Paul Christensen's Blog - Posts Tagged "dialogue"

Plato's Euthyphro by Plato

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a frustrating dialogue, because Euthyphro throws in the towel
Before Socrates has properly interrogated him (technically, a foul).

Socrates does not understand the Homeric account of the gods.
That disagreements should arise among them is not particularly odd;

The essential mission of Aryan gods is eternal war against Entropy,
Decreasing which in the cosmos is the true definition of piety.

In this the gods are all as one, and what's loved by them all is pious;
They follow an imperative beyond themselves, in spite of Socrates' bias.

The gods follow the ultimate good (that they love it is one of its attributes,
But not however its essence), else sans meaning would be their attitudes.

There is no 'Euthyphro dilemma', for you see both gods and men
Follow something higher (call it 'good'), whose essence is beyond them.

We help the gods to help the good, not the other way around;
This dialogue will clarify that - frustrating, yet profound.



View all my reviews

Gorgias by Plato

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Men do bad when they do what they merely think best, rather than what they most deeply desire.

That seems to be the central point of this long dialogue.

The age-old question is: how to get men to follow their true Will (i.e. Self, rather than ego).

Does the dialogue answer it?

The answer it gives appears to be: Engage in the combat of life, live as well as you can, and then, after death, you will attain the Islands of the Blessed, and not the realm of the wretched, Tartarus.


But that doesn’t answer the question of how to distinguish between the desires of ego, and the true Will!!!






View all my reviews