After Socrates concludes his refutation of Cephalus’s “definition” of justice, saying, “Then this is not the definition of justice, to tell the truth and give back what one takes.” Polemarchus breaks into the conversation to say, “It most certainly is.” But this assertion is not unconditional. It starts off sounding as if Polemarchus is flatly contradicting Socrates (and also his father who has just agreed that Socrates’ argument was right): “It most certainly is [the definition of justice),” he says. “Most certainly” sounds pretty unequivocal. But immediately after Polemarchus says that, he adds a very serious qualification: “at least if Simonides should be believed at all.”

To this the careful modern reader is likely to say, “Huh?! Who is Simonides? What does he have to do with the definition of justice, and who cares whether or not he is believed?”

As to the first question: Simonides was a prominent poet who had flourished about 50-75 years before the dramatic date of the Republic. He was a contemporary, and to some extent a rival, of Pindar. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “...such was his fame that many epigrams were later wrongfully ascribed to him. He was also the first Greek poet known to have written on commission for fees.” In other words, he was the first professional poet. With regard to the history of wrongful attribution, it is worth noting that there is no other literary source for the quotation that Polemarchus here attributes to Simonides.

Plutarch makes at least four references to Simonides in his life of Themistocles, who has just figured in Cephalus’s attempt to show that his claimed serenity in old age was due to his character and not to his money. In one of the references, Simonides is said to have asked Themistocles to do something improper, prompting Themistocles to reply, "You would not be a good poet if you should sing contrary to measure; nor I a clever magistrate if I should show favour contrary to the law." In this case, Simonides is shown as acting unjustly. In another case, however, Plutarch quotes a poem of Simonides commemorating the victory at Salamis in which the “clever judgment” of Themistocles is praised. If we suppose that these anecdotes cited by Plutarch were also known to Socrates and the other persons of the dialogue, then we might think the citation of Simonides by Polemarchus as an authority on justice to be somewhat amusing.

Perhaps we should also note that in Plato’s Protagoras there is a fairly extensive discussion of a poem by Simonides. Perhaps it is a very well-known poem — in any event it turns out that Socrates knows it by heart, even though Protagoras, who initially quotes it, seems not to have expected that Socrates would know the poem so well. Socrates gives a very interesting example of slow reading in his interpretation of the poem. Since, as far as I know, the only extant portions of the poem are the ones quoted in the dialogue, it’s hard to know whether or not we would agree with Socrates’ analysis. Protagoras had introduced Simonides’ poem for the purpose of arguing that Simonides had contradicted himself, but Socrates’ analysis of the poem defends it against the charge of contradiction by showing that there is a crucial difference between the two passages. In connection with the Republic it is important to note that the crucial distinction attributed by Socrates to Simonides was the distinction between being and becoming, which turns out to be very important in books 5 and 6 of the Republic.

Next I will address the question of why Simonides should be believed.

Lance

Lance,

I guess I am part of the silence into which you speak. This does not
mean I am not listening attentively, but I think your didactic manner
perhaps inhibits discussion. I am listening to hear how you will fill
out the theory, or interpretation which you have described in some
detail, but almost anything I think to say will be either an
impertinent interruption, or carping on points I have already made.

Socrates complains that he cannot question the writer of books. The
obverse is that the writer of books cannot hear the question.

Best Wishes, Bob



-----Original Message-----

>From: Lancelot Fletcher <lrfletcher@...>
>Sent: Mar 23, 2014 7:36 AM
>To: "plato-republic@yahoogroups.com" <plato-republic@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: Re: [plato-republic] Socrates and Polemarchus 09: Getting

Polemarchus to listen

>
>Andrew, thank you for your comments. This slow reading of the

Republic is not intended to be a monologue. I will carry on speaking
into silence if that is what there is to speak into, because I have
some thoughts about the Republic that I want to express. But my
preference is always to have a more interactive conversation.

>
>I thank you also for your acknowledgement of my discussion of

Glaucon's "identity problems." I am glad that it was of value to you.
About this I mainly want to give the credit to Plato. One of the
results of taking Plato's dialogue form seriously is that we discover
in the dialogues a richness of thinking about all aspects of human
life that tends to get lost if we give attention only to those parts
of the discussion that match our preconceptions about what
"philosophical discourse" is like.

