they don't know, is there anyone left except those who don't know but think they do know?
Alcibiades: No, they're the only ones left.
Socrates: So this is the ignorance that causes bad things; this is the most disgraceful sort of stupidity.
Alcibiades: Yes.
Socrates: And isn't it most harmful and most contemptible when it is ignorance of the most important things?
Alcibiades: Very much so.
Socrates: Well, can you name anything more important than what's just and admirable and good and advantageous?

Plato, First Alcibiades

Just as a small object nearby falsely appears larger than a large object in the distance, so do short term goods (or apparent goods) seem greater than long term goods. But they are not actually greater - they only seem so. Therefore we must train ourselves to judge correctly. Cf. Plato, Protagoras

Your appetites are your “peasant class.” Your will is your “warrior class.” And your reason is your king - you are the “king” of yourself. Be sure to act like it.

People often wonder if there is a Western analog to Eastern meditation.

The answer is yes.

In our tradition, reason is akin to the divine. Therefore, to use reason to meditate on the divine is a spiritual activity. The method for doing this is called Dialectic or Meditation and Socrates is our great example of the meditating philosopher, of the dialectician.

Study the dialogues and you will learn how to use divine reason to move closer to divinity.

Once, having used dialectic, you have meditated, you can then sit in quiet knowing and see. This is Contemplation.

But you must always remember that this is not some self-aggrandizing intellectual game. It is the most serious thing.

Because of the state of modern global politics and society, many people have an understandable desire to find a spiritual path that is rooted in and expresses the spiritual understanding of their own heritage. There is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, one major reason I am not a Hindu is because, though I respect Hinduism and the Indian people tremendously, I can never shake the feeling that it (Hinduism) just is not mine. It is culturally unfamiliar.

However, I want to caution you against some common errors I see people making as a result of this desire.

First, there seems to be a tendency to conflate "universally true" with the Christian and Islamic imperative to convert everyone, as though if a religion is objectively true, and consequently universally true, then it obligates global outreach and proselytization. But one simply does not follow from the other. On the contrary, if something is universally true, then distinct cultures will probably tend to develop their own approaches to that truth which will interpret that reality, or aspects of that reality, in ways more useful to and intuitive for those cultures and peoples. This is what we do see happening throughout history and there is no reason for us to interfere with that process. Furthermore, if you believe that divinity is responsible for the existence of the cosmos, it is plainly incoherent to believe that is not a "universal" truth, since it entails the literal creation of the universe.

Second, I have noticed unhealthy ideas regarding the influence of different cultures and ethnicities. On the "Left" there is sometimes a bizarre need to overemphasize contributions or influences by non-Western peoples, almost as if they believe there is something shameful in having a tradition that is "too European." On the other hand, those on the "Right" can have an irrational aversion to even the slightest outside influence, with the result that they confine themselves to a narrow menu of options, none of which we know much about. But would you discard algebra because it was largely developed by Persians and Arabs and restrict yourself exclusively to the use of Euclidean geometry? That would be manifest nonsense. But the actual fact of the matter is that the Hellenic tradition is overwhelmingly the story - the collective path... - of the West developing its relationship with and beautiful understanding of the Divine. It is a path that will speak to you in terms that seem familiar and intuitive - you will feel like you are doing what you are doing: stepping onto the path of the European Wisdom Tradition.

So, please, do not fall into these common traps. I hope you'll find much that is useful.

Rejecting Platonism because some of its ideas were borrowed (successfully or not) by Christianity would be like rejecting classical music because jazz borrowed some concepts from it and you don’t like jazz.

Surely anyone with any sense at all will always call upon a god before setting out on any venture, whatever its importance.

Plato, Timaeus, 27c

The whole combination of soul and body is called a living thing, or animal, and has the designation ‘mortal’ as well. Such a combination cannot be immortal, not on any reasonable account. In fact it is pure fiction, based neither on observation nor on adequate reasoning, that a god is an immortal living thing which has a body and a soul, and that these are bound together by nature for all time.

Plato, Phaedrus 246c-d

Regular reminder that philosophy is not armchair nerdism. It is the love of wisdom, the pursuit of the divine. If your practice of philosophy does not result in significant lifestyle changes, you aren’t a philosopher, you’re just some guy who likes to sound smart.

Is the pleasant to be done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant for the sake of the good. ... But surely we are good, both we and everything else that’s good, when some excellence has come to be present in us? But the best way in which the excellence of each thing comes to be present in it, whether it’s that of an artifact or of a body or a soul as well, or of any animal, is not just any old way, but it is due to whatever organization, correctness, and craftsmanship is bestowed on each of them. ... So it’s when a certain order, the proper one for each thing, comes to be present in it that it makes each of the things there are, good? So also a soul which has its own order is better than a disordered one? So a self-controlled soul is a good one. I say that if a self-controlled soul is a good one, then a soul that’s been affected the opposite way of the self-controlled one is a bad one. And this, it’s turned out, is the foolish and undisciplined one. And surely a self-controlled person would do what’s appropriate with respect to both gods and human beings. For if he did what’s inappropriate, he wouldn’t be self-controlled. And of course if he did what’s appropriate with respect to human beings, he would be doing what’s just, and with respect to gods he would be doing what’s pious, and one who does what is just and pious must necessarily be just and pious. Yes, and he would also necessarily be brave, for it’s not like a self-controlled man to either pursue or avoid what isn’t appropriate, but to avoid and pursue what he should, whether these are things to do, or people, or pleasures and pains, and to stand fast and endure them where he should. So, it’s necessarily very much the case, Callicles, that the self-controlled man, because he’s just and brave and pious, as we’ve recounted, is a completely good man, that the good man does well and admirably whatever he does, and that the man who does well is blessed and happy, while the corrupt man, the one who does badly, is miserable. ... And if it is true, then a person who wants to be happy must evidently pursue and practice self-control.

