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Plato

Started by Draconic Aiur, July 27, 2017, 08:32:03 PM

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Draconic Aiur

So I have an essay due on Sunday about on the why is Plato important to the study of rhetoric, and i am researching but I just don't get it. Can someone please school on Plato's thoughts on rhetoric and why he is important to rhetoric? I need like a few paragraphs left on my essay and I need some points, thoughts and the ultimate of the question. Also give me the answers in for dummies style because my research comes up in only scholarly languages and I need a layman terms thing to get me going.

Mike Cl

Go to the wiki page on rhetoric; that puts Plato in the flow of thoughts about the subject.  And google 'plato and rhetoric' for pages of stuff dealing with that subject.  I'd suggest you start on the wiki page skim it.  Then look up all the 'hard' words (dialectic for example), write down the definitions and then read the page again more slowly.  Then look at a couple of other pages on the subject looking for one that connects with you and how it is presented.  And good luck.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Baruch

#2
Plato claims to be describing the arguments of Socrates.  Which are rhetoric in the Socratic method style (making endless questions leading into definition circles in an effort to show that conventional ideas are stupid) ... and having cleared the bases, presenting presumably more cogent ideas as alternatives to convention.

Aristotle is quite different, he helped invent logic.  Plato helped invent rhetoric (or acts as a mouthpiece for Socrates who invented it).

Another part of Plato's argument, is that philosophers aren't sophists.  Philosophers use reason (though that wasn't invented until later by Aristotle) but sophists are specious word twisters.  Hence Plato's attempt to show that Socrates wasn't a sophist, didn't deserve to die, because he was a philosopher instead.

Hope that frames it for you ... without getting into the nitty gritty of the Dialogues.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Draconic Aiur on July 27, 2017, 08:32:03 PM
So I have an essay due on Sunday about on the why is Plato important to the study of rhetoric, and i am researching but I just don't get it. Can someone please school on Plato's thoughts on rhetoric and why he is important to rhetoric? I need like a few paragraphs left on my essay and I need some points, thoughts and the ultimate of the question. Also give me the answers in for dummies style because my research comes up in only scholarly languages and I need a layman terms thing to get me going.

Plato and his student, Aristotle were mystics.  They believed that everything could be deduced by "thinking".  They believed that actual scientific testing was invalid.  They accepted slavery and elitism.  They taught that knowledge was not for the masses (the concept of irrational numbers, for example was too disquieting).  They set back true scientific inquiry by a 1,000 years.

Rhetoric, to them, was how to use words for any discussion whether rational or not.  In other words, they believed that the style of argument was more substantial than the facts of the argument.  It is common to this day, but not more useful for discovery now than then.

Hope that helps.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on July 28, 2017, 04:49:20 AM
Plato and his student, Aristotle were mystics.  They believed that everything could be deduced by "thinking".  They believed that actual scientific testing was invalid.  They accepted slavery and elitism.  They taught that knowledge was not for the masses (the concept of irrational numbers, for example was too disquieting).  They set back true scientific inquiry by a 1,000 years.

Rhetoric, to them, was how to use words for any discussion whether rational or not.  In other words, they believed that the style of argument was more substantial than the facts of the argument.  It is common to this day, but not more useful for discovery now than then.

Hope that helps.

Aristotle ... not so much.  Other students of Plato followed him.  Aristotle invented Biology, by observation.  But as a polymath, he didn't stop there, he also formalized logic ... and wrote for or against what Plato said, but with much more clarity.  Socratic dialogues aren't a treatise, but are public theater.  Plato was more a follower of Pythagoras, who was something of a Freemason ... more than a follower of Socrates ... in the things he had Socrates say as alternatives to conventional ideas.  Xenophon's view of Socrates gives us a view of Socrates independent of Plato's agenda.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

I'm sure I was introduced to Plato in philosophy, but I can't remember a thing about him.  I recall a vague sense that what he said didn't seem important, but I could be mixing him up with several others.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on July 28, 2017, 11:16:46 AM
I'm sure I was introduced to Plato in philosophy, but I can't remember a thing about him.  I recall a vague sense that what he said didn't seem important, but I could be mixing him up with several others.

After the mid term exam, I told my philosophy 101 teacher I considered all the the examples idiots.  I didn't get a good grade.  He loved Plato.  I didn't.

He just liked arguments.  I wanted reality.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on August 09, 2017, 05:56:20 AM
After the mid term exam, I told my philosophy 101 teacher I considered all the the examples idiots.  I didn't get a good grade.  He loved Plato.  I didn't.

He just liked arguments.  I wanted reality.

