I am convinced of the importance of just law, but not that he is the slave (West translation) of the law. — Fooloso4

I've still to read through all the posts and re-read Crito.
However, this latest made me wonder as to the importance of the use of the word 'slave'.

I don't know why Horan translates it as servant, but possibly because a servant is able to leave (51d). — Fooloso4

That's a very good question - and what difference does it make to our reading or understanding?
As to the choices available to Socrates or anyone in life, how much freedom do we really have?
When we can imagine, or research, any alternative life does it fit with who we are, or think we are? What would convince us that it would be better to leave - 'the grass is always greener' - (slave to emotion?). Or to stay - 'no matter where you go, there you are' - (mastery of self?).
Master/Slave is a mental system, no?

[Another thing, could this be related to the old dichotomy of female(emotion)/male(reason). With all the male characters, dancing and fighting, in Plato's dialogues, how much 'eros' is present?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-friendship/#toc ]

Laws of the state change from just to unjust and back again.
When it comes to civil rights, the speed at which change occurs can be excruciatingly slow (to build and progress) or appallingly quick (to destroy and regress). How much control does the individual have? What is at stake for present and future generations? What is Plato's overall agenda re Philosophy?[*]

***

I looked for the West translation you mentioned earlier (did you leave a link?)
This morning, I found this free downloadable pdf:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1023142

Socrates of Athens: Euthyphro, Socrates' Defense, Crito and the Death Scene from Phaedo
58 Pages
Cathal Woods
Virginia Wesleyan College; Virginia Wesleyan University
Ryan Pack
Virginia Wesleyan College

A quick search through 'Crito' (starts p44/58), the word 'slave' is mentioned 3 times:
At 50e, 52d and 53e.

***

[*] Crito, then can be seen as the Emotional beaten by the Rational (Socrates). Nevertheless, here we have the art/creativity of the dialogue along with logical steps/argument process and... a barely mentioned spiritual element. The presence of Socrates' daimonion?

Plato incorporates all. The struggles between the master and slave; state and the individual; art and logic. Drama and humour. Mind, body and soul. The whole and the interrelated parts. Tragedy and comedy.
Doesn't the start of philosophy lie in the wondering...and communicating...I suppose 'eros'...?

Plato’s views on love are a meditation on Socrates and the power his philosophical conversations have to mesmerize, obsess, and educate. — SEP - Plato on Friendship and Eros

Glad you liked it!

Silghtly off-topic I suppose, but I've found these sorts of Aristotelian "human good" accounts of morality, which I take you to be espousing, to be persuasive recently so I would like to ask whether you have made some posts previously elaborating and maybe formalizing these views to any larger extent? If not, are there any resources you would recommend for seeking out these views - both their proponents and critics?

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the tradition. I've written some very general summaries I'll share below.

In terms of going deeper, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue is one of the more influential works comparing the classical/medieval tradition and modern ethics. His thesis is that most modern moral discourse is not truly reasoned, but emotive and rationalized after the fact. That means that systems that appear to have rational principles are in fact voluntaristic frameworks disguised as rational. Misology is a big problem here. Reason is said not to apply to many different areas, and so reason loses its coherence and relation to the whole.

It can be a little dry and "gets into the weeds," at times, but overall, it is quite accessible. A big point of his is that Nietzche's critique of ethics, so popular in our times, seems spot on for Kant, Hume, etc. (Enlightenment ethics) but doesn't really touch the older tradition. I found myself mostly agreeing with this. Nietzsche tends to deal with strawman versions of Plato and other older thinkers (or more charitably, how those thinkers are seen popularly in his time) and I don't think he adequately addresses some of the big challenges they have for his philosophy, particularly the need for reflexive "inner" freedom, and the ways in which our polis is prior to our personal identity.

Another really good one is Robert M. Wallace's Philosophical Mysticism in Plato, Hegel, and the Present, which is a fairly short and accessible book that lays out the classical idea of freedom (grounding ethics) quite well. For the ancients and medievals, freedom is perfected in actuality. Whereas today, we tend to look at freedom more in terms of potentiality, the freedom to "choose between."

The ancients certainly saw choice as part of freedom. However, consider that no one would seem to want to knowingly choose what is bad for them. If someone knows something to be evil or worse, there is a sense in which they will always choose the better if they are able. Thus, freedom is perfected in the actuality to choose the Good, not in the mere potentiality to choose anything. A person who choses the worse/evil is in some way constrained, be it by being disordered (Plato's civil war within the soul), having defective reason, or being in some way ignorant of what is truly best.

The relation between knowledge and freedom is crucial for the ancients. Plotinus' use of the story of Oedipus in the Enneads is instructive here. Sophocles’ Oedipus is in many ways a model of freedom. He is powerful, a king, competent, and wise. Yet he ends up doing the very thing he has been seeking to avoid his entire life, killing his father, due to a truth that lies outside his understanding. Here, we might also consider Homer's Achilles. Achilles is considered praiseworthy because he chooses a glorious death rather than a long but inglorious life. Such a choice requires that Achillesknow his options. Were Achilles to simply blunder into his death, he would be much less a hero, more a pathetic victim of a fate that lied outside his understanding

Then, for a look at the metaphysical shift the undercut Aristotle, Joshua Hochschild's look at the rise of nominalism in late-medieval scholastic philosophy is good: https://www.academia.edu/36162636/What_s_Wrong_with_Ockham_Reassessing_the_Role_of_Nominalism_in_the_Dissolution_of_the_West

Finally, there are D.C. Schindler's two books comparing the classical and medieval tradition with modernity: Freedom from Reality and Retrieving Freedom. The first looks at modern notions of freedom and ethics, primarily using Locke as an exemplar, and then compares it to Plato and Aristotle. You could probably skip to the Plato and Aristotle chapters and still get a lot of value. The second traces the evolution of the tradition through Plotinus, St. Augustine, Boethius, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, and St. Aquinas, before looking at how it was supplanted. Schindler has really strong analysis, but at times gets a little "preachy," or seems to undervalue many of the good things about modernity that help enhance freedom. I think this might turn off some readers. Wallace's work as the benefit of being shorter and lacking this element, although it doesn't go as deep into the Aristotelian tradition.

Schindler is someone who has worked in Catholic philosophy his entire life, and so whether he means to or not he tends to often write for his particular audience. This doesn't detract from the good analysis, but it can be grating at times.

In terms of primary sources, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy is fantastic and a good synthesis of Plato, Aristotle, Neoplatonism, and the Christian philosophical tradition. Aristotle's ethics is also quite accessible too if a bit dry. For Plato, I might put the Republic and Phaedrus up to. Maybe Symposium too. The Sophist/Statesman too, but those get much more "into the weeds."

I'll try to get to the other questions later. Here are my attempts at very briefly summarizing key distinctions in Aristotle, although they necessarily miss out on quite a lot. Ancient and medieval ethics tend to be unified to epistemology and metaphysics. Hence, it's hard to give an adequate exposition of the part without the whole. They would almost certainly best be classified as "objective" though, although ethics contains subjective and socially constructed elements for Plato and Aristotle for sure.

Aristotle defines the human good in terms of the Greek term "eudaimonia." This term has been famously difficult to translate, corresponding to some blend of the English terms "happiness," "flourishing," and "well-being." Given the difficulties in defining this term, it may be helpful to first investigate what eudaimonia is not.

In Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that pleasure, honor, and virtue are not equivalent to eudaimonia. Rather, these three are subordinate means of achieving eudaimonia, in the same way that “bridle making… [is] subordinate to horsemanship.”1 They are “lower ends… pursued for the sake of the higher,” i.e., eudaimonia.2

Aristotle calls the life spent pursuing pleasure “completely slavish… a life for grazing animals.”3 Pleasure is a “good of the body,” while eudaimonia is a “good of the soul,” unique to man because it requires reason.4 Pleasure is temporary, while eudaimonia must be measured across a lifetime.”*5 While “a truly good… person… will bear the strokes of fortune suitably,” a hedonist will fall into misery if their fortunes change.6 Neither is eudaimonia equivalent to honor. Those who seek honor wish to be honored for being virtuous. Thus, “in their view… virtue is superior [to honor].”7 Virtue cannot be equivalent with eudaimonia either, for one may be virtuous, yet still “suffer the worst evils and misfortunes.”8

Having said what eudaimonia is not, let us now turn to what it is. Eudaimonia is a self-sufficient cause for action, admitting no ancillary considerations. “Honor, pleasure… and every virtue we certainly choose because of themselves… but we also choose them… [so that] we shall [achieve eudaimonia ] .”9 However, “we always choose [ eudaimonia] because of itself, never for the sake of something else.”10 Other candidates for "the human good," (e.g. virtue, pleasure, etc.) cannot be equivalent to eudaimonia if what is true of eudaimonia is not true of them.

