You will find in Plato’s Phaedrus a story regarding Thamus, the king of your great associated with Upper Egypt. For people just like ourselves, whom are inclined (in Thoreau’s phrase) to be equipment of our tools, few legends are more instructive than his. The story, since Socrates tells it to his good friend Phaedrus, unfolds in the following way: Thamus once amused the god Theuth, who was the developer of many points, including amount, calculation, geometry, astronomy, and writing.
Theuth exhibited his innovations to King Thamus, claiming that they ought to be made well known and available to Egyptians. Socrates continues: Thamus inquired into the use of each of them, and as Theuth went through them expressed approval or disapproval, according as he judged Theuth’s claims being well or ill founded, It would take too long to go through all that Thamus is reported to have stated for and against each of Theuth’s inventions. But when it arrived at writing, Theuth declared, “Here is an accomplishment, my lord the King, which will improve both the knowledge and the memory of the Egyptians. I have discov- ered a sure invoice for storage and knowledge. ” To this, Thamus responded, “Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of the art is usually not the very best judge from the good or perhaps harm that can accrue to the people who practice it.
So it is from this, you, who have are the dad of writing, have out of fondness for your off-spring attributed to it quite the opposite of its true function. Individuals who acquire it is going to cease to exercise their very own memory and become forgetful, they may rely on publishing to bring what you should their memories by external signs instead of by their own internal assets. What you have found is a invoice for recollection, not for recollection. And as for wisdom, the pupils could have the standing for it with no reality: they may receive a quantity of information without proper instruc- tion, and in outcome be thought very experienced when they are for the most part quite unaware.
Also because they are filled up with the conceit of intelligence instead of true wisdom they shall be a burden to society. “‘1 I start my book with this legend since in Thamus’ response there are lots of sound principles from which we may begin to discover ways to think with wise circumspection about a scientific society. Actually there is possibly one error in the judgment of Thamus, from which we may also study something of importance. The mistake is certainly not in his claim that writing will certainly damage recollection and generate false wisdom. It is demonstrable that producing has had this effect. Thamus’ error is in his believing that writing will be a burden to world and nothing nevertheless a burden. For any his intelligence, he fails to imagine what writing’s rewards might be, which in turn, as we know, had been considerable. We may learn from this that it is a blunder to suppose that any technological innovation has a one-sided effect. Every technology is both a burden and a blessing, certainly not either-or, yet this-and-that.
