Plato's Lovers

Welcome back to the New Thinkery. Before we start the show, we've announced this in the past. It took some time. We have a new thinkery store coming soon, hopefully by the publication of this episode, you will be able to go online and shop at the New Thinkery store.

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We have a bikini. Many young women, t-shirts, sweaters, stickers. In fact, we will be holding a contest. Most imaginative places you can stick a New Thinkery sticker, that's not on a body or to be facing anything you wish around the world.

You happen to be in, I don't know, let's say January of 2025, near Washington DC's capital, and you're engaged in some activities. Why not take a sticker with you? Yeah. Go put it on the back.

You can't end the Viking hat. You can't get in the Viking hat. Okay. So how are you doing?

My good friend, Alex. You forgot my favorite item in the store. The life size Greg, Greg, the prayer blow up dog complete with micro penis. How are you doing David?

I'm doing well. How's our good friend Greg, when you're doing it? It's not great. I was expensive, I think.

Maybe I don't want it hard. I was opposed to that. No, I know. Well, it's a good thing we had to adhere to doppelganger Ryan Reynolds to do it.

So we're talking about a theme that's close to all of our hearts. We're doing play does lovers, which is a dialogue that seems dumb. So people don't think it's real. And I think this is a good point to maybe apologize for the last episode we recorded, we recorded 15 minutes ago.

But for listeners, it'll be a week ago where Emerson says something dumb and we say he's dumb. Play does something dumb. You're like, this has to be secretly smart. Anyways, we apologize.

Emerson's a very smart man and we were too hard on him probably. So what happened? Alex was watching the Spice channel and he said we're going to do play those lovers. What is this dialogue about?

You pointed me beside the obvious. Why are we doing it or what am I talking about? No, no. I mean, what's it about generally?

I mean, we're trying to do all the dialogs. So it's well, yeah. So why are we doing it? One reason is because it's our goal to do all the dialogs before we die, which means we have to hold off one if we're like, we can't do them all.

We should do 34, obviously. We're like getting closer to the name of God. I thought Robert Alter was going to die like as soon as he finished the training. Right.

No, that's what I thought too. The other reason we're doing it is just because I happened to be doing a reading room on at the spring and because we had done that short episode on Hipparchus and we're like, that makes sense. This was kind of fun. It's a nice contained episode on a short dialogue.

And these are dialogs that a lot of people in our audience may not be very familiar with just because they're shorter and not kind of like, I'm like, if you study Plato, you probably got the Republic. Maybe you got the Gorgas Protagoras, the apology symposium. But we want to expose you to these shorter dialogs, which many of which can be found in the roots of political philosophy, 10 for God and Socratic dialogues edited by Thomas Mingle. How many dialogues are in this the roots of political philosophy, 10 for God and Socratic dialogues.

There are 10. Thank you. And I don't think any of them are actually forgotten. I actually remember they exist.

Yeah. Hey, can I ask you guys a quick question? Sister, I think we can on the 80s, maybe. So what's the status of these short dialogues now in the field?

And I mean the general status, not simply in our little corner. Do you see the acceptance, you see greater acceptance of the shorter platonic dialogues these days? Not all, but I think they're I don't know about the status of every single one, but more and more, they're being brought back into the field. I think you just said the opposite.

We say the opposite. Not all of them is what I was saying. It seems like occasionally one by one. And there's this great line, right?

Like everyone would probably say that an ex-nus is not by Plato, except that we have aerosol saying it is. The hippiest mind. So and the hippiest mind or two. I think that's the one that Pingle points to is like, if we're not mentioned by aerosol, people would say it's fake.

But so you can't, it seems very difficult then to say something ridiculous is beyond Plato's, you know. So we're doing the lovers and this happens to be translated by James Leake, just for what's worth. And we are using the pink, a reasonable philosophy. So those are the reasons why.

I mean, the shorter ones seem like they're kind of almost perfect for an episode. That seems to me. So I can give a kind of outline of the dialogue. If that's helpful, well, the title is lovers or on philosophy.

So those are two things we should come back to. There's an obvious question. Who are the lovers being referred to in the title? There does seem like there's an obvious answer, but the obvious answer may not be the correct answer.

Or on philosophy would be really important if that subtitle is in fact given by Plato, because I would seem to put this dialogue really high up on the list of importance. I would just simply say, it seems like there are only three parts to this dialogue. But Alex and David, you guys should feel free to correct me. There's three parts.

The third part is pretty well subdivided. So that's where we may come to some disagreements. But there's an introduction. And then there are two arguments.

