Don't you know, he's got "the degrees" to show that everything he says is right:

I happen to know a great deal more about Plato than both of you put together. I have the degrees to back that up. — Fooloso4

He probably has the degrees for Socrates and everything else too. So, if you contradict him you must be wrong. But let's wait and see what he's got to say ...

The Socratic way is dialectical. To this end I hope others will contribute. — Fooloso4

I take it that by "contribute" you mean agree with you and your theories?

Disruption for sake of disruption is no joy, but I'd say disruption can have a role and has a long history in dialectic. "Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us." Thrasymachus attempts to inflict and then undergoes the kind of humiliation that is familiar in debating today. Arguably Plato's Socrates was himself a disruptor. "I know nothing" meant in effect "You know nothing - you just think you know something".

:up: :100:

Thrasymachus and others like him were a problem to Plato's Socrates character because there can be no valid argument to show that the contrary philosophy is invalid or that its practical consequences were unsound. To proceed with his own story, what else could poor Socrates do than to appeal to authority or to popular opinion to silence such a critic?

Knowledge of his ignorance is the beginning not the completion of his wisdom. It is, on the one hand, the beginning of self-knowledge and on the other of the self’s knowledge of the world. — Fooloso4

I think the knowledge of one’s ignorance is actually a theme in the perennial philosophy. ‘He who knows it, knows it not’, and ‘he who speaks, does not know’ are both examples from Taoism. In much later intellectual history, there was the ‘way of un-knowing’ which is associated with the anonymous Christian mystical tract The Cloud of Unknowing.

Generally, I think the lesson is one of humility, of self-emptying, what is later called ‘kenosis’.

Knowledge of his ignorance is the beginning not the completion of his wisdom — Fooloso4

:fire: :clap:

First, something that I want to throw out there for comments. Could it be that Socrates was actually a sophist who didn't charge the usual exorbitant fee for his wisdom sophistry? Something worth pondering upon. I recall reading somewhere in Wikipedia about how some Greek thinkers thought of Socrates as a sophist par excellence. No smoke without fire? Slander?

Regardding knowledge, I'm afraid things don't look so good. See below:

Definition: Knowledge is justified (argument), true belief (JTB)

Agrippa's trilemma argument:

1. All arguments are one of the following:
a) Infinite regress: each premise requires an argument and the premises of the argument requires another ad infinitum.
b) Circular: The conclusion appears in the premises.
c) Axiomatic: We accept sans justification the truth of the premises.
2. None of a), b), or c) are acceptable
Ergo,
3. Sound arguments don't exist


Knowledge is impossible, argument I:

1. If knowledge is possible then sound arguments exist. (JTB)
2. If sound arguments exist then Agrippa's trilemma argument is a sound argument. (look at Agrippa's trilemma argument)
3. If Agrippa's trilemma is a sound argument then sound arguments don't exist (the conclusion of Agrippa's trilemma argument)
4. If sound arguments don't exist then knowledge is impossible. (JTB)
5. If knowledge is possible then Agrippa's trilemma argument is a sound argument (1, 2 HS)
6. If knowledge is possible then sound arguments don't exist (3, 5 HS)
7. If knowledge is possible then knowledge is impossible (4, 6 HS)
8. Knowledge is possible (assume for reductio ad absurdum)
9. Knowledge is impossible (7, 8 MP)
10. Knowledge is possible and knowledge is impossible (8, 9 Conj: contradiction)
Ergo,
11. Knowledge is impossible (8 - 10 reductio ad absurdum)

The point is if one assumes knowledge is possible (line 8), one arrives at a contradiction (line 10). Therefore, 11. knowledge is impossible.

It would now seem that 11. Knowledge is impossible is true but hold on! Isn't statement 11 itself a JTB i.e. isn't statement 11 knowledge? Yes it is, no doubt.

What follows?

Argument P

11. Knowledge is impossible (JTB)
12. Statement 11 is knowledge
13. If statement 11 is knowledge then knowledge is possible
14. Knowledge is possible (12, 13 MP)
15. Knowledge is possible and knowledge is impossible (11, 14 Conj: contradiction)
Ergo,
16. Knowledge is possible (11 - 15 reductio ad absurdum)


Looks like Agrippa's painted himself into a corner. He proved that 11. Knowledge is impossible but, sadly for Agrippa, 11. knowledge is impossible proves that 16. Knowledge is possible.

