The Oatmeal on religion

[Robert Tulip]

I think Plato's Republic probably deserves a thread of its own. It would be a good discussion selection, either as fiction or non-fiction.

I see Haidt's treatment of Plato is under discussion at http://www.booktalk.org/the-righteous-m ... 12887.html

The Republic is available free online at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1497

I'm going to look again at The Republic before responding in detail to your good questions. Suffice to say for now that the relativists have verballed Socrates with the Sergeant Schultz defence.

[DWill]

That's a good light touch, Robert. As for Sergeant Schultz, he was emphasizing the 'nothing,' whereas Haidt and others are emphasizing the 'know.'

Agree about reading The Republic.

[VMLM]

I would definitely be up for a reading the Republic. Or the Timaeus. To be frank I read it a couple of years ago, but I never really discussed it with anyone. I still kick myself for that.

I luckily stumbled upon a collection of Plato's dialogues in a book trading store. I promptly traded my copy of Catch 22 for it (didn't regret it in the least, even if I do love Catch 22).
My impression was that Plato had what I've heard Penelope (here on the boards) refer to as a lyrical mind. His interpretation of reality was always charged with metaphor, fantasy, poetry... it's very beautiful to read and let run through your mind.

They didn't tell me how beautiful it was in my introductory philosophy class back in the university. Everything seem so clear cut and clinical then.
As I read through Plato's Republic I had the feeling that my teachers had somehow taken this beautiful, multifaceted, incongruable creature before me, put in on a slab, butcherer it, and then they'd presented me with the cave as if it where a prime cut of beef.
When they talked about his theory of ideas, I thought it made sense. It seemed a downright neat idea. When Plato talked about the cave, I thought he was crazy!
Could this man truly believe that some parallel, intangible, perfect universe existed, and that somehow everything, EVERY THING in our world was nothing but a mere reflection of that universe? "Poor, brilliant cave man" I thought to myself, ¨if only he knew what I know¨.

But as I kept reading I understood, firstly that Plato needed no simpathy from me, and secondly that this man didn't write literally. So much in Plato is metaphor... as I read through each dialogue I came to suspect that even Socrates was nothing but a mere interpretation, a figment of this brilliant man's mind brought into being to represent the perfect philosopher. And I decided that the best way in which I could read his theory of ideas, the truest and most beautiful, was as a metaphor for the constant search for truth. For Plato ideas were sacred, and everything in the world conspired to befuddle man's understanding of them.
And yes, these ideas where intangible, perfect, unattainable Truth; perceivable only through the crude "things" that the inhabit our world. Invisible to the ignorant, but inescapable, blindingly obvious to those who could see it.

I could be wrong though. I'm only here to blow off steam and let my mind wander for a bit.

[DWill]

Jonathan Haidt sets up Plato as the rationalist-in-chief, one whose strongest belief was in the perfectability of reason. But wasn't even that just part of Plato's idealism? I don't know Plato well, but my impression is that he was most strongly guided by how we should act and that his approach was essentially religious. He believed that originally the gods had made us to be pure reason, but that the need for a body had sullied our reason, making it a constant struggle to reclaim our nature as the gods had given it to us. This is not different from any version of the Fall. Socrates conducts his lessons with such apparent logic that his idealism may tend to get overlooked. Haidt seems to have the same view of Plato as your professors had, but I think you're absolutely right that to abstract the content of the dialogues and ignore the dramatic or passionate elements isn't really reading Plato.

[geo]

Regarding knowledge, I think what the old Greek philosopher was saying that the more he learns, the less he realizes he knows. Meaning that as we open up vistas of knowledge, we come to realize how much we don't know. Only a fool thinks he knows everything.

I'd be on board for reading The Republic. I already bought a copy a few months back.

[Robert Tulip]

Regarding knowledge, I think what the old Greek philosopher was saying that the more he learns, the less he realizes he knows. Meaning that as we open up vistas of knowledge, we come to realize how much we don't know. Only a fool thinks he knows everything.

I'd be on board for reading The Republic. I already bought a copy a few months back.

Insistent as I am on maintaining a continuity with the original purpose of a thread, I would like to explain how this discussion of Plato links to the original atheist cartoon, which I am convinced was the work of youkrst because of the giveaway attack on Nickelback.

