Socratic Philosophy
Much of what is said below is informed by the work of Seth Benardete and his writings on “eidetic analysis”.
Rather than present thoughts that have been worked out if full ahead of time I will make several posts as I work through some issues central to Socratic philosophy. Since I have not worked these things out I cannot begin with an overview. But I think this is appropriate, for we are always under way and never complete the journey. What I hope to show is that Socratic philosophy is not a museum piece to be admired from a distance but something that requires active engagement in order to be understood. It is not about accepting theories and doctrines but rather an inquiry into the human good. Just what that is is what the inquiry is about.
The Socratic way is dialectical. To this end I hope others will contribute. Those who have previously demonstrated that their primary intent is to disrupt will be ignored.
1.
Socrates’ human wisdom is grounded in his knowledge of his ignorance, that he does not know anything noble and good. (Apology 21d) This is often taken to mean simply that knowing that you do not know is human wisdom, but it means more. Knowledge of his ignorance is the beginning not the completion of his wisdom. It is, on the one hand, the beginning of self-knowledge and on the other of the self’s knowledge of the world.
Knowledge of the world is mediated rather than direct, although not in the Kantian sense. It is what Socrates calls his “second sailing”. (Phaedo 96a-100a) When there is no wind the sailors take to the oaks to move the ship forward under their own power. Socrates describes how when looking at things directly he would become confused. He had to bring order to things in his own mind. This means understanding not only how things are the way they are but why things are the way they are. The question of why is not a disinterested question. It arises out of a desire to know. That it is good to know and some good comes from knowing. Socrates’ search for knowledge is the search for the good to be discovered in knowing.
He orders things according to an hypothesis of Forms or Kinds. It is important to understand in what sense this is an ontology. It is, as it is etymologically, a logos of ontos, that is, what is said about being. The second sailing is a turn away from beings toward speech, that is, from things to images of things, to images on the cave wall.
Rather than present thoughts that have been worked out if full ahead of time I will make several posts as I work through some issues central to Socratic philosophy. Since I have not worked these things out I cannot begin with an overview. But I think this is appropriate, for we are always under way and never complete the journey. What I hope to show is that Socratic philosophy is not a museum piece to be admired from a distance but something that requires active engagement in order to be understood. It is not about accepting theories and doctrines but rather an inquiry into the human good. Just what that is is what the inquiry is about.
The Socratic way is dialectical. To this end I hope others will contribute. Those who have previously demonstrated that their primary intent is to disrupt will be ignored.
1.
Socrates’ human wisdom is grounded in his knowledge of his ignorance, that he does not know anything noble and good. (Apology 21d) This is often taken to mean simply that knowing that you do not know is human wisdom, but it means more. Knowledge of his ignorance is the beginning not the completion of his wisdom. It is, on the one hand, the beginning of self-knowledge and on the other of the self’s knowledge of the world.
Knowledge of the world is mediated rather than direct, although not in the Kantian sense. It is what Socrates calls his “second sailing”. (Phaedo 96a-100a) When there is no wind the sailors take to the oaks to move the ship forward under their own power. Socrates describes how when looking at things directly he would become confused. He had to bring order to things in his own mind. This means understanding not only how things are the way they are but why things are the way they are. The question of why is not a disinterested question. It arises out of a desire to know. That it is good to know and some good comes from knowing. Socrates’ search for knowledge is the search for the good to be discovered in knowing.
He orders things according to an hypothesis of Forms or Kinds. It is important to understand in what sense this is an ontology. It is, as it is etymologically, a logos of ontos, that is, what is said about being. The second sailing is a turn away from beings toward speech, that is, from things to images of things, to images on the cave wall.
Comments (300)
Don't you know, he's got "the degrees" to show that everything he says is right:
Quoting Fooloso4
He probably has the degrees for Socrates and everything else too. So, if you contradict him you must be wrong. But let's wait and see what he's got to say ...
I take it that by "contribute" you mean agree with you and your theories?
Thrasymachus and others like him were a problem to Plato's Socrates character because there can be no valid argument to show that the contrary philosophy is invalid or that its practical consequences were unsound. To proceed with his own story, what else could poor Socrates do than to appeal to authority or to popular opinion to silence such a critic?
I think the knowledge of one’s ignorance is actually a theme in the perennial philosophy. ‘He who knows it, knows it not’, and ‘he who speaks, does not know’ are both examples from Taoism. In much later intellectual history, there was the ‘way of un-knowing’ which is associated with the anonymous Christian mystical tract The Cloud of Unknowing.
Generally, I think the lesson is one of humility, of self-emptying, what is later called ‘kenosis’.
:fire: :clap:
First, something that I want to throw out there for comments. Could it be that Socrates was actually a sophist who didn't charge the usual exorbitant fee for his [s]wisdom[/s] sophistry? Something worth pondering upon. I recall reading somewhere in Wikipedia about how some Greek thinkers thought of Socrates as a sophist par excellence. No smoke without fire? Slander?
Regardding knowledge, I'm afraid things don't look so good. See below:
Definition: Knowledge is justified (argument), true belief (JTB)
Agrippa's trilemma argument:
1. All arguments are one of the following:
a) Infinite regress: each premise requires an argument and the premises of the argument requires another ad infinitum.
b) Circular: The conclusion appears in the premises.
c) Axiomatic: We accept sans justification the truth of the premises.
2. None of a), b), or c) are acceptable
Ergo,
3. Sound arguments don't exist
Knowledge is impossible, argument I:
1. If knowledge is possible then sound arguments exist. (JTB)
2. If sound arguments exist then Agrippa's trilemma argument is a sound argument. (look at Agrippa's trilemma argument)
3. If Agrippa's trilemma is a sound argument then sound arguments don't exist (the conclusion of Agrippa's trilemma argument)
4. If sound arguments don't exist then knowledge is impossible. (JTB)
5. If knowledge is possible then Agrippa's trilemma argument is a sound argument (1, 2 HS)
6. If knowledge is possible then sound arguments don't exist (3, 5 HS)
7. If knowledge is possible then knowledge is impossible (4, 6 HS)
8. Knowledge is possible (assume for reductio ad absurdum)
9. Knowledge is impossible (7, 8 MP)
10. Knowledge is possible and knowledge is impossible (8, 9 Conj: contradiction)
Ergo,
11. Knowledge is impossible (8 - 10 reductio ad absurdum)
The point is if one assumes knowledge is possible (line 8), one arrives at a contradiction (line 10). Therefore, 11. knowledge is impossible.
It would now seem that 11. Knowledge is impossible is true but hold on! Isn't statement 11 itself a JTB i.e. isn't statement 11 knowledge? Yes it is, no doubt.
What follows?
Argument P
11. Knowledge is impossible (JTB)
12. Statement 11 is knowledge
13. If statement 11 is knowledge then knowledge is possible
14. Knowledge is possible (12, 13 MP)
15. Knowledge is possible and knowledge is impossible (11, 14 Conj: contradiction)
Ergo,
16. Knowledge is possible (11 - 15 reductio ad absurdum)
Looks like Agrippa's painted himself into a corner. He proved that 11. Knowledge is impossible but, sadly for Agrippa, 11. knowledge is impossible proves that 16. Knowledge is possible.
I'm left scratching my head at this point. All I can say is, the entire set of arguments above can be summarized as,
18. If knowledge is possible then knowledge is impossible (argument I)
19. If knowledge is impossible then knowledge is possible (argument P)
20. If knowledge is possible then knowledge is possible (18, 19 HS)
21. Either knowledge is not possible or knowledge is possible (20 Imp)
22. Either knowledge is possible or knowledge is not possible (21 Comm)
Statement 22 is a tautology, it's always true but that's not it's selling point. Statement 22 simply means that knowledge maybe possible/impossible but we can't establish which and that, in my book, is just another way of expressing uncertainty/doubt. That's skepticism! QED. Though Agrippa might've shot himself in the foot at some point in this long argument, it all worked out in the end for skeptics. Agrippa (skepticism) proved his opponents (those who think knowledge is possible) wrong but in doing so he proved himself wrong but then after all that, Agrippa clinched the argument by demonstrating it was never about right and wrong but about not knowing. :chin:
The Greek term skepsis means investigate. Another term with similar meaning is zetesis. The zetetic philosopher is one who inquires. His knowledge of his ignorance leads him to inquire, to investigate.
The Apology gives a good example of this. When he heard that the Pythia, the priestess who delivered Apollo's oracles at Delphi, said that no one was wiser than Socrates, he took this to be a riddle (21b) and investigated it by way of inquiry, by talking to those who were reputed to be wise, only to find out they were not.
Socrates' irony should not be overlooked. He is on trial defending himself against charges of impiety and he tells a story of how he set out to refute the oracle (21c). In addition, he changes what the oracle said:
The oracle did not say that he was the wisest, it said that no one was wiser, that is, that others might be as wise as him.
Good point. I agree. But Thrasymachus was not disrupting for the sake of disruption. He was a sophist who was paid to teach. He attempted to demonstrate his strength, his superiority over Socrates who talked to anyone free of charge. In addition, he played a key role in the theme of the dialogue, the question of who should rule and by what claim.
I do not think that this is what Socrates does. What Socrates is tasked to do in the Republic is to show that justice is in one's own best interest. This is Thrasymachus claim, but in Socrates' hands it comes to mean something different than what Thrasymachus intended.
In some ways the philosopher and the sophist are the same. I think the key difference is with regard to intention.
Quoting TheMadFool
In his comedic play The Clouds, Aristophanes makes Socrates the leader of a group of sophists at his "thinkery".
I thought it was the fat paycheck!
Quoting Fooloso4
Come to think of it, Aristophanes may have had his own (hidden) agenda in painting Socrates as a sophist. I don't care to get involved in personal feuds but I'm convinced that nobody's perfect or in the words of Voltaire, "meglio è l'inimico del bene."
Aristophanes' plays were social satire, they made serious fun. He recognized that philosophy was a threat to the ancestral, the traditional. The relationship between Socrates and Aristophanes is a long story that I won't get into. Although Socrates talks about Aristophanes in the Apology, I think Aristophanes would have disapproved of changes being brought against Socrates.
'Sophist' was not originally a derogatory term. Plato held some sophists in high regard.
What Socrates actually said was:
“When I heard these things I pondered them like this: what ever is the God saying? And what riddle is he posing”?
He also said that "he believes that the Sun and the Moon are Gods".
And he said that he "would rather obey God than the men of Athens".
So, obviously, he must have believed in God/s. He was not an atheist.
Do you agree, or what is your considered opinion?
I beg to differ. ?????? skepsis is a noun. "Investigate" is a verb. If it is the verb you are talking about, it would be ????????? skeptomai.
????????? - Wiktionary
In the Republic Socrates does not present the Forms merely as a premise, but rather as the things that are, the unchanging beings. They are said to be seen by those who have ascended from the cave to the sight of the Forms and finally to the Good itself. But Socrates never claims to have seen the Forms or to know anyone who has. He presents an image of what knowledge of the things must be like. In other words, he has not now turned back again away from speech to the things themselves. But he does turn the soul to the idea of something more than the changing and confusing things of this world. He provides an image of an unchanging reality governed by the Good. An image of the hypothesised Forms. Another turn. A reversal, for Forms are not what they are in his philosophical poetry. They are not those unchanging beings of which things in this world are images. They are themselves images made by Socrates.
The ability to create such an image of knowledge beyond the cave is not to have escaped the cave. To be told of such things, as if the mystery has been revealed, is not to have escaped the cave. Plato, through the character of Socrates, is, like the poets, a maker of images on the cave wall. We cannot escape the cave, but some can break the shackles and turn around in order to see the images themselves rather than their images, images of images, shadows of the images on the cave wall. In addition they see the image makers, the “puppeteers and the production process of images, the puppets, paraded in front of the fire.
What is said is at best an approximation of what is, but without knowing what is we cannot measure how close an approximation it is. Like the philosopher who is forced to return to the cave, Socrates must return to earth from his flight to the hyperuranion beings. The Forms are an arrangement of things, not an order discovered in nature, they are how things are ordered according to mind. More specifically, according to Socrates’ mind. That they are hypothetical means that they are not caused by Mind rather by a human mind. Socrates’ philosophical poetry unlike the poetry of Homer, Hesiod, and the others, is not inspired by a muse.
Since we do not know the Forms themselves, we must turn back to speech:
Just as the Good is to the Forms, the hypothesis of the Good is to the hypothesis of the Forms. The hypothesis of the Good is that in light of which hypothesis of the Forms come to be and to be understood.
The question of what is best is inextricably linked to the question of the human good. About what is best we can only do our best to say what is best and why. The question of what is best turns from things in general to the human things and ultimately to the self for whom what is best is what matters most. The question of the good leads back to the problem of self-knowledge.
The problem is, many who are drawn to philosophy do not feel at home in the confusion of not knowing. They look to philosophy to find answers. Plato seems to provide answers. However, what may seem to be is not what is. Behind the inspiring image of transcendent Forms is, as he says in the Phaedo, hypothesis. But hypotheses do not not satisfy the desire for answers.
Socrates’ Forms stand as the substitute for the myths of the gods. They are a salutary public teaching disguised as an initiation into the sacred mysteries. As the noble lie is to the city in the Republic the hyperuranion beings are to the actual city.
Quoting Fooloso4
So, where in the Phaedo does Socrates call the Forms "hypothesis", and what translation are you using?
I use the Brann translation and the Grube translation.
Later he reintroduces physical causes:
Let me repeat the question then:
Quoting Apollodorus
You told us about the translations you are using, which is fine (for now), but not where in the Phaedo Socrates calls the Forms "hypothesis".
You posted three quotes. Only one contains the word "hypothesis".
In none of them does it say "Forms are a hypothesis" or, for that matter, "Forms are hypotheses".
Edit. I take it that the final quote is in relation to "physical causes". And it says nothing about "hypothesis" either.
When he says:
what do you think he is talking about?
Quoting Apollodorus
I think it is a very simple question that is very easy to answer. Will you not tell us where in the Phaedo Socrates calls the Forms "hypothesis"? Like in the sentence, "the Forms are hypothesis" or, for that matter, "the Forms are hypotheses"?
Reading and understanding Plato requires the ability to think and put things together. If you are not capable of doing that then I can't bridge the gap for you.
"The Beautiful" is a Form. He uses "the Beautiful" as an example of hypothesis.
So, the sentence "the Forms are hypothesis" or "the Forms are hypotheses" does not occur anywhere in the Phaedo. Do you agree?
And what do you think follows from this? That they are not because it is not spelled out for you?
So, the sentence "the Forms are hypothesis" or "the Forms are hypotheses" does not occur anywhere in the Phaedo. Do you agree or not?
I will try one more time and then move on.
Is the Beautiful a Form? Does he use the Beautiful as an example of hypothesis?
1. OK. Since you don't disagree, I take it as an admission that nowhere in the Phaedo does Socrates say "the Forms are hypothesis".
2. And, no, I don't see where "he uses the Beautiful as an example of hypothesis" at all. And I can't believe that you see that either, except perhaps in your imagination.
Okay, baby steps:
The Beautiful itself and the Good itself are Forms. They are the kind of causes he concerns himself with. What he puts down as hypothesis an account of this kind of cause, that is, the Forms.
Whether you pretend you can't see this or really can't see it, either way it shows that you are not capable of even an elementary discussion of these things.
1. You are not saying what translation that is, or what passage number. You may have good reason to omit this, but it is unclear what it is or how we can expect people to follow what you are trying to say and verify that your hypothesis is correct.
2. If you are 100% sure that this is your "evidence", would you mind explaining what makes you think that "hypothesis" here is a description of Forms? It doesn't seem to me that it is.
Remember that in your own words, what you are trying to show is that, according to Socrates in the Phaedo, "Forms are a hypothesis".
These are from the same passages I quoted above with Stephanus numbers. I told you who the translator was. Did you not bother reading it or did you forget so quickly?
Quoting Apollodorus
If you cannot put one statement together with another I cannot help you.
Well, why don't you put the two statements together and show us how to do it?
So, this is one statement:
"On each occasion I put down as hypothesis whatever account I judge to be mightiest"
What is the other statement that by putting it together with the first, would in your opinion amount to saying that "the Forms are hypothesis"?
I think it is you who are playing a game of hide-and-seek by refusing to answer legitimate questions. How do you propose to have a conversation when you refuse to explain what you are trying to say and on what basis?
My feeling is that you are grossly mistaken. Socrates does not say that the Forms are "hypothesis".
The truth of the matter is that Socrates does use hypotheses, but not to show that what he is looking for is a hypothesis.
In fact, he uses geometry (see also Meno) as an analogy or model for how hypotheses may be used to solve a problem.
Similarly, he uses hypotheses to show that virtue or the good ultimately derives from wisdom, not that wisdom is a "hypothesis".
This is why you are unable to show where Socrates says "Forms are hypotheses" or which two statements of his you think can be combined to arrive at that conclusion.
Corrections were necessary...
Hey Mad!
Interesting post that the above was included within. I've a question though regarding what's quoted above. What reasons are there for believing 2., and how can we do that much without rendering the entire line of thinking as untenable, and/or self-defeating? In addition, how does 3 follow from 1 and 2?
I said this:
Quoting Fooloso4
But nothing about knowledge of God. I don't think belief in God fits either. As I have said, he replaces the myths of the gods with myths of the Good.
Plato gives no detailed or scientific definition because they are said to be metaphysical realities. But they are a type of eternal universals, “ideal forms” (eidea) or “patterns” (paradeigmata) after which all objects of the world are fashioned.
If the Forms were “hypotheses”, then ultimate reality itself would be not a reality but a hypothesis which is absurd.
The dialogues suggest that the Forms can be experienced, so, clearly they are not hypotheses.
Using the geometry analogy mentioned by Socrates, a hypothesis is a provisional thesis intended to show how a particular concept may be formulated philosophically, not to show that it is a hypothesis.
I suppose the confusion comes from the similarity of Greek eidos and idea with English idea, i.e., some kind of vague belief or fancy. The Greek terms mean much more than "mental idea" or "thought", which is why "Form" is often used as a technical term to refer to what is meant in the dialogues.
Theory of Forms
To put it succinctly, if you decide to reject Agrippa's trilemma argument, Agrippa's trilemma argument is sound (infinite regress, circularity, axiomatization don't matter). If Agrippa's trilemma is sound then there are no good arguments for the reasons that every argument is an infinote regress or circular or axiomatic. That puts you in a tight spot, no? Rejecting Agrippa's trilemma means accepting it and the rather disturbing conclusion that's entailed.
However, accepting Agrippa's trilemma argument itself is problematic because that means Agrippa's trilemma argument isn't sound and its conclusion that no sound arguments exist is unjustified.
All this boils down to,
1. If there are good arguments then there are no good arguments [the first paragraph]
2. If there are no good arguments then there are good arguments [second paragraph]
3. If there are good arguments then there are good arguments [1, 2 HS]
4. Either there are no good arguments or there are good arguments [3 Imp]
5. Either there are good arguments or there are no good arguments [4 Comm]
Statement 5, generalizable as p v ~p (tautology), is a skeptic's calling card. p v ~p is another way of expressing one's doubt regarding any proposition p, is it p OR is it ~p. The skeptic has undermined the dogmatist while at the same time solidified faer epistemic stance viz. We don't know.
Note that, assuming I'm a skeptic, this whole post itself being an argument refutes itself - Agrippa would frown on it because his trilemma argument specifically forbids argumentation. Is there a way out for the skeptic? There is - remember I'm working within the dogmatist system i.e. I'm assuming dogmatism is true every time I argue. Agrippa's trilemma argument and this post, itself an argument, demonstrates that dogmatism has an Achilles' heel, it's self-contradictory, it self-destructs as it were.
It's a chain reaction with each element in it flip-flopping between its affirmation and negation.
A = accept Agrippa's trilemma argument
G = there are good arguments
Dogmatist:
1. ~A -> G -> A -> ~G -> ~A -> G ->...ad nauseum
2. A -> ~G -> ~A -> G -> A -> ~G -> ad nauseum
Skeptic:
1. A v ~A. No further comment!
As you can see, accepting/rejecting Agrippa's trilemma is what a dogmatist would do. Everything hinges on this plain and simple truth!
A further comment:
1. (A v ~A) -> (A & ~A) [premise]
2. A v ~A [assume for reductio ad absurdum]
3. A & ~A [1, 2 MP]
4. ~(A v ~A) [2, 3 reductio ad absurdum]
In classical logic, statement 4 eventually simplifies to the contradiction A & ~A but surely the skeptic doesn't want to claim such a thing.
What's happened here?
1. A leads to a contradiction. Not!
2. ~A leads to a contradiction. Not!
3. A & A is a contradiction. Not!
4. ~(A v ~A) leads to a contradiction. Not!
This is Nagarjuna's tetralemma, the catuskoti (the four corners)! This is skepticism's Buddhist connection!
Since A is G phrased differently and G is knowledge written differently and knowledge is nothing more than a justified, true proposition, P, Agrippa's trilemma becomes,
1. P. Not!
2. Not P. Not!
3. P and Not P. Not!
4. Neither P nor Not P. Not!
All of the above either lead to or is a contradiction. Ergo, all must be negated!
This is the general form of Nagarjuna's tetralemma!
The Greek trilemma has given birth to a Buddhist tetralemma!
If they are experienced then we know what they are by observation...?
Well, as already stated, the difficulty arises from an incorrect or incomplete grasp of Greek or Platonic terminology.
The world is generally admitted to exist. If we philosophize about the world, that doesn’t mean that the world is just philosophy or philosophizing, right?
Similarly, perception is generally admitted to exist. If we hypothesize about what it is or how it comes about, it doesn’t mean that perception itself is mere hypothesis.
Now we know that the world exists because we perceive it through our faculties of sensory perception, such as sight.
By sight we mean seeing physical objects. But if we analyze the objects of sight, what we actually see is color, shape, size, distance (between different objects and between objects and ourselves as the perceiving agent), etc.
Color, shape, size, etc., are universals held in common by all objects of sight. They are things we see, not hypotheses. The Forms are similar to these universals though also different in that they are prior to the particulars.