I'm left scratching my head at this point. All I can say is, the entire set of arguments above can be summarized as,

18. If knowledge is possible then knowledge is impossible (argument I)
19. If knowledge is impossible then knowledge is possible (argument P)
20. If knowledge is possible then knowledge is possible (18, 19 HS)
21. Either knowledge is not possible or knowledge is possible (20 Imp)
22. Either knowledge is possible or knowledge is not possible (21 Comm)

Statement 22 is a tautology, it's always true but that's not it's selling point. Statement 22 simply means that knowledge maybe possible/impossible but we can't establish which and that, in my book, is just another way of expressing uncertainty/doubt. That's skepticism! QED. Though Agrippa might've shot himself in the foot at some point in this long argument, it all worked out in the end for skeptics. Agrippa (skepticism) proved his opponents (those who think knowledge is possible) wrong but in doing so he proved himself wrong but then after all that, Agrippa clinched the argument by demonstrating it was never about right and wrong but about not knowing. :chin:

Generally, I think the lesson is one of humility, of self-emptying, what is later called ‘kenosis’. — Wayfarer

The Greek term skepsis means investigate. Another term with similar meaning is zetesis. The zetetic philosopher is one who inquires. His knowledge of his ignorance leads him to inquire, to investigate.

The Apology gives a good example of this. When he heard that the Pythia, the priestess who delivered Apollo's oracles at Delphi, said that no one was wiser than Socrates, he took this to be a riddle (21b) and investigated it by way of inquiry, by talking to those who were reputed to be wise, only to find out they were not.

Socrates' irony should not be overlooked. He is on trial defending himself against charges of impiety and he tells a story of how he set out to refute the oracle (21c). In addition, he changes what the oracle said:

This man is wiser that I, but you declared that I was the wisest (21c)

The oracle did not say that he was the wisest, it said that no one was wiser, that is, that others might be as wise as him.

Disruption for sake of disruption is no joy, but I'd say disruption can have a role and has a long history in dialectic. — Cuthbert

Good point. I agree. But Thrasymachus was not disrupting for the sake of disruption. He was a sophist who was paid to teach. He attempted to demonstrate his strength, his superiority over Socrates who talked to anyone free of charge. In addition, he played a key role in the theme of the dialogue, the question of who should rule and by what claim.

I do not think that this is what Socrates does. What Socrates is tasked to do in the Republic is to show that justice is in one's own best interest. This is Thrasymachus claim, but in Socrates' hands it comes to mean something different than what Thrasymachus intended.

Could it be that Socrates was actually a sophist who didn't charge the usual exorbitant fee for his wisdom sophistry? — TheMadFool

In some ways the philosopher and the sophist are the same. I think the key difference is with regard to intention.

I recall reading somewhere in Wikipedia about how some Greek thinkers thought of Socrates as a sophist par excellence. — TheMadFool

In his comedic play The Clouds, Aristophanes makes Socrates the leader of a group of sophists at his "thinkery".

In some ways the philosopher and the sophist are the same. I think the key difference is with regard to intention — Fooloso4

I thought it was the fat paycheck!

Aristophanes makes Socrates the leader of a group of sophists at his "thinkery". — Fooloso4

Come to think of it, Aristophanes may have had his own (hidden) agenda in painting Socrates as a sophist. I don't care to get involved in personal feuds but I'm convinced that nobody's perfect or in the words of Voltaire, "meglio è l'inimico del bene."

Come to think of it, Aristophanes may have had his own (hidden) agenda in painting Socrates as a sophist. — TheMadFool

Aristophanes' plays were social satire, they made serious fun. He recognized that philosophy was a threat to the ancestral, the traditional. The relationship between Socrates and Aristophanes is a long story that I won't get into. Although Socrates talks about Aristophanes in the Apology, I think Aristophanes would have disapproved of changes being brought against Socrates.

'Sophist' was not originally a derogatory term. Plato held some sophists in high regard.

When he heard that the Pythia, the priestess who delivered Apollo's oracles at Delphi, said that no one was wiser than Socrates, he took this to be a riddle — Fooloso4

What Socrates actually said was:

“When I heard these things I pondered them like this: what ever is the God saying? And what riddle is he posing”?

He also said that "he believes that the Sun and the Moon are Gods".

And he said that he "would rather obey God than the men of Athens".

