3 ms·

Can you back up this claim of an illiterate Plato? That sounds like the sort of assertion this post complains about. Plato's dialogs do have Socrates complainin

Can you back up this claim of an illiterate Plato? That sounds like the sort of assertion this post complains about. Plato's dialogs do have Socrates complaining about book-learning. AFAICT literacy rates in classical Athens are uncertain. I recently read http://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Lives-Ancient-Greeks-Peoples/dp/0313385718 http://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Lives-Ancient-Greeks-Peoples/... which left me with an impression of relatively high rates for male citizens, but I don't remember anything concrete. Searching turns up http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/classical-studies/ancient-history/literacy-and-democracy-fifth-century-athens http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/classical-stud... which says the orthodoxy is for low rates, but argues against it.

jeangenie 12y ago
In my hasty reply I wrote Plato but meant Socrates. In fact Plato was most definitely literate. In fairness this was also only unsubstantiated rumor. Socrates upbringing was supposedly poor so it's possible he could have been. However my overall point was that this isn't important in light of his larger contributions.