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Socrates famously hated the written form, not because it was technologically advanced for its time, but because it was "dead": you can't have a conversation wit

by bambax 5y ago

Socrates famously hated the written form, not because it was technologically advanced for its time, but because it was "dead": you can't have a conversation with a piece of writing, or ask the author to explain something that's on the page. I disagree (and agree, indirectly, with the OP): deadness is a feature, not a bug. The problem with Internet writing is not just its addictive nature, it's groupthink. It is too much alive. You have to either follow popular opinion, or oppose it vehemently; tangential or orthogonal thinking is almost impossible. Books, because they are not part of an immediate, global conversation where people share opinions and judgements and signal their virtue to one another, are something very different and allow for a very different experience than any written text found online. Maybe books will slowly fade; but I think it's unlikely they would ever completely disappear, as they offer something unique not found anywhere else.

cjameskeller 5y ago
I think a parallel argument to Socrates's could be made for the internet -- it is "alive", but in a much lower-dimensional way than real conversation with people in the world who have bodies and families. Online, everyone is a disembodied psyche -- so much is abstracted ideas, universalized groups and events, unbounded emotion/impulse. Talking with someone in real life almost requires confronting the shared humility and complexity of being a person. Avatars and text do not.
camillomiller 5y ago
Well, the Internet conversation mediated by the concept of engagement wasn’t what Socrates had in mind opposing writing. The value of well constructed and structured dialogue is enormous. If it’s between two people, it’s already quite powerful, then you add complexity by adding an additional voice. We’ve been doing this for millennia, and it works, it’s just not what the internet translated.
kashyapc 5y ago
Incidentally, this morning I finished reading the Socratic dialogue, 'Phaedrus'[1]. At the end of the dialogue (and also in a couple of other dialogues), Socrates makes his famous rebuttal against writing: You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words. You'd think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you question anything that has been said because you want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever. When it has once been written down, every discourse roams about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have no business with it, and it [writing] doesn't know whom it should speak and to whom it should not. And when it is faulted and attacked unfairly, it always needs its father's [the writer's] support; alone, it can neither defend itself nor come to its own support. - - - What is Socrates' proposed solution, then? A combination of two things: (1) of course, the so-called Socratic method (elenchus in Greek) of refutation, that teases out better hypotheses by "identifying and eliminating contradictions", and (2) the "art of dialectic", i.e. the art of investigating the truth, which Plato makes Socrates use in his later dialogues such as the Republic. I'm sure we don't miss the irony here—we gain many of Socrates' insights, regardless of what we think of them, thanks to Plato's writing. PS: I agree with you on books, modulo this: it's more likely to see pigs flying than to see "books starting to slowly fade away" :-) [1] This English translation (by Nehamas & Woodruff) is excellent: https://www.hackettpublishing.com/philosophy/phaedrus https://www.hackettpublishing.com/philosophy/phaedrus
- kinghtown 5y ago
  After reading a few of the dialogues, love reading these BTW, I highly suspect that Plato often misrepresented Socrates- would often put words in his mouth. With that said.. I think it’s very OK for Socrates to be wrong or to disagree with him. He’s the kind of guy who would change his opinions in light of conflicting evidence or an iron clad logical argument. Just because he said that about writing doesn’t mean he’s right nor does it mean he’s done with the tangent.
  - kashyapc 5y ago
    I forgot to add: Socrates actually does sort of say that even writing is okay—as long as you're doing it in the right spirit (seeking truth) and are not deceiving your audience. In the Phaedrus, Socrates rails against the "speechmakers" who don't truly know what they're talking about, but instead write based on "what is likely" to persuade the audience. And yes, in the later dialogues (e.g. the Republic), many scholars agree that Plato used Socrates as his "mouthpiece". I don't care either way, they're insanely fun to read.
jihadjihad 5y ago
It reminds me of this short essay [0] I came across in Harper's a while back, which, at the time of publishing, was in a section devoted to the defense of books. I believe it's from 1999. "[...] a treasured book is more important than a dance card, or the photo that freezes you in mid-teeter at the edge of the Grand Canyon, because such a book can be a significant event in the history of your reading, and your reading should be an essential segment of your character and your life. Unlike the love we’ve made or meals we’ve eaten, books congregate to form a record around us of what they’ve fed our stomachs or our brains. These are not a hunter’s trophies but the living animals themselves." 0: https://harpers.org/archive/2018/10/living-animals/ https://harpers.org/archive/2018/10/living-animals/

