I think it ironic how often Socrates' claim of ignorance is ignored. As I read them both Plato and Aristotle are skeptics is the sense of knowing that they do not know. We remain in the cave of opinion. It is not that we do not know anything, but when we do not know what we do not know and believe we do know we are no longer even in the realm of opinion but ignorance.

Right - but if they are 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away', then how can they be said to exist?

An illustration: does the number 7 exist? — Wayfarer

Does the number 7 come into being and pass away?

the nature of their existence is contested by philosophers — Wayfarer

If I remember correctly, you come down on the side of them as always existing and unchanging.

Does the number 7 come into being and pass away? — Fooloso4

I would say plainly not. You will recall that Jacob Klein book that you recommended me, which I have read, in part, although much of it is very specialised. But it does affirm a very general point about Platonist philosophy of mathematics, to wit:

Neoplatonic mathematics is governed by a fundamental distinction which is indeed inherent in Greek science in general, but is here most strongly formulated. According to this distinction, one branch of mathematics participates in the contemplation of that which is in no way subject to change, or to becoming and passing away. This branch contemplates that which is always such as it is and which alone is capable of being known: for that which is known in the act of knowing, being a communicable and teachable possession, must be something that is once and for all fixed

Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra.

This is why knowledge of geometry and arithmetic, dianoia, was held to be 'higher' than knowledge of sensible things. It is paradigmatic for 'the unity of thinking and being', which, according to Perl, is the underlying theme of the Western metaphysical tradition.

We remain in the cave of opinion — Fooloso4

Very much your opinion, in my opinion.

We always come back to understandings of Platonism - whether we're talking consciousness or esoterica.

You clearly take issue with for a secular and, shall we say, 'modern' reading of Plato and Aristotle? You think his take, though scholarly, stops short where it matters, right?

Do you think is projecting his perennialist biases upon Plato?

At heart in most of these discussions you hold the position that there is a realm beyond the quotidian world and that this can be understood/accessed through a range of approaches - e.g., Buddhism, Tao, Jnana Yoga, and the classical Western philosophical tradition, which has been filleted by secularism and modernist understandings.

Your view seems to be that a competent reading of Plato does not necessarily support the above.

The issue was how does one define, else understand, being - this, specifically, in terms of Plato's affirmations. — javra

I think the issue can be raised for many terms that we understand perfectly well until we try to pin down a definition. It is probably nothing more than a problem with language, with its inexactitudes, ambiguities.

I happen to agree. Hence my contention that there is something lost in translation in saying that "the Good is beyond being". This would entail that the Good is not. Which is contrary to Plato's works. — javra

Did someone say that the Good is beyond being? I would have thought that it is only beings or events which could be good or otherwise.

Cheers, my fellow pyromaniac. Stay :cool:

I think it ironic how often Socrates' claim of ignorance is ignored. As I read them both Plato and Aristotle are skeptics is the sense of knowing that they do not know. — Fooloso4

Socrates's being aware that he does not hold infallible knowledge of anything whatsoever does not equate to a state of him ignoring that which is the case (this act of either willfully or unwillingly ignoring being the state of ignorance). Quite the opposite. Otherwise one runs into equating wisdom to ignorance - wherein one again deems ignorance to be a virtue.

but when we do not know what we do not know and believe we do know we are no longer even in the realm of opinion but ignorance. — Fooloso4

Here we agree in full.

Did someone say that the Good is beyond being? — Janus

You haven't been following the discussion too closely, then. Yes, Socrates/Plato stated that the Good as Form is beyond being.

We seem to either be suffering from an absence of mirrors in which to see our own selves and conducts on this forum or else from a self-righteous arrogance of somehow being beyond foolishness. Or maybe both.

Because science and its paradigms does not seek to accomplish the exact same feat? Or any other field of human knowledge?

