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The Quest for Character
- Author
- Massimo Pigliucci
- Narrator
- Alan Carlson
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- Publish Date
- 27 September 2022
- Run Time
- 7 hours 54 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
What Socrates’s greatest failure reveals about an ancient question: Can we teach our leaders to be better people?
Is good character something that can be taught? In 430 BCE, Socrates set out to teach the vain, power-seeking Athenian statesman Alcibiades how to be a good person—and failed spectacularly. Alcibiades went on to beguile his city into a hopeless war with Syracuse, and all of Athens paid the price.
In The Quest for Character, philosophy professor Massimo Pigliucci tells this famous story and asks what we can learn from it. He blends ancient sources with modern interpretations to give a full picture of the philosophy and cultivation of character, virtue, and personal excellence—what the Greeks called arete. At heart, The Quest for Character isn’t simply about what makes a good leader. Drawing on Socrates as well as his followers among the Stoics, this book gives us lessons perhaps even more crucial: how we can each lead an excellent life.
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Details
- Author
- Massimo Pigliucci
- Narrator
- Alan Carlson
- Duration
- 7 hours 54 minutes
- Release Date
- 27 September 2022
- ISBN
- 9781668612200
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- Genre
- Ethics and moral philosophy, Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Biography: philosophy and social sciences
Synopsis
What Socrates’s greatest failure reveals about an ancient question: Can we teach our leaders to be better people?  Is good character something that can be taught? In 430 BCE, Socrates set out to teach the vain, power-seeking Athenian statesman Alcibiades how to be a good person—and failed spectacularly. Alcibiades went on to beguile his city into a hopeless war with Syracuse, and all of Athens paid the price.  In The Quest for Character, philosophy professor Massimo Pigliucci tells this famous story and asks what we can learn from it. He blends ancient sources with modern interpretations to give a full picture of the philosophy and cultivation of character, virtue, and personal excellence—what the Greeks called arete. At heart, The Quest for Character isn’t simply about what makes a good leader. Drawing on Socrates as well as his followers among the Stoics, this book gives us lessons perhaps even more crucial: how we can each lead an excellent life. 
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