People in a Crowd

I put in bold what is important about the text below because I know it's long. If you read the bold you will get a good idea of what I'm trying to say. But what do you think about what I have said?

When I read writings on Socrates I was surprised when he talked about how the many are dim witted. This seems rather conceited and arrogant to assume you are smarter than most people. I mean, even if you are, I wouldn't suggest dwelling on that fact. It would be a better use of that smart brain to do smart things instead of marvel at how smart you are.

I realize now that I was foolish. The term is not used to say that only a few people are smart and most others are dumb. It is used to describe how people act when they are in a mob. People in a crowd start thinking less and worry more about how they appear to the crowd.

I came to this realization suddenly a day after I went to a soccer match. I did not stand up during the national anthem. I did not stand to protest of anything. I did not stand because the act of standing means nothing to me. If the national anthem came on the television I would not get off the couch and stand. I would wager that this is true for many of the people at this sporting event. So why do they stand? The answer is so that other people see their standing. Once in a crowd, one must convert a lot of thinking and actions to acting like the crowd. It is very possible to be saying things you are not actually saying if you are not aware of how you are acting in a crowd and lost in yourself.

The day after the match my parents confronted me as they were upset. They conjured many reasons that I stayed seated. Of course all of this was in their head. People normally do not fantasize about why people are sitting down, but they do if everyone else is standing up. In a crowd you must do and say things that you don't mean just to keep other people from assuming you are saying something you don't mean. It seems like a silly situation and I can see why many philosophers look down at people acting in a crowd. When you behave in a crowd you are thinking about what other people are thinking about you and not about other things. It is like having a conversation with people but a conversation where you are saying something with hopes to say nothing.

i think i get what you are saying, but remember that humans are a very social species. we function in groups, and feel the need subconciously to conform lest we be persecuted for being different.

that being said, i think you misinterpreted socrates's message. the oracle at delphi told him he was the smartest person, and socrates determined it was not his knowledge that was making him smart. "the wisest man is he who knows that he knows not" was what he came up with, meaning the person who knows and accepts that they are vastly ignorant is smarter than prideful experts on knowledge.

I do not recall group mantality being part of this, but it is an interesting interpretation of it. thinking of this, i can see what you mean. why do/dont we stand? then again, to some extent there are ways to deviate from the flock in an individual way like you did.

also: the bold itself did not help, i just read it. in addition, the last bit was confusing...

I thought this was very profound, Grogberries, thanks for posting.

I believe that there is a certain quality of human character which allows people to avoid going with the flow in this way, and furthermore that it can be taught and fostered through proper education and upbringing. I think it's really unfortunate that we don't live in a society which feels it is able to bring up very many adults who are capable of going against the grain.

that being said, i think you misinterpreted socrates's message. the oracle at delphi told him he was the smartest person, and socrates determined it was not his knowledge that was making him smart. "the wisest man is he who knows that he knows not" was what he came up with, meaning the person who knows and accepts that they are vastly ignorant is smarter than prideful experts on knowledge.

You have to bear in mind, of course, the literary context of most Socratic dialogues. Socrates as he is available to contemporary scholars is almost always just a vessel for the views of Plato. Socrates' admittance of total ignorance is unconvincing given the highly developed and cohesive models of psychology, metaphysics and ethics which he is often made to support.

Maybe the smartest thing to do is blend in with a crowd. In your soccer match example, you stood apart from everybody else (err.. by not actually standing up, I probably should have used a different term) and suffered a negative consequence - your parents thinking whatever they thought. It might have been a better idea for you just to copy everybody else.

In a real mob situation it's probably pretty dangerous to look like an individual.

that being said, i think you misinterpreted socrates's message. the oracle at delphi told him he was the smartest person, and socrates determined it was not his knowledge that was making him smart. "the wisest man is he who knows that he knows not" was what he came up with, meaning the person who knows and accepts that they are vastly ignorant is smarter than prideful experts on knowledge.

The oracle did not say Socrates was the wisest person, but that no one else was as wise as him. It Socrates was a car salesman, it would be like saying no other car salesman is as honest as Socrates. That doesn't me Socrates is honest, but more honest than the rest. Also, the oracle does not go into what wisdom is. Socrates later finds that other people know much more about particular things than Socrates does, but they don't know what Socrates does which is that we know next to nothing which is what wisdom is. It is not saying socrates is better than everyone else. In many cases it is good not to be wise. There is also a distinction between knowledge and wisdom.

