Plato

My favorite philosophers are Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Plato. You might be familiar with Plato’s dialogues?
One of the distinctions that Plato often spoke on was the difference between a philosopher and a
“sophist”. Nowadays, sophistry is best demonstrated in the courts, and indeed, in ancient Greece sophists
were basically lawyers. The Athenians, in Plato’s time, had a democracy, which was direct representation,
in other words, there were no legislatures – everyone had equal say and everyone voted on everything
[The reason this was possible is that only citizens could vote which meant no slaves – the slaves were not
as in America based upon race, but were from other conquered peoples – often they were from other parts
of Greece! If you lost in a war, you became a slave to the victor – no women also, and no non-Athenians.
Unlike the USA as well, being born in Athens, even if you were not a slave, or a woman, did not mean
you were a citizen. Rather, citizenship was hereditary. Thus, only about 200-400 people in Athens were
citizens. Of course, direct democracy requires a small number of people]. Now, if you are the rich
landowner , or a general who wants to go into a battle, you must first convince all of the citizens that you
are right. So, you’d hire a teacher in sophistry who would argue your case for you. He would use
“rhetoric” in order to persuade the citizens and presto! – the first lawyers. But, what Plato asked, via the
endlessly interesting figure of Socrates was: “What is the function of the sophist?” The sophist , or lawyer
in our present era, attempts to convince people [a jury]. But a sophist is not concerned with the truth. In
fact, the truth may be his enemy, depending on his position in a controversy. Rather, a sophist is only
concerned with persuasion and will use whatever arguments possible to prevail. On the other hand, a
philosopher is a lover of truth, so the issue would always be: “What is true?” “What is the right thing to
do?” Socrates refused to accept money for his teaching because he said that if he accepted money then he
would be compromised to find a truth based on the interests of where that money came from
[Interestingly, Plato – his student and scribe as Socrates never wrote that we know about – started a
school, The Academy, and did accept money].

		“The Truth” by Timothy Greenlee

	Of course, the devastating consequence of this state of affairs is that the poor of society end up with little or no defense. For Socrates, what is damning about lawyers is that they pass off what is false for what is true. That is, they don’t say “I am saying this because so-and-so is paying me and it is in his best interests”, but rather they say “this is true”. But, the issue should always be, for all people, WHAT IS TRUE? For Socrates, the true and the good were the same thing. In the Socratic mindset, it is not possible for one to be an intelligent, bad person – if you are bad then you must still be lacking some wisdom – because true intelligence – THE TRUTH – is always also good [and beautiful too]. It follows from this that people are bad, not because they are evil, but because they are ignorant. Once you know the truth, Socrates thought you would necessarily do the right thing. Lawyers, then, are the last people on the planet who should be involved in deciding a man’s fate since they are trained not to look for the truth, but to look to win a case. An interesting dialogue on this point is Plato’s Euthyphro.

TO BE IS TO DO – Nietzsche TO DO IS TO BE – Russell DO BE DO BE DO – Sinatra ;-)
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			Timothy Greenlee #865760 W.V.C.F P.O. Box 1111 Carlisle, IN 47838