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How to read Plato (1995)

plato-dialogues.org

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Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#61

Post by golergka »

fmajid wrote: post #37

The author’s conclusion that Plato was working for the betterment of humanity is simply laughable. He was an Athenian aristocrat, deeply resentful of his loss of social standing by the newfangled invention of democracy. Like many of Socrates’ students, he was disloyal to democracy (his uncle Critias, also a Socrates associate, was the leading member of the quisling Thirty Tyrants imposed by the Spartans when they def…

> The author’s conclusion that Plato was working for the betterment of humanity is simply laughable.

Many adepts, and, arguably, most of the leadership of horrible totalitarian ideologies of twentieth century have honestly believed that they're working for the benifit of the whole mankind. (In the meanwhile, western capitalist democracies, which managed to actually benifit mankind the most, were run mostly by people pursuing their own self-interest). Why don't you think that Plato have had the same idealistic devotion?

Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#62

Post by coldtea »

supersrdjan wrote: post #52
coldtea wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not starting off well. The first rule is to interpret him in the most favorable way possible... That should be something people should strive for in every discussion. It's called the Principle of Charity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

Or what they call steelman as opposed to strawman, right?

I guess so, though I haven't heard the first term!

Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#63

Post by ikurei »

01AutoMonkey wrote: post #57
fmajid wrote: post #37

The author’s conclusion that Plato was working for the betterment of humanity is simply laughable. He was an Athenian aristocrat, deeply resentful of his loss of social standing by the newfangled invention of democracy. Like many of Socrates’ students, he was disloyal to democracy (his uncle Critias, also a Socrates associate, was the leading member of the quisling Thirty Tyrants imposed by the Spartans when they def…

"The Spartan-inspired political system advocated by Plato in The Republic is totalitarian beyond the wildest dreams of a Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot." What do you make of the claim that The Republic isn't about an ideal state at all but is rather an allegory for how individuals should govern themselves (ideal "soul"), with "totalitarian reason" at the helm I suppose, and that it's even stated in the book itself that th…

Can you point to or explain where this claim comes from?

I'm far from an scholar on Plato, but I've read a few dialogues and The Republic whole, and I never saw anything that made me think of it that way.

Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#64

Post by curious_yogurt »

malloryerik wrote: post #60
curious_yogurt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that Plato was "impressive for his time," but with the inference that he is not now, is something certainly held by some modern-day philosophers. But it is not a generally accepted view. The reason is that philosophy is (for the most part) not a subject that sheds its skin — whereby the "old sources" are discarded in favour of the new, generally speaking. I say "generally speaking," because there are parts o…

Curious_yogurt, do you have any opinion about the order in which Plato should be read? I believe the author of the linked article is suggesting the order that was believed correct in antiquity? But then there is also the question of the authenticity of the first book listed, Alcibiades I. It can seem odd to begin with a book whose authorship is in question. Might you have any comments?

I think it is a rather bizarre suggestion that one should read Plato in the order believed correct in antiquity. For one, it seems to me that the ancients were incorrect about that order. And, as you say, there are several dialogues the authenticity of which are in doubt and so should probably not be read before other (usually more central) dialogues the authenticity of which are not in question.

In terms of order, you can do worse than begin the five traditional "death of Socrates" dialogues. These are the Apology (Socrates' trial speech and the nature of the philosophical life), the Crito (the nature of law and implicit political contracts with the state), the Euthyphro (the nature of piety), the Meno (the nature of virtue and knowledge), and the Phaedo (the afterlife and universal objects).

These five dialogues are from different periods in Plato's writing: the Apology is probably quite early and is a good introduction to Socrates; the Euthyphro is a nice "what is x?" dialogue which comes to no resolution, which is typical of early one-on-one exchanges, and although fictional might be the sort of thing the actual Socrates went around doing; the Crito is probably a late-early dialogue, and mixes in some more serious concerns about the nature of the state that will capture Plato's attention in his later writings; the Meno starts out as a "what is x?" dialogue, but the second half transitions to consider the nature of knowledge and how we can know anything (if at all); and the Phaedo is a full-blown middle-period dialogue where Plato deploys his account of universals called the Theory of Forms (which he arguably discards or submerges in the late period, but is generally what people think of when they think of Platonic doctrine).