But the apology of socrates does not mention in particular the many, or at least I don't recall it doing so. Well it sort of does, but he is talking to the many and not talking about the many to someone else. Plato does it more in the Crito, or at least more explicitly. That is what I was thinking about when I wrote the what I did.

Maybe the smartest thing to do is blend in with a crowd. In your soccer match example, you stood apart from everybody else (err.. by not actually standing up, I probably should have used a different term) and suffered a negative consequence - your parents thinking whatever they thought. It might have been a better idea for you just to copy everybody else.

In a real mob situation it's probably pretty dangerous to look like an individual.

I think we are on the wrong page. When I say mob, I do not mean an unruly mob. It is more accurate to think of it as a group of people thinking like one person. Blending in would be participating in 'the many' and you become less and less responsible for your thoughts and actions.

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My point was not to raise ethical concerns of being part of 'the many' but how inefficient it is because you constantly have to interrupt yourself and think how 'the many' are viewing you. The thoughts you consume trying to blend in could be used for different thinks. And you actually have to do things you don't mean to keep people from assuming you are saying something. You constantly have to 'talk' (standing is a visual form of talking) with the others to say nothing. Why use all this energy to say nothing? I am perplexed about how much human communication is meaningless and just maintenance of appearance. I think the reason Socrates rejected it was because he was all about communicating ideas. 'The many' are just interested in propagating an image of themself. You can't really have an intelligent conversation that way. It lacks the trait of inquiry and it is the least curious type of speech.

Quote from: The One True Rat on July 12, 2009, 04:04:02 PM

that being said, i think you misinterpreted socrates's message. the oracle at delphi told him he was the smartest person, and socrates determined it was not his knowledge that was making him smart. "the wisest man is he who knows that he knows not" was what he came up with, meaning the person who knows and accepts that they are vastly ignorant is smarter than prideful experts on knowledge.

You have to bear in mind, of course, the literary context of most Socratic dialogues. Socrates as he is available to contemporary scholars is almost always just a vessel for the views of Plato. Socrates' admittance of total ignorance is unconvincing given the highly developed and cohesive models of psychology, metaphysics and ethics which he is often made to support.

This is true enough, but it's worth pointing out that not all of the Socratic dialogues were written by Plato, and through comparison with the works of Xenophon (as well as some of the other Greek literature and plays of the age) it is possible to build up some idea of what Socrates really did and said. His claim of 'wisdom in ignorance' was almost certainly a claim he really made (though it is clearly more of a thought excercise than any genuine claim of ignorance, as you say).


As for your point grogberries, you are essentially correct. You should also remember that the Athenian version of democracy was very different to its modern form, and so though Socrates' judgment of 'the mob' may occasionally seem too harsh, it is a contextual judgement. In Athens, there was no 'representative democracy' as we know it; all voting citizens were entitled to attend the assembly and vote at every session. Thus when Socrates/Plato talk about the mob, they mean it quite literally- the Athenian assembly would have been a bunch of politicians trying to sway an actual, literal mob.


If you want read another critic of 'the mob', I highly recommend reading Nietzsche, in particular his seminal work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He critiques not only the behaviour of people within a mob, but also 'mass culture' as a whole. Here's an excellent piece on Nietzsche's views of mass culture by Douglas Kellner:


http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell22.htm


It's quite long, but worth reading if you're interested in this sort of thing.

I have always wondered why we have to stand for the National Anthem, and why they even play them at sporting events.

This is true enough, but it's worth pointing out that not all of the Socratic dialogues were written by Plato, and through comparison with the works of Xenophon (as well as some of the other Greek literature and plays of the age) it is possible to build up some idea of what Socrates really did and said. His claim of 'wisdom in ignorance' was almost certainly a claim he really made (though it is clearly more of a thought excercise than any genuine claim of ignorance, as you say).

There is also a comical play written by Aristophanes that is called Clouds. It is not really a philosophical text but sort of a negative criticism of socrates. Much of what is put in a negative light is what he was put on trial.

