Pre-1800 Classic. The first part is Jowett’s summary of the dialogue and its explication. The second part is more general about how Plato influenced later Western philosophers. These two sections were interesting for me, who knows roughly squat about Plato. I don’t even know if we should say PLAY-dough or PLAH-to.
Meno - Plato (c. 428 BCE - c. 347 BCE) Tr. Benjamin Jowett (1817 - 1893)
The author structures this example of philosophical fiction in the form of a dialogue. Blade about town Meno is young, comely, and affluent and philosopher Socrates is old, homely, and poorish. Meno impetuously springs a serious question on Socrates who replies basically you ask whether virtue (excellence) can be taught but you don’t define what virtue is.
The translator speculates that this dialogue is one of the earlier ones, but it still covers issues that are always important. Above, we see that for Socrates, a good thinker will define terms precisely so that all discussants will agree that they are talking about the same phenomenon. The importance of having clear definitions influenced later thinkers such as Marcus Aurelius. He said that we should examine people, places, situations and events by stripping them down to their essences, with a mind that’s minimized its own irrational emotions and prejudices. Like Plato, Aurelius thought that our reason was an inborn gift given by God to understand the natural world and to live in harmony with other people.
Jowett points out this work is from the “infancy” of philosophy so there is content that modern philosophers would have no truck with. For example, Socrates talks about the soul seemingly remembering knowledge. I wasn’t confident if Socrates was talking about knowledge we are born with (like our innate capacity to learn languages) or knowledge we recall from previous lives (reincarnation). There is a curious exchange Socrates has with a slave in which Socrates elicits through questions alone the boy’s innate knowledge of geometry. It is noteworthy that in our day the research indicates that human beings do indeed have innate abilities for number sense, geometrical notions, pattern identification, and spatial awareness.
Socrates and upright citizen Anytus have an exchange about Anytus’ aversion to the Sophists, professional teachers who “are a manifest pest and corrupting influence to those who have to do with them.” Not comfortable with blind prejudice, Socrates irritates Anytus with:
SOCRATES: Has any of the
Sophists wronged you, Anytus? What makes you so angry with them?
ANYTUS: No, indeed, neither I
nor any of my belongings has ever had, nor would I suffer them to have,
anything to do with them.
SOCRATES: Then you are entirely
unacquainted with them?
ANYTUS: And I have no wish to be
acquainted.
SOCRATES: Then, my dear friend,
how can you know whether a thing is good or bad of which you are wholly
ignorant?
ANYTUS: Quite well; I am sure
that I know what manner of men these are, whether I am acquainted with them or
not.
SOCRATES: You must be a diviner, Anytus, for I really cannot make out, judging from your own words, how, if you are not acquainted with them, you know about them.
Sounds like school board meeting where a school librarian is defending To Kill a Mockingbird from a mutton-head of a parent who wants its banned from the library even though they’ve never read it but BurdTurd1177 said on Twitter it was bad. Anytus leaves in a huff and with an ominous warning. Later Anytus was a member of the faction that went after Socrates and had him executed for “corrupting youth.” Helluva system, republican democracy, so vulnerable to doom merchants and demagogues who make hay by appealing to the fears and hatreds of the mob.
In fact, in this dialogue Socrates argues that things parents, teachers, friends and the rest of society call “good” are in their own nature intermediate between good and bad. In our context, if used wisely, a prestigious prize can attract more attention to your research and thus draw more grant money. But what if you unwisely use the grant money to hire research assistants and post-docs and then treat them with zero dignity or respect?
For Socrates, what’s important is virtue, which means the endless work of cultivating an excellent character. Reasoning clearly, an excellent character is the only intrinsically good thing because it will keep one from making bad choices with money, power, fame, prizes, influence, and hangers-on all the time telling you how wonderful you are.
Nothing is more important than a fine character. Sheesh, maybe Anytus and his ilk are right. Who is Socrates to claim that health and beauty, and power and wealth and thems that possess them are not what we plain folks should aspire to, should idolize? What if everybody started cultivating their character, became critical thinkers, and started mending it, fixing it, making do, and doing without?
Do without? Sounds frickin’ unamerican.
No comments:
Post a Comment