>
>Now I would like to ask if your thinking about the other issues you

mention in your message below has advanced at all in the aftermath of
the messages I have posted since your message.

>
>Finally, with respect to the authority of Pindar, I am about to make

a comment connecting that with what Polemarchus says about Simonides
(that in making the statement about justice that Polemarchus quotes,
Polemarchus says that, in his opinion, Simonides spoke beautifully). I
will look forward to your response to that.

>
>Lance
>
>On Mar 17, 2014, at 18:09 , apmwalker@... wrote:
>
>>
>> My initial thought w/r to Lance''s question is that examination of

the text for what actually has Polemachus' attention at the time of
his intervention is my priority, then to explore how that validates
(or not) his hypothesis. And what I'm noticing (reading Jowett) is
that Polemarchus is very agitatedly attentive to Socrates' repudiation
of his father's assertion about the nature of justice. And yet I find
myself wondering, what actually has Polemarchus' riled? Is it simply
the apparent repudiation, or the suggestion of inconsistency in
Cephalus' thinking, or of something else of which he's not entirely
aware (giving credibility to the notion of dogmatic unconsciousness),
or the shock of seeing his father's acquiescence in the face of
Socrates' exposure of his simplistic definition of justice? But on
this closer examination I'm struck by Socrates' ability the call
Cephalus' definition into question without diminishing the authority
of Pindar.

>>
>> Meanwhile, I want to thank you profusely for your comments on

Glaucon's identity problems because they have advanced my thinking
considerably regarding youthful identity crises, the dynamics of
listening and obtuseness and family conflict.

>>
>>
>

Dear Bob,

Very good to hear from you. I was pretty sure you were listening attentively. As for your suggestion that my "didactic" manner inhibits discussion, obviously I am not in a position to have a well-grounded opinion about that, since my own didactic manner doesn't inhibit me. Will you permit me ask you to speak for yourself on this point, rather than speculating about others? Does my manner, which you style "didactic", inhibit you from participating in discussion? If so, are you requesting that I adopt a different manner? And the more important question, in my opinion, is this: does my manner inhibit you from thinking?

I think you may know that I studied for a number of years with Seth Benardete, who was, with the exception of Hannah Arendt, the most profound thinker I have known. Although everyone described Benardete as "the most intelligent man I have ever met," his manner of teaching was famously obscure. George Anastaplo, in his eulogy for Benardete after his death in 2001 (which was in some ways more a critique than a eulogy) described Benardete's manner of presentation as being often more obscure than the texts he was discussing. I can say from personal experience that Anastaplo's opinion was not unfair -- but Benardete's obscurity did not prevent him from being an extraordinarily effective teacher. Of course it cannot be denied that Benardete's obscurity did inhibit discussion. It wasn't so much the obscurity itself, but that Benardete often spoke as if he thought what he was saying was perfectly obvious, so most of us in the classroom, who were all completely mystified by what he was saying, were too ashamed of our incomprehension to reveal it by asking any questions.

There was one important exception, however. I began to attend Benardete's classes in about 1966. I missed a few years after I started teaching in 1969, but a few years later -- I think it was in 1971 or 72 -- I resumed my attendance and found a new person had joined the group of Benardete regulars, a recent graduate of the University of Rochester named Ronna Burger. Ronna was probably the youngest student in the class. She spoke in a sort of ingenue voice and often giggled. But she was not at all held back by any sense of shame or embarrassment about her ignorance, so she asked all of the "dumb," elementary questions that everybody else was afraid to ask. Benardete had no hesitation about answering Ronna's questions. In fact I am sure he welcomed them. And when he spoke to Ronna's questions many things which had seemed hopelessly obscure to us suddenly became intelligible. In this way Ronna Burger's questions made a huge contribution to the effectiveness of Benardete's teaching for her classmates. And I don't want to do any injustice to Ronna Burger by implying that it was just her unencumbered innocence that allowed her to make this contribution. Anybody who has read her books knows that she is one of the supreme interpreters of Plato and Aristotle of our time. To formulate a clear question, especially a simple one, in the midst of confustion and uncertainty, takes more than innocence, more than courage. It takes real philosophical talent.

