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Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#31

Post by TimorousBestie »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #21
jerf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He kept Mechanics for 2000 in the dark ages," You can blame him for being wrong at first, but somewhere around, oh, 200 years later (very, very conservatively), the people who treated him as an unimpeachable source really ought to be assigned about 100% of the responsibility. "A bit of mathematics would have helped." Your use of modern terminology in the previous sentence leads me to think you're not clear on how pr…

> you're not clear on how primitive mathematics is for Aristotle Completely agree, and to add some color: Aristotle lived about 100 years after Pythagoras, meaning in his time a²+b²=c² was groundbreaking material.

They didn’t even have access to algebraic notation (IIRC, an innovation of the Islamic Golden Age, a result of cross-pollinating Greek geometry with Indian arithmetic). So the groundbreaking material was that famous diagram of a right triangle with squares constructed on each side.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#32

Post by TimorousBestie »

Osmium wrote: post #4
rurban wrote: post #2

Not just Plato, Aristoteles even more. He kept Mechanics for 2000 in the dark ages, by assuming that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects in proportion to their weight. He argued that a 10-pound stone would fall 10 times faster than a 1-pound stone. Continuous force is needed for continuous motion - without a force pushing it, a moving object would immediately stop. In fact continuous force leads to conti…

It’s actually a very reasonable approximation within a certain regime: https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057 There’s a reason people without training in sciences sometimes have the intuition that heavier things fall faster. This intuition isn’t developed in a vacuum (hah).

Your pun made me audibly chuckle, so that deserves an upvote.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#33

Post by nathan_compton »

monkeyelite wrote: post #13

Yeah I guess is he is wrong if you are a nihilistic secular materialist, which is the dominant view. Hearing a coherent view that is different is part of what’s interesting.

The dominant view? Weird definition of dominant. I happen to actually be something like a nihilistic secular materialist and as far as I can tell I'm in a vanishingly small minority. I see this kind of comment a lot and I am dumbfounded by it all the time.

Most scientists in the US believe in God or a higher power, most Americans do too. The current government is chock full of weirdos with supernatural beliefs and its common on both sides of the aisle.

Where are all these nihilistic materialists people are always talking about?

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#34

Post by [deleted] »

SantalBlush wrote: post #30
speak_plainly wrote: post #6

This is a midwit-level take on Plato. Arguments: Plato is responsible for a dualistic model of mind and matter that hampers our thinking today. Plato had an unrealistic ideal of what knowledge is. Plato had weird methodological assumptions. There are real criticisms you could make about Plato and his work, but this misses the mark by miles.

My understanding is that Plato's major contribution to philosophy was his method of analysis, and not his specific ideas. Is that on the right track?

[deleted]

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#35

Post by keiferski »

SantalBlush wrote: post #30
speak_plainly wrote: post #6

This is a midwit-level take on Plato. Arguments: Plato is responsible for a dualistic model of mind and matter that hampers our thinking today. Plato had an unrealistic ideal of what knowledge is. Plato had weird methodological assumptions. There are real criticisms you could make about Plato and his work, but this misses the mark by miles.

My understanding is that Plato's major contribution to philosophy was his method of analysis, and not his specific ideas. Is that on the right track?

Not really. Both his ideas and his method (dialogues) have been very influential.

These days, you could probably say that his ideas are more influential than his method: not many academic philosophers write in dialogue form, but his ideas are still referenced constantly.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#36

Post by daseiner1 »

api wrote: post #26
daseiner1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're essentially describing Idealism vs Materialism. Related is Nietzsche thinking he was the one to overturn Plato. Heidegger thought that Nietzsche was instead the logical conclusion of metaphysics. Heidegger's project was about "returning to the Question of Being" which he thought was first occluded by Plato, so he is in strong conversation with the Pre-Socratics. Deleuze has an interesting critique of Plato bui…

Yes, those are the proper terms. Nietzsche was weird. He was not an idealist but he posited this transcendent idea of "will" which is basically New Thought. But I'm not an expert on Nietzsche so maybe there is more nuance here. There is a kernel of truth to New Thought and its kindred ideas -- if you believe in your future success, you are less likely to become discouraged. In many cases success is claimed by those w…

The Will to Power is a complicated concept that can be interpreted many different ways. And actually his whole point was attempting a purely immanent philosophy. WtP is not a transcendent.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#37

Post by msgodel »

nathan_compton wrote: post #33
monkeyelite wrote: post #13

Yeah I guess is he is wrong if you are a nihilistic secular materialist, which is the dominant view. Hearing a coherent view that is different is part of what’s interesting.

The dominant view? Weird definition of dominant. I happen to actually be something like a nihilistic secular materialist and as far as I can tell I'm in a vanishingly small minority. I see this kind of comment a lot and I am dumbfounded by it all the time. Most scientists in the US believe in God or a higher power, most Americans do too. The current government is chock full of weirdos with supernatural beliefs and it…

I think there's a plurality of views in the US but material utilitarianism is how most people including scientists seem to argue for policy.

The current government is kind of an iconoclastic reaction to some of the recent failings of that view.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#38

Post by blueflow »

reedf1 wrote: post #25
MangoToupe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a midwit-level take on Plato. Is this intended as a pejorative? Why not just say "dimwitted"? It would communicate your semantics much clearer.

Hopefully you wrote this ironically otherwise... QED?

It seems a reasonable response for someone who is reading the term for the first time ever. I also didnt knew the word despite having seen the iq graph meme.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#39

Post by msgodel »

jerf wrote: post #14
rurban wrote: post #2

Not just Plato, Aristoteles even more. He kept Mechanics for 2000 in the dark ages, by assuming that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects in proportion to their weight. He argued that a 10-pound stone would fall 10 times faster than a 1-pound stone. Continuous force is needed for continuous motion - without a force pushing it, a moving object would immediately stop. In fact continuous force leads to conti…

"He kept Mechanics for 2000 in the dark ages," You can blame him for being wrong at first, but somewhere around, oh, 200 years later (very, very conservatively), the people who treated him as an unimpeachable source really ought to be assigned about 100% of the responsibility. "A bit of mathematics would have helped." Your use of modern terminology in the previous sentence leads me to think you're not clear on how pr…

Yes, sophistry is worse than early philosophers being wrong.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#40

Post by daseiner1 »

monkeyelite wrote: post #13

Yeah I guess is he is wrong if you are a nihilistic secular materialist, which is the dominant view. Hearing a coherent view that is different is part of what’s interesting.

There's a strong argument to be made that Plato himself laid the seeds of nihilism and it's irrefutable that the Judeo-Christian conception of God would be radically different without it's heavy Platonic influence.
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