Rhetoric

I have been thinking a lot about Katherine's comment on Wednesday when I brought up about how vague the word Freedom is and how it can often be used for negative outcomes. To recap, she commented that even words that may seem more specific such as access, can still be twisted in ways that seem to help the many, but actually just end up hurting us. I have thought about what she said and I agree with her comment. It is important not to overlook how strong rhetoric can actually be, which I had overlooked when I commented that there has to be a better word to use than Freedom. Anything, it seems, can be twisted into different meanings. It's just like how some people believe that Plato's thought experiment was meant to be taken as a serious manuscript as to how to form a government. His work has been completely manipulated and sometimes misinterpreted. It's just interesting to me because I never really considered how easy it could be to manipulate people and how any word can be victim to negative rhetoric like Katherine suggested.

A Recap and Future thoughts

I would first like to apologize for the delay in this blog post. Spring break has delayed my thoughts in general I believe. I would like to suggest a beginning discussion of book 4 and how it progresses into book five on Monday. We did not really get to discuss it due to the missed class and I think it would be interesting especially with out new insights on book five. Another thing that I have been thinking about it talking to each other about our midterm thoughts? I have not solidified an idea yet but I think it would be cool to hear others thought of their projects and to give feedback. What do you guys think?

A Hierarchy of Needs

On Monday, we had a long class discussion about virtue in the Meno as it related to the discussion of justice in the Republic. At one point in the class the concept of the Ring of Gyges was mentioned and I believe that it was Mike who brought up the idea that depending on where someone was in their life would depend on what they would do if they had the ring. This made me think about Maslow's Hierarchy of needs and how it might relate to the idea about virtue. The idea that Mike brought up was that people of power or wealth do not need much so they might have an easier time resisting the temptation of the ring whereas people who needed things would struggle with the temptation no matter how virtuous. In a similar way, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a pyramid of different things people need in order to reach the top of the pyramid which is self-actualization. This related to Mikes idea because people who are lower down on the pyramid would have a harder time navigating virtue if presented with the Ring of Gyges than those who have reached self-actualization. In a way, the argument of the ring is flawed because it is difficult to even consider virtue if you are a person who is struggling to meet the bottom requirements of the pyramid. To me, virtue is something that relates to privilege. I believe that anyone can be virtuous but it would be harder to consider it when someone is struggling to make it to self-actualization.

Consider the comment by Thrasymachus on 343. In this longer passage, he is attempting to pose a point against Socrates' claim on the just and justice. I wanted dissect this passage a little more. Do you agree with the claim that Thrasymachus makes when he says that the 'just man everywhere has less than the unjust man' (343c)? I know that Socrates disagrees but the question is interesting to focus on. It is almost like saying that the evil profit more than the good - a sort of pessimistic look on the world. Likewise, if there is no such thing as true justice, how can we even know that the unjust profit more than the just? Also do you believe that someone can be 'truly just'? I feel like true justice is like saying that there is a way to be truly perfect. We cannot concretely define justice, so I am not sure how one can be truly just

Moral Isolationism

Over the past two days I have been reviewing Midgley's article "Trying Out Ones New Sword". In her article, she makes the claim that Moral Isolationism is not a concept that is forced upon cultures, rather it is a position that people maintain due to respect of another's culture. She maintains that if we did not make moral judgments, we would have no framework of our own policy and make no judgments of our own actions. Personally, I see this in relation to reading Plato because one of the levels of thinking about his works is from a historical and contextual background. Having read Midgley's article, I can say that it may help to keep in mind that we may be subject to the influence of moral isolationism. We try to not make judgments about the culture of the Athenians instead of thinking critically about it and creating our own judgments. That said, I think this class is brilliant at seeing past moral isolationism and creating constructive criticisms about our culture in comparison to Athenian culture. When it comes to a review of the historical background, we tend to remain open to it, but overall I think that it is important to keep the idea of moral isolationism in mind so we do not fall complacent to it.

