An unpublished dialogue between Socrates and Adamantius.
A: Hello Socrates. I love you!
S: Yes of course you do, for I am God and gods (as I believe in both simultaneously) and I am always right.
A: Yes, Socrates. Please impart some wisdom to me.
S: You know that I never teach you things, Adamantius. You must question everything that I put to you so that we can be sure that it is true and sound and just and all that jazz, right?
A: Yes, Socrates, forgive me and do not smite me for making such a feeble mistake.
S: It is alright, Adamantius, you shall not be smitten today,
A: Aww...
S: I do not understand, your response was not logical. Let us consider society today, would you like that?
A: I would very much like to hear your views on things. Perhaps later I could lick your boots for you as well?
S: I am afraid I do not wear shoes. I find them an uncomfortable and oppressive force. Back to society. Do you agree with me when I say, for it is necessary to ask if you agree with the most basic assumptions, that society must have a kind of order? That is to say, not everyone could be as important as everyone else or we would have no rulers or order.
A: This assumption makes sense.
S: Then does it not logically follow that some members of society will be further down the social ladder than others?
A: Yes, this follows.
S: Therefore we are justified in oppressing the slaves we own and treating them like scum. After all in every society, you must have some people that are looked down upon.
A: Of course, we must treat them like scum, it is right to do so.
S: And would it not help greatly to reduce the stress of the people if we put people into this class?
A: Please expand on your reasoning further. I am too stupid to understand what is happening.
S: I shall clarify. If we had several classes of society and people could move from one to the other, would the people further up not be concerned about their position? After all, it would hardly be fair if all the people we were treating with respect suddenly were flung down into the lower echelons of society. Therefore it would be prudent to have the classes fixed permanently so that people do not worry about being moved from one to another?
A: I now understand what you are saying and I agree.
S: So people who are born into this class can never move out. When we have similar contexts to this in life, do we not mark the categories in some way so that there is no confusion?
A: Yes, this is often the case.
S: Then it makes sense that we should do so in this case also. This means that anyone who is part of the category we choose shall be in that category forever and shall be treated like scum.
A: This follows from what you have been saying.
S: The easiest identifier is probably skin colour, wouldn't you agree? After all, people can easily disguise their hair colour and even gender but skin tone is surely the hardest to disguise?
A: I agree.
S: Would it also not make sense for the scum category to be the smallest possible? After all, although we have agreed the necessity of there being such a category, it does not make sense to have any many people involved, does it?
A: I would say not.
S: So what is the least common skin colour in Athens?
A: Black, of course.
S: Then it follows that we should, always and forever, treat black people as scum.
A: I shall revise my life views immediately.
***
Philosophers can be mean. Their 'logical' arguments can lead people to be confused and reach conclusions that are clearly wrong. Not everybody is able to spot these huge jumps in logic that Socrates often uses to batter his interlocutors into agreeing with him. This, if nothing else, is an excellent reason for studying philosophy. Philosophy gives you the skills to think about arguments properly and to question the logic of other people. This means that when holes are left, as in the above example, it is much easier to spot them and point them out. Philosophy gives you the power of thinking in a different direction and the confidence to analyse arguments so that we are able to stand up to intellectual bullies like Socrates. For this reason, I would have practical philosophy or critical thinking put on the curriculum from a fairly early age, perhaps as young as 10. It is not learning facts at a young age that is important, it is learning how to think about the information you are being presented in a critical manner to make your own informed judgement on it. I think a lot of what we are lacking now and why teenagers are thought to be getting more stupid is because they know how to learn facts but they don't know how to think about things properly. Of course, it's important that we can learn facts for exams, which is why I think philosophy should be done as soon as students can cope with it. I have taught judo to many students in the age range 4-12 and at our school I think that philosophy lessons could be started from Form 1.
My opinions have changed a lot in a year. At the beginning of the course, I was confused about what exactly philosophy was and what it could do for me. I was not a philosopher at the beginning of this year. I was an anthropologist struggling to separate the two subjects in my brain. Now though, I realise that philosophy has stretched me in a way that I never thought I could be stretched in. My mind has opened up to different kinds of questions and I am now capable of wondering about 'what makes us human' in an anthropological and philosophical way.
At the beginning of last year, I never even considered that the next statement I will tentatively make. Philosophy just may be the most important subject I ever took. It has done so much more in the way of stretching my mind than any other subject; it's just so different. Other subjects teach you to learn, philosophy teaches you to think. And I love it!
At the beginning of the year I was worried, lost and regretting that I ever took philosophy, much less for higher! Now I look forward to every lesson, whether we're studying Socrates and his wonderful hole-ridden arguments or poking fun at Peter Singer for being such a goody-two-shoes.
I know you're the only person who reads this, Purple Cloud of Wisdom, so thank you for bringing me philosophy and convincing me that it's not the worst subject in the world.
Why do philosophy? It's the BEST!
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