Phaedrus

Should I Use Notebooks More Often? (Cal’s Strategy) | Monday Advice

Deep Questions with Cal Newport, 13 July 2026. The book comes up at 54 min 17 sec in.

Mentioned within Cal Newport's discussion of Ong's Orality and Literacy. Ong analyses this Plato dialogue—in which the character of Socrates expresses scepticism about the written word, worrying it will harm memory and debate—as a serious example of ancient suspicion of writing. Newport had previously thought that reading was overblown as techno-scepticism, arguing Socrates was really talking about philosophy specifically, but notes that Ong takes Plato's suspicion more seriously.

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