So, obviously, he must have believed in God/s. He was not an atheist.

Do you agree, or what is your considered opinion?

The Greek term skepsis means investigate. — Fooloso4

I beg to differ. σκέψῐς skepsis is a noun. "Investigate" is a verb. If it is the verb you are talking about, it would be σκέπτομαι skeptomai.

σκέπτομαι - Wiktionary

2.

In the Republic Socrates does not present the Forms merely as a premise, but rather as the things that are, the unchanging beings. They are said to be seen by those who have ascended from the cave to the sight of the Forms and finally to the Good itself. But Socrates never claims to have seen the Forms or to know anyone who has. He presents an image of what knowledge of the things must be like. In other words, he has not now turned back again away from speech to the things themselves. But he does turn the soul to the idea of something more than the changing and confusing things of this world. He provides an image of an unchanging reality governed by the Good. An image of the hypothesised Forms. Another turn. A reversal, for Forms are not what they are in his philosophical poetry. They are not those unchanging beings of which things in this world are images. They are themselves images made by Socrates.

The ability to create such an image of knowledge beyond the cave is not to have escaped the cave. To be told of such things, as if the mystery has been revealed, is not to have escaped the cave. Plato, through the character of Socrates, is, like the poets, a maker of images on the cave wall. We cannot escape the cave, but some can break the shackles and turn around in order to see the images themselves rather than their images, images of images, shadows of the images on the cave wall. In addition they see the image makers, the “puppeteers and the production process of images, the puppets, paraded in front of the fire.

What is said is at best an approximation of what is, but without knowing what is we cannot measure how close an approximation it is. Like the philosopher who is forced to return to the cave, Socrates must return to earth from his flight to the hyperuranion beings. The Forms are an arrangement of things, not an order discovered in nature, they are how things are ordered according to mind. More specifically, according to Socrates’ mind. That they are hypothetical means that they are not caused by Mind rather by a human mind. Socrates’ philosophical poetry unlike the poetry of Homer, Hesiod, and the others, is not inspired by a muse.

Since we do not know the Forms themselves, we must turn back to speech:

If then one wished to know the cause of each thing, why it comes to be or perishes or exists, one had to find what was the best way for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is best. (Phaedo 97b-d)

Just as the Good is to the Forms, the hypothesis of the Good is to the hypothesis of the Forms. The hypothesis of the Good is that in light of which hypothesis of the Forms come to be and to be understood.

The question of what is best is inextricably linked to the question of the human good. About what is best we can only do our best to say what is best and why. The question of what is best turns from things in general to the human things and ultimately to the self for whom what is best is what matters most. The question of the good leads back to the problem of self-knowledge.

Wittgenstein said:

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there. (Culture and Value)

The problem is, many who are drawn to philosophy do not feel at home in the confusion of not knowing. They look to philosophy to find answers. Plato seems to provide answers. However, what may seem to be is not what is. Behind the inspiring image of transcendent Forms is, as he says in the Phaedo, hypothesis. But hypotheses do not not satisfy the desire for answers.

Socrates’ Forms stand as the substitute for the myths of the gods. They are a salutary public teaching disguised as an initiation into the sacred mysteries. As the noble lie is to the city in the Republic the hyperuranion beings are to the actual city.

He has no knowledge of the Forms and has never seen them. He says as much in the Republic.

If you want to discuss it further I will do so here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11210/socratic-philosophy/p1 — Fooloso4

Behind the inspiring image of transcendent Forms is, as he says in the Phaedo, hypothesis. But hypotheses do not not satisfy the desire for answers. — Fooloso4

So, where in the Phaedo does Socrates call the Forms "hypothesis", and what translation are you using?

So, where in the Phaedo does Socrates call the Forms "hypothesis", and what translation are you using? — Apollodorus

I use the Brann translation and the Grube translation.

If then one wished to know the cause of each thing, why it comes to be or perishes or exists, one had to find what was the best way for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is best.” (97b-d)

So I thought I must take refuge in discussions and investigate the truth of beings by means of accounts [logoi] … On each occasion I put down as hypothesis whatever account I judge to be mightiest; and whatever seems to me to be consonant with this, I put down as being true, both about cause and about all the rest, while what isn’t, I put down as not true.” (99d-100a)

“I am going to try to show you the kind of cause with which I have concerned myself. I turn back to those oft-mentioned things and proceed from them. I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest. If you grant me these and agree that they
exist, I hope to show you the cause as a result, and to find the soul to be immortal.

