Plato vs Bertrand Russell on Wisdom
Plato and Bertrand Russell on wisdom, side by side — 5 passages against 5, and what the disagreement is actually about.
Plato and Bertrand Russell both have a great deal to say about wisdom — 5 passages and 5 respectively in thinkr's library — and they do not say the same thing. Setting them side by side is more useful than reading either alone, because the disagreement shows you what each position is actually giving up.
Plato on wisdom
Student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, founder of the Academy. His dialogues — the Republic, Symposium, Phaedo — set the terms of Western metaphysics.
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
“Parmenides: It is impossible to conceive of many without one.”
“Parmenides: Just as things in a picture, when viewed from a distance, appear to be all in one and the same condition and alike.”
“The beginning in every task is the chief thing.”
“Socrates: The shoemaker, for example, uses a square tool, and a circular tool, and other tools for cutting?”
Bertrand Russell on wisdom
British logician, philosopher, and public intellectual. Co-author of Principia Mathematica, and later a passionate voice for peace and free thought.
“The rules of logic are to mathematics what those of structure are to architecture.”
“Mathematics takes us still further from what is human, into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the world, but every possible world, must conform.”
“When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.”
“Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.”
“Political ideals must be based upon ideals for the individual life. The aim of politics should be to make the lives of individuals as good as possible.”
Where they part
Athens, c. 428–348 BCE and UK, 1872–1970 are not the same world, and the difference is not only historical. Plato treats wisdom as something to be wise men speak because they have… — a matter of practice. Bertrand Russell approaches it from another side entirely. Neither is refuting the other; they are answering slightly different questions, and noticing which question you are actually asking is most of the work.