A Short Dialogue Between a Student and a Professor, Inspired by Plato

Note: Thank you to Anonymous H. and Anonymous M.

Student: Professor, I come to you with an urgent matter.

Professor: Pallans, what troubles you? You never come to me with any urgent matters.

Student: Professor, I know You of all people have no doubt about my skills on the battlefield. I have fought many wars and have finished many with solely my fists. This is greatness in its pure form, is it not? That someone of noble descent who uses their strength to defeat their enemies for the greater good of all people residing in their nation is but the image of greatness itself? However that is not what I have come to inquire upon. Someone has challenged me and refused to call me brave. A priest. He did not move a single muscle for as long as I tried to convince him. And then it came to me: what better way to convince someone that I am rampant with great bravery than to hear it from the mouth of the greatest himself?

Professor: Well, Pallans, I am not sure if I could do that. Are you brave?

Student: You, too, doubt me?

Professor: No, it is not quite that. You simply have not convinced me that you are brave. Explain to me as if I have no idea what the word means.

Student: I do not understand. You disagree that I am brave.

Professor: I did not say that.

Student: So if You have seen my many displays of greatness, then You doubt that I am brave?

Professor: Does that mean that greatness is bravery in and of itself?

Student: I do not see how it is not.

Professor: Very well… Then let us start from the beginning. Please describe bravery. Convince me that you are of such origin, and I will fulfill your request of speaking to the priest who doubted your abilities.

Student: Professor, I will have You know that this will be useless since I trust that You, someone with higher knowledge, undoubtedly knows the meaning of bravery. Why waste time?

Professor: To teach you something that you do not completely understand.

Student: But I do understand bravery.

Professor: Perfect. Then explain it to me.

Student: Well, bravery follows soldiers on the battlefield. It follows kings. It is greatness, glory, victory! It is using power to do something courageous–

Professor: Perfect! Courage! The first word you have stumbled on that has meaning to the definition! Explain it.

Student: But Professor, I thought You would not question my definition, but simply accept it, as You Yourself said to treat You with ignorance.

Professor: Then, separately, I would like you to explain courage to me. We will continue with bravery after.

Student: You confuse me.

Professor: I am teaching you.

Student: I suppose then that I shall continue… but courage is also bravery.

Professor: So, then, do you say that they are the same thing?

Student: Yes, I do.

Professor: But courage is also a part of bravery itself?

Student: Well…

Professor: I never said I disagreed with you.

Student: Then what is the problem, Professor?

Professor: The problem is this; how can one thing be another, but also be a part of it?

Student: The same way that courage is and is a part of bravery. I do not see a problem.

Professor: You are using itself to describe, well… itself. With it also being a part of… itself?

Student: I suppose so?

Professor: That is a paradox, Pallans, and a thoughtless one at that! Pallans, how do you not understand the foolishness of such a description? It’s as if I were to describe a flower as a clump of petals, but its petals are also a part of the flower.

Student: Yet, it remains true.

Professor: That is false. A flower is a clump of petals, yes, but it also contains a stem and pollen and roots. You cannot simply ignore its other qualities simply because one overpowers the others. If you are plainly one part of a whole–or in this case have a quality of something as a whole–then does that make you said whole?

Student: Professor, you repeat yourself too many times. I find it hard to follow.

Professor: Let us go back to the example of the flower. In this case, a flower is a clump of petals, yes?

Student: Yes.

Professor: Then if I take many petals from a variety of places–one from a rose, one from a daffodil, one from an iris–and throw them all together in a pile, does that mean that I created a flower myself?

Student: No.

Professor: Why not?

Student: Because you said that a flower contains petals as well as a stem, roots, pollen… among other things.

Professor: Yes, but I also said that in this example a flower is simply a pile of petals.

Student: Then in this case, you have created a flower.

Professor: It’s settled. Now let’s compare my ‘flower’ with already existing flowers–the ones that we know of with our knowledge right now.

Student: The ones with stems and pollen?

Professor: The very same.

Student: Alright. How would you compare them?

Professor: I would notice its differences. The flower with the stem is breathing. It is alive. But the pile of petals is nothing more than a carcass.

Student: Yet, in your definition, they are the same thing.

Professor: That is true, but that is also impossible!

Student: But you just said…

Professor: Yes, I did say that they are the same thing, but just because I said it does not mean it is true! To be dead and alive and to be the same thing is yet another paradox, the definition an oxymoron, and its very existence a cause of confusion and chaos! Pallans, do you understand the problem?