As for your point grogberries, you are essentially correct. You should also remember that the Athenian version of democracy was very different to its modern form, and so though Socrates' judgment of 'the mob' may occasionally seem too harsh, it is a contextual judgement. In Athens, there was no 'representative democracy' as we know it; all voting citizens were entitled to attend the assembly and vote at every session. Thus when Socrates/Plato talk about the mob, they mean it quite literally- the Athenian assembly would have been a bunch of politicians trying to sway an actual, literal mob.

First of all please consider that I refer to Plato's Crito for 'the many' and not The Apology of Socrates. But yus, the people who condemned Socrates would only be those who were wealthy enough to take a day at the trial. Most people had to work for a living! But Socrates does not reprimand the government structure or the wealth of the people present. On the contrary he is indifferent to it. What upsets Socrates the most was how little time was spent on the decision. I read a very fascinating book on Ancient Greek and Roman societies called the Ancient City by Numa Denis Fustel De Coulanges. I highly recommend it. He goes into great detail about the dynamic political structures of those ancient civilisations. Did I say I recommend it? Because I really do. It's great. Read it.

The Crito is more focused on why Socrates doesn't escape from jail and go into exile. It would have been easy to do because most people in Athens were upset about outcome of the trial and he had lots of wealthy friends to hush the guards. In this dialogue Socrates speaks with his long time friend Crito who comes for the last chance' to persuade Socrates to escape before his execution. One of the main reasons Socrates states he will not escape is that he would be participating in 'the many.'

If you want read another critic of 'the mob', I highly recommend reading Nietzsche, in particular his seminal work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He critiques not only the behaviour of people within a mob, but also 'mass culture' as a whole. Here's an excellent piece on Nietzsche's views of mass culture by Douglas Kellner:


http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell22.htm


It's quite long, but worth reading if you're interested in this sort of thing.

I have read On the Genealogy of Morality and I an currently trouncing through Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche is what has fueled my thoughts and caused the light bulb to go on.

First of all please consider that I refer to Plato's Crito for 'the many' and not The Apology of Socrates. But yus, the people who condemned Socrates would only be those who were wealthy enough to take a day at the trial. Most people had to work for a living! But Socrates does not reprimand the government structure or the wealth of the people present. On the contrary he is indifferent to it. What upsets Socrates the most was how little time was spent on the decision. I read a very fascinating book on Ancient Greek and Roman societies called the Ancient City by Numa Denis Fustel De Coulanges. I highly recommend it. He goes into great detail about the dynamic political structures of those ancient civilisations. Did I say I recommend it? Because I really do. It's great. Read it.

The Crito is more focused on why Socrates doesn't escape from jail and go into exile. It would have been easy to do because most people in Athens were upset about outcome of the trial and he had lots of wealthy friends to hush the guards. In this dialogue Socrates speaks with his long time friend Crito who comes for the last chance' to persuade Socrates to escape before his execution. One of the main reasons Socrates states he will not escape is that he would be participating in 'the many.'

Oh, I have read the Crito (indeed I re-read it fairly recently), but I whilst Socrates is critical of 'the many', it's a little more nuanced than a direct criticism of their actions. Socrates arrives at certain principles and beliefs, and having done so feels that he cannot behave in a way that would contradict those principles and beliefs having arrived at them. As such, Socrates is not so much critical of the way people behave, but the beliefs that lead them to behave this way. He is happy to die because he believes that thanks to his life-long pursuit of wisdom and truth, a glorious afterlife awaits him, whereas the average Greek believed that regardless of his/her actions in this life, the afterlife would be a pale shadow of the one he/she had departed from.

Oh, I have read the Crito (indeed I re-read it fairly recently), but I whilst Socrates is critical of 'the many', it's a little more nuanced than a direct criticism of their actions. Socrates arrives at certain principles and beliefs, and having done so feels that he cannot behave in a way that would contradict those principles and beliefs having arrived at them. As such, Socrates is not so much critical of the way people behave, but the beliefs that lead them to behave this way. He is happy to die because he believes that thanks to his life-long pursuit of wisdom and truth, a glorious afterlife awaits him, whereas the average Greek believed that regardless of his/her actions in this life, the afterlife would be a pale shadow of the one he/she had departed from.

