May 18, 2026

Interview with Matt Ehret - Plato vs. Aristotle: The Flame, the Vessel, and the Fate of Human Progress

Matt Ehret argues that the divide between Plato and Aristotle is not a historical curiosity confined to the ancient world — it is a living fault line that continues to shape how civilizations understand learning, discovery, and human advancement. In this first of three episodes with Ehret, he makes the case that the Platonic method — learning as recollection, knowledge as something awakened from within rather than deposited from outside — is the engine of genuine human progress. The Aristotelian method, which begins with closed axioms and fills the student as a vessel from without, produces in his reading increasingly sophisticated illusions of progress: the appearance of accumulation without the substance of discovery.

Ehret grounds this argument in the founding conditions of Plato's Academy — its geometry requirement, its Pythagorean foundations through Archytas of Tarentum, and its core pedagogical premise that a student must construct knowledge rather than receive it. The Meno dialogue serves as the episode's central demonstration: Socrates leads an uneducated slave boy to geometric truth not by instruction but by guided questioning, showing that genuine understanding is always an act of recollection, not reception. The episode closes on its first Plato–Aristotle contrast: a verb-driven universe against a noun-driven one — and leaves open the question of which tradition the West has actually been running on.

This is Part 1 of a three-episode arc with Ehret tracing the Plato–Aristotle divide and its consequences for Western intellectual history.

Show Notes & Timestamps

00:00 — Introduction to Progress and Ideas

00:29 — Welcome to Notions of Progress

02:24 — Introducing Matt Ehret

03:27 — Today’s Focus: Ideas as Operating Systems

07:51 — The Platonic Method: Learning as Discovery

12:45 — The Academy: Plato’s Educational Innovations

15:16 — The Meno Dialogue: Virtue and Knowledge

21:05 — Sophistry vs. Philosophy: The Battle for Wisdom

35:58 — The Allegory of the Cave

Key Concepts & TermsConstructive Geometry

The method of geometric reasoning that Plato required of all Academy students — and that Ehret identifies as the epistemological foundation of the Platonic tradition. In constructive geometry, the student begins with no axioms and no assumptions. Instead of being told that a square has four equal sides and right angles, the student is asked to construct one from scratch using only a compass and straightedge, discovering its properties through the process of building it. Nothing is taken on faith; everything must be demonstrated. Ehret contrasts this with the Aristotelian approach, which begins with fixed definitions and proceeds deductively from them. For Plato, geometry taught in the constructive mode was not merely a mathematical exercise — it was training in the discipline of genuine discovery, preparing the mind to approach questions of justice, virtue, and political life without being captured by false reasoning.

Anamnesis (an-am-NEE-sis)

The Greek term for recollection, and the name Plato gives to his theory of how genuine knowledge is acquired. Plato argues — most explicitly in the Meno — that the soul already contains knowledge of the eternal truths of mathematics, geometry, and virtue. What we call learning is not the addition of new information to an empty container but the reawakening of what the soul already knows. Ehret uses this concept to draw the sharpest distinction between the Platonic and Aristotelian frameworks: where Aristotle imagines the student as a vessel to be filled, Plato imagines the student as a flame to be lit. The Meno's slave boy demonstration — in which Socrates guides an uneducated boy to geometric truth through questioning alone, without ever stating the answer — is the episode's central illustration of anamnesis in action.

Tabula Rasa (TAB-yoo-la RAH-sa)

Latin for 'blank slate.' The concept, closely associated with Aristotelian and later Lockean epistemology, that the human mind at birth contains no innate knowledge — it is an empty surface on which experience writes. Ehret invokes this term to clarify what the Platonic method explicitly rejects. For Plato, knowledge is not inscribed on the mind from outside; it is recollected from within. The pedagogical consequences are profound: a tabula rasa model produces a teacher who transfers information and a student who receives it. A Platonic model produces a teacher who poses questions and a student who makes discoveries. Ehret argues that the history of Western education has largely followed the tabula rasa model — with consequences for how institutions understand progress.

Archytas of Tarentum (ar-KY-tas of ta-REN-tum)

The Pythagorean mathematician and statesman (c. 428–347 BCE) whom Ehret identifies as a direct intellectual precursor to Plato's Academy. A close friend of Plato's, Archytas was the first to solve the problem of doubling the cube — finding a cube with exactly twice the volume of a given cube — not through algebraic calculation but through a purely geometrical construction involving a cone, a cylinder, and a sphere. Ehret presents this achievement as the paradigm case of constructive geometric reasoning: a problem that defeated purely mathematical approaches was solved by someone who understood geometry as the investigation of physical reality, not the manipulation of symbols. Archytas's students formed the first generation of Plato's Academy, and his influence is visible in the inscription above the Academy's entrance: Let no one who does not know geometry enter these walls.

Fascinating Historical InsightsThe Inscription Above the Academy's Entrance

When Plato founded his Academy in Athens around 387 BCE, he placed an inscription above the entrance that read: Let no one who does not know geometry enter these walls. Ehret describes this not as an administrative gatekeeping measure but as a philosophical statement about the kind of mind the Academy was designed to cultivate. Geometry, in the constructive mode Plato required, was the discipline that trained students to make genuine discoveries rather than accept received truths — to discover rather than assume. By the time a student had demonstrated genuine geometric competence, they had already practiced the essential intellectual virtue the Academy demanded: the willingness to suspend assumed knowledge and work toward truth through their own demonstrated reasoning.

Doubling the Cube: A Problem That Required a New Kind of Thinking

One of antiquity's three great unsolved geometric problems — alongside trisecting an angle and squaring the circle — was the Delian problem: how to construct a cube with exactly double the volume of a given cube. Purely mathematical approaches consistently failed. Archytas of Tarentum solved it around 400 BCE using a three-dimensional geometric construction involving a cone, a cylinder, and a torus — a solution that required imagining the intersection of three surfaces in space. Ehret presents this as the defining example of constructive geometry's power: the problem yielded not to more sophisticated calculation but to a fundamentally different mode of thinking. Plato's friendship with Archytas, and his incorporation of Archytas's students into the Academy's founding cohort, meant that this discovery-oriented, construction-first approach became the Academy's pedagogical foundation.

The Slave Boy Demonstration in the Meno

In Plato's Meno dialogue, Socrates undertakes an unusual demonstration. He calls over an uneducated slave boy — a young man with no formal mathematical training — and, through a sequence of carefully posed questions, guides him to discover the geometric principle for doubling the area of a square. Socrates never states the answer. He poses questions, allows the boy to make wrong assumptions, lets him discover his own errors, and waits for the correct insight to emerge from the boy's own reasoning. At the end, the boy has arrived at a genuine geometric truth — not by being told it, but by finding it himself. Plato's point, as Ehret reads it, is not modest: this demonstration shows that genuine knowledge is always recollection. The capacity for mathematical truth was already latent in an uneducated slave. What Socrates provided was not information but the conditions in which discovery could occur.

A Noun-Driven Universe vs. a Verb-Driven Universe

Near the close of the episode, Ehret introduces the first of the contrasts he will develop across the three-part arc: Plato and Aristotle understood reality itself in fundamentally different terms. For Aristotle, the universe is composed of substances — things with fixed natures, definable by their essential properties. The task of knowledge is to correctly categorize these substances and reason from their definitions. The universe, on this model, is fundamentally noun-shaped. For Plato, reality is dynamic: the eternal forms exert an ongoing influence on the changing world of appearances, and the soul is always in motion toward or away from truth. Knowledge is not the correct labeling of fixed things but an active, ongoing process of recollection and discovery. The universe, on this model, is fundamentally verb-shaped. Ehret argues this distinction carries consequences far beyond ancient philosophy — it shapes how Western civilization has understood learning, progress, and what it means to advance.

Resources & Further ReadingPrimary Sources

Plato. Meno. In Cooper, John M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works. Hackett, 1997.

Plato. Gorgias. In Cooper, John M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works. Hackett, 1997.

Works Discussed

Ehret, Matthew. The Clash of the Two Americas, Vol. 1. Canadian Patriot Press, 2021.

Ehret, Matthew. The Untold History of Canada series. Canadian Patriot Press, 2019.

Further Context

For the A...

00:00 - Introduction to Progress and Ideas

00:29 - Welcome to Notions of Progress

02:24 - Introducing Matt Ehret

03:27 - Today's Focus: Ideas as Operating Systems

07:51 - The Platonic Method: Learning as Discovery

12:45 - The Academy: Plato's Educational Innovations

15:16 - The Meno Dialogue: Virtue and Knowledge

21:05 - Sophistry vs. Philosophy: The Battle for Wisdom

35:58 - The Allegory of the Cave

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in Plato's idea

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as he outlines in so many of his dialogues

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including the Meno but also the phaedo

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that that a real discovery

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is more akin to the quality of a recollection

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than it is to adding something to an existing uh

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vessel

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hi welcome to notions of progress

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the show that traces ideas of progress from antiquity

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to the age of AI

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notions of progress exist to surface

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how thinkers across history and across disciplines

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have understood what progress is

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where it comes from and how it manifests in the world

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that includes academics and public intellectuals

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mapping its intellectual history

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and arguing for the traditions

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that they believe are still at work in shaping it

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previous episodes in this series

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have traced how the idea of progress

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has been understood debated

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and contested from antiquity to the present

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today however

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we open a different kind of conversation

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in examining progress in action

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we engage with thinkers

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who don't stand outside the debate

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they're actually inside it

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arguing that a specific tradition

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is not merely an idea about progress

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but its actual engine

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this series interview guest

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Matt Ehret's argument is sweeping and direct

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for two and a half thousand years

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western civilization has been shaped

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by a battle between two philosophical traditions

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a platonic conception

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that holds the human mind capable of genuine

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creative discovery

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versus an Aristotelian perspective that

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in his view systematically forecloses that capacity

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everything genuinely progressive in human history

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Ehret argues flows from the first tradition

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and the central question he raises