Student: That there can be flowers that are alive and also dead?

Professor: Yes, do you see the problem?

Student: How two things can be the same when they are the complete opposite?

Professor: That is the problem.

Student: But it is true.

Professor: Then what about the night and day? One is complete darkness, and the other is clear blue. They both are the sky, but we have different names for them since they are so completely different.

Student: Fine. You have convinced me. Then we’ve established that courage is a quality–a part–of bravery.

Professor: Alright. But you still have not described courage to me.

Student: They are synonyms. They mean the same thing.

Professor: You are the one who does not make sense here, and are going backwards to topics that we have finished with already. How do you not follow? Why have two different words? Why explain one thing with another word that means the exact same? A book is a book. Grass is grass. Do these words have no definitions and are something that us as people chose to blindly accept? No! All words have definitions to exist, else the person is mindless. Are you, Pallans, prey tell, mindless?

Student: No. I have a mind as true as You have fingers.

Professor: Then I trust that you have a definition for courage and bravery?

Student: I do.

Professor: Then explain to me.

Student: Courage–which means the exact same as bravery–means to face something that one once feared without being scared.

Professor: Where do you get this concept of fear from? What made you think of it?

Student: The fact that fear is a trait all people have, but that the people who chose to overcome it are better than others, and hence, brave and braver.

Professor: Is fear malevolent if it makes you better by overcoming it?

Student: Yes.

Professor: No. If it is bad, then why have humans evolved to have such a trait? Are all humans bad since they all share such a trait?

Student: Not everyone is bad.

Professor: But you think that fear is bad. And since humans all possess fear, then we are all ‘bad’?

Student: How am I wrong?

Professor: Why do you think humans would evolve to possess fear if it is something that harms all of humankind?

Student: I do not know.

Professor: Then do you think that humans have evolved for the benefit or harm of themselves? That they evolved hands so that they can collect food or so that they can use weapons against others? That they evolved feet so that they could run away from danger or so that they can trample every one? If humans have evolved to better themselves, and fear is a part of the evolution, then why do you think that fear is ‘bad’?

Student: Humans are not perfect.

Professor: I agree. But as I asked before, is fear ‘bad’?

Student: I do not have a clear answer. I do not believe that fear is completely bad, yet it has some qualities that are negative.

Professor: Alright. So as you said and as we agreed upon, which I am only now telling you that I agree with your definition of bravery, to be brave is to face something one once feared without being afraid.

Student: Yes.

Professor: So you are not scared when you are on the battlefield?

Student: I am not. Hence, I am full of bravery.

Professor: So you are brave, which means to face something one fears, yet you do not fear at all?

Student: Yes. I am brave because I am not scared.

Professor: Were you scared the first time you went on the battlefield? Scared when you heard or saw the battlefield? The aftermath?

Student: Of course not. I understood from the beginning that fighting is an honor that I must acquire for myself and my people, because not everyone can do it. Because of this, I am great and brave–

Professor: But then, according to your definition, you are not brave. To be brave, you need to be scared, or have needed to be scared once before. But you claim to have never been scared at all. You are not brave. You may be glorious, and you may be great, but brave you are not.

Student: Then, Professor, why do so many people call me such? Many times after I had returned from battle had I heard people chant my name and ‘brave’ in the same breath. Do You say all those people are mindless since they do not use the word properly, and hence, do not know its proper definition?

Professor: I suppose that is true.

Student: Then why use the word?

Professor: They probably think they are using it correctly.

Student: How so?

Professor: They probably see your achievements through their perspective. They believe that since they are afraid, you would be too, and hence–

Student: So they believe I am weak?

Professor: Fear is not a weakness.

Student: I understand that we have established that fear is not a ‘bad’ trait, yet fear holds one back from–

Professor: Pallans, this is a conversation for another time. I do not mind talking with you at all. I enjoy it. But if you are eager to convince the aforementioned priest of your bravery, then you must go on without my help, and go soon. I apologize that I can not support you.

Student: So if I am not brave, you believe I am weak?

Professor: Pallans, you twist my words. To not be brave does not mean to be weak. Bravery does not solely apply to war and conflict.

Student: I see…

Professor: Best of luck. You should be on your way by now. If you want to speak to me more on this particular subject, please see me in no less than a week after you have thought for yourself.

Student: But that is a while.

Professor: Yet, it is also a requirement. Now go. Best of luck.