Another anecdote to illustrate the effectiveness of Benardete's teaching: I remember standing on the sidewalk on 5th Avenue just south of 14th Street, outside the entrance to the New School Graduate Faculty building. I had just come from one of Benardete's classes, and another student in the class made a disparaging comment to me about Benardete's teaching, to the effect that it was about nothing but pipe smoke. I responded that it was true that Benardete did not give you a clear summary or thesis; he didn't leave you with a succinct account of anything. And I acknowledged that most of the time while I was in Benardete's classes I was uncomfortable with the feeling that I was not understanding what he was saying. But when the class was finished I would look back on the class and realize that I had spent the previous few hours thinking at a level higher than I would have believed myself capable of.

As I was completing this response I noticed that Benardete himself had joined us on the sidewalk and had been listening to what I had just said. He was smiling, and he said, "You see? That's exactly the point!"

Like others, I was sometimes fatigued by the fact that Benardete always operated so close to the minute details of the text and wished that he would sometimes step back and give us a more comprehensive overview of what he thought the author meant. Once I asked him about this. In reply he told me that when he was working on a text he would always begin by writing out a brief passage -- one or two sentences -- in long hand on a piece of paper. Then he would write out all the thoughts that came into his mind while looking at that passage. When no more thoughts were coming into his mind about that passage, he would copy out the next passage and repeat the process. He said it was as if his mind was a light that would illuminate only one passage at a time, leaving everything else in darkness. And he said that he didn't know any other way of working.

It would be absurdly presumptuous for me to compare myself to Benardete, who was far more learned and intelligent than I will ever be. When I was younger my approach to the text was not at all like Benardete's. I was much more inclined to the bird's eye summary approach. But after I began to put into practice the "slow reading" approach which is what I mostly learned from Benardete, I think my way of working might have begun to resemble his in some ways (except, being less intelligent and less learned than he was, I am also much slower than he was). Unlike Benardete, I would not say that it is the only way of working that I know. In my case I found myself very dissatisfied with most of the interpretations of Plato that I found in the standard secondary sources, but I found it impossible to argue with those interpretations at their own level, so it seemed to me that the only available alternative was to go beneath the interpretations to the text itself. What I wanted to do was to somehow enter into a conversation with Plato at the moment he was writing his text, so that I could come to understand why he chose each word. While I was doing this, I think I came finally to understand a rather peculiar feature of Benardete's manner of teaching. What I am speaking about would often occur right after the reader had finished reading the passage to be discussed next (Benardete employed the Medieval practice of appointing one student in the class to read aloud the passage to be studied). When the reader had finished (and after Benardete had made any necessary corrections to the translation), he would often exclaim, "Isn't that amazing?" or "Isn't that strange? Why does he say that?" As I have said, this was often a moment of intense mystification and discomfort for most of us in the class, since none of us had noticed anything amazing or strange, and even after Benardete's exclamation we still didn't see anything amazing or strange about the passage that had just been read. But after many years of reading and teaching Plato (and other writers), I began to notice myself thinking, if not saying, similar things. I had developed an alertness for what Benardete, in his course on the Cratylus, had called, "the fitness of the unfittting." I am not sure where this will ultimately lead me, but for now I feel as if this approach is leading me to notice some philosophically provocative things that have not been noticed before, which is satisfying to me and will, I hope, be stimulating for others.

To give the latest example, right now I am working on the exchange between Socrates and Polemarchus just after Polemarchus has broken into the conversation to insist that his father's formula certainly IS the definition of justice "if Simonides is to be believed."

> “So tell me,” I said, “heir to a share in the discussion, what do you say that Simonides says that speaks rightly about justice?” “ That it’s just,” he said, “to give what’s owed to each person, and in saying this he seems to me to put it beautifully.”

The amazing or strange thing that I noticed here is that in two consecutive sentences first Socrates conjoins justice with "rightly," and then Polemarchus responds by conjoining justice with "beautifully." More about that another time.

For now, Bob, let me come back to your message: You say that almost anything you think to say will be either an impertinent interruption, or carping on points you have already made. In response, let me encourage you not to allow that thought to hold you back. I doubt that what you feel moved to say would occur to me as an impertinent interruption, and if it did, I still wouldn't worry. I can usually find something pertinent even in the most impertinent remarks.

