Is it really common for people to misinterpret Plato? I was talking to a friend attending a liberal arts college and he says everyone dislikes Plato there because "the philosopher king isn't practical" but thats the entire point of the philosopher king; Plato knew it wasnt possible. These are the sort of people who read something and complain when all the answers arn't made as obvious as possible.
In fact most of the people I've met that disagree with Plato don't cite anything from the Republic and offer no counter argument besides something along the lines of "there is no truth" and leave it at that. Theres so much that Plato says and I think that if these people truly understood it they would have a hard time disagreeing.
Also this: https://medium.com/@kmikeym/is-this-a-sandwich-50b1317eb3f5#.sqe422lp4
I'm barely even on my first read through of Plato and I see the clusterfuck of misinterpretation here,
". The socratic method is deceptively simple: it’s a dialectical method entailing the relentless questioning of your interlocutor in order to critically interrogate a point they’re making, usually with the goal of proving that there is no such thing as objective truth or whatever."
Like what how can you possibly read Plato and gather that conclusion?
It is practical and it has been practised for nearly 2000 years. The Pope is the Philosopher King of the Catholic Church.
People are dumb. Welcome to Earth.
Whoever wrote that misinterpretation ought to read Socrates' midwifery speech
>>7517940
You said it youareselve.
>liberal arts college
Only
Bluepilled fools there. Show a Plato text to /pol/ and they will know whether it's redpill, ie truth against communism, or bluepilled Jewish nonsense.
You are a redpilled person because you see through Judaic academia cultural Marxist Bolshevik lizardian Kabbalist satanic brainwashing.
Come join us on a less liberal degenerate board. You know where to find us
Deus vult, for the white man
>". The socratic method is deceptively simple: it’s a dialectical method entailing the relentless questioning of your interlocutor in order to critically interrogate a point they’re making, usually with the goal of proving that there is no such thing as objective truth or whatever."
This is the worst interpretation of Socrates I have ever read. Socrates is insistent throughout the dialogues that there is an objective truth and his entire mission in life is in service of it.
The other interpretation of the Socratic method that is wrong, and that is even more common, is the idea that Socratic dialogue consists of pretending you are dumber than your interlocutor only to lure him into a trap and confound him.
Socratic dialogue is not a trick. It's a mystical-intellectual discipline built on the idea that the truth exists in every human soul in latent form and can be recollected, and the Socratic dialogue is a maieutical tool to get the soul to confront its own ignorance and search for the truth within itself. Socrates didn't pretend to be dumb, he sincerely thought he was ignorant - and that was his genius.
>>7517950
The pope is very different in terms of total power than the philosopher king Plato envisioned. He doesn't make law, he doesn;t wage war, and he doesn't even have the entire country under his control.
>>7517984
In the medieval papacy the pope crowned the emperor and set the rules on what was and was not a just war. He was considered to be above the secular power.
>>7517990
Also, the Catholic Church is the protector and interpreter of Divine Law, which is above Civil Law.
Hey, quick question from a pleb here. Socrates is fake, right? As in he's a fictional character made up by Plato, right?
>>7518003
Yes and No. He was real, and also used as a character. Like Caesar in Shakespeare, or the speeches of Pericles in Thucydides.
>>7517940
>he says everyone dislikes Plato there because "the philosopher king isn't practical" but thats the entire point of the philosopher king; Plato knew it wasnt possible.
That's why he went to Sicily TWICE trying to establish his utopian republic, right? Because it was just an allegory for men's souls, right?
>>7518009
Was it ever explained why he didn't write anything himself? Or is the theory that we just haven't found it yet?
>>7518010
If you'd read the Seventh Letter (which may be fake) you'd know that Plato new the philosopher king was only an ideal
>>7518013
Socrates believed writing took much effort away from the intellect
>>7518020
Interesting. So he only believed in oratory teaching? Why did Plato write?
>>7518010
Nothing wrong with striving towards something even if you think it's impossible.
>>7518041
Plato disagreed with him on certain points, experts will tell you the Republic is more an account of what Plato believed than Socrates. Plato says that the closest we can possibly get to truth is through dialogue, so the narrative is a tool to mimic this.
>>7517995
However, I think Plato would call the two inseparable as he argues that civil law exercises the divinity within us.
>>7517940
I dont know these words in your language but the dialogue I've read from Plato is terrible and probably autism for the sake of autism. Couldn't help but to be disappointed in this 'king'.
Just burn his shitty books.
>>7518293
It's hard to say as the books well they were literally numbered I, II, III etc. and I read five or six of them + Republic was its own book.
>Studied them
I took my time with them. It just felt more contrived and made up than any philosophical text I had faced before or after.
