Strauss of course did not demonstrate that Plato was an atheist. — Apollodorus

If you knew the anything about Strauss you would know that. He provides a careful, detailed interpretation of the dialogues and leaves it up to the reader to draw conclusions.

And neither have you. — Apollodorus

What I have done is point to the fact that Forms are not gods.

He provides a careful, detailed interpretation of the dialogues and leaves it up to the reader to draw conclusions. — Fooloso4

In that case, why are you using Strauss to support your spurious theory that Plato teaches atheism?

What I have done is point to the fact that Forms are not gods. — Fooloso4

They don't need to be Gods. They exist within the Good, the One or the Unmoved Mover, just like thoughts or ideas exist in the human mind.

That's precisely why Platonism is a form of metaphysical idealism and not atheism.

That's precisely why Platonism is a form of metaphysical idealism and not atheism. — Apollodorus

That is precisely why the distinction between Plato and Platonism is important. Aristotle's unmoved mover is not to be found anywhere in Plato. In addition, the question of who or what the unmoved mover or movers refers to remains an open question.

You cannot resolve one problem by introducing another, but you can muddle it all together and convince yourself that this is the solution.

Aristotle's unmoved mover is not to be found anywhere in Plato. — Fooloso4

You are not paying attention. I said the Good, the One or the Unmoved Mover:

They exist within the Good, the One or the Unmoved Mover, just like thoughts or ideas exist in the human mind. — Apollodorus

It doesn't matter what you call it. What matters is that it is an intelligent first principle that transcends and contains the Forms and everything else within itself.

The fact that there is no exact definition or description of it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that Plato is an atheist. You are clutching at straws and wasting your time.

I said the Good, the One or the Unmoved Mover: — Apollodorus

Are you claiming that they all name the same or that we can pick the one we like?

It doesn't matter what you call it. — Apollodorus

When the meaning of terms does not matter then it is all just arbitrary. The meaning of terms becomes whatever you want them to be in order to suit your beliefs.

Socratic philosophy is about the questioning and examination of opinions, but you use it as a way of confirming your beliefs. You have not even begun to understand what he teaches those who truly aspire to philosophy.

When the meaning of terms does not matter then it is all just arbitrary. — Fooloso4

:grin: I think you are confused. The meaning is clear: intelligent first principle that transcends and contains all other things. What doesn't matter is the name you select to give it.

Anyway, the facts of the matter are these:

1. You have admitted that Socrates does not deny the existence of the Gods:

Socrates does not explicitly deny the existence of gods, — Fooloso4

2. You also have admitted that Strauss did not demonstrate that Plato was an atheist:

Of course he did not demonstrate that! — Fooloso4

3. And you have failed to demonstrate that either Plato or Socrates was an atheist.

As I said, you are wasting your time.

The meaning is clear: intelligent first principle that transcends and contains all other things. What doesn't matter is the name you select to give it. — Apollodorus

The Good as described in the Republic does not contain all other things. There are bad things in the world. They cannot be explained away as privation, and Plato never does. The fact is there are bad things and they are not caused by the Good, and so the Good cannot be the cause of all things.

The problem of the One and the many is never resolved in Plato.

In any case, an intelligent first principle is not something you know, it is something you believe. That it can be arrived at by speech and reason is not something you know either.

You have admitted that Socrates does not deny the existence of the Gods: — Apollodorus

And he does not deny the accusations of atheism either. And he does not affirm the existence of gods. And they are absent from the image of transcendent truth as well as from the dialectical journey to truth.

As I said, you are wasting your time. — Apollodorus

If you mean by that trying to persuade you then that would be true. Not even Plato himself could do that. You would dismiss him as an anti-platonist. I do think that there may still be some here reading this thread who are not as closed-minded as you. Some who do not mistake their opinions for knowledge, who might find something of worth here.

The Good as described in the Republic does not contain all other things. — Fooloso4

It does as described in the analogy of the Sun, that's why I've repeatedly told you to go back to the analogy and read it again.

“The Sun, I presume you will say, not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation … In like manner, then, you are to say that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the Good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the Good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power … (Republic 509b ff.).

If the Good is the source of the existence of all known things, i.e., all known reality, in the same way the Sun is the source of light, then the Good must be the source of, and contain, everything that is real or known to us, in the same way particles of light are contained within the sphere of light radiating from the Sun. This is the logical implication.

