Well, if you work on the premise that what is good for some is bad for others, then either (a) nothing is truly good or (b) you just have to decide wh...
Correct. Starting in the late 1800's and early 1900's there was a Marxist and Fabian Socialist-influenced effort to dissociate everything, including C...
In the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire was divided into East and West. Thereafter, the Greek-controlled Eastern part carried on for a thousand yea...
Not necessarily. He is discussing things that are being said. He (almost) always starts with the current popular view of a particular topic. How else ...
Correct. They were forced to be tolerant. Arab culture was inadequate to support an empire and dominate the more advanced cultures of the conquered te...
It did not happen out of the blue though. It was all borrowed from the Greeks, Persians, and others. And there was a gradual transition (and learning)...
I don't know of any such thinkers. That was precisely my point - as far as I am aware there is no popular or scholarly tradition according to which So...
Correct. But this is what examination of one's thoughts, words, and actions is for. Perhaps we can't be sure that he wouldn't. But we can't be sure th...
You could be right there. In any case, he seems to be holding some interesting and intriguing views, especially in the eyes of moderns who are unfamil...
ARGUMENTS AGAINST SOCRATES’ ATHEISM Socrates was tried and sentenced to death by taking poison for “morally corrupting the youth” and for “impiety tow...
Yes, if Platonism believes in eternal truths like the Forms, then it is incompatible with materialism and naturalism. I think Theosophy was responsibl...
Correct. This is Plato's Theory of Recollection (anamnesis) according to which souls having lived before and having experienced the Forms, have latent...
As related in the Timaeus, in the beginning God created the Cosmos as a living being endowed with a soul and reason. He next created the Cosmic Gods, ...
I don't think this is entirely correct. Christianity does teach the cultivation of virtues, living a righteous life, etc. : "For John came to you to s...
Well, Socrates says: You hunt something down by following its tracks until you see it. The tracks of the Forms are the universals, the things whose pr...
That isn't an entirely bad question. And, of course, we could call the Good, the One, or God a "Quale" if we really wanted to. :smile: However, my poi...
I think "intellect" can be misleading. To understand Plato we need to understand the Greek terms he is using. The word nous comes from the root gno- (...
I think that "God", if he exists at all, could be anything. The point is not to decide in advance what ultimate reality is. The point is to have an ex...
That may be one way of looking at it. Plato certainly follows the reductivist tendency already found in Greek philosophy, and in natural science in ge...
I see what you mean and I certainly don’t disagree. :smile: However, expressions like "in accordance with the things said" may well be just a manner o...
I think the idea that there is a Form for every conceivable thing under the sun is unwarranted. Different Forms would be perfectly capable to combine ...
Sure. That's the official pledge of all rank and file! But anyone from corporal upward were vetted for political views, etc. It is wrong to imagine th...
Somewhere beyond space and time? I.e., within a form of awareness or consciousness where experience of time and space has not yet emerged. You need to...
It may sound "religious" to the modern mind. But Plato's primary concern is never religion per se which is based on belief (pistis), but knowledge (no...
Interestingly, McEvilly also says: - The Shape of Ancient Thought, p. 10. In the Preparatio Evangelica, Eusebius writes: That there was contact betwee...
Plato is a very complex writer and it is important to read him carefully and on his own terms. But I think that a first step in the right direction wo...
Nice picture. But I don’t think it amounts to proof for your argument. :smile: First, the Bundeswehr was established in 1955. The ECSC was founded in ...
Yes, McEvilly seems to be an interesting author. I don’t know if he is a historian, but he does make some valid points about Socratic and Platonic asc...
Correct. But we must not forget the Forms. There are (1) concrete or perceptible mathematical objects, (2) abstract or ideal ones, and (3) Forms. For ...
I don't think I'm brushing aside anything. Finland may have preferred to be under EU domination than under Russian domination. But the EU is not about...
I don't think I "ignored" it. I just had no objection to it. If I understand your comment correctly, (1) you see no "usefulness in trying to explain S...
If US bankers and industrialists and their European partners played a major role, then that role needs to be acknowledged, not dismissed as "conspirac...
Good question. I think that mathematical objects such as geometric shapes are related to Plato’s Ideas or Forms. When we perceive something in visual ...
It is the Platonic perspective with which Socrates' statements are in agreement. Why would he spend hours in the Phaedo trying to convince people of t...
Islam may entail some Platonist and Aristotelian elements but I think it is much closer to Judaism. I would imagine that Iran likes to see itself as a...
Well, seeing that America is holding Afghanistan's foreign reserves, cash will probably start being a problem pretty soon. And if I'm not mistaken, Af...
Yes. Plato's main intention here seems to be to distinguish between different forms of thought, in particular, discursive thought (dianoia) that uses ...
The Wikipedia article you are quoting explains, quite clearly in my view, that "I know that I know nothing" is a paraphrase of Socrates' original stat...
Well, it seems to me that you have a hyperactive and rather unhealthy imagination. I never said Franco should have killed you or your friends. By the ...
True. But I would say there is an additional aspect to this. If the philosopher were to charge a fee for his knowledge, he would place himself in a se...
Your suspicion possibly points in the right direction. However, my own suspicion would be that Socrates does not only not deny the divinity of Sun and...
I think he found Anaxagoras unsatisfactory and disappointing. In any case, I don't see Socrates taking a huge interest in Anaxagorean materialism, and...
There seems to be a contradiction between placing a lot of value on higher knowledge and expecting to acquire it for nothing. Teachers of higher knowl...
Well, Socrates/Plato distinguishes between (1) discursive, propositional knowledge relating to thought (dianoia) and (2) nondiscursive, nonproposition...
The way I see it JTB is more like a Stoic idea and is not the best approach to understand Socrates and Plato. We must not forget that for Plato true k...
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