Let's discuss The Republic of Plato.
Is Polemarchus the worst debater in world history? He enters the conversation in Book I with a strong and plausible definition of justice, and allows himself to be converted within minutes by Socrates' utter nonsense.
How easy would it have been for him to put up an argument?
>No Socrates, being good at guarding something has nothing to do with your ability to steal. We have already distinguished doctors, lyre players, bricklayers, and others. I see no reason not to distinguish between thiefs and guards - and a quote from Homer about a single mythical figure won't convince me by the way.
>The grouping of friend and enemy is based on existential commitments, not any objective valuation of goodness or badness.
>No Socrates, I believe the harsh treatment of moral agents who are capable of reflection may have beneficial consequences, unlike the harsh treatment of horses, because these two objects of harsh treatment are qualitiatively different.
Plato is the worst debater in history
>Plato, do you mean that A is true?
>No, that's not what I meant at all
>Everyone else marvels at his genius
Aristotle is better
>>380806
>aristotle
>heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones
>>380810
Yes, when it came to science he was retarded, but his philosophy wins here
>>380806
My impression when studying the history of political thought was that Aristotle was far wiser than Plato, although I didn't dwell too much on these topics since my main interests lay in early modern and modern thought, particularly post-Machiavelli. I'm re-reading The Republic now since it's considered such a masterwork and I still can't wrap my head around what is so profound about the cunning and dishonest stratagems employed by Socrates in these debates.
>>380815
>Socrates
You mean Plato using Socrates as a mouth-piece, right?
>>380818
Well in the text he is Socrates and I am referring to the text under discussion. I'm not well versed in debates about the identity of Socrates and I'm not currently engaged in an historical reading of the text.
>>380823
Pretty much every dialogue written wasn't actually a conversation, merely the Author inserting their views into an argument.
>>380813
>implying heavier objects dont fall faster than lighter objects
What?
Keeping things as constant as possible:
1) If you took two identically shaped objects, differing only in mass, and threw them off the tallest tower you could find, the heavier object would fall faster.
2) If you took an extremely massive object, say you dropped a moon on a planet, the moon would hit the ground sooner than if you did the same thing with a pebble.
3) If you took two identical objects, identical in all ways, and dropped them from the same height so that one was heavier than the other, the heavier object would fall faster than the slower one.
You should be able to solve this.
>>380827
This isn't true at all. Acceleration of falling objects under gravity is constant. They would fall at the same speed.
>>380926
It is true, it's too bad you'd rather dismiss it because of your assumptions of "fact" instead of contemplating why it is true.
>>380929
This has been proven via experiment.
Aristotelianism is cool in ethics and politics, but please stop being so edgy as to apply his nonsense to scientific enquiry.
>>380956
>This has been proven via experiment.
No.
>>380967
What do you mean 'no'? It has been proven via experiments.
>>380999
No.
1) If you took two identically shaped objects, differing only in mass, and threw them off the tallest tower you could find, the heavier object would fall faster.
2) If you took an extremely massive object, say you dropped a moon on a planet, the moon would hit the ground sooner than if you did the same thing with a pebble.
3) If you took two identical objects, identical in all ways, and dropped them from the same height so that one was heavier than the other, the heavier object would fall faster than the lighter one.
>>381004
If you took two identical objects, identical in all ways, they would have identical mass.
If you take two objects of the same shape, volume, area, etc and different mass, they would fall at the same speed.
>>380510
well this thread went to shit pretty fast
>>381011
>If you took two identical objects, identical in all ways, they would have identical mass.
Yes, which is why the one that weighs more falls faster.
>If you take two objects of the same shape, volume, area, etc and different mass, they would fall at the same speed.
I don't know what planet you live on, but that shit would not work on Earth.
>>381021
To quote the village idiot, I don't know what planet you live on, but that shit would not work on Earth.
The heavier object has more mass, more weight, the pull is bigger, but it also has more inertia. Both accelerate at the same pace and fall with the same speed.
Read a book, nigger.
>>381029
I can't read a book while I'm suffocating.
DESIGNATED
BREEDING
PARTIES
Can we get back on topic?
Plato is far more intelligent than you think; remember that when reading any of his works. There is much more to them beyond face-value.
>>381048
Him being intelligent doesnt mean he is right when he acts stupid. You should read some more of his work if you cant realize that.