The introduction and the introductory scene Socrates is observing two young boys doing some kind of work with figures that makes it look like they're doing astronomy. This is Socrates presupposition in your eight. Then, so Socrates sees these two boys doing what looks to be astronomy. There are two youths watching the young boys do this.

One of the youths is a, I'll just for shorthand say, a gymnast and the other's a musical guy. So one sort of fancy himself, smart and the other fancy himself strong. And we're told that the youths have the hots for the boys. Hence, they might be the letters.

So that's part one. In part two, Socrates figured out a way to induce the youths to have a conversation with him. And that conversation I'll just suggest is probably not for the sake of the youths, but for the sake of the boys. And the Socrates goes to them in discussing philosophy.

What is philosophy? So the first line of arguments, so introduction is that narrative frame, Socrates trying to talk to these young boys. The first line of argument is that philosophy is defined as polymathi learning a lot of stuff. I think English, we have this word polymath.

Somebody who knows a lot. Then we'll basically just kind of a slight modification of that, a different line of argument that philosophy is all the arts, the techna or something like that. And the reason I think that that's the remainder of the dialogue is because it ends by saying so that definitions wrong. Now, this second line of argument that philosophy is the arts, I think there are further subdivisions that are kind of interesting.

I'm sure we'll talk about that. So that's a brief outline, but I still think we should probably touch on some other, like what are some other dialogues that seem to bear here? We just did the Hipparchist. That seems like a dialogue that's related to this in some ways for me.

And so far as that dialogue is devoted to what is the lover of gain? And this dialogue is devoted to the question, what is the lover of wisdom? Excuse me. And so they seem to be paired in that way.

It's a narrated dialogue. So in that regard, it seems to me like it would be paired with other narrated dialogues. There are three other dialogues narrated by Socrates. We do not know to whom Socrates is narrating this dialogue.

That strikes me as an interesting question. We do not know when it is being narrated. We do not know how long after the conversation, the narration takes place. So the Republic, for example, is narrated.

And it actually tells us yesterday I was having this conversation. And we know when it was narrated, it was narrated the next day. We don't know who the Republic is narrated to either, although we can probably figure out that it's not who it's not to. It's not probably to play it over example, although it might be.

It's short. So it's not it's about the same length, maybe even as the Hipparchist. What other sort of preliminary matters dialogue that Socrates seems to both narrate of his own collision. So the external frames seems to be voluntary.

And the internal action also seems to be relatively voluntary. Socrates, he's the one who engages and initiates the conversation. Does it start out with math like the meadow? No.

What do you mean? Are you saying that two boys are trying to figure out? Oh, I see. Good.

Astronomy is like math or something like that. Okay. Yeah. Very good.

Yeah. And two natural scientists are mentioned by name and Exagoras and Winopides, Winopides, Winopides, Winopides. So yeah, not math but astronomy. But yeah, you're right.

The mathematical the motion of the heavenly bodies seems. Can I do a little stage setting? Kind of. Yeah, please.

So these boys are doing some sort of they're describing circles and imitating certain ecliptics with their hands. So they're somehow engaged in some kind of astronomy and and and and some gesturing. And this is at the the place of Dionysius who is a grammarian, right, or a teacher of writing letters. And then Socrates sits down next to this like neathead guy who hates philosophy.

Yeah, he loves one of the boys who loves philosophy. So yeah, and you don't get a sense that this guy would have any business being at the teacher of reading and writing, say for the fact that the boy he cares for is with is here, right? So so there's a he's kind of you wonder if whether he is because he has a kind of curmudgeonly attitude about philosophy calls it babbling with just a waste of time. And meanwhile, there's this other it's like a jocks versus nerds thing.

There's this other nerdy lover and the nerdy lover seems almost emboldened by the fact that he shares a common interest. Now this gets subverted over the course of the dialogue because eventually the meathead makes fun of the the nerd and says look at him, he's pale and weak and the boys laugh at him. His neck is unchanged. Yeah, yeah, and this makes him blush, right?

Every dialogue Socrates narrates contains a blush and that's the one and he's also said to be ashamed later when he's refuted. And eventually the the meathead turned out to not be so much of a meathead as at least the nerd thinks or portrays him as it turns out that he follows the argument, he gets perplexed and he ascents to the final argument that makes the wise guy ashamed. So there's a kind of uh, they're obviously vying for the love of one of the boys. So the other boy, Michael Davis points out the other boy must probably be ugly.