Let me say something to your last remark:

> Socrates complains that he cannot question the writer of books. The
> obverse is that the writer of books cannot hear the question.

I am not sure whom you mean by "the writer of books." If you mean Simonides, then obviously he can't hear the question from Socrates because he is dead. Or are you saying that the author of most of the preceding messages in the Plato-Repubic group cannot hear the question? If so, I would say, as far as I know I am not dead, and if you pose a question I will make every effort to listen to it. As i mentioned, Ronna Burger's questions made a huge contribution to the effectiveness of Benardete's teaching for her classmates. I see no reason why your questions might not make a similar contribution to the present discussion.

But I still don't understand how you could mean me as "the writer of books." I have not published any books. It's true that I have given some thought to sharing my present reflections with a larger audience by publishing them in book form. If I do so, my main concern will be to make my reflections accessible and useful for students who are reading Plato's text. For that reason I would be grateful for any questions or feedback anyone cares to offer about points that are obscure or unintelligible to an ordinary student.

Lance

On Mar 28, 2014, at 17:00 , Robert Eldon Taylor <philologos@...> wrote:

> Lance,
>
> I guess I am part of the silence into which you speak. This does not
> mean I am not listening attentively, but I think your didactic manner
> perhaps inhibits discussion. I am listening to hear how you will fill
> out the theory, or interpretation which you have described in some
> detail, but almost anything I think to say will be either an
> impertinent interruption, or carping on points I have already made.
>
> Socrates complains that he cannot question the writer of books. The
> obverse is that the writer of books cannot hear the question.
>
> Best Wishes, Bob
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Lancelot Fletcher <lrfletcher@...>
> >Sent: Mar 23, 2014 7:36 AM
> >To: "plato-republic@yahoogroups.com" <plato-republic@yahoogroups.com>
> >Subject: Re: [plato-republic] Socrates and Polemarchus 09: Getting
> Polemarchus to listen
> >
> >Andrew, thank you for your comments. This slow reading of the
> Republic is not intended to be a monologue. I will carry on speaking
> into silence if that is what there is to speak into, because I have
> some thoughts about the Republic that I want to express. But my
> preference is always to have a more interactive conversation.
> >
> >I thank you also for your acknowledgement of my discussion of
> Glaucon's "identity problems." I am glad that it was of value to you.
> About this I mainly want to give the credit to Plato. One of the
> results of taking Plato's dialogue form seriously is that we discover
> in the dialogues a richness of thinking about all aspects of human
> life that tends to get lost if we give attention only to those parts
> of the discussion that match our preconceptions about what
> "philosophical discourse" is like.
> >
> >Now I would like to ask if your thinking about the other issues you
> mention in your message below has advanced at all in the aftermath of
> the messages I have posted since your message.
> >
> >Finally, with respect to the authority of Pindar, I am about to make
> a comment connecting that with what Polemarchus says about Simonides
> (that in making the statement about justice that Polemarchus quotes,
> Polemarchus says that, in his opinion, Simonides spoke beautifully). I
> will look forward to your response to that.
> >
> >Lance
> >
> >On Mar 17, 2014, at 18:09 , apmwalker@... wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> My initial thought w/r to Lance''s question is that examination of
> the text for what actually has Polemachus' attention at the time of
> his intervention is my priority, then to explore how that validates
> (or not) his hypothesis. And what I'm noticing (reading Jowett) is
> that Polemarchus is very agitatedly attentive to Socrates' repudiation
> of his father's assertion about the nature of justice. And yet I find
> myself wondering, what actually has Polemarchus' riled? Is it simply
> the apparent repudiation, or the suggestion of inconsistency in
> Cephalus' thinking, or of something else of which he's not entirely
> aware (giving credibility to the notion of dogmatic unconsciousness),
> or the shock of seeing his father's acquiescence in the face of
> Socrates' exposure of his simplistic definition of justice? But on
> this closer examination I'm struck by Socrates' ability the call
> Cephalus' definition into question without diminishing the authority
> of Pindar.
> >>
> >> Meanwhile, I want to thank you profusely for your comments on
> Glaucon's identity problems because they have advanced my thinking
> considerably regarding youthful identity crises, the dynamics of
> listening and obtuseness and family conflict.
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
>

Dear Lance,

(In no particular order)

Your comments on speaking into silence seemed a bit wistful to me and I thought to reassure you that you were not ignored. I have been impressed with the extent of your knowledge and depth of thought.

