According to the historian Suetonius, the emperor Augustus wrote an invitation (or exhortation) to philosophy. If this is true, it would have been inspired by Cicero’s famous Hortensius, which was, in turn, informed by Aristotle’s Protrepticus. Tragically, all three protreptics have been lost, except for fragments of the Hortensius and Protrepticus—depriving us of antiquity’s most popular, and improving, genre of philosophy.
This short, readable book is an imaginative reconstruction of the first Roman emperor’s invitation to philosophy, based on arguments and anecdotes gleaned from other ancient authors, including Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. It features Augustus in conversation with his two young grandsons (who were also his adopted sons and heirs), Gaius and Lucius, in the forlorn hope that they might one day rise into philosopher-emperors.
At his trial, Socrates declaimed that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what are the arguments behind this slogan, and why should we, today, take up the study of philosophy?
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
Essay substantially revised on 18 August 2026.
Tyranny is back on the table, but the ancients thought hard about how to avoid it. One of their most interesting arguments is that the one who suffers most in a tyranny is… the tyrant himself.
When Lydia (in modern-day Turkey) was conquered by Persia in around 540 BCE, the Greek cities of Ionia, along the Aegean coast, were ruled by tyrants nominated by the Persian satrap in Sardis, the former Lydian capital. These tyrants, backed by the Persian power, had no need to moderate their rule, and began to give tyranny, and Persia, a bad name to the Greeks.
King vs Tyrant
The definition of ‘tyrant’ is malleable, and has shifted many times over the centuries. All in all, a tyrant is an absolute ruler who is illegitimate and/or unrestrained by law. To maintain himself in such a precarious position, he (for it is invariably a ‘he’) usually resorts to oppression and cruelty. Even then, ‘the strangest thing to see is an aged tyrant’—as the philosopher Thales of Miletus (a city of Ionia) noted more than 2,500 years ago.
In On Clemency, written for the emperor Nero, the Roman philosopher Seneca (d. 65 CE) says that clemency is the quality that most distinguishes a king from a tyrant: ‘A tyrant differs from a king in his behaviour, not his title … It’s because of clemency that there’s a big difference between a king and a tyrant.’ For Seneca, a ruler’s glory depends not on his power, but on its proper exercise. Moreover, if people can see that their ruler is ‘for them as much as he is above them’, they will be loyal to him and act as his eyes and ears. Clemency, then, not only ennobles rulers but keeps them safe: ‘It is at one and the same time an adornment of supreme power and its surest security.’
Fear and Trembling
The calm and deliberate exercise of power, says Seneca, is like a clear and brilliant sky, but when the ruler is unrestrained all becomes murk and shadows: ‘People on every side tremble and start at sudden sounds, and not even the one who causes all the alarm is left unshaken.’ The tyrant is then caught in a vicious circle: he is hated because he is feared, and must make himself feared because he is hated. For everyone he kills, there are fathers and sons, brothers and friends, who will rise up in their stead. In time, the tyrant cannot travel freely, sleep soundly, eat confidently, speak openly, or trust even those closest to him.
In 68 CE, abandoned by the Praetorian Guard and declared a public enemy by the Senate, Nero fled Rome. As soldiers approached to arrest him, he preferred suicide to capture. But he did not have the courage to wield the dagger himself, and his freedman Epaphroditus helped him drive it into his throat. His last, deluded words were, Qualis artifex pereo: ‘What an artist dies in me!’
Socrates on Tyranny
One of Socrates’ most famous arguments is that no one ever knowingly does evil. People do wrong not because their ethics are overwhelmed by a desire for pleasure, as is often thought, but because they are unable to weigh up pleasures and pains. They act with recklessness or cowardice or foolishness or vice (which are really all one and the same thing) because, from their limited perspective, it seems like the right or best thing to do. But in the longer term, their actions undermine both their and our happiness—and never more so than if they happen to be a tyrant.
In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates makes the case that the tyrant is the most miserable of men because he is in a stronger position to harm himself and others—which is why those whom Homer has in Hades suffering eternal torment are not ordinary people but potentates such as Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Tityus.
