[MD] irony and socrates

[John Carl]

Matt,
There was another issue which came up in my reading  about Bloom , and that
is the problem of Christian interpretation of Plato in all the old texts.

So we have Greek thought and influence upon early christian thinking, and
then much later we have christian reinterpreting of greek texts;  back and
forth, the pendulum swings.  The interplay and synthesis of socially
reinterpreted intellectual evolution is a snake biting its tail with no
telling where that tail even is anymore, it's been so deeply swallowed.

I'm with Ian on this one.


On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Matt Kundert
<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> Leo Strauss had some very insightful things to say about Plato and the
> Greeks, but the Straussians as a whole are tainted by the fact that they
> think Plato is esoteric--they think there is a quite hidden message in the
> Platonic dialogues that only an obscure way of reading can unlock, and
> they've found it.  They don't think Plato was ever saying anything he said,
> but rather meaning something quite different (that only Strauss taught
> readers have ever figured out, apparently).  Like saying that the Republic
> is neither about the City nor the Soul, but just the Philosopher.  That's a
> pretty extravagant claim, and fairly needless.
>
>
I would agree the claim is needless, but not because it's extravagant but
because it's obvious.

The Republic is about a fantasyland existing in the mind of the writer. It
is about the philosopher, his world, his times, his observations.  Show me a
man's world and you show me the man.



> The best discussion of irony and Socrates and Plato I have ever read is the
> first three chapters of Alexander Nehamas' The Art of Living.  He makes the
> very important point that while irony is often read as "meaning the opposite
> of what you said," irony is rather like a mask in which you just mean
> something _different_, with no real indication of what it might be.  And
> it's a mask that covers not only the audience, but also the speaker (which
> is the really disturbing thing).
>
> Matt
>

Disturbing, and yet exhilarating, no?  Bringing that mask to consciousness
is what "know thyself" is all about.   which only occurs in relation to
others who give you context and feedback, which is the communitarian stance
on the subject.

John