(February 3, 2018 at 9:28 am)Brian37 Wrote: You went into more detail than I was addressing. All I was talking about was his idea of valuing questioning. But again, in doing that he also came up with the idea of "essence" and as Dawkins said, and I agree, that took of among philosophers but ended up infecting politics and religion. Plato had no way of understanding what modern science was as far as methodology, control groups and peer review.
But even today I would agree with Plato, even today there are humans whom are perfectly content being uneducated.
Plato was just dead wrong about a lot of things. But then again, you and I aren't the types to consider any book "the source of inerrant truth" are we?
Part of getting the most out of Plato is realizing that his works are a basket of good ideas and bad ideas. You could write a 50 page paper on whether Plato's influence on western history was a good thing or not. Inasmuch as his bad ideas influenced history, he was a negative influence. But he had good ideas too.