If you want to be really precise, you're not supposed to take the government of the city-in-speech seriously. Socrates is using it as a really, really extended metaphor of the human soul so he can find out what justice is. It's only at Glaucon and Adiemantus' insistence that he delves into the government of the city. It's an interesting political discussion, but not ultimately the point of the Republic.
>>7517958
fucking ass clown
>>7518340
>he doesn't dig the post ironic meta shitposting
What a square
>>7518355
its a two-dimensional shape with four sides of equal length
The two most interesting exegetical traditions on Plato alternately say that he's fantastically esoteric and that he's intentionally fantastically esoteric
Who gives a rat fuck what undergraduates and redditors think of him
>>7518044
Except that's dumb
>>7518357
U A SQUARE NICCA
Plato was probably the dumbest philosopher, not even meming, he's just so wrong.
>>7518010
It's already been alluded to by >>7518015, but *given that the Seventh Letter is our primary and most detailed source for Plato's ventures in Sicily*, it's worth pointing out that he makes clear that he fostered no illusions about what might happen. He says outright that he didn't think anything would come of it, but you've missed the point--he went to Sicily on account of his friend Dion.
Either way, it's still an enormous assumption, not borne out by the Seventh Letter, that his political activity in Sicily was in *any* way related to the specific ideas of how to structure the Just City in the Republic. That assumption belongs to scholars and to you. It's simply not there in the source for the story.
>>7518137
>experts will tell you the Republic is more an account of what Plato believed than Socrates
Those experts are also the source of the misunderstandings mentioned by OP.
>>7517940
That's been my experience too. Your average liberal arts student (or philosophy student) isn't exactly more "open-minded" or even a "better thinker" or "careful interpreter". They, like most people, accept textbook discussions or professorial "expert opinions" on the matter and leave it at that. That doesn't make them bad or anything (nor am I implying you think that), but they're the very people that are incapable of philosophizing. They're at school for other reasons--status, sex, drinking, drama, the hope for getting paid a little more to go with their diplomas, etc. etc. Are they there to *learn*? Well, yeah--if they're talking to someone else who might give them validation or sex for saying so, or within earshot of those people. There's a status that comes with claiming to be interested in or studying philosophy, and those are the people who want that status.
Part of the practical trouble of explicating this kind of interpretation, beyond having to struggle against a dumb modern tradition, is how unintuitive it is. "Philosophers might lie or not say what they're thinking? No they wouldn't! ESPECIALLY not Plato!" It doesn't matter that the text they're talking about explicitly brings up the use of medicinal and well-born lies--the answer HAS to be that he's a naïve simpleton whose dumb philosophy results in totalitarianism/authoritarianism/fascism. They can't relate to someone who writes and doesn't need autocorrect to fix four to six mistakes on every page.
It's also hard to point to, because your example, which I agree with: "The philosopher-king is impossible" is never explicitly said in the text. That it's said to be improbable, and that the teachings about Justice overtly conflict with how the Just city is supposed to function seem like mistakes or inconsistency or forgetfulness to them. Because why wouldn't he just come out and tell them utopias are fucking dangerous?
Keep doing what you're doing OP; it sounds like you're on a good path thus far.
>>7518383
I don't know if this is bait but this was my experience with his work.
Who /readingPlato'scompleteouvre/ here? On Theaetetus at the moment; whilst scholars believe the digression to be slightly irrelevant to the core discussion, I still found what Socrates said about emulating God to be fascinating.
>>7518419
Do you think a dumb person could produce such a large body of work, drawing knowledge from various fields, and set the foundations for human thought in future?
That's why I'm read as few secondary texts as possible.
>>7518451
I read*
>>7518404
OP here, Couldn't have said it better myself. People find it more desirable to disagree with something rather than put in required thought that could lead them to realizing how wrong their criticisms are. Especially with someone like Plato, denouncing his whole philosophy under the described pretenses is born out of a necessity to seem like an intellectual and challenging something that is 1000s of years old is a great avenue for that.
>>7518451
I completely look down on people who read secondary sources for philosophy
>>7518462
What is wrong with it? I could understand why one would be against *only* reading secondary sources, but they can be valuable sources in furthering one's knowledge and understanding.
>>7518462
I guess It's fine to some purposes, the Presocratics for example, but yeah.
>>7518480
that complete dependency is to what I was referring
>>7518542
is this a person i should be hating?
>>7518404
>>7517940
I am a self aware pleb (and Philosophy undergrad) and I had this apparently plebeian interpretation of Plato, although I wouldnt have claimed to really understood it.
I'm sure your appreciation for Plato is far more nuanced than your analysis of the motivations and mindsets of your average college student, or else it would be extremely suspect no doubt.
