The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #151764 Message #3546566
Posted By: GUEST,SJL
07-Aug-13 - 10:40 AM
Thread Name: BS: Defective Thinkerator Syndrome (DTS)...
Subject: RE: BS: Defective Thinkerator Syndrome (DTS)...
Don, this might be a good time to bring up Socrates. You may recall we were discussing Socrates' take on democracy. You cited (second hand) accounts that showed Socrates' had a distain for democracy and other quotes attributed to him that showed he favored Plato's rule of philosopher kings. That might have been true at one time but how about near his time of death? That's trouble with recording what people say at any given time. As someone's thoughts and opinions and beliefs change, it can be misleading to quote them. But we can infer some things about Socrates if we use our heads.
Socrates was the grand master of critical thinking and therefore did not care for the sophists whose teaching relied upon convention. These were the teachers, who like Harvard professors, were employed by the aristocracy to give their children what was, in Socrates opinion, a mediocre education consisting of the ability to argue brilliantly whilst spewing rhetoric (like just about every politcian we know), one that was unworthy of a class of philosopher kings. So, doesn't it seem that this allegation of corrupting the youth of Athens stemmed from Socrates differences with the sophists regarding the educational goals and methods? The driving force behind Socrates' teaching methods, which was so distinctive that it is called the "Socratic Method" was ethics and involved relentless questioning of what we and others think we know.
Therefore, I believe Socrates was the "radical professor" and unhappily so because he must have realized by the end of his life that the society he had dreamed of, a republic ruled by a wise and ethical oligarchy of philosophers, was not happening. For one thing, while being the sort who was willing to teach anyone willing to learn from him without demanding money, he was effectively deprived of his pupils. His dream was shattered while democracy proved to be a civilized form of mob rule in his case. Did you ever consider how few laws we'd need if ethics were emphasized in education? The main flaw in science is that, since Descartes, it favors a paradigm in which ethics are irrelevant. This is something that Einstein stressed throughout his life.