I have to disagree with your synopsis. I find it hard to pin down a 'belief' of Socrates. All of his dialogues are ad hominid so each dialogue is directed at a certain kind of person. For instance, in Pheado Socrates claims the immortal soul is the key while in the Symposium he states it is the body that is key. As you can see, he is a slippery character. I do not think this is just some brain fart of Plato either. There are indicators that it was diliberately this way. Consider that the Pheado takes place in the morning while the Symposium is a drinking party that goes on at night. Even the settings are a foil.

Socrates is not trying to prove anything but instead simply trying to get Crito to think. Overall, I think Socrates' message is to think and never be satisfied with the answers you get. His message promotes living life deliberately and inquisitively which directly contradicts thinking like 'the many.' Or at least that is what I took from it.

Oh, his beliefs are very slippery, and as you say, sometimes incompatible and even contradictory, but within a particular dialogue his actions/theories are based on particular on principles or beliefs he arrives at through discussion. Within the context of a given dialogue, Socrates usually starts off probing whether or not a given belief is true or untrue, and having established that it is true (in those instances where it is), applies the principle to the subject under discussion.

Now, Plato's dialogues are often inconsistent, and you are right in saying that he often uses theoretical individuals as the basis for his attacks. However, in my opinion Plato (and by extension, Socrates) appears to believe that given the right principles and beliefs, men will in general behave and act in the right way (see The Republic). For this reason I feel that Plato does not so much criticise 'the many' as criticise the beliefs of the many.

Of course, there is an implied criticism within that, in the sense that Plato never lays the blame for their beliefs on anyone else, so that they themselves must be to blame for believing what they do. Nevertheless, he clearly thinks that given the right principles, 'the many' need not be so foolish. Though they are in fact ruled by the Guardians in The Republic, he clearly feels that 'the many' will naturally see the advantages of such rule and accept it, provided their principles are sound.

Oh, his beliefs are very slippery, and as you say, sometimes incompatible and even contradictory, but within a particular dialogue his actions/theories are based on particular on principles or beliefs he arrives at through discussion. Within the context of a given dialogue, Socrates usually starts off probing whether or not a given belief is true or untrue, and having established that it is true (in those instances where it is), applies the principle to the subject under discussion.

Now, Plato's dialogues are often inconsistent, and you are right in saying that he often uses theoretical individuals as the basis for his attacks. However, in my opinion Plato (and by extension, Socrates) appears to believe that given the right principles and beliefs, men will in general behave and act in the right way (see The Republic). For this reason I feel that Plato does not so much criticise 'the many' as criticise the beliefs of the many.

Of course, there is an implied criticism within that, in the sense that Plato never lays the blame for their beliefs on anyone else, so that they themselves must be to blame for believing what they do. Nevertheless, he clearly thinks that given the right principles, 'the many' need not be so foolish. Though they are in fact ruled by the Guardians in The Republic, he clearly feels that 'the many' will naturally see the advantages of such rule and accept it, provided their principles are sound.

Again, I would hesitate to use the word beliefs. Socrates is not about believing, but thinking. I would also argue that the dialogues are not contradictory. What happens in all of them is this:  there is something happening, a discussion arises at what is happening, Socrates raises questions that involve the particular party's prejudices, after a long discussion they still don't understand Socrates, and finally Socrates ends with a myth that satisfies his audience. In this, Socrates is trying to give his audience insight into how to be wise, but to an audience who still have their ears closed. I think maybe this could explain why Plato doesn't include himself in much of the dialogues, because it would make him look like a fool. All the audience wants is a concise story they can hide behind as truth. This is why Socrates' ideas seem to bobble around. The people he is with do not understand what he is getting at.  The dialogues are not treatises but a dialectic. Plato should be read in a different way than Descartes.

In order to have wisdom, one must move away from the crowd mentality. One must take responsibility for their thoughts and realise their life is strangely their own. We all percieve reality through special equipment that makes it's own meaning. It is silly to take someone else's meaning and perceptions and forget about your own. Socrates' body and mind perceives the world differently than mine. It seems unlikely that people perceive life the same as our recounts of life are always so different.  A wise person will come to their own conclusions about things and not have to feel the need to adopt strange myths.

