Talk:Ring of Gyges

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Re: Lord of the Rings Tom Bombadil is also able to activate and deactivate the One Ring by turning it around his on his finger. Should this be mentioned?

[edit] Merge with Gyges of Lydia

This article should be merged with Gyges of Lydia, since it's the same topic. Platons version (as mentioned in this article here) is just one of three (the others being Herodotus and Xanthus). --Bender235 13:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about that, one is a common myth with many derivations and the other is a historic person. I think they each benefit more from having a separate article and focus. KWH 23:49, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
No, it's a common myth based on a historic person. If we split this topic in two articles, we would also have to split the articles on German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and English king Richard the Lionheart in one article on the historic person, and one on the myths surrounding the historic person. That makes no sense. --Bender235 16:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
No, I don't think they should be completely merged - the "logical" conclusion of such a policy would be merging every article with every other article to which it is linked. One key advantage of an online encyclopedia is the ease which which one can access linked topics. A compromise would be to expand slightly the reference to the "Ring of Gyges" in the "Gyges of Lydia" article. Geofbob 10:23, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I think a compromise could be to separate between Gyges of Lydia, the historical person and the myths surrounding him, and Ring of Gyges, the Platonic myth and its receptions (Hebbel, Tolkien, etc.). That might work. But its difficult to separate the receptions of Herodot's Gyges story and Plato's Gyges myth. --Bender235 23:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Btw: There's some similarity between this merge and the merge of Er (Plato) and Myth of Er. --Bender235 00:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Socrates Response to Glaucon

It would really be nice to place a reference for Socrates response to Glaucon as described in this article. I've been reading for 2 days now in the Republic and have yet to find his clear response. Perhaps a quote or a mention of which book would be nice.

The reason I ask is because Glaucon seems to be indicting both of his characters, the good and the bad, used the ring and were thus guilty saying "no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice." The statement in this entry portrays that Socrates holds that one did not use the ring. It is rather unclear and deserves better work.

Olen Watson 15:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moral of the story

First off, that's a really, really crappy header title. Second, the huge paragraph there starts out talking about the moral, and ends as a quote from the story itself, with no transition. I doubt Plato wrote that he wrote that Glaucon said anything. Somebody should either find out where that needs to become a quotation, or rework the whole thing. Since I don't have a copy of the Republic (wasn't required this semester, miraculously), it won't be me. Ta ta! 129.237.90.22 (talk) 05:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree -- the quotation seems to begin ambiguously. This is a very unencyclopedic manner and should be fixed. --Wykypydya (talk) 14:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)