... without chance and contingency ... The fixed intelligible world is unintelligible. — Fooloso4

:fire:

One thing that bothers me about the Ur-Platonism idea, apart from the specific issues being discussed, is that there have been centuries of thinkers who have self-identified with belonging or not belonging to particular groups and here comes this bloke telling you where you belong.

I accept that there is a lot of nuances in how that gets expressed. When Aristotle refers to the 'Platonists', he may be that and something else at the same time.

It is tyrannical to have them all wearing the same neckerchief.

One thing that bothers me about the Ur-Platonism idea, apart from the specific issues being discussed, is that there have been centuries of thinkers who have self-identified with belonging or not belonging to particular groups and here comes this bloke telling you where you belong. — Paine

But is Gerson doing that? I see him as trying to identify the broad outlines of the implications of Platonism - not defined solely in terms of Plato’s dialogues, but by the many schools of thought that have identified as part of that ongoing tradition. That’s where he locates the ‘five antis’ that he says are in common to all of them. So he’s inclusive, not exclusive.

When I look under the hood of Gerson's writing, he adopts the perspective of Plotinus in an uncritical fashion. In that regard, he is too inclusive and sees everything through the goggles of Plotinus. That is what I have been trying to address in the Metaphysics thread.

Take, for example, Gerson's essay on the agent intellect. The following statement appears in the conclusion:

A good deal of the obscurity in this chapter is owing ultimately to the difficulty in identifying the subject of cognitive activities on the basis of the previous hylomorphic account of the human being. Is it the composite that thinks or the soul or the intellect? In my view, the key to resolving this difficulty rests upon the principle that a person is essentially a self-reflexive thinker. When disembodied, that self-reflexivity is expressed in pure imageless thinking. When embodied, that self-reflexivity is variously expressed, for example, when one says, 'I am perspiring', 'I am walking', 'I am aware that I am walking', and 'I am thinking about the health benefits of my walking'. In the first case, one identifies oneself with a body; in the second, with the composite; in the third and fourth, with the soul. The identification consists in the awareness of oneself as diverse subjects. One could not identify oneself with any of these subjects unless one were essentially self-reflexive, that is, unless one were ideally an intellect — Gerson, The Unity of Intellect in Aristotle's De Anima

This view of being "disembodied" is thinkable within Plotinus' model of the soul. From what I understand Aristotle to say about "particular individuals", being disembodied means you are dead.

One thing that bothers me about the Ur-Platonism idea, apart from the specific issues being discussed, is that there have been centuries of thinkers who have self-identified with belonging or not belonging to particular groups and here comes this bloke telling you where you belong.

I accept that there is a lot of nuances in how that gets expressed. When Aristotle refers to the 'Platonists', he may be that and something else at the same time.

It is tyrannical to have them all wearing the same neckerchief. — Paine

Sorry, I know I need to respond to your post in the Metaphysics thread, but Gerson is dividing philosophers into two camps. It is legitimate to ask questions about the rationale and rigor of that division, but certainly when Aristotle speaks about "Platonists" and Gerson speaks about "Platonists" they are speaking about two different things. For Aristotle Platonists are one camp among many; for Gerson they are one camp among two. I don't think equivocation is occurring given the way Gerson sets out his thesis.

In that regard, he is too inclusive and sees everything through the goggles of Plotinus. — Paine

It is no surprise that when seen through the interpretive lens of the Platonist Plotinus Plato and Aristotle are regarded by Gerson as Platonists. Central to Gerson's Platonism is the intelligible world. Perhaps the world is intelligible, but that does not mean it is intelligible to us. Gerson acknowledges this distinction. For example, in a

review of a book on Plato's Timaeus he says, with regard to Timaeus' likely stories:

Likelihood is in principle the best we can aim for in dealing with a likeness, though, if we had direct knowledge of the eternal model, we could no doubt give a better account. As it is, the best we can aim for is “conviction” ( pistis) not “truth” ( aletheia) ...

This likely account is, therefore, a muthos as well as a logos, a muthos for humans. From the divine perspective, however, there would undoubtedly be a genuine logos of creation, because from that perspective the purposes of creation would be transparent.

