PlatoEssay Preview: PlatoReport this essayI know that, for the journal, we are supposed to write something about it everyday, but since the beginning of trying that out, I have found that I was just saying the same things in every paragraph and ending with the same questions and beginning with the same answers. So, I have decided to set up my journal in this format, as to show what I am trying to say in a refined technique. I will try and add my questions and answers at the end, and I hope, Dr. Coyle, that this is an all right journal entry for our first journals.
A. SophistryÐOr, more correctly, the Platonic likeness of sophistry. At 19d-21a, Socrates claims, in attempting to differentiate himself from the sophists to whom he has become incorporated in the Athenian popular perception, that sophists claim to be experts about human superiority and can make humans exceptional, like horse trainers claim to be able to make horses exceptional. Socrates denies having this kind of specialist knowledge about human brilliance, claiming only to have a certain type of intelligence. The Greek words are significant: expertise = episteme or science; wisdom = sophia. This is an ancient conflict: philosophers trying to differentiate themselves both from divine inspiration and from engineers/scientists. In this case, the things to be studied and controlled by scientific sophists are human beings.
The Platonic idea that there is no other way to distinguish people is the source of this misunderstanding. Socrates was never considered a genius, but a natural man that could make up for his lack of intellect by being a philosopher, although he was more impressive than any other human. In contrast to intellectual humans that are so poorly understood, such as the rationalist/humanist philosopher of philosophy and the rationalist philosopher of engineering. In the past, philosophers from different religions were more likely to treat Socrates’ Socrates as a superior being to their scientific philosopher (e.g., he might be superior to God). Socrates was, in his own mind, superior on all three counts; for instance, his ability to learn things from history and geometry was superior to the ability to be rational, which he learned in one year.
Socrates’ Platonic idea that all human people are above human brilliance is a powerful metaphor for the difficulties of the “unrealistic” idea that Aristotle, Plato, or even Malthus faced, that all men are inferior to each other, and the attempt at creating an alternative version of those alternative ideas. To argue that he doesn’t know how to do a mathematical equation, or to have an understanding of mathematics or anything else, is to argue rather abstractly that Aristotle was not aware of human nature (his thought process was much more complex than that of Aristotle and, with human minds, he was probably not understanding of any of that). To say that Socrates was a genius implies that Aristotle is a person most probably not a great mathematician or even as good a person as Socrates.
A number of early philosophers who tried to use the Platonic concept of Socrates to define philosophy came from the very same philosophy and practice. However, these early philosophers also developed a number of philosophical positions on Plato that have since been rejected and now go uncritically ignored for reasons they could not explain. Many of these early philosophers claimed that he’s a man whose intellect is not human; that Socrates is not superior to other “superior” mathematicians and so the Platonic concept of Socrates is absurd, since Plato’s philosophers didn’t argue for Aristotle doing it. A number of philosophy writers and scholars have come up with different or more complex Platonic beliefs, including Paul, Aristotle, and then, most recently, John de Lancie in which he holds that Aristotle’s philosophy is better suited to be understood at this level.
There is an important tension in the Platonic argument that the concept of Socrates makes it much harder to explain human human excellence, since Aristotle never mentioned the Platonic concept of nature as a source of the human excellence. Aristotle is neither a human teacher nor philosopher of philosophy, but as the mathematician and philosopher of mathematics, he’s supposed to have taught the human student mathematics. He’s supposed to have been educated by human masters (and he was a realist on mathematics and the physical sciences). Aristotle never mentioned Plato’s philosophical teaching of mathematics. Instead, he claimed to have taught this student human mathematics. The realist philosopher of mathematics claims that mathematics has nothing to do with nature. Aristotle never taught physics or evolution, and did never explicitly say that mathematics teaches humans to think, but only that it means that the human mind is the only thing that determines the human intellect. To argue that he is
We cant be humanists and lament this loss of valuable individuality, as if it were the “natural” condition, our birthright as free persons that is taken away from us, etc. The point is to examine the social machine that produces either restricted reaction or flexible decision. What Socrates is irritable about in terms of what he calls “virtue” or “true human excellence” is the generalization involved in producing perfect repetition. To be a good citizen, Socrates claims, one cannot be trained into disciplined reiteration, one cannot be simplified, but one must be multifaceted. To have virtue is to have judgment, to be able to respond to the new, the impulsive, or to situations that are too complex for words and can only be responded to aesthetically, by feel or touch, in both the literal and figurative senses of those words.
To have such ability, ones brain must be persuaded into exploring complex character zones, where new patterns are able to form: self-organization. Discipline is exactly the channeling of reaction, the installation of huge personality attractors: reception of orders from above. Socrates of course did not have involvedness theory studies of the brain w/ which to clarify himself. His expressions are that of practical wisdom or judgment, and virtue or brilliance. We could say, Socrates wants to differentiate the good simplified, restricted inevitability from the good complex, flexible judgment. Will this make him popular? We will see.
B. IgnoranceSocrates claims to have only a “human wisdom” (20d), not the “more than human wisdom” (20e) of the sophists. Yet he also, legendary, claims to know that he is not intelligent (21b). Whats going on here?
Socrates tells the story at 21a-24b of the oracles saying, “no one is wiser than Socrates.” Because Socrates knows he is not intelligent, he at first doubts the oracle and sets out to test it. He will try to find someone wiser than he. He first finds someone who appears to be clever to many, and who accepts this trait: he too thinks he is wise. Under inspection, however, the allegedly wise man turns out not to be wise: he is exposed as unwise. This presentation of ignorance on the part of the allegedly wise leads to hatred of Socrates. He then reflects that he is wiser than this interlocutor, because he doesnt pretend to a knowledge that he doesnt possess. In other words, Socrates wisdom lies in recognizing his own lack of knowledge. After a methodical survey of Athens, including the politicians, poets, and craftsmen, Socrates concludes that the oracle was right after all and that human wisdom is worth “little or nothing,” and that the wisest is one who is aware of his own insignificance.
Socrates