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whether the minds our civilization produces

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are capable of real discovery

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or are sophisticated

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prisoners of their own assumptions is

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he contends as urgent now as it was in Plato's Athens

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I hope you find it as rich and thought provoking

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as I did here's my conversation with Matt Ehret

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today we are very fortunate

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to have a very special guest on Today

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Matt Ehret Matt is a Canadian journalist

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historian and lecturer

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and a co founder of Montreal based

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Rising Tide Foundation

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he is editor in chief of the Canadian Patriot Review

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and a senior fellow at the American University

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in Moscow

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Matt contributes to a wide variety of publications

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that both him and his wife

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Cynthia Chung

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are frequent guests on a dizzying number of programs

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his work spans intellectual history geopolitics

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philosophy history

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just to name a few disciplines

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and today's show is gonna be about the platonic

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versus the Aristotelian divide

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as civilization fault lines

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Matt also has a series of books

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to name just a few

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the Untold History of Canada and four volumes

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The Clash of the two Americas

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and most recently Science Unshackled

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I'm going to put in the show notes

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all of Matt's work so that you can see it

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but I think at this point

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let me just move forward and welcome you Matt

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thank you so much for coming on

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it's a great honor and a pleasure to have you on

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hey thank you Marshall

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it's always a pleasure chatting with you

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so I'm looking forward to today's conversation

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fantastic well

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today our main focus

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is to understand how ideas of progress were formed

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and how they act as an operating system

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a fundamental way of thinking and a

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and a system that is carried on through time

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for those who've watched

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the last few episodes of the show

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we've been focusing on ancient Greece

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we've discussed the Academy

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we've discussed Plato's ideas in the Academy

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where he got some of his ideas Socrates

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Aristotle and I think today we take a short step and

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and and contextualize this information

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and understand what these ideas were

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what the major convergence points were

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and most importantly

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how these ideas have carried forward

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and just as an aside

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just by virtue of the fact that we are discussing

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ancient Greece as an idea of progress

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flies against up till the early 20th century

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the conventional opinion

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that progress began during the Enlightenment

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so just even the idea of progress before

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is a revolutionary idea in and of itself

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and with that sorry for the long introduction map

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but I wanted to make sure that people

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my listeners

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got a good sense of kind of where you were coming from

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thanks man

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I mean that that

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that's a really great introduction

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and I I love what you're doing with this theme

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in this program overall

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to really help people develop a new relationship

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and appreciation of those causal ideas

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that gave rise to everything good about humanity

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and that have largely been uh

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the target of a misinformation campaign

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I would say or an organized

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intentional misinformation campaign

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to sever us from a connection

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of those principle concepts

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and that way of thinking that has

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at the best of times brought humanity out of squalor

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out of darkness and into a better way

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with a better sense of self dignity

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a better sense of freedom

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and a better sense of you

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as you've said of progress

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which manifests itself in a myriad of ways

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that all transcend the limits to our existence

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that we were otherwise had we been less creative

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inclined to adapt to as some form of zoo creature in a

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in a cage

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happy with whatever the zookeeper gives it as food

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stuffs inside of that cage

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but humanity in a more creative

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more dignified state has been inclined to resist

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to find that suffocating spiritually

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and to imagine a better world

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that is more fit for a society of justice

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and act accordingly

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and shape their identities accordingly

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around that higher set of ideas

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and whether that manifests in

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in progress in sciences and technology

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in the arts in political freedom

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it's all sort of different species of the same thing

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in my mind and

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and yeah

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to not go to to

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to end our our investigation

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of where the origins of that movement are

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at the at the Enlightenment

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would do such a disservice and destroy our ability to

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I think properly understand the truth

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that this actually

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is something which is eminently examinable

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investigatable

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in the ancient times of ancient Roman republican

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and even earlier especially earlier uh

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Greek

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the literature and understanding

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the fights the personalities

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not just the theories

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but both the theories and the personalities

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of those players who moved humanity in such a

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such an interesting

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anomalously powerful direction during that period

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it's of it's of such a benefit

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so I love the fact that you're

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that you're doing this and I'm

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I'm really looking forward to this conversation

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what I don't think a lot of people realize is just

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even the word progress itself

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is something that's ingrained

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and whether and

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there's a lot of qualitative

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and quantitative understandings of progress

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it's not a the word

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that's a catch all the

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the whole purpose of this show

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is to get on people like Matt

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who will come on and share a vision

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and an understanding of progress

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from their perspective looking back through history

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cause first and foremost

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this show is about a historical reading

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and understanding the context of this

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and lastly before I turn this over back over to Matt

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it's important to also realize that the concept

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in and of itself

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that we are moving in some direction in history

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whether that's progress or regress or no progress

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is testament to the fact that of 25 years later

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we're still looking back at some of the folks

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that Matt's gonna introduce us to today

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that is astounding to me no

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and it's an important point that you brought up there

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because you're right like

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there's no agreement on what that word means

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there's so many theories of progress

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and the word itself

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has become almost scandalous to use in our modern day

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it used to be taken I mean

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people took it for granted

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you know generations ago

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that progress was a good thing and

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and there was a general consensus

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yeah yeah

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progress means getting better

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not getting worse things becoming more perfect

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not less perfect not more imperfect

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but better in some way and

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and so today I think

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people have found themselves in increasingly splintered

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obfuscated academic exercises exactly

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that have given these words semantic spin and

225
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you know papers

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academic papers and other things have been published

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and books have been published

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making progress seem like a terrible thing

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because progress according to who

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you know like

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any word could be a good a

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the good the

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the Commonwealth the

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the good of the whole

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becomes almost a bad thing in that word too

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in this world view as well

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of relative of absolute relativism because yeah

238
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according to whose standard are we using the word good

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and common good or progress

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if it's a terrible fascist

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or somebody who wants to subjugate the

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who believes in the natural subjugation of the majority

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for the benefit of a of a small minority

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then their idea of progress

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of what you're getting

246
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what you're using to gauge better or worse

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is gonna be perhaps atrocious

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a terrible terrible thing

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cause they're gonna be progressing towards their

250
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disgusting goal but if we have a

251
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a baseline which is more objective

252
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and I think such baselines do exist as standards

253
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then we do have something

254
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I think that we can agree on more scientifically

255
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though it may not be as as mathematically satisfying

256
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for some people who wish to

257
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to use to

258
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or to have mathematical certainty in

259
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in everything that they say

260
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that that's not gonna be something

261
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we could necessarily expect to

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but if we assume like

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for example in our own personal lives

264
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that there's certain things that all human beings

265
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independent of our culture

266
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our opinions on things all find value in

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we have something to work with

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and I think one of those things is like

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okay well

270
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regardless if you're born today or a thousand years ago

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or a million years ago

272
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or in Africa or Asia or Europe or whatever

273
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you probably will need water

274
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you probably will need access to water to avoid the

275
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the consequences of the biophysical laws

276
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of lack of water the

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the shutdown of metabolic activity

278
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that comes with lack of nutrients

279
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of food which

280
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you know you don't just want for yourself

281
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but you also probably want for your kids

282
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the family unit

283
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whatever social group you find yourself within

284
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you probably value whatever allows for clean

285
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healthy substance to provide nourishment shelter

286
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warmth to keep you from freezing to death

287
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if you live in that part of the world

288
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or something that allows for some shade and some

289
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so there's certain basic things

290
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that are required to meet the laws of life

291
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and presumably

292
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you wouldn't want to just meet them as thing as

293
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you know as scarcity increases over time as

294
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as food stuffs are eaten up

295
00:10:34,400 --> 00:10:35,566
but you recognize that oh

296
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we'd probably want to improve the quality and

297
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and means of acquiring

298
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those things that keep us healthy

299
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that keep our loved ones healthy

300
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that keep that ensures more security for our kids

301
00:10:47,200 --> 00:10:48,766
than the type of security we perhaps

302
00:10:48,766 --> 00:10:51,133
didn't have as adults growing up

303
00:10:51,133 --> 00:10:51,933
you know so

304
00:10:52,133 --> 00:10:53,233
I think everyone could agree

305
00:10:53,233 --> 00:10:55,833
in these general starting points

306
00:10:55,833 --> 00:10:57,866
and then you could scale it up a little bit and say

307
00:10:57,866 --> 00:10:58,733
okay well

308
00:10:58,833 --> 00:10:59,633
imagine now

309
00:10:59,633 --> 00:11:02,400
these types of invariants apply to all of society that

310
00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:05,200
okay how can we make not just water certainty

311
00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:06,266
what type of technologies

312
00:11:06,266 --> 00:11:08,400
allow for the increase of abundance

313
00:11:08,400 --> 00:11:11,533
what types of things allow us to overcome wars

314
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which increase usually uncertainty

315
00:11:13,933 --> 00:11:15,533
scarcity pain suffering

316
00:11:15,533 --> 00:11:16,733
injustice so what

317
00:11:16,733 --> 00:11:18,200
there's certain decisions that usually

318
00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:20,566
you could call progress if

319
00:11:20,566 --> 00:11:23,166
you know people actually have a healthy idea of what a

320
00:11:23,166 --> 00:11:25,766
what a normal healthy human being in a human species

321
00:11:25,766 --> 00:11:28,100
should kind of be geared towards

322
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and thus with that healthy baseline

323
00:11:30,133 --> 00:11:32,166
as the doctor I think the the

324
00:11:32,166 --> 00:11:33,566
the healthy doctor is

325
00:11:33,566 --> 00:11:35,366
not somebody who's just a master in sickness

326
00:11:35,366 --> 00:11:35,866
they're they're

327
00:11:35,866 --> 00:11:36,966
they're such a master in the

328
00:11:36,966 --> 00:11:39,100
in the science of knowing disease

329
00:11:39,366 --> 00:11:43,366
because they have a baseline idea of what is healthy

330
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first and foremost as their standard

331
00:11:45,366 --> 00:11:47,600
let me just narrow just zero in on one

332
00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:49,233
one word that you said because actually that