These posts are a little frustrating as someone who is genuinely interested in learning but not very well read, they are very happy with themselves without their authors demonstrating what understanding of Plato they actually. Not that they are obligated to do so of course, just an honest observation.
>>7518462
This is honestly dumb.
>>7518568
>what understanding of Plato they actually.
*they actually have. It's late.
>he don't like arts
>he advocates common property
>he mandates religious belief
>he authoritarian
>he misogynist
>he gay (symposium)
>he too abstract, not practical enough
everytime
>>7518313
This is the best post in the thread, and we could have closed the thread once it was made.
>>7518313
meh, how was I supposed to know that
>>7518568
I am a self aware pleb (and Philosophy undergrad) and I had this apparently plebeian interpretation of Plato, although I wouldnt have claimed to really understood it.
I'm sure your appreciation for Plato is far more nuanced than your analysis of the motivations and mindsets of your average college student, or else it would be extremely suspect no doubt.
'Kay. I *started* from *below* the plebian perspective while reading Plato. I didn't give a shit my freshman year of undergrad because I was trying to deal with a rough break up; why the fuck would I care what Plato has to say?
The change came incrementally. I've been reading him for seven years, and my perspective really changed on him in the last four or so.
Tl;dr--don't take it personally. As I pointed out, students are busier with other things than with learning, and there doesn't need to be some artificially inserted *nuance* or anything to explain things; they're dealing with sex and being away from parents and figuring out Who They Are--of course they're not taking their formal education seriously. They may or may not be stupid, but in larger measure they just don't care. Social dynamics and trying to satisfy the professor take up enough time for them to be wondering whether the professor's idea that the Republic was a legitimately serious practical political program is straight up retarded or not. Besides, how much time is someone allotted to read Plato in school? If you're taught by textbooks, then none; if you're asked to read the dialogues, then much less than you need to understand them. There's a reason it took me seven years to appreciate what a short dialogue like the Euthyphro is doing.
>These posts are a little frustrating as someone who is genuinely interested in learning but not very well read, they are very happy with themselves without their authors demonstrating what understanding of Plato they actually. Not that they are obligated to do so of course, just an honest observation.
Why aren't you asking? You have an "honest observation" you want to share, and you are "genuinely interested in learning", but you don't want to ask me or OP to say what our views are, or at least on certain dialogues or passages or whatever? Or want to defend your "plebeian interpretation" against our self-satisfied readings?
>>7518628
Dude, because that's how the discussion of the city *starts*.
368c-369a:
"It looks to me as though the investigation we are undertaking [into Justice and its relation to the Good] is no ordinary thing, but one for a man who sees sharply. Since we're not clever men," I said, "in my opinion we should make this kind of investigation of it: if someone had, for example, ordered men who don't see very sharply to read little letters from afar and then someone had the thought that the same letters are somewhere else also, but bigger and in a bigger place, I suppose it would look like a godsend to be able to consider the littler ones after having read these first, if, of course, they do happen to be the same."
"Most certainly," said Adeimantus. "But, Socrates, what do you notice in the investigation of the just that's like this?"
"I'll tell you," I said. "There is, we say, justice of one man; and there is, surely, justice of a whole city too?"
"Certainly," he said.
"Is a city bigger than one man?"
"Yes, it is bigger," he said.
"So then perhaps there would be more justice in the bigger and it would be easier to observe closely. If you want, first we'll investigate what justice is like in the cities. Then, we'll also go on to consider it in individuals, considering the likeness of the bigger in the idea of the littler?"
>>7518671
>Or want to defend your "plebeian interpretation" against our self-satisfied readings?
No, just being defensive. Unfortunately extra curricular bullshit has inhibited my ability to really get as much out of my degree as I would have liked, as was a similar case with you I guess.
It's been two years since I read The Republic and I remember basically none of it, my views are almost none existent.
I'll ask though, is Plato demonstrating the futility of utopias but proposing the Philosopher King run society? How?
What is the significance of this on what Plato supposes to have found out about justice, or is it not too important? (Thinking of >>7518313 )
>if you're asked to read the dialogues, then much less than you need to understand them.
What is necessary to understand the dialogues?
>>7518735
>is Plato demonstrating the futility of utopias but proposing
*by, not but
>>7518705
Both; secondary sources more years ago (read different schools of thought: analytics, phenomenologists, Tubingen, Straussian, modern dramatic readings, Roman Neoplatonists, Italian Neoplatonists, etc.), though that was after a period of trying to figure him out on my own. These days I just read him on my own; I know what the scholars say, I know why I disagree with them (when I do).
