THE VALIDITY OF AGORA PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

Cross pollination of ideas is a common practice in philosophy. This is clearly seen in the writings of Plato who presents his ideas in a dramatic form. In most cases, core issues are presented in the form of dialogue and argumentation and sieved in sound reasoning. This practice did not begin with Plato as depicted in his Academy, it was a common practice among the Greeks to meet in a designated place for deliberations. One of such meeting places is the Agora. In the Agora, people gather in large number to participate, among other things, in public issues either by listening or presentation of opinions. It is this important role that Agora played in Ancient Greek cities that propel a desire to do a historical survey of such activities with the aim of identifying how other philosophical traditions of later eras replicate what Agora stood forages ago. This is aimed at providing a justification of Agora philosophy as a birthplace of ideas and discusses that cover a wide range of issues that are replicated in the 20th century. Furthermore, this paper showed that parallels of Agora exist in African traditional societies.