"IF" 
Beds don't have ideas. They are artifacts — it is *always* a mistake to simply interpret Socrates as giving a "straightforward" exposition of "Plato's theory."
That doesn't happen.
That is not the way to read Plato.
The "mouthpiece" theory is unutterably dumb.
That doesn't happen.
That is not the way to read Plato.
The "mouthpiece" theory is unutterably dumb.
Eva Brann rightly begins her famous lecture "Plato's Theory of Forms" by noting than "every word in the lecture's title, besides 'of' is wrong."
"Surely we can trust Socrates!"
Oh, we can trust him, but not to speak straightforwardly. His defining trait, besides his ignorance, is his IRONY — of which his ignorance is a case in point: Socrates, as you recall, *knows* his own ignorance in such a way that makes him WISE.
Oh, we can trust him, but not to speak straightforwardly. His defining trait, besides his ignorance, is his IRONY — of which his ignorance is a case in point: Socrates, as you recall, *knows* his own ignorance in such a way that makes him WISE.
Socrates is ignorant, in other words, about everything that would make him foolish, and not ignorant of the one thing that makes him wise, and therefore, LESS IGNORANT than ... everybody else (except God).
Socrates non-ignorance of his own ignorance makes him the wisest.
IRONY.
Socrates non-ignorance of his own ignorance makes him the wisest.
IRONY.
Another way to catastrophically misread Plato's Republic, by the way, is to read it is a straightforward blueprint for a utopian vision.
This too fails to grasp Socrates' unrelenting IRONY about the project.
So much so that it is THE critique of ALL utopianism.
This too fails to grasp Socrates' unrelenting IRONY about the project.
So much so that it is THE critique of ALL utopianism.
But I digress here.
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