All that means is Socrates aggravated or embarrassed the wrong people. In my book, choosing to kill oneself over exile is suicide not martyrdom.

So, perhaps in that sense 'Socrates' was a martyr to Plato's cause. — Amity

Yes, so says – dramatizes – Plato. Myth-making PR. :up:

Reading the Dialogues as Fiction. Way to go, Plato :sparkle: — Amity

So, perhaps in that sense 'Socrates' was a martyr to Plato's cause.
— Amity
Yes, so says – dramatizes – Plato. Myth-making PR. :up: — 180 Proof

You once asked in the feedback of your Short Story 'Felice' why or how readers 'pegged you for the scribbler - style, plot, character, (peculiar) word choices, themes'.

The question stayed in my mind because I didn't really know how to answer it.
I think @Jamal mentioned your use of striking similes and metaphors.

I'm about to start a short course: 'How to Read a Novel'.
The study includes 4 books, each to be analysed for a certain aspect: Plot, Setting, Characterisation, and Dialogue. Possibly also specific literary techniques/tools...

I've been wondering how you and others read or would re-read any of Plato's Dialogues as literature.
For example: How to Read 'The Symposium'.

Are certain dialogues easier or more entertaining/educational than others?
For a beginner...perhaps the earlier?
What are the more challenging or 'deep'? Rewarding as both literature and philosophy.
How are the readers mystified by creative ambiguity? Other techniques to dramatise philosophy.

@Shawn - apologies for going off-topic. However, I think this might interest you too?

I've been wondering how you and others read or would re-read any of Plato's Dialogues as literature.
For example: How to Read 'The Symposium'. — Amity

Given his deep suspicion of poetry, I doubt Plato wrote his Dialogues, dramatic and stylized as they may be, to be read only or principally as 'literature' – for their literary qualities. I agree with (platonist) Iris Murdoch's differentiation of philosophical texts and literary texts, and the different implications for reading them (pardon if you're familiar with this video, I've posted it recently elsewhere):

pt. 1 of 5 (differentiates them)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m47A0AmqxQE

What do you think?

I've been wondering how you and others read or would re-read any of Plato's Dialogues as literature.
For example: How to Read 'The Symposium'. — Amity

A work of fiction; but, a different kind of fiction? Maybe philosophy is a different kind of fiction... :chin:

I agree with (platonist) Iris Murdoch's differentiation of philosophical texts and literary text, and the different implications for reading them (pardon if you're familiar with this video, I've posted it recently elsewhere)[...]
What do you think? — 180 Proof

Thanks, I missed that. I'll take time later to view and consider :up:

Maybe philosophy is a different kind of fiction. — Shawn

Maybe...part of our story-telling... :chin:

Maybe...part of our story-telling... :chin: — Amity

Plato is unique in how his Socrates, whether he was factual or not, is the narrator. I haven't seen any other philosopher apart from Plato that utilizes any narrator or narration in their works.

Well, I might be wrong about my previous comment with regard to continental's like Sarte or Camus.

Yes. Plato keeps himself well out of the philosophical play. Nevertheless, he is most certainly there.
The invisible man pulling the strings...

I haven't seen any other philosopher apart from Plato that utilizes any narrator or narration in their works. — Shawn

Well, I might be wrong about my previous comment with regard to continental's like Sarte or Camus. — Shawn

I don't know enough about other philosophers' use of narrators or how they promote their philosophy.
Interesting to consider though :up:

Well, Socrates was a man on a mission and his best student took the gauntlet after his death and glorified him like none other. Didn't Socrates die a noble death?

Did Plato glorify the historical Socrates or himself?

I wondered about the difference between them, and found this:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Socrates/Socrates-versus-Plato

Did Plato glorify the historical Socrates or himself? — Amity

Given the stature of Socrates and the link you provided, I don't see how else to describe Socrates as a man with incredible integrity. This fact should answer the question as to why Socrates didn't abandon Athens and possibly be called a hypocrite* by his enemies.