Ant used the Sergeant Schultz defence as a seagull refutation of all atheism. That led me to question the provenance of the 'I know nothink' line. And here it is, in Jowett's translation:

As an epicure snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table,
he not having allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left that enquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom or evil and folly; and when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all.
For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy. (Republic, end of Book 1)

Reading in context, Socrates says that discussion of the nature of justice has shown him he does not know what justice is. Far from a generalized profession of ignorance about everything, it is a statement that the most central topic of human life is a mystery. Justice is regarded in utterly contradictory ways by different people, so with such a topic philosophical humility requires an initial acceptance that such conflict over the meaning of the word requires caution in assertion.

This is an extremely interesting case study in the evolution of myth. The original statement that Socrates does not know the meaning of justice has morphed into a T shirt whose apparent intent is to bellttle all claims to knowledge. This is a basic fallacy, because saying you do not know one thing, for example why -e to the i pi equals 1, does not mean you do not know another thing, for example one plus one equals two. Socrates' call for a meditation on justice does not equate to complete ignorance of the politics of Greece.

Geo's reference to scholarly humility is quite a different thing from Socrates' original. Geo's quote comes from Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the buckyball, who said "The more we learn the more we realize how little we know."

But the line attributed by the T shirt to Socrates suggests that ancient philosophy was relativist, refusing to claim knowledge of any distinction between truth and error. The hidden intent here is to assert that someone who actually does know nothing can have views that are just as valid as any philosopher, however learned. No wonder Greece is in such a pickle.

[geo]

Geo's reference to scholarly humility is quite a different thing from Socrates' original. Geo's quote comes from Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the buckyball, who said "The more we learn the more we realize how little we know."

But the line attributed by the T shirt to Socrates suggests that ancient philosophy was relativist, refusing to claim knowledge of any distinction between truth and error. The hidden intent here is to assert that someone who actually does know nothing can have views that are just as valid as any philosopher, however learned. No wonder Greece is in such a pickle.

I do see this as quote as a comment on intellectual humility and I think that's how most people read it.

Also, this quote is widely attributed to Socrates. It must be in one of Plato's works, although I can't find it offhand.

[DWill]

Robert, I think the words you quoted above are not the origin of the claim that Socrates admitted his ignorance. The quote clearly says that in this one specific instance, Socrates hasn't learned anything from what the others have said. In other places in the dialogues he speaks more generally about his characteristic stance as one whose primary virtue is that he doesn't assume, as most of his interlocutors do, that he has the ultimate answers. I also don't know what kind of knowledge you are saying that Socrates would insist can be absolute (leaving aside all of ancient philosophy, which is too diverse to speak of as a generality). Would it be, for example, that we can absolutely know the truth about climate change or about natural selection? From what I've seen of Plato and Socrates, empirical data can never be absolute, as there are too many ways to describe them from too many points of view. That kind of knowledge isn't true knowledge and must always remain relative. Science was not Plato's thing; for that you need to go to Aristotle. There must be knowledge that doesn't have these messy complications, and that would be the knowledge of the forms. Beauty, for instance, exists as a form in its pure state, apart from any individual's judgment of whether an object is beautiful. This is a pure idealism that isn't made for the daily grind.

It's very possible that in Plato there are separate currents of thought: non-dualism, which would tend toward a relativistic view, and dualism, which would go toward absolutism. If you have time, take a look at this interesting article examining Plato from a Buddhist perspective. The author believes that Socrates tended to develop only provisional beliefs through his method of dialogue rather than to establish certainties dogmatically. Then, his pupil Plato began more and more to mix in metaphysical assumptions in order to claim an "ethical foundationalism." The author also believes, like our poster VMLM, that the purpose of the dialogues is more spiritual and more about the journey than about the establishment of metaphysical truths that became so important in Western tradition.

http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol3/plato.html

[youkrst]

I would like to explain how this discussion of Plato links to the original atheist cartoon, which I am convinced was the work of youkrst because of the giveaway attack on Nickelback.

of course i'd love to be guilty as charged Robert, but i will have to settle for merely being delighted i'm not the only set of ears to notice that nickelback are to music what macdonalds are to food, ie. a bloody poor impersonation of the real thing.

[Chris OConnor]

I'm skimming the recent posts here. How many people want to read The Republic?