/lit/ - Literature

Hello, /lit/.
I am a bit despondent right now, I must say, after just having read The Last Days of Socrates. I went into it with all of these preconceived notions about the excellence of Plato as a philosopher – ‘The founder of philosophy’, ‘the father of thought’, ‘the one to whom the rest of philosophy is a mere footnote’ -- and I was hoping that by reading him I would not only be enlightened but would be well-launched on my journey into Western philosophy and literature. But what I encountered was far from impressive. He makes so many horrific arguments, with so many fallacies, that I was honestly struck by how disparate was the reputation of Plato vs the reality of Plato.

First of all, the first three dialogues -- Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito -- have nothing interesting to say, philosophically speaking. Euthyphro is a dialogue between Socrates and a stupid man who could not understand the question ‘Is something pious because it is loved by the gods or is it loved by the gods because it is pious?’ No conclusions were reached about the nature of piety or its epistemology. Same with the others. Now, I wasn't too worried about this. I had heard that the first three dialogues are more of an introduction to the character and history of Socrates as a philosophical/literary icon and that Phaedo is where the meat really starts.

So today I opened Phaedo and began reading through it. I got to the part where Socrates explains how death is agreeable to a philosopher because it entails a separation from the body. It seemed to be going well and I was genuinely excited for the first time while reading Plato. Then this happened:
>SOCRATES: If something smaller comes to be, it will come from something larger; something weaker from something stronger; swifter from slower; worse from better; juster from the more unjust.
>CEBES: Of course.
>SOCRATES: So we have sufficiently established that all things come to be in this way, opposites from opposites.
This was the first major blow. Socrates fallaciously argues that, because all things which become [insert comparative adjective] must necessarily come from a state where they possess [its opposite/antonym] to a greater degree, all things must come from their opposites. Of course something that BECAME lightER must have come from a state in which it was darkER, but this does not prove that something light necessarily comes from something dark, that something small necessarily comes from something big, that something just necessarily comes from something unjust, etc. This is so obvious yet Socrates can't see it.
Ok, I thought, its just a hiccup. Ill read on.
>SOCRATES: What comes to be from being alive?
>CEBES: Being dead.
>And what comes to be from being dead?
>One must agree that it is being alive.
>Then, Cebes, living creatures and things come to be from the dead?
>So it appears.
>Then our souls exist in the underworld.
It was at this point I dropped it.