As to your claim that Socrates was an "atheist", the dialogues show very clearly that he was not:

“For he says I am a maker of Gods; and because I make new Gods (καινοί θεοί kainoi theoi) and do not believe in the old ones, he indicted me for the sake of these old ones, as he says” (Euthyphro 3b).

Xenophon says the same:

“Socrates came before the jury after his adversaries had charged him with not believing in the Gods worshiped by the state and with the introduction of new deities in their stead and with corruption of the young” (Xenophon, Apology 10).

If the charge was that he introduced "other new deities", then the logical implication is that he believed in those deities he introduced.

Therefore, he was not an atheist.

It does as described in the analogy of the Sun, that's why I've repeatedly told you to go back to the analogy and read it again. — Apollodorus

And, as I quoted, it does not include the bad. This is why the dialogue needs to be read as a whole not as isolated statements.

As to your claim that Socrates was an "atheist", the dialogues show very clearly that he was not:

“For he says I am a maker of Gods; and because I make new Gods — Apollodorus

Do you really not understand what this means?

If the charge was that he introduced "other new deities", then the logical implication is that he believed in those deities he introduced. — Apollodorus

No, it means he makes them, just as the poets did. Just as Homer, the "divine poet" (Phaedo 95a) did.

Hesiod said:

The muses tell Hesiod that they speak lies like the truth (Theogony 27)

See David Sedley on Plato and Hesiod.

And, as I quoted, it does not include the bad. — Fooloso4

And as I said, the Good is an intelligent first principle that transcends and contains all other things:

If the Good is the source of the existence of all known things, i.e., all known reality, in the same way the Sun is the source of light, then the Good must be the source of, and contain, everything that is real or known to us, in the same way particles of light are contained within the sphere of light radiating from the Sun. This is the logical implication. — Apollodorus

The same is clear from the Timaeus:

[33b] And he bestowed on it the shape which was befitting and akin. Now for that Living Creature which is designed to embrace within itself all living creatures the fitting shape will be that which comprises within itself all the shapes there are; wherefore He wrought it into a round, in the shape of a sphere, equidistant in all directions from the center to the extremities, which of all shapes is the most perfect and the most self-similar, since He deemed that the similar is infinitely fairer than the dissimilar … [33c] For of eyes it had no need, since outside of it there was nothing visible left over; nor yet of hearing, since neither was there anything audible; nor was there any air surrounding it ... For nothing went out from it or came into it from any side, since nothing existed … “ (Timaeus 33b – c).

The Good is an all-containing living being just like the Cosmos. The bad may logically be defined as absence of good. But Plato doesn't say and we can only go by what he says.

No, it means he makes them. — Fooloso4

You are clueless, aren't you? He makes them because he believes in them, just like any other believers make images of Gods because they believe in the Gods represented by the images. Even a kid can see that!

In the final analysis, there is no evidence that Socrates was an atheist and there is even less evidence that Plato was an atheist. It's just your wishful thinking caused by reading too many books by the anti-Platonist brigade.

If even Strauss failed to demonstrate that Plato was an atheist, how on earth do you imagine that you are going to succeed?

As I said, you are clutching at straws and wasting your time.

Socrates says and I am quoting from the Republic:

"The good is not the source of everything; rather it is the cause of things that are in a good way, while it is not responsible for the bad things." (379b)

First you tried to explain this away, but now you just ignore it.

The Good is an all-containing living being just like the Cosmos. — Apollodorus

In the Republic he says it is not a being but beyond being:

“... although the good isn't being but is still beyond being, exceeding it in dignity (age) and power."(509b)

No, it means he makes them.
— Fooloso4

You are clueless, aren't you? — Apollodorus

Have you forgotten what you quoted?

“For he says I am a maker of Gods; and because I make new Gods ( — Apollodorus

He makes them because he believes in them — Apollodorus

This is really convoluted. If he makes them he knows their origin.

just like any other believers make images of Gods — Apollodorus

He does not say he makes images of gods.

In the final analysis, there is no evidence that Socrates was an atheist and there is even less evidence that Plato was an atheist. — Apollodorus

I've addressed this but you don't like the answer so you post it again and again and again.

If even Strauss failed to demonstrate that Plato was an atheist, how on earth do you imagine that you are going to succeed? — Apollodorus

You have an awful lot to say about someone you refuse to read.

This is really convoluted. If he makes them he knows their origin. — Fooloso4

It may be "convoluted" to the intellectually challenged.

However, an Athenian artisan or sculptor who made images of Gods did so because he believed in the Gods represented by the images.

