released 10/01/2026
In this January 2025 lecture, Jonathan Sanford uses Plato’s Apology to explore what wisdom has to do with human flourishing. In this foundational philosophical text, Socrates’s words and example in life and death of virtuous courage illustrate the truth that living well means preparing for death. The search for truth and virtue is to be taken with the utmost seriousness, Socrates says. One must examine one’s life — “know thyself” — and retain a humility about what one does not know. Sanford shows how countercultural this kind of life is and how it paradoxically leads to true freedom rather than to mere enslavement to one’s baser desires. He argues that this call to serious philosophy is vital to education.
This lecture is provided courtesy of the Valor Institute.
49 minutes
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