Hallvard Fossheim

This anthology addresses ethical challenges that arise within the field of Internet research. Among the issues discussed in the book are the following:When is voluntary informed consent from research subjects required in using the Internet as a data source?How may researchers secure the privacy of research subjects in a landscape where the traditional public/private distinction is blurred and re-identification is a recurring threat?What are the central ethical and legal aspects of Internet research for individuals, groups, and society?

In our tradition, Socrates, as he figures in the work of Plato, stands for rationality. In one way, of course, the tendency to treat him as rationality incarnate is not too far of the mark; for Socrates does indeed introduce into our thought and discussions a demand for argument, for stringency and consistency. However, the manner in which Socrates carries out his historically influential elenctic activity belies the shortcomings of this oft-quoted and inspirational picture. It is these irrational features of the figure of Socrates in Plato's early dialogues that shall concern us in this article. Although we shall see that a certain sort of interlocutor is required for Socratic questioning to get off the ground, heavily irrational features are brought to the activity from Socrates himself. Furthermore, Socrates’ irrationality is no extraneous matter in relation to the very notion of dialectic rationality, but results from certain features of rationality itself understood in the mode of critical dialogue.1

Computer games have become a major cultural and economic force, and a subject of extensive academic interest. Up until now, however, computer games have received relatively little attention from philosophy. Seeking to remedy this, the present collection of newly written papers by philosophers and media researchers addresses a range of philosophical questions related to three issues of crucial importance for understanding the phenomenon of computer games: the nature of gameplay and player experience, the moral evaluability of player and avatar actions, and the reality status of the gaming environment. By doing so, the book aims to establish the philosophy of computer games as an important strand of computer games research, and as a separate field of philosophical inquiry. The book is required reading for anyone with an academic or professional interest in computer games, and will also be of value to readers curious about the philosophical issues raised by contemporary digital culture.

In this essay, it is first argued that there are several important motivations for considering as wholly legitimate the question concerning the presence of Socrates in Plato’s work. After sketching how reason in Plato’s dialogues is generally portrayed as embedded in the soul as a whole, I then apply these insights in arguing that this relation between character and thinking should inform our understanding of Plato’s Socrates as well. Socrates is present in the texts because reason, according to Plato, is dependent on both dialogue and character. This is not to say, however, that the character of Socrates is philosophy incarnate, or that the reader is supposed to ‘become’ Socrates; rather, Socrates constitutes an irreducible element in philosophy, and correspondingly, the reader comes to relate to philosophy by relating to the Socrates of the dialogues. Finally, I illustrate the thesis, and its fecundity, by focusing on an issue in the Phaedrus