The Ancient Greek word for “see” is eidon which is the same as Latin video, “I see”. Greek ?? ????? to eidos literally means “the seen”, “that which is seen”, or “visible form”, hence English “Form”.
So, Greek “idea” is not the same as English “idea”, it is something that is actually there and that we can see.
If we arrange what we see in ascending order we have:
1. Physical object.
2. Mental object perceived internally.
3. Properties that make up the mental object.
4. Eternal, unchanging “Forms” to which the properties belong.
English “idea” is what we perceive mentally and think about in discursive thought (dianoia).
Platonic “Idea” (“Form”) is what we see in a kind of non-discursive, intuitive perception (noesis) or contemplation.
Similarly, English “theory” is just a mental construct. Greek ??????, theoria, is much more than that. It is “contemplation” as in observing something that is seen.
It is somewhat similar to the difference between thinking and lucid dreaming. In lucid dreaming we don’t just think about an object, we actually see it and are perfectly conscious of the fact that we see it as well as of ourselves as the seeing subject.
Edit. So, Socrates often uses hypotheses to prove the validity of a concept, not to deny it. He does this, for example, with the immortality of the soul and concludes that “it turns out that the soul is immortal” (Phaedo 114d). Socrates does not deny the Forms, he merely attempts to find ways of mentally describing or defining them.
For Plato, the Forms are indescribable, eternal realities, that are above discursive thought and can only be referred to in negative terms. For example, this is what the Symposium says about the Form of Beauty:
“It neither comes to be nor perishes, neither waxes nor wanes … nor again will the beautiful appear to him [the philosopher] like a face or hands or any other portion of the body … or piece of knowledge … but itself by itself with itself existing for ever in singularity of form” (211a ff.)
“In that state of life above all others, a man finds it truly worth while to live, as he contemplates essential beauty […] there only will it befall him, as he sees the beautiful through that which makes it visible, to breed not illusions but true examples of virtue, since his contact is not with illusion but with truth” (211d – 212a).
This is not the description of a “hypothesis”, it is the description of a metaphysical reality. We can hypothesize about the Forms but we are always a few steps away from them. We can only experience them in direct metaphysical experience.
It is clear how hypotheses are used in Plato, including in the Phaedo, where Simmias says:
“The argument about recollection and learning, on the other hand, has been provided by means of a hypothesis worthy of acceptance […] and I have accepted that hypothesis on both sufficient and correct grounds” (92d - e).
The hypothesis then, is a provisional thesis adopted to explore its consequences and arrive at a conclusion. Because of the metaphysical nature of the Forms, Socrates does not always come to a definitive definition or conclusion about the Forms even though he comes sufficiently close to point us in the right direction.
Philosophical language was only being developed at the time and no “scientific” definition or description was possible or, indeed, needed as the Forms were meant to ultimately be experienced through a form of perception that can be developed through mental training.
Plotinus gives a more detailed account of the Forms, but ultimately, all we can say in general philosophical terms is that the Forms stand at the threshold between indeterminate and determinate consciousness, where self-aware consciousness begins to perceive things other than itself. The Forms are the underlying patterns that consciousness uses to organize itself in order to produce determinate perception.
Whilst ordinary perception is a cognition arising from mental operations following contact with a sense-object, perception of the Forms arises from activities within consciousness (nous) itself and independently of sense-objects. Because the Forms stand at the very root of experience, at a stage where the (mental) objects and discursive thought or language related to the objects have not yet emerged, they are impossible to describe. They, nevertheless, are very real. In fact, according to Plato and other Platonists, the Forms are more real than physical reality itself. Like energy particles to physical matter, the Forms are the ultimate constituent elements of subjective experience (i.e., experience directly produced by consciousness) at both cosmic and individual level.
Some sort of 'pattern recognition' is fundamental for perception to occur. Forms therefore underwrite perception rather than being themselves perceived.
This kind of thinking points back to good old Collingwood's absolute presuppositions, ie axioms of thoughts... These are indeed more than mere hypotheses, they are fundamental hypotheses, and cannot be proven true or false, neither by logic nor observation.
In this case, one could perhaps summarize the Forms idea as the following absolute presupposition: "Things have recognisable yet objective shapes". Or "shapes exist objectively, as well as in my mind, and in perception I am connecting the two".
But Socrates' concern was with questions of the just, beautiful, and the good. The hypothesis is that there is the just itself, the beautiful or noble itself, and the good itself, and that with knowledge of these we can know whether in every particular case something is just. beautiful, or good.
Unless we knowledge of these things, which in the Republic is presented in the myth of transcendent experience, then the Forms remain hypothetical.
If I understand him correctly, @Banno is asking if he has had such an experience.
True. My point is that the forms are not just any hypothesis, they are a fundamental, absolute presupposition, which underpins his way of seeing the world and his entire world view.
The concept of absolute presupposition comes from Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics. It presents a clear, modern framework for defining and understanding metaphysics. His central idea is that at the heart and begining of any thought, of any observation, there are axioms of thoughts. Basic tenets like "Nature is one". Or "nature is dual, there's always a ying-yang somewhere". These are what some call: a deeply held belief.
You will have recognised in the above examples a monist vs dualist world view, respectively.
In the case of Plato, I think the dualist ying yang is somewhere in the interplay between form and matter. Plato's forms are more than just the shape that things take, they come from above, and from the soul. They are mentally RECOGNISABLE shapes. Both real and abstract, therefore eternal.
In phenomenology, the idea of squares, the idea of circles are treated as mental essences. Correct me if I am wrong but I think Plato saw them as both mental (soul-like) and all around him, as essences of the things themselves, that could be recognized by the soul. That's what I tried to summarize in: "Things have objective AND recognisable shapes" (recognisable by our mind/soul).
Of course this is a very crude attempt at a synthesis and there's considerable flourish and expansions and others things in Platonism, but that piece above is a basic tenet, an axiom of his thought. A starting point.
Which is the reason, I propose, why Euthyphro rejects the term "hypothesis". It's something more fundamental.
This passage of Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics may ring a bell.
Such analysis [of absolute presuppositions] may in certain cases proceed in the
following manner. If the inquirer can find a person
to experiment upon who is well trained in a certain
type of scientific work, intelligent and earnest in his devotion to it, and unaccustomed to metaphysics, let
him probe into various presuppositions that his ‘sub-
ject’ has been taught to make in the course of his
scientific education, and invite him to justify each or
alternatively to abandon it.
[b]If the ‘inquirer’ is skilful
and the ‘subject’ the right kind of man, these invita-
tions will be contemplated with equanimity, and even
with interest, so long as relative presuppositions are
concerned. But when an absolute presupposition is
touched, the invitation will be rejected, even with a
certain degree of violence.[/b]
The rejection is a symptom that the ‘subject’, co-
operating with the work of analysis, has come to see
that the presupposition he is being asked to justify
or abandon is an absolute presupposition; and the
violence with which it is expressed is a symptom that
he feels the importance of this absolute presupposi-
tion for the kind of work to which he is devoted.
[b]This is what in the preceding chapter I called being
‘ticklish in one’s absolute presuppositions’; and the
reader will see that this ticklishness is a sign of
intellectual health combined with a low degree of
analytical skill.[/b]
I don't think they are fundamental, absolute presuppositions. I think they are part of a mythology, a salutary public or exoteric teaching. I will be posting more on this later today.
I meant: Plato's theory of forms underpins his thought like an axiom would underpin a branch of mathematics.
I hear the bell toll and for whom it tolls.
I don't know Collingwood well enough thought to comment on absolute presuppositions. It they are individual rather than universal then I think education, specifically a liberal or liberating education is still possible, at least for some.
I have some doubts as to whether Plato's thinking is axiomatic. Using mathematical language, dialectic proceeds by way of addition and division, identifying the homogeneous and heterogeneous. I don't think this is axiomatic, for there are different ways in which we can identify things as the same or different. The Forms are a way of organizing thought and making sense of the world according to the way in which all 'x' are in some way the same and other than what is not x.
Since the dialogues often end in aporia, "what is x" remains in question. Not knowing 'x' we cannot establish the truth of whether some particular thing is or is not 'x'. We remain in the realm of opinion. But not all opinion is equal. The philosopher must determine which opinions seem most worthy of being held.
The methodology is well described; he writes splendidly too, with much irony.
The book defines a clear and useful domain for metaphysics: the identification and discussion of absolute presuppositions. Historically it is one of many efforts to 'save' metaphysics in the face of positivism's assaults, and what Collingwood sees as the political consequences of positivism: fascism and communism. He wrote it during the war.
The book is not without neothomist blah. Collingwood is a Christian and makes no mystery of it. I have a sympathy for neothomists because their heart is in the right place. I am a very tolerant Atheist so talks of God get me antsy only a little bit, but there's too much of it in the book I think, and it clouds Collingwood's view of the enlightenment philosophers.
Thanks, I will take a look when I have a change. What I read many years ago was on the philosophy of history.
I'm not explaining this very well. Best to read the Essay on Metaphysics.
There is an often overlooked puzzle at the center of Plato's Republic. It has two connected parts.
One: If Socrates’ human wisdom is his knowledge of his ignorance then why does Plato have someone who does not know tell the myth of transcendent knowledge of Forms?
Two: Who is the true philosopher?
Only someone who has had the transcendent experience of seeing the Forms can know that it is more than just a story. Socrates makes it known that he has not had this experience. (533a) So why Socrates? Why not someone who has had this transcendent knowledge? Someone divinely wise, as she would be if she has had this experience? After all, there are Platonic dialogues where a stranger rather than Socrates is the main character.
Because he knows that he does not know Socrates desires and seeks knowledge. He is a lover of what he does not possess, a lover of wisdom. He stands in stark contrast to the philosopher in the city he creates in the Republic. The philosopher-kings possess the knowledge Socrates desires.
As the city in the Republic exists only in speech and does not correspond to any actual city, the philosopher in this city exists only in speech and does not correspond to any actual philosopher.
So why did Plato have Socrates create this image? The answer has to do with the identity of the true philosopher. Socrates is the paradigmatic philosopher. What he does not know, others, namely the poets, the sophists, and the statesmen, claim they do know.
The problem is, if the philosopher cannot determine the truth then all other claims will have equal standing. The question is, who will be the educators and leaders in the actual city? Someone like Euthyphro can claim divine knowledge and someone like Thrasymachus can claim to know and teach what justice is. And so, Plato creates the mythology of Forms to take the place of the gods, and the philosophers who have true knowledge of the whole.
As the noble lie is to the city in the Republic, the mythology of transcendent knowledge is to actual cities.
Socrates plays a double role. Like the others, he is an opinion maker, but unlike the others he subjects all opinions, including his own, to critical examination. He remains firmly in the realm of opinion while giving the appearance of having transcended it. The truth is, the philosopher does not know the truth and thus must hide this truth. On the one hand, he hides it from those who are not yet prepared to live without answers, and on the other, from those who can never live without answers. And so, he provides what seems to be the truth, but is a lie, a lie that cannot be effective unless it is believed to be the truth.
The would be philosopher is drawn in and begins a spirited search for the truth. Some fall victim to misologic, disillusioned when they cannot find the answers they desire. Others believe the truth has been revealed, believing either that they have found the whole of it, or that they have not yet grasped the whole but know a part. And a few, the true philosophers, learn the art of philosophical inquiry and how to live an examined life without the illusion of knowledge.
THink we can stop there. You have agreed with @Fooloso4.
Sure. Appo is perhaps being obtuse in his insistence.
I don't see where Socrates says "the Forms are hypotheses". According to Plato they are realities.
"Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality ... Furthermore, he believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms with one's mind"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms
That's why experiencing the Forms was central to Plato's philosophy.
Yeah, we understand that. It's just no a substantive point.
Yes, the way Socrates and, above all, Plato saw the Forms is definitely insubstantial and immaterial, just like the Forms themselves. That was what I was trying to say.
It looks like you are going to have to explain the difference between substantive and substantial.
Or not.
Very funny. However, I think the joke is on those who missed the joke.
Which is rather more funny than just funny :rofl:
Well, as usually, he kicks up some dust and thinks no one will notice that he has not answered. He is like someone playing chess who thinks that as long as he is moving pieces around he has not lost the game.
But in his defense it is quite troubling the edifice of your eternal verities comes crashing down from their imagined heaven to earth.
It's a little known fact, but when Apo was a kid, his father brought him to the temple in (phila)Delphia, where a sybil predicted that, if he ever agreed with a certain Footloso4, Apo's jaw would drop to the ground, his eyes would melt, and his genitals shrink to the size of a pea. So what's the guy gonna do?
Again, Collingwood comes to mind: The logical efficacy of a supposition does not depend upon the truth of what is supposed, or even on its being thought true, but only on its being supposed.
That was exactly what I was saying:
Quoting Apollodorus
It is an elementary mistake to mix up the hypothesis with what is being hypothesized about.
So, Socrates often uses hypotheses to prove the validity of a concept, not to deny it. He does this, for example, with the immortality of the soul and concludes that “it turns out that the soul is immortal” (Phaedo 114d).
Socrates does not deny the Forms, he merely attempts to find ways of mentally describing or defining them as well as he could.
Therefore, it is incorrect to say "Socrates says the Forms are hypotheses". Plus he never says this in the dialogue. The claim that he does would appear to be a lie.
I don't think so. Allow me to rephrase. Collingwood's idea is very close to the "noble myth". It says that certain hypotheses are good to make, irrespective of whether they are true or even believed to be true. They are good to make because supposing them leads to doing things and pursuing certain inquiries that might produce some good.
For instance, let's look at the presupposition that "all events in this world have natural causes"; aka "supernatural beings such as gods and the likes do not intervene in this world." Assuming this supposition true rules out the possibility of miracles. So when confronted with something puzzling or mysterious, the person assuming it true will look for natural causes; she will not give up early in the chase, thinking "oh well it must be some god doing this". Instead, she will look for natural explanations for the mystery with a certain obstinacy. And in doing so, she might find something...
Hence science.
Note that some scientists are believers and some even believe in an interventionist god, so they would then disagree with the premise. And yet they are still scientists, because they still ASSUME, for all practice (scientific) purposes, that miracles don't happen and that every event in this world has natural causes.
The logical efficacy of a presupposition does not depend on it being true, or even believed.
That may or may not be the case. However, hypotheses may be used in many different ways. That's why I said:
Quoting Apollodorus
It depends on what is intended to achieve by using a hypothesis. If a hypothesis is used to prove or explain something, then it is incorrect to say that the opposite is intended.
People can hypothesize about the existence or nonexistence of the world, for example, without this changing anything about the world, etc.
It IS the case, and it WAS the point I was trying to make.
What were you trying to say? That there is a difference between a hypothesis and what the hypothesis is about? Isn't that glaringly obvious? If I speak about water, my words themselves don't turn into water.
Apparently not. Some seem to think that if Socrates hypothesizes about something, then the thing he hypothesizes about is a "hypothesis" or "a lie".
An hypothesis is not something false. It is an idea assumed true, or supposed true, but not proven or perhaps even impossible to prove.
If an hypothesis is impossible to prove, yet leads to good results when assumed, it could be adopted as a useful doctrine, a foundational myth.
But why does it have to be a "myth"? And why does a myth have to be a "lie"?
Suppose the thing that the hypothesis hypothesizes about is true, as given in my example/s above, e.g., world, Forms, etc., and the hypothesis neither proves nor disproves the truth of it, but simply attempts to describe, explain, or define it.
I'm not talking about the "goodness" or otherwise of the results. I'm talking about the relation of the hypothesis and the hypothesized thing to one another.
Because it cannot be proven true, and yet it must be presented as true or at least taken to be true. Collingwood's concept of 'absolute presupposition' avoids the negative connotation of the words 'lie' and 'myth'.
Theoretically, perhaps. But the connotation remains in everyday language.
Even if we designate something "noble lie", to most people's minds it is still a lie.
The way I tend to see it is that Plato's dialogues should be read on their own terms and taking into consideration the cultural and religious situation of his time, not in light of the opinion of 20th century liberal philosophers.
That'd be why "presupposition" or "hypothesis" are perhaps better words.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/556615
From the perspective of Socrates' second sailing, hypothetical beings. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11210/socratic-philosophy/p1
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/556018
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/556151
They may be unknown to some and known to others. Socrates does not say that they are unknown to all. Nor does he dispute their existence. On the contrary, he presents arguments in favor of their existence.
It has not been established that the Forms are "presuppositions" or "hypotheses". Socrates certainly does not call them that.
Even Plato didn't write down all of his teaching. There's what Aristotle called the 'unwritten doctrines'.
It follows that we cannot have much certainty about what Plato and Socrates truly meant to say.
By the same token, we can't have much certainty about anything. However, we have the texts under discussion, viz., the dialogues, and on that basis, we may infer logically (1) what the character "Socrates" is trying to say and/or (2) what Plato is trying to say through Socrates.
It does not appear from the text that either Socrates or Plato thought the Forms to be "hypothetical", "myths" or "noble lies".
(2) is doable, without any certainty in sight of course, but we can try and even perhaps make some progress along the way.
Note that Plato may well have been voluntarily ambiguous here or there, for obvious reasons of self-protection. In those cases, the "true" Plato teaching may well be simply ambiguous by design.
In other cases, Plato may have tried to be clear but failed to express himself clearly, at least in his writings. In these cases, the true Plato teaching may be unknown. Lost.
It does not appear to you because you close your eyes when it appears.
In that case, it's all speculation and a waste of time. It would be much easier and quicker to write our own dialogues and pretend that this is what Plato would have written, had he been a follower of Genghis Khan, Karl Marx, or Saddam Hussein.
Quoting Olivier5
Good point. Perhaps that's what tends to happen when people close their eyes to the Forms and insist that they are just a figment of Plato's imagination.
Nah. We just need to stay aware that we can't reach certainty about what Socrates or Plato really meant. This in any case is not a philosophical question: it is a historical question. A future archeological discovery of, say, a lost copy of a book by Socrates could well solve it one day.
In the meantime, the way I see it, some of the truly philosophical questions about Plato would rather be:
- how did his thought, ambiguous and misunderstood as it may have been, influence the world in which we live? What's the trace of Plato in our thinking today, our intellectual debt to him? Or is this debt rather a liability, some sophisticated mental shackle we should get rid of?
- what in his thought, as we can surmise it, resonates today or can be useful today? How can it be understood anew? i.e. should we listen to Plato once more or has everything useful already been said about him?
Philosophy is not really about dead people, ever. It's about what we learn from past traditions and from our own inquiries, that can help us think today.
This is an important point. The most influential contemporary work on this is Leo Strauss' "Persecution and the Art of Writing". https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo3633029.html
The art of writing has as its complement an art of reading. Those who think that the dialogues can be read in the same way one reads a doctrine or treatise or theory will never catch sight of what Plato is up to.
Quoting Olivier5
This has a lot to do with vested interest. If it becomes clear to you or I that we misunderstood something in the dialogue we are grateful to have learned something. But for those who see the dialogues as a religious or quasi-religious or proto-Christian doctrine that confirms their belief, then to see that they are wrong would be far more significant; a threat to their faith, an existential crisis.
Socratic philosophy is destabilizing. He is, however, aware that this can do more harm than good for those who are not able to find their own balance. And so, like a life raft, the dialogues leave enough ambiguity for those who need something to grasp hold of lest they drown.
Maybe like Marx and others whose philosophy has never amounted to much and has only tended to fetter people to superstitions and obsolete ideas.
But why not write our own dialogues? If Plato wrote dialogues, why can't we? And isn't posting comments on an online forum the same as writing philosophical dialogues?
You must have been here for a couple of years and the other one possibly many years. Just think how many dialogues you could have composed in this time.
A good student of past writers should know a bit of history therefore, and in particular it is wise to keep in mind what sorts of ideas could have landed the studied authors in jail, if published or professed publicly. That helps explain why not all logical consequences of a given idea are spelled out, or why an author may be careful avoiding certain subjects in his writings.
That is but one reason among many to take a certain critical distance with a text. Especially when the text speaks of Socrates' trial and death... All apologies of Socrates have to be seen in this light: as not saying it all.
Contrary to the typical textbook and history of philosophy, it is not about conveying thought or ideas or information from one person to another. It is about the activity of thinking, of working things out, of making connections, of trying to reconcile seeming contradictions.
I think one reason some have trouble with this is that they are indoctrinated into the idea of revelation. That all we have to do is look and listen and the truth will be revealed.
There is no essential difference, what we are doing here IS a philosophical dialogue.
Also therefore it's about dialoguing. The centrality of oral debate in Socrates in particular is pretty obvious. He could have written books but didn't.
Yes, I agree. I think Plato's intent was to have the reader do the same.
Some interesting work is being done with the interpretation of Aristotle:
Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates: On the "Nicomachean Ethics", Ronna Burger. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo5806420.html
The premise is that although Aristotle's work is not stylistically in the form of a dialogue it is dialogical.
Oral tradition is something often neglected in western cultures. But there is an oral tradition on Plato (neoplatonism) that attributes to him a form of monotheism where the One is the ultimate general principle, transcending all the eons. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't suppose he ever wrote this black on white.
It could be that Plato never went that far. Or it could be that he did, but that he thought against publishing this rather revolutionary metaphysical view during his life time because it would have been too risky.
If you say so, it must be true.
He didn't have to. It was a logical conclusion of his ideas as expressed in his works. This is precisely why it was taught by Plotinus and other Platonists who saw themselves as followers of Plato's philosophical position.
This is true. I have discussed this on several threads. Strauss, mentioned above, is actually responsible for the renewed interest in this, although he was pointed in this direction by Nietzsche.
One problem is that esoteric has connotations such as hermeticism (see the quotes from Eco above and, of course, our resident hermeticist), the occult, and mythicism.
The modern philosophers practiced it as well: "Reading Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing", Arthur Melzer. Here is a link to the appendix: "A Chronological Compilation of Testimonial Evidence for Esotericism": https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/index.html
Quoting Olivier5
I don't know if the oral tradition or traditions were ever written down, but we do not have evidence of them. So they can say pretty much whatever one wants to claim they say. In addition, and more importantly, history shows us that a teaching over time takes on a life of its own and veers away from the original.
