Paul Christensen's Blog - Posts Tagged "socrates"

Crito by Plato

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


There are those who go against the grain
(Even if it results in pain),
And those who conform to the Many.

Socrates goes against the grain,
Yet submits himself (as he here explains)
To the punishment willed by the Many.

He could disobey the verdict,
And flee like a lonesome hermit,
But thought it would harm the city.

As his nationalism was earnest,
If the polis wronged his person
He’d abide, not flee from self-pity.



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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.



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Plato - Meno by Plato

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Is virtue the same for different people?

Yes, if ‘virtue’ consists in realising the destiny laid out for one before birth by the Self.

That is ‘what’ is the same about it in all people.

The famous ‘ignorance’ argument is laid out by Meno: ‘Those who think bad things benefit them don’t know they’re bad things.’

Socrates: 'So if everyone desires good; virtue is being better at securing it.'

Socrates gets Meno to ‘admit’ virtue is only things done with justice (rather than wickedness).
Therefore, for Socrates, justice is a part of virtue.

But if every action performed with a part of virtue is virtue, then what is virtue?

The section on reincarnation:

The soul, because immortal, can recollect things from prior existences.
Learning = recollection.

But then S. uses mathematical logic to ‘prove’ that opinions one thought not to know are in one.

Is virtue a kind of knowledge? Apparently not, because no one is teaching it.



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Ion by Plato

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The first half of this dialogue is good,
Dealing as it does with inspiration,
Magnetic power beyond the conscious ‘should’.
But then it makes erroneous equations,
Equating conscious knowledge with the pearl
Of true rhapsodic passion in a whirl.
Directed inspiration is a thing:
A mean, between blind groping on the wing
And uninspired and hollow artifice;
But Plato never says a word of this.



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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!!!






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