You'd have to guess. So they're both going for the same boy. It seems like if they're rival lovers and it's said that the meathead loves one of the boys, one of the two, that would seem to follow. And so there's a they're kind of vying for the attention of this boy.

And so there's it's an attempt to to articulate what philosophy is in the context of two lovers, one who seems to be all body, the other one seems to be all soul, right? But neither of which actually is right? The philosopher, the guy who's said to be wise, he cares about his ugly appearance and the one who's, you know, big and beautiful. He he also follows the argument.

But it seems to have this kind of contrived division that's almost reminds me of like revenge or something like that, but in reverse. And and so the question of philosophy is highly distorted. One by the boys association of it with pre-socratic philosophy. And then two by the fact that one of them hates velocity, the other one sort of overly praises it without knowing what it is.

And so one of the undercurrents of the dialogue is how to rescue an articulation of what philosophy is or how to come to understand what philosophy is, amid this sub-philosophic, buying and erotic jousting that's happening. But of course, we can't forget that this is being told to someone for God knows what purpose as well, right? Like it's, I'm trying to imagine what kind of interlocutor is listening to this. It's just it's hard for me to fathom.

But because you can, I can forget because it seems like it seems like the internal drama of this dialogue is the point. And so it's hard. It's just hard to imagine what's being conveyed to someone. Let me try this with a puzzle.

I mean, we can go through all this. I don't know, maybe instead of going through this in sort of order. So the boys, as you mentioned, are doing natural science to be getting. Let me let me just sort of the following.

Philosophy really is the investigation of the beings of nature. So here's a puzzle that seems to me. In this dialogue, it seems as though Socrates is trying to get these boys or at least one of them to stop doing philosophy and go do something else, namely political philosophy or something like this. Why distract them from philosophy?

I mean, they're already doing it. They're doing the right thing. I mean, that's kind of, that's what it's all about, right? Figuring out what the heavens are like and something like this.

What's a cow? What's a mule? You're obviously trying to provoke this response, right, which is that well, they're doing it in an unselfaware way, right? And Socrates by posing this, right?

Isn't that when they come in at 133 a right before 33 a soccer says whether it asks the one who claims to be wise, whether it seems to him that philosophy is noble, whether it's noble or not to philosophize. And Socrates then says, not just as we were saying these things, the two boys who had overheard us became science. Evidently, they think it's no right. They voice the boys.

Yes. And they've probably heard the meathead say, this is bad, like why are you wasting your time? But they think this guy is not very serious, right? Socrates is kind of interesting because he's evidently a philosopher, right?

The philosopher guy, the guy who seems wise, he talks to Socrates as though he expects him to be in his corner, right? Right. So Socrates has a reputation as a philosopher already. Yet he's strange in that he's a philosopher who questions his own activity, the nobility of this activity.

And in that sense, that seems to be the hook he has with the meathead with the boys and also in undermining this other guy and just crediting. Yeah. So that in so far, he makes itself reflective. That seems to be a more primary right of philosophy or the more fundamental question.

What's the self-reflective? I'm sorry. Well, saying, okay, I want to go do a lip, the klipsics with my hands, okay, but wait, is what I'm doing noble or not? Is it something good that I could do?

And so the notion as the boys are attracted to astronomy and the clippics out of the presupposition that it's something noble and great. Yeah. And they've not examined whether or not it is actually noble and great to study astronomy. And so therefore they have to, Socrates is trying to induce them to study the noble before they can return to study science.

Yeah. Under under this operating question or after articulating this assumption, this is at 133D that philosophy is not merely noble, but also good. Oh, I see. Yeah.

So he raises that second consideration that puts weight on it because you could say it's noble and then he says, okay, but is it also good? It's supposed to be useful, useful for whom? And who's really useful? Is the philosopher useful in the x-line situation or this other person, the doctor, for example, and that ends up putting a lot of pressure on philosophy to give an account of itself or justification for its own activity, not just as exalted or something like that, but to justify itself in terms of its concrete deliverables.

You make anything of the notion that the meathead and the nerd, as you call them, one is said to be spending his time on music and the other athletics. Is there anything to be made of the fact that these are the two principal parts of the education of the guardians and their public? Yeah, I thought it was kind of funny that in the republic, it said that too much velocity makes you soft and too gentle. And this guy's kind of harsh and combative, which is interesting.

They're obviously rivals in some form or another, but they kind of exaggerated into two directions. I don't know what to make of it. The one thing I'll say about them is they're weight more typical than any character, like kind of simply typical, right? Like, you know, you might get like, the doors is a typical mathematician or elder mathematician, but these guys are like reified, almost into...