In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates ranks people according to how much of the ideal Forms their souls are supposed to have seen, with philosophers, artists, and true lovers in the first class, followed by kings and generals in the second class … and tyrants in the ninth and final class.
In Book 9 of the Republic, Socrates calculates that the king is precisely 729 times happier than the tyrant. He derives this number, which happens to be the cube of 9, through some fanciful Platonic arithmetic, following his argument that there are three kinds of pleasure corresponding to the three parts of the soul.
Plato and Aristotle on Tyranny
The best rulers are those who are most reluctant to govern, and the most eager the worst—said Plato.
Plato did not care for Athenian democracy, but the tyranny of his own aristocratic relatives had proven much worse. In the Republic, he claims that the degeneration of the ideal state ends in democracy, followed by tyranny.
The transition from democracy to tyranny is one of the most striking passages in the Republic. Democracy prizes freedom above all else, until freedom itself becomes excessive: children cease to respect their parents, pupils their teachers, and citizens any form of authority or restraint. Into this disorder steps a popular champion who promises to protect people from their enemies. He accuses his opponents, disposes of rivals, redistributes property, and, when threatened in return, asks the people for a bodyguard. The protector has turned tyrant.
In Book 9 of the Republic, Plato gives a detailed account of the origins, mindset, and modus operandi of the tyrant, thereby demonstrating that this most unjust of men is also the most slavish and unhappy. The soul of the tyrant is so disordered that he is unable to do, or even know, what it truly desires—which is, of course, to be happy, and therefore good.
Plato begins his psychological portrait with our dreams. Even in respectable people, he says, there is a ‘terrible, savage, and lawless’ element that emerges during sleep, entertaining desires that reason would never permit in waking life. In the tyrannical man, these lawless desires have escaped from the night and taken command of the day.
At first, the tyrannical man spends his money satisfying them. When the money runs out, he borrows. When borrowing is no longer enough, he cheats and steals. He exploits his parents, betrays his friends, and eventually becomes capable of any crime. The man who appeared to be supremely free has become the slave of his strongest appetite.
And what happens within the individual, Plato argues, also happens within the state. The political tyrant must continually manufacture enemies, because conflict makes the people dependent upon their leader. He must remove anyone courageous, intelligent, wealthy, or independent enough to threaten him. As the better sort disappear, he becomes increasingly dependent upon flatterers, mercenaries, and slaves. Power progressively deprives him of the very people whom he might have trusted.
The tyrant has conquered everyone except himself.
The life of the political tyrant is even more wretched than that of the private tyrant, first, because the political tyrant is in a better position to feed his disordered desires, and, second, because he is everywhere surrounded and watched by his enemies, of whom he is, in effect, the prisoner.
The Republic ends with the Myth of Er, according to which the souls of tyrants and murderers are barred from reincarnation and condemned to an eternity in the underworld.
Aristotle too suggested that there is no worse criminal than the tyrant: ‘Men do not become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold; and hence honour is bestowed, not on him who kills a thief, but on him who kills a tyrant…’
In Book 2 of the Politics, Aristotle says that the Carthaginian constitution is so superior to any Greek one that the Carthaginians have never suffered a rebellion or been ruled by a tyrant.
How to Protect against Tyrants
So, what might the ancient philosophers have to say about today’s democracies?
First, we need to ensure that a life spent in politics remains an attractive prospect, or at the very least a tolerable one, or else sensible people will be put off from going into politics, hollowing out the centre and leaving us to be governed, or misgoverned, by disturbed and power-hungry fanatics.
Second, we need to think more carefully about education, and what it means to be educated. Unless we transform ourselves by carrying out the work of the mind, we could be rich, powerful, and famous, like Nero, or Putin, and still be utterly miserable. Playing the tyrant, and taking everyone down with us, is not, as Seneca reminds us, what human beings are for. The best bulwark against tyranny is the existence of a large and historically aware middle class.
