Towards the end of Plato's Phaedrus, a dialogue central to any understanding of Plato's philosophy of love and true knowledge, Socrates tells his interlocuter a myth:
I think it's patently unfair to lay blame for this phenomenon at the feet of language. That the acient Greeks might have viewed language as a mere mnemonic device seems to me to indicate a limited understanding of its potential (which would make sense, given that it was a new idea at the time).
Socrates is right that printed words can act much like a painting, but that's an expansion of possibility, not a limiting of it.
The act of writing is a creative one, and like all creative acts, it opens up the world of possibility, not shuts it.
"it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or unjustly reviled it always needs its father to help it; for it has no power to protect or help itself."
This assumes that each piece of writing has only one possible meaning, and that writing itself has but one purpose - expounding a philosophy.
The static nature of the written word is what allows it to take flight in the imagination of the reader. It's the same reason that artists should never be asked to explain what their paintings or sculptures "mean." The real mistake here, I think, is the idea that the spoken and written word should be somehow equated or compared. They are really two different media.
And even in the realm of discourse, there is a unique value to writing back and forth. It allow thoughts to be set out more concretely than they'd be issuing from the mouth. Not better, just different.
Oral history and spoken stories have a different magic, after all. They change with the telling - they allow for questions to be asked.
I think what's really going on in our culture is perhaps a deterioration of education - both its quality and the form we've chosen. Any healthy, productive discourse requires a certain spirit of all participants. Willingness to listen to and consider other points of view, and understanding of what the "rules" for interchange are (i.e., civilized responses, listening to others), and so on. These are some of the qualities that the traditional liberal arts education helped develop and enhance.
That they're getting rarer is likely a function of the decline of those values in education, and perhaps a diminishment of teachers who know how to teach them.
And I do agree that having too much quotable backup at one's immediate and easy disposal can be part of the problem. When you don't have to search through a whole book (which you found in a whole library) to back up your argument, it's too easy to miss the context of what you're reading.
My answer would be that Socrates' difficulty isn't with language in general, it's with the written word in particular; and that the reason he has a problem with it is not because he thinks that the written word's purpose is solely to espouse a philososophy, but because the written word--by virtue of its static nature--is incapable of participating in the social process that is philosophy.
Although Plato did express various ideas about the structure of reality and the nature of truth, aesthetics, and so forth, none of these ideas are "philosophy." If his intent was to simply express his picture of the world as he saw it, he would have written tracts explaining his ideas, like Aristotle. But he didn't: he wrote dialogues in which various interlocuters are depicted as they participate in the process of argument, definition, and discussion. In other words, they are shown in active pursuit of truth.
This pursuit is not "a" philosophy, it is philosophy itself.
Socrates wasn't talking about "creative writing." He wasn't talking about short stories or poems or novels. He was talking about written oratory, and to the 5th-century Greek, oratory was intended to persuade. Speeches were arguments, and good speeches used principles of rhetoric to achieve the speaker's aim.
The difficulty that Plato's Socrates had with written oratory was that philosophy is an active, laborious process which required back-and-forth exchange on each point, on each idea. If a premise was suggested that was unproven, that premise was discussed until it was proven to everyone's satisfaction, disproven, or simply called unprovable but granted for the purposes of moving the process along.
The trouble with written oratory is that it doesn't allow that process to take place unless the author is present. On their own, the words are mute. If you've got a problem with the first premise in a speech, there's nothing you can do to clear it up, no way to refine the author's ideas, and no way for either of you to benefit from the philosophical process.
Skipping ahead 2,500 years or so: similarly, much of what goes on in online discussions is not really "discussion," but more a form of mini-speechmaking. If someone spews ten paragraphs at you (like now, for example) and you've got to put the brakes on to track down a problem in the second sentence, you're in for a long and laborious process that few people have the patience for...particularly the authors of such mini-speeches.
A corollary problem is caused by the abundance of mute words masquerading as facts which, as a culture, we are ill-equipped to deal with. So, for the most part, many participants in the supposedly "great debate" provided by media and information saturation are "hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise." This is because they use words and adopt the ideas they represent without properly "vetting" them via the philosophical process.