I agree that obscure writers are sometimes more stimulating, but, as Freud said of cigars, sometime they are just obscure. You are not in the least obscure, (or else you are too obscure for me to detect). In any case I have no hesitation to ask you for clarification.

Indeed I had assumed you were writing a book. If you manage to get through the rest of the Republic they way you have the first few pages, you will have a very big book, and it should be published. I hope you live to do it and I live to see it.

If you have been teaching as long as you say, and I have never taught anything, nor been in a class for fifty years, nor ever taken a class in philosophy, nor ever studied any philosopher but Plato and (not so much) Descartes, then it would be ridiculous for me to suggest how you should proceed.

Best, Bob


-----Original Message-----

>From: Lancelot Fletcher <lrfletcher@...>
>Sent: Mar 30, 2014 6:05 PM
>To: plato-republic@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [plato-republic] Socrates and Polemarchus 09: Getting Polemarchus to listen
>
>Dear Bob,
>
>Very good to hear from you. I was pretty sure you were listening attentively. As for your suggestion that my "didactic" manner inhibits discussion, obviously I am not in a position to have a well-grounded opinion about that, since my own didactic manner doesn't inhibit me. Will you permit me ask you to speak for yourself on this point, rather than speculating about others? Does my manner, which you style "didactic", inhibit you from participating in discussion? If so, are you requesting that I adopt a different manner? And the more important question, in my opinion, is this: does my manner inhibit you from thinking?
>
>I think you may know that I studied for a number of years with Seth Benardete, who was, with the exception of Hannah Arendt, the most profound thinker I have known. Although everyone described Benardete as "the most intelligent man I have ever met," his manner of teaching was famously obscure. George Anastaplo, in his eulogy for Benardete after his death in 2001 (which was in some ways more a critique than a eulogy) described Benardete's manner of presentation as being often more obscure than the texts he was discussing. I can say from personal experience that Anastaplo's opinion was not unfair -- but Benardete's obscurity did not prevent him from being an extraordinarily effective teacher. Of course it cannot be denied that Benardete's obscurity did inhibit discussion. It wasn't so much the obscurity itself, but that Benardete often spoke as if he thought what he was saying was perfectly obvious, so most of us in the classroom, who were all completely mystified by what he was saying, were too ashamed of our incomprehension to reveal it by asking any questions.
>
>There was one important exception, however. I began to attend Benardete's classes in about 1966. I missed a few years after I started teaching in 1969, but a few years later -- I think it was in 1971 or 72 -- I resumed my attendance and found a new person had joined the group of Benardete regulars, a recent graduate of the University of Rochester named Ronna Burger. Ronna was probably the youngest student in the class. She spoke in a sort of ingenue voice and often giggled. But she was not at all held back by any sense of shame or embarrassment about her ignorance, so she asked all of the "dumb," elementary questions that everybody else was afraid to ask. Benardete had no hesitation about answering Ronna's questions. In fact I am sure he welcomed them. And when he spoke to Ronna's questions many things which had seemed hopelessly obscure to us suddenly became intelligible. In this way Ronna Burger's questions made a huge contribution to the effectiveness of Benardete's teaching for her classmates. And I don't want to do any injustice to Ronna Burger by implying that it was just her unencumbered innocence that allowed her to make this contribution. Anybody who has read her books knows that she is one of the supreme interpreters of Plato and Aristotle of our time. To formulate a clear question, especially a simple one, in the midst of confustion and uncertainty, takes more than innocence, more than courage. It takes real philosophical talent.
>
>Another anecdote to illustrate the effectiveness of Benardete's teaching: I remember standing on the sidewalk on 5th Avenue just south of 14th Street, outside the entrance to the New School Graduate Faculty building. I had just come from one of Benardete's classes, and another student in the class made a disparaging comment to me about Benardete's teaching, to the effect that it was about nothing but pipe smoke. I responded that it was true that Benardete did not give you a clear summary or thesis; he didn't leave you with a succinct account of anything. And I acknowledged that most of the time while I was in Benardete's classes I was uncomfortable with the feeling that I was not understanding what he was saying. But when the class was finished I would look back on the class and realize that I had spent the previous few hours thinking at a level higher than I would have believed myself capable of.
