Plato’s Confesses His 10 Biggest Errors

Plato recently confessed his 10 biggest mistakes on twitter. They came via his current spokesperson Rebecca Goldstein author of the entertaining and educational Plato at the Googleplex. 

Here they are in reverse order: 

10. There is such a thing as a human soul that can preserve our existence post-death in disembodied form.

9. Absolute power is beneficent when restricted to philosophers, who of course won’t abuse it, and so require no oversight.

8.Theory of Forms, the quintessential essentialism.

7. Rulers should be allowed to tell whoppers, so long as their hearts are just & their lies are noble. 

6. Art that stirs up the wrong emotions must be banned.

5. Beautiful mathematics leads us straight to the truth. See http://bit.ly/1qOCSV6

4. Average schmoes with no talent for thinking should be told what to think, which won’t undermine their humanity nor that of the rulers. 

3. Since structure of reality is mathematical, observation is largely irrelevant. 

2. Rule of the people (democracy) is doomed to degenerate into tyranny, as people succumb to promises of a strongman. 

1. The unexamined life is not worth living. 

More Big Think from Plato-Goldstein here. For more of her Platonic tweeting follow  @platobooktour

Image: Raphael [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons