So a person living at one time, looking back hundreds of years toward the source, trying to understand the true meaning of the myth, would have to make an attempt to account for all the intermediate changes. This would require determining the cultural conditions of that intermediary time which influenced the interpretations. For Plato this was to determine how the myth was transported from its origins to its current position. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's exactly what I'm saying. We are the recipients of a worldview in which mental and physical appear to be in different dimensions. This conflict pervades the philosophy of our time. The emotional generator at its heart is a conflict between religion and science. There is no evidence that this conflict existed during the iron age, and there is persuasive evidence from historian Moses Finley that the opposite was the case.

Finley's analysis of the works of Homer indicate that the iron age Greek and eastern mediterranean view would seem to us to be like the psyche turned inside out, with motivations being generated by external forces instead of within individual minds and hearts. So Plato inherited a worldview in which (what we call) ideas were cast about the world around and within us. This is the setting of his works. The fact that he nods in the direction of near eastern thought strengthens this view.

The perspective of "history" does none of this, looking only at material artifacts, to make some general conclusions about people and cultures. So it provides a very much inferior way of looking at the ideas of ancient people — Metaphysician Undercover

The works of Homer are the most important source for understanding the iron age outlook because it was held in such high esteem down through the time of Plato and beyond. We know that copies of Plato's works are extremely rare. Apparently not even a rich, educated person would own a single dialog, but that same rich man would more than likely own the works of Homer. So as opposed to imagining that Plato is talking directly to you (which is easy and enjoyable to do), if we want to understand how it would have been taken at the time, we should imagine Plato speaking to an iron age resident. And that's where Finley comes in. His analysis of Greek thought has become the standard for historians of thought.

A resident of the iron age would not have understood what we mean by "physical." Missing the battle between church and science that shapes our understanding, our meaning wouldn't translate.

No, I do not see that as a mistake. This is because truths are timeless, eternal as some say, and comprehensible to all subjects. So, what was relevant 2400 years ago is relevant today. That's what really impressed me when I first picked up Plato years ago, because I had to for school. I thought, what's the relevance of this ancient stuff, until I read it. And it blew me away because it all seemed so relevant. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you found it relevant because to some extent, you created it. There's nothing wrong with that, though. I did the same thing until I studied the history of the time in which it was written.

Do you agree that it's a mistake to project our own mental/physical division on the dialogs? That distinction, so embedded in our own worldview, didn't exist around 2400 years ago. If they thought of the realm of the gods or Hades, they thought of concrete places. Likewise, the forms weren't thought of as vaporous categories. They're actually part of the makeup of the world around us.

The process for qualifying a person for donation takes time. Tests have to be run, a pulmonologist needs to do a bronchoscopy if the lungs are candidates, probably an echocardiogram for the heart, and so on.

If a victim of a motor vehicle accident comes into an emergency department and there's no time to get consent before the patient dies, there's no time to test the organs to make sure they're not going to make life worse for the recipient.

In other words, if you have time to qualify them, you have time to get consent, usually. It would be rare that you don't.

Ultimately, morality is a matter of public opinion and it doesn't have to be logical.

What bothers me about this discussion is that it sounds characteristic of the arrogance of the NIH. They have a history of ignoring morality, as when large numbers of women were denied epidurals for childbirth based on some idiot's opinion that it's not necessary, or the case where they denied transport of a child to the US for heart surgery because some idiot thought the patient was too sick to travel. The patient subsequently died.

For all it's faults, that's one good thing about the American system. Between competition between hospitals and the courts, providers are very attuned to what society thinks is right.

A popular theory is they were looking for a drug dealer and mistook Nichols for that person. Otherwise, you're right that cops don't usually randomly stop people, turn off their body cams and kill them for no reason.

If these cops had been white, that's what people would have said, that it was just racism. The fact that they're all black highlights the dire need we have for police reform and the weight of the federal government to make it happen. House Democrats are going to try again to do something about it, we'll see if Republicans block it, again

I was saying that we should exchange views on what the dependent nature of oppositions says about the theory of forms. I'm no longer interested in doing that, though.

