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/lit/ - Literature

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672780 No.672780 [Reply] [Original]

>Plato received frequent unflattering attention in contemporary comedy. Seventeen passages have been preserved in which Plato and his school are the target. Aristophon wrote an entire comedy entitled 'Plato",

>> No.672785

>he thinks comedy in this sense means humourous comedy

>> No.672786

>>672785
> he thinks in athenian comedies people were not often ridiculed to an almost absurd extent

>> No.672794

>>672785
>>672786
>>672780

samefag

>> No.672795

Plato shoulda capped his ass for dissin' him

>> No.672800

>>672795

I want Plato to devour him passionately,

and violently.

>> No.672802

Plato SUX

>> No.672803

>>672785
I'm just curious. Have you read The Flies? 'Cuz damn.

For the record, platonic ideals suck balls. Linguistic relativism ftw!

>> No.672804

>>672803

>linguistic relativism

What's that?

>> No.672806

>>672803

>For the record, platonic ideals suck balls. Linguistic relativism ftw!

The two concepts aren't directly related.
Read the Cratylus. Plato agrees with linguistic relativism on many points.

>> No.672812

>>672804

Presumably that languages are nothing but social constructs.

>> No.672814

>>672806
Interesting! I'd never heard of that before. Still, I'm thinking more in Wittgenstinean terms. Based on the Wikipedia article (I know, I'm sorry), Plato's arguing that language itself is subject to the theory of forms. Saying there is a "perfect language" still fails to account for the all-important effects of context.

>> No.672816

Plato is highly overrated.

>> No.672820

>>672812

That doesn't go against saying that one of them could be the right one.

>> No.672822

>>672804
>>672812
Sort of/not quite? The way we think of things is shaped (not determined) by the words we use for them, and thus conceptual organizations of the world differ from person to person, and context to context. Plato's ideals only make sense if there is an objectively verifiable set of specific forms, which seems unlikely given that similar objectives are achieved using different conceptual organizations.

>> No.672827

>>672822

Conventions? Formal studies?

>> No.672830
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672830

>>672814

>Plato's arguing that language itself is subject to the theory of forms.

Not exactly.

>> No.672832

Plato and Aristotle are two of the founders of modern philosophic thought

>> No.672833

>>672832
>fire is hot

>> No.672835

>>672816

In what sense?

His historic influence?
The truth of his philosophy?

>> No.672837

>>672835
His philosophy.

>> No.672839

>>672822

>which seems unlikely given that similar objectives are achieved using different conceptual organizations
Can you say a bit more about this?
What would be an example of another type of conceptual organization?

>> No.672842

>>672837

Modern readers reject most of his philosophy.
How can it be overrated if everyone rates it very low?

>> No.672848

>>672842
Because, despite being largely rejected, the general public is still more aware of the works and influence of Plato than they are of better philosophers from the era, like Aristotle.

>> No.672847

this greek stuff wastes so much time that could be better spent asking questions that are really important to reality and real people. plato = idle philosophizing. durr truth hurr

>> No.672849

>>672847
>asking questions that are really important to reality
What questions would those be?

>> No.672850

>>672849
like, anything in modern philosophy?

>> No.672851

>>672827
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity#Empirical_research
We're talking weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, here. I don't have a direct link for that, but it's in the same article.

I'm off for a while. I'm sure the thread will still be here when I get back.

>> No.672852

>>672847

American much?

Damn pragmatists.

>> No.672853

i refuse to believe the plato worshipers are serious about philosophy.

>> No.672855

>>672850
Modern philosophy really isn't that useful.

>> No.672856

>>672852
yes, sit on your ass while the world burns. real fucking relevant and important activity that is.

>> No.672857

haters gonna hate

>> No.672859

>>672853

I'm a Platonist.
I consider myself serious about philosophy.

Why would you think otherwise?

