User:Kul/Plato

PREFACE TO PLATO - ERIC HAVELOCK INTRODUCING the growth of the early Greek mind.

Let’s assume that history is like putting cultural informations into the collective storage. In Greece before Homer, the cultural book had been stored entirely in oral memory. The ear was the chief organ of communication that at that time had shaped dispersive collective memory (700B.C.) With the development of signs (the written language) it started to move slowly toward the eye dominance. It was a REVOLUTION that completely changed the entire linguistic system: vocabulary and syntax of words and sentences.

The first philosophers were living and speaking in a period which was still adjusting to the condition of a possible future LITERACY. The meaning of particular terms wasn’t define historically and it wasn’t fixed to any previous semiotic links or areas. Especially the philosophical terminology presented itself rather unstable and blurry. It tended to shift in accordance with different occurring contexts. With each new generation of orators and thinkers it has been undergoing reinterpretation and redefinition. Philosophical investigation wasn't rooted in the language and consequently its outcome (the philosophical thesis) lacked the crucial element; exactness. The lack of shared terminology seemed to be "analytically-creative" yet the fact that it wasn’t historically coined made early philosophers strongly oriented toward metaphysical problems and formulate abstract, greatly intuitional solutions by referring to one’s own semiotic system.

The alphabet was not an addition to the abilities of the tongue but the factor which started the remodelling process the pre-Platonic oral system into abstract vocabulary. The Pre-socratics themselves were essentially oral prophets linked to the repeatable past and first organisers of new syntax of the future. They were devoted to the task of inventing a language by establishing some precise syntax categories necessary for addressing abstract statements. It was simply the process of building up a grid of pre-cordinates for future thinkers and assigning the particular coordinates (phenomenons) to unchangeable values. This assignation became fundamental to any kind of speculative activity. The terminology that Plato and Aristotle seek to define had to pass a long development period before reaching such a precision. Therefor Aristotle adopted the terminology of many other philosophers before him. The previous thinkers can claim an authority no greater than him.

Problems with intellectual authorship of particular linguistic forms caused the general distortion of oral theories.

PLATO ON POETRY

The role of poetry in early Greece was fundamental and powerful; it provided moral, spiritual guidelines and intellectual training for citizens. It functioned as a divine book, encyclopaedia containing all possible information, and ,what follows, it presented itself as a powerful didactic instrument. Plato rebelled against it since, in his understanding, poetry produced a false version of experience which is twice removed from reality: it is a knowledge produced by a fictitious narration which is afterwords re-enacted it on stage. Poetry’s impact on public was oral and not direct: authors never speak themselves, the knowledge was transmitted by actor’s reciting the poem. Poetry produces a "double mimesis" by using the empirical realm for purposes of imitation, theatric impersonation and over-dramatisation of everyday communication in fashion of extreme realism. Poetry therefor is dangerous both for morality and science: it is “crippling of the mind”,…the psychic poison confusing our intelligence, a prostitute that seduces reasoning, the enemy of TRUTH. It confuses man’s values and render him characterless. It creates a potential threat to the decent Greek citizens that should be professional in his social duties. (guardians, workers-food providers.) It should be removed from educational system.

School system was based on the similar oral method opposing the technology of writing till the end of 5.B.C Literacy wasn’t popular ( Iliad wasn't always available in bookstores) so people could only listen to a performance. The greek oral state of mind was for Plato the main enemy. Why? Because poetry was the only mean to control the verbal, person-to-person transition of information. It was a rhythmic, metric pattern that discreetly invaded the soul of citizens. POETRY WAS A PRESERVED COMMUNICATION; a living memory, a linguistic statement, a paradigm telling people what they are and how should they behave.

Plato’s Republic shouldn’t be read as utopian and strictly political programme.It is mostly educational proposal. Once Republic is viewed as an attack on the existing educational apparatus of Greece, the logic of its organisation becomes clear. In that respect, it is not the utopian proposal. Plato claimed that instead of over-dramatisation of reality, educational system should provide a clear description of reality. According to Plato that is precisely what philosophy is doing. Who should therefor rule people’s hearts and minds? Philosophers or poets?

It was a power struggle between philosophers and poets. Poetry stood in Plato's way to propagate Platonism.