Plato - Meno

"I am not a philosophy fan. I feel after finishing this book that i still have the same questions, what is virtue? Can virtue be taught? Are there teachers of virtue? Why do philosophers talk in circles? Why is geometry used to prove virtue? Ew, i hope the discussons at work dont suck as much as this book...."

THERE WILL BE "DISCUSSIONS AT WORK" BECAUSE THIS REVIEWER IS A TEACHER OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS


"After being raised by the Socratic method, I now understand its roots better. However, that doesn't make reading this as a book enjoyable at all."


"In the course of fulfilling my duties as a teaching assistant, I’ve had the mixed blessing of reading and reflecting on Plato for two consecutive quarters these past few months. I say mixed because while this has afforded me an opportunity to understand Plato’s thought in more richly textured detail, it has served mostly to reinforce the position I already held on that most beloved of philosophers – which is, simply, that Plato blows ... I have not mentioned how incredibly annoying and condescending the Socratic method is, or how absurd and problematic Plato’s ridiculous craft analogies are, or how unpleasant I find the literary style of pretty much all ancient Greek literature, or how I find aspects of Plato which others describe to be 'profound' to be totally banal, simplistic, and as imaginative as the speculations of someone stoned out of their minds ('we all have like, three parts to our soul dude and like, they are always struggling for dominance and one is like, a lion and the other, a medusa, with all these snakes coming out of its head and shit') – because all of this is far more subjective and not to the point: which is that Plato was not merely a douchebag, but a douchebag who gave us a really shitty philosophical tradition that contributed to an ongoing 2,000 year plus tradition of stupidity. Why he is routinely credited even within atheist circles as being some kind of super awesome rationalist thinker is beyond me; this guy helped cement many of the assumptions and traditions we are most opposed to."


"Plato stinks (academic babbler). Read something real for a change."


"To the translator: Kudos! (However he would translate that into ancient Greek!)"