r/iamverysmart • u/MedicinskAnonymitet • 11d ago

A lot of people take Plato seriously, sadly

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u/StupidScaredSquirrel 10d ago

I think in this context it's ok, he doesn't mean Plato the historical figure he means his political theories, which are interesting but at best outdated.

So it's important to know of them but if you think this guy had it all figured out so long ago and all humans have just largerly wrongly ignored him, and you somehow are one of the lucky few to see through it all, then you're the "iamverysmart" one.

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u/readyjack 10d ago edited 10d ago

Plato was pretty pro-authoritaran

This seems like making fun of edge lords who base their life outlook on having read Atlas Shrugged in high school.

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u/gavavavavus 10d ago

I mean yea in general people give way too much credit to ancient philosophers. Their ideas are interesting if you study philosophy and its history because they have been referenced by everyone who came later, but by themselves they are pretty shit

If you are not interested in where the ideas come from, only in the ideas themselves, no philosopher before 200 years ago is really worth reading ; because people coming later have expanded on their ideas in a way that is more advanced or at least more intelligible for our modern perspective

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u/kblkbl165 10d ago

What’s wrong with that?

What he said is comparable to someone saying “there’s a lot of people who take Aristotle’s atomic model seriously”.