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diogenes (thelemmy.club)
submitted 8 months ago by [M] to c/philosophymemes@quokk.au
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[–] 5 points 8 months ago (1 child)

He was on trial because his disciples committed a coup which lead to the death of about 10% of Athens in 8 months, which then ran away and the closest thing to anyone being on trial was their teacher, who campaigned against democracy, and not once in the trial disvowed his students or even acknowledged the slaughter.

that's why we think he was on trial for bs "corruption the youth" because that's the bs he talked about in his trial (written by Plato after the fact).

he was more like a conservative grifter, Jordan Peterson, or a Nazi propagandists who got sentenced to death for nazi crimes.

look into the 30 tyrants.

also non Platonic contemporary accounts portray Socrates as a grifter, teaching BS for cash while complaining of sophists doing the same (the clouds of Erastophanes).

don't think Socrates was a old kind wise man.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I've never heard that before. Do you have a source for that information?

    Athenian democracy was more like "democracy for wealthy athenian landowners." It's not much like modern democracy, so there was a lot to criticize about it. Even modern democracy can be described as "rule of the ignorant" in some places, so it's not like it's impossible to validly criticize.

    I don't know what kinds of arguments Jordan Peterson makes because I've never listened to him, but from what I've heard it sounds like he merely tries to rationalize male stereotypes by giving them an appearance of validity. That's definitely not what Socrates was doing; in fact the Athenian elites he criticized were closer to the Jordan Peterson type.

    And nothing Socrates or Plato said remotely resembled Nazi propaganda, so unless you cite some textual examples I'm not going to take that seriously.

    Also, Plato criticized the 30 tyrants. So I don't see what connection you're trying to draw there.

    As far as "non-Platonic contemporary accounts" go, what primary sources are they citing? Or is it just pure navel-gazing? Criticizing old white dudes is the easiest way to get ahead in modern academia, it's the only way to slide through the peer-review process without a defensible critique. Valid criticisms can be made, but they require textual evidence (unless they're criticizing a white dude; then anything goes, apparently).

    Sophists made use of wordplay and tautology to seem wise, while mostly reaffirming common assumptions that people already held. Plato and Socrates were rationalists, which is completely different. They used discursive reasoning rather than mere semantics. And if someone doesn't understand the difference, then it's not worth my time to try to explain. Too many people reject rationalism while falling for semantics; how does one reason with someone who's irrational?

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Keep in mind we don't have anything about what he said. at least not directly. all we have is Plato writing him as a character. Even his "apology" was written by Plato after the trial. It being more a propaganda speech by Plato than an actual trial recording.

    look at any sources regarding " 30 tyrants " wiki is a good start (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Tyrants). also, non Platonic accounts like Erastophanes portray him as a grifter (https://youtu.be/76lkcYbjdFk).

    And after all, he was found guilty for that Athenian genocide (even though Plato denied it) by his own people. so there's that.

    Plato got spared, he was invited to participate in the 30 tyrants government (which included his cousin and uncle), but decided not to once the genocide started. https://medium.com/the-first-philosophers/plato-4-5-the-thirty-tyrants-2447c90f3af1

    for something so well documented, It is insane that no one knows about it

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    There are also accounts by Xenophon. And I'm aware of the limitations of citing Plato's accounts, but that doesn't justify leveling any accusation one can come up with. Also, the satires of Aristophanes hardly count as historical evidence.

    Neither of the other two sources you provided say anything about Plato or Socrates being complicit with the regime or guilty of genocide. In fact, it seems like they had some animosities towards the thirty tyrants.

    Where are you getting this claim that Socrates was found guilty for the Athenian genocide? It says right here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates) that the charges were impiety and corrupting the youth (by encouraging them to question their elders).

    The impious acts cited were "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and "introducing new deities" (apparently Reason (διάνοια) was a deity in their view...)