That is how our professor flunked the one student who stood up to him.  I fell asleep in class and earned a D.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

And you sure don't get reality with Plato.  Something about shadows on cave walls.  Anyway, he decided thinking was better than experimenting, so I ditched him right at the start.  Never read the whole book.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBQRuMfs2E&list=PLFF9E7ADD88FBA144&index=1

A good short introduction to Plato ... 1 of 5 ... but the first one is the important one.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

aitm

Socrates, Plato...both tried to allow a person to find the answer themselves. Of course many of the questions they used were leading them to the answers they wanted them to find, but yet, they did not "offer", "suggest" or "declare" an answer. They tried to let a person use at least some logic to deduce the answer...though it may truly have been the only time said person ever had logical thought or perhaps even recognized said thought as logical.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Cavebear

Quote from: aitm on August 13, 2017, 08:36:25 PM
Socrates, Plato...both tried to allow a person to find the answer themselves. Of course many of the questions they used were leading them to the answers they wanted them to find, but yet, they did not "offer", "suggest" or "declare" an answer. They tried to let a person use at least some logic to deduce the answer...though it may truly have been the only time said person ever had logical thought or perhaps even recognized said thought as logical.

Socrates and Plato were mysitics.  They decided that "just thinking about things" was better than actually doing experiments.  As such, they set back science many centuries.

It took a millennia to get over their anti-science influence.  If it wasn't for them, we would be settled in outer space today. 
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on August 14, 2017, 02:16:59 AM
Socrates and Plato were mysitics.  They decided that "just thinking about things" was better than actually doing experiments.  As such, they set back science many centuries.

It took a millennia to get over their anti-science influence.  If it wasn't for them, we would be settled in outer space today.

No, just get to our eventual extinction, faster.  Star Trek isn't real.  Socrates wasn't a mystic, Plato was to a degree, because of the influence of Pythagoras.  But Plato regarded religion as a control device for the government, so I suspect his sincerity regarding religion.  Both represent anti-social elements, with Plato being the scion of the rich, and Socrates from the working class.  A few pre-Socratics did a few experiments ... but it was hard then, because the essentials for repeatable quantitative experiments, didn't exist until Galileo's time (time pieces etc).  And there were some experiments in the Alexandrian school ... see Antikythera device as an analog computer for astronomy.  The astrolabe was invented at the very end of the Roman period.  Warfare destroyed much progress, not all Roman (but see Archimedes).  Burning libraries for example ... they are too flamible.

Actual religious people (not philosophers, they are usually anti-religion) are sometimes mystics.  I am one of those.  And yes, we work tirelessly thru the millennia for the Borg preventing the humans from inventing warp drive too soon.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on August 14, 2017, 06:49:58 AM
No, just get to our eventual extinction, faster.  Star Trek isn't real.  Socrates wasn't a mystic, Plato was to a degree, because of the influence of Pythagoras.  But Plato regarded religion as a control device for the government, so I suspect his sincerity regarding religion.  Both represent anti-social elements, with Plato being the scion of the rich, and Socrates from the working class.  A few pre-Socratics did a few experiments ... but it was hard then, because the essentials for repeatable quantitative experiments, didn't exist until Galileo's time (time pieces etc).  And there were some experiments in the Alexandrian school ... see Antikythera device as an analog computer for astronomy.  The astrolabe was invented at the very end of the Roman period.  Warfare destroyed much progress, not all Roman (but see Archimedes).  Burning libraries for example ... they are too flamible.

Actual religious people (not philosophers, they are usually anti-religion) are sometimes mystics.  I am one of those.  And yes, we work tirelessly thru the millennia for the Borg preventing the humans from inventing warp drive too soon.

Interesting.  You might say I am a "Saganist".  He said "Every one of us begins life with an open mind, a driving curiosity, a sense of wonder."

He criticized Pythagorus and Plato, and I agree with him.  I will quote from an article about Cosmos...

"he lays out the Pythagorean hypocrisies and the Platonic ethical fractures in a short and powerful argument that I still find useful to this day. “Ordinary people were to be kept ignorant,” Sagan says of the Pythagoreans’ work. “Instead of wanting everyone to share and know of their discoveries, they suppressed the square root of two and the dodecahedron.” And Plato loved the elitism and secrecy, equally, as he argues. Plato was hostile to the real world, experiments, practicality, etc.; his followers eventually extinguished the light of science in Ionia. "

I can think of no more damning criticism than that.  When it comes to the ancient Greek scientists, I vastly prefer Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Euclid, and I will mention Hypatia though not Greek.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

I agree on your later list ... but fail to mention Archimedes?  What are you, Roman?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.