The philosopher, like the poets and theologians, deals in likely stories. They too are myth makers. They do not bring truth and light to the cave, They too are puppet-makers, makers of images that by the light of the cave cast shadows on its walls.

I will leave it to others who are more familiar with Plotinus and other Platonists to say how closely the philosopher as myth-maker aligns with their teachings.

This is Gerson's thesis in a nutshell:

Here I briefly sketch a hypothetical reconstruction of what I shall call ‘Ur-Platonism’
(UP). This is the general philosophical position that arises from the conjunction of the negations
of the philosophical positions explicitly rejected in the dialogues, that is, the philosophical
positions on offer in the history of philosophy accessible to Plato himself. It is well known that
Plato in the dialogues engages with most of the philosophers who preceded him. Some of these,
like Parmenides and Protagoras, exercise his intellect more than others, including probably some unnamed ones as well as some unknown to us. All of these philosophers, with the exception of Socrates and Pythagoras, are represented as holding views that are firmly rejected in the dialogues either explicitly or implicitly. I am not claiming that anyone, including Plato, simply embraced UP. I am, however, claiming that Platonism in general can be seen to arise out of the matrix of UP, and that Plato’s philosophy is actually one version of Platonism, as odd as this may sound. So, in a manner of speaking, UP is a via negativa to Plato’s philosophy. To be a Platonist is, minimally, to have a commitment to UP. It is only a slight step further to recognize that this basic commitment is virtually always in fact conjoined with a commitment to discover the most consistent integrated positive metaphysical construct on the basis of UP. Disagreements among these same Platonists are, I believe, best explained by the fact that this systematic construct does not decisively determine the correct answer to many specific philosophical problems raised especially by opponents of Platonism. That is, UP is largely underdetermining for some specific philosophical doctrines or answers to specific philosophical questions.

The elements of UP according to my hypothesis are: anti-materialism, anti-mechanism,
anti-nominalism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. — Gerson, Platonism Versus Naturalism

The list of negatives is drawn up by his reading of Plato. What comprises what is "firmly rejected in the
dialogues either explicitly or implicitly", is a matter of contention, especially the "implicit" part.

Relegating differences between thinkers as participants in the proposed larger container of agreement to a secondary concern removes any of the testimony of others to be possible challenges to the existence of said container.

The thesis was developed as a response to modern expressions of "anti-Platonism" and modern views of nature. As a philosophy of history, it is claiming that the conditions Plato emerged from are the same as those we live in. This battle between the two Titans seems to take place outside of History, in some kind of eternal now.

The thesis certainly does not help illuminate how Plotinus emerged in his time.

There are several matters in that review I would like to address that concern Plotinus but not Gerson. So I will put the comments in your Metaphysics thread when I can make a logos of them.

The list of negatives is drawn up by his reading of Plato. What comprises what is "firmly rejected in the
dialogues either explicitly or implicitly", is a matter of contention, especially the "implicit" part. — Paine

I think Gerson is on the right track, so I probably see it as less controversial than you do.

Relegating differences between thinkers as participants in the proposed larger container of agreement to a secondary concern removes any of the testimony of others to be possible challenges to the existence of said container. — Paine

First I would say that Gerson's thesis does not preclude challenges to this thesis. You yourself tend to offer these challenges. Second, to apply a particular lens to philosophical taxonomy does not prevent us from applying other lenses. I don't see Gerson's lens as exclusive.

The thesis was developed as a response to modern expressions of "anti-Platonism" and modern views of nature. As a philosophy of history, it is claiming that the conditions Plato emerged from are the same as those we live in. This battle between the two Titans seems to take place outside of History, in some kind of eternal now. — Paine

Yes, perhaps.

The thesis certainly does not help illuminate how Plotinus emerged in his time. — Paine

I don't know a lot about Plotinus, but I suspect you are correct.

I don't see Gerson's lens as exclusive. — Leontiskos

That is an interesting question to ask. How about Heidegger versus Ur-Platonism?

They are both critical of the dominance of modern science. They both rely upon an intensive study of classical texts. They differ sharply on views of historical development. Can they share the same view of the world?