Whatever problems there are with what is written is also a problem with what is said unless the author can be questioned, that is, dialogue.
What I meant was that a debate between two people is not necessarily a philosophical dialogue. And even less a dialogue like one written by Plato, IMHO.
Anyway, have a nice day.
Aristotle alludes to them. But you are right that these unwritten doctrines are impossible to reconstruct. Plotinus claims to record these oral platonic traditions but wrote 500 years after Plato. The school founded by Plato, the Academia, had several twists and turns in terms of doctrine over the centuries, as one would expect; it's all muddled.
It is dubious whether Socrates himself had any positive doctrine whatsoever, hence 'he doesn't know'. His singularity was in his approach to questions. A method, but not a doctrine; which is I think what you are saying.
Still, he was accused on doctrinal matters too: his so-called religious innovations. Doesn't mean the accusers were correct of course, but in my mind there must have been some context here, some irksome ideas at play, some kind of metaphysical ideas circulating around Socrates that tended to piss off the average Athenian.
Hypothesis 1: it was his radical doctrinal doubt itself that was irksome; i.e. his absence of doctrine may have been seen as a rejection of all doctrines, and hence as a doctrine itself (like the empty set is a set).
Hypothesis 2: he may have indeed expressed doubt or joked about certain naïve beliefs of his time. He might even have seen some of them as pretty ridiculous.
The two are not mutually exclusive and in my mind, H1 is almost certainly true.
H2 rests on scant evidence but I think Euthyphro does contain a critique of naïve transactional piety, and points to holiness as something higher than the gods.
There are also contextual historical elements, e g. the story of the desecration of the herms In 415, or the natural philosophy of Anaxagoras, which I think can bring some light on this issue.
One morning in the spring of 415 B.C., a short time before the Sicilian expedition was to set sail, it was discovered that all the herms -- busts of Hermes graced with an erect phallus -- dotting the city of Athens had been vandalized. Apparently the phalluses were broken as well as the faces. This created a furor and a period of religious McCartyism, so to speak, to identify the hermokopidai (“herm-choppers”). Bribes were offered for information. Other acts came to be denounced such as an alledged profanation of the Eleusian mysteries during some symposium (perhaps little more than a prank, or a themed orgy) in which Alcibiades—a student and friend of Socrates and one of the three Athenian generals appointed to command the Sicilian expedition—was implicated.
One theory is that the new generation, trained by Socrates and other philosophers, had little respect for these symbols of old time religion, seen as crude, and was prone to poke fun at them.
The other historical fact that I would like to bring up for context, relates to the nature of the sun and moon, whether they are deities or natural objects. You quoted one apology (don't remember which of Plato or Xenophon, where Socrates says in essences: "don't we all agree that the sun and the moon are gods?"
And yet Anaxagoras, a Ionian who brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry to Athens, had written about the heavenly bodies, which he asserted were masses of stone torn from the Earth. He said the moon had mountains and believed that it was inhabited, that the sun was a very large and very hot stone ("larger than the Peloponnese")... He predicted that sooner or later a piece of the sun would break off and fall to earth.
According to Pliny the Elder and Aristotle, in 467 BC a large meteorite landed near Aegospotami, an Athenian colony in the Hellespont. When the fiery fragment cooled, it was found to be some large brown stone. This gave credence to Anaxagoras' theories.
Diogenes Laertius reports that Anaxagoras was charge with impiety circa 450 BC and forced to flee the city.
Anaxagoras is said to have remained in Athens for thirty years. He was a well-known intellectual. And in the Phaedo, Plato portrays Socrates saying that as a young man: 'I eagerly acquired his [Anaxagoras'] books and read them as quickly as I could'. Therefore Socrates could not have ignored Anaxagoras' cosmology. He was about 20 when Anaxagoras was trialed.
So what is he really saying when he pretends 50 years later, at his own trial, to agree that the moon and the sun are deities? Isn't he saying, under the guise of irony, that it's highly debatable that they are deities?
The fact that Socrates used irony does not mean that everything he said was just irony.
Plato definitely describes visible and invisible Gods, including the Sun, Moon, and other planets that were living deities created by the Demiourgos or Maker of the Universe.
The Universe (Cosmos) itself has a soul and is a living being.
Herms
Herms were marble or bronze four-cornered pillars surmounted by a bust. Male herms were given genitals. Herms originated in piles of stones (??????) used as road- and boundary-markers, but early on developed into the god *Hermes (but see that entry). As representations of Hermes they were viewed also as protectors of houses and cities. The Athenians claimed credit for the developed sculptural form (Paus. 1. 24. 3), and herms were particularly common in Athens, at crossroads, in the countryside, in the Agora, at the entrance of the Acropolis, in sanctuaries, and at private doorways. The sacrilegious mutilation of the herms in 415 BCE led to the exile of *Alcibiades (Thuc. 6. 27 ff.). Other deities, e.g. *Aphrodite (Paus. 1. 19. 2), were also occasionally represented as herms, and the Romans in copying Greek portrait statues converted some into herm form.
https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-3054
Yes, zetetic skepticism. Knowing that neither he nor anyone else knows he inquires. He sets out to understand things as best he can, according to what seems best, knowing he does not know what is best.
Quoting Olivier5
Leo Strauss in his commentary on the Symposium discusses this at length. https://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/UChicagoPress.Ebook.Pack-2016-PHC/9780226776866.UChicago%20Press.Leo%20Strauss%20on%20Plato%27s%20Symposium.Leo%20Strauss%20%26%20Seth%20Benardete.May%2C2003.pdf
Quoting Olivier5
From the Euthyphro thread: Quoting Olivier5
To question beliefs is seen by some to be a denial of what is believed.
As an aside: in Judaism to ask why, or more strongly to interrogate, is an essential part of Talmudic understanding. Christians, however, often regard questioning as an attack on their beliefs. The discussion that follows is like Socratic dialectic. Contrary to this, Christianity establishes official doctrines of the faith.
Socrates Argument For Why the Good Cannot Be Known
The argument is not easily seen because it stretches over three books of the Republic, as if Plato wanted only those who are sufficiently attentive to see it.
I begin by collecting the releverent statements. Bloom translation. Bold added.
He makes a threefold distinction -
Being or what is
Something other than that which is
What is not
And corresponding to them
Knowledge
Opinion
Ignorance
The middle term is somewhat ambiguous. What is not is something other than that which is, but to what is not he assigns ignorance. Opinion opines neither what is nor what is not. Between what is entirely, the beings or Forms, and what is not, is becoming, that is, the visible world. Opinion opines about the visible world. But the good is beyond being. It is the cause of being, the cause of what is. It too is something other than what is and what is not.
What is entirely is entirely knowable. The good, being beyond being, is not something that is entirely. The good is then not entirely knowable. As if to confirm this Socrates says that he is giving his opinions about the good, but that what is knowable and unknowable is a matter of fact. As to the soul’s journey to the intelligible and the sight of the idea of the good, he says that a god knows if it happens to be true, but this is how it looks to him. He plays on the meaning of the cognate terms idea and look, which can be translated as Form. A god knows if it “happens to be true” but we are not gods, and what may happen to be true might also happen to be false.
The quote at 517 continues:
But it is not seen, for it is not something that is and thus not something knowable, and so no conclusion must follow. In order to act prudently, he says, one must see the good itself. Whether one is acting prudently then, remains an open question. The examined life remains the primary, continuous way of life of the Socratic philosopher. A way of life that rejects the complacency and false piety of believing one knows the divine answers.
Unfortunately, that sounds very much like indulging in facile sophistry. The fact is that everything remains an open question until you have a final answer. And you can't have a final answer until you arrive at ultimate reality.
The same applies to scientific facts and theories. They are what we think we know until we know better.
That doesn't mean that we know nothing or that Socrates was an atheist or nihilist. This is an unwarranted modern belief influenced by neo-Marxist interpretations that probably emerged in the early 1900's and was resuscitated in the 1940's and 50's before it was buried again due to lack of evidence and interest.
In any case, it is totally anachronistic to try to impose outdated liberal ideas of the 1900's on texts written centuries before the current era.
This is just your standard response to whatever goes against your hermetic Christian Neoplatonist beliefs.
It must have escaped your notice that everything I said is directly from the text.
You know absolutely nothing about my beliefs which actually illustrates your methodology.
You invited me to join your discussion and I am presenting my own arguments. If I agreed with everything you say, there would be no discussion and you would be talking to yourself.
I have no problem with you quoting the texts, provided you are using the correct translation. The problem is the anachronistic assumptions and erroneous interpretations you bring to the dialogues.
Of course you can do whatever you like, but if you think about it, it would be more realistic to look at the dialogues like a contemporary of Plato and Socrates, not like a hard-line liberal of the 1940's.
As much as you would like it to be the case, the fact remains that Plato and Socrates were not 20th-century liberals with atheistic or nihilistic tendencies. It just seems absurd to claim otherwise.
There is no translation that is considered the "correct translation". The Bloom translation is widely used and regarded as one of the best. It was published in 1968.
All this stuff about the 1940's and "hard-line liberals is nonsense. It is not an accurate description of me or Bloom. It is nothing more than your typical smokescreen.
Once again, everything I said is taken directly from the text.
You attack me, the translation, liberals, neo-Marxists, all without evidence or relevance.
Well, why don't you look at your own attacks?
Quoting Fooloso4
You have used translations where relevant words or passages were missing.
And you generally quote anti-Platonist authors with 20th-century liberal ideas and agendas.
Why can't you just look at the dialogues as a contemporary of Plato and Socrates for whom the dialogues were intended? Don't you see the anachronism, or are you just pretending?
And on and on and on endlessly and evasively arguing.
Quoting Apollodorus
From anyone else I would consider this a joke, but it is not. It is a sad demonstration of your ignorance of the problem of interpretation.
How is it "ignorance of the problem of interpretation"?
Interpretation has never been such a problem until the 1900's. There is a very long and well-attested Platonist tradition from Plato and Aristotle to Plotinus and Proclus all the way into modern times, which for some strange reason you choose to ignore.
See From Plato to Platonism by Gerson and other scholars if you don't believe me.
That's why I'm asking you a simple question. Why don't you try to look into how Plato's and Socrates' contemporaries would have read the dialogues if you really want to know?
But it seems that you are not interested.
More evidence of your ignorance of the problem.
More evidence of your ignoring the evidence and scholarly opinion. Have you got anything else to say on the subject or have you run out of ideas?
Anyway, my constructive suggestion is to first see how Plato's contemporaries read the dialogues, after which we can look into how that compares with neoliberal interpretations. How about that?
That makes sense when looking at the way Aristotle described what other people thought before he giving his response. He is engaged with past and future partners in conversation.
He certainly provides more background of some of the people and ideas that are assumed as common knowledge in Plato's Dialogues.
I think that Aristotle, like Socrates and Plato, was a zetetic skeptic. The matters under discussion, despite appearances, are not resolved. The reader is not a passive observer, but an active participant in trying to determine what seems best and most likely to be true without having the measure by which to know what is right and true and good.
Sounds interesting start a thread.
The matters are not resolved.
I think Aristotle was trying to establish a basis for being an organic being in De Anima that is quite different from being a skeptic. But the activity of the "intellect" there brings up all the questions Plato asked.
Socratic or zetetic skepticism differs from other forms of skepticism. Aristotle's morphology was something considered known. That the soul is the form of the body, lacks the same type and degree of evidence.
So, the question what is being experienced seems central to the discussion.
I am not sure if this is a general observation about De Anima or if it is in response to something specific I said.
Do you have in mind the dual aspect of the intellect, Book lll, chapter 5?
It was a recognition of the general reluctance to affirm statements as you noted but also exactly what is expressed in Book III, chapter 5.
Whatever is causing things to happen is directly related to my ability to notice them.
I agree. And inquiry is in part allowing oneself to notice. If we think we have the answers or we have expectations about things we can miss whatever does not conform to our answers and expectations. Which is exactly what is happening in this thread. The inability to see or perhaps unwillingness to see what is being said.
Yes. And if you don't mind me saying so, you seem to be a prime example of that.
And this brings us back to where we started. You are accusing others of regarding Plato as a Platonist without realizing that your own insistence on seeing Plato as an atheist and nihilist isn't any more tenable, in fact, quite the opposite.
You seem convinced that even the slightest critique of traditional religion automatically and necessarily equals atheism. But, if you think about it, how many atheists and nihilists among Plato's direct disciples can you name? Is Aristotle one of them?
This is so predictable that it has become comical. Whenever I point to Socrates' arguments that run counter to what you would want them to say you let loose a barrage of complaints and claims that address all kinds of things except what is actually said in the dialogue.
Unfortunately, there are some here who do not find it at all funny. They think it rude and obstructive and worry that others who may want to discuss the dialogue will be turned away by your incessant bickering.
Sorry, but you invited me to join the discussion, did you not? Here is your statement:
Quoting Fooloso4
Did you post this or was it someone else? Maybe your alter ego or something?
You wanted to discuss Plato's Forms. And when I asked you a few questions about Socrates' statements on Forms, you refused to answer and called for help.
No offense, but I find this very odd to say the least.
In that case, all you need to do is to start discussing things honestly and openly and show us how it's done.
What you are actually doing is imposing a 20th-century neoliberal interpretation on 5th-century BC texts.
It is obvious that what Plato actually does is to reinterpret traditional beliefs and integrate them with his own religious and philosophical system. This makes him a religious reformist at most, not an atheist or nihilist.
I don't know of any serious scholar who has successfully shown that the views expressed in the Timaeus, for example, constitute atheism and nihilism. Do you?
Indeed. The type of 'humour' used by @Apollodorus, some might find funny but his 'jokes' and sarcastic 'asides' are just part of that nasty pattern of behaviour it seems he can't help indulging in.
It's not just here.
@Banno called him out on his offensiveness :
Quoting Banno
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/557477
with predictable and typical responses as per 'bully-boy' tactics, or as I suggested elsewhere signs of a narcissistic personality disorder.
It is, as you say, counterproductive to a constructive discussion, a fruitful learning experience.
I would hope that more people would be alert to this continuing and consistent pattern.
Either respond and call it for what it is...or report...whatever...
Yep. If somebody asks for evidence that the Timaeus teaches atheism, that is definitely "narcissism".
And what would you call other people's refusal to back up their claims with some evidence?
As already pointed out, Gerson and other respected scholars have conclusively shown that Plato does not teach atheism.
You know what you are doing. Over and over. A consistent and continuing pattern of behaviour that is not always obvious, especially to mods who can't follow all threads.
It's like the bully's response to an offensive remark - 'I was only joking...'. Making out as if the person hasn't got a sense of humour...and too sensitive...
Insidious.
Flagging individual posts is sometimes not enough.
Well, if it's "not obvious", then maybe it's not there? Have you considered other people's posts calling Christians, Platonists, and other theists "liars"?
I simply asked Fooloso4 to provide some evidence, which I believe is a reasonable request to make in a normal conversation. Instead, he gets offended and interprets it as a "personal attack".
It was him that repeatedly asked me to join the discussion:
Quoting Fooloso4
How can I discuss something if I'm not allowed to even ask a question?
What have I said about Plato's Forms that was offensive?
It is there. You know it. Others who are alert see it.
End of.
So, am I also allowed to flag posts that I find offensive and "bullying", or is it one rule for some and another for others???
And you haven't answered my question, how was my asking a question about Socrates' supposed statements on Forms in the Phaedo "offensive"?
Would you like me to delete my other posts as well?
Edit. In the meantime ltlee1 has responded to my comment:
Quoting ltlee1
So, the alleged 'offense' was neither intended nor taken, from what I see.
Socrates is circumspect in his discussion of this. It is better to have an opinion of the good shaped by his opinion than one in which any and every man is the measure. To this end he conceals his opinion and in its place presents an image of the good not only as something known to the philosopher, an eternal, unchanging truth. But the concealment is not complete. Behind the salutary public teaching is the teaching suitable only for the few.
This was a common practice in both ancient and modern philosophy. In Plato we find:
And about Plato and the practice in ancient times:
These are taken from https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/melzer_appendix.pdf
The site contains many more testimonials both ancient and modern. A real eye opener!
There are the easy to find statements in the dialogues for all to see, and for those who look carefully enough, something quite different.
This is an important point. If such ideas were corruptive of the youth, why could one freely buy Anaxagoras' books "in the orchestra for a drachma" at the most?
It points to political motivation thinly disguised as civil and religious piety.
However, as already demonstrated on the other thread, that line of argument is too flawed to even qualify as an argument. It proves absolutely nothing. "Secrets" can mean anything. It certainly doesn't have to mean atheism and is in no way, form or shape "contrary to Platonism". If anything, as history shows, it means exactly what scholars like Gerson are saying.
Another Islamic mystic, Mansur al-Hallaj wrote “I saw my Lord with the eye of my heart”, i.e., exactly what Platonists and Christians had taught for centuries before him.
We have already seen that Plato taught that a philosopher had to become as godlike as possible. That meant seeing God within himself and experiencing a state of oneness with him. That was what
al-Hallaj did. He proclaimed (the Platonic doctrine) "I am the Truth/God".
In 922 CE al-Hallaj was executed by the Islamic authorities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna
So of course Ibn Sina would say that Plato’s teachings were secret. He didn’t want to meet the same fate as al-Hallaj. It's just common sense when you live under strict Islamic rule.
Your "argument" falls like an ill-conceived and ill-constructed house of cards.
You are getting closer to the problem with your comment on Ibn Sina's concern for his fate. Plato had the same personal concern and for the same reason as Ibn Sina. What you forget is that Plato's teacher was sentenced to death for his teachings, for talking to everyone, for being open and candid.
Again, you need to be able to put things to get the full picture of the conditions under which Plato wrote.
The "problem" is not the problem of the Platonists. It is your problem and the problem of other atheists that insist that Plato was an atheist without presenting even a shred of evidence .
Your problem is you are claiming that "secrets = atheism". So, would you mind explaining to us by what logical mechanism you arrive at that conclusion? I am curious to now.
In the meantime, you are saying that Ibn Sina, like Plato, was preaching atheism secretly for fear of being executed like al-Hallaj, just as Plato was afraid of being sentenced to death like Socrates.
The obvious problem with that claim is you have failed to show that Socrates was an atheist. Indeed, it would be hard to believe that he was, given that he was constantly talking about God and Gods.
IMHO, the objective examination of the Platonic texts allows no other conclusion than that Socrates and Plato were not atheists, but religious reformers. All they did was to introduce a new category of metaphysical or divine realities or beings that would be more suitable for philosophical minds than traditional deities.
“So once more, as if these were another set of accusers, let us take up in turn their sworn statement. It is about as follows: it states that Socrates is a wrongdoer because he corrupts the youth and does not believe in the gods the state believes in, but in other new spiritual beings. Such is the accusation" (Apology 24b – c).
The exact phrase is ????? ???????? ????? hetera daimonia kaina, “other new daimons (spiritual beings)”. The charge was ??????? asebia, “impiety or irreverence”, not atheism.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DApol.%3Asection%3D24b
“For he says I am a maker of gods; and because I make new gods (?????? ???? kainoi theoi) and do not believe in the old ones, he indicted me for the sake of these old ones, as he says” (Euthyphro 3b).
We find the same in Xenophon:
“Socrates came before the jury after his adversaries had charged him with not believing in the gods worshipped by the state and with the introduction of new deities in their stead and with corruption of the young” (Xenophon, Apology 10).
The exact phrase is ????? ????? ???????? hetera kaina daimonia, “other new spiritual beings/deities”
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0211%3Atext%3DApol.%3Asection%3D10
Plato's metaphysics is a multi-layered system starting from traditional religion and gradually ascending to higher forms of thought and experience.
Another important thing to remember is that Socrates was going to be acquitted on condition that he refrain from preaching his new religion, which he declined. All he needed to do was to moderate his language and not promote it in public. It follows that Plato had nothing to fear.
Let's now take your other famous quote:
Quoting Fooloso4
Again, by what logical argumentation do you arrive at the conclusion that "enigmas and concealment = atheism"?
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Ibn Sina was afraid of openly preaching atheism and did so covertly.
But how does this apply to Clement of Alexandria? He had been a Pagan and converted to Christianity in around 170 CE. Why would he convert to Christianity to teach atheism? He could have done that as a Pagan. According to you, he already had Platonism for that purpose.
For your theory to work, you would have to show that all the Church Fathers, philosophers and mystics were "atheists". Did the Desert Fathers withdraw from society to meditate on the non-existence of God, whilst praying seven times a day and using passages from the Bible for daily contemplation?
Aside from the total lack of evidence, and the absurdity of it, it sounds very much like conspiracy theory to me. What you are literally claiming is that, for two millennia, Christians have been secretly believing in atheism and covertly preaching it, because Socrates chose to allow himself to be sentenced to death for being disrespectful to traditional religion.
Also, please note that you are citing Leibniz and Warburton to justify your mistaken interpretation of Platonic dialogues, but you attack me for citing Platonists, which seems rather strange. Why would Leibniz and Warburton understand Plato any better than Platonists like Plotinus and Proclus?
Because reality is an emanation of Ultimate Reality which is Consciousness, and is therefore, real, Plato’s philosophy may be described as realistic idealism: though the world is a product of consciousness, it is not the product of the individual mind but of the Universal Consciousness, Cosmic Intellect or Mind of God. Plato’s Forms are the product of the Cosmic Intellect.
This is 100% consistent with the Platonic texts and equally inconsistent with "atheism".
Even Wikipedia which is run by liberals and atheists classifies Plato and Platonism under Idealism.
Idealism – Wikipedia
The notion that Plato taught atheism is not only contradicted by the evidence and logic but it is a fringe theory introduced in the early 1900’s. I suspect you are drawing your inspiration from Shorey who also preached that Jesus was a Pagan and other similar ideas that were popular at the time under the influence of Marxist and Fabian Socialist deconstructionism.
Unfortunately, Shorey has long been thoroughly refuted by Gerson and other respected scholars.
I have never read Shorey. Just another straw man.