>
>As I was completing this response I noticed that Benardete himself had joined us on the sidewalk and had been listening to what I had just said. He was smiling, and he said, "You see? That's exactly the point!"
>
>Like others, I was sometimes fatigued by the fact that Benardete always operated so close to the minute details of the text and wished that he would sometimes step back and give us a more comprehensive overview of what he thought the author meant. Once I asked him about this. In reply he told me that when he was working on a text he would always begin by writing out a brief passage -- one or two sentences -- in long hand on a piece of paper. Then he would write out all the thoughts that came into his mind while looking at that passage. When no more thoughts were coming into his mind about that passage, he would copy out the next passage and repeat the process. He said it was as if his mind was a light that would illuminate only one passage at a time, leaving everything else in darkness. And he said that he didn't know any other way of working.
>
>It would be absurdly presumptuous for me to compare myself to Benardete, who was far more learned and intelligent than I will ever be. When I was younger my approach to the text was not at all like Benardete's. I was much more inclined to the bird's eye summary approach. But after I began to put into practice the "slow reading" approach which is what I mostly learned from Benardete, I think my way of working might have begun to resemble his in some ways (except, being less intelligent and less learned than he was, I am also much slower than he was). Unlike Benardete, I would not say that it is the only way of working that I know. In my case I found myself very dissatisfied with most of the interpretations of Plato that I found in the standard secondary sources, but I found it impossible to argue with those interpretations at their own level, so it seemed to me that the only available alternative was to go beneath the interpretations to the text itself. What I wanted to do was to somehow enter into a conversation with Plato at the moment he was writing his text, so that I could come to understand why he chose each word. While I was doing this, I think I came finally to understand a rather peculiar feature of Benardete's manner of teaching. What I am speaking about would often occur right after the reader had finished reading the passage to be discussed next (Benardete employed the Medieval practice of appointing one student in the class to read aloud the passage to be studied). When the reader had finished (and after Benardete had made any necessary corrections to the translation), he would often exclaim, "Isn't that amazing?" or "Isn't that strange? Why does he say that?" As I have said, this was often a moment of intense mystification and discomfort for most of us in the class, since none of us had noticed anything amazing or strange, and even after Benardete's exclamation we still didn't see anything amazing or strange about the passage that had just been read. But after many years of reading and teaching Plato (and other writers), I began to notice myself thinking, if not saying, similar things. I had developed an alertness for what Benardete, in his course on the Cratylus, had called, "the fitness of the unfittting." I am not sure where this will ultimately lead me, but for now I feel as if this approach is leading me to notice some philosophically provocative things that have not been noticed before, which is satisfying to me and will, I hope, be stimulating for others.
>
>To give the latest example, right now I am working on the exchange between Socrates and Polemarchus just after Polemarchus has broken into the conversation to insist that his father's formula certainly IS the definition of justice "if Simonides is to be believed."
>
>> “So tell me,” I said, “heir to a share in the discussion, what do you say that Simonides says that speaks rightly about justice?” “ That it’s just,” he said, “to give what’s owed to each person, and in saying this he seems to me to put it beautifully.”
>
>The amazing or strange thing that I noticed here is that in two consecutive sentences first Socrates conjoins justice with "rightly," and then Polemarchus responds by conjoining justice with "beautifully." More about that another time.
>
>For now, Bob, let me come back to your message: You say that almost anything you think to say will be either an impertinent interruption, or carping on points you have already made. In response, let me encourage you not to allow that thought to hold you back. I doubt that what you feel moved to say would occur to me as an impertinent interruption, and if it did, I still wouldn't worry. I can usually find something pertinent even in the most impertinent remarks.
>
>Let me say something to your last remark:
>
>> Socrates complains that he cannot question the writer of books. The
>> obverse is that the writer of books cannot hear the question.
