An analysis of the shadows
Plato spoke of the shadows on the wall, upon which the chained would look upon. What Plato had in mind was the light upon which the figures or abstractions would appear. Yet, the psychology of what Plato might latter call the ignorant and unenlightened was never apparent in his description of the ideas or forms which the figures would present themselves as imperfect shadows in Plato's cave. The unenlightened suddenly become free to walk out of the shadowed cave by Platonic philosophers who would want them to enjoy themselves within the outside where one would contemplate the forms or ideas. Indeed, as an act of kindness, according to Plato, a philosopher would take the time to unchain the prisoner from the cave and welcome them into the light.
Yet, modern day man seems comfortable inside the cave, where opinions, ignorance, and one's unconscious might be found. Indeed, nowadays man has a tendency to resolve one's issues in the cave, conversing with a psychologist about the shadows on the figurative wall of their troubled mind, perhaps even laying on a sofa reasoning or even rather rationalizing their thoughts and conditioned behaviors to themselves.
Why is this so? Why can't the prisoner unshackle and free himself? Why is philosophy still associated with no inherent value, or even more practically, valued so little?
Yet, modern day man seems comfortable inside the cave, where opinions, ignorance, and one's unconscious might be found. Indeed, nowadays man has a tendency to resolve one's issues in the cave, conversing with a psychologist about the shadows on the figurative wall of their troubled mind, perhaps even laying on a sofa reasoning or even rather rationalizing their thoughts and conditioned behaviors to themselves.
Why is this so? Why can't the prisoner unshackle and free himself? Why is philosophy still associated with no inherent value, or even more practically, valued so little?
Comments (619)
Did you free yourself from your shackles? If so, how did you do it? If not, what seems to prevent you from unshackling yourself?
But to back up, is Plato's cave real--is it a valid metaphor of our world? Are people figuratively chained to the wall and capable of viewing only shaky flickering shadows on a wall?
The opposite is a very attractive -- that we know reality; that we are not stuck with flickering shadows of reality. Thinkers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains and a world to gain!
Was Plato himself free of the cave? He may have had the insight that what he saw of flickering shadows was not reality, but did HE know reality? I suppose he thought he did. Forms schmormes.
Quoting Shawn
Maybe because it's stuck in Plato's cave.
Look, Pig: It's up to you to decide for yourself. You have the wherewithal to declare what your values are, practice them, and defend them. If philosophy does anything, doesn't it enable you to think for yourself?
Maybe we should just burn philosophy's libraries. Smash its statuary; close down philosophy departments. Fire the faculty. Slam the door shut on 2500 years of rehashing stories like The Cave. Publish a notice in every newspaper, on every website -- hell, print it on the currency -- YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. THINK FOR YOURSELF.
I read Ayn Rand, obviously and she helped or taught me to shrug them off. At least that's what she learned from Aristotle, no?
No, but more seriously...
Quoting Bitter Crank
Well, your looking at a wall of text, no? Perhaps even something more interesting than what's happening on the TV? All things considered, the strength of the metaphor has been echoed throughout time for some 2500 years, so there's some psychological reason if not literary interest in how it was phrased. I heard Plato was a really smart guy.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Certain truths are inconvenient to display nowadays than mention. Yes, it seems true. The power of mathematics, being Plato's main interest at the Academy with geometry still hold true. Thinking aloud, Is this really all about education? Don't we have enough educated people today with so little to offer in terms of the liberation one can find in one's self from the tyranny of reality of one's own ill psychology?
Quoting Bitter Crank
I think his influence has the appeal that he was in some sense free. He had something to offer to the world that made it a better place.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Supposedly, no. I think education is important. But, the recent threads about stupidity and climate change, and science denial mean that were still sitting in some figurative cave...
The Western liberal tradition is profoundly hostile to the Platonic 'doctrines of illumination'. It's the task of liberal philosophy to make the world a safe space for the individual, grounded firmly in a naturalism which sees h. sapiens as simply another species, albeit a very clever one. Homo Faber.
There is a little-known intellectual movement from the 20th Century centered around the perennial philosophy. The idea of the perennial philosophy is that there is a kind of universal core of philosophy of which particular schools, including Platonism, are representatives or offshoots. Influential members of that movement included René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswami, Sayyed Hossein Nasr, and Frithjof Schuoun, to name a few. But they were all implacably opposed to modern Western culture, indeed, they wouldn't describe as 'a culture'. Consequently many of their ideas became associated with reactionary political movements such as facism, although individually none of those mentioned above were overtly political. Mark Sedgewick's book on that movement is called Against All Modernity, which gives an idea of it (although I think that particular author is lacking in philosophical depth. His blog.)
I wouldn't advocate for 'the perennialists' other than to say that their perspective is worth considering, as it's so remote from the usual run-of-the mill instrumentalism that passes for philosophy in today's academy.
Quoting Shawn
[quote=What is Math? The Smithsonian Magazine; https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-math-180975882/ ] “I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a philosopher of science recently retired from the University of Toronto. “Working mathematicians overwhelmingly are Platonists. They don't always call themselves Platonists, but if you ask them relevant questions, it’s always the Platonistic answer that they give you.”
Other scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.[/quote]
Yes, that's an interesting topic one can go on about for quite a while. While the Medieval scholastics and other clergy so viciously appropriated Plato's Cave along with even the Bible, I don't believe that one can argue otherwise that the metaphor has not been treated fairly. After all, it wasn't religion that should be doing the liberating from the cave, which it has come to pass as what actually has transpired throughout time.
Quoting Wayfarer
I can't help but notice that this is the Aristotelian interpretation of a guiding telos. Is that true or off mark?
When I was studying comparative religion, I formed the view that Christianity had appropriated many vitally important ideas from the sorrounding culture and 'locked them in the vaults' so to speak, where they could only be accessed on the condition of 'signing the contract' - pledging allegiance to the articles of faith. I've moderated by view a little since then, on account of realising that some of the Greek-speaking Church fathers (such as Origen) were philosophically profound in their own right. Nevertheless in my view Western culture was enormously influenced by the conflict between the 'pistic' Christians - sign of the fish - and the gnostic movements which were brutally suppressed by the mainstream (See A Perfect Heresy.) It created a very specific type of religious mind-set, which most of the Western world has been reacting against for the centuries. (Also worth noting some of Origen's teachings were anamethatized, and that Miester Eckhardt, a well-known medieval philosopher-theologian, was also accused of heresy. There are many deep tensions in Christian doctrine around the synthesis of Greek and Hebrew, and a long history of charismatic teachers who have skirted or actually been charged with heresy.)
On your second question - I see Western individualism as a product of Christianity - a universal religion that promised salvation to all who believed. It was from there that the idea that every individual has infinite worth originated; you would not have found that in pre-Christian culture, where slaves, women and foreigners were more or less chattel. Secular culture retained the idea of the inherent worth of every human, which is the basis of human rights, while abandoning the belief in which it was originally grounded. So now the individual is the arbiter of value. The motto of liberalism is nihil ultra ego - nothing beyond the self; challenge it at your peril.
I would not presume to criticize any of the 'great philosophers'. Plato was no doubt an outstanding individual amongst other remarkable men. The long-dead philosophers aren't the problem.
And yes: The Cave is a rich, rich metaphor. It's got legs.
However...
To suppose that 2500 years later we (collectively) are still in the cave, still confusing the flickering shadows with reality, is a profoundly pessimistic take on history and the present. No, we are not 8 billion "enlightened" people who, with cool dry vision, see the world with 20/20 vision. But...
Widespread education, literacy, freedom to think (when and where possible) and communicate has unshackled masses of people; they've left the cave. I'd say we have made enough progress in the last few centuries, to have no one but ourselves to blame for our persistent collective problems.
Take climate change: Billions of people have at least a basic understanding of what it is. Are we solving this existential problem? Not yet, not now; we are not heading toward success. Whose fault is that? It is ours, unmistakably, Pick a collective -- neighborhood, city, county, state, province, nation... Very, very little sign of success, anywhere.
The people in the cave were not, could not be, active agents. They were, after all, chained to the wall. They did not have any options. No remote: the channel was always the same. They could not be responsible for their situation. We are not 100% free, of course, but we are sufficiently responsible of our own actions. We are, to varying degrees, active responsible agents. If we fuck up, we can, we shall, we must, we will take the blame.
True. But the rise of the modern world has beaten a lot in submission or compliance too. How about people once living peacefully in harmony with Nature. They had their own non-western ways in dealing with all problems of life. They had colorful languages (even whistling!), worldviews (to use a very ugly word), ways of keeping peace (without thermonuclear devices!), their own way of raging a war (without an atom bomb or two), and in general respect Nature, of which they are part instead of standing vis a vis with.
The shadows cast by the western (Greek) way.
Excellent title of a captivating thread :cool:
Quoting Shawn
Interesting to consider from the psychological perspective. Have not analysed Plato's Allegory of the Cave well or deeply enough to have an opinion on this aspect of the Ideas of Forms.
How did you come to that conclusion ? And is it an important consequence of accepting Plato's description, even if we have understood it correctly ? How would it change our lives and behaviour?
Is it about 'enjoying themselves within the outside where one could contemplate the forms or ideas' ? Within the outside...another 'cage' ?
Perhaps a quick reminder would help, either from other members such as @Fooloso4 or:
https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm
https://graduateway.com/platos-allegory-cave-analysis-summary/
-----
Quoting Shawn
I see you answered my question...but the 'cave' here is our reality, no ?
'One's issues' - there are so many particular and global. Where do we begin ?
I don't think that that many tend to lie down talking to a psychologist. However, you are right, we can and do try to work things out with a view to a better life. Some rely on faith to help them, others politicians, governments...how many turn to philosophy ?
Quoting Shawn
Why, why, why ?
Don't know. Because we're human ? You mention 'values'.
Some don't know what is of value; some values are relative. In philosophy, we can ask what does 'Value' mean ? Is that of value ? What do we find worthwhile, what is important. Sometimes this is tied to chains or rules/standards imposed on us by others. We are the puppets on a chain...
Quoting Bitter Crank
Good point. But not a lot of people know that...have the ability or capability.
The 'wherewithal' is limited; freedom restricted.
One example:
Quoting Taliban restrictions - Education, Social and Justice
Quoting Bitter Crank
:smile: Well, first you gotta get rid of 'In God We Trust'. Good Luck with that !
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
What interested me here is the idea of ' a universal core'. Then came their implacable opposition to a modern Western culture not even thought of as 'culture'. Wow. Where is the 'core' ?
It certainly is a 'remote' perspective.
Where do you see academic philosophy as 'run of the mill instrumentalism' ?
Quoting Wayfarer
I think we need to be clear as to the meaning of 'secular'.
Here's just one article which ends:
Quoting Psychology Today: The Secular Life
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201407/what-does-secular-mean
Then there is 'liberalism' - another 'Idea' or 'Form' ?
How can you say what the motto is ? There are so many definitions and meanings ? Casting shadows.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Hmmm. Yes, we can make individual decisions as to how to behave or act, given our set of values.
If we have an all-round knowledge or understanding. Informed by reading, listening, reflecting.
Attempting to analyse, or distinguish, the real from the shadows.
Your qualifications, regarding degree, matters as to how much 'we' as individuals are to blame or can be held responsible for 'persistent collective problems'.
Like many, I am in despair over so much.
The most recent: AUKUS.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/16/the-guardian-view-on-the-aukus-defence-pact-taking-on-china
I wonder if there will ever be a universal core value which will hold against powerful governments.
I think not.
In the meantime.., within our own philosophy caves...we might enlighten ourselves with books such as this:
https://www.cambridge.org/gw/academic/subjects/religion/philosophy-religion/dissent-core-beliefs-religious-and-secular-perspectives
Quoting Cambridge subjects: religion, philosophy - dissent core beliefs
So many books we can get chained to...the ideas within...but of what use ?
Sounds like a horror movie. A very refined one. Or the title of a book. "When you're walking down the streets at night. Turn around and die of freight. What's that in the shadows? Is it a dog? Is it a cat? What you think of that?"
Alduous Huxley published a book in 1945 called 'The Perennial Philosophy'. That would be as good a starting point as any. He presents quotations and passages from diverse sources to illustrate the purported 'perennial core' of world religions and philosophies. His sources and topics include Aquinas, Augustine, St. Bernard, Bhagavad-Gita, Buddha, Jean Pierre Camus, St. Catherine, Christ, Chuang Tzu, "Cloud of Unknowing", Contemplation, Deliverance, Desire, Eckhart Fénelon, François de Sales, Godhead, St. John of the Cross, Lankavatara Sutra, William Law Mah?y?na, Mind, Mortification, Rumi, Ruysbroeck, Self, Shankara, Soul, Spirit, "Theologia Germanica," the Upani?ads.
The expression 'philosophia perennis' dates back to Liebniz, although the historical source for such ideas probably goes back to the Italian Renaissance humanists, such as Pico Della Mirandolla and Marcello Ficino.
Modern culture would not be thought of as 'culture' in their terms, because of its concentration on the ephemeral, the passing, the stimulation of pointless wants, and its overall shallow materialism. That said, I wouldn't want to live in a reactionary traditionalist theocracy, thanks all the same, but I think their criticism are regardless cogent.
Quoting Amity
The word is derived from a calendar - there used to be the 'religious calendar', in which holidays ('holy days') were marked, and which governed the liturgical year. The secular calendar governed public works and other matters outside the province of the sacred calendar.
Quoting Amity
The 'liberal tradition' of modern culture is a very broad term - much broader than political liberalism or any liberal party. I would say all the OECD countries - don't ask me to name them - are liberal political cultures. China is not, being a totalitarian government. Russia is anaemically attempting to become one, but doesn't ever seem to be able to cut the apron-strings of dictatorship.
"Plato's Cave" is only a metaphor, y'know, playing like a shadow on your inner skull wall.
"The prisoner" will shed his flesh soon enough; what's the hurry?
What value is "inherent value" anyway? Popularity says more about the crowd than it indicates the worth of their latest idol. Beware lest a statue slay you. :fire:
What follows is an image of images regarding the human condition according to its education. Since we have been in this condition since birth we are not even aware that we are in bonds and can only see what is right in front of us. We do not attempt to escape because we do not know we are not free. The images whose shadows we see are:
... statues of men and other animals wrought from stone, wood, and every kind of material ... (514e-515a)
It should be noted that these images are not images of Forms, but of humans and other animals.
It is said that it is "by nature" (515c) that one is freed from the wall, but it is by force that someone drags him out of the cave into the light of the sun. (515e) By nature I take him to mean the nature of that prisoner. It is not said who it is that drags him out.
Who is able to drag us into the light remains in question. There is a type of wisdom in the cave (516c), but those who hold such honors are not the same as one who is capable of bringing you out of the cave. Such a person would not be regarded as wise but foolish and not to be trusted.
Who the puppet-masters are, also remains in question. The puppets are images. Do the makers have knowledge of the originals, or do they mistake the images they make for the originals?
There is a problem with this analogy. The prisoner who escapes the cave does not see the Forms. She remains in the visible realm, culminating in the sight of heaven, the stars and moon at night, and the sun (516a) before returning to the cave. The domain revealed through sight includes what is seen outside the cave. Outside the cave one first sees reflections in water:
What are here called the things themselves are the things of our ordinary experience. But according to the hypothesis of Forms (511b), these are not the things themselves, but images of the Forms. In that case, the shadows are not simply images of images, but images (shadows) of images (puppets) of images (humans and other things) of Forms (which are called the things themselves).
The fire in the cave is the image of the sun, and the sun is the image of the Good. Where are we in this three-fold division? Both the fire and the sun correspond to the visible realm. By which light do we see?
To put it differently, how does this three-fold division, cave, light of sun, Forms, correspond to the two-fold division of visible and intelligible? Are the Forms themselves more than images or are they shadows in the mind cast by Plato the image maker? Does the image of escape from the cave to a light above the light of the sun bind us more firmly to the cave?
Quoting Fooloso4
Isn't it the case that in the later tradition of Aristotelian philosophy that nous apprehends the forms, and the senses apprehend the body? That all particulars are a compound of form (morphe) and matter (hyle)?
I don't see why. What do you find in Parmenides that addresses these questions?
Quoting Wayfarer
There are a few problems with this. First, I think it necessary to distinguish between Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition. It is questionable whether that tradition understood him. Second, the problem of interpreting Plato is only compounded by having in interpret Aristotle. Third, hyle is Aristotle's concept. It is not found in Plato and Plato's Forms are eidos not morphe. Tying these problems together is whether Aristotle should be understood as rejecting or supporting Plato. The tradition assumes the former, but recent scholarship points to their affinity.
Not in Parmenides, but in the dialogue, The Parmenides, which is almost wholly concerned with the nature of the forms and possible objections to it. I'm just working through Jowett's intro and translation, which is the edition contained in the Kindle version.
Quoting Fooloso4
Lloyd Gerson maintains that Aristotle was a 'dissident Platonist'. One of his books is 'Aristotle and other Platonists'.' He aims to show that the twentieth-century view that Aristotle started out as a Platonist and ended up as an anti-Platonist is seriously flawed.' Indeed 'hyle' was an Aristotelian term, I believe it actually meant 'lumber' or 'timber', being that which something is made from, but I don't know if that detracts from the general point.
In any case, leaving aside those questions of provenance, the basic intuition of the rational intellect as 'that which perceives the forms' (i.e. the principles or essences) and the senses as 'that which sees the material body', makes sense as a philosophical theory (or it does to me anyway). So the outline is that 'the soul' is both the principle of unity of the body (Phaedrus 246d–e) and the faculty of rational judgement. It is identified with the immortal aspect of the human (in e.g. the Phaedo).
Yes, I understood that. The name of the dialogue is not The Parmenides, although it is referred to as the Parmenides. The dialogue is about the Forms, but this does not answer the question.
Quoting Wayfarer
That may be, but it is not the interpretation of Aristotle I was referring to. This interpretation does not regard Aristotle as either a Platonist or anti-Platonist. Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
What is the general point?
Quoting Wayfarer
What you call the basic intuition is an image on the cave wall. Do you perceive the Forms? Socrates admits he did not.
Quoting Wayfarer
The Phaedo talks about the immortal soul but whether or not the soul is immortal remains in question. Socrates tells them that it is better to believe it is, but, as the arguments make clear, if one's concern is with the truth, belief, however beneficial it may be, is not a satisfactory alternative.
It’s phrased in such a way as to leave it an open question.
Quoting Fooloso4
I’m trying to respond to the questions you raised:
Quoting Fooloso4
‘The visible’ is what is perceived by the senses, ‘the intelligible’ is what is understood by the intellect. According to the later tradition, matter is perceived by the senses, forms by the intellect.
[quote=Thomistic Psychology, Brennan] If, then, the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.
Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.[/quote]
The religion that worships its chains! There is a persistent illusion that distorts my view of the world, that my pain and pleasure is more significant than yours, and my life more important than yours. The combination of this myopia and short arms means that I tend to myself and let you tend to to yourself most of the time. But when there is nothing beyond self, we cannot even communicate, let alone cooperate. Have some more tea.
Well I suppose it was a contributing influence to the Beach Boys, and they were around longer than the Stones. Pretty extraordinary, really, but not my cuppa.
The Stratocaster, with a longer sustain than a Telecaster, seems to have been central to their sound. And getting electrocuted by your guitar - what a way for a bassist to go!
So sayeth a stoned Greek goddess. You shape-shifter you... :smile:
Thanks for responding with your usual clarity with quotes from Plato's Republic.
Quoting Fooloso4
Interesting points to consider. Which translation are you using ?
Quoting Fooloso4
Again - you pose thought-provoking questions. A deeper analysis...perhaps another Plato thread in the making :wink:
Quoting Fooloso4
I find the whole analogy difficult to imagine. I need a visual...
Quoting Fooloso4
Thanks, I get a better sense of what is going on - I think.
It reminds me of Russian dolls - the nesting of stories within stories within Dialogues.
Quoting Fooloso4
Trapped between a rock and a hard place ?
Quoting Fooloso4
By the light of the silvery moon ?
Quoting Fooloso4
I have no idea. Hadn't even thought of it in these terms.
Good questions. What and where are the answers, if any ?
Ah yes - the sign of the cross on the forehead. I thought the sculpture markings were later accidents.
A baptism by fire ?
Awakening is possible, for anyone/everyone.
with one - to bridge the roughly 2000 year old gap between Plato's contemporaries who would be familiar with the experience of being in caves and a person from the 21st century whose probability of being inside one is minisucle.
Analogies, by definition, require a good degree of familiarity with the analog (the cave in this case) but that seems a rather tall order for people of this era, trapped as they are in mega-cities.
The best that I can do is to resort to higher dimensions - it seems appropriate as shadows are, bottom line, 2D figures - but the difficulty seems to be the mathematical concepts at play are beyond the reach of people even in this day and age of Einsteinian science. That's that!
My own personal opinion, not that it matters in any significant sense, is not to make the distinction real vs. illusion. A more helpful way of understanding our world is to simply look at reality like it's multi-tiered with each level being an aspect of reality just as the layer below/above is one, with each such stratum being no real/illusory as any other. In a sense, the people (prisoners?) in the cave are not being denied the truth; rather they're being presented with a different slice of the truth.
In short, illusion is an illusion. :chin:
One that only the dead can answer, providing death is not, as Socrates suggests in the Apology, nothingness. An "open question" is very different from:
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
Looking away from Plato to a later tradition is, in my opinion, to avoid Plato. What Plato seems to be saying is often not what is going on when one looks closely.
For anyone who might care about such things, Hank Marvin's signature sound was the Strat and lots of reverb. In the video though, all three guitars are made by Burns. Notice the headstock.
I need something to do in the cave. Bonus, no reverb needed.
The cave makes its own reverb. Rewording the sound. Would be nice to play in a real stalagtite cave.
Bloom.
Quoting Amity
1) Both the cave and terrestrial life are within the visible realm, but according to the analogy, the cave would be the visible and the terrestrial intelligible. One problem is, how intelligible is the intelligible realm? Can there be any knowledge in the absence of sensibles?
2) The Forms are hypotheticals. Images presented by Plato, cleverly presented as if one has been initiated into the mysteries of the truth.
3) The inability to identify images as images is what the lack of education of the prisoners is all about. Education is not about hearing some story about a world outside the cave that the select have seen. Believing it is the truth itself is to mistake the image for the truth. But the truth is, they may insist that there are Forms, but they have no knowledge of Forms. Rather than being drawn closer to the truth their imagination takes them further away.
Good call. Doubtless miming for the publicity shot.
No doubt.
Nice Vox amps on stage but the guitars are not plugged in.
The rhythm is acoustic, and not a n acoustic in sight.
...love all the funky white-guy steps, and especially now 'Hank'(!?) Marvin pushes his glasses back up his nose just before a riff.
I saw that!!! Wouldn’t catch Buddy Holly doing that, betcha.
Yes, and philosophy is 'practicing for death'.
Quoting Fooloso4
It's not avoidance. After Plato's death, his philosophy was the source of inspiration for generations of philosophers; Western philosophy is after all 'footnotes to Plato'.
What does this mean? How does one practice dying and being dead? If you have never been dead how do you know you are practicing it in the right way?
Quoting Wayfarer
There is a difference between the attempt to understand what an author said and looking at how others might have been inspired by what he said. It is not that it is without value to look at how others were inspired but being inspired does not mean or require that one has understood an author.
I'm not claiming to have any first-hand knowledge of that, but isn't that what 'mortification' originally referred to? 'To mortify' is to 'make dead'. And the meaning of 'anamnesis' is recalling what the soul knew prior to this life. These are associated with asceticism and specifically, in the context, with Orphic asceticism.
[quote=Bertrand Russell, HWP, p 37]The Orphics were an ascetic sect; wine, to them, was only a symbol, as, later, in the Christian sacrament. The intoxication that they sought was that of "enthusiasm," of union with the God. They believed themselves, in this way, to acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means. This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was a reformer of Orphism as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Dionysus. From Pythagoras Orphic elements entered into the philosophy of Plato, and from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious.[/quote]
Quoting Fooloso4
Plato's ideas were developed in various ways by following generations. The reason I quoted the passage from Thomistic psychology is because I think it presents a form of dualism that is plausible from a contemporary viewpoint, and compatible with Platonism, even given all that has subsequently been discovered by science.
I'm confused now - why would there be no 'sensibles' - whatever you mean by that ?
Quoting Fooloso4
Understood. But shouldn't that be a bit grander: 'The Mysteries of the Truth' ?
Quoting Fooloso4
Gotcha.
But many still argue the point. Endlessly.
Perhaps this is the concern of @Shawn
Quoting Shawn
@Shawn - come back ! That is, if you have any real interest in the thread you started...
A great question!
The step of realizing the shadows on the wall and echoes of voices aren't real but merely representations is but the start of the philosphical journey Plato speaks of.
What comes after is perhaps more profound, but also, as Plato keeps emphasizing, a terribly painful and arduous journey. Painful in a spiritual or intellectual sense, I imagine. Having to build one's idea of reality back from scratch, having to cut away all those ideas that as a result of one's insights are now seen to be mere opinions or based on ignorance. For example, what does it do to one's identity and idea of self?
I fear the sad truth might be that only certain types of minds can make this journey. The types of minds dedicated to finding truth, ones that are not attached to their ideas and will dispose of them without remorse upon finding that they are not truthful.
For many are confronted with the faultiness of their ideas but cling onto them because of a sense of attachment, likely because these opinions are an integral part of what they perceive as their identity and makes up their ego (that eternal enemy of happiness and truth).
In my eyes, philosophy isn't complicated or hard to understand. It is about applying simple ideas consistently. It is the consistency that most people seem to struggle with, because it must then also be applied in instances where we may not like the implications.
The sad conclusion of Plato's allegory is that upon the philosopher's return to the cave, the prisoners assume he went crazy and do not take him seriously. The prisoners either cannot see, or do not want to see. Most people don't react positively to their idea of reality being rattled. They'd rather live in the comfort of their own illusions than to confront them. That is why.
My sympathy is always with the folk in the cave. Why would you leave when things are predictable and familiar? There is no great psychological benefit to be found in disruptions and upheavals. Further, most of us are not looking for truth or deliverance, we are looking for safety.
I think what Plato is saying is that not everyone can unshackle and free themselves. Plato's philosophers are an intellectual elite with special abilities and training and capable of seeing a higher truth. As such, the philosophers are mankind’s link to a higher reality.
There seems to have been an age-old tradition in which priests, shamans, and wise men and women spent a period of time (usually years) exploring, discovering, and learning new or special knowledge that they later imparted to their communities.
Similarly, the task of Plato's philosophers is to distance themselves from everyday life in order to see things in a different light (the light of the Good) after which they return to society to enlighten their fellow citizens.
In Christian times, a comparative role was performed by monks, hermits, and holy men. Obviously, not all attained the same degree of enlightenment, but as in the case of Plato’s philosophers, they had some kind of cognitive contact with the “light (or Form) of the Good”, i.e., they somehow “saw the light” and were able to impart some of it to others.
With the rise of materialism, people in general became perhaps less receptive to guidance from such individuals and this has led to loss of interest in the practical application of philosophy and to its reinterpretation as a purely intellectual endeavor.
In the intelligible realm there are no sensibles, only objects of the mind.
Quoting Amity
To draw someone to philosophy he dangles the mysteries, the promise of the truth revealed. But the truth is, the Forms are hypothetical. The result is that there are two different kinds of readers of the dialogues. Those who image something grander, something higher, something transcendent, and those who, like Socrates himself, are grounded by self-knowledge, which includes the awareness that we know nothing of transcendent truths.
Quoting Amity
It is a matter of desire. We desire wisdom. In the Apology Socrates distinguishes between human and divine wisdom. His wisdom is human wisdom, but some confuse the desire for divine wisdom with the possession of divine wisdom. They fail to realize that they do not even possess human wisdom. They are chasing dreams and think such dreams are a higher reality.
Do you mean Christian mortification? That imports a lot of stuff not found in Plato.
Quoting Wayfarer
And what do you recall?
Quoting Wayfarer
Socrates was not an ascetic. In the background of the same dialogue is the fact that at age seventy he has two young sons.
Quoting Wayfarer
The question is whether Plato is compatible with Platonism. The only way to determine that is to first attempt to read Plato without being under the shadow of later works. But you seem to think that these are not shadows but illuminations. I don't think we will be able to reconcile this difference.
:up:
Quoting unenlightened
:flower: :100:
[i]"We were talking
about the space
between us
all"
"We were talking
about the love
we all could share"
"And to see you're really only very small
And life flows on
[url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5NfaMyWPysQ]within you and
without you"[/url][/i]
"They don't know
They can't see
Are you one of them?"
[i]"When you've seen beyond yourself
then you may find
Peace of mind
is waiting there"[/i]
Correct. According to Socrates, particulars exist by virtue of their participating in the Forms. This is why Socrates urges us time and again to go beyond our sense-perceptions and use our reasoning and intuitive faculties to get to the truth.
This is what sets the true philosopher apart from the nonphilosophical crowds.
The properties seen in the particulars, the sun’s reflections seen in water, the shadows reflected on the wall, all draw the philosopher’s attention to the existence of realities beyond and above the objects of ordinary perception and everyday experience. Thus he proceeds to the unknown by means of the known and to the new by means of the old.
In contrast, the anti-Platonists (and anti-philosophers) are the ones who refuse to contemplate anything beyond everyday experience. They are the ones who are supremely content with their chained condition, who refuse to see the light or even conceive its existence.
In their opinion, the world of shadows reflecting images of beings in the outside world is all there is, and nothing else can ever exist.
Yes. I've noticed. The eternal magic roundabout. I blame Plato. He got what he wanted.
Philosophy will never end...with more than two involved in any interpretation...
Meant to say thanks for clarification. Most helpful. But as usual other questions arise. What are the 'objects of the mind' ?
Sounds like abstract mental concepts.
However, the 'sensible' from the other ( physical ) realm can still reach/affect them, no ? The body and the mind are inter-related. It's a 2-way process.
Ideas arise from imagination, a mental faculty for which we need the brain...
Humans are the creators.
I too think he got what he wanted. He knows that there are those who desire the mystical but are not content with the indeterminate. They want the mystery to be solved, the truth to be revealed, answers to be found. He gives them what they want in the way he wants. A theology he thinks preferable to what they might latch onto elsewhere. A theology of the beautiful/noble, just, and good.
He also knows that there are some who are not satisfied with myths or stories, however edifying. They prefer the truth that they do not know to the illusion of knowledge. They inquire and do not mistake stories of Forms for knowledge of Forms or even knowledge of the existence of Forms, and do not allow the promise of the knowledge of Forms occlude the fact that the Forms are for Plato hypotheticals. That one can leap from the hypothetical to noesis is not something they deny but not something they accept either.
They are not objects of the mind in the sense of being products of the mind, but of being known by the mind. They include at the lower level of the divide line mathematical objects and at thehigher level the Forms. But since the Forms are hypotheticals, they are products of the mind. Further they are products of the imagination. The divided line turns out to be not so neatly divided.
[Edit : The way the Forms are presented, as existing independent of but known by the mind, is problematic since they are also said to be hypotheticals. Once again we see here that we cannot simply take things at face value but must follow the argument if we are not content with blindly affirming what we have no knowledge of. We also see one way in which Plato is addressing two different types of readers. On the one hand he says that there are independent Forms, but on the other he indicates that things are not quite so simple. We are left to ask about the origin of the Forms. We are also compelled to consider in what way things would be able to "participate" in the Form. Socrates raises the question in the "Second Sailing" section of the Phaedo:
He raises the question of the relationship between things and Forms, but does not insist on the precise nature of that relationship. Why? It he had a coherent argument why wouldn't he present it here or elsewhere? He calls the hypothesis of Forms (100a) simple, naive, and perhaps foolish, and later "safe and ignorant". (105 b)
Now some will try to defend the idea of transcendent Forms with accusations of bias against those who question it, but in that case it would seem that Plato is biased against Plato.]
Quoting Amity
They are said to exist independently. But Socrates, who presents these ideas, denies having any knowledge of them. They are part of Plato's philosophical poetry.
Quoting Amity
In some places Socrates talks as if they are independent, but in others he acknowledges that they are not.
Quoting Amity
To use the Greek terminology in translations, the poets or makers.
I see. I have experienced something similar to this idea of the truth that one holds can be subject to scrutiny and be challenged. It's tiresome offer a while but is the bread and butter of philosophy.
Yes... It is an issue to think that philosophy can hold any safety in challenging questions and truths. People do value safety in higher regard.
Also, I don't think philosophy asks for disruptions and upheavals. It's just the task of the philosopher to question.
This raises an interesting question as to whether a philosopher or philosophers have any duty towards their fellow citizens. What do you think?
I think there can be absolutely no doubt about it. Both in general and in a Platonic context. Plato's philosophers, after all, were to be trained for the express purpose of serving the people.
Plato's connections with Orphism are essential in the correct reading of his writings.
I have noticed that when anti-Platonists fail to understand something they invariably resort to the rather risible claim that Plato (or Socrates) is being “ironic”.
But what is really funny is that they go so far as to deny the text of the dialogue itself and to conveniently forget that Plato’s cave has an entrance open to outside light, and that there is a whole new world out there illumined by the sun! :grin:
In reality, the attentive reader cannot fail to see that the allegory only makes sense if there is a world outside the cave and the possibility of those inside to visit the outside world.
The philosopher who ventures outside the cave is not an ordinary philosopher but one who has seen the light. The symbolism of light is very important in Socrates (and Plato). Socrates compares the light of truth to the light of the Sun and later relates the vision of a column of light (616b).
Further, he also speaks of a guide that leads the soul to that vision of light, and of the enlightened philosopher descending back into the cave to lead the others.
I think the Orphic symbolism is unmistakable. Socrates himself is the guide who descends into the netherworld (the world of ignorance) in order to lead the unenlightened to the light above. The dialogue starts with Socrates descending to Piraeus where they pray to the Thracian Goddess (Orphism was associated with Thrace) and gaze on the celebrations, and ends with the vision of light.
Socrates’ method of guidance is his dialectic which leads to a “turning around of the soul” (periagoge), and “transformation” or “conversion” (metanoia) and, finally, to a vision of reality:
It was a widespread practice in ancient asceticism. It became later associated with Christianity through the process of cultural assimilation, although the fact that it is automatically characterised as 'Christian' is telling.
Quoting Fooloso4
I think you have a determindly secularist reading of Plato. Obviously you will see the way I'm inclined to interepret it as due to my own somewhat spiritual preconceptions. But I try and present intepretations which I think do justice to the source materials, while taking into account the larger influences swirling around the issues.
The 'secular West' can't disown Plato, as he is recognised as one of the founders of the culture. But they can redact out those elements which are at odds with their predominant philosophy of scientific naturalism. That's been ongoing to a long time.
A case in point is the argument against Platonism in mathematics. This shows up in what has been called the project of 'naturalised epistemology'. There's an article on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy about The indispensability argument for mathematics. The background to this is an apparently influential paper by a philosopher of maths, Paul Benacerraf:
And why do 'our best epistemic theories seem to debar' any such knowledge? It turns out that 'our best epistemic theories' must be thoroughly empirical and naturalist, and so can't accomodate the idea of mathematical intuition:
This speaks volumes about what is at stake in these arguments. Because mathematical knowledge seems to transcend our sensory abilities, then it can't be regarded as inherently real. But now we're in a pickle, because our much-vaunted science relies intimately on mathematics! Hence the intellectual convolutions to 'prove' that mathematics can be efficacious even if numbers are not actually real - the so-called 'indispensability argument'.
I know that I don't understand all of the technicalities of Benecareff's arguments, you would have to be a maths grad. But the contours of the argument are clear. The reality of intelligible objects, of which the natural numbers are a type, cannot be admitted without allowing for a real metaphysics, because then you're acknowleding the reality of something that is purely intellectual, yet real. And that is something that Darwinian materialism can't deal with. This conditions so much else about our cultural outlook - and that is my answer to the question raised in the OP.
Quoting Fooloso4
Maybe that's because he doesn't fully understand them. Maybe he is dimly intuiting something profound about the nature of rational intelligence but hasn't been able to really think through all of the implications. Maybe the dialogues about the forms are examples of grappling with the implications, not the triumphant expression of an enlightened sage (of which maybe Parmenides was one, as Peter Kingsley argues, but there is precious little to go on.)
I am trying to understand what 'the forms' might refer to, in such a way as to allow for the idea that they're real. It's difficult to do because of the inherited naturalism which so pervades the culture we're in, that it deeply conditions our conception of the nature of what's real, so the idea of forms (and the reality of mathematical objects) was rejected with the decline of metaphysics at the advent of the modern period. This has been the subject of criticism by many philosophers, mainly of the idealist persuasion, and that's the perspective I'm wanting to bring to the question.
