Let us return to the relationship between thought and technique, which has already been covered elsewhere in the book, particularly with reference to the technique of writing.
Plato calls it a “Pharmakon” for memory, in the double sense of poison and medicine.
And while Socrates, for his part, mistrusts writing, in favor of dialogue, which brings one soul in contact with another soul, in the common search for truth, Plato insofar as a solid form of knowledge can emerge from dialogue, is in favor of the written form, which can fix it and make it public, and ultimately can make it transmissible over time, as has then been the case to the present day for all knowledge gained by man.
Thus we see an open reflection on the two dimensions of knowledge: that enabled and fixed by the technique of writing, and that internal to each person’s soul. Although then it must be said that a distrust of writing still prevails in Plato.
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