The proscription of thought, debate, and investigation on a philosophy forum by some is telling. — javra

If there are areas in regard to which humans are necessarily ignorant (which I believe is unarguably true) and there is an inveterate human tendency to find this unacceptable, then the filling of this space of mystery with dogma is inevitable.

Science seeks to coherently and consistently explain what is observed while all the time remaining cognizant of the defeasible nature of its theory and knowledge. This is not even remotely similar to the human tendency to simply "make shit up" in the face of the unknown. This is not to say that some scientists, being fallible humans, do not make shit up (falsify the data).

What "proscription of thought, debate and investigation" is going on here in your opinion? Perhaps you could offer an example which is not merely the expression of a different opinion. The other point is that once one starts to talk about "ineffable knowledge" one has entered a realm where argument simply cannot go. Do you think that can that be counted as "doing philosophy"?

You haven't been following the discussion too closely, then. Yes, Socrates/Plato stated that the Good as Form is beyond being. — javra

I haven't read the entire thread. Since Socrates and Plato are not participating in this discussion perhaps you could provide a quote from the latter which unambiguously states this.

If there are areas in regard to which humans are necessarily ignorant (which I believe is unarguably true) — Janus

Given an example of such "necessary ignorance" which should remain off limits to investigation?

This is not even remotely similar to the human tendency to simply "make shit up" in the face of the unknown. — Janus

Ha. Scientific hypothesis are "made up shit in the face of the unknown" which can be empirically tested for.

What "proscription of thought, debate and investigation" is going on here in your opinion? — Janus

See my first question. If we are necessarily ignorant of X than there is an implicitly affirmed proscription of thought, debate, and investigation as pertains to X.

Perhaps you could offer an example which is not merely the expression of a different opinion. — Janus

Funny. All I have are opinions of various strengths, some of which pass a threshold beyond which I term these opinions fallible knowledge.

The other point is that once one starts to talk about "ineffable knowledge" one has entered a realm where argument simply cannot go. Do you think that can that be counted as "doing philosophy"? — Janus

Where have I affirmed "ineffable knowledge" in any of this debate?

The esoterica of the gaps.... — Tom Storm

I like it!

Given an example of such "necessary ignorance" which should remain off limits to investigation? — javra

Anything that is beyond human perception and judgement...that is anything purportedly "beyond being" or transcendent...God, rebirth, karma, heaven, hell...need I go on.

Ha. Scientific hypothesis are "made up shit in the face of the unknown" which can be empirically tested for. — javra

Scientific hypotheses are not arbitrary imaginings but are abductive inferences as to what, consistent with the overall body of canonical human experience and judgement, might be the explanation for this or that observed phenomenon. This is an entirely different kettle of fish to religious dogma or esoterica.

See my first question. If we are necessarily ignorant of X than there is an implicitly affirmed proscription of thought, debate, and investigation as pertains to X. — javra

OK, now you seem to be speaking as though that proscription is a right and good thing. I had thought you were railing against it. So, which is it?

Funny. All I have are opinions of various strengths, some of which pass a threshold beyond which I term these opinions fallible knowledge — javra

I meant an example of someone being unjustifiably proscriptive as to what others are allowed to think.

Where have I affirmed "ineffable knowledge" in any of this debate? — javra

I haven't said you affirmed any ineffable knowledge...I mean, how could you? But some do affirm that those who are thought (by themselves and others) to be enlightened are capable of ineffable knowledge. So, I am trying to understand whether you are one of those who affirm such things. The other question, even if you do affirm such a possibility, is whether you think it can be part of philosophical discussion.

I agree and very well said.

I haven't read the entire thread. Since Socrates and Plato are not participating in this discussion perhaps you could provide a quote from the latter which unambiguously states this. — Janus

Plato identifies how the form of the Good allows for the cognizance to understand such difficult concepts as justice. He identifies knowledge and truth as important, but through Socrates (508d–e) says, "good is yet more prized". He then proceeds to explain "although the good is not being" it is "superior to it in rank and power", it is what "provides for knowledge and truth" (508e).[1] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good#Uses_in_The_Republic

BTW, if you tack on questions to me after you've made a post, I might not see them. But maybe you already knew this?

