Ion's point sounds crazy but Socrates hasn't asked him about the rhapsode vs (say) a doctor or an engineer. That would perhaps have been more illuminating. After all, the science or art of generalship consisted at the time of keeping hundreds or perhaps thousands of men from running away before the enemy. It was a lot less of a spreadsheet profession than today.
("spreadsheet profession" - not meant in a pejorative way)
Oh, I disagree. Generalship at the time was a sophisticated art. Think of the Spartan general Brasidas, for instance, who greatly contributed to the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesus war. Generalship was just as much a sophisticated skill as any, and Socrates in the Ion brings up a number of other claims to knowledge by Ion, none of which withstands scrutiny. Ion, predictably, turns out to be good at one thing only: declaiming Homer’s poems. But that doesn’t make him an expert on any of the subject matters touched in said poems.
Ion's argument is still going strong in traditional Theravadin Buddhist communities. I am reading "Manual of Insight" by Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw. He was considered one of the foremost Theravadin Buddhist scholars and also an accomplished meditation master. Among the claims is that through meditation you can achieve omniscience - knowledge of anything you question. Also, what one experiences in certain meditation states is the actual reality - not just a carefully cultivated neurological state. I have also heard this in person at a traditional Theravadin temple. At one time I gave consideration to this opinion. I was open to these mystical reasonings from my upbringing. My father was an engineer and involved in parapsychological research. Judging by my efforts and experience in life, I no longer give credence to this opinion.
Michael, wow, that’s so interesting! I give no credence at all to that sort of claim, but it’s fascinating that people still make them. Makes Socrates even more relevant.
What are we poor undereducated moderns to think when Socrates, as always entertaining his use of logic and the method of interrogation named in his honor, is clearly in the wrong? Can any serious person today abide the idea that acting is not an art but a matter of divine possession? Sometimes I suspect Plato is having us off for his own amusement
Well, to be fair to Socrates, and Plato, at the time the arts were often seeing as a result of divine inspiration, if not possession. Hence the whole shebang about the Muses.
More importantly, as I point out in this series of episodes, it was about a power struggle for the mantle of provider of knowledge: the poets, or the philosophers?
I take your point about the larger matters at issue betwen Socrates and Ion, and thank you for reminding me. I will have to read and think more on them. In the meantime, I must protest that the way that Socrates—and Plato, and Aristotle—are presented in a modern context is a worthwhile object of thought, too. What relevance do the ancients have for us? Here, Socrates’s method for ferreting out a truth, not to mention as a teaching method, leads him straight into logical error, with poor Ion, whose personal experience as a rhapsode and his own not inconsiderable intellectual abilities, is unjustly left, as I imagine, in a state of sweating humiliation. If Socrates is elevated to a level where he can never be wrong, then his value to us is severely undermined. And how can we credit the conclusions of Socrates (or Plato) on the then-current power struggle between the poets and the philosophers if such a glaring error of logic is allowed to stand unchallenged? I will take my answer off the air, as it were
Chauncey, I certainly agree that the point here is not to glorify Socrates, but to explore the extent to which the ancients are still relevant today. After all, this newsletter isn't for people interested in classical studies, it's for people interesting in practical philosophy.
That said, I may have missed exactly what Socrates's logical error is, in this case. Could you please clarify?
WTF?? Perhaps I’m getting senile...but that makes no sense, to me.
DJ, not sure what you are responding to. Which part makes no sense to you?
Ion's point sounds crazy but Socrates hasn't asked him about the rhapsode vs (say) a doctor or an engineer. That would perhaps have been more illuminating. After all, the science or art of generalship consisted at the time of keeping hundreds or perhaps thousands of men from running away before the enemy. It was a lot less of a spreadsheet profession than today.
("spreadsheet profession" - not meant in a pejorative way)
Oh, I disagree. Generalship at the time was a sophisticated art. Think of the Spartan general Brasidas, for instance, who greatly contributed to the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesus war. Generalship was just as much a sophisticated skill as any, and Socrates in the Ion brings up a number of other claims to knowledge by Ion, none of which withstands scrutiny. Ion, predictably, turns out to be good at one thing only: declaiming Homer’s poems. But that doesn’t make him an expert on any of the subject matters touched in said poems.
Ion's argument is still going strong in traditional Theravadin Buddhist communities. I am reading "Manual of Insight" by Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw. He was considered one of the foremost Theravadin Buddhist scholars and also an accomplished meditation master. Among the claims is that through meditation you can achieve omniscience - knowledge of anything you question. Also, what one experiences in certain meditation states is the actual reality - not just a carefully cultivated neurological state. I have also heard this in person at a traditional Theravadin temple. At one time I gave consideration to this opinion. I was open to these mystical reasonings from my upbringing. My father was an engineer and involved in parapsychological research. Judging by my efforts and experience in life, I no longer give credence to this opinion.
Michael, wow, that’s so interesting! I give no credence at all to that sort of claim, but it’s fascinating that people still make them. Makes Socrates even more relevant.
If you google 'George "Schepak" psychic warfare' you will get some interesting CIA related links.
What are we poor undereducated moderns to think when Socrates, as always entertaining his use of logic and the method of interrogation named in his honor, is clearly in the wrong? Can any serious person today abide the idea that acting is not an art but a matter of divine possession? Sometimes I suspect Plato is having us off for his own amusement
Well, to be fair to Socrates, and Plato, at the time the arts were often seeing as a result of divine inspiration, if not possession. Hence the whole shebang about the Muses.
More importantly, as I point out in this series of episodes, it was about a power struggle for the mantle of provider of knowledge: the poets, or the philosophers?
I take your point about the larger matters at issue betwen Socrates and Ion, and thank you for reminding me. I will have to read and think more on them. In the meantime, I must protest that the way that Socrates—and Plato, and Aristotle—are presented in a modern context is a worthwhile object of thought, too. What relevance do the ancients have for us? Here, Socrates’s method for ferreting out a truth, not to mention as a teaching method, leads him straight into logical error, with poor Ion, whose personal experience as a rhapsode and his own not inconsiderable intellectual abilities, is unjustly left, as I imagine, in a state of sweating humiliation. If Socrates is elevated to a level where he can never be wrong, then his value to us is severely undermined. And how can we credit the conclusions of Socrates (or Plato) on the then-current power struggle between the poets and the philosophers if such a glaring error of logic is allowed to stand unchallenged? I will take my answer off the air, as it were
Chauncey, I certainly agree that the point here is not to glorify Socrates, but to explore the extent to which the ancients are still relevant today. After all, this newsletter isn't for people interested in classical studies, it's for people interesting in practical philosophy.
That said, I may have missed exactly what Socrates's logical error is, in this case. Could you please clarify?