11–20 of 31 posts
> Walking through my school library many years ago, I walked past a copy of Plato’s Republic, walked back, picked it up, and started reading. If you've never read Plato before, I'd suggest not to start with the Republic — it is diving into the deep end of Plato. I'm saying this as someone who has recently completed Republic [1], and thoroughly enjoyed it (and fumed at it in some places). Instead, get familiar with so…
>“What is courage?,” Socrates asked Laches, who replied that if someone was willing to defend themselves against an enemy, standing in their assigned spot and not running away, they would be courageous (Laches 194e). An examiner would mark a red cross here: the man didn’t reply to Socrates’ question I think this emphasis on precise definitions is actually not that helpful. Humans don't really learn from abstract defi…
That was kinda Socrates' schtick: demand a definition, and then show that it wasn't a good one. Which was true, but not really all that useful. The best I can say for it is that it shows the way people think they have definitions of things, but they don't. Push on pretty much any nontrivial definition and it will fail. That observation, at least, is kind of interesting, in that it shows the limits of the way we think…
> Walking through my school library many years ago, I walked past a copy of Plato’s Republic, walked back, picked it up, and started reading. If you've never read Plato before, I'd suggest not to start with the Republic — it is diving into the deep end of Plato. I'm saying this as someone who has recently completed Republic [1], and thoroughly enjoyed it (and fumed at it in some places). Instead, get familiar with so…
This absolutely could be a function of the translation I read though (I read Desmond Lee's)
>“What is courage?,” Socrates asked Laches, who replied that if someone was willing to defend themselves against an enemy, standing in their assigned spot and not running away, they would be courageous (Laches 194e). An examiner would mark a red cross here: the man didn’t reply to Socrates’ question I think this emphasis on precise definitions is actually not that helpful. Humans don't really learn from abstract defi…
Humans don’t learn from abstract definitions: I agree very very much with that. The definition comes later. When people learn math concepts, the definition is in fact often of surprisingly little value. They need to see examples, make examples, play around with instances and applications of the “thing”, to gain intuition and finally come back to the definition. The abstract definition is also often (usually? always?)…
Both are important, practical examples but also the abstract definition (if one exists to a good approximation).
Non-native here, pardon me, did the rules change about possesives? It used to be "Socrates's life" as well as "Jones's life", but this article uses "Socrates' life" so consistently that I'm starting to doubt my rusty memory.
>“What is courage?,” Socrates asked Laches, who replied that if someone was willing to defend themselves against an enemy, standing in their assigned spot and not running away, they would be courageous (Laches 194e). An examiner would mark a red cross here: the man didn’t reply to Socrates’ question I think this emphasis on precise definitions is actually not that helpful. Humans don't really learn from abstract defi…
It’s a very different reply than you might expect to get from, say, a Sioux warrior, or a European knight, or a samurai, etc. Or from the Greeks themselves, outside of this fairly narrow band of history!
τούτου μὲν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐγὼ σοφώτερός εἰμι· κινδυνεύει μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν οὐδέτερος οὐδὲν καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὗτος μὲν οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι οὐκ εἰδώς, ἐγὼ δέ, ὥσπερ οὖν οὐκ οἶδα, οὐδὲ οἴομαι· ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.
I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.
I love this quote though my Ancient Greek never went as far as being able to parse the original. That being said, I find the definition game mentioned here and covered in the Dialogues tedious. It's like asking what "the number 2" is: One can answer that pointing to two apples, two car, etc. sets with two elements and define "two" to be the common property of all these sets. Cannot one proceed similar to define courage?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humans don’t learn from abstract definitions: I agree very very much with that. The definition comes later. When people learn math concepts, the definition is in fact often of surprisingly little value. They need to see examples, make examples, play around with instances and applications of the “thing”, to gain intuition and finally come back to the definition. The abstract definition is also often (usually? always?)…
On the other hand, I hate it when people take this mentality to the extreme and withhold the mathematical definition and insist on only using examples or "simplified" definitions. It's similar with language learning. Sometimes I just want to see the grammar rule (there often is one, at least to a very good approximation), but the teacher has this didactic philosophy that I wouldn't be able to "handle the truth" or so…
Luckily I can't remember encountering that didactic approach in math or language learning, but I'm not surprised at all if it exists and is somewhat widespread.