Anything that is beyond human perception and judgement...that is anything purportedly "beyond being" or transcendent...God, rebirth, karma, heaven, hell...need I go on. — Janus

And how are any of the examples you've given "beyond human judgement"? Plenty of people judge these notions all the time. Some favoring these notions and others opposing their validity.

Scientific hypotheses are not arbitrary imaginings but are abductive inferences as to what, consistent with the overall body of canonical human experience and judgement, might be the explanation for this or that observed phenomenon. This is an entirely different kettle of fish to religious dogma or esoterica. — Janus

Many who will uphold religions and essoterica will of course disagree with the dogma that they are "arbitrary imaginings". You seem to have some superior knowledge to the contrary. Care to share?

OK, now you seem to be speaking as though that proscription is a right and good thing. I had thought you were railing against it. So, which is it? — Janus

I'm against any proscription of thought regarding reality. Hope that's blunt enough. The thought-police ought not prevent others from thinking freely as they will. As far as I see things, the ideas which result thereof can then be in part judged by natural selection.

I meant an example of someone being unjustifiably proscriptive as to what others are allowed to think. — Janus

Yea. Any suppression of free thought regarding any existential topic will serve as an example of "unjustifiabley proscriptive". Scary to me to think otherwise. But repressive regimes are not unheard of.

But some do affirm that those who are thought (by themselves and others) to be enlightened are capable of ineffable knowledge. So, I am trying to understand whether you are one of those who affirm such things. The other question, even if you do affirm such a possibility, is whether you think it can be part of philosophical discussion. — Janus

Dude, knowledge of what a sublimely aesthetic experience is felt to be shall often enough be ineffable ... other than by saying something like "the beauty of that there is beyond words".

But that aside, why should attempts at effing the heretofore ineffable be off limits?

You clearly take issue with Fooloso4 for a secular and, shall we say, 'modern' reading of Plato and Aristotle? You think his take, though scholarly, stops short where it matters, right? — Tom Storm

I respect his knowledge of the texts and have benefitted from it in many discussions about Plato. And I’m also aware of the deficiencies of own learning. In generations past, these texts were the subject of The Classics and classical education but I encountered little of them until well into adulthood. But on the other hand, Plato is one of the founding figures of Western culture and I feel as though a certain amount of it has seeped in to me solely due to my cultural heritage (and I have at least done some readings) But as I now understand it, a classical education in Plato required reading all the dialogues, in a prescribed order, and with associated commentary, as part of a structured curriculum. At this stage in life, I am not going to achieve that.

So I’m not equipped to criticise Fooloso4’s interpretation, save to say that in my view it’s rather deflationary. I think Plato’s dialogues can be read on many levels and are open to many kinds of interpretation, and that there are kind of ‘off-ramps’ for those who are not inclined to the esoteric face of his philosophy. But I agree with Lloyd Gerson that Platonism and naturalism are incommensurable, whereas for most here, naturalism is axiomatic and anything that can be categorised as supernatural - and it’s a broad brush! - is off limits.

At heart in most of these discussions you hold the position that there is a realm beyond the quotidian world and that this can be understood/accessed through a range of approaches - e.g., Buddhism, Tao, Jnana Yoga, and the classical Western philosophical tradition, which has been filleted by secularism and modernist understandings. — Tom Storm

That’s what philosophy is, or used to be. Pierre Hadot makes that quite clear in his ‘Philosophy as a Way of Life’ and other publications. I think the watershed was the division of mind and matter, and primary and secondary attributes, associated with Galileo, Descartes and Newton and ‘the scientific revolution’.