Secondary works can be incredibly helpful *if you have a smattering of Greek*. Grammatical details can change the meaning of passage dramatically, e.g., the opening of the Meno? It goes:
"Can you tell me, Socrates, whether blah blah etc." Sounds like an earnest question, right?
The first word is echeis, lit. "you-have", which has a pretty big range of idiomatic usages. One secondary work points out that it can also be translated "Do you have it in you, Socrates, to tell me etc. etc.", which sounds A LOT different, right? The sec. work didn't make much of it, just pointed it out, but it's helped me put 2 and 2 together in other parts of the dialogue (it's all performance for Meno--as a student of Gorgias, *of course* he already has an opinion on whether it's teachable; it's not, which he takes from Gorgias. The Famous Meno's paradox? Totally similar to Gorgias's argument about Non Being. There's more, but this just gets into a tangent).
Otherwise, you're not in huge need of them, though that's not to say that they're not helpful whatsoever. Most of it I just find myself arguing with.
Example of some of my own readings can be found in the archives:
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/S7466058#p7466347
>>7518735
>What is necessary to understand the dialogues?
Oh, that was just in reference to time; classes force you to work by a deadline, right? Tell me I have three or four days to read the Meno, and while I'll have the basic "gist" down (Intro-First def.-Discussion of method-Sec. def.-Next discussion of method-etc. etc.), fuck me if I can explain why the hell the dialogue is the way it is!
I guess to actually provide some substance to what you're asking, there are several passages in the Phaedrus about writing, and everyone remembers the bit about how it's bad, but the one that stands out as helpful for reading is this one about what Socrates calls "logographic necessity"; speeches are like living creatures with parts, like a head, a torso, extremities, etc. In short, the *arrangement* is somehow important. That was crucial for picking up on the rest, four or five years ago. That helped me realize that the weird details in the dialogues that are easy to ignore probably mean more then that.
The more recent realization (within the last year) was that it doesn't just extend to "the details have a meaning", but that the *order* they appear in, the "dialectical movement", if you will, is important. That's *much* harder to work out, and I'm still trying to figure that shit out. But it's necessary for explaining the divergences between dialogues. Why choose such and such spot to discuss the forms in the Phaedo? Why choose *not* to discuss the forms in Theaetetus, the dialogue one would expect would point to them?
I'm working on a response to your question, RE: Republic. That one's a bit more involved, but I'll have something for you soon.
>>7518708
i dont think my translation translated this well at all.. fuck my language
there was no playful to it
>>7518829
Thanks, looking forward to it.
>>7518861
no playful tone to it*,
>>7517940
What?? Lol, I agree, how does one read Plato and surmise he thought there wasnt an objective truth? At the end of the books in The Republic there's always one conclusion everyone agreed upon, meaning Plato would disagree with his peers because he knew there was another truth needing to be found. Fuck. Are people really this fucking dumb?
I think one of the main reasons for this is due to those very people not looking into the rest of Plato's work, and in so doing fail to ask themselves the real questions he wants to put across. People forget that Plato tries just as hard to demolish an argument as Socrates does to build one up.
Think of the subtlety between stories, like how Socrates criticizes the obscurantist brothers in the Euthydemus who yet sound just like the eminent Parmenides.
And don't forget the "divine inspiration" criticized by Socrates in the Ion is the same state that infects him in other dialogues where it bears him credence.
Or how we're supposed to bear in mind the controversial histories of Critias and Charmides who clearly show how Plato's choice to write in dialogue gives him the opportunity to produce brilliant literary effects we wouldn't expect from philosophy.
>>7517958
I appreciate this post.
>>7518862
Okay, so the issue, as far as I understand it, with the implementation of the Just city-in-speech and the philosopher king, is that in order to *have* the philosopher-king, the city must conduct itself unjustly against the philosopher. If the principle of Justice is "minding one's own business and not being a busybody (lit. 'a do-everything)," and the city needs the man with wisdom in order to be ruled well, it's options are to either persuade that man with words or *by use of force* to rule. We could well imagine what speeches might be conjured for persuasion, but we have to ask whether the philosopher, the lover of wisdom, is interested. Socrates says that he *is not*. This is by his nature; he knows enough to know that rule will corrupt his soul, one of his most prized possessions, and that ruling also requires him to give up his love of the pursuit of wisdom.