For Aristotle, eudaimonia is “activity of the soul in accord with virtue.”11 It is the development of what is unique to man: reason. Excellence in reason allows man to make good choices and turn his desires towards good aims. Virtue is a “necessary condition for eudaimonia ,” while honor and pleasure may be “cooperative instruments” that aid eudaimonia, but they are not eudaimonia itself. 12 We praise honor and justice, which bring eudaimonia about, but instead celebrate eudaimonia , as it is the greatest good we hope to achieve.13

What sort of life then best fulfills man's unique telos? This would be the life of theôria or "contemplation."14 For it is the contemplation of truth that is "best," and "the pleasantest of the virtuous activities."15 Further, it is theôria that is most unique to man as the "rational animal," and thus most indicative of man's telos. Such a life is also preferable because it is reason that is the most "divine" characteristic of man. Pursuit of reason is what allows us "to make ourselves divine" "as far as we can," and "live in accordance with the best thing in us."16 That said, Aristotle allows that other forms of life can nevertheless result in eudaimonia, it will just not be the highest form of it. **

---
*For Aristotle, happiness might even be judged beyond a lifetime, involving what happens to one’s descendants, i.e. Solon's pronouncement that we must "count no man happy until the end is known."

** In Book X, it seems we can see more of Plato's influence on Aristotle; this corresponds more with the Phaedo.

1 Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Book I, Chapter I § 4.
2 Ibid. Book I, Chapter I § 4
3 Ibid. Book I, Chapter V, § 3
4 Ibid. Book I, Chapter VII, § 2-3
5 Ibid. Book I, Chapter VII, § 5
6 Ibid. Book I, Chapter VII, § 5
7 Ibid. Book I, Chapter V, § 6
8 Ibid. Book I, Chapter VII, § 5
9 Ibid. Book I, Chapter VII, § 5
10 Ibid. Book I, Chapter IX, § 7
^11^Ibid. Book I, Chapter IX, § 7
^12^Ibid. Book I, Chapter IX, § 7
^13^Ibid. Book I, Chapter XII § 4
14 Ibid. Book X, Chapter 7 § 1
15 Ibid. Book X, Chapter 7 § 2
16 Ibid. Book X, Chapter 7 § 3
17 Ibid. Book X, Chapter 8 § 1


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Aristotle's arguement that the virtues are more similar to crafts than natural faculties (e.g. sight) hinges on how we come to possess the virtues. For Aristotle, the virtues are a type of habit. For instance, if we are generous, this means that we are in the habit of acting generously. Such habits can be ingrained in an individual through repeated action. Natural properties of objects can not be "trained" in this way. For example, Aristotle notes that it is not possible to train a rock into having the propensity to fall upwards simply by throwing it upwards repeatedly. Since nothing in nature can be trained to act against its nature, Aristotle concludes that the virtues are neither contrary to human nature, nor a product of it.

For Aristotle, one can become more brave by acting bravely in perilous situations and habituating oneself to overcoming fear. That is, we develop the virtue by practicing it. This is not the case for natural faculties. For example, we do not come to see or hear by often engaging in the acts of seeing or hearing. Rather, we see and hear by nature, and doing more seeing or hearing neither improves nor degrades either faculty.

By contrast, we do seem to learn the virtues in the same way we learn crafts. For example, a man learns to build houses by participating in the act of building houses in the same way that a man can learn to be prudent by regularly taking time to carefully assess situations before forming a judgement about them. Likewise, crafts can be taught, and it also seems possible to teach the virtues.

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Aristotle uses the concepts of the continent and incontinent person to develop a distinction in the ways people end up pursuing vices. Some people do not believe that their vices are immoral. Perhaps they were raised in a bad environment and have come to see cheating as a proper means to an end, or to see licentiousness and gluttony as natural routes to the "good life" of pleasure. These people do not perform their vices because they lack constraint, rather they do so because they have bad habits and believe engaging in vice to be proper behavior.

By contrast, the incontinent person knows their vices as vices. They will acknowledge that their sloth or gluttony is bad, and yet they are unable to exercise the self-control required to stop themselves from engaging in these vices. The incontinent person might even attempt to develop virtue, overcoming small temptations, and yet continually fail to overcome large ones - the triumph of appetite and passion over reason and virtue.

A continent person then, is one who is tempted by vice, but who acts in accordance with virtue and reason instead. They are not perfectly virtuous, for the person who is perfect in virtue enjoys being virtuous, but neither do they give in to vice. In the virtuous person, desire, reason, and action are in harmony, while in the continent person there is disharmony between desire on the one hand and reason and virtue on the other.

Aristotle notes that of these types, the incontinent person is the hardest to help. For the person raised in vice might reform if shown what is good, but the incontinent person already knows what is good and fails to do it.

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It's interesting to contrast Aristotle's view with that of modern thinkers who would have it that virtue lies precisely in following moral laws even when we don't desire to follow them. Afterall, where is the sacrifice or effort on our behalf if we are simply doing what we like?

I suppose the disagreement here probably lies in how virtue is defined. If virtue is those dispositions and skills needed to live a good life, then it would seem obvious that it is beneficial to enjoy doing what is good. However, if virtue is the ability to follow moral laws, then it seems like being able to override desire is more important than having right desires.

I tend to come down more with Aristotle. The good, meaningful life seems to entail freedom. One is freer if they do what they want than if they have to constantly wage war against themselves (e.g. St. Paul in Romans 7). I happened to come across a great line on this reading the Penguin Selected Works of Meister Eckhart last night: "[the just] person is free, and the closer they are to justice, the more they become freedom itself... For nothing created is free. As long as there is something above me which is not God, I am oppressed by it..." (German Sermon 3 on John 15:16)

Have you never heard of natural philosophy as a metaphysical tradition then? — apokrisis

But is it? Naturalism loosely concerns what can be known objectively, made subject to scientific hypotheses and measured mathematically. I don't see anything in that paper that really strays from that, although it extrapolates a rather speculative interpretation of what the scientific data really means or how it might be interpreted.

But consider this passage from one of the Platonic dialogues, the Phaedo, directly germane to this debate:

One day...Socrates happened to hear of Anaxagoras’ view that Mind directs and causes all things. He took this to mean that everything was arranged for the best. Therefore, if one wanted to know the explanation of something, one only had to know what was best for that thing. Suppose, for instance, that Socrates wanted to know why the heavenly bodies move the way they do. Anaxagoras would show him how this was the best possible way for each of them to be. And once he had taught Socrates what the best was for each thing individually, he then would explain the overall good that they all share in common. Yet upon studying Anaxagoras further, Socrates found these expectations disappointed. It turned out that Anaxagoras did not talk about Mind as cause at all, but rather about air and ether and other mechanistic explanations. For Socrates, however, this sort of explanation was simply unacceptable:

To call those things causes is too absurd. If someone said that without bones and sinews and all such things, I should not be able to do what I decided, he would be right, but surely to say that they are the cause of what I do, and not that I have chosen the best course, even though I act with my mind, is to speak very lazily and carelessly. Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause. (99a-b)

Frustrated at finding a teacher who would provide a teleological explanation of these phenomena, Socrates settled for what he refers to as his “second voyage” (99d). This new method consists in taking what seems to him to be the most convincing theory—the theory of Forms—as his basic hypothesis, and judging everything else in accordance with it. In other words, he assumes the existence of the Beautiful, the Good, and so on, and employs them as explanations for all the other things. If something is beautiful, for instance, the “safe answer” he now offers for what makes it such is “the presence of,” or “sharing in,” the Beautiful (100d). — Phaedo, IEP

I'm not going into exegesis of Plato here - there are many other threads that do that - but simply pointing out that the distinction between physical causation and what are described 'real causes' - why some course of action is taken, and not another. The kind of judgement that requires discriminative wisdom.