The underlying historical cause of this phenomenon seems to lie in an unbalanced development of the human mind in the West, beginning around the time of the European Renaissance. This development gave increasing importance to the rational, manipulative and dominative capacities of the mind at the expense of its intuitive, comprehensive, sympathetic and integrative capacities. The rise to dominance of the rational, manipulative facets of human consciousness led to a fixation upon those aspects of the world that are amenable to control by this type of consciousness — the world that could be conquered, comprehended and exploited in terms of fixed quantitative units. This fixation did not stop merely with the pragmatic efficiency of such a point of view, but became converted into a theoretical standpoint, a standpoint claiming validity. In effect, this means that the material world, as defined by modern science, became the founding stratum of reality, while mechanistic physics, its methodological counterpart, became a paradigm for understanding all other types of natural phenomena, biological, psychological and social.

The early founders of the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century — such as Galileo, Boyle, Descartes and Newton — were deeply religious men, for whom the belief in the wise and benign Creator was the premise behind their investigations into lawfulness of nature. However, while they remained loyal to the theistic premises of Christian faith, the drift of their thought severely attenuated the organic connection between the divine and the natural order, a connection so central to the premodern world view. They retained God only as the remote Creator and law-giver of Nature and sanctioned moral values as the expression of the Divine Will, the laws decreed for man by his Maker. In their thought a sharp dualism emerged between the transcendent sphere and the empirical world. The realm of "hard facts" ultimately consisted of units of senseless matter governed by mechanical laws, while ethics, values and ideals were removed from the realm of facts and assigned to the sphere of an interior subjectivity.

It was only a matter of time until, in the trail of the so-called Enlightenment, a wave of thinkers appeared who overturned the dualistic thesis central to this world view in favor of the straightforward materialism. This development was not a following through of the reductionistic methodology to its final logical consequences. Once sense perception was hailed as the key to knowledge and quantification came to be regarded as the criterion of actuality, the logical next step was to suspend entirely the belief in a supernatural order and all it implied. Hence finally an uncompromising version of mechanistic materialism prevailed, whose axioms became the pillars of the new world view. Matter is now the only ultimate reality, and divine principle of any sort dismissed as sheer imagination.

The triumph of materialism in the sphere of cosmology and metaphysics had the profoundest impact on human self-understanding. The message it conveyed was that the inward dimensions of our existence, with its vast profusion of spiritual and ethical concerns, is mere adventitious superstructure. The inward is reducible to the external, the invisible to the visible, the personal to the impersonal. Mind becomes a higher order function of the brain, the individual a node in a social order governed by statistical laws. All humankind's ideals and values are relegated to the status of illusions: they are projections of biological drives, sublimated wish-fulfillment. Even ethics, the philosophy of moral conduct, comes to be explained away as a flowery way of expressing personal preferences. Its claim to any objective foundation is untenable, and all ethical judgments become equally valid. The ascendancy of relativism is complete. — “Bhikkhu Bodhi, A Buddhist Response to the Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence

Not everyone will defend so stark a position as expressed here, but it is undeniably a major influence on today’s culture. And do notice the hostility that criticism of it engenders. I’m never one to deny that I am ignorant in many things, but I don’t proclaim that ignorance as a yardstick of what ought to be discussed.

Were Socrates/Plato to have understood "being" within the linguistic and cultural contexts of their time as consisting of that which comes into being and goes out of being, then the affirmation that the Good is not that just expressed would make sense. — javra

It should be quite apparent that for them the opinions of that time or any other time and place are not decisive.

Your affirm this conclusion as thought it is true, or else as though it is the truth of what Socrates/Plato intended. — javra

I do not affirm that it is true, but I think it is an accurate description of what the text says.

Yet how is this affirmation not equivalent to the nonsensical statement that a certain given is neither X nor not-X? — javra

Is what is beyond being something that is or something that is not?

