Talk:Phaedo

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Contents

[edit] India

If Alexander brought Greek ideas to India, this says nothing about previous commerce between the two cultures. Socrates' ideas about karma and reincarnation are not characteristically Greek, and these are the ideas at issue. The Hindu myth about Lord Krishna being born a prince, threatened by his uncle, raised by peasants, and returning to claim his birthright is a motif that Herodotus (Book One) uses to give the background of Cyrus the Conqueror (600's BCE). Research about ancient cultural commerce between Greece and India is still in progress. The chair at Berkely classics dept. is working on a book on it.

The Hindu ideas should be taken out. I don't know if a person from India wrote that part, but it is clear that Alexander the Great's conquest brought Greek ideas TO India, not the other way around. Besides, Alexander the Great wasn't even born when Socrates died. As it is, chariots existed in both ancient Greece and India, so the metaphors could simply be coincidence.

[edit] Reorganize?

I don't have any problems with the content of this article. However, the main section of the article, "Detailed Summary", could perhaps benefit from some subdivisions. This might be accomplished by providing a background section, a section that deals with the beginning of the text before the arguments begin, a section of the cyclical argument, a section on the recollection argument, a section on the affinity argument, and then a section on his final argument. These divisions already exist within the text and subtitles that draw attention to them may make the article more user friendly. Robitussin 17:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Early/middle/late?

As I understand it, scholars have classified the dialogues of Plato into early, middle and late works; and have tried with limited success to determine the order he wrote them in. Where in the chronology of Plato's authorship does this work exist? RJFJR 16:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

From school days, I remember this as being near the divide between the early and middle periods, but don't quote me on that.--Andymussell 04:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

My philosophy professor at university placed as the first work of the middle period, so that it follows Meno and precedes Republic. Carl.bunderson 00:02, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Do we really need an expert editing of this page now? It seems in order to me.-- 08:29, 9 July 2006 (BST)
It is categorized in the middle period as some scholars see it more as a philosophical textbook or guidebook rather than a historical account of Socrates. Scholars see Plato using Socrates as a mouthpiece for his philosophy in the middle and late periods. The backing of this argument is that in the construction of the dialogue itself. The parts concerning Socrates is in Phaedo's dialogue with Echecrates. We find out early that Plato himself was absent from the meeting, and there is a small break in Phaedo's discourse from Echecrates that can be seen as a device to (1) remind us it is a philosophical work and (2) let us contemplate the counter-arguments to Socrates Theory of the Soul after he had discussed the argument from affinity. Rec Specz 15:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, this information comes from the introduction in the Hackett book. Rec Specz
The authentic Socrates of the Apology briefly discusses the afterlife but reaches no conclusion: "The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows." Lucius Annaeus Seneca (talk) 11:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Topic of dialogue

The problem with the entry is that the bulk of the Phaedo deals with the theory of forms and the immortality of the soul is a secondary argument. The theory of the forms is most clearly described in the Phaedo, better so than even in the Republic. --P Funk 15:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Plato's Meno also gives an adequete description of the theory of the forms. The theory of the soul is not a secondary argument or extension but a neccessary rendition to further Platonic metaphysics and epistemology. --Rec Specz 02:08, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

Almost total rewrite of this article Nov 10Brenda maverick 01:35, 11 November 2006 (UTC), 2006.

Please explain how you have improved the article. The older version at least makes sense. —Viriditas | Talk 10:35, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Include narrative/summary of arguments?