:up:
I hear you, but pretty often, if you keep following questions, you end up in potentially unsettling situations. Ask any competent journalist. And, I guess if you are an atheist skeptic and (hypothetically) you discover idealism is true, there's a massive personal upheaval as your belief systems collapse or change. My gut feeling is that although philosophy does not set out to be disruptive, it is pretty much guaranteed to do so if you take it seriously - at the very least, to use Kant's worn out phrase, you'll awaken from a dogmatic slumber.
Much how like teachers arise nowadays.
It is so mind boggling how smart Plato was.
Why is that true? It seems almost like a sine qua non, no?
Forms are mathematical objects. Forms are a subset of math. If you mean by forms thing like the Platonic forms. The formalists (as their label suggests) think these are there already before their awareness by men. The inuitionists see them as a human invention. The latter is the more reasonable.
I don't remember my math teacher saying anything about goodness or justice though.
I was wondering recently whether this is because our culture has only kept those elements of Platonism which are useful for science and engineering, while discarding the moral and aesthetic principles that Plato apparently thought indispensable to his philosophy. Galileo was greatly influenced by the neo-Platonic revival of the Italian Renaissance - Ficino had translated Plato into Latin - but his philosophy was mainly concerned with those elements which could be brought to bear on the physics and the overall ‘mathematicization of nature’ that marked the advent of modern scientific method.
I’ve been told that Iris Murdoch’s Sovereignty of the Good extols an overall Platonist approach to ethics and aesthetics (and intend to read it). But it is also noted in the article I’ve linked to that Platonism in morals was considered archaic or eccentric at that time. And so it is. That’s why, as I’ve noted earlier in this thread, there is a connection between traditionalist philosophers and reactionary political movements.
I first met @Fooloso4 on another forum in a galaxy far, far away. I've followed him ever since.
In a discussion entitled 'Secular Spirituality' - he impressed with careful replies to my questions:
@Fooloso4 wrote:
p1:
p6:
That was just over 3yrs ago. We still seem to be on the same page...
Thanks @Fooloso4. Take care :flower:
Thanks for the Edit:
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes. Thanks for that reminder from your previous thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10914/platos-phaedo/p1
***
Quoting Fooloso4
So it would seem...
It kind of sounds like you've made a sort of guru out of Fooloso4.
Guru in the sense of a teacher, he is. I haven't made him that though.
I see. You referred to yourself as a follower. Is it more pupil? Or disciple?
:smile:
Neither. I said I followed him but more as a friend from philo forum to philo forum...
Why do you care ?
Oh, it was just that you said you followed him, and you seemed to quote him repeatedly. You were just looking like a groupie there for a second.
:death: :flower:
Hah.
He should be so lucky :wink:
I'm pleased...nay, ecstatic for ya' ! :sparkle:
Quoting 180 Proof
Wonder. Not just for the ancients, though. It might be a disenchanted age but even when dispirited - I feel wonder...and keep wondering...for better or worse...
Quoting 180 Proof
Elvis Presley - The Wonder of You (Official Video Starring Kate Moss)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcesjvyWmvg
:hearts: :broken: :heart:
Yes. And your Presley quote is apt: modern philosophers may be playing the disenchanted, but artists are not.
Perhaps. Not all. 'Some' in both cases.
Individuals work, play, think and express stuff as perceived in any given period.
Music, poetry and philosophy can be as 'one'.
I just looked back at your first post on the 'Deep Songs' thread; a thread I adore :cool:
Here's the same song but different video. What a life story...
Johnny Cash - One (Music Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjJU8gon02k
One
Johnny Cash
Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now
You've got someone to blame?
You said
One love
One life
When it's one need
In the night
One love, we get to share it
It leaves you, baby, if you don't care for it
Did I disappoint you
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without
Well it's
Too late
Tonight
To drag the past out
Into the light
We're one, but we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other
One
Have you come here for forgivness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head?
Did I ask too much?
More than a lot?
You gave me nothing, now
It's all I got
We're one, but we're not the same
Well, we hurt each other, and we're doin' it again
You said love is a temple
Love the higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holdin' on
To what you've got
When all you've got is hurt
One love
One blood
One life
You've got to do what you should
One life with each other
Sister
Brothers
One life, but we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other
One
One
One
One
Songwriters: [s]Jerry Chesnut[/s] Bono
For non-commercial use only.
Data from: Musixmatch
Quoting Lyrics: 'One'
I'm in 'love' mode. Make the most of it :wink: :kiss:
This seems to be a plausible cause.
But another possibility I had in mind would be that Plato's Forms are not mathematical objects.
......Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head?......
No, they're not, but I think numbers, universals, and the Forms are of the same order - they inhere in the 'formal realm', the domain of pure form, which is not visible to the senses but only to reason - which is a straightforward Platonist view.
See this post on the modern rejection of Platonism in mathematics. Also Augustine on intelligible objects.
Although knowledge of the history and culture are informative we cannot simply assume that a widespread practice is what the puzzling claim about the practice of dying and being dead is about.
Quoting Wayfarer
If knowledge of the Forms is seeing the Forms with the mind, then taking refuge in talk about the truth of beings does not lead to the truth of them but to opinions about them.
Not according to Plato, or at least not according to anything I have found there. The divided line distinguishes between Forms and mathematical objects.
Aristotle claims that Plato regarded mathematical objects as intermediates, between Forms and sensible things:
Yes. Superb... :smile:
I checked on the lyricist. Not Jerry Chesnut as above but Bono:
U2 - One (Official Music Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftjEcrrf7r0
Correct. It is the close proximity of mathematical objects to Forms that tends to lead to the erroneous assumption that they are Forms.
In reality, according to Plato, mathematics is just the preparatory intellectual training that unshackles the soul and enables it to turn away from the shadows and towards the light.
The contemplation of mathematical objects starts off the learning or recollecting process leading to a grasp of the Forms (and can take years before the philosopher is ready for the study of the Forms).
But mathematical objects are not Forms. An ideal triangle is a mathematical object conceived in the mind, but it is not a Form. The Form corresponding to the mathematical object “triangle” is Shape.
1. The Good or the One.
2. Nous or "intellect" proper: World of Forms, e.g. Shape
3. Logistikon, "intellectual" or "thinking" aspect: World of mathematical objects, e.g. ideal triangle.
4. Thymos or "emotional" aspect.
5. Epithymetikon or "sensual aspect".
So, Forms are above mathematical objects.
Of course we could say, for example, that Shape itself is a kind of mathematical concept. However, being above "triangle", it is not the same as the mathematical object, it is more a function constitutive of objects than an object as such.
Forms are also different from universals in that they are prior to the objects, though again, they are close to universals or in the same general direction leading to the light of reality ....
Rather than looking directly at beings he does something analogous to looking at their reflection in water, in other words, he looks at images created in speech. He blurs the distinction between beings as things seen with the eyes and beings as the Forms. In the Republic he says that the Forms are the beings themselves, the originals of which things seen with the eyes are images, and yet here he says that he would be blinded by looking at beings and so he takes refuge in speech and looks at images, at hypotheticals he posits and calls Forms.
In the Republic he presents:
that culminates with the image of the philosopher seeing the Forms themselves. In the Phaedo he presents an autobiographical account of his own education, that culminates with his hypothesis of Forms. But the culmination of his account is not the culmination of his search. Philosophy remains radically incomplete.
It is this indeterminacy that some find intolerable. They desire that things be fixed and determined and knowable. Plato gives them what they want, stories and images they mistake for the truth.
[quote=Rafael Demos, Plato, Selections (Introduction)]Plato hardly claims the power to grasp absolute truth for himself. Very often, when approaching the territory of final metaphysical ideas, he abandons the style of logical exposition for that of myth or poetry. There is something characteristically unfinished about his thought; he eschews neat systems and his intuitions often jostle one another. By contrast, the works of any commonplace thinker leave an impression of extreme artificiality in their orderly array of premises leading inevitably to the one possible conclusion. That is not -- one reflects -- how the thinker actually arrived at the solution; those neat proofs do not represent the complex processes of his mind in its fumbling quest. Only after he had worked out his thought to its conclusion, did he conceive of the systematic pattern which he sets down in his book. Nor is he really as pleased with the solution as he claims to be; in his mind, the conclusion is rather a tentative answer standing uncertainly against a background of aggressive alternatives impatient to replace it. Now, in Plato's works, we have not the manufactured article, but the real thing; we have the picture of a mind caught in the toils of thinkings we get the concrete process by which he struggled to a conclusion, the hesitation amongst the thousand different standpoints, the doubts and the certainties together. The dialogues are, each one, a drama of ideas; in their totality, they depict the voyage of a mind in which any number of ports are visited before the anchor is finally cast. And at the end, it is as though the ship of thought were unable to stay in the harbor but had to cast anchor outside; for according to Plato the mind must be satisfied with a distant vision of the truth, though it may grasp reality intimately at fleeting intervals.[/quote]
I wonder what 'looking into beings' might mean? Is it a reference to 'contemplation of the nature of being'?
Quoting Fooloso4
Let's revisit:
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Fooloso4
Again, in the Meno, Socrates suggests that the soul is immortal and subject to repeated re-birth:
[quote=Meno 81b;"http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0178%3Atext%3DMeno%3Asection%3D81b"]Seeing then that the soul is immortal and has been born many times, and has beheld all things both in this world and in the nether realms, she has acquired knowledge of all and everything; so that it is no wonder that she should be able to recollect all that she knew before about virtue and other things.[/quote]
So, not only 'the dead' can answer, if the soul is able to recollect being born and dying.
Quoting Fooloso4
So, why do you think he does that? What might his motivation have been?
There are four levels of awareness given in the Allegory of the Cave:
1. Shadows on the cave wall.
2. Images of outside objects and beings whose shadows are seen on the wall
3. Outside reflections and shadows of outside objects and beings.
4. Objects themselves.
Taking a geometrical figure, e.g., a triangle drawn on paper or in the sand, this would correspond to level (1) of the shadows on the wall, which is the level of sensibles.
As we look at the drawn triangle, we notice that “it falls short of” being perfect which gives rise in our mind of the concept of perfection that, at this stage, is indeterminate. This would correspond to level (2) of the man-made images of outside objects.
Guided by this concept of perfection, we next form in our mind a perfect triangle as an ideal mathematical object, that corresponds to level (3) of outside reflections in water, etc. This is the first level of intelligibles, the mathematical level where we are outside the cave and begin to get used to the outside world.
Contemplation (or dialectical examination) of the ideal object leads to the next intelligible level of Forms, in this case Shape or Triangularity, which corresponds to level (4) of the outside objects themselves.
Beyond these there is the level of the Sun that illumines the outside, real world and that symbolizes the Good or the One, the source of all knowledge.
It may be worth pointing out that the shadows are not illusory. They are not figments of imagination but imperfect likenesses of what ultimately are real objects. So, the four awareness levels are levels of increasingly greater reality that the philosopher can use to get as close as possible to ultimate reality as his intellectual abilities permit.
Obviously, some readers may lack the necessary abilities to get very far. (Some Straussians come to mind.) Perhaps Plato is right in suggesting that the philosopher must go through the five mathematical disciplines (calculation and arithmetic, plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy, and harmonic theory) before reaching dialectic proper.
In any case, in order to really understand something we must become as much like it as possible:
Hence the difficulty experienced by some to understand even basic Platonic concepts ....
Here I think you're confusing intellect and imagination.
[quote=Edward Feser, Some Brief Arguments for Dualism; http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com.au/2008/10/some-brief-arguments-for-dualism-part_29.html]
Consider that when you think about triangularity, as you might when proving a geometrical theorem, it is necessarily perfect triangularity that you are contemplating, not some mere approximation of it. Triangularity as your intellect grasps it is entirely determinate or exact; for example, what you grasp is the notion of a closed plane figure with three perfectly straight sides, rather than that of something which may or may not have straight sides or which may or may not be closed. Of course, your mental image of a triangle might not be exact, but rather indeterminate and fuzzy. But to grasp something with the intellect is not the same as to form a mental image of it. For any mental image of a triangle is necessarily going to be of an isosceles triangle specifically, or of a scalene one, or an equilateral one; but the concept of triangularity that your intellect grasps applies to all triangles alike. Any mental image of a triangle is going to have certain features, such as a particular color, that are no part of the concept of triangularity in general. A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once.[/quote]
Another example: René Descartes uses the chiliagon as an example in his Sixth Meditation to demonstrate the difference between intellect and imagination. He says that, when one thinks of a chiliagon (a one-thousand-sided polygon), he "does not imagine the thousand sides or see them as if they were present" before him – as you do when you imagine a triangle. The imagination can only project a "confused representation," which is no different from that which it constructs of a myriagon (a polygon with ten thousand sides). However, you can clearly understand what a chiliagon is, on the basis of its verbal description as 'a polygon with one thousand sides'. Therefore, the intellect is not dependent on or the same as imagination.
My gloss on it is that whenever you say that something 'is' something - e.g. that an apple 'is' red - insofar as the thing you're referring to is a material particular, then the 'is' in that construction is only an approximation. This goes back to the discussion of the nature of being, which is the discussion of the nature of 'what is'. Only 'what truly is' can be the object of a valid idea, because it is perfectly itself. Whereas all material particulars - sensable objects - are admixtures of being and becoming, so they don't truly exist, or rather, their existence is temporal and perishing. Whereas the ideas or principles that the individual particulars are instances of, are not temporal and perishing. This or that instance will come into and go out of existence, but the essence of the thing will neither come into or go out of existence. So the best approximation of a true 'is' statement is the equals sign '=' - when you say that a=a, then this is a completely unequivocal statement.
Can you see how the connection with Parmenides?
'How could what is perish? How could it have come to be? For if it came into being, it is not; nor is it, if ever it is going to be. Thus coming into being is extinguished, and destruction unknown.'
Not saying I accept it but I'm trying to paraphrase it in such a way that it is understandable.
As to the second part, it is a testament to Plato's art that he makes the artful appear artless, as if he is in the process of thinking through what in fact has been finely crafted.
As to the the third part, using his analogy, from the harbor the reality of the distant ship at sea would be grasped as a miniature ship not capable of transporting men or goods. Although some may be satisfied with this vision, it is not a satisfactory vision of the truth, but a serious distortion of it.
Quoting Wayfarer
He is talking about the things seen with the eyes.
Quoting Wayfarer
Do you know anyone who can answer?
Quoting Wayfarer
It is part of a salutary exoteric teaching aimed at the development of just souls. A noble lie.
Quoting Fooloso4
If I said I had had a recollection from a previous life, I'm sure it would be dismissed as imaginary.
I don't think so.
To begin with, sensory faculties, emotions, imagination, thoughts, contemplation, all are functions of the same one intelligence which ultimately is the nous. The nous is the experiencing subject in all cases.
Even imagination is ultimately an intellectual activity. However, the mathematical object is not visualized as in imagination, it is a purely abstract concept which is why it is in the domain of intelligibles and close to Forms. If it were visualized as in imagination, then it would belong to sensibles and would not be an ideal object.
‘In Aristotle's influential works, ‘nous’ was carefully distinguished from sense perception, imagination, and reason, although these terms are closely inter-related. The term was apparently already singled out by earlier philosophers such as Parmenides.’
That Edward Feser blog post I linked to also makes this distinction.
Yes. But we are talking about Plato. In Plato, sensory faculties, emotions, thoughts, are part of the soul the essential core of which is the nous. The soul described by Socrates in afterlife situations is not just the nous but the entire soul which is capable of sensory perception, emotion, etc.
And an abstract concept conceived in the mind is not the same as a visually perceptible object created by the imagination.
Is this noesis?
that's what I thought I said.
And that's why I don't think I confused intellect and imagination :smile:
Good question. Mathematics starts with dianoia and ends in noesis, after which the Forms take over. In other words, mathematics takes us from sensibles to intelligibles but stops at the threshold of the Forms.
We are out of the cave but we still see the objects in themselves (Forms) only in their reflection (e.g. ideal object).
See the discussion of the noble lie in the Republic and the distinction between it and the "true lie" or "lies in the soul".
Quoting Wayfarer
And would that be a true lie, a lie in the soul?
Quoting Fooloso4
Is it said that the forms are the subject of such a ‘noble lie’? If they are so central to Plato’s philosophy, that would be unlikely, wouldn’t it?
Good point. According to Plato:
Plato makes it clear that in order to apprehend the Form of the Good, the philosopher must develop the power of abstract thought, which is why he emphasizes the study of mathematics for this purpose:
He then makes another important point:
Obviously, those who uncritically follow Strauss in the belief that Plato’s Forms are “an absurd doctrine”, belong to the second group.
IMHO the real absurd doctrine is to suggest that we spend years developing our power of abstract thought in the pursuit of the Good, only to discover, in our 50’s, 60’s, or later, that it is all just a “noble lie”. But then Strauss himself apparently believes in deception as an essential ingredient of government and one has to wonder to what extent his own teachings are an elaborate hoax ….
And yet, as you know since you have participated in it, there is a thread on just that. But I am not asking you to discuss your beliefs. I am asking you to ask yourself if this is something you know rather than a belief or opinion or just a possibility you don't want to deny.
Quoting Wayfarer
It is about the difference between knowledge and opinion. The story about the ascent to the Forms is not about imparting knowledge. It leads the listener to an opinion not to the truth. He uses the term 'noble lie' to emphasize the fact that what is said is not the truth. But of course, telling someone a lie is not effective if you tell them it is a lie.
The intent of a noble lie is not to deceive but to edify. But what is edifying is not the same as what is true. We do not tell our children edifying stories in order to deceive them but to instill values, to set them on a safe path free of the doubts and confusion that they may still have to confront.
Some readers think that what is central to Plato's philosophy is some doctrine or set of doctrines including either a theory of Forms or the disclosure of Forms. What others take to be central is Socratic practice, what we see him doing in the dialogues. Dialogic inquiry not doctrine. The story of Forms is not exempt from the Socratic practice of critical inquiry.
I had some vivid experiences in my early years which were like recollections. Part of it was realising that I am the necessary ground of all experience (not myself personally but the self of all beings). That is what lead to my interest in Eastern philosophy. I also had an acute sense of having known something of great importance at a time that must have been before I was born. It was a momentary realisation but very persuasive. It wasn't anything like remembering a previous identity, although I've read such accounts and they seem authentic.
Quoting Fooloso4
This is the crux of the issue. I think this is where the influence of modern culture frames the interpretive picture. The background to modern thought is that the Universe is valueless in itself, that it's up to humans to create and maintain a value system.
From the thesis I did in Buddhist philosophy:
As you recall from the thread on the Phaedo, Socrates rejects Anaxagoras' naturalist account of causation because it gave only explanations in terms of 'air and aether' and the like, which he compares tto 'bones and sinews' rather than 'real causes' which, he says, are intentional 98e.
That is just prior to Socrates' (and so, Plato's) introduction of the 'theory of forms'. I don't believe they are presented as an edifying tale, but as a hypothesis (although obviously not what we would regard as a scientific hypothesis).
Quoting Fooloso4
According to Norman Gulley 'Plato's Theory of Knowledge', Plato introduces the theory of forms and anamnesis (Meno) because of his awareness of the limitations of the Socratic method of questioning, and in the attempt to develop a constructive theory of knowledge.
Quoting Apollodorus
A comparison from Buddhist literature:
[quote=D. T. Suzuki, The Lankavatara Sutra;http://lirs.ru/do/lanka_eng/lanka-nondiacritical.htm]I wish here to say a few words concerning the important psychological event known as Par?v?tti in the Lanka and other Mahayana literature. Par?v?tti literally means "turning up" or "turning back" or "change"; technically, it is a spiritual change or transformation which takes place in the mind, especially suddenly, and I have called it "revulsion" {nimmita) in my Studies in the Lankavatara, which, it will be seen, somewhat corresponds to what is known as "conversion" among the psychological students of religion.
It is significant that the Mahayana has been insistent to urge its followers to experience this psychological transformation in their practical life. A mere intellectual understanding of the truth is not enough in the life of a Buddhist; the truth must be directly grasped, personally experienced, intuitively penetrated into; for then it will be distilled into life and determine its course.
This Par?v?tti, according to the Lanka, takes place in the Alaya-vijnana (All-conserving Mind), which is assumed to exist behind our individual empirical consciousnesses. The Alaya is a metaphysical entity, and no psychological analysis can reach it. What we ordinarily know as the Alaya is its working through a relative mind The Mahayana calls this phase of the Alaya tainted or defiled (klishta) and tells us to be cleansed of it in order to experience a Par?v?tti for the attainment of ultimate reality.
Par?v?tti in another sense, therefore, is purification (visuddhi). In Buddhism terms of colouring are much used, and becoming pure, free from all pigment, means that the Alaya is thoroughly washed off its dualistic accretion or outflow (asrava), that is, that the Tathagata has effected his work of purification in the mind of a sentient being, which has so far failed to perceive its own oneness and allness. Being pure is to remain in its own selfhood or self-nature (svabhava). While Par?v?tti is psychological, it still retains its intellectual flavour as most Buddhist terms do.[/quote]
Again, from the essay What is Math, Smithsonian Magazine:
Basically says it all, if you think it through.
Correct. One way of looking at it is that the Forms are within the Universal Consciousness or "Mind of God", in which case they are subjective to the One, but "objective" to the many. As the individual nous expands its field or sphere of awareness, it gets closer and closer to the World Nous and thereby acquires an ever-clearer grasp of the nature of the Forms. In any case, Buddhists and Hindus, especially those who have some experience of meditative states of consciousness seem to find it easier to understand the concept.
Regarding the “noble lie” theory, it is just a theory, typically advanced by those who believe in political propaganda like Strauss and his followers. In reality, it is far from clear that “noble lie” is the correct translation in the first instance.
Desmond Lee makes the following observation:
- H. D. P. Lee, Plato The Republic, p. 156
If we look at it objectively, some important points become obvious:
Plato’s foundation myth is simply replacing an old myth with a new one. It is not replacing truth with a lie.
A myth taken as a whole, may be false but it also contains truth, as Socrates himself says (Rep. 377a).
Myth enables philosophical inquiry to reach its goal (Rep. 614a).
This is the key to understanding Plato’s myths: they serve a philosophical purpose as well as conveying a truth.
And, of course, nowhere does Plato say that the Forms or God are just myths!
On the contrary, it is imperative to remember that, in order to develop our power of abstract thought, Plato urges us to study mathematics not in any way but in a particular way that prepares us for the specific task of grasping the nature of the Forms.
Such studies he says, “guide and convert the soul to the contemplation of true being” (Rep. 525a), a statement he repeats several times.
Calculation and arithmetic, which “plainly compels the soul to employ pure thought with a view to truth itself”, focuses not just on numbers, but also on spatial arrangements (such as military formations in lines and columns) which prepare us for the next stage involving geometrical forms.
Geometry, “the knowledge of the eternally existent”, focuses on pure geometrical figures consisting of the lines that were introduced in the previous stage.
Astronomy, which “converts the natural indwelling intelligence of the soul from uselessness to right use”, focuses on the correlations of spatial and temporal relations among geometrical solids (heavenly bodies) whose movement gives rise to day and night, etc.
Harmony, the study of which “is of use only when conducted for the investigation of the beautiful and the good”, takes us beyond spatiality by focusing on the ratios expressed by the figures studied up to this point and including musical pitch.
Thus, Plato’s training program takes us from the one-dimensional to the two-dimensional, from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional, from the three-dimensional to the three-dimensional in motion, and from the latter to time, thus covering all the dimensions of the material world and facilitating our understanding of the innermost structure of the world of becoming as constituted by intelligibles and dependent on being.
Plato’s statements are definitely no “lies”. The study of mathematics in the way suggested by Plato, does actually help in the development of the ability to think abstractly and to grasp abstract concepts.
It is true that Plato stops at the threshold to Forms having Socrates and Glaucon say:
Still, we know that the method that takes philosophical inquiry forward and enables the philosopher to go beyond mathematical thought is dialectic, which further develops the soul’s internal capacity for insight until it is sufficiently finetuned to grasp the reality of the Forms. The Parmenides, Timaeus, and other works offer further points of departure in this direction.
In any case, it is clear that it is not sufficient to understand the inner structure of the world. Philosophical inquiry demands that we also understand the inner structure of the soul and the interrelation of soul and world. E.g., how does the individual nous relate to the Nous of the World Soul? The answer to this also provides the answer to the nature of the Forms and their relation to both the One and the many.
See also Mitchell Miller, Beginning the “Longer Way” – Research Gateway
After calling the hypothesis of Forms simple, naive, and perhaps foolish, and later "safe and ignorant". (105 b), he reintroduces physical causes. (105b-c)
It should be noted how he blurs the distinction between Mind and his mind. First he makes the assumption that Mind would direct everything according to what is best. And so:
Socrates is never able to show that it is best that things be as they are. He does, however, attempt to live his life according to what seems best. In addition, he replaces the way Mind orders things with the way his mind orders things according to the hypothesis of Forms.
Quoting Wayfarer
Plato situates his most sustained criticism of the Forms in the Parmenides, which takes place when Socrates was a young man. In other words, contrary to what Gulley and other advocates of reading the dialogues according to developmental periods, Plato makes the problem of Forms something Socrates was aware of from the beginning.
The Forms are each said to be one, of which there are many things of that Form. The Forms and things of that Form are an indeterminate dyad, but the Forms are presented as if they stand alone and apart. There is, however, no ‘X’ without things that are ‘x’.
Each Form is one, but Forms are many. How many? In addition, each Form is both self-same and other. There is the Just itself and the Beautiful itself, but the Just is not Beautiful of the Beautiful the Just. The Forms themselves are an indeterminate dyad, same and other.
Becoming is supposed to be understood in light of being, things in light of Forms, the unlimited in light of the limited. Formulated in this way, the problem comes to light. How can the limited encompass the unlimited? When the many are reduced to one what it is that makes them many cannot be taken into account.
The Forms falsely represent the part as the whole. The undetermined as determined. The open-ended nature of philosophical inquiry as if it is completed and closed to further inquiry.
I figure the Parmenides dialogue argues that Gulley has the sequence backwards.
At 133, the separation of the forms from our reality creates the largest obstacle to using them as an explanatory principle. "If nothing can be like the form, nor can the form be like anything."
During 134:
But Parmenides does agree at 135b to the use of the forms since we have few other options if we are to proceed through dialogue:
From this point of departure, "developing a constructive theory of knowledge" requires the dialectic approach rather than the abandonment of it.
Shadows are cast. The 2D shadow of a child eating icecream in the train, reveals features of the true child. The true objects of the true world can not be known to one living in a cave onto which' walls only shadows are cast. The moment though it is seen that one casts shadows themselves, a new contemplation will be immanent.
To be continued...
In the first paragraph they deny the existence of the Forms in the world. In the second they confirm the necessity for the existence of Forms. One way to interpret this is to assume that the Forms exist in a transcendent realm, in a higher reality. But they also affirm that we have no knowledge of the Forms, and so cannot know that they exist in a higher reality. The affirmation of the existence of Forms, Parmenides says, is for the sake of speech and thought. It is the particular characteristic of each thing, not something other that the things of this world, that is the cause of the hypothesis of Forms, literally, that which stands under what is said and thought.
This statement about lies begins with truth. Some lies told by those with the proper art and authority are for the sake of truth. If some lies are beneficial does this mean that the truth of the matter will prove to be harmful?
The statement regarding noble lies from the Bloom translation:
There is a play on words here because the lie being discussed is about being born from the earth instead of from human parents. The ensuing discussion reveals the purpose of the lie is to diminish the power of inherited positions in society.
The Greek is:
???????? ?? ?? ??????????? ?????? ??????? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ????????, ?? ?? ??, ??? ????? ?????;
The first meaning of ????????, the word translated as "noble", is to be true to one's birth. In this case, Socrates argues that the lie is said to reflect a truth our circumstances of birth misrepresent.
While on the topic of Greek words, the word translated as "lie" is from ??????. As a verb, it means to cheat as well as to speak falsely. However justified the practice may be or not, the text is not hiding from the unpleasant associations of the act as an act.
Glaucon says at 414d:
"“It’s not without reason,” he said, “that you were ashamed for so long to tell the lie.”
This plays out on several levels. The myth that:
is like the myth of the living coming from Hades. It is not only the myth of the earth being their mother, the breeding program too conceals the truth of one's birth. In the myth there is no father, no procreation. I have not worked it out, but perhaps there is some connection with the generations of the regimes.
The lie also conceals the truth that:
Quoting Valentinus
Being true to one's birth, also has the sense being true to one's nature in addition to the convention of the parent's social status.
Quoting Valentinus
Perhaps Plato intends to remind us of Achilles' criticizing King Agamemnon for being "wrapped in shamelessness". (Iliad, 1. 149)
I think it positively freaks them out.
But what is really hilarious is the way Straussians are attempting to cover up their master’s true colors.
Strauss started his career as a teacher at a rabbinical seminary in Berlin.
In 1932 he left Germany for France on a Rockefeller fellowship. The Rockefellers were major sponsors of Fabian Socialist outfits like the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
From France Strauss moved to London, England, where he became a close friend of Fabian Socialists like H. R. Tawney who were connected with the Rockefeller-funded LSE.
In 1937, Strauss moved from London to New York under the patronage of Harold Laski, a Fabian Socialist and Marxist who taught political science at LSE and who also was a member of the Fabian Society and British Labour Party executives.
In New York, Strauss taught political science at The New School, a Fabian Socialist institution funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and Universal Oil, after which he moved to Chicago.
Not content with Judaism, Strauss also took a keen interest in Spinozism and Arabism and maintained close links to Arabists like Paul Kraus (who married Strauss’ sister). After studying anti-Platonists like Maimonides, Strauss developed the theory (or fixed idea) that Classical philosophers like Plato had a hidden political agenda which they concealed behind allegorical language.
Leo Strauss – Wikipedia
Strauss believed that governments and political philosophers (like himself) should hide the truth from the public by means of “noble lies”. So, we can see why it became so important for Strauss to propagate the myth of “Plato’s noble lie”. He was making a living out of it by using this myth to justify his own teachings!
In any case, it is clear that Strauss is either psychologically incapable of understanding Plato or deliberately misinterprets him for his own political agenda. And the same goes for his followers.
Take, for example the inability to understand that Forms can be at once transcendent to and immanent in the sensible world. I think everyone can see that the sun is above the world we live in but its light is immanent in it. Similarly, the Forms themselves are transcendent but their properties reflected in the sensible particulars are very much in this world.
As already noted, the phrase “noble lie” seems to be a (deliberate) mistranslation of the Greek original and it clearly distorts Plato’s intention.
As you can see, they cherry pick a bit of text to suit their agenda:
Moreover, they provide no translation! Not surprisingly, they are unable to say where exactly the text says “noble lie”. They expect us to believe that Plato needs 17 words to say just 2 :grin:
And, of course, nowhere does Plato say that the Forms are a myth or a lie.
This is why in addition to reading Plato we also need to keep a tab on his detractors, especially those with a hidden (or perhaps not so hidden) political agenda.
It's not just one intellectual, it's the whole cosmopolitan intelligentsia, and the thrust of modern academia generally, particularly in the English-speaking world. That's why I posted the link to the Jacques Maritain essay, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism, on my profile. One excerpt from that:
Compare this with:
And you can see the precedent for this in one of the passages quoted above:
'The consequences' are, precisely, relativism, nominalism and empiricism:
[quote=Richard Weaver, Ideas have Consequences; ]Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence* of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism** in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence.[/quote]
*I would prefer 'reality'.
** Meaning 'scholastic realism', realism concerning universals.
Welcome to the modern world!
I've been trying to make a point of the dimunition of metaphysics in Western culture, generally, by way of responding to the OP. I notice it keeps getting diverted back to the interpretation of the Platonic dialogues - which, incidentally, I greatly value, as it is something I need to learn much more about. BUT, there's an underlying cultural dynamic here, which is generally not being commented on.
The Parmenides quote does challenge the basis for a relativity you have described as the basis for the Modern perspective. So, it is commenting upon the underlying cultural dynamic to notice there were disagreements at the time these statements were made.
The scholarship to pay attention to these old words is a testament against the relativity you abhor. If nothing can be learned from these old arguments, why bother?
Do you think I'm saying that 'nothing can be learned from these old arguments?' I hope I didn't convey that impression.
Am I wrong in believing that the grand Western tradition of metaphysics began with Parmenides, if we had to pick out a single figure?
My argument is that an important part of what has been lost in the transition to modernity is the capacity to understand metaphysics. It is preserved in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, due to their having absorbed metaphysics into their theological philosophy, although I'm not advocating conversion to religion on those grounds.
Indeed. Straussianism is a whole school, mainly based in Chicago. There are hundreds of them!
And they are just the tip of the anti-Platonist iceberg. So, Maritain is perfectly right.
The fact is that Strauss was a follower of Maimonides who got the idea from Ibn Sina and al-Farabi that ancient philosophers had secret teachings concealed in their works. Maimonides said that people should avoid Plato because he uses too many allegories and should read Aristotle instead.
Strauss had a “better” idea. He decided to use the “noble lie” myth to develop his own political theory according to which governments and political philosophers must hide the truth from the public and disclose it to an initiated intellectual elite, only.
Of course Strauss was backed by Fabians and their financial sponsors because Fabianism believes in gaining influence and power through deception and “permeation”, i.e. propaganda, and their sponsors like the Rockefellers were among America’s most devious and ruthless industrialists and bankers who were notorious for using academics and politicians to promote their agenda.
The fraudulence of the Straussians and the wider anti-Platonist movement is evident from their spurious interpretation of Platonic texts. The fact is that the phrase “a noble lie” does not occur in the Greek text and it does not refer to the Forms.
Unfortunately, being themselves committed atheists and materialists, Strauss and other anti-Platonist ideologists obviously feel that Plato must have been an atheist and materialist, too. This is why they fail to examine their own assumptions. Their self-confident, dogmatic approach prevents them from even asking themselves why not every translation of the Republic has “noble lie”.
Let us look at the Wikipedia Article “Noble Lie”. It says:
Note how the translation abruptly stops after “noble one”. What could the reason for this be? Simply put, the Greek text does not say “noble lie”!
And this illustrates the wider problem of a mainstream consensus being built by a (well-funded) intellectual elite that seeks to suppress all forms of opposition to its dogma. It has not yet completely taken over public sources like Wikipedia, but this is what it aims to achieve ….
You did not convey that impression. I meant to say that the "interpretation of the Platonic dialogues" is an engagement in metaphysics that you say has been lost in the transition to modernity. I don't accept the claim that the only path to engaging with the thinking is through the lens of preserved models.
The quote from Parmenides you cite is a call to carry on with the existence of forms despite all the difficulties he enumerated that faced anyone who would try. That includes us "moderns" who wrestle with those problems.
The historical conditions you see "moderns" being shackled to is itself a metaphysical proposition. I don't accept that confinement as an unavoidable fate.
My argument is to pay close attention to Plato's arguments. If one is to understand Plato's metaphysics consideration must be given to the indeterminate dyad, to the limited (peras) and unlimited (apieron).
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/599321
Once again, the affirmation of the existence of Forms is, as Parmenides says in the quoted passage above, for the sake of speech and thought. The Forms are not separate entities that exist in our world. They exist in thought. The Form, as he says in the next paragraph, refers to the particular characteristic of each thing, not something other than those things. The Forms are not supersensible or metaphysical entities. They are hypothetical, literally, that which is posited and stands under what is said and thought.
What's your ground for believing in that?
Quoting Wayfarer
What are the causes for that loss?
The prisoner doesn't know that he is shackled. He doesn't know what being free means.
Maybe he doesn't even know that he is a prisoner.
Not every philosophical argument comprises interpretation of Plato. I was agreeing with the sentiment:
Quoting Shawn
and commenting on why this is so, what lead up to it, what the historical causes are.
Quoting Fooloso4
What is the relationship between thought, experience and world? It's very easy if you posit that the mind is one thing, the world is another, and that's that - but this is one of the problems of philosophy and it can't be dismissed so easily. This is why I raised the example of platonism in mathematics. The nature of the reality of number - whether, and in what sense, number is real - is an unresolved issue to this day. The mainstream consensus is that number too is a function of the mind, with no reality greater than that. But that begs the whole question of what Eugene Wigner described as 'the unreasonable efficiency of mathematics in the natural sciences'. I see that as a live philosophical issue.
Quoting Valentinus
It isn't, if we're aware of it and question it, although it is a very difficult fate to avoid due to the pervasive influence of the culture we're immersed in.
Quoting Corvus
[quote=Vladimir Solovyov]As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical answer to our existence. Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do. And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure.[/quote]
But every argument about Plato necessarily requires an interpretation of Plato. The shadows in the OP refer to the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave.
You claim that metaphysics began with Parmenides and yet you have not said anything about Parmenides. You did, however, refer to Plato's dialogue Parmenides.
You say:
Quoting Wayfarer
but you want to discuss the footnotes and not the source?
You say:
Quoting Wayfarer
but you do not want to examine how well my reading squares with Plato. The problem may not be that my reading is secular but that your assumptions and historical categories do not fit. It may be that what you call metaphysics may not square with the text. To the extent that is true, your historical construct falls apart.