333
00:11:49,233 --> 00:11:51,400
that describes the incentive for me doing the show

334
00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:53,033
to begin with and that is the zeitgeist

335
00:11:53,033 --> 00:11:55,866
and it was a zeitgeist and from my own perspective

336
00:11:55,866 --> 00:11:57,966
regarding progress and a sense

337
00:11:57,966 --> 00:11:59,566
not a conclusion but a sense

338
00:11:59,566 --> 00:12:00,466
that there are many people

339
00:12:00,466 --> 00:12:01,833
who don't feel that they're progressing

340
00:12:01,833 --> 00:12:03,233
and that they're moving backwards

341
00:12:03,233 --> 00:12:04,600
and this is what a question

342
00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:06,533
that I thought was very interesting to explore

343
00:12:07,266 --> 00:12:08,933
and especially in this particular episode

344
00:12:08,933 --> 00:12:10,400
we're gonna talk about ancient Greece

345
00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:10,933
and you're gonna see

346
00:12:10,933 --> 00:12:13,233
this is the fundamental operating system

347
00:12:13,233 --> 00:12:15,066
behind many of those ideas

348
00:12:15,133 --> 00:12:16,166
getting to that truth

349
00:12:16,166 --> 00:12:17,833
that Matt described in that virtue

350
00:12:17,833 --> 00:12:20,333
and I think today what I'd like to now cue up Matt

351
00:12:20,333 --> 00:12:21,966
is we're gonna talk about two pivotal

352
00:12:22,233 --> 00:12:23,600
let's say three pivotal factors

353
00:12:23,600 --> 00:12:24,333
can we kind of like

354
00:12:24,333 --> 00:12:26,133
start an ancient Greece and just

355
00:12:26,133 --> 00:12:28,233
just talk a little bit about the ecosystem

356
00:12:28,233 --> 00:12:30,700
of the Academy prior to its existence

357
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IE Socrates

358
00:12:32,066 --> 00:12:33,066
Plato and Aristotle

359
00:12:33,066 --> 00:12:35,000
just a little bit about the context of these

360
00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:37,266
what these folks were in and then

361
00:12:37,266 --> 00:12:39,066
just talk a little bit about their fertilization

362
00:12:39,066 --> 00:12:41,766
at the Academy and then the Lyceum etcetera

363
00:12:41,966 --> 00:12:42,633
sure yeah

364
00:12:42,633 --> 00:12:43,433
um well

365
00:12:43,433 --> 00:12:44,566
I suppose yeah

366
00:12:44,566 --> 00:12:48,633
the Academy of Plato was the first such academy that

367
00:12:48,633 --> 00:12:51,200
as far as I could tell had ever been produced

368
00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:53,133
or generated by the human species

369
00:12:53,133 --> 00:12:55,800
in a way that is analogous to the sort of thing that

370
00:12:55,800 --> 00:12:57,566
that we've seen in in the

371
00:12:57,566 --> 00:12:59,600
in the period of the medieval ages and

372
00:12:59,600 --> 00:13:01,066
and especially our current world

373
00:13:01,066 --> 00:13:03,733
and it was a very new idea and innovation that

374
00:13:03,733 --> 00:13:06,200
that young people could be brought to an institution

375
00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:08,433
qualified as Plato said if

376
00:13:08,433 --> 00:13:08,866
if uh

377
00:13:08,866 --> 00:13:10,433
to enter the to enter his academy

378
00:13:10,433 --> 00:13:13,666
to even qualify people had lined up from far and wide

379
00:13:13,666 --> 00:13:14,800
because of the reputation of this

380
00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:16,266
incredible center of learning

381
00:13:16,733 --> 00:13:19,033
you had to really master geometry

382
00:13:19,033 --> 00:13:19,600
you had to at least

383
00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:22,433
demonstrate some knowledge of geometry

384
00:13:22,433 --> 00:13:24,000
and there there was an inscription

385
00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:26,033
above the entrance to the academy

386
00:13:26,033 --> 00:13:26,266
that said

387
00:13:26,266 --> 00:13:29,166
let no one who does not know geometry enter these walls

388
00:13:29,166 --> 00:13:33,000
and part of the reason that Plato had in his mind

389
00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:35,233
as himself a geometer

390
00:13:35,233 --> 00:13:37,433
somebody who had mastered constructive geometry

391
00:13:37,533 --> 00:13:39,333
even before he set up the academy

392
00:13:39,333 --> 00:13:40,766
and he was friends after all

393
00:13:40,766 --> 00:13:41,833
Plato before the Academy

394
00:13:41,833 --> 00:13:43,933
he was friends with Archytas

395
00:13:43,966 --> 00:13:44,866
the great Archytas

396
00:13:44,866 --> 00:13:47,033
who discovered the doubling of the cube

397
00:13:47,166 --> 00:13:48,633
that nobody had figured out

398
00:13:48,633 --> 00:13:50,266
until Archytas was able to crack it

399
00:13:50,266 --> 00:13:52,133
and involved this incredible

400
00:13:52,133 --> 00:13:53,400
it wasn't a mathematical solution

401
00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:55,000
it was entirely a geometrical solution

402
00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:56,433
involving a cone a cylinder

403
00:13:56,566 --> 00:13:58,833
and a and a sphere to double a cube

404
00:13:58,933 --> 00:14:00,533
you know it's very different from doubling the square

405
00:14:00,533 --> 00:14:01,566
on a two dimensional plane

406
00:14:01,566 --> 00:14:05,500
but so this Archytas was was very good friends with

407
00:14:05,666 --> 00:14:06,766
with Plato and

408
00:14:06,766 --> 00:14:08,400
and Plato had worked with a number of people

409
00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:12,366
had himself contributed to our understanding of

410
00:14:12,366 --> 00:14:15,033
of the dodecahedron as the fifth platonic solid

411
00:14:15,033 --> 00:14:16,766
that's why they call them the platonic solids

412
00:14:16,766 --> 00:14:18,366
because Plato recognized that

413
00:14:18,366 --> 00:14:20,933
within the process of doing geometry correctly

414
00:14:20,933 --> 00:14:23,800
constructively you start with no axioms

415
00:14:23,800 --> 00:14:25,200
there's no Euclidean assumptions

416
00:14:25,200 --> 00:14:26,533
you just simply start with a challenge

417
00:14:26,533 --> 00:14:27,666
of trying to do a thing

418
00:14:27,666 --> 00:14:28,766
you start with a square and you're like

419
00:14:28,766 --> 00:14:30,666
well I don't assume that I know a square

420
00:14:30,666 --> 00:14:33,333
I I have to construct it from only circular action

421
00:14:33,433 --> 00:14:35,333
and then once I've discovered it

422
00:14:35,333 --> 00:14:37,466
it's not based upon blind faith

423
00:14:37,466 --> 00:14:39,666
but on real discoveries along the way of

424
00:14:39,666 --> 00:14:43,166
how do I know that these four vertices are

425
00:14:43,166 --> 00:14:43,866
in fact

426
00:14:43,866 --> 00:14:47,833
absolutely separated from the ascender point equally

427
00:14:47,833 --> 00:14:50,533
and have 90 degree angles at each one

428
00:14:50,533 --> 00:14:52,966
and how do I then do the same for a triangle

429
00:14:52,966 --> 00:14:54,566
an equilateral triangle or a pentagon

430
00:14:54,566 --> 00:14:56,833
which requires an exploration of the golden section

431
00:14:56,966 --> 00:14:57,933
to understand the Pentagon

432
00:14:57,933 --> 00:15:00,266
and once you do that and explore their relationships

433
00:15:00,266 --> 00:15:03,200
you could then begin to not just discover objectively

434
00:15:03,200 --> 00:15:06,333
what is true in organizing the fabric of reality

435
00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:08,266
which does involve a relationship

436
00:15:08,266 --> 00:15:10,033
of these core five solids

437
00:15:10,033 --> 00:15:10,366
you know but

438
00:15:10,366 --> 00:15:12,166
but you're doing it on the two dimensional domain

439
00:15:12,166 --> 00:15:13,533
but you could then build it

440
00:15:13,533 --> 00:15:15,966
up and unfold these into cubes

441
00:15:15,966 --> 00:15:19,633
into tetra tetrahegons icosahedrons

442
00:15:19,633 --> 00:15:21,433
dodecahedrons and see

443
00:15:21,433 --> 00:15:21,833
okay well

444
00:15:21,833 --> 00:15:23,566
what did my mind have to do differently

445
00:15:23,566 --> 00:15:24,666
that allowed for the construction

446
00:15:24,666 --> 00:15:26,533
and true understanding of what these are

447
00:15:26,533 --> 00:15:29,233
and what type of new proportions emerge

448
00:15:29,233 --> 00:15:31,066
out of comparing them together

449
00:15:31,066 --> 00:15:31,366
you know

450
00:15:31,366 --> 00:15:34,166
if I nest them all into a sphere of the same size

451
00:15:34,166 --> 00:15:35,166
how do their their

452
00:15:35,166 --> 00:15:37,733
their edges change proportional to each other

453
00:15:37,733 --> 00:15:40,233
what types of harmonics might emerge

454
00:15:40,266 --> 00:15:42,900
you know that might have some audio

455
00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:44,566
a correlation

456
00:15:44,566 --> 00:15:46,600
that might be either pleasant or dissonant

457
00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:49,200
if I listened to the musicality of these proportions

458
00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:50,400
on a string so he was a follower

459
00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:51,666
in his own words in the

460
00:15:51,666 --> 00:15:54,566
for example in the Protagoras dialogue

461
00:15:54,566 --> 00:15:56,633
of the Pythagorean tradition

462
00:15:56,833 --> 00:15:58,766
and here I'm not referring to the mystical

463
00:15:58,766 --> 00:16:02,500
hermetic rebranding of the Pythagorean tradition

