Plato and Aristotle's Gnarly Adventure

Reading Log 3

Matthew Tougas

I think it’s fair to say neither Plato nor Aristotle would adapt to modern technology as seamlessly as Socrates did in the pivotal eighties classic, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.  If we could, however, bring them up to speed instantly by downloading the past two millennia directly into their brains Matrix­-style, I think we’d see two radically opposing views on the “ethopoetical” nature of modern technology, though not necessarily in the obvious ways.  Plato, as Miller notes, would no doubt find cause for alarm in the text-based nature of the internet: instant messaging, blogs, tweets, consumer reviews.  The opportunity anonymity provides to exaggerate, misrepresent and flat out lie would be chief concerns of his.  Skype, however, might just be the greatest invention of all time to Plato.  To be able to see and hear the person with whom you are interacting would, for Plato, ensure the ideas being exchanged are accurate, in terms of how the communicator intended his message to come across.  Of course, the moment Plato stopped concerning himself with the mode of communication, he’d start worrying again about human impulses—but that’s just Plato.

Aristotle, the “hipper” of the two, might at first embrace the notion of text-speak, assuming he thought brb and lol were words people actually spoke (to be fair, I’m hearing the latter pronounced more and more), or at least captured the truest essence of what the speaker meant.  As Miller reminds us, Aristotle thought “Authors should compose without being noticed and should seem to speak not artificially but naturally” (75).  So for him the problem might not be whether someone really laughed out loud or not, but if a known dullard (Plato, for example) in text typed out lol in response to someone’s comment, even though it’s well known Plato never laughed (lol).

All jokes aside, where these two ideas become relevant in the world of Artificial Intelligence is at the intersection of what gives someone credibility and what are the dangers of “simulating” credibility online.  The real risk both of them would likely agree on would be that risk of simulating virtue from an artificial agent (like Agent Smith, for example).  To be fair, both would probably doubt the ability for true AI to ever accurately simulate human virtue in the first place.

To bring all this back to the classroom, this discussion gives me an idea for an assignment about ethos and digital rhetorics.  I could have my students read tweets from political contestants and compare them to how those same politicians orate the same idea or message.  What differences, rhetorically, are there between the two?  Which medium seems to more accurately represent the ethos of the politician? Why?  What does this say about Plato’s argument that written word risks misrepresenting the speaker?  Can a speaker code-shift between both mediums and still accurately represent himself?