- Well Heidegger is tricky, but for starters I would want to say that both Gerson and Heidegger could offer a true lens, even if those two lenses are mutually exclusive. So for example, Heidegger could acknowledge that Gerson has made a real distinction with his Ur-Platonism. Whether he can go on to "share that same view of the world," depends on what it means to take a view of the world. I think Heidegger would say that Gerson's distinction, even if true, is not very important or relevant. Presumably Gerson thinks his lens is better than Heidegger's, and Heidegger would think his lens is better than Gerson's.

So then I think the question is: How do you call into question the aptness of a lens, short of denying it altogether? This is where I wonder if you are barking up the wrong tree, because the comprehensiveness of Gerson's lens makes it hard for those who agree with him to see a contrasting picture. So long as you are "short of denying it altogether," I don't think this is Gerson's fault. It might be the fault of the person who understands Gerson but does not really understand Heidegger. For that person Gerson wins by default, but also because he has managed to capture the person's interest and motivations in a way that Heidegger has not. Thus you have a legitimately difficult task in disrupting Gerson's thesis, but the way you are going about it with Plotinus and Aristotle seems reasonable to me.

This is where I wonder if you are barking up the wrong tree, because the comprehensiveness of Gerson's lens makes it hard for those who agree with him to see a contrasting picture. — Leontiskos

That fairly points to the limits of my thought experiment.

Presumably Gerson thinks his lens is better than Heidegger's, and Heidegger would think his lens is better than Gerson's. — Leontiskos

My not-very-well-informed understanding is that Heidegger attempted a critique of classical metaphysics, saying that from Plato onwards, Parmenides was misrepresented or misunderstood. That this culminated in the decadent metaphysics of Western culture such that what is required was to go right back to the origin and really 'hear' what Parmenides had to say.

I certainly don't know if Gerson would agree at all with Heidegger's critique although he might have commented on it - he comments on very many philosophers in his books. I'm not aware. I've always been wary of Heidegger partially because of his reputation as being difficult and obscurantist, and also because of his association with Nazism, although there are certainly many things I have read about him that ring true to me.

Eric Perl's short little gem "Thinking Being: Introduction to Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition," makes a similar argument, but applies it more broadly to the entire classical tradition. Per Perl, major elements are contiguous between Parmenides and Plato, and on to Aristotle, and then into Plotinus and St. Aquinas—with the main thread being Parmenides' "it is the same thing that can be thought and can be.”

Perl specifically argues against the "two worlds," view of Plato, which I agree is a pretty bad reading, and one which also only becomes a thing in the modern period. Interestingly, he points to Ockham and Scotus as the end of the classical metaphysical tradition and the birth of "subject/object" thinking and "problems of knowledge" rather than more modern figures like Locke or Kant. A particularly keen observation of his is how closely ideas in phenomenology, namely "giveness" and "intentionally" hew to the classical tradition, such that Husserl's project in some ways starts to look more like a recovery of lost concepts (Robert Sokolowski, who he cites, does a lot of work in the relationship between classical philosophy and phenomenology too).

On this view, Aristotle is a Platonist offering corrections and St. Aquinas isn't really straying too far from the Neoplatonism of his contemporaries. I do think this gets something important right. Far too often, we seem to read the modern rationalist vs empiricist debate back into Plato and Aristotle, which misses their deep connections. That or they just become skeptics, trapped in the modern box of subject/object, which is an even grosser misreading, particularly of Aristotle.

Interestingly, he points to Ockham and Scotus as the end of the classical metaphysical tradition and the birth of "subject/object" thinking — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've been singing the praises of this book, and the cogency of that argument. Like Perls, 'radical orthodoxy' also pins much of the issue on Scotus' 'univocity of being' (and I would add, on the loss of both the 'scala natura' and its 'degrees of being' and also the 'via negativa'.)

There is, however, a great deal in the dialogues that call the Forms into question.

Yes, a great deal of effort is expended on trying to develop the idea and avoid the problems of collapsing into the silent unity of Parmenides or the universal inconstancy of Heraclitus.

The idea found in the Republic of eternal, fixed, transcendent truths known only to the philosophers is a useful political fiction. This "core doctrine" is a myth, a noble lie.

