Three-oh's the magic number, yes it is, the magic number.....
When I first started reading Plato, I observed something that I realized would probably happen every time I read philosophy. When attempting to understand the characters, historical significance, time period in which the piece was written, and the philosophical argument, I find myself not just thinking of philosophy. I find myself conneting it to every thing else besides philosophy.
Being a scholar of Latin American history, I, probably much to the chagrin of Socrates, use this as an example. Honor is a very vague term that can be applied to many situations, people, races, countries, and time periods. When I hear the word honor used, especially in a historical context, I think of it regards to Latin American history. The concept of honor, especially in colonial Latin America, is very unique and integral to its history. There are books, such as To Love Honor and Obey in Colonial Mexico by Patricia Seed that deal almost entirely with the concept of honor. Another book, Lieutenant Nun (the memoirs of Catalina de Erauso) chronicles the life of a young woman traveling Colonial Latin America as a man, is saturated with the concept, interworkings, and execution of honor in that society. To me it is difficult to hear the word honor and not think of something else I have learned on the subject.
Although not a scholar of psychology, I have taken several lower level and upper level psych. courses. How does this connect to philosophy? Well one of the major discussion pieces throughout the classes, and especially Old Age and Maturity, was memory. What is memory? How does the brain function with memory? What is the difference between episodic and semantic memory? It is because of this particular learning with the examination of the physical brain and mental brian that I have trouble taking Socrates seriously, especially when he says that "what we call learning is recollection." Knowing something is not a matter of "remembering it" as Socrates tries to point out with the slave boy. It is an excellent illustration of the Socratic method, but it does not prove that we know everything and we simply need to remember it. Once again, I use my area of study as an example. I cannot say that I remember everything about the Dirty War in Argentina or the caudillos in Uruguay. That is illogical and not physically possible. My brain does not know about these events until I learn them. My brain my know how to process the English language or parts of the Spanish language so I can interpret the sounds and make words and sense of them. But I do not know this information until it is passed along.
Before I pass too harsh judgement on Socrates, I wonder if perhaps I should not pass any judgement on his opinion or way of thinking at all. Plato, who wrote all the works Socrates appeared in lived from 427-347 B.C. and Socrates lived from 469-399 B.C. Both men obviously had no knowledge of modern psychology, which didn't even appear until Max Wundt (the father of psychology) in the late 1800s. Can I judge them by today's standards? Do I need to interpret their readings as an ancient Greek, or only keep in mind how an ancient Greek would have read them, and still read it through a 21st century mind? Sometimes I feel that if I read some of the older philosophy through a 21st century outlook, I will think most of it dated and incorrect, like Aristotle and his theory on teeth in men and women. However if I try to shut myself off from my modern self, I won't be reading it as my true self; in a way it will be a censored reading. It is a problem to which I do not have the answer.