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Fiction
My Mommy’s Cookies
By Plato, aged 4.
The general consensus is that Plato’s philosophy of Forms was a natural by-product of his friendship with Socrates and his upbringing in an environment conducive to philosophical thought. However, a newly recovered dialogue shows that Plato’s first brush with Forms was in his mom’s kitchen:
“Mommy, why do we have to cut each cookie into a crescent?”
“Because, Plato, all kourabiedes are crescent-shaped.”
“Why?”
“So that people will know they’re eating a kourabiede and not an amygthalota.”
“Why?”
“You tell me. What do all these cookies have in common?”
“They all have the same shape.”
“Why do they have the same shape, Plato?”
“Because they come from the same cutter?”
“That’s right.”
“So everybody knows they’re all kourabiedes because they come from the same cookie cutter?”
“Yes. Pass the cloves, please.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so! Now please stop eating the sugar, you know it makes you hyperactive.”
© Courtney Gibbons 2012
Courtney Gibbons was a student at the University of New Haven.