I don't know how you explain Plato's later, considerable efforts to figure out how to deal with the forms, universals and predicates in the Sophist/Statesman if the Forms are just a political myth (same with the troubleshooting in the Parmenides). The invocation of the Forms in the Phaedo also has a different usage. Plato uses myths often, but he doesn't bother returning to them over and over throughout his life to try to iron them out when they are just meant to be edifying alternatives for those who have failed to grasp the main thrust of his lesson.

Letter VII is specifically attempting to skewer Dionysius of Syracuse's pretenses to be a philosopher. One of the reasons to think it is authentic is that it jives very well with the Republic re the limitations of language and Plato's ecstatic view of knowledge. The letter is referring to the idea of intelligible forms in it's very explanation of the limits of language, so I'm finding it hard to see how one gets a reading out of this that would reduce the forms to "political myth" of some sort.

For everything that exists there are three instruments by which the knowledge of it is necessarily imparted; fourth, there is the knowledge itself, and, as fifth, we must count the thing itself which is known and truly exists. The first is the name, the, second the definition, the third. the image, and the fourth the knowledge. If you wish to learn what I mean, take these in the case of one instance, and so understand them in the case of all. A circle is a thing spoken of, and its name is that very word which we have just uttered. The second thing belonging to it is its definition, made up names and verbal forms. For that which has the name "round," "annular," or, "circle," might be defined as that which has the distance from its circumference to its centre everywhere equal. Third, comes that which is drawn and rubbed out again, or turned on a lathe and broken up-none of which things can happen to the circle itself-to which the other things, mentioned have reference; for it is something of a different order from them. Fourth, comes knowledge, intelligence and right opinion about these things. Under this one head we must group everything which has its existence, not in words nor in bodily shapes, but in souls-from which it is dear that it is something different from the nature of the circle itself and from the three things mentioned before. Of these things intelligence comes closest in kinship and likeness to the fifth, and the others are farther distant.

The same applies to straight as well as to circular form, to colours, to the good, the, beautiful, the just, to all bodies whether manufactured or coming into being in the course of nature, to fire, water, and all such things, to every living being, to character in souls, and to all things done and suffered. For in the case of all these, no one, if he has not some how or other got hold of the four things first mentioned, can ever be completely a partaker of knowledge of the fifth. Further, on account of the weakness of language, these (i.e., the four) attempt to show what each thing is like, not less than what each thing is. For this reason no man of intelligence will venture to express his philosophical views in language, especially not in language that is unchangeable, which is true of that which is set down in written characters.

Again you must learn the point which comes next. Every circle, of those which are by the act of man drawn or even turned on a lathe, is full of that which is opposite to the fifth thing. For everywhere it has contact with the straight. But the circle itself, we say, has nothing in either smaller or greater, of that which is its opposite. We say also that the name is not a thing of permanence for any of them, and that nothing prevents the things now called round from being called straight, and the straight things round; for those who make changes and call things by opposite names, nothing will be less permanent (than a name). Again with regard to the definition, if it is made up of names and verbal forms, the same remark holds that there is no sufficiently durable permanence in it. And there is no end to the instances of the ambiguity from which each of the four suffers; but the greatest of them is that which we mentioned a little earlier, that, whereas there are two things, that which has real being, and that which is only a quality, when the soul is seeking to know, not the quality, but the essence, each of the four, presenting to the soul by word and in act that which it is not seeking (i.e., the quality), a thing open to refutation by the senses, being merely the thing presented to the soul in each particular case whether by statement or the act of showing, fills, one may say, every man with puzzlement and perplexity.

Intelligible form here seems absolutely necessary for understanding why Plato thinks there are such limits on the type of work Dionysius is pretending to in the first place. If the fifth thing is just a pragmatic creation of words, Plato would seem to be guilty of the worst sort of sophistry here.

If you go a little further on your previous quote, it is clear that Plato is talking about the inadequacy of treaties, not "unknowability."

There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject. For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself.

Note, that this also denotes an ability to share this insight, just not in a direct way.

Aside from that, I also have no idea how there could be a reading of Aristotle where he is skeptical of edios.

I don't know how you explain Plato's later, considerable efforts to figure out how to deal with the forms, universals and predicates in the Sophist/Statesman if the Forms are just a political myth (same with the troubleshooting in the Parmenides). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good question.The problem is that one who does not “allow that for each thing there is a character that is always the same" will “destroy the power of dialectic entirely” (Parmenides, 135b8–c2). Something like the Forms underlies (hypo - under thesis - to place or set) thought and speech.

