Among other classical rhetors, Plato greatly downplays the worth of the written text, believing it is an approximation of orality and that orality is an approximation of thinking. He considers writing an unnatural method of recording knowledge. Additionally, he argues that it brings forgetfulness, killing memory, and that it is good for reminder but not for memory.

If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows. (Plato, Phaedrus, 65).

One reason for Plato’s view is that a text cannot answer for itself. In other words, without the live speaker there, a listener cannot ask questions or request clarification. Additionally, in the written text there is no way to see the expressions, gestures, and general body movement of the speaker, or hear differences in intonation, volume, pitch, and rhythm. In this way, Plato would likely have disapproved of podcasting, for while it continues or at least assimilates the oral presentation, including voice variations, it does not include the visual rhetoric that is established through the motions of the speaker. Therefore, meanings can be misinterpreted and the importance of a given statement can be overlooked or unnecessarily emphasized.