I agree, but divergence from an historical account should be marked out as such. Don't present your own ponderings as the essential Plato.
Part of Plato's genius is that it is possible to find support for many different readings in his texts. I have learned a lot from your analyses of them, and hopefully will continue to, but I don't concur with your interpretation in some basic respects.
The below is adapted from another site I visit from time to time, by an independent scholar of Plato. He favours the reading of the Republic as an analogy for the human psyche.
This is something I've learned from philosophy of science. For instance, there is a strong unstated presumption of the causal closure of the physical, meaning that all significant causes must be physical. Given that assumption, then the whole of philosophy can be re-interpreted accordingly, which is physicalism, probably the predominant attitude in the mainstream academy. The Professor of the Department where I studied undergrad philosophy was a commited materialist, his book was A Materialist Theory of Mind.
That's the overall interpretive model that I favour, and I will continue to try and enlarge my understanding of it. My interpretation of the OP is that modern philosophy essentially tries to 'make the cave more liveable'.
Quoting Fooloso4
Do you think the subject called 'metaphysics' has any real reference? Or is it, as you said in your previous post, simply about the mechanics of speech and thought?
Quoting frank
We have some text that has survived until now. There are some historical accounts that have as well. I am trying to understand Plato, not speak for him. My attempts, like any other reader, may miss the mark.
Do you mean to say that an interpretation of the text can conflict with historical accounts to a degree that it becomes fanciful?
Exactly. The authenticity of each of the dialogues has been called into question at some time or other. It's not appropriate to be dogmatic about what Plato intended.
Quoting Valentinus
That's possible, but I was just venting about people who become inflexible.
Here is Godfrey Stallbaum’s explication of this passage:
“‘Tis an oun hemin—‘ Verba sic inter se cohaerent [“these words cohere (intelligibly) in this way”]: tis an oun hemin mechane genoito, pseudomenous (hemas) yennaion ti hen twn pseudwn twn en deonti gignomenwn, wn nun de elegomen, peisai malista men kai autous tous archontas, ei de me, ten allen polin; Quomodo igitur, inquit, fieri poterit, ut unum aliquod honestum mendacium, ex his quae antea dicebamus necessaria esse, mentiri ipsis maxime moderatoribus, aut sin aliter, reliquis civibus persuadeamus? [“In what manner then,” he said, “could it happen, that some one honorable lie, of these which we were saying before were necessary, might be especially told to the rulers themselves, but if not, that we persuade the rest of the citizens?]
Loquitur paullo obscurius propter animi verecundiam, necdum rem ipsam commemorat, quam vult principibus reliquaeque civitati ita persuaderi, ut mendacium aliquod salubre adhibeatur. Patet vero ex his, quae deinceps exponuntur, commentum aliquod fabulosum ei videri excogitandum...[He (Socrates) speaks somewhat obscurely because of the shame in his soul, nor does he yet relate the very thing he wishes the princes and the citizenry to be persuaded of, such that some salubrious lie be applied. But it is clear from what follows that some fabulous contrivance seems to him ought to be thought out...]”
Soon afterwards, Glaucon says, “How like a man hesitant to speak you are,” (Bloom translation), but in reading the Bloom translation, we cannot understand this response, for his translation reads “noble lie” for “gennaion ti”. He should have written instead, “noble thing”. This would have better, and more faithfully to the Greek, conveyed Socrates’ hesitancy.
Nevertheless, O Deploradorus, it is clear from the context that Socrates speaks of a noble lie, even if he says “noble thing”. Stallbaum tells us why. As an analogy, if I were to converse with a female, and the conversation turn to certain intimate details of her peculiar anatomy, I wouldn’t use words like “vagina” and “clitoris”, but rather circumlocutions like “the things up in there,” or, “your privates,” etc.
Quoting Wayfarer
What would you do if / after having been cured?
If the text supports such questioning then Plato gives us reason to question. After all, this is exactly what Socrates says he does.
Quoting Wayfarer
This is true of all of us. The question is, how well does the text support one interpretation rather than another? This is not to say that there is a final, definitive, interpretation. Any interpretation should be subject to revision in light of what is found in the text.
Quoting Wayfarer
Perhaps it is just an oversight that you did not identify John Uebersax. Given his own interpretive commitment I am not surprised you agree.
Quoting Wayfarer
No, the term is used in a variety of ways to mean different things. I identified the indeterminate dyad as one of Plato's metaphysical principles.
Quoting Wayfarer
It is Parmenides in the dialogue, not me. And this is not what he says. It is not about the mechanics of speech and thought.
However, Bloom is a Straussian, is he not?
Quoting Wayfarer
I would say philosophical and political.
It is important to understand that Greek ?????? pseudos is not the same as English “lie”. It is less strong and it has a broader range of meaning than the English word. It can mean story, tale, poetic fiction, faint, etc., not just plain falsehood or lie.
More honest translators like Desmond Lee actually point this out in their commentaries. Lee’s translation reads:
In my view, this captures Plato’s intention much better than translations that insist on indiscriminately using “lie” to make Plato sound like Lenin or Stalin.
Once the meaning of pseudos has been clarified, the correct reading becomes obvious from Socrates’ own answer to the question “What sort of story?”: “Nothing new. A fairy story like the one poets tell”.
Clearly, what he has in mind is a story (literally, “a Phoenician tale”) to replace the existing one. Hence, “nothing new” (meden kainon).
If you take a look at the Talk pages where editors discuss Wikipedia articles you’ll get an idea of what’s happening behind the scenes. Below is a comment on “Noble Lie”:
Talk: Noble lie – Wikipedia
In any case, we should not assume that academics and their financial sponsors have no subversive political and cultural agendas.
It was adapted from John Uebersax but I think this interpretive framework is not unique to him, I selected it because I thought it representative.
Compare the 'edifying tale' with the Buddhist conception of Upaya.
From wikipedia. See in particular the parable of the burning house.
Prove that claim, with examples to support the opinion.
If you have any respect for Liddell and Scott, they are not going to help you with this interpretation.
The problem of how to see the "unlimited" in a relationship with the "limited" is the central focus of Plotinus in the Enneads. The separations between the One, Intelligence, and the Soul are based upon judgments of what Plato and Aristotle said touching upon the matter.
The actual format of the noble lie is a little difficult to distinguish, because Plato wants everyone to be fooled by it. I understood it as supporting his proposed eugenics. Breeding of human beings was to be controlled, like we would control the breeding of dogs. However, in order to be successful, the controlled breeding needed to be hidden from the public. The proposal was some sophisticated lottery system which would be held to determine who got to mate. The lottery would be rigged.
That it makes Plato sound like a tyrant, O Deploradorus, is your own prejudice, not that of the translators. And why you use the term “indiscriminately” is beyond me, since they used a certain discrimination, that the same word be translated in the same way, as their guiding principle. When you allow a translator to translate his text according to some “interpretation”, you cannot know that that interpretation is correct unless you have yourself learned to fluently read the original. Can you say that you have verified the authenticity of the translation you quoted, from your own intimacy with Plato’s Greek? Answer me! Either avow it or deny it.
Quoting Fooloso4
In none of the references I have read in the subsequent discussion has the 'noble lie' been said to describe the arguments for the immortality of the soul.
Is it argued elsewhere that these arguments in the Phaedo and Meno can be taken to be examples of a 'noble lie'?
Did Plato believe in a realm of the Unformed to match the Forms?
I think that because the precise nature of "the noble lie" is not well established by Plato, it is just sort of allowed for in principle, through mention, this inclines people to judge anything in Plato which they think might be a dishonest representation (even if this determination might be produced from misunderstanding), as "the noble lie".
You are right, what is said in the Meno and Phaedo are not identified as noble lies, but as was also pointed out, you don't tell someone you are trying to persuade that what you are saying is not the truth. As always with Plato, it is important to keep in mind who Socrates is talking to and what the setting is. In both cases, the argument fails and is replaced by myth.
The myth of the metals in the Republic is called a noble lie, but it is not the only one of its kind. Once again:
Even if Socrates believed in the immortality of the soul, presenting that opinion as the truth is a lie. Following the closing myth in the Phaedo he says:
“No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places …” (114d)
His myths do not reveal the truth, they provide something he thinks it is beneficial for them to believe is true. But what they may believe to be true is not the same as what is true
There is no doubt that there are parallels. Straussianism itself is like a religious cult with a subversive political and cultural agenda.
Whilst teaching political science at the University of Chicago, Strauss indoctrinated Allan Bloom, Seth Benardete, Joseph Cropsey, Stanley Rosen, and many others who have contributed to the wider anti-Platonist movement, acting as self-appointed “translators” and “interpreters” of Plato and other Classical authors.
However, as already stated, Strauss and his crew are just the tip of the worldwide anti-Platonist iceberg. If we take a closer look, we discover other leading anti-Platonists from the same notorious University of Chicago, such as Paul Shorey (“Professor of Greek”), whose “translations” of Plato have been propagated by the Loeb Classical Library. As is well-known, the Loeb Library was founded in 1911 by James Loeb, senior partner at Kuhn, Loeb & Co., America’s No 2 private investment bank (after J P Morgan & Co).
From 1936 the Loeb series was co-published by Harvard University which was controlled by the same Rockefellers who sponsored Strauss and bankrolled the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the National Bureau of Economic Research (NY), The New School (NY), the Social Science Research Council (NY), the American Council of Learned Societies (NY) and many other similar outfits in America and Europe!
Incidentally, David Rockefeller himself in the 1930’s studied economics at Harvard and LSE (which was bankrolled by his father John D. Rockefeller Jr.), wrote a graduate thesis on Fabian Socialism, and completed his studies at the University of Chicago which had been founded by his grandfather in the 1890’s (D. Rockefeller, Memoirs).
Beardsley Ruml of the Rockefellers’ University of Chicago, was put in charge of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund and its fellowship program. Together with other University of Chicago operatives like Wesley Clair Mitchell and Charles Edward Merriam Jr, Ruml led America’s Progressive Movement and poured Rockefeller resources into the social sciences and related fields in line with their “progressive” agenda.
The informal name of Rockefellers’ New School whose operatives included anti-Platonists like Strauss and Benardete was “The New School for Social Research”.
Social research for what purpose, one may ask?
As revealed on its website, “formally named The New School, the university has grown to include five colleges, with courses that reflect the founders' interest in the emerging social sciences, international affairs, liberal arts, history, and philosophy”. The same website also states that “The New School for Social Research has upheld The New School's legendary tradition of challenging orthodoxy” and urges its students to “be a force of new thought, knowledge, and ideas in the world. “
The New School
Why were America’s top bankers and industrialists sponsoring anti-Platonist academics? Who were they? What were they up to? What was their agenda? Why have they been seeking to influence, manipulate, and control Western philosophy including, in particular, political philosophy, as well as political science and political psychology?
What does “challenging orthodoxy and replacing it with new thought” mean? Whose “new thought”?! Who challenges the challengers? Is there an attempt to deconstruct Western culture by cancelling its classical foundations? In whose behalf is this being done and why?
I think these are important questions that philosophers should not ignore or sweep under the carpet. And forums should foster, not stifle discussion of this topic.
- D. Lee, Plato, The Republic, pp. 387, 388
1. I think if I have to choose between Lee and you, there can be only one option …. :grin:
2. In Socrates’ own words, the “Phoenician tale” is meant to replace an existing one.
3. The tale does NOT refer to the Forms, the immortality of soul, or any other key elements of Plato’s teachings!
In this case, we have the interpretation of the word by Socrates himself:
Quoting Plato, Cratylus, 421b, translated by Harold N. Fowler
Your account has a frothy fever reminiscent of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
I cannot find a single entry in Liddell and Scott that even remotely supports Lee's statement.
Are Liddell and Scott also "Straussians"? That means the guy was able to travel back in time. That's pretty nifty.
Of course I have verified it. The Greek text does not say "a noble lie", period.
And Socrates himself says, "Nothing new. But a Phoenician one". So he is not suggesting a lie to replace the truth, but a story to replace the existing one.
Moreover, this has no bearing on the Forms or any other key teachings in his dialogues. He doesn't say "let's create a story about Forms" or "let's create a story about the immortality of the soul, judgment in the afterlife", etc. On the contrary, he urges people to believe in the views already current at the time!
Well, if you can travel back in time and talk to Socrates, why not Lee?
Plus scholars don’t rely on just one dictionary, do they?
So, perhaps you should take a better look:
LSJ
BTW, you have not demonstrated that Plato is telling lies about Forms.
That resource uses Liddell and Scott for Ancient Greek. You have not provided an example of the use in Greek to support Lee's interpretation.
I have not claimed Plato is telling lies about Forms. The lie I commented upon was the one where Socrates suggested saying humans are born from the Earth.
You have once again failed to distinguish between your various interlocutors. Wayfarer is the one who asked Philoso4 if he was saying Forms were a possible lie.
Of course it does! What other kind of Greek are you talking about?
Lee says exactly what LSJ says, "pseudos = falsehood, lie":
To begin with, there is a difference between "falsehood" and "lie". And other dictionaries list additional meanings such as "poetic fiction", "faint", etc. That's why Lee emphasizes the fact that "English cannot keep the ambiguity" and that the reader should bear this in mind!
?????? is translated as:
The online version says:
In Pl. ?????? is freq. opp. ?????? ... R. 382d.
Now one can play six degrees of separation in a feeble, desperate attempt to discredit Bloom's translation, but Liddell & Scott's lexicon was published before Bloom or his teacher Strauss were even born.
This is what Lee says:
He translates the term as 'fiction' but points to the fact that the term also means lies, fraud, and deceit. He does not insist that in this case fiction is correct and lies incorrect, he says rather that the ambiguity of whether Socrates calls it a lie or a fiction should be kept in mind.
In any case it is an untruth told as if it were the truth. If it is just an innocent tale to be told then why is Socrates so hesitant and ashamed to tell it?
As you say, there is no other language under discussion. I see no use of the word in Ancient Greek that is similar to how other languages use the word "lie." You seem unable to bring in an example of any kind to support Lee's interpretation.
You seem unable to bring in any evidence that "???????? ?? ?? ??????????? ?????? ??????? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ????????, ?? ?? ??, ??? ????? ?????" means "a noble lie".
As for me, I have provided a link to dictionaries of Ancient Greek that give additional meanings that support Lee's translation. It isn't my fault that you refuse to read them.
Plus, Socrates' use of the phrase "Phoenician tale" renders the meaning perfectly clear IMO.
Philosophy is valued thusly today because it adds but little value to the creation of wealth, which is the icon by which all subjects are evaluated in this age. Psychology fares somewhat better, because it's findings can be used to bolster the social ideologies and power structures which allow said wealth creation to flourish. Philosophy and the humanities have suffered alike under the influence of this zeitgeist, pursuant to which it has become axiomatic that, "money talks, and bullshit walks". Most attend university today not to understand the nature of reality or to comprehend the human , which appears to them but a sideshow to the subjectively more immediate concern of preparing themselves for making alot of money. These young fellows would probably say, "damn the shackles...I'll live with 'em, so long as I have a fat bank account".
That having been said, the objective field of philosophy seems to have been narrowed by other, newer disciplines. The human mind as an object for philosophical scrutiny has been co-opted by psychology, and objective reality, to a large extent, by the natural sciences. Philosophy seems to exist now somewhere in the middle, synthesizing the findings of these other disciplines and evaluating the whole. The modern philosopher must have much more particular peripheral knowledge than his forebears, knowledge derived from these other fields, in order to properly do his work.
Lee does not say that.
He says:
And there are examples where he uses "fiction", "falsehood", and "poetic fiction" at 382d.
I am saying that as presented, the story of the ascent from the cave to the truth of the Forms can be regarded as a noble lie. It is as if what he says about dialectic in the Republic is no longer just a possibility but an actuality. The Forms are presented not as hypothesis but as what is seen when one leaps free of hypothesis. Here and elsewhere he says he has no such knowledge and yet he gives this image of the Forms as if this is the truth. And indeed to this day there are those who believe it is.
Is not something that is not known to be true but said as if it is the truth and persuades some that it is the truth not a lie?
The word is defined thusly in LSJ Middle Liddell:
The word ???????? is defined by the same lexicon as:
???????? ?????
[select] suitable to one's birth or descent, ?? ??? ???????? it fits not my nobility, Il.
I. [select] of persons, high-born, noble by birth, Lat. generosus, Hdt., Trag.; so of animals, well-bred, Plat., Xen.
2. [select] noble in mind, high-minded, Hdt., attic: ?? ?. ? ??????????, Soph.:—also of actions, noble, Hdt., Trag.
II. [select] of things, good of their kind, excellent, notable, Xen.: genuine, intense, ??? Soph.
III. [select] adv. -??, nobly, Hdt., etc.: comp. -??????, Plat.: Sup. -?????, Eur.
In addition, I refer to my quote of Cratylus upthread where truth (??????) and false (??????) are exact opposites without shades of ambiguity.
I will have to ponder upon that. It at least can be observed that Socrates not knowing whether it is true or not is a different matter than misrepresenting something he does know the truth of.
This is a direct quote from page 114. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.125807/page/n113/mode/2up
Well, the truth is he does know that he does not know that there is a transcendent realm of truth. I do think that what he says, however, is in service of the search for truth. It is perhaps intentional that some are to mistake the search for something found. They require answers and open ended questions leave them adrift. The Socratic philosopher, however, is led by reason not revelation.
I think you may be (conveniently) ignoring some important facts:
1. As a general rule, words can have different meanings in different contexts.
2. As clearly shown by lexicons of Ancient Greek, pseudos can have different meanings depending on the context.
Here is the lexicon text I provided a link to but that you have inexplicably refused to read:
LSJ
So, not just falsehood and lie, but also "poetic fiction" and "(military) faint"!
It follows that Lee is perfectly entitled to use "fiction" or "story" whenever this is suggested by the context, as in the present case where Socrates himself says "Phoenician tale like the ones poets tell" (414c) and he does not need your permission to do so.
Presumably, in your opinion, the Greek words "pseudos", "mythos", "logos", "eidos", etc. all mean "lie" and "lie" only and in all circumstances and no matter what. I think that's just wishful thinking, to be honest (not to say anything else).
And now you are saying that you are not talking about Republic 414c but about Cratylus! :grin:
Very interesting.
So .... according to you ??????????? and ?????? are one and the same thing?
Or is it ??????????? and ??????
Or, perhaps, it is ????? and ???????
Or is it just hard to make up your mind?
And are you still claiming that "???????? ?? ?? ??????????? ?????? ??????? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ????????, ?? ?? ??, ??? ????? ?????" means "a noble lie"? Or are you now retracting your statement?
Quoting Apollodorus
Er, the word in question is Ancient Greek, not French. It feels really strange having to bring that to your attention.
Quoting Apollodorus
I was just talking about the words I quoted. I have no idea what you are talking about here.
Quoting Apollodorus
Cratylus is devoted to the origins and meanings of words. Are you suggesting that Plato has a different use for the word "?????? " in each of the different dialogues? That seems unlikely. Perhaps you could provide some examples.
So far, I am doing all the work while you surf conspiracy sites. You still haven't provided any examples of Greek text that support Lee's translation.
Greek has different endings and prefixes to show what part of speech the nouns, verbs, and prepositions,etcetera belong to. See this outline for clarity on the matter.
Edited to add information.
When using the lexicon, the nouns are typically given as singular in number and nominative in case. When you read the entries giving different examples of words usage, note how the form of the word changes as reflected in the translation of each phrase.
Verbs are typically given as first person singular, in the present tense. So ?????, for instance, says "I lie."
C.D.C. Reeve translates "noble lie". Griffith: "grand lie". Waterfield: "noble lie". Sachs: "noble lie".
The Straussian conspiracy is even wider and more pervasive than suspected, having corrupted
the authors of all these translations!
No he doesn't!
That’s an old edition. The latest Penguin Classics 2007 edition that I have right in front of me does not have “fraud and deceit” and it is in the Notes section at the end of the book at page 387.
And anyway, Lee’s translation has “magnificent myth” and this is what really matters.
Quoting Valentinus
Really! Wow! That's too interesting. Unfortunately. it does NOT answer my question.
Plus, as even the blind can see from Bailly, ?????? has several meanings:
Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français - PDF
Thus,
1. error with no intention to deceive
2. poetic invention/fiction
3. faint, military ruse
Note that Bailly is a 2020 edition and that the LSJ you are using is from close to the Middle Ages. If that isn’t calculated deception I don’t know what is! :rofl:
Maybe we should start from the start?
So .... according to you ??????????? and ?????? are one and the same thing?
Or is it ??????????? and ??????
Or, perhaps, it is ????? and ???????
Or is it just hard to make up your mind?
And are you still claiming that "???????? ?? ?? ??????????? ?????? ??????? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ????????, ?? ?? ??, ??? ????? ?????" means "a noble lie"? Or are you now retracting your fraudulent statement?
Your questions reveal a complete ignorance of how Ancient Greek works as a language. Only you can help you now.
Correct. YOUR ignorance! :smile:
Your challenge regarding the different forms the words took in the text and in the lexicon has been explained. We have moved on from debating the meaning of specific words to observing your unfamiliarity with the basic properties of the language as a language. Only you can remedy that deficit for yourself.
So which is it? Did he say it or not? Could it be that he said it and did not say it because he said it in an earlier edition?
Quoting Apollodorus
What really matters is that I cited four contemporary authors who translate it as lie not myth. What really matters is that even Lee acknowledges that there is an ambiguity and that it can be taken to mean lie should be kept in mind. What really matters is that there is no conspiracy led by Leo Strauss or "University of Chicago operatives" and no evidence of:
Quoting Apollodorus
What you say is careless, groundless, reckless, and irresponsible. I won't dignify your many other accusations by even responding.
I just told you!
My version is correct because it is the most recent. Yours is 1974, mine is revised 1987 edition with new introduction of 2007.
Authors do revise their works, do they not?
And why are using the Liddell Scott from the 1800's when there is a 2020 edition of Bailly???!!!
What are you trying to hide???
The fact is that like most words, pseudos can have different meanings depending on the context. This may be inconvenient to you but that's your problem.
At any rate, Plato does not say "a noble lie". The "Phoenician tale" does not refer to Forms or soul and it is irrational to claim otherwise.
You still have not produced any example of Greek text that supports Lee's use of the words.
Quoting Apollodorus
No, that is your problem. You argue on the basis of this claim but offer jack to back it up with illuminating passages to prove your case.
I'm not at all convinced by that line of argument. As I said before, I think it's part of the much broader 'culture war' between scientific secularism and religious belief, or even anything that can be so construed. Lloyd Gerson analyses that in his work on 'Platonism and Naturalism':
Naturalism does this by categorising the traditional idea of 'intelligibility' as a religious belief. That's why you get anti-platonism in academic philosophy, so it presumably extends to political philosophy as well, but I'm not that interested in political philosophy.
Quoting Fooloso4
It sounds very like a confession of faith. I suppose from the modern perspective, the immortality of the soul can only be regarded as a pious fiction, never mind that it was a central concern of ancient philosophy.
The question I would like to consider is whether there are even any anologies for what 'ascending from the cave' might signify, in modern (i.e. post-Cartesian) philosophy. There are parellels with 'doctrines of illumination' in other philosophical traditions, notably Hindu and Buddhist. There is an SEP entry on 'divine illumination' which makes reference to Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato (see here.)
I think it can be argued that the reason for the Platonic reticence is that it signifies an insight that is not subject to propositional knowledge. It is a deep insight into the nature of mind, knowing, and being, which very few will understand or attain. In that sense, it is 'beyond knowing' in the conventional or propositional sense, it requires a meta-cognitive shift or reorientation.
Quoting Fooloso4
Bear in mind the sense of 'transcendental' as 'that which must be the case in order for experience to be as it is'. This is brought out explicitly in Kant but it is implicit in Plato, I think. The transcendental is not 'spooky and mysterious' in any sense other than that.
By your logic, because the LSJ uses English terms not available to Plato, referring to them to resolve the matter is pointless and bizarre - to say the least.
Plato does not use the phrase "a noble lie". This is a modern political term that should not be used for translations of Plato especially when it is clear from the context that it is wrong to do so.
It should be obvious that Lee's translation fits the context much better.
Or between change or "progress" and existing culture.
Gerson says:
- Platonism and Naturalism, p. 265
Elsewhere he says:
- From Plato to Platonism, p. 308
Indeed, we find Strauss making the following statement:
- L. Strauss, On Plato's Symposium, p. 5
Either there is a movement called "anti-Platonism" as Gerson and others assert, or there isn't.
If, as Gerson says, "Platonism is philosophy and anti-Platonism is antiphilosophy" (Platonism and Naturalism, p. 8), then anti-Platonism must have certain nuclei of dispersion some of which are more influential than others. Straussianism does have considerable influence in the anti-Platonist movement and I think it is instructive to see how it acquired this influence.
I don't think Platonists can afford to be mere passive observers. They need to understand the situation, its causes, and its remedies, and take appropriate action.
On the one hand I have cited five contemporary translations that say "lie"
On the other Lee who says it is ambiguous and we should keep in mind that it also means lie.
There is nothing here to even argue about.
Quoting Apollodorus
I do my bit, modest though it might be. :wink:
When you say "it's part of the much broader 'culture war' between scientific secularism and religious belief", do you include the rhetoric being used by Apollodorus as part of a larger story or reject it? Being unpersuaded is very different from rejection. What Apollodorus is proposing is a cultural war against what allows us to have this conversation.
On the contrary, I think that is what YOU are proposing. You are making false statements and using dodgy translations and sources in an attempt to suppress conversation.
The fact that some translators use the phrase "a noble lie" does not mean that it is a phrase used by Plato.
As already stated, "noble lie" is a modern political term that should not be used for translations of Plato especially when it is clear from the context that it is wrong to do so.
I will let you work that out with your partner.
I can see his point, but I have a different background - more counter-cultural. My areas of interest are traditional philosophy and comparative religion but as you will note, I generally argue against 'scientism' so that extent I'm probably on the same side of the fence, but not in all respects. (I'm also posting here in snatches at the moment as I'm getting my house ready to sell and have about fifteen thousand small and fiddly jobs to do in the real world.)
Right. You will get back to me.
Whatever.
Noble lie - Wikipedia
Popper is a good illustration of how anti-Platonists use the myth (or weasel word) of Plato's "noble lie" to claim that everything he says is "based on lies", which is an unacceptable distortion. In fact, a lot of Plato's statements are demonstrably not lies.
Mellissa Lane in her introduction to Desmond Lee's Republic translation shows why Popper's attacks on Plato are baseless. And Lee's translation and notes are excellent and very illuminating. They make a big difference to the likes of Shorey.
I do take your question seriously but am pressed for time today.
Understood. Thanks for the clarification.
That's an argument ad populum. And not a very clever one, either.
The fact is that Lee is a more nuanced and careful reader. And he obviously consults more recent sources than the 1800's LSJ :grin:
Plus, as I said, the fact that some translators choose to use "a noble lie" must NOT be taken to mean that it is a phrase that Plato himself uses.
Let's be clear about what he is claiming:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/599832
As Valentinus pointed out:
Quoting Valentinus
It also borrows from the example of McCarthyism.
Have you forgotten your own claims?
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Apollodorus
It is not just Strauss and his followers who interpret is as noble lie. Are you to impugn the integrity of five different translators? Even Lee acknowledges not only that it can be understood in this way but that this should be kept in mind.
[quote=Leo Strauss; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/strauss-leo/#PhilReveRevi]Philosophy has to grant that revelation is possible. But to grant that revelation is possible means to grant that the philosophic life is not necessarily, not evidently, the right life. Philosophy, the life devoted to the quest for evident knowledge available to man as man, would rest on an unevident, arbitrary, or blind decision. This would merely confirm the thesis of faith, that there is no possibility of consistency, of a consistent and thoroughly sincere life, without belief in revelation. The mere fact that philosophy and revelation cannot refute each other would constitute the refutation of philosophy by revelation. (NRH, p. 75)[/quote]
I'm inclined to agree with that, with the caveat that I don't agree that the Bible is the sole source of revealed truth.
Another book in my moldering pile of Kindle Editions is Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza which seems very much llike the kind of philosophical spirituality that appeals to me.
I am claiming exactly what Gerson is claiming, i.e. that there is an anti-Platonist movement led by academics with a political agenda. Strauss is a political scientist with a keen interest in politics as can be gathered from the press and from his own statements:
The rest of my claims are from mainstream sources like Wikipedia as per the links provided.
But I think the objection is that you're coming across as a conspiracy theorist. I'm able to agree with Gerson that there is a profound antinomy between Platonism (which Gerson broadly claims is the Western philosophical tradition) and naturalism as now conceived. But this is not a conspiracy against Platonism so much as a consequence of intellectual history.
Platonism is a battlefield for leftists and rightists? That doesn't sound very likely.
Not true.
He simply says that pseudos can have several meanings - as can be seen from Bailly - in general.
In fact, his first comment on pseudos is with reference to 377a, where he says stories "are of two kinds, true stories and fiction".
And the second refers to 382d where he has "we don't know the truth about the past but we can invent a fiction as like as may be".
Nothing whatsoever to do with 414b-c!
I never said it was.
Gerson says that "Platonism is philosophy and anti-Platonism is antiphilosophy" and that there is a growing anti-Platonist trend, which I tend to agree with.
But some academics like to see Plato as a "counter-revolutionary" and his Republic as a "handbook for aspiring dictators". Popper claimed that the Republic was the founding text for totalitarianism.
The truth of the matter is that the only time Plato got involved in politics was in Sicily after which he gave up on seeing the kind of intrigues active politics entailed. Dictatorship was totally against his personality and character.
Well, there is no surprise there. It has become routine or knee-jerk reaction to accuse someone of being a "conspiracy theorist" the minute they open their mouth to state facts that some people are ignorant of or choose to ignore.
Instead of checking the facts, even if they are mainstream or academic knowledge, they just scream "conspiracy theory" in affected horror :grin:
See
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11007/conspiracy-paranoia-denial-and-related-issues
@Apollodorus Morosophos’ argument may be “ad populum”, but the “populum” he cites are respected scholars, interpreters and translators. Your argument, however, is purely ad hominem: anyone who thinks Plato believed the rulers ought to lie to the people is an anti-Platonist or Straussian, or pro-tyrannical.
They may or may not be "respected". It is still ad populum and it doesn't make it right. There are lots of "respected" people that hold unsound opinions ....
Quoting Leghorn
That is YOUR interpretation of my argument. In reality, what I am saying is that some people use Plato's "noble lie" to argue that Plato's whole teaching is based on lies and on dictatorial tendencies/ambitions, etc. as Popper does (see Open Society and Its Enemies).
And it is Gerson, a highly respected scholar, who affirms that there is an anti-Platonist trend that started in the 1800's, as stated in my previous posts.
I think it is legitimate to call someone "anti-Platonist" when they claim that Plato is a "liar", a "dictator", that his dialogues "have no metaphysical or even philosophical content", etc.
Would you call Popper a pro-Platonist?
I think the following is an accurate summary:
Rather than argue to a set conclusion, Strauss' work is dialogical, dialectical, talmudic. It is the questions and problems of philosophy that are of interest to him. Philosophy for Strauss is not systematic or all encompassing. It does not close off but opens up inquiry in full awareness that philosophical inquiry always falls short of what it hopes for. Human ignorance not only leads to philosophy it guides it. It is both its condition and its problem.
The Wiki article does not mention a similar concept in Mahayana Buddhism -- upaya, "skillful means".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya
Is the way the soul structures reality rational or willful?
(posed by Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, "The Eccentric Core: The Thought of Seth Benardete")
This is not a question that is intended to be decided one way or the other. It is a question that must be taken into consideration every time we think about or make claims about reality. For some the question is forestalled on the assumption that reality is rational. But it may be that this
is a structure the soul wilfully imposes, motivated by the desire for an intelligible order. For others what is desired is knowledge of a higher reality, transcendence, gods, or meaning not found in ordinary life.
In a reversal of the turning of the soul toward the Forms in the Republic, there is a turning of the soul to itself, toward self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is guided by knowledge of our ignorance. We do not know the Forms. We do not have a vision of the Forms. The question then is: which way do we turn? Do we turn away from the "human things" in pursuit of some imagined (and it must be imagined if it is not something seen or known) reality or toward it? Do we deceive ourselves by imagining we have escaped the cave because we can imagine something knowable outside the cave attainable either through reason or revelation?
Eros makes the distinction between the rational and willful problematic. The desire to know should not cast a shadow over the fact that we do not know, that philosophy remains disruptive, problematic and open-ended. The universal does not supplant the particular. The obverse of Parmenides' claim in the dialogue that humans have no knowledge of the Forms is his claim that the gods have no knowledge of particulars.
Perhaps it should.
As a matter of fact, ancient civilizations had a different understanding of the concept of "lie". Although telling a lie with harmful or criminal intent was universally condemned, telling lies in general, was not always seen as reprehensible. On the contrary, being skilled at telling lies was often seen as a virtue. The Greek heroes (and even the Gods) were particularly good at lying and deceiving.
The absolutist distinction between truth and lie in the Western world was introduced by St Augustine. This is one of the reasons why I am saying that we must avoid interpreting Plato's "Phoenician tale" in the modern sense of "lie".
But if you have reliable sources for the Buddhist "upaya" you can always register with Wikipedia as an editor and suggest it to them :smile:
That's Straussianism though, isn't it?
As Socrates states quite clearly, when the soul focuses on itself and is itself by itself, then it sees realities that are like itself:
We do not (yet) have a vision of the Forms, but neither do we have a vision of the self. So, by your logic, we should not even attempt to know ourselves.
Plato does not say that we have a vision of either the Forms or the self, but he suggests ways of how such a vision may be a attained.
If we do imagine something, we may or may not "deceive" ourselves (imagination is not always "deceptive"!). However, no one is talking about "imagining" anything. On the contrary, Plato urges philosophers to inquire into reality by means of pure, unalloyed reason.
Quoting Fooloso4
I can't see how the convergence of rational thought with the rational order of the cosmos can be denied. Human reason is not all-knowing but it doesn't mean that it knows nothing. We've weighed and measured the Cosmos. This is why I keep returning to the point about mathematical platonism and the 'unreasonable effectiveness of maths' arguments. I can't see any effective rebuttal. (Incidentally have discovered a contemporary advocate of mathematical platonism, James Robert Brown, who's book is here.)
Quoting Fooloso4
If we re-imagine forms as moral principles and universals, then surely we do. It permeates the activities of rational thought, it is what makes philosophy possible. As Gerson says, the idea of the intelligible domain is the particular concern of philosophy, as distinct from science, deny it and philosophy has no subject matter.
Quoting Fooloso4
But this is the confusion of contemporary culture. There is no compass, nothing higher, nothing lower, all has been dissolved in the 'acid of Darwin's dangerous idea'. The problem is the entrenched naturalism of modern culture, that only what is 'out there' is real. Seeing through that is not 'going within' except in the sense of being aware of the nature of thought.
Oh, if it’s “Straussianism”, then it’s bad, eh Deploradore? This is just another example of your ad hominem attacks.
The "rational order of the cosmos" is a big question to deal with. That is not the only factor in proposing the world is integrated with our understanding of it. In the vision of Plotinus, for example, the nature of our understanding, the experience of ourselves as creatures made possible by the existence of soul, and the production of everything and person we encounter is all connected. Approaching experience from that point of view gives one a perspective not available to an ego in a bunker.
I don't think that the view is challenged by scientific frameworks of provable facts more than other kinds of alienation. The tradition that fostered that idea of integration also gave rise to life as as struggle against natural inclinations. Pauline Christianity says our souls will be judged on a case by case basis; Our experience here is connected to an experience outside the world.
Copernicus noticed the Earth is not the center of the universe. I could go on.
The problems and opportunities of being individuals seem to involve more than an indulgence in "scientism".
On the contrary. Your comment is just another example of YOUR uncalled-for ad hominems.
As is well-known, Strauss offers no proper scholarly analysis of Plato's Theory of Forms. He simply dismisses it as "an absolutely absurd idea".
So, as you can think for yourself, Straussianism cannot make a positive contribution to the topic.
IMO statements like "We do not know the Forms", "We do not have a vision of the Forms", "We turn away from the "human things" in pursuit of some imagined reality", etc., are just an expression of Straussian dismissal of Platonism. Repeating them ad nauseam does not constitute discussion but the opposite of it.
Besides, Foolo is a self-described follower of Strauss. Calling his comments "Straussian" should not be offensive to him in any form or shape. If anything, it is your calling him "Morosophos" that should be offensive to him. :grin:
Speaking of which, I don't see what contributions you are making to this thread aside from calling people names and feeling "offended" on someone else's behalf!
Correct. Gerson's statement "Platonism is philosophy and anti-Platonism is antiphilosophy" is a valid and important observation.
Anti-Platonists seem to be trying to reduce philosophy to science - or, in Strauss' case to politics - whereas Platonists seek to go beyond science and explore new areas of thought and experience.
IMO exploring and discovering is the very essence of intellectual endeavor and should not be suppressed in the name of scientism (or anything else).