I suppose 'belief' is a poor word to use, but principle certainly applies (indeed it is used/translated in the dialogues). Also, I didn't mean the dialogues were inherently contradictory, just that some dialogues (as you said) are imcompatible with others.

In order to have wisdom, one must move away from the crowd mentality. One must take responsibility for their thoughts and realise their life is strangely their own. A wise person will come to their own conclusions about things and not have to feel the need to adopt strange myths.

I would dispute this to some degree. Socrates clearly advocates the use of myths or 'noble lies', both in the Crito and The Republic, and indeed advocates their use to create a common route to wisdom. Plato's Socrates was not an individualist, and did not so much advocate thinking for oneself as thinking in the right way. Make no mistake, Plato believed that the conclusions he had reached were correct, and he would not advocate you reaching your own conclusions unless you could prove they were correct and that his were wrong!


By the way, this is a good discussion!

I suppose 'belief' is a poor word to use, but principle certainly applies (indeed it is used/translated in the dialogues). Also, I didn't mean the dialogues were inherently contradictory, just that some dialogues (as you said) are imcompatible with others.

To me the only word that would suffice would be argument or possibly idea (or as Plato puts it form). Principle indicates some kind of dogma or something universal when I think it should be personal.

I would dispute this to some degree. Socrates clearly advocates the use of myths or 'noble lies', both in the Crito and The Republic, and indeed advocates their use to create a common route to wisdom. Plato's Socrates was not an individualist, and did not so much advocate thinking for oneself as thinking in the right way. Make no mistake, Plato believed that the conclusions he had reached were correct, and he would not advocate you reaching your own conclusions unless you could prove they were correct and that his were wrong!

It is true that the narrator in the dialogues always agrees with Socrates. But the narrator is not Plato but some other person who is retelling their account of Socrates. It is usually someone who greatly admires Socrates and might perhaps be blinded by their affection or at least respect towards Socrates. I am not convinced that Plato was won over by Socrates' arguements.

We are demonstrating what I think the dialogues teach right now! We both have read the same material but we have conjured two wildly different meanings from it. Now we, with our two different perspectives, are sharing our two different experiences. And as Socrates says, no argument is perfect but there is always something to gather from it. Philosophy is largely based on the event of two or more people discussing and learning how bizarre someone else's world is and that that someone else's world is not yours but you can learn from it and learn what that makes of your own world that you have created for yourself. Thinking as a mob destroys this realisation. Everyone's world is made into one.

By the way, this is a good discussion!

Ah yus! It is most invigorating! Socrates still works his magic some thousands of years past his death.

This might be off-topic, but I remain convinced that non-conformity does not and cannot possibly exist. By not conforming to the group A, you are conforming to a separate group of people who do not wish to conform to group A. That is conformity.

Now, you are correct that you are no longer yourself or saying nothing when you follow the people, but what if my personal beliefs seem to agree with them? I do not care what the crowd is saying: it's just that what I am saying is similar or equivalent to what the crowd is saying or vice versa. Thus, although it appears that I am following them, I am still speaking for myself, and I take responsibility for it. In situations it seems I am compelled or tempted to follow the group of the people, but sometimes I follow the group simply because I decided to and not because I am forced to. I am not sure if this is what you want me to say.


Jack

I have to disagree with your synopsis. I find it hard to pin down a 'belief' of Socrates. All of his dialogues are ad hominid so each dialogue is directed at a certain kind of person. For instance, in Pheado Socrates claims the immortal soul is the key while in the Symposium he states it is the body that is key. As you can see, he is a slippery character. I do not think this is just some brain fart of Plato either. There are indicators that it was diliberately this way. Consider that the Pheado takes place in the morning while the Symposium is a drinking party that goes on at night. Even the settings are a foil.

There's more to the Symposium than that, and to be honest, it is in line with his other views. For one thing, Socrates judges spiritual 'pregnancy' to be superior to physical begetting of children. So we're left with the notion that love is the perpetuation of the immortal soul through the birth of ideas and communion with the true and eternal form of Beauty (at the end of the 'ladder of love'). I really do believe Socrates presents a pretty cohesive, consistent model of philosophy and psychology throughout the dialogues, and that this model is none other than Plato's - it is at best an approximant of what the 'historical' Socrates would have said, at worst, it's just Plato dumping his views into what amounts to a fictional charater.

