Plato rejects writing by the mouth of Socrates

Frequently hear someone reject the computer as an educational tool for children and youth with the argument that it harms the development of memory or of some reasoning ability. Previously we heard similar arguments in rejecting electronic calculators that would prevent the ability of mathematical thinking. All this reminds me of a famous passage in Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus 274c-277a; Plato in the mouth of Socrates rejects the invention of writing by the same reason that it will end up with memory, essential human faculty.

No book is so bad as to not have something of use in some part of it. (Nullum esse librum tam malum, ut non in aliqua parte prodesset) Pliny Pliny the Younger, Epist.3,5,10

This may be a good phrase to celebrate World Book Day, which according to UNESCO is celebrated on 23 April every year since 1995. On that day, in 1616, Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare and the poet Garcilaso de la Vega, the Inca, died.

The library of Alexandria (3): The Library of Alexandria acquired books in a curious way

The claim of the Ptolemies was to collect “all books of all peoples of the earth” , perhaps following the advice of Demetrios of Falera . Certainly some of the stories that were told in antiquity reveal the passion of the Ptolemies to equip its library of Alexandria with the books which were in the known world. Sources also foreshadow the rivalry between the two great libraries of Alexandria and Pergamum.

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