"One’s aesthetic criteria evolve with age, education and refinement. I vaguely remember Socrates saying that if something was popular then it probably wasn’t good."
aesthete8
Francis A. Miniter
> Did Socrates really say that?:
>
> http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Pop+goes+the+king&artid=PEPBvRqO2%7C8=&SectionID=d16Fdk4iJhE=&MainSectionID=w44iAeuGCu8=&SectionName=aVlZZy44Xq0bJKAA84nwcg==&SEO=
First issue arises from the fact that Socrates, like many
other very famous inspirers of youth, never wrote anything.
So we have no primary sources on which to rely.
That leaves us with secondary sources, Plato and Xenophon,
by and large. Xenophon, of the two, had the more historical
mind, and could, I think, be relied upon to be more likely
to write what he thought he heard. Plato was the more
philosophical and poetic and made a dramatic character out
of Socrates, so that, apart from those few dialogues where
Plato's version of what Socrates said agrees with what
Xenophon recalled [the Apologia and Symposium] , it is
difficult to state with any certainty that the other
Platonic dialogues were historical in origin. And even at
that, Plato's Symposium is a vastly different work from
Xenophon's.
So, to rephrase the question, did Plato have his character
Socrates state that things that are popular are not good?
Now we run into the second issue, namely, that most of the
time, Socrates did not state things as true, he asked
questions to get his interlocutor to take a position as to
whether something was true or not. And having got the
person to take a position, it was more often the case, that
he then proceeded to demolish whichever position that the
person took. So, it often appeared that Socrates took a
position, when in fact he did not. So convinced was
Cornford of this illusion, that when he translated The
Republic, he completely eliminated the interlocutors and
wrote as if Socrates were delivering a treatise. Never mind
that Socrates would get Glaucon to state one thing and then
turn around and get Adeimantus to state exactly the
opposite. Cornford never noticed.
So, on a further rephrasing, did Socrates ever discuss with
his interlocutors whether the popular (or rephrasing - the
common opinion of good) was the same as what was truly good?
The answer would be yes. For one place, I think you can
find such a discussion in the Euthyphro. For another, look
to Books 2 and 3 of the Republic.
--
Francis A. Miniter
Oscuramente
libros, laminas, llaves
siguen mi suerte.
Jorge Luis Borges, La Cifra Haiku, 6