So, howsabout that other possibility, i.e. force? What we'd have is the Just city (run by the principle above) having to go *against* that very principle in order to have its good ruler. This just points to a different problem: we have the "Just city"; is the "Wise city" different? What about the "Courageous city" or "Moderate city"? The city run *exclusively* on the principle of Justice requires injustice in order to have its good ruler; not just this, but while the Just city might otherwise have just regulations and principles, *it requires injustice* to get it off the ground at all; the adults of a city have to be banished or killed, and everyone ten or younger manipulated into being the citizens of the new Just city. These are only indications; as I noted above, Plato never comes out and *says* the damn thing, but it seems striking that he would have offer a hugely important definition of Justice as a principle that's then explicitly ignored or broken. (I should note that the city all happens before anyone figures out what Justice is.)
There are other elements that strike me: if wisdom is the highest virtue, what does it mean that eros is largely banished from the Just city? There are two other dialogues that deal with eros pretty heavily after all (Symposium and Phaedrus), but just for this dialogue, it's banished? Eros in the Symposium is so important, it's one of the defining features of philosophic activity! The Republic taken alongside the Symposium seems to then point to something else--the philosopher should probably be impossible (the philosopher's existence in the Just city is said to be improbable and unlikely), but even then, the Republic has to ignore a key component of human psychology, namely eros. The critics of Plato (I'm thinking Popper) who say that the Republic is totalitarian aren't even quite *wrong*; I just disagree that *Plato* thinks it ought be set up. One of the questions we'd have to ask of the Republic's city-in-speech is: could Socrates live there?
I take it that, no, he could not. Maybe someone thinks differently?
>>7518735
>What is the significance of this on what Plato supposes to have found out about justice, or is it not too important?
Forgot to address this part. This part I think is more interesting.
Now, if the tensions I presented above are worth inspecting, it looks like the plainest meaning is: somehow Justice and Injustice are related, like the former requires the latter. Whodathunk?"
But that sounds fucking weird, and the issue that it points to is how fucking weird the forms really are. Do forms/ideas (are they even the same?) have being? Let's say yes; okay, all the forms/ideas have being--except for the idea of the Good, which is "beyond being". Now, what the fuck does that mean?
Unfortunately, puzzling about the forms takes a long time; before last year, I thought I knew what was up with the forms. I was already reading Plato dramatically, but I couldn't work out any that different from the standard take, i.e., "forms exist in *some other "where"*, and things participate in them, and this is a problem, because the Parmenides fucks this whole thing up."
The problem as I understand it now, is that 1) these aren't "entities", but "idealities"; they have being insofar as they "are *something*", but they aren't existent entities, and that's pretty weird.
2) They seem to be "fundamental problems", i.e., the things philosophers won't stop wondering about. (I take it that Plato's aporetic, but that demonstration requires going through every dialogue and showing how they all *end* with aporias that interlocutors don't even see; *very hard to defend, admittedly*).
3) They're treated as surrogate deities for non-philosophers; do the characters in Phaedo really think they've received an answer to anything? Socrates brings in the forms because he's trying to persuade them that the soul's immortal, which he's trying to do because they're such crybaby pussies about Socrates' coming death that they'll give up on philosophy if they don't know that his soul will still survive (which they don't *really* care about; they care about *their* souls). The forms? Divinities, deus-ex-machinas that save the day, *sometimes*, while other times, they show up other (Why should Euthyphro model his behavior on the gods? If the gods love the pious *because* it is pious, then they love some *form* that makes them irrelevant in human lives; who needs to act like Zeus to be Just when the form of the Just *is right there*?)
4) They end up involving each other in weird ways that don't really get explained any further, i.e., the Socratic "Virtue is Knowledge" has to be switched around to see why it's weird ("Knowledge is...is Virtue? Wait a minute..."). This specific oddity I take to be part of the insight of the Republic, that Justice and Injustice, two, well, not quite "things", that we wouldn't expect to have a *close* relationship, actually *depend* on each other. You were looking for Justice? Hope you don't mind Injustice tagging along.
>>7519198
Great post. I know I'd be introducing something anachronistic to the discussion but this has a great influence on Hegelian dialectics.
>>7519243
That's definitely true. Hegel was very indebted to the playfulness going on with the forms, especially in the Parmenides (where we, is it a coincidence?, have a discussion of the forms of "Master" and "Slave").
>>7519198
>somehow Justice and Injustice are related, like the former requires the latter. Whodathunk?"