I gave you a list of the authors I read. You ignored it. Much easier to make shit up and attack it.
No need whatsoever. As I suggested from the start, you had no chance of proving your case.
You gave me a list of authors, which is fine. But I also suggested you read Sedley, Gerson, and others, and you refused. All I'm saying is that it would have been in your own interest to familiarize yourself with a topic that has been conclusively settled.
Plato may have taught many things. Atheism wasn't one of them.
Let me try and do some theory here. Going on a limb perhaps?
I see several levels of interpenetration between religions and politics here:
1. Traditional piety = The hypothesis according to which the gods favour our city only inasmuch as we love them. If we stop loving and praying to our traditional gods, or if we start doubting them, the city will perish or suffer as them gods will punish it. This is the background assumption, the conventional wisdom.
2. There are hidden variations in people's faith in 1 = Not every one believes in 1, but they pretend to, because of the risks entailed in contradicting it. Since as per 1 above traditional piety is seen as vital to the city's survival, impious behaviors are severely punished, by death or banishment.
3. Religion is instrumentalised by politics = A religious accusation will be very effective to get rid of a political opponent. If you can prove that your opponent is taking liberty with traditional piety, then you can get him sentenced to death, ostensibly to save the city from the wrath of the gods (even if you don't happen to believe in them, as long as you can pretend to).
4. Historically, religion provided the internally-shared value framework of these various city-states = This means that as politics evolved towards the age of empires, old-time religion became an impediment, or was seen as an impediment by some in society. It worked well for one city, but was too local, parochial, not universal enough for a league of city states or for an empire. In these sorts of situations, new religions (or philosophies / metaphysics) typically appear which can be seen as attempts to solve the hiatus, or to take into consideration the passing of time and update old-time religion.
5. In such contexts as 5th century BCE Athens, religion (or lack thereof) can become a socio-political marker = Because of 3 and 4, the 'religious innovations' evoqued in 4 originally tend (on average) to be repressed or fought by whoever is in favor of the status quo, and promoted by whoever wants political change.
I think a bit of all that happened in the case at hand. Socrates was not politically neutral. His thought, just like Anaxagoras' or others', was an irruption of a more universal world view into the little parochial cultural life of Athens, an irruption made possible by contacts with the Persian empire. In the historical context, his thought was disruptive and innovative. Almost foreign.
Are you that so self unaware? You say you have no need to have the last word and yet again and again you have more to say, or, more of the same to say.
I have read some Gerson. I tried to discuss the problem of "instrumental causality". You simply ignored it and moved on to something else, and then something else again, eventually circling back to the same thing again.
Even older than Plato is the distinction between esoteric and exoteric teachings. You point to the exoteric and remain unaware of the esoteric. You pull statements out of context and think they represent the "true teaching". You ignore the arguments and details which point toward something other than what is there for even the most casual reader to see.
Socrates admonishes his interlocutors to "follow the argument where it leads". You have avoided doing this.
Not at all, I demonstrated quite clearly, I think, that Plato's dialogues logically lead to monistic idealism which is the accepted scholarly position. The Forms are metaphysical realities in the Cosmic Intellect or Universal Consciousness (Nous). That's what I meant by "immaterial" but you chose not to pay attention.
And Socrates was not accused or tried for "atheism" but for irreverence (asebia) on the grounds that he was trying to introduce "new deities" (and corrupt the young).
As Olivier suggests, he may have been set up for political reasons. However, even then we must remember that the jury would have acquitted him, had he not chosen to persist and decline to refrain from preaching his new religion.
I think you have it exactly right.
Plato, not wanting to suffer the same fate as Socrates, had to do two opposite things, appear to not be a threat to the norms of the city while in practice being just that. In the Republic he banishes the gods from the just city and replaces them with Forms and, as the ultimate cause, the Good. And yet many even today do not see this for what it is.
He doesn't "banish the Gods" at all. He was discussing a hypothetical situation.
You can't say "Plato secretly taught atheism" and at the same time claim that "he openly preached atheism in his dialogues".
It just doesn't add up.
Plato taught monistic idealism which to the ignorant may sound like "atheism" but is far from that. On the contrary, monistic idealism is more like theistic absolutism, which is why Platonism appealed to the Christians.
Socrates says:
You do not follow the argument where it leads, you ignore the argument because you assume where it leads.
Anyone who has read the literature knows that "the accepted scholarly position" does not exist. There is a reason why after all this time so many books and articles on Plato are being published every year.
Quoting Apollodorus
And yet Socrates says that this is not something he knows and Plato never introduces anyone who does actually know.
Quoting Apollodorus
You do not know what the term atheism meant. Socrates discusses this, but to understand it requires that you follow the argument.
Not at all, the esoteric is the ineffable Ultimate Reality. It isn't esoteric because it is secret but because it is inexpressible in language. I have said so repeatedly.
To claim that "esoteric = atheism" is as absurd as to claim that "introducing new deities = atheism".
It is not a hypothetical situation. You do not understand how the term 'hypothetical' is being used. The city is made in speech. In the city the poets and their stories of the gods are banned.
Quoting Apollodorus
I have said neither of those things. Again, follow the argument.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is an example of Socrates advise to chant incantations over and over again.
There are many books and articles published every year on all kinds of topics. But they are not claiming or showing that Plato was an atheist.
And it is incorrect to claim that Socrates was convicted of "atheism" when the charge was "introducing new deities".
Monistic idealism is not the same as "atheism". On the contrary, it elevates God from highest authority to Ultimate Reality.
I think the reverse is true. It is you who is not following the argument and is starting from the unexamined premise that Plato preaches atheism which is totally unsupported by the evidence as yourself have admitted.
Quoting Fooloso4
You have admittedly failed to prove your theory but still keep claiming that you have proved it. And that, without any evidence whatsoever!
Again, you do not understand what the term meant.
Quoting Apollodorus
Repeat the incantations over and over again.
Quoting Apollodorus
I have two threads that follow the arguments from the beginning to the end of the dialogue and a third which follows critical arguments in the Republic. It is all right that for all to see, except those who close their eyes and sing incantations.
Quoting Apollodorus
I have no theory to prove. I simply follow the arguments where they lead. You mistake single statements taken out of context for arguments and fail to follow the argument. Each time I point to the argument you look away, repeat what you believe, and bring up those views that influenced your beliefs.
What "argument"? I see nothing but persistent diversion and evasion:
1. You have "nothing to prove".
2. You have "no theory".
3. You are "following the arguments".
4. Others are "not following the arguments".
5. And when you are asked what your argument actually is, you say it's a "secret" because the author "has something to hide". But, at the same time, it's "all there for all to see"!
Are you well? Or are you taking us for a ride?
If I did not know better I would think you are kidding. The arguments given in the dialogues. Have you really not understood this?
When you ask "what argument" you make it clear that you have not been following the arguments because you don't even know what they are or where they are.
I see. So, you are not talking about your arguments but about the arguments "in the dialogues". Great. In that case, allow me to ask again:
In your opinion, what exactly do the arguments in the dialogues lead to? Atheism? Buddhism? Marxism? Nihilism? Or something else?
Quoting Fooloso4
You seem to have some kind of fixation with "chanting incantations". You believe that Socrates' expression is the only thing Plato has to say.
Quoting Fooloso4
And yet you are telling us that there is an accepted scholarly position which is that Plato was an atheist. This is untrue. The consensus as shown by mainstream sources like Wikipedia is that Plato taught monistic idealism.
Quoting Fooloso4
My beliefs about Plato are influenced by the works of Plato and his Platonist followers. Who would you like me to read instead? The anti-Platonists?
Quoting Fooloso4
So, we are back to square one then. If it is "there for all to see", why don't you tell us in plain English what it is?
Quoting Fooloso4
So what you are saying is this:
1. Plato never says anything.
2. The only thing that Socrates says is that he knows nothing.
If Plato says nothing and Socrates says he knows nothing, then on what basis do you claim to know that Plato doesn't teach monistic idealism?
Sorry, but that is totally untrue. My exact words were:
Quoting Apollodorus
Plato's teachings or what goes by the name of "Platonism" were referred to as "Plato's true teachings". You are claiming they are not Plato's true teachings, but offer no evidence.
In fact, I don't see what evidence you could possibly have as according to you, "Plato says nothing and Socrates knows nothing".
You cite Leibniz and Warburton as your "evidence" for Plato's teachings even though according to you, "Plato says nothing", etc., etc.
No, I am talking about the arguments in the dialogues. I have invited you several times to discuss them, but following in the footsteps of Euthyphro have somewhere else to be.
Quoting Apollodorus
Round and round you go. I have laid it all out. If you are really interested instead of just looking for something to argue about, go back and read the posts where I lay it out.
Quoting Apollodorus
It is a phrase that Socrates uses several times in the Phaedo. You are doing exactly what he recommends to those who are not ready for philosophy and instead like children desire myths and incantations.
Quoting Apollodorus
Wiki is not a scholarly source, although it has gotten better and often includes footnotes to sources. What you find on Wiki is not a consensus of mainstream scholarly sources because there is no consensus, and never has been.
Quoting Apollodorus
As I have said many times now, read a dialogues from start to finish. Instead of cherry picking statements that confirm what you already believe, follow the arguments, connect the dots, put the pieces together. Do what Plato expects of those who are suited to philosophy THINK. But as I've also said, he writes on different levels. He provides those who desire answers, those who want their opinions made for them, those who are prisoners in the cave, the images they believe are more than images.
Quoting Apollodorus
As you go round and round you forget what has already been said. He was not about to suffer the same fate as Socrates or allow philosophy to be silenced by those who, like you, are threatened by philosophy.
Quoting Apollodorus
Not in the dialogues.The dialogue form is not just stylistic.
Quoting Apollodorus
Another example of your unwillingness to discuss things openly and honestly.
Quoting Apollodorus
I doubt you will understand this, but others here might, and it has been discussed in the literature. It may be preferable for you to believe something like that than the myths of the gods. Those who cannot abide the uncertainty of philosophy will latch on to something. He gives you something to latch onto.
Why to you continue posting the same thing on two different threads? Proselytizing?
Quoting Apollodorus
Do you really think there is any value in misrepresenting what I say? Neither the quote from Leibniz nor Bishop Warburton said anything about Plato. They are talking about an ancient practice of esoteric writing. It requires in turn a skill in reading tailored to the author.
It's a big world out there beyond the narrow confines of your head.
I never said Wiki is a scholarly source. I said it was mainstream. If you believe that Plato's alleged "atheism" is more then fringe speculation, feel free to provide evidence for that. That's what I've been asking you all this time and all you can think of is Leibniz and Warburton and some obscure anti-Platonist writers.
Quoting Fooloso4
That's exactly what I did and I came to totally different conclusions to what you are saying. That's why I asked you what translations you were using and where Socrates says that "the Forms are hypotheses".
Instead of answering, you got upset and called for help. Which I thought was a very strange thing to do.
Quoting Fooloso4
Let’s recap then:
1. Plato never says anything.
2. Socrates says he knows nothing.
3.The author (presumably Plato) has something to hide.
4. Although “hidden”, it’s “all there for all to see”.
5. But this “doesn’t prove anything”.
6. Anyway, “it isn’t about proof it’s about learning how to read an author who has something to hide”.
7. But you refuse to say what it is that the author is hiding.
8. And yet you insists that you are right and get upset when others ask you a simple question ....
Not needed. Anyone who knows the literature knows it.
Quoting Apollodorus
Think for a second. Anyone can look at the book. What they see depends on their ability to read and make connections. You have demonstrated your inability to do so.
Quoting Apollodorus
I have said.
Quoting Apollodorus
Did you type this with a straight face? You are unable to accept that I see things differently than you do and so zealously post over and over and over again. Does it bother you that much that you cannot convert me? Or are you more interested in converting others to your religious beliefs?
By the same token, you have demonstrated your inability to see what I and most people see, which is that Plato's writings teach a form of monistic idealism, not atheism
And since you are unable or unwilling to say what the author is "hiding", you are in no position to claim otherwise.
Indeed, you can't say anything because according to you, "Plato says nothing and Socrates knows nothing".
You haven't even shown that "in the Republic he banishes the gods from the just city and replaces them with Forms". Or anything else for that matter.
But at least you've made me laugh .... :grin:
It is not that I can't see it, I just don't buy it. Do you think there is a chance I might if you repeat it again or again a hundred times?
Quoting Apollodorus
Once again, I have said. Go back and read.
Quoting Apollodorus
Do you really think that such misrepresentation will make your argument stronger? Why can't you accept that there are interpretations other than the one you believe? Interpretations by eminent scholars?
Quoting Apollodorus
Did you miss the part where he bans the poets? Or the part where the Good and not the gods are the generative cause of all that is?
Sadly, I think this once again shows how fanaticism prevents you from seeing your total lack of logic.
What Plato writes in the dialogues is monistic idealism, not atheism. Don't you understand the concept
of idealism?
It's exactly what Plato describes. The ultimate cause of everything is the Universal Consciousness or Cosmic Intellect (Nous). That doesn't "ban the Gods", it only subordinates them to a higher reality which is a logical consequence of philosophical inquiry. In Platonic philosophy, that which philosophizes, viz., consciousness, is the highest reality and cause of everything, as I explained in my post on the Forms.
The city described by Plato in the Republic is just utopian imagery intended to illustrate certain points Plato was trying to make.
There was to be no laughter, no artists, no families, etc. Not a realistic situation at all. The discussion also suggested a society divided into classes and ruled by philosopher-kings.
But Plato doesn’t say there should be no Gods, he only says that human misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the Gods should not be allowed.
The issue is not whether there should be any Gods but how people should think and speak about them:
“But this very thing—the patterns or norms of right speech about the Gods (literally, ???????? theologia) what would they be?” “Something like this,” I said. “The true quality of God we must always surely attribute to him whether we compose in epic, melic, or tragic verse.” “We must.” “And is not God of course good in reality and always to be spoken of as such?” (379a).
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D379a
Think of monistic idealism, and you will see how everything makes sense. Think atheism, and nothing fits.
That's why you are unable to prove your theory and all you can come up with are vague oracular pronouncements like "he says it but he is hiding it", "it's there but you can't see it", and nonsense like that. The "incantations" are yours, not mine.
You may not have read Shorey, but you sound very much like him. Writers in the 1930's were too heavily influenced by Marxism and Fabian Socialism to be capable of objective analysis. Their main objective was to deconstruct tradition to make place for "progress", and that meant attacking Christianity and Platonism. Politics never makes good scholarship.
Sadly, you avoid the question and repeat your incantation.
Quoting Apollodorus
Where does he say this and not the Good in the Republic?
Quoting Apollodorus
He bans the poets (397d-398a, see also 377b-c, about supervising the makers of tales, and 379a about appropriate tales). Banning the poets he bans their stories of the gods.
Quoting Apollodorus
In other words, he bans the kind of stories that Euthyphro appeals to to demonstrate his piety and justice. In other words, just the kind of thing for which he was condemned. He purifies the gods, which is to say make up new ones.
Quoting Apollodorus
He is talking about which stories of the gods are appropriate. Socrates does not say that the god is good in reality. He asks a question:
Adeimantus agrees. Context matters. The context is the stories they will allow in the city.
Quoting Apollodorus
More to the point, accept the notion of monistic idealism and then force the dialogues to fit the mold.
Quoting Apollodorus
Again, you fail to understand. The reader has to put the pieces together. Reading Plato is not a passive activity.
Quoting Apollodorus
Completely irrelevant. Many of the commentators I read are political philosophers and anti-Marxist.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is the opposite of what the authors I read do. They argue that we can learn a great deal from Plato and Aristotle. They do, however, make a critical distinction between Plato and Platonism. You reject that distinction. But rather than stating that and moving on you compulsively and irrationally keep coming back to proclaim the truth of your hermetic Christian Neoplatonism.
I'm sorry to have to say this but it sounds like you have some psychological issues there.
You keep talking about "putting the pieces together", but you forget to show by what logical argumentation putting the pieces together leads to atheism.
And no, preventing poets or anyone else from saying things that place the Gods in a bad light does not constitute "banning the Gods" by any stretch of the imagination.
Quoting Fooloso4
Well, I disagree. I don't think that atheism amounts to "a great deal" at all. It may do to you, but not to others. All the more so when there is no evidence to support it.
And, according to you, there is "nothing to prove" and you can't prove or say anything anyway because "Plato says nothing and Socrates knows nothing". And the "author is hiding it", but "it's all there", and "only you can see it". But what "it" is no one knows. Apparently, not even yourself.
So, yeah, I think you're definitely on the right track. Or perhaps not ....
Quoting Apollodorus
We don't have the act of accusation and don't know precisely what the charges were. My point was that politics and religion were intertwined in many complex ways, including in this case.
Socrates' teaching was subversive. He had a certain contempt for democracy, tied with contempt for the average folk and for unexamined opinions. Some of the most prominent Thirty Tyrants who tried to topple democracy in 404 BCE were his former students. Plato belonged right in the middle of this aristocratic milieu. They didn't think the people had a clue.
When Socrates is accused of perverting the youth, I surmise that's what it's about. They don't want him to train yet another generation of kids who would start to doubt the wisdom of their fathers and make not-so-funny revolutions.
As we discussed before, there is very little room for religion in the Republic: no priesthood, no oracles, no temples.
From what I can see, you are claiming that Plato was an atheist and his writings teach atheism.
You are also saying that Plato uses secret language to conceal his atheism.
In support of your theory, you cite Clement of Alexandria and Ibn Sina who, apparently, believed that Plato and/or the Greeks in general, concealed secrets in their writings.
You are claiming that this proves that Plato was a covert atheist.
The first problem with this is that, when carried to its logical conclusion, your theory becomes an extraordinary conspiracy theory according to which Plato and his followers from Aristotle to the Church Fathers and the Christian and Islamic philosophers and mystics were all secret believers in atheism.
What I am saying in response to this is that anyone with even the most basic understanding of philosophy and logic, would ask two simple questions:
1. What do those authors mean by “secrets”?
2. Why should “secrets” mean “atheism”?
“Secrets” could mean a number of things, e.g., knowledge unknown to the general public, allegorical passages referring to metaphysical realities, etc.
There is no evidence to suggest that Clement or Ibn Sina were atheists, and even if they were atheists, this doesn’t prove that Plato was an atheist. It may perfectly well be that they chose to read Plato in an atheist sense. But there is zero evidence of that.
So, this takes us back to the dialogues. These are some of your arguments:
1. Socrates says “one must, so to speak, chant such things to oneself” (Phaedo 114d).
2. Plato bans the Gods from the ideal city discussed in the Republic.
1. In fact, “chanting to oneself” means that Socrates wants his friends to overcome their grief and fear of death with the help of his account of life after death. No more and no less than that.
2. As already stated, banning the poets’ and artists’ irreverent representations of the Gods does not equal banning the Gods.
As to the Good, I think the matter is very clear. The Good is a meta-principle that explains the function of other, subordinate principles as part of a harmonious whole, i.e., how they all fit together to form a functioning, ordered system.
Allan Silverman – Some Ways of Being in Plato
1. I have already explained how Plato's “Forms” play the role of “patterns” (paradeigmata) whereby consciousness organizes itself to generate determinate cognition.
2. The Good explains how the Forms and all other things fit together to form a unified, harmonious reality.
3. The dialogue says very clearly that the Good is “superior to and beyond being” (509b), i.e., a form of Transcendent Reality that contains all things:
“The Sun, I presume you will say, not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation.” “Of course not.” “In like manner, then, you are to say that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the Good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the Good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power.”
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D6%3Asection%3D509b
Ergo, monistic idealism, not atheism.
Still at it I see!
Yes, the gods of the city. There was nothing like the modern separation of Church and State. Civic piety and religious piety were separate.
Quoting Olivier5
It was, but it was tolerated, at least until Anytus acted against him.
Quoting Olivier5
Aristophanes was a comic poet but he made a serious point, a point that Plato dealt with often - philosophy and sophistry are in many ways indistinguishable. The skills of reasoning and arguing learned can be used for different purposes.
I have reached the same conclusion.
The problem is, you are incapable of seeing beyond the narrow confines of your own mind and its single track beliefs.
For a long time it was. Democracy itself implies freedom of thought and expression, so democrats are bound to tolerate critiques of democracy. But this tolerance reached its limit at some point. I believe that the episode of the Thirty Tyrants was key: many democrats would have been concerned that something like this could happen again if Socrates and others were allowed to teach another generation.
Right, and this is a major reason why those, like Plato who wrote books that anyone could see, as opposed to private conversation, had to hide their subversive teachings in plain sight.
This was not just a problem in ancient Athens. Descartes took his motto from Ovid:
I should add, it is not simply about personal safety but to protect philosophy.
Are you sure your quote is by Ovid via Descartes? Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés is a well-known French proverb attributed by Wikipedia to Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian in his fable "Le Grillon".
Bene qui latuit, bene vixit, is indeed a verse by Ovid.
I came across an interesting interpretation of Descartes that led to my own investigation. I would start a thread on it but I do not want to have to deal with resident anti-atheist fanatic shitting all over it like a caged monkey flinging his own feces.
Yes, it was unkind to monkeys to make this comparison.
I think your own exertions have been more than sufficiently productive and you've done a great job spreading it around, so there isn't much left for anyone else to do. The credit goes entirely to you.
BTW, have you finally found your evidence for Plato's alleged "atheism" or are you still looking? I'm always there to help, you know. :rofl:
I thought it was the atheists who were to blame, or the Marxists, or the liberals, or the socialists, or the communists, or progressives, or the "loony left". Hell, why worry about differences when blaming everyone who does not hold your religious/political views. Blame the atheist/Marxist/liberal/socialist/communist/progressive/loony left.
Or Aristotle of course. In fact if memory serves, Descartes blamed it on Aristotle.
It isn't hard to do because both men wrote quite a lot. In your case one could easily put together the argument that it was a sad relic of Cartesianism in you that made you treat monkeys as mere machines, not given a soul like humans have. You should have known better than believe Descartes...
Right. I was referring the one of our resident MAGA trolls.
call
Quoting Olivier5
Oh, I misunderstood. That certainly does not apply in the case I was thinking of.
