ââåevery Advance in Science and the Arts Simultaneously Undermined
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's ode to philosophy, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, imagines a collision of worlds: What would happen if Plato, the famous philosopher, suddenly appeared in the 20-kickoff century? In the ensuing dramas, staged in the dialogue form that Plato himself created, Goldstein has Plato discussing the possibility of crowdsourcing ideals with a Google employee, debating a psychoanalyst and a cocky-proclaimed "warrior mother" on how to raise children, helping an advice columnist sort out her readers' romantic conundrums, and much more. These anachronistic set-ups, which freely explore Plato'due south thought, alternate with more straightforward expository capacity on Plato and the guild he lived in. The end result is a book that simultaneously gives a off-white exposition of a formidable ancient thinker whilst exploring his relevance to modern life.
Goldstein, a novelist and philosopher, pulls off what could take easily veered into the corny or preachy with tact, humor, and, well-nigh chiefly, a fairness that delves into Plato's ideas without specifically condoning whatsoever conclusions, a skill that Plato himself perfected in his dialogues. These dialogues make Plato's ideas accessible to a general audience while also keeping him fresh and exciting for those who study or have a background in philosophy.
Take, for example, the eponymous chapter of Plato at the Googleplex, which finds Plato nigh to give a talk at the famous search company's headquarters. Accompanying him is his snarky media escort Cheryl and a software engineer named Marcus. Ane tin run into Goldstein'south talents as a novelist shine through; these characters are non merely empty mouthpieces for ideas, but fully realized people who imbue the ensuing philosophical conversation with their bright personalities.
This dialogue explores the nature of moral expertise, with Plato arguing his classical position that only experts who have devoted their lives to the study of morality should be trusted on the thing. Other people, Plato argues, have no chance of living a adept life. Goldstein supplements Plato's playful only accurately imagined dialogue with directly quotes from his writings, making sure his positions never stray from the ones he took two,400 years ago. Cheryl, voicing the outrage at his insistence on a moral aristocracy that I'yard certain many gimmicky readers share, stresses a more egalitarian vision. Marcus, inspired by his piece of work at Google and by Cheryl's well-meaning only philosophically unsophisticated relativism, advocates for a hypothetical crowdsourced morality, in which anybody'due south opinions would get into a weighted algorithm that would spit out the correct answer. Goldstein models her dialogues in Platonic mode, not arguing for whatever one view, merely simply exploring, refining, refuting, and putting frontward ideas freely.
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The expository capacity placed earlier each dialogue attempt to flesh out and provide context for the themes that will be explored in the subsequent dialogue. These are much needed, equally the dialogues by themselves are not enough to fully grasp Plato equally a philosopher. As someone who studies philosophy, not history, I have always read Plato without giving much idea to the context of his writing, then Goldstein's exploration of the culture and history of Classical Athens was much appreciated.
However, these expository chapters often experience a flake disorganized and overlong. I of Goldstein's primary theses is that Plato'southward Socrates (Socrates is the main grapheme in Plato's dialogues) undermined Athenian exceptionalism (she coins the term "Ethos of the Extraordinary") by arguing that virtue exists independently both of what other people call up of you and of the polis (the Greek metropolis-state). In short, virtue tin just exist obtained individually. At to the lowest degree three whole chapters are devoted to hammering home this thesis when one could have sufficed, specially since it took up space that could have been spent analyzing Plato's more arcane (and to me more interesting) metaphysics and epistemology. This, however, is a minor criticism.
Another thread Goldstein weaves throughout the volume is a rebuttal of what she dubs the "philosophy-jeerers"—people who think that philosophy is completely outdated and has been replaced past modern science. Many of these prominent philosophy-jeerers are also leaders of the humanist and atheist movements. Goldstein quotes the famous physicist (and humanist) Lawrence Krauss as saying, "Philosophy used to be a field that had content, but then 'natural philosophy' became physics, and physics has only continued to make inroads." He goes on to say, "People in philosophy feel threatened, and they have every correct to feel threatened, because science progresses and philosophy doesn't." Krauss isn't the simply scientist and humanist idol who feels this fashion. In a recent interview, Neil deGrasse Tyson remarked that studying philosophy "can actually mess you up" because "if you are distracted by your questions so that you tin't move forwards, you are not existence a productive contributor to our agreement of the natural world." Even Richard Dawkins and other New Atheists have disparaged philosophy in favor of scientism. Perhaps they are mistaking philosophy for theology, an important distinction.
Goldstein rebuts these criticisms handily. Simply placing Plato in modern settings such as a cable news show or an fMRI machine metaphorically shows philosophy's continuing relevance. Goldstein also concedes that "Plato got about as much wrong equally nosotros would expect from a philosopher who lived ii,400 years ago." However, she argues, the very fact that we are able to see how incorrect he was proves that philosophy has indeed made progress, contrary to the philosophy-jeerers' jeers. Throughout the book Goldstein makes clear that Plato's main contributions weren't the conclusions he came to, but the questions he asked.
The final dialogue of the book pits Plato against a jovial neuroscientist who dismisses philosophers equally those who "hold downwardly the fort until the cavalry, who are the scientists, arrive." What the neuroscientist doesn't understand is that his contention that science is the only viable road to knowledge is itself a philosophical position that requires philosophical justification and has its own philosophical ramifications. Plato and the neuroscientist go along to debate the nature of the mind. I must admit, as a student of philosophy and psychology who has done some thinking about this subject myself, I am sympathetic to the neuroscientist'southward claims that our notions of free will, intentions, and even the self are undermined by science because they are simply reducible to deterministic electrochemical neural impulses. However, I too recognize the important identify philosophy has in agreement these scientific advances, just every bit Plato does when he argues that brain processes are but the cause of our conscious experience, not identical to conscious experience, a philosophical distinction that helps us interpret the science.
Goldstein fends off these secular philosophy-jeerers while also making a convincing example for understanding Plato as the starting signal for the secular worldview. During the Axial Age, a term coined by Karl Jasper to describe the period from 800 to 200 BCE, when all the major modern religions and philosophies were founded, humanity was preoccupied with existential questions. Many groups such as the Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians sought to console themselves with God. While Plato wasn't an atheist, he did think that the fashion to fend off existential despair lay not in an external being such as God, but rather within ourselves, as we enlarge ourselves through wisdom. Platonic dialogues show humans appealing not to revelation or a higher power simply to each other in an attempt to gain knowledge. In fact, Plato could exist downright antagonistic towards the belief in a higher ability, such as in the commencement Platonic dialogue I e'er read, Euthyphro, in which he argues that if God condones things because they are skillful, then there is a higher moral club than even God, and therefore God serves no purpose in determining morality. All of this is illustrated beautifully in Goldstein's dialogue where Plato visits a Bill O'Reilly doppelganger on his news show and rebuts his repeated attempts to equate the good life with a belief in God.
For about of us, college is the only time nosotros have to grapple with the questions of philosophy. Afterwards that, information technology'due south out into the real world where we accept to go to work, make a living, have care of the kids, run errands, and practise chores, leaving no more fourth dimension for esoteric, abstruse questions nearly the nature of reality. This volume challenges that notion in a well-reasoned, expressive, and comprehensive manner that tin and should exist appreciated by philosophy lovers, philosophy-jeerers, and everyone in betwixt. Just like Plato at the Googleplex, philosophy is as relevant every bit ever.
Source: https://thehumanist.com/magazine/september-october-2014/arts_entertainment/book-review-plato-at-the-googleplex-why-philosophy-wont-go-away
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