At least around 370 BC, in Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates expresses a strong opinion against writing of any kind through a conversation between the Egyptian gods Theuth and Thamus discussing the invention of writing. Thamus: > "For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the…
I'm not who you replied to, but no, no, I don't think that's an "opposition" to writing in the sense that it's making us stupid or replacing oral traditions. From my limited understanding of history and Greek philosophy, Socrates valued dialogue, a "back and forth" for understanding. Basically a scientific method of probing to understand something or someone. This needs to exist to be fully sure you understand something. Sort of what we are doing now. A static piece of literature or a speech can't be probed for more clarity. You may read something and come off with a completely different…
Are you just trying to be a bit more measured by saying he wasn't so much "opposing" as "articulating pros and cons"? Or are you trying to say that things like "this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves" or "You would imagine that [written speeches] had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are…
I haven’t read phaedrus in a while, but I think that interpretation is taken a little out of context. It’s better to say reading and writing, alone, would encourage these things. There’s this theme in Plato that power isn’t the end all be all. By that same logic, reading/writing were a technology that gave you power. Specifically the ability to record/recall things. Plato/Socrates argue that power alone gives you as much ability to achieve bad as it does good. Then they go on to argue that it’s wisdom that allows one to know what is good bad, thus wisdom is critical in all things. So, that’s…
There's a strand of suspicion towards literacy in Plato. Mainly I'm thinking of the dialog in which Socrates talks to a man about to sue his father (I'm sorry, I'm blanking on the name of the dialog); mainly the idea is that writing enfeebles the memory and intellect. > In the Phaedrus, it was predicted that writing and reading in general... would eventually encourage confused, self-indulgent thinking. We don't learn things, according to Plato, but the soul is brought to remember them again, and the remembering happens by virtue of a Socratic interrogation. If you read "x is the case", your…
In the Phaedrus, it was predicted that writing and reading in general (let alone specific examples such as pseudophilosophy) would eventually encourage confused, self-indulgent thinking. > You offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24737221
Poor Plato, it seems the only sin of which he is accused, and for which he is pilloried, is that of having lived a long time ago. But for all of the comments, I can find no arguments against any thesis in Plato. And this is noteworthy. Not just because it indicates that Plato is here just a straw man and that few (if any) of his assailants here have read him, and so of course, have no grounds to criticize. But more importantly, because, Plato does not have some set of theses which even could be toppled or made irrelevant. Plato does not work like that. Philosophy does not (usually) work like…
Noting that technical progress and morality begin diverging at the origin, and assuming that the graph is accurate, then the gap is just part and parcel of human existence. Analogous to Issac Bashevis Singer's observation that, "We must have free will - we have no choice," it could be said that we must have a morality gap. But even more charitably, if such a gap exists it has been known for two and a half millennia. This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth,…
This discussion has been going on for a helluva lot longer than two decades. "And in this instance, you who are the father of letters [i.e., the Egyptian god Thoth], from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours [i.e., writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your…
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…