The Portable Plato
I have never taken a class in Philosophy, nor read a book about the subject. I have my own ideas on how to live life and when it ends, but mashing those together with ideas from 2,500 years ago seems as though it would entertaining.
The book is not what I expected. I thought it would be like a text book, stating believed fact one after the other. Plato’s writings are in a format similar to a play, in that you read dialog between actors, and each dialog is short like an act.
Introduction
The book starts off with the editors introduction, which I found boring and as soon as the author suggest to stop reading the introduction and begin reading the dialogs I do so.
Protagoras
I begin with the first dialog which is named after one of the principal ‘actors’, Protagoras. It begins slow but then Socrates gets a groove on and weaves a logical net of relationships between virtues, emotions, and similar concepts. My head starts thinking about how it would be cool to map/model this into software for the purpose of viewing these relations and poking at them in a simulated environment. I will have to do that at a later time though.
Symposium
This dialog is themed around Love. I don’t enjoy it, and slip in and out of paying attention to what I am reading. It is mostly about the god(s) of love and little to do with the actual emotion. Towards the end two kinds of love are described, adding two more concept that don’t fit in my head. One is a love of the flesh which is the love between a woman and a man, then there is a the higher love found between a man and a man. The dialog makes me think about how people from different societies and times may have a hard time communicating and connecting without common ground.
Phaedo
This writing discusses the nature of the soul. It is interesting, but when Socrates speaks he does so with a lot of assumptions, such as there is a soul and there are gods. Its hard for me to get past and it makes the reading difficult, plus I was tired, so much so I accidentally left my book on the plane from Denver. 
The whole experience left me wondering about how close minded I might be when I never thought myself to be before. A tolerant mind != an open mind, though from the outside they may look the same. Do you have to believe, at least a little, in order to open your mind and understand something? If I cannot fathom the sun being made of lollipops, can I ever understand that it is? But if I believe, even if its for just a moment, I may see the world in a whole new light.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:18 am
What an interesting question to ponder…
By Wiki definition: Understanding is a psychological state in relation to an object or person whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to be able to deal adequately with that object.
By this definition I think the phrasing “deal adequately with that object” gives the leniency to not have to believe what you’re hearing to imagine it or relate to it in some manner.
If you know what a lollipop is, you can certainly *imagine* the sun being made out of lollipops, which allows you to “deal adequately with that object”. I think it’s different when you’re talking about a person’s feelings or interpretations though. How can you understand someone’s belief that the sun is made of lollipops if you cannot believe it? I see it as though you can understand the concept, but not understand that person’s feelings behind it.
But then I read it again and interpret your question differently… How can I possibly understand what you’re saying if I’m not in your mind and behind your eyes experiencing it as you do?
My brain hurts.
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 am
If you could get into someone else’s mind in such a way would you want too?
Your last question comes back to common ground (building blocks). If we do not share enough of it, how can we communicate effectively. Its something that Socrates touched upon in the Phaedo. He believed that once the soul was free from the body it would be released from the constraints put upon it and be able to attain knowledge that was previously unreachable. As if the soul could possess and learn knowledge, as if it could live with out the body.
You bring up good points and I’m left thinking that it is more than understanding that I am looking for. I do not read things to just understand them, if that were so I would be happy reading fiction, I would understand that the sun is made of lollipops and never have a need to believe it at all. But this is not the case.