Were this not the case, then all the artisans and sculptors of Greece who made divine images and those who commissioned the images, including the city of Athens itself, would have been atheist liars and frauds pretending to be religious. I think even you can see the absurdity of your claim.

Socrates made literary images of divine beings or metaphysical realities he believed in. Therefore, he was not an atheist.

Plato, Xenophon, and others certainly did not believe he was guilty as charged.

You read Plato as if it was revealed religion. In order to maintain the illusion and protect your beliefs you ignore everything in the text that is a threat to your beliefs. And because it has been said you believe you possess the truth.

The way I see it, the fundamental problem with using Straussianism to interpret Plato in an anti-Platonist sense, is that Strauss was controversial from the start (in the 1930s) and continues to be controversial even now.

“I do not think Strauss’s influence is as great in this country as some of Burnyeat’s remarks might suggest. It is no more “discernible” in our mainstream scholarship than in that of Britain. (Three good books on Socrates’ political thought have appeared during the last six years, one of them in the UK, two in the US; all three ignore Strauss completely: his name does not appear in their index.)” – Further Lessons of Leo Strauss: An Exchange, The New York Review, April 24 1986

“Strauss’s reading of the Symposium, like his reading of the Republic, is remarkable for its own “demotion of metaphysics” in Plato, and in my concluding remarks, I will question this status, or disappearance, of metaphysics in Strauss’s Platonism … Readers of On Plato’s “Symposium” can be left wondering about how Strauss can metaphilosophically ground his elevated claims on behalf of philosophy versus the poets and to what extent his own work remains a decisively rhetorical or poetic presentation of philosophy.” Matthew Sharpe, The Poetic Presentation of Philosophy: Leo Strauss on Plato’s “Symposium”2013

https://read.dukeupress.edu/poetics-today/article-abstract/34/4/563/21103/The-Poetic-Presentation-of-Philosophy-Leo-Strauss?redirectedFrom=fulltext

“It is hardly a secret that the figure and thought of Leo Strauss continues to provoke impassioned reactions from advocates and critics” J Bernstein 2014

Etc. etc.

So, for nearly a century, Strauss has been controversial and remains so to this day. He is not mainstream at all.

Be that as it may, here is an illustrative example of how Straussian influence can lead to flawed interpretive methodology.

Starting from an anti-metaphysical position, someone may be tempted to claim that Socrates’ statement “you must chant this to yourself” (Phaedo 114d) somehow proves that he is telling lies and, by extension, that everything that is being said in this and other dialogues is just “myths”.

However, the objective reading of the dialogue suggests that Socrates is doing his best to convince his friends of the immortality of the soul and of a happy afterlife for the virtuous (or righteous) in order to comfort them in the face of his imminent death. “Chant to yourself” means nothing else than “convince yourself”, i.e., “take comfort in my words”.

On reflection, it would make little sense for Socrates to tell a long story to comfort his friends only for him to say at the very end “actually, this is just a myth”.

When we start with unexamined (and I think unsubstantiated) assumptions of this kind for the sake of taking all metaphysical content out of the text, and use them to build an interpretive structure in the name of “Socratic skepticism” then we build a very shaky structure indeed that is no better than a house of cards.

IMHO such an approach is neither philosophically nor logically sound, but ideologically motivated. Strauss, after all, was not a scholar of Platonism. He taught political philosophy and he was influenced by anti-Platonists like Heidegger. So, Straussianism is not only controversial but positively biased and, as can be seen, can easily lead to unsubstantiated conclusions.

Round and round you go. Ignoring my answers, refusing to read an author because he was around in the 30's, and, most significantly, ignoring Plato whenever something is pointed out to you that goes against your narrow religious reading.

There is no sense going through once again what has already been covered.

So, Straussianism is not only controversial but positively biased and, as can be seen, can easily lead to unsubstantiated conclusions. — Apollodorus

I would be interested in seeing you demonstrate how Strauss came to unsubstantiated conclusions. I don't agree with him on many points but he has read the text carefully. Let us see you do as well.

Round and round you go .... — Fooloso4

Well, life tends to be circular and repetitive. We do the same things day after day. The solar system we live in is circular and repetitive with planets constantly going around the Sun, etc.

This is why the Sun is so important. The allegory of the Sun needs to be read carefully and understood properly.

The Republic says:

“Which one can you name of the divinities in heaven as the author and cause of this, whose light makes our vision see best and visible things to be seen?” “Why, the one that you too and other people mean for your question evidently refers to the Sun.” “Is not this, then, the relation of vision to that divinity?” (Rep 508a).

