@@> On Apr-23-98 Frank Masingill wrote to David Martorana on
 @@>  "Gorgias review ???"
 
 DM>> .....Plato seems not my cup of tea ...most more likely to have had
 DM>> "Gorgias" as comrade! ... ..but you may have already noticed that.
 
 FM> Well, (grin), you read it - or at least (chuckle) I THINK you read it.
 
     Kind of figured "your" take on my Platonic comprehensions! 
 
 FM> Your review was more about what David thinks than about what Plato-
 FM> Socrates or the characters Gorgias, stooge Polus and principal
 FM> Callicles thought.  You seem to have missed the deadliness (murder)
 FM> in the conflict as Callicles warns Socrates of what actually has
 FM> already happened to him if he does not "mend his ways" and join in
 FM> the conspiracy of the canaille like Callicles who only say things
 FM> "conventionlly" but do not mean what they say (only rhetoric).
 FM> You also do not mention the point that Callicles is INDIGNANT that
 FM> anybody should use rhetoric or any of the arts to CONVICT THEMSELVES
 FM> of wrong and injustice even though they might clearly be in that
 FM> condition (conscience).  Nor did you seem to be interested in the
 FM> appeal to conscience in the myth of the judgement.  BTW, in your
 FM> comparisons with the later Christian gospels it surprises me that
 FM> this myth of the judgement was not compared with the classic one
 FM> in which Jesus is made to say, "depart from me, I never knew you
 FM> to the goats who throught they were sheep."
 
 FM> But you DID read it.  What more can I say.
 
     Did you really understand [464-466] ???
 
 FM> I remain disposed, many times, to divide the world of people into
 FM> the Socraties and the Callicratics.  As Voegelin remarks, Socrates had
 FM> warned in the earlier Platonic accounts of the trial and execution of
 FM> Socrates that "others will come."  In the Gorgias, "others" have come
 FM> and the debate continues in all of its deadliness.  I hope you noted
 FM> that.
 
  No! the "deadliness" thing did not catch my attention and your
  allusion" of it being "important" is also unclear. As mentioned
  in previous posting, the tensions explored during debate *seem* to
  be healthy, though I can see it historically (at times) getting out
  of hand. Dividing the world into two camps (virtuous and realist)
  is perhaps the way Nature *WISHES* us to learn her *WISHES*, or to
  play us against each other (tough love)!
 
  Haven't read "the mentor" Voegelin yet, but I'd guess my take on his
  words would really give you a "chuckle". As with sources past, I've
  found that my "concludes" as to what an ORIGINAL author is saying,
  oft turns out a bit bent to the side of what many others "conclude"..
  Frank, it just "might" be that I've taken a shot at philosophy a bit
  late. I believe that is the reason I put more effort into reading
  other's,  their "life-spent-takes"  on who said and did what. Even
  among those "experts" I find not always their same conclusions. Here
  on PHIL I see Hegel presented as somewhat stoic, then I hear him say
  that Stoicicm is a failed concept only of value to slave owners and
  slaves. Then I *read about him*  defending God against human reasoning,
  then "truth is emerging ....." and  "OH! that is not what he meant"
  and "this is what he meant" ...or he was "younger when he said that"
  or "it was said in irony" or he was using a clever "turn of word" and
  many more "ors" until anything might be drawn with enough effort.
  .....They all, like Plato/Socrates, can be made to say whatever the
  point might require. THEREFORE I would be dependent on others for
  what little I might come to know...................Yes I think so!
 
  Yes!    ........ we can certainly pick our
  favored quotes to make our favored points!   @@ ...  humble Dave
 
  P.S. Also read the "Apology" and bits from the "Republic" while
       I had the book...........
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