Amid the discussion of the art of speaking, Plato has Socrates relate a story about the origins of writing. Once upon a time in Egypt, the god Theuth (or Thoth), who was a great inventor, invented a writing system. He explained his invention to the pharaoh, Thamus, who expressed his concern that the practice of reading and writing would have unfortunate effects. Once people have learned to read and write, they will no longer have to rely on memory. They will simply write things down without fully understanding them. Writing will become a crutch, allowing them to pretend to knowledge without really understanding anything.
Challenged to defend his story, Socrates points out that if a reader fails to understand something in a written treatise, he cannot ask the writing what it means. The written word is fixed for all time and unable to interact with the reader. By contrast, a teacher can respond to a questioner by answering questions and offering new explanations to fill in gaps in the student’s knowledge.[15]
Certainly the written word is fixed and unresponsive. Nevertheless, given the severe limits of human memory, the books and libraries, and now the databases, of the world can offer enormous amounts of information that would be unavailable to a non-literate society. Writing has made possible complex social arrangements that allow for representative government and interaction between large numbers of people in modern nation states. They allow for science and technology that rely on repositories of knowledge that can be accessed to allow for educational improvement, economic development, and the mastery of natural processes.
In Plato’s time memory still played a large role in society, as indicated even by Socrates’ encounter with Phaedrus. Phaedrus is using a written text to memorize a speech. It is not even his own speech! Education by rote does allow students to ingest models of speaking, behavior, and so on, that can benefit the individual. But it does not teach thinking or reasoning. So it seems odd that Plato should criticize writing as a dangerous innovation.
Moreover, Plato is one of the greatest writers of all time. His writings fill a shelf in a library. They were read continuously throughout antiquity—and for this reason have come down to the modern world intact. He has the gift of explaining complex philosophical theories in a non-technical way, and moreover, making each philosophical discussion into a drama between different personalities with suspense, humor, and discoveries. Without writing, Plato would be the mere name of a wise man, if even that memory should survive. As it is, Plato is still one of the most widely-read of philosophers two and half millennia after he lived. In general, the modern world has significant knowledge of literate societies and of their leading figures, but only a general and vague awareness of non-literate societies of the “prehistoric” past.
[15] Plato Phaedrus 274c-275e.