Quoting Wayfarer
That’s how.
I’m learning from this discussion, so I won’t taint the classical content of it with Enlightenment speculative metaphysics, but when the idea of forms is moved....re-imagined as moved....from the Platonic cosmos, to the predicates of rational thought alone, the convergence is easily denied, because the “rational order of the cosmos” disappears. The subsequent convergence then undeniable, is rational thought with the natural order of the cosmos.
Purely because Galilean science excludes the realm of value. The only reason modern science understands is the efficient/material cause, not the reason why anything is. 'Rationality' in our age means 'a scientific explanation'. Bones and sinews.
I guess I shoulda just plain asked what you meant by “rational order of the cosmos”. I took the statement to tacitly affirm an intrinsic quality the cosmos possesses. Doesn’t sound like you, even from an Eastern perspective, for it hints that the cosmos, the other-than-mind, thinks.
But, as I said, I have no wish to take the discussion into an arena foreign to it.
Quoting Wayfarer
Aye. The flexible to bond the rigid. The pure to structure the practical.
Quoting Wayfarer
In the Timaeus two kinds of cause are identified, intelligence and necessity. Necessity covers physical processes, contingency, chance, motion, and chora. Befitting its indeterminacy the chora does not yield to simple definition. It is the space or place within which things are and occur, but it is not an empty space. As with the place one lives, the place is not separate from what happens there.
Rather than begin with cosmology, the Timaeus begins with the question of the polis at war. Two points to make on this. First, Socrates wants to see the city he makes in the Republic in action. In line with twofold causation, the story of the city in the Republic is incomplete. It is a city without chance and contingency. Second, the dialogue begins with the polis because an account of the whole must take human life into account.
Here again an indeterminate dyad is at play. The fixed intelligible world, the world of Forms is not the whole of the story. The Forms are part of a whole that is indeterminate, a whole in which there is necessity, contingency and chance.
I think he would be more offended by you calling him “Foolo” than me calling him Morosophos; indeed, I have called him that very many times, and he has never objected to it, or even referred to it in any way. I don’t think he would ever have chosen the user-name he did if he wasn’t open to such an appellation as I have given him. Indeed, should he ever wish to change his user-name to my nickname for him, it would be both apt (linguistically), and I would be honored.
As for the nickname I have given you—and it wasn’t my original idea: someone else suggested it—it too is very apt; and not linguistically, but rather because you deplore anything you consider anti-Platonist or Straussian, etc., and ignore patent evidence, like the evidence that I presented to you in another thread: that Plato, in his speech to the citizens who acquitted him, in the Apology, reminds us many times that the things he is relating about the afterlife are only “things said.” I showed you there that his repetitions were not stock formulae, as you suggested, yet you ignored and dismissed that evidence, indeed discounted it as Straussianism, and this proves that you are not open to learning anything from anyone else, but are stuck fast in your own prejudices, and persistent in name-calling.
You remind me of Thrasymachus; you are bright and knowledgeable and persuasive—but there is something in your soul that is too recalcitrant, too blind to evidence, too entrenched in an already solidified belief-system...
...your occasional smiley-faced punctuational emojis tell it all: you are a man of style, of the moment; but you lack weight, true gravitas.
Anyway, as regards causation, I think philosophy looses something if it abandons Aristotle's final and formal causation. But that again is probably another thread.
You seem to be confused. Perhaps you should examine your own solidified belief-system.
First, as I said, I don’t see what your comments are contributing to this thread.
Second, you (deliberately?) misunderstand the point I am making. Quite possibly, because you know little, if anything, about Strauss.
For your information, Strauss believes that, to begin with, Plato’s Theory of Forms is “utterly incredible”, “very hard to understand”, “apparently fantastic”, and “absolutely absurd”.
According to Strauss, “No one has ever succeeded in giving a satisfactory or clear account of this doctrine of ideas.”
Strauss believes that according to Plato every single thing has an idea conforming to it, and he doesn’t understand “what is the use of such a duplication”.
Strauss says he doesn’t understand how Forms can be said to be separated from the things which are what they are by participating in a Form.
Strauss complains that Glaukon and Adeimantos accept the doctrine of ideas with greater ease than absolute communism.
Strauss believes that philosophy points to the need for a movement beyond the cave, but he declares dogmatically that this is unattainable.
Strauss’ idea of “reviving ancient philosophy” is to reconstruct Plato without the Forms and without metaphysics, but with a political agenda. Which is not surprising as Strauss is an atheist political scientist!
IMO, this being the case, it is not difficult to see why a Straussian reading of Plato cannot contribute much to the topic from a philosophical perspective - aside from dogmatically rejecting anything that Platonists say ....
This condition is reflected in Aristotle's explanation for why there can be no science of accidental being:
Quoting Fooloso4
One way that war as an element of human life shows how the reality of eternal qualities differs from ours is the way virtues contend with each other. In the Statesman, the Stranger compares the vigorous benefit of the "fast and aggressive" to the benefits of the "slow and moderate:"
He is more like Meletus in the Apology than Thrasymachus. When reviewing his posts, a view is revealed of a Socrates who he has passed out of the world of opinion and is basking in the light of true knowledge next to the pool outside of the cave. The restless pursuit of Socrates, the investigator, has come to an end. This attainment of the telos is combined with a mystical view of Plotinus where the order of the divine is argued as the best possible true belief. We have transcended the realm of discursive reason and all the problems attendant upon the activity.
So, when the Gift of Apollo is challenged on the claim that Socrates has wrapped up his work as an investigator, he treats the idea as blasphemy against his true God. This is a crime in the Polis of the Gift.
When Strauss and his band of Jewish buddies come to town in order to destroy it, the Trojan Horse they used to sneak in was not turned away at the gate. They must be put on trial for crimes against the City.
Thrasymachus may have been rude and abusive but at least he had the virtue of causing a conversation to begin. Meletus was only interested in silencing unbelievers.
P.S: There is more to Plotinus than his mysticism, but that is an account for another time.
Connecting this back to the Timaeus, what a craftsman makes, whether he is a house builder or the craftsman of the universe, human or divine, is more than what is crafted.The builder is not producing the attributes, but they are there as a result of what he did.
We might think of the house as a chora:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/601558
As the song goes:
"A house is not a home":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDtQzuqtrtg
Quoting Valentinus
Good point. This raises important questions about the relation between Forms and things. If the Forms are paradigmatic, then how useful they are diminishes the further the distance between Forms and "the city at war", that is, our world.
The wisdom of a fool
Wise about fools
Good to see that you are talking to yourself!
BTW, have you found out where Plato says "a noble lie" yet, or do you require more time? :grin:
Richard J. Bernstein coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.
This might explain why Deploradorus flinched when I brought up the topic of Jesus. In an earlier thread, I made a comparison b/w Socrates and Jesus, noting that the former accepted his sentence, while the latter didn’t (scene in Garden of Gethsemane). The Deplorable One wouldn’t touch the topic with a ten-foot pole! He objected that I was the one who had brought up Jesus, and that he preferred to talk about Plato on his own terms (which he doesn’t).
This makes me wonder...is Deploradorus a closet Christian? Does he require that Socrates believe in God because he does?
Quoting Valentinus
I know what he will bring up to support this belief, O Strongman: he will cite the passage at Rep. 533a, where Socrates responds to Glaucon’s desire to know the power and character of dialectic by saying, “You will no longer be able to follow, my dear Glaucon.” This is proof to Deplorado that Socrates IS basking by the pool outside the cave—just that he is unable to express that experience to mere mortals. How would you respond to this citation?
Btw, I think that is the only occasion in the Republic when Socrates refuses to answer to a request of his interlocutor, and the interlocutor doesn’t insist that Socrates comply.
That’s exactly where the problem with the Straussian position lies. Strauss purports to “revive Classical philosophy” but the truth becomes apparent only when you find that his true intention is to reconstruct Plato without the Forms and without metaphysics!
True to form, Strauss’ disciples fail to see that someone who by his own admission is incapable of even remotely comprehending Plato’s Theory of Forms, really has nothing to offer in the discussion.
IMHO some form of psychological deficiency seems to be involved here ….
I agree. The Platonic forms are fundamental in shaping our culture.
What I am suggesting is that there is another side of Plato's philosophy. The indeterminate dyads. According to the dramatic chronology of the dialogues Socrates was aware of the problem of the concept of forms from an early age. This suggests that all of the dialogues are informed by these difficulties
The indeterminate dyads cuts across the distinction between Forms and things. In various places both are spoken of as "the beings". See, for example, the passage in the Phaedo about Socrates second sailing at 99d discucces above. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/598406
The Timaeus points to another difficulty:
Quoting Fooloso4
Forms are not the whole of being, they are part of an indefinite dyad.
I will have to study that some more.
And so what?
IMO all these so-called "difficulties" are more imagined than factual. If you start from Strauss' bizarre and totally unscholarly premise that Forms are "incomprehensible" and "absurd" then of course there will be an infinite number of "difficulties". In which case why take the trouble to read Plato in the first place?
The fact of the matter is that Plato's dialogues (and his Academy) were not about endless philosophical speculation. They were logoi intended to serve as a theoretical basis for a philosophical way of life.
It was left to Plato's successors to develop his ideas and establish a more comprehensive system. However, Plato's teachings are perfectly logical and they point to the attainment of higher truths, ethical and metaphysical or whatever they turn out to be.
This is precisely why Plato says that the first principle or the Good is knowable but that the philosopher must go beyond hypotheses (and, presumably, endless idle speculation) to arrive at it.
This was not Strauss’ own opinion. From Bloom’s encomium to him: “He was able to do without most abstractions and to make those readers who were willing to expend the effort look at the world around them and see things afresh. He presented things, not generalizations about things. He never repeated himself and always began anew although he was always looking at the same things. To see this, one need only read the chapter on the Republic in The City and Man and observe what he learned about thymos and eros as well as about techne in what must have been his fiftieth careful reading of the Republic.”
You should read the entirety of this epitaph of Bloom’s to his master, O Deploradore. You might just learn that Strauss was not a man to be so summarily dismissed.
I studied Plato a lot, and never heard of an indeterminate dyad. What is it, like "matter" in Timaeus?
Quoting Fooloso4
I believe that what Plato expresses here in the Philebus, is a simple, or basic version of Aristotle's hylomorphism. Simply put, the "unlimited" is matter and form is the limited. In the world, we observe a combination of these two, particular things which are composed of matter (understood as inherently unlimited), and form, which is the limit. Existing things are a sort of balance between these two, and that balance Socrates describes as a third category. Then he proceeds to propose the need for a fourth category. The fourth category is the cause of this balance, the cause of the mixture, the cause of the existence of particular things which are each am individual balance, or equality within. He demonstrates why the cause, as the fourth category, must necessarily be conceived of as distinct from the third category , the mixture of unlimited and limited (matter and form).
I believe that this is an extension of the problem he addressed in the Timaeus. There he faced the problem of how a particular thing receives the precise form which it actually has. The "form" is conceived of as something general, a universal, or type. And it is obvious that in living things the form or type of being precedes and predetermines the type which will come from the seed or embryo. The issue which must be grappled with is that the form which appears to predetermine, is a universal type, but the thing which comes to be has a particular form, unique to itself. So there is an unexplained, and apparently unintelligible, gap between the universal form which is supposed to predetermine, and the actual form which comes to be, as a particular form.
Aristotle closes this gap with the concept of "accident". The universal form is somewhat deficient because it does not account for the accidentals. But this proposal creates a clear separation, a division between the two senses of "form". The form of the particular is necessarily unintelligible, due to this division, and this is due to the role of "matter" in the composition of the particular (matter being what is inherently unlimited). There is debate even today, as to whether accidents are properly attributed to matter or to the particular form, but understanding of this will only be produced by referencing what Socrates called the fourth category, the cause of the union between matter and form.
This so-called "fourth class" or fourth category is the point which Aristotle comes to by way of his cosmological argument as well. Matter provides the potential for substantial being, and it appears to be unlimited, it could be potentially anything. In actual fact, all the matter we encounter is limited, having a particular form. Our minds designate matter as unlimited, but material existence demonstrates that it is always limited. In other words every instance of material existence is as a particular form. This implies that there is a cause, a further type of actuality (beyond the actuality of material existence), which is prior in time (as cause), to material existence, to account for this fact that matter always has a form..
So, you want me to read what Strauss says or what Bloom says that Strauss says??? :grin:
Of course Strauss says that Plato’s Theory of Forms is “a fantastic doctrine” and “an absolutely absurd doctrine”. It is in “Plato’s Political Philosophy” and other writings!
As Bloom himself says:
- A. Bloom, The Republic of Plato, p. 94
IMO by ridiculing and rejecting Plato’s Forms, Strauss places himself in the camp of the unphilosophic men whom Gerson identifies as anti-Platonists and antiphilosophers ....
See also:
Scott Olsen,The Indefinite Dyad and the Golden Section: Uncovering Plato’s Second Principle – ResearchGate
[quote=Joshua Hothschild, What's Wrong with Ockham; https://www.academia.edu/36162636/What_s_Wrong_with_Ockham_Reassessing_the_Role_of_Nominalism_in_the_Dissolution_of_the_West]Thomists and other critics of Ockham (i.e. nominalism) have tended to present traditional realism, with its forms or natures, as the solution to the modern problem of knowledge. It seems to me that it does not quite get to the heart of the matter. A genuine realist should see “forms” not merely as a solution to a distinctly modern problem of knowledge, but as part of an alternative conception of knowledge, a conception that is not so much desired and awaiting defense, as forgotten and so no longer desired. Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.
In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. Preoccupied with overcoming Cartesian skepticism, it often seems as if philosophy’s highest aspiration is merely to secure some veridical cognitive events. Rarely sought is a more robust goal: an authoritative and life-altering wisdom. Notice: even if contemporary philosophers came to a consensus about how to overcome Cartesian doubt and secure certainty, it is not clear that this would do anything to repair the fragmentation and democratization of the disciplines, or to make it more plausible that there could be an ordered hierarchy of sciences, with a highest science, acknowledged as queen of the rest—whether we call it first philosophy, or metaphysics, or wisdom.[/quote]
A recent analysis I have read is De-fragmenting Modernity, Paul Tyson.
This is a very apt observation. Personally, I was fortunate enough to be able to read Plato before being exposed to the materialist indoctrination of the anti-Platonist education system.
But I believe that some reflection will enable all readers of Plato to see through the spurious claims of self-styled "experts on Plato".
The ineptitude of some “scholarly analyses” of Plato’s dialogues is all too obvious from statements like the following:
- L. Strauss, Seminar on Plato’s Republic, April 30 1957, p. 6.
In addition, Strauss routinely employs weasel words like “difficulty,” “problem”, “very difficult”, “great difficulties”, “great problem”, “infinite problem”, etc.
He also makes frequent use of the phrase “I think” which indicates that it is just his opinion, i.e. Strauss’ teachings are his own personal (and often dogmatic) interpretation of Plato.
Moreover, he says:
In other words, what Strauss is saying is not only that his statements are his personal opinion but that by his own admission “he is by no means certain that he can be of any real help” on a key Platonic subject like the Good!
This, of course, does not apply solely to Strauss, but to the whole anti-Platonist academic establishment that evidently aims to replace Platonism with anti-Platonism and philosophy with scientism especially of the political kind.
Unsurprisingly, we find Popper claiming that, as the "originators of totalitarianism", Plato and Aristotle are the original “enemies of open society”, i.e. of “freedom and reason”, and therefore, the enemies of mankind ....
Thanks for the link, but as soon as I read this "Plato, primarily as a proponent of Pythagorean philosophical doctrines,2 was very careful with what he did and did not reveal, being under an apparently severe oath of secrecy", I was really turned off.
Plato attempted to explain things in the most descriptive and explicit way possible. He has volumes of writings and founded his own Academy which did not charge admission. There is no oath to secrecy there. The idea that he was a member of some type of Pythagorean cult is nonsense
Do you read what Socrates says, or what Plato says that Socrates says?
I’ve only ever encountered Leo Strauss through forums, however reading the SEP entry doesn’t lend a lot of support to your villification of him.
The headings 4 & 5 say Strauss was immersed in grappling with the inherent contradictions in modern - i.e. ‘enlightenment’ - philosophy. He is highly critical of the modem evaluation of the self-sufficiency of reason - he’s certainly no positivist. He said that the possible role revelation plays as the ground of normativity must always be considered.
What this reminds me of is Jurgen Habermas' late-in-life re-evaluation of religion, on similar grounds:
I think what they don't see has to do with the fact that ‘the modern mind’ is itself a way-of-being, a 'station of consciousness'. However, unless you realize you’re in it, you can’t see it, because you're looking through it, not at it. (My questioning of that assumption comes out of the 60's counter-culture, not out of traditionalism or religious orthodoxy.) So the basic assumption of the modern state of being is the unquestioned reality of the natural world - naturalism. It can’t be questioned because the alternatives to naturalism were among the very things demolished in the transition to modernity. There is no longer a conceptual space corresponding to ‘universals’, and to question naturalism is to be deemed to be resorting to faith.
What has been lost in this is the vertical dimension, the domain of values, and the understanding that there are higher truths or higher ways of being. It is preserved in some religious philosophies but I think it tended to be eliminated within Christianity itself by philosophical developments in the middle ages.
[quote=David Loy, Terror in the God-Shaped Hole; https://transnational.live/2020/11/22/terror-in-the-god-shaped-hole-confronting-modernitys-identity-crisis/]By privatizing an unmediated relationship between more individualized Christians and a more transcendent God, Luther’s emphasis on salvation-by-faith-alone eliminated the intricate web of mediation – priests, sacraments, canon law, pilgrimages, public penances, etc. – that in effect had constituted the sacred dimension of this world. The religiously-saturated medieval continuity between the natural and the supernatural was sundered by internalizing faith and projecting the spiritual realm far above our struggles in this world.
The newly-liberated space between them generated something new: the secular (from the Latin saeculum, “generation, age,” thus the temporal world of birth and death). The inner freedom of conscience was distinguished from our outer bondage to secular authorities. “These realms, which contained respectively religion and the world, were hermetically sealed from each other as though constituting separate universes”. The sharp distinction between them was a radical break with the past, and it led to a new kind of person. The medieval understanding of our life as a cycle of sin and repentance was replaced by the more disciplined character-structure required in the modern world, sustained by a more internalized conscience that did not accept the need for external mediation or the validation of priests.
As God slowly disappeared above the clouds, the secular became increasingly dynamic, accelerating into the creative destruction that today we must keep readjusting to. What we tend to forget in the process is that the distinction between sacred and secular was originally a religious distinction, devised to empower a new type of Protestant spirituality: that is, a more privatized way to address our sense of lack and fill up the God-shaped hole.
By allowing the sacred pole to fade away, however, we have lost the original religious raison d’etre for that distinction. That evaporation of the sacred has left us with the secular by itself, bereft of the spiritual resources originally designed to cope with it, because secular life is increasingly liberated from any religious perspective or supervision.[/quote]
So, now, 'cosmos' - the physical cosmos, explored by science - 'is all there is'. Man is born out of chaos, a bio-chemical fluke in a meaningless universe, which is the predicament of modernity.
Quoting Apollodorus
I think this is actually well intentioned, but that what this is missing is the insight that the vision of the ideas or forms is linked to the vision of the totality of the Cosmos, something which has been described in various contexts as 'the unitive vision'. I will assume that Parmenides, whom Plato describes as 'venerable and awesome', was one who attained such a vision (as Peter Kingsley says).
From The Greek Verb 'To Be' and the Problem of Being, Charles H. Kahn, University of Pennsylvania,
It is said that Plotinus also attained such a 'unitive vision', albeit briefly, and only twice in his whole life (which might convey some appreciation of the rarity of such states.)
But this kind of 'unitive understanding' is nowadays considered to be associated with religion or mysticism, and indeed it was one of the formative sources of later, Christian teachings of the 'beatific vision', although from time to time, you do find something comparable in the writings of scientists, as in some of Einstein's later musings.
//ps// Seeing if I could google a reference to Peter Kingsley and unitive vision, I found this essay, Is Philosophy Magic? The Roots of Reason in Parmenides, Samuel Loncar.
It was not my suggestion that he was. I posted the link as an illustration of how the issue of the "Indefinite Dyad" is treated by some scholars.
Plato does mention a ???? (dyas) or "dyad" that may lend itself to mathematical and philosophical interpretation and it has been discussed by Gerson and other scholars.
But the question has been mainly raised on the basis of Aristotle's comments.
Even if we were to say, for example, that the One (Monad) is something like "Pure Spirit" and the Dyad something like "Primordial Matter" that is given shape by the Forms, or that sensible objects derive from the One and the Indeterminate Dyad via the Forms or Numbers, this wouldn't change anything.
This is why, personally, I don't see the "Indeterminate Dyad" as a "problem" or "difficulty" at all. On the contrary, I see it as a diversionary tactic deployed by anti-Platonists who have run out of arguments against Plato and who insist on construing his teachings as somehow logically "incoherent" or "problematic".
I don't think I am "vilifying" him though. In fact I tend to agree with Strauss on some points, e.g. on his view that Plato's plan for the ideal city must not be taken literally in all respects. Interpreting the Kallipolis Project as a reductio ad absurdum is one way of looking at it. Plato was probably serious about the theoretical creation of an ideal city ruled by wise men, but some of the details of it must be taken with a grain of salt.
However, I think we should be able to criticize the critics. I am not surprised that the SEP entry isn't particularly critical of Strauss. It is a well-known fact that Strauss shows his true colors in his lectures to students rather than in his published books where he is obviously more cautious and expresses himself more cryptically.
My personal view is that Strauss tends to offer over-complicated, esoteric interpretations of a subject-matter (expounded in less than coherent form) that borders on schizoaffective disorder.
That aside, how can someone who by his own admission finds Plato’s Theory of Forms “impossible to understand and absolutely absurd” be an authority on Plato?
And let’s not forget that he was making money from lecturing on Plato whilst at the same time ridiculing his teachings. Without Plato he would have remained unemployed!
Kahn, of course, is a different story. He shows that it is possible to read Plato without Strauss' Maimonidean esotericism.
At the end of the day, we need to bear in mind that for Socrates and Plato (as for other Ancient Greek philosophers) philosophy was a way of life built on moral principles, in the first place. Being good or righteous was the precondition of fruitful philosophical endeavor.
"Beatific visions" and similar experiences raise important questions about the nature of being or reality. Plato suggests that inquiry into the Forms leads to an apprehension of ultimate reality.
As Gerson (Plato's Development and the Development of the Theory of Forms) points out, the Republic says:
In other words, Plato's philosophical inquiry starts from the premise that ultimate reality or the Good is knowable. This does not mean that it is knowable to everyone in practice or that it is knowable without practice. But it is unacceptable to insist that it is unknowable just because Strauss and others think so. This is what Gerson objects to and what he rejects as "anti-Platonism" and "antiphilosophy".
An interesting question is, if through contemplation of the Forms or by other means we managed to have a glimpse of this ultimate reality or Good, what would it be like? Would it bear any resemblance to the experience described by Plotinus and others?
Yes, I think this is similar to what I was getting at. Casting Plato as someone who has made a pledge of secrecy to some sort of Pythagorean cult, is such a diversionary tactic, meant to to cast a shadow of ill repute.
As a child of the Protestant tradition, I wish to point out some elements that do not fit into this picture.
Luther pointed to the Church selling tickets to Heaven (via indulgences) as the severance of the "unmediated" relationship between man and God. The complaint was that the Church had become too secular. From that point of view, preserving the distinction between the City of God and the City of Man required a reestablishment of the original news of the Gospel. In this rejection to the necessity for the orthodox institution, many very different forms of community were developed. Were these communities "projecting the spiritual realm far above our struggles in this world?" For many of them, they were joining together what had been severed.
Quoting Apollodorus
:roll:
Quoting Apollodorus
From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Pierre Hadot:
But later in the same section there's an important caveat:
Even regardless of that caveat, Hadot's emphasis on the role of the 'unitive vision' is key. You still find that in Buddhist and Hindu teachings that are disseminated in the West - in fact I think that's why they found such a ready audience in the West, because they're providing something that had been lost in Western culture. The idea of spiritual practice as 'union' is the meaning of 'yoga' (in the philosophical sense, not the downward-facing-dog sense.) But it's almost entirely absent from philosophy as taught in the West, as Hadot says. There's a missing dimension. Like a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object. That's what I think underlies much of the misrepresentation.
Quoting Valentinus
I think so. Weber's Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism makes a similar point. Very similar points were also made by Emile Durkheim and his notion of 'anomie'.
Anyway, David Loy's essay is not a polemic against Protestantism. It is about how religions provided a grounding sense of identity, and that in secular cultures the absence of this sense is experienced as lack, anxiety or dread. He's arguing that this is one of the motivating factors of religious terrorism (the essay is a commentary on the 9/11 attacks. ) And I find his thumbnail sketch of how Protestantism contributed to the 'disenchantment of the world' quite convincing.
Maybe some Protestant communities - the Bruderhof come to mind - do maintain a sense of religious community, but secular culture on the whole has mainly rejected it. I'm not necessarily advocating a return but at least an understanding of what has been lost, which is not nothing.
I didn't mean to say Loy was writing a polemic against Protestants. I wanted to point toward how what we know as the "secular" had a life before the Protestants.
Weber's reference to the "work ethic" is a religious one. Is he not in his way trying to find a way to talk about the "secular" as not something easily explained in either a political or religious register?
He then goes on to analyse the historical causes and consequences:
(The reference is to The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch. He also mentions a book The Unintended Reformation, by Brad Gregory, which I have, but all this material is very dense reading!)
The reason I mentioned Loy's essay is in support of the idea that modern Western culture abandoned or rejected its metaphysical basis, which is the cause of the widespread acceptance of materialism, cultural, scientific and philosophical.
I don’t remember hearing that Strauss ever became very wealthy. Bloom points out that the modern professorship is the free lunch that Socrates asked for in the Apology. What Socrates only ironically suggested, the moderns made actual and permanent. Bloom also pointed out that Socrates was not a professor, and that we must remember that fact even as we attempt to save the university.
As for your assertion that Strauss ridiculed Plato’s teachings—I would never believe it—unless it were argued persuasively by someone who doesn’t share your own obvious prejudicial animosity toward him, howevermuch you assert you agree with some of his ideas.
What is the sacred dimension? Who or what marks it off? How does it differ from what is esteemed?
What are the spiritual identity-markers?
Those questions are too general to be meaningfully defined in a forum post. Suffice to note that for example there are references to the Greek pantheon and Orphic spirituality throughout Plato’s dialogues. And also to note that one of the ‘identity-markers’ of modernity is the loss of the sense of the sacred, the ‘disenchantment of the world’ that Max Weber wrote of, comprising the cultural rationalization and devaluation of the sacred by modern cultures.
I agree that Plato is unlikely to have belonged to a secret cult. If he uses elements of Pythagoreanism he does so for his own purposes.
But I think what the anti-Platonists here are trying to cover up is that their “noble lie” theory has been exposed as a lie, given that Plato does not use the phrase “a noble lie”. Hence their diversionary tactics.
Also, they got nowhere with their criticism of the Forms and have come up with the Dyad as a last resort. Needless to say, they aren't going to get very far .... :smile:
The fact that the concept of unification or union (henosis) occurs across wide geographic and cultural areas suggests that there may be some universal truth in it. In any case, it seems to presuppose a relation of identity between the unified elements which makes sense if we take the individual mind to be a microcosm of the universal mind.
I think the nous poietikos or “creative intelligence” is the key to understanding henosis. If we think of consciousness as a form of subjective light that “shines on” and thereby “sees”, projects, or brings into being its own objects such as universal Forms that in turn give shape and being to particulars, then we can see how cognition may come about in a Platonic sense.
That the mind is creative can be seen from dreams, especially lucid dreams. The only difference is that in this case the creative subject is not the individual or personal mind but a form of universal mind that creates the universe by seeing, or projecting it into existence. This is why the Forms or Ideas are not separate from the universal consciousness but their instantiations are perceived as separate objects by the individual mind, and why the Forms themselves can be grasped only when the individual mind elevates itself as far as possible to the level of the universal mind.
Given that what separates the individual mind from the universal mind is the experience based on identification with the physical body and the thoughts etc. associated with it, we can see why Socrates (or Plato) advises philosophers to intellectually and emotionally detach themselves from the physical body and appurtenances, and inquire into the Forms with the pure unalloyed reason alone, when the soul is undisturbed, “itself by itself” and in the company of realities like itself (Phaedo 65c ff.).
It will be worth remembering that in the Greek tradition the cultivation of virtues is a preparation for philosophy proper and that the Republic is about goodness and justice.
There are obvious ethical reasons why one should be good and just and not commit crimes, etc. But there is another reason that is just as important to Platonic philosophy. Being good creates a frame of mind that is conducive to a vision of the Good: the Good is seen by the good, only.
Otherwise said, if we compare the mind with the water of a lake that reflects the light of the Sun, we can see that the more agitated the mind is, the more it will reflect a higher reality in a distorted and fragmented way, and that the more calm it is, the more it will reflect that reality as it is.
Being an inseparable part of the soul, the mind is in the first place the mirror of the soul. This is why calm and focused meditative states of consciousness (as opposed to mental agitation) are conducive to knowledge of the self and of higher realities. We can only assume that this is what Socrates is doing when he remains motionless and “absorbed in thought” for long periods of time as related in the Symposium.
This is why we should not be distracted by the tale of the ideal city (that merely symbolizes the inner harmony of the soul) but pay attention to the dialogue as a whole that, in the manner of an Orphic mystery play, begins with Socrates’ descent to Piraeus and the vision of the Thracian Goddess, proceeds through several key allegories (of the Sun, the Divided Line, and the Cave), and ends with the uplifting vision of the column of light at the center of the world (616b).
Could the column of light symbolize the light of consciousness and could this be related to the experience of Plotinus and other mystics?
In other words, if ultimate reality is indeed the Good, which is light, goodness, beauty, etc. then reported beatific visions like that of Plotinus may well represent a glimpse of that reality, in which case Platonists could be right, after all.
I'm sure. 'Man as microcosm' is found in many ancient texts.
Quoting Apollodorus
At funerals that are held by my wife's family, who are members of small Christian sect, a traditional hymn is sung, Cwm Rhondda. I've been struck by this particular verse, which always seemed somewhat esoteric for a hymn.
I'm sure the resemblance is not co-incidental.
I think I understand the "the public/private split" Loy is presenting. What I question is the value of seeing that development as a religious and psychological change outside of the political and cultural process in which the development occurred.
One important component of what we know as the secular came from centuries of people killing each other as a way to discuss what is sacred. The agreement to stop doing that was built upon toleration of different beliefs in the space of some established common space. The truce that was the beginning of ending religious wars in Europe was based upon the principle of cuius regio, eius religio. With the religion of a place being determined by the rulers of it, the political dimension was introduced that spelled the demise of the medieval system. The principle of toleration has had its own logic in the role of the "individual" becoming increasingly important.
That though, is debatable. All that is required to dispel the nonsense is an extensive reading of Plato's material. However, this is not an effortless task, and the majority of people in our society approach with a prejudice that ancient writings are outdated, unscientific, irrelevant and unimportant. So, there is no inclination to make that effort, and these people (the majority of people in our society) will simply accept what others say as an appropriate representation. And those who say things which are consistent with that prejudice, which frees one from making the effort, will be the ones who are listened to.
Quoting Apollodorus
There is a distinct difference between the hierarchical priority described by you, and the one accepted by modern western culture. In western culture, we see material existence as first, prior, and from this, emerges a living body, and finally a human mind. The Neo-Platonist metaphysics places the universal Soul as first, prior, then the individual living soul, then the material body. So the modern western culture has completely reversed the hierarchy. The difference is that the Neo-Platonist metaphysics is based in solid principles, the metaphysics of modern western culture, by which the hierarchy is reversed, is not.
Ain't that the truth. I think it's lead to a kind of shadow, a tacit agreement of things that ought not to be said or considered. I noticed as an undergraduate, where I was interested in studying spirituality, that there is in western culture, an undercurrent. The secular city walls off anything regarded as religious as being essentially an individual matter. That is of course preferable to any form of religious government, but it also leads to an impoverished culture which is technologically advanced but spiritually empty. Something has been forgotten so thoroughly that we've forgotten that it's been forgotten.
Years ago, there was a web page with excerpts from the Charter of the Royal Society, the world's first real scientific organisation. It explicitly excludes consideration of anything 'of concern to churchmen', or something along those lines. You can see why, in the circumstances. But this is the kind of thing that lead to the 19th century 'conflict thesis' which is still part of the aforementioned undercurrent.
That seems an unlikely statement coming from the King of England.
You can see the text of the Royal Society original charters here:
First Charter – Granted 1662
Second Charter – Granted 1663
Third Charter – Granted 1669
Since you talk about "comfortability", the people in the cave most probably felt "comfortable" too, since they didn't know another world, neither was anyone to tell them that the world they were seeing was naccurate or something lik that. In fact, with this rationale, we can say that man always felt comfortable "inside the cave".
However, I don't find the word "comfortable" correct, since people, as a general principle, don't feel comfortable with the world and their lives. Anxiety, fear, grief and all sort of negative emotions are the main dish of the day for a lot of people. Most people feel that life is not fair. They feel that something is not OK at all. Very few, relatively, feel happy or really feel comfortable on a more or less stable basis, independently of conditions.
Quoting Shawn
If they have to go to a shrink to resolve their problems, why then you say the people seem to be comfortable inside the cave? That's a contradiction, isn't it? But iby inverting the comfort into discomfort, the visits to shrinks can then make more sense! :smile:
Quoting Shawn
I suppose that the first question by now refers to the discomfort. Otherwise, why would he need to unshackle and free himself, right?
The primary factor why people are in that state is conflicts. Their reality, i.e. what they think and believe as true and fact, is in conflict with what actually happens to them and the world, in general. "Life is unfair" to them and to all people in general. They have and keep feeding an illusion about life and the world. This produces anxiety, stress, fear, grief and apathy (giving up), in short all kind of negative emotions. Negative emotions are produced by conflicts. Like every problem. A problem consist of an action and a counter-action. Effort and counter-effort. Intention and counter-intention. Purpose and counter-purpose. And the problem gets worse when the opposed things come from ourselves: We create thoughts and counter-thoughts, i.e., thoughts that are against other thoughts of ours. The mildest case is simple indecision: not neing able to select among two actions. But this indecision can develop into a conflict that tears us apart. It can result to suicide. The tendency to suicide is produced by unresolved problems that exist for too long or are too hard to handle, the burden is too heavy to carry.
So, the reason why the prisoner cannot "unshackle and free himself" is that he just doesn’t know how to resolve these conflicts.
Quoting Shawn
I assume that you mean that philosophy doesn't seem to be able to solve these problems and that is why it is considered of little value. And of course, you are talking wbout the Western philosophy
Unfortunately, it is true that our (Western) philosophy, not only today but in that past too, was consumed mainly in talking about and analyzing concepts, sometimes following too complicated paths to be even understood by most people. People cannot handle their conflicts by just reading or hearing words, as logical and useful these may be. If experience (direct experiencing) the ideas and messages these words are conveying, little substantial improvement can be achieved. For example, analyzing the "self" in order to discover one's nature ends up either in confusion or an illusion. One must experience the "self". One must get aware of being aware. In that moment all words and concepts disappear and what remains is the realization, the reality of one's nature. This is the way Eastern philosophy works. Eastern philosophy has little talk and more practice, training, experiencing, realization. This is why people in the West started to turn to Eastern philosophies, esp. Buddhism: they were either disappointed or just couldn't find solutions to their problems with the Western philosophy. Indeed, the need to turn to East for help has grown enormously in the last century and continues to grow. The Eastern philosophies show people their true self, the spiritual part of the human being, whereas the Western philosophy is stuck obstinately to its materialistic foundations. So the more you promote the idea that human beings are just bodies with brains and ignore their spiritual side, the more confusion and conflicts you create in them. This is "why can't the prisoner unshackle and free himself" and neither (Western) philosophy nor psychology can do anything about it! This is really sad and very stupid.
So, the more you get stuck with the belief that you are a body, the less chances you have to free yourself. Because it's a trap. It's a lie. It creates a huge conflict between what you believe you are and what your real nature is!
These are the reasons I think why philosophy in the West has failed. But if we want to evaluate the imporance and impact of the philosophy in general, we have to look at all parts in the world. Because philosophy has no borders.
Hahaha. Once you forget it, there is no such thing as forgetting that you forgot it, because that would require remembering it, to remember that you forgot it, which is impossible if you've forgotten it. Talking about forgetting that you forgot it, is even sillier than talking about knowing that you know it, which is pretty silly in itself.
So how is it then preferable? Because when regimes are founded on their separate gods it leads to war? Would the world be a better place to live if there were no wars and no spirituality?
Quoting Alkis Piskas
:clap:
Quoting Leghorn
Good question! In Buddhism, the 'three jewels' are Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the latter being originally the monastic order, but in a broader sense, the 'community of the wise'.