(This sentiment lived on in Aristotle's 'final causation', the end to which things are directed, which has on the whole has been rejected by modern philosophy as an example of teleological reasoning.)

The Salthe paper concludes:

...why is there anything? Because the universe is expanding faster than it can equilibrate. Why are there so many kinds of things? Because the universe is trying to simultaneously destroy as many different energy gradients as possible in its attempt to equilibrate.

To which a Platonist response might be: so what?

I thought I'd share this passage on Plato's Forms to see what you (and others) make of it.

...there is a central role that the Forms play in the Phaedo and Republic which does concern me here. True knowledge or exact science cannot have as its object sensible things. ...Reasoning in geometry cannot be founded on what we can see and measure, since measurements cannot distinguish between those lines commensurable with a given one and those which are not. More generally, as Whitehead was later on to put it, nature has ragged edges. The terms in which we describe it in exact science don’t literally apply. Then what is exact science about? What are the grounds for calling the theorems of geometry true, for example? Neugebauer, in his discussion of this situation in [1969], suggests with an almost charming innocence that the Greeks simply introduced axiom systems in which the phenomena were idealized and then based truth on provability from the axioms. A wonderful idea! But, unfortunately, not one available to the Greeks in fourth century BC: it was to be more than twenty-three centuries before the idea of a formal axiomatic theory would be invented. For example, Frege did not even understand it: for him, as for the Greeks, axioms have to be true. But what are they true of ? What are, to use Plato’s terms, the corresponding objects? In Metaphysics I vi 2-3, Aristotle traces the motivation for Plato’s doctrine to the influence of Heraclitus’ view that “the whole sensible world is always in a state of flux”. We might take from Neugebauer the suggestion that they are true of an ‘idealization’ of the phenomena. But I think that if we try to spell out what this means, we are led to the view, which I think was essentially Plato’s, that they are true of a certain structure which the phenomena in question roughly exemplify, but which, once grasped, we are capable of reasoning about independently of the phenomena which, in the causal sense, gave rise to it. The theorems of geometry are not literally true of sensible things: indeed, they do not even literally apply to them. No sensible figure can be a point or a line segment or a surface or solid in the sense of geometry. Yet the assumptions made in geometric proofs are also not arbitrary; something provides traction for them. We have the idea of a point, a line segment, a surface, whatever, which we can, by a process of analysis or, as Plato called it, dialectic, come to understand purely rationally, stripped free of its empirical source. I believe that it is this which provided motivation for Plato’s reference to Forms and against which attempts to understand his so-called ‘doctrine of Forms’ should be measured. I believe also that this conception of autonomous reason in the aid of natural science was Plato’s great contribution. — Tait

https://home.uchicago.edu/~wwtx/plato.pdf

The Forms are said to be the things themselves of which things in the visible world are images, but what do we know of Forms beyond what we are told? Have any of us seen the Forms themselves with the mind itself, or do we only imagine what they might be? In none of the dialogues is there anyone who has seen the Forms and is able to give an account of their experience, There are only questionable stories of what we see when we are dead.

In the Phaedo Socrates calls the hypothesis of Forms “safe and ignorant” (105c). In addition to the Forms, he later recognizes the necessity of admitting physical causes such as fire and fever (105c). As to the causal relationship between Forms and sensible things, he says:

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. (100e)

In the Philebus Plato introduces what Aristotle refers to as the indeterminate dyad, the limited (peras) and unlimited (apieron). Contrary to the fixed, unchanging nature of the Forms, indeterminacy is an ineliminable element of Plato’s metaphysics.

Plato’s metaphysics is not systematic. It is problematic. It raises questions it cannot answer and problems that cannot be resolved. It is important to understand that this is a feature not a defect or failure.

Plato’s concern is the Whole. Forms are not the Whole. Knowledge of the Forms is not knowledge of the whole.

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.

And yet we do separate this from that. Thinking and saying are dependent on making such distinctions.

We informally divide things into kinds. Forms are kinds.

Forms are both same and other. Each Form is itself both other than the things of that Form, and other than the other Forms.

The Forms are each said to be one, but the Forms and things of that Form are an indeterminate dyad, one and many.

The indeterminate dyad raises problems for the individuality and separability of Forms. There is no “Same itself” without the “Other itself”, the two Forms are both separable and inseparable.

Socrates likens the Forms to originals or paradigms, and things of the world to images or copies. This raises several problems about the relation between Forms and particulars, the methexis problem. Socrates is well aware of the problem and admits that he cannot give an account of how particulars participate in Forms.

Things are not simply images of Forms. It is not just that the image is distorted or imperfect. Change, multiplicity and the unlimited are not contained in unchanging Forms.

The unity of Forms is subsumed under the Good. But Socrates also says that the Good is not responsible for the bad things. (Republic 379b)

The Whole is by nature both good and bad.

The indeterminate dyad Thinking and Being means that Plato’s ontology is inseparable from his epistemology.

Plato’s ontology must remain radically incomplete, limited to but not constrained by what is thought.

The limits of what can be thought and said are not the limits of Being.

The Timaeus introduces three kinds:

… that which comes to be, that in which it comes to be, and that from which what comes to be sprouts as something copied. And what’s more, it’s fitting to liken the receiver to a mother , the ‘from which’ to a father, and the nature between these to an offspring (50d).

Like intelligible things, the chora always is. But unlike intelligible things, it is changeable. (52a) Unlike sensible things it does not perish. Befitting its indeterminacy, the chora does not yield to simple definition.

Metaphysics for Plato was speculative and contemplative play, a form of poiesis, the making of images of the whole and parts. Without knowledge of beginnings that are forever lost to us he is saying that we cannot take any of this too seriously as true accounts. But that is not to say that we should not take such play seriously.

It may appear as though the Timaeus is a departure for Plato, but it is consistent with Socratic skepticism. An indeterminate world, one where chance and contingency play a role, is a world that cannot be known. An indeterminate world of chance and contingency is one where the unknowable, the mystical dimension of life, is not flattened and destroyed.

For anyone that might be interested, the post is mostly excerpts from a few different forum threads I started.that provide greater textual analysis and support.

Socratic Philosophy

Plato's Metaphysics

Timaeus

Phaedo

Gerson is the go to guy on this subject as I understand it. — Tom Storm

He may be the go to guy for Platonism, but for that reason not the go to guy for Plato or Aristotle. Of course he and other Platonists would not agree.

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. — Lloyd Gerson

This is misleading. Thinking is a property of intelligent beings. The distinction between form and body is an abstraction.

Human beings are an embodied beings. For Plato, as Aristotle well knows, forms are hypothetical. See Phaedo on Socrates' Second Sailing where he explicitly calls the forms hypothesis and acknowledges their inadequacy, calling them "safe and ignorant"(105b). See also Plato's Timaeus where the static and ineffectual nature of Forms is criticized.
,
Gerson says:

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Lloyd Gerson

The "form 'thought'" is a product of philosophical poiesis. I don't think it is a term that either Plato or Aristotle ever used.

The limits of reason drawn by both Plato and Aristotle allows for both greater play and greater work of imagination, that is, of poiesis, of making. Reason often imagines that it is the whole of the story.

It might be objected that Aristotle argues for the existence of Intellect or Mind Itself, a disembodied thinking.But he does not present an unambiguous argument. Some scholars argue that this is intentional and marks the limit of what we know. A theological account intended to stand against the theologians, giving the appearance of an answer while pointing to the aporia of theological claims.

Near the beginning of Metaphysics Aristotle says:

... it is through experience that men acquire science and art ... (981a)

For more

Wisdom for Aristotle is, as it is for Plato and Socrates, knowledge of ignorance. The Platonist belief in an immaterial realm of intelligible Forms accessible to thought is a creation of the human mind, philosophical poiesis. Contrary to this, both Plato and Aristotle are rooted in physis, nature.

Physis or nature is not an explanation for why things are as they are. It is as things emerge and come to be as they are, how they grow and develop according to the kind of being each is. Each kind of being has its own nature. It develops accordingly.

Aristotle regards living beings as self-sustaining functioning wholes. The four causes are inherent in a being being the kind of being it is, not something imposed on or interfering with it from the outside. Human beings are by their nature thinking beings. This is not an explanation, but a given. It has nothing to do with Gerson's "form 'thought'". Nothing to do with a transcendent realm accessible to the wise.

