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And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn th
by MengerSponge 3y ago
And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.
Plato (400 BC)
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoFunny, given that we read Plato.
- ycombinete 3y agoPlato would not have missed the irony. He was incredibly literary and ironic in his writing. There’s always tension in Plato as to what was his opinion and what was Socrates’. Furthermore many characters in his dialogues are explicitly meant to be wrong in their opinions. Just reading a Plato quote as evidence of Plato’s actual opinion is a route to confusion. This idea as communicated in Phaedrus, by Socrates, was certainly Socrates’ opinion: Socrates never wrote anything down.
- autoexec 3y agoI'd bet most of us have to remember a lot more than Plato did. What did he have in his day to day that's similar to the steps I have to take to log into various systems, or recalling the structure of different file systems so I can find things, or the ever growing and changing number of apps and tools? If I were a philosopher, I probably wouldn't need to write things down as much either and it'd be easier to see the need for the written word as "weakness".