464
00:16:03,133 --> 00:16:04,000
but I mean the real

465
00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:07,533
authentic thing as outlined by Timaeus in the the

466
00:16:07,533 --> 00:16:10,333
the actual Pythagorean friend of Plato

467
00:16:10,333 --> 00:16:12,966
who survived the many destructive persecutions

468
00:16:12,966 --> 00:16:15,333
of the Pythagoreans and had the only sort of

469
00:16:15,333 --> 00:16:15,633
I think

470
00:16:15,633 --> 00:16:18,633
honest outline of what the doctrine actually was

471
00:16:18,666 --> 00:16:22,866
that saw a co development of the visual and audio space

472
00:16:22,866 --> 00:16:23,366
times

473
00:16:23,366 --> 00:16:25,733
that would be something you could explore together

474
00:16:25,733 --> 00:16:27,133
by looking at the ironies and the cracks

475
00:16:27,133 --> 00:16:28,666
and that would be real geometry

476
00:16:28,666 --> 00:16:30,966
yeah so he understood that as you discover

477
00:16:30,966 --> 00:16:32,333
in this type of approach

478
00:16:32,666 --> 00:16:34,566
more about the objective world around you

479
00:16:34,566 --> 00:16:35,933
you're also simultaneously

480
00:16:35,933 --> 00:16:38,366
discovering more about the nature and rules

481
00:16:38,366 --> 00:16:40,866
of your own mind being creative

482
00:16:40,966 --> 00:16:42,600
cause you're not just being a computer

483
00:16:42,600 --> 00:16:45,633
processing information you're hypothesizing

484
00:16:45,633 --> 00:16:48,866
you're discovering where a false hypothesis

485
00:16:48,866 --> 00:16:50,866
that was leading you on is in

486
00:16:50,866 --> 00:16:51,833
is untrue

487
00:16:51,833 --> 00:16:54,266
because it's not helping you solve the problem of

488
00:16:54,266 --> 00:16:55,666
let's say doubling the square

489
00:16:55,800 --> 00:16:59,166
as he gets the the slave boy of Mino Mino

490
00:16:59,166 --> 00:17:00,800
the slave owner who has a slave child

491
00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:03,266
he gets him to discover a challenge

492
00:17:03,266 --> 00:17:06,433
that requires the slave child also discover

493
00:17:06,433 --> 00:17:07,833
Learned ignorance right

494
00:17:07,833 --> 00:17:09,366
discovering that what you thought you know

495
00:17:09,366 --> 00:17:09,933
you don't know

496
00:17:09,933 --> 00:17:13,900
which is a huge power to be able to get that discipline

497
00:17:14,166 --> 00:17:16,533
and once you do that and you do it enough

498
00:17:16,533 --> 00:17:17,800
you don't have to master everything

499
00:17:17,800 --> 00:17:19,500
but once you have a taste for it

500
00:17:19,766 --> 00:17:22,433
then you are qualified as Plato put in his

501
00:17:22,433 --> 00:17:24,733
the curriculum for his his academy

502
00:17:24,833 --> 00:17:28,566
you are then qualified to use the minds at the mind

503
00:17:28,566 --> 00:17:32,133
as a proper tool in an analysis of philosophy

504
00:17:32,333 --> 00:17:33,666
of the pursuit of wisdom of

505
00:17:33,666 --> 00:17:34,266
of justice

506
00:17:34,266 --> 00:17:37,233
of these other deeper questions which have you with

507
00:17:37,233 --> 00:17:39,466
without that that rigor

508
00:17:39,533 --> 00:17:42,333
that you will have Learned in music and geometry

509
00:17:42,333 --> 00:17:44,400
you will not be able to approach it in a

510
00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:46,333
in a in a meaningful way

511
00:17:46,333 --> 00:17:48,266
that will not have you fall

512
00:17:48,266 --> 00:17:48,833
slip and and

513
00:17:48,833 --> 00:17:51,466
and get pulled into webs of sophistry

514
00:17:51,466 --> 00:17:53,466
of false reasoning when trying to deduce well

515
00:17:53,466 --> 00:17:55,000
what is justice what is

516
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:56,133
these other big questions

517
00:17:56,133 --> 00:17:59,033
that are so impactful on the political world

518
00:17:59,033 --> 00:18:01,133
and the and the laws that we happen to be living in and

519
00:18:01,133 --> 00:18:01,833
and the the

520
00:18:01,833 --> 00:18:03,533
the just or unjust wars

521
00:18:03,533 --> 00:18:06,233
that we may find ourselves participating in

522
00:18:06,233 --> 00:18:08,366
as pawns of some other agency

523
00:18:08,366 --> 00:18:11,266
that might mean us very ill effect

524
00:18:11,366 --> 00:18:13,666
so all that to say that was his academy

525
00:18:14,033 --> 00:18:17,633
it was set up largely by the fruits of monies

526
00:18:17,633 --> 00:18:20,400
that were acquired by a payment

527
00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:21,766
I don't know if you're if you have

528
00:18:21,766 --> 00:18:23,266
if you went through this in previous episodes

529
00:18:23,266 --> 00:18:23,800
but you know

530
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:24,700
he was slow he was

531
00:18:25,133 --> 00:18:26,366
I've touched on it a bit and

532
00:18:26,366 --> 00:18:26,633
and okay

533
00:18:26,633 --> 00:18:27,400
and it's yeah

534
00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:28,866
and when you were describing

535
00:18:28,866 --> 00:18:30,600
kind of Plato's conception of

536
00:18:30,600 --> 00:18:31,400
of how one learns

537
00:18:31,400 --> 00:18:33,766
and how one reaches this level of virtue

538
00:18:33,833 --> 00:18:35,633
could you explain a little bit about his notion of

539
00:18:35,633 --> 00:18:37,466
epistemology for example

540
00:18:37,466 --> 00:18:39,200
and how and how the idea of virtue so

541
00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:40,400
just so that we can frame that

542
00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:42,166
so when we talk a little bit later

543
00:18:42,166 --> 00:18:44,566
about some of the competing frameworks

544
00:18:44,566 --> 00:18:47,233
we can understand you also mentioned the Meno

545
00:18:47,366 --> 00:18:48,966
which is one of his well known dialogues

546
00:18:48,966 --> 00:18:49,166
just

547
00:18:49,166 --> 00:18:51,766
talk a little bit about how Plato used those dialogues

548
00:18:51,766 --> 00:18:55,066
to reveal his pistomology

549
00:18:55,066 --> 00:18:56,366
if I and I hope

550
00:18:56,366 --> 00:18:57,533
that this conversation we're having

551
00:18:57,533 --> 00:18:59,766
encourages people to recognize that

552
00:18:59,766 --> 00:19:01,133
they need to read Plato himself

553
00:19:01,133 --> 00:19:03,800
because this type of thing is like a nice stimulant

554
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:06,433
but it it is not a substitute for actual knowledge

555
00:19:06,433 --> 00:19:09,266
I almost I feel like I could say too much

556
00:19:09,266 --> 00:19:09,733
that might

557
00:19:09,733 --> 00:19:12,633
deprive people of the ability to make a discovery

558
00:19:12,633 --> 00:19:13,866
I don't want to deprive people of

559
00:19:13,866 --> 00:19:15,466
of the joy of of making that

560
00:19:15,466 --> 00:19:17,233
those types of discoveries on their own

561
00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:18,866
by reading Plato and

562
00:19:19,066 --> 00:19:20,966
and sort of chewing on the ambiguity

563
00:19:20,966 --> 00:19:23,433
that he consciously embeds within his dialogues

564
00:19:23,433 --> 00:19:25,666
by design because he's trying to stimulate us

565
00:19:25,733 --> 00:19:26,866
into thinking for ourselves

566
00:19:26,866 --> 00:19:29,066
and not giving us the type of satisfying closed

567
00:19:29,066 --> 00:19:30,566
fixed answers to questions

568
00:19:30,566 --> 00:19:33,333
that we often are accustomed to expecting

569
00:19:33,333 --> 00:19:34,600
in philosophical treaties

570
00:19:34,600 --> 00:19:34,966
like that

571
00:19:34,966 --> 00:19:37,200
which we might see from the writings of an Aristotle

572
00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:39,833
or many of those philosophers in our modern day

573
00:19:39,833 --> 00:19:42,200
who tell us exactly what justice is

574
00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:44,133
what to think about virtue and these things

575
00:19:44,233 --> 00:19:45,366
Plato doesn't do that

576
00:19:45,366 --> 00:19:48,200
which is why a lot of people are a bit uncomfortable

577
00:19:48,200 --> 00:19:49,933
at first reading him because

578
00:19:49,933 --> 00:19:51,133
because he's not doing that

579
00:19:51,133 --> 00:19:53,333
and they're like is he toying with me

580
00:19:53,366 --> 00:19:56,433
is he toying with me or does he not really know

581
00:19:56,433 --> 00:19:57,200
and it's like no

582
00:19:57,200 --> 00:19:58,633
he's got some pretty strong ideas

583
00:19:58,633 --> 00:20:00,600
of what these things are don't get him wrong

584
00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:01,533
even though he has his character

585
00:20:01,533 --> 00:20:02,666
Socrates his teacher

586
00:20:02,666 --> 00:20:04,033
often say that you know

587
00:20:04,033 --> 00:20:05,633
he knows that he doesn't know

588
00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:06,866
where's everybody else thinks they know

589
00:20:06,866 --> 00:20:08,733
and so he's still in a better place to ask questions

590
00:20:08,733 --> 00:20:10,666
and to to help them uh

591
00:20:10,666 --> 00:20:12,166
become aware of what they thought they knew

592
00:20:12,166 --> 00:20:13,600
that they don't know based on a paradox

593
00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:15,033
you know so it's useful

594
00:20:15,566 --> 00:20:16,400
but they're like no

595
00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:17,400
but he but they're like oh

596
00:20:17,400 --> 00:20:19,033
does he is he really ignorant of everything

597
00:20:19,033 --> 00:20:19,600
and it's like no

598
00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:22,000
he's got strong ideas he's just he