Quoting Olivier5
In all seriousness, there are still some around in philosophy departments who do not credit animals with the ability to think. I recall one argument where the professor claimed that since animals cannot do what we do, think about what they are going to do next Tuesday or something like that, they cannot be said to think.
There is an interesting and touching new novel by Kazuo Ishiguro called "Klara and the Sun" about an artificial friend. Klara can reason and displays empathy, but is still regarded as an appliance. The book is elegant in its simplicity. A friend who visits this forum also read it and gain it high praise.
Remember also the Church's influence here. If man is made at God's image, monkeys aren't. This is still a powerfully pregnant idea, more than a century after Darwin.
Will try and find "Klara and the Sun".
That the Good is a meta-principle that explains the function of other, subordinate principles as part of a harmonious whole, is evident from Socrates’ analogy of the Sun:
“The Sun, I presume you will say, not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation … In like manner, then, you are to say that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the Good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the Good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power … Conceive then, as we were saying, that there are these two entities, and that one of them is sovereign over the intelligible order and region and the other over the world of the eye-ball, not to say the sky-ball, but let that pass. You surely apprehend the two types, the visible and the intelligible” (Republic 509b ff.).
In the same way as the Sun, by means of its light, produces the ability to see and be seen, the Good by means of the light of truth, produces the ability to know and be known. The Good is that which enables us to know the truth, making it possible for us to have knowledge.
What the Sun does in the world of the visible, the Good does in the world of the intelligible:
1. Sensible (visible) world: Sun > light > sight > visible objects.
2. Intelligible (invisible) world: Good > truth > knowledge > known objects.
3. The Sun itself is the "offspring of the Good" (507a).
Thus, the Good is the metaphysical first principle of everything from which truth, i.e., reality emanates.
This makes Plato’s system a form of idealism:
“Plato’s idealism, which asserts the reality of non-physical Ideas to explain the status of norms and then reduces all other reality to mere simulacra of the former might be considered a forerunner of ontological idealism … In contrasting Epicurus with Plato, Leibniz called the latter an idealist and the former a materialist, because according to him idealists like Plato hold that “everything occurs in the soul as if there were no body” …”
Idealism – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest. (Phaedo 100c)
It this is a principle it is one an assumption, an hypothesis, not something established as true.
He goes on to say, using the Beautiful as his example of his hypothetical causes:
He does not explain the causal relationship between the Beautiful and what is beautiful. He skips over that important question. One cannot have a principle or principles that explain the whole if the relationship between Forms and things in the world is not explained. This is why Socrates then goes on to reintroduce physical causes as givens, that is, without explanation for what causes them.
The analogy of the sun to the good, is just that, an analogy. It does not explain anything.
If the whole includes bad things then the Good cannot be the cause or the explanation of the whole.
As an explanation it is, as he says, naive and perhaps foolish. It says that nothing else makes something good other than the presence of the Good.
Funny how you rejected mention of Leibniz, but now that you think he supports your argument you appeal to him. But let's not chase that round and round.
I think you are confused.
Socrates says quite clearly, “there is another section in which it advances from its assumption to a beginning or principle that transcends assumption” (510b).
A principle that transcends assumption is an unhypothetical principle, i.e., a self-explicable or auto-explicable first principle.
As already stated, all knowledge and all objects of knowledge are emanations of the Good.
Quoting Fooloso4
And your point is what exactly?
Of course there is no need for the Good "to be responsible for the bad things".
As explained by Plotinus, evil does not exist as a substance or property but instead as a privation of substance, form, and goodness - Plotinus, Enneads, I, 8; O’Brien, D., 1996, “Plotinus on matter and evil,” The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, L.P. Gerson (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–195.
What you fail to understand is that the dialogues are just brief sketches, not encyclopedic works. As Socrates says in the analogy, just as you don't look at the Sun to avoid being blinded, you don't look at the Good but at reason in order to see things. Otherwise said, use your reasoning faculty, don't expect to be spoonfed.
Second, it should be noted that the account of dialectic in the Republic differs from the story of transcendence from the cave. The latter was in terms of what is seen by the soul in some transcendent state. The dialectical is via speech, via the assumptions or hypotheses.
Third, the beginning free of hypothesis or assumption that, in some unexplained way, frees itself from hypothesis or assumption is the beginning or principle. It is what is arrived at only when one has completed the dialectical journey. It is for you not a principle you have arrived at, it is something you assume based on trust or faith.
Quoting Apollodorus
As already stated, this is not something you know. It is something you accept or believe, an opinion. It is for all of us who do not possess this knowledge nothing more than a shadow on the cave wall.
Quoting Apollodorus
Then the Good cannot be the cause of the whole.
Quoting Apollodorus
Plotinus is not Plato. In whatever way evil exists it still exists, it is part of the whole, part of the world we live in. No adequate account of the whole can ignore or explain away the existence of bad things. The Good as the cause of existence and being (509b) must be the cause of bad things, for there are bad things, bad things exist.
Quoting Apollodorus
A non-sequitur. It is not a matter of the dialogues being encyclopedic but of them being self-consistent, both on their own and all together.
Quoting Apollodorus
Noesis is not a reasoning faculty. It is not dianoia. That is the point. We cannot transcend reason by the use of reason. Unless you can free yourself from hypothesis and know the Forms themselves they remain for you hypotheses, assumptions, something you accept on faith, something you believe because someone told you it is true.
Quoting Apollodorus
Apparently, you do not see that this is exactly what is happening. You take statements at face value and go no further, as if the truth has been revealed. It is said and thus it is. Fine for revealed religion but not for philosophy.
Not at all. As usual, you seem to be alternating between diversion and evasion, on one hand and puerile ad hominems on the other, in the false hope that this is somehow miraculously going to save you even though you have already lost the argument. It looks like atheism is a form of religion after all :grin:
The fact of the matter is that Socrates advises the readers to use reason. And reason leads to noesis. Philosophy is a process of ascent from lower to higher forms of knowledge, remember?
Of course the dialogues are sufficiently self consistent. But the consistency only becomes apparent when viewed in the light of idealism, not materialist atheism and nihilism.
Quoting Fooloso4
Totally untrue. I never "rejected mention of Leibniz" at all. I rejected your preposterous claim that according to Leibniz Plato was a covert atheist as were Ibn Sina, Clement of Alexandria, and Plato himself.
I can quote your own statements anytime should you wish me to do so.
How do you know that dialectics leads to knowledge of the Good? You accept it as an article of faith.
Socrates also says this about dialectic:
If dialectic leads to knowledge of the good how is it that it can be a dangerous practice? How can it lead to both the good and its opposite?
Is Socrates lying when he says that he is ignorant? After all, he has no aversion to noble lies. But in what way might that be a noble lie? Perhaps it is something else he is lying about. What would he lie about that would be of benefit to both the individual and the city? It would have to be something noble or beautiful and good. Something that would inspire them to seek the beautiful and good itself. Something that would help to make their souls beautiful and good.
Quoting Apollodorus
Yes, please do and don't leave anything out, including your own statements.
Do you need more time? I'm not surprised. It takes a very long time to find something that is not there.
Not at all, I just hadn't realized you were still there. But I see you're still looking for evidence of Plato's non-existent "atheism" .... :grin:
Anyway, as I said, I think you deliberately misunderstood Socrates' analogy.
Socrates compares knowledge with perception, right?
In physical perception such as sight, the Sun radiates light which enables the faculty of sight through which objects become visible and are seen.
Similarly, the Good emanates truth which enables the faculty of knowledge through which objects become knowable and are known.
In the case of visual perception, the sequence is:
Sun > light > sight > object seen.
In the case of knowledge, the sequence is:
Good > truth > knowledge > object known.
The inner organ of knowledge is reason through which we engage in discursive thought (dianoia) to arrive at valid knowledge. But reason is inseparably connected with the nous through which we know by means of non-discursive or “intuitive” apprehension (noesis). In turn, the nous is connected with truth and its source, the Good.
What Socrates is saying is that in the same way we avoid looking directly at the Sun and look at its reflection in water, etc., we must avoid looking directly at the Good and start by looking at the objects of knowledge and the reasoning faculty whereby we know them.
The purpose of philosophical thought is to train the reasoning faculty to operate in harmony with the intuitive faculty and thus in harmony with truth and the Good.
Dialectic is only dangerous when reason is used incorrectly and out of sync with the nous/truth/Good.
There is nothing contradictory there.
I think you have agreed that according to Plato, philosophy is a way of life. But a way of life necessitates some form of intellectual framework that guides us in everyday life.
This is what Plato presents in the dialogues. It may not be perfect in the absolute sense of the word, but it doesn’t have to be, as long as it is sufficiently clear to provide a form of guidance on the basis of which we can live our lives both outwardly and inwardly.
A feeble attempt to dodge. If this had been the only time I would have just moved on as I did elsewhere, but it is dishonest. You misrepresent what I say, claim you can quote where I said it, and when you are called out just pretend you never said it.
Quoting Apollodorus
Please point to where I misunderstood him. The analogy stuff is obvious. Unless you possess knowledge of the good it all remains at the level of talk. Something you accept as a matter of faith.
Quoting Apollodorus
How do we know that it is being used incorrectly and out of sync with the nous/truth/Good. If it is what leads to nous/truth/Good then when cannot say while on the journey that it is out of sync with what we do not yet know.
Quoting Apollodorus
That is your assumption. One that I think is wrong and contrary to Socratic philosophy. It is zetetic, guided by inquiry. Any form of intellectual framework must be subject to critical examination.
Quoting Apollodorus
It has been pointed out to you several times and by more than one person, the dialogues often end in aporia.
Quoting Apollodorus
You clearly bring your Christian biases to bear on your reading of Plato.
Sorry, but I think what you are saying is totally and utterly untrue. It is you who is pretending that you never said it. You said Plato and/or Socrates secretly teaches "atheism" and now you say that you didn't.
Anyway, you are free to retract your statements, so it doesn't matter. What's the big deal?
Here it is again:
Quoting Apollodorus
And again:
Quoting Fooloso4
And now, since you are unable to do that you further misrepresent it.
And, of course, all this bluster and noise provides a good cover by which you can avoid the substantive issues such as those raised in my last post regarding dialectic and Socratic philosophy.
What "bluster and noise"? I have conclusively shown that Socrates' dialectic is sound and is quite capable of producing valid knowledge when correctly understood and applied:
Quoting Apollodorus
You even claimed to have correctly understood Socrates' analogy of the Sun. And yet you are saying that dialectic is "dangerous" and that Plato's concept of the Good is "foolish", in addition to claiming that he was a secret teacher of "atheism".
So, essentially, what you seem to be doing is to describe Plato in negative terms every time someone tries to extract something positive from the dialogues, and in positive term when you yourself believe to have discovered something negative in him, such as "atheism".
Surely, you must see the logical inconsistency and contradiction in your position?
You have not shown anything. You have quoted spoonfed passages. An analogy does not show that dialectic is "sound". If dialectic is capable of producing knowledge of the Good then why don't you know the good itself? Why does Socrates say he is ignorant and is only giving his opinion on this. I have already cited the passages and followed the arguments.
Quoting Apollodorus
Yes, and as an analogy I understand it as such.
Quoting Apollodorus
I am not saying it, I quoted the text.
Quoting Apollodorus
Please quote where I said that.
I won't ask again for you to point out where I said what you accused me of saying above, because as you know, your accusation is a fabrication. Each time you do this you become less and less credible. It really shows the weakness of your arguments when you have to resort to such misrepresentations.
As usual, you make a claim, then deny having made it, keep asking when you made it, and then you accuse others of repeating themselves when they show you that you actually made it!
Anyway, this is your statement:
Quoting Fooloso4
And I also explained to you that evil does not exist as a substance or property but as an absence of substance, form, and goodness. That's why it is experienced as evil or bad. This is what evil is, the absence of good.
And, of course, evil can also be excess, not only privation, as pointed out by Aristotle and others.
So, I don't think it is as "naive and foolish" as you claim. In fact, there are many theories of evil none of which are 100% satisfactory. All of them have their limitations. Plato's isn't any worse than others.
If you don't like Plato, you are free to invent your own system. But from what I see you can't even find evidence for your claim that Plato was an atheist. Yours is an unfounded fringe position.
The mainstream position is that Platonism is a form of metaphysical idealism.
You have chosen to take the fringe position according to which Socrates and Plato were secret teachers of “atheism”. Nothing wrong with this, but you have failed to establish your position as I said you would from the start.
You have used Socrates’ trial in an attempt to show he was an atheist.
But the fact of the matter is that Socrates was not tried for atheism but for “impiety” or “irreverence” on the grounds that he “introduced new deities”. Hence, not atheism but at the most religious reform.
As Plato was not tried for anything, the strategy you adopted in his case was that he was teaching atheism secretly for fear of being take to court like Socrates.
In support of your theory, you cited Clement of Alexandria and Ibn Sina who, apparently, believed that Plato and/or the Greeks in general, concealed secrets in their writings.
You also cited Leibniz. But Leibniz actually classified Plato as an idealist which contradicts your argument.
Ibn Sina may have said that Plato and Aristotle were teaching secrets. But these secrets need not have been atheism.
“Secrets” could mean a number of things, e.g., knowledge unknown to the general public, allegorical passages referring to metaphysical realities, etc.
If the Church Fathers thought that Plato taught atheism, it is unlikely they would have chosen Platonic philosophy in support of their own teachings. In fact, Plato was regarded as a type of Ur-Christian.
Certainly, every moderately well-educated person in antiquity would have said that Plato’s teachings are about “becoming as godlike as possible”. Plato taught that man can become godlike by living a virtuous or righteous life:
“Therefore we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the Gods as quickly as we can; and to escape is to become like God, so far as this is possible; and to become like God is to become righteous and holy and wise” (Theaethetus 176a – b).
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0172%3Atext%3DTheaet.%3Asection%3D176b
This became a central teaching of the Christian Gospels:
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12).
“He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came” (John 10:35).
“The people who are right with God will shine like the sun in their Father's kingdom” (Matthew 13: 43).
“So try to be like God, because you are his own dear children” (Ephesians 5:1).
In fact, we find that Plato’s disciple Aristotle was appointed head of the philosophical Academy of Macedon under King Philip II and tutor to his son Alexander.
Taking Plato’s teachings somewhat too literally, Phillip had already announced his wish to be treated as godlike or isotheos. Alexander himself followed in his father’s steps and declared himself a God: following his conquest of Egypt, he adopted the pharaonic title of “Son of God Re” and became “Son of Zeus” to the Greeks.
But Alexander was also a great promoter of Greek culture, including philosophy, which he propagated from Egypt to Persia and India, and so were his successors like Ptolemy Soter, the founder of the great library of Alexandria (Egypt) where the works of Plato and Aristotle held a place of honor. Under official state patronage, Platonism became the dominant philosophical school. And this would hardly have happened had Plato been a teacher of atheism.
In short, this is how Platonism was seen by Platonists and scholars from antiquity into the 19th century.
In the 1800’s under the influence of “enlightenment” ideas, liberalism, and "humanism", new schools of thought emerged, in particular, Christian Socialism and Fabian Socialism that began to “reinterpret” Plato in line with their political agendas.
The Fabians were particularly influential in leading universities like the London School of Economics and Political Science, Cambridge, and Oxford, where they sought to deconstruct Platonism as far as they could.
Judging by your posts, I had long suspected that you have been influenced by the Fabian Socialist authors of the 1930’s and, by your admission, Leo Strauss and Jacob Klein who started they career in the 1930’s.
I have shown that Strauss was an advocate of esotericism with close links to Fabian Socialism which explains your otherwise inexplicable fringe position.
"After receiving a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1932, Strauss left his position at the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin for Paris,” after which he made his way to the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) which had been founded by the Fabians and was funded by Rockefeller foundations.
“Some time during 1934, R. H. Tawney, at that time professor of economic history at the London School of Economics and at the very height of his academic fame and intellectual powers, took pity on an unknown, unemployed German-Jewish scholar, one recently exiled from his land of birth, and much in need of professional patronage and institutional preferment. His name was Leo Strauss.” - S. J. D. Green, “The Tawney-Strauss Connection: On Historicism and Values in the History of Political Ideas”, The Journal of Modern History Vol. 67, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 255-277 (23 pages) The University of Chicago Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2125059
Tawney was a member of the Fabian Society executive committee and Strauss became a close friend of his.
"Strauss moved in 1937 to the United States, under the patronage of Harold Laski"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss
Laski was a notorious Marxist and leading member of the Fabian Society executive committee, who frequently moved between the LSE and Rockefeller-funded US universities like Harvard and Columbia which had become centers of Fabian Socialism (which prompted David Rockefeller himself to write a thesis on Fabianism).
"Laski was one of Britain's most influential intellectual spokesmen for Communism in the interwar years".
"Laski returned to England in 1920 and began teaching government at the London School of Economics (LSE)"
And, "Strauss's closest friend was Jacob Klein" - Wikipedia
And now to Strauss’s teachings:
"Turning to the context of Strauss’s claims about esotericism helps to unravel a number of other important themes in his work, including what he calls the “theologico-political predicament of modernity,” the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, and the relation between revelation and philosophy (what Strauss also calls “Jerusalem and Athens”)"
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/strauss-leo/#Cont
"In the late 1930s his [Strauss'] research focused on the rediscovery of esoteric writing, thereby a new illumination of Plato and Aristotle, retracing their interpretation through medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy, and encouraging the application of those ideas to contemporary political theory."
Together with Fabian Socialists like Walter Lippmann, Strauss became a major influence on the intellectual classes of the time. However, his views were highly controversial from the start:
"Strauss's works were highly controversial during his own lifetime ... Strauss offered a deliberately provocative account of what might be called the "modernity problem" that had been widely debated in prewar European circles, but which was still relatively unknown to Americans of that era ...."
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/books/chapters/0625-1st-smith.html
If we add other writers like Bertrand Russell, G E Moore, G L Dickinson, R Crossman, etc., we can clearly see an anti-Platonist movement led by liberals, Christian Socialists and Fabian Socialists with a political agenda.
So, “Christian Socialism”, "Fabian Socialism", strange “reinterpretations” of Platonism, appeal to “puzzles” concerning analysis, "esotericism", “secret atheism”, etc., etc. All 1930’s politically-motivated, pseudoscientific gobbledygook.
You do not read with anything close to sufficient attention when you read at all. I quoted Plato and you call it "your statement". I correct you and you do the same thing again.
It is a willful blindness born of fear. Not only do you ignore my arguments, you ignore Plato's own. You dismiss the work of generations of scholars without having read a single page of their work because their teacher was born in the 30's and was helped to emigrate from Nazi Germany by scholars who were socialist.
This would be comically shallow except for the fact that this is the same kind of thing that led to McCarthyism in the US and ruined the lives of many people.
Except in your case it is Nazism. When you first came here you touted the work of Kerry Bolton. The connection is clear. By your own logic anyone who opposes Nazism would dismiss what you say because of this connection.
He is involved in several nationalist and fascist political groups in New Zealand.
In 1980, Bolton co-founded the New Zealand branch of the Church of Odin, a pro-Nazi organisation for "whites of non-Jewish descent".
He founded the national-socialist Order of the Left Hand Path (OLHP).It was intended to be an activist front promoting an "occult-fascist axis"
Bolton created and edited the Black Order newsletter, The Flaming Sword, and its successor, The Nexus, a satanic-Nazi journal
And to defend Bolton you cited Kevin B. MacDonald.
Kevin B. MacDonald (born January 24, 1944) is an American anti-semitic conspiracy theorist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and a retired professor of evolutionary psychology at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).[1][2][3] In 2008, the CSULB academic senate voted to disassociate itself from MacDonald's work.[4]
:rofl: Good try. Unfortunately for you, I never "touted" anything. It was a book I had just picked up and it discussed the rising use of psychological analysis in politics which myself and others here found an interesting topic.
So, I'm afraid you are clutching at straws there. According to you, first I was a "Christian evangelist", then a "Neoplatonist", and now I am supposed to be an "anti-semite" just because I disagree with Strauss and with you.
By your logic, anyone who disagrees with Marx is a "Nazi" and "war criminal". But I think by now you have amply demonstrated that logic (or even common sense) isn't your strength. To be quite honest, I think you may have some psychological issues that you need to address.
In any case, I don't think you are doing yourself a service by carrying on like this, but as I said, you can do as you please.
The mods edited out a lot of what you said.
Quoting Apollodorus
No, I am doing exactly what you did with Strauss, except in this case the evidence is stronger. You use the "psychological analysis" of a self-professed Nazi to support your own bias against socialism.
You object to being associated with the author of the book you touted, but can't seem to see that it is by a similar association you dismiss not only Strauss but generations of scholars who learned from him.
Only in your imagination. You volunteered to tell us that Strauss is one of your most important scholars whose ideas you are using in defense of your spurious theory.
But Strauss's ideas were very controversial from the start. He didn't demonstrate that Plato was an atheist and neither have you.
Yes, I said as much. I also said that over the years his views have become far more widely accepted.
Quoting Apollodorus
Of course he did not demonstrate that! You really haven't been able to follow any of this. But that is no surprise. You do not read with sufficient care. You mistake quotes from Plato as my own word, you refuse to follow his arguments where they lead for fear of what you may find, you harbor delusions of a nefarious conspiracy theory to destroy Platonism.
So, you actually agree with me.
Strauss of course did not demonstrate that Plato was an atheist. And neither have you.
I don't know what you hope to achieve by denying what you have already admitted.
If you knew the anything about Strauss you would know that. He provides a careful, detailed interpretation of the dialogues and leaves it up to the reader to draw conclusions.
Quoting Apollodorus
What I have done is point to the fact that Forms are not gods.
In that case, why are you using Strauss to support your spurious theory that Plato teaches atheism?
Quoting Fooloso4
They don't need to be Gods. They exist within the Good, the One or the Unmoved Mover, just like thoughts or ideas exist in the human mind.
That's precisely why Platonism is a form of metaphysical idealism and not atheism.