>> No.672860

>>672855
yes, moderns are simply unable to ask the deep questions that the ancient greeks were. would would think that modern people can't even figure out what's relevant to modern life.

this whole capitalism thing, and the society thing, entirely irrelevant

>> No.672862

>>672860
who*

>> No.672863

>>672860
I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic.

>> No.672866

>>672859
what have you learned from plato? what are the good takeaway points?

>> No.672867

>>672860

You're saying that just because you're living in the modern world. You would say otherwise if you were living in Hellenistic times.

>> No.672871

>>672867
dude. the question is, "modern philosophy is/not useless." please tell me what your statement has to do with the question given hellenistic people don't live in modern times.

in any case, yes, it is a good window into the hellenistic world etc etc. study it if you are a historian

>> No.672875

Modern philosophers focus too much on things like epistemology and not enough on important subjects like ethics and politics. Philosophy should be about how to live your life, not how you know if what your think you know is true or not.

>> No.672878

>>672871

What? I thought you argued that it is better to study modern one than the ancient one, because it's more relevant to current problem?

Is it me, too dumb to grasp what you're trying to say, or you're now practising that linguistic deconstruction stuffs making yourself incomprehensible, obscure or something?

>> No.672882

>>672866

>what have you learned from plato? what are the good takeaway points?

The ontological priority of the intelligible realm.
The beauty of order.
The limits of sense perception.

Countless other things.
Plato's corpus is vast.

>> No.672885

>>672875

>not enough on important subjects like ethics and politics.

Well, if you think there aren't enough of those, you should do it yourself, man. I mean, it's still modern now, not like the period has ended or something.

>> No.672890

>>672885
I'm trying to do that. Still working on the degrees, though, because nobody will take you seriously without a proper education.

>> No.672895

>>672890

Sometimes logical fallacies inherent in our present society hurt much, huh?

>> No.672896

>>672895
Sometimes, yeah.

>> No.672898

thought this thread was gonna be about the lolz

>> No.672900

>>672878
let me quote the thing to which i was responding.

Modern philosophy really isn't that useful.

i'm only saying modern philosophy developed according to the contours of problems presented by modern life. is this hard to understand?

>> No.672901

>>672896

Sometimes, they work satisfactorily.

Combined with some knowledge of psycho-whatever, you could just be the second Hitler, or Jesus, or Mohammed, etc.

>> No.672910

>>672875
actually, precisely the opposite.

old school ethics has very little to say about metaethics, on the relevance of ethical reflection. so you get these attempts at constructing ideals and whatnot that are romantic and good but shows no responsibility to respond to the actual moral situation.

epistemology is not the central concern of modern philosophy at all. the normative stuff and cognitive stuff etc are.

>> No.672912

>>672882
precisely none of those are important enough to warrant brooding over.

>> No.672915

>>672900

You used sarcasm before, if I'm not mistaken, and I'm really bad at detecting sarcasms.

>> No.672921

>>672912

Why, you could say the same to some branches of mathematics.

>> No.672922

>>672910
Not really. Most modern philosophy is focused on the problems academic philosophers experience when trying to do philosophy. Issues of justification, understanding, and whatnot. Most philosophers are writing for philosophers, and because of this they're focusing on issues that philosophers, not regular people, have to deal with. They're too abstracted from everyday issues for their ideas to have any impact on normal people, so even when they do political or ethical theorizing, it doesn't really say anything about what the average joe should do or avoid doing.

>> No.672929

>>672922

It's still like that nowadays.

>> No.672936

>>672929
That's what I'm saying. Philosophers are getting too far from normal people for their thoughts to have any impact outside academia.

>> No.672939

>>672921
not really.

ontological priority of intelligibility can be interesting if you expand it to justify a certain ethical rhetoric, but i doubt you are into that. ontology is bleh at its best. since you are a platonist i can see why you see it as important philosophy.

beauty and aesthetics. devote your life to these? a romantic in your ivory tower with no contribution whatsoever.

limits of sense perception is better explored with the aid of cognitive science. doubt plato is any authority on this subject.