599
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:24,633
he knows that one those ideas are not perfect

600
00:20:24,633 --> 00:20:26,066
they're not mathematically certain in

601
00:20:26,066 --> 00:20:27,933
in such a way that they couldn't be made better

602
00:20:27,933 --> 00:20:30,166
so he's he's got that flexibility and self

603
00:20:30,433 --> 00:20:31,866
he's really cultivated as a muscle

604
00:20:31,866 --> 00:20:33,733
and he wants other people to learn how to do that too

605
00:20:33,733 --> 00:20:34,933
and it's more about the process

606
00:20:34,933 --> 00:20:38,566
so about Plato there is not a single dialogue that is

607
00:20:38,566 --> 00:20:41,733
that gives you a finished sense of satisfaction

608
00:20:41,733 --> 00:20:42,233
thinking okay

609
00:20:42,233 --> 00:20:44,200
now I know everything I can know about this topic

610
00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:46,066
I was just reading about which is a blessing and a

611
00:20:46,066 --> 00:20:48,266
and a and a gift that he's giving us

612
00:20:48,266 --> 00:20:51,100
because he's giving us tools

613
00:20:51,166 --> 00:20:53,566
around which we can analyze

614
00:20:54,533 --> 00:20:56,933
anything and everything we wish to

615
00:20:56,933 --> 00:20:57,933
at all times

616
00:20:57,933 --> 00:21:00,233
and that is universally applicable to anybody

617
00:21:00,233 --> 00:21:02,666
from any culture who uses this method

618
00:21:02,666 --> 00:21:04,333
it's not it's not an ideology

619
00:21:04,333 --> 00:21:07,100
it's not an opinion it's not even temporal

620
00:21:07,133 --> 00:21:09,600
it'll be as applicable a thousand years ago

621
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:11,766
as it was 2,500 years ago

622
00:21:11,766 --> 00:21:12,600
when he was first writing them

623
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:14,966
and it was equally true before he was writing them

624
00:21:14,966 --> 00:21:16,133
this was already a method

625
00:21:16,133 --> 00:21:18,466
he just found a way to a dialectic method of of

626
00:21:18,466 --> 00:21:19,966
of communication

627
00:21:20,033 --> 00:21:22,866
that made it something more transmissible

628
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,433
transgenerationally in a self conscious manner

629
00:21:25,433 --> 00:21:27,533
it's something that I think children even organically

630
00:21:27,533 --> 00:21:30,166
do by being humble naturally

631
00:21:30,166 --> 00:21:30,800
so you know

632
00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:33,466
they have no artificial abstractions

633
00:21:33,466 --> 00:21:34,533
or constructs in their mind

634
00:21:34,533 --> 00:21:37,066
that are holding their creativity and their flow back

635
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:39,933
so when they're learning to walk or make or speak or

636
00:21:39,933 --> 00:21:41,000
or do anything they're

637
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:42,466
they're they're trying things out

638
00:21:42,466 --> 00:21:44,000
they're very self you know they're

639
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:44,733
they're they

640
00:21:44,733 --> 00:21:45,466
they they

641
00:21:45,466 --> 00:21:46,633
they stumble they fall

642
00:21:46,633 --> 00:21:47,400
they try again

643
00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:49,633
they're courageous because they try again

644
00:21:49,766 --> 00:21:50,466
they're uh

645
00:21:50,466 --> 00:21:52,166
they're again humble they don't think they know things

646
00:21:52,166 --> 00:21:53,466
so they they learn quickly

647
00:21:53,466 --> 00:21:54,733
you know that bell curve is fast

648
00:21:54,733 --> 00:21:56,900
and I think a lot of that has to do with a natural

649
00:21:56,966 --> 00:21:59,366
platonic what we call platonic modality

650
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:00,533
you know what you

651
00:22:00,533 --> 00:22:02,700
I just wanna go back to something you said just before

652
00:22:02,733 --> 00:22:04,033
you cause you're talking about the method

653
00:22:04,033 --> 00:22:05,733
and then you brought up geometry

654
00:22:05,733 --> 00:22:08,233
just talk a little bit about how Plato saw mathematics

655
00:22:08,233 --> 00:22:09,833
as part of this formation

656
00:22:09,866 --> 00:22:11,800
this this kind of formative training if

657
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:12,966
if you will it's yeah

658
00:22:12,966 --> 00:22:14,533
in other words you didn't just bring this up randomly

659
00:22:14,533 --> 00:22:15,266
I'm guessing you

660
00:22:15,266 --> 00:22:16,933
you brought this up within the context of a

661
00:22:16,933 --> 00:22:18,466
platonic method if you will

662
00:22:18,700 --> 00:22:19,933
yeah well

663
00:22:19,933 --> 00:22:21,133
that's right and

664
00:22:21,133 --> 00:22:21,433
and you know

665
00:22:21,433 --> 00:22:24,033
Plato's school was largely the merger of a

666
00:22:24,033 --> 00:22:26,766
a pre existing earlier school of Archytas

667
00:22:26,766 --> 00:22:29,433
and one of Archytas's students um

668
00:22:29,666 --> 00:22:31,166
whose name is all of a sudden escaping me

669
00:22:31,166 --> 00:22:32,033
it's it's uh

670
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:34,966
it'll come later on probably um

671
00:22:34,966 --> 00:22:37,966
who was organizing with Plato in the 3 80s uh

672
00:22:38,166 --> 00:22:39,933
in Egypt and uh

673
00:22:40,066 --> 00:22:41,733
and they went together to with

674
00:22:41,733 --> 00:22:43,233
to meet Archytas in uh

675
00:22:43,266 --> 00:22:44,066
in in

676
00:22:44,066 --> 00:22:47,466
near Syracuse where they made their first attempt to uh

677
00:22:47,866 --> 00:22:49,566
to actually create a philosopher king

678
00:22:49,566 --> 00:22:50,733
to actually create a movement

679
00:22:50,733 --> 00:22:52,200
or to be a part of an existent movement

680
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:54,033
that they wish to direct and amplify

681
00:22:54,033 --> 00:22:58,166
in a geopolitical fight against a certain force

682
00:22:58,166 --> 00:22:59,366
that was controlling at that time

683
00:22:59,366 --> 00:23:01,933
the Persian Empire a major nemesis of

684
00:23:01,933 --> 00:23:03,766
of of the Greeks and

685
00:23:03,766 --> 00:23:05,333
as well as of of the Egypt

686
00:23:05,333 --> 00:23:06,566
the better of the Egyptians

687
00:23:07,066 --> 00:23:08,266
um so the the the

688
00:23:08,266 --> 00:23:10,400
the students of these of the

689
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:11,066
of these schools of

690
00:23:11,066 --> 00:23:13,033
Archytas basically worked with Plato

691
00:23:13,033 --> 00:23:15,600
who developed his own students as well

692
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:17,366
these are these are Pythagoreans basically and

693
00:23:17,366 --> 00:23:18,566
and they formed the

694
00:23:18,566 --> 00:23:20,866
the foundation of the first generation of his

695
00:23:20,866 --> 00:23:22,600
of his academy and again

696
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:24,566
Archytas was a mathematician of his day

697
00:23:24,866 --> 00:23:27,366
part of when you're looking at constructive geometry is

698
00:23:27,366 --> 00:23:28,333
it's it's

699
00:23:28,333 --> 00:23:29,133
it's

700
00:23:29,533 --> 00:23:30,966
what distinguishes it from

701
00:23:30,966 --> 00:23:34,233
the bad way of communicating geometric concepts

702
00:23:34,233 --> 00:23:35,366
or mathematical concepts

703
00:23:35,366 --> 00:23:37,433
is that it's based on a firm understanding that

704
00:23:37,433 --> 00:23:39,233
the mathematical language

705
00:23:39,633 --> 00:23:41,700
which is relatively symbolic

706
00:23:41,733 --> 00:23:44,000
a little bit more arbitrary

707
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:44,366
in terms of

708
00:23:44,366 --> 00:23:48,066
which symbols do you choose to represent numbers or

709
00:23:48,066 --> 00:23:50,533
you know multiplication symbols or whatever

710
00:23:50,533 --> 00:23:52,866
but that it's a symbolic much

711
00:23:52,933 --> 00:23:55,466
you know language of math that is much that

712
00:23:55,466 --> 00:23:57,633
that must always follow

713
00:23:58,066 --> 00:24:01,366
in the dance between physical geometry physics

714
00:24:01,466 --> 00:24:03,633
which geometry is understood to be a shadow of

715
00:24:03,633 --> 00:24:04,466
mapping of

716
00:24:04,466 --> 00:24:08,266
the physical geometry shaping the reality we live in

717
00:24:08,266 --> 00:24:09,433
you know you look at a bubble

718
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:11,600
and a bubble takes on a certain characteristic very

719
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:13,033
very similar to a sphere right

720
00:24:13,033 --> 00:24:14,333
and and you know

721
00:24:14,333 --> 00:24:14,866
as they say the

722
00:24:14,866 --> 00:24:16,633
the bubble's pop the sphere is eternal

723
00:24:16,833 --> 00:24:19,233
so we we can map as an object an

724
00:24:19,233 --> 00:24:20,466
an intellectual object

725
00:24:20,466 --> 00:24:22,833
a sphere of which in the physical world

726
00:24:22,833 --> 00:24:23,466
there will never be

727
00:24:23,466 --> 00:24:25,566
a bubble that is so perfectly spherical

728
00:24:25,566 --> 00:24:26,733
that in a more perfect one

729
00:24:26,733 --> 00:24:28,333
cannot be imagined or formed

730
00:24:28,333 --> 00:24:30,733
it's always we're in that type of imperfect world

731
00:24:30,733 --> 00:24:32,200
but with the the these

732
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:33,866
these archaic typical

733
00:24:33,866 --> 00:24:37,433
transcendental imprints shaping the constructs of