It is not merely that educated people know more facts. A population with some knowledge of history is more likely to recognise the old methods when they return: the invention of internal enemies, the attack on independent institutions, the demand for personal loyalty, the contempt for established restraints, and the insistence that one man can save us. Tyranny changes its garb more readily than its methods.
The Internet once promised to become the greatest educational tool in history. Instead, it has also become the demagogue’s greatest megaphone, enabling him to bypass traditional institutions and appeal directly to the fears and resentments of millions.
Third, a country’s constitution or political settlement must contain sufficient safeguards to prevent or arrest the rise of a potential tyrant, or simply of a less than decent or competent leader. This is not the case in the U.S. and no longer the case in the U.K. where recent changes to how the main political parties select their leaders have enabled the rise of such improbable figures as Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson, who, as prime minister, purged his party of competent moderates and attempted to prorogue Parliament.
Of course, constitutions are only as strong as the people prepared to uphold them. Safeguards can be ignored or circumvented, offices captured, institutions intimidated. So it is not simply a matter of writing a fail-safe constitution.
Since the time of Plato, humanity has made great strides in science and technology, but far less progress in politics. The world, now armed with nuclear weapons, and faced with problems that Plato could scarcely have imagined, is still crying out for fail-safe systems of government.
And the critical difference between relaxation and leisure.
In Book 10 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle outlines the nature of happiness, which, he reminds us, is the “end of living” or purpose of life. Happiness, he says, is not a disposition but an activity, or else it might belong to someone who slept through his whole life, or to someone suffering the greatest misfortunes.
Some activities, he continues, are chosen for the sake of something else, while others are chosen for their own sake. And it is among the latter that happiness is to be found, for happiness is not in want of anything. Activities that are chosen for their own sake are those from which nothing more is sought than the activity itself, and it is also of this kind that virtuous actions are thought to be.
It would be strange if happiness lay in amusement rather than in virtuous activity, for then man would toil and trouble all his life for the sake of nothing more than amusement. In truth, he amuses himself only so that he may exert himself. Amusement is a sort of relaxation, necessary only because of the impossibility of continuous activity.
Any chance person, even a slave, can enjoy the bodily pleasures no less than the best man; but no one assigns to a slave a share in happiness—unless he assigns to him also a share in human life. For happiness, as has been said, does not reside in sensual pleasure, but in virtuous activity.
Philosophic contemplation
Having established that happiness consists in activity that is chosen for its own sake, and especially in virtue, Aristotle argues that, of all such activities, it is philosophic contemplation that leads to the highest happiness.
The pleasures of philosophy, he says, are marvelous both for their purity and their enduringness. Man, more than anything, is distinguished by reason, and the life of reason is the most self-sufficient, the most pleasant, the happiest, best, and most godlike of all.
Indeed, the activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must surely be contemplative. All life aims at God and eternity: plants and animals participate in the eternal through reproduction, but man comes nearer through philosophic contemplation. Contemplation and, therefore, happiness are the fruits of leisure, for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.
To be happy, one does not need many or great things, and the life of virtue and contemplation can be practiced, indeed, more easily practiced, with but moderate means. The happy person is bound to seem strange, since the many and miserable only perceive, and judge by, external possessions.
Leisure in Politics
Aristotle returns to the subject of leisure in Politics. The state, he says, should aim at something more than mere survival or self-sufficiency:
Men must be able to engage in business and go to war, but leisure and peace are better; they must do what is necessary and indeed what is useful, but what is honourable is better … If it be disgraceful in men not to be able to use the goods of life, it is peculiarly disgraceful not to be able to use them in time of leisure—to show excellent qualities in action and war, and when they have peace and leisure to be no better than slaves.
To make time for leisure, virtue, and contemplation, Athenian citizens should have no part in agriculture or manufacturing—which are to be left in the care of slaves.
Discussion and relevance today
Anyone who loves his or her work, and who does it for its own sake, will agree with Aristotle: performing this activity, whether it be a job or a hobby, is a source of bliss. And if this activity can help or touch others, then our happiness is all the more complete.
