Plato cont.

Socrates argues today what we have is vessels, but sailors that are mutineers. The true pilot today is going to look like a star-gazer, aka they look useless

• The city is consumed with the question of who gets to rule

• We tell the pilot, person who’s considered with where we’re going, that they’re useless because they cannot help us win

There’s a certain power in people who are like-minded, but there’s a greater necessity

The philosopher who stands up and says that group is wrong can grab you off the street, take your time, and maybe kill you

Teach nothing but the opinion of the many, Sophists

If you want to know a Sophist, someone who leads people astray, it’s like people who study people and politics and learn how to approach people.

• They find out how to “tame” them

• They are trying to tame you, they make a system of their knowledge of wisdom, but he has no clue what he’s actually talking about

• Their job, good = what city says

The philosopher is like someone stuck in a desert storm, they just hope you won’t try to kill them

Unless we can find the best regime

• The only solution is the “philosopher rule”

We can instill the thought in not kings but princes to make this happen

So, then philosophers become kings

Plato’s Divided Line

• The levels of knowledge and understanding

• We move from opinion (doxa) to episteme (genuine knowledge)

• The objects move from that which mosts changes to that which endures eternally

For Plato, the idea of a democracy is better than a real one, because it participates in the eternal

Plato wants us to see reality is not what's in front of us