So how do you understand? How big of a group, you go into grammar school, how big of a group is soccer, T.C. or what do you mean? It sounds to me like they're only five people present, or at least there's these five and some kind of a cluster and if they're not nearby.

So one of the ages, they're called boys and youths. So the two boys are the ones who were studying astronomy at the beginning and the youth... So boy would have been a below, let's just say below a teenager and the youth would have been teenagers. Yeah, so like the boys probably would have been maybe 12 or 13, something like that.

And the youth probably 16, 17, that's my guess. But the reason I ask about age is because I wonder about their ability to understand and track the argument. It can't be for their benefit, right? I mean, who's benefit?

The young men. The youth are the boys. So there's the young boys and the older boys. So Socrates has a conversation.

We never hear the young boys speak. Socrates only speaks to the older boys. But even those older boys still strike me as too young to kind of... You may be right, but I strongly understand that...

Okay, I don't think Socrates is speaking to the youths for their sake. I think he's speaking to the youths for the sake of the boys. I think Socrates I suspect Socrates is actually speaking with them so that the boys, the real audience is the boys, the non-speakers, I think. But isn't it still pitched above their heads?

I guess probably. I mean, they must be smart, right? If they're doing a straw, I mean, they must be sharp kids. Okay.

I think the thrust of the argument is not terribly inaccessible. The first one is... Yeah, I'm sorry, the one of the argument? The thrust of the argument, the deep pelvic thrust of the argument.

Oh, come on. I just didn't hear what you had to say. Good Lord. Anyways, I mean, the two arguments.

The first argument is, oh, he's a jack of all traits. Do you really want an amateur doctor or a real doctor? Of course. But that's second.

Okay, what is the most important task? It's something like political science. Hold on. Do I have to know how to do this most of all?

Yeah. Okay. Well, that's where we're at. I mean, the argument is clearly not very good.

I think obviously, philosophy is not polymathic, but there is a way in which this is what ordinary folks think about philosophy sometimes, right? You just kind of know a lot about a little, but your knowledge isn't that deep. Well, in your knowledge, it's always inconclusive. That's right.

That's right. That question is that are seemingly never settled to. And one thing that never really comes up here is what is the proper subject of study of the philosopher? That's not really addressed.

We know what the doctor does. We know what the trainer does. We know what the other example says. But the philosopher, I mean, there's this in the second line of argument, you get this weird collapse of the philosopher with everybody.

The household manager, the tyrant, the despot, the politician, the cons director for Claremont, it just all gets smushed together into one giant pizza pile of sloppy pig pileup. But it's just, we don't really know what the content is. That's sort of an open question. Like the nerd, he presupposes, he believes that philosophy is noble.

So whatever it is, it must be doing something kind of high. But we don't ever really turn to what the subject is. He's like, let's just a little bit of everything. He knows a little bit about literature, a little bit about science, a little bit about this.

But yeah. And in fact, you could say Socrates kind of carefully avoids that. At one point, he asked the guy who's reputed to be wise, who would he would rather have the philosopher or the doctrine? He says both.

He says, don't say both. He says, tell me what you want first. And that struck me as, okay, the Socrates doctor protested for what was he onto? And it makes sense that you might want, if philosophy is somehow blurred with political science or political judgment and practical affairs, you might want a doctor come and say, hey, this will heal your body.

But then maybe the philosopher will say, hey, but your Theogies in this will keep you out of politics. Right. So that might be better for you overall to remain sickly, to use this example from the Republic. In that sense, you might want to say that the wise guy is, he's obviously doesn't understand what he's saying, but he might be onto something and saying that knowledge of the arts is not enough.

You need a kind of comprehensive vision or comprehensive understanding. He's conflated this with polemity. And so the question is, why does Socrates kind of direct him away from this? Well, he makes him ashamed.

He wins over by defeating him. He wins over the bodybuilder guy. And then the youth is, of course, locked in and guess who's the center of attention now, Socrates? And so he's in a way become the beloved of all, everybody involved in all eyes are on him.

And so it strikes me that you could, you could, you're pressed to say, okay, what is philosophy? What way is it good? And what way is it noble? I think maybe the way Socrates treats the others or he handles the argument might say something about how he might in a self understanding sort of say, articulate the usefulness and perhaps even the nobility of philosophy.

