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Dear Socrates
Dear Socrates
Having returned from the turn of the Fourth Century B.C. to the turn of the Twenty-First A.D., Socrates has eagerly signed on as a Philosophy Now columnist so that he may continue to carry out his divinely-inspired dialogic mission.
Dear ‘Socrates’,
I put ‘Socrates’ in quotation marks because I don’t believe that it is really Socrates whom I am addressing. Aside from the intrinsic implausibility of somebody returning from a far distant time, what reason have you provided, or could you provide, to convince me otherwise? Much of what you have written doesn’t sound like Socrates at all. The rest you could have picked up from consulting various reference sources. This is why you are in ‘hiding’: You dare not reveal your true identity as an impostor!
Skeptically yours, ‘Pyrrho’
Dear ‘Pyrrho’,
I see that it was a mistake to agree to put my name to this column; I should instead have signed on under some nondescript assumed name as a philosopher who was willing to entertain suggestions from readers. That way both the reader and I could indulge our desire for dialogue and enlightenment without this continual distraction about whether I am who I say I am (or if I am, did I really stand all night by my tent, etc.
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