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    the trial was due questioning democracy and leading to an extremely violent coup.

    that's like saying the civil war was because state rights.

    keep in mind that Aristotle and Plato were extremely influential and enmeshed in the political elite (Alexander the Great). their views and erasure of that genocide was intentional.

    That trial was for the Athenian genocide, and he was found guilty of corrupting the youth, that what it meant.

    i get that a comedy play calling Socrates a grifter isn't proof, but just part of the evidence that contemporaries thought he was one.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Everything that I've read so far says the "coup" you're referring to was a result of the Spartans after the Peloponnesian war. You haven't substantiated Socrates or Plato's involvement with any sources that even suggest that.

    It's not at all like the civil war because it happened millennia ago with only fragmentary evidence. We have far more records from the civil war era due to it only having been a couple hundred years ago, which isn't that long in the grand scheme of things.

    Aristotle was Alexander's tutor, yes, but Plato had no involvement with Alexander and the trial and execution of Socrates happened long before Alexander was even born. Plato and Aristotle are diametrically opposed philosophically, so bringing up Aristotle's involvement with Alexander has zero bearing on the philosophy of either Plato or Socrates.

    Plus, the modern sciences owe far more to Aristotle than he's given credit for, so if tutoring Alexander the Great is such a demerit then we have to throw out basically all human inquiry that took place in the western world from medieval scholasticism to the modern scientific method. That would be a pretty severe ad hominem, but I guess if you're going that far then you'd have to throw out the field of logic too, so then you can commit all the fallacies you want because hey, the father of systemic logic tutored a Macedonian imperialist so all the fundamentals of logic must be flawed, right?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    the comparison with the civil war was because twats say it was "States rights" while technically true, it was for the States rights to have slaves.

    I compared it with Socrates, because his trial was due to corruption of the youth. which meant corrupting them against democracy into violent tyrants.

    the wiki on the 30 tyrants literally has a section called "Socrates and the thirty".

    and the wiki on the trial has a section "Association with Alcibiades and the Thirty Tyrants". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates)

    Also, worth noting (again), in his apology he never denounced any of his students that committed the genocide. and while he did defy them when asked to provide info on people to kill, he was spared by the tyrants.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    From the section in the link you cited:

    Several of the Thirty had been students of Socrates, but there is also a record of their falling out.

    The reference points to Xenophon's Memorobilia.

    Husserl taught Heidegger, and Heidegger became a nazi, but that doesn't make Husserl a nazi. In fact, Husserl was Jewish and had to flee nazi Germany. So you see, a person isn't necessarily responsible for the things one's pupil does.

    And from the "Socrates and the thirty" section on the thirty tyrants page:

    In his Memorabilia (Bk 1, Ch 2), Xenophon reports a contentious confrontation between Socrates and the Thirty, Critias included. Socrates is summoned before the group and ordered not to instruct or speak to anyone, whereupon Socrates mocks the order by asking sarcastically whether he will be allowed to ask to buy food in the marketplace. Xenophon uses the episode to illustrate both Socrates' own critique of the slaughtering of Athenian citizens by the Thirty, as well as make the case that the relationship between Critias and Socrates had significantly deteriorated by the time Critias obtained power.

    The only quotes suggesting he was responsible for the thirty tyrants on either page were from a contemporary writer, and it seems more like speculation than anything else.

    There's really no compelling evidence suggesting that Socrates was responsible for the thirty tyrants or their slaughter of Athenian citizens.

    "Corrupting the youth" simply meant teaching them to think for themselves. The "pious" aristocrats didn't like that sort of thing back then, any more than their ilk like that sort of thing today.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Can you explain how the "introducing new deities" accusation fits into your interpretation of the trial?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    pulling them away from the old religion into his grift.

    Let's invert the dialogue. do you think someone being sentenced to death, and the same someone's students (whom they failed to denounce or even acknowledge) committing a genocide and a foreign coup, have nothing to do with each other?

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