Yes, you're right--"deterioration of education" is robbing us of a solution to the problem. But the problem itself remains the unfettered proliferation of information in a culture that is increasingly incapable of readily distinguishing fact from theory.
"much of what goes on in online discussions is not really "discussion," but more a form of mini-speechmaking."
So really the difference is simply that no one can accurately remember what their fellow discusser said and therefore there isn't the same opportunity to peg them on it... (ha ha)
"Socrates wasn't talking about "creative writing." He wasn't talking about short stories or poems or novels. He was talking about written oratory"
This just illustrates the problem with pulling something out of context and presenting it for general discussion as it pertains (or doesn't) to modern life. The quote you reproduced sounded like he was making a sweeping statement about writing in general.
And yes, I meant the written word, not language as a whole. I suppose that as a writer by trade, I am naturally inclined to think of language as written. Though perhaps there's been a general decline of spoken language in the sense of its being used for "serious" purposes such as the recording of history or the education of children. I assume teachers still speak to their students, but they also direct them to their computer screens, which means, ultimately, far less learning by discussion.
I think the most interesting part of this post is this right here:
"But the problem itself remains the unfettered proliferation of information in a culture that is increasingly incapable of readily distinguishing fact from theory."
and this:
"Technology and educational bureaucracy have conspired to produce the current morass, and our culture's ability to create and disseminate information has far outpaced its ability to process it."
There are certainly consequences to having the information overload that we currently "enjoy," and the ability to distinguish between information and understanding may be one of them.
ahem, that should be INability to distinguish between information and understanding. And maybe I should have said between informed and comprehending. Anyway, you get my drift..
Wow. Den Bestian...
Posted by: John | January 6, 2004 12:16 AM
Great job, I've often thought along the same lines. A red fruit with the stem...*Googles*...An apple for the teacher!
Posted by: eunoia | January 6, 2004 04:49 AM
I think it's patently unfair to lay blame for this phenomenon at the feet of language. That the acient Greeks might have viewed language as a mere mnemonic device seems to me to indicate a limited understanding of its potential (which would make sense, given that it was a new idea at the time).
Socrates is right that printed words can act much like a painting, but that's an expansion of possibility, not a limiting of it.
The act of writing is a creative one, and like all creative acts, it opens up the world of possibility, not shuts it.
"it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or unjustly reviled it always needs its father to help it; for it has no power to protect or help itself."
This assumes that each piece of writing has only one possible meaning, and that writing itself has but one purpose - expounding a philosophy.
The static nature of the written word is what allows it to take flight in the imagination of the reader. It's the same reason that artists should never be asked to explain what their paintings or sculptures "mean." The real mistake here, I think, is the idea that the spoken and written word should be somehow equated or compared. They are really two different media.
And even in the realm of discourse, there is a unique value to writing back and forth. It allow thoughts to be set out more concretely than they'd be issuing from the mouth. Not better, just different.
Oral history and spoken stories have a different magic, after all. They change with the telling - they allow for questions to be asked.
I think what's really going on in our culture is perhaps a deterioration of education - both its quality and the form we've chosen. Any healthy, productive discourse requires a certain spirit of all participants. Willingness to listen to and consider other points of view, and understanding of what the "rules" for interchange are (i.e., civilized responses, listening to others), and so on. These are some of the qualities that the traditional liberal arts education helped develop and enhance.
That they're getting rarer is likely a function of the decline of those values in education, and perhaps a diminishment of teachers who know how to teach them.
And I do agree that having too much quotable backup at one's immediate and easy disposal can be part of the problem. When you don't have to search through a whole book (which you found in a whole library) to back up your argument, it's too easy to miss the context of what you're reading.
Posted by: Valencia | January 6, 2004 10:21 AM
My answer would be that Socrates' difficulty isn't with language in general, it's with the written word in particular; and that the reason he has a problem with it is not because he thinks that the written word's purpose is solely to espouse a philososophy, but because the written word--by virtue of its static nature--is incapable of participating in the social process that is philosophy.