>
>I am not sure whom you mean by "the writer of books." If you mean Simonides, then obviously he can't hear the question from Socrates because he is dead. Or are you saying that the author of most of the preceding messages in the Plato-Repubic group cannot hear the question? If so, I would say, as far as I know I am not dead, and if you pose a question I will make every effort to listen to it. As i mentioned, Ronna Burger's questions made a huge contribution to the effectiveness of Benardete's teaching for her classmates. I see no reason why your questions might not make a similar contribution to the present discussion.
>
>But I still don't understand how you could mean me as "the writer of books." I have not published any books. It's true that I have given some thought to sharing my present reflections with a larger audience by publishing them in book form. If I do so, my main concern will be to make my reflections accessible and useful for students who are reading Plato's text. For that reason I would be grateful for any questions or feedback anyone cares to offer about points that are obscure or unintelligible to an ordinary student.
>
>Lance
>
>
>On Mar 28, 2014, at 17:00 , Robert Eldon Taylor <philologos@...> wrote:
>
>> Lance,
>>
>> I guess I am part of the silence into which you speak. This does not
>> mean I am not listening attentively, but I think your didactic manner
>> perhaps inhibits discussion. I am listening to hear how you will fill
>> out the theory, or interpretation which you have described in some
>> detail, but almost anything I think to say will be either an
>> impertinent interruption, or carping on points I have already made.
>>
>> Socrates complains that he cannot question the writer of books. The
>> obverse is that the writer of books cannot hear the question.
>>
>> Best Wishes, Bob
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> >From: Lancelot Fletcher <lrfletcher@...>
>> >Sent: Mar 23, 2014 7:36 AM
>> >To: "plato-republic@yahoogroups.com" <plato-republic@yahoogroups.com>
>> >Subject: Re: [plato-republic] Socrates and Polemarchus 09: Getting
>> Polemarchus to listen
>> >
>> >Andrew, thank you for your comments. This slow reading of the
>> Republic is not intended to be a monologue. I will carry on speaking
>> into silence if that is what there is to speak into, because I have
>> some thoughts about the Republic that I want to express. But my
>> preference is always to have a more interactive conversation.
>> >
>> >I thank you also for your acknowledgement of my discussion of
>> Glaucon's "identity problems." I am glad that it was of value to you.
>> About this I mainly want to give the credit to Plato. One of the
>> results of taking Plato's dialogue form seriously is that we discover
>> in the dialogues a richness of thinking about all aspects of human
>> life that tends to get lost if we give attention only to those parts
>> of the discussion that match our preconceptions about what
>> "philosophical discourse" is like.
>> >
>> >Now I would like to ask if your thinking about the other issues you
>> mention in your message below has advanced at all in the aftermath of
>> the messages I have posted since your message.
>> >
>> >Finally, with respect to the authority of Pindar, I am about to make
>> a comment connecting that with what Polemarchus says about Simonides
>> (that in making the statement about justice that Polemarchus quotes,
>> Polemarchus says that, in his opinion, Simonides spoke beautifully). I
>> will look forward to your response to that.
>> >
>> >Lance
>> >
>> >On Mar 17, 2014, at 18:09 , apmwalker@... wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >> My initial thought w/r to Lance''s question is that examination of
>> the text for what actually has Polemachus' attention at the time of
>> his intervention is my priority, then to explore how that validates
>> (or not) his hypothesis. And what I'm noticing (reading Jowett) is
>> that Polemarchus is very agitatedly attentive to Socrates' repudiation
>> of his father's assertion about the nature of justice. And yet I find
>> myself wondering, what actually has Polemarchus' riled? Is it simply
>> the apparent repudiation, or the suggestion of inconsistency in
>> Cephalus' thinking, or of something else of which he's not entirely
>> aware (giving credibility to the notion of dogmatic unconsciousness),
>> or the shock of seeing his father's acquiescence in the face of
>> Socrates' exposure of his simplistic definition of justice? But on
>> this closer examination I'm struck by Socrates' ability the call
>> Cephalus' definition into question without diminishing the authority
>> of Pindar.
>> >>
>> >> Meanwhile, I want to thank you profusely for your comments on
>> Glaucon's identity problems because they have advanced my thinking
>> considerably regarding youthful identity crises, the dynamics of
>> listening and obtuseness and family conflict.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
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