I have just read your thread discussion and found it interesting, although you have not raised any questions. So, I am imagining that you are leaving any potential discussion open. What I found most useful was the link about Plotinus, as I have just finished reading a collection of his writings. The idea in the link on this which I thought about is that he challenged the Gnostic emphasis on the fall into matter and the belief that matter is evil. — Jack Cummins
Platonism-Aristotleanism :point: reification fallacies abound (re: "transcendent" Forms, The Good, The One, Souls, Final Causes).
Antidote (pharmakon): Laozi-Zhaungzi ... or Pyrrho-Sextus Empiricus & Epicurus-Lucretius ... or Spinoza-Nietzsche & Zapffe-Camus ...
Just my two drachmas. — 180 Proof
There seems to me to be a misunderstanding here with regard to Plato’s dialogues - taking Socrates’ speculations as the core philosophical theory, — Possibility
It seems to me that the misunderstanding lies in the unwarranted attempt to interpret Platonic texts as "speculations" which can only lead to nihilism. The OP is about how Platonists view the dialogues, not their detractors. — Apollodorus
My point is that Platonists appear to mistake the dialogues themselves (or Socrates’ voice) for truth, not as an instantiated demonstration of ‘the way’ to truth. And I’m suggesting that the mistake is a common one in relation to ancient sacred texts and/or heuristic devices within them. — Possibility
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