“This [the Sun], then, you must understand that I meant by the offspring of the Good which the Good begot to stand in a proportion with itself: as the Good is in the intelligible region to reason and the objects of reason, so is this [the Sun] in the visible world to vision and the objects of vision.” (Rep 508b - c ).

And the Timaeus:

“Let us now state the Cause wherefore He that constructed it constructed Becoming and the All. He was good, and in him that is good no envy ariseth ever concerning anything; and being devoid of envy He desired that all should be, so far as possible, like unto Himself. This principle, then, we shall be wholly right in accepting from men of wisdom as being above all the supreme originating principle of Becoming and the Cosmos. For God (ὁ θεὸς ho Theos) desired that, so far as possible, all things should be good and nothing evil; wherefore, when He took over all that was visible, seeing that it was not in a state of rest but in a state of discordant and disorderly motion, He brought it into order out of disorder, deeming that the former state is in all ways better than the latter. For Him who is most good it neither was nor is permissible to perform any action save what is most fair" (Tim 29d e)

It is immediately apparent from the text that the Good is compared to the Sun who is a God. So, the analogy equates not only the Sun and the Good as ultimate cause, the former in the realm of the sensible and the latter in the realm of the intelligible, but also as godhead:

1. The Sun is the offspring of the Good.

2. The Maker and Father of the Cosmos (including the Sun) is God.

3. Therefore, the Good is God.

There is just one qualification. Though the text refers to God as “good”, the Good is not God in his totality, but only in his creative aspect that is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe.

Therefore, the Form of good is not God, it is only an Idea or Universal within the mind of God.

It isn’t about my beliefs, but about Plato’s beliefs as expressed in the dialogues. The dialogues must be read through the eyes of a 4th century BC Greek, not through the eyes of al-Farabi, Ibn Sina or Ben Maimon, and even less through the eyes of a Schleiermacher or Strauss.

When carefully read, the Platonic “secrets” mentioned by authors like Ibn Sina, do not refer to atheism but to the divinity of the Cosmos, the essential identity of the soul with the divine, and other things that were unspeakable under strict Islamic rule - as may be seen from the example of al-Hallaj.

IMHO Schleiermacherism and Straussianism, especially when combined, can only lead to nihilism which is diametrically opposed to what Plato teaches.

I would be interested in seeing you demonstrate how Strauss came to unsubstantiated conclusions. I don't agree with him on many points but he has read the text carefully. — Valentinus

I said "Straussianism" by which I meant Strauss as applied by his followers like Fooloso4:

Straussianism is not only controversial but positively biased and, as can be seen, can easily lead to unsubstantiated conclusions. — Apollodorus

Fooloso4 claims that Plato is an atheist. But he has failed to demonstrate this and he has admitted that Strauss did not demonstrate that Plato is an atheist either:

Of course he did not demonstrate that! — Fooloso4

By following Strauss, he has arrived at a conclusion that he is unable to prove.

He knows nothing about Strauss or "Straussians" or his students who do not call themselves Straussias, and yet he is ready to dismiss generations of scholars without ever having read them. He condemns him by association with philosophers he argued against.

As you note, Strauss was a careful reader. His best students are as well. Apollodorus in his ignorance assumes they must be like him, unable to think for themselves and mistaking opinions for revealed truth.

As pointed out by Gerson, Platonism was generally accepted by Platonists and scholars alike from antiquity into the 19th century. The Anti-Platonist trend only emerged in the 18oo’s. Some key promoters of this trend are:

Johann Jacob Brucker (Historia Critica Philosophiae, 1742–1744): rejects traditional allegorical interpretations of Plato, but accepts that he taught secret doctrines (without attempting to establish what these were).

Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann (History of Philosophy, 1798 - 1819): denies that Plato was a mystic but promotes esotericism and claims to have discovered Plato’s secret teachings.

Friedrich Schleiermacher (Introduction to Plato’s Dialogues, 1804 - 1828): claims that Plato was a metaphysical agnostic, stating that “In the writings of Plato his own peculiar wisdom is either not contained at all, or only in secret allusions which are difficult to find”.

Paul Shorey (What Plato Said, 1933): follows the one-dialogue-at-a-time method of reading, claiming that “the synopsis of any dialogue can be understood without reference to the others”.