Although Plato did express various ideas about the structure of reality and the nature of truth, aesthetics, and so forth, none of these ideas are "philosophy." If his intent was to simply express his picture of the world as he saw it, he would have written tracts explaining his ideas, like Aristotle. But he didn't: he wrote dialogues in which various interlocuters are depicted as they participate in the process of argument, definition, and discussion. In other words, they are shown in active pursuit of truth.
This pursuit is not "a" philosophy, it is philosophy itself.
Socrates wasn't talking about "creative writing." He wasn't talking about short stories or poems or novels. He was talking about written oratory, and to the 5th-century Greek, oratory was intended to persuade. Speeches were arguments, and good speeches used principles of rhetoric to achieve the speaker's aim.
The difficulty that Plato's Socrates had with written oratory was that philosophy is an active, laborious process which required back-and-forth exchange on each point, on each idea. If a premise was suggested that was unproven, that premise was discussed until it was proven to everyone's satisfaction, disproven, or simply called unprovable but granted for the purposes of moving the process along.
The trouble with written oratory is that it doesn't allow that process to take place unless the author is present. On their own, the words are mute. If you've got a problem with the first premise in a speech, there's nothing you can do to clear it up, no way to refine the author's ideas, and no way for either of you to benefit from the philosophical process.
Skipping ahead 2,500 years or so: similarly, much of what goes on in online discussions is not really "discussion," but more a form of mini-speechmaking. If someone spews ten paragraphs at you (like now, for example) and you've got to put the brakes on to track down a problem in the second sentence, you're in for a long and laborious process that few people have the patience for...particularly the authors of such mini-speeches.
A corollary problem is caused by the abundance of mute words masquerading as facts which, as a culture, we are ill-equipped to deal with. So, for the most part, many participants in the supposedly "great debate" provided by media and information saturation are "hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise." This is because they use words and adopt the ideas they represent without properly "vetting" them via the philosophical process.
Yes, you're right--"deterioration of education" is robbing us of a solution to the problem. But the problem itself remains the unfettered proliferation of information in a culture that is increasingly incapable of readily distinguishing fact from theory.
Posted by: Ian Wood | January 6, 2004 03:06 PM
"much of what goes on in online discussions is not really "discussion," but more a form of mini-speechmaking."
So really the difference is simply that no one can accurately remember what their fellow discusser said and therefore there isn't the same opportunity to peg them on it... (ha ha)
"Socrates wasn't talking about "creative writing." He wasn't talking about short stories or poems or novels. He was talking about written oratory"
This just illustrates the problem with pulling something out of context and presenting it for general discussion as it pertains (or doesn't) to modern life. The quote you reproduced sounded like he was making a sweeping statement about writing in general.
And yes, I meant the written word, not language as a whole. I suppose that as a writer by trade, I am naturally inclined to think of language as written. Though perhaps there's been a general decline of spoken language in the sense of its being used for "serious" purposes such as the recording of history or the education of children. I assume teachers still speak to their students, but they also direct them to their computer screens, which means, ultimately, far less learning by discussion.
I think the most interesting part of this post is this right here:
"But the problem itself remains the unfettered proliferation of information in a culture that is increasingly incapable of readily distinguishing fact from theory."
and this:
"Technology and educational bureaucracy have conspired to produce the current morass, and our culture's ability to create and disseminate information has far outpaced its ability to process it."
There are certainly consequences to having the information overload that we currently "enjoy," and the ability to distinguish between information and understanding may be one of them.
Posted by: Valencia | January 6, 2004 06:35 PM
ahem, that should be INability to distinguish between information and understanding. And maybe I should have said between informed and comprehending. Anyway, you get my drift..
Posted by: Valencia | January 6, 2004 06:37 PM
Waitaminute...Den Bestian? This is only 2,200 words! That's Steven's output when he's got the flu.
Posted by: Ian Wood | January 9, 2004 10:16 PM
« | Main | »