Quoting Leghorn
I'm not that interested in political philosophy. What I'm concerned with is an understanding.
A lot of the problem is the way 'religion' has been defined in the West, since the formation of the Christian Church. Because of the intense emphasis on 'correct belief' (orthodoxy) and the terrible consequences of having opinions deemed to be false (heresy), the secular west has deemed it preferable to walk away from the whole sorry story. But this is based on a very particular intellectual history. There are other ways of framing the issue, which is why nowadays global culture is such a mixing-pot of ideas, traditions and practice. A good popular article I often refer to is Dharma and religion:
I think that the second paragraph overstates the case, but nevertheless there is a point there. Up until the Mughal invasions of India (which resulted in absolutely horrific bloodshed and wholesale mass murder, particularly of Buddhists) there had been a long history of peaceful co-existence between different schools of Dharma in ancient Bharat (which is the Indian name for India).
I think in tomorrow's world, society is going to have to recognise the value of the cultivation of higher states of being. We're running out of material goods, it's going to be practically the only thing that can be accumulated.
I think this history far precedes Christianity, since we know that Socrates was put to death for impiety, and Israelites were condemned for making the golden calf, etc, long before Jesus. Indeed the very word “orthodoxy” suggests Judaism, not Christianity. So it seems to me that it is universally true that primitive and ancient cultures expected the utmost in piety from their members, and imposed the harshest penalties on apostates—even in “philosophical” Athens.
Are you not, O Viatore, the product of Western rationalism? When you make arguments, are they not based on Western rationality, the thread of rationality that began with the pre-Socratics and extends into the modern reasonings of Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger?
Quoting Wayfarer
But the great thinkers who left their writings to us in that tradition were very political—until very recently. To say that you are instead “concerned with an understanding” is too vague to understand. I confess I don’t know anything about Buddhism—maybe I ought to look into it. But to deny an interest in political philosophy is to deprive yourself of an opportunity to understand the materials that constitute the world we all live in—for better or worse.
You extoll Dharma: is, or was, Dharma, a religion of the ppl, or was it a way of life of only a few priests? Was it ever adopted by the political power, or did it remain an enclave of the few?
Leaving aside Neitszche, I am trying to reconcile my leanings towards Eastern philosophy with Platonism. The traditions that I am most influenced by are Mah?y?na Buddhism and Christian Platonism. So in Western philosophy, the transcendental elements still in those schools more or less died out with the beginning of modernity. Of course it is present in the writings of academic specialists but on the whole it's been rejected by the 'secular intelligentsia'.
Quoting Leghorn
I have a book on that, one of many I bought but never really read - The Gem in the Lotus - about how Buddhism was essential to the formation of Eastern civilisation, going right back to the legendary King Ashoka and Alexander the Grear.
The only difference between a so-called secular culture (in which various religions abound) and a (what's the right word for its antithesis?) theocratic culture is that one particular religion is not mandated, or ta least advocated politically advocated over other religions, or the absence of religion.
So "what has been lost and forgotten" is not much of a loss at all and not worth remembering (other than as an undesirable political, cultural and historical difference), unless you'd prefer to live under theocratic rule. Would you prefer that?
It's certainly nothing I've ever managed to convey to you, although not for want of trying. I suppose there's a lesson there.
There are far more choices of religion today in our culture than there ever were in the past. Anyone who wants to practice any religion can source all the information about it they want and find a religious community to practice with. If you don't want to practice a religion you don't have to. So it is an individual choice now, would you prefer that one particular religion, or a couple, or a few should be imposed on everyone?
If it's not that, then what are you lamenting?
Quoting Wayfarer
If there really is something that's been lost apart from what I've outlined above then you should be able to say what that is. In what alternative way would you have society culturally and politically structured vis a vis religion? What other option do you see other than those I've described?
Perhaps there is indeed a lesson there.
Case in point is the article on What is Math that I've mentioned a few times lately:
I think that makes a profound point - about the nature of universals, the nature of reality, and the sense in which metaphysics has become entangled in religion, and, so, tarred with the same brush.
I hear you on all that, but I'm just not convinced that it makes any significant difference, ethically speaking (which I think is the thing of paramount importance) whether one believes in the independent existence of universals or not. I also don't think it makes any significant practical or scientific difference or really any significant difference at all.
As you know, I'm convinced that metaphysics cannot be anything more than a (valuable in itself as a creative consideration of the possibilities we can imagine) speculative exercise. So, in other words I think it is more important to have an interest in and intellectual grasp of the metaphysical possibilities we can imagine than it is to hold any particular metaphysical position. I see holding a particular position as being a matter of personal preference, taste or assessment of plausibility. So, I'm struggling to understand you on this.
I get it. Deep topic.
I doubt your position is clear to anyone who has read through this thread, but I invite anyone who thinks they do understand it, and cares to explain what they think you are referring to. I mean after all this is a philosophy forum the purpose of which, as I understand it, is to discuss and critique ideas isn't it? Or do you have some other idea about what the purpose of a philosophy forum is or should be? I'm only asking you to clarify your position.
Quoting Janus
My best guess is universals are abstractions, for them to exist, immaterial, nonphysical as they are, is to open the gates and welcome into our ontology whatever immaterial, nonphysical thing one fancies. God? Soul?
Yes, but how does belief in God or the soul necessarily make us better people. Apparently it has the opposite effect in the case of Muslim and Christian extremists. It is arguable that belief in and concern about an afterlife can undermine concern with the injustices of this life, thus making a person morally worse, not better. So, at best it is a neutral proposition.
But these guys (extremists) think they're the good guys. Quite different from your usual run-of-the-mill villain who's bad and knows he's bad.
Quoting TheMadFool
Does it matter what they think? Wasn't it Jesus who said "By their fruits shall ye know them"?
Also, no one seems to be able to explain what it could even mean to say that abstractions are real independently of the human mind, other than to posit a universal mind, but Wayfarer refuses to posit that, if I have understood him right.
I don't think it's necessarily about 'being a better person'. I also acknowledge that my view on the question contains many intuitive leaps that may not be at all obvious and that the understanding I'm working on developing is very much my own. So I'll try and recap.
I first became interested in Platonist philosophy from what I regarded as a minor epiphany, an 'aha' moment, many years ago. It seemed simple and obvious when I thought of it. The drift of it was simply that all phenomenal objects (1) are composed of parts and (2) come into and go out of existence (i.e. they're temporally delimited.)
(One question would be are there any phenomena that do not answer to this description. I have never been able to think of one.)
Then I saw that numbers don't fall under this description. They're (1) not composed of parts (later I realised that this strictly speaking only applied to prime numbers, but any number is only divisible by another number) and (2) they don't come into or go out of existence. As I said, it's a very simple idea. But at the time, I felt I had had an intuitive understanding of why classical philosophers believed that numbers and geometrical forms and the like were of higher order than material things.
Now at that time, I hadn't read anything more about it. I think it was after I had done two years of undergrad philosophy but I did no units on anything resembling this idea. So in the years since, I've been researching it. Just yesterday, I discovered this passage in one of the books @Fooloso4 recommended to me:
Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra.
So this, and many other examples i could find, at least validated my intuition of why I thought traditional philosophy had esteemed mathematical knowledge, and also the sense that mathematical objects were of a different order to material things.
So what's the big deal? I occured to me that numbers are real, but that they're not composed of parts, and that they're real, but not material. And that, I think, is a big deal. That quote I provided from the Smithsonian magazine illustrates this point. There's also another encyclopedia article I often refer to about this, The Indispensability Argument in the Philosophy of Mathematics. It starts:
It's a dense article, but I'll highlight why it is said that 'our best epistemic theories' debar such knowledge:
See the point? There are many highly-esteemed scholars who spend their careers arguing against 'mathematical realism' because it falsifies their empiricist realism. But at the same time science seems to depend on mathematical knowledge, hence the quandary! //Rather than admit the mind is not physical, they would rather argue that maths is a 'useful fiction'.//There are many hotshot academics who knock themselves out trying to square that particular circle, I can't even understand most of what they write. (We've got a very advanced academic who drops in from time to time who is across all those arguments. I doubt he would agree with anything I say about it.)
[s]And that is only one aspect of a very much larger issue. The larger issue is that ideas are real - not because they're the product of your meat Darwinian brain. They're as real as tables, chairs, and atomic bombs. Entertain the wrong ones, and you will suffer for it, because ideas have consequences.[/s] Sorry got a little carried away by my own polemics there.
Quoting Janus
Remember the point I was trying to make about how metaphysics gets entangled with religion?
It matters that some people who are decidely bad (by their fruits...) are under the (false) impression that they're good. Two things to consider here:
1. The belief itself (theism): God is real. Note God's uber bonum and infallible.
2. What this God commands us to do. From 1 follows,
a. Theists are good
b. Whatever God commands is good
As you can see, such people (religious folks) actually want to be good even though they're really not. Their belief in god then can be taken as a marker of their innate goodness even though such goodness has been distorted to the point of being unrecognizable. And universals have ontological relevance to God and God is a necessary part of religious morality (purveyor cum enforcer).
True!
Thanks.
I'm always glad and encouraged to see people in this place with views diverging from the well established path! :smile:
Quoting Wayfarer
BTW, Buddhism is considered a "heresy" (sect) by the Greek Orthodox Church! (It is part of a long list created by an insane Greek priest about 50 years ago, but it is still supported by the Church.)
Dogmatism, insanity and irrationality have no place in philosophy, even in religious philosophy.
I appreciate the shout out.
I agree that is one explanation, but I also think that the immanent existence of patterns, of species and kinds, makes the intuitive understanding of number possible and indeed inevitable. I also believe that some animals have an intuition of number, although of course they don't have a conception of number or symbolic representations of different numbers.
As far as I know there are still many platonists in regards to mathematics, so I don't think the situation is that anything has been forgotten; it's just that today we have rival theories to explain our ability to reason mathematically. I light of the evolution of thought, I don't see how the situation could ever again be such that there could be just one overarching theory of rationality.
Quoting Wayfarer
So, when you say this I wonder what you think is the most important thing in human life if not that we should all be better people. Because as I have said to @Baker in regards to the issue as to whether there is any final solution to the problem of suffering, I think there can be no final solution and the only way to diminish the suffering of all beings as much as is possible is precisely to become better people.
I do agree with you if you are saying that whether one is a platonist or not about mathematics would make no difference to whether one was motivated to become a better person. Anyway for myself, I sit on the fence on the issue; and if anything lean towards a naturalistic explanation.
So, you're saying that the belief in the independent reality of universals is bad because it leads to belief in an omniscient God, whose commands are believed to be absolutely good regardless of how unjust they might seem in the the eyes of humans, and also to the theists believing they are privy to what God commands and that they are bound to carry them out?
Being good or not is a result of your understanding. 'Trying to be good' is often not a successful means to that end. Hence the saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. (c.f. 'You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free'.)
Quoting Janus
You can't 'explain' reason, reason is the source of explanation, not the object of it. Whenever it is 'explained' in terms of adaptation then it's being sold short. I think it's also a mistake to equate adaptive necessity with a philosophy, when it's not; it's simply an explanatory principle within the natural sciences.
Nagel starts his essay Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion with reflections on a quote from C S Peirce:
Quoting Janus
Of course, as do the most people. I know that swimming against that current. Anyway, good reply and thanks for it.
Yes but I didn't speak of "trying to be good"; I spoke of becoming better people. Of course that involves bettering your understanding.
Quoting Wayfarer
Again you are misreading me. I was referring to explaining the origin of reason. It is only on your explanation of its origin that it would be "sold short" by an evolutionary understanding of its origin, and that it would be is self-evident by virtue of the fact that you don't accept an evolutionary explanation.
Those adhering to an evolutionary explanation don't find the problems with it that you do simply because they don't share the same presuppositions about it that you do. No view is context-free or context-universal.
Quoting Wayfarer
There is no necessary vice involved in sharing a majority view or necessary virtue in swimming against the current. I'm not trying to suggest that you were implying that there is, but just in case. :wink:
Something like that but don't forget that religious folk believe they're good even though they may not be. Their motive is clear - they want to be the good fellas - and universals, by making god possible, even real, provide the metaphysical grounding for moral laws. That they're (in fact) not as good as they think they are reflects something esle - human error!
But they're not good if they are acting in ways which harm others are they? I don't think "human error" is the same thing as unsupportable thinking, or to put it another way unsupportable thinking is not merely an example of human error, and any thinking which leads people to believe they have a God-given right to harm others is unsupportable.
I'm not disagreeing with you, at least not as much as I want make a point, that point being theists rely heavily on God to justify morality. God needs some kind of environment, a world if you like, in which God is real and that's where universals come into the picture.
[quote=Steven Weinberg]With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.[/quote]
You could equally say universals meed some kind of world, a mind if you like, in which they are real and that's where God comes into the picture.
I like the quote from Weinberg, but I'd just add than any good ideology will do just as well.
Indeed. I suppose universals become relevant to God in how it makes God credible, ontologically speaking that is. A theist might feel reassured that God has company in universals and their idea of an immaterial being suddenly doesn't seem that outlandish.
On the whole, they're not interested in philosophy. They're more into science and engineering. Which is good! Someone has to keep the devices humming along.
Moses, was it Moses?, was extremely displeased by the calf and not at all, in any way, critical about the gold. He had the golden calf destroyed. What a pity.
I think universals are a very interesting aspect of cognition, of the way we perceive the world and make sense of it or make it “intelligible”. We seem to have a natural tendency to look at things in a way that unifies separate entities into categories in order to provide ordered relations within a harmonious and meaningful whole. This enables us to process reality in ways that are essential to life.
The essence of human cognition for Plato is “seeing”. When we see something we see a “form” or “shape”. This is why Plato uses the term eidos which means “that which is seen”, i.e., the form or shape of an object of sight.
So, we can see why form in general, and Form as universal in particular, is the basis of intelligibility. Further, if we think about it, each Form is both a unity and something good, as it performs the essential function of making the world intelligible to us. Thus we can reduce all sensibles to Forms and all Forms to the One which is Good.
Finally, it stands to reason to assume that this first principle, the One, is intelligent as only an intelligent being can create and unify all the Forms and their instantiations in a harmonious, functioning whole. We need not refer to this intelligence as “God”, but it is difficult to deny or doubt its intelligence especially from a 4th-century BC perspective.
Plato, in fact, does not ask us to worship the One. He simply urges us to try and get to know it. He tells us that the One or the Good is knowable, that the Forms lead us to it and that once we know it, we fully know the Forms and, by extension, everything else. Plotinus seems to have made some progress in this direction. In any case, Platonism is an invitation to practical philosophy not mere intellectual speculation.
I'm not convinced that the idea of an immaterial being seems outlandish at all to many or most of those who haven't thought about it much (which is not say I think it necessarily should seem outlandish to have thought about it a lot)..
Naively, many of us seem to imagine ourselves as immaterial beings who "have" or "inhabit" the body.
Tongue in cheek. Besides, I'm not referring to semioticians and the like. I'm referring to biological reductionism and neo-darwinian materialism and the widespread acceptance that biological imperatives are the principle constituents of human nature. Nagel's essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, expands on the point.
Enactivism and phenomenology are not part of that. Further up this thread, I posted the reference to 'the Cartesian anxiety'. That book, The Embodied Mind, by Varela, Thomson et al, is explicitly concerned with ameliorating that sense of 'otherness' and separation which they see as implicit in post-Cartesian philosophy. And of course that book is firmly grounded in evolutionary biology, but it is not reductionist, it doesn't attempt to explain everything about human nature in Darwinian terms.
Read Nagel. He also covers the issue in a chapter in Mind and Cosmos. And don't tell me what I haven't 'bothered to read', at least I bothered to finish two university degrees. :rage:
Quoting Wayfarer
And by the way, I think there's an enormous difference between explaining everything about humans in Darwinian terms, explaining things which are more plausibly explained in cultural terms, and explaining the origin or our cognitive and rational faculties in evolutionary terms, because our cognitive and rational faculties had to have been already more or less in place before culture was possible. To explain the origin of reason in naturalistic terms is just to eschew supernaturalistic explanations; which are non-explanations anyway because they are not falsifiable.
Falsifiability is not a criterion for what is real; it is only a criterion for what is empirically true, and the question at issue is not an empirical question.
You can say whatever you like about what you think is real, but if you cannot marshall some evidence for your claims then it won't amount to much in philosophical terms. It might be good poetry...it is might be inspiring, or soothing, or beautiful...it might even form the basis for a religious practice.
Anyway naturalistic. evolutionary explanation of the origin of rationality don't purport to be anything more than the most plausible explanations we can come up with, given the evidence; they always remain defeasible.
So, you want empirical evidence for the shortcomings of empiricism?
The philosophical argument I gave was this, which refers to a controversy in philosophy of maths, but which I think illustrates the larger point.
To which you said:
Quoting Janus
I should have left it at that, I was mistaken to pursue it further.
Did I say I thought that empiricism has shortcomings? I don't think it does provided it keeps to its proper ambit. Empiricism is the basis of science, and I don't see why scientific explanations of the origins of life, consciousness and rationality should be ruled out.
On the other hand scientific explanations of aesthetics. love or ecstasy don't seem to hold much water; and that's what I refer to by "ambit".
Quoting Wayfarer
The article you refer to which advocates a platonic view of number, is only one of at least two alternative explanations, as I already pointed out. Personally I don't find it the more plausible, so why should I think it makes any significant difference, particularly when there can be no evidence either way. and it seems the less plausible explanation?
Am I not allowed to present an alternative view or disagree with yours? You act as though you think those who disagree with you must be wrong. I told you I don't even have a settled view on the issue, although I lean towards the naturalistic explanation of number because it seems the more plausible. But you don't for a minute address or critique that naturalistic alternative, you just seem to want to arbitrarily rule it out of court; to claim that it must be wrong, seemingly just because you don't like it, and you don't want it to be the case.
That is why it is so frustrating trying to have a discussion with you; you become offended and dismissive as soon as anyone disagrees with you, and you won't even give a detailed explanation of what you think is wrong with alternative views other than "they have forgotten something" or that your view is just unreflectively seen as "taboo" or something along those lines.I don't know what you're looking for man, but you certainly don't seem to be looking for open discussion.
Of course, but your disagreements often seem to amount to 'I don't see your point'. And you've actually provided no counter-argument - you're simply saying that 'it doesn't make any difference', that you disagree with what I've put, with no specific argument as to why, beyond:
Quoting Janus
As if that amounts to saying something.
I don't become offended, but I do become frustrated, because there's something that seems clear to me, supported with arguments and references, that are then not understood. It seems like a blind spot. (I remember the bollocking I got when I posted a thread about the article of that name. Presumably it's my fault for 'being offended'.)
The reason I often single out Daniel Dennett in these debates, is that he an exemplary materialist. He says so himself, and he robustly advocates a form of 'darwinian materialism' which many of his critics say is proposterous. Yet whenever I bring it up I am accused of 'attacking a straw man' and 'not understanding what he's saying'.
Quoting Janus
Again - 'I don't see why' is not an argument. That is the very point at issue in many of the arguments from David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, and many others. From my past experience on this very point, should I try and counter that, you will 'fail to see the point' of the objection. And we'll go around again.
I better log out for a day. Sayonara.
It is suggesting that our very experience of the world with its natural kinds and individuals makes thinking in terms of sameness, or similarity, and difference inevitable. If we can identify individual things, the "ones" among the many, which it seems obvious even animals can do, why would it not lead to thinking in terms of number once we had acquired the linguistic ability to make names for the different quantities?
Hunter gatherers would have been able to identify the different kinds of animals, fish, fruits, nuts and so on in their environments and all the more the so the ones they used for food and other things. If you were a hunter gatherer and you caught a few fish, for example,why would you not create names (numbers) for the quantities of fish? Once this process is started it's only a matter of elaboration. How is that not an argument for the plausibility of a naturalistic explanation?
Think of prime numbers, for example. That they are divisible only by themselves and one means that if you have a prime number of nuts you cannot separate them into any equal number of multiples. My argument is that it is plausible enough to think that number, even in its complexifications, is elaborated out of the simple human experience of patterns and kinds.
You haven't offered any counter-argument or reason to think that is not plausible.
Quoting Wayfarer
"I don't see why scientific explanations should be ruled out" is not an argument it is a request for an argument from you as to why you think they should be ruled out (if that is what you think; if you don't think that, you should just say that you don't, and then we could move on). I don't want to be directed to read Nagel, I'm here discussing the issue with you.
Doesn't it go without saying, that when someone disagrees with you, you think the other person must be wrong? Isn't that precisely what disagreement is, a case of thinking that the other is wrong?
And actually what I should have said is "you act as though you think those who disagree with you must not understand," as that would be even more accurate to the situation as I see it.
After its destruction he had it melted down and poured into the river, whence he forced the ppl to drink. The gold had been taken from the ears and off the necks of them, whence it had hung as vain adornment, before it was ever fashioned into an idol.
...it’s little different from the tale of Midas, who wished all he touched to be gold, then starved when the food he touched became inedible.
But if you didn't think you were right, you wouldn't disagree. To be open to changing your mind is another matter, related to how determined you are in your belief, certitude. And if you're very open minded, then you just don't tend to disagree.
Quoting Janus
Now that's a better way of putting it. But isn't it the case that when two people disagree it's mostly likely that they misunderstand each other? So there's nothing wrong with assuming that the other misunderstands. The reason for presenting arguments is to aid the other in understanding. That's what changing one's mind is, coming to understand what wasn't understood before.
That's mot how I see it. I could disagree because I think an alternative view seems the more plausible, without even necessarily being wedded to that alternative view.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I know that I don't share Wayfarer's belief that something important has been forgotten in the modern world. I think it's way too much of a generalization, and presupposes that there was some absolute ( as opposed to contextual) truth understood in the ancient world which is beyond our understanding today, rather than simply being a vision of the world that belongs to an earlier paradigm, and thus one which we cannot fully understand no matter how hard we try, because we simply cannot put ourselves into the ancient mindset since we are not ancients. I think I understand Wayfarer's position very well and all the more so since I actually used to inhabit it. I've changed my mind, I've "moved out" so to speak, so it doesn't follow that I misunderstand Wayfarer's perspective. Does he understand mine? That is another question...
But you would think that you were right to disagree, otherwise you wouldn't disagree.
Quoting Janus
There is something very important which has been lost. It's the way that we relate to time, summed up very well by Einstein when he says that time is an illusion. We've lost the perspective which apprehends the reality of time. That's why questions about the eternal are so important, they bring us face to face with the reality of time, when that reality has been lost to illusion.
Quoting Janus
This is the closed minded perspective. It's nothing more than I cannot fully understand you, because I cannot put myself in your mindset, on a larger scale. I cannot become you, and I cannot become an ancient person, but that does not mean that I cannot put myself in your mindset, or in an ancient person's mindset, to understand.
Quoting Janus
Coming from the person who just said wayfarer's position (putting oneself into the ancient mindset) is impossible.
The immaterial, speculatively is perfectly normal of course but once you try to prove it, you begin to realize how crazy the idea is.
Well. we'll just have to agree to disagree about that. :wink:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Firstly Wayfarer is not an ancient, and secondly I used to think just the way he says he does which means I am in a very good position to understand his worldview. But as I said it's a worldview I no longer inhabit. The other thing with contemporary interlocutors is that you can ask them what they mean, which is impossible with the ancients.
The tolerance for accepting other views is not without its own spiritual dimension. The vision of the world as a commons, greater than any particular group, is a trust in more than whatever story might be told to explain the situation. A universal condition becomes the basis for perceiving the particular.
How very unfortunate. I guess Moses' point was nothing of this world could, was good enough or something else, represent/capture the perfection that is God, not even gold. God, even His simplest form, is beyond the grasp of even the best, intellectually and spiritually, among us. Moslems take that idea to a whole new level - fatwa or images of God. Not much of a choice there.
The point then is simple: no idea of God one could imagine/conceive of is "not even wrong" (Wolfgang Pauli) No such thing is even a mistake which we could correct to arrive at the truth, the right idea (of God). Apophatic!
:ok:
Quoting Apollodorus
Another word for understanding is seeing. See?
Quoting Apollodorus
The key step.
Quoting Apollodorus
And thereby hangs a tale. Intelligence being, in a sense, the trait we zero in on.
Quoting Apollodorus
Right!
Quoting TheMadFool
Quoting Janus
The answer to that determines the domain of, on the one hand, and to whether or not the criteria for and thus the viability of, universals in modern thought, has any consistency with the ancestral origins and employment of them on the other. All that has bearing on this....
Quoting Wayfarer
.....because there is sufficient reason, depending on what “immanent” is meant to indicate, for saying “numbers don’t fall” under the description of phenomenal objects. So if your “immanent existence” in not the same as the existence his phenomenal objects go “in and out of”, you’re each talking past the other. You’re not on the same page, which makes the entire dialogue a mere intellectual squabble, which, as we all know, is......he said, in his sternest possible (fake) Prussian accent.......“quite unbecoming to the dignity of philosophy”.
So......to which “existence” are patterns, species and kinds immanent?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/603345
It's a squabble although I think to call it 'intellectual' is flattering it.
Quoting Mww
The distinction I am making is between the 'phenomenal' - which is the realm of appearances and concrete objects - and 'noumenal', which is the realm of objects of the intelligence. I think it's incorrect to say that the noumenal realm - numbers and other universals - exists, but it is nevertheless real. c.f. Russell's comments on universals:
[quote= Russell,The World of Universals;https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5827/5827-h/5827-h.htm#link2HCH0009]Consider such a proposition as 'Edinburgh is north of London'. Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe.[/quote]
My bolds. So I think there's a distinction that can be made between what is real and what exists, but that it's a distinction which can no longer be recognised in contemporary culture. I contend that it is this kind of distinction that goes back to the Parmenides.
'Exist' means to 'stand apart', to be this as distinct from that, to be separate from other existents. Universals, and the like, do not exist, but are real as the constituents of rational thought and inhere in the rational order of the world, which is why mathematical order is predictive. That's all I have time to say at this moment, household duties press.
By immanent I just mean that we have every reason to think there is real difference in the world, real patterns or repetitions, if you like, that would explain our perception of a world teeming with different species. landforms, and elements.
It seems obvious that our fellow percipients see the same differentiated world that we do. If there is differentiation, then there is number or quantity. So I don't say there are real numbers; immaterial platonic objects or ideas, I say that there is real number, shown to us in the diversity of the world of similarities and differences that we perceive.
It is well known that some animals can perform more or less rudimentary. counting, so add to that symbolic language and you have the ability to conceive of numbers abstractly. Anyway that's the explanatory scenario, such as it is, that I find more plausible than that numbers are somehow universal independently real or existence entities; that each number is somehow a universal independently real or existent entity..
So, I lean towards thinking that number is real in its instantiations in our diverse world of same and different kinds of entities.
Quoting Mww
I don't think it is a "mere squabble", in fact it could be thought to be the great divide in philosophy since Plato and Aristotle disagreed (or at least have been understood to have disagreed) on this very point.
Apophaticism is definitely one way of approaching the issue. And it actually makes a lot of sense, especially in the context of later Platonists like Plotinus.
Quoting TheMadFool
Absolutely.
Yes, but does an apophatic conception of God entail any kind of reality or existence at all? Because if not, then God is simply the imagination of something so great that we cannot imagine it. We don't imagine the unimaginable (which would be a contradiction), we imagine that there is an unimaginable. What kind of reality or existence can we imagine the unimaginable to have?
Point. From respect, perhaps....squabble of intellectuals?
Quoting Wayfarer
Understood.
Quoting Wayfarer
Ditto.
———————-
Quoting Janus
Fine by me. Immanent refers to that which is possible to experience, guaranteeing distinction from the transcendent. As such “immanent existence” refers to a thing, but does not describe the domain in which it is found.
Quoting Janus
I think there may be a problem with your characterizations, because some Platonic immaterial objects are real because they can be empirically represented, but some Platonic immaterial objects are real insofar as we are affected by them. Then it must be the case that empirical diversity and quantitative relations are not sufficient in themselves for describing them.
Anyway, thanks for clearing that up for me.
Thanks, that is a nice distinction. I think immanent is often confused with 'natural' and 'transcendent' with 'supernatural', which I don't think is helpful. I prefer the sense in which Kant and Husserl characterise the transcendent as 'that which constitutes experience but is not itself given in experience.'
One of my stock references on the subject of intelligible objects is an essay in the Cambridge Companion to Augustine, an excerpt of which can be perused here - points 1, 2 and 3, and the paragraph immediately following. The conclusion that some intelligent objects cannot be corporeal is of particular significance. They don't exist in space and time, but are nevertheless real.
We are discussing number which can be understood as being necessarily instantiated in diversity. If you are thinking about the so-called platonic forms of objects, like for example the form of the horse; we can be affected by the empirical form of a horse or the imagined form of a horse. When it comes to a number, say five, we can be affected by the empirical form of five, five apples for example, or we can be affected by thinking about five. When it comes to the form of the good, we can be affected by an empirical form of the good, a good action for example, or we can be affected by thinking about the good. There are diverse instances of horses, instantiation of five and examples of the good, so I'm not seeing the difference you are attempting to refer to?
This is an important point, as it implies that the immaterial has causal power over us, as material beings. So even if we take a materialist or physicalist perspective, which see the human being as a physical body, we have to provide the metaphysics required to account for this fact, that the immaterial has causal power over the material body.
Quoting Janus
Suppose you are hungry, and you move toward getting something to eat. You are affected by this immaterial idea, to get something to eat. It has causal power over your material body. The immaterial ideas of numbers have a very similar causal power over you. For example, if you have a thousand dollars in your bank account, and you need twelve hundred for your rent payment tomorrow, you will be moved toward getting another two hundred into your account. These numbers have causal power over your material body.
[quote=Neil Ormerod, The Metaphysical Muddle of Lawrence Krauss;https://www.abc.net.au/religion/the-metaphysical-muddle-of-lawrence-krauss-why-science-cant-get-/10100010] In terms theologian Bernard Lonergan develops in his major work Insight, Krauss is caught in a notion of reality as "already-out-there-now," a reality conditioned by space and time. Lonergan refers to this conception of reality as based on an "animal" knowing, on extroverted biologically dominated consciousness. He distinguishes it from a fully human knowing based on intelligence and reason, arguing that many philosophical difficulties arise because of a failure to distinguish between these two forms of knowing. ...
It goes without saying that you cannot prove the existence of God to a materialist without first converting the materialist away from materialism. ...If we think of the real as an "already-out-there-now" real of extroverted consciousness, then God is not real. God becomes just a figment of the imagination, a fairy at the bottom of the garden, an invisible friend. However, if the real is constituted by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation, then reality suddenly becomes much richer, and the God-question takes on a different hue.
But it is not just the God-question that we can now begin to address more coherently. There are a whole range of other realities whose reality we can now affirm: interest rates, mortgages, contracts, vows, national constitutions, penal codes and so on. Where do interest rates "exist"? Not in banks, or financial institutions. Are they real when we cannot touch them or see them? We all spend so much time worrying about them - are we worrying about nothing? In fact, I'm sure we all worry much more about interest rates than about the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson! Similarly, a contract is not just the piece of paper, but the meaning the paper embodies; likewise a national constitution or a penal code.
Once we break the stranglehold on our thinking by our animal extroversion, we can affirm the reality of our whole world of human meanings and values, of institutions, nations, finance and law, of human relationships and so on, without the necessity of seeing them as "just" something else lower down the chain of being yet to be determined.[/quote]
Philosophy is not grazing, or picking and choosing from, the various arguments and reasonings or aphorisms of the philosophic traditions. Rather it is delving into the history, the stories of great men of the past and their deeds. We cannot understand Socrates’ higher intellectual notions of the forms until we have understood his relation to Aristophanes, the “wise guy” as opposed to the “wise man.” Aristophanes wrote plays that, though conveying wisdom, had to have popular appeal in order to gain success. Socrates, on the other hand, was not popular, and had no incentive to appeal to popularity. Indeed, his motivation was an appeal to a very few who he hoped might become true companions in his search for the truth.
For example, to understand logic, we needn’t analyze sets and subsets, etc, in the abstract way it is presented in textbooks. We only need contemplate Themistocles’ answer to the Seriphian, who said to him, “It is not due to your own merit, but because you are an Athenian, that you are famous,” to which Themistocles replied, “I, had I been Serphian, would have made no name for myself; and you, had you been Athenian, would have made no name for yourself neither.”
Furthermore in this Internet age, it is a fact of life that one can peruse, graze, click through, all kinds of content, extracts, bits of books, video media, interviews, and try and extract juicy morsels from them. The mainstream alternative is often so specialised as to be incomprehensible to anyone but other specialists. We're trying to make sense of philosophical ideas - well, I am, anyway - in such a way that they actually mean something in my non-academic and certainly-less-than-idealised existence.
To make sense of apophatic theology (knowing by not knowing :chin: ), one has to understand that whatever it is that we're denying predicates of our world to, God, is beyond our comprehension, our comprehension being limited to those predicates I mentioned earlier.
As for contradictions, yes, as I said: knowing by not knowing. We don't know what God is but we know what God is not! Knowing almost always is in the positive e.g. I know about apples when I know what apples are and I wouldn't really claim such a thing if all I know about apples is what apples are not. Thus to assert God in terms of negation of all known predicates is to actually not to know God but then apophatic theology is touted as a way of knowing God.
The problem I see with saying that God is not anything you can think of, is that it follows that God is therefore...not anything at all.
How? A well-crafted argument would go a long way towards making your case. Remember there are two points to consider: relative limit (what we can say/think) and absolute limit (what can be said/thought).
We can think that there's an x that we can't think of but that doesn't mean we can think of x.
If we think of God in apophatic terms as being nothing we can think of, then it follows that we cannot think of God even as being, since being is something we can think of. The same goes for the idea that God does not exist, but is real; that claim, when I think about it, makes no sense. What is the sense in saying that something is real and yet non-existent?
So,what is the point of saying God is real, if we cannot say what it means to say that God is real? In this then we are talking about feelings, not about thoughts. If we believe in God er "feel" that God is real. But that God is real is a proposition and it seems strange to say that we feel rather than think a proposition.
So, really if we have a feeling for God, then we should, I think, just focus on that feeling of sacredness, devotion, mystery or awe and forget about trying to say anything propositional at all We can speak in poetic language, evoking our feelings and intimations, without proposing anything or concerning ourselves with knowing anything. Otherwise we will just talk nonsense while imagining that we are saying something sensible; the first step towards fundamentalism.That's my take anyway.
Well, I graduated from Podunksville University myself, and we didn’t use big words like epistemology and ontology and such; we talked about the everyday things we had no personal experience of, like gentlemen and cities...
...”Strauss merges with the authors he discussed and can be understood to be nothing more than their interpreter. Moreover, while philosophers today speak only of being and knowledge, Strauss spoke of cities and gentlemen.”
Quoting Wayfarer
At Podunksville U., we didn’t eat at a buffet, wandering over a dizzying array of tasty delectables and picking a little bit of this, a little of that hoping something would excite our jaded tastebuds. We went to the mess hall, where we were all fed the same damn cornbread and pintos, green beans and taters...it wasn’t very exciting, but it filled our bellies, and didn’t distract from solid study...like grazing a buffet would have.
Quoting Wayfarer
At P.U. we were always taught things that actually meant something to us too, like this letter of Seneca’s: “Nectimus nodos et ambiguam significationem verbis inligamus ac deinde dissolvimus: tantum nobis vacat? iam vivere, iam mori scimus? Tota illo mente pergendum est ubi provideri debet ne res nos, non verba decipiant...Res fallunt: illas discerne. Pro bonis mala amplectimur; optamus contra id quod optavimus; pugnant vota nostra cum votis, consilia cum consiliis. Adulatio quam similis est amicitiae!...Venit ad me pro amico blandus inimicus; vitia nobis sub virtutum nomine obrepunt: temeritas sub titulo fortitudinis latet, moderatio vocatur ignavia, pro cauto timidus accipitur. In his magno periculo erramus: his certas notas imprime...”
I won’t bother to translate this, since I’m sure you can find, in a Google search on the internet buffet, a better translation than I could produce, if you are interested enough to go to the trouble.
And thus :point:
Quoting TheMadFool
To imagine the immaterial is nearly as nonsensical (to you) as to conceive of the inconceivable and I feel the two are related, like Cantor's infinities, one bigger than the other.
Do you "feel" that the "two are related" or think it? :wink: The difference with Cantor's idea that infinities can be larger or smaller is this can be shown logically, so I don't think the analogy is really appropriate.
Well, if you fail to see the connection it isn't my fault is it?
I have to keep this short, in that this is a thread concerned with Greek philosophy, of which I am rather less than proficient. When I say we are affected by immaterial objects, I mean to indicate, on the one hand rationally by feelings, and on the other epistemically by the categories. Of the former we are immediately conscious, of the latter we are not. The former is given, the latter must be synthetically derived.
