Comment by wahern

These things aren't contradictory. Ancient Greek students used wax tablets for taking notes, etc. What Socrates (and Plato and others) were upset about was the growing reliance on permanent writing to displace memorization. For example, giving a speech from notes rather than from memory; or in rhetoric citing to a work without being able to literally recite that part from memory. To the extent writing aided memorization and comprehension, they had no beef. The debate was about the nature of knowledge--whether knowledge could exist independent of an internalized form within the mind--i.e. memorization.