@@> On Apr 11-98 Frank Masingill wrote to David Martorana
 @@> on "VIRTUE"
 
 FM> David, I sense that what you're searching for is some one moral
 FM> compass or guidebook (almost a set of doctrines or dogma) wrapping
 FM> up the question of virtue and knowledge that seems so to have
 FM> preoccupied Socrates and his mouthpiece, Plato.
 
  Yes, that and those too! ....but mostly to find and explore the "WHOs
  of history" that reached some bit further. After Chardin, the sandbox
  becomes more a desert than an opportunity.
 
 FM> What I think you must not overlook is that the philosophers of ancient
 FM> Greece in its high period of development did not condemn the Sophists
 FM> in general because it was the Sophists who brought Hellas to the
 FM> position where later on it could become the educator even of its
 FM> conquerors, Alexander and Rome.  What was being criticized in some
 FM> of the leading Sophists (Protagoras, Gorgias, etc.) was their
 FM> assumption that "virtue" had little meaning and that all that
 FM> people needed to know for a life of eudamonia was the dynamic of
 FM> rhetoric (how to defend themselves in court, etc) and the elements
 FM> of viewing the concrete physical world........
 
    ..........Yes! I have also often favored "survival" and "matter"
    with a bit of gravity thrown in.
 
 FM> .........................................Hence the engaging of this
 FM> viewpoint by Plato-Socrates and the hearty debates as to whether or
 FM> not virtue is knowledge...
 
     .........Still not *up to*  the  "virtue is knowledge"   bit!
 
 FM> I will leave you to read the Gorgias.......
 
 Took your point and near to finishing the "Gorgias" dialog
 
 FM> These old philosophers were not trying to match the relativism of
 FM> many of the Sophists with some truths that were lying around somewhere
 FM> to be stumbled upon by some righteous souls!!  They were engaged in
 FM> sometimes murderous dialogues in defense of reason as the only guide
 FM> man has to living in harmony with himself and other people.
 
     I believe here he may have missed that the very tensions of
     disharmony (nice chaos) seem necessary to our species (and our
     philosophies); and that purity (unnatural) is a tough fit into
     gray realities.
 
 FM> Socrates argued in some places that the virtuous man, even though he
 FM> might have to sacrifice SOME things would still come out the winner
 FM> in a life lived in constant critique of itself .....
 FM> I think but society needs to pay it some attention also if man
 FM> (as they said) is worth a little consideration.
 
  I still (and will) struggle with this "man WORTH", it being a slippery
  assumption ??? (you already know my  "we make some noise and die" bit).
  However I did think some on your suggestion that we need maintain some
  positive interest in our species ....that "good order" prevail. Challenge
  is not just trying to keep it all together (everyday-ish), we try to do
  that. Being "worthy" beyond a TRANSIENT throw-away adventure, is the
  part that does not translate without bending "what-we-know" into more
  of a "what-we-wish-is-known". Plato does not seem concerned to carry
  "REASON" beyond an everyday rightness!
 
 FM> Philosophy, David, ORIGINATED, as a counter force to "Philodoxy."
 FM> It is love of the divine sophon rather than love of doctrine.
 
   Hmmmmmmm!
   Still not up to speed in the mind-word-world. The "love of a divine
   sophon" (even as a search inspiration) is still more (for me) a poetic
   reach than a REAL handle, though such a focus itself might be an
   intoxicating abstraction (but NOT yet !!!).
 
 FM> In his dialogues from the Republic to the Laws Plato is not offering
 FM> some NEW doctrine to be substituted for older doctrines.  He is
 FM> calling for the application of reason to the problems of the polis.
 
     Much of what man has achieved pranced off the edges of dreams-
     ....oft unreasonable dreams .....!  I believe that Plato's
     "reasoned world" would result in a  "living numbness".
 
 FM   ..........................If man becomes a robot, the search
 FM> will stop.  In some ways it is just that simple.  Or, at least, that
 FM> is the way I see it.
 
   Appreciate your illuminating comments. I believe you see it all well
   enough. Though I still find Plato a bit too wordy, my understanding
   of him has improved (though he be more alien to me, than for you).
   I also get the impression that Plato, as with other philosophers and
   the Bible, in the hands of a rhetorician can be made to say almost
   anything!  and it is not always easy to judge among the "WHOs"
   that say the "WHATs".
                           @@>. . . Dave
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