Rather than an argument from reason, @Wayfarer, Plato and Aristotle use reason to demonstrate the limits of reason.

My earlier comment about epistemology was in jest, and yet that seems to have been your read on these Daoist "parables." — ENOAH

I am in agreement with Wittgenstein when he says:

The language used by philosophers is already deformed, as though by shoes that are too tight.

[CV, p. 47].

Just as shoes that are too tight make it difficult to walk, the language used by philosophers makes it difficult to think.

To read Zhuagzi in terms of the theories and problems of epistemology can put us in a bind - disputes over in what way he is or is not in line with this or that epistemological claim. An objection would be that he misuses the term 'know'.

I don't agree that Plato ignored Socrates. On my reading he is a Socratic philosopher. He too knows that he does not know and demonstrates to other that they do not know either. At best, as Timaeus puts it, we have "likely stories". If you are interested I have several threads of varying length and detail on some of the dialogues:

Timaeus

Phaedo

metaphysics

Socratic Philosophy

Euthyphro

Yes, and that's why I emphasized the pre-Socratics because with Plato the waters start getting muddy again, that is, mythos gets reintroduced or reemphasized in philosophy. — 180 Proof

Parmenides proem begins with a mythical journey:

Welcome, youth, who come attended by immortal charioteers and mares which bear you on your journey to our dwelling. For it is no evil fate that has set you to travel on this road, far from the beaten paths of men, but right and justice. It is meet that you learn all things — both the unshakable heart of well-rounded truth and the opinions of mortals in which there is not true belief. (B 1.24–30)

With Plato too there is a concern with both truth and opinion, the unchanging and changing, logos and mythos. Plato's writings should be seen in light of his contentions with the poets and sophists. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-rhetoric/) Both address "the opinions of mortals in which there is not true belief". In other words, persuasion is not intended to replace opinion with truth. Its function is twofold.

First, to change opinion, not replace it. The intention of the noble lies in the Republic are not to mislead. The myth of the metals is considered to be both necessary for the city and beneficial. The myths of the soul in the Phaedo too are beneficial. Plato may think it is good that mortals be of the opinion that are fixed, eternal truths accessible to the few, but that does not mean that it is true that there are Forms.

Second, to guard against misologic. Plato employs mythos in the service of logos. Reasoned argument has its limits. On the one hand it does not lead to knowledge of the whole, and on the other it does not persuade those who are most fixed in their beliefs about such things as gods and an immortal soul that their opinions are not truths. It makes use of myths to alter prevailing mythologies.

Plato and Aristotle were familiar with Democritus's ideas, and fought against them. They did so on behalf of other ideas, some of which were later, for centuries, to create obstacles to the growth of knowledge. Both insisted on rejecting Democritus's naturalistic explanations, in favour of trying to understand the world in finalistic terms - believing, that is, that everything that happens has a purpose; a way of thinking that would reveal itself to be very misleading for understanding the ways of nature - or in terms of good and evil, confusing human issues with matters which do not relate to us.

Aristotle speaks extensively about the ideas of Democritus, and with respect. Plato never cites Democritus, but scholars suspect today that this was out of deliberate choice and not for lack of knowledge of his works. Criticism of Democritus's ideas is implicit in several of Plato's texts, as in his critique of 'physicists', for example. In a passage in his Phaedo, Plato has Socrates articulate a reproach to all 'physicists' which will have a lasting resonance. He complains that when 'physicists' had explained that the Earth was round, he rebelled because he wanted to know what 'good' it was for the Earth to be round; how its roundness would benefit it. Plato's Socrates recounts how he had at first been enthusiastic about physics, but had come to be disillusioned by it:

"I had expected to be first told that the Earth was flat or round, but also that, afterwards, the reason for the necessity of this shape would be explained to me, starting from the principle of the best, proving to me that the best thing for the Earth is to have this shape. And if he had said that the Earth was at the centre of the world, then to show me how being at the centre was of benefit to the Earth".

How completely off track the great Plato was here! — Reality Is Not What It Seems, by Carlo Rovelli

Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to the physics of space and time. He has worked in Italy and the US, and is currently directing the quantum gravity research group of the Centre de physique théorique in Marseille, France.

'The world's most inspirational physics teacher'
Daily Telegraph

By academia I refer to the Western academic tradition (WAC), as taught in Western Universities and derived from Greek and Latin historical sources. I accept that other schools can be included in academia, but I am not referring to them, only what I have just pointed out. I am not aware of any mystical training in these traditions, other than some reference to it in theology. If you can suggest any, I would be interested. — Punshhh

We need to consider the word "tradition" here. The academic tradition in the western world is a tradition of change. Knowledge is changing and evolving at an increasing pace. So what you call "academia is changing. I agree that the trend is away from mystical training in all universities, and I do not know modern theology, but I would think that there is very little mystical training as it has been outcast in modern western society. However, it has played a large role in academia in earlier times.

We could start with Plato's numerous recitals of ancient myths concerning the immortal soul. Phaedo, is a very good example, but in many instances he stirs up the imagination through recanting ancient myths about the soul. You might argue that this is not, strictly speaking mystical training, but it is training based in mysticism. Remember, Plato insists in the cave analogy, that after seeing the light the philosopher will be impelled to teach others, to lead them from the cave. His method of teaching is the written word. The fact that it is in words, and what you called intellectualized makes it no less mystical. The point is that the mystic, Plato in this case, went beyond any existing limits of knowledge, delved into the mystical world, and things were revealed to him so he sought ways to tell others. His most reliable way was through ancient myths. It is the need to communicate with others which produces the intellectualization you refer to.

Plato's Timaeus is very mystical. When I first read it I couldn't even understand it, but at the same time it was very childish. It was full of mythology and didn't seem to make sense. Then I found out that this writing was highly respected in Neo-Platonism and early Christianity, so I had to read it a couple more times to start understanding. Neo-Platonism is recognized as mysticism, and provided tenets for early Christianity. St-Augustine went through Neo-Platonist training. The interesting thing with the Timaeus for me, is that Plato brought the independent, immaterial Forms, out of the world of mysticism, and gave them intelligible existence. But to do this he had to posit a receptacle for the Forms in the sensible world, and this was called "matter".

So he brought the soul, mind, Forms, and being, out of the mystical realm, into the intelligible, and left "matter" there in the mystical, as a replacement. Aristotle went on to define "matter" as potential, what may or may not be, making it an exception to the law of excluded middle, and therefore inherently unintelligible. So at the time of Neo-Platonism there were numerous different mystical sects such as Manichaeism, with significantly different approaches to matter. Matter, being associated with the body, and original sin, was sometimes believed to be inherently evil. In the western tradition, mysticism is involved with how we approach matter. The soul, intellect, and Forms, are taken for granted as immaterial existence. This is expressed by Descartes with "I think therefore I am". But matter was not taken for granted, and as unintelligible, it was mystical. That is expressed by Descartes' doubt of the physical world, and Berkeley. That was the western tradition, but Newton changed this with his laws of motion. He assigned a fundamental and essential property to matter, inertia. Doing this gave "matter" intelligibility, and brought it out of the mystical, such that the conceptual development could explode in growth, into energy etc.. But it pretty much put an end to western mysticism. It created the appearance that the mysterious and unintelligible aspect of the universe, matter, which was only approachable through mysticism, was suddenly known and understood. Now there was no need for mysticism in the western world.

As an alternative to this analysis of a human, I come to it from a different direction, in which there is a being, a being, expressed through an organism who through the good fortune (or not) of recent evolutionary development has developed the ability for intellectual thought. That prior to this development there was a mind, a being, an experience. This can be observed in animals and plants around us.

Also I come to it from an appreciation of life as an animating force. Animating rather like the way idealism describes the world. But rather than viewing it from the perspective of the individual human, I view the whole biosphere as one individual and each human is a part of it. This biosphere being an expression of a being via material. — Punshhh

This is similar to Aristotle's "On The Soul". This work demonstrates that the soul is necessarily prior to the body of the living being. Plato's Timaeus also claims that the immaterial Form is prior to the material existence of any material object. In western mysticism, such as Neo-Platonism, we attempt to put ourselves into that position, as a soul, prior to having a material body, and get a glimpse of that relationship between the soul and the material body. The immaterial soul, having been logically demonstrated as necessary is taken for granted. Since the existence of matter is not necessary, as the immaterial is, matter becomes incomprehensible. So there are numerous mystical approaches. But from this perspective, all the separation between us, division, disunity, individuation, all pain and suffering, is a consequence of the existence of matter, and we might wonder what is matter, or what is the purpose of matter.

