5845
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Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon]
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Full Idea:
Niceratus said that his father, because he was concerned to make him a good man, made him learn the whole works of Homer, and he could still repeat by heart the entire 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'.
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From:
Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5)
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A reaction:
This clearly shows the status which Homer had in the teaching of morality in the time of Socrates, and it is precisely this acceptance of authority which he was challenging, in his attempts to analyse the true basis of virtue
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6011
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There is a remote first god (the Good), and a second god who organises the material world [Numenius, by O'Meara]
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Full Idea:
Numenius argues that material reality depends on intelligible being, which depends on a first god - the Good - which is difficult to grasp, but which inspires a second god to imitate it, turning to matter and organizing it as the world.
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From:
report of Numenius (fragments/reports [c.160]) by Dominic J. O'Meara - Numenius
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A reaction:
The interaction problem comes either between the two gods, or between the second god and the world. The argument may have failed to catch on for long when people scented an infinite regress lurking in the middle of it.
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