I no longer understand or recognize those other sophisticated causes, and if someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright color or shape or any such thing, I ignore these other reasons—for all these confuse me—but I simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful. That, I think, is the safest answer I can give myself or anyone else.” (100c-e)

Later he reintroduces physical causes:

“Tell me again from the beginning and do not answer in the words of the question, but do as do. I say that beyond that safe answer, which I spoke of first, I see another safe answer. If you should ask me what, coming into a body, makes it hot, my reply would not be that safe and ignorant one, that it is heat, but our present argument provides a more sophisticated answer, namely, fire, and if you ask me what, on coming into a body, makes it sick, I will not say sickness but fever. Nor, if asked the presence of what in a number makes it odd, I will not say oddness but oneness, and so with other things.” (105b-c)

Let me repeat the question then:

So, where in the Phaedo does Socrates call the Forms "hypothesis", and what translation are you using? — Apollodorus

You told us about the translations you are using, which is fine (for now), but not where in the Phaedo Socrates calls the Forms "hypothesis".

You posted three quotes. Only one contains the word "hypothesis".

In none of them does it say "Forms are a hypothesis" or, for that matter, "Forms are hypotheses".

Edit. I take it that the final quote is in relation to "physical causes". And it says nothing about "hypothesis" either.

When he says:

all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful.

what do you think he is talking about?

Allow me to try again then. My question was:

So, where in the Phaedo does Socrates call the Forms "hypothesis" ...? — Apollodorus

I think it is a very simple question that is very easy to answer. Will you not tell us where in the Phaedo Socrates calls the Forms "hypothesis"? Like in the sentence, "the Forms are hypothesis" or, for that matter, "the Forms are hypotheses"?

I think it is a very simple question that is very easy to answer. — Apollodorus

Reading and understanding Plato requires the ability to think and put things together. If you are not capable of doing that then I can't bridge the gap for you.

"The Beautiful" is a Form. He uses "the Beautiful" as an example of hypothesis.

So, the sentence "the Forms are hypothesis" or "the Forms are hypotheses" does not occur anywhere in the Phaedo. Do you agree?

And what do you think follows from this? That they are not because it is not spelled out for you?

So, the sentence "the Forms are hypothesis" or "the Forms are hypotheses" does not occur anywhere in the Phaedo. Do you agree or not?

I will try one more time and then move on.

Is the Beautiful a Form? Does he use the Beautiful as an example of hypothesis?

1. OK. Since you don't disagree, I take it as an admission that nowhere in the Phaedo does Socrates say "the Forms are hypothesis".

2. And, no, I don't see where "he uses the Beautiful as an example of hypothesis" at all. And I can't believe that you see that either, except perhaps in your imagination.

Okay, baby steps:

On each occasion I put down as hypothesis whatever account I judge to be mightiest; and whatever seems to me to be consonant with this, I put down as being true, both about cause and about all the rest...

I am going to try to show you the kind of cause with which I have concerned myself.

I assume the existence of a Beautiful itself by itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest.

The Beautiful itself and the Good itself are Forms. They are the kind of causes he concerns himself with. What he puts down as hypothesis an account of this kind of cause, that is, the Forms.

Whether you pretend you can't see this or really can't see it, either way it shows that you are not capable of even an elementary discussion of these things.

On each occasion I put down as hypothesis whatever account I judge to be mightiest — Fooloso4

1. You are not saying what translation that is, or what passage number. You may have good reason to omit this, but it is unclear what it is or how we can expect people to follow what you are trying to say and verify that your hypothesis is correct.

2. If you are 100% sure that this is your "evidence", would you mind explaining what makes you think that "hypothesis" here is a description of Forms? It doesn't seem to me that it is.

Remember that in your own words, what you are trying to show is that, according to Socrates in the Phaedo, "Forms are a hypothesis".

1. You are not saying what translation that is, or what passage number. — Apollodorus

These are from the same passages I quoted above with Stephanus numbers. I told you who the translator was. Did you not bother reading it or did you forget so quickly?

If you are 100% sure that this is your "evidence", would you mind explaining what makes you think that "hypothesis" here is a description of Forms? — Apollodorus

If you cannot put one statement together with another I cannot help you.