>Be teenager many years ago
>Never get into Plato seriously
>Fast forward
>Get more into serious reading
>Almost every brilliant idea I come across can be traced back to Plato
Feels like I'm being trolled. All the time I think about the tripartite of Truth/Beauty/Goodness, the deceptive natures of art and rhetoric, belief in some kind of higher plane of reality and so on. Ironically I don't enjoy reading the dialogues since they can be so stiff, but how are his ideas so good?
>Almost every brilliant idea I come across can be traced back to Plato
I don't believe this, at all.
It's true tho.
Then he didn't have any original ideas at all, it's just cringelosophy like the sort you would hear from some guru of nowadays that makes everyone go "oh now I get it, how didn't I come up with this beofre, it's sooo simpleeeeeeeee"
I can see why some hylic who doesn’t read and has no notion of what philosophy is would draw that conclusion but trust me you’re wrong.
I read the dialogues. I wasn't surpised at all about anything that was written in it. I just saw it all coming and besides a few details about ancient society nothing particularly sticked with me at all.
Way to come out as a brainlet.
shut up b***h. You haven't read a single word of Plato. Dumb batch, don't you have housework to do?
Yeah, I do. And I'm gonna do my housework after I read some more Plato. How do you think I get the good boy points for more books?
I'm not a good boy so from me you get zero.
Your right actually. He was part of a tradition that spanned back to the first person to ever use reason. Every sane and reasonable person shares these ideas because they are true. In fact no one has original ideas. Ideas have us.
This is really the post.
True.
Anyway, as said, because he was in touch with the Pythagoreans, who were in touch with Orphics, who were in touch with Egyptian priests, who evolved out of the original African shamans who were, I think, probably the oldest people to ever use reason and recieve revelation.
Let me give you an example. Recently I was reading about 1800s skepticism around the idea of mass literacy. This surprised me since I've never heard the argument made that literacy is bad, but you can find the very same said in Plato, who believed books can be deceptive, that literacy splits societies into two castes where what once was the culture of an entire people of all castes and ages becomes confined to a small sect, that knowledge only exists when it's contained in someone's mind and books are only a symbol of knowledge, an imperfect one.
Let me clarify. His style is great. The problem is that Socratic debates of induction to find a basis or definition for some value seem largely pointless, even though this makes up the bulk of the dialogues.
>Let me give you an example. Recently I was reading about 1800s skepticism around the idea of mass literacy. This surprised me since I've never heard the argument made that literacy is bad, but you can find the very same said in Plato, who believed books can be deceptive, that literacy splits societies into two castes where what once was the culture of an entire people of all castes and ages becomes confined to a small sect, that knowledge only exists when it's contained in someone's mind and books are only a symbol of knowledge, an imperfect one.
What about the way he BTFO's the internet 3000 years before its invention?
>SOCRATES: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
>PHAEDRUS: Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt, or of any other country.
That's a great one. So many people are alarmed at the prospect of banning books, yet no one considers the bigger threat: That even if this knowledge survives intact, no one is reading it, it exists only on paper as a fossil, and not in the mind of any man. It's better that books exist, so these ancient works could come down to us, but people have to realize the tradeoffs involved with the written word.
Respond to me, then, and justify something like Euthyphro's debate on Piety or Republic's debate on Justice. Where do they lead? How do they aid us in any way on understanding these values deeper?
They are very well made, and bring up good points, but to me they represent the futility in trying to establish a basis for values. I cannot imagine Socratic reasoning will ever arrive at some even halfway decent terminus for this goal. Do you have any counter-example for when it has proven effective?
sorry i am really tired right now and normally I would write some post about how Plato constructed his dialogues intentionally to subliminally inculcate intellectual sight into normies like you through zenoian inspired dialectic and aporia to induce socratic skepticism as a means to reevaluate your conceptions forcing you to cognize the forms themselves rather than relying on language, conventions, instincts, etc, all of which will form the basis for further philosophizing as it is necessary to cultivate the non-lingual noetical faculty before you can rise above the level of opinion and even above dianoia to cognize ethical forms directly but I can't be bothered right now
So you're saying the dialectic is not meant to find a literal answer which may be put into words, but to cultivate an inner sense of these values by contact with the forms through relentless questioning?
Maybe so, but how many people talk about this nowadays? I'm in my 20s, I heard it only recently.
> Maybe so, but how many people talk about this nowadays?
I recently read in a book about education that you should wait with teaching your child to read until he is 12. It's not a particularly popular opinion but in no way it is niche.
they are a preliminary to developing the ability to intuit forms, then through reasoning about them yourself you are supposed to be able to realize the Good, they are not meant to teach you any particular doctrine or help you arrive at truth, they are helping you to arrive at the ability to arrive at truth. they are just an introduction to philosophy, Plato didn't even write his actual system down.
>So you're saying the dialectic is not meant to find a literal answer which may be put into words, but to cultivate an inner sense of these values by contact with the forms through relentless questioning?
In a way I have to agree with that anon. Plato was writing to be accessible and build philosophical skills in the reader (obvious why: Republic)
>Plato was writing to be accessible and build philosophical skills in the reader (obvious why: Republic)
Yes, but the question here is: Was Plato trying to inculcate dialectical prowess into his readers so they could perform more dialectic and find some concrete basis for values through argument? Or is it a metaphysical thing where the dialectic is just a means to help one access the actual values embodied in the forms, which cannot really be put into words?
