On Socrates's "triple filter test' (which isn't Socrates's at all)

So, someone sent me a link to something being advertised as "Socrates's triple filter test." It's a story about how Socrates stops a man who wants to gossip by giving him an ethical lesson. The person who linked me wanted to know what the ancient source for the story was. Let's start with the obvious question: what's the story? Well, here it is:

One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"

Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really..."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful,! why tell it to me at all?"

The man was defeated and ashamed.

In some versions of the story, the man actually wants to talk about Socrates's wife because she is cheating on him.


Well, just by the wording, I can tell you that you won't be finding an ancient source for this story. Taking the wording out of it, it's still very suspect. Yes, Socrates liked to lecture others on ethics, and yes, he was quite fond of the truth, but "usefulness" and "goodness" in this fashion are not his style, so to say. I'm sorry, reader. It's good ethical advice, but is a modern story, and not anything recorded by Plato or any other ancient author as an authentic story of Socrates’ life. I checked.

• Tuesday, October 10, 2017
  ancient Hellenic culture current affairs requested post Socrates

2,000 year old toys discovered in ancient city of Parion

Gosh, these are so cute! 2,000-year-old ancient toys from the Hellenistic Period have been discovered inside tombs belonging to children in the ancient seaport city of Parion located in northwestern Turkey's Çanakkale province.

Researchers have discovered toys and other articles during excavations at the ancient site, Professor Hasan Kasaoğlu from Atatürk University, who is the excavation leader at Parion, told the Anadolu Agency. He noted that the toys were presented as "gifts for the dead children" and provide significant information about the sociocultural structure of the period.

For instance, Kasaoğlu highlighted that female figurines were found in tombs belonging to girls, while male figures were found in tombs belonging to boys.

"2,000 years ago girls played with 'Barbie-like' dolls, the same way they do now. [A]lthough objects have changed shapes and features, humans have always had the same mentality."

Besides the human figurines, animal and mythological figurines were also found in the tombs, believed to be buried with the aim to accompany the children on their journey to the afterlife, the professor added. Earlier this month, researchers discovered a baby bottle around the same necropolis.

Archaeologists have been carrying out excavations at the ancient site since 2005. Sarcophagi and graves, as well as ancient artifacts were found in the area. Parion, also called Parium, was an ancient Greek city founded in 709 B.C. It had two major harbors during the Roman era, and served as the main "customs station" for Istanbul-bound goods from the Aegean.

To learn more about ancient Hellenic toys, see this post: Toys are of all ages.

• Monday, October 9, 2017
  archeology current affairs Turkey

On Zeus Asbamaios, Keeper of Oaths

During my research wanderings through books and across the internet, I often come across thing--often little things--that catch my eye. Yesterday I stumbled upon an epithet of Zeus I was unfamiliar with: Asbamaios (Aσβαμαιοσ).

This epithet of Zeus refers to Zeus as the protector of the sanctity of oaths. It was derived from a spring, Asbamaeon near Tyana, in Cappadocia, Turkey, the water of which was said to be beneficial and pleasant to honest persons, but pestilential to those who were guilty of perjury. When perjured persons drank of the water, it produced a disease of the eyes, dropsy, and lameness, so that the guilty persons were unable to walk away from the well, and were obliged to own their crime.

Tyana was a place of great consequence, both in a commercial and a military viewpoint. The plain around it was extensive and fertile. Tyana is celebrated in history as the native place of the famous impostor Apollonius, of whom we have a detailed biography by Philostratus. The temple of Zeus Asbamaios stood on the borders of a lake in a marshy plain. The water of the lake itself was cold, but the connected hot spring was sacred to Zeus.

It was formerly believed that Kara Hissar marked the site of Tyana becse many ruins litter the city and its inhabitants still maintain that their town once was the capital of Cappadocia. But with the description above, Kara Hissar is too far north to be identified with Tyana. It's believed that the true site of Tyana is between a place now called Kiz Hissar, south-west of Nigdeh, and Erekli. The ruins of Tyana are considerable, but the most conspicuous is an aqueduct of granite, extending seven or eight miles to the foot of the mountains. There are also massy foundations of several large buildings, shafts, pillars, and one handsome column still standing. Two miles south of these ruins, the hot spring also still bubbles forth in a cold swamp or lake.

