The Criticism—and the Practice—of Literacy in the Ancient Philosophical Tradition

Abstract

Is the philosophers' practice of literacy, as described in their works, consistent with their criticism of it? This paper aims to answer this question, firstly, by comparing the ancient philosophers' criticism of literacy to their practice of it, through the study of what various authors from various periods say about reading and writing. On the other hand, since earlier works on this topic have proposed that the classical period witnessed a sudden and, to a certain extent, definitive turn to literacy, and have tried to locate this turn in time, I have examined the situation in a broader perspective, over a longer period of time. The results show that, if we consider how philosophers criticize literacy and how they describe themselves in their own discourses, literacy patterns tended to remain similar until Late Antiquity; and that, in spite of Aristotle's new use of literacy, the criticism we find in Plato lingers on. As a result, what we usually call the transition from an oral tradition to a written tradition could be better viewed as a cultural continuity.