Are you here to have some meaningless argument? GTFO, adults are talking.
>The problem is that Socratic debates of induction to find a basis or definition for some value seem largely pointless, even though this makes up the bulk of the dialogues.
you aren't ready. you're still just a normie. read more.
> Recently I was reading about 1800s skepticism around the idea of mass literacy. This surprised me since I've never heard the argument made that literacy is bad, but you can find the very same said in Plato, who believed books can be deceptive, that literacy splits societies into two castes where what once was the culture of an entire people of all castes and ages becomes confined to a small sect, that knowledge only exists when it's contained in someone's mind and books are only a symbol of knowledge, an imperfect one.
Millions of people have held this opinion if not billions. Plato wasn't the first one to say it nor did he particularly invent it.
>skepticism around the idea of mass literacy
>brilliant idea
Counterpoint: If you were illiterate, as you would be as you're not part of the top 1% of society (I can tell because you are here), you wouldn't be able to read Plato.
>so the only movie that i've ever seen is Boss Baby, and let me tell you, Alien vs Predator has a LOT of influences from Boss Baby
>Counterpoint: If you were illiterate, as you would be as you're not part of the top 1% of society (I can tell because you are here), you wouldn't be able to read Plato.
Read 'The Bugbear of Literacy'. Literacy is not a wholly positive phenomenon -- it destroys whatever oral culture, in any society, it finds. The fact some Hindus alive today still memorize and pass down the Bhagavad Gita orally is a miracle. We enjoy Plato a lot, but you have to understand reading Plato is the tradeoff for being unable to have an oral culture of our own. One in which things like idioms, myths, legends, jokes, speaking habits, songs, etc. are all passed from person to person, law is memorized as a series of proverbs, and so on. I think I really might enjoy living in an oral society more, and you as well.
>>so the only movie that i've ever seen is Boss Baby, and let me tell you, Alien vs Predator has a LOT of influences from Boss Baby
This is a shitty comparison since we're talking about Plato, you know, the first author of the Western canon. Was Alien vs Predator the first film ever made?
If literacy sucks so much then stop reading.
>the first author of the Western canon
That would be Homer.
Literacy is like technology. In a literate society you must read to be competitive (in some cases survive) just as in a technological one you are forced to use technology. Without either, there would be no need for them.
Homer was a compiler of oral myths, like the Grimm brothers of his day. Plato was the first true author. However, I disagree the Greeks were Western as per Spengler. Greco-Roman civ is a different civ.
Jesus Christ, Platobaby's everyone.
I’m not OP.
>Platobaby’s
ESLs, everyone.
>I’m not OP.
Obviously, low IQ morons, everyone.
Do you have anything of worth to say? I’m getting bitter Eurogay vibes here.
So you're a mutt posting in the night? How quaint that a low IQ NEET would be a Platobaby.
What’s the plural of Platobaby, Hans? I hope you’ve learned from the cringe shit you wrote but I doubt it.
Stay mad Platobaby, you can use the form of cope on yourself to make yourself feel better, lmao.
Extremely homosexual argument. Give it up dweebs.
Earliest author known is a sumerian in the 24th century BC. Greeks were writing from the 8th century BC onward. There were Romans authors already a hundred years before Plato was born.
(You) are a moron.
A wise man once that the whole of philosophy exists to either affirm Plato or refute him.
Plato is the critical race theory to Aristotle's fbi crime statistics
Elaborate now
No
>I don't believe this, at all.
It is true, please don't seethe and read Plato.
>Ironically I don't enjoy reading the dialogues since they can be so stiff
Plato is literally one of the greatest stylists ever
I've noticed that a lot of occult philosophy can be traced back to Plato.
I like Plato but don't like the Apology, the whole thing reads just like
>I am very smart
the only good parts are those about death
The Apology was ruined by him trying to negotiate a fine. If he expected and willed death the whole time, it would have been kino.
Yea that was weird because before that he even mentioned he actually deserves to be treated like an Olympic winner, and then he talked about how he doesn't have much silver to pay but those friends can pay for him
>and then he talked about how he doesn't have much silver to pay but those friends can pay for him
The friends (among whom is Plato himself) basically shout out during the proceedings "take the fine you crazy nogger, we'll pay"; Socrates would've been happy to keep pissing off the jury with bs suggestions if his friends didn't intervene
“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
–Alfred North Whitehead
Then both you and Plato are moronic.
Plato wasn't original. He borrowed all his ideas from the mystery traditions, hermetic traditions, indian traditions, etc.
> the mystery traditions
What’s that?
And?
Funny, I've had the completely opposite reaction to his works. They were all so unbelievably moronic I refuse to believe they were not satire.
I feel the same. I don't understand why he is regarded as a great philosopher
You DO NOT hold a clay pipe by the bowl. It should have a separate holding piece. If you hold a clay pipe burning tobacco by the bulb you will burn yourself. If you hold a clay pipe burning weed by the bulb you will burn yourself very very badly.
You're probably less intelligent or comprehending than you believe. A lot of people, probably most by far, have that reaction at first.