The argument ensues from the notion that the common understanding overlooks that when we speak of A number, or THE horse, or SOME good, and also irrespective of the extent of the series of any of those, there must be that which underpins each instance or series thereof. You hinted at it when you said “we are discussing number”, but then you went on to give an example with A number. Exhibition of an empirical example cannot ground the validity of immaterial objects, re: it doesn’t mean anything to discuss number by invoking five, because any congruent representation would be sufficient, and any example of anything is always reducible to that which it is an example of.
But I don’t think I’m telling you anything you didn’t already know. I’m just offering an exposition of what I meant by being affected.
————-
Quoting Wayfarer
I would never be so presumptuous as to impinge on your preferences, but I wonder if you might want to re-think that. Or, to be fair, show me why I should.
Which illustrates with perfect clarity, that the principle of cause and effect is not necessarily bounded by phenomenal constituency. The misunderstanding of which the Renaissance empiricists incorporating the newly-founded scientific method generally were guilty, and subsequent Enlightenment metaphysics remedied, even while maintaining that very same method.
'A transcendental argument is a deductive philosophical argument which takes a manifest feature of experience as granted, and articulates what must be the case so that such experiences are possible.'
Is that an untrue statement?
No. This is true.
Look closer. Your other one is......different.
If you fail to explain the connection you think you see. or address the difference I noted, in a convincing way, it isn't my fault is it?
Edit: I apologize, I misread you. I thought you were saying something else: and I think see what you were getting at now. :up:
“...Thus transcendental and transcendent are not identical terms....”
(A296/B353)
Not to let a silly -al ruin a good acquaintance.
It's interesting that you say we are affected rationally by feelings. Generally being affected by feelings is considered as being irrationally affected. In my experience feelings are manifested bodily. I'm going to have to think some more on that.
I think I get what you mean by saying that we are affected epistemically by the categories; without categories we could not know anything. I understand categories as being abstracted from perceived differences of material and form, so I think of them rather as material than immaterial.
Quoting Mww
Are you saying that one example of say five objects cannot ground our understanding of number? If so, I would say that I wasn't suggesting that it could, but on the other hand any example of a number of objects exemplifies the same properties as any other example of that number of objects. I mean we can literally divide, for example any six objects (that are small enough to move around that is) into six separate units, two groups of three or three groups of two. Or we can have one alone and the other five separate, or a group of two and a group of four. So all the abstract attributes of the number six can be perceptually shown.
When it comes to numbers that are too large to allow us to play around with that number of objects, then we would have to designate single objects to stand for multiples, and so on. It pays to remember that calculation used to be done on an abacus, which is a very material way of showing arithmetical operations.
Hopefully I'm not misunderstanding you and addressing something you weren't talking about.
Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is sugar or what is intruder. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And the dog's field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge.
Such are the basic facts which Empiricism ignores, and in the disregard of which it undertakes to philosophize.' (Maritain)
Well put.
It's extraordinary that we imbue the "external world" with so many things. Properties, qualities, substances, richness, depth and on and on and on. It's devilishly difficult to think away what remains of objects once you take away what you put in them.
I'm not speaking of "atoms or fields remain", I'm thinking of an ordinary sized object, such as a statue or a tree.
It is a total mystery to me. And that's "only" the external world. The "world" inside is a whole other issue. What with the infinite amount of ideas a person can have, many of which share virtually nothing of what can be called effects from the objects outside us.
The immaterial is the first step - one answers the question, "is God material?" with a no!. The next question, naturally, is "is God immaterial?' and the answer to that is also no! We're now in apophatic theological territory.
Is Apo phat or phin or in crisis?
Why so prejudiced against dogs? lol I'll be the contrarian for entertainment (perhaps I've misunderstood some feature of the argument so far, and you guys can point that out).
A fairly unique aspect of human thinking is not only how we seem to intellect in the abstract, but how we fail or refuse to recognize full ranges of possibility, underachieve, by becoming attached to certain concepts (not talking about anyone in particular). Our cognitive blind spots are not so dissimilar in their organic nature from a dog's, but of different kind. Humans are capable of thinking and imagining in extremely versatile ways, especially as it relates to generalized concepts (the universals you guys are talking about), but commonly refuse to or shrink away from doing so. I think this constant, arbitrary stereotyping of conceptual categories shows that rationality is without a doubt material, rooted in the body.
If the so-called immaterial is to be understood, it must be via reconfiguring physical knowledge to account for its material and physiological foundations in novel ways.
There really is no problem with the apophatic technique if you will allow me to call it such. Nagarjuna's tetralemma comes to mind.
If I asked my dog if I could use him as an example, I'm sure he wouldn't object, provided I didn't hit him (which I never do).
Quoting Enrique
In what sense? What do you mean by that?
More to the point, it's the problem of objectification which is the major issue. Through the sensory abilities, we know about things that exist as objects for us. And that 'objective field' includes - well, pretty well everything that we can conceive of, from the sub-atomic to the galactic. If it's not part of that field, then it must, the reasoning goes, be 'in here' - an artefact of thought.
As if the two domains are totally separable.
Indeed. The traditional division of reality into physical and mental, however they may be related, is inadequate, apophatically speaking. For sure God is not physical but then is God mental (nonphysical)? No, not even nonphysical (mental).
There can be nothing wrong with it because there is nothing to it. QED
Well, apophatically, God is not anything so, is God nothing? You know the answer to that question.
The problem is, that when we follow "the material" all the way down, to its most fundamental constituents, as we are prone toward doing in scientific reductionist practices, we find that what is there, what supports the material world is the immaterial. So for example physics has found that immaterial wave fields are the foundation of material existence. When we encounter the immaterial at the bottom, as the foundation of all material existence, and our attitude is that the only way to understand the immaterial is as rooted in the body, then the immaterial is rendered as impossible to understand.
When this blockage toward understanding the immaterial is hit, we have no recourse but to reverse this attitude that the immaterial is rooted in the body, to account for the true fact that the body is rooted in the immaterial. When we make this reversal of attitude, all the various features of reality, like free will, and the so-called "hard problem", which are impossible to resolve from the perspective that the immaterial is rooted in the body, become highly intelligible.
No! Your post is wrong from beginning to end! :grin: I've been wanting to say that for ages. I picked it up from a book, forgot the title, just a coupla weeks ago (ages? go figure!)
Apophasis, at the end of the day, is simply denial on steroids. Nothing you say about what it is you want to say something about is right! The idea, it appears, is to end the discussion before it even starts. :chin: Talking but actually not talking.
As for meaning is use, I haven't really grasped what it is Wittgenstein wanted to convey.
Agreed, but qualified by circumstance. Feelings getting in the way of reductionist empiricism, that is, the study of our relation to and understanding of the external world, is irrational, but feelings are nonetheless the necessary determinant factor in moral judgements.
Quoting Janus
Such may be common practice, yes, and may be true under the auspices of certain cognitive theories. It’s all a matter of answering the age-old question......where to begin with metaphysical inquiries: do we begin with that which is given to us, or do we begin with that which is in us, that it is given to.
Eenie, meenie, miney, moe......
———————
Quoting Janus
Yessiree, bub, exactly what I’m saying. I’m of the opinion we must already have the concept of “quantity” resident in understanding, or if you prefer, resident in basic human intelligence. As such, objects don’t ground our understanding of number, but number grounds our understanding of objects. What five represents would have precious little meaning if its place in a series of units didn’t relate to something beyond itself. It must be easy to see all particular numbers, therefore number itself in general, presupposes quantity. A bunch represents quantity, as well as a group, or a set, even a bucketful, but none of those make numbers necessary, which is sufficient reason to authorize something common to all of them.
There is further reduction, if you’re interested. There is a logical proof that knowledge of anything is impossible, if represented by a single conception. In other words, I can never know what a thing is, if I can relate to it only a single word. It is from that proof, that quantity must be both naturally intrinsic to, and a necessary speculative constituent of, human intellect.
————-
Quoting Janus
Certainly. What this shows, is empirical proofs for logical conditions. This in turn shows “quantity” in not the only concept naturally resident in human understanding. So saying, there is nothing contained in the mere perception of six objects, that some relation exists between them. There must be a relation between the objects and us, but when we perform operations on numbers, it is the relation between them alone that makes possible the operations we perform.
There is nothing whatsoever given from, e.g., 29, alone, that says it is a prime number. That is it a prime, can only arise from some relation it must have. That it must have that relation comes from us, and what that relation is, can THEN be perceptually shown.
————-
Quoting Janus
Ehhhh....no worries. Hopefully I’m not over-analyzing. A vain hope, cuz I usually do, which explains why folks usually back gently towards the exists. (Grin)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If we think of a tree trunk, it can be modeled as a column, but that idealized geometry is only an approximation. The actual material structure or substance beneath the idealization is not precisely a column. If we think of subatomic matter, it can be modeled as a wave field, but that idealized geometry is also only an approximation. The actual material structure is some kind of oscillation and flow that does not precisely resemble any ideal wave.
In the case of the tree trunk, the distinction between the ideal and the real is easily inspectable with vision, while in the case of subatomic matter, its structure morphs at a rapid rate and in such complex orientation that we are mostly reliant on an indirect process of manipulating ideal concepts for any empirical comprehension we can achieve (though techniques such as electron microscopy give us some direct insight). But subatomic matter is no less material than a tree trunk, we simply don't have sense-perceptual insight at the subatomic scale to make this obvious.
The nature of what we approximately model as a waveform is not rooted in our physiology, but rather the material bodies it is composed of, which also comprise substances in the environment surrounding us. At the subatomic level, the distinction between physiological and nonphysiological dissolves, but these minuscule structures are no less fundamentally material than a macroscopic object.
Our reasoned understanding of objects intuitively seems to be rooted in the immaterial substance of thought, but it has been demonstrated that consciousness of anything is firmly attached to brain structure, so the apparently immaterial is more delimited by the body than are the basics of materiality, though a knowledge of the body is not exhaustive of so-called immateriality's nature, as any explanation of human will or solution to the hard problem must undoubtedly show.
On the contrary, consciousness determines 'brain structure', not vice versa. For instance, in patients who suffer brain trauma, the brain is reorganised in such a way as to compensate and re-organise its activities to compensate for the trauma (this is one of the discoveries of neuroplasticity).
Besides, on an abstract and general level, it can be shown that symbolic forms and logical relationships are not dependent on any particular material configuration, because they can be realised in many different material and symbolic forms. The meaning of a sentence can be preserved exactly across different languages and different media, so how could the meaning be determined by the material form?
A fairly simple idea: how people use words shows their meanings.
I tend to think that what is in us is given to us as much as what is external. I see it all as part of a relational reality in which the notions of external and internal are not absolute, but are relative to what we consider to be the boundaries of our organisms.
Quoting Mww
If I understand what you say here, then my comment is that I was thinking of six similar objects, or six identical kinds of objects; for example six oranges. In any case it doesn't matter to my arguments, you could imagine six objects of any kind that are small enough to move around. My point was that we can arrange them in all the ways necessary such as to show the attributes that go to define the quantity six.
Quoting Mww
So, in reference to what I wrote above, if we have 29 objects we can try all the ways of arranging them to see if they can be divided into any number of equal groups, and find that we cannot. We don't need any numerals to so this, all we need is the pattern recognition ability to distinguish between single objects and groups.
What subatomic physics, quantum mechanics, demonstrates, is that the reality of continuous subatomic existence is best represented as immaterial (wave function). There is no reality to where the electron, as a material entity, a particle, is at a specific time, because the evidence indicates that it does not exist as a material particle.
This is the inverse of what you say about the tree trunk. Every attempt to represent the tree trunk as an immaterial form fails, as you say, because the form of the trunk is given to us through our senses. What you are not accounting for though, is that our senses are deficient, as you probably already know, they commonly mislead us. So the form which our senses gives us of the tree trunk is incorrect, due to the deficiencies of the senses. As chemistry and physics show us, the trunk is not really as it appears to our senses. So the fact that the ideal does not match up with the tree trunk, as perceived by the senses, is because the senses misrepresent the tree trunk to us, The senses provide a much more deficient perspective than the intellect does with its ideals, so it is clearly not a case of the ideals being wrong, while the senses are right .
This is exactly the issue of Plato's cave. The common people believe that the world is as it appears to the senses, and if the intelligible principles are not consistent with what the senses give us, the intelligible principles must be wrong.. But what Plato says, is that what the senses are giving us is just a representation of the world, and the senses are far less reliable in representing the world than the intellect is. The real world is completely different from how the senses represent it to us, the sense representations being the shadows referred to in the op. Modern science confirms that Plato was absolutely right. The real world is completely different from how it appears to our senses, and the intellect demonstrates to us that the intelligible forms are far more reliable in giving us the real world, then are the senses.
It isn't as simple as that. The claim meaning is use is ambiguous. As far as I can tell, Wittgenstein made that declaration as a refutation of the idea that words have an essence.
My problem is if words do possess an essence, we still use words - to stand for, to refer to that essence. Wittgenstein doesn't clarify how the word "use" in his claim that meaning is use differs from the word "use" in I'm now going to use the word "water" for that clear liquid that we drink, cook with, wash with, put out fires with. Notice how there's an essence to the word "water" in the latter (bolded) and yet I still use the word "water"
"Water" doesn't have one essential meaning , but various associated meanings according to what people use the word for.
Consider these:
" I had water on the knee" referring to some fluid not H2O
" I need to get the dirty water off my chest" referring to ? Mucous? A bad feeling?
Of course these usages are related to the usage of 'water' to refer to H2O. That's why Wittgenstein uses the notion of family resemblances.
Let's meet at the halfway point.
1. Words do possess essences. [traditional view]
2. Words can be assigned any set of essences. [meaning is use]
Human meaning in all cases, whatever the medium, reduces to brain structure. Brains have much plasticity, true, but all of this is mediated by neuronal connections, and the degree of plasticity is constrained. An only partial reconfiguration of function commonly occurs, such as long-term pot use counterbalancing suppressed frontal lobe activity with increases in visual cortex acuity, or delayed onset of dementia due to compensation by less damaged areas of the brain. The way structural changes manifest as functional change can be subtle, but targeted tests will reveal a difference, if only a slight dulling or lack of stamina in relation to very specific tasks. Neuronal rewiring builds on existing structure, even if the total causation cannot be exclusively attributed to any particular brain region.
Meaning is essentially determined by interpretation, and as such is subjected to massive amounts of illusoriness. I'd claim that if we find a way to get past the illusions, cognitive change will usually if not always reveal itself extremely sensitive to preexisting brain structure. Not to diminish that consciousness seemingly transcends the brain in some way, but I don't consider this an immaterial phenomenon.
To clarify my view of immateriality:
The relatively informal meaning of "immaterial" makes sense, as not consonant with the principles of classical physics that are the bedrock of our intuitions about material reality.
I regard an ontological proposition that the immaterial is a fundamentally distinct substance from physical matter as fallacy.
If what has traditionally been referred to as immaterial is a distinct substance in some sense, it at least has to have causal principles in common with conventional matter by virtue of interaction, and the entire range of phenomena becomes part of one theoretical edifice modeling a single reality, which will presumably be a revised physical reality of matter in various forms.
And even if it were it might be a case of the children somehow contacting some kind of encoded memory of past events. We might be living in a simulation and it might be a software glitch for example.
Or the physical universe might somehow encode information about everything that has ever happened which a human brain can sometimes inexplicitly access ( if everything is at the quantum level "entangled" for example).
I have no doubt reality is stranger than we imagine perhaps stranger than we can imagine. And in any case those children have functioning brains don't they?
We are not compelled to default to explanations imagined by the ancients who did not have the benefit of all the scientific knowledge acquired since their time.
Family resemblance goes to show that meaning assignment of words is arbitrary but not that words are essenceless. Perhaps it's an issue of scope. When I say the word "God" has an essence, I mean it within theism or deism or panentheism or... I'm not saying "God" has an essence that spans these various denominations of God beliefs i.e. not true that "God" possesses an essence in theism and deism and panentheism and...
This discussion has nowhere to go then.
Although I suppose I could ask you this question: as the 'structure' to which 'meaning' is ostensibly reducible is constantly changing, what is it that fixes the relationship between the neurophysiological configuration and the semantic meaning? How can symbolic code be 'represented' by neural events? Don't you think there's a possibility you're confusing the two levels, neurophysiological and semantic? The basis of meaning is the perception of meanings which remain stable between different people and cultures. Do you think that's reducible to neurophysiology?
Quoting Enrique
Isn't that what got philosophy started? You know that Aristotle's metaphysics got started by examination of the various senses of the verb 'to be'. So I'm inclined to say that this is not a particularly original insight.
Quoting Janus
Akashic fields, or morphic fields. It's a no-go topic here, but suffice to say it stymies standard-issue physicalism.
You seem to be neglecting the reality of time, and the division between past and future. In relation to the past, there is real 'material' truth concerning what has been. In relation to the future, there is real possibility. At any moment, my material arm might move to the right or to the left. There is no determinate truth as to where my arm will be in the next moment. This means that to speak of the material existence of my arm, on that side of the present, the future side, is to speak nonsense. But we can always speak truth about where my arm was on the other side of the present, the last moment.
We exist at the present, but there is a real incompatibility between the material existence of the past, that which has been experienced, and the immateriality of the future, that which cannot be experienced. However, we cannot say that the future is completely without substance, though it cannot be experienced because this would put it into the past. If the future was completely without substance, this would mean that absolutely anything is possible at any moment. So we can conclude that the "substance" of the future, as allowing for real possibility, is distinct, and separate from the "substance" of the past, which does not allow for possibility.
Clearly, the "causal principles" attributable to the substance of the future, which enable the reality of possibility, are not "in common" with the causal principles of the determinate matter of the past. This does not mean that the two do not interact, as they clearly do, at the present. What it means is that the causal principles which are applicable to the substantial existence of the observed past, are completely distinct, and separate from, incompatible with, the causal principles which are applicable to the substantial existence of the unobservable future.
Therefore the dream of "a single reality" where everything behaves according to a single, consistent and coherent, set of causal principles, because it is composed of a single substance, is just that, a dream. And you appear to be living in this illusion, which others have created for you, and impressed upon you, until you accepted it without appropriate scrutiny. Either that or you created the illusion yourself because you are intellectually lazy, and the true nature of reality is too complex for you to grapple with.
Verbiage on the computer monitor I'm looking at reduces to characters on a page which my brain interprets into meanings.
Language spoken to me reduces to sounds which my brain interprets into meanings.
The coffee machine beeping is interpreted by my brain to mean that the coffee is ready.
My brain interprets waking up early as meaning that I might have a long, challenging day of exhaustion ahead of me.
All these cases and every possible case I can think of reduce to my brain making an interpretation. Sure, meanings are agreed upon, but this agreement between humans is not fundamentally semantic, it is cognitive. The semantic is real only insofar as it is embodied in a medium that implies meaning to my consciousness doing the interpreting. If meaning is shared, if semantic content is mutual, this is because it is etched into the material environment such that multiple individuals have a collectively functional access, not because it exists in some higher realm of ideal form set apart from what everything is made of. The point about morphic fields might be pertinent: perhaps a domain of object-forms exists that transcends sense-perception and standard physics, but this is no less material. I'm getting the impression that you don't want to discuss morphic fields, but it would be interesting to know something about related theories.
The semantic only has reality insofar as it is embodied in neurophysiological matter or its correlates in the material world. I can't imagine what meaning even is apart from the substances it is instantiated in. Claiming that a substance is "immaterial" seems contradictory to me. "Meaning" is merely an aspect of what substance does in conjunction with my consciousness' interpreting.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If there is no reality about what the electron is and quantum physics is purely a functional method utilized by technological practice, how can you say that the intelligible form of the phenomenon is more real than the sensible? Intellectual concepts might be more efficacious than sensory data alone, but not more real and certainly not independent of the senses, unless you mean something along the lines of the morphic fields that were mentioned by @Janus, with "intellect" partially defined as that aspect of consciousness which has exclusive access to them.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
When the past and future interact they are causally unified such that certain events could happen and alternate events couldn't. I don't claim that causality is fundamentally principled, that is only our functional interpretation of it. And as for "single reality", monism isn't exactly a fringe perspective. Do you subscribe to a metaphysical foundation that differs from monism?
Obviously, the mathematics (intelligible form) is very reliable. Coming from the other direction, visible observation, we see material objects can be broken into parts, and we see molecules with microscopes, and theorize about atoms as material objects, and the parts of atoms, which are responsible for the bonding between atoms, as material parts. But then we cannot see where these proposed electrons (as material objects) are, so we cannot validate with our senses, that they even exist as material objects.
So the intelligible form of "the electron", is very reliable, and proven in scientific research therefore extremely real. But the "sensible form", as a particle, being a part of an object, cannot even be sensed at all, so we really cannot say that there is any reality to the "material form" of an electron. .
Quoting Enrique
This leaves out a huge portion of reality. Of the events which "could happen", there is a division between the ones which actually do happen, and the ones which don't happen. We cannot class the ones which don't happen with "events that couldn't happen", because they've already been placed in the other category, of "could happen", and this would effectively negate the category of "could happen", resulting in hard determinism.
Therefore we need a form of causation which is not the same as the causation of determinism, to allow that within the category of "could happen", some events are caused to happen, and some are not.
Says which science? What about mathematicians and pure maths? How and in what is that embodied, or even 'correlated'? And with what? Sure, mathematicians are embodied beings, as are we all, but the ability to explore mathematics is not a given on the grounds of merely being embodied. There are maths prodigies and geniuses that solve real problems that have eluded others for centuries. In what are such problems embodied? To say that they only exist in brains, then they're just the product of brains, and have no intrinsic reality, which is a bold claim, and one that not many mathematicians would agree with, I would think.
Quoting Enrique
I understand that, but be aware of the meaning of 'substance' in philosophy. In normal use, 'substance' means 'a material with uniform properties'. So an 'immaterial substance', using the word in that sense, is 'immaterial material' which is indeed self-contradictory. Substance in philosophy has a different meaning, 'the bearer of attributes'. It is nearer in meaning to 'being' or 'subject' than to what 'substance' means in normal speech.
But that is not the substance of my argument. What I would like to say is that such basic elements of reason as 'is equal to', 'is the same as', or even simply 'is', have no physical equivalent. They are in no sense physical. They are purely intellectual in nature, arising from the ability to name, abstract and compare, and are completely ideational. Sure, you can't perform those functions without a brain, but that doesn't mean that you can reduce those abilities to 'brain functions' as if that means anything more than wishful thinking (or one of Popper's 'promisory notes of materialism').
I think you've bought into a popular myth, which is that brain produces mind, one of the prevailing myths of today. From a common-sense point of view, it seems obvious but I don't think it is at all established, as the nature of the mind remains an elusive question, and not strictly a scientific question.
There's quite a famous book, The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, by Bennett and Hacker, a neuroscientist and philosopher. I haven't read all of it, but from what I have read, it's witheringly critical of the idea that 'the brain' does this or that - or does anything, by itself. That is said to be the 'mereological fallacy', that is, the ascription to a part of what is really the activity of the whole being. In short, brains don't do anything - human beings do things, and obviously need a functioning brain to do anything whatever, but the brain is embodied, encultured, part of a whole ('mereology' is the study of the relations of parts and wholes.)
Quoting Enrique
Actually it was me that brought those up, as a way to explain past-life memories, although that topic is a guaranteed thread derailer.
Yes, agreed, at first glance. We all are given the same kind of brain, all brains work the same way, reason manifests as brain function, therefore we all reason the same way. Nevertheless, while Nature may have seen fit to equip all of us equally, she has not seen fit to cause the manifestations of its use, to be equal across its capacity in each of us.
————-
Quoting Janus
I don’t understand how merely arranging six objects in various ways shows the attributes that defines the quantity “six”. Arranged as a four-sided figure, arranged as a pyramid, arranged with each other as a succession of points.....there’s still just a quantity of objects represented by some number. A quantity can be conceived a priori as a mere succession of aggregates, a particular number just indicates a place in such succession. No need to arrange anything.
And we couldn’t even conceive succession without antecedent relation, so....that takes care of that.
All in good fun.
Kind of a tangent, but has implications for ideal Platonic form and seems to be talked about a lot at this forum, so maybe it's worth thinking about. This will probably resolve some uncertainty for me.
My argument is that ideal geometrical objects are the equivalent of a space unicorn, which seems to be the convenient fiction perspective you mentioned. Any object ever instantiated has imperfectly aligned angles, no matter how slight, is not quite symmetrical in some way, and has unevenly textured boundaries. An ideal object is like cobbling together perfect alignment, symmetry and smoothness in the mind's eye, features inherent in whole numbers as specs that are self-contained with artificially simple exactness, and then labeling a material figure such that ideal properties are assumed present in the real world when they actually are not and never have been.
The mind conceives of the mathematical unicorn by imagining a figure with no imprecisions (neurophysiology), and represents the imaginary concept in a real figure by more or less disregarding the imprecisions intrinsic to instantiation (physical matter). No hyperspace realm where objects with ideal geometry float around waiting to be discovered has ever been empirically proven to exist, exactly in the same way that a real unicorn has never been witnessed. Ideal objects are only present in consciousness, and so would not exist without particular types of cognition.
It is the radical precision of ideal geometry as concept that makes it such a powerful tool, not its actual embodiment as substance, and so can be expected to evolve multiple ways by convergent evolution in similarity to bilateral symmetry etc. But like any purely conceptual (and thus conscious) schema, ideal geometry has to be reducible to neurophysiology, or if not this, then matter of some kind. Postulating a domain where possibilities actually exist or where anything actually exists demands support from a theory of matter to be legitimate, a corresponding and coherent model of instantiated substance, as does any epistemic claim. Quibbling about the meaning of "to be" doesn't seem like it gets at the truth, anymore at least, but I admit I'm not knowledgeable about the relevant Aristotelian arguments.
Explain to me why this reasoning doesn't compel those who are not being disingenuous or merely equivocating about the definitions of verbiage.
Sure, it might be rejected by "standard issue" physicalists, but it's an alternative explanation to positing that consciousness survives the death of the body, and it is not incompatible with physicalism, per se.
I perhaps didn't explain it very well. What I meant was to take six objects and separate them into groups. So you separate them into groups of two and it becomes immediately obvious that you get three groups of two, with nothing left out. Or you can do two groups of three. So the qualities of divisibility of six objects is immediately perceptually apparent. Try it with seven objects and it becomes apparent that it can only be divided into seven "groups " of one. any other combination will leave a remainder.
Notice how you've begged the question here by inserting 'neurophysiology' as if this is a premise rather than a conclusion. And again, mental images can't be meaningfully understood in terms of neurophysiology. There are no shapes or images to be found in neural matter.
But the main point is that conceiving and imagining are different faculties. I've cribbed a blog post from Edward Feser here because it explains the difference very succinctly:
[quote=Ed Feser - Think, McFly, Think]As Aristotelians and Thomists use the term, intellect is that faculty by which we grasp abstract concepts (like the concepts man and mortal), put them together into judgments (like the judgment that all men are mortal), and reason logically from one judgment to another (as when we reason from all men are mortal and Socrates is a man to the conclusion thatSocrates is mortal). It is to be distinguished from imagination, the faculty by which we form mental images (such as a visual mental image of what your mother looks like, an auditory mental image of what your favorite song sounds like, a gustatory mental image of what pizza tastes like, and so forth); and from sensation, the faculty by which we perceive the goings on in the external material world and the internal world of the body (such as a visual experience of the computer in front of you, the auditory experience of the cars passing by on the street outside your window, the awareness you have of the position of your legs, etc.).
That intellectual activity -- thought in the strictest sense of the term -- is irreducible to sensation and imagination is a thesis that unites Platonists, Aristotelians, and rationalists of either the ancient Parmenidean sort or the modern Cartesian sort. The thesis is either explicitly or implicitly denied by modern empiricists and by ancients like Democritus; as I noted in an earlier post, the various bizarre metaphysical conclusions defended by writers like Berkeley and Hume largely rest on the conflation of intellect and imagination. But the irreducibility of intellect to imagination is for all that undeniable, for several reasons.
Thinking versus imagining
First, the concepts that are the constituents of intellectual activity are universal while mental images and sensations are always essentially particular. Any mental image I can form of a man is always going to be of a man of a particular sort -- tall, short, fat, thin, blonde, redheaded, bald, or what have you. It will fit at most many men, but not all. But my concept man applies to every single man without exception. Or to use my stock example, any mental image I can form of a triangle will be an image of an isosceles , scalene, or equilateral triangle, of a black, blue, or green triangle, etc. But the abstract concept triangularity applies to all triangles without exception. And so forth.
Second, mental images are always to some extent vague or indeterminate, while concepts are at least often precise and determinate. To use Descartes’ famous example, a mental image of a chiliagon (a 1,000-sided figure) cannot be clearly distinguished from a mental image of a 1,002-sided figure, or even from a mental image of a circle. But the concept of a chiliagon is clearly distinct from the concept of a 1,002-sided figure or the concept of a circle. I cannot clearly differentiate a mental image of a crowd of one million people from a mental image of a crowd of 900,000 people. But the intellect easily understands the difference between the concept of a crowd of one million people and the concept of a crowd of 900,000 people. And so on.
Third, we have many concepts that are so abstract that they do not have even the loose sort of connection with mental imagery that concepts like man, triangle, and crowd have. You cannot visualize triangularity or humanness per se, but you can at least visualize a particular triangle or a particular human being. But we also have concepts -- such as the concepts 'law', 'square root', 'logical consistency', 'collapse of the wave function', and innumerably many others -- that can strictly be associated with no mental image at all. You might form a visual or auditory image of the English word 'law' when you think about law, but the concept 'law' obviously has no essential connection whatsoever with that word, since ancient Greeks, Chinese, and Indians had the concept without using that specific word to name it. [/quote]
Quoting Enrique
You don't think the meaning of being is fundamental to philosophy? Do you think what you're writing is philosophy?
I tend to think the reasoning of math combines all three categories: intellect, imagination and sensation (as does any process of reasoning?). The interesting inquiry from my angle (thinking a lot about panprotopsychist consciousness theory via quantum biology) is how these faculties and their subject matter are situated in relationship to the brain.
It seems that the way thinking becomes stereotyped means intellect is closely entwined with the types of patterns characteristic of material structure, not a domain adequately explained as abstraction to the core, but what kind of matter this will turn out to be is perhaps uncertain.
I don't get that. It's not necessary to map everything against the brain, as if that amounts to an explanation. The neurosciences are vital sciences but I can't see the need to do that.
If it can be done it will be done. If it can be done, then why not do it?
Inside, he says, 'hey, I notice your neat slogan, gn?thi seauton, "know thyself". I like it, but there's a problem'.
'Oh yes? What?' says the Goddess.
'We don't have the technology yet. It's going to have to wait.'
I suppose. From a further metaphysical reduction, however, any quantity that has been assembled can be disassembled. So the divisibility of some quantity of objects is only immediately perceivable iff an aggregate of them has already been assembled.
But as long as I’m speaking number, and you’re speaking number of objects, we’re passing in the dark. I have no problem with the claim that math needs immediate perception to verify its principles, but I’m talking about the source of those principles a priori, which is why I started out with primes.
Anyway......I’m ready to let this rest if you are.
I imagine that arithmetic started with what are perceptually obvious attributes of groups of different numbers of objects; that is I don't imagine it all started purely abstractly "in the head". Of course I may be wrong, but that seems most plausible to me.
I'm not even sure we're disagreeing, that's how much "in the dark" I am. :halo:
If we can know ourselves without neuroscience, it may be possible to know ourselves even better with the aid of neuroscience. Don't forget that Varela et al advocated neuroscience as an adjunct to phenomenology: neurophenomenology.
Also, you don't understand disorders without understanding orders.
I guess we should simply remove the brain, can't stop now!
Man, get ready to dodge the tomatoes.....bringing Kant into a discussion analyzing strictly Platonic shadows. Much of Plato is found in Kant, to be sure, but not this.
Yes, we need experience of objects. We need something for synthetic a priori cognitions, principles and such, to have a bearing on, something to which they relate, as a means to understand reality. But the objects.....reality...... don’t give us either those principles or the numbers we use them on.
Iff mathematical principles are created by human reason in response to observations, then the grounds for them must already subsist in reason. Observation isn’t sufficient, in that there is no cognition in perception. Even if mathematical principles are contained in reality, some rational human methodology must still subsist in reason in order to first make sense, then make use, of them. Parsimony suggests they arise in us, not reality, from which the sense of them is given immediately. Which is why I brought up primes. There is no way for us to derive the limitations contained in a number, just from the number itself.
Mathematics is proof of the possibility of synthetic a priori cognitions, but not the only use of them, once their validity is proved. Hume’s mistake.
There’s simply no need to reference it. Meaning inheres in the relationship of symbols, not in ‘brain structures’.
What you're not addressing is the 'explanatory gap'. (And beware: not seeing it doesn't amount to refuting it.)
I'm not talking about Plato though ( OK, I may have gone off topic, but the topic of this thread is shadowy in any case); I'm talking specifically about how recognition of objects, and of the ways that objects can be arranged, leads to an apprehension of basic arithmetic.
We are not born with the ability to count and calculate, even though we are obviously born with the capacity to develop these abilities in our interaction with the perceived diversifies and similarities of the environments we inhabit.
These abilities, I think it most plausible to believe, are developed in our concrete embodied interactions with the world; they could not be developed in abstraction. Abstractions come afterwards, I am claiming, and only when symbolic language is developed. Recognition, and pattern recognition, come before abstraction and it seems they would be the basis for the development of language. This must be so, since it is obvious that even animals can do it.
When a word for tree was developed and applied to many kinds of trees, the recognition of the patterns of configuration that trees manifest must already have been in place. But no abstract universal or notion of an abstract universal needs to be there for that. That comes later with the elaborate abstract analysis made possible by symbolic language. That's my take on it anyhow.
True enough, but what if the care isn’t for words, but the origins of them, be what they may? Even to say words are mere inventions, they are always invented in reference to something. The word tree may very well refer to an object of experience, but what of words that refer to immaterial objects? And furthermore, what of immaterial objects that have words, which cannot be experienced at all, as opposed to immaterial objects that have words and we then physically construct their objects in order to acquire experience of them? In any case, because of the manifest distinctions in the references words represent, there must be something in common to them all, and at the same time, must be sufficient causality for their invention.
it isn’t recognition of patterns we want to know about, it being common across species; it’s word development, which is not common at all.
—————-
Quoting Janus
And we’re back to development, this time, abilities. Sounds like we’re justifying Locke’s notion of human tabula rasa, insofar as we’re all mentally empty when we arrive in the world. Which raises the question....if we’re empty and have to develop everything, how is that possible without the innate means to develop? Because the means for experience is necessary, and given the logical necessity of time, it follows there must be something like a first experience. How is....for convenience...our earliest experience possible in the first place, without that which is already present to make it possible? It is contradictory, or at least abysmally circular, to suppose we develop the means for experience, when it is the means for experience claimed to make them possible.
————
Quoting Janus
If all the above is the case, this part cannot be true. There must be abstract universals, having nothing whatsoever to do with language, in order to make human experience possible, and in order to make it possible for humans to develop language.
Now, back to Plato and by association, Kant, which in both are found the conceptions of universals and forms, albeit of different configurations and locations. Not sure about Plato, but in Kant, universals and forms are found in the human mind, more accurately, in human pure reason a priori, and exactly, forms are found in intuition and universals are found in understanding. Forms relate to what we sense, universals relate to what we think.
————-
Sooooo........
(...are you ready hey are you ready for this
Are you hangin’ on the edge of your seat?...)
Quoting Janus
How can the contingency of concrete embodied interactions with the world, EVER serve in the development of necessary (analytic, irreducible) truth, which formal logic and mathematics ALWAYS gives? Again....Hume’s mistake. Relying on empirical inference derived from mere habit, to justify that of which the contradiction is impossible.
Nahhhh....the justifications for our developments are found in their conformity to experience, insofar as we can’t buck Mother Nature, but the development themselves must always arise from abstractions antecedent to experience.
A = A no matter what A is.
That this is caused by that says nothing whatsoever about every possible this.
1 + 1 will always equal 2 no matter what 1’s and 2’s look like or stand for.
————-
Quoting Janus
Yep, me too. It’s all good. Something to pass the time, waiting or football to come on the talkin’ picture box.
Resolving the explanatory gap and hard problem is exactly what I'm into. I think it will be addressed by quantum biology eventually, but technicalities - the specific quanta and mechanisms involved - have not yet been unveiled by research, though I've got preliminary ideas. Some of you have probably already read many of my posts about it on this site, but for those who haven't and might be interested, give this thread of mine a look: Uniting CEMI and Coherence Field Theories of Consciousness. Any of my threads on qualia, quantum mechanics, consciousness or perception will give still more of a sense for the reasoning. If you've got insights or questions for me, I'd like to discuss.
