Socrates’ Casus in Contemporary Media Space

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the ancient heritage reception in modern culture. In the last decades the media environment, in which the antique knowledge representation is in hands of authors – non-professionals in ancient history, has become a major source of historical perceptions in society. Many figures of antiquity have been turned into media characters attributed with features and notions at the athors’discretion and in mass audience interests. A famous Greek philosopher Socrates appears such a personality in contemporary media space. The article offers the analysis of some cases of the Socrates’ image usage in socio-cultural practices – education and performance. The educational sphere is represented by a current trend “Philosophy for children”, which applies the principles of Socratic dialogue as a basic teaching method. And the reconstruction of Socrates’ trial, held in New York and Athens in 2011-2012 accordingly, is taken as an illustration of performance practices. The author has arrived to the conclusion that all the described examples have to do with “adaptive interpretations” (Wojciech Wrzosek), characteristic not only of professional historiography, but of mass historical perceptions in modern society as well.