In Plato's dialogue Phaedrus Socrates attacks the idea that writing is the best way of communicating ideas. He says that, as with paintings, you might get the impression that words could answer you back, but instead both remain solemnly silent (Phaedrus, 275d-e):
'You'd think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you question anything that has been said because you want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever. When it has once been written down, every discourse rolls about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have no business with it, and it doesn't know to whom it should speak and to whom it should not. And when it is faulted and attacked unfairly, it always needs its father's support; alone, it can neither defend itself nor come to its own support' (trans. Nehamas and Woodruff)
John M. Cooper in his introduction to this dialogue (Plato Complete Works
'Knowledge can only be lodged in a mind, and its essential feature there is an endless capacity to express, interpret and reinterpret itself suitably, in response to every challenge - something a written text once let go by its author plainly lacks: it can only keep on repeating the same words to whoever picks it up.'
This contrasts with René Descartes comment:
'To read good books is like holding a conversation with the most eminent minds of past centuries, and moreover, a studied conversation in which these authors reveal to us only the best of their thoughts. '(from Discourse on Method)
Ideally I'd read Descartes' Meditations, and then meet him to discuss it. Where that strategy is not possible, active reading with this imagined conversation, is good. This is what Machiavelli described in a letter to his friend Francesco Vettori about how he composed his book The Prince in exile...he imagined conversations with the great ancient statesmen:
'...I am not ashamed to speak with them, and to ask them about the reasons for their actions; and they, in their kindness, answer me'
I think Socrates was probably wrong to play down the written word so much, though. The combination of writing and discussion seems optimal for Philosophy. Yet, he was surely right to play up the value of discussion with a philosopher, particularly with one who is prepared to clarify, illustrate, argue and even revise his or her position...
Earlier post here on Hubert Dreyfus on the need for face-to-face interaction in philosophical education. And one on Philosophy as Conversation with Ourselves.
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