Plato's Views on the Technology of Writing

Plato's Views on the Technology of Writing

In the book Phaedrus Plato offers a lot of criticism for a writing technology that not many of us would ever think as writing technology, let alone criticize it. This writing technology is none other than writing itself. When people think of writing technology they mostly think of the printing press, the computer, the typewriter and such. Yet no one stops to think of writing. Writing has had such a major impact on society that who would ever think that the one of the greatest minds of all time opposed it. Plato was not just a crazy old man afraid of change; his criticism can still be applied today.

For many people, writing has always been around. It’s hard to picture life without writing, books, reading, but at one point all there was was rhetoric. People would entertain themselves not by picking up a book by Jane Austen or Shakespeare. They would go to listen to people give speeches. This is what Plato was used to, and when writing came along he resisted the idea that this new invention, writing, could be good for people.

First, Plato thought that writing would be bad for peoples’ memories. He thought writing would encourage forgetfulness and that people would rely too much on writing as a means of recollection. In Phaedrus Socrates points this out to Phaedrus by telling him a story about the Egyptian king Thamus and Theuth an inventor of many arts. “ For this invention of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves” (Plato 87-88). Plato used the character of Thamus to express his own concerns a...

... middle of paper ...

...ted to, Phaedrus could change his speech. Authors don’t really have that luxury. Once a book is in print, they can’t change their mind. For example, say a critic says that an author’s introduction was horrible and should be rewritten. The author doesn’t get the chance to rewrite the introduction. Chances are there are already multiple copies of the book in the bookstores or libraries.

As it can be seen, even though Plato brought up these critiques along time ago they can still be applied to life today. As it turns out Plato was not crazy after all, but was able to see the flaws in writing that still plague it today. In addition, these critiques he brought up can also be applied to other forms of writing technology.

Works Cited:

LaRocque, Paula. “Language and Lost Credibility”. The Quill. Nov. 1999: 38

Plato. Phaedrus. New York: Dover, 1993.