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Full Idea
If there exists the knowledge of how to make men immortal, but without the knowledge of how to use this immortality, there seems to be no value in it.
Gist of Idea
Knowing how to achieve immortality is pointless without the knowledge how to use immortality
Source
Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 289b)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.726
A Reaction
I take this to be not a gormless utilitarianism about knowledge, but a plea for holism, that knowledge only has value as part of some larger picture. The big view is the important view. He's wrong, though. Work out the use later.
| 16120 | Knowing how to achieve immortality is pointless without the knowledge how to use immortality [Plato] |
| 301 | Only knowledge of some sort is good [Plato] |
| 302 | What knowledge is required to live well? [Plato] |
| 303 | Say how many teeth the other has, then count them. If you are right, we will trust your other claims [Plato] |
| 304 | Beautiful things must be different from beauty itself, but beauty itself must be present in each of them [Plato] |
| 305 | Something which lies midway between two evils is better than either of them [Plato] |