[PREV - FALSE_KNOWLEDGE]    [TOP]

THAT_WHICH_KNOWLEDGE_MAKES

                                             May     31, 2010
                                             October 27, 2013

                                                             GORGIAS
     SOCRATES: And he who has learned music a musician?

     GORGIAS:  Yes.

     SOCRATES: And he who has learned medicine is a physician,
               in like manner.  He who has learned anything
               whatever is that which his knowledge makes him.

     GORGIAS:  Certainly.

     SOCRATES: And in the same way, he who has learned what
               is just is just?

     GORGIAS:  To be sure.

     SOCRATES: And he who is just may be supposed to do what
               is just?

     GORGIAS:  Yes.

     SOCRATES: And must not the just man always desire to do
               what is just?
                                    
In case you were wondering, this is             
actually Plato, not a Monty Python routine.     
                                                
In just a few lines, the sock-puppet        
buys into this notion that once you know    
what is good you're incapable of not        Wouldn't any sane person having
doing what is good.                         reached that conclusion, realize
                                            that it's absurd, and re-examine
From this one simple principle, no doubt    the premises in that light?
one can prove all sorts of things
(e.g. no one knows what is good)...           Socrates later develops the line
                                              that the rhetorician and the
                                              tyrant have the least possible
                                              power, because they are
                                              constrained by the good...

                                              But we all know that is nonsense,
                                              we knew it was nonsense when
                                              Socrates started leading us down
                                              this path.  It's an obvious
Socrates acts as though he's                  violation of common sense.
trying to use words in the
ordinary way; he's just looking                           (Or is it just
carefully at what we say:                                 post-psychoanalysis
                                                          common sense?  Did
  "And he who has learned                                 we once imagine that
  music a musician?"                                      human beings were
                                                          such pure flames?)
  But:

  One who has learned music is capable of
  being a musician, but is also capable of
  being other things-- every sound that they         There isn't even any need
  make need not be regarded as music because         to start babbling about
  they're regarded as muscians, and they are         context violations or
  not constrained to just make musical sounds        different orders of
  in order to call themselves musicians.             properties, or any of the
                                                     usual eyes-glaze-over
                                                     maneuvers of philosophy:
          The musician may sometimes make            the premise is as whacked
          music, but may sometimes not.              as the conclusion.












--------
[NEXT - MISSING_BODY]