But the most complete happiness comes from reflecting on the preferred activity, its purpose, and its meaning. For instance, it is a great thing to love gardening, but it is an even greater thing to understand why we love gardening, because it tells us something eternal and universal about what it is to be a human being, and connects us with everyone else who loves, has loved, or will love gardening.
Insightful and illuminating is the distinction drawn between time spent in amusement and relaxation, necessary because of the impossibility of continuous activity, and time spent in leisure, that is, in contemplation, friendship, and other virtuous activities.
Economic imperatives have led us to associate free time exclusively with amusement and relaxation, so that many people who retire, and no longer need to flop on a beach or in front of a screen, find themselves at a loss—essentially, because they have never been schooled in leisure (in fact, the Greek word for “leisure”—schole— is the root of our word “school”). But by conflating relaxation and leisure, we risk losing out on the fruits of peace and civilization, and, so, on the highest happiness.
As a moral philosophy, Aristotelian ethics, also called virtue ethics, is astonishingly modern, even futuristic, with people poised to have much more free time as robots take over from slaves and workers.
So much has changed since the time of Aristotle, and yet so little.
Virtue, like music, depends not on the right amount, but on the right measure.
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
This article is a faithful exposition of Aristotle’s account of virtue in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics.
Aristotle’s account of moral virtue rests on a simple but demanding idea: that goodness is not something we possess by nature, but something we acquire through practice.
In Book 2 of the Nicomachean Ethics (c. 330 BCE), Aristotle argues that moral virtues are formed through repetition. Unlike sight and hearing, which are given to us at birth, virtue is not in our nature. But neither is it contrary to our nature, which is adapted to receive it. Just as a sculptor becomes a sculptor by sculpting, so the virtuous become virtuous by exercising virtue.
One cannot define virtue with any precision because the goodness of a feeling or action is highly person- and context-dependent. All that can be said is that virtue, like strength, is undermined by a lack or excess of training. For instance, he who flees from everything becomes a coward, while he who runs headlong into every danger becomes rash. Courage, in contrast, is indicated and produced by the mean.
Moral excellence is intimately related to pleasure and pain. For it is in the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain that bad deeds are committed, and good deeds omitted. Hence, it is by pleasure and pain that bad people are bad.
There are three objects of choice, the noble, the advantageous, and the pleasant, and three objects of avoidance which are their contraries, the base, the injurious, and the painful. The good tend to go right about these, whereas the bad tend to go wrong. This is especially true of pleasure, which is common to the animals, and also contained in the advantageous and the noble. The good feel pleasure from the most beautiful, noble [kalos] actions, but the bad or not-good are often confused about what is most pleasant. It is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, but virtue, like art, is concerned with what is harder, and the good is better when it is harder.
A person may perform an apparently virtuous action by chance or under duress. An action is only virtuous if it is recognised as being virtuous and performed for that sake by a person with a set, unvarying character. In sum, an action is only virtuous if it is such as a virtuous person would perform.
The Golden Mean
Three things are found in the soul: passions, faculties, and dispositions [hexeis]. As the virtues are neither feelings nor faculties, they must be dispositions: dispositions to aim at the intermediate, or mean, between deficiency and excess.
The principal virtues, together with their corresponding vices, are listed in the table below.
Copyright Neel Burton
In any sphere, arriving at the mean is a form of success and worthy of praise. While it is possible to fail in many ways, it is possible to succeed in one way only, which is why the one is easy and the other is difficult. By the same token, men may be bad in many ways, but good in one way only.
So far so good, except that not every passion or action admits of a mean: for instance, not envy or murder. It is never a question of murdering the right person, at the right time, in the right way, for murder is neither a deficiency nor an excess, but always and intrinsically vicious.
The principal virtues along with their corresponding vices are listed in the table below.
In some cases, one vice can be closer to the virtue than the contrary vice, for instance, rashness is closer to courage than cowardice, and prodigality is closer to liberality than meanness. This is partly because the contrary vice, whether cowardice or meanness, is more common. Hence, people oppose not rashness but cowardice to courage, and not prodigality but meanness to liberality.