* Or a sophist.

What do you think? — 180 Proof

I think Murdoch speaks for herself and not for philosophy or poetry. In the video she is quoted as saying

... the aim of philosophy is to clarify and the aim of literature is to mystify.

(3:54)

While I think it is certainly true that Plato attempts to clarify, I think it also true that part of what he attempts to clarify is the ontological and epistemological mystery. Not in order to demystify but to allow the mystery to stand. Mystikos in the Greek sense of secret, not revealed or disclosed or known. Plato plays on the double sense of hidden/revealed and uninitiated/ initiated. In the Republic the philosophers are philosophers because they have undergone a transcendent and transformative experience. But this imagined philosopher is at odds with Socrates, who knows that he does not know, as well as with the characterization of the philosopher in the Symposium as one who desires to be wise but is not. The Socratic philosopher is one who pursues but does not possess wisdom beyond the human wisdom of knowing he or she is ignorant.

Looked at from the side of poetry or literature, I think it questionable that it is to be read:

... only or principally as 'literature' – for their literary qualities. — 180 Proof

It should be kept in mind that at the Plato lived the poets were the primary source of public education. They serves not simply to entertain but to educate. A fundamental question for Plato is, who will be the educators? In terms of the cave, who are the puppet-masters? Plato took seriously what the poets said about men and gods.

Murdoch says that philosophy should develop a moral or philosophical psychology that provides the terms in which to understand and characterize the substantial self to which she gives center stage, displacing the existentialist/analytic (which she sometimes calls “existentialist-behavioristic”) freely choosing will. (SEP Iris Murdoch)

Such philosophical psychology can be found both in Plato and the Greek poets.

As I understand it, Plato's concern was not simply to draw the battle lines in the quarrel between the philosopher and the poet as to present a philosophical poiesis. To this end he made full use of the imagination and its images, including the images of the cave, the divided line, and the philosopher.

Along the same lines, he does not simply take sides in the quarrel between philosophy and sophistry. He makes use of sophistic arguments when we thinks it appropriate in order to persuade. Not in order to make the weaker argument stronger, as the sophist does, but to arrive at the argument that is on its own merits stronger. It is here, with regard to persuasion, that his suspicion of both poetry and sophistry lies.

Both poetry and sophistry are philosophy's competitors in the task of persuasion and education. In addition, he competes against the politicians and theologians, creating his own city, albeit only in speech. A city in which the philosopher rules, in which the sophist (Thrasymachus) is tamed and made an ally, in which the philosopher is the myth maker, and the gods are replaced by the Good.

As to the education of the philosopher - escape from the cave means to free oneself from all puppet-masters, all makers of images, be they poets, sophists, politicians, theologians, and even philosophers.

Insightful. Thanks. :cool:

Thanks for the excellent and learned reply.
I like this:

As to the education of the philosopher - escape from the cave means to free oneself from all puppet-masters, all makers of images, be they poets, sophists, politicians, theologians, and even philosophers. — Fooloso4

It is how or where we can learn to do this effectively combined with lightness in the serious.
TPF is the best formal/informal venue or avenue I've found.
But my attention is veering towards literature. It's good when there's a combination :sparkle:
Later... :flower:

I think Plato the puppet-master is well aware that there will always be those who fool themselves into believing that having read about the cave that they have thereby escaped it.

It should be noted that there are several stages on the road to freedom from the cave. The image of a transcendent reality outside the cave remains a shadow on the cave wall. Perhaps the best we can do is to become aware of the image-makers, those who shape our opinions, and not mistake our images of the truth for the truth itself.

@Shawn As to the question of martyrdom and guilt, escape from the cave is escape from the city. Socrates was a citizen of the city in the double sense of place or Chora.

The term chora in its original sense means the territory outside the city proper. The Phaedrus is the only Platonic dialogue in which Socrates appears outside the city. In the country he says he has nothing to learn (230d). I will leave the question of whether he could or did learn anything "from the trees" open.