Why even consider the other characters, they were merely vehicles to further Plato's ideologies and sentiments
>>381019
>>381046
Yes this would be nice.
I'm finishing up Book I now and Thrasymachus has, I think, a less defensible position than Polemarchus but he has an admirable attitude and a reasonable contempt for Socrates' intellectual cowardice and his blatantly transparent stratagems of deception.
Sadly he gave Socrates the rope that would hang him right at the beginning when he foolishly insisted on the precise meaning of 'ruler' being successful rule, which later allows Socrates to successfully posit something as utterly cretinous as a total seperation between practical arts and the art of earning a living, even though the latter is clearly dependent on the former in a general sense.
I look forward to reading a defense of the coherence of Thrasymachus' position, which I believe does exist in the scholarly literature.
>>381053
I never said he was 'right'.
>>380815
I enjoyed the republic, and in a halffassed sort of way identify with the political philosophy. While fully agreeing the introductory arguments are bullshit
ignore that entirely. Just read the rest of the book sans religious components
>>381056
This. If you want to be a dick about it, one could argue that pretty much everything we know about Plato is from a bunch of strawman arguments where the one against him say something, and Plato's figure say "but doesn't it mean this and this and this?", the one against Plato says "Yes, I assume so", and Plato says "Then this and this", and the one against Plato says "Of course", and then Plato hits it and says "Then logically this and this".
>>381056
Of course their primary function is to allow Plato to express opposing theories in a flawed manner that can be handily refuted. They are obvious strawmen.
But they are also more interesting than, say, the interlocutor in Berkeley's dialogues who really says nothing of independent value and simply drives Berkeley's stand-in towards his intended conclusion.
They are more like the characters in Hume's dialogues on religion (if I remember them properly), but treated with more dignity. They put forward interesting positions that can be studied independently, even if Plato's main interest is in artificially manufacturing defects via inarticulate expression.
>>381080
There are some Dialogues in which Socrates isn't the clear winner--Parmenides is one of these IIRC
Much of what Socrates says in the opening book is demonstrably untrue. For example, he claims that musicians and doctors do not try to outperform one another - a total fabrication, given that many musicians and doctors strive for a degree of excellence that requires that they out-do mediocre practicioners.
>>381131
I'd disagree. A good doctor cannot outperform an average musician as they are performing entirely separate things. How could you demonstrate it untrue?
>>381149
My phrasing was unclear. He claims that doctors do not attempt to outperform other doctors, musicians do not attempt to outperform other musicians.
>>381182
I see. In that case I'd agree.
>>381048
Yes I know you must always read works of philosophy with an attitude ot intellectual charity, but sometimes even a great author makes terrible arguments. I think Plato's refutation of Polemarchus via Socrates is incredibly weak and rests of totally unsound analogies. I would suggest reading, for example, Andrew Jeffrey's article 'Polemarchus and Socrates on Justice and Harm', which cuts through serveral faulty philologically-based critiques of Socrates' argument about blaptein and instead points to the straightforward error he makes in his conflation of several qualitatively different exercises of a tekhne.
>was in Bloomsbury earlier
>went into a bookshop
>looked at getting Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics
>get Apuleius' Golden Ass instead because I wanted something silly which the ancients would have liked
Did I do good /his/?
>>380510
>The Repooblic of Play-doh
no thanks
>>382633
Aristotle's Ethics are sublime and you need to get yourself a copy, bud.
>>380510
>I believe the harsh treatment of moral agents who are capable of reflection may have beneficial consequences, unlike the harsh treatment of horses, because these two objects of harsh treatment are qualitiatively different.
This is not a good argument though. This assumes that punishing people actually has any effect on their behavior, which one could argue it does not.
I sincerely doubt a sadistic and psychopathic serial killer will stop killing people if you torture him.
>>383502
It assumes no such thing. I said it *may* have beneficial consequences - I'm suggesting that a human's capacity for reflection means that the analogy is insufficient and does not necessarily prove what it claims to.
Although I must say that I do think stern punishment and the threat of more of it does reform the behaviour of delinquents.
ITT: someone thinks acceleration due to gravity depends on mass
I bet they're a continental desu.
>>384043
He's just a Greekfag who doesn't want to pay his debts so wastes all of our time by pretending his ancient philosophers were right about anything.
>>384043
But it does.
>>385853
Oy vey