by bambax 5y ago

cjameskeller 5y ago

I think a parallel argument to Socrates's could be made for the internet -- it is "alive", but in a much lower-dimensional way than real conversation with people in the world who have bodies and families. Online, everyone is a disembodied psyche -- so much is abstracted ideas, universalized groups and events, unbounded emotion/impulse. Talking with someone in real life almost requires confronting the shared humility and complexity of being a person. Avatars and text do not.

camillomiller 5y ago

Well, the Internet conversation mediated by the concept of engagement wasn’t what Socrates had in mind opposing writing. The value of well constructed and structured dialogue is enormous. If it’s between two people, it’s already quite powerful, then you add complexity by adding an additional voice. We’ve been doing this for millennia, and it works, it’s just not what the internet translated.

kashyapc 5y ago

Incidentally, this morning I finished reading the Socratic dialogue, 'Phaedrus'[1]. At the end of the dialogue (and also in a couple of other dialogues), Socrates makes his famous rebuttal against writing: You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words. You'd think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you question anything that has been said because you want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever. When it has once been written down, every discourse roams about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have no business with it, and it [writing] doesn't know whom it should speak and to whom it should not. And when it is faulted and attacked unfairly, it always needs its father's [the writer's] support; alone, it can neither defend itself nor come to its own support. - - - What is Socrates' proposed solution, then? A combination of two things: (1) of course, the so-called Socratic method (elenchus in Greek) of refutation, that teases out better hypotheses by "identifying and eliminating contradictions", and (2) the "art of dialectic", i.e. the art of investigating the truth, which Plato makes Socrates use in his later dialogues such as the Republic. I'm sure we don't miss the irony here—we gain many of Socrates' insights, regardless of what we think of them, thanks to Plato's writing. PS: I agree with you on books, modulo this: it's more likely to see pigs flying than to see "books starting to slowly fade away" :-) [1] This English translation (by Nehamas & Woodruff) is excellent: https://www.hackettpublishing.com/philosophy/phaedrus https://www.hackettpublishing.com/philosophy/phaedrus

kinghtown 5y ago
After reading a few of the dialogues, love reading these BTW, I highly suspect that Plato often misrepresented Socrates- would often put words in his mouth. With that said.. I think it’s very OK for Socrates to be wrong or to disagree with him. He’s the kind of guy who would change his opinions in light of conflicting evidence or an iron clad logical argument. Just because he said that about writing doesn’t mean he’s right nor does it mean he’s done with the tangent.
- kashyapc 5y ago
  I forgot to add: Socrates actually does sort of say that even writing is okay—as long as you're doing it in the right spirit (seeking truth) and are not deceiving your audience. In the Phaedrus, Socrates rails against the "speechmakers" who don't truly know what they're talking about, but instead write based on "what is likely" to persuade the audience. And yes, in the later dialogues (e.g. the Republic), many scholars agree that Plato used Socrates as his "mouthpiece". I don't care either way, they're insanely fun to read.

jihadjihad 5y ago

It reminds me of this short essay [0] I came across in Harper's a while back, which, at the time of publishing, was in a section devoted to the defense of books. I believe it's from 1999. "[...] a treasured book is more important than a dance card, or the photo that freezes you in mid-teeter at the edge of the Grand Canyon, because such a book can be a significant event in the history of your reading, and your reading should be an essential segment of your character and your life. Unlike the love we’ve made or meals we’ve eaten, books congregate to form a record around us of what they’ve fed our stomachs or our brains. These are not a hunter’s trophies but the living animals themselves." 0: https://harpers.org/archive/2018/10/living-animals/ https://harpers.org/archive/2018/10/living-animals/