Leo Strauss (1930’s): rejects the traditional view that theory should rule over practice; denies the metaphysical content of the dialogues; extends esotericism into concealed meaning, claiming that all philosophers write under political persecution and present an exoteric teaching available to all readers and an esoteric one that only “thoughtful” and “careful” readers can access by “reading between the lines” in order to extract a political message – giving Ben Maimon as example (Persecution and the Art of Writing, 1952).

In addition to the strange concept of (1) philosophers as persecuted through the ages and (2) philosophy being reduceable to political theory concealed in literary works, there are other issues with Strauss.

For example, “Strauss taught that the only natural human good is the philosophic life of the philosophic few, because he claimed "man's desire to know as his highest natural desire." And only the philosophic few have "the philosophic desire." They are the only ones "by nature fit for philosophy." Consequently, the great multitude of human beings who live non-philosophic but moral lives are "mutilated" human beings, who live lives of "human misery, however splendid" or "despair disguised by delusion." (Strauss, "Reason and Revelation," 146, 149, 176; "Progress or Return?," 122; The City and Man, 53-54.)

Oddly, however, Strauss never offered any demonstrative proof of this strange assertion.”

https://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/2019/07/does-aristotelian-natural-right-require.html

So, elitism may be added to esotericism and antimetaphysics among Strauss’s many strange teachings. And, of course, even the notion that he is “a careful reader” has been disputed as may be seen from the blog above.

But to revert to Plato.

Strauss may or may not be a “careful reader”, but I do believe that Plato is a careful writer. Everything he writes has a purpose.

If “careful reading” leads to dismissal of a large part of the corpus then there must be something wrong with the reading.

It is generally acknowledged that there is substantial metaphysical and theological content in the Platonic corpus.

For example, in the Timaeus, “The heavenly bodies are divine and move in their various orbits to serve as markers of time: the fixed stars to mark a day/night, the moon to mark the (lunar) month and the sun to mark the year. Time itself came into being with these celestial movements as an “image of eternity.” Individual souls are made up of the residue (and an inferior grade) of the soul stuff of the universe, and are eventually embodied in physical bodies. “

Plato’s Timaeus - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

IMHO we can’t just ignore the many references to God/s in the dialogues and claim that “Plato banished the Gods (or God)”. To do so, is not “careful reading” at all, it is ideologically-motivated distortion.

Still trying! You know nothing about Strauss' work and never will unless you actually read him rather than read about him by those who do not understand him.

You are not moving the discussion forward. You are simply repeating the same misguided complaints over and over, pulling passages from Plato out of context, and still not comprehending the difference between logos and mythos as used by Plato.

One of the criticisms of Strauss is that he not only believes in the esotericism and “hidden meaning” of ancient authors but he himself practices this esotericism in his own writing.

Strauss’s writing is a form of schizoid argumentation designed not to elucidate anything but to get the reader to agree with him and draw him into his cult-like circle of select “thoughtful philosophers”:

“… In general his [Strauss’s] explicit statements about matters of importance cancel each other out. (Plato’s ideal city is in accordance with nature; Plato’s ideal city is against nature.) Questions are asked but not answered, or the answer may not come for many pages, and depend on the recognition of a verbal echo. Unexplained and perplexing transitions may carry the point. Crucial insights are dismissed or float by. A single parenthetical reference to the text under discussion may substitute for an argument; or a long list of references may fail to contain the single most important one … For readers of Plato unwilling or unable to take the bait, there is a more particular cause of exasperation and alarm: Strauss’s belief that in writing as he did was not innovating but following a long tradition of thoughtful writing inaugurated by Plato …” (G. R. F. Ferrari, “Strauss’s Plato”).

For another excellent scholarly refutation of Strauss see:

Mikes F. Burnyeat, “Sphinx without a Secret,”New York Review of Books, May 30 1985.

But to revert to Plato. Plato’s theology is evident from the cosmological and metaphysical elements found in his corpus. There is an extensive literature on Plato’s theology by leading scholars like Sedley, Gerson, and others, for example:

D. Sedley, Plato’s Theology
D. Sedley, Plato’s Timaeus and Hesiod’s Theogony
L. Gerson, From Plato’s Good to Platonic God
P. Panagiotis, Plato’s Theology in the Timaeus
F. Solmsen, Plato’s Theology

Strauss is not normally mentioned in the literature for the simple reason that he is not a scholar of Platonism, in addition to having highly controversial views as well as a controversial methodology, and looking at Plato through the eyes of Ben Maimon and al-Farabi.

