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card_zerotoday at 6:35 AM1 replyview on HN

The quoted Seventh Letter limits the argument to writing about philosophy, not writing about other things: "There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject. For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another ..."

There's also the objection to "putting it forth into a world of discord and uncomeliness". If I was being uncharitable I could say that he fears criticism, like he's saying the ideas will be ruined if taken outside of his Svengali-like reality distortion field. (Or more charitably, he wants a good faith environment to discuss them in, instead of exposing them to hostile trolls who just won't get it.)

(This is supposedly a letter written by Plato, but probably is more like fan fiction written by his contemporaries.)


Replies

Mikhail_Edoshintoday at 9:05 AM

This is more like a dancer or a martial artist refusing to write a book about his craft on the ground that the required understanding cannot be passed this way. With dancing this is more obvious than with philosophy, so writing on philosophy is more dangerous, as the reader may mistake the false knowledge for the truth.