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Popper’s Plato

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Re: Popper’s Plato

#11

Post by krazii »

atoav wrote: post #8
asimpletune wrote: post #3

I’m sometimes baffled by other people’s understanding of Plato. Describing Plato as authoritarian is an extremely creative way to characterize what he’s about. However arguing that he was traumatized from seeing Socrates’ trial is basically just making stuff up. It’s maybe a possibility that he secretly felt this way, but there were two or three dialogues on the events concerning the trial of Socrates, the time he sp…

Poppers whole theory on open and closed societies was that open societies have some sort of mechanism to change who is in power without a violent revolution or a war. I am not sure I know what Plato envisioned as a society, but his strict division between intellectual and working class seems like a receipe to disaster. Two or three generations in nothing would have been left of the potential advantages of putting the…

From memory Plato's ideal society was pretty wack. A "great lie" to wow citizens into respecting the ruling class. Taking children from their parents, forbiding knowledge of your biological family to avoid nepotism. Banning music and theatre so people don't get too excited about alternatives.

Re: Popper’s Plato

#12

Post by verisimi »

atoav wrote: post #9
Animats wrote: post #7

That's an argument from an era when people seriously discussed how to make this civilization thing work.

What I like about Popper is the ingenious inversion of principles: He realized that democracy is not about being able to get those you like into power — democracy is about being able to remove those you don't like from power. Take away the ability of the public to rid yourself of certain politicians by voting them out, and you take away democracy, even if you maintain the illusion of choice.

Shame he didn't go all the way and realise it was about giving the illusion of choice, via the use of a false dialectic.

Re: Popper’s Plato

#13

Post by lukeasrodgers »

Popper’s criticism is, iirc, drawn mainly from Plato’s Republic. But Popper somehow managed to read a deeply ironic and subtle text as a recipe for tyranny. Eg there are numerous points where Socrates makes obviously bad arguments which others call out, and Socrates just hand waves them away. Numerous critics and philosophers have made this observation, the most ready to hand example I can find is here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/10/empty-...

It is a simple, massive, and all too common blunder of interpretation to read the Republic the way Popper does.

Re: Popper’s Plato

#14

Post by bobthechef »

atoav wrote: post #8
asimpletune wrote: post #3

I’m sometimes baffled by other people’s understanding of Plato. Describing Plato as authoritarian is an extremely creative way to characterize what he’s about. However arguing that he was traumatized from seeing Socrates’ trial is basically just making stuff up. It’s maybe a possibility that he secretly felt this way, but there were two or three dialogues on the events concerning the trial of Socrates, the time he sp…

Poppers whole theory on open and closed societies was that open societies have some sort of mechanism to change who is in power without a violent revolution or a war. I am not sure I know what Plato envisioned as a society, but his strict division between intellectual and working class seems like a receipe to disaster. Two or three generations in nothing would have been left of the potential advantages of putting the…

That’s not quite what Plato held. What you call the intellectual class (the philosopher-kings) would actually be forbidden from procreating.

Here’s a description in the context of an analysis of our social predicament[0]. (Whether you agree with the analysis or not, the summary of Plato’s views still stands.)

[0] https://americanmind.org/salvo/woke-ideology-is-a-psychologi...

Re: Popper’s Plato

#16

Post by robot9000 »

lukeasrodgers wrote: post #13

Popper’s criticism is, iirc, drawn mainly from Plato’s Republic. But Popper somehow managed to read a deeply ironic and subtle text as a recipe for tyranny. Eg there are numerous points where Socrates makes obviously bad arguments which others call out, and Socrates just hand waves them away. Numerous critics and philosophers have made this observation, the most ready to hand example I can find is here: https://www.t…

He criticizes Plato's idea of philosopher kings, saying it was likely motivated in part by self interest, but are we supposed to believe that, as a Jew, the idea of an open society was not also out of self-interest?

Re: Popper’s Plato

#17

Post by vixen99 »

faangiq wrote: post #2

And yet, clearly Plato was correct.

Qualification needed. I'm sure you don't intend this but the subtext might appear to be 'you're all a bit dumb if you can't see that Plate was very obviously correct though I'm not going to give you a reason ... because it's clearly correct'.

Re: Popper’s Plato

#18

Post by atoav »

verisimi wrote: post #12
atoav wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I like about Popper is the ingenious inversion of principles: He realized that democracy is not about being able to get those you like into power — democracy is about being able to remove those you don't like from power. Take away the ability of the public to rid yourself of certain politicians by voting them out, and you take away democracy, even if you maintain the illusion of choice.

Shame he didn't go all the way and realise it was about giving the illusion of choice, via the use of a false dialectic.

What do you know about Popper and the environment he had been in when he wrote this idea?

Let's not forget: Popper wrote this in 1945 directly after the Nazis lost the war – he, like many post-war German thinkers spent a lot of energy on pondering how a new democracy must be designed in order to never allow this quick takeover of democracy never again.

I am currently living in Germany and I grew up in Austria where Popper lived. There is a lot to argue about in these nations, but we have actual choice in our votes (compared to democracies whose models pre-date Popper's thoughts, like UK or the US). I am not very worried about the stability of modern democracies that looked at what happened in the Weimar republic, understood that such a thing could also happen to their democracies and reformed their systems in order to become resilient against such threats.

The US (and the UK for that matter) are not such resilient democracies, and this worries me, just like it would have worried Popper.

Re: Popper’s Plato

#19

Post by willcipriano »

krazii wrote: post #11
atoav wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poppers whole theory on open and closed societies was that open societies have some sort of mechanism to change who is in power without a violent revolution or a war. I am not sure I know what Plato envisioned as a society, but his strict division between intellectual and working class seems like a receipe to disaster. Two or three generations in nothing would have been left of the potential advantages of putting the…

From memory Plato's ideal society was pretty wack. A "great lie" to wow citizens into respecting the ruling class. Taking children from their parents, forbiding knowledge of your biological family to avoid nepotism. Banning music and theatre so people don't get too excited about alternatives.

Contrast Plato with his allegory of the cave vs Aristotle, inventor of common sense. Its clear why dictators throughout history favored Plato, as well as modern academia.

Re: Popper’s Plato

#20

Post by shadowofneptune »

krazii wrote: post #11
atoav wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poppers whole theory on open and closed societies was that open societies have some sort of mechanism to change who is in power without a violent revolution or a war. I am not sure I know what Plato envisioned as a society, but his strict division between intellectual and working class seems like a receipe to disaster. Two or three generations in nothing would have been left of the potential advantages of putting the…

From memory Plato's ideal society was pretty wack. A "great lie" to wow citizens into respecting the ruling class. Taking children from their parents, forbiding knowledge of your biological family to avoid nepotism. Banning music and theatre so people don't get too excited about alternatives.

The part of it that raised my eyebrows the most back in school was the idea that formal education should only start at age 18, and students graduating at age 50.
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