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Single Idea 13778
[filed under theme 2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
]
Full Idea
What would you call someone who knows how to ask and answer questions? Wouldn't you call him a dialectician?
Gist of Idea
A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions
Source
Plato (Cratylus [c.375 BCE], 390c)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.109
A Reaction
Asking good questions and giving good answers sound like two very different skills. I presume dialectic is the process of arriving at answers by means of asking the right questions.
The
19 ideas
from 'Cratylus'
13776
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Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not
[Plato]
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13772
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Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person?
[Plato]
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13774
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Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence
[Plato]
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13775
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We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly
[Plato]
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13777
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A name is a sort of tool
[Plato]
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13778
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A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions
[Plato]
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13779
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The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?)
[Plato]
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13780
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Good people are no different from wise ones
[Plato]
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13781
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Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized
[Plato]
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13783
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Even the gods love play
[Plato]
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13785
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'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul
[Plato]
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13786
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Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works
[Plato]
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13787
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Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities?
[Plato]
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13788
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If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses
[Plato]
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13789
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Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing
[Plato]
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13790
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A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it
[Plato]
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13791
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Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge
[Plato]
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2063
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How can beauty have identity if it changes?
[Plato]
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13792
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There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing
[Plato]
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