>But that sounds fucking weird
does it? I can't think of anything more obvious,
>two, well, not quite "things", that we wouldn't expect to have a *close* relationship, actually *depend* on each other.
the 2 go together like yin and yang, you wouldn't know that the white was white unless you saw it against a black background and you wouldn't know the black was black unless you saw it against a white background...off course they require each other,
everything requires nothing
nothing needs everything
everything wants nothing
nothing desires everything
everything has nothing
nothing contains everything
everything is nothing
nothing entails everything
>>7519348
We're not talking about how they're defined *in light* of each other; we're talking that you're looking for some guy named Justice, and, what the fuck, he's actually Injustice too. Kinda. That's an example of a kind of weird relation, and specific to an element of the Republic, but there are others, e.g., Justice ends up being two instead of one--the Justice of the city, and Justice as a principle of the philosopher's ordered soul. All I've gotten out of noticing some of these weird moves is that it reflects a tension in logos, but in the Greek dialektike (dialectic) specifically, which has two forms of dia-logos that it's derived from: dialegein, meaning to converse, but *also* to separate out in speech, and dialegesthai, meaning to have a discussion, but with the opposite connotation of bringing things together. The issue is one of things suffering a disjunction when you're looking for one thing (now into two or more things), and a conjunction when you were looking for several things (they were two or more, now they're one for whatever reason).
This is merely descriptive; the why of it is the elusive part.
>>7519046
Eh I see where you're taking the argument but I disagree. Since the ideal state is just for the individual i think Socrates would say it is just to implement. Using the division of soul in representation of the different forms of state (timocracy, oligarchy, despotism, democracy) it's pretty clear Plato believes any other form of state, rather than one ruled by the philosopher king, is commiting injustice to its citizenship and its ruling class. He compares the states closely with the soul, a state ruled by ambition corresponds to a man whose soul is ruled by his spirit instead of his reason as it should be. Since reason is the just ruler of the soul, the philosopher king is the just ruler of the people, his purpose is no where else.
>And he posits the existence of Forms corresponding to commonplace artifacts (beds, for example), no less than Forms for moral and mathematical properties.
I'm sorry, I don't speak English natively let alone read much of philosophical literature in English, what does the book want to say with this bit?
>>7520529
In the same way he applies the Forms to concepts such as Justice and Beauty, he also does to objects.
>>7520529
What book is that anyway?
>>7520546
Oh I see.
>>7520535
so when he says
>While one is still alive, achieve a full under-standing of the realm of the Forms, including the Good, the Form that Plato declares to be of greatest importance.
He doesn't want us to be just fit under the 'the Good' Form but also understand the nature and being of the Good Form, right?
Does he ever tell what are the breaks for positive definitions, say Beauty Form? He is against the classification of people to non-Greeks and Greeks according to this book, because you cannot unify the group of non-Greeks in a justified manner, but if you have a vast definition of Beauty, what unifies them?
>>7517981
Off-topic but am I alone in thinking Socrates, Jesus and Buddha (perhaps also Confucius) all elucidated precisely the same universal truth, only expressing it differently as their disparate cultures allowed.
The political/philosophical tradition of Greece embodied it as truth and virtue; the Indians called it Dharma; and the monotheists called it God. Just because their terminology is "wrong" we cant simply assume the truth wasn't implicit in what their words.
>truth exists in every human soul and can be recollected
>Socrates sincerely thought he was ignorant - and that was his genius
>God exists in every human soul and every soul can be redeemed
>Christ sincerely thought he was god - and that made him more human
>The world exists in every human soul and each soul can be awakened to it
>Buddha sincerely thought he was nothing - and that was his enlightenment
>>7518013
What we've BEEN TOLD by plato and others is that Socrates believed the written word makes a fool of the writer, as eventually he will be shown to be wrong, or will want to change his opinions
>>7520734
what a terriblu insecure attitude
>>7520812
You've got to place it historically- then you see it's actually a perfectly fine outlook, their world didn't have the tools we have today to verify our observations. To socrates, everything at the atomic level and beyond the solar system was invisible- it must have been so frustrating to see everyone throw theories around.
>lefties
>understanding and appreciating Plato
Pick only one
>>7520717
Very interesting thoughts.
I dont see how Plato isn't practical.
>>7520812
>>7520843
>>7520734
BEFOREOINGANYFURTHERPLEASEREMEMBERTHATALLWRITINGINTHETIMEOFSOCRATESANDPLATOWASLITTLEMORETHANANINFERIORSUBSTITUTEFORTHESPOKENWORDANDWASENTIRELYUNPUNCTUATED
This was the height of Greek prose. ALL text of the sort Plato laid to print made with the assumption that it would be read aloud in rhetorical style from start to finish (or at least in large portions). Thus not only do you grant the reader a huge degree of his own interpretation, you let him influence an audience with the power of your own voice.
>>7517981
Question regarding the socrates method: in meno he of course uses that to demonstrate that knowlege is remembrance but when he's talking to the kid he's basically holding his hand the entire way. Doesn't that just confirm it boils down to a semantical trick?
