So who here hates Plato?

[Rayne]

real insightful rayne

i am arent i. i should totally get a philosophy degree so i can qualify my insightfulness.

[God]

re plato: i like the idea of philosopher kings at least

[pichubro]

I love Machiavelli...

uuuuggghhhh

[Rayne]

only reason the name machiavelli rings a bell is assassins creed

[Dogar The Brave]

hey dogar, guess what, THEY DONT DO IDs ON MONDAYS. why of course they dont. any reasonable person would just expect that monday is RANDOMLY the day they dont process a COMMON SERVICE REQUEST even though its not explicitly said ANYWHERE. fucking plebeians, i guess they just sit there jacking each other off all day on mondays.

hahahahaha Poor God, all he ever wanted to do is get his fucking ID. I'm on campus in the library researching about individually wrapped cheese. Exciting.

[Hicky]

I feel the same way about Machiavelli as you do about Plato.

"The Prince" is a direct assertion that a pragmatic ruler who clings to power through whatever means is NOT a desirable form of government, as pretty much all of his later oeuvre confirmed. Machiavelli, like Nietzche, is misunderstood - surely you can give him credit for inventing modern political science? All we had before Machievelli is Plato's excellent analysis of when a select few come to dominate the political system in "The Republic".

[Lord]

Justin read Meno and then talk.

yeah ya fuckin noob

[pichubro]

"The Prince" is a direct assertion that a pragmatic ruler who clings to power through whatever means is NOT a desirable form of government, as pretty much all of his later oeuvre confirmed. Machiavelli, like Nietzche, is misunderstood - surely you can give him credit for inventing modern political science? All we had before Machievelli is Plato's excellent analysis of when a select few come to dominate the political system in "The Republic".

First off, Machiavelli is kind of a crap writer because what he said in 70 pages he could have said in 30 and secondly, he seemed like such a whiner in the way that I read it...

Sure, he influenced modern politics, that doesn't mean I have to like the guy.

[Solly]

re plato: i like the idea of philosopher kings at least

I'm not sure about this bit. I mean, there are a lot of historical philosophers that would have been great kings. But then there's always the off chance you end up with one of those out-there ones that get all their inspiration from doing peyote. Then again, that's probably how religion started.

[Dogar The Brave]

"The Prince" is a direct assertion that a pragmatic ruler who clings to power through whatever means is NOT a desirable form of government, as pretty much all of his later oeuvre confirmed. Machiavelli, like Nietzche, is misunderstood - surely you can give him credit for inventing modern political science? All we had before Machievelli is Plato's excellent analysis of when a select few come to dominate the political system in "The Republic".

His whole philosopher king idea is a complete contradiction to what he had previously wrote (Ion for example). So not only is his idea of philosopher kings one of lunacy and elitism it is also a counter to his other writings and thus shows how convoluted and confoundedly lost he was as a thinker.

[Hicky]

His whole philosopher king idea is a complete contradiction to what he had previously wrote (Ion for example). So not only is his idea of philosopher kings one of lunacy and elitism it is also a counter to his other writings and thus shows how convoluted and confoundedly lost he was as a thinker.

I was talking only about the ideas about the development of government expressed in "The Republic", for example timocracy and oligarchy, which defined the Greek political system, as well as laying the foundation of modern political thought. I think it's a trivial question to wonder whether or not that conforms to what he previously wrote.

[Hicky]

Also, the works of Plato were quite possibly rewritten by various civilisations that came to possess them, so wondering whether or not they contradict each other is not as important as wondering whether or not Nietzche contradicted himself. This is an ancient Greek's oeuvre which has been reassembled, revised and translated many times throughout history.