It is no easy task to be good. To increase the likelihood of hitting the mark, we should (1) avoid the vice that is furthest from the virtue or mean; (2) consider our vices and drag ourselves towards their contrary extremes; and (3) be wary of pleasure and pain.
For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle… anyone can get angry—that is easy—or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.
The Golden Mean (Virtue Ethics) vs the Categorical Imperative vs Utilitarianism
Aristotle’s ethics differs fundamentally from the two great ethical systems that came after him. Utilitarianism asks, ‘Which action will produce the most happiness?’ Kantian ethics asks, ‘Which action accords with strict moral duty?’ Aristotle begins somewhere else entirely: ‘What kind of person should I be?’ For him, ethics is not primarily about calculating consequences or obeying rules, but about cultivating character. The virtuous person develops, through practice and experience, the subtle judgement to feel and act in the right way, to the right degree, at the right time, and for the right reasons. Instead of giving us a crude formula for making moral decisions, Aristotle asks us to become the sort of person who can make them intuitively.
Sometimes, we may somewhat miss the mark, for instance, get angry too soon or not enough, yet still be praiseworthy. It is only when we deviate more markedly from the mean that we become blameworthy.
We help others by being virtuous, but we also help ourselves, for virtue is a disposition to happiness, and happiness is the exercise of virtue.
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
Article substantially revised on 26 July 2026.
Veritas vos liberabit: The truth shall set you free. —John 8:32
Truth has always mattered. But never before have we had access to so much information—or misinformation. Our ability to distinguish truth from falsehood has become one of the defining challenges of modern life.
Truth tends to lead to successful action. In that much, truth has instrumental value. But truth also has intrinsic value. Given the choice between a life of limitless pleasure as a brain in a vat and a genuine human life, along with all its pain and suffering, most people opt for the latter.
In Plato’s Cratylus, on the philosophy of language, Socrates says that aletheia (Greek, ‘truth’) is a compression of the phrase ‘a wandering that is divine’. Since Plato, many thinkers have spoken of truth and God in the same breath, and truth has also been linked with concepts such as justice, power, and freedom. According to John the Apostle, Jesus said to the Jews: ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.’
Fake News and Lies
Following his defeat at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Mark Antony heard a rumour that Cleopatra had committed suicide and, in consequence, stabbed himself in the abdomen—only to discover that Cleopatra herself had been responsible for spreading the rumour. He later died in her arms. Fake news is nothing new, but in the internet age it spreads faster than ever, swinging elections, fomenting social unrest, undermining institutions, and diverting political capital away from health, education, and good government.
Those who are alarmed, or who despair, might take some comfort in the words of Søren Kierkegaard:
Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion—and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion… while truth again reverts to a new minority.
One way to understand truth is to consider its opposites, namely, lies and bullsh*t. Lies differ from bullsh*t in that the liar must track the truth in order to conceal it, whereas the bullsh*tter has no regard or sensitivity for the truth or even for what their audience believes.
In the words of Harry Frankfurt:
Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullsh*tter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullsh*t is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.—On Bullshit
The Correspondence Theory of Truth
Let’s now turn to the three most influential positive theories of truth, starting with the correspondence theory. We shall then consider two important challenges to these traditional accounts.
For centuries, philosophers have agreed that thought or language is true if it corresponds to an independent reality. For Aristotle, ‘to say that what is is, and what is not is not, is true.’ For Avicenna, truth is ‘what corresponds in the mind to what is outside it.’ And for Aquinas, it is ‘the adequation of things and the intellect’ (adæquatio rei et intellectus).
Unfortunately for this so-called correspondence theory of truth, the mind does not perceive reality as it is, but only as it can, filtering, distorting, and interpreting it. In modern times, it has been argued that truth is constructed by social and cultural processes, to say nothing of individual desires and dispositions. Michel Foucault famously spoke, not of truth or truths, but of ‘regimes of truth.’ Categories and constructs concerning, for example, race, sexuality, and mental disorder may not reflect biological let alone metaphysical realities.