I feel that whilst Plato's overrall philosophy is generally consistent, some of the reasoning behind it is not. I honestly can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but some of his arguments and the principles he arrives at are inconsistent with other arguments and principles he arrives at. His conclusions always sit well with each other, but sometimes the route is not so cut and dry.

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on July 13, 2009, 06:09:02 PM

I suppose 'belief' is a poor word to use, but principle certainly applies (indeed it is used/translated in the dialogues). Also, I didn't mean the dialogues were inherently contradictory, just that some dialogues (as you said) are imcompatible with others.

To me the only word that would suffice would be argument or possibly idea (or as Plato puts it form). Principle indicates some kind of dogma or something universal when I think it should be personal.

I refer to principles in argument; Socrates usually agrees on certain principles with the other participants (indeed he describes them as such), and then goes on to reach conclusions based on those principles.

Quote from: Lord Wilmore on July 13, 2009, 06:09:02 PM

I would dispute this to some degree. Socrates clearly advocates the use of myths or 'noble lies', both in the Crito and The Republic, and indeed advocates their use to create a common route to wisdom. Plato's Socrates was not an individualist, and did not so much advocate thinking for oneself as thinking in the right way. Make no mistake, Plato believed that the conclusions he had reached were correct, and he would not advocate you reaching your own conclusions unless you could prove they were correct and that his were wrong!

It is true that the narrator in the dialogues always agrees with Socrates. But the narrator is not Plato but some other person who is retelling their account of Socrates. It is usually someone who greatly admires Socrates and might perhaps be blinded by their affection or at least respect towards Socrates. I am not convinced that Plato was won over by Socrates' arguements.

We are demonstrating what I think the dialogues teach right now! We both have read the same material but we have conjured two wildly different meanings from it. Now we, with our two different perspectives, are sharing our two different experiences. And as Socrates says, no argument is perfect but there is always something to gather from it. Philosophy is largely based on the event of two or more people discussing and learning how bizarre someone else's world is and that that someone else's world is not yours but you can learn from it and learn what that makes of your own world that you have created for yourself. Thinking as a mob destroys this realisation. Everyone's world is made into one.

I agree with you that mob-thinking is inherently bad, but I'm just not entirely sure that Socrates believes this. I think Socrates (and Plato) are perfectly happy with 'mob thinking' as long as the mob is being guided along the correct lines.

A person is smart.

People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.



Agent K - Men in Black (and some other guy whose name I can't remember)

This might be off-topic, but I remain convinced that non-conformity does not and cannot possibly exist. By not conforming to the group A, you are conforming to a separate group of people who do not wish to conform to group A. That is conformity. 

Now, you are correct that you are no longer yourself or saying nothing when you follow the people, but what if my personal beliefs seem to agree with them? I do not care what the crowd is saying: it's just that what I am saying is similar or equivalent to what the crowd is saying or vice versa. Thus, although it appears that I am following them, I am still speaking for myself, and I take responsibility for it. In situations it seems I am compelled or tempted to follow the group of the people, but sometimes I follow the group simply because I decided to and not because I am forced to. I am not sure if this is what you want me to say. One can consciously conform as well as one can conform with out understanding of it. 


Jack

My idea of mob mentality is not so much conformity but unawareness. Socrates wanted his friends to examine themselves. If I were to stand up during the anthem and I wanted to and I was aware that I wanted it that wouldn't be mob mentality even though I am doing it amongst many people.

I refer to principles in argument; Socrates usually agrees on certain principles with the other participants (indeed he describes them as such), and then goes on to reach conclusions based on those principles.

I agree that Socrates takes on principles in the argument itself. Mainly I feel like he is doing 'for the sake of argument lets assume this is true' sort of thing. I would not say he holds these beliefs outside the argument. A lot of times he uses these principles to strange conclusions. Like in the Pheado he argues that there is reincarnation somehow. This is one of his airtight proofs for the immortality of the soul? I think if his audience were not in a stupor about him dying that they would question that proof exhaustedly. As I have stated before, I don't think the characters were accurate judges of Socrates' speech. This usually puts the narrator under suspicion, too.