In the Sophist we find the following exchange:

Theaetetus:
We really do seem to have a vague vision of being as some third thing, when we say that motion and rest are.
Stranger:
Then being is not motion and rest in combination, but something else, different from them.
Theaetetus:
Apparently.
Stranger:
According to its own nature, then, being is neither at rest nor in motion.
Theaetetus:
You are about right.
Stranger:
What is there left, then, to which a man can still turn his mind who wishes to establish within himself any clear conception of being?
Theaetetus:
What indeed?
Stranger:
There is nothing left, I think, to which he can turn easily. (Sophist 250)

Being is neither at rest nor not at rest. Neither in motion nor not in motion. And yet, we would not to deny that what is is either in motion or at rest.

Added: See also above and copied in my response to Wayfarer below:

"If what is, is knowable, then wouldn't something other than that which is be opinable?" (478b)

"To that which is not, we were compelled to assign ignorance, and to that which is, knowledge."

"Opinion, therefore, opines neither that which is nor that which is not." (478c) — Fooloso4

I do not affirm that it is true, but I think it is an accurate description of what the text says. — Fooloso4

What any text says can only be understood via interpretation of the said text; namely, of what was intended by the text's author. Plato's writing is no exception to this.

Is what is beyond being something that is or something that is not? — Fooloso4

As I thought I already made clear, to me what is beyond being is by entailment not being, hence it is not.

As to the example you've given, it is nonsensical to me. Hence my opinion that something might be lost in translation of "being" from that era and language to our own. You have not yet addressed my question of whether "neither X nor not-X" is sensible to you.

Neoplatonic mathematics is governed by a fundamental distinction which is indeed inherent in Greek science in general, but is here most strongly formulated. According to this distinction, one branch of mathematics participates in the contemplation of that which is in no way subject to change, or to becoming and passing away. This branch contemplates that which is always such as it is and which alone is capable of being known: for that which is known in the act of knowing, being a communicable and teachable possession, must be something that is once and for all fixed
Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra. — Wayfarer

Klein points out that Aristotle distinguishes between three kinds of number:

arithmos eidetikos - idea numbers
arithmos aisthetetos - sensible number
metaxy - between
(Metaphysics 987b)

The third kind is something in between, not an eidetic nor a sensible number. See above:

"If what is, is knowable, then wouldn't something other than that which is be opinable?" (478b)

"To that which is not, we were compelled to assign ignorance, and to that which is, knowledge."

"Opinion, therefore, opines neither that which is nor that which is not." (478c) — Fooloso4

↪Wayfarer You clearly take issue with ↪Fooloso4 for a secular and, shall we say, 'modern' reading of Plato and Aristotle? — Tom Storm

I think all of our readings are by default modern. We cannot escape being modern. It is our cave. But my reading differs from that of others who are modern.

From an interview with Stanley Rosen, an influential scholar who has written extensively on Plato:

ROSEN: Well, firstly, the approach to the Platonic dialogues has changed over the course of history. For example, in Neo-Platonist times, interpreters of the dialogues took the dramatic form very seriously. And they read very complicated views into what would look to, say, the members of the contemporary analytical tradition like extremely trivial and secondary stylistic characteristics. Secondly, there was a tradition of taking seriously the dramatic form of the dialogue. It began in Germany in the 18th century with people like Schleiermacher. And that tradition extends through the 19th century, and you see it in scholars like Friedländer and in philosophical interpreters like Gadamer. And we now know, of course, that Heidegger in his lectures on the Sophist took the details of the dialogue very seriously. So, that has to be said in order for us to understand that the apparent heterodoxy or eccentricity of Leo Strauss’ approach to the Platonic dialogues is such a heterodoxy only with respect to the kind of positivist and analytical approach to Plato ... Final point, within the last ten years, even the analysts have began talking about the dramatic form of the dialogue as though they discovered this. More directly, the Strauss approach is characterized by a fine attention to the dramatic structure, the personae, all the details in the dialogues because they were plays, and also by very close analyses. https://college.holycross.edu/diotima/n1v2/rosen.htm
A few more points from the interview that are worth considering:

The purpose of the text is to stimulate the reader to think, and it does that by being an intricate construction with many implications, some of which are indeterminate in the sense that you can’t be sure of what Plato meant and what Socrates meant, but they are intended to make you, the interpreter, do your thinking for yourself ... I think that it would be better to emphasize that the dialogue has as its primary function the task of stimulating the reader to think for himself, not to find the teaching worked-out for him.

