Re: Great Books

[jrmu@xxxxxxxxxx]

Greetings,

> 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.

From what I understand, all our extant records of Socrates are based off
of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes. Since I infer you disapprove of
Aristophanes' depiction of Socrates, where *else* do you get information
about the real life of Socrates except Plato?

> 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.)

My personal goal is not to participate in contemporary philosophy per
se, but to find inspiration for new ideas. For that purpose, I
definitely see participation in a diverse number of cultures as
important. To be exposed to lots of new ideas, it is far superior to
have a shallow depth of widely diverse cultural works than to have an
advanced narrow specialization in a single culture.

> 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.

Don't the non-Western books offer the exact same opportunity? If you
read The Republic to analyze why it is wrong, can't you do the same with
Tao Te Ching? There are an unlimited number of wrong arguments in global
literature to choose from, we might as well choose the most influential
ones to analyze.

In any case, the nonsensical things in The Republic should suffice to
prove that there's nothing special or superior about Western philosophy
compared to other philosophical traditions. The real superiority of the
Western Canon lies in its scientific writings post 1500AD.

> 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.

Might you be interested in offering a defense of The Republic?

-- 
Aaron Lin
jrmu@xxxxxxxxxx
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