Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 37

3 February 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 37

1.  The dialogue Euthydemus is, I think, a kind of farce; I mean that I think Plato is being deliberately humorous at times.  It borders on slapstick.  The sophists Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, who are brothers, make really outrageous arguments; so outrageous that others who are gathered around start getting angry.  Take, for example:

And Dionysodorus said, Well, take care, Socrates, that you don’t find yourself denying these words.

I have given thought to the matter, I said, and I shall never come to deny them.

Well, then, he (Dionysodorus) said, you say you want him (Clinias) to become wise?

Very much so.

And at the present moment, he said, is Clinias wise or not?

He says he is not yet, at least – he is a modest person, I said.

But you people wish him to become wise, he said, and not to be ignorant?

We agreed.

Therefore, you wish him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he is now?

When I heard this I was thrown into confusion, and he broke in upon me while I was in this state and said, Then since you wish him no longer to be what he is now, you apparently wish for nothing else but his death.  Such friends and lovers must be worth a lot who desire above all things that their beloved should utterly perish!  

When Ctesippus heard this he became angry on his favorite’s account and said, Thurian stranger, if it were not a rather rude remark, I would say “perish yourself” for taking it into your head to tell such a lie about me and the rest, which I think is a wicked thing to say – that I could wish this person to die!

(Plato, Euthydemus, translated by Rosamund Ken Sprague, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1997, page 720, 283c-d, ISBN: 9780872203495)

The above is immediately followed by Euthydemus ‘proving’ that it is impossible to tell lies.  And there is a comic section where the two brothers argue that if someone knows even one thing then that someone knows everything, and that if someone doesn’t know something then that someone doesn’t know anything.  

It is an exhibition of sophistry at its most outrageous.  And at times the responses from the young men involved in the conversation gets quite heated; at those times Socrates plays the role of calming everyone down.

I think Plato wrote this to exaggeratedly mock Sophists by indulging in hyperbole.  Plato does this to show how certain kinds of arguments are presented without any intention of them being helpful or conducive to finding the truth of a situation or the truth as such.  In my mind’s imagination I even pictured some of the scenes acted by the Three Stooges, the arguments are so outrageous.

According to some biographies of Plato, at an early period of his life Plato wanted to be a poet and that Plato at that time wrote plays.  Readers can observe an awareness of a kind of theatrical presentation in dialogues like the Symposium.  And I think the reader can also observe this in Euthydemus.  Both of these dialogues have comic episodes (Euthydemus more than Symposium).  I can easily see Euthydemus presented as a comedy to an audience in a theater or as a movie.

2.  I was talking to a friend the other day who said that old men are set in their ways.  We are both the same age; well into our 70’s.  I said this was true; it is certainly something I observe in myself.  As we age it becomes more and more difficult to absorb new information and perspectives.  That is why it is of great importance to practice contemplation at an early age, when one is still young.  I started my practice of meditation when I was in my early 20’s and never left it behind.  The same applies to the friend I talked with about old age.  Establishing the practice of contemplation is cultivating the habit of spaciousness and transcendence; I mean the habit of contacting that dimension, that hypostasis.  My observation is that it is difficult to begin the practice of contemplation in old age because it will appear to be a waste of time.  As we get older we get closer to eternity and contemplation is the door that opens onto eternity; it is the door to the presence of eternity.

3.  Years ago I had a dream that went like this: I was visiting a friend for a weekend.  His name was Lawrence.  (As an aside, I have an actual friend named Lawrence, but the dream Lawrence did not look anything like the waking world Lawrence.)  Lawrence lived in a second story apartment.  The weekend came and Lawrence asked me if I would like to join him for a weekly spiritual gathering that took place on Friday nights.  I wasn’t aware of this activity, but in the dream I easily accepted the invitation.  

