Is Plato Guilty!?

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Troll
Posts: 120
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 1:53 am

Is Plato Guilty!?

Post by Troll »

Is Plato responsible for the wild, imposing, and even deliberate caricaturing of his dialogues? Often someone plunks one before a Daffy Duck cartoon, and remarks, so, you see, Plato was a fascist. Or some such thing. One can only modestly reply, you have been unfair to Plato, either by design, or accident. However unfair and ill-informed the account of Plato' dialogues, where Plato himself, after all, never speaks, and where the polyphonic form has a philosophic meaning, which is usually not even taken into consideration in the emergent burlesque, is it not so that Plato gave the raw material for the distortion? And even supplied the whiff of evil corruption?
Dubious
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Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 7:40 am

Re: Is Plato Guilty!?

Post by Dubious »

Only Plato knows or knew for sure...and would it even matter on any level since it's all academic now.
Troll
Posts: 120
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 1:53 am

Re: Is Plato Guilty!?

Post by Troll »

You've radically missed the meaning of what I wrote. Which is likely my fault, for speaking so unclearly. I'm not asking about Plato's intentions. But, his responsibility. After all, one holds a man responsible for an accident he didn't intend. Say, in a case of drunk driving.

It's not only academic, but also, and decisively so, ideological! Ergo, we deal here with a large and deep source of mass propaganda wars.

Beyond the responsibility of the biographical Plato is that of the text or its mood, if you like, rather than the persons who make use of it in this or that way.
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