For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems. Strauss tended to emphasize the first and the second. I wouldn’t say he didn’t mention the third, whereas I concentrate on the third.

First of all, there is no unanimity in the tradition of reading Plato. I told you that what passed for orthodoxy is no longer orthodox. The same analysts who made fun of Leo Strauss and me and his other students, today are copying us, but with no acknowledgment. They are copying the Straussian methods, but not as well. Leo Strauss is a much more careful reader and a more imaginative reader, and I certainly am as well. You get these inferior, inferior versions of the same methods they criticized ten years ago. This thesis of a long, orthodox tradition, that’s nonsense. It doesn’t exist. Even if it did, it would show nothing.

This tracks pretty close to my own readings

the core of the OP's question. The esoterica of the gaps.... — Tom Storm

:up:

I think it ironic how often Socrates' claim of ignorance is ignored. [ ... ] We remain in the cave of opinion. It is not that we do not know anything, but when we do not know what we do not know and believe we do know we are no longer even in the realm of opinion but ignorance. — Fooloso4

:up: :up:

BTW, if you tack on questions to me after you've made a post, I might not see them. But maybe you already knew this? — javra

I don't understand what you are saying here. My questions were in the post. As to the quote from Plato, It is fragmented and out of context (from Wikipedia) so I don't want to comment on it.

And how are any of the examples you've given "beyond human judgement"? Plenty of people judge these notions all the time. Some favoring these notions and others opposing their validity. — javra

"Beyond human judgement", as I use it, means beyond decidable judgement. Of course, people may have opinions, but those opinions cannot be informed opinions if what they are about is something outside the range of human perception.

Many who will uphold religions and essoterica will of course disagree with the dogma that they are "arbitrary imaginings". You seem to have some superior knowledge to the contrary. Care to share? — javra

As implied above, I count them as arbitrary imaginings if they do not refer to anything intersubjectively corroborable. So, it is not dogma, but presents a valid distinction between what can be tested and what cannot. And no, I have not said that ideas that cannot be tested have no value, but that they cannot coherently function as claims if there is no way to for the unbiased to assess their veracity.

I'm against any proscription of thought regarding reality. Hope that's blunt enough. The thought-police ought not prevent others from thinking freely as they will. As far as I see things, the ideas which result thereof can then be in part judged by natural selection. — javra

Where are the thought police? All I'm seeing is critique, not suppression.

Yea. Any suppression of free thought regarding any existential topic will serve as an example of "unjustifiabley proscriptive". Scary to me to think otherwise. But repressive regimes are not unheard of. — javra

Again, where is the "suppression" you speak of? Is disagreement and critique not allowed in your ideal world?

Dude, knowledge of what a sublimely aesthetic experience is felt to be shall often enough be ineffable ... other than by saying something like "the beauty of that there is beyond words".

But that aside, why should attempts at effing the heretofore ineffable be off limits? — javra

"Effing the ineffable" is the job of art and poetry, not rigorous philosophical discussion. Poetry may be evocative, but it presents no arguments. That which cannot be tested empirically or justified logically is outside the scope of rational argument. That doesn't mean it has no value, so don't mistake me for saying that.

Thank you both for your explanations. I feel lucky to be able to partake in these sorts of conversations with people who know their stuff and understand their presuppositions.

This quote from Rosen is very helpful.

The purpose of the text is to stimulate the reader to think, and it does that by being an intricate construction with many implications, some of which are indeterminate in the sense that you can’t be sure of what Plato meant and what Socrates meant, but they are intended to make you, the interpreter, do your thinking for yourself ... I think that it would be better to emphasize that the dialogue has as its primary function the task of stimulating the reader to think for himself, not to find the teaching worked-out for him.