As one example, my presently hearing a bird’s chirp (to be clear about temporal extension, for a bird’s chirp has duration) occurs in the present – from the beginning of the chirp to its end; my memory of a bird’s chirp (even if one I recently heard) references an aspect of the past; and any prediction, for example, of when I might hear another bird’s chirp is an aspect of the future. — javra

But how is that not completely illogical? The bird's chirp has temporal extension, so you hear the beginning of it before you hear the end of it. At any given time while the bird is chirping, you are hearing that part of the chirp, not the part before, or the part after, so it cannot be all simultaneously at the present. Think of a piece of music, a melody. You hear a note, then the next note and the next, and so on. You do not hear it all at the same time. And, the reason why you recognize it as a piece of music (just like the way that you recognize the bird chirp as a bird chirp), is that you are relating the parts that have already gone past, through the use of some form of memory and system of association, to the part at the present.

We must declare that this Cosmos has verily come into existence as a Living Creature endowed with soul and reason owing to the providence of God (Tim. 30b)

But these are Timaeus’, not Socrates’ words.

Could it be that Plato became so popular precisely because he was not an atheist and that his views resonated with those of the majority of philosophy students? — Apollodorus

I suspect the reason is more likely this: “But why, then, do some enjoy spending so much time with me? You have heard, men of Athens; I told you the whole truth. It is because they enjoy hearing men examined who suppose they are wise, but are not. For it is not unpleasant.”—Apology 33b-c, West translation.

As it happens, Socrates does use theistic expressions like "by Zeus" (Cratylus 423c; Rep. 345b) and "if God wills" (Phaedo 69d) quite frequently. — Apollodorus

Yes he does, just like we, whether atheists or believers, exclaim, “Oh God!”, or, “Jesus!”, or, “God willing...”, or, “Lordy mercy!”, etc.

Both Plato and Xenophon defend Socrates in a way that he does not defend himself in their accounts of the trial. — Fooloso4

This statement leaves me very perplexed, since we only know Socrates’ defense of himself from Plato’s and Xenophon’s accounts of it.
— Leghorn

Right. That is why I said, in their accounts of the trial. We do not know what he actually said, but we do know that both Plato and Xenophon defended him in their works after their Apologies. — Fooloso4

But your statement is unsubstantiated: since we do not know what Socrates actually said, how can you say that Plato and Xenophon didn’t faithfully portray his defense? Does Plato’s portrayal contradict Xenophon’s?

The way I see it, philosophy and rational thinking in general, should be based on facts. Unfortunately, people tend to be averse to anything that contradicts their preferred perception of reality. This is why they dismiss history, archaeology, and other disciplines that might bring to light inconvenient facts.

This is particularly the case when it comes to religion. If people have been brought up to believe certain things, they will tend to reject anything that challenges those beliefs.

For example, some believe that a great Hebrew king named “David” existed, who ruled over a vast empire stretching from Egypt to northern Syria in the eleventh-tenth century BC. As Finkelstein & Silberman have demonstrated, some among those who subscribe to this belief not only are unconcerned with the total lack of supporting evidence, but are attempting to use any archaeological finds as “evidence” for their belief.

It will be recalled that the Philistines or Peleset (originally from Crete in the Aegean Sea), having invaded Canaan in the 1100’s BC, settled in the southwestern part of the country (known as “Philistia” from which the name “Palestine”) after which they gradually spread east- and northward, conquering Canaanite cities on the way. These Philistine conquests were apparently reinterpreted by the OT authors, and some modern archaeologists blindly following them, as the conquests of “David”:

The gradual spread of the Philistines’ distinctive Aegean-inspired decorated pottery into the foothills and as far north as the Jezreel valley provides evidence for the progressive expansion of the Philistines’ influence throughout the country. And when evidence of destruction – around 1000 BCE – of lowland cities was found, it seemed to confirm the extent of David’s conquests.
One of the best examples of this line of reasoning is the case of Tel Qasile, a small site on the northern outskirts of modern Tel Aviv, first excavated by the Israeli biblical archaeologist and historian Benjamin Mazar in 1948-50. Mazar uncovered a prosperous Philistine town, otherwise unknown in the biblical accounts. The last layer there that contained characteristic Philistine pottery and bore the hallmarks of Philistine culture was destroyed by fire. And even though there was no specific reference in the Bible to David’s conquest of this area, Mazar did not hesitate to conclude that David leveled the settlement in his wars against the Philistines.
And so it went throughout the country, with David’s destructive handiwork seen in ash layers and tumbled stones at sites from Philistia to the Jezreel valley and beyond. In almost every case where a city with late Philistine or Canaanite culture was attacked, destroyed, or even remodeled, King David’s sweeping conquests were seen as the cause …. (pp. 134-5)

Similarly, when disciples of “Emperor Solomon” found no trace of his supposed empire at Jerusalem, they dug up northern cities like Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer described in the OT as having been “rebuilt by Solomon” (1 Kings 9:15). There they found indeed large public buildings with massive gates and stables, as well as large palaces apparently fitting the OT description of Solomon’s Jerusalem palace.

As the structures discovered showed clear influence of north Syrian architectural style, it was conjectured that this confirmed the OT account of “King Hiram of Tyre’s” involvement in Solomon’s construction projects.

Unfortunately, as Finkelstein & Silberman explain, closer analysis of the architectural styles and pottery forms from the sites in question indicates that they actually date to the early ninth century, i.e., long after the suggested date of Solomon, and this is supported by carbon 14 dating.

Moreover, the appearance in northern Israel of monumental structures in northern Syrian style, coincides with the development of that style in the rest of the Levant when the northern kingdom of Israel established by King Omri in the 800’s BC was under Syrian influence and soon became a vassal of Assyria. Additionally, Omri’s capital was at Samaria and it had nothing to do with Judah and its capital Jerusalem which was still in an undeveloped stage at the time.

Omri seems to have been a significant military campaigner who built Samaria as his capital and expanded the kingdom of Israel. However, there is hardly any information on him in the OT.

Finkelstein & Silberman explain:

Out of a total of approximately forty-five thousand people living in the hill country [consisting of the tiny kingdoms of Israel and Judah], a full 90 percent would have inhabited the villages of the north. That would have left about five thousand people scattered among Jerusalem, Hebron, and about twenty small villages in Judah, with additional groups probably continuing as pastoralists. Such a small and isolated society like this would have been likely to cherish the memory of an extraordinary leader like David as his descendants continued to rule in Jerusalem over the next four hundred years.
At first, in the tenth century, their rule extended over no empire, no palatial cities, no spectacular capital. Archaeologically we can say no more about David and Solomon except that they existed – and that their legend endured.
Yet the fascination of the Deuteronomistic historian of the seventh century BCE with the memories of David and Solomon – and indeed the Judahites’ apparent continuing veneration of these characters – may be the best if not the only evidence for the existence of some sort of an early Israelite unified state.
The fact that the Deuteronomist employs the united monarchy as a powerful tool of political propaganda suggests that in his time the episode of David and Solomon as rulers over a relatively large territory in the central highlands was still vivid and widely believed (p. 143).

A united “kingdom of Israel” may or may not have existed. However, there is no extrabiblical evidence for its existence and archaeological and historical data suggest that it didn’t exist. Another important fact to understand is that the central highland area where the Israelites were based is about 80km (49mi) in length and 20km (12mi) across, the remainder of the lowlands and the coast in the west being controlled by Philistines and other nationalities. By comparison, the Babylonian Empire was six to seven times larger and the Egyptian Empire many times larger than both.

Royal chroniclers are notorious for the exaggerated image of their masters that they are trying to portray. But the notion of a local king who ruled over an extensive empire and was married to pharaoh’s daughter is risible. It follows that the “memory of an extraordinary leader” promoted by the OT authors is either (a) completely made up or (b) the memory of a different leader. If (b), then the most likely model for the OT narrative is a king that actually ruled over such a large area, and such a king could only have been an Egyptian pharaoh.