Leo Strauss on Farabi, Maimonides, et al. in the 1930’s| SpringerLink

In contrast, Solmsen, who fled Nazi Germany at the same time as Strauss, has a classicist background which makes him a much better source on the subject.

Solmsen shows how the emergence of an intellectual class in Plato’s time had resulted in religious beliefs becoming a subject of philosophical discussion.

But the trend to question religion was accompanied by an opposite trend (in addition to allegorical interpretations) to present arguments and theories as a theoretical foundation for theology, thus not to deconstruct religion but to reinforce it with the help of reason.

Plato’s own work must be seen as part of a wider effort to reform civic religion with the help of new standards drawn from a philosophical and philosophically elaborated system of values:

“Where will Plato take his stand in the battle raging over religion? We cannot as yet tell, though after reading Euthyphro we shall not be surprised to find Plato siding with the reformers of the mythical tradition. It is only in the Republic that Plato definitely joins the ranks of the expurgators and the reformers … Traditional subjects like religion, poetry, music, and gymnastics may retain their place but their content has to be revised, and they will have to be taught in a different spirit” (Solmsen pp. 64 ff.).

F. Solmsen, Plato’s Theology – Internet Archive

The content of Plato’s new religion becomes even more clear from later works like Timaeus and Laws:

“The late Dr. Rashdall once complained, with some reason, that the neglect of the Laws by Oxford teachers of Greek philosophy had done much to blind their pupils to Plato’s sincere and passionate “theism”. If these teachers or their pupils will take the trouble to read these two excellent little books [Solmsen’s Plato’s Theology and Skemp’s Theory of Motion in Plato’s Later Dialogues, the blindness, it may be hoped, will be pretty thoroughly cured” (A. E. Taylor, “Review of Plato’s Theology by F. Solmsen”).

As Taylor put it,

“… we should take note that, though religious faith in God was, of course, no novelty, Theism as a doctrine professing to be capable of scientific demonstration is introduced into philosophy for the first time in this section of the Laws [896e - 898d]. Plato is the creator of “philosophical Theism” (Plato: The Man And His Work, pp. 492-3).

Plato’s immediate successors such as Xenocrates and Philip of Opus acknowledge the theological content of Plato’s teachings, and the dialogues clearly allow the reconstruction of a basic theology in which the World-Soul is the central deity with the Demiurge/the Good also playing a role as I have shown here.

It follows that Plato’s dialogues are not about “atheism”, but religious reform. In fact, as shown by A. E. Taylor, Plato is against atheism:

“Atheism is treated by Plato as identical with the doctrine that the world and its contents, souls included, are the product of unintelligent motions of corporeal elements. Against this theory, he undertakes to demonstrate that all corporeal movements are, in the last resort, causally dependent on “motions” of soul, wishes, plans, purposes, and that the world is therefore the work of a soul or souls, and further that these souls are good, and that there is one ἀρίστη ψιχή, “perfectly good soul,” at their head. He indicates that atheism as an opinion has two chief sources – the corporealism of the early Ionian men of science, who account for the order of nature on purely “mechanical” principles without ascribing anything to conscious plan or design (889a - d), and the sophistic theory of the purely conventional and relative character of moral distinctions (889e - 890a). If these two doctrines are combined, atheism is the result” (p. 490).

Plato was a highly intelligent writer. And the intelligent believe in intelligence and write for the intelligent. The word “theology” theologia which Plato introduces in the Republic (379a) provides a key to the correct understanding of Plato. It is composed of the words theos, “god”, and logos, “word, discussion, study, reason”, therefore it can mean (1) “things said about God/s”, (2) “discussion of God/s” and, significantly, (3) “reason for God/s”.

In other words, Plato created a theology for philosophers that at the same time was a philosophy for the religious. His ideas satisfied both the religious and the philosophers among the intellectual class, while the non-intellectual majority preserved their traditional religion. It was the perfect solution, which is why Platonism became both popular and prestigious, and remained so for many centuries.

It's very strange that anybody could read plato as a whole and come away with anything other than plato being a religious monotheist,with a political message for rulers.

The neoplatonists are really platonists. Maybe those who got disillusioned with official politics or were more inclined to study and mysticism.

Western philosophy,the Christian Church and science are all influenced by platonic thinking.

And,Socrates said philosophy is preparing for death,and the afterlife.

Egyptian philosophy had an impact on socrates thinking,and a huge effect on platos thinking.

The thinking of the Egyptian book of the dead is hugely influential on all three abrahamic religions and platonism.

