Frank Kogan

But anyway, my reading of Plato, which is no doubt skewed by my considering "Platonism" a dead issue and my looking, therefore, for what else is going on in Plato - but I really really really don't think that "Platonism" is the main thing that Plato does... my reading of how Plato is "foundational" in relation to modern academia - "foundational" not meaning "transcendent" but more like "what sets the pattern" - is Socrates' asking e.g. "what is virtue? what is holiness?" etc. and then not giving a definitive answer but rather tearing down all the available answers and giving some suggestions of where to explore the issue next. So Socrates is in effect saying, "You supposedly wise men don't know what virtue is any more than I do, and what I do that you don't is I at least show people - these youngsters whom I'm accused of corrupting - how not to accept the answers that are given to them, but how to ask the questions for real, and what tools to use in seeking answers." His "The unexamined life is not worth living" reads in context very much like "the unchallenged idea is not worth having." So Plato's Socrates gives people something to do, rather than giving them a set of truths. And in this way Plato provides academics with a model for what they can do. -Not that I'm claiming that this is Plato's impact on intellectual life, since my knowledge of the history of intellectual life and academia is pitifully small, and anyway he'll have different impacts on different people, depending on how they want to use him. And anyway, foundations - not "transcendent" foundations, but actual ones - will be multiple and varied.