Re: Great Books

[bsrkz@xxxxxxxxxx]

> Earlier, you had worried that Aristophanes was trying to suppress
> Socrates to defend religious beliefs. This was in fact the exact
> opposite. In Plato's Republic, Socrates proposes the censorship of
> actors like Aristophanes because of impiety towards the gods.
> Aristophanes and other comedic actors, Socrates says, frequently
> caricaturize the gods in an unflattering manner. So Socrates called for
> the total censorship of drama and poetry.

I accused Aristophanes of being anti-intellectual, not of advocating for
censorship. The Socrates in _The Republic_ is a fictional depiction, it should
not be used to determine the historical beliefs of Socrates.

> Since you view the Western tradition as a "source of truth", what truth
> do we obtain from Plato?

I said that some books contain some truth. I never claimed that all books
contain significant truths. Also, I did not say anything about whether the
books are a source of truth until you asked, it played no role in the
reasoning I provided.

> If you concede that there is almost nothing to be gained from Plato,
> then you should agree with me that the only reason why he remains
> relevant today is solely to better understand culture and tradition, not
> truth.  That's the exact same reason I recommend reading the other books
> from other traditions.
>
> To an Eastern person, the Tao te ching and the Dhammapada may provide
> cultural currency which they use to discuss ideas, just like the Koran
> provides common currency for an Arabic person.

Even if it is just 'cultural currency', one reason to gain competence in such
'cultural currency' might be to actually participate in the culture, not just
understand the culture as an outside observer.

Are all intellectual cultures equally worth participating in? Maybe reading
the Quran would help one participate in Islamic intellectual debates. But if
these debates treat the Quran as dogma, then these debates might not be worth
engaging with. (If the culture is equally worth participating in, there might
be still be practical reasons to favour works from the tradition you are
already familiar with.)

Even if the conclusions of a work are not true, the work might be worth
engaging with for reasons other than 'cultural currency'. It might be that
what is said is wrong, but it is wrong in a way that helps one better
understand the truth. For example, you might be convinced that some position
is true and it might really be true, but you have some reasoning that is
flawed, and someone arguing against your position shows that your reasoning is
flawed.

If the only reason to read the books is merely to 'better understand culture
and tradition' as an outside observer, then I do not see why reading the books
would be part of an education that everyone should receive.

One could reject Plato or Plato's _Republic_ specifically while still thinking
that there are other books worth reading. There are some interesting parts of
the _Republic_, but there is also a lot of junk.