Wayfarer

Yes, you're correct, I read the whole passage again. The argument about harmony being an analogy for the soul is dismissed.

From an encyclopedia article on the Phaedo: So, it's your view that none of the arguments succeed?

I see what you mean.

It’s an allegory or metaphor. I take it that ‘the harmonious soul’ is one purged of impurity.

So, you don’t accept the idea of ‘the soul as the principle of unity’?

‘What if everything is an illusion? In that case I definitely overpaid for my carpet’ ~ Woody Allen.

That is not a silly question. No, not a Hindu, but part of an ancient Indo-European culture that had spread across the ancient world into both India a...

I think that the soul can be interpreted as 'the principle of unity' which manifests as the 'subjective unity of perception'. This is the fact that, e...

Actually a couple of more examples. The sequence of natural numbers is a pattern, obviously - take each number, add one. The alphabet is not a pattern...

Sentences are collections of symbols ordered according to syntactical and semantic rules. Patterns have a repeating structure. Semantics, semiotics, g...

:rage: SMH

:up: Which is the very point that is left out most of the time.

Here is a pattern: abc abd abe abf abg abh That could be repeated indefinitely, and it is very easy to identify it as 'a pattern'. But it's also meani...

I mean, the example you have given doesn't prove your point. That there are 'examples' of algorithm design techniques that refer to patterns, doesn't ...

I need say no more. The point about pattern is repetition. Ripples in sands, banded patterns on animals, crystals form patterns. But a sentence such a...

Remember the Rosetta stone? It was a breakthrough because it contained a Greek tranlation of Egyptian hyroglyphs, which up until then had defied any a...

Algorithms are also not patterns. This sentence is not a pattern. I read a lot of people trying to ‘explain’ reason in terms of pattern recognition on...

That is not a pattern - it’s a concept.

*

figuratively speaking. Completely different. I've been through with others, why mathematical reasoning is more than pattern recognition - for example ...

I know it is a sweeping statement, but I take it to be important to the study of philosophy. The appeal to 'objectivity' is characteristic of modern p...

It's an analogy. In the analogy, positivism, which you're espousing here, wouldn't allow an extension of the line outside the square, hence success wo...

You should try and set a better example, as you’re a moderator.

How is it possible to compete against such soaring philosophical rhetoric? Obviously I’m outmatched.

There's that saying described as 'thinking outside the square'. The idea behind that comes from a puzzle, whereby you need to draw a straight line thr...

mind the woo :chin:

Can science answer many of the questions philosophy asks? Through reflection on the nature of knowing - which is the basic task of self-knowledge. Tha...

Ideas transcend the subject-object distinction, in that they’re neither ‘in the word’ nor ‘in the mind’ but are facets of the intelligible nature of r...

'Object' is perhaps a metaphorical expression in this context, as in 'object of thought'. Read Augustine on Intelligible Objects.

That's why I've always been interested in the reality of intelligible objects - like numbers. They are real, in the sense of being the same for all wh...

She says, further to that quote: This rings true to me. Katja Vogt is Professor of Classics at Colombia, and the author of the SEP article on ancient ...

In pre-modern philosophy there was an implicit acceptance of a hierarchy or degrees of reality. I think this is a remnant of the belief in the 'great ...

The problem for moderns, is that 'prior to' must always be interpreted temporally - in terms of temporal sequence. However, I think for the Ancients, ...

It would be, if I were mistaking ideas for empirical objects. I am advocating the view that ideas (in the sense I have explained) are of a different o...

No, I don't think that is so. I think the forms are understood to be real, in the sense that principles are real. Where do you see principles? They ca...

I thought that according to the law of conservation of energy, that energy is neither created nor destroyed. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/L...

Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. It has plenty of critics but as a popular intro it is quite good. The way he weaves the narrative hi...

When it comes to philosophy, the subject was always been seeking out the imperishable, changeless, the first principle. See for instance the thread ab...

Much of Thomas Aquinas' writing is dialectical in form. The emphasis on 'salvation by faith alone' came with Protestant fideism. But I do acknowledge ...

The 'substantive existence' of the sensable world is in constant flux, arising and perishing from moment to moment. In the vastness of cosmic time, it...

* I read recently that a fundamental theme in Plato is 'to be, is to be intelligible'. Bearing in mind the passages in Phaedo about the fact that the ...

People delight in using that example to say See! Animals can reason! What makes you think humans are special!? Try explaining the concept of prime to ...

See the bolded passages in this post, which address this exact point. Bertrand Russell, in particular, points out the ambiguity of the word 'idea' in ...

I took the import of your poster of the name New York printed in different typefaces, not to be about anything to do with New York whatever. It could ...

I think the Democratic Party has faults, but they're not on the same scale as what we're seeing from Republicans. Nowhere near it. One of the characte...

Not 'other' words, 180. Your words.

This is a philosophy site. There are plenty of science sites to contribute to. I ask the occasional question on Physics Forum myself.

Not at all pointless, but easily misconstrued. The seminal Buddhist sutta on the nature of self: In the early Buddhist texts, 'Vachagotta' was the fig...

Positivism! Who'd have thought? The distinction between sensation and reason doesn't belong only to philosophy, it's also a matter of common sense, an...

I think a particular city is a poor example of what is meant by 'universals'. Bertrand Russell's example of 'the relation of Edinburgh and London' is ...