/lit/ - Literature

>>13377605
I bet you read the Republic and thought you were pretty clever huh smart guy. Phaedo is perhaps the most important work of Plato's, too bad for you.

>>13377632
No, I'm reading the dialogues in the order they show up in Plato's Complete Works
Every premise he's come up with in Phaedo has been absolutely fucking retarded but Simmias and Cebes just say "Oh god Socrates oh god you're so fucking smart" to every single one

>>13377605
Why is this hard at all?
>Every soul is fundamentally equal?
>Right on, man.
>Which means that one soul is neither more nor less than another soul?
>Obviously
>Will someone who believes this acknowledge that specific characteristics of a soul -- which can be good or bad -- are equal?
>uhhh....

>>13377632
Nah man, Republic is still the most important

>>13377711
I couldn't capture it all in one screenshot, but the argument was more than this. Socrates spent the entire dialogue claiming the soul, being separate from the body, has to survive before and after it. Simmias asked why it couldn't be more like the harmony of a lyre, where the lyre and the harmony aren't identical, but the harmony disappears when the lyre is destroyed. Socrates did some anime "Heh heh... You really think so, huh Simmias? Watch THIS" shit and presented him with this, which simply attacks the metaphor without answering the question. All it proves is that a soul is not literally a harmony, which wasn't the point.
The rest of the dialogue has some of the dumbest fucking reasoning I've ever seen used to back up the idea that there are a finite amount of souls because learning is just remembering. Simmias and Cebes flaccidly questioned that, but he just went "Doesn't it kind of feel like you're recalling things when you learn them?" and they were astonished by his unstoppable rhetorical power. Nobody ever says "But Socrates, if populations change over time, how can there be a finite number of souls constantly in flux between life and death?" or anything that would actually require a difficult answer. I can't tell if they're supposed to be playing along and going "Yes, you senile old fuck, you're a genius" because he's about to die or what.

>>13377605
more like Paedo lol

>>13377786
You raise some good points and I wish I had my copy on me, but just as a snap response, Plato makes the point that the soul is a kind of harmony which can create other harmonies. This would imply that souls appear in patterns the way musical notes form a chord, and that an individual soul can have traits which themselves form a kind of chord. In this way, the soul is eternal so long as the fractal-like pattern of harmonies is eternal. So, even if the soul is like a song played on a lyre, it can be eternal if some natural force keeps playing the same song

>>13377915
You're thinking of Phaedrus.

>>13377786
One thing to keep in mind when you read Plato is that you're SUPPOSED to have your own arguments with the text. This is why Plato wrote all this down as dialogues in someone else's voice and why Socrates -- the real man, not the character in Plato's dialogues -- didn't write anything down at all.

I agree that the learning = remembering thing is dumb and poorly supported.

The way to approach this problem is, ideally, to find someone with whom you can have this argument, but if you can't do that you can at least try to form your own little Socrates inside your head.

In this fashion, we can imagine replies to your objections. "Plato's" reply to your problem about the number of souls in flux would probably be that not every soul is embodied at once, that while the number of souls is finite it is very large. You can see outlines of this in the "chariot allegory" of Phaedrus. If you attempted to attack the "harmony" metaphor, the reply would probably be that the soul is a harmony but it is not played on a lyre, rather it is "played" by "God" on the "Universe".

>>13377605

Don't forget that Plato was a teacher and that he uses Socrates as an pedagogical instrument and not necessarily a representative of his own opinions. Your job as a student of Plato is to find where both Socrates and his interlocutors make mistakes.

>>13377605
Socrates is refuting Simmias' (i think) objection about the constitution of the soul

>>13377605
If the soul is a harmony, then the difference in qualities (intelligence and and goodness) between different souls can be thought of as harmony of the soul by this theory. And if vices and virtues are grades of harmony of a soul, then one soul can be more of a soul than other but it is absurd to say that any soul is less a soul than other (i.e. less of a harmony). Is a refutation by reductio ad absurdum

>>13377605
>But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

>>13378182
>>13378200
This seems like the best way to look at these things, thanks anon
I wish I hadn't gone to a hardcore stem uni and could've gotten a minor in this shit to really understand Plato in an academic environment with a classroom full of people trying to discuss these things

>>13377605
>Come now, by Zeus, he said.

Is this shit for real?

>>13377605
The soul is infinite in the sense that outer qualities do not and cannot effect it in its nature (a la Vedanta if you are more familer with that). Qualities are like broken light to produce an image- they do not affect the light itself nor the screen being projected on.

>>13378954
Next time you get to talk to a philosophy undergrad or BA, ask them about this. You will almost certainly be disappointed.

You didn't waste your time anon. If you actually read Hackett's Complete Plato you will know more than 99% of philosophy grads.

>>13380197
... then why /lit/ people said start with the greeks? Not only they didn't taught Plato in freshman year, but also even philosophy grads are loose about it?

>>13380223
Well, for one thing your typical undergrad program is pretty broad. A one-semester undergrad course on Plato only would probably be the Republic and a couple of the Dialogues. And that would likely be the only primary-source Plato material and undergrad would be required to read. Again, if you actually read all of Plato's works you're pretty much a low-level specialist on Plato. A philosophy undergrad isn't a specialist. Even a grad probably wouldn't be a specialist on Plato.

>>13377632
>Phaedo is perhaps the most important work of Plato's, too bad for you.
Please help me.

>>13378972
AHAHA WHAT'S wrong CHRISTKEK? Shaking because your gawd isn't important to PLATO. Y'KNOW the guy who pretty much made THE WEST.

As I recall, Phaedo was an incredible piece of classical art. The progression of the soul through knowledge was a fantastic premise. The self dies, but knowledge reincarnates in a way. Interesting stuff, that dialogue was awesome.

>>13377702
Thats most dialogues my man.

>>13377605
I sometimes pity English speakers, for they are forced to deal with unintelligible gibberish like this.

>>13381055
Christshits can't into Logos

>>13380197
>>13380269
Fuck man
I guess /lit/ really is the only place I can have these conversations