>> No.672946

>>672922
the volume of academic publishing is. because analytical philosophy is an industry, so its theoretical programme is being expanded as a part of these guys' jobs. however, i am talking about the interesting bits of philosophy. even though the industry, so to speak, is mostly producing rubbish, it is not insensitive to actual problems.

>> No.672947

>>672912

I missed your post....

The structure of reality isn't worth brooding over?

>> No.672948

>>672936

Because it's just that comfortable, sitting your ass on the professor chair, doing nothing but gibberish no one will care about, and get paid.

Habermas got a lamborghini for his own. That's cool, Juergen!

>> No.672949

>>672946
Quality should be a bigger concern than quantity. There will always be useful tidbits, but having to wade through a sea of garbage to find them is only going to discourage people from going in search of them in the first place.

>> No.672950

>>672939

Wrong anon, bro.

>> No.672956

>>672948
I can hardly believe this habermas story. I mean, have you seen the guy once?

hard to imagine him in sportscar. And I am not even talking about him being behind the wheel.

>> No.672966

>>672956

Well, one day he got part to have lecture on one of the university in London...

...trolling ensued.

>> No.672969

>>672947
well, see. that is metaphysical construction. it can be a useful critical tool, but if you must know, serious metaphysical construction is not a very important philosophical topic. sure, you can publish in it, but who are you helping exactly. we can get into this nominalism vs realism thing, but that particular debate is rather fruitless once we see realism is useful.

>> No.672976

>>672969

>sure, you can publish in it, but who are you helping exactly

Since when is popularity an indicator of importance?

>> No.672979

>>672949
this is a fair criticism of the way modern philosophy as a field impacts society. however, you can't exactly say, in the position of a reader, that because these guys write so much useless stuff i am justified in dismissing the whole lot.

look at guys like ga cohen etc. good bros

>> No.672981

>>672969

Not the Platonic guy, but

Would you still say the same about something like relativistic theory? One has to be a metaphysician to lay a certain scientific foundation. Do you still insist of it not being really useful?

>> No.672982

>>672976
im not using popularity as the standard here. i am using usefulness, or put more simply, the way it furthers intelligent thought about us and our lives.

i'd say metaphysics etc are simply rearranging the deck. they are tools we use to live. unless the rearrangement contributes to living better, it is pretty uninteresting.

>> No.672984

>>672981
not at all. i am not dismissing metaphysics entirely precisely because science actually involves a bit of metaphysics, more than scientists are willing to admit. however, things like "the form of reality" etc etc are just bleh. there are useful metaphysics, and then there are idle ones.

>> No.672986

>>672979
We aren't justified in dismissing all of it. Like I said, there is always going to be useful stuff in there. But finding it is a bitch, and it would be much easier to do useful philosophy if people stopped flooding the field with useless garbage.

>> No.672993

>>672986
i agree. but the problem isn't really that modern philosophers are bad or insensitive (there are those types), it is because of the academic industry is run. if you want a job you have to publish. publish quota, soft or hard, leads to expanding your theoretical systems beyond the point of usefulness.

until someone else comes up with a monumentally good idea that makes talks about justification and various meta meta stuff moot to the point of embarrassment, it will continue like this. because people have jobs.

>> No.672995

>>672982

>unless the rearrangement contributes to living better, it is pretty uninteresting.

In Platonism, epistemology and ontology coincide.
By studying being, one gains knowledge. Knowledge is necessary for virtuous conduct.

Studying metaphysics DOES lead one to live a better life.

>> No.672996

>>672993
the way*

>> No.672998

>>672995
well ok. i think there are more direct ways of addressing the problem. sort of like how the best way to do ethics isn't necessarily theology.

>> No.672999

>>672993
Yeah. Way things are run is a big problem.