Socrates is atopos, out of place. With regard to the city proper he is out of place because his thinking is cosmopolitan rather than provincial. But outside the city proper he is also out of place. On the one hand he demonstrates his allegiance to the city of Athens, but on the other his philosophical practice is transgressive. This inbetweenness is characteristic of Plato's chora.

The city in its broadest and most general sense is society, the space of human life, our place. In this sense it is not this city or that city, not Athens or Sparta, in which we might find our place. But this place is neither here nor there. At its heart is an indeterminacy. We can argue in favor of or against his choice and why he made it without coming to a clear conclusion. One thing is clear, however, he acted decisively. The ambiguity of life did not lead him to paralysis. However much they may be at odds we must both reason and act.

He did not live his life in fear of or avoidance of death. Here too, however much they are at odds with each other, it is not simply a choice of one or the other. In his jail cell as he is about to die Socrates says:

Other people may well be unaware that all who actually engage in philosophy aright are practising nothing other than dying and being dead. (Phaedo 64a)

Alongside the dyads of reason and action and life and death is the dyad of comedy and tragedy. We should not miss the comic element in the above statement to his friends about philosophy and death.

I think Plato the puppet-master is well aware that there will always be those who fool themselves into believing that having read about the cave that they have thereby escaped it.

It should be noted that there are several stages on the road to freedom from the cave. The image of a transcendent reality outside the cave remains a shadow on the cave wall. Perhaps the best we can do is to become aware of the image-makers, those who shape our opinions, and not mistake our images of the truth for the truth itself. — Fooloso4

I think you are right.
Thank you :sparkle:

It's time for me to take another very long break.
Talk elsewhere, as usual.

It's time for me to take another very long break.
Talk elsewhere, as usual. — Amity

You will be missed.

:flower:

Thanks. Decision not taken lightly. But other interests beckon. Time better spent.
Take care :flower:

As to the question of martyrdom and guilt, escape from the cave is escape from the city. Socrates was a citizen of the city in the double sense of place or Chora. — Fooloso4

Your account of the Chora presented in the Timaeus reminds me of a passage in the Theaetetus:

Socrates: Evils, Theodorus, can never be done away with, for the good must always come from the contrary; nor have they any place in the divine world, but they must needs haunt this region of our mortal nature. — Theaetetus, 176a, translated by Cornford

The translation does not fully capture the Greek in regard to 'place' (topos):

τὴν δὲ θνητὴν φύσιν καὶ τόνδε τὸν τόπον περιπολεῖ ἐξ ἀνάγκης.

The word περιπολεῖ is to wander around an area the way a vagrant or a military patrol might do.

The ἀνάγκης is the same 'necessity' that required starting over again in Timaeus.

There is much to be said in response, but will limit it to a few remarks. They are not intended to argue against but to elaborate on what you said.

In contrast to the abstract nature of much of contemporary philosophy as well as Plato's own abstractions, it should be emphasized just how rooted his work is in our everyday life and concerns.

What he means by ἀνάγκης or necessity is not what we typically think of as necessity. What is by necessity is without nous or intellect. It covers such things as physical processes, contingency, chance, motion, power, and the chora. That evil is a necessity means it is without intelligible explanation.

The place of mortal men is not the place of the gods where good and evil are separate "Forms".

The passage from Theaetetus continues:

Therefore we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can, and to escape is to become like God ...

But this is the exact opposite of what this escape is. To escape our place is to die, and to die is not to be like the immortal gods.

In contrast to the question of why Socrates did not attempt to escape death, here and elsewhere (Phaedo) he proposes we escape life "as quickly as we can". But of course this is not to be taken literally. It is evident that at age 70 he did not take this advice literally. In any case, this raises doubts about martyrdom. And in the Phaedo he raises doubts about hims motivation being suicide because he says it is prohibited.

The dialogue ends with Socrates saying he must go to answer the charges against him.