The myth is that the Forms are eternal beings that are known to the philosopher by the power of dialectic and thus the philosopher, knowing the just, the beautiful, and the good is uniquely qualified to rule. In the Republic Socrates says:

"Well, then, go on to understand that by the other segment of the intelligible I mean that which argument itself grasps with the power of dialectic, making the hypotheses not beginnings but really hypotheses—that is, steppingstones and springboards—in order to reach what is free from hypothesis at the beginning of the whole. When it has grasped this, argument now depends on that which depends on this beginning and in such fashion goes back down again to an end; making no use of anything sensed in any way, but using forms themselves, going through forms to forms, it ends in forms too."

(511b)

If it is possible to use hypothesis to free oneself from hypothesis then evidently Socrates did not succeed. The story of the Forms remains just that, a story, not something he knows. Plato did not wish to extinguish the fire of the desire to know. There is a difference between the claim that it is not possible to know, which is not something he knows, and the recognition that one does not know, between human and divine wisdom.

Far too often, we seem to read the modern rationalist vs empiricist debate back into Plato and Aristotle, which misses their deep connections. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Very true, just as, in an even more extreme way, many of the Wittgenstenians in these parts assume that if you disagree with them you must be following Russell.

Interestingly, he points to Ockham and Scotus as the end of the classical metaphysical tradition and the birth of "subject/object" thinking and "problems of knowledge"... — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is probably a complementarity here between Gerson and Perl given the way Gerson will identify those later themes in earlier thinkers (e.g. materialism in the atomists).

But eidos isn't invoked as an expedient for justifying a political system. Quite the opposite, Socrates only looks at justice within the context of a city to help pull out the nature of justice vis-á-vis the individual, and the philosopher king is analogous to the rule of the rational part of the soul. The exposition begins as a response to Glaucon's challenge re the "good in itself," not as a means of advancing a political position.

Eidos is also key to the explanation in Letter VII of why metaphysics cannot be written about in the way that Dionysius of Syracuse is attempting. In context, Plato is clearly not making a blanket pronouncement against anything that might be considered a "doctrine." You can hardly come away from his corpus with the idea that he thinks, "well, being led by the pleasures of the flesh and ruled over instinct is all well and good. After all, we cannot know the Good, so we cannot really say that the rational part of the soul has greater authority." He is instead referring to the core of his metaphysics, which the following paragraphs reference directly in explaining why he cannot produce a dissertation on such things. Nonetheless, such things may indeed be shared "after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together," when "suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself."

Eidos shows up throughout the dialogues, in the Euthyphro, the Meno, Greater Hippias, Phaedo, etc. and relates to the core issue brought up by Parmenides re the Many and the One/the intelligibility of being. E.g., "Are not those who are just, just by justice? … Therefore this, justice, is something [ἔστι τι τοῦτο,
ἡ δικαιοσύνη]? … Then those who are wise are wise by wisdom and all good things are good by the good … And these are somethings [οὖσί γέ τισι τούτοις]? For indeed it can’t be that they are not … Then are not all beautiful things beautiful by the beautiful? … And this is something [ὄντι γέ τινι τούτῳ]” (Gr. Hip. 287c1–d2)." It is not something invoked as a political expedient.


Anyhow, to quote Gerald Press: “We can surely say that if Plato did not intend for his readers to attribute to him belief in the truth of these and many other propositions [e.g., that pleasure is not the good or that forms are objects of knowledge] then he failed miserably… The anti mouthpiece camp must hold that the history of Platonism rests upon a colossal mistake … If Plato intended to promulgate ἀπορία or suspension of belief based upon balanced opposite assertions, he was a spectacular failure." We can add here that this view also entails that Aristotle, Plato's prize pupil who studied closely with the man for two decades, would then also have completely misunderstood him.