Peace out. :smile:

Your turn — Fooloso4

I don't know what you're asking. You said the Cyclic Argument is about physical things, but since it's about the Soul, that would mean you think Plato's Soul is a physical thing.

I don't think we have any common ground from which to proceed, so vaya con dios!

The word "physical" is in the dialogues?

What is bigger comes from what is smaller. — Fooloso4

That's not what the Cyclic Argument is saying.

The argument refers to things not Forms. What is bigger comes from what is smaller. — Fooloso4

And a "thing" is what?

. That's why destroying the unions was so high on Reagan's priorites. With the unions demonized and decimated, and the labor party out of the way, here begins the era of the Washington consensus — Mikie

Partly. But Reagan was the real deal. He read Hayek's Road to Serfdom, and Hayek was one of his favorite thinkers. I don't think you can really understand what Reagan did and said without knowing that he really believed this shit.

Yes. And then there's my all time favorite Platonic argument: the Cyclic Argument, which shows that there can be no "bigger" without the preceding "smaller".

So tell me how you resolve this, and I'll tell you how I've always done it.

The problem is that if each Form is one, singular and distinct, then we must confront the problem of dyads. Bigger is unintelligible without smaller, same is not intelligible without different. So too, equal cannot be separated from unequal. — Fooloso4

Big and small are two sides of one coin. So the forms could be Size, Equality, and so forth.

There is nothing in empirical existence which directly corresponds with '='. — Wayfarer

"Empirical" is a kind of knowledge. There is no "empirical existence." But you can certainly learn empirically that two things are equal.

We should take seriously the fact that Plato is only mentioned in a few places in the dialogues and never speaks. — Fooloso4

If you like, do something with that. I'd be more prone to seeing the early works as attempts to let Socrates speak, although that view is questionable. Later, his own views come into bloom.

There are two reasons to see the dialogues, as a whole, as Plato's views: one is that using Socrates as a mouthpiece was common at the time, and the second is that Plato was a genius.

A reason for being suspect about the written account is that we know there was apparently an unwritten teaching. Only the most arrogant, half-witted, butthead of a fool would propose to tell us what that teaching was, though, as much as the fool might suspect she knows.

now almost universally accepted, that Plato was properly to be understood from his own dialogues, not from or through anyone else. — Christopher Rowe

Interesting thing about that is that the authenticity of each of the dialogues has been called into question at some time or another. We only have best guesses as to which ones are really written by Plato and which ones are not.

Secondly, in the case of many of the dialogues, our oldest manuscripts are from the 9th Century AD. We have no way to verify which words were actually used by Plato and which were supplied by an overly imaginative monk.

For both of these reasons, it's a good idea to be timid about assigning views to Plato, especially if our interpretation hangs in a single word, like "hypothesis.". A much better approach is to signal that "this is what I get out of it "

Actually the "idea" got reduced to the way that the word may be used. — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting. What are the advantages of doing that? It seems absurd at face value.

If the word may be used in any way one wants, then how is it that the idea of equality is not arbitrary? Put it this way, there's a word I can use, "equal", to assign a relation between two things, the relationship of "equality". I can assign that relationship to any two things I want. How is it that the meaning of this idea "equality" is not completely arbitrary? What it means to be equal could be anything I want. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you're saying the idea reduces to the word, which can be used as one wishes. If we generalize this, we'll have a form of behaviorism on our hands. Is that what you were driving toward?

I agree. At first glance, it appears to me like "equal" is a completely arbitrary designation. But such a designation must be justifiable, so it requires a reason. — Metaphysician Undercover

The word "equal" is not a form. The idea, equality, is. The idea isn't arbitrary, though the word may be used in any manner one wants.

