It's very important to remember that the philosophers were social dissidents. They were social critics. The man in the street or woman in the street did not particularly cherish what they said. Socrates was killed.

I would say to anybody who thinks that all the problems in philosophy can be translated into empirically verifiable answers - whether it be a Lawrence Krauss thinking that physics is rendering philosophy obsolete or a Sam Harris thinking that neuroscience is rendering moral philosophy obsolete - that it takes an awful lot of philosophy - philosophy of science in the first case, moral philosophy in the second - even to demonstrate the relevance of these empirical sciences.

Everybody have equal rights to a life of full flourishing. Philosophy slowly, slowly has given us arguments saying, look, you already committed to your own life flourishing, and you're being inconsistent if you don't expand it. So philosophy often works in trying to show us that there's an inner incoherence in our points of view. We're all committed to one thing when it comes to us and our own kind, but we're not willing to expand it and we're guilty of inconsistency.

The good polis is made by the good person, his moral character intact, and the good polis, in turn, helps turn out good persons, their moral character intact.

What is love? When you love somebody then I mean we all want good things to happen to ourselves and keep the bad things at bay. When you love somebody you want that as much for them if not more than you do for yourself.

It's very important to remember that the philosophers were social dissidents. They were social critics. The man in the street or woman in the street did not particularly cherish what they said. Socrates was killed.

What is it precisely, that they are doing when they are doing science. Are they refining their instruments for observation or discovering new aspects of reality?