The philosopher, like the poets and theologians, deals in likely stories. They too are myth makers. They do not bring truth and light to the cave, They too are puppet-makers, makers of images that by the light of the cave cast shadows on its walls. — Fooloso4

From what I have read so far, Plotinus uses myth to express aspects of his system, not as a "likeness" to help with what cannot be directly experienced. For example:

The souls of men, seeing their images in the mirror of Dionysus as it were, have entered into that realm in a leap downward from the Supreme: yet even they are not cut off from their origin, from the divine Intellect; it is not that they have come bringing the Intellectual Principle down in their fall; it is that though they have descended even to earth, yet their higher part holds for ever above the heavens.

Their initial descent is deepened since that mid-part of theirs is compelled to labour in care of the care-needing thing into which they have entered. But Zeus, the father, takes pity on their toils and makes the bonds in which they labour soluble by death and gives respite in due time, freeing them from the body, that they too may come to dwell there where the Universal Soul, unconcerned with earthly needs, has ever dwelt. — Plotinus, Fourth Ennead, Tractate 3, Section 12 12

The soul being able to see itself in reflection is understood within a universal structure. The architecture for this was taken up by Augustine and developed into his view of a person. In that way, Plotinus is an ancestor of modern psychology. One can detect an embryonic formation of Descartes in:

When we exercise intellection upon ourselves, we are, obviously, observing an intellective nature, for otherwise we would not be able to have that intellection. — ibid. III. 9. 3

But eidos isn't invoked as an expedient for justifying a political system. Quite the opposite, Socrates only looks at justice within the context of a city to help pull out the nature of justice vis-á-vis the individual, and the philosopher king is analogous to the rule of the rational part of the soul. The exposition begins as a response to Glaucon's challenge re the "good in itself," not as a means of advancing a political position. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Knowledge of the Forms is the justification for the rule of the philosopher. The analogy with the soul is problematic absent knowledge in the soul. This is not to say that reason should not rule the soul but without knowledge we must rely on what seems best to us. Hence the emphasis on moderation developed through a musical education and upbringing.

What happens to Socrates as the hands of the city points to the importance of political philosophy. The city's animosity to philosophy means that the philosopher must receive a political education in the sense of learning how to live and philosophize within the city without invoking the wraith of the city. The philosopher must take on the role of benefactor. This includes telling stories about the good that are good for them.

Eidos shows up throughout the dialogues ... — Count Timothy von Icarus

It does, but the meaning of the term as it was commonly understood includes 'look', 'kind', and 'idea'. It is thus not some thing that exists on its own in some intelligible world but how something appears or seems to be for us. The myth of Forms attempts to resolve disagreement regarding opinions about things like justice, beauty, and the good by going beyond how they appear to us with claims about how they are in themselves as known to the philosophers. Such philosophers are not the philosophers of the Symposium who desire to be wise but are not. Philosophers who are in this regard not like Socrates.

Then those who are wise are wise by wisdom and all good things are good by the good … And these are somethings ... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Compare this to what he says in the Phaedo:

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.”

(100e)

He calls the hypothesis of Forms (100a) simple, naive, and perhaps foolish, and later "safe and ignorant". (105 b)

This is surprising given that this occurs in a discussion in which he is attempting to persuade his friends that death is something good for those who are good in part based on recollection of the Forms.

After introducing the “Socratic Trinity”, the Just, the Beautiful, and the Good. (65d) But he says nothing of them, and for very good reason:

“… if we can know nothing purely in the body's company, then one of two things must be true: either knowledge is nowhere to be gained, or else it is for the dead.”

(66e)

In the Apology he says:

... to be dead is one of two things: either the dead person is nothing and has no perception of anything, or [death] happens to be, as it is said, a change and a relocation or the soul from this place here to another place

(40c).

If the dead are nothing then there is no recollection of the Forms. If knowledge is not for the dead because the dead are nothing then knowledge is nowhere to be gained.

If Plato intended to promulgate ἀπορία ... — Count Timothy von Icarus

He doesn't. Aporia is the result of our lack of knowledge. If one is to strive to know, however, coming face to face with one's lack of knowledge is a necessary step if one is to be disabused on the assumption that he already knows.

We can add here that this view also entails that Aristotle, Plato's prize pupil who studied closely with the man for two decades, would then also have completely misunderstood him. — Count Timothy von Icarus

To the contrary. I think he did understand him. He understood the difference and made use of the distinction between salutary public speech, which is to say political speech, and what those who were well suited discussed in private.

