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To be entirely fair, by reading those philosophers listed, you get the parts of Plato that they believe have value. That's not necessarily the same thing as the
by mrr54 7y ago
To be entirely fair, by reading those philosophers listed, you get the parts of Plato that they believe have value. That's not necessarily the same thing as the parts of Plato that actually have value, I'm sure you agree?
Of course that Aristotle believes something does not make it true, but also that Nussbaum doesn't believe something Aristotle believes doesn't make it false either!
- kerkeslager 7y agoThat's true--what I said was intended as an approximation. I should have added some "most"s and "probably"s. I think we can say that if one or two other philosophers besides Plato think that something Plato says has value, the chances of it actually having value are higher than a random sampling of what Plato says having value.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoWhy then would historians emphasize the importance of primary sources? If you rely on a progression of secondary sources over and over, you get serious misconceptions. Such as, for instance, your notion of the forms as being indicative of a descartian mind/body split. That simply isn't what Plato wrote. So, as it turns out, not everyone can or should read primary sources. It's only for the select few. But those that do won't be dumber than those that only read secondary sources.