For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems. Strauss tended to emphasize the first and the second. I wouldn’t say he didn’t mention the third, whereas I concentrate on the third.

This covers off on much of what I thought phislophy is for.

Not everyone will defend so stark a position as expressed here, but it is undeniably a major influence on today’s culture. And do notice the hostility that criticism of it engenders. — Wayfarer

I get it and I am interested in this way of looking at things. I want to understand it as best I can. Don't you think however that there is also a lot of hostility in the other direction (from those who hold idealist positions), who persistently disparage physicalists?

The triumph of materialism in the sphere of cosmology and metaphysics had the profoundest impact on human self-understanding. The message it conveyed was that the inward dimensions of our existence, with its vast profusion of spiritual and ethical concerns, is mere adventitious superstructure. The inward is reducible to the external, the invisible to the visible, the personal to the impersonal. Mind becomes a higher order function of the brain, the individual a node in a social order governed by statistical laws. All humankind's ideals and values are relegated to the status of illusions: they are projections of biological drives, sublimated wish-fulfillment. — “Bhikkhu Bodhi, A Buddhist Response to the Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence

I can see how one might argue like this. It's an emotive and tendentious response. The idea that all of 'humankind's ideals and values are illusions' is something I have intuited to be the case since I was 7 or 8 years old. I guess I am still interested to find out if my intuitions were right or not.

Don't you think however that there is also a lot of hostility in the other direction (from those who hold idealist positions), who persistently disparage physicalists? — Tom Storm

I myself try to refrain from sarcastic or ad hominem criticisms. Although I did notice recently that I was compared to a young-earth creationist for questioning what I call 'common-sense physicalism' (i.e. the idea that the mind can be understood through neuroscience). Of course I criticize physicalism, as I think of it as something like a popular myth. It's something that is generally just assumed to be the case, as being self-evident, 'common sense', such that questioning it seems incredible to a lot of people. (I was rather put off by the strident hostility and polemicism of Kastrup's book Materialism Is Baloney, even though on the whole I'm in Kastrup's corner. I think it can be criticized without that kind of language. )

Regarding Bhikkhu Bodhi's talk - the context of that was a keynote speech at an interfaith conference. (Bhikkhu Bodhi, born Jeffrey Block, is an American monk who was English-language editor of the Buddhist Texts Publication Society.) I don't think that description he gives is at all exagerrated or overly polemical.

For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems ~ Stanley Rosen. — Fooloso4

In the SEP entry on Strauss I note that the relationship of 'reason and revelation' is one of the over-arching themes of his work:

[Strauss] criticizes the modern critique of religion beginning in the 17th century for advancing the idea that revelation and philosophy should answer to the same scientific criteria, maintaining that this notion brings meaningful talk of revelation to an end, either in the form of banishing revelation from conversation or in the form of so-called modern defenses of religion which only internalize this banishment. Strauss’s early musings on the theologico-political predicament led him to a theme upon which he would insist again and again: the irreconcilability of revelation and philosophy (or the irreconcilability of what he would call elsewhere Jerusalem and Athens or the Bible and Greek philosophy). Strauss maintains that because belief in revelation by definition does not claim to be self-evident knowledge, philosophy can neither refute nor confirm revelation:

The genuine refutation of orthodoxy would require the proof that the world and human life are perfectly intelligible without the assumption of a mysterious God; it would require at least the success of the philosophical system: man has to show himself theoretically and practically as the master of the world and the master of his life; the merely given must be replaced by the world created by man theoretically and practically (SCR, p. 29).