Plotinus is an ancestor of modern psychology. — Paine

It would be interesting if you traced this,fleshed it out and developed it.

When we exercise intellection upon ourselves, we are, obviously, observing an intellective nature, for otherwise we would not be able to have that intellection. — ibid. III. 9. 3

There is a kind of anthropomorphism at work here. Because we have intellect and use it in an effort to make the world intelligible, the world must not only be intelligible it must be the work of intelligence. That the whole is intelligible, however, remains an open question.

That fairly points to the limits of my thought experiment. — Paine

Okay, so from the "Aristotle's Metaphysics" thread:

Before going into the details of what Aristotle said or did not say, I would like to think about Rorty as the poster child for what Gerson militates against. Rorty is baldly "historicist" in his description of the 'end of philosophy'. I agree with Gerson that Rorty is too general and reductive in how the practice is conceived. But is Rorty the best exemplar of what Gerson opposes? I have been questioning the unity imparted by Gerson upon classical texts in previous discussions. The assumed unity of what is being opposed by Gerson needs some consideration. — Paine

From this I am led to believe that you agree with Gerson's larger project, but disagree regarding his specific means. So I am wondering 1) How you would go about opposing this Rorty-esque approach to philosophy, and 2) Whether you think Gerson's "Platonists" were opposing the same sort of thing in their own day?

It would be interesting if you traced this,fleshed it out and developed it. — Fooloso4

That would require re-reading Augustine yet again. I will have to think about taking on such a project. My knees hurt in the morning. I will check out scholarship along those lines.

There is a kind of anthropomorphism at work here — Fooloso4

Well, that brings up an often-overlooked feature in Plotinus. The different kinds of life are seen as different distances from the One. The difference in De Anima, marked out between humans and other animals as what humans have but the others do not, is not expressed in Plotinus as creatures of a specific kind. They are different formations of soul sinking to various depths of descent into the negation of the intellect.

I am far from agreeing with Gerson's larger project but consider your questions worthy of response.

I will think about them.

There is a kind of anthropomorphism at work here. — Fooloso4

Eric Perl's book, that @Count Timothy von Icarus mentioned, analyses this in detail in Chapter 2, Plato. He says the levels of being ought not to be reified as levels of externally-existing realities, but levels of understanding:

If the levels of reality are levels of presentation and apprehension, then the many ‘ascents’ in the dialogues, the images of ‘going to’ the forms or true being, express not a passage from one ‘world,’ one set of objects, to another, but rather, as Plato repeatedly indicates, the ascent of the soul, a psychic, cognitive ascent, from one mode of apprehension to another, and hence not from one reality to a different reality, but from appearance to reality. This, above all, is why Plato’s metaphysics is no mere ‘theory,’ a postulation of abstract entities called ‘forms,’ but is rather an account of the existential condition of human beings. As Socrates says, the prisoners in the cave, seeing shadows of puppets and taking them for reality, are “like us” (Rep. 515a5).

In the Phaedrus, Socrates likens the soul to a pair of winged horses and their charioteer, and describes its ‘journey,’ following the Gods, to “the place above the sky” (Phdr. 247c3).

What occupies this place … is colorless and shapeless and intangible, really real reality [οὐσία ὄντως οὖσα], visible [θεατὴ] to intellect alone, the soul’s steersman,about which is the kind of knowledge that is true.Now the thought of a God is nourished by intellect and undefiled knowledge, as is that of every soul which cares to take in what is appropriate; seeing [ἰδοῦσα] at last that which is (τὸ ὄν) it rejoices, and beholding the true [θεωροῦσα τἀληθῆ] it is nourished and delights … In its circuit [the soul] looks upon [καθορᾷ] justice itself, it looks upon moderation, it looks upon knowledge, not that which pertains to becoming … but the real [οὖσαν] knowledge concerning that which is really being [τῷ ὅ ἐστιν ὂν ὄντως]. And having beheld and feasted on the other things likewise that really are [τὰ ὄντα ὄντως], going back inside the sky, it comes home. (Phdr. 247c3–e4)