I mean, one thing that occurs to me just when we're doing love of gain episode is to know what love of X is, you would need to know what X is. And no one raised the question. What's Sophia? What's wisdom?

Right? I mean, so that would sort of get to what is the subject matter of philosophy? Yeah. I remember an undergraduate, I was studying the Republican, it was actually the after undergraduate, but I was sitting in on undergraduate class with Bob Bartlett and Henry and I was on the Republican, we left one class and this kid, this student in the class says, I am going to law school just like Socrates would want.

And like, what's that now? And he's like, yeah, Socrates thinks you should just continue learning philosophy is just learning. And I was like, I don't think that's right, buddy. But anyway, so my point is that I think this is fairly like David said that when it's actually doesn't tell us what the subject matter is, and when it's presented as though it's inconclusive, it does seem like, well, it's just learning.

And so therefore, as long as you're learning, that's philosophy. I don't know that that's quite right. I mean, when we had Tom on talking about the metaphysics, one of the things he said that's stuck with me is that there are these types who are sort of drawn to wonder and want to remain there. And Aristotle says that's the philosopher is drawn to wonder and then he wants to destroy it.

And that's persuasive to me. The goal is not to remain in this sort of naval gazing. Oh, wow, oh, it's like actually the figure stuff out, but that's not present here. It doesn't seem to be anything about.

No, in fact, it seems like if anything, the wise guy's sort of problem is he tries to quickly to get rid of wonder. So something Michael Davis and Christopher Buell and I say is on this book, point out is that he uses philosophy in the perfect tense to have philosophy. The nerd. Yeah.

And Socrates, I think, once in articulating the nerds view. So he presents it as already being in possession of the wisdom, therefore. Yeah, but it's strange because he talks about it. He says he's wise, but to be wise is to have philosophize.

So somehow completed. Another thing Michael Davis points out that I think is really interesting is there's no mention of the gods at all. The word God is never used. I don't think that oath is ever used.

The one time that they get close to it is about the saying at Delphi. Yes. But it's not saying the God at Delphi, right? It's in the discussion of moderation.

And so even there, and that might be the way in which philosophy, secretic philosophy might be both useful and noble is that he instills a kind of humility in the nerd by refuting him that that earns the admiration, I think, of the meathead that maybe could restore something like piety. But I mean, the nurse needs to have everything figured it out. So of course, he has no mention of the gods, right? It's somehow not necessary to the dialogue anymore.

Can I get that guppert second and we can cut this if you don't have any good answer. But like, do you have any like, I can't figure out any internal dating. Like there's, I can't figure out dramatic date. Okay.

And I have no suggestion for whose Socrates is narrating to. Like in the Republic, I'll say it seems to me that it's probably not being narrated to Plato, for example, because actually says, Oh, I was talking to Glaucon son of so and so, or Air Son. And it would be weird to say to somebody not, I was talking to your brother, or instead of like, I was talking to someone, so the son of so and so, yeah, that's my brother. I don't need to know who is, of course, I know his dad is so I can eliminate people from the Republic, but I can't, I can't posit anybody.

If you got a shot at that, go ahead. I mean, for dating, the only thing I can think of would be if you could somehow get a sense of when Dionysius was popular, it said, leak has a note about how Deontius Leartius says that Plato had a teacher named Dionysius. So if that's the case, it's active and this is meant to be a sort of Plato's reference to himself, and maybe we would put it from. I have heard that, but I couldn't remember where I found that, that this that the lovers is actually Plato's self, this Plato is the young boy.

I mean, that's, that's just gonna be hypothetical. I mean, it's in the notes, but what is? That's in the first stuff. Well, as regards the identity of the person, I think he or the Republic is helpful because in the Republic at certain points, Socrates will exaggerate the drama.

He makes their civicers look actually animalistic, even though we know he would imitate passions and everything you see of him makes you think that he acts surprised by glaucon's objection at the beginning of book two as though he didn't encourage it, obviously, by the argument. And so in a number of places, you get the sense that Socrates presents the conversation in a certain way that doesn't make sense of other details, and this might illuminate the character of the audience, not the specific identity. I think you could say something similar here, where it's clear that whoever he's saying this to would be familiar with Antichagoras or Enonopides, right? That he could just name them off hand and they would understand bi-elipses that they're referring to this.

Also, the way in which he talks about the the nerd as wise, sort of unironically in his narration makes me think that this audience would be inclined, perhaps, to this guy's exaggeration, which makes sense if they're familiar. So perhaps he's speaking to a kind of priestocratic type or somebody who's interested in priest-ecract. And so the other side of it might be maybe he's narrating it to play somebody who's familiar with this place with these authors, et cetera, who knows? Maybe he had an interesting priest-ecractic philosophy.