We know that the OT authors suppressed information about the Omride dynasty. And we also know why. The OT was composed by priests associated with the smaller Israelite kingdom of Judah centered on Jerusalem, to which the larger kingdom of Israel was a long-time rival. In addition, all the kings of Israel from Jeroboam to Hoshea had been following the traditional polytheistic religion, which is why the OT authors saw them as “wicked”. As a result, the OT seeks to play down the importance of the northern kingdom and its rulers, and to exaggerate the importance of Judah and its rulers.

To be sure, as stated in the OT, most of the kings of Judah had also been “wicked”. In fact, the very first “King of Israel and Judah”, Saul himself, had been “wicked”, and even Samuel, who appointed Saul king, had been “wicked”:

So Saul and his servant went up toward the city, and as they were entering it, there was Samuel coming toward them on his way up to the high place (1 Samuel 9:14).

“High place” (Hebrew bamah) is the OT term used for places of worship located in open areas or natural hilltops, where traditional religious rites were observed by Canaanites including Hebrews. In this particular case, the high place to which prophet Samuel is heading to attend the sacrificial feast, is inside the city. Interestingly, just the day before, Yahweh himself instructed Samuel, Israel’s “wicked” spiritual leader, to anoint Saul as king. This is duly done on the following morning, after Samuel blessed the sacrifice and participated in the meal with his guest Saul.

On his part, King Saul named his youngest son Eshbaal (“Fire of (God) Baal”) and is said to have turned against “the religion of the Lord”, for which he was slain by God (1 Chronicles 8:33, 10:13-14).

Significantly, he is also said to have killed the priests of Yahweh and to have fought David. Obviously, there was division and conflict among the Israelites – which is precisely why they split into two kingdoms – and the Judahites got to write the history of both kingdoms only because Israel was destroyed by Assyria, whereas Judah was saved from Babylon by Persia.

In any case, Jeroboam, Saul’s successor as King of Israel after David and Solomon, likewise “rejected the religion of the Lord” and as advised by his religious leaders, he “made golden calves” and “built shrines in high places”:

After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves and said to the people, “Going up to Jerusalem is too much for you. Here, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
One calf he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; the people walked as far as Dan to worship before one of the calves.
Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and appointed from every class of people priests who were not Levites. And Jeroboam ordained a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; he made this offering in Bethel to sacrifice to the calves he had set up, and he installed priests in Bethel for the high places he had set up. So he ordained a feast for the Israelites, offered sacrifices on the altar, and burned incense (1 Kings 12:28-33).

Scholars have long recognized a connection between Jeroboam’s construction of shrines to traditional deities and making of golden calves, and Aaron’s making a gold calf to celebrate the God that brought the Israelites out of Egypt. This and many other references to traditional religion, mean that the objective OT reader cannot but conclude that the original religion of the Hebrews was a form of Canaanite polytheism which had many elements in common with other religions in the region from Egypt to Greece.

What becomes clear is that “righteous” kings “David” and “Solomon” were inserted into the Israelites’ long series of “wicked” kings in order to justify Jerusalem’s claim to religious and political authority. And because most of Judah’s kings from Solomon’s son Rehoboam to Zedekiah had been “wicked”, this was used to explain the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon and the deportation of its population, as well as to justify the centralization of spiritual power in the hands of the Second Temple priests after the return from Babylon and the reconstruction of the Temple.

However, strict monotheism seems to have been enforced centuries later and, even though the use of cult statues was eventually discontinued, the OT God remained an anthropomorphic deity associated with the Sun as can be seen from later Hellenistic synagogues.

Outside Israel, a similar tension existed between traditional, popular religion and the religion of the elites. Yet, unlike in Israel, this tension did not lead to open conflict. The masses kept their traditional religion, which continued to be promoted by the state, whilst spiritually evolved men and women turned their minds to the divine in its highest form of Truth or Ultimate Reality itself.

This, too, is consistent with Egyptian tradition. As explained earlier, the Egyptians already worshiped their supreme deity under two aspects, a visible one represented by the rising and midday Sun (Ra), and an invisible one represented by the setting and midnight Sun (Amun), hence the dual deity Amun-Ra. The monotheistic religion introduced by Pharaoh Akhenaten was merely a development of established religion, in which the invisible deity, iconographically symbolized by the Sun Disk or Orb (Aten), was worshiped as the sole God.

This uniquely evolved or refined form of religion was, of course, a royal cult. It never became the religion of the masses. Moreover, Akhenaten was succeeded by his son Tutankhaten (“Living Image of Aten”) who initially upheld the official monotheistic cult introduced by his father. However, Atenism did not prove popular with either his subjects or the priestly class. In the fourth year of his reign, Tutankhaten reinstated the old polytheistic religion, and changed his name to Tutankhamun (“Living Image of Amun”). Yet while he publicly promoted the old Amun-Ra tradition, privately he seems to have remained loyal to the Aten cult. This is supported by artistic representations of the deity in the form of the Sun Disk Aten, as can be seen from the back panel of Tutankhamun’s golden throne.

Tutankhamun’s Throne – Ancient Egypt

This also appears to be reflected in the Jewish tradition of vocalizing the written divine name YHWH as “Adonai” (i.e., Adon or Aten), though it seems that the true meaning and reason for this has been forgotten.

As the OT itself admits, the true religion originated in Egypt where it was revealed to Moses who had been brought up in the Egyptian tradition. Jesus himself is associated with Egypt both in the NT and in the Talmud where he is said to have practiced magic (or worked miracles) in Egypt. Moreover, if God is Truth, then the authentic revelation of Truth is nothing but a manifestation, embodiment, or creation of Truth. Therefore, Jesus, who represents the Truth of God is the “Truth become flesh” or “Son of God”.

It follows that the true meaning of “son of David (Dwd)”, “son of Thot, the God of Wisdom”, or “son of Ra” (ben Pa-Ntr-Ra), is that Jesus is a teacher in the authentic spiritual tradition initiated by Egypt’s divine kings and continued by a long line of kings, prophets, and philosophers especially (among the Greeks) Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato who are said to have studied the sacred mysteries of Egypt:

[Pythagoras] was also initiated into all the mysteries of Byblos and Tyre, and in the sacred function performed in many parts of Syria […] After gaining all he could from the Phoenician mysteries, he found that they had originated from the sacred rites of Egypt […] This led him to hope that in Egypt itself he might find monuments of erudition still more genuine, beautiful and divine. Therefore following the advice of his teacher Thales, he left, as soon as possible, through the agency of some Egyptian sailors […] and at length happily landed on the Egyptian coast […] Here in Egypt he frequented all the temples with the greatest diligence, and most studious research […] After twelve years, about the fifty-sixth year of his age, he returned to Samos …

Iamblichus’ Life of Pythagoras

As is well-known, Pythagoras was referred to as “son of God” in the Greek tradition, and according to Speusippus and others, so was Plato. As Strabo tells, Plato traveled to Heliopolis in Egypt where he spent thirteen years in the company of priests (Geography 17.1.29). Plato himself certainly refers to Egypt in his dialogues. Significantly, he demonstrates accurate knowledge of Egyptian sacred rites such as embalming and, in particular, of the special role of kings in Egyptian religion (Phaedo 80c; Stateman 290d-e).

Indeed, historical and archaeological evidence shows that the “Hidden God” Amun a.k.a. Ammon or Amen was not only known but actually worshiped among the Greeks (at Thebes, Sparta, and Aphytis) since at least the fifth century BC. The cult of Amun which is mentioned by Plato, was adopted by Alexander (who had been tutored by Plato’s pupil Aristotle) and other Greek kings in the Hellenistic period during which an influential and inspiring fusion of Egyptian and Greek spirituality emerged. Thus, while Jewish fundamentalists became increasingly embroiled in fruitless religious and political squabbles, this time it was the Greeks (and the more open-minded among Hellenistic Jews) who gave the timeless wisdom of Egypt to the world, not as a national cult but as a universal religion for the whole of humanity.