• Sunday, October 8, 2017
  ancient Hellenic culture epithets Mythology 101 Turkey Zeus Zeus Asbamaios

Three more "Greece is..." magazines are out!

Have you heard of the 'Greece is...' magazine? It was inaugurated in the summer of 2015, with its first issue dedicated to Santorini, one of the world’s most beloved and coveted travel destinations. The second issue, 'Greece Is Athens - Summer Edition', is a treasure trove of information on Athens from past to present, distributed exclusively at the Acropolis Museum. The third was about the Peloponnese and the fourth issue, 'Greece Is Democracy', was on the occasion of the 3D Athens Democracy Forum, celebrates and relates to the birth, reality and influence of Athenian democracy, through a compilation of original articles by esteemed Greek and international academics, authors and journalists. If you have not read them yet, you might want to invest the time!

After those came more magazines, on the Greek city Thessaloniki, the Greek city of Athens, the Greek island Mykonos and the last was on The Olympics. Then on Athens again, on wine, on the peninsula and regional unit of Greece named Halkidiki and on democracy. Then on the Greek city Thessaloniki again, Athens again, the new subject of health and what do you know, wine again! Then it was back to parts of the country, namely Santorini again, Kos-Nisyros, and Mykonos again.

Three more are out now, about Rhodes, Athens, and democracy again. Enjoy!

• Saturday, October 7, 2017
  current affairs modern Greece

More finds from the Antikythera shipwreck

The Greek Culture Ministry announced that archaeologists revisiting one of the most famous shipwrecks of ancient times off southern Greece  near Antikythera island have discovered fragments of bronze statues and a section of the wooden hull. According to the ministry statement, divers raised a complete arm and a section of pleated clothing from statues, and compacted metal objects that have yet to be cleaned and separated. A video titled “2017 Return to Antikythera Expedition” looks at the delicate and often hazardous work marine archaeologists do in recovering ancient gems from the depth of the seas.

The 1st-century B.C. wreck of a large freighter discovered more than a century ago  between Crete and the Peloponnese has already yielded an ancient astronomical computer — known as the Antikythera Mechanism — as well as statues and thousands of other artifacts. The latest expedition, led by the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, Lund University, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was conducted between September 4 to 20, and as per previous trips to the wreck, the team did not leave disappointed.

According to Guardian, the project team, from the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and Lund University in Sweden, discovered the buried arm with a bespoke underwater metal detector which has revealed the presence of other large metal objects nearby under the seabed. “There should be at least seven statues,” Alexandros Sotiriou, a Greek technical diver on the team told the Guardian. The operation is overseen by Ageliki Simosi, director of the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, which is responsible for all underwater archaeology in Greece. Brendan Foley, co-director of the excavations team at Lund University, said:

“What we’re finding is these sculptures are in among and under the boulders. We think it means a minimum of seven, and potentially nine, bronze sculptures still waiting for us down there.”

The boulders that overlie the metal objects weigh several tonnes and may have tumbled onto the wreck during a massive earthquake that shook Antikythera and surrounding islands in the 4th century AD.

The bronze arm, probably from a statue of a male, is the highlight of the team’s 2017 excavation season. Among other objects the divers recovered are a patterned slab of red marble the size of a tea tray, a silver tankard, sections of joined wood from the ship’s frame, and a human bone. Last year, the team found the skull, teeth, ribs and other bones of an individual who perished on the wreck. They have since extracted DNA from the skull and from it learned the individual’s sex and where they came from. Until those results are published, the person is known as Pamphilos after divers found the name, meaning “friend of all”, carved on a buried cup that had been decorated with an erotic scene. 

With excellent weather conditions above them, the divers managed to recover, in addition to the “orphaned” right arm, pottery shards, nails, lead sheathing fragments, and an odd metal disc, among other artifacts. Prior to this latest expedition, the Return to Antikythera project team managed to recover glassware, luxury ceramics, anchors, counterweights, tools, and even an ancient skeleton; which is currently being analyzed for DNA.