Quote from: grogberries on July 13, 2009, 05:22:07 PM

I have to disagree with your synopsis. I find it hard to pin down a 'belief' of Socrates. All of his dialogues are ad hominid so each dialogue is directed at a certain kind of person. For instance, in Pheado Socrates claims the immortal soul is the key while in the Symposium he states it is the body that is key. As you can see, he is a slippery character. I do not think this is just some brain fart of Plato either. There are indicators that it was diliberately this way. Consider that the Pheado takes place in the morning while the Symposium is a drinking party that goes on at night. Even the settings are a foil.

There's more to the Symposium than that, and to be honest, it is in line with his other views. For one thing, Socrates judges spiritual 'pregnancy' to be superior to physical begetting of children. So we're left with the notion that love is the perpetuation of the immortal soul through the birth of ideas and communion with the true and eternal form of Beauty (at the end of the 'ladder of love'). I really do believe Socrates presents a pretty cohesive, consistent model of philosophy and psychology throughout the dialogues, and that this model is none other than Plato's - it is at best an approximant of what the 'historical' Socrates would have said, at worst, it's just Plato dumping his views into what amounts to a fictional charater.

Platonic Dialectics are never about one thing in particular or can they be summed up in just a few sentences. I just wanted to point out that the Pheado and the Symposium are quite opposite in what they focus on.

What I took from the symposium was that the 'love' that all the other speakers were expressing was imperfect. The love was not The Good but the longing for The Good. So one should not seek The Good in love as all the speakers seem to deem it as a god (eros) which a god is the embodiment of The Good no other explanation can be made except that it is The Good. If you view love (or any type of longing) as the ultimate goal, you have confused longing for The Good as something that is The Good.

I am also not interested in what the historical Socrates was compared to the literary Socrates. It's easy to poo poo away the intense wisdom you can observe by reading Plato when you say, "Socrates really didn't say that. Plato just made that up and is a fake." I would like to think Socrates touched Plato profoundly and awoke something in him and that resulted in probably some of the best works of literature ever in history of any language.  

What I took from the symposium was that the 'love' that all the other speakers were expressing was imperfect. The love was not The Good but the longing for The Good. So one should not seek The Good in love as all the speakers seem to deem it as a god (eros) which a god is the embodiment of The Good no other explanation can be made except that it is The Good. If you view love (or any type of longing) as the ultimate goal, you have confused longing for The Good as something that is The Good.

Oh yeah, I agree completely. As the "daughter of poverty and resource", to love is to want, perpetually. It is imperfection wanting perfection. Even when you have a lover (or a target of love) in the present, you want them in the future, which you don't have yet.

I am also not interested in what the historical Socrates was compared to the literary Socrates. It's easy to poo poo away the intense wisdom you can observe by reading Plato when you say, "Socrates really didn't say that. Plato just made that up and is a fake." I would like to think Socrates touched Plato profoundly and awoke something in him and that resulted in probably some of the best works of literature ever in history of any language.  

Oh, I wasn't trying to poo poo the wisdom of the dialogues. What Plato says, regardless of whether the words are his or Socrates' or both, are profound beyond belief. I was just trying to argue for the notion that the Symposium does support the overarching Platonic model of philosophy (possibly by appealing to the non-historicity of Socrates as reported in Symposium. We do know, after all, that the Symposium is transparently not an accurate reporting of events, consider the "frame conversation" at the start, which is clearly very contrived as a literary device). What I guess this means is that I'm not sure if it really has any "surprises" philosophically, although it supplies new information, it seems to complement and support the underlying messages of the Republic and other Platonic works in a lot of ways.

My idea of mob mentality is not so much conformity but unawareness. Socrates wanted his friends to examine themselves. If I were to stand up during the anthem and I wanted to and I was aware that I wanted it that wouldn't be mob mentality even though I am doing it amongst many people.

I think I support the use of this sense of the term mob mentality. When agents do not have full self-awareness in the performance of actions, they will inevitably fall prey to the instinctual tempation of mindless mimesis of others. By becoming aware of the temptation, it becomes unlikely that you will succumb to it, or if you do, it will be for the right reasons (since you will have considered them).

I prefer to use the Terry Pratchett (or Samuel Vimes) Measure of mob intelligence: the IQ of a mob is the IQ of its dimmest member divided by the number of members of the mob