When Socrates and other ancient philosophers criticize writing, it's not because of the lack of in-person, non-verbal signals--at least, not directly. It's beca

When Socrates and other ancient philosophers criticize writing, it's not because of the lack of in-person, non-verbal signals--at least, not directly. It's because they had peculiar beliefs about the origin and nature of knowledge. As alluded to in the post, in their epistemologies memory isn't just a way to recall facts, but often considered the very seat of knowledge and even reality itself. Plato takes this to an extreme with his Platonic forms, which exist and are slowly revealed as memories. Suffice it to say the contention of the anti-writing crowd was that writing as a medium conflicted with the nature and/or embodiment of knowledge. This conflation of knowledge and memory persisted up to at least Augustine. Note that not all these philosophers were anti-writing, just that you can't understand the debate without understanding the premises. Would Socrates be cool with electronic Socratic dialogue? I know enough to know that I don't know enough to be able to say one way or another. As far as I understand, Plato had different theories about knowledge and memory than Socrates, though both (in keeping with the era) emphasized their interrelationship. So we should be skeptical that Plato accurately conveys the essence of Socrates' epistemic theories.