The strongly visual imagery and the references to a “place” may incline us to read this as a voyage to ‘another world.’ But Socrates has already warned us that he is telling not “what the soul actually is” but rather “what it is like” (246a5) and later expressly refers to this story as a “mythic hymn” (265c1). The “place above the sky” is not in fact a place, since what is ‘there’ has no shape or color, is not bodily at all. Rather, the flight is a mythic representation of the psychic,cognitive attainment of an intellectual apprehension of the intelligible identities, ‘themselves by themselves,’ that inform and are displayed by, or appear in, sensible things. — Perl, Thinking Being, Chap 2, Plato, Pp 38-39

So the reason that these are described in mythical terms, does not mean, as you seem insist, dismissing them as 'merely mythical' or aspirational:

The story of the Forms remains just that, a story, not something he knows. — Fooloso4

Could it be that this is because you yourself don't understand what is intended by the 'eidos' and you're then reading this absence into the texts? That Socrates is not telling us 'what the soul actually is' because it can't be told, it has to be discerned - and that will always be a first-person insight, not something that can be subject to re-telling.

As far as the relationship between Plotinus, levels of being, and psychology - let's not forget the Greek name for the soul is translated as 'psyche'. Psychology is then 'the science of soul', except that 'soul' has fallen into disfavour because of the supernatural overtones. But then a lot of these conversations have the rejection of the supernatural lurking underneath them, like a shoal just beneath the waterline.

Anyway a couple of books I have noticed about these subjects (and there really are multitudes of books) are:

Augustine's Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist, Philip Cary

Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death, Richard Sorabji

Also worth noting in passing that Schopenhauer's appropriation of the eidos in his World as Will and Idea was one of the primary philosophical sources for Freud's theory of the unconscious. Books include works like "Freud and Philosophy" by Paul Ricœur and "Schopenhauer and Freud" by David Cartwright. And then, of course, Jung's archetypes are not at all hard to integrate with Platonic forms. So really the 'levels of self/levels of being' is a perennial theme in philosophy East and West.

If the letter is legitimate, why do you think Plato refrains from saying anything like: "I maintain that these things are unknowable, and I myself do not pretend to know them," etc.? Why does he instead talk about how the nature of knowledge vis-á-vis intelligible form is something that cannot be shared in writing rather just coming out and saying "I can't write about what I don't know about?" And then why would he imply that much conversation and a shared life can allow people to share this sort of knowledge if he himself has never experienced anything of the sort?

I find it hard to see how the skeptical Plato survives if Plato wrote the letter. At any rate, I think you are confusing "myths and images" as a vehicle for/aid to attaining knowledge with all knowledge being of myths and images alone.



:up:

Perl's take is in line with Robert Wallace, D.C. Schindler, and a number of other people I like on Plato. It seems to me that people who tend to think of the forms as existing in a magical "spirit realm" are generally hostile to Plato. I am not sure if it is their bad take on Plato that makes them hostile, or if they have a bad take because they only look at the surface level images because they are hostile to his way of thinking. It is probably a mix of both. More skeptical versions of Plato on the other hand seem more born of literalism, and in some cases a lack of imagination.

The Cary approach seems to consider the dynamic I proposed.

It seems to me that people who tend to think of the forms as existing in a magical "spirit realm" are generally hostile to Plato. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Actually it's a consequence of what Maritain diagnoses as the cultural impact of empiricism, in an essay of that name. An example I've often given is from a Smithsonian Institute essay What is Math? which considers attitudes towards Platonic realism in mathematics from an empiricist point of view:

Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.

Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?

There is actually a sensible answer to that rhetorical question, which is that empiricism is indispensable for all practical purposes. But in effect it has displaced metaphysics, or is mistakenly taken to be a metaphysic when it is really an heuristic or a method. That's why the yardstick for what is real is often said to be what is 'out there somewhere' - in fact, even that essay says 'Some scholars feel very strongly that mathematical truths are “out there,” waiting to be discovered.' Notice the use of 'out there' as shorthand for 'what is real' - if it exists, it can only exist as phenomena, as something that can be discerned by sense or instruments of sense. That is where the mistake of the 'ethereal realm' or 'spirit realm' originates, as there is no conceptual space for different kinds or levels of being. As you say, it's a complete failure of the imagination, bred into us by centuries of empiricist conditioning.

The Cary approach seems to consider the dynamic I proposed. — Paine

Hence why I recommended it!