Neel Burton

1 month ago | neelburton.com | Neel Burton

In the early twentieth century, digs on Crete, led by Sir Arthur Evans, uncovered the remains of a complex civilization whose people Evans called the Minoans after the mythical King Minos. The Minoans flourished from around 3000 to 1500 BCE, and their society came to revolve around a series of palace complexes, the largest of which was at Knossos in the north of the island. The Minoans grew rich from trade and acquired a hold on some of their neighbours, including perhaps on the city of Athens.

1 month ago | neelburton.com | Neel Burton

In Plato’s Lysis, two boys, Lysis and Menexenus, argue about who is the elder. This seems odd, until one realizes that people back then did not have birthdays, but only birth years or birth cohorts. Plato is likely to have been born in 428/427 BCE. His father Ariston claimed descent from Codrus, the last king of Athens (d. c. 1068 BCE), who himself claimed descent from Poseidon. His mother Perictione descended, more humbly but in a shorter line, from the law-giver Solon.

1 month ago | ethic.es | Neel Burton

En ‘La banda de los tres’ (Rosamerón, 2025), el filósofo y miembro del Green-Templeton College de la Universidad de Oxford Neel Burton muestra cómo Sócrates, Platón y Aristóteles son los principales protagonistas de una revolución intelectual que ha marcado el pensamiento occidental hasta hoy. ¿QUIERES COLABORAR CON ETHIC?

1 month ago | neelburton.com | Neel Burton

The first Roman orator of whom we can form a distinct impression is Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 BCE), also known as Cato the Elder or Cato the Censor—known, ironically, for his austere conservatism and staunch opposition to Hellenization [Greek influence]. Despite his high senatorial rank, Cato rode a packhorse laden with saddlebags. He made a point of writing his history of Rome and his treatise on agriculture in Latin instead of the more usual and scholarly Greek.

1 month ago | neelburton.com | Neel Burton

In the Greek tradition, the persuasive arts are traced back to Hermes, the messenger and trickster god, or to Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s Odyssey. Homer employs as many as twenty epithets for Odysseus, more than for any other character, including, ‘the cunning’ [polymetis] and ‘man of many devices’ or ‘man of many twists and turns’ [polytropos]. Homer sang of a pre-literate society in which people thought of rousing speech as inspired [‘breathed in’] by the gods.