If you would like to read Midgley's article here is the PDF link:

http://www.ghandchi.com/IONA/newsword.pdf

Harmony

On Wednesday we brought up a question that was in my opinion one of the most interesting questions we had discussed during Phaedo. Can an idea be created from nothing? I've been thinking about Matt's example of Harmony and whether or not beings with no hearing can still create harmony. After thinking about this question I do believe that those beings could create harmony..but they would not conceptualize it in the same way. Their sense of harmony might be discovered like Matt said, through vibrations but it wouldn't be the same. This begs another question for me: Is harmony universal or do we all think of it differently? I feel as though those beings who cannot hear might think of harmony that is different from us. Overall, yes they found harmony without hearing which would make it possible to create something without having prior knowledge of it but is it different from our harmony? If it is different, how can we say that they discovered harmony? To me it is a circular pattern. To ask someone "what is harmony?" ends up being the same circular argument as our discussion on how to define piety. I guess I am still struggling about how to not end up in a circle...but maybe that is the point

Interesting Translation

I often try and find some different translations of the dialogues and today while looking though Googles extensive archives I found this neat translation of Plato's Lysis in Dutch! I know I do not know Dutch but I just thought it was great! Here is the link if any of you are interested:

http://www.arsfloreat.nl/documents/Plato-Lysis.pdf

Incorrect Analyses of Plato

For my blog post this week I would like to discuss the idea of the psyche in Phaedo. There are many analyses online that focus on the idea that in Phaedo there is direct mention of the "soul". I feel like this may be a product of the Jowett translations. People automatically assume that when Socrates and the others are discussing immortality, they are discussing their souls. To me it is interesting how wide spread this misconception is because there is really no believe in a soul in ancient Greece as we discussed in class. However it seems to be such a widely spread idea that Socrates was discussing the afterlife in a monotheistic religious way. I find it rather amusing, given that our idea of the afterlife is largely based off of christian ideology. I knew that Benjamin Jowett tainted much of Plato's translations, but I had no idea how wide spread the misconception was. It is also interesting to me because I find myself having to really rework my thought processes while rereading this text. It is so easy to just automatically assume that when someone talks about death and moving on after death they are discussing Heaven and Hell but that is why it is crucial to dive into the culture of the text and not look at it through your own culture.

Explanations and Piety

For this week, I would like to collect other's thoughts on our discussion towards the very end of class. Because class is not as nearly long enough as it should be we really only surfaced upon the question: Is something pious because the gods love it or do the gods love it because it is pious? 

Comment your thoughts. Is there a straight answer? Also do you also believe that this was one of Plato's more intense/interesting questions? 

I look forward to the comments and hope that I can agree or interject how I feel as I am still working through the question myself. 

Tonight I read "Why Plato Wrote Dialogues" a chapter from Kenneth M. Sayre's text Plato's Literary Garden. While I was reading, I was wondering why there is debate as to whether these are dialogues Plato imagined or whether he was actually with Socrates. Sayre poses a good point when he states "The fact that Brutus was an actual contemporary of Julius Caesar does not make Shakespeare's story of a conversation between them a depiction of an actual conversation". Likewise, the fact that Plato writes of conversations between Socrates and himself or Socrates and others does not make it a real conversation. My thought is wouldn't we be calling it a documentary if it was a real recording of Socrates? To me Plato was an artist. He used Socrates as his medium, to imagine what conversations would be like and to pose and try and answer philosophical questions that are bothering his intellectual mind. People do not assume Shakespeare's work is non-fiction, so why Plato?

I believe that it is a matter of both dramatization and the lack of meta cognition. Meta cognition is when we think about thinking. It is an interesting phenomenon that humans do; one that cognitive psychologists study. I think that if you think about Plato thinking about Socrates, it is easy to see it as a story. It is easy to picture him writing about what could have been or imagined conversations. I also believe that many people just assume he was there because he was one of Socrates friends. Why wouldn't Plato record everything word for word? Isn't Socrates supposed to be one of the most famous philosophers of human time? This is where the dramatization occurs. We want it to be a real conversation because the problems posed are so fruitful and perplexing. If it is just a story, then I can imagine that some would feel as though Plato is more of a storyteller than a philosopher. I feel like it is very easy for many of them to just want the dialogues to be documentations. Even though they are not, the dialogues of Plato are just as critical to the philosophical thought processes as any other text. I have been one of those people that has always assumed his dialogues were recorded and not created. It is interesting to look at now with a fresh mind and see Plato's work as artistic philosophical writings in the wake of his friends demise.

Welcome to my blog Not A Playwright! Here, I will be posting a blog weekly about my thoughts on current readings of Plato's Dialogues. The first post will be tomorrow night.