Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, in which Socrates retells the story of Thoth inventing writing and presenting his invention to King Thamus. Thamus acknowledges that Thoth has done something very clever and that his invention will seem to give human beings more capacities. But, Thamus observes, Thoth’s gift takes away capacities as well. (1) Now you’ll be able to write down stories and information, meaning (2) you’ll no longer have to remember them—true. But (3) you’ll no longer be able to exercise the human capacity for oral memory, and (4) now you’ll have to write something down in order to
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