Pots, Pans, Plato

I think that one thing that can be over looked in Platonic dialogues is time they were written in. At this time Greece was falling apart and there was lots of corruption. It is almost helpful to think of Socrates as a Mr. Rogers like character; instead of going to the factory to see how crayons are made, he goes to talk to the rhetoricians who maim the political process and create corruption. Blaming Plato for some of the unsavory discussions is a lot like blaming an investigative reporter for the unsavory news story reported on.

Another thing I've realized that is a plus for Platonic dialogues is how they are philosophy laid bare. A lot of philosophic writing now-a-days are in the form of treatises. In a treatise, the thinker lays down his ideas in a matter-of-fact way. The thinker also abstracts the questions being ask as if it is taken for granted that all the answers being given have come from a question. However, Platonic dialogues expose the question as an integral part of the process. I think much injury has been done to philosophy due to modern writing styles. It has changed the roll of a philosopher to the state of a fortune teller rather than an inquirer. And this leads to philosophers focusing on interesting answers when really the important part is the question. Or it is insightful questioning that leads to insightful philosophy. Once questioning is removed from philosophy, the result is not much more than rhetorical wizardry.

Many people I've spoken with who are interested in philosophy will say Plato is pretty good but at the same time pretty basic. That to get to the meat of philosophy you have to step it up to more recent thinkers because their philosophy is more complex, as if Plato is a writer of children stories. Yet I am not persuaded by this. They think philosophy is a sport to one up each other with ideas, or trying to make something so complicated only an elite few can spend the time to have intimate knowledge of it. Much of the complications of modern philosophy have not so much to do with the ideas but with the language. Often creating words to replace commonly used words as an encryption. People spend lots of time trying to figure out what the basic meaning of the words are. Since they spend so much time just decoding, they feel something intellectual must have taken place in the time span they spent or else it would have been a waste of time. So anything that is takes a long time to decipher can be passed off as philosophy now-a-days.

Most importantly a lot of people bored with Plato are bored with questions and are bored therefore with philosophy. The intellectual stigma that comes with philosophy has enticed many people who detest it but like being seen as smart. Often since these people are bored with the practice, they become bullies. They push out the people who like philosophy and gain attention because they are persuasive. It has almost gotten to the point where if one wants to philosophize, they shouldn't take advice from modern philosophy because a lot of it is no more that what a used car salesman does.