On each episode of my popular ABC television show Philosophers and Supermodels, I discussed a great philosopher with a leading supermodel. Here's an excerpt from the very first episode, which featured Socrates, The Founder of Moral Philosophy (~470BC to 399BC) and Marisa Miller, Sports Illustrated model (34D-23-35).KW: Marisa, you've been studying the life and philosophy of Socrates. What are your impressions?
MM: Firstly, Socrates had, like, heaps of pressure on him.
KW: In what way?
MM: Well, there were all these other philosophers before him called the pre-Socratic philosophers. Y'know?
KW: Sure. Heroclitus, Pythagoras. A Zeno or two.
MM: Yeah. It was, like, they knew Socrates was coming and he was going to be this awesome philosopher and stuff. So when Socrates showed up, everybody must have been 'Okay, Socrates. Show us your philosophising.' That's a lot of pressure to put on a little kid. Especially from somebody like Pythagoras, who was probably not that good at philosophy but was just totally over everybody's head with his geometry and stuff.
KW: Um, yeah. That's actually not quite right. In fact, the pre-Socratic philosophers were only defined as such by modern day historians. At the time, they were all just philosophers. It was only the greatness of Socrates that, in retrospect, resulted in those before him being dubbed 'pre-Socratic'.
MM: Oh. (pause) Then I totally don't get it. Because Socrates isn't all that great. He's actually kinda lame. I thought he must have cracked under all the pressure
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| "I think it's pretty obvious who is beautiful and who, like, is unfortunate." |
MM: Because he totally didn't know anything. All he ever did was ask questions. "What is friendship?" "What is courage?" Stupid stuff like that.
KW: But that was precisely what was so great about Socrates. He questioned everything. He introduced into philosophy the notion that everything must be open to question.
MM: Yeah. But duh. I could have done that and been hailed as the founder of modern philosophy.
KW: If only he hadn't beaten you to it by two and a half thousand years.
MM: But you don't have to, like, come up with anything yourself. Just keep asking questions and make everyone else do all the hard thinking stuff.
KW: Isn't there a certain intellectual challenge to knowing which questions to ask?
MM: I dunno. "What is beauty?" That was one of his big ones. I think it's pretty obvious who is beautiful and who, like, is unfortunate.
KW: He was working in an era before supermodels.
MM: He must have been. But I still think he'd have, like, totally driven me mental with all the questions.
KW: Very likely, yes.
MM: That's probably why they killed him in the end. Every time somebody went to him to get some wisdom, he'd just come back with "What is wisdom?" or something equally dumb. "What is dumb?" "What is equality?" "What is driving someone completely bonkers to the point they have to sentence you to death?" He was like some out-of-control Ancient Greek Jeopardy contestant.
KW: He was actually executed for allegedly corrupting the minds of the young.
MM: "What is corruption?" "What is youth?" "What are minds?"
KW: Okay.
MM: "What is okay?" This is so easy.
KW: I think we get your point, Marisa.
MM: "What is the point?" "What is Marisa?"
KW: Marisa Miller. Thank you for the empty parroting.
MM: "What is empty parroting?"
KW: Precisely.
MM: No, seriously. What is it? Is it a toucan of some kind?
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