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I hope you're right, most of what we know about Plato's teachings came from his students that took good notes. That said, I do have trouble finding the "histor
by qppo 7y ago
I hope you're right, most of what we know about Plato's teachings came from his students that took good notes.
That said, I do have trouble finding the "history" of a particular technical idea. There's a lot of interesting things that are a certain way but haven't been documented about "why" because the author never thought to put them down.
Indeed the most interesting things to posterity are the ones we don't even think about.
- OskarS 7y ago> I hope you're right, most of what we know about Plato's teachings came from his students that took good notes. You're thinking of Socrates, not Plato. Plato is the one of the few ancient writers where it's believed that basically his the entire body of work has been preserved. What we know of Plato's philosophy, we know from Plato directly. Socrates, however, did not write anything down: he was famously opposed to the concept of writing, thinking it induced forgetfulness. His philosophy is thus almost entirely known through his students, primarily through Plato. There are a few others (Xenophon was also Socrates' student and wrote about him), but Plato is by far the most significant.