Plato At The Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
There is no doubt that Rebecca Goldstein is a talented and brilliant writer who knows how to provide historical context and insights into Plato and Socrates. Moreover, her Socratic dialogues are stimulating, interesting, and entertaining. The concept of Plato appearing in the 21st century is an interesting one and Goldstein does good job with rendering it into a series of believable and enjoyable dialogues. Additionally, she succeeds in making Plato an interesting character faithfully close to the historical Plato. To make the dialogues as authentic as possible, she would cite Plato's work to show what Plato would most likely say in certain conversations. Overall, Goldstein succeeds in bringing Plato back to life by breathing his spirit into a protagonist of her book. So, in my opinion, there is no doubt that this is a *good* book. However, just because the book is *good* (not in the platonic sense), it doesn't preclude some problems I have with it. Despite that Rebecca Goldstein does a wonderful job bringing Plato back to life, there is a problem with the overall structure of her book. The problem is that she seems to do two things at once: provide an analysis of the historical Plato in the context of Athens and play a dialogue story where the fictional Plato engaging in a Socratic dialogue with other characters. Why is this a problem? Let me explain. I read the book expecting to find a lot of Socratic dialogues where Plato has long an interesting discussions with his new friends. However, I find that a majority of this book consists of expounding and analyzing the historical Plato and Socrates in the context of ancient Athens. Now, this isn't bad in itself. It's fine to give an insightful analysis about the historical Plato and Socrates. However, this sounds like it should be done in a separate book. Moreover, there are plenty of books examining the historical Plato and Socrates. Why add one more among many? A lot of it seems extraneous to the other parts of the book dealing with Socratic dialogues. To be sure, they are related, but I can imagine them being separate. It seems that the parts of the book dealing with the historical Plato takes so much room that there isn't enough for the Socratic dialogues. And that's the problem I have with the book: Why can't Goldstein just begin her book with a fairly long introduction (around 100 pages) explaining the historical Plato (and his mentor) in a historical context, and then move into a long series of Socratic dialogues constituting an interesting plot. She can easily go into more details about how Plato copes with modern technology and how he reacts to more new ideas and values. She can also get Plato to discuss with more fictional characters based on real people like Alvin Plantinga, Patricia Churchland, Paul Krugman, Steven Pinker, and others. This isn't to say that her historical analyses aren't interesting. They are interesting, but they take up too much of the book and leaving too few for the Socratic dialogues. Goldstein could have write a book where most of its content is mostly a long series of Socratic dialogues with Plato being an main interlocutor in many different situations with different characters. I mean, the Socratic dialogues Goldstein wrote are pretty good, so why couldn't she just write more? It would make more sense because her book is advertised as presenting Plato in a modern era where he talks with people in a Socratic dialogue. I suppose what made me rate this book moderately as a 3 star book is that I came with a false expectation that most of it consists of Socratic dialogues. Instead, I have to read through a lot of stuff just to get to those dialogues. To be sure, her examination of Plato in the context of ancient Athens is just as insightful as her examination of Spinoza in the context of 17th century Dutch republic. I personally think that she could have kept it to the minimum as a fairly long introduction and then get into the Socratic dialogues. That's my personal opinion, but I suppose many people enjoy her examination of Plato more than I do. I like Goldstein's writing, and I am a huge fan of Plato, and I like the idea of seeing what Plato might say about the modern world. Consequently I had high expectations for the book. It didn't fully live up to them. Not all the chapters are Plato's take on the modern world, only half of them are: Google, child-rearing, advice columns, cable news, and neuroscience. Those are ok to pretty good. The other 5 chapters are really Goldstein's take on Plato. It is not really a scholar's account, but a well-informed philosopher's account. And she has a few interesting interpretive ideas of her own. She draws on the full range of the dialogues, including the Timeaus, the Phaedrus, and the Laws, which don't always get much attention from analytic philosophers. In sum, I liked it, but I didn't love it. I learned some things, but it mostly confirmed things I knew. (Full disclosure: I am a Philosophy professor who has taught Plato's dialogues dozens of times, but I am not a Greek scholar.)
What do You think about Plato At The Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away (2014)?
Big aim in need of an editor. Also the O'Reilly chapter should have just been removed.
—sup
Brilliant. Confusing, infuriating, but rewarding.
—Daisy13