You may find this article interesting: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/human-ancestors-may-have-evolved-physical-ability-speak-more-25-million-years-ago-180973759/
As I said in response to one of your OP's, I honestly don't think you're grasping the problem. It's a matter of perspective - the 'hard problem of consciousness' is a different kind of problem to the kinds of issues that science can tackle. Not because it's complex, but because science provides objective analysis of causal relationships. 'Objective' is the key word. The problem that Chalmer's legendary paper brings up is not that it's objectively difficult to understand the nature of conscious experience, but that it's not an objective phenomenon at all. It's not a matter of providing 'a mechanism' - that is still within the domain of third-person cognitive science. It is that first-person consciousness is of a different order - or is ontologically distinct - from the domain of objective phenomena. But I've said that quite a few times, and it doesn't seem to register.
Interesting, but notice the caveats. It is not proposing an explanation of how syntactical speech arose, but how sounds became associated with images, and how different vocalisations might have been formed - which, I take it, is still within the domain of stimulus and response. It's when meaning becomes abstracted that language really took off. See this review of Noam Chomsky and Robert Berwick's book 'Why Only Us?' which ponders the question of how the ability to convey meaningful ideas through speech might have evolved.
My view is that, certainly, h. sapiens evolved, pretty much as discovered (although the details keep shifting) but that once the ability to abstract and reason developed, then humans escape from biological determinism. In other words, we can discover things that are not dictated by evolutionary development as such, we 'transcend the biological'. Tremendously unpopular and politically-incorrect view, of course.
I agree with this. When the ability to abstract was realized through symbolic language we were no longer constrained to follow the ageless patterns of instinct, and the rest is history. Morphological mutations which enabled us to form diverse vowel sounds and grasp objects (opposable thumb) coupled with the common animal ability to recognize pattern (without which no biologically complex organism would be able to perceived their environments) enabled the genesis of language.
I wouldn't say we can totally "transcend the biological" though; but we can certainly break the chains of genetically enforced patterns of behavior. Culture, more and more elaborated, then allows us to do things simply for their own sake, just for the love of them; so we have the arts, literature, music and religion. I would say science too, as that involves free exercise of the creative imagination as much as the arts, but it also has practical significance, as it enables development of new technologies which (could anyway if they were managed wisely) have survival value.
Sorry for the tangent, but this is interesting. Why is that a problem? What is Chalmers wanting to explain? Does he think it's impossible to overcome certain prejudicial notions that arise from first-person consciousness?
This is drawn from a previous conversation I had with you in a different thread:
The reason I think a quantum theory of consciousness could be a leap beyond current neuroscience in solving the hard problem is because, if we consider visualizing an image in our minds or feeling a sensation, the image or sensation is no longer merely produced by action potentials or neurotransmitters as some mysterious supervenient substance, it is the quantum superposition, precisely. The resonant color of the superposition is the subjective color of the mental image, and the quantum resonance of the sensation is the feeling. We will have identity rather than correlation, no gap between matter and percepts, and the basic mind/body problem is resolved. Of course it will turn out to be more complex than only that, but research in principle might be able to model percepts as if they are objects.
This does not diminish the fact that a subjective aspect of experience exists which in its stark immediacy proves ineffable or personal from a certain perspective, but we would be able to perform feats such as creating elements of humanlike subjectivity in electronic devices or repairing, treating and enhancing the physiology and biochemistry of subjectivity in organisms because this subjectivity will at that point be modeled as a material substance with physical structure.
A partial blending of objectivity with subjective experience will surmount the explanatory gap insofar as it relates to humanity's common fund of theoretical knowledge, continuing the progression that has occurred in psychology and neuroscience already. Whether or not humanity is capable of embracing the explanation on an existential or practical level might be the problem Chalmers sees.
It's not that, and certainly not a matter of prejudice.
[quote=David Chalmers, Facing up to the Hard Problem; http://consc.net/papers/facing.html]The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (in 'What is it like to be a Bat') has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.
It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.
If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. In this central sense of "consciousness", an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is something it is like to be in that state.[/quote]
As it happens, and even though I agree with the thrust of this, I think it could be explained better. Where Chalmers uses the term 'experience', I think the correct word to use is 'being'. What he's saying is that no purely objective account of the mind is the same as 'the nature of experience'; describing an experience is not the same as having an experience. And the capacity for experience is unique to beings, who are the subjects of experience (even very simple beings, but not inorganic nature - this is not panpsychism).
It's also crucial to note that the word 'phenomena' means 'that which appears'; but the subject of experience is not 'a phenomena', but the interpretive agency to whom phenomena appear. As such, the subject of experience is never within the field of vision in the objective examination of phenomena. That's what makes it a 'hard problem' - not that it's devilishly complicated, or that we have to unravel and trace how billions of neural connections work to 'create consciousness', but because it requires a different stance or perspective to that assumed by the natural sciences. The natural sciences begin with the 'criterion of objectivity' - they start with what is given to the senses (hence, empiricism) and reason mathematically (that is, quantitatively) on that basis to make predictions and test hypotheses. But they can't apply that methodology to 'the nature of being', because 'being', as such, is never an object of experience, but the experiencing subject.
It has been remarked by some philosophers of science that this observation actually originated with the Indian philosophy of the Upani?ads in the saying that 'the hand cannot grasp itself, the eye cannot see itself'.[sup] 1 [/sup]
The 'new mysterians' say that, therefore, the nature of mind is a terribly complicated problem, it's beyond our scientific capacity to solve. But that's also wrong - it's not that it's terribly complicated, it's that they're looking at it the wrong way. It takes a different stance, a different attitude, which is associated with a different worldview or way-of-being.
Quoting Enrique
I'm sceptical that psychology has made much 'progress' to speak of. And neuroscience is invaluable for the treatment of conditions and ameliorative technologies, like providing prosthetic enhancements to paralysis victims, but whether or how that represents 'progress' in existential terms is another matter.
Quoting Enrique
Haven't you seen Blade Runner?
Quoting Wayfarer
What about metacognition or self-reflection? I could train to be a neuroscientist, self-experiment and come to some objective conclusions regarding my consciousness? I'm the subject of my own analysis.
The eyes, in this analagy, stands for consciousness. The eyes seeing themselves (in a reflection) would correspond to consciosuness examining itself. That's what the hard problem is about - consciousness being inaccessible. However, I can access my own consciousness and check if it's only physical.
To see the eye seeing itself = to be conscious of consciousness conscious of consciousness (itself), is a different, higher order, matter altogether, no?
Quoting TheMadFool
I don't wanna rain on the nonphysicalist's parade but just imagine you're all alone on some deserted island and you decide to, since you have all the time in the world, study consciousness. You teach yourself everything about neuroscience and other allied subjects. What's your next move? Isn't it to apply your knowledge to consciousness and the best part is you have access to that subjectivity which the hard problem claims is the stumbling block - it being allegedly inacessible to objective scientific methods. I dunno. I'm just throwing this out there because I respect what Chalmers and others have said about the whole subjectivity deal with consciousness. I sense I'm wrong but how exactly?
I read this and it still doesn't resonate much. I understand that an objective account by beings who can't transcend their own perceptions is unlikely (phenomenology/blind spot/etc). I've read some Chalmers and Nagel and I still can't see why what we call phenomenal experience, qualia, etc, is not just a kind of simulation created by an interplay of sense data and memory.
I'm not saying you and some philosophers are wrong (we ultimately do not know) but, for what it's worth, the sense of self I am aware of when I experience things doesn't seem especially remarkable to me. It fades, it wavers, it's inconsistent, it miscalculates and it seems comprised of little bits of information that comes together like an old-school Disney cartoon - single cells moving quickly, creating the illusion of life and a narrative. Or something like this. I've had sympathy for views along these lines for decades but I am open to something more interesting.
I think that this is a temporal issue. To reflect on yourself is always to look backward in time at what has occurred, the past. This is an observational act, and it is the issue with the empirical sciences in general, what is observed is always what has happened, and is therefore in the past.
There is another aspect of human existence, and living being in general, and this is the way that we relate to, and anticipate the future. We can access this to a small extend, through introspection (which is somewhat different from reflection) , but the problem is that introspection is still an observational position. Because of this, the knowledge that we get through introspection, concerning the way that we anticipate the future, is always through the lens of how this fundamental capacity to anticipate the future, affects us (alluding to human affections), as living physical bodies, rather than being able to see this capacity as a cause
So even in introspection we are always looking at the effects of that fundamental capacity to anticipate the future, and we cannot see its true nature as a cause. This is the very same issue we have with God. We know God through His effects, the reality of physical existence, but we cannot see Him directly as the cause, His existence is inferred. Therefore when we proceed toward understanding this form of causation, it is through logic alone, and the logic is only as reliable as the premises employed. Since our premises are derived from the observational, empirical knowledge, they are in a sense tainted, as backward looking, toward the past, so that they need to be inverted to be fully logical. This is why the physicalist who sees everything from the perspective of empirical knowledge, without inverting that knowledge to make it fully logical, i.e. consistent with the rational mind, will think that the idealist, or dualist has everything backward.
There’s is mystical union, theosis, which is said to be non inferential.
Illusions can only be experienced by a subject, which points back to cogito ergo sum.
To say I think about myself thinking myself, is easy, considering myself thinking myself is merely the object the subject thinks about. It is, however, the premier transcendental illusion, insofar as me thinking about me thinking about myself, is the same as me thinking me that thinks. To say I think myself, is to have the subject that thinks, “I”, and the object thought about, “me”, be identical. And at least as far back as Aristotle, a subject cannot be an object, for all objects of thought are either phenomena or conceptions, which makes “me” as the object I think either derived from sensibility, in which case I must have an intuition of “me”, an impossibility in that all intuitions are sensuous, or derived from understanding, which is the source of conceptions. But that which is derived from understanding must always inhere with the categories, which, while transcendentally deduced, are only empirically employed. Hence, either way, the “me” that the “I” thinks, ends as being impossible to cognize, hence, a transcendental illusion, or, an example of one of the “Paralogisms of Pure Reason“, when it is claimed to be a legitimate object of thought.
“...From all this it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in a mere misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which lies at the basis of the categories, is considered to be an intuition of the subject as an object; and the category of substance is applied to the intuition. But this unity is nothing more than the unity in thought, by which no object is given; to which therefore the category of substance—which always presupposes a given intuition—cannot be applied. Consequently, the subject cannot be cognized. The subject of the categories cannot, therefore, for the very reason that it cogitates these, frame any conception of itself as an object of the categories; for, to cogitate these, it must lay at the foundation its own pure self-consciousness—the very thing that it wishes to explain and describe. In like manner, the subject, in which the representation of time has its basis, cannot determine, for this very reason, its own existence in time. Now, if the latter is impossible, the former, as an attempt to determine itself by means of the categories as a thinking being in general, is no less so....”
We can think thinking in general, the fundamental ground of speculative metaphysics; we just cannot think our own thinking.
Interesting, yes, and thanks for that.
Still, that we used to grunt over who gets to sit where around the campfire, but now we talk about parallel universes....doesn’t say much more than evolution is a natural occurrence.
Yes, but I wonder whether the subject itself is much more than a trick. :razz: But this does seem unlikely.
BUT, 'an illusion' can only be had by a subject. That is the whole point of Descartes' argumentWhich, you know, was actually anticipated by Augustine millenia beforehand in City of God.
In respect of those truths I have no fear of the arguments of the Academics. They say, ‘Suppose you are mistaken?’ I reply, ‘If I am mistaken, I exist.’ A non-existent being cannot be mistaken; therefore I must exist, if I am mistaken. Then since my being mistaken proves that I exist, how can I be mistaken in thinking that I exist, seeing that my mistake establishes my existence? Since therefore I must exist in order to be mistaken, then even if I am mistaken, there can be no doubt that I am not mistaken in my knowledge that I exist. It follows that I am not mistaken in knowing that I know. For just as I know that I exist, I also know that I know.
Is there anything much more that can be said? Talking about parallel universes has come about due to us technologically augmenting what we can see along with the evolution of mathematics. But there is an element of what I refer to below in my response to Tom Storm as well: Wittgenstein's " Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language". Note that the "by means of language" is ambiguous; it could be the battle is by means of language as well as the bewitchment. Reminds me of a line from a poem by Jim Morrison (although he was talking about impotence):
[i]" Words got me the wound and will get me well
If you believe it ".[/i] from 'The Death of my Cock'
Quoting Tom Storm
An artefact of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness? We think in terms of the dyad subject/ object, or the grasper and the graspable. "Bewitchment by means of language"? The Buddhists point to the illusion of self as being due to our being mired in dualistic thought. The illusion seems to be that there is a higher kind of thought that can tell us determinate truths about the nature of reality, beyond just saying that it is not what dualistic thought tricks us into thinking it is.
More apposite, I think, would be to say that a subject can only be had by an illusion.
:up: Materialist philosophers believe that mind is the output of the fortuitous combination of material substances, which ought to be sufficient to invalidate the merits of any so-called 'arguments' they presume to offer.
Quoting Mww
:up: What I said, although I think it's put a lot more succinctly in the Upani?ad.
But if we gain enough knowledge via quantum neuroscience to describe the substance of subjectivity as object, essentially an identity between quantum resonances (superposition amongst entanglement) and qualia, it could be the case that we reach a point where nothing remains to be explained in terms of consciousness, exactly as nothing remains to be explained about the circulatory system in terms of physiology. This does not mean that quantum neuroscience will displace the significance of personal, subjective experience, though it would change intuitions about our own minds as psychological neuroscience has already, probably in even more profound ways.
I think the issue of whether absolute comprehension of the subject is possible proves philosophically interesting from the vantage point of metaphysical thought experiment, but somewhat trivial when we consider what knowledge really is. Understanding has always been a process of moving from less to more robust explanations. Models of the circulatory system are not identical to the experience of our pulse, but does anything exist within the domain of physiology that remains to be explained? The subject/object gap might persist, but by any realistic measure the explanatory gap in relationship to the circulatory system has been resolved, and the same might happen for consciousness by advancing neuroscience into the domain of quantum mechanisms.
Maybe the problem is you're conflating a comprehensive model of consciousness' substance with infallible mastery over our own subjective experience.
I know. Offering proof of agreement.
Yep. In other words, in order to do philosophy proper.....stop talking.
Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t philosophize as best we can.
But it's a matter of principle, Enrique. Building a violin is not a matter of having enough bricks. You can't build a violin from bricks. You're not thinking philosophically about this issue, you're treating it as an engineering problem. When you don't know what kind of problem your addressing, there's no use saying that others aren't addressing it.
A violin is a substance, just as consciousness is, and we can build both with appropriate knowledge of substance, as I've started to show might be achievable. I think that's a faulty analogy.
I can appreciate the difference between subjectivity and objectivity, but it should be an aesthetic value, not an epistemic value.
Can you expand a little? Aesthetic?
By aesthetics I mean both the appreciation of our own first-person experience and the ethic of respect for someone else's. This basically amounts to deference for forms of expression that vary by individual and culture. The episteme should be built from this raw material into an edifice that is compatible as much as possible with everybody. That is what objectivity is, and that's what rationality pursues. Multigenerational progress within this valuation schema will make society as ideal as possible.
Not especially enigmatic: this perspective is responsible for modern academia's prestige, beginning as Medieval universitas that were a few individuals gathering with a teacher in someone's house to our huge, worldwide education systems.
Simple, isn't it!
:up:
Hey Wayfarer, you say a lot of important stuff. I just hope other people are paying attention.
No :cry:
The inference is not involved in the experience, which, sans inference is just affect, but in what we call the experience, and what we take its significance to be..
I don't follow.
What, too simple for you? I guess I should have translated the essence of consciousness and rationality into differential equations or something. Or too complex? Maybe I should write a children's book on quantum neuroscience! I'm amenable to suggestion...
My comment was more general than specific but you seem to have got the message.
An individual neuron in my brain can receive thousands of messages at once! Even so everyone seems to think their message is special, strange isn't it?
No. That's natural and happens to everybody.
I guess the philosophical issue is evading me. I suppose substance is my specialty while being is not. You'd think I'd have more intuition about being since I'm alive and got through school, but it didn't work out that way lol
No. Every self-respecting Christian has a personal relationship with God.
Again, no, not in the case of God and people who believe in God (and whose knowledge of themselves proceeds from their knowledge of God).
Because these people's knowledge is not derived from the observational, empirical knowledge, but is a (directly) received revelation from God.
It's immaterial whether you agree with this epistemic method. The point is that it avoids all the usual problems related to knowledge that is derived from observation, empiry.
Also, I'm not saying this to advertise theism. But if we are going to dismiss the one epistemic method that has been the primary epistemic method for what is probably the vast majority of the human population, then we're going to need some really good reasons for doing so.
- - -
Quoting Tom Storm
How can you say that?? Based on what??
How ironic.
In some schools of Hinduism, Maya is a servant of God and she's in charge of the illusion according to which humans think that they are separate from God, believing that "they are because they think".
No, there's "know thyself" and then there's "know thyself according to someone else's idea of who you are".
Based on the fact that philosophers hold different views on the subject. And there is no accepted definition of what consciousness is. But hey, I may well be wrong - it is common sense that humans have consciousness - that's kind of why I am curious.
Is this epistemic or imaginative? Who can really say they know God? Well, I know they can say it, but it's hardly plausible. A figure of speech. Even my local Priest says the moment he hears a member of his Parish say they have a personal relationship with Jesus he expects either insanity or a narcissist.
This "cause" which I spoke of, is a part of the person, so the union is there, clearly it is logically as necessary.
Quoting TheMadFool
Quoting baker
The question is how is this, what I described as a "cause", and "the fundamental capacity to anticipate the future", known to us. As explained, it cannot be observed in any way. We can call it a "mystical union" like Wayfarer did, but that does not validate it as a form of knowledge. All it is is a statement of fact, what is common to us all.
This is probably the same issue which Wittgenstein grapples with in the private language argument. What is known directly to a person, through the inner source, might actually be the highest form of knowledge; Aristotle classed intuition as the highest form of knowledge; but when it comes to validating this form of knowledge to others, through public language (justification), it does not even class as "knowledge".
Quoting baker
The problem is, that even this sort of "knowledge" (I'll call it that, though it does not qualify as knowledge by epistemological standards) which one obtains from within, "intuition", or "mystical union", must be expressed in some sort of words, if one is to proceed in a logical manner from principles derived here. So. if this "knowledge" is to form the basis for premises by which one might proceed toward understanding one's inner self, it must be expressed in language which is suited to, or conformed around observational knowledge. That is the reality of our language. So there is an inherent problem in describing inner experience with language shaped toward describing external observations.
Therefore, a person can proceed toward a "knowledge of themselves" which is completely based in their "knowledge of God", as you say, but they cannot get anywhere in this procedure. It's a dead end right off the bat because that sort of "knowledge" is not at all consistent with the language that we use to make premises for a logical proceeding. So the very first step, must be to justify , through the use of words, that inner experience. Otherwise, any sense that the person has, and is claiming, that their "knowledge of themselves proceeds from their knowledge of God", is just imaginary, an illusion. It's not real knowledge because the person is incapable of making any statements concerning what is pretended to be known. It's simply pretense.
Quoting baker
Sure, it avoids all the epistemological problems, but that's just because it isn't real knowledge, it's pretense. The epistemological problems are involved with real knowledge, not pretend knowledge.
What's vicarious suffering to Wittgenstein and his private language argument?
Is there anything you know about yourself that is not couched in cultural terms? Or represented in a public language? Are these not ultimately "someone else's ideas"?
Beyond that, sure, we can know, in the sense of simply feel, our own inner feelings. Are they ineffable, though? If not, then how much of what we say we know in expressing these feelings comes from the actual experience and how much from the medium in which that experience is conveyed? If the expression or description of those feelings to others is possible, then would you not suspect that those feelings may be always already interpreted in culturally acquired terms?
If there are ineffable feelings, then by definition we can say nothing about them, and they are not knowledge, or at least not knowledge that can be shared. Eugene Gendlin has some interesting ideas about this; I know @Joshs is well into Gendlin, so he might have something to say on this problem of private knowledge.
“ The higher animals live quite complex lives without culture. Culture does not create; it elaborates. Then we live creatively much further with and after culture. To think that we are the creation of culture is not a view one can maintain if one senses ongoing bodily experiencing
directly. Culture is crude and inhuman in comparison with what we find directly. The intricacy you are now living vastly exceeds what cultural forms have contributed to you. With focusing we discover that we are much more organized from the inside out.”
“ In living, our bodies generate, imply, and enact language and culture; but with and after those, our bodies imply (project, experience, sense, practice, demand . . .) more. What they imply is inherently interactional and social, but it is more precise and implies what has never as yet
formed and happened.” (Response to Hatab, Lieberman, etc)
“We can speak freshly because our bodily situation is always different and much more intricate than the cultural generalities. A situation is a bodily happening, not just generalities. Language doesn't consist just of standard sayings. Language is part of the human body's
implying of behavior possibilities. Our own situation always consists of more intricate implyings. Our situation implies much more than the cultural kinds. The usual view is mistaken, that the individual can do no more than choose among the cultural scenarios, or add mere
nuances. The ‘nuances’ are not mere details. Since what is culturally appropriate has only a general meaning, it is the so-called ‘nuances’ that tell us what we really want to know. They indicate what the standard saying really means here, this time, from this person.
Speech coming directly from implicit understanding is trans-cultural. Every individual incorporates but far transcends culture, as becomes evident from direct reference. Thinking is both individual and social. The current theory of a one-way determination by society is too simple. The relation is much more complex. Individuals do require channels of information,
public discourses, instruments and machines, economic support, and associations for action. The individual must also find ways to relate to the public attitudes so as to be neither captured nor isolated. In all these ways the individual is highly controlled. Nevertheless, individual thinking constantly exceeds society.”
Should we call poetic expression knowledge, though? Not in the propositional sense I would say, but I think it can be knowledge in the sense I have spoken of before, of 'knowing with'; the knowledge of familiarity.
This exchange arose when I suggested to Wayfarer that scientific knowledge is not irrelevant to self knowledge:
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Janus
So I don't think there is any self-knowledge that is completely independent of culture, but I agree with what Gendlin seems to be saying that culture does not limit self-knowledge in the ways that it is often thought to.
So it also doesn't follow that culture does not contribute to self-knowledge. What I'm trying to say is it's not either/or; either just my ideas or someone else's.
That we know things couched in cultural terms is a given.
The issue is the dichotomy as proposed by you, namely, "know thyself" vs. "know thyself better".
The latter is about someone else assuming authority over you.
As in, I may know myself, but a psychologist claims to know me better; Christians, too, claim to know me better, and so on.
Your word against theirs.
No, I'm talking about divine revelation, not that "which one obtains from within", "intuition", or "mystical union". Divine revelation as in, holy scriptures. The "inner" part of all this is just the personal affirmation one feels inside that the holy scriptures are in fact the word of God.
How can you possibly know it's pretense?
Multitude of opinions among philosophers is indicative only of there being a multitude of opinions among philosophers. Lack of consensus doesn't mean that nobody knows; but it can mean that only some know and others don't.
Maybe my language was sloppy. It doesn't mean nobody knows. But it also doesn't mean somebody does. How would we know?
No dichotomy! I didn't intend anything like you think I did. I said that we can know ourselves better with the added benefit of science. That doesn't obviate the need for self-examination. I wasn't referring to the question of others knowing me at all.
If we can't possibly know whether there is someone who knows or not what relevance could it have to us anyway? If there were someone who knows, how could she demonstrate her knowledge such that everyone would be able to see that in fact she does know? If they were able to see that she did know then they would also know. If that were possible it would have already happened, and we would all know, I imagine.
"Knowing yourself better with the added benefit of science" _is_ knowing oneself on other people's terms.
It depends on why you want to know whether someone else knows or not.
Why everyone?
Can you explain?
Then I think we were talking about different things, and what you said was not relevant to the point that I was making, which you replied to.
I was talking about knowing a cause (God for example), through its effects (the physical world He created). We have no capacity to directly observe the cause, but we can observe the effects, and infer the necessity of the cause. If you cannot relate to this way of knowing God, I could switch it for an example from quantum physics. Physicists assume that there is something real represented by the wave function, and they know about it from it's effects, which are observed and expressed as the existence of particles.
Quoting baker
Because "knowledge" in the epistemological sense is justified, and "justified" implies demonstrated, which means shared with others. So if an individual claims to know something, but what is known cannot be demonstrated, or shared with others, it is not "knowledge" in epistemology, which is where the accepted definition of "knowledge": is derived from, and it is therefore just a person claiming to have knowledge, which is not real knowledge, but a pretense.
Remember, in Plato's cave allegory, the philosopher, having seen beyond the reflections, toward understand the true reality, is compelled to return to the cave to teach the others. Without doing this educating, the person would just be someone assuming I am right about reality, and they are all wrong about reality, and such a person would not be a philosopher at all, but a poser.
Interesting point of view. Kind of low-rent bodhisattva action, hey? Poser? Maybe the word you want is egocentric? How did you determine that someone who gains philosophical truth must educate the others?
Plato's cave allegory. It's the part from 518-522.
Personally my sympathy has always been with those who stay in the cave. They seem content despite their chains.
No, the way to know God is not the way to know tables and chairs, or atoms, or anything else.
Remember, we started with this:
Quoting baker
You started with the example of knowing God. But God is not known through its effects. God is supposed to be known directly.
Monotheists frequently demonstrate their knowledge of God with other monotheists; they form an epistemic community.
Do you think that because monotheists can't/don't/won't demonstrate their knowledge of God with just anyone, or, in this case, you, this means that they are pretending?
Again, monotheists are sharing their knowledge outside of their epistemic community as well. It's called proselytizing. It's hardly outrageous to expect that the audience does some work as well.
+1
That's my interpretation, applied to the person who claims to have some knowledge of the true reality, but refuses to justify it (teach others). What Plato says is too extensive to be quoted here, but the most significant part is 519-520.
Those who have obtained the highest levels of education (ascent to the good), but do not partake in educating others (refuse to come back down to the cave), are portrayed as lazy, growing freely like a weed within a society. In such a situation these people are not inclined by any sense of duty or responsibility to teach others. If we allow those who have obtained the highest level of education into the state which we are creating, we have the right to compel them to care for, and educate the others.
Quoting Tom Storm
"Sympathy" is an odd choice of words here. "Sympathy" implies feely sorry for, as one might have sympathy for the cattle in the barnyard, who are content despite being slated for slaughter.
I conclude that you are not familiar with Christian theology then, and especially have not read Thomas Aquinas. He explicitly states (Summa Theologica, Q.2, Art.2) "Hence the existence of God, in so far as it is not self-evident to us, can be demonstrated from those of His effects which are known to us."
Quoting baker
Quoting baker
These two statements directly contradict each other. Suppose I approach you, and insist "God can only be known directly". Then I say, "let me demonstrate my knowledge of God to you." Or, in the inverse order?
Quoting Janus
Quoting baker
Any knowledge which is reliably transmissable is intersubjectively corroborable; so if anyone understood what consciousness is in a way which was demonstrable it would have already been demonstrated.
So, the notion that some people could, together or independently, know what consciousness is, even though nobody else knows what they know, or even that they know, seems nonsensical.
Quoting baker
The idea that God can be known directly is nonsensical. All we know directly is what appears to us via the senses and also emotions, feelings and sensations. So someone has an experience of overwhelming ecstasy with a sensation of being engulfed in a rising, all encompassing light, and they say they have directly experienced God; but the inference is not warranted, it is an interpretation of the experience, a reification.
Quoting baker
How could they demonstrate their knowledge? What you should have said is that share their interpretations and beliefs, because that is all it can be.
This is a digression but I say sympathy because those folk who are said to be in chains are generally derided. People like to look down on those poor fools who are content to live a quotidian life and not 'seek the sunlight'. You say 'cattle' - apt - I think many people who show up with truth stories or pathways to enlightenment often see the mass as a dumb flock of animals.
But in my example, you would have sympathy (feel sorry) for these "animals", not because they are a dumb flock, but because they are unaware of their fate. So it's that particular aspect of their "dumbness", that something is going to happen to them, which they are unaware of, but you know about, which makes you feel sorry for them.
Why?
Quoting Tom Storm
If they do, then they're missing the point, and the target.
Philosophy doesn't do that thing you suggested, people do.
I'm very fond of illusions, as I am the number 3(1 - the writer. 2 - the Joker. 3 - the illusion; if you want a more comprehensive pattern please ask).Shadows are a 2, I posit.))
Sunlight is a lot more advanced than Sun Dial logic, there are many more configurations all of which to be understood with the frames you have already perceived through experience of your own shadow.
The shadow form, if unseen, or partially seen, may manifest into an illusion.
Think of shadows as man's dormant creation ability, and furthermore, man's dormant imagination. Why isn't our imagination more apparent?
I'm not suggesting shadows do animate secretly, but that the potential is there, so addressing it as either yes or no is wrong.
I was being wry - Socrates was killed because he 'told the truth' isn't that the tale? What did Nietzsche say about Christianity? It failed because the last true Christian died on the cross. :gasp: The fellow who returns to the cave faces violence for daring to to share. The 'truth' doesn't set us free - it sets us on a collision course with others.
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Just call me Deacon Blues’ ~ Steely Dan, Deacon Blues
(For decades I wondered what the reference was to Alabama, a few years ago, before Walter Becker died, they revealed that it was a champion college football team, called the Crimson Tide.)
That's why the enlightened don't go around preaching to the unenlightened.
By definition, special knowledge is the prerogative of the specialists. The masses must remain unenlightened unless they make an effort to acquire special knowledge.
On their part, the enlightened must compromise and externally adapt to the world of the unenlightened.
But inwardly, that is, intellectually and spiritually, they have been set free from ignorance.
First, it should be kept in mind that Socrates, by his own admission, was ignorant. If there is an escape from the cave, the person telling the story is not someone who escaped it, not someone who has any knowledge of such things. Socrates is not claiming that we are ignorant about all things, but ignorant of what is best, both with regard to what we ought to do and why it is best that things are as they are.
Second, the shadows are images. As cave dwellers, or, in other words, citizens of the city, our education is one of images. Those who escape the shackles are able to see that the images on the cave wall are images of other images, shadows of the puppets being paraded before the light of the fire in the cave. But to escape the shackles is not to escape the cave or city. We remain in a world of images that determine opinion.
Third, although those who escape the shackles can become aware of the image-makers, which is to say, the opinion-makers, readers often fail to see that Plato's stories of what is beyond the cave are themselves images. Images do not lead to an escape from images. Accepting Plato's images of transcendent knowledge is merely to replace some images with others. Accepting them as the truth does the opposite of what is promised. By accepting them one mistakes images for knowledge, and thereby does not escape the cave but remains in it.
Fourth, there is knowledge in the cave. Some become expert on what happens, how certain shadows follow others or are always accompanied by particular sounds. Scientific knowledge is of this sort. We can say what will happen and how it happens but not why it happens, why it is best that things happen as they do.
Fifth, the image of what is seen by someone who escapes the cave is deliberately ambiguous. On the one hand, what is seen are the things of our ordinary experience under the sun, but on the other, it is some transcendent experience of the truth itself. There is a seamless transition from one to the other as if unproblematic.
Our education as depicted is not a matter of replacing opinion with transcendent knowledge. Our education remains an education in images. It is not merely an education by means of images, but what Plato provides is an education about images. What we see are images, some combination of the images given to us together with those of our own making. Knowledge is not a matter of replacing our images with imagined originals, whether it be Forms or gods or the Good, but of being able to discern that our images, our opinions, are things of our own making. Rather than mistaking them for the truth, knowledge of our ignorance leads us to know them for what they are; images that are at best likely stories.
Yes.
Really? When, say, Evangelical Christians tell you who you really are, do you deem yourself as "knowing yourself better"?
You didn't answer my question.
And yet some people can, together or independently, know fancy stuff in, say, advanced mathematics or nuclear physics, even though nobody else knows what they know, or even that they know -- and nobody frets about it!!
How is it that only when it comes to religious/spiritual topics, that the vocal opponents of those fields of knowledge demand that said knowledge either be accessible, demonstrable to everyone, indiscriminately, regardless of their age, intellectual prowess, education, interest -- or we must claim there's nothing to it?!
And you display this same kind of confidence about other things you don't know?
And you have not read the Catechism of the RCC, I presume?
And look, even in the passage you quote, it is said first: "Hence the existence of God, in so far as it is not self-evident to us, can be demonstrated from those of His effects which are known to us."
Aquinas assumes the existence of God can be self-evident to us. Making inferences based on His effects is only a secondary epistemic method.
For monotheists who are part of the same monotheistic epistemic community, this is not a problem.
You keep insisting on approaching the topic of knowing God on your own terms that are extraneous to monotheism (and you interpret standard monotheistic references to suit this agenda of yours).
You wouldn't approach mathematics or chemistry on your own terms, would you? No, you comply with the demands of the field of knowledge. It's pretty much only when it comes to religion/spirituality that so many people insist on their own terms. As if religion/spirituality wouldn't be a field of knowledge in its own right.
I was referring to neuroscience, not evangelical christianity. That said, any immersion in aspects of culture; whether science, the arts, sports, drug use, meditation practice, religious practice, gambling, addiction or whatever, can lead, through your own experience and the apprehension of others' experiences, to better self-understanding. It can also, of course, lead to greater confusion.
Quoting baker
And you didn't explain why your thought my response didn't answer your question, so...
Quoting baker
Nobody's fretting about—except perhaps you—but the point is that their knowledge is demonstrable; whereas the so-called knowledge that comes with religious experience is not. If you can't see the difference, then I don't know what else to say. I'm not saying that such "knowledge" is of no subjective value to individuals, but the point is that it is really faith not knowledge; the definition of knowledge being that which can be intersubjectively demonstrated.
Quoting baker
It's self-evident by definition: god not being an objectively knowable phenomenon. If you want to believe that God is inter-subjectively knowable, then go ahead; I'm done talking to someone who is obviously not open to argument.
Many Christians would never claim to know God directly. The emphasis is on faith, believing in the Word, acting in accordance with the moral precepts and as a member the communion of believers. In Orthodox and Catholic theology, the subjective experience of the vision of the divine is called theosis or the beatific vision but it is understood to be extremely rare, only realised by the saints.
The question of the nature of religious knowledge is very interesting in my view. Of course atheism will say that it's a nonsense question because there's nothing to be known, but I'll leave that aside. I think in Eastern cultures, by way of contrast, there is a different kind of religious sensibility, which is based on the idea of 'realisation'. That is something I read about when I first picked up books on Eastern philosophy and religion. There, the idea is that us ordinary people don't actually know what is real. We're too caught up in our own delusions and attachments to understand it. 'Life is a series of crises, most of which never occur'. When realisation occurs, all of the obscurations fall away and for the first time you see things as they truly are. This can be a shattering experience in some cases. That was the message of some of those books I encountered, for example the Teachings of Ramana Maharishi. (And I do think he was/is a genuine sage, not a hoodoo guru.)
From the Christian P-O-V, much of what these gurus say seems heretical, even leaving aside the fact that they're not Christian, and so can't be 'saved' as a matter of principle. But Ramana Maharishi himself would frequently invoke Christian principles and Biblical aphorisms. Indian religion tends to the 'many paths up the mountain' attitude which is generally alien to ecclesiastical Christianity.
But, generally, we don't know. We see 'through a glass, darkly' - hints and signs, feelings and intuitions. One day, maybe.
Quoting Fooloso4
He is also regarded as the archetypal sage. The ignorance he refers to is avidya, not knowing, which is the kind of confusion and delusion I referred to above.
Maybe this is not the place but I'd like a few more words on this notion.
I was often taken by this quote - pretty sure it's J Krishnamurti
"Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident-prone."
Quoting Apollodorus
How would you be able to tell the difference? I have known highly intelligent people who thought Osho was the real deal (including the eminent German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk who was a disciple for some time).
I know you think Osho was a charlatan, but why would your opinion in such a matter be worth any more than anyone else's? It's obviously not, so it all really just comes down to personal interpretation and belief.
Knowing God through holy scriptures is a form of direct knowledge of God. Holy scriptures are a direct revelation from God, so when you read or hear them, you are directly knowing God.
-- This, at least, is the epistemology that is put forward by some monotheists.
Indeed, but to me, the interesting part is how opponents attempt to know religious/spiritual truth in every other way but the one actually put forth by the religion/spirituality. (And then, predictably, end up empty-handed.)
I don't see it that way. If the monotheists say that God is to be known in a descending process, ie. that God reveals himself to man, and this is how man comes to know God -- then why should I dispute that?
I don't dispute the methods through which, say, physicists come to their knowledge. Why would I dispute the methods through which theists come to their knowledge?
So what are you really concerned about? The wellbeing of mankind? Or something more personal, such as are you afraid of being duped? Are you afraid of other people seeing you being duped?
You sound so insecure, like a teenager.
Take it or leave it.
Quoting baker
But looking at the dire history of conflict and intra-religious persecution in Christianity hardly supports that idea. It's not as if the whole Church has ever come to a unified understanding of the Word, far from it. History is testimony to that.
Quoting baker
Physicists and scientists generally study objective phenomena and the forces which act on them.
In religious disciplines disciplines generally you are that which you seek to know. It's worlds apart.