I don't know, but that in a minute seems to me to have to be the case, right? That said, he has a bit of a distance on the guy. He reveals his sort of psychological profiling of him, right? But again, he acts as though he's more initially more on this side than the other, right?

And so it suggests a sort of phone eye-evitating on Socrates' part. Is it worth going through the first argument in a little bit more detail? Is that something worthwhile? I mean, okay.

Well, the nerd suggests that philosophy is polymath-y learning a bunch of stuff. And Socrates sort of gets him by hook-up my courtesy of that. That's not right by saying, okay, so it's learning a lot of stuff. And he's like, that's right.

Okay. So what about with respect to athletics? Is that like doing a lot of exercise? And he's like, yeah, of course.

The nerd says, yeah, of course. But then, he turns to the meat head as you call him, the jock, and says, that right? And he's like, no, of course not. Eventually, he weighs away.

Like, you've got to do the measured amount, the right amount of exercise. And so like, okay, good enough, right? So you need to do the right amount of exercise. So then the analogy, I guess, would be, well, what's the measured amount of learning?

But then they're a couple more examples, but then they're all completely on a loss. So that's kind of the first line of argument, if you had something that I did skip over some stuff. So... An interesting point here is that in the Republic, when he talks about moderation in learning, there's nothing like that.

In fact, the philosopher wants to learn so much that he's moderated in everything else, right? The metric of the word for measured matrios in Greek can mean, according to the measure of the mean, what's the appropriate amount, which could be in all the time, or can mean very little, right? And he only introduces that when he brings in the meat head. So it seems to be a tactic.

He leads the meat head to make a remark that makes the nerve embarrassed after he was just being kind of ironic and heuristics. So it depends upon the knowledge between the body and the soul that may not hold. That clearly the body, there must be some limit to how much body can do with anything X, Y, or Z. Whereas the soul, maybe it's just different to speak of limits with respect to the soul and respect to the body.

Yeah, very good. Yeah. And if you exercise too much, you actually harm your body, right? You can tear up also and say, is there something like that with thinking?

Like, if you can think so much, that he or do you just get like sleepy? Well, I mean, that's not that. Can't you? Can't you just like, you're tired?

I'm sorry. You go up to the abyss and it looks into you and you're just meant like literally the same thing. Like, dude, you need to stop reading me. Like, I can't say, especially now that I've gotten a little older, like, I just don't have the stamina to go in at all night long.

Like I did when I was in my twenties, I just, I can't do it. We're reading, we're talking about it. Of course. All right.

What else would I be talking about? Jeez. I mean, when I was a young man, I could go all night long, like, and then get up and go to class the next day and then do it all over again. I could read three, four times in a day.

Sometimes I'd only take a five minute break between them. Yeah. Occasionally I'd take like a five hour energy drink to keep going, but you know, you mean, Alex, you could read multiple books. I want to speak fat books.

I don't have them both open, but really, I was only paying attention to one at a time. That just kind of was for looks, right? And sometimes the books are regular books. Sometimes they have that little thing dangling out the down the middle, you know, that allows you to, you know, anything, you know, yeah.

But now it's like, okay, I need to do that. I love about Alex's. Alex is never satisfied with leaving it at innuendo. He's never ever satisfied with innuendo.

He likes it in his endo. What about the second line of argument that it's all the arts? You go into a group. I mean, our nerd again says that it's all he says literally it's all the arts.

You have the greatest reputation if he learned all, well, he says first he should learn the noblest ones, then the most fitting ones, and then the ones from which one might get the greatest reputation. And then he says all the arts, or at least the no worthy arts. And then Sock just kind of goes through all these and shows, well, again, you just kind of have this second best guy, like this, the philosopher, just the guy who's not as good as the doctor, not as good as a mechanic, not as good as the, you know, the jiu jitsu coach. And then we kind of, this changes tracks a little bit and gets into this question of useless and wicked.

And so the idea is, well, the philosopher's noble because he's useful. But if you had a doctor who knew medicine, surely you'd have to doctor first. And so even if the philosopher's like the second best physician, you're not going to use him. And therefore he's useless.

And then this culminates in, well, so are we going to say that he doesn't, he doesn't say this, he doesn't say this, he doesn't say this, or we're going to say therefore that the philosopher's is totally useless. Or is that too rude of a question to ask? And then we get this really interesting line of thought. I don't know if you want to jump in there, but where Socrates talks about, he says, I suspect that your line of argument isn't right.

