Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

New Hope for Civility

This book Plato at the Googleplex, can be view from three salient aspects. These three aspects are paramount. First there is the aspect it use as an instrument of pedagogy. Second there is the aspect of its status as a masterpiece of scholarship. Thief there is its emphatically subtle play of personality in giving a showing to the world a phenomenological presence of Plato.

We begin with the aspect of pedagogy. What's this? Early in this book, readers are accosted with a challenge that philosophers have nothing to say, and hopes are becoming dinner for any improvement is this lacuna. Early in the book (Page 35) we encounter ?The Fate-of-Philosophy Equation? that presents a dim prospect for philosophical analysis in that available problems are approaching the vanishing point to end in the null set. Indeed, our author reveals ?The question whether the Fate-of-Philosophy Equation is true is an overriding concern of this book.? Our author had something to say and a splendid command of the language to say it. She is a philosopher who is not at a loss for words. Where do we go from here?

Acolytes of philosophy will recall the maxim, ex nihilo, nihil fit [from nothing, nothing comes]. Some detractors such a Monty Python hold that philosophers cannot play soccer because they continue interminably to debate the rules. They make no progress. Always aware, our author notices (Page 14) ?If there is such a thing as philosophical progress, then why ? unlike scientific progress ? is it so invisible? This is a question that runs throughout the book,? and she goes on ?What was tortuously secured by complex argument becomes widely shared intuition, so obvious that we forget its provenance. We don't see it, because we see with it.?

All right! Let's take look at the null set in a relational table of a database. A null set there must be taken to mean ?no information?, and this is not a value in the table, though that cell does serve as a placeholder, like elements of ?The Golden Braid? in natural language. Edgar Codd was telling us something.

Yes, we need ?heuristic, meta-linguistic rules? in the discipline of relational database as in the discipline of philosophy. Here is an example of such a rule: ?In mathematics, exclamation points are excluded?. In a framework for thought, choose your placeholders carefully: ?In a Cartesian coordinate system, zero is a placeholder?.

Philosophers give us something to think about, and our author is no exception. She locates Plato in several venues in which his nimble wit can be exhibited. Her display of scholarship is a fitting prompt to neophytes where pedagogy is needed. Education is said humorously to be ?Mark Hopkins on one end of a log with the student on the other end?. This book gives them a rich agenda of discourse.

Now we move on to the art of scholarship. Our author is aware of paradox in Plato, (Page 13) but lays out architecture of her book to show she approaches the reader with open hands: ?As often as I can, I interweave passages from his writings into the conversations he has with our contemporaries, giving the citations.? With these citations she coordinates the text of Plato with the speech of our day to create continuity in a seamless flow of thought, much like a novel. Readers are relieved of the heavy labor of interpreting original texts and can go with the flow of ideas that illuminate thoughts to discover timeless wisdom.

In this intense and careful exposition, we see the genius of the author. Not only does she present Plato, she presents his detractors with extraordinary skill. For example, consider the turn of mind for McCoy, that conservative anchor on cable news visited by Plato. McCoy's vocabulary and ideas reflect his turn of mind. We follow McCoy's ludicrous reaction to Plato's view of the natural world of seas as mathematical (Page 344). ?Well, I don't know what the hell you?re claiming to be hearing. The Pythagorean theorem or something or other. Splish, a, splash, b, splish, equals, splash, c.?

When Plato corrects McCoy gently to explain the tides as due to ?the lunar gravity differential field at the earth's surface?, McCoy reacts irritably and threatens to cut off Plato's microphone. His irritation is a typical reaction of an arrogant speaker being put down for his schoolboy lampoon.

This authenticity in characters sets our author among celebrated writers such as Shakespeare or Jane Austen. Moreover, this interweaving of thought in contemporary folks with citations of historical sources illuminates meaning in original texts. Our author is an exceptional person in giving us the very model of a scholar at work.

With this observation we are ready to explore that third aspect of this book that it reveals a phenomenological presence of Plato. This presence is revealed in a thematic apperception of his philosophical voice. This technical notion is in tune with what we see of insistence on truth seen in Socrates. From our technical source we have this passage: ?Phenomenology takes place in a focus different from our experience of things in the world; to illuminate this difference we compare Husserl's transcendental reflection with Socrates? examination of the Athenian way of life.? Robert Sokolovsky, Husserlian Meditations, Northwestern University Press (Evanston, IL, 1974) page 6, ISBN 0-8101-0440-7. Sokolovsky goes on to say of a philosophical voice: ?Although action is the primary issue in manifestation of character, language is also at work, because a man of good character is one whose opinion we estimate in questions about what is to be done in certain circumstances appropriate to his virtue.? (Op.Cit. page 256)

Now we can see and claim the beauty and pertinence of this monumental work, Plato at the Googleplex. Without resort to a forbidding technical machinery of exposition, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein lets us hear the philosophical voice of Plato. This voice comes across as if in an epic film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. In fact, our author suggests this view in a closing allusion to the film Sunset Boulevard in which Norma Desmond moves forward dramatically, an allusion to suggest Plato as a dramatic persona. Read this book to enjoy this adventure, better than science fiction, in a scenario of philosophical space.

Epilogue:

Those three aspects with which this review begins militate against three forms of aphasia or aspect blindness that may be used by malicious spirits to detract from the merit of this book to promote civility in polite company. Against pedagogical value, a detractor could argue this book is not technical enough to be a textbook. Against scholarly value, a detractor could argue this author is only a novelist and not a genuine scholar. Against a true philosophical voice of Plato, a detractor could argue this author has not given the world Plato in his original form. These dragons of detraction have been slain.