Still defending your Christian neoplatonist reading of Plato. Protecting the one true religion from the heretics.

The neoplatonists are really platonists. Maybe those who got disillusioned with official politics or were more inclined to study and mysticism. — Protagoras

As shown by Gerson and others, some modifications in Platonic philosophy did take place in the course of history, but Platonism (including so-called "Neo-Platonism") is built on core features found in the Platonic corpus and is sufficiently consistent with Plato to qualify as Platonic.

In any case, Straussianism does not demonstrate anti-Platonist claims such as that Plato was an "atheist" or even a "skeptic".

Even as political philosophy, Straussianism has received justified criticism, e.g. :

“The most serious consequences of this [Strauss’s] essentialist political philosophy are: (1) it is egocentric and thus self-refuting as a political philosophy and (2) it is too scholastic a quietism to be directly relevant to political life despite Strauss’s own claim to the contrary” – H. Y. Jung, “Leo Strauss’s Conception of Political Philosophy: A Critique”.

More to the point, Straussianism is not a scientifically valid method of interpretation. It is more like a nihilist belief system based on a set of assumptions that are accepted as a matter of faith and whose conclusions remain unproved.

Tellingly, Straussianism’s central thesis is also its most controversial claim:

“The most controversial claim Strauss made was that philosophers in the past used an “art of writing” to entice potential philosophers to begin a life of inquiry by following the hints the authors gave about their true thoughts and questions” - Catherine H. Zuckert

Where did Strauss get his idea from?

“Recent works on Strauss have emphasized the way Strauss’s readings in al-Farabi and Maimonides influenced his “exoteric writing” thesis” – B. A. Wurgaft

Having borrowed his idea from Maimonides and al-Farabi (who lived in Muslim-occupied Spain), Strauss applied this to his reading of Plato:

“Having discovered the idea of esoteric writing in his study of Maimonides, Strauss arrived at a very novel reading of Plato. When reflecting on the esoteric writing style of Plato, instead of focusing on the confrontation between philosophy and revealed religion, Strauss found a tension between open philosophical inquiry and the needs of a closed political community … This tension between political life and philosophy led Plato to use the dialogue form, embellished by myths, as his distinctive mode of speech” - G B Smith

What else does this tell us aside from implying that Plato’s main interest in life was politics?

“Strauss leaves us with a picture of Plato, as a questioning skeptic, which points forward to the modern interpreter rather than backward. Strauss’s publicized turning back to antiquity was largely about reading eighteenth-century rationalism back into ancient texts” – Paul Gottfried

So, Strauss’s methodology does not seem to be quite kosher?

“Straussianism, from the founder onward, is dubious as a methodology” – Paul Gottfried

In fact, Strauss’s methodology is not only dubious but it fails to answer any philosophical questions whatsoever:

“[Strauss] has laid out the modern crisis so boldly and analyzed its main forms so thoroughly and he has taught us how to read the classic texts to grasp the problem of natural right. Yet, just when the issues are joined so forcefully, he fails to give an answer …. In Natural Right and History Strauss argues that classical natural right is superior to modern natural rights, but he nowhere shows how classic natural right is anything more than rhetoric … Nowhere does Strauss provide solutions to, or show how Plato or Aristotle provided solutions to, fundamental epistemological problems found in Plato's own work. Nowhere does he engage Aristotle's metaphysics or biology in search of natural right, in the way that Aristotle himself might have done. Nowhere does he seriously engage the nature of the physical cosmos. On his own view, philosophy must aspire to and thus assume a comprehensive account of the whole. But to invoke the whole--a cosmos--immediately raises the question of the grounds on which we can assume that whole to be intelligible. Such a move, of course, leads to classic natural theology, which Strauss studiously ignores … as a teaching about wisdom, about the very highest things, the Straussian secret is ultimately a check drawn on an empty account” – Richard Sherlock

So Strauss’s project is more rhetoric than philosophy. Not surprisingly, his work has been largely ignored by scholars:

“[Strauss’s] books and papers are freely available on the side of the Atlantic from which I write, but Strauss has no discernible influence in Britain at all” – M. F. Burnyeat

“Strauss’s works on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, to a significant degree, have been ignored by the scholarly community” – Gregory Bruce Smith

So, what is Straussianism for?

“What most (albeit not all) Straussians do in academic positions is try to enforce political dogmas, partly by getting rid of critics and installing fellow-Straussians ….” – Paul Gottfried

Does this mean that Straussianism is a kind of academic cult with a political agenda?