The place was within walking distance.  While walking I asked a bit about the group.  Lawrence responded that it is simpler to just visit and participate in what is happening; he added that nothing very strange would go on.  I asked if there was a teacher and Lawrence laughed and said that some of the participants refer to him as The Sage Who Waits Patiently for Grace.  Then Lawrence laughed again and said that I could call him Dunstan.  (As an aside, there was a Christian hermit named Dunstan who was important to me at one point in my life; I would visit him in his hermitage.  But the Dunstan in the dream didn’t look anything like the Dunstan I knew in the waking world.)  

We arrived at an ordinary house.  Lawrence simply went in; I learned later he had permission to bring a guest.  The group did not advertise; knowledge of its existence was by word of mouth.

Everyone was sitting on chairs in silence.  Lawrence explained that the pattern for Friday evenings was contemplation practice for an hour and then Dunstan would give a talk, or have a question and answer session.  The chairs were not arranged in rows, but seemed to be grouped together among friends or associates.  There were about twenty people.  Lawrence guided me to a small group and we joined them by simply sitting down with them in some empty chairs.  In the dream I already knew contemplation practice and did not have to be instructed.

After the time for contemplation ended with the sound of a small bell struck three times, Dunstan came into the room.  He sat down in what I judged was his chair,  though it was nothing special.  Everyone rearranged their chairs to roughly face Dunstan, though there was no attempt to create neat rows.  Dunstan then gave a talk about a Platonic dialogue; I think it was the Republic but I don’t remember specifically what he said.  After the talk there were a few questions.  The session ended when Dunstan thanked everyone for coming.  There were refreshments served consisting of tea, chips, and dips (all vegetarian).  People began to drift away and Lawrence decided to leave when about half the people were still there.

That’s when the dream ended.

This dream was one of those dreams that we remember clearly without having to write the dream down.  The dream felt nourishing; it happened at a time when I was starting to self-identify as a Platonist, meaning that I was thinking of Platonism as the spiritual tradition I wanted to settle in.  The dream seemed to confirm that feeling.  The dream has stayed with me in the sense that when I recall it my recall is detailed and still feels nourishing.  

4.  There is a section in Protagoras where Socrates analyzes a poem in great detail.  Everyone is impressed.  But then there is a sense that they need to move on to other issues, the one the group started with.  Socrates is indicating that the digression on poetry is a secondary consideration:

“Discussing poetry strikes me as no different from the second-rate drinking parties of the agora crowd . . . When a poet is brought up in a discussion, almost everyone has a different opinion about what he means, and they wind up arguing about something they can never fully decide.  . . We should put the poets aside and converse directly with each other, testing the truth and our very selves.”

(Plato, Protagoras, translated by Stanley Lombardo and Karen Bell, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1997, page 778, 347c-348a, ISBN: 9780872203495)

Plato is famous for having an ambiguous, and skeptical, relationship to poetry.  Here the criticism of poetry seems to be that poetry only generates conflicting opinions rather than leading to truth.  Disagreements about a poem or poet do not seem to be resolvable and Plato is interested in dialectical discussions that have a direction and can at least theoretically be resolved.

On the other hand, Plato quotes Homer in a manner that seems to indicate that Homer had an authoritative status.  

I can understand Plato’s complex relationship to poetry.  As a poet myself, I have often observed the kind of thing that Plato refers to in Protagoras.  My personal feeling about poetry is that I think of poetry as a skill like carpentry, gardening, pottery, baking; things like that.  The baker shapes flour, the potter shapes clay, the carpenter shapes wood, and the poet shapes words.  But poets tend to think of poetry as in some way superior to things like carpentry and baking; they tend to think of poetry as above, or more refined, than those kinds of activities.  I don’t share that view.  I consider poetry to be an ordinary activity; that poetry is like birds singing or coyotes howling.  Writing poetry can bring a lot of satisfaction, just as baking muffins, or shaping clay into a mug can.  That’s enough for me.

5.  It’s late in the afternoon.  I hear a desert owl in the distance; kind of early for the owl, I don’t usually hear the owl this early.  The sun will set soon.