That is precisely why the distinction between Plato and Platonism is important. Aristotle's unmoved mover is not to be found anywhere in Plato. In addition, the question of who or what the unmoved mover or movers refers to remains an open question.
You cannot resolve one problem by introducing another, but you can muddle it all together and convince yourself that this is the solution.
You are not paying attention. I said the Good, the One or the Unmoved Mover:
Quoting Apollodorus
It doesn't matter what you call it. What matters is that it is an intelligent first principle that transcends and contains the Forms and everything else within itself.
The fact that there is no exact definition or description of it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that Plato is an atheist. You are clutching at straws and wasting your time.
Are you claiming that they all name the same or that we can pick the one we like?
Quoting Apollodorus
When the meaning of terms does not matter then it is all just arbitrary. The meaning of terms becomes whatever you want them to be in order to suit your beliefs.
Socratic philosophy is about the questioning and examination of opinions, but you use it as a way of confirming your beliefs. You have not even begun to understand what he teaches those who truly aspire to philosophy.
:grin: I think you are confused. The meaning is clear: intelligent first principle that transcends and contains all other things. What doesn't matter is the name you select to give it.
Anyway, the facts of the matter are these:
1. You have admitted that Socrates does not deny the existence of the Gods:
Quoting Fooloso4
2. You also have admitted that Strauss did not demonstrate that Plato was an atheist:
Quoting Fooloso4
3. And you have failed to demonstrate that either Plato or Socrates was an atheist.
As I said, you are wasting your time.
The Good as described in the Republic does not contain all other things. There are bad things in the world. They cannot be explained away as privation, and Plato never does. The fact is there are bad things and they are not caused by the Good, and so the Good cannot be the cause of all things.
The problem of the One and the many is never resolved in Plato.
In any case, an intelligent first principle is not something you know, it is something you believe. That it can be arrived at by speech and reason is not something you know either.
Quoting Apollodorus
And he does not deny the accusations of atheism either. And he does not affirm the existence of gods. And they are absent from the image of transcendent truth as well as from the dialectical journey to truth.
Quoting Apollodorus
If you mean by that trying to persuade you then that would be true. Not even Plato himself could do that. You would dismiss him as an anti-platonist. I do think that there may still be some here reading this thread who are not as closed-minded as you. Some who do not mistake their opinions for knowledge, who might find something of worth here.
It does as described in the analogy of the Sun, that's why I've repeatedly told you to go back to the analogy and read it again.
“The Sun, I presume you will say, not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation … In like manner, then, you are to say that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the Good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the Good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power … (Republic 509b ff.).
If the Good is the source of the existence of all known things, i.e., all known reality, in the same way the Sun is the source of light, then the Good must be the source of, and contain, everything that is real or known to us, in the same way particles of light are contained within the sphere of light radiating from the Sun. This is the logical implication.
As to your claim that Socrates was an "atheist", the dialogues show very clearly that he was not:
“For he says I am a maker of Gods; and because I make new Gods (?????? ???? kainoi theoi) and do not believe in the old ones, he indicted me for the sake of these old ones, as he says” (Euthyphro 3b).
Xenophon says the same:
“Socrates came before the jury after his adversaries had charged him with not believing in the Gods worshiped by the state and with the introduction of new deities in their stead and with corruption of the young” (Xenophon, Apology 10).
If the charge was that he introduced "other new deities", then the logical implication is that he believed in those deities he introduced.
Therefore, he was not an atheist.
And, as I quoted, it does not include the bad. This is why the dialogue needs to be read as a whole not as isolated statements.Quoting Apollodorus
Do you really not understand what this means?
Quoting Apollodorus
No, it means he makes them, just as the poets did. Just as Homer, the "divine poet" (Phaedo 95a) did.
Hesiod said:
The muses tell Hesiod that they speak lies like the truth (Theogony 27)
See David Sedley on Plato and Hesiod.
And as I said, the Good is an intelligent first principle that transcends and contains all other things:
Quoting Apollodorus
The same is clear from the Timaeus:
[33b] And he bestowed on it the shape which was befitting and akin. Now for that Living Creature which is designed to embrace within itself all living creatures the fitting shape will be that which comprises within itself all the shapes there are; wherefore He wrought it into a round, in the shape of a sphere, equidistant in all directions from the center to the extremities, which of all shapes is the most perfect and the most self-similar, since He deemed that the similar is infinitely fairer than the dissimilar … [33c] For of eyes it had no need, since outside of it there was nothing visible left over; nor yet of hearing, since neither was there anything audible; nor was there any air surrounding it ... For nothing went out from it or came into it from any side, since nothing existed … “ (Timaeus 33b – c).
The Good is an all-containing living being just like the Cosmos. The bad may logically be defined as absence of good. But Plato doesn't say and we can only go by what he says.
Quoting Fooloso4
You are clueless, aren't you? He makes them because he believes in them, just like any other believers make images of Gods because they believe in the Gods represented by the images. Even a kid can see that!
In the final analysis, there is no evidence that Socrates was an atheist and there is even less evidence that Plato was an atheist. It's just your wishful thinking caused by reading too many books by the anti-Platonist brigade.
If even Strauss failed to demonstrate that Plato was an atheist, how on earth do you imagine that you are going to succeed?
As I said, you are clutching at straws and wasting your time.
First you tried to explain this away, but now you just ignore it.
Quoting Apollodorus
In the Republic he says it is not a being but beyond being:
Quoting Apollodorus
Have you forgotten what you quoted?
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Apollodorus
This is really convoluted. If he makes them he knows their origin.
Quoting Apollodorus
He does not say he makes images of gods.
Quoting Apollodorus
I've addressed this but you don't like the answer so you post it again and again and again.
Quoting Apollodorus
You have an awful lot to say about someone you refuse to read.
It may be "convoluted" to the intellectually challenged.
However, an Athenian artisan or sculptor who made images of Gods did so because he believed in the Gods represented by the images.
Were this not the case, then all the artisans and sculptors of Greece who made divine images and those who commissioned the images, including the city of Athens itself, would have been atheist liars and frauds pretending to be religious. I think even you can see the absurdity of your claim.
Socrates made literary images of divine beings or metaphysical realities he believed in. Therefore, he was not an atheist.
Plato, Xenophon, and others certainly did not believe he was guilty as charged.
You read Plato as if it was revealed religion. In order to maintain the illusion and protect your beliefs you ignore everything in the text that is a threat to your beliefs. And because it has been said you believe you possess the truth.
“I do not think Strauss’s influence is as great in this country as some of Burnyeat’s remarks might suggest. It is no more “discernible” in our mainstream scholarship than in that of Britain. (Three good books on Socrates’ political thought have appeared during the last six years, one of them in the UK, two in the US; all three ignore Strauss completely: his name does not appear in their index.)” – Further Lessons of Leo Strauss: An Exchange, The New York Review, April 24 1986
“Strauss’s reading of the Symposium, like his reading of the Republic, is remarkable for its own “demotion of metaphysics” in Plato, and in my concluding remarks, I will question this status, or disappearance, of metaphysics in Strauss’s Platonism … Readers of On Plato’s “Symposium” can be left wondering about how Strauss can metaphilosophically ground his elevated claims on behalf of philosophy versus the poets and to what extent his own work remains a decisively rhetorical or poetic presentation of philosophy.” Matthew Sharpe, The Poetic Presentation of Philosophy: Leo Strauss on Plato’s “Symposium”2013
https://read.dukeupress.edu/poetics-today/article-abstract/34/4/563/21103/The-Poetic-Presentation-of-Philosophy-Leo-Strauss?redirectedFrom=fulltext
“It is hardly a secret that the ?gure and thought of Leo Strauss continues to provoke impassioned reactions from advocates and critics” J Bernstein 2014
Etc. etc.
So, for nearly a century, Strauss has been controversial and remains so to this day. He is not mainstream at all.
Be that as it may, here is an illustrative example of how Straussian influence can lead to flawed interpretive methodology.
Starting from an anti-metaphysical position, someone may be tempted to claim that Socrates’ statement “you must chant this to yourself” (Phaedo 114d) somehow proves that he is telling lies and, by extension, that everything that is being said in this and other dialogues is just “myths”.
However, the objective reading of the dialogue suggests that Socrates is doing his best to convince his friends of the immortality of the soul and of a happy afterlife for the virtuous (or righteous) in order to comfort them in the face of his imminent death. “Chant to yourself” means nothing else than “convince yourself”, i.e., “take comfort in my words”.
On reflection, it would make little sense for Socrates to tell a long story to comfort his friends only for him to say at the very end “actually, this is just a myth”.
When we start with unexamined (and I think unsubstantiated) assumptions of this kind for the sake of taking all metaphysical content out of the text, and use them to build an interpretive structure in the name of “Socratic skepticism” then we build a very shaky structure indeed that is no better than a house of cards.
IMHO such an approach is neither philosophically nor logically sound, but ideologically motivated. Strauss, after all, was not a scholar of Platonism. He taught political philosophy and he was influenced by anti-Platonists like Heidegger. So, Straussianism is not only controversial but positively biased and, as can be seen, can easily lead to unsubstantiated conclusions.
Round and round you go. Ignoring my answers, refusing to read an author because he was around in the 30's, and, most significantly, ignoring Plato whenever something is pointed out to you that goes against your narrow religious reading.
There is no sense going through once again what has already been covered.
I would be interested in seeing you demonstrate how Strauss came to unsubstantiated conclusions. I don't agree with him on many points but he has read the text carefully. Let us see you do as well.
Well, life tends to be circular and repetitive. We do the same things day after day. The solar system we live in is circular and repetitive with planets constantly going around the Sun, etc.
This is why the Sun is so important. The allegory of the Sun needs to be read carefully and understood properly.
The Republic says:
“Which one can you name of the divinities in heaven as the author and cause of this, whose light makes our vision see best and visible things to be seen?” “Why, the one that you too and other people mean for your question evidently refers to the Sun.” “Is not this, then, the relation of vision to that divinity?” (Rep 508a).
“This [the Sun], then, you must understand that I meant by the offspring of the Good which the Good begot to stand in a proportion with itself: as the Good is in the intelligible region to reason and the objects of reason, so is this [the Sun] in the visible world to vision and the objects of vision.” (Rep 508b - c ).
And the Timaeus:
“Let us now state the Cause wherefore He that constructed it constructed Becoming and the All. He was good, and in him that is good no envy ariseth ever concerning anything; and being devoid of envy He desired that all should be, so far as possible, like unto Himself. This principle, then, we shall be wholly right in accepting from men of wisdom as being above all the supreme originating principle of Becoming and the Cosmos. For God (? ???? ho Theos) desired that, so far as possible, all things should be good and nothing evil; wherefore, when He took over all that was visible, seeing that it was not in a state of rest but in a state of discordant and disorderly motion, He brought it into order out of disorder, deeming that the former state is in all ways better than the latter. For Him who is most good it neither was nor is permissible to perform any action save what is most fair" (Tim 29d e)
It is immediately apparent from the text that the Good is compared to the Sun who is a God. So, the analogy equates not only the Sun and the Good as ultimate cause, the former in the realm of the sensible and the latter in the realm of the intelligible, but also as godhead:
1. The Sun is the offspring of the Good.
2. The Maker and Father of the Cosmos (including the Sun) is God.
3. Therefore, the Good is God.
There is just one qualification. Though the text refers to God as “good”, the Good is not God in his totality, but only in his creative aspect that is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe.
Therefore, the Form of good is not God, it is only an Idea or Universal within the mind of God.
It isn’t about my beliefs, but about Plato’s beliefs as expressed in the dialogues. The dialogues must be read through the eyes of a 4th century BC Greek, not through the eyes of al-Farabi, Ibn Sina or Ben Maimon, and even less through the eyes of a Schleiermacher or Strauss.
When carefully read, the Platonic “secrets” mentioned by authors like Ibn Sina, do not refer to atheism but to the divinity of the Cosmos, the essential identity of the soul with the divine, and other things that were unspeakable under strict Islamic rule - as may be seen from the example of al-Hallaj.
IMHO Schleiermacherism and Straussianism, especially when combined, can only lead to nihilism which is diametrically opposed to what Plato teaches.
I said "Straussianism" by which I meant Strauss as applied by his followers like Fooloso4:
Quoting Apollodorus
Fooloso4 claims that Plato is an atheist. But he has failed to demonstrate this and he has admitted that Strauss did not demonstrate that Plato is an atheist either:
Quoting Fooloso4
By following Strauss, he has arrived at a conclusion that he is unable to prove.
He knows nothing about Strauss or "Straussians" or his students who do not call themselves Straussias, and yet he is ready to dismiss generations of scholars without ever having read them. He condemns him by association with philosophers he argued against.
As you note, Strauss was a careful reader. His best students are as well. Apollodorus in his ignorance assumes they must be like him, unable to think for themselves and mistaking opinions for revealed truth.
Johann Jacob Brucker (Historia Critica Philosophiae, 1742–1744): rejects traditional allegorical interpretations of Plato, but accepts that he taught secret doctrines (without attempting to establish what these were).
Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann (History of Philosophy, 1798 - 1819): denies that Plato was a mystic but promotes esotericism and claims to have discovered Plato’s secret teachings.
Friedrich Schleiermacher (Introduction to Plato’s Dialogues, 1804 - 1828): claims that Plato was a metaphysical agnostic, stating that “In the writings of Plato his own peculiar wisdom is either not contained at all, or only in secret allusions which are difficult to find”.
Paul Shorey (What Plato Said, 1933): follows the one-dialogue-at-a-time method of reading, claiming that “the synopsis of any dialogue can be understood without reference to the others”.
Leo Strauss (1930’s): rejects the traditional view that theory should rule over practice; denies the metaphysical content of the dialogues; extends esotericism into concealed meaning, claiming that all philosophers write under political persecution and present an exoteric teaching available to all readers and an esoteric one that only “thoughtful” and “careful” readers can access by “reading between the lines” in order to extract a political message – giving Ben Maimon as example (Persecution and the Art of Writing, 1952).
In addition to the strange concept of (1) philosophers as persecuted through the ages and (2) philosophy being reduceable to political theory concealed in literary works, there are other issues with Strauss.
For example, “Strauss taught that the only natural human good is the philosophic life of the philosophic few, because he claimed "man's desire to know as his highest natural desire." And only the philosophic few have "the philosophic desire." They are the only ones "by nature fit for philosophy." Consequently, the great multitude of human beings who live non-philosophic but moral lives are "mutilated" human beings, who live lives of "human misery, however splendid" or "despair disguised by delusion." (Strauss, "Reason and Revelation," 146, 149, 176; "Progress or Return?," 122; The City and Man, 53-54.)
Oddly, however, Strauss never offered any demonstrative proof of this strange assertion.”
https://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/2019/07/does-aristotelian-natural-right-require.html
So, elitism may be added to esotericism and antimetaphysics among Strauss’s many strange teachings. And, of course, even the notion that he is “a careful reader” has been disputed as may be seen from the blog above.
But to revert to Plato.
Strauss may or may not be a “careful reader”, but I do believe that Plato is a careful writer. Everything he writes has a purpose.
If “careful reading” leads to dismissal of a large part of the corpus then there must be something wrong with the reading.
It is generally acknowledged that there is substantial metaphysical and theological content in the Platonic corpus.
For example, in the Timaeus, “The heavenly bodies are divine and move in their various orbits to serve as markers of time: the fixed stars to mark a day/night, the moon to mark the (lunar) month and the sun to mark the year. Time itself came into being with these celestial movements as an “image of eternity.” Individual souls are made up of the residue (and an inferior grade) of the soul stuff of the universe, and are eventually embodied in physical bodies. “
Plato’s Timaeus - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
IMHO we can’t just ignore the many references to God/s in the dialogues and claim that “Plato banished the Gods (or God)”. To do so, is not “careful reading” at all, it is ideologically-motivated distortion.
You are not moving the discussion forward. You are simply repeating the same misguided complaints over and over, pulling passages from Plato out of context, and still not comprehending the difference between logos and mythos as used by Plato.
Strauss’s writing is a form of schizoid argumentation designed not to elucidate anything but to get the reader to agree with him and draw him into his cult-like circle of select “thoughtful philosophers”:
For another excellent scholarly refutation of Strauss see:
Mikes F. Burnyeat, “Sphinx without a Secret,”New York Review of Books, May 30 1985.
But to revert to Plato. Plato’s theology is evident from the cosmological and metaphysical elements found in his corpus. There is an extensive literature on Plato’s theology by leading scholars like Sedley, Gerson, and others, for example:
D. Sedley, Plato’s Theology
D. Sedley, Plato’s Timaeus and Hesiod’s Theogony
L. Gerson, From Plato’s Good to Platonic God
P. Panagiotis, Plato’s Theology in the Timaeus
F. Solmsen, Plato’s Theology
Strauss is not normally mentioned in the literature for the simple reason that he is not a scholar of Platonism, in addition to having highly controversial views as well as a controversial methodology, and looking at Plato through the eyes of Ben Maimon and al-Farabi.
Leo Strauss on Farabi, Maimonides, et al. in the 1930’s| SpringerLink
In contrast, Solmsen, who fled Nazi Germany at the same time as Strauss, has a classicist background which makes him a much better source on the subject.
Solmsen shows how the emergence of an intellectual class in Plato’s time had resulted in religious beliefs becoming a subject of philosophical discussion.
But the trend to question religion was accompanied by an opposite trend (in addition to allegorical interpretations) to present arguments and theories as a theoretical foundation for theology, thus not to deconstruct religion but to reinforce it with the help of reason.
Plato’s own work must be seen as part of a wider effort to reform civic religion with the help of new standards drawn from a philosophical and philosophically elaborated system of values:
F. Solmsen, Plato’s Theology – Internet Archive
The content of Plato’s new religion becomes even more clear from later works like Timaeus and Laws:
As Taylor put it,
Plato’s immediate successors such as Xenocrates and Philip of Opus acknowledge the theological content of Plato’s teachings, and the dialogues clearly allow the reconstruction of a basic theology in which the World-Soul is the central deity with the Demiurge/the Good also playing a role as I have shown here.
It follows that Plato’s dialogues are not about “atheism”, but religious reform. In fact, as shown by A. E. Taylor, Plato is against atheism:
Plato was a highly intelligent writer. And the intelligent believe in intelligence and write for the intelligent. The word “theology” theologia which Plato introduces in the Republic (379a) provides a key to the correct understanding of Plato. It is composed of the words theos, “god”, and logos, “word, discussion, study, reason”, therefore it can mean (1) “things said about God/s”, (2) “discussion of God/s” and, significantly, (3) “reason for God/s”.
In other words, Plato created a theology for philosophers that at the same time was a philosophy for the religious. His ideas satisfied both the religious and the philosophers among the intellectual class, while the non-intellectual majority preserved their traditional religion. It was the perfect solution, which is why Platonism became both popular and prestigious, and remained so for many centuries.
The neoplatonists are really platonists. Maybe those who got disillusioned with official politics or were more inclined to study and mysticism.
Western philosophy,the Christian Church and science are all influenced by platonic thinking.
Egyptian philosophy had an impact on socrates thinking,and a huge effect on platos thinking.
The thinking of the Egyptian book of the dead is hugely influential on all three abrahamic religions and platonism.
Still defending your Christian neoplatonist reading of Plato. Protecting the one true religion from the heretics.
As shown by Gerson and others, some modifications in Platonic philosophy did take place in the course of history, but Platonism (including so-called "Neo-Platonism") is built on core features found in the Platonic corpus and is sufficiently consistent with Plato to qualify as Platonic.
In any case, Straussianism does not demonstrate anti-Platonist claims such as that Plato was an "atheist" or even a "skeptic".
Even as political philosophy, Straussianism has received justified criticism, e.g. :
“The most serious consequences of this [Strauss’s] essentialist political philosophy are: (1) it is egocentric and thus self-refuting as a political philosophy and (2) it is too scholastic a quietism to be directly relevant to political life despite Strauss’s own claim to the contrary” – H. Y. Jung, “Leo Strauss’s Conception of Political Philosophy: A Critique”.
More to the point, Straussianism is not a scientifically valid method of interpretation. It is more like a nihilist belief system based on a set of assumptions that are accepted as a matter of faith and whose conclusions remain unproved.
Tellingly, Straussianism’s central thesis is also its most controversial claim:
“The most controversial claim Strauss made was that philosophers in the past used an “art of writing” to entice potential philosophers to begin a life of inquiry by following the hints the authors gave about their true thoughts and questions” - Catherine H. Zuckert
Where did Strauss get his idea from?
“Recent works on Strauss have emphasized the way Strauss’s readings in al-Farabi and Maimonides influenced his “exoteric writing” thesis” – B. A. Wurgaft
Having borrowed his idea from Maimonides and al-Farabi (who lived in Muslim-occupied Spain), Strauss applied this to his reading of Plato:
“Having discovered the idea of esoteric writing in his study of Maimonides, Strauss arrived at a very novel reading of Plato. When reflecting on the esoteric writing style of Plato, instead of focusing on the confrontation between philosophy and revealed religion, Strauss found a tension between open philosophical inquiry and the needs of a closed political community … This tension between political life and philosophy led Plato to use the dialogue form, embellished by myths, as his distinctive mode of speech” - G B Smith
What else does this tell us aside from implying that Plato’s main interest in life was politics?
“Strauss leaves us with a picture of Plato, as a questioning skeptic, which points forward to the modern interpreter rather than backward. Strauss’s publicized turning back to antiquity was largely about reading eighteenth-century rationalism back into ancient texts” – Paul Gottfried
So, Strauss’s methodology does not seem to be quite kosher?
