Revelation

​For the best part of sixty years I have been fascinated by philosophy. My bookshelves groan under the weight of publications on the subject, from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, to Cathcart and Klein’s Plato and a Platypus go into a Bar. Of the former I got lost on page 6—and pages 1-5 were the preface... Plato and a Platypus is quite hilarious, and is an exposition of philosophy through mainly Jewish-American humour. I have read many other similar books, but to date the only knowledge on the subject that I have firmly committed to memory, is Monty Python’s Philosopher’s Song.
 
I’m now trying—for the umpteenth time—to read Bertrand Russell’s surprisingly accessible  History of Western Philosophy. I have reached the point where he is expounding the theory that Plato might well have ‘invented’ Socrates. The argument is that what he (Plato) says about Socrates conflicts with Xenophon’s version of the man. Xenophon, like Plato a pupil of Socrates, was ‘not very liberally endowed with brains’ and ‘conventional in his outlook.’ Russell’s thesis is that the Platonic Socrates—the Socrates described by Plato—was a fascinating and most interesting character, substantially embellished, Russell suspects, by Plato’s considerably literary and intellectual talents and possibly even expressing Plato’s own ideas.
 
It is fascinating stuff but by tomorrow I shall have forgotten it. I am reminded of an incident during my graduate student days. I was most fortunate to have Professor Alan Gibson, FRS, as my supervisor. He was an astonishing man; not only a gifted scientist and educator but also a very able administrator. I struggled during my research project which did not start well when I made it very clear to him that I did not understand Ohms Law...
 
We were at an Opto-Electronic conference in Manchester. Alan was due to present a keynote paper first thing in the morning that followed an evening spent by me carousing in the bar. On going to bed I wondered why my travelling clockwork alarm clock was showing the completely incorrect time. I reset it, adjusting the alarm to wake me up in good time for Alan’s lecture. It did wake me up, but it was only that evening on coming back to the room that I realised that the reason the clock appeared to be wrong was that I had placed it upside down... There must be a wonderful metaphor there, but for the life of me I cannot find it.
 
Anyway, I attended Alan’s talk and it was one of those rare Damascene events. As I listened to him explaining with complete clarity a most abstruse and subtle point, the scales were lifted from my eyes and for a few precious moments I was able to understand something that until then had completely eluded me. I never forgot the incident, that is to say the magical feeling of comprehension; the point itself was lost to me by lunchtime that day. 
 
I shall soldier on with Russell. At the very least having forgotten it all from the previous reading, every new idea comes as an exciting revelation.