>>7517981
In Euthyphro, Socrates says that even the Gods have their differences about what is just and unjust, beatiful and ugly, etc. Correct me if im wrong, but wouldn't that lead him on to believe that the all mighty and knowing gods don't know the objective truth, therefore making objective truth impossible?
>>7517981
In other words, he brings out the flawed arguments of people's definitions in order to make people conscious about it?
>>7521189
No, he questions people's ideas in order to work towards the truth; he doesn't try to disprove, but to help his interlocutor find the truth
So what's the point of reading platos work? I havent read it, but by reading this thread it sounds like he simply states that there is no "objective truth". What can I learn from reading his work?
>>7521211
More like 'we must find out the objective truth' are u even baiting properly..
>>7517981
>maieutical
why is this a word?
bump for interest
>>7520120
That seems fine, but the difference between Justice in a city and Justice in an individual soul changes a lot; for the individual, you can "implement" the city-in-speech in your soul--that's straight out of the end of bk. 9, where Socrates says that the city is unlikely to exist on earth, and that it also doesn't matter. But with respect to the *city*, it turns out that the Just city is also an Unjust city. For individuals, it's fine and recommended (though it seems that there's a necessity for certain "natures" of souls to be more able to do so); politically, it both is extremely unlikely, but *also* unjust.
I mean, this is with respect to a very particular question and accusation leveled commonly at Plato: does he *want* to have the Just city actually exist on earth? The problem with it is that, besides ignoring lots of passages that really qualify the whole ordeal and ignore how much of the city is the result of Glaucon and Adeimantus's desires (and other tensions), the more important question is ignored: Is the Just city *also* the Wise city? It has Wisdom, yes, but is it the Wise city? The Statesman is instructive in this regard, since we get depictions of two cities ruled by virtues also contained in the Just city: the Courageous city and the Moderate city. Those cities are presented as more obvious problems (and it can't be ignored that the Statesman's use of the Eleatic Stranger as the primary speaker *instead* of Socrates makes the whole thing more troubling and confusing), but we still never have a city developed with Wisdom as the principle.
That ends up being another problem ignored in interpreting the Republic; they determine what Justice in the city is by the two brothers just saying, "Well, *since we know what the other three virtues are*, Justice must be the element left over." But why grant them that? Socrates helps to guide the discussion, but the city-in-speech isn't even quite his; it belongs to Glaucon and Adeimantus. Why should two non-philosophers with Timocratic political ambitions be assumed to understand what those virtues are? I don't think this means that we *don't* learn anything about Justice, but that the inquiry is almost fundamentally fraught with strange difficulties that make it hard to determine whether we've seen Justice wholly, or partially (I take it that it's the latter, but I also take it that every dialogue offers partial views of the subject matter; nothing wholly). Why "Justice, Moderation, Courage, Wisdom"? Where the hell did Piety and Magnificence go as virtues (cf. Meno 74a)?
>>7520997
No, that only means finding the truth is not a matter of quantity of knowledge, like acting correctly is not a matter of quantity of power.
>>7520717
>Socrates sincerely thought he was ignorant - and that was his genius
>Christ sincerely thought he was god - and that made him more human
>Buddha sincerely thought he was nothing - and that was his enlightenment
>>7520734
That's not really what the critique of writing amounts to in the Phaedrus. The biggest issues brought up are that it can't answer questions the reader asks of it, and that it says the same thing to all audiences and so can't speak to different audiences. Socrates *doesn't* say that's impossible, however, and one might wonder whether Plato legitimately thought his manner of writing was somehow an answer or response to those criticisms.
>>7520932
So did you forget the whole "nuptial number" bit in the Republic that's supposed to be *essential* for the continuation of the Just city? Here's a reminder of how to calculate that number in order to keep the eugenics program the city's class system needs going:
"Now for divine begettings there is a period comprehended by a perfect number, and for mortal by the first in which augmentations dominating and dominated when they have attained to three distances and four limits of the assimilating and the dissimilating, the waxing and the waning, render all things conversable and commensurable with one another, whereof a basal four-thirds wedded to the pempad yields two harmonies at the third augmentation, the one the product of equal factors taken one hundred times, the other of equal length one way but oblong,-one dimension of a hundred numbers determined by the rational diameters of the pempad lacking one in each case, or of the irrational lacking two; the other dimension of a hundred cubes of the triad. And this entire geometrical number is determinative of this thing, of better and inferior births." (546b-c)
It's also a shitty joke; the inability of guardians to figure out how to calculate this results in the city's degeneration, which can happen, as Aristotle notes in the Politics, the very next day after the city is founded, if anyone breeds outside of the eugenics program, and everyone realizes that the Noble Lie the city is founded upon is a, well, lie.
That sounds pretty impractical.