“Straussianism, from the founder onward, is dubious as a methodology” – Paul Gottfried
In fact, Strauss’s methodology is not only dubious but it fails to answer any philosophical questions whatsoever:
“[Strauss] has laid out the modern crisis so boldly and analyzed its main forms so thoroughly and he has taught us how to read the classic texts to grasp the problem of natural right. Yet, just when the issues are joined so forcefully, he fails to give an answer …. In Natural Right and History Strauss argues that classical natural right is superior to modern natural rights, but he nowhere shows how classic natural right is anything more than rhetoric … Nowhere does Strauss provide solutions to, or show how Plato or Aristotle provided solutions to, fundamental epistemological problems found in Plato's own work. Nowhere does he engage Aristotle's metaphysics or biology in search of natural right, in the way that Aristotle himself might have done. Nowhere does he seriously engage the nature of the physical cosmos. On his own view, philosophy must aspire to and thus assume a comprehensive account of the whole. But to invoke the whole--a cosmos--immediately raises the question of the grounds on which we can assume that whole to be intelligible. Such a move, of course, leads to classic natural theology, which Strauss studiously ignores … as a teaching about wisdom, about the very highest things, the Straussian secret is ultimately a check drawn on an empty account” – Richard Sherlock
So Strauss’s project is more rhetoric than philosophy. Not surprisingly, his work has been largely ignored by scholars:
“[Strauss’s] books and papers are freely available on the side of the Atlantic from which I write, but Strauss has no discernible influence in Britain at all” – M. F. Burnyeat
“Strauss’s works on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, to a significant degree, have been ignored by the scholarly community” – Gregory Bruce Smith
So, what is Straussianism for?
“What most (albeit not all) Straussians do in academic positions is try to enforce political dogmas, partly by getting rid of critics and installing fellow-Straussians ….” – Paul Gottfried
Does this mean that Straussianism is a kind of academic cult with a political agenda?
“He [Strauss] alone among eminent refugee intellectuals succeeded in attracting a brilliant galaxy of disciples who created an academic cult around his teaching” – Lewis Coser
“I submit in all seriousness that surrender of the critical intellect is the price of initiation into the world of Leo Strauss’s ideas” – M. F. Burnyeat
So, is Strauss a philosopher at all?
In Strauss’s own words, “We cannot be philosophers, but we can love philosophy; we can try to philosophize.”
Here are some of Strauss’s pseudo-philosophical techniques and statements:
He begins with an inference from literary form. Plato wrote dialogues, i.e., dramas in prose. Therefore, the utterances of Socrates or any other character in a Platonic dialogue are like the utterances of Macbeth: they do not necessarily express the thought of the author. Like Shakespeare, “Plato conceals his opinions.”
Strauss paraphrases the text in tedious detail - or so it appears to the uninitiated reader - occasionally remarking that a certain statement is not clear; he notes that the text is silent about a certain matter; he wonders whether such and such can really be the case. With a series of scarcely perceptible nudges he gradually insinuates that the text is insinuating something quite different from what the words say.
For example, he attempts to show that Plato’s Republic means the opposite of what it means (and sometimes the opposite of what he himself says it means, vide supra, Ferrari).
He simply pronounces Plato’s Theory of Forms “utterly incredible”.
He offers no evidence for the accuracy of his readings.
Readers have to accept Strauss’s account of “the wisdom of the ancients” as correct, by believing that “the considerate few have imperturbably conveyed to their readers an eloquence of articulate silences and pregnant indications.”
By way of “answers”, he keeps repeating the mantra “we are prisoners of our opinions”.
So, it appears that Strauss’s claim that Plato and other philosophers used rhetorical stratagems including self-contradiction and hyperboles, to convey a secret meaning, applies in the first instance to Strauss himself.
But, whilst Plato allegedly uses rhetoric to say things he does not appear to be saying, Strauss often says little in order to say nothing: thirteen out of the fifteen chapters of his last book, Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy do not deal with works by Plato!
- Burnyeat, “Sphinx Without a Secret”
Having suggested that Plato’s works are motivated by political concerns, Strauss says that the Laws is Plato’s “most political” work and that “it may be said to be his only political work.”
“In the chapter on Book Nine [of the Laws, Strauss indicates that Book 10 is philosophic because it takes up “the problem of the gods,” but when he turns to Book 10 he does not specifically identify the problem that he has in mind.”
“Strauss says that the Laws is Plato’s most pious work without identifying what makes it most pious and without explaining if there is any connection between its political character and its surpassing piety” – Mark J. Lutz, “On Leo Strauss’s The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws”, Brill’s Companion to Leo Strauss’ Writings on Classical Political Thought
For the above reasons, Straussianism’s credibility and authority among scholars of Plato is close to zero.
Far from refuting the Platonists' position, Straussianism's reading of Plato actually reinforces it, showing it to be more consistent and more faithful to the original texts.
I'm not sure if your addressing me or fooloso4.
Are you agreeing with the post I made Or?
I do agree. I was just trying to explain what the Straussian position taken by Fooloso4 is and why I believe it is wrong.
OK. With regard to Strauss,one must realise he was a very tricky political academic.
Strauss made some valid points about plato writing esoterically at times,and gearing his writings to particular audiences and mindsets.
The laws expresses a lot of platos political vision,and the timaeus his cosmology.
But platos higher doctrines were oral and taught to those he deemed acquainted with the mysteries and at a much higher level.
These doctrines have been preserved by the neo platonists,and with time and strauss and others the emphasis is less religiously explicit.
Modern platonists can preach secularism and worship of the secular good and law to the masses and be mystics who believe in divine union in private.
I think the main issue is what Plato's own intention was.
I tend to believe that he wrote for educated intellectuals, i.e., a relatively small social and economic class who, as stated above, included philosophers with an interest in religion and religious people with an interest in philosophy.
This was the appeal of Platonism: (1) on one level it allowed the masses to preserve their religion, (2) on a higher level it provided intellectuals with a philosophy that at the same time was a theology, and (3) on the highest level it provided mystics with a philosophical and theological framework for their own spiritual practices.
So, yes, Plato's philosophy is certainly suitable for mystics.
From accounts about Socrates it may be inferred that he was a kind of mystic or contemplative, who had little interest in mainstream religion or politics.
But Strauss is not the only one you have not read in your attempt to discredit him. Two of the authors you cite, Gregory Bruce Smith and Mark J. Lutz, hold Strauss in high regard, which would become clear if you actually read the articles you cite.
Like any thinker worthy of consideration, there are those who reject some or all of what Strauss says. You might as well make a collection of detractors of Plato.
But none of this really matters. What matters to you is defending your Christian neoplatonist reading of Plato. It has gone far beyond stating and defending your position. It reeks of desperation and intolerance.
Yep. I agree with your view of socrates.
On plato I agree with what you have stated,but,and it's a big but,platos main aim was political power,a kind of theocracy,rule by an elite of educated platonists.
And that is what strauss picks up.
To me plato himself and political power are inseperable.
To plato rulers should be implementing the "divine" laws
and "the good" like vicgerents or even better divine rulers.
Totally wrong. I am simply presenting the position of scholars and explaining why Strauss does not demonstrate that Plato is an atheist, as you yourself have admitted.
You keep forgetting that Strauss is a political philosopher with controversial views, not a scholar of Plato.
As already stated, the facts of the matter are as follows:
1. You have admitted that Socrates does not deny the existence of the Gods:
Quoting Fooloso4
2. You also have admitted that Strauss did not demonstrate that Plato was an atheist:
Quoting Fooloso4
3. And you have failed to demonstrate that either Plato or Socrates was an atheist.
So, basically, (1) you are denying the facts, (2) you are contradicting yourself, and (3) you call people "Christian neoplatonists" for pointing this out.
You keep forgetting that you have not read Strauss. If you did you would know that he was a scholar of Plato. Many of his students continue to do scholarly work on Plato.
You also keep forgetting that the topic of this thread is not Strauss.
Whether deliberate or not you have made clear your misunderstanding of what I have said. I am not going to go over it again. If you think you have correctly understood me but do not agree then what do you hope to gain by repeating it all yet again? Why so much intolerance of views other than your own?
Of course he does, he was a political scientist.
However, Plato's politics has been interpreted in many different and mutually contradictory ways. To some he was a "communist", to others he was a "reactionary", etc. So, this is a matter of debate.
But the main point is that it is very difficult to interpret Plato's philosophy as "atheism" or "skepticism".
Certainly, we can't say "Socrates says he knows nothing", "Socrates hasn't seen the Forms", etc., and then read all kinds of spurious theories into it as Fooloso4 seems to be doing.
No doubt plato is not a sceptic or an atheist.
Neither is socrates. Socrates knew the "good" and about life after death,he clearly knew the mysteries and egyptian monotheism. Socrates was disillusioned with politics but had his ideas of an ideal state.
But also,definitely definately plato is a theocrat.
As I said, Plato's political theory may be interpreted in many different ways. It may be argued that he advocated a form of theocracy. But we must not forget that religion already played an important role in the Athenian city-state. So, the Athenian system wasn't too far from theocracy.
The thing is that "theocracy" means different things to different people at different times. Perhaps one example of modern theocracy would be Iran. Apparently, Ayatollah Khomeini was inspired by the Platonic vision of the philosopher king while in Qum in the 1920s when he became interested in Islamic mysticism and Plato's Republic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher_king#Modern_Iran
But, yes. It is totally wrong to portray Socrates as an ignoramus and then put all kinds of "atheist" or "skeptical" theories into his mouth as anti-Platonists do. He definitely sounds like a spiritual person to me and this has been pointed out by many respected scholars like A. E. Taylor.
To clarify,he wanted a certain type of theocracy.
A philosopher king pharaonic type of ruling elite.
The Greek system he inhabited was not the kind of theocracy he wanted.
The Iranian example is a good one. But I think plato would have wanted a more expansionist version. Like the US or the UK.
Of course socrates was spiritual,that's the whole point of the dialogues!
But by the same token,if anybody wants to reduce plato to socrates spirituality or some pure academic or even just a mystic,they are wrong. He was mystical,a theorist,spiritual but above all wanted to be a catalyst for a political movement and build a real practical theocracy.
Those who ignore platos politics are not looking at his ultimate intention.
That is entirely possible. After all, the Greeks had colonies throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea region. So, there was a lot of potential for Greece to become a maritime empire like England.
Perhaps Alexander's father Philip II already harbored some ambitions in this direction, and certainly Alexander himself set out to create an empire.
But I think the main element in Greek imperialism was cultural and Platonism played a central role in it, precisely because it appealed to many different people and especially to the ruling upper classes. All Greek (and later Roman) rulers fancied themselves philosophers and I'm sure Plato's idea of "philosopher-kings" had something to do with this.
Yep. I agree with all that!
All movements and religions need to appeal to elite classes and the masses,so plato catered for both.
And I'm sure his models were used by the later Greeks and Romans as you say.
In truth,many modern elites and rulers follow loosely this platonic way,but their systems are home grown like the kaabalah or pharaonic system.
Apparently, even by the British:
“These differences of opinion on economic matters within the Group did not disrupt the Group, because it was founded on political rather than economic ideas and its roots were to be found in ancient Athens rather than in modern Manchester. The Balliol generation, from Jowett and Nettleship, and the New College generation, from Zimmern, obtained an idealistic picture of classical Greece which left them nostalgic for the fifth century of Hellenism and drove them to seek to reestablish that ancient fellowship of intellect and patriotism in modern Britain. The funeral oration of Pericles became their political covenant with destiny. Duty to the state and loyalty to one's fellow citizens became the chief values of life. But, realizing that the jewel of Hellenism was destroyed by its inability to organize any political unit larger than a single city, the Milner Group saw the necessity of political organization in order to insure the continued existence of freedom and higher ethical values and hoped to be able to preserve the values of their day by organizing the whole world around the British Empire.”
– Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment
According to Quigley, the Milner Group was a group of liberal imperialist bankers, industrialists, and intellectuals, who were behind the conversion of the British Empire into the Commonwealth. Obviously, the Greek model suited their purposes.
But Strauss himself was an elitist who believed that only would-be philosophers like himself and his disciples were in possession of truth and everyone else were inferior human material.
So, basically, Strauss aimed to replace religion with another, belief-based system founded on atheist political theory. This is why he stressed Plato’s political philosophy and ignored or ridiculed his metaphysical and religious teachings.
But maybe Fooloso4 knows more about Strauss as he seems to be an unrepentant believer in Straussianism.
Without a doubt bankers,industrialists,military men and politicians from elite families use platos and others ideas to bolster their control and gain more political power.
I would say the line is effectively unbroken from egyptian times till now.
But a nuance I think you should take on board is that just like Judaism adapted to the extent that one can be a secularist and still be a member of Judaism,even high ranking and in political office,so platonism and all the other theocratic movements are adaptable enough to appear or even promote secularism.
But of course,the top boys think they are all "gods"in the making or actually "gods"....
Just witness modern culture...
Correct. People forget that politics is about power. Some "celebrities" imagine that because they have a few thousand followers they can run for the White House. Allegedly, this is because they want "to change the world", but in reality it is just a big power-motivated ego-trip.
Everyone thinks they are or should be "gods," which is why they dismiss Plato's teaching according to which becoming godlike involves cultivation of virtues and arduous intellectual training and, above all, self-discipline and self-control as well as detachment from material things and everything else that it takes to overcome selfishness, narcissism and arrogance.
Maybe this is why some are against religion, because religion believes in a higher authority and puts would-be "gods" in their places. And this is why they hate Socrates and Plato ....
My take is different. I don't doubt that a person can use platos work to increase discipline and spirituality in a positive way.
But the way it used in government is to actually increase one's discipline in being more ruthless and becoming a god king.
Becoming godlike to the higher elites means more disciplined acquisition of power and wealth,and micromanaging the populace via media, govt institutions and education to be an efficient workforce.
Therefore, the point of view is not inherently atheist as you keep arguing it is. You keep forgetting that it is your argument that the position is atheistic. It is not being claimed by Fooloso4.
quote="Apollodorus;564365"]From accounts about Socrates it may be inferred that he was a kind of mystic or contemplative, who had little interest in mainstream religion or politics.[/quote]
The Republic, Gorgias, Phaedo, and The Statesman suggest otherwise. Or the burden of proof is upon you to demonstrate otherwise since those topics are discussed in those dialogues.
Quoting Apollodorus
That is a more "Straussian" perspective than I take. The esoteric versus exoteric argument relates to political arguments about an "intellectual" aristocracy. Strauss also is not a "secularist" that in your other writings are identified as "Marxist."
The particulars of the various topics being discussed aside, I don't understand your passion to have the last word on the subject. If the meaning has been completely worked out, there is no need to read texts themselves. It is like an Hegelian synthesis that puts the pin into the last butterfly of a species. When you see an argument, the first thing you do is google who is against it. It is all dead for you.
It strikes me as perverse. Anyone who has been doing this for more than a minute expects that there will be those who see things differently than you do, but once that difference has been stated and defended that really should be the end of it. Endlessly arguing the same thing across three different threads is at best pointless and intolerant and at worst ...?
Quoting Valentinus
If your son is still reading I trust the two of you are getting a good laugh out of his continued attacks on someone he has not read. Not to the mention generations of scholars he dismisses because they were Strauss' students or students of his students. My favorite is when Apollodorus attempted to discredit him because he was writing in the 1930's and/or had been aided as an emigree by socialist academics.
My son says virtuous rulers will work toward the good while others will not. The question is what the good thing is. So the instrument of power is no guarantee of the the good result. It has to be actually good.
That is both the question and what one hopes to accomplish. But as long as what the good is remains a question we can never be certain that what we strive to accomplish is good. We seek what is best without knowing what is best.
Well, I've been accused of being an "evangelist", "Christian Neo-Platonist", and many other things which are totally untrue. So, I'm not the only one doing that.
Besides, it seems that you haven't followed the discussion. I was citing Solmsen who I believe is a more reliable scholar than Strauss.
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Valentinus
I have no such passion whatsoever. It is an ongoing discussion, isn't it???
Yes, I did google Strauss after Fooloso4 claimed he is a leading scholar of Plato whom he follows and after noticing that he is not mentioned by other scholars like Gerson.
Fooloso4 is accusing me of reading Plato through "Neo-Platonist" eyes, but he appeals to Strauss who looks at Plato through the eyes of al-Farabi and Ben Maimon.
And Fooloso4 did suggest that Socrates was an atheist and that Plato "banished the Gods":
Quoting Fooloso4
This is not true. Plato only banishes poets and artists who make irreverent references about the Gods. This isn't the same as "banishing the Gods". Plato certainly doesn't banish God. So, if anything, he replaces the Gods with one supreme and transcendent Deity. But he does believe in heavenly bodies as Gods, so he doesn't banish God or Gods as such. As Solmsen and others point out, Plato is a religious reformer, not an atheist.
Well, you are still the one who claims Foolso4 is advocating for "atheism". But he keeps saying he is not doing that. You do not deal with that. What is the point of your constant repetition if you do not address his point of view?
It seems pointless.
Of course I have addressed it. But he insisted that Socrates was tried for atheism. To which I replied that
the charge was "making other new deities" which implies that he believed in those deities in the same way an artisan or sculptor making images of Gods for domestic or temple use would believe in the Gods represented by the images. We are talking about 4th-century BC Athens, not 21st-century Chicago.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is supported by the Symposium where it is said that Socrates is full of words or speeches that are like divine images fashioned by artisans. Thus, not "inventions", but literary images of metaphysical realities that Socrates and others believed in.
What is the point in Fooloso4 saying "Socrates and Plato are not atheists" and at the same time saying "Socrates was tried for atheism," "Plato banishes the Gods," etc., etc. and calling people names when they disagree?
What the Greeks knew of the gods was through the tales of the poets. Banishing the poets means banishing the gods. In place of the Greek gods, speech about gods, that is, theologia, will be the creation of the founders of the city (Republic 379a)
Quoting Apollodorus
He replaces the gods with the Good. He does not call the Good a god. That is something you read into the text.
Quoting Apollodorus
I don't have to insist on it, just read the Apology. I've already cited the relevant passages.
Well. if there is "speech about the Gods", then presumably there are Gods to speak about.
Quoting Fooloso4
Plato compares the Good to the Sun. The Sun is a God in Greek religion.
Quoting Fooloso4
Right, so there you go again. You are implying that Socrates was an atheist. But he was charged with "making new deities". And those deities were beings he believed in.
“For he says I am a maker of Gods; and because I make new Gods (?????? ???? kainoi theoi) and do not believe in the old ones, he indicted me for the sake of these old ones, as he says” (Euthyphro 3b).
Xenophon says the same:
“Socrates came before the jury after his adversaries had charged him with not believing in the Gods worshiped by the state and with the introduction of new deities in their stead and with corruption of the young” (Xenophon, Apology 10).
If the charge was that he introduced "other new deities", then the logical implication is that he believed in those deities he introduced.
You might presume so, but in making stories about the gods does not entail the existence of gods.
Quoting Apollodorus
And Plato's philosophy is not Greek religion. Your failure to see the difference is why you cannot understand Plato's philosophy and see only religion.
Quoting Apollodorus
Right, there you go again, ignoring the text. (26c)
(Quoting Apollodorus
Like the poets, he is a maker of images without originals. Or do you think the Olympian gods or any other gods they made actually existed?
More Straussian straw men!
Making stories about the Gods may not entail the existence of Gods, but it may entail belief in the Gods described in the stories. The only alternative is to assume that the story makers, and by implication Plato, are liars which is absurd IMHO.
Quoting Fooloso4
I see what the text says. If the text says "God/s" then it is irrational to claim that it doesn't.
“Which one can you name of the divinities in heaven as the author and cause of this, whose light makes our vision see best and visible things to be seen?” “Why, the one that you too and other people mean for your question evidently refers to the Sun.” “Is not this, then, the relation of vision to that divinity?” (Rep 508a).
“This [the Sun], then, you must understand that I meant by the offspring of the Good which the Good begot to stand in a proportion with itself: as the Good is in the intelligible region to reason and the objects of reason, so is this [the Sun] in the visible world to vision and the objects of vision.” (Rep 508b - c ).
1. The belief that the Sun is a God is Greek religion.
2. The belief that the Sun God is the offspring of the Good (which, by implication, is divine) is Platonic religion.
3. Plato combines traditional religion with his own theology.
Quoting Fooloso4
Here is the text:
[26c] these very gods about whom our speech now is, speak still more clearly both to me and to these gentlemen. For I am unable to understand whether you say that I teach that there are some gods, and myself then believe that there are some gods, and am not altogether godless and am not a wrongdoer in that way, that these, however, are not the gods whom the state believes in, but others, and this is what you accuse me for, that I believe in others; or you say that I do not myself believe in gods at all and that I teach this unbelief to other people. “That is what I say, that you do not believe in gods at all.” You amaze me, Meletus! Why do you say this?
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DApol.%3Asection%3D26c
The statement "you do not believe in Gods at all" is not the charge on which Socrates is being tried, it is an allegation that Meletus makes during the trial. You seem to be confusing one with the other.
“For he says I am a maker of Gods; and because I make new Gods (?????? ???? kainoi theoi) and do not believe in the old ones, he indicted me for the sake of these old ones, as he says” (Euthyphro 3b).
Xenophon says the same:
“Socrates came before the jury after his adversaries had charged him with not believing in the Gods worshiped by the state and with the introduction of new deities in their stead and with corruption of the young” (Xenophon, Apology 10).
If the charge was that he introduced "other new deities", then the logical implication is that he believed in those deities he introduced.
Quoting Fooloso4
1. Poets don't always make images without originals.
2. The issue is not whether the Gods existed but whether the image-makers believed in the Gods images of whom they were making.
3. There is no evidence that Socrates did not believe in the metaphysical realities or beings he described or under whose inspiration he believed he was acting.
Of course the stories are made with the intent that they be believed. That does not mean the person who makes the stories believes that what he makes up comes to life like Pinocchio.
Quoting Apollodorus
We know that Socrates tells noble lies.
(414b-c)
Also:
Do speeches have a double form, the one true, the other false? Must they [children] be educated in both but first in the false? (Republic 376e-377a)
And the poet Hesiod says that the muses his that:
Quoting Apollodorus
Right, it took you awhile but you are getting there. Next step, do some research on what the term 'atheist' meant as it was used then.
Quoting Apollodorus
When it comes to making images of gods they do. Or do you think the gods they tell stories about actually existed?
Quoting Apollodorus
The hyperuranion beings if only believed and not known are not metaphysical realities but hypothetical.
"Making" is not the same as "making up". There is no logical necessity for a person who makes speeches about Gods to either (1) disbelieve in Gods or (2) make things up.
