in truth ignorant

Question: why does Socrates say that the written word of no benefit in the
Laws? 

"Phaedrus: Your rebuke is just; and I think the Theban is right in what he
says about letters.

Socrates: He who thinks, then, that he has left behind him any art in
writing, and he who receives it in the belief that anything in writing will
be clear and certain, would be an utterly simple person, and in truth
ignorant of the prophecy of Ammon, if he thinks [275d] written words are of
any use except to remind him who knows the matter about which they are written."

I think there is a good answer to this. In the Letter On Humanism, Martin
Heidegger concedes that conversation is also to be preferred to writing in
his Letter On Humanism.

Spater,

John



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