I haven’t read the dialogs completely, so the answer may be obvious to others who have, but I’m wondering something now. Was Socrates’ line of questions to Euthyphro sincere? I always read it as a takedown of a pseudo intelectual by an actual intellect. But man does it hit differently if he was asking in hopes of getting an answer! That is such a different mindset. Both more admirable and more tragic.
Reading this post gave me a strong sense of “oh man, Socrates really was autistic and totally struggling with trying to understand neurotypical thinking, wasn’t he”.
That wasn’t my read Freshman year of college, but it pretty much was by Senior year. One dialogue that helped change my mind was the Theaetetus (mentioned in the post). It’s the one where Socrates describes himself as a midwife for ideas. Theaetetus is one of the very few people Plato shows us engaging in intellectual play with Socrates on close to an equal basis, mind to mind. The dialogue is about what it means to know something, and they go through a few hypotheses, rejecting each in turn as unworkable, and end with “we don’t know,” but no one is humiliated or digs in their heels and they learn things along the way. A lot of what can read as Socrates meaning to take people down, is the shape that their defensiveness forces conversations into.
Sometime in between, I met a Freshman who engaged me in conversation, and I asked him some clarifying questions out of curiosity, and ended up mildly disappointed that the conversation hadn’t gone anywhere interesting. Afterwards, someone complimented me on the takedown, which hadn’t been my intention at all.
I haven’t read the dialogs completely, so the answer may be obvious to others who have, but I’m wondering something now. Was Socrates’ line of questions to Euthyphro sincere? I always read it as a takedown of a pseudo intelectual by an actual intellect. But man does it hit differently if he was asking in hopes of getting an answer! That is such a different mindset. Both more admirable and more tragic.
Reading this post gave me a strong sense of “oh man, Socrates really was autistic and totally struggling with trying to understand neurotypical thinking, wasn’t he”.
That wasn’t my read Freshman year of college, but it pretty much was by Senior year. One dialogue that helped change my mind was the Theaetetus (mentioned in the post). It’s the one where Socrates describes himself as a midwife for ideas. Theaetetus is one of the very few people Plato shows us engaging in intellectual play with Socrates on close to an equal basis, mind to mind. The dialogue is about what it means to know something, and they go through a few hypotheses, rejecting each in turn as unworkable, and end with “we don’t know,” but no one is humiliated or digs in their heels and they learn things along the way. A lot of what can read as Socrates meaning to take people down, is the shape that their defensiveness forces conversations into.
Sometime in between, I met a Freshman who engaged me in conversation, and I asked him some clarifying questions out of curiosity, and ended up mildly disappointed that the conversation hadn’t gone anywhere interesting. Afterwards, someone complimented me on the takedown, which hadn’t been my intention at all.