And I think that philosophy might have something more to do with punishing correctly. Like what in the world? And then he talks about punishing horses and punishing dogs. And that's, that's what really we're talking about.

And so therefore philosophy is like this dog and horse punishing, by the way, I really excited to wear this mic. But don't worry, that's about the extent of discussion that we get here. Now, there's, I don't know if you want to return to this or if you want to talk about it now, but this focusing on punishing horses and dogs, I think what's, what's being elided over here is the notion that dogs and horses aren't punished for the sake of the dog or the horse. The dog and horse is punished for the sake of the dog owner and the horse owner.

Because then he moves into politics, which then it's in my mind, if you're paying attention, should raise the question. So we're talking about justice as the correct punishment of citizens. Well, hold on. Am I being punished like a horse and a dog or being punished for the sake of the horse master, the dog master?

Or am I being punished for my own sake? That gets justice introduced, then we get moderation introduced by hook and by crux, I guess it's just to see that the Delphic Oracle commands you to be just and moderate. It seems, all this seems completely crazy to me. And then I'm babbling to go ahead and I'll just do those two arguments.

Let me suggest one way in which you could give a serious reinterpretation of each first. A serious reinterpretation of each argument, the first one about, so the way that the nerd understands, so philosophy is supposed to be noble and that means also good and that means useful in some way. And the way in which he understands useful is that it's useful for others, right? Like you're trying to pronounce others.

It strikes me it might be very useful to the philosopher to the philosopher to know certain ordinary arts for the sake of his own independence. Right? It might be helpful to know certain things so that you don't have to be involved in other people's affairs so much. That's one thought I had on that.

I'm not sure where to go with that. The second consideration, it turns out that I think you could see philosophy as punitive and making better, at least in the case of this dialogue itself, where Socrates, he makes the nerd ashamed, he makes him blush, right? He gets him to be in a kind of war and that induces a kind of measured version of philosophy or kind of moderation that is sort of humbling. And in that sense, I think that's part of why he wins everybody over.

I think these, they use, obviously, I think this guy is ridiculous, but the obvious thing that Jock is too dismissive of their sort of intellectual interests. I don't know. There's a kind of good punishment going on, at least in Socrates' reputation. Don't you think, at least in this case?

I guess so, but I would only then go back to the notion that I don't think that the punishment is for the sake of the nerd. It's for the sake of the boys, I think. Do you think it has any benefit for the nerd? He doesn't even humbler by the end of the dialogue.

He's silent. Yeah, fine. I mean, we don't see anything like, I don't know, I mean, it's definitely possibility, but I'd need more. It could just be temporary, for example.

I mean, he washes at the state of his body and then he's ashamed at the state of his soul, but I don't know. That seems like a progress. Yeah, that's fair. The second line of argument was there more to say there?

So let me tie this to the noble thing. Maybe this will be helpful. So, and the useful, I don't know if this is, I don't know if we do this quickly this late at night, but so the nerd seems to presuppose that philosophy is noble and useful. But with respect to the training of horses and dogs, who is the utility for seems to be what's at stake?

And so there's some question and you've alluded to this several times, the idea that philosophy not only noble, but noble and good. And so it's precisely this yoking of noble and good that seems to be at stake. And so I'm wondering if the boys would then think, is the training that we receive at the hands of the city noble and good? And so therefore, you're led to a study of political and moral matters, which would then turn you back to philosophy of the natural world, perhaps at the end.

Once you thought through this noble, because as we already mentioned a few minutes ago, it's the noble and great, the nobility and greatness of astronomy that is why the boys seem to be studying it in the first place. So Socrates and to it, by the way, that what's attracted to these boys about the study of the heavenly bodies is its nobility and greatness, which seems to be confirmed when their curiosity is peaked, when he sort of raises the possibility of philosophy might not be noble, or is noble and the jock help calls it shameful? And so then the question would be, do they return to this after they've had this conversation with Socrates? Let me try this slightly way.

I don't know if this. The dialogue seems to end with a success that Socrates has won everybody over, or silence them or won them over. But the success, it seems a little hollow to me. I mean, it doesn't seem earned.

We don't know what philosophy is, for example. It seems like the boys are on Socrates's side, but I'm not sure why. I mean, let me one question to ask is what would happen if the dialogue continued, and it might well happen. This is just where Plato stops it.