Because a completed system is not possible, or at least not yet possible, modern philosophy, despite its self-understanding to the contrary, has not refuted the possibility of revelation. On Strauss’s reading, the Enlightenment’s so-called critique of religion ultimately also brought with it, unbeknownst to its proponents, modern rationalism’s self-destruction. Strauss does not reject modern science, but he does object to the philosophical conclusion that “scientific knowledge is the highest form of knowledge” because this “implies a depreciation of pre-scientific knowledge.” As he put it, “Science is the successful part of modern philosophy or science, and philosophy is the unsuccessful part—the rump” (JPCM, p. 99). Strauss reads the history of modern philosophy as beginning with the elevation of all knowledge to science, or theory, and as concluding with the devaluation of all knowledge to history, or practice

In other words, Strauss admits the possibility of religious revelation throughout his work. What he does not seem to consider, it seems to me, is the possibility of gnosis or divine illumination, which seems distinguishable from 'revelation'. Nevertheless, obviously a scholar of great depth and range, someone else I'll never really get the chance to read.

"Effing the ineffable" is the job of art and poetry, not rigorous philosophical discussion. Poetry may be evocative, but it presents no arguments. That which cannot be tested empirically or justified logically is outside the scope of rational argument. That doesn't mean it has no value ... — Janus

:100:

Some people do seem to seek for 'enlightenment' or even the bliss of 'Nirvana' as an end. From my perspective, this is a rather narrow perspective because it shortcircuits the processes which may be as essential in learning, just as much as the moment of enlightenment. What is known as 'The Dweller on the Threshold', to quote a Van Morrison track, may be important and the understanding of suffering. Without the initial sense of sufferings the quest of the Buddha would not have the significance which it has.

I myself try to refrain from sarcastic or ad hominem criticisms. Although I did notice recently that I was compared to a young-earth creationist for questioning what I call 'common-sense physicalism' (i.e. the idea that the mind can be understood through neuroscience). — Wayfarer

That is self aggrandizement.

You were compared to a YEC for claiming there is no scientific evidence for the view you are opposed to. See your statement that directly lead to the comparison:

There is no scientific evidence for physicalism. — Wayfarer

'There is no scientific evidence for evolution.'

'There is no scientific evidence for the earth being billions of years old.'

See the science denialist pattern?

You flatter yourself by referring to yourself as "questioning".

I've often considered this. Are we missing some sort of esoteric oral tradition that justifies Plato's claim that philosophers are not fully trained until age fifty, or is it all just obscurantism to add mystique to "philosopher king?" How important is geometry really? It seems like it might be more a sort of "barrier to entry," rather than anything else.

:up:

I've often considered this. Are we missing some sort of esoteric oral tradition that justifies Plato's claim that philosophers are not fully trained until age fifty, or is it all just obscurantism to add mystique to "philosopher king?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd suggest something more like, "It tends to take a substantial amount of life experience for humans to recognize and weed out naive intuitions sufficiently to reach the point of being philosophically interesting." I.e. it's just an aspect of human nature.

"Effing the ineffable" is the job of art and poetry, not rigorous philosophical discussion. Poetry may be evocative, but it presents no arguments. That which cannot be tested empirically or justified logically is outside the scope of rational argument. That doesn't mean it has no value, so don't mistake me for saying that. — Janus

Much of what we find in Plato, including the ascent to a transcendent realm of Forms in the Republic is philosophical poetry. In the Phaedo, in order to save philosophy from the failure of rational argument Socrates resorts to mythos to overcome misologic. (89d)

Wittgenstein said:

Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry.

(Culture and Value)

and:

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

(Culture and Value)

Those who love Plato's image of clear unambiguous world of Forms bristle at what Aristotle calls Plato's "indeterminate dyads".These dyads include:

Limited and Unlimited

Same and Other

One and Many

Rest and Change

Eternity and Time

Good and Bad

Thinking and Being

Being and Non-being

Each side stands both together with and apart from the other. There is not one without the other.

Ultimately, there is neither ‘this or that’ but ‘this and that’. The Whole is not reducible to One. The whole is indeterminate.