>> No.673002

>>672984

Now you're dabbling in particulars, man! I won't push you over again on metaphysics in general.

Let's see Plato's one now:

Well, he got nothing else to do since he's already so goddamn rich, he'd just try to dogmatise people to be critical (don't argue about that two contrasting terms...you're a pragmatist, right?) with his works containing many aporia. Maybe that has already crossed metaphysics, and maybe that one is useful? Sure it is, for me.

>> No.673004

>>673002
if you've learned something from plato. i am all for that. i've learned stuff from reading plato as well, but it's not exactly platonism stuff.

im just responding to the idea that plato is the supreme source of philosophical wisdom etc etc.

>> No.673025

>>673004

When one faces a seemingly objective state-of-affair, like, for example, mathematical truths, I see that one can fall into two kinds of alternative*, that is, one may think that there are transcendent truths out there, and real, or one just conclude that it is just in scope of substanta of our continuing evolving dialectics, and that is just produced out of human minds or so.

*This might be a false dichotomy, but I can find no other alternatives other than these two.

---

Sorry for my bad English, by the way.

>> No.673047

>>672995
It's like you're arguing Plato with the 4chan hivemind.

>> No.673058

>>673025
i understand what you are saying. i do think it is a false dichotomy, and the solution is to understand and respect platonist thinking and realism in general as reflecting the way people actually think. it is not that ontological transcendence of numbers and ideas are important because tehy are metaphysically true, but because they capture the attitude people take to them.

nevertheless, platonism and various realisms are performed, not theorized about. take moral realism. it is a theory about the way people take moral principles seriously. the "realism" about moral principles is performed by being serious about the principle. however, asking "do moral principles actually exist" in the manner that realists do is simply a result of ontological inflation. it is idle and confused theory.

short version is, pragmatism can perfectly digest platonism.

>> No.673079

>>673058

>pragmatism can perfectly digest platonism
With some reductionism, perhaps.

Your claim reminds me of those that tell us that religion can be "digested" by psychology.

Even if it could,--I'm not convinced--would something not be lost along the way? What do we gain from conflating categories and collapsing diversity?

>> No.673088

>>673058

I'm don't know anything about pragmatism, but

what is the standard for theories deemed being useful? How about theories involving large scales of things, like, those in economics, or sociology? Should we just practically use it, see if it goes well or not, disregarding bad consequences derived from the theory which can't turn back over, just like in video games? That way, I see pragmatism as being not pragmatist at all. Bare with me, charming man, I know not what I'm disturbing my ass about.

>> No.673097

>>673079
well, i said it's the short version. by digest i mean, it does not contradict platonism, but platonism can be viewed through the pragmatist framework, properly updated to take into account the exact sort of paradox about meta-level analysis and the analyzed, that something is lost/reduced away by the act of describing/analyzing. the solution is to see the analyzed as only captured in performance and not in theories.

anyway, the problem you are talking about is very serious. i fully respect it.

>> No.673098

>>673079
That strikes too close to Brave New World.

>> No.673108

>>673088
there are substantial philosophical positions involved. for one, the distinction between useful distinctions and false ones is very important. pragmatism is not about dismissing the theory on theory, it is simply the idea that we have to be aware of the limitations of our attempts at reconstructing our own theoretical framework/"tools," and keep our eyes on the real problems that philosophy responds to throughout history. the problems of ethics, society, politics, knowledge of the world etc etc.

it's really not about some kind of consequentialist judging of theories.

>> No.673125

>>673108

I see.

Fine, you have convinced me to try to take a look on this. Recommend me some of introductory books to pragmatism, will you?

>> No.673131

>>673108
ooops lost a sentence.

for one, the distinction between useful distinctions and false ones is very important.
take realism vs nominalism for example. this is a pretty big distinction that generates a lot of shoptalk. but is it really useful. the standard here is to try to understand what exactly "realism" stands for in the practice of talking about reality and related problems in the actual practice of these "human functions."