Any basis for your response to fooloso4's posts. If you say they're neo-platonic, or Protestant. then produce an argument for that. As for 'having one religion based on Platonism', aside from being a pretty big claim, it doesn't amount to any kind of argument, either. — Wayfarer

I was just asking him to specify that what he's expressing is his own interpretation. He's done that, so we can move on as far as I'm concerned. I don't know why we're beating this dead horse.

I never claimed that what he's saying is early or late Neoplatonism, and I don't know why that confusion persists.

But, it should go without saying, this is not the only way to interpret a text or even a Platonic text. — Fooloso4

I don't think it goes without saying, and I don't know why you appear to be upset about mentioning it.

You already admitted that you were offering a personal interpretation, so whether it qualifies as neoplatonism is a moot point.

You already admitted that you were offering a personal interpretation, so whether it qualifies as neoplatonism is a moot point.

This makes no sense. You claimed that my interpretation is a brand of neoplatonism. You have not been able to make an argument in defense of that claim. Now you claim it's a moot point. It is not a moot point, unless by moot you mean nonsense. — Fooloso4

You did admit that what you expressed was your own personal interpretation of Plato. That's the point I was making.

I think we've derailed the thread long enough, but if your point is that novel interpretations of Plato shouldn't be called neoplatonic because it cause confusion, then fine.

I did say Fooloso was expressing a brand of neoplatonism. For some reason, that wasn't enough to make the distinction clear. Let's drop it, now

A pretty good translation of what he said. — Paine

If you have an actual point relevant to the topic, feel free to make it.

Yeah, whatever.

:up:

So, maybe be less ready to accuse others of intellectual dishonesty since you are not interested in supporting your own opinions. — Paine

I don't even know what you're talking about. :meh:

You could label it this way, but who else labels it this way? Unless you can cite this as established usage by historians it means no more than that you can label anything any way you want. — Fooloso4

You already admitted that you were offering a personal interpretation, so whether it qualifies as neoplatonism is a moot point.

frank
I sense a lack of interest in my challenges. — Paine

You sense correctly.

I am curious enough to check him out — Paine

:up: He's awesome. Enjoy.

If you want to know about late neoplatonism, look up Ficino.

You didn't know there was early and late neoplatonism?

the term is commonly used to refer to philosophers in the "Hellenistic" period. — Paine

That's early neoplatonism. The younger version is associated with the Renaissance. But any novel interpretation could be labeled "a brand of neoplatonism.".

Of course my interpretation is my interpretation! — Fooloso4

:clap:

I don't see that at all — Wayfarer

Don't see what?

I think it's almost universally taken to be something like shape - — Wayfarer

I take them to be what we would call ideas. Your visual field is made up of lines and shades. You use ideas to make sense of it. Or you could say that the object you see is a fusion of idea and light.

Heidegger wrote about how this works in the Origin of the Work of Art.

We've already got one religion based on Plato. We don't need another one.

In the Phaedrus Socrates compares the well written work to a living animal with each part having a function working together to form a whole. This tells us how a well written work should be read - as a whole, with each part having its function working together in a particular way to form that whole. On the assumption that the Platonic dialogues are well written works, Plato himself tells us how they are to be read. — Fooloso4

It's the difference between theology and religion studies. Theology presents interpretations. Religion studies just sticks to what we've got and tries to fit the work into the era in which it was written.

Your approach to Plato is like the theological approach where you're using your own intuitions to guide you in arriving at a meaning. In particular, this is a Protestant approach.

An academic approach to Plato would not settle in any one interpretation, but would just explain what we know about the times and the various ways Plato has been interpreted since.

For obvious reasons, it's extremely important to mark out this kind of distinction. If you're going to interpret, that's great. I truly welcome that and think we should all be doing that. Philosophy comes alive in this way.

But I'm sure you agree that each of us needs to be honest and say, "This is my interpretation."

So any interpretation of Plato that presents a cohesive narrative is neoplatonist? — Fooloso4

Any interpretation of Plato that presents a cohesive narrative could be described as "a brand of neoplatonism."