• Friday, October 6, 2017
  Antikythera archeology current affairs modern Greece

PAT ritual announcement: The Apatouria

The Apatouria was a paternity festival. The first day was celebrated with a communal feast within the brotherhood, the second day sacrifice were made to Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria, and the third day young boys admitted to their father's brotherhood. We don't have these kinships anymore and we won't be celebrating all days of the festival because of it. What we do want to do is sacrifice to Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria in gratitude of the kinship we have found in Hellenismos and Elaion. Will you join us on 7 October at the usual 10 AM EDT?

The Apaturia (Ἀπατούρια) was an ancient Hellenic festival held annually by all the Ionian towns, except Ephesus and Colophon. In Athens, the Apatouria was the central element in the ritual calendar of the phratries, the kinship organizations crucial for determining Athenian citizenship. The three-day festival occurred in the autumn in the month Pyanepsion and was celebrated at the separate phratry shrines throughout Attica.

On the first day of the festival, called Dorpia or Dorpeia (Δορπεία), banquets were held towards evening at the meeting-place of the phratries or in the private houses of members.

On the second, Anarrhysis (from ἀναρρύειν, 'to draw back the victim's head'), a sacrifice of oxen was offered at the public cost to Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria.

On the third day, Kureōtis (κουρεῶτις), children born since the last festival were presented by their fathers or guardians to the assembled phratores, and, after an oath had been taken as to their legitimacy and the sacrifice of a goat or a sheep, their names were inscribed in the register. The name κουρεῶτις is derived either from κοῦρος, 'young man', i.e., the day of the young, or less probably from κείρω, 'to shear', because on this occasion young people cut their hair and offered it to the gods. The children who entered puberty also made offerings of wine to Herakles. On this day also it was the custom for boys still at school to declaim pieces of poetry, and to receive prizes.

Ancient scholarship links the Apatouria to the myth of the ritual combat between the Athenian Melanthos (the 'dark one') and the Boiotian Xanthos (the 'fair one') for the kingship of Attica, which Melanthos won through a trick (apate). Although some modern scholars have therefore seen a connection to the ephebes and to rites of passage involving social inversion, the rituals of the festival have no apparent connection to the narrative of the myth, and most modern scholars now link the Apatouria to the control, maintenance, and affirmation of kinship and of membership in society at every level.

Will you join us for this event? The ritual can be found here, the community page here.

• Thursday, October 5, 2017
  ancient Hellenic culture Apatouria Athena Athena Phratria current events Elaion festivals PAT Zeus Zeus Phratrios

I thought I'd be ready, I am not

It can't have escaped your notice that a terrorist opened fire on the visitors of a music festival in Las Vegas. Around sixty people lost their lives, 500+ people were injured when a man fired a customized semi-automatic or a fully automatic riffle into a partying crowd from a vantage point in a hotel. I said in yesterday's post I would talk about it today, but I don't think I'm ready.

I am ready to talk, for sure, but not ready to speak with temperance.

The Vegas shooting is--at least for me--another in a pile-up of terrible events. It's been weeks upon weeks of natural disasters and human hate and I am at the end of what I can deal with and remain hopeful. Yes, I was going to talk about the shooting in Vegas, because it's terrible and it's physically painful for me to see the images and watch the videos. I was going to talk about Vegas, but Vegas is only a symptom of a pandemic of hate and division.

If I talk about Vegas, I will have to talk about taking a knee and the absolutely infuriating and discriminating responses it's summoned in people. I will have to talk about Trump's golfing time while Puerto Rico runs out of food, clean water, and shelter. I will have to talk about the months, even years, it will take to build Mexico City back up, or Barbuda, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Anguilla, and the Virgin Islands. I will have to talk about Catalonia and the breakdown of democracy. I will have to talk about the German elections and the hate vote. I will have to talk about how black lives matter and everyone deserves to breath. I will have to talk about so much darkness, and I can't.

Not yet.

Not today.

So I will show you the heroes of these disasters instead. I'll pay tribute to the people who lived and saved others. Those who are not selfish, hateful, or vengeful. Those who remember every life is precious and theirs no more than that of another.

And if you don't think this has a place on my blog, then please, don't visit anymore. Our religion is one of ethics, of arête and being the best version of yourself you can be. The best version of all of us is the version who loves, who cherishes, who keeps safe.

Thank you, every day heroes. May the Gods bless you for all time.

 

• Wednesday, October 4, 2017
  current affairs personal