Although at the moment I'm reading the full Plato and am striving to come up with an answer to his repudiation of the arts since they don't seem to him to have a purpose or best use(his justice definition) other than to only paint pretty things for the purposes of his Republic. It's kind of interesting that Nietzsche draws almost the exact opposite conclusion, whereas art is the justification of life, especially since he was such an admirer of Socrates who is the mouthpiece of Plato's in his Republic.

 Then again what " best use" is there in a book either, so of course Plato's Republic is really not that good of a book other than his apt descriptions of the type of state's, which really are only types of men. Of course his description of democracy is interesting since it mentions that the whole will try to live off of the few, seems like what we are embarking on with Mr. Obama's reliance on 2% of the tax paying elite to fund everything and everyone: it can't hold in reality and taxes WILL go up for all like in Clintons time. I'd rather that we have 1 TV or computer than 5 or 2 cars rather than the more usual 3 or smaller cars and then have more affordable health insurance, car insurance, free time, cheaper commodities(water, food, shelter, DSL, basic needed products), though, your things own you as they say.  But who am I to say how others should live? Who is anyone to mandate that? For me, and for artists as a whole, frugality is probably the norm and even a comfort.

 His Phaedo seems to be thoroughly debunked concerning the arguments for the idea of remembrance of knowledge as proof of the immortality of the soul apart from the body and that the opposites are generated out of each other as another proof of life being created out of death. Plato/Socrates even goes so far as to apply this to all life, I never heard of a dinosaur or a Dodo still existing and I have no recollection of a past life or even the first few years of my current life so even if my soul is immortal it may as well be someone else s since I don't have any history beyond my current short one in my memory. Though I'm not one of those who thinks what is perceptible by my organs is the only thing there.

Socrates questions to the untaught slave, to "prove" rememberance of knowlege and thus the immortality of the soul, were leading and don't take into account the evolution of innate intelligence in man from his days dodging predators and finding food and his questions required the use of a diagram which plays into mans long use of the visual function to survive. Plato uses a lot of grand language and is a pleasure to read but is largely irrelevant philosophically speaking. I have to say that mans true link to the infinite is mathematics as is one of Plato/Socrates ideas, not to mention Pythagoras.

It seems that Wittgenstein's marvelous Tractatus is the ideal type of document for philosophers but fails to capture what the non-philosopher could grasp and relying overly on the errors of language use to the exclusion of language's ability to ponder what Wittgenstein says must be passed over in silence. You can try and will try and have many errors and prejudices but still you must chip away at the marble to get to what you want and maybe even what is actually there. Only the most honest, philosophers, misuse language the way that Wittgenstein means, the rest are of course only using it for everyday practical or narrow technical use which excludes the biggest concerns, of course another way it is used is by literature as well which actually blends the two uses for both good and bad, advancing and retreating.

Though what I like about Plato and Socrates is that they have the vision of the river of reality having some things that are immovable truths, like the underlying bedrock the water flows over. It's a very popular thing and inevitable thing to be a relativist in today's world, with some even calling it an Einsteinian concept but that's bull as even Einstein didn't endorse that for everything, just time but as mentioned above usually the discoveries and observations of profound thinkers are misused by the majority. I don't see how anyone can concentrate on getting to anything important in the field of philosophy in todays world, we are invaded and indulge in too much connectivity and entertainment and artificial obligations. I am trying to avoid that but it's not easy and I'm not always the best at it either.

I'm also reading on the Pre-Socratics and Heraclitus in particular. The subtleties and incompleteness of his fragments are wonderful. I think not saying something or only peripherally describing something is the best way to communicate with those that are capable of hearing it. See Nietzsche's new way of using meanings for words as the mask of sorts to filter out the weak minded for a more modern example as well as Wittgenstein's preciseness and systematic definition of reality capture possibility.

To anyone interested I've started writing my own philosophical book, Too Too Safe for the Modern World, so if you know or are a publisher than let me know but it is only in the very early fleshing out stages at this point. Another thing I'd like to do is write an epic length verse poem, I started both that and writing a philosophical tract when I was 18 but who can really be an authority at 18, so college and life were inserted and I'm only now getting back to what I started then. Of course I've written long and short poetry and you can see some here.

 Basquiat is an influence in that respect, his hollywood africans has always rang with me, maybe because I'm in Hollywood and I know a few Africans! But more deeply his infusion of his unconscious reflexes and conscious ideas into his work to form a sort of random beauty is admirable. Other artists that are important to me are of course Picasso, Duchamp, Modigliani, Rodin, Monet, Michelangelo, Phidias/Greeks, Hiroshige/Utamaro/Ukiyo-e artists and a few contemporaries I know of.