Lecture 1 Part I Plato & Socrates

ph1101EGEM1004 Reason & Persuasion Asst. prof. John Holbo Lecture 1 Part I Plato & Socrates

Email: phihjc@nus.edu.sg And bookmark the main website: http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/phihjc/PH1101EGEM1004/index.html

A Few Words About A Few Minor Administrative Matters • (all this is on the website) • Lectures • Readings • The Module Website & Blog • Discussion Sections • Requirements & Assignments • The Final Exam

Readings For Next Week Read Reason and Persuasion, Chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 3-24). If you are feeling inspired, read also Plato’s Euthyphro (pp. 143-174). That’s what I will be lecturing about next week. Alternatively, you could read the commentary (Chapter 5) first before reading the dialogue itself. My lecture next week will basically be a version of Chapter 5. In general, my lectures tend to map onto one or another chapter in the book, but we change things up to keep life interesting. Today’s lecture is drawn from Chaps 1, 2 and bits of Chapter 4. Readings are always announced on the “Readings” page of the main site. In future, check there.

Plato (427-347 BC) First fact: Plato writes ‘dialogues’, in which he employs his dead teacher, Socrates, as a mouthpiece (sockpuppet, call it what you will).

Socrates (470?-399 BC) Second fact: that first fact leads to interpretative difficulties. . .

To put it crudely, you can think of Plato’s complete works as being like one of those Russian dolls, you know the ones. . .

You crack them open and find. . . More dolls. In this case, you crack open Plato and you find Socrates. . .

On the other hand, maybe Plato is the one doing the hiding. . . behind a mask of his teacher, Socrates.

“All that is profound wears a mask.” - F. Nietzsche

Are we talking to Plato or Socrates? Maybe we need to keep cracking.

Another twist: Plato wasn’t the only one writing ‘Socratic dialogues’ at the time.

Here’s a fairly standard view …

“Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What’s the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing?” - L. Wittgenstein

Plato’s Symposium [a symposion is basically a drinking party] One character is Alcibiades …

". . . You could say many other marvelous things in praise of Socrates. Perhaps he shares some of his specific accomplishments with others. But, as a whole, he is unique; he is like no one else in the past and no one in the present – this is by far the most amazing thing about him. . . There is a parallel for everyone – everyone else, that is. . .

But this man here is so bizarre, his ways and his ideas are so unusual, that, search as you might, you’ll never find anyone else, alive or dead, who’s even remotely like him. The best you can do is not to compare him to anything human, but to liken him, as I do, to Silenus and the satyrs, and the same goes for his ideas and arguments.”

Come to think of it, I should have mentioned this much earlier: even his ideas and arguments are just like those hollow statues of Silenus.

If you were to listen to his arguments, at first they’d strike you as totally ridiculous; they’re clothed in words as coarse as the hides worn by the most vulgar satyrs.

He’s always going on about pack asses, or blacksmiths, or cobblers, or tanners; he’s always making the same tired old points in the same tired old words. If you are foolish, or simply unfamiliar with him, you’d find it impossible not to laugh at his arguments.

“But if you see them, when they open up like the statues, if you go behind their surface, you’ll realize that no other arguments make any sense. They’re truly worthy of a god, bursting with figures of virtue inside. They’re of great – no, of the greatest – importance for anyone who wants to become a truly good man."

Plato/Socrates is a ‘complex monster’; a creature of contradictions. What is a contradiction? In logic, P & -P. An impossible conjunction – things that can go together in your head (because you are confused) but not in the world (because things that don’t make sense can’t be real or true.) (see p. 288 for more information about the many-headed monster)

Freedom & authoritarianism. Truth & lies. 3. Logos & mythos. 4. Mystical & rational. 5. Impersonal & personal. 6. Abstract & concrete. 7. Shrewd & naïve. 8. Serious & ironic. 9. Simple & complex. 10. Plato & Socrates

So how should you read Plato? “No one can contradict the things you say, Socrates. But each time you say them your audience has an experience something like this: they think that because they are inexperienced players of the game of cross-examination, they are tripped up by the argument – a little here, a little there, at each of your questions. . .

When all these small concessions are added together in the end, they find they fall flat, fallaciously contradicting their own starting points. Just as novice game players are in the end trapped by masters, and cannot move, so this lot are trapped and have nothing to say in this different sort of game, played not with counters but with words.” - Republic

“Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save his face? He didn’t ask for your opinion. He didn’t want it. Why argue with him? Always avoid the acute angle.

During my youth, I had argued with my brother about everything under the Milky Way. When I went to college, I studied logic and argumentation, and went in for debating contests. Talk about being from Missouri, I was born there. I had to be shown. Later, I taught debating and argumentation in New York; and once, I am ashamed to admit, I planned to write a book on the subject.

Since then, I have listened to, criticized, engaged in, and watched the effects of thousands of arguments. As a result of it all, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument – and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes …

Nine times our of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants being more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.

You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why?

Well, suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove that he is non compos mentis [of unsound mind].

Then what? You will feel fine. But what about him? You will have made him feel inferior.

You have hurt his pride.

He will resent your triumph. And – “A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.”

. . . Real salesmanship isn’t argument. It isn’t anything even remotely like argument. The human mind isn’t changed that way.” - D. Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

So there you have it: reason and persuasion. • Note the generality of Carnegie’s position. He’s got a whole theory of knowledge, mind and ethics. He makes it sound like plain common sense. And it might be. • Q) what is the way to change the human mind? • Through salesmanship.

Is it really possible that Carnegie has made a good argument that all arguments are bad? This is usually the point where Socrates steps in and says: ‘I have only one little question …’ Plato disagrees with Dale Carnegie. This is going to be important.

Speaking of arguments - which will be the subject of next week’s first ‘nuts & bolts’ lecture - here are three senses of ‘argument’: • An argument is a verbal fight.

2. An argument is set of propositions, premises and conclusions - the former giving reasons to believe the latter. (No actors strictly required.) [No picture – because no picture is needed!]

Plato is interested in arguments in all senses. One of the main advantages of the dialogue form, in my humble opinion, is that he is able to keep all the senses of argument in the air.

Lecture I, Part II How to Lose Friends and Get Executed By People

But first, let me give you the cartoon version of “Euthyphro” in 3 minutes or less. They meet ….

Lecture 1 Part I Plato & Socrates