This seems like a thorough article, except for the fact that it does not include any narrative, or any chronological order of the arguments as the appear in the text. I was thinking that would be helpful and maybe all of these specific topics discussed in the dialogue (which make up the entire entry) could come after a general overview of the work. Thoughts? Jhawk1024 19:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Theory of forms

>> Hi, in this article I saw there was a reference to the "doctrine of the forms" without any link, but I've just found another article right here on Wikipedia that explains that doctrine, referring to it as "theory of forms"; I only edited that. (Marko - November 23, 2006)

[edit] Original research in "Sub-textual interpretation" section

The idiosyncratic claim that Plato was concerned about "karma" and other Indic ideas requires citations. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Hinduism"

User:80.235.34.74 put this comment in the article, but it really belongs here:

There was also this "small" (sarcasm) religion in ancient Greece known as Orphism that dealt with reincarnation. Plato was known to be an Orphist, which also might hint that perhaps so was Socrates. Orphism also deals with karma, so I wouldn't jump the gun and call Socrates a Hinduist.

I don't think we can call Plato an Orphic, but as has already been pointed out, Orphism is a more proximate source for the idea of reincarnation than Hinduism, so I'd have to agree with 80.235.34.74 that Hinduism has no place in this article--unless, of course, we can find some reliable sources that tell us about Hinduism's influence in 5th/4th century Athens. I'm going to remove the bit that the IP user was complaining about. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I rephrased the sentences in question to accomodate the objections of Achilleus. However, I do believe that Hindi texts were circulationing in Athens during Plato's lifetime. Plato's Phaedrus uses the charioteer image that is the main metaphorical trope of the Bhagavad Gita, and the dialogs themselves are similar to the Upanishads. The legends about Krishna are similar beyond co-incidence to Sophocles' Oedipus tale. Herodotus also uses folk motifs from Hindu literature. ( I attended a lecture at Berkeley two summers ago by the classics chair about this very subject. So the research is new, but being done. I think the real hazard here is to underestimate the worldliness of the Greeks! I think leaving out the international connection does weaken the article.

No less important here is the fact that if you don't see Socrates' religious ideas as "foreign" to the Greeks, you fail to recognize the main rhetorical strategy of the dialog, which is to parallel the human setting to the ideological content. When you see Plato as adding these foreign disciples in a foreign land details for NO (?) reason, you can't see the genius of the piece.

Am I still getting nowhere with you, my friend, Achilles? Brenda maverick 17:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Brenda, any assertions about Indic influence need to be based on secondary sources. I'm sorry to be so insistent, but the point is quite simple--we need a published source, and it needs to be cited in a footnote.
Also, the frame of the Phaedo is set in Elis. That's not foreign, it's a Greek city, close to the site of the Olympic games. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:32, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not at all clear that Greek motifs similar to Indian ones are borrowings from India or any kind of Indian influence on Greek culture. It's also quite possible that what we have is a related tradition of the same Indo-European origin. I have attended many classics lectures that have discussed this possibility with regard to e.g. certain aspects of the Homeric epics. So it's not at all clear to me that the Oedipus tale is somehow borrowed from or even influenced by the legends about Krishna given argumenti gratia that they are similar beyond coincidence to the Krishna legends; nor that Herodotus is using motifs from Hindu literature as opposed to using Greek motifs that are related to motifs in Hindu literature, which ultemately share the same origin. I don't know whether Akhilleus agrees with what I am (only tentatively) suggesting, but I agree with him that Hinduism doesn't belong in the article ((a) because it seems to me at least that there's no convincing evidence for it, and (b) because it is certainly only a minority view in the scholarship and Wikipedia's purpose is first and foremost to give readers the standard account), and that Orphism [via Pythagoreanism] is a more proximate source for Plato's idea of reincarnation (and there's plenty of reputable scholarly writing to support that). --D. Webb 17:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with D.Webb's comment. Similarities between Homeric and Indic material are usually explained as a common Indo-European inheritance, although there's also a possibility that some motifs/themes were widely diffused through the cultures of the near east. Direct influence from India to Greece (or vice versa) is generally thought to have occurred only after the conquests of Alexander. But the more important thing here, I repeat, is that the article must be based on cited, reliable sources! If you want to say that the Phaedo's charioteer is based on the Bhagavad Gita, we need a reference to a secondary source. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hinduism, again

Well, someone's supplied a citation to an article by A.N. Marlow that contends Plato was influenced by Indian philosophy. I don't think Marlow is very convincing--the resemblances seem superficial. Furthermore, as the author himself says, he doesn't have an answer as to how Plato became familiar with Indian philosophy--on p. 45, Marlow says "As to the problem of the way by which Indian influence reached Greece I have no new solution to offer and fall back with others on Persia as the intermediary."

