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I recently finished reading the sci-fi novel Blindsight by Peter Watts. I think I was led to it when searching for authors similar to Neal Stephenson, whose works I really enjoy. And it was bang on. Like Stephenson, Watts crams so many ideas into Blindsight. Blindsight is much more compact than Stephenson's later works, and I have to say Watts is better at tying everything together at the end.…
The Cratylus dialogue revolves around the meaning of words and whether they are decided by convention or if they have a natural independent of people. Hermogenes and Cratylus respectively holds these positions and each have to cede to the opposite view in dialogue with Socrates. Hermogenes position is that names decided by convention and that a thing can have as many names as people call it by.…
Parmenides: Of the presocratic philosophers Parmenides might be among the most influential and yet divisively interpeted. We only know of one work by him, a poem of which only the introduction has survived in its entirety. Despite the sparse material there are many different interpretations of Parmenides, each and every word is weighed carefully and testimonies analyzed. The poem starts with…
Of the presocratic philosophersi, Heraclitus has been characterised as creating a cosmogeny centered on fire as the base element of the world. All matter is a transition of fire in states of energy, decaying to air and vapor to water and to earth. On earth everything is held to this principle. Life and death, sleeping and awakening, nothing escapes change. There is not a duality of earth and fire,…
Summary: The final chapter. Morality has been proven to make man happier than immorality, even with appearances reversed and the gods silent. Plato now asserts that immorality is punished either in this life or afterwards and that morality is rewarded by the gods in addition to in itself. The myth can be compared to those on Symposium, Gorgias and Phaedrus. Immortality of the soul: Like in Phaedo…
Summary: Earlier it was established that represantational poetry must be close to banned from the moral community. This chapter further develeops the case against poetry and representation. A much harsher tone is employed against poetry this chapter. It is directly harmful to it's audiences, of the irrational and rational parts of people's minds it nourishes the first one. Not only does poetry…
Summary: This chapter finally traces back to the original goal of proving that a person living a moral life is happier than one living an immoral life without consequences. So far it has been proven that the mentality of the moral community is the best. The most immoral mentality is that of the tyrant which was determined to be the worst. Socrates and his discussors determine that they need an…
This chapter explains how the moral society will, with enough time, decay and stray from it's principles of goodness. There are 4 modes of government that follow in degeneration, each with a corresponding person and mentality. Moral community declines eventually, 4 succesive forms of governments explained. Each government also has a corresponding mentality in their people. First comes timocracy…
Summary: This chapter gets into greater detail on the education of the guardians such as what activites and studies will bring desired qualities in them. What subjects will arouse their curiosity and taste for the truth? The physical and cultural education mentioned earlier is not enough. Math is identified as crucial for war and a field that stimulates intellect. The most important things for…
Summary: This is probably one of the most important chapters. The famous devices of the sun simile, the divided line and the allegory of the cave appear here. The previous chapter described why philosophers are prevented from living up to their potential. Here we see that the process itself of searching for the truth alienates people from society. Plato puts forward the fundamental principle of…