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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The claim that Plato structured his dialogues by Pythagorean harmonic ratios is not convincing

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.No ancient source reports that Plato used such a compositional practice
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    • 2.The middle of Platonic dialogues, which would correspond to the octave ratio (2:1), does not typically contain the most philosophically important content
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    • 3.There are serious methodological problems with the ratio-counting approach
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Kenneth Sayre and Jay Kennedy's ratio-counting methods rely on arbitrary decisions about what counts as a 'stichometric unit' across manuscript traditions.
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    • 2.When the same interpretive method yields divergent structural analyses of identical texts, it demonstrates the method lacks the objectivity required for scholarly validity.
      ?

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    • 3.Pythagorean harmonic theory, as reconstructed from Philolaus and Archytas, concerns acoustic ratios in sounding bodies, not abstract textual proportions in written prose.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Plato explicitly critiques those who seek numerical patterns in phenomena without grounding those patterns in philosophical argument, as in Republic 531a-c.
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    • 2.A compositional practice directly contradicting Plato's own methodological warnings about numerological excess would require extraordinary corroborating evidence to be credible.
      ?

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    • 3.No surviving Platonic letter, Academy-related testimony, or doxographical report attributes to Plato any such structural encoding practice, despite rich ancient commentary on his compositional methods.
      ?

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