Again there are religious discipines that emphasis knowledge. You're very familiar with the early Buddhist texts, it's spelled out quite clearly there. But they're very hard paths to follow.
I think there needs to be a clear awareness of the distinction between faith and knowledge, especially as this is a philosophy forum. You can't just declare that faith IS knowledge, it basically obliterates a real distinction. And I'm not saying that from the perspective of overall rejection of religion, like a lot of people.
(This is an interesting conversation but I have to log out for a few hours I have an assignment. Back later.)
Yes, and one can certainly be deluded about the quality of one's mind or spirit or disposition or whatever you want to call it. In regard to self-knowledge it pays to remember that.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well of course I'll leave it. The more interesting question is as to why you take it.
So? I don't see the multitude of what is being put forward as the word of God or how to properly understand it as a deterrent from the principle that knowing God through holy scriptures is a form of direct knowledge of God. (This principle is something that various monotheisms agree on, even if they radically disagree on the details.)
Religion/spirituality is not a charity; it doesn't have a no child left behind policy; it's not egalitarian; it's not democratic. Once one understands this, one's expectations about religion/spirituality change dramatically, and the usual objections (such as those put forward by atheists) become irrelevant (as one comes to see them being born either out of infantile insecurity, or blind, habitual aggressiveness).
Only if one approaches the religious discipline on one's own terms. It's a strange thing to do religion/spirituality with the intent to "find oneself", and thereby mean "find oneself" in some worldly sense that is extraneous to the religious/spiritual path one is pursuing.
Indeed, this is a philosophy forum, and philosophers should know better than to attempt to do religion/spirituality on the terms of science or philosophy. I'm amazed that they don't; I wonder why this is so. I mean, they are supposed to be so much smarter than I! So why are they making such a basic mistake?!
The only people who seemed to be concerned with "doing religion/ spirituality on the terms of science or philosophy" seem to be those who consider themselves to be religious/ spiritual. And they seem to want to claim that there is real knowledge to be had in religious/ spiritual practices. instead of admitting that it is all a matter of personal feeling and faith.
Basic logic. Either someone has access to truth, or they don't. If they do, then they know that preaching the truth, as suggested by Tom Storm, will "set them on a collision course with others". Therefore, they will avoid communicating it except to a select few.
Capital T truth is a kind of mirage. We can say the real thing is "out there", but we can only guess at it, and we don't even really know what we are saying when we say it is out there.
So, what you call "having access to the truth" really amounts to just someone believing they have access to the truth.
Eh?
Sure, there are some religious/spiritual people who do that, but what I'm saying refers primarily to people like yourself, people who are proponents of science.
So ironic.
And just for the record; I'm not saying there is anything wrong with having religious or spiritual faith, provided you are intelligent and honest enough to realize that that is what it is, and not to conflate it with knowledge. Such a conflation is dangerous; it is the first step towards fundamentalism.
Quoting baker
No, I wasn't being ironic. How could anyone possibly have access to absolute truth?
Well, you don't know that, do you? You only think so.
Plus, the person who has been outside the cave does not necessarily know the whole truth or know it "absolutely". It is sufficient for them to know more than those inside, which they will logically do once they've seen the world outside.
It is not a matter of being omniscient. It is enough to know that you know something that you didn't know before. Of course, in theory it could be imagination, but I think most people with a certain level of intelligence and education would be able to tell the difference.
I do know that because it is true. And it is not an absolute truth, so there is no contradiction or inconsistency. It is a contextual truth; humans beings cannot be infallible. Also the idea of absolute truth is an idea of an otherworldly or eternal truth. We are beings of this world, and can know truths only in the context of this world.
In any case, even if for the sake of argument it is granted that some people might know the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life the Universe and Everything", it could never be formulated or communicated, and even if it were it would be as meaningless to the human mind as "42", so it would be incapable of demonstration.
Of we are not and cannot be omniscient and that is just what it would mean to know the Absolute Truth. And of course we all experience knowing that we know something we didn't know before at times. In theory and in practice it could be imagination, and I think it is hubris to think that "a certain level of intelligence and education" would necessarily enable you to tell the difference. We tell the difference between what we know and what we think we know by checking with others.
It could be but it doesn't have to be.
Quoting Janus
1. You think. You don't know.
2. You can't exclude the possibility.
3. I didn't say "necessarily".
Quoting Janus
Sure. But (1) we first check with ourselves, and (2) we can't check with those inside the cave as they have no means of knowing.
That isn't necessarily true. If another world or dimension exists, then there may be a possibility of establishing contact with it.
Otherwise, if we deny the possibility, we are like those inside the cave who insist that nothing else exists. I think Plato is saying the opposite.
Unless God just is the text, you are abusing 'direct' here. 'I don't want to sit and talk about Jesus,...I just want to see his face.'
I agree, but the fun of religion is precisely in the wickedness. A 'reasonable' religion is something you can buy and sell at the mall. 'Keto' is a religion. For some maybe Tesla is a religion.
:up:
Imagology...
https://www.artforum.com/uploads/guide.003/id18182/press_release.pdf
Maybe, but you could never demonstrate that you have, so the possibility that it could be an illusion remains. We should be open to such numinous and transformative experiences and yet draw no conclusions from them in my view.
Quoting Apollodorus
That is a possibility, but there could be no way to know. No matter how certain we might be that we know something transcendent, the possibility that it is an illusion remains. You can't get from a feeling of certainty to an absolute certainty that could not be mistaken.
Quoting Apollodorus
I know that education and intelligence are finite and necessarily limited, no matter how great they might be. So I can exclude the possibility of knowing that you have knowledge of the absolute truth. I could grant that you might think you have and actually do have it. just like you might think something about a distant planet that you know nothing about which just happens to be true.
Weren't you suggesting that a certain level of intelligence and education would enable you to "tell the difference"? If it is only that they might enable you to tell the difference, then you are back to my position; that is that you cannot be sure you can tell the difference. So, the "necessarily" seems to be necessary to your argument.
Sure, but do you really want to valorize a wickedness that may not merely be "wicked" (in the sense of a wicked sense of humour) but truly wicked in the sense of the Spanish Inquisition?
It's tempting at times, but no. Reading @baker reminds me of offensive thinkers like Kierkegaard. I use 'wicked' because it's a sort of indulgence to believe against reason and decency (the universal is transcended by XXX.) . God commanded Abraham to murder a boy, his own son, and his obedience is presented as heroic or saintly. If it was just your neighbor who killed his son in the woods because the voices told him to, well then it's just madness. But Abraham was good-crazy somehow (because there really is an equally good-crazy God, I guess.)
I recently finished Enlightenment Now (Pinker), and I basically agree with him, but there's nevertheless a sort of sterility or humorlessness about his grand case for Humanism which he does not seem to recognize.
I haven't read that, but I get what you mean by "sterility or humorlessness about the enterprise". Some, like Dawkins and the so-called "Four Horsemen" seem to want to dismiss, even eliminate from human life, all religion, and that is in my view a ridiculous, not to mention arrogant, aim.
I think it's fine that people have their faiths, and I think religious faith can even be transformative in ways that nothing else can. My whole argument is merely that conflating faith with knowledge is where the danger begins.
Aquinas might have thought that the existence of God "can be "self-evident", but he explicitly said, "in so far as it is not".
I think you misunderstood me baker. I did not deny that a person could have a personal relation with God, I denied that this could be called "knowledge" of God, because knowledge requires justification. That you claim "the existence of God is self-evident" does not make it self-evident.
Quoting baker
It's not strictly "my terms". It's what's accepted in the philosophical community, as specified by epistemology. Knowledge requires justification. You can't just say "I know God because I talk to Him every night". Such a use of "know" is unacceptable by epistemological standards. So in reality, it's you who is relying on idiosyncratic use of words. Your use of "know" is not consistent with philosophical standards.
I'm just trying to get you to see the disjoint between the way you think and the way others think. And simply insisting that your way is right doesn't get you anywhere because you need to demonstrate that you are right. Of course, if what you are insisting on is that you do not need to demonstrate what you are insisting on, then you have a problem.
You do sound like you're lecturing here.
Quoting baker
Who are you referring to? I think there are philosophers and even scientists who have a clear understanding of these distinctions. The point I was trying to get across was in response to your question "why is 'religious' knowledge any different to physics?' And the answer I was trying to give, is that it is of a different order, it is not concerned with objective measurement, but with your state of being. I don't see that as a controversial distinction. There is such a discipline as 'sacred science' (scientia sacra) which can be found in the classical tradition of Western philosophy and theology, but it's worlds apart from the approach of modern science. And knowledge of it is not a pre-requisite for the faithful in any religion, to my understanding.
The same is true of everything else, though.As per your own below statement:
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
In normal circumstances, I think an intelligent and educated person is quite capable of telling the difference between real experience and imagination.
We don't normally ask others every five minutes whether what we are experiencing is real.
If we take reported instances of precognitive dreams, for example, where a person has a particular dream that corresponds to real events experienced a few days later, should that person dismiss it as "imagination"? If yes, on what criteria?
I wasn't questioning whether religious experiences are real. Of course they are real. It is the interpretation of their significance and the commonly made inferences to God, Ideal Forms. Spiritual Beings and so on that are questionable.
Quoting Apollodorus
If I had dreams on a regular basis that predicted the future, then I would not dismiss that. If someone tells me they regularly have such dreams I would probably be skeptical. If someone told me regularly about dreams and the events described were regularly proven to come to pass, then I would not be skeptical. The possible explanations for such phenomena. if they exist, are another matter, though.
If we are saying that religious experiences are "real", then presumably we know that they are real. In consequence, we cannot insist that "we don't know".
Besides, I was not talking exclusively about "religious" experiences. It can be experiences without any specific "religious" content.
Quoting Janus
Exactly. This would be one example where an intelligent and educated person would be able to determine of their own accord that their experience is real and not imagined, without having to check with others, which was the point I was trying to make.
Another example would be lucid dreams. I think there would be no need for an intelligent and educated person to consult others in order to determine that they actually experienced that particular state of consciousness and not just imagined it, etc.
So, we don't always depend on others for knowledge. What we know does not always need to be confirmed or validated by others.
All I meant by saying that religious experiences, or any experiences for that matter, are real is that they really were experienced by the experiencer. Of course memory is not infallible and the longer the interval between the purported experience and the claim that it really happened, the more shaky that claim may become.
My aim, though, was at religious experiences which claim to prove something. If I have an experience, for example, wherein I am convinced that I am remembering my past five thousand lives, that does not prove that I actually had five thousand or indeed any past lives. So, in my view any claim to such kinds of knowledge are unjustifiable.
Of course the feeling of certainty may be so great for the experiencer that she feels there can be no doubt; but that is still a matter of faith on the part of the experiencer.
Quoting Apollodorus
I would say we don't depend on others for our beliefs. For something to count as knowledge it needs to be demonstrable to others. Sure, we may feel absolutely certain that it is knowledge, but that certainty is a matter of faith. I am not saying that this is not the case withl all knowledge that is not a direct empirical observation like "it is raining, here, now". Claims such as those can be verified to be true by anyone else who is present.
I think most human experience - consisting in thoughts, feelings, emotions, desires, etc. - tends to be personal and unverified by others. Unless we are the type of person that has an irresistible urge to communicate their every move, physical or mental, to the whole world .... :smile:
In any case, I for one find the idea of having my experience of life "validated", "certified", and "approved" by others, a strange proposition.
Sure. However, to be fair, Socrates does say that justified belief or "right opinion" (orthe doxa), though not knowledge as such, is nevertheless as good as, for practical purposes.
For example, if somebody knew the way to Larisa without himself having traveled there, his knowledge would not be mere uninformed opinion but right opinion that can serve as knowledge for oneself and as a basis for guidance to others:
I agree that faith does not constitute knowledge but (a) it may correspond to fact and (b) it may serve as a basis for right action.
In the Cave Analogy, having faith that there is an outside world, may prompt the prisoner to find a way out. Without that faith or belief, there would be no reason or motivation to try to get out. And I believe this would go against human nature, indeed, against intelligent life which is to constantly inquire, discover, and explore. Plato would probably say that this is the very essence of philosophical life. Hence the analogy :smile:
Oh, thanks, massa.
Well, someone making the claim "No one can ever know that they have access to truth in any absolute sense" certainly presumes to have access to absolute truth.
Well, that's your problem then. And what are you doing about it?
Yes, if you take the claim literally. I guess J is using 'absolute truth' to mean something a bit more adventurous, possibly transcendent. It is an interesting question. Absolute truth? What is this meant to be?-It is such a versatile term and can represent anything from Sufi mysticism to Scientology. Is this a term that means anything much to you?
Why should religious/spiritual people hold the philosophical community as authoritative over the religious/spiritual community?
No, your use of religious/spiritual terms is not consistent with religious/spiritual use.
You are imposing your standards on a magisterium that is foreign to you and to which you are a foreigner.
Do you feel the need to demonstrate to the religious/spiritual people that you are right? Yes, you probably do. Do you think the religious/spiritual people should see your standards as authoritative? Yes, you probably think that too.
Do the religious/spiritual people think they need to abide by your standards? They don't. Do the religious/spiritual people feel the need they need to demonstrate to you that they are right? No, they don't.
Tough luck.
What I've been saying all along is that Western philosophy is handling religion/spirituality on terms that are extraneous to religion/spirituality, and as such, necessarily misleading at the very least. And just because Western philosophy has been doing this for centuries doesn't make it right.
Western philosophy is acting outside of its competence when it talks on the topic of God, but thereby means Jehovah or Vishnu or Allah.
If philosophers want to talk about the "god of philosophers", that's their thing, their prerogative. But they should stop fooling themselves, and others, that this way, they are making any relevant claims about Jehovah or Vishnu or Allah.
Duh, of course it's an important term! People have been fighting over it for millennia, so it definitely has to matter!
Are you prepared to say some more? People will fight over jelly beans.
Indeed, it's tedious to have to repeat the same point over and over again.
I haven't met any!
Religious/spiritual knowledge is a field of knowledge in its own right. Physics knowledge is a field of knowledge in its own right. Mathematics is a field of knowledge in its own right. Biology is a field of knowledge in its own right. Culinary knowledge is a field of knowledge in its own right. Fashion knowledge is a field of knowledge in its own right. And so on.
And people generally treat physics, mathematics, biology, culinary science, fashion etc. etc. as fields of knowledge, each in its own right.
But when it comes to religion/spirituality, they drop this distinction, and treat religion/spirituality as something that should be readily, easily accessible to just anyone, from toddlers to senile old men, from bored housewives to academics with multiple advanced degrees. As if religion/spirituality would require no qualification. People admit that even talking about haircuts or how to fold socks isn't something that just any Joe Average can do, no, even for things like that, they grant that one must know this and that. But religion/spirituality is supposed to be fair game, for everyone. Now that's strange!
Indeed, it's not, but they do have to hold some tenets as true (such as that holy scriptures are a direct revelation from God).
And who are those "others"? Toddlers? Senile old men? Teenagers? Bored housewives? Poles? Argentinians? Jews? Stamp collectors? Chemistry teachers? Who?
Who is your epistemic community?
The whole of the human race? Probably not.
Some do. But other times, this is how you interpret their claims when you have left your sphere of competence and ventured into foreign territory without even noticing it.
While X is a matter of faith for you, this doesn't mean it's a matter of faith for everyone else, or somehow objectively, per se.
Other people may know things that you don't know, and they can demonstrate their knowledge to their epistemic community (and they don't care much whether they can demonstrate it to you).
You're not giving others that credit. You hold yourself as the authority over everyone else's knowledge.
I was quoting a song, having pointed out what I considered your twisting of a word. Unless 'God'(or whatever) just is the text itself, merely reading about God would not typically be understood as a direct experience thereof. (Finnegans Wake was once said to not be about anything but rather to be that thing itself, so maybe FW is a self-referential god-text.)
I am not your "massa", nor anybody else's, nor would I want to be. I don't have sufficient energy to continue; you're too "high maintenance".
We are talking about the same thing. Pinker defends scientism essentially, and he does a pretty good job. But I imagine the revolt against Pinker's scientism is something like Kierkegaard's against Hegelianism. The big sane system seems to have a blindspot (perhaps only a tonal-emotional blindspot) and can look insanely sane. A hidden assumption might be : I find myself quite comfortable in this world with only a faith in secular data-driven humanism...so others can surely also be happy this way. Another blindspot: the pleasure in secular humanism may depend on invidious comparison and therefore on the superstitious that it perhaps only pretends to want to convert.
I think that's too strong. Pinker defends the Enlightenment tradition (which is unfashionable in many parts and provokes anger) and certainly privileges science and rationality. This does not necessitate scientism. Philosopher Susan Haack, who disparages scientism, is also a fulsome defender of the Enlightenment tradition and defends science as one of the most useful methods for acquiring reliable knowledge to meet goals.
They are not my favorite people but I don't think what you have said is correct. I have heard at least three our of the four horsemen (esp Dawkins) talk specifically about not wanting an end of all religion and also venerating religious architecture and hymns and writings as being fundamental pillars of civilization. They also elevate the sense of the numinous - Harris particularly and has gone into a kind of pseudo spiritual self-help mode. Dawkins talks about being moved to tears by religious music and art. I think it is way more complicated.
That's an interesting possibility! You make some good points; I'm no fan of scientism. but I haven't read Pinker so I can't comment on whether his arguments are scientistic.
Quoting Tom Storm
I haven't found any of this in what I have read of Dawkins. Perhaps you could cite something? I agree with you about Harris; he is into meditation; but from the little I've read i think he advocates it as a means of stress reduction and perhaps introspective self-knowledge, but he has not truck with anything supernatural; and he even rejects free will. Dennett wants to reject all "folk psychologies" and I'm sure this would include religion. Hitchens was out out and out, unequivocally against religion.
Just YouTube video interviews where they ask Dawkins do you want all religions ended. And is there anything good in religion? If I'd known I were going to need to cite it I would have made notes. :smile:
Quoting Janus
I think the problem with the popstar-atheists is that they use aggrieved hyperbole too frequently and this is taken for a lack of humor and a fanaticism. Hitchens is perhaps the only fun one of the 4.
I agree that they would all like religion to be gone as the end game but surprisingly they also said positive things about some features of religion and especially the impulse behind religion. I may have look to see what I can find and keep these on record as this comes up sometimes.
That's the kind of point a Western philosopher might make, though, is it not? Yet you write as if the Western philosophy was a simple beast with clearly demarcated territory.
It's as if you deny the legitimacy of critically thinking about spiritual matters. It's a classic position.
[quote=Locke]
8. ... Reason is lost upon them, they are above it : they see the light infused into their understandings, and cannot be mistaken ; it is clear and visible there, like the light of bright sunshine ; shows itself, and needs no other proof but its own evidence : they feel the hand of God moving them within, and the impulses of the Spirit, and cannot be mistaken in what they feel. Thus they support themselves, and are sure reasoning hath nothing to do with what they see and feel in themselves : what they have a sensible experience of admits no doubt, needs no probation. Would he not be ridiculous, who should require to have it proved to him that the light shines, and that he sees it ? It is its own proof, and can have no other. When the Spirit brings light into our minds, it dispels darkness. We see it as we do that of the sun at noon, and need not the twilight of reason to show it us. This light from heaven is strong, clear, and pure ; carries its own demonstration with it : and we may as naturally take a glow-worm to assist us to discover the sun, as to examine the celestial ray by our dim candle, reason.
[/quote]
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Essay_Concerning_Human_Understanding/Book_IV/Chapter_XIX
Just to be clear, I'm saying that he argues for scientism. Or, knowing the term is used pejoratively, he defends a data-driven, scientific approach to answering big questions.
I did overstate the case perhaps. 'Scientism' is usually pejorative. It's sometimes a good play to grab a slur and rehabilitate it. I don't think Pinker would deny that he was defending scientism if I phrased the question in the right tone. Recall that I mostly find Pinker convincing. I just continue to understand the allure of religion's wicked secrets. I understand why some people aren't as enthusiastic about it as Pinker, for instance, who's basically the nerdy version of a rock star. The 'magic' of identity is still here after all, if one can manage it.
Many of us live in free societies where even the proles can read the Gospels in the private and either scribble improvements in the margins or burn the thing in the toilet. This is strange, historically speaking.
Many individuals now suffer perhaps because others doubt their own right to pronounce, their own mail-order credentials or what not. Do I care if a scientologist is a clear? I care far more about whether a doctor finished medical school.
If God-claims are just a speciality for nerds, it's not clear what those nerds do. Are they professional soul-savers? Or are they on private journeys? Butterfly-collecting divine experiences without a thought for the rest of the world?
Tantalizing. Can you expand briefly?
Imagine the kicks that Pinker gets being an intellectual rockstar. He has the joys of the poet. Romanticism is alive in well in him, even if he writes apologetics for seemingly anti-romantic scientism. In the same way a philosopher could write beautifully about the unreality of the self...all the while feasting vaingloriously on his own eloquence.
Think instead of an aging, poor nobody who's never felt gifted or interesting. In theory this Nobody could identify with the species and its rare, heroic specimens (Einstein and Tolstoy and Lincoln, etc.). In practice I think it's hard to accept a place at the bottom of the pyramid.
Ego kicks, an important drug.
Good question, though not meant for me.
The 'rational community' is something like educated, rational humanists. Sure, one can cling to cultural Christianity or whatever, but keep it out of politics, keep it in the private sphere. The true and the good are determined socially, through science and democracy, etc.
A subcategory I am very amused by is the person who has read a great philosopher and assumes that they are now a philosopher too, with all the abundant creative powers of that famous writer.
Actually that brings up something I wanted to discuss. The Christian faith says salvation is open to all who believe. Christianity is said to be a 'universal religion', open to all, without regard to social status or past sins, for which all is forgiven by believing in the Atonement.
I've been reading an essay on Schopenhauer's philosophy of religion, which makes this observation:
Due to the Christian heritage of the West the distinction between faith and philosophical analysis has become blurred. On the one hand, 'faith' says 'simply believe!' On the other, humans have an ineradicable desire to know, to understand, to seek reasons. But at the same time, Western science and philosophy, insofar as it is naturalist, walls itself off from anything deemed 'supernatural'. So a religious solution to man's existential angst is out-of-bounds, because it's religious. That is something that comes up time and time again in these discussions.
There seem to be many other ways of thinking about the "big questions", but no other way but science that seems to have any chance of delivering any definitive answers. I agree with Popper that sometimes those other metaphysical ways of thinking, apart from their poetic rewards, may also be inspirational to the abductive thought processes of scientists.
I think you're working with an impoverished notion of faith. Faith can consist in an elaborate metaphysics as much as it can consist in simply accepting Jesus into your heart.
Don't you constantly say that metaphysics is 'like poetry'? Moving but not a sufficient basis for knowledge?
I think we often use the word faith in various imprecise ways. Normally it refers to the process by which people believe, not the content of the belief. As in Hebrews 11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. At its most charitable, faith is understood as an intuitive or personal understanding (if not certainty) of a god.
That's right, an elaborate metaphysics may be a faith, but it is not knowledge.
I agree. For most part the answers of science are definitive in the form of technical solutions. A vaccine can be tested, and the essence of such a test is refined common sense.
Perhaps I should have said that an elaborate metaphysics can be an article of faith? I think your reference to intuition is appropriate; it seems natural enough to have faith in our intuitions, in our gut feelings, to what seems right,
Through science? Then you ignore non-scientific cultures. Science is just one culture amidst of many and should as such not be intertwined with democratic politics. Just as Christianity should be excluded from politics (as you suggest), so should science, unless all those involved agree to make it part of politics. There simply is not one reality that constitutes truth. Scientific reality is just one amongst many. Objective as it may sound.
I was talking about something philosophical, understanding the existence of a cause which is unobservable, through observation of its effects, with the application of logic. You came and tried to change the subject, by describing the unobservable cause as something spiritual, implying that it could not be understood through the means that I presented.
Now you are trying to equate "religious" with "spiritual" in an attempt to exclude the philosophical aspects of religion, from religion, and claim that philosophy has no place in religion. Obviously you are wrong though and I have no need to present an argument for that, because it's so obvious to anyone who knows anything about religion. Your writing just appears as absurd, and undeserving of a response.
Quoting baker
No, you changed the subject on me because you were unhappy with what I was talking about. I suppose you felt threatened by the truth. I would like to get back to the subject I was discussing, but since you refuse to go there, I'm content to simply point out where you are wrong.
No, you're lazy.
Why not?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1
Then whatever happened to the Theory of Evolution, the evolutionary struggle for survival, the survival of the fittest, and so on?
Indeed, it's open to all who believe. This is the epistemic and ethical requirement. It's safe to say that most people in secular academia, or at this forum don't meet this requirement.
It's all too easy to overlook the criteria that religions set for what it takes to know their truths.
By this, Schopenhauer doesn't seem to account for the fact that most religious people have been born and raised into their religion. Being born and raised that way makes religiosity one's default, not a matter of choice. So I think his analysis of religious people does not apply.
And theologians think that theologians are ultimately in the position to critique principles that are advanced by philosophers. So now what?
This has not been my impression at all. It has been my experience that religious people tend to criticize philosophers for being stuck in theorizing or doing nothing but theorizing. They look down on philosophical analysis (to the point of considering it a perverse waste of time).
Again, this has not been my experience. Sure, an outsider is likely to experience religion this way, ie. as a matter of willing oneself to believe this or that, as a matter of taking things on faith. But not an insider, esp. not those born and raised into a religion. These people don't take the religious claims "on faith"; on the contrary, for them, they are facts (an epistemically trivial at that; ie. requiring no cognitive effort in order to be known).
In religions, faith seems to mean 'faithfulness', 'loyalty', and not a particular epistemic/ethical activity where one would hold something as potentially or tentatively true.
Sure. But this is a problem only for the non-religious.
You are the one who brought in God in the first place.
I always do that.
If a hundred philosophers jump off a bridge, then we must do so too ...
To be fair, he says:
"It is indeed a ticklish business to force on man through early impression weak and untenable notions in this important respect, and thus to render him for ever incapable of adopting more correct and stable views... Thus if with a mature mind and with the appearance of reflection the untenable nature of such doctrines forces itself on him, he has nothing better to put in their place; in fact, he is no longer capable of understanding anything better, and in this way is deprived of the consolation that nature had provided for him as compensation for the certainty of death."
So I think he considers the point you are making here.
Quoting hanaH
Where I and several other posters disagree is that I put forward the view that religion/spirituality is something far stricter, less open, less democratic, less accessible, far better delineated than they present it as.
:up: It's quite an interesting essay, very perceptive, in my opinion. I've read it right through a couple of times. (Here's the link again). What interests me, is that Schopenhauer is generally assumed to be a vociferous and militant atheist, and yet he's totally open to 'the transcendent'. Sure, he's bitterly critical of mainstream religiosity, but he reads religion allegorically, and also acknowledges that they exist for a real purpose, that there's a genuine need there. So, I don't think that Schopenhauer could be accomodated at all by the 'new atheists', they would probably regard him as ideologically suspect.
...as if that is a good thing! 'Close your eyes and swallow the medicine! Everything will be fine, trust me!'
Yes, and "God" is a subject of philosophy and religion. But "God" is not the subject of the spiritual experience, so the mistake is yours.
Quoting baker
Some people never learn.
He's often misinterpreted, which is quite strange given that he was a very clear and fantastic writer. I mean sure, you can interpret him a few ways, but not nearly as many ways as, say, Kant.
You know already about his affinities with the Upanishads, he reached similar conclusions in a different manner, which is always fascinating. But yes, he was very much interested in and tried to clarify the mystical aspects of life.
Personally it doesn't make sense to me to treat science as a religion. One way to look at science is as distilled irreligion, as something like refined common sense, where that refinement is the stripping away the biased, the confused, and the irrelevant. It's a tradition that tries to see around our congenital tendencies toward deceiving ourselves (embraced perhaps because of its undeniable success at making the impossible possible.)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
To me that means something like: it was a radical step to try to look at the world without or around religion as a lens.
Which is 'foolishness' to the humanist-without-thinking-about-it 'Greeks.' There is something appealing (because dangerous?) about a religion that's willing to abandon the game of pretending to be rational, scientific, democratic, etc. But does K need H as a foil? Perhaps you'd defend a continuing attachment to rationality and stress the elitism?
It's more a matter of only including what can be quantified, prefereably in line with the paradigmatic model provided by physics.
Where do I say science is a religion? It can be compared to it, sure. Labs taking the place of churches, scientists as the whole bunch of people from priest to pope, imam, and people shouting from minarets, all scientific literature as the holy books (or oral traditions in non-western cultures which in general have more respect for Nature than western-, science-based culture which tends to place itself separate from Nature by it's very nature), Nature as the gods, Einstein Dawkins (the man of the selfish gene doctrine) being like Mozes hearing God speak, evolution (wrongly interpreted by that same Dawkins guy, giving rise to the false central dogma in biology) taking the place of the creation of man, cosmology of the creation of the heavens, schools (to which you are forced to go) and universities as the seminaries, etc. etc.
Science is not a religion though (so obviously it's irreligion which isn't to say it can combine with it). Gods do not enter in the scientific culture. It's more like an *art* expressing a worldview. In that respect it's no different from non-science-based cultures.
As such it can't be given ruling power. Which it clearly has in the modern world! And look at the consequences... The world has never been in a more deplorable state! Speaking of an analysis of the shadows....
You say religion is irrelevant, confusing, self-deceiving, and biased, and science is a refind common sense stripped away of all this. But that's your personal opinion. And that's indeed all it is. An opinion. So not a common sense. What would this common sense be? How do you know the gods don't exist? Science can't explain why the universe is there!
I can't stress the elitism enough. What I've been trying to show is how impenetrable religious tenets are for the outsider. I've been trying to show that just because religious tenets are verbalized in a language one grammatically and lexically understands, this doesn't yet mean that one is qualified to understand them as intended. I emphasize the emic-etic distinction.
No, that kind of extravaganza was Kierkegaard's thing, not mine.
Oh, come on. You should know better by now that I'm not an advocate of blind faith. I also don't think that the people who were born and raised into a religion have blind faith.
That's peculiar. Can I have a genuine, real yearning for some kind of transcendence, for the transcendent, even though I am religiously/spiritually homeless, unaffiliated? No. I think the transcendent is reserved for religions/spiritualities. There is no religiously/spiritually neutral way to think about transcendence.
C'mon now. A lot of what you've just been saying sounds exactly like that.
Of course there is. There are those that realise the state of spiritual liberation spontaneously and are not part of any religion, movement or school. That's what is designated by the 'pratyekabuddha' title.
?? I don't know how come it sounds that way to you. I keep talking about religious/spiritual elitisim, the emic-etic distinction, qualifications necessary for religiosity/spirituality, the impossibility of entering a religion/spirituality by an act of will.
I believe that in order to enter a religious/spiritual epistemic community, a person must have "that special something", and this is not something that can be willed, or faked.
In blind faith, a person is pretending to have "that special something", but knows they don't have it.
But we don't know how common that is because we can't recognize those people.
Are you in any way suggesting that philosophers are pratyekabuddhas or pratyekabuddhas-to-be?
Which is just what I've been arguing and you've been disagreeing with: that "those people" (if they even exist which we have no way of knowing since we cannot recognize them) cannot demonstrate their knowledge except to others who purportedly share their talent or suitability for it. Or it could be that they share a common delusion.
Fair enough, and that's an important distinction. Let those with ears to hear (and only those) hear. But in a 'rational' context, this means promising something that can't be supported with a controlled experiment, for instance.
It's a digression, but this touches other philosophical themes, such as whether we are calling the same something 'red.' More concretely, how does one insider recognize another?
Quantity allows us to be definite in our observations and our predictions. Some focus on physics, but as as I can tell that would just be a bias. Metaphysicians might especially compare themselves to physicists (and the reverse), since both may perceive themselves as studying the fundamentals of reality.
FWIW, Pinker's book makes a strong argument that the world has never been better, which is not to say that he fails to acknowledge our problems. IMV, it's tempting to project some golden age on the past. Life today is complex. We are condemned to be (sort of ) free.
Also, it hardly seems to me that the scientific worldview reigns in democracies. Sure, the elite tend to be more scientifically educated, and they do have disproportionate influence, but plenty of voters are happy to see abortion made almost impossible in Texas, etc. Even if 'science' reigned, there would still be problems and disagreements.
Quoting GraveItty
To me it seems unrealistic indeed to imagine a culture where children are not 'forced' to learn that culture's fundamental beliefs and ways of living.
Quoting GraveItty
You may be reading too much in to my statement. Religions may be understood in sophisticated ways that get around my complaints (such as their late, "cultural" forms, like enjoying the myths, rituals, music, architecture, and history...without 'believing' or acting on the obsolete theology and stoning sinners.)
I think a person of only average intelligence can understand why controlled experiments are convincing in a way that anecdotes are not.
Do the gods exist? What does it mean to believe so? Or to be sure that they don't exist? Instead of getting lost in the endless smoke of what people babble about, we might look at how beliefs are manifested in action. If I claim to believe I can fly but refuse to jump off a building.... If I claim to believe in an afterlife but panic when death is near...
As far as science explaining Everything, that to me sounds like you casting science as a religion again. IMV, the disabused scientific attitude no longer clings to such things, can't even make sense of them ---not out of incuriosity but rather from high standards of definiteness and seriousness when it comes to claims. I see the world as ridiculously complex, and useful patterns are something like a hard-won exception.
Where we disagree is whether "those people" are obligated to demonstrate their knowledge to just anyone.
I maintain that they are not suchly obligated.
Sure. But were you in particular ever promised anything by a religious/spiritual person?
I take it that's between them.
No, a plebeian person is like that.
Are you serious? Of course. Promised and threatened. Not only as child but quite recently by a stranger with a megaphone.
Kierkegaard-style jive, which presents itself as post-scientific or trans-rational, is rare in my experience. Though the man with the megaphone did strangely blend a 'virtuous' Socratic ignorance into his pitch. How does an atheist know that there is not a God, after all? This kind of argument from him was disappointing. He was a sweaty salesman, debasing his faith, revealing it as bad philosophy. He was, accidentally, an anti-advertisement for his sad myth.
You are echoing Nietzsche. You may already know that. The point is that...yeah, I've been down this road. It offers some fascinating scenery.
This has taken a couple of days to come back to, but I will try and respond.
I had commented on this post below:
Quoting baker
by saying:
Quoting Wayfarer
So, I was rather sardonically suggesting that this was suggestive of fundamentalism.
But then you go on to say:
Quoting baker
I am inclined to agree. I think 'that special something' is actually what 'conversion' means. But I don't think that many of those who adhere to faith blindly are self-aware enough to understand that they're actually pretending to it. They may take themselves and their supposed 'faith' with seriousness that borders on fanaticism without any inkling that they're delusional. I think people can lie to themselves. (I guess atheists would consider all professions of faith in that light, but I don't agree.)
Quoting baker
I hear you.
But why did you take that promise or threat seriously (assuming you did)?
And how personally was that promise or threat made? To you, by your name, or just in your "general direction"?
Because when you look at them more closely, religious/spiritual threats and promises tend to be made in general terms (such as when a text say "we promise our reader that ..."). They aren't as specific as "I promise to pick you up at the airport this Saturday at 5 PM" or "Your house will become property of the bank if you don't pay back the loan by the end of this November."
But conversion doesn't apply with people who were born and raised into a religion (which makes for the majority of religious people). They never formally converted. If at some point, such a person were to "become more serious about their religion", this still cannot count as conversion because they have been immersed into their religion from the onset, and so have no notion of what it is like to not have said religion as a background, whereas conversion requires a major change from having no affiliation with a religion to having one.
What you seem to be describing applies to people who "converted" at a time of personal crisis (it can be a health crisis, a financial crisis, a relationship crisis, etc., or a general existential crisis). I think such people are a special category, because their "conversion" and their commitment to the (new) religion are driven and maintained by their personal crisis, and not by some deep study and practice of religion. Technically, they can be said to have "blind faith", but given the role that their personal crisis plays in their religiosity, I wouldn't apply that term to them. I also wouldn't describe them as "lying to themselves"; lying requires intention to deceive, and these people aren't trying to deceive themselves, no, they're looking for hope.
As a child, I tended to believe what the adults in authority said.
Quoting baker
I've been harassed by manic street preachers. I tend to ignore them, because I don't respect them enough to want to talk to them. I also consider 'that' kind of religious person to be 'beyond logic' (they aren't going to address objections but simply return to their vomit.) Recently, though, I couldn't avoid an especially eager fellow who spoke of the hellfire that awaits the unsaved. So his spiel was directed at me personally, as a stranger lost to the deceptions of science, dogmatic in my skepticism. He had a megaphone. I did not. This was also absurd and made him more ridiculous. He was posted up on the side of a popular path, where musicians also tend to post up (most of them pretty bad.) To me he looked like one more attention-hungry failed artist begging for scraps of recognition, but arrogantly. I'd bet he considered modern females to be whores, etc., especially when they do not hearken to his holy song.
Are you still a child?
You seem to have a very general understanding of "personal".