In this sense, Jesus a.k.a. “Emmanuel” (Amun-El) (or his teachings with which he is identical and from which he is forever inseparable) is the embodiment of Truth (Aletheia), Righteousness (Dikaiosyne), and Goodness or the Good (Agathon), which are attributes of the Ineffable One (to Hen), the Sun of the noetic realm, and therefore, the Light of the World (to Phos tou Kosmou) that enables those “who have eyes to see and ears to hear” to elevate themselves above the darkness of superstition and error, and perceive Ultimate Reality face to face in a life-transforming and ignorance-dispelling experience of eternal truth from which there is no return to untruth.

But I think Plato was being an advocate — Ciceronianus

Yes, but of what? As I read him not for certainty and perfection. He provides the image, and it is one that has inspired philosophers and theologians, but as an image of what to aspire to it is at the same time an image of how far we fall short of its attainment.

The irony should not be lost that it is the same Socrates who professes his ignorance who speaks go grandly and eloquently about the very thing he does not know. In the Republic he plainly states that he is not certain about the myth of Forms he creates.

He may have understood that the terrible state he envisioned wasn't likely to arise, but he envisioned it nonetheless, and not merely as a kind of stalking horse. — Ciceronianus

It is not simply that it was not likely to arise but that he did not intend for it to arise. The city in speech is intended to illustrate the problem of justice in the soul writ large. The Republic is fundamentally about the politics of the soul.

As to actual cities, it points to the irreconcilable tensions between the private and the public, between one's own and the demands of the city. If the family is a natural unit, then given the central importance Plato gives to nature and in particular human nature, then the "solution" proposed in the Republic is clearly not tenable or to be taken seriously. It is the problem, which goes to the root of what it is to be human, and not this solution, that must be taken seriously.

The dialogues should be read in the Socratic spirit in which they are written. Nothing should be simply accepted as Plato's opinion or conclusion on a matter but rather everything should be subject to question and challenge. This is what is meant when he says in the Second Letter that 'no treatise by Plato exists or will exist".

The quest for certainty is poisonous, and Plato valued certainty and perfection. — Ciceronianus

In Socratic terms, what is poisonous is not the quest for certainty but the assumption that one knows, and not knowing that one does not know. Dialectic is a method of hypothesis. The goal is to be free of hypothesis, but Plato is clear that the Forms themselves are hypothetical. See the discussion of hypothesis in the Phaedo.

I find it more than persuasive; I'm compelled by it. And why? Because, in the broadest sense, as soon as you appeal to reason then you're already relying on something very like the knowledge of the forms. — Wayfarer

It is interesting to read Theaetetus concerning this point. That dialogue shows the need for an intelligible world not possible through the relativity of Protagoras or Heraclitus. It is done without recourse to Anamnesis and the separate realm of Forms.

Instead of the model of remembering what was forgotten, the dialogue uses the process of giving birth to concepts as the image of what it is like to learn. The role of the philosopher is to assist in the process and see if the concept is worth trying to keep alive. A mid-wife rather than a source of knowledge.

The Anamnesis model also emphasizes how knowledge is not given from one to another but is the awakening of a potential in the soul of the learner. Much commentary has issued forth over why this model was not used in Theaetetus. How the matter is approached reflects very different ways of listening to Plato. Consider the reasoning of F.M Cornford:

Now the Theaetetus will later have much to say about memory. Why is there no mention of that peculiar impersonal memory of knowledge before birth? There is no ground for supposing that Plato ever abandoned the theory of Anamnesis. It cannot be mentioned in the Theaetetus because it presupposes that we know the answer to the question here to be raise afresh: What is the nature of knowledge and of its objects? For the same reason all mention of the forms is excluded. The dialogue is concerned only with the lower kinds of cognition, our awareness of the sense-world and judgments involving the perception of sensible objects. Common sense might maintain that, if this is not all the 'knowledge' we possess, whatever else can be called knowledge is somehow extracted from such experience. The purpose of the dialogue is to examine and reject this claim of the sense-world to furnish anything that Plato will call 'knowledge'. The Forms are excluded in order that we may see how we can get on without them; and the negative conclusion of the whole discussion means that, as Plato had taught ever since the discovery of the Forms, without them there is no knowledge at all. — F.M. Cornford, Plato's Theory of Knowledge, page 28

There are many ways to respond to this as a species of circular reasoning but I will confine myself to a few observations.

The discussion in Theaetetus advanced well beyond where Cornford placed it.

Cornford saying that it ended as a kind of tethered goat swallowed by aporia ignores the role of Theaetetus and how much or not he was able to learn. For Cornford, Plato is an organized set of doctrines that are given through the guise of dialogue. Once one starts listening to the differences between dialogues as necessary for their own purposes, this top-down hierarchy of meaning stops helping.

The Anamnesis model points to the need for assuming a preexisting condition of the soul to be able to know but it is also a victim of its own success. It is ass backwards from the pedagogy needed to actually learn. The language in the Phaedo underlines this. The soul without death is said to come from death and leave the same way. The anamnesis involved does not address the life in between.

Compare that to the world of Theaetetus where people and thoughts are born from living people stuck with other living people.

Your entire argument seems to be centered around a misinterpretation of the theory, "the soul is a harmony". Clearly, the "harmony", or what you are calling "attunement" is something distinct from the material instrument itself. That is very clearly expressed by Simmias in the passage I quoted.

Simmias says, 85e-86d:
One might make the same argument about harmony, lyre and strings, that a harmony is something invisible, without body, in the attuned lyre, whereas the lyre itself and its strings are physical, bodily, composite, earthy and akin to what is mortal. Then if someone breaks the lyre, cuts or breaks the strings and then insists, using the same argument as you, that the harmony must still exist and is not destroyed...

If then the soul is a kind of harmony or attunement, clearly, when our body is relaxed or stretched without due measure by diseases and other evils, the soul must be immediately destroyed...
— Plato, Phaedo — Metaphysician Undercover

You might continue to insist that the "attunement" is not something distinct from the instrument, but clearly Plato's arguments are directed against the idea of a "harmony" as such. And, the harmony exists as something separate from the instrument, as produced from the instrument. This is clearly the idea that Plato argues against, and is more consistent with modern physicalism. Your use of "attunement" only creates ambiguity between "attunement" as the general principles by which an instrument is tuned, and "attunement" as a specific condition of a particular instrument.

My apologies for the continued derailment, but since MU is insistent and refuses to move this to another thread I will respond here.

The three arguments found at 92-94 provide a very good refutation of the theory of 'the soul as a harmony'.
— Metaphysician Undercover

I do not think that the argument that begins:

… our soul is somewhere else earlier, before she is bound within the body.
(92a)

and goes on to ask:

But see which of the two arguments you prefer - that learning is recollection or soul a tuning.
(92c)

provides the foundation for "a very good refutation". — Fooloso4

OK, so you dismiss the first of the three arguments, because you do not believe in the theory of recollection. This theory is meant to account for the reality of the innate knowledge which a person is born with, the capacity to learn, intuition, and instinct.

Are you saying that this type of know-how does not qualify as "knowledge", or does not even exist? Or what is the basis of your rejection of the knowledge that a person is born with, knowledge which a person has, which precedes the existence of one's body, so that the person is born with it?

An attunement does not lead or follow the elements. The attunement is the condition of those elements. For the lyre this means the proper tension of the strings. For a person this means being healthy. The limits of the analogy are obvious, a lyre cannot tune itself. But we can act to maintain or improve our mental and physical health. — Fooloso4

Clearly, the lyre exists prior to being tuned, therefore the attunement follows the elements of the physical composition. And' the harmony follows from the attunement. The very fact which you cite, that a person can act to improve one's health, or improve the attunement, demonstrates that the attunement is posterior to the physical body. That the attunement of the instrument, and therefore the harmony, is most readily changed is the reason why it is last coming into being in generation of the instrument, and the first thing lost in the corruption of the instrument.

The theory, "the soul is a harmony", as expressed by Simmias, very explicitly states that the harmony is something distinct from the physical instrument, strings and wood. And, the harmony, as something distinct, is produced from the instrument.

Socrates then resorts to a bit of sophistry:

“Now does this also apply to the soul so that, however slightly, one soul is more what it is than another? Is it more and to a greater extent, or less and to a lesser extent, a soul?”
(93b)

A lesser attunement is still an attunement. One soul might be more in tune than another but both a well tuned and poorly tuned soul is still a soul.