Marlow's argument is not popular. His article is never cited in subsequent literature on Plato, according to the ISI Web of Knowledge and Google Scholar. The Cambridge Companion to Plato has no entries in its index for Buddhism, Hinduism, or India, and the Oxford Classical Dictionary mentions nothing about India in its entry on Plato. I believe that keeping this view in the article is giving undue weight to a minority view, and I favor deleting the Marlow reference entirely. On the other hand, if the view that Plato was influenced by Indian philosophy is in common in the scholarly literature, then we could probably find a better article to cite. What do others think? --Akhilleus (talk) 19:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Marlow's article (from 1954) may not have been cited because it doesn't really make any claims beside drawing parallels between Hindu and Greek philosophy. He doesn't discuss in the article influence or, if there is direct influence, how it is transmitted. One thing he does claim is that Plato's philosophy is 'unGreek' - this is a controversial claim to say the least - more recent scholarship has made corrections on the older notion of some 'pure' Greek this or that. Other scholars have duly noted that there are very few references Greek before late Hellenistic times to Indian thought. I personally think there might have been a type of transmission a couple centuries before Plato, but I wouldn't make such a claim formally in this article - it is loose speculation, and I certainly don't think works such as the Upanishads were in circulation in Plato's time. Any possible trade would have gone through Persia, and the Parthians were not exactly on best terms with the Greeks. All of these Plato articles are suffereing from single-minded unsourced interpretation and speculation. If you are going to have a section on Indic influence, please present the majority scholarship along with Marlow and simply highlight it as debatable. There are more important things about Plato and Plato's philosophy than this issue. Zeusnoos 20:24, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Akhilleus again. This does seem to be giving undue weight to a minority view. I pretend to know for a fact that the view that Plato was influenced by Indian philosophy is not at all common in scholarly literature. Of course, nobody here should take that on my authority. The fact that Akhilleus couldn't find any discussion or references in The Cambridge Companion to Plato or The Oxford Classical Dictionary are, however, indicative. Also in Richard Kraut's entry on Plato in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy none of these things are mentioned. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Edward Craig (ed.)) doesn't either, nor the Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Ted Honderich (ed.)) nor The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Robert Audi (ed.)). Furthermore, I think it's a real problem with the citation that Marlow isn't able to make the claim that there's actually any connection between Plato and Indic thought. --D. Webb 21:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
No one seems to be defending the section on Indic influence, and neither am I; however, as the one that provided the citation to Marlow I feel I should put in my two cents, however I did not write the section on the influence of Indic thought on Greeks. I have no knowledge of the connection other than the article and I have also had a hard time finding any supporting sources. I have no feelings either way whether this stays, but if it does I agree the majority opinion needs to be represented proportionally. It is also important to note though that nothing in this article has citations except for what we are debating here, so as Zeusnoos said there are more important things to worry about. In my view this entire article could use a re-write. Jhawk1024 22:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
It may very well be that the article - or large sections in it - needs to be rewritten. However, not every claim needs a citation as urgently; not if it represents more or less a standard account of Plato's thought - or in this case a standard view on and interpretation of the dialogue. Entire sections could for example be supported by a single reference to any given scholarly work on Plato or commentary on the Phaedo which gives the same account. (e.g. a section on any given argument in this dialog could have a citation at the beginning saying "On this argument, see Hackforth [...] ad loc. Cf. Guthrie (1978)[...]") Minority views and obscure facts naturally have a much more urgent need for a reference to a supporting source. --D. Webb 22:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree that not everything needs a citation, as long as it is a standard, mainstream account of Plato's thought and philosophy. However, a lot of this article seems to be a single writer's interpretation and not necessarily a comprehensive account of the mainstream arguments as presented by Plato in the Phaedo. The only reason I suggested a re-write wasn't necessarily the lack of citations, it was more the entire structure of the article, it seems somewhat non-linear, and hard to follow for a person simply looking for a narrative of the dialogue. (I'm aware this doesn't belong under this heading, but it is a response to above comment.) Jhawk1024 00:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Jhawk's assessment of the article sounds right to me, and I'd prefer a less idiosyncratic account of the dialogue. Since I've been insisting on citations I think we might be better off erring on the side of providing too many citations to secondary literature, and then paring things down if needed. Anyway, if there are no objections, in a day or so I'll remove the section on Indic influence. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's not fail to notice that Socrates attributes the soulful ideas he kicks around variously to 1)legends, 2)hearsay, and 3)an unnamed friend. Plato is deliberately vague about Socrates' "sources" for his unpopular and unempirical ideas about the supposed immortality of the soul. So in the gusto to name and cite the "experts", lets not outshout Plato himself, and not fail to hear his hints and allegations. Do you guys think Plato is recommending Socrates' hodge-pode of speculations? Notice too, that they are impossible to accept altogether, because they are logically inconsistent. Brenda maverick 16:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a source for the assertion that "Socrates' hodge-pode of speculations" "are logically inconsistent"? Or is this your own interpretation? And why do you put "experts" in quotes? --Akhilleus (talk) 17:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Socrates says that all souls are equally souls (as in "pure" and unmixed with the corporeal) AND that souls "carry with them" their moral/educational achievements. Souls cannot be reborn into appropriate animal forms AND yet assemble after death in order to be divided up into good and wicked. This seems to be Greek myth folded together with Hindu mysticism and sprinked with philosophical flakes (e.g. Pythagorean harmonics).

