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I’m sometimes baffled by other people’s understanding of Plato. Describing Plato as authoritarian is an extremely creative way to characterize what he’s about.

I’m sometimes baffled by other people’s understanding of Plato. Describing Plato as authoritarian is an extremely creative way to characterize what he’s about. However arguing that he was traumatized from seeing Socrates’ trial is basically just making stuff up. It’s maybe a possibility that he secretly felt this way, but there were two or three dialogues on the events concerning the trial of Socrates, the time he spent waiting for his execution, and then his actual death that sort of stand in the way of a reasonable person drawing the same conclusion.

LudwigNagasena 5y ago
What exactly do you disagree with? > Popper argued that Plato had produced a vision of one such closed society. He pointed to the stratification of the social order in Plato’s ideal city, the strict division of labor between the intellectual and productive classes, the absence of social mobility, state censorship of most culture, and, above all, the promulgation of an openly fraudulent myth, the so-called Noble Lie, to legitimize the status quo.
atoav 5y ago
Poppers whole theory on open and closed societies was that open societies have some sort of mechanism to change who is in power without a violent revolution or a war. I am not sure I know what Plato envisioned as a society, but his strict division between intellectual and working class seems like a receipe to disaster. Two or three generations in nothing would have been left of the potential advantages of putting the intellectuals in power, because their sons would've taken that power for granted and soon you would've ended up with an ordinary aristocracy. Granted, those were other times — slavery was totally common for example. But I still think Popper has the better take on how to organize power and who knows, maybe Plato would have agreed if he had the chance to read Popper.
- krazii 5y ago
  From memory Plato's ideal society was pretty wack. A "great lie" to wow citizens into respecting the ruling class. Taking children from their parents, forbiding knowledge of your biological family to avoid nepotism. Banning music and theatre so people don't get too excited about alternatives.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    Contrast Plato with his allegory of the cave vs Aristotle, inventor of common sense. Its clear why dictators throughout history favored Plato, as well as modern academia.
  - shadowofneptune 5y ago
    The part of it that raised my eyebrows the most back in school was the idea that formal education should only start at age 18, and students graduating at age 50.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  That’s not quite what Plato held. What you call the intellectual class (the philosopher-kings) would actually be forbidden from procreating. Here’s a description in the context of an analysis of our social predicament[0]. (Whether you agree with the analysis or not, the summary of Plato’s views still stands.) [0] https://americanmind.org/salvo/woke-ideology-is-a-psychological-disorder/ https://americanmind.org/salvo/woke-ideology-is-a-psychologi...
thazework 5y ago
>However arguing that he was traumatized from seeing Socrates’ trial is basically just making stuff up. Traumatized is the wrong adjective to describe Plato's reaction (though probably an apt description of Popper's characterization) but Plato was shaped by the trial in respect to his view of the relationship of the philosopher and the (democratic) city. This is depicted not just in the apology but also for example in the Gorgias where Socrates' death is foreshadowed: >For as it is, if somebody should seize hold of you or anyone else at all of your sort [philosophers], and drag you off to prison, asserting that you were guilty of a wrong you had never done, you know you would be at a loss what to do with yourself, and would be all dizzy and agape without a word to say; and when you came up in court, though your accuser might be ever so paltry a rascal, you would have to die if he chose to claim death as your penalty. There is further complexity here, after all Socrates proves himself quite capable of defending himself both in his reply to Callicles here and in the Apology, he was by no means at a loss of what to say. And so the notion that a philosopher cannot defend themselves in the political arena should not necessarily be taken to be Plato's position. Neither is Callicles espousing a particularly democratic position here, in fact the idea that the law can and should be abused like that would never be espoused by an Athenian democrat. Still, the idea found in the Republic that a wise man would do well to stay quiet in a democratic city was certainly not shared by Socrates (and so may be a reflection of Plato's attitude). http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0178%3Atext%3DGorg.%3Asection%3D486a http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...

LudwigNagasena 5y ago

What exactly do you disagree with? > Popper argued that Plato had produced a vision of one such closed society. He pointed to the stratification of the social order in Plato’s ideal city, the strict division of labor between the intellectual and productive classes, the absence of social mobility, state censorship of most culture, and, above all, the promulgation of an openly fraudulent myth, the so-called Noble Lie, to legitimize the status quo.

atoav 5y ago

Poppers whole theory on open and closed societies was that open societies have some sort of mechanism to change who is in power without a violent revolution or a war. I am not sure I know what Plato envisioned as a society, but his strict division between intellectual and working class seems like a receipe to disaster. Two or three generations in nothing would have been left of the potential advantages of putting the intellectuals in power, because their sons would've taken that power for granted and soon you would've ended up with an ordinary aristocracy. Granted, those were other times — slavery was totally common for example. But I still think Popper has the better take on how to organize power and who knows, maybe Plato would have agreed if he had the chance to read Popper.

krazii 5y ago
From memory Plato's ideal society was pretty wack. A "great lie" to wow citizens into respecting the ruling class. Taking children from their parents, forbiding knowledge of your biological family to avoid nepotism. Banning music and theatre so people don't get too excited about alternatives.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  Contrast Plato with his allegory of the cave vs Aristotle, inventor of common sense. Its clear why dictators throughout history favored Plato, as well as modern academia.
- shadowofneptune 5y ago
  The part of it that raised my eyebrows the most back in school was the idea that formal education should only start at age 18, and students graduating at age 50.
bobthechef 5y ago
That’s not quite what Plato held. What you call the intellectual class (the philosopher-kings) would actually be forbidden from procreating. Here’s a description in the context of an analysis of our social predicament[0]. (Whether you agree with the analysis or not, the summary of Plato’s views still stands.) [0] https://americanmind.org/salvo/woke-ideology-is-a-psychological-disorder/ https://americanmind.org/salvo/woke-ideology-is-a-psychologi...

thazework 5y ago

>However arguing that he was traumatized from seeing Socrates’ trial is basically just making stuff up. Traumatized is the wrong adjective to describe Plato's reaction (though probably an apt description of Popper's characterization) but Plato was shaped by the trial in respect to his view of the relationship of the philosopher and the (democratic) city. This is depicted not just in the apology but also for example in the Gorgias where Socrates' death is foreshadowed: >For as it is, if somebody should seize hold of you or anyone else at all of your sort [philosophers], and drag you off to prison, asserting that you were guilty of a wrong you had never done, you know you would be at a loss what to do with yourself, and would be all dizzy and agape without a word to say; and when you came up in court, though your accuser might be ever so paltry a rascal, you would have to die if he chose to claim death as your penalty. There is further complexity here, after all Socrates proves himself quite capable of defending himself both in his reply to Callicles here and in the Apology, he was by no means at a loss of what to say. And so the notion that a philosopher cannot defend themselves in the political arena should not necessarily be taken to be Plato's position. Neither is Callicles espousing a particularly democratic position here, in fact the idea that the law can and should be abused like that would never be espoused by an Athenian democrat. Still, the idea found in the Republic that a wise man would do well to stay quiet in a democratic city was certainly not shared by Socrates (and so may be a reflection of Plato's attitude). http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0178%3Atext%3DGorg.%3Asection%3D486a http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...