734
00:24:37,433 --> 00:24:40,866
for example a atomic formation in minerals

735
00:24:40,866 --> 00:24:43,533
which we find these beautiful patterns in silicates

736
00:24:43,533 --> 00:24:44,666
and other things of of

737
00:24:44,666 --> 00:24:47,200
of geometries that that indicates something very

738
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:48,800
very ordered on the small

739
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:50,766
not chaotic not random on the small that

740
00:24:50,766 --> 00:24:52,366
that expresses itself you know

741
00:24:52,366 --> 00:24:54,333
certain symmetries in the growth of

742
00:24:54,333 --> 00:24:56,766
of the golden section in flowers and in

743
00:24:56,766 --> 00:24:58,233
in living populations

744
00:24:58,233 --> 00:25:01,100
that we find everywhere where life is

745
00:25:01,133 --> 00:25:03,300
is expressing an influence over matter

746
00:25:03,333 --> 00:25:04,600
there is the golden section

747
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:04,966
in a way

748
00:25:04,966 --> 00:25:08,333
that we don't find in non living atomic arrangements

749
00:25:08,333 --> 00:25:09,800
or molecular arrangements

750
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:11,400
it's just not we don't find the golden section

751
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:14,166
so much present in the non living domain

752
00:25:14,366 --> 00:25:15,700
so these are all questions

753
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:18,166
that fivefold symmetry that comes with the Pentagon

754
00:25:18,166 --> 00:25:19,566
that comes with the

755
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:21,333
an investigation of the golden section right

756
00:25:21,333 --> 00:25:23,933
you find the that fivefold symmetry in living things

757
00:25:23,933 --> 00:25:26,533
predominantly flowers and other

758
00:25:26,533 --> 00:25:27,233
and we find it more

759
00:25:27,233 --> 00:25:29,333
as we scale up in our exploration of

760
00:25:29,333 --> 00:25:32,666
of the solar system so Plato understood that again

761
00:25:32,666 --> 00:25:33,800
real geometry

762
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:37,933
is based upon a pursuit of those eternal principles

763
00:25:37,933 --> 00:25:38,800
that shape the

764
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,833
the reality that our minds were created into

765
00:25:42,833 --> 00:25:43,933
and that we can in turn

766
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:45,933
influence by understanding what they are

767
00:25:45,933 --> 00:25:47,433
if we're ignorant they influence us

768
00:25:47,433 --> 00:25:48,933
and we have no no

769
00:25:49,266 --> 00:25:50,766
our free will has no agency

770
00:25:50,766 --> 00:25:53,100
in influencing any of those things outside of us

771
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:54,600
in a in a meaningful way

772
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:56,266
if we remain in a state of ignorance

773
00:25:56,266 --> 00:25:59,466
but there's as we develop knowledge through eurekas

774
00:25:59,466 --> 00:26:01,000
through discoveries that are genuine

775
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:06,133
not memorized those forces are awakened within us

776
00:26:06,133 --> 00:26:07,533
because in Plato's idea

777
00:26:07,533 --> 00:26:09,933
as he outlines in so many of his dialogues

778
00:26:09,933 --> 00:26:12,266
including the Meno but also the phaedo that

779
00:26:12,266 --> 00:26:13,766
that a real discovery

780
00:26:13,766 --> 00:26:16,066
is more akin to the quality of a recollection

781
00:26:16,066 --> 00:26:19,733
than it is to adding something to an existent vessel

782
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:20,666
so yeah

783
00:26:20,666 --> 00:26:22,133
like in the Aristotelian framework

784
00:26:22,133 --> 00:26:23,400
for example there's more of an idea

785
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:27,233
that learning is adding things to a vessel

786
00:26:27,233 --> 00:26:28,366
you're putting things into

787
00:26:28,366 --> 00:26:30,333
a student or you're writing on a tabula rasa

788
00:26:30,333 --> 00:26:31,666
you're putting things into

789
00:26:31,666 --> 00:26:33,000
it's not like that in any way

790
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:34,966
for a teacher using the platonic method

791
00:26:34,966 --> 00:26:37,300
or Plato or his teacher Socrates

792
00:26:37,633 --> 00:26:39,033
for them it's your your

793
00:26:39,033 --> 00:26:41,733
your presuming that everything already is there in a

794
00:26:41,733 --> 00:26:43,633
in a latent way within the student

795
00:26:43,633 --> 00:26:44,533
the entire universe

796
00:26:44,533 --> 00:26:47,233
and all of creation is imprinted on the soul

797
00:26:47,233 --> 00:26:49,333
it's kind of like a fractal of that

798
00:26:49,333 --> 00:26:51,766
student and that it requires simply to be awoken

799
00:26:51,766 --> 00:26:53,866
like a flame you're lighting a flame from within

800
00:26:53,866 --> 00:26:55,733
by posing questions in a certain way

801
00:26:55,733 --> 00:26:58,433
and giving the space for the student to make mistakes

802
00:26:58,433 --> 00:26:59,566
to be frustrated

803
00:26:59,566 --> 00:27:02,433
to not try to overly satisfy that frustration

804
00:27:02,433 --> 00:27:04,833
prematurely by giving them an answer too quick

805
00:27:04,833 --> 00:27:05,933
before it's it's ripe

806
00:27:05,933 --> 00:27:06,166
you know

807
00:27:06,166 --> 00:27:07,933
you don't want to pluck a fruit before it's ripe

808
00:27:07,933 --> 00:27:10,566
so that takes a lot of discernment

809
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:13,933
that's not easy for a teacher to withhold

810
00:27:13,933 --> 00:27:14,033
cause

811
00:27:14,033 --> 00:27:16,233
it's satisfying to see a kid making this discovery

812
00:27:16,233 --> 00:27:17,433
and sometimes a you know

813
00:27:17,433 --> 00:27:18,533
a parent who wants their kid to

814
00:27:18,533 --> 00:27:20,466
to drive a bike super badly

815
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:21,733
might push their kid too much

816
00:27:21,733 --> 00:27:23,833
and the kid will fall off and become afraid of the bike

817
00:27:23,833 --> 00:27:26,400
or feel resentment towards the father or the mother

818
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:27,066
so you know

819
00:27:27,066 --> 00:27:28,366
a good parent is the one who's

820
00:27:28,366 --> 00:27:30,566
who's not gonna overly impose

821
00:27:30,566 --> 00:27:32,333
you know and it's gonna create that space

822
00:27:32,533 --> 00:27:34,833
so all that to say in the

823
00:27:34,833 --> 00:27:37,433
in the platonic idea of geometry

824
00:27:37,433 --> 00:27:39,300
you're always thinking about okay

825
00:27:39,433 --> 00:27:41,600
how do I pose the questions

826
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,266
so that the paradox of what they think

827
00:27:44,266 --> 00:27:46,166
that they like so what does the Mino do

828
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:48,733
the slave boy do in the Mino dialogue

829
00:27:49,066 --> 00:27:52,466
he's got the challenge of doubling the area of a square

830
00:27:52,466 --> 00:27:54,033
and it seems simple enough

831
00:27:54,033 --> 00:27:55,133
on the surface and he says ah

832
00:27:55,133 --> 00:27:55,800
it's easy I mean

833
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:58,033
you just extend the sides by double of the square

834
00:27:58,033 --> 00:27:59,566
so he takes a square and he's like okay

835
00:27:59,566 --> 00:28:00,800
double a side now

836
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,200
that works for a line for the one dimensional domain

837
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:05,266
but for the two dimensional domain

838
00:28:05,266 --> 00:28:08,400
that he quickly discovers that he didn't double it

839
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:10,633
he quadrupled it so he actually take the area

840
00:28:10,633 --> 00:28:12,200
the area is four times not two times

841
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:13,400
what he thought it was supposed to be

842
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:14,433
so I was like I made a square

843
00:28:14,433 --> 00:28:16,166
but it's now four not two times what I wanted

844
00:28:16,166 --> 00:28:18,000
so I have to try again and uh

845
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:19,433
and he tries something else

846
00:28:19,433 --> 00:28:21,566
and uh and it turns out that that doesn't work

847
00:28:21,566 --> 00:28:22,266
and he try you know

848
00:28:22,266 --> 00:28:24,433
tries two or three things that doesn't work

849
00:28:24,433 --> 00:28:25,366
and then finally

850
00:28:25,366 --> 00:28:27,866
by becoming self aware of what he thought he knew

851
00:28:27,866 --> 00:28:28,533
he doesn't know now

852
00:28:28,533 --> 00:28:31,733
all of a sudden the the discovery that it's actually

853
00:28:31,733 --> 00:28:33,233
and I'm I'm not even gonna say what it is

854
00:28:33,233 --> 00:28:33,633
cause I

855
00:28:33,633 --> 00:28:36,433
I don't wanna steal the discovery from your audience

856
00:28:36,833 --> 00:28:39,633
but it flashes like a light and he

857
00:28:39,633 --> 00:28:40,766
you know and he

858
00:28:40,766 --> 00:28:41,933
he actually discovers the the

859
00:28:41,933 --> 00:28:43,633
the solution to the problem

860
00:28:43,766 --> 00:28:47,666
and around that the master of the slave boy

861
00:28:47,666 --> 00:28:48,900
whose name is Mino

862
00:28:48,966 --> 00:28:51,133
who's actually a very shitty character in real

863
00:28:51,133 --> 00:28:52,066
in real life he's

864
00:28:52,066 --> 00:28:53,266
he's actually the saboteur of

865
00:28:53,266 --> 00:28:54,600
of one of the most important

866
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,433
strategic military campaigns

867
00:28:56,433 --> 00:28:57,733
that Plato had participated

868
00:28:57,733 --> 00:28:59,833
in with Xenophon against Persia

869
00:28:59,833 --> 00:29:02,166
with the 10,000 that figure Meno

870
00:29:02,166 --> 00:29:03,766
as a real man in the real world

871
00:29:03,766 --> 00:29:04,400
was the guy who

872
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,833
betrayed the 10,000 to the Persian emperor and uh

