ph1101EGEM1004 Reason & Persuasion Asst. prof.

John Holbo

Lecture 1 Part I Plato & Socrates

Email: phihjc@nus.edu.sg And bookmark the main website: http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/phihjc/PH1101EG EM1004/index.html (However, at the moment we are using a back-up, and I dont know when the main one will be back up) http://homepage.mac.com/jholbo/reasonandpersua sion/index.html You can navigate to it easily from the philosophy department site or through IVLE.

A Few Words About A Few Minor Administrative Matters (all this is on the website) Lectures Readings The Module Website & Blog Discussion Sections Requirements & Assignments The Final Exam

Readings For Next Week Read Reason and Persuasion, Chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 3-24). If you are feeling inspired, read also Platos Euthyphro (pp. 143-174). Thats what I will be lecturing about next week. Alternatively, you could read the commentary (Chapter 5) first before reading the dialogue itself. My lecture next week will basically be a version of Chapter 5. In general, my lectures tend to map onto one or another chapter in the book, but we change things up to keep life interesting. Todays lecture is drawn from Chaps 1, 2 and bits of Chapter 4. Readings are always announced on the Readings page of the main site. In future,

Plato/Socrates is a complex monster; a creature of contradictions. What is a contradiction? In logic, P & -P. An impossible conjunction things that can go together in your head (because you are confused) but not in the world (because things that dont make sense

(see p. 288 for more information about the many-headed monster)

1. Freedom & authoritarianism. 2. Truth & lies. 3. Logos & mythos. 4. Mystical & rational. 5. Impersonal & personal. 6. Abstract & concrete. 7. Shrewd & nave. 8. Serious & ironic. 9. Simple & complex. 10. Plato & Socrates

So how should you read Plato?

No one can contradict the things you say, Socrates. But each time you say them your audience has an experience something like this: they think that because they are inexperienced players of the game of crossexamination, they are tripped up by the argument a little here, a little there, at each of your questions. . .

When all these small concessions are added together in the end, they find they fall flat, fallaciously contradicting their own starting points. Just as novice game players are in the end trapped by masters, and cannot move, so this lot are trapped and have nothing to say in this different sort of game, played not with counters but with words. - Republic

. . . Real salesmanship isnt argument. It isnt anything even remotely like argument. The human mind isnt changed that way. - D. Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

So there you have it: reason and persuasion. Note the generality of Carnegies position. Hes got a whole theory of knowledge, mind and ethics. He makes it sound like plain common sense. And it might be. Q) what is the way to change the human mind? A)Through salesmanship.

Is it really possible that Carnegie has made a good argument that all arguments are bad? This is usually the point where Socrates steps in and says: I have only one little question Plato disagrees with Dale Carnegie. This is going to be important.

Speaking of arguments - which will be the subject of next weeks first nuts & bolts lecture - here are three senses of argument: 1.An argument is a verbal fight.

2. An argument is set of propositions, premises and conclusions - the former giving reasons to believe the latter. (No actors strictly required.)

[No picture because no picture is needed!]

Plato is interested in arguments in all senses. One of the main advantages of the dialogue form, in my humble opinion, is that he is able to keep all the senses of argument in the air.