The karma bit (rebirth into animal forms) shows up nowhere else in any dialog. Even Socrates drops it later. This is to say nothing of logic, like the idea that the living come from the dead. That sounds like more Hindu "reasoning", which was fueled by mushrooms. I believe Plato was no fool when it came to logic, and that he knew better than we do the sounds of silliness.

I am skeptical of experts only when they pose as authorities. Like Descartes (who withheld publication of one of his books when he got wind of Galileo's imprisonment), I feel like I've spent much of my life learning- and what's worse, teaching - things that turned out not to be true. Philosophers, least of all, practice the critical open-mindedness that they recommend to others. The Greeks were the first to see this, that the physician needs to heal himself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brenda maverick (talk • contribs).

Brenda, I don't mean to be rude, but your attitude and edits really seem to be at odds with some of Wikipedia's core policies, namely WP:V and WP:OR. I would strongly recommend reading those policies and taking them to heart, because edits that don't conform to those policies are liable to be removed. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not mean to be impolite, either, but I still cannot understand why you want to impoverish rather than enrich the article. The karma-reincarnation stuff cries out for some explanation. You don't have one yourself. (Or are you holding it back?) So we should just pretend Plato didn't say this? How does this advance the cause of knowledge? The material needs to be factored into an interpretation of the dialog. To selectively supress material that does not fit your preconception is NOT helpful to any cause. And when someone does offer a printed source, as you asked, you slam it. Brenda maverick 20:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Brenda, having a certain view on what's going on in the dialogue isn't the same as just having a preconception. I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but I at least have formed my own opinion on the matter having read the dialogue myself, and other dialogues, other Ancient Greek authors and quite a bit of modern scholarship. Not accepting this particular suggestion doesn't mean we're simply being prejudiced. And it's not as if we just won't accept the printed source and "slammed" it without any good reason; this is a minority view that should not be given undue weight (I assume that you agree that a minority view should only receive proprotionate attention in the article; Wikipedia guidlines are clear on that). And in any case, the source doesn't warrant us to claim that there is actually any connection between Plato and Indic thought; it warrants a claim that there's similarity, becuase that seems to be as far as the author is willing to go. --D. Webb 01:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