873
00:29:07,833 --> 00:29:10,033
caused all of their generals to fall into a trap

874
00:29:10,033 --> 00:29:10,733
get killed

875
00:29:10,733 --> 00:29:12,833
and then forced Xenophon to take responsibility

876
00:29:12,833 --> 00:29:15,733
a friend of Plato to get the 10,000 out of deep

877
00:29:15,733 --> 00:29:17,333
deep Persian territory which

878
00:29:17,466 --> 00:29:18,833
thank god he was successful

879
00:29:18,833 --> 00:29:22,000
but that Mino character was a very

880
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,200
very influential oligarchist

881
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:26,733
and he was himself in that dialogue

882
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:29,133
less creative than his own slave

883
00:29:29,133 --> 00:29:31,233
the person he owned the child he owned as a slave

884
00:29:31,233 --> 00:29:32,966
he didn't want the original challenge was to

885
00:29:32,966 --> 00:29:33,800
was posed to him

886
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:35,766
and Plato demonstrated that the person who

887
00:29:35,766 --> 00:29:37,133
like a minor personality type

888
00:29:37,133 --> 00:29:39,066
who believes in slavery and these things

889
00:29:39,466 --> 00:29:41,666
they will be less creative than even a slave

890
00:29:41,666 --> 00:29:42,366
and that was I think

891
00:29:42,366 --> 00:29:46,166
one of the best demonstrations that gave rise to a a

892
00:29:46,166 --> 00:29:48,266
a potent anti slave movement

893
00:29:48,266 --> 00:29:49,966
which even Aristotle later on

894
00:29:49,966 --> 00:29:51,166
decades and decades later

895
00:29:51,166 --> 00:29:52,466
had to deal with

896
00:29:52,466 --> 00:29:55,200
because Aristotle was very much in support of slavery

897
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,133
and even said that slavery is the natural order

898
00:29:58,133 --> 00:30:00,166
but he had to acknowledge that many

899
00:30:00,233 --> 00:30:03,566
many misbegotten philosophers in his day

900
00:30:03,766 --> 00:30:05,433
believe that slavery was unnatural

901
00:30:05,433 --> 00:30:06,000
and he's like no

902
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:07,200
these people are wrong

903
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:09,433
but these are the people who are the real Platonists

904
00:30:09,433 --> 00:30:10,766
who he's saying were wrong

905
00:30:10,966 --> 00:30:12,633
and he then develops his treaties

906
00:30:12,633 --> 00:30:13,933
and why certain people are born

907
00:30:13,933 --> 00:30:15,733
for being ruled over and being enslaved

908
00:30:15,733 --> 00:30:17,233
and certain people are born to rule

909
00:30:17,233 --> 00:30:18,833
so he's basically creating a framework to

910
00:30:18,833 --> 00:30:19,833
to validate the

911
00:30:19,833 --> 00:30:22,566
the existing system that he happened to be loyal to

912
00:30:22,566 --> 00:30:24,533
in the world that he practically lived in

913
00:30:24,533 --> 00:30:26,633
so there's that aspect so

914
00:30:26,633 --> 00:30:27,166
so Matt

915
00:30:27,166 --> 00:30:27,866
let's just let's just

916
00:30:27,866 --> 00:30:29,433
I just wanna stay on the menu for a second

917
00:30:29,433 --> 00:30:29,866
because I

918
00:30:29,866 --> 00:30:31,566
because you touched on a bunch of different points

919
00:30:31,566 --> 00:30:33,033
and I just wanna get to you know

920
00:30:33,033 --> 00:30:34,400
put this within the framework of

921
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:35,866
and what is virtue oh

922
00:30:35,866 --> 00:30:36,466
cause you never ask thank you

923
00:30:36,466 --> 00:30:37,000
thank you great

924
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:37,966
I wanted I wanted

925
00:30:37,966 --> 00:30:38,800
if you would if you would

926
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,533
mind your interpretation of what lesson

927
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,566
Plato was using these characters within this dialogue

928
00:30:45,566 --> 00:30:47,666
yeah and what his lesson of virtue was

929
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:48,166
of course of course

930
00:30:48,166 --> 00:30:48,633
yeah yeah yeah

931
00:30:48,633 --> 00:30:49,433
cause that's the whole point right

932
00:30:49,433 --> 00:30:50,200
it's like what is virtue

933
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:51,266
that's the whole point of this lesson

934
00:30:51,266 --> 00:30:53,133
out of which a segue occurs with this

935
00:30:53,133 --> 00:30:54,966
this geometric problem um

936
00:30:54,966 --> 00:30:56,366
I think and this is the

937
00:30:56,366 --> 00:30:57,400
the brilliance about Play Doh

938
00:30:57,400 --> 00:30:59,266
is that it's he

939
00:30:59,966 --> 00:31:02,833
you will find that the answer isn't

940
00:31:02,833 --> 00:31:04,600
like'cause what's the first part of the dialogue

941
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:05,366
it's like okay

942
00:31:05,366 --> 00:31:07,400
well he's asking Mino first

943
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:07,666
you know

944
00:31:07,666 --> 00:31:09,733
and Mino's giving these hypotheses of what is virtue

945
00:31:09,733 --> 00:31:10,200
and and he's like

946
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:11,433
there's a virtue for the master

947
00:31:11,433 --> 00:31:12,733
and a virtue for the slave

948
00:31:12,733 --> 00:31:14,166
and a virtue for the for the woman

949
00:31:14,166 --> 00:31:16,000
a virtue for the husband and

950
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:17,166
he's trying to go into little

951
00:31:17,166 --> 00:31:18,766
little mini exhibitions about

952
00:31:18,766 --> 00:31:20,100
like what each one is

953
00:31:20,433 --> 00:31:22,800
and there's a virtue of being obedient and a virtue to

954
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:23,866
and Plato's like whoa whoa

955
00:31:23,866 --> 00:31:24,866
you're like I'm like somebody

956
00:31:24,866 --> 00:31:25,466
he's like

957
00:31:25,466 --> 00:31:27,366
you gotta speak to me a little bit more simply dude

958
00:31:27,366 --> 00:31:28,133
I'm you know

959
00:31:28,133 --> 00:31:30,433
I'm like somebody who just asked for a vase

960
00:31:30,466 --> 00:31:32,233
and instead of giving me a vase you

961
00:31:32,233 --> 00:31:33,466
you broke it into pieces

962
00:31:33,466 --> 00:31:35,800
give me little parts saying that these are one vase

963
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:37,766
and I'm like I don't want parts of a vase or different

964
00:31:37,766 --> 00:31:38,966
I want what is the thing that

965
00:31:38,966 --> 00:31:40,933
that ties all of these different virtues together

966
00:31:40,933 --> 00:31:42,666
what is the thing that calls virtue that

967
00:31:42,666 --> 00:31:44,400
that gives virtue meaning as a term

968
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,233
and that's where Mino just intellectually breaks down

969
00:31:47,233 --> 00:31:47,833
you realize he

970
00:31:47,833 --> 00:31:49,666
he has never thought about these

971
00:31:49,666 --> 00:31:50,933
unifying characteristics

972
00:31:50,933 --> 00:31:53,200
that transcend all of the multiplicity of parts

973
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:54,833
which is a common problem that people have

974
00:31:54,833 --> 00:31:57,066
to this very day where people get offended by the word

975
00:31:57,066 --> 00:31:57,400
like you said

976
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:00,233
progress or freedom or humanity or these general terms

977
00:32:00,233 --> 00:32:01,833
they get even offended by emotionally

978
00:32:01,833 --> 00:32:03,733
because they've been so misconditioned

979
00:32:03,733 --> 00:32:06,533
to think about wholes as merely sums of parts

980
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:09,366
that don't have a transcendental quality

981
00:32:09,633 --> 00:32:10,833
tying everything together there

982
00:32:10,833 --> 00:32:12,033
they've been told that that doesn't exist

983
00:32:12,033 --> 00:32:14,733
and anybody who tries to allude to that is a fascist

984
00:32:14,733 --> 00:32:16,566
or is a latent a totalitarian

985
00:32:16,566 --> 00:32:17,266
and so

986
00:32:17,266 --> 00:32:19,200
if you don't want to be an authoritarian personality

987
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,000
you must reject that emotionally outright

988
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:22,366
even before you think about it

989
00:32:22,466 --> 00:32:23,133
so it's a weird like

990
00:32:23,133 --> 00:32:25,233
trigger that even was existent back then

991
00:32:25,233 --> 00:32:27,200
and you could see Mina running away

992
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:29,333
and it takes time for Plato to like

993
00:32:29,333 --> 00:32:31,000
get out of the the

994
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:31,433
he's like okay

995
00:32:31,433 --> 00:32:32,233
we're not getting anywhere

996
00:32:32,233 --> 00:32:33,633
in the philosophical realm here

997
00:32:33,633 --> 00:32:34,866
he's like this is not working

998
00:32:34,933 --> 00:32:36,566
so he shifts gears where he's like

999
00:32:36,566 --> 00:32:38,866
okay let's practically just try and exercise

1000
00:32:39,166 --> 00:32:40,266
and you discover that

1001
00:32:40,266 --> 00:32:42,533
by virtue of the child making the discovery

1002
00:32:42,533 --> 00:32:44,966
and the love that Socrates has

1003
00:32:44,966 --> 00:32:47,800
as a sentiment that is guiding this kid

1004
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:49,933
and the whole thing it's very giving

1005
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,166
that virtue is is never explained logically

1006
00:32:53,166 --> 00:32:55,033
but it's demonstrated what it is

1007
00:32:55,033 --> 00:32:55,633
and I think that

1008
00:32:55,633 --> 00:32:57,966
that's the thing he's trying to get us to zero in on

1009
00:32:57,966 --> 00:32:59,800
is it's always it's like a great

1010
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:01,133
what is a great classical painting