It is perfectly possible for a person who makes speeches about Gods to actually believe in Gods.
Quoting Fooloso4
If speeches have a double form, the one true, the other false, then they have one form that is true.
The onus is on you to show that Plato's speeches about the Gods are false.
Quoting Fooloso4
That is not the issue. The issue is whether Socrates was an atheist in the sense of "not believing in God/s".
You have admitted that Socrates does not deny the existence of the Gods:
Quoting Fooloso4
So, on what basis do you claim that he is an atheist?
Quoting Fooloso4
As usual, you confuse "existence" with "belief in existence". There is no logical necessity for a person who makes poetical images of Gods to either (1) disbelieve in Gods or (2) make things up.
It is perfectly possible for a person who makes poems about Gods to actually believe in Gods.
It is perfectly possible, indeed likely, that Socrates was making literary or metaphorical images of metaphysical realities that he believed in and, possibly, that he experienced personally.
Quoting Fooloso4
The issue is whether Socrates and Plato believe in metaphysical realities. You have failed to show that they don't.
You are right, it is not a matter of logical necessity. But it does not follow that in making the gods the poets did something other than create them.
Quoting Apollodorus
Once again, follow the argument. The true form must come later, much later, when philosophy is introduced to those who are old enough and mature enough and properly suited to it.
Quoting Apollodorus
No, the onus is on you to read the dialogue. It is clear from the context.
Quoting Apollodorus
Once again, a hypothetical is not a reality. Socrates' second sailing:
Rather than looking into beings themselves, he turns to accounts, to speech, to hypothesis. Belief in a metaphysical reality is an opinion. Without knowledge there is no true measure of the truth of those opinions.
The dialogues are not about Plato's or Socrates' opinions, they are about the critical examination of our own opinions. Plato creates distance between himself and the dialogues. He never says anything in the dialogue. To assume that what Socrates says in the dialogues is either a record of the man Socrates' beliefs or a reflection of Plato's own beliefs is an assumption without support.
- L. Strauss, Farabi's Plato, 391
Thus not “atheism” and not “contrary to Neoplatonism” but consistent with it.
Making images of something means making images of the objects represented, not making the objects themselves. It is important to understand the difference.
Religious people do not think that when making images of deities they make the deities represented by the images.
A statue of Zeus was an artistic representation of the God residing on Mount Olympus, not Zeus himself. Likewise, the metaphorical images of deities that Socrates makes are representations of the deities Socrates believes in, not the deities themselves.
Quoting Fooloso4
Once again, follow your own statement. If a speech about the Gods has a true form, then it has a true form. The issue is the form or content, not the time.
Quoting Fooloso4
No, the onus is on you to show that I don’t read the dialogue. Not reading a dialogue in a Straussian or Anti-Platonist sense does not mean not reading it.
Quoting Fooloso4
Once again, the issue is not the reality but Socrates’ belief in it.
Quoting Fooloso4
Exactly, investigate the truth of beings, i.e., realities, not imaginary things. As I said, it is important to understand the difference.
Quoting Fooloso4
“Putting something down as being true” means believing it to be true. He is talking about realities.
Quoting Fooloso4
An opinion can be right opinion. And belief in a metaphysical reality is still a belief. If Socrates believes in metaphysical realities then it is incorrect to say that he does not believe in metaphysical realities.
Quoting Fooloso4
Opinions about what?
Quoting Fooloso4
Of course he doesn’t. He speaks through his characters.
Quoting Fooloso4
In that case, the claim that Socrates or Plato do not believe in God/s is an assumption without support. Exactly as I’ve been saying all along. Good to see that you finally agree!
Anyway, as I said, the Sun is a God and the Good is (1) said to be the creator of the Sun and (2) is likened to the Sun.
Therefore the Good is a deity. The Good as the supreme deity above all other Gods is the core of Plato’s theology.
- L. Strauss, On Plato’s Republic
So, obviously, there is a theology even in the Republic, and if we take other dialogues (Timaeus, Laws, etc.) into consideration, we can see that Plato does not abolish God/s but simply constructs a philosophy that can also serve as a theology, exactly as shown by eminent scholars like Solmsen and A. E. Taylor and admitted, however begrudgingly, even by hardened atheists and anti-Platonists like Strauss.
So, you believe that the Olympian gods actually exist?
Quoting Apollodorus
That may very well be what religious people believe.
Quoting Apollodorus
So, you do believe that Olympian gods exist!
Quoting Apollodorus
Perhaps the true form of speech about the gods is that they do not exist. That is why such speech is reserved for the few who are suited to hear it.
Quoting Apollodorus
You are doing a good job of that yourself. We have a record of it across three threads.
Quoting Apollodorus
You have completely reversed your position, from claiming that the Forms a metaphysical reality and not hypothesis to saying the issue is not the reality but Socrates' belief.
Quoting Apollodorus
Investigate the truth of beings through speech. A speech about beings is not the reality of beings. The beings are hypothetical. They are investigated the same way that the mathematicians investigate, through images.
Quoting Apollodorus
What is believed to be true is not true because it is believed. Yes, he is talking about reality, but it is still just talk. It does not transcend beliefs. The Forms are not realities, they are hypotheses about reality.
Quoting Apollodorus
And it could be a wrong opinion. Without knowledge we cannot determine whether it is right or wrong.
Quoting Apollodorus
His makes his characters speak. He chose not to speak. We have no way of determining if and when he agreed with what his characters say. As I previously pointed out there is an extensive literature on this. I provided a few sources.
Quoting Apollodorus
The dialogues raise questions about the gods that are never resolved. The gods are absent from the discussion of what you call metaphysical reality in the Republic. The existence of gods are called into question not affirmed. Draw your own conclusions.
Quoting Apollodorus
Where in the dialogue does it say that the sun is a god? It may have been a common belief but that does not mean that this belief is affirmed in the dialogue.
Quoting Apollodorus
Once again, context is important. The context of the passage under discussion can be found at 379a:
Socrates and Adeimantus are not agreeing to what the gods actually are or even if they are but rather to what the stories of the gods, that is, what the theology should be if the city is to be just. The theology begins with false speeches (376e-377a), for such speeches are in accord with the model.
Exactly. Religious people do not think that when making images of deities they make the deities whom the images represent.
Otherwise said, Socrates makes literary or metaphorical images of metaphysical realities he believes in, in the same way an artisan in 4th-century BC Athens would make images of Gods he believed in.
Quoting Fooloso4
Perhaps. But you have no evidence that this is the case.
Quoting Fooloso4
It is a speech about realities. You said that yourself:
Quoting Fooloso4
A talk about a reality is a talk about a reality, i.e. a talk about something that is a reality.
Quoting Fooloso4
If without knowledge we cannot determine whether an opinion is right or wrong then we cannot claim that it is wrong without evidence to show this to be the case.
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, that's what I'm saying. He speaks through his characters!
Quoting Fooloso4
If the questions about the Gods are never resolved then you cannot insists that they are.
The Gods are mentioned without being discussed in detail because the Republic is about the ideal city and because the theology culminates in the Good. Plato's theology is a hierarchy of metaphysical or spiritual realities, as pointed out by Sedley, Gerson and other scholars of Plato:
D. Sedley, Plato’s Theology
D. Sedley, Plato’s Timaeus and Hesiod’s Theogony
L. Gerson, From Plato’s Good to Platonic God
P. Panagiotis, Plato’s Theology in the Timaeus
F. Solmsen, Plato’s Theology
Quoting Fooloso4
I have told you this many times.
The Sun is "one of the divinities (i.e. Gods) in heaven". Can't you read???
Quoting Fooloso4
Exactly. Socrates and Adeimantus do not deny the existence of the Gods. And if they agree what the theology of the city should be, then there is a theology that is agreed on.
So, you do agree after all! :grin:
Quoting Apollodorus
One must follow the argument in order to determine whether there is any evidence. You are unwilling or unable to do that. What more is there to say?
Quoting Apollodorus
It is not talk about something that is a reality, it is talk about a hypothetical. You seem either unable or unwilling to see the difference. What more is there to say?
Quoting Apollodorus
We can, however, make a distinction between an opinion about reality and reality. You have denied, that the Forms are hypothetical, and have asserted that they are metaphysical realities. But you now confirm that the Forms are hypothetical. What more is there to say?
Quoting Apollodorus
That is your issue not mine. Your first post on the Phaedo thread:
With fanatical frequency you have returned to that question. What more is there to say?
Quoting Apollodorus
Right, we have discussed this. What more is there to say?
Quoting Apollodorus
A theology of false speeches (376e-377a). We have been over this already. What more is there to say?
All of these things have been discussed. You have your opinions, I have mine, and different scholars have theirs as well. Why the obsessive need to repeat your opinions? They do not become more convincing by repetition.
Sorry but you seem to have some comprehension problems there. I am not talking about "poets". I am talking about Socrates making literary images of deities (metaphysical or spiritual entities) he believed in, in the same way Greek artisans made images of Gods they and their community believed in.
This is what Socrates says when he relates that he is taken to court "for making other new deities" and this is confirmed in the Symposium where it is said that he is full of speeches that are like images of deities.
Quoting Fooloso4
Wrong again. Here are your own words:
Quoting Fooloso4
The text itself says "realities".
Quoting Fooloso4
Of course not. "Hypothetical" is what you said:
Quoting Fooloso4
Are you retracting your statement?
Quoting Fooloso4
I have returned to that question simply because with fanatical frequency you have raised that question. You are defending the fringe position of Strauss and Bernardete, and I am defending the mainstream position of Gerson and Sedley. That is what discussion and dialectic is about, isn't it?
Quoting Fooloso4
Of course we have. And yet you keep asking me where it says that the Sun is a God!!!
Quoting Fooloso4
It is not a "theology of false speeches" at all. The Platonic corpus contains a theology that includes (1) Gods like the Sun, (2) Forms, and (3) a Supreme Deity represented by the Good.
I have given you a list of leading scholars of Plato to familiarize yourself with Plato's theology:
D. Sedley, Plato’s Theology
D. Sedley, Plato’s Timaeus and Hesiod’s Theogony
L. Gerson, From Plato’s Good to Platonic God
P. Panagiotis, Plato’s Theology in the Timaeus
F. Solmsen, Plato’s Theology
And yet you refuse to read even one of them and keep insisting that Straussianist esotericism and sophistry is the only correct way to read Plato.
As I said many times, there is nothing wrong with holding a fringe opinion. But at least you should (1) acknowledge that it is a fringe opinion and (2) be able to provide some evidence in support of your claims and not make statements that either are not true or are contradicting your own claims, like your claim about Ibn Sina, your repeated suggestion that the dialogue (Rep 508a) doesn't say that the Sun is a God even when this is contrary to the evidence, etc., etc.
More generally, you seem to refuse to acknowledge the fact that the dialogues are the product of 4th-century BC Greece and that it is not right to impose 21st-century ideas either on the dialogues or on their author.
Why the obsessive need to repeat your opinions? They do not become more convincing by repetition.
There is no need for my "opinions" to convince anyone. They are the mainstream view already and have been for a very long time!
It is your opinions that are fringe and you have had the chance to produce evidence in support of them but you have failed to do so, as I said from the start you would.
Unfortunately, you refuse to acknowledge this and keep starting over and over again. :grin:
If you think that what you imagine to be the "mainstream view" is so secure then why are you so insecure as to continually post the same opinions? Your intolerance of other views is incompatible with free and open philosophical discussion. After over two thousand years of Plato scholarship a great deal of disagreement remains. Most scholars regard this as the condition within in which they work. They do not share your need for orthodoxy and do not spend their days endlessly arguing with heretics and trying to have the last word.
No one disputes that there is some disagreement on certain points of textual interpretation.
However, when you say things like "the dialogue doesn't say that the Sun is a God" when the text of the dialogue clearly says so, and you repeatedly ask people to show where it says so after being shown already, then this is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of denying unquestionable fact, which raises the question as to why you are doing it.
Why is it so unsettling to you that my opinions differ from yours and that there are highly regarded scholars whose opinions differ from those you favor?
You have made your views known, so now what is it you hope to accomplish by going over the same arguments yet again?
Anyone who is interested can make up their own minds. Or, perhaps that is what worries you, that they may not find your opinions as convincing as you do.
Which part of the passage above do you find difficult to understand?
Perhap you can take up basket weaving. I heard it can be therapeutic.
Yes, you do sound like the kind of person that would have heard of a number of therapies, not just that one.
As for myself, I'm too busy discussing Plato's dialogues and I'm beginning to enjoy learning from the Straussian methodology. I'm sure Plato himself would have been delighted.
Anyway, have a nice day. And enjoy your drink.
I think that is a good suggestion and a diplomatic way of putting it. I share your concern that other discussions of the texts that are being crowded out by the repetition, especially given that they are discussions that I initiated and have an interest in maintaining.
Good.
How about you, @Apollodorus?
Well, I don't want to have the last word, so I am currently unable to say anything.
Besides, I am busy studying Straussianism .... :wink:
Does that mean you agree to the deal?
I'm not entirely sure what the deal is in practice, but I don't want to be a spoilsport. So, yes.
I am asking that you don't respond directly to Fooloso4,
at least for some time.
Sure. I have no problem with that at all.
Socrates Argument For Why the Good Cannot Be Known
The argument is not easily seen because it stretches over three books of the Republic, as if Plato wanted only those who are sufficiently attentive to see it.
I begin by collecting the releverent statements. Bloom translation. Bold added.
He makes a threefold distinction -
Being or what is
Something other than that which is
What is not
And corresponding to them
Knowledge
Opinion
Ignorance
The middle term is somewhat ambiguous. What is not is something other than that which is, but to what is not he assigns ignorance. Opinion opines neither what is nor what is not. Between what is entirely, the beings or Forms, and what is not, is becoming, that is, the visible world. Opinion opines about the visible world. But the good is beyond being. It is the cause of being, the cause of what is. It too is something other than what is and what is not.
What is entirely is entirely knowable. The good, being beyond being, is not something that is entirely. The good is then not entirely knowable. As if to confirm this Socrates says that he is giving his opinions about the good, but that what is knowable and unknowable is a matter of fact. As to the soul’s journey to the intelligible and the sight of the idea of the good, he says that a god knows if it happens to be true, but this is how it looks to him. He plays on the meaning of the cognate terms idea and look, which can be translated as Form. A god knows if it “happens to be true” but we are not gods, and what may happen to be true might also happen to be false.
The quote at 517 continues:
… but once seen, it must be concluded that this is in fact the cause of all that is right and fair in everything—in the visible it gave birth to light and its sovereign; in the intelligible, itself sovereign, it provided truth and intelligence —and that the man who is going to act prudently in private or in public must see it. (517c)
But it is not seen, for it is not something that is and thus not something knowable, and so no conclusion must follow. In order to act prudently, he says, one must see the good itself. Whether one is acting prudently then, remains an open question. The examined life remains the primary, continuous way of life of the Socratic philosopher. A way of life that rejects the complacency and false piety of believing one knows the divine answers.
I read recently that a fundamental theme in Plato is 'to be, is to be intelligible'. Bearing in mind the passages in Phaedo about the fact that the ideas have no opposite - then in some fundamental respect, they truly are - as I think the quotations indicate.
There is an expression in Plato's dialogues which I read of recently, but I can't recall what it is or bring it to mind. It's an expression about the status of sensable things - that they neither truly are, nor are not, but are a kind of mixture of being and becoming. Do you happen to recall that term?
I often read the expression of 'beyond being' in relation to Platonic philosophy and also in Christian theology. However, I think it ought to be translated as 'beyond existence', because I don't think that 'being' and 'existence' are necessarily synonymous terms in the context of philosophy. Transcendent beings, should there be such beings, are not existent in the same sense that phenomena are existent, as they don't arise and pass away, as do phenomena.
Quoting Fooloso4
Curiously, and again from later Christian platonism, there is a theme of 'unknowing' - for example the mystical meditation guide 'The Cloud of Unknowing'. I think this sense of 'the good being beyond knowing' is rather easily accomodated in that framework.
St Gregory Palamas writes:
– St Gregory Palamas, Topics of Natural and Theological Science and on the Moral and Ascetic Life: One Hundred And Fifty Texts
But this not the same as what is being implied here about the Good.
The claim that is being made is that:
1. According to Socrates, "in order to act prudently, one must see the Good. But the Good is not seen, not knowable, and is not. Therefore, whether one is acting prudently, remains an open question that cannot be answered."
2. "The examined life remains the primary, continuous way of life of the Socratic philosopher."
But, obviously, we cannot live an “examined life” when neither the Gods, nor the Forms, nor even the Good or any other standards of reference exist, or are otherwise "not knowable and not seen", and when "the question of whether one is acting prudently cannot be answered."
In contrast, though Platonists and Christians refer to God or the One as "unnameable" and "incomprehensible" or "unknowable," they do know whether they do or do not act prudently.
- St Peter of Damaskos, Book II, Twenty-Four Discourses, XXIII, Holy Scripture
Again, no Christian would infer from the unknowability of God's purpose with regard to every object that God's purpose (or God himself) doesn't exist and that the question whether we are acting prudently cannot be answered.
It is not that they have no opposite but that they cannot "accept" or "allow" or combine with their opposite.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, that is true of all the Forms except the Good. It is beyond being (509b)
Quoting Wayfarer
They are said to be images of the things that are, the Forms, but I don't know if that is what you have in mind.
Quoting Wayfarer
But he does not say that all the Forms are beyond being, only the Good. The Forms are the beings. The Good is beyond being.
Quoting Wayfarer
When making comparisons it is useful to see not only similarities but differences. Socratic philosophy proceeds by rational inquiry, by the critical examination of opinion, that is, dialectic.
The Republic says:
The text has ???????? ??? ?????? epekeina tes ousias “beyond essence”. The later Platonist term is ?????????? hyperousios “above being”.
I don't think that the Good is not essence/being in the literal sense. It may be that the Good is the only true essence because all essences are just specific determinations of the Good, in the same way particulars are specific manifestations of the Forms to which the properties or attributes of the particulars properly belong.
The main idea is that the Good transcends all other essences. The later Platonist term ?????????? hyperousios “above being”, is used in precisely this sense, not “not being” in the sense of “non-existent”. What is meant to be expressed by the term is the transcendence of the Good or God: the Good or God is "above and beyond" everything else.
Do you mean "expression" or "term"? The Republic has ?? ???????? ta diplasia, “the double or ambiguous things” from ????????? diplasios, “twofold” (Rep 479b - d).
The fact that the sensibles partake of opposite properties including being and not-being makes them imperfect appearances as opposed to the perfect Forms.
Much of Thomas Aquinas' writing is dialectical in form. The emphasis on 'salvation by faith alone' came with Protestant fideism.
But I do acknowledge I need to spend a lot more time on reading the text, and intend to do that.
Quoting Apollodorus
That’s pretty close to what I mean, but there’s another term. If I encounter it again I’ll post it.
Incidentally, discovered a very interesting author this morning http://carlosfraenkel.com/books/
Correct. I think Aquinas is a very good example of how Christianity faithfully preserved Plato’s core teachings for many centuries. Although some seek to argue that Christianity represents a distortion of Plato (as well as of Judaism), this is contradicted by the objective examination of historical facts.
As Lloyd Gerson has pointed out, if you were to ask any moderately well-educated person in antiquity what the goal of life is according to the teachings of Plato, they would answer “to become godlike as far as possible”.
Becoming a godlike immortal had long been a feature of Greek mythology which abounded in the offspring of Gods and mortals. Among these we find Hercules, himself the son of Zeus, who had joined the Gods in Olympus after death.
Among philosophers like Pythagoras, this became the goal or telos of philosophical life. Plato and Socrates were merely prominent propagators of this tradition.
Thus Socrates says:
That this was an actual Platonic teaching is suggested among other things by the fact that the desire to become godlike is found in King Phillip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great who had been instructed in philosophy by Plato’s pupil Aristotle. Phillip had already announced his wish to be treated as godlike or isotheos. Alexander himself followed in his father’s steps and declared himself a God: following his conquest of Egypt, he adopted the pharaonic title of “Son of God Re” and became “Son of Zeus” to the Greeks.
Aristotle’s political theory that regarded the ideal king as a paternal ruler likened to Father Zeus, blended with the metaphysical theory of the philosophers and became part of Greek and later Roman culture.
By the time of Jesus, the political concept of the ruler as a deity as well as the philosophical goal of the deification of man was well-established. Unsurprisingly, the latter appears as a central teaching of the Christian Gospels:
Christianity, especially in the east, preserved the political and administrative system of the Roman Empire and the emperor, though not a deity, remained a sacred representative of divine authority on earth. But Christianity also preserved Graeco-Roman culture with particular emphasis on the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle which represented the highest intellectual achievement of the classical era. Plato’s Academy at Athens continued to function till 529 CE and philosophy was taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria and at the University of Constantinople (from 425 CE to 1453 CE).
The Platonic concept of deification or theosis remained central to the teachings of the Greek Orthodox Church as can be seen from the writings of lead theologians and scholars like Maximos the Confessor (580 – 662 CE):
– St Maximos the Confessor, Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice
What emerges from this is a process of faithful preservation of Platonic teachings rather than “distortion,” and Aquinas as a philosopher and theologian who accords great importance to the concept of deification, is a prime example and representative of this process.
If anything, the “distortion” is the work of Protestantism which has inspired and fuelled the anti-Platonist movement that emerged in the 1800’s and 1900’s.
By the way, Fraenkel sounds like an interesting author. “Philosophical Religion From Plato To Spinoza” would definitely be my kind of book. I think people tend to forget the close historical and intellectual links between religion and philosophy and regard them as mutually incompatible fields, which in my view is a mistake.
What in no way is. The opposite of what “is entirely”
Becoming. What is between being and not being.
The Good which is beyond being.
Becoming is below being. The Good is above being.
What is entirely is entirely knowable. What in no way is is entirely unknowable.
Becoming, since it is not entirely, is not entirely knowable. About becoming we have only opinions.
The Good, since it is beyond being, is not something that is entirely. It is beyond what can be seen with the mind, beyond what can be known. About the Good we have only opinions.