After the Phaedo, I would hit the other big middle-period dialogues that are classic Plato: the Republic, the Symposium, the Phaedrus. The Republic may very well be the greatest piece of philosophy ever written; if not, it is up there in the top five-to-ten. It ostensibly deals with the nature of justice, but it covers huge areas including knowledge, beauty, truth, education, and more. It develops some of the themes from the Phaedo. The Symposium is a collection of beautiful speeches on the nature of love, again developing some of the themes of the Phaedo, but also the Republic. The Phaedrus looks at the nature of love and the nature of rhetoric, picking up themes from the Republic and the Symposium.

That's a lot of stuff. If you want one and only one thing to read that's short, go for the Apology. If you want one and only one thing to read that's all-encompassing, go for the Republic.

Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#65

Post by blueprint »

js8 wrote: post #48
Tomte wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but those supreme rulers (not a single ruler, but many) may not marry, they may not own stuff (kind of a monk caste), and they are not hereditary, but relentlessly sieved out until they reach that ruler status in old age. I doubt that would have appealed to Hitler or Stalin. I think your judgement is clouded by „democracy is good“ which is (a) a very modern stance and (b) one that many philosophers through the…

"I doubt that would have appealed to Hitler or Stalin." Probably not. But it could appeal to many popes, and it didn't prevent many of them to be scheming manipulating power-hungry a------s. (The "may not own stuff" is not really different from "I am a CEO with no salary and a company plane.") I just don't see a smart and reasonable person wanting to rule over other people. And even if you wanted to, I don't think th…

It's natural that you don't realize the answer yet. If you did, you'd be capable of being such a leader because the world would be filled with enough people who understood how they must behave in order to keep such a leader. Such a leader would not need underlings. The whole of society are the members of his society. The leader is in a special role because he can do or does do something the others can't or don't: he uses a single formula in order to correctly answer endless questions that are brought by people who realize that the leader can see something. It's like how a mathematician operates. The answers can still be correct despite the leader not yet having achieved 100% truthfulness (e.g. 98%). There is a certain threshold such a leader needs to have crossed in order to have the ability that others can't have. However, I'm extremely confident there have only been one or two men in history who had the ability and realized it. That's why you ought to be more careful using the word enlightenment. It's probably true that none of the people you think of in that set are actually close. If you yourself are not close, how can you use the term with confidence? If you say you can, I merely have to check your clear definition of the term. The genuine answer to the definition of it is very obvious and can be confirmed by anyone. Everything in the world is made according to one principle (which someone taught me). Every substance, material, and product are all made by very specific causes. That's why it's very easy for me, specifically, to tell who really knows about this subject from who doesn't after hearing only a little from them. But if even someone like you can't find out the real meaning of the term and confirm it then it's not right to expect people will simply recognize the leader and have the ability to actually question and learn from, MUCH less follow such a one.

Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#66

Post by blueprint »

yannis7 wrote: post #56

I find the earlier/Socratic dialogues, from Symposium to Apology, much easier to read, more fluid and dynamic - that probably has to do with the character of Socrates himself. Works such as the Republic are a bit too heavyweight / scholarly for me..

You make an interesting observation. By way of example, those who were taught rightly by Gautama Buddha apparently were trained to prefix their accounts with "I heard that…". The reason was that they were told when they say something they don't know then it makes karma in themselves which obscures their view of reality and can also come to ruin themselves. Simply put, if 51% of your knowledge is falsehood then if you were to try to teach others, it would make you change for the net worse by accumulating falsehood. So karma is something in a person which tries to make itself exist through its own activities and comes from what happened to that person, and makes a person see 'what was' instead of 'what is'. Anyway, I notice a lot of people saying Plato was a terrible person. He may have had an idealistic streak due to lack of specific training (the limitation of Socrates, perhaps). I believe it's true that idealism can kill. But suppose he had just stuck to reporting what happened during the trial and during the actual conversations with Socrates (and perhaps even himself). Do you suppose there would be nearly the surface area upon which to mount a campaign against Plato (culminating in accusations of being complicit in inciting totalitarianism etc) if Plato had said "I heard that…"?

Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#67

Post by malloryerik »

curious_yogurt wrote: post #64
malloryerik wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious_yogurt, do you have any opinion about the order in which Plato should be read? I believe the author of the linked article is suggesting the order that was believed correct in antiquity? But then there is also the question of the authenticity of the first book listed, Alcibiades I. It can seem odd to begin with a book whose authorship is in question. Might you have any comments?

I think it is a rather bizarre suggestion that one should read Plato in the order believed correct in antiquity. For one, it seems to me that the ancients were incorrect about that order. And, as you say, there are several dialogues the authenticity of which are in doubt and so should probably not be read before other (usually more central) dialogues the authenticity of which are not in question. In terms of order, y…

Thanks for your thoughts, they're very helpful.

Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#68

Post by woodandsteel »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #25
woodandsteel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suspicions are that he wanted to put the readers into a position where we have to figure out what we actually think is true, and what we think about the arguments themselves. I guess what I want to say here is that making himself clear, in the sense of stating propositions, is not obviously the goal of Plato. You are coming at this all wrong. The important question is not what Plato did and was trying to do, it is…

What if Plato thought that (at least part of) the truth was that it was more beneficial for people to think and seek than to be told the pre-canned truth? Then getting people to actually read and think about Plato (or other Plato-ish philosophers) would be more valuable than to "present Plato's ideas to the world as an organized philosophical work". > Also, for one particular topic, namely biology, do you agree that…

What if Plato thought that (at least part of) the truth was that it was more beneficial for people to think and seek than to be told the pre-canned truth?

And what if was wrong about that? Or is it your assumption that Plato was right about everything, and so therefore he must be right about that particular idea?

As to Aristotle's specific empirical claims in the realm of biology, the great majority have been confirmed by modern science.

Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#69

Post by woodandsteel »

empath75 wrote: post #36
woodandsteel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suspicions are that he wanted to put the readers into a position where we have to figure out what we actually think is true, and what we think about the arguments themselves. I guess what I want to say here is that making himself clear, in the sense of stating propositions, is not obviously the goal of Plato. You are coming at this all wrong. The important question is not what Plato did and was trying to do, it is…

> The important question is not what Plato did and was trying to do, it is what is the truth and how can it be clearly communicated to people so they can make use of it. You’re assuming such an entity as truth exists which is a fairly platonic position...

There are a lot of other philosophies that claim objective truth exists, such as materialism and Pragmatism.

Re: How to read Plato (1995)

#70

Post by woodandsteel »

woodandsteel wrote: post #68
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if Plato thought that (at least part of) the truth was that it was more beneficial for people to think and seek than to be told the pre-canned truth? Then getting people to actually read and think about Plato (or other Plato-ish philosophers) would be more valuable than to "present Plato's ideas to the world as an organized philosophical work". > Also, for one particular topic, namely biology, do you agree that…

What if Plato thought that (at least part of) the truth was that it was more beneficial for people to think and seek than to be told the pre-canned truth? And what if was wrong about that? Or is it your assumption that Plato was right about everything, and so therefore he must be right about that particular idea? As to Aristotle's specific empirical claims in the realm of biology, the great majority have been confirm…

Here's a further point. The question with Plato's dialogues is not whether a personal dialogue with a philosopher might be the way to go, but rather is a published dialogue better than a published work of straightforward exposition.

The fact that people disagree so much as to Plato's ideas, but far less over works of straightforward exposition, would seem to indicate that, when it comes to written texts, the latter is far superior.

In fact, the dialogue boosters actually seem to believe this. I say this because when they are writing their interpretation of a dialogue, and they get to a point people disagree on, they don't write more dialogue, but rather use a series of propositions to present what they think Plato actually meant.

Beyond that, my impression with the dialogue boosters is that at least most of them are more devoted to the idea of promoting the superiority of dialogue than to rationally determining if Plato's ideas are actually correct.

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