“He [Strauss] alone among eminent refugee intellectuals succeeded in attracting a brilliant galaxy of disciples who created an academic cult around his teaching” – Lewis Coser

“I submit in all seriousness that surrender of the critical intellect is the price of initiation into the world of Leo Strauss’s ideas” – M. F. Burnyeat

So, is Strauss a philosopher at all?

In Strauss’s own words, “We cannot be philosophers, but we can love philosophy; we can try to philosophize.”

Here are some of Strauss’s pseudo-philosophical techniques and statements:

He begins with an inference from literary form. Plato wrote dialogues, i.e., dramas in prose. Therefore, the utterances of Socrates or any other character in a Platonic dialogue are like the utterances of Macbeth: they do not necessarily express the thought of the author. Like Shakespeare, “Plato conceals his opinions.”

Strauss paraphrases the text in tedious detail - or so it appears to the uninitiated reader - occasionally remarking that a certain statement is not clear; he notes that the text is silent about a certain matter; he wonders whether such and such can really be the case. With a series of scarcely perceptible nudges he gradually insinuates that the text is insinuating something quite different from what the words say.
For example, he attempts to show that Plato’s Republic means the opposite of what it means (and sometimes the opposite of what he himself says it means, vide supra, Ferrari).

He simply pronounces Plato’s Theory of Forms “utterly incredible”.

He offers no evidence for the accuracy of his readings.

Readers have to accept Strauss’s account of “the wisdom of the ancients” as correct, by believing that “the considerate few have imperturbably conveyed to their readers an eloquence of articulate silences and pregnant indications.”

By way of “answers”, he keeps repeating the mantra “we are prisoners of our opinions”.

So, it appears that Strauss’s claim that Plato and other philosophers used rhetorical stratagems including self-contradiction and hyperboles, to convey a secret meaning, applies in the first instance to Strauss himself.

But, whilst Plato allegedly uses rhetoric to say things he does not appear to be saying, Strauss often says little in order to say nothing: thirteen out of the fifteen chapters of his last book, Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy do not deal with works by Plato!

- Burnyeat, “Sphinx Without a Secret”

Having suggested that Plato’s works are motivated by political concerns, Strauss says that the Laws is Plato’s “most political” work and that “it may be said to be his only political work.”

“In the chapter on Book Nine [of the Laws, Strauss indicates that Book 10 is philosophic because it takes up “the problem of the gods,” but when he turns to Book 10 he does not specifically identify the problem that he has in mind.”

“Strauss says that the Laws is Plato’s most pious work without identifying what makes it most pious and without explaining if there is any connection between its political character and its surpassing piety” – Mark J. Lutz, “On Leo Strauss’s The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws”, Brill’s Companion to Leo Strauss’ Writings on Classical Political Thought

For the above reasons, Straussianism’s credibility and authority among scholars of Plato is close to zero.

Far from refuting the Platonists' position, Straussianism's reading of Plato actually reinforces it, showing it to be more consistent and more faithful to the original texts.

@Apollodorus
I'm not sure if your addressing me or fooloso4.

Are you agreeing with the post I made Or?

I do agree. I was just trying to explain what the Straussian position taken by Fooloso4 is and why I believe it is wrong.

@Apollodorus
OK. With regard to Strauss,one must realise he was a very tricky political academic.

Strauss made some valid points about plato writing esoterically at times,and gearing his writings to particular audiences and mindsets.

The laws expresses a lot of platos political vision,and the timaeus his cosmology.

But platos higher doctrines were oral and taught to those he deemed acquainted with the mysteries and at a much higher level.

These doctrines have been preserved by the neo platonists,and with time and strauss and others the emphasis is less religiously explicit.

Modern platonists can preach secularism and worship of the secular good and law to the masses and be mystics who believe in divine union in private.

I think the main issue is what Plato's own intention was.

I tend to believe that he wrote for educated intellectuals, i.e., a relatively small social and economic class who, as stated above, included philosophers with an interest in religion and religious people with an interest in philosophy.

This was the appeal of Platonism: (1) on one level it allowed the masses to preserve their religion, (2) on a higher level it provided intellectuals with a philosophy that at the same time was a theology, and (3) on the highest level it provided mystics with a philosophical and theological framework for their own spiritual practices.

So, yes, Plato's philosophy is certainly suitable for mystics.

From accounts about Socrates it may be inferred that he was a kind of mystic or contemplative, who had little interest in mainstream religion or politics.