In the original sentence, I did not claim that we know that Socrates religious ideas have direct Hindu sources. I said only that his religious ideas are "foreign to the Greek mind" and "sound Hindu". (This is not a strong or controversial claim, in my mind.) Socrates himself says that most people (oi polloi) think that death is the end of human life. Plato goes on about this a bit, emphasizing that if one were to be empirical about it, he would say that it is bodies that outlive souls, at least for a time. Homer and Greek mythology make no mention of such ideas as karma and reincarnation, and neither do any of the playwrights, or even Herodotus. This passage is odd. I choose my words very carefully, but somehow, they still get twisted into a caricature of my meaning. I think you have made a straw man of my point, and minority and majority opinions in scholarship do not have much bearing on this. Even someone with superficial acquaintance with Hinduism would be struck by how Hindu Socrates ideas sound. Brenda maverick 02:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The claim that Plato's religious ideas are "foreign to the Greek mind" strikes me as fairly controversial. The claim that they are "sound Hindu" also seems controversial to me; the claim that they "sound Hindu" less so ("sound" is an adjective in the first clause, a verb in the second). The claim that Plato is talking about karma is controversial; to say that he's talking about an idea like karma is less so. To be put into the article, these claims need citation to a secondary source and careful explanation. For one thing, karma is hardly a simple idea--like all philosophical/religious concepts, it's got a history, so what karma meant in the 5th-4th century BCE and what it would have meant to Athenians, if they somehow encountered it, would need to be clarified.
But frankly, I think it's pointless to talk about Hinduism here, because as we've already said, there's a proximate source for the idea of reincarnation (usually called metempsychosis in this context)--Orphism, as Socrates himself mentions (62b, also 400c, 854b, 365e). For more detail see M.L. West, The Orphic Poems (Oxford 1983) 21-24. The ideas of Empedocles (esp. fragment B115) are also relevant here. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I choose my words carefully too. I don't think I have made a strawman of your point (but if I have, I didn't intend to). The question whether something is or isn't a minority view in the scholarly literature does bear on whether it should be included in the article at all and if so how it is to be presented. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to present readers first and foremost with minority views. --D. Webb 16:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess we're beating a dead horse here, but I did not think when I said Socrates was giving mouth to some Hindu-ish ideas that this is something one needs persmission from the experts to say. To me, its like saying the sky is blue. Do we need Richard Dawkins to hold our hands for that? I'm sorry. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brenda maverick (talk • contribs).

Well, yes, we do need persmisson from experts to say this because this is controversial, no matter how obvious it may seem to some, and close to being original research. --D. Webb 22:49, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite problems

The article rewrite has not improved this article, but has left it in such a poor state that I am seriously considering reverting to a Jan. 2006 version. I don't know who is responsible for this, but the article is worse than it was a year ago. —Viriditas | Talk 10:31, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree, but Jan 2006 might not be the best version though. How about just October 2006? --D. Webb 14:58, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
That would work, too. —Viriditas | Talk 19:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, done. I would like to encourage all editors who work on this article to ensure that their edits are based in mainstream, reliable secondary sources rather than their own idiosyncratic personal interpretations. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This is NOT an improvement over the previous article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.60.233.2 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

If I'm not mistaken this particular work played an important part in the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. There is a particular scene in the book where he is a bright young (yet overconfident) student and shocks his professor by exclaiming that Phaedrus is "THE WOLF!" He gets a shock value, etc, but one important fact is that Phaedrus means I think light (is it the same root as photon???), and it is Lysias who was the wolf.

Mr. Pirsig knows his mistake and expected the reader to see, but I wasn't privy to his knowledge and didn't get it until I re-read his latest edition of the book with the introduction stating this fact. I went through 20 years thinking Phaedrus meant Wolf. (-:

So mayhap this fits in somehow, maybe not. --Eurlim 10:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Know that Phaedo is not the same as Phaedrus. Two completely different dialogues by Plato. Zeusnoos 15:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)