>>7520997
The mythic element of recollection is what keeps Meno talking; Meno, it's revealed, is involved in the mysteries (which may be why he's in Athens)--Socrates, at the very moment Meno threatens to cut off the conversation with a sophistic argument, is lured *precisely* because Socrates introduces Recollection by saying that he heard about it from priests and soothsayers, etc.
Of course, as soon as the slaveboy demonstration is done, Socrates says:
Soc: What does it seem to you, Meno? Is there any OPINION which he gave in his answers that was not his own?
Men: No, they were all his own.
Soc: And yet he did not know, as we were saying a little while ago.
Men: You speak the truth.
Soc: Still, these OPINIONS were in him, were they not?
Men: Yes.
Soc: Then in someone who does not know about that which he does not know, there are TRUE OPINIONS about those things which he does not know?
(85b-c)
Did you notice what happened? Of course the slaveboy demo was a trick; the point wasn't the immortal soul, Socrates just pointed to what the lesson was *after* running through it--he's talking about opinions and their relation to knowledge. "We have opinions" is pretty different from "we have innate knowledge", ja?
>>7521183
Not necessarily; you just end up with gods who aren't all-knowing. Recall that when he's making that argument, he's using the traditional gods, Zeus, et al.; he makes it pretty clear that he doesn't believe in the traditional stories about the gods, both there, and in the Republic. It's hard to tell what his "Zeus" is like, beyond being immortal, unchanging, and *maybe* all knowing.
>>7521189
Sometimes; hell, usually, though there's also something to be learned about the subject itself. The first book of the Republic results in a failure to come to an understanding of Justice; what we get is a look at the souls of Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus, and what they take Justice to be. The refutations amount to showing them that they have beliefs in tension, and maybe trying to get them to see why that's important. Thrasymachus and Callicles have more respect for Justice then they let on, but they're both bothered by the same kind of problems with *being* Just that Glaucon and Adeimantus express more moderately, namely, does it benefit the Just man?
>>7520717
>truth exists in every human soul and can be recollected
>Socrates sincerely thought he was ignorant - and that was his genius
How do you see these two statements as being connected? Why do you think the latter should follow from the former?
Why do you also take it that his admission of ignorance is unqualified? He doesn't say "All I know is that I know nothing," but instead, "Whatever I do not know, I do not even suppose I know." Do you not see a difference between those statements?
>>7517940
>Plato
Plato's Republic is just Socrates words written. Which means it is Socrates who is misinterpreted.
Besides, it is possible to have a philosopher-king, it is just necessary to have right upbringing and education for him. Which is difficult.
>>7518154
I always thought civil law had the tendency to give off a feeling of oppression and ultimately urge men to break them, unlike divine law which no man should or ever want to do.
Maybe i'm justan edgelord
>>7517940
The Republic is not meant to be a political treatise. The city is an allegory for the soul. The philosopher king represents reason, which Plato thinks should rule the appetites and the passions. While his political views are present in it, Plato clearly doesn't mean for The Republic to be a set of exact instructions on how to build the perfect city.
>>7520717
No, this opinion is called perennialism and its been something of a cult for about 150 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy
It's a form of mystical humanism, implying that man is possessed of a "religious instinct" which has been expressed most fully in different ages by great Teachers or Exemplars. It appeals to Humanists - those who want to make Humanity the source and principle of divinity or conception of divinity, who disbelieve in a transcendent deity and believe in a kind of pantheistic/immanent divinity. It appeals a lot to the globalist, multiculturalist yearnings of the current age.
>>7524019
So, do you think that's there's no artifice on Plato's part in the construction of these dialogues?
>>7517958
Cunt
>>7526003
>The Republic is not meant to be a political treatise
what the fuck
>>7527423
It's not
>>7527385
>But as things are, those dialogues are Socrates', Plato's influence or not.
Just to clarify, are you just saying that, Plato, not being a character or speaker in his own writings, is not the figure being misunderstood, but his character Socrates?
>>7517958
you are so fuckin high senpai I can feel it
>>7517958
That's not whay the "liberal" in liberal arts means.
Students especially today are disgustingly lazy. If they couldn't Google up a "Plato in 2 minutes or less" video on Youtube, they just sat back in lecture and remembered one or two key points.
Granted, one or two students in class can be bothered to do the reading and engage with the text on their own, but the vast majority of them don't "misinterpret Plato", as you have it, but just never bothered to gain an understanding at all of it because they literally do not care.
>>7527423
He explains exactly what the point of the city state is in book II. What Plato's interested in is justice and how it exists in the soul.
>>7517950
shut up christ fag
stop being so wrong.
Leo Strauss