Plato, Gorgias, 506c-507d

"Perhaps one who is truly a man should stop thinking about how long he will live. He should not be attached to life but should commit these concerns to the god and believe the women who say that not one single person can escape fate. He should thereupon give consideration to how he might live the part of his life still before him as well as possible."

Plato, Gorgias 512e

O dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.

Socrates’ prayer in Plato’s Phaedrus, 279c

More especially, the very antiquity of these practices seems to have corrupted the natural pleasures of which are common to man and beast. For these perversions, your two states may well be the first to be blamed, as well as any others that make a particular point of gymnastic exercises. Circumstances may make you treat this subject either light-heartedly or seriously; in either case you ought to bear in mind that when male and female come together in order to have a child, the pleasure they experience seems to arise entirely naturally. But homosexual intercourse and lesbianism seem to be unnatural crimes of the first rank, and are committed because men and women cannot control their desire for pleasure. It is the Cretans we all hold to blame for making up the story of Ganymede: they were so firmly convinced that their laws came from Zeus that they saddled him with this fable, in order to have a divine 'precedent' when enjoying their particular pleasure.

Plato, Laws, 636c

The actions that are appropriate for us can generally be determined by our relationships. He is your father. This tells you to take care of him, to yield to him in all things, to put up with him when he abuses you or beats you.

‘But he is a bad father.’

Nature did not provide for you a good father, but a father. Your brother wrongs you? Well then, maintain your relationship to him. Do not think about what he is doing, but about what you will have to do if you want to keep your moral character in accordance with nature. For no one can harm you unless you wish it. You will be harmed only when you think you are harmed. If you get into the habit of looking at the relationships implied by ‘neighbor’, ‘citizen’, ‘commander’, you will discover what is proper to expect from each.

Epictetus, The Handbook, 30

This is one of the trickier passages in Epictetus as it can be read as advocating that you be utterly passive. That is not the meaning here. Rather, the point is that the badness of the other person (or people) is not your business. Your concern is to do what is correct and appropriate regardless of what they are doing.

It is in the activities of men that the evils appear, and that not of all men nor always. And as to these, if men sinned for the sake of evil, nature itself would be evil. But if the adulterer thinks his adultery bad but his pleasure good, and the murderer thinks the murder bad but the money he gets by it good, and the man who does evil to an enemy thinks that to do evil is bad but to punish his enemy good, and if the soul commits all its sins in that way, then the evils are done for the sake of goodness. The soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes about the good, because it is not primary essence. And we see many things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers, sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgments and punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body, Gods and spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.

Sallust, On the Gods and the World

The word philosophy means “love of wisdom.” A love of wisdom should be your motivation - not escape from feelings, not cool mystical experiences, not some kind of status as an intellectual, not your political opinions. If you are not motivated by a love for wisdom, you are walking down the wrong path.

Since Evil is here, ‘haunting this world by necessary law’, and it is the Soul’s design to escape from Evil, we must escape hence.

But what is this escape?

‘In attaining Likeness to God’, we read. And this is explained as ‘becoming just and holy, living by wisdom’, the entire nature grounded in Virtue.

But does not Likeness by way of Virtue imply Likeness to some being that has Virtue? To what Divine Being, then, would our Likeness be? To the Being - must we not think? - in Which, above all, such excellence seems to inhere, that is to the Soul of the Cosmos and to the Principle ruling within it, the Principle endowed with a wisdom most wonderful. What could be more fitting than that we, living in this world, should become Like to its ruler?

Plotinus, Ennead 1.2.1

Never say of anything, "I have lost it"; but, "I have returned it." Is your child dead? It is returned. Is your wife dead? She is returned. Is your estate taken away? Well, and is not that likewise returned? "But he who took it away is a bad man." What difference is it to you who the giver assigns to take it back? While he gives it to you to possess, take care of it; but don't view it as your own, just as travelers view a hotel.

Epictetus, The Handbook 11

In fact, you see, none of the gods loves wisdom or wants to become wise - for they are wise - and no one else who is wise already loves wisdom; on the other hand, no one who is ignorant will love wisdom either or want to become wise. For what’s especially difficult about being ignorant is that you are content with yourself, even though you’re neither beautiful and good nor intelligent. If you don’t think you need anything, of course you won’t want what you don’t think you need.

Plato, Symposium, 204a