Plato

I know that, for the journal, we are supposed to write something about it everyday, but since the beginning of trying that out, I have found that I was just saying the same things in every paragraph and ending with the same questions and beginning with the same answers. So, I have decided to set up my journal in this format, as to show what I am trying to say in a refined technique. I will try and add my questions and answers at the end, and I hope, Dr. Coyle, that this is an all right journal entry for our first journals.

A. SophistryÐ'...

Or, more correctly, the Platonic likeness of sophistry. At 19d-21a, Socrates claims, in attempting to differentiate himself from the sophists to whom he has become incorporated in the Athenian popular perception, that sophists claim to be experts about human superiority and can make humans exceptional, like horse trainers claim to be able to make horses exceptional. Socrates denies having this kind of specialist knowledge about human brilliance, claiming only to have a certain type of intelligence. The Greek words are significant: expertise = episteme or science; wisdom = sophia. This is an ancient conflict: philosophers trying to differentiate themselves both from divine inspiration and from engineers/scientists. In this case, the things to be studied and controlled by scientific sophists are human beings.

We can't be humanists and lament this loss of valuable individuality, as if it were the "natural" condition, our birthright as free persons that is taken away from us, etc. The point is to examine the social machine that produces either restricted reaction or flexible decision. What Socrates is irritable about in terms of what he calls "virtue" or "true human excellence" is the generalization involved in producing perfect repetition. To be a good citizen, Socrates claims, one cannot be trained into disciplined reiteration, one cannot be simplified, but one must be multifaceted. To have virtue is to have judgment, to be able to respond to the new, the impulsive, or to situations that are too complex for words and can only be responded to aesthetically, by feel or touch, in both the literal and figurative senses of those words.

To have such ability, one's brain must be persuaded into exploring complex character zones, where new patterns are able to form: self-organization. Discipline is exactly the channeling of reaction, the installation of huge personality attractors: reception of orders from above. Socrates of course did not have involvedness theory studies of the brain w/ which to clarify himself. His expressions are that of practical wisdom or judgment, and virtue or brilliance. We could say, Socrates wants to differentiate the good simplified, restricted inevitability from the good complex, flexible judgment. Will this make him popular? We will see.

B. Ignorance

Socrates claims to have only a "human wisdom" (20d), not the "more than human wisdom" (20e) of the sophists. Yet he also, legendary, claims to know that he is not intelligent (21b). What's going on here?

Socrates tells the story at 21a-24b of the oracle's saying, "no one is wiser than Socrates." Because Socrates knows he is not intelligent, he at first doubts the oracle and sets out to test it. He will try to find someone wiser than he. He first finds someone who appears to be clever to many, and who accepts this trait: he too thinks he is wise. Under inspection, however, the allegedly wise man turns out not to be wise: he is exposed as unwise. This presentation of ignorance on the part of the allegedly wise leads to hatred of Socrates. He then reflects that he is wiser than this interlocutor, because he doesn't pretend to a knowledge that he doesn't possess. In other words, Socrates' wisdom lies in recognizing his own lack of knowledge. After a methodical survey of Athens, including the politicians, poets, and craftsmen, Socrates concludes that the oracle was right after all and that human wisdom is worth "little or nothing," and that the wisest is one who is aware of his own insignificance.

Socrates