The question I left with is something like this, that there is punishment, punishment properly understood, right, ought to make that which is punished better, right? It should be corrective in the way that we speak of like, for instance, correctional institutions, even though they seem to make people worse, right? And that might be the sort of observation. The question is, okay, where is this actually achieved?

And that question, I think arises naturally from what's been stated. And it would suggest that perhaps the youth would understand that in socratic reputation, right, or in this kind of humbling through argument, Socrates induces something that is painful, like punishment, and yet beneficial, right? And it might be that what distinguishes the philosopher from the King tyrant, political man, household manager, etc., that induces moderation and justice would be something like reputation. So perhaps, it's hollow because there's a step missing, right?

And which is an assessment of where this ideal, or where this standard is achieved in actual, and that might be a basis on which you could rescue the nobility of philosophy in this very limited sense, not in this majesty of the cosmos sense, but in this humbling sense, but not rescue these other activities. So it would lead to a critique of the noble in the political sense. So next is directly to the noble or next is to justice and moderation, you think, what's the next step? To see the nobility of philosophy inducing a kind of justice or moderation in the arrogance of the nerd?

Would you do a bunch of the nerds as an episode? What do you think of that? Actually, sounds like a great idea. I think there's this isn't a series of films.

Yeah. What else we have? I mean, we can return to this final theme I have, which is there's this weird way in which Socrates, I guess I stress this already, but there's this way in which the young boys are already doing what socratic philosophy may end up being about, but they're just not doing it having thought through the presuppositions. And so it's like, okay, you've got to do this other thing, and then you can go back to that.

It seems to me, I don't know if that's right, I don't know if I said that to you, but I thought it off. So let me so they will do what you said, I guess they'll do with greater self-awareness. Yeah, I think so. They were drawn in by that, which is a sign of the favor that they would consider the question merited at least when Socrates raises it, not this jock.

Right. Yeah. Let me throw out another thought. When Socrates is talking about who you'd prefer, the expert artisan or the sort of dabbler philosopher, he mentions the philosopher as doctor and then the philosopher as captain of a ship.

Those are metaphors used to philosophy in the carmities and republic to other socratic, lemme say, narrative dialogues. The one that's missing is the philosopher as you know, potential friend, right, or whether friendship and philosophy goes together. And that might be what picks up from the theme of love is the friendship. And their Socrates goes in to a conversation being a sort of pickup artist for hypotheses, right?

And he plays the role of lover and eventually undermines sort of his erotic sort of manipulation through reputation. So I wonder whether that's a suggestion by Plato about the order of much they should be read. Obviously comedies is first in dramatic date than the republic. And then this would suggest that lovers and then the lysis would be last.

That's one sort of possible interpretation of those weird references that are made. Yeah. A lot more. Do you?

I'm good. This is a short episode. Is it? I think we got closer to our hour.

Do it really? Yeah, we ended the last one. I think we're good. Oh, all right.

Well, in that case, like rate, subscribe, send pics of your rival in love. Yes. How about this tweet at us? Which of us three you would take as your lover?

No, no, don't do that. Yeah, tweet at us. Say Greg Alex or David, who would you rather? Yeah, make only one of us is on the market.

I think it's still want us as a lover. It doesn't mean we have to comply. Can I go where you go? I will comply.

Can we always be this close forever and ever? Take me out, take me home forever and ever. You're my my my lover. You guys aren't with these?

No. It's a song lover by Taylor Swift. I assume that it was inspired by Plato's dialogue, the lovers. Do you actually listen to us, Greg?

That's a really concern. Yeah, I do. Yeah. I must be the boys know who they can go get.

They're a lover. Man, you might be glad you're going to a place where dangerous idea. Yeah, you're doing yourself out. Yeah, I'm getting out of here.

I need to stop this. Don't forget to like, rate, subscribe. This is now like we're done like 33 dialogues. We only have one or two more.

Let me die. Let me die. We'll do the feeder for the last one and kill ourselves. That sounds like good.

No. Dude, that would be great. It's like the, was it the Jones, not Jones, Dan and Dom. Are they trying to coo late?

Jim Jones, no. Yeah, that's right. Jones down. Yeah.

Yeah. We're like, hey, guys, it's an in person. It's an in person discussion. And we're like, let's have some cocktails.

And then Alex is like, wild card. I think Craig, you and I died. But of course, Alex lives. Jerk.

Yeah. All right. Go the website and buy stuff. Yeah.

All right. See you later. Arasai. Place out, Greg.