The Coherence Theory
Some philosophers have therefore argued that truth lies not in correspondence with an independent reality but in coherence within a system of beliefs.
On this view, a belief is true if it fits consistently with everything else we have good reason to believe. Truth, then, is less a matter of matching reality than of belonging to a coherent web of beliefs, each supporting and being supported by the others. Scientific theories, for example, are valued not only because they explain observations but because they integrate them into a coherent whole.
The coherence theory has particular appeal where direct verification is impossible. A new discovery is convincing not simply because it explains one fact, but because it fits with many others without creating contradictions.
But coherence alone cannot guarantee truth. A detective novel may be internally consistent while remaining entirely fictional. A system of beliefs can be perfectly coherent without corresponding to reality. Coherence is valuable, but coherence alone is not enough.
The Pragmatic Theory
Pragmatist philosophers such as William James proposed a different approach. Rather than asking whether a belief corresponds to reality or coheres with other beliefs, they asked whether it works.
A belief is true, they argued, insofar as it proves reliable in experience and enables us to navigate the world successfully. Scientific theories, for instance, are continually tested by their practical consequences. We could scarcely have sent astronauts to the Moon if our science had been wide off the mark. If something works, it may well be true; if it does not, it probably is not.
This emphasis on practical success reflects an important feature of truth. Our beliefs matter because they guide our actions. False beliefs eventually collide with reality.
Yet usefulness is not always the same as truth. What if something works for me but not for you? Is it then true for me but not for you? Some comforting illusions may help people cope with adversity without thereby becoming true. Conversely, some painful truths may offer no immediate practical benefit while remaining true nonetheless.
The Deflationary Theory
That a thing fits into a system, or leads to successful action, may suggest that it is true, but does not tell us much about what truth actually is, while the correspondence theory of truth is so thin as to be almost or entirely tautological. And perhaps for a reason. According to the deflationary or redundancy theory of truth, to say that ‘X is true’ is merely to say that X, and therefore that truth is an empty predicate. Truth is not a real property of things. Rather, it is a feature of language used to emphasize, agree, or hypothesize, or for stylistic purposes. For example, it can be used to explicate the Catholic dogma of papal infallibility: ‘Everything that the pope says is true.’ But this is merely shorthand for saying that if the Pope says A, then it is the case that A; and if he says B, then B.
The Verification Theory
For some thinkers, something can only be true or false if it is open to verification, at least in theory if not also in practice. According to the verification theory of truth, the truth of something lies at the end of our inquiry into that thing. Every observation, experiment, and argument brings us a little closer to the truth, even if we can never be certain that we have reached it.
But as our inquiry can have no end, the truth of something can never be more than our best opinion of that thing. If best opinion is all that we can have or hope for, then best opinion is as good as truth, and truth is a redundant concept.
But best opinion is only best because, at least on average, it is closest to the truth, which, as well as instrumental value, has deep intrinsic value.
The Real Barrier
The ancient Greeks pictured truth as something elusive. In the Odyssey, Menelaus seeks out the sea-god Proteus because only Proteus knows the fate of the Greek heroes. But before he will reveal the truth, Proteus repeatedly changes shape, becoming a lion, a serpent, a boar, even running water. Only when Menelaus refuses to let go does the sea-god resume his true shape and answer his questions. Truth, Homer suggests, does not simply present itself. It must be patiently pursued through appearances that are shifting, deceptive, and often frightening.
In any case, the greatest challenge to truth may not come from epistemology or metaphysics but from ourselves.
Human beings are not impartial observers. Our perceptions are shaped by expectations, emotions, loyalties, and unconscious motives. We readily notice evidence that confirms what we already believe while overlooking evidence that challenges it. We are often less interested in discovering the truth than in protecting our identities, reputations, and worldviews.
For this reason, the pursuit of truth requires intellectual virtues as much as intellectual abilities. Curiosity, humility, honesty, and the willingness to change one’s mind may matter at least as much as intelligence.
You must be logged in to post a comment.