I guess that means you're shocked.
I think Plato and a lot of other early writers should be studied as historical figures, but we should also recognize that they were products of their time. Plato got it wrong more often than he got it right, not because he was stupid (he wasn't), but because he didn't have the benefits of thousands of years of previous thinkers to refine his ideas against. But we do have that benefit, and we should use it. We have the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of 21st century giants, and we miss that opportunity if we choose to stand on the shoulders of philosophers in the infancy of philosophy.
Even where ancient philosophers got things right in their theories of the mind, it was mostly just lucky guesses, without the benefit of modern neuroscience to validate those guesses. And neuroscience itself is in its infancy: our theory of the mind should be expanding every day as new discoveries are made.
1. Plato doesn't get things wrong because the nature of his rhetoric is presenting provocative dialogue for thinking with. The questions he raises are still relevant: what is good, what is virtue, what is beauty. I'm of the opinion (it's disputable) that the purpose of Philosophy isn't finding "the truth" but in living better.
2. Standing on the shoulders of 21st century philosophers... Well, there have been some good ones. But consider this list -- wouldn't you be standing taller on Plato's shoulders than on any of these? https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/10-living-philosophers...
3. Neuroscience can't validate what is good, what is virtue, what is beauty. As a neuroscientist, I find an incredible amount of value in reading the original texts of the oldest philosophers, particularly the Pythagoreans (all is number; Harmonious soul in a harmonious cosmos). Understanding cognition in terms of harmonization processes is, for me, of great value. It is actually an excellent framework for understanding phase-amplitude coupling and other neural dynamics. The notion of harmony passed from Pythagoras to Plato to Plotinus to Ficino to Kepler to Newton... And then largely died. Why? It was the tacit agreement between the church and the scientific establishment to clearly separate science and spirituality.
Today, some seek to deny the existence of science, some the existence of spirituality. The alternative to that rejection is an integration of the two. Yet, modern science simply isn't interested in that task-- and neither is modern philosophy. So, if one cares about that integration (and I'm not the only one), there is a lot of benefit in going back in time to when there wasn't a difference between the two fields. And that's why I love the Pythagorean - Platonic tradition: an empirical investigation of the spiritual mysteries of a mathematical universe. Good luck finding a modern philosopher to take that on!
If you are intrigued, try reading "mathematics useful for understanding Plato" by Theon of Smyrna (c. 100AD)
Plato absolutely gets some things wrong. For one, he favored dictatorship (self-servingly, he thought the dictator should be a philosopher).
Sure, some of what Plato says is relevant, but lots of modern philosophers are saying those things, only more refined. There's not much value in reading Plato if you can read the same thing by a modern author, with all Plato's mistakes ironed out by two and a half millenia of discovery and debate.
In fact, Plato's belief in dictatorship was a great example of where we have the benefit of two and a half millenia of experience that Plato didn't have: we've seen a lot of dictators, and had the benefit of comparing the results of dictatorship to other forms of government.
> 2. Standing on the shoulders of 21st century philosophers... Well, there have been some good ones. But consider this list -- wouldn't you be standing taller on Plato's shoulders than on any of these? https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/10-living-philosophers....
No. You think this is a rhetorical question, but it isn't. I would absolutely rather stand on the shoulders of one of those philosophers, rather than Plato.
It's likely that all of those philosophers have read Plato, and are already standing on his shoulders. So by reading those philosophers instead, you get the parts of Plato that have value, plus the benefit of their having refined Plato's ideas. Plato might have been a giant in his time, but he's a child compared to those who have the benefit of his height in addition to their own.
Incidentally, the argument I'm making in this post is pretty similar to one made by Martha Nussbaum, one of the philosophers on this list.
"Now the fact that Aristotle believes something does not make it true." --Martha Nussbaum
> 3. Neuroscience can't validate what is good, what is virtue, what is beauty.
Nor can Plato.
> As a neuroscientist, I find an incredible amount of value in reading the original texts of the oldest philosophers, particularly the Pythagoreans (all is number; Harmonious soul in a harmonious cosmos). Understanding cognition in terms of harmonization processes is, for me, of great value.
The part that makes this palatable is where you speak for yourself. If you like it, I applaud your enjoyment of it!
> The notion of harmony passed from Pythagoras to Plato to Plotinus to Ficino to Kepler to Newton... And then largely died. Why? It was the tacit agreement between the church and the scientific establishment to clearly separate science and spirituality.
This not only ignorant of history, but it is also ignorant of the present day. If there's a agreement between the church and scientific communities to separate science and spirituality, neither side is holding up their end of the bargain. Did you read the part of the article you linked on Daniel Dennett? If you think Darwin or Einstein weren't spiritual, you can't have read much of their writings.
"The Darwinian Revolution is both a scientific and a philosophical revolution, and neither revolution could have occurred without the other." --Daniel Dennett
