> The
> Delphic Oracle when it commanded men (I dont' know about women) to
> "Know
> Yourself" meant "Know your place in visible social hierarchy." And
> this
> is what I think both Socrates & Plato meant when they echoed that
> Oracle
> -- which is one of the reasons that Ted and James Daly have so far not
> convinced me in their arguments for Plato's ethical positions.
The part of Plato's ethics (and Aristotle's) that I find persuasive isn't "know your place in visible social hierarchy"; it's the idea of "love" as "mutual recognition". You're much better able to know that I am, but isn't this idea sublated in the following passage from Milton that I sent to the list some time ago (after a student sent it to me with just this interpretive idea in mind).
"Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed Labour as to debar us when we need Refreshment, whether food or talk between, Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow, To brute denied, and are of love the food- Love, not the lowest end of human life. For not to irksome toil but to delight He made us, and delight to reason joined." <http://www.brysons.net/miltonweb/book-09.html>
Ted