[MD] Plato's Good

[Tuukka Virtaperko]

Mark, Ant

Ant is right. Quality cannot be encapsulated into a definition. Chapter 
29 of ZAMM:

"Why destroy areté? And no sooner had he asked the question than the 
answer came to him. Plato hadn't tried to destroy areté. He had 
encapsulated it; made a permanent, fixed Idea out of it; had converted 
it to a rigid, immobile Immortal Truth. He made areté the Good, the 
highest form, the highest Idea of all. It was subordinate only to Truth 
itself, in a synthesis of all that had gone before."

Plato didn't try to destroy areté, but did so by accident.

Best regards,
Tuukka



> Mark Smit stated May 7th 2012:
>
> Ant, tell me what the problem with Plato was.  His "Good"
> is the same thing as Pirsig's Quality.
>
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Well Mark,
>
> Not according to Pirsig they're not.  I don't know whether you really believe this statement of yours or just haven't read the material in question            but (to paraphrase) Pirsig states that his Quality is fundamentally Dynamic and indefinable while Plato's Good is a static Form that (supposedly) can be defined.  Plato's "Republic" refers to the Good in a couple of places and what he says here does tend to support Pirsig's view.  In my honest opinion.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Ant
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