1011
00:33:01,133 --> 00:33:03,400
is different from just a banal painting

1012
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:05,433
that might be painted at the same temporal period as a

1013
00:33:05,433 --> 00:33:07,166
as a as a classic

1014
00:33:07,466 --> 00:33:08,466
of a Rembrandt or something

1015
00:33:08,466 --> 00:33:10,633
you know versus a mediocre painter who has talent

1016
00:33:10,633 --> 00:33:12,366
but is maybe not doing what Rembrandt is doing

1017
00:33:12,366 --> 00:33:13,300
well it's because the

1018
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,400
the theme of the painting is outside of the frame

1019
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:18,000
it's something which he's using

1020
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,466
he's he's choosing to set up the construct of

1021
00:33:21,466 --> 00:33:23,366
of a of a imagery within a painting

1022
00:33:23,366 --> 00:33:25,533
in order to challenge the viewer

1023
00:33:25,533 --> 00:33:27,066
the spectator of the painting

1024
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:29,266
to become more self aware of something

1025
00:33:29,266 --> 00:33:31,200
that is outside of that construct

1026
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:32,600
in the same thing for the dialogue

1027
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,966
I would say the virtue is not in the

1028
00:33:35,966 --> 00:33:38,633
the definition isn't in any of the elements

1029
00:33:38,733 --> 00:33:39,833
but all of those elements

1030
00:33:39,833 --> 00:33:41,800
within the whole construct of that dialogue

1031
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,200
help you triangulate in on what

1032
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:45,833
what is the virtue of Socrates

1033
00:33:45,833 --> 00:33:48,333
that we want to kindle and awaken in our own heart

1034
00:33:48,333 --> 00:33:50,400
and the more you yourself practice the method

1035
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:52,866
with an honest heart and help other people

1036
00:33:52,866 --> 00:33:54,466
struggle with a geometrical problem

1037
00:33:54,466 --> 00:33:55,466
without giving them the answer

1038
00:33:55,466 --> 00:33:58,133
the more a virtue a true virtue of goodness

1039
00:33:58,133 --> 00:33:58,433
and no

1040
00:33:58,433 --> 00:34:01,600
an ennoblement of the soul is awakened in that person

1041
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:03,866
and they become better but if you don't do it

1042
00:34:03,866 --> 00:34:05,333
you keep it in the intellectual realm

1043
00:34:05,333 --> 00:34:06,566
and it's not done in

1044
00:34:06,566 --> 00:34:08,866
if you don't apply it in the practical world

1045
00:34:08,866 --> 00:34:11,466
and bridge the abstract from the practical

1046
00:34:11,466 --> 00:34:14,000
if you don't do that then those virtues

1047
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,366
those perfections will not heal

1048
00:34:17,066 --> 00:34:18,866
are confused or wayward souls

1049
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:20,633
and it will remain in that

1050
00:34:20,633 --> 00:34:22,033
in that dichotomized state

1051
00:34:22,033 --> 00:34:23,466
so it has to be always I think

1052
00:34:23,466 --> 00:34:26,466
Plato is writing these dialogues with the idea

1053
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:27,866
that he is intending

1054
00:34:27,866 --> 00:34:31,266
for first his students in the academy to actually act

1055
00:34:31,266 --> 00:34:33,200
like to perform and

1056
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:35,866
and work them through as exercises intellectually

1057
00:34:35,866 --> 00:34:38,166
but then to also be better people who use them

1058
00:34:38,766 --> 00:34:39,933
going out of the school

1059
00:34:39,933 --> 00:34:41,600
as they become advisors of governments

1060
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:42,966
advisors of military generals

1061
00:34:42,966 --> 00:34:44,266
military generals themselves

1062
00:34:44,266 --> 00:34:46,533
as Zeno found himself and others

1063
00:34:46,633 --> 00:34:47,366
so they you know

1064
00:34:47,366 --> 00:34:50,466
there's this idea of unifying those two worlds of

1065
00:34:50,466 --> 00:34:53,000
of physical and metaphysical together

1066
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:54,666
with the metaphysical leading in the dance

1067
00:34:54,666 --> 00:34:56,933
just like geometry has the physics leading in the dance

1068
00:34:56,933 --> 00:34:59,000
where mathematics would be expected to always follow

1069
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:00,166
and be guided by

1070
00:35:00,166 --> 00:35:01,833
the discoveries we make in the physical world

1071
00:35:01,833 --> 00:35:03,333
not the not the inverse where

1072
00:35:03,333 --> 00:35:04,633
where today for example

1073
00:35:04,633 --> 00:35:05,433
is the opposite

1074
00:35:05,433 --> 00:35:08,133
where we start with mathematics and then geometry

1075
00:35:08,166 --> 00:35:08,966
and then physics

1076
00:35:08,966 --> 00:35:10,966
is somehow relegated to the back burner

1077
00:35:11,033 --> 00:35:15,733
as something which we expect should abide by those

1078
00:35:15,733 --> 00:35:17,200
that whatever mathematical language

1079
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:19,933
we happen to be adherent to at any given moment

1080
00:35:19,966 --> 00:35:21,266
which is not a way to make a discovery

1081
00:35:21,266 --> 00:35:23,433
it's a way to create explanatory models

1082
00:35:23,566 --> 00:35:26,400
but not to create a true understanding of anything

1083
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:28,366
or a greater power that should accompany

1084
00:35:28,766 --> 00:35:30,233
you know a real understanding should accompany

1085
00:35:30,233 --> 00:35:32,000
an increased power to act and live

1086
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:33,633
and improve upon yourself

1087
00:35:33,633 --> 00:35:35,200
humanity and the universe as a whole

1088
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:36,700
when you have real knowledge

1089
00:35:36,766 --> 00:35:38,933
that doesn't come that power doesn't come

1090
00:35:38,933 --> 00:35:40,700
when you're just using memorization

1091
00:35:41,066 --> 00:35:42,433
when you're just using math

1092
00:35:42,433 --> 00:35:44,866
or just trying to fit the world into your model

1093
00:35:44,866 --> 00:35:46,500
that doesn't happen we become

1094
00:35:46,566 --> 00:35:50,666
if anything more enslaved to the illusion of knowledge

1095
00:35:51,133 --> 00:35:52,700
but but actual

1096
00:35:52,866 --> 00:35:55,866
true ignorance is holding us down and keeping us in a

1097
00:35:55,866 --> 00:35:57,000
in a state of basically

1098
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:58,033
Plato's cave the

1099
00:35:58,033 --> 00:35:59,666
the allegory of the cave I think

1100
00:35:59,666 --> 00:36:00,633
is a is a perfect one

1101
00:36:00,633 --> 00:36:02,433
for describing what happens

1102
00:36:02,433 --> 00:36:04,633
when people become too well adapted 2

1103
00:36:04,633 --> 00:36:07,266
artificial or unnatural systems that misplace

1104
00:36:07,533 --> 00:36:09,933
or that invert the cause from the effect is math

1105
00:36:09,933 --> 00:36:11,800
should always be the effect of geometry

1106
00:36:14,266 --> 00:36:16,966
this concludes part one of a three part episode

1107
00:36:16,966 --> 00:36:19,866
with Matt Ehret parts 2 and part 3

1108
00:36:19,866 --> 00:36:22,566
following episodes 12 and 13 respectively

1109
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,100
Matt's thesis primarily is this

1110
00:36:26,233 --> 00:36:27,400
the platonic tradition

1111
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,633
is not a chapter in the history of philosophy

1112
00:36:29,633 --> 00:36:31,833
but a living theory of what makes genuine

1113
00:36:31,833 --> 00:36:34,766
human progress possible and its suppression

1114
00:36:34,766 --> 00:36:35,433
he argues

1115
00:36:35,433 --> 00:36:39,266
is the central story of why progress so often fails

1116
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:42,933
in the next episode episode 12

1117
00:36:43,066 --> 00:36:45,066
Ehret takes up the allegory of the cave

1118
00:36:45,066 --> 00:36:47,833
and argues that two very different groups

1119
00:36:47,866 --> 00:36:49,966
have each misread it for their own purposes

1120
00:36:49,966 --> 00:36:52,733
and both leaving out the part that changes everything

1121
00:36:54,066 --> 00:36:56,400
I hope you'll enjoy it sources

1122
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:57,866
reading and today's transcript

1123
00:36:57,866 --> 00:37:00,500
could be found at notions of progress dot com

1124
00:37:03,033 --> 00:37:04,600
if you enjoyed this episode

1125
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,000
you can find notions of progress on YouTube

1126
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:08,966
Apple Podcast and Spotify

1127
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:10,600
and all the sources reading

1128
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:11,333
recommendations

1129
00:37:11,333 --> 00:37:13,866
and further context for every episode are in the show

1130
00:37:13,866 --> 00:37:16,366
notes if you are enjoying the series

1131
00:37:16,533 --> 00:37:18,133
liking the episode on YouTube

1132
00:37:18,133 --> 00:37:19,666
and signing up for the newsletter

1133
00:37:19,666 --> 00:37:21,533
at notions of progress.com

1134
00:37:21,566 --> 00:37:24,166
really helps more people find these ideas

1135
00:37:24,633 --> 00:37:26,466
for those who want to go even deeper

1136
00:37:26,533 --> 00:37:28,200
the Curator's Frame blog

1137
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:30,966
and Substack newsletter accompany each episode

1138
00:37:30,966 --> 00:37:33,333
with the questions the scholarship leaves open

1139
00:37:33,633 --> 00:37:36,233
I'm Marshall tracing ideas of progress

1140
00:37:36,233 --> 00:37:38,166
from antiquity to the age of AI

1141
00:37:38,166 --> 00:37:41,066
and leaving the debates open for you to consider

1142
00:37:41,233 --> 00:37:42,366
until next time

Interview with Matt Ehret - Plato vs. Aristotle: The Flame, the Vessel, and the Fate of Human Progress

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