Plato's Black Swan

Recently I read Taleb’s “The Black Swan,” which is a book about the monumental impact of unexpected events. Taleb belabors this point to death, and by halfway, he is not really saying much more, but the same thing over and over and over again. Things happen that we can’t predict and those things can have a huge impact. In fact, according to Taleb, we cannot predict anything, but should always be aware that a “Black Swan” is just around the corner. He makes many good points, but if I read the phrase “Black Swan” one more time in the book, I was going to lose it.

Though with a seemingly vast array of knowledge of various subjects, and a very ironic self-deprecation, which is thinly veiling an “I’m smarter than you” core, it smacks of very superficial on a few things he seems most adamant against, most notably the term he uses ad nauseum, “platonizing.” For Taleb, this horrific event is when people try to find order in the Chaos, to find the Ideal amongst the riff-raff, to rarify the mess, or to make theories or prescriptions for how things ought to be.

Well, yes, but I’m not sure he’s read any Plato at all. For, if he had, there would be the finest example of a Black Swan in all of Ancient Greece, namely Socrates. Socrates did not conform to any doctrine and shook up a community so much that they wanted him dead. His appearance changed Western Philosophy for good. And, about those Platonic Ideals, sorry Mr. Taleb, read a bit closer, you might be surprised.

Most Socratic dialogues end, much to the horror and chagrin and dismay of many, in an aporetic fashion, meaning, there is no solution. Why? Because, it is impossible to Platonize as Taleb would say, but who is writing this but Plato himself?? Taleb self ascribes his philosophy to be an empirical sceptic. Ummm, that would be a pretty  good description of a Socratic investigation. Socrates rejected every established doctrine of the time for the simple reason, “we can’t really know.”

That is Taleb’s point and he brandishes this banner of “why can’t anyone see this?” throughout the book, seemingly ignorant that that was Socrates’ motto, Kant’s doctrine, and Nietzsche’s delight, all three being “Black Swans” themselves. The fact that the book is a best-selling seems to me that it shows how anything that smacks of the new, the bold, the more people will forget that it usually has been done and said before, in some other fashion, some other time, and has likewise been lost to the sands of Time.

In the Republic, Socrates spins a very long-winded detailed myth about the “perfect city” of Man that mirrors the real perfect city of God. Many of the ideas are quite “modern” today, including equality of the sexes, education for the masses, and a professional army that never has to return to civilian life, but is cared for unto death. However, after ten books of discussion, Socrates is asked if this city could ever be real. His answer is simply “No, it is a myth.” The only way that it could ever work is via the Noble Lie that is told to generation after generation about the perfection of the city, and within three or so generations, the Lie becomes reality, because, the Ideal is fiction on earth, because, there are “Black Swans.” 

Yet, what is even lacking further in the criticism of so-called platonizing, is the fact that within itself, whether black or white, it’s still a swan.