“Now, what will any of those who assert that the soul is an attunement say that these things, virtue and the vice, in our souls are?
(93c)

They are like health and sickness, well tuned or poorly tuned, and in harmony or out of harmony.

And, being neither more nor less an attunement, it is neither more nor less attuned. Is this the case?
(93d)

No, that is not the case. It is well tuned or poorly tuned, and this allows for degrees. — Fooloso4

Plato's argument is not sophistry, it is just complex and difficult to grasp. You demonstrate a misunderstanding of it, and that's why you call it sophistry. Your dismissal of it is what is really sophistry. Look.

First, do you recognize that it is the bodily instrument which is either well tuned or poorly tuned? Therefore you cannot say "both a well tuned and poorly tuned soul is still a soul" to be consistent with the argument, because the body is analogous to the instrument, and is what is tuned; it is not the soul which is tuned. That is your bit of sophistry. In the theory "the soul is a harmony", the soul follows from the body, like harmony follows from the instrument according to the attunement. This is just like in modern physicalism, mind follows from body, and concepts follow from the mind. Remember the statement by Simmias which expresses the theory that the soul, is a harmony. The harmony itself is invisible, without body.

Next, do you agree that if the instrument is not well tuned there will be some degree of dissonance, and that dissonance is inconsistent with harmony? And, since there is a multitude of strings, some may be in harmony and others dissonant. Therefore the same instrument may produce some harmony and also some dissonance at the same time, depending on the tuning. But "soul" by the theory, can only be harmony, it cannot be dissonance.

Now, the problem which Plato elucidates. The same soul can have degrees of both goodness and evilness at the same time due to the various elements within, just like the tuned instrument can have harmony and dissonance at the same time. However, according to the theory, the soul can only be harmony. Dissonance is contrary to harmony which is, "soul", and the soul cannot consist of aspects of 'nonsoul'. Therefore the theory must be wrong, the soul is not like a harmony, it also has dissonance as well.

This is deliberately misleading. On the premise that the soul is an attunement then it is not one element of the attunement that rules, but rather the relation between those elements, the ratio and harmony of those elements that rules. When the person is well tuned, balanced and in harmony, he or she will rule themselves well, and if not then poorly. — Fooloso4

You seem to misunderstand this argument too. The premise "the soul rules" is proposed as a true proposition, validated by the evidence explained. And, it is specifically proposed as inconsistent with "the soul is a harmony". There is nothing deliberately misleading here.

So you point out the inconsistency between the two ("the soul rules" and "the soul is a harmony"). However, since "the soul rules" is demonstrated to be a true premise by the evidence given, then logically we must reject the inconsistent premise "the soul is a harmony", which is proposed as an hypothesis rather than supported by evidence.

This begs the question. Socrates treats the soul and body as two separate and different things, the very thing the attunement argument denies. — Fooloso4

This is not true, it's clearly misinterpretation. The "harmony", or what you call the "attunement", is explicitly stated as something distinct from the instrument. Refer to the passage quoted above, what is stated by Simmias.

The passage from Homer is about Odysseus controlling his anger. Where is anger located within this separation? Is it an affection of the body or the soul? According to the division set in the Republic the source is the spirited part of the soul not the body.
If Odysseus is his soul then the example is not about being led by the affections of the body. — Fooloso4

The "spirited part" is the third part, the medium between body and mind. It is not the source of anything, only the medium between, which may act with one or the other. Either the the source is the mind, if the soul is healthy, or the body is the source if the mind is ill. So "anger" is good and healthy when the mind is exercising control over the body, and "anger" is bad and unhealthy when the body has affected the mind. Therefore your objection here has no relevance.

Certainly, when one goes through the arguments sufficiently, it becomes clear why we should not accept them. — Fooloso4

It has become very clear why you reject the arguments. You straw man them. You do not represent "harmony" as something invisible without body, which follows form the attuned instrument, as clearly stated in the text. Instead, you claim that the "attunement" is a part of the body of the instrument.

If we were discussing the "attunement", then we'd have to consider the intentions involved in the act of tuning, which produces the attunement. This would involve the complete design and manufacture of the instrument to ensure proper tuning. All that intention involved is prior to the manufacture of the instrument, and the tuning of it. If we were to represent "the soul" as the creator of the instrument, in this way, then the argument would be completely different. However, it is very clear that Plato is arguing against "the soul" as hypothesized to be something which follows from the body, as "the harmony" follows from the instrument.

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.

first became aware of Gerson because Apollodorus and Wayfarer appealed to him for support of their theological views of Plato — Paine

Thanks for that post, it helps me understand your approach. As I've explained, my background was syncretistic - I studied comparative religion and various strands of perennialism. Platonism has a place in that pantheon, specifically the Christianised Platonism of the mystics - Dean Inge and Evelyn Underhill. That is where I learned about Plotinus, although I never went into him in depth. But I would not describe my approach as 'theological', for the same reason that comparative religion is a very different discipline to 'divinity'. I used to think of the comparative religion department as the 'Department of Mysticism and Heresy'. (I might also add, I learned of both Leo Strauss and Lloyd Gerson from this forum or its predecessor.)

Getting back to Gerson:

If Plato’s philosophy is a version of Platonism, what Platonism is it a version of? And where can we find it? Since Platonism is not limited to Plato’s views as found in his dialogues, nor to other philosophers’ presentation of them (primarily Aristotle’s), nor to later philosophers’ contribution to what is found in Plato’s works, "Platonism", as a term, must be flexible enough to signify the above three aspects severally and collectively. To distinguish this all-inclusive meaning of Platonism from each of the individual renditions above, Gerson hypothetically construes the term Ur-Platonism as a matrix-like collection of all possible meanings of Platonism. In his words, Ur-Platonism “is the general philosophical position that arises from the conjunction of the negations of the philosophical positions explicitly rejected in the dialogues” (p. 9). These positions are anti-materialism, anti-mechanism, anti-nominalism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. — Review of From Plato to Platonism

The predominant strains of naturalism are generally materialistic, mechanist, nominalist, relativist and skeptical. They are always well-represented on TPF.

Another thing that Gerson said in his lecture on Platonism versus Naturalism struck me as profound and important:

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too.*

So what? Well, the "objects" of the intellect are immaterial, and as we're able to perceive them, we too possess an immaterial aspect - what used to be called the soul. We're not simply mechanisms or organisms. Of course, all Socrates' arguments for the reality of the soul in Phaedo can be and are called into question by his interlocutors but they ring true to me.

---

* I suspect that what is translated as 'thinking' in the above excerpt is not what we generally understand as 'thinking' as an internal monologue or stream of ideas.

But it was always clear to me that Socrates --and Plato, of course-- believed that the soul was immortal. — Alkis Piskas

I have reached the opposite conclusion, but I think that the myths support the immortality of the soul. The arguments also appear to support it as well unless they are followed closely. But of course not everyone agrees. I attempt to show why the arguments fail here: Phaedo

What was his (Plato's) view on it? — Corvus

A close reading of the Phaedo is a start. There is a discussion put forward by Fooloso4 that frames the different reactions to the text made here and elsewhere. All the opinions expressed 4 years ago are regularly repeated here since then.

I do not want to revive any of that in this discussion because that would hijack this OP.

So, you are not talking about your arguments but about the arguments "in the dialogues". — Apollodorus

No, I am talking about the arguments in the dialogues. I have invited you several times to discuss them, but following in the footsteps of Euthyphro have somewhere else to be.

In your opinion, what exactly do the arguments in the dialogues lead to? — Apollodorus

Round and round you go. I have laid it all out. If you are really interested instead of just looking for something to argue about, go back and read the posts where I lay it out.

You seem to have some kind of fixation with "chanting incantations". — Apollodorus

It is a phrase that Socrates uses several times in the Phaedo. You are doing exactly what he recommends to those who are not ready for philosophy and instead like children desire myths and incantations.

The consensus as shown by mainstream sources like Wikipedia is that Plato taught monistic idealism. — Apollodorus

Wiki is not a scholarly source, although it has gotten better and often includes footnotes to sources. What you find on Wiki is not a consensus of mainstream scholarly sources because there is no consensus, and never has been.

Who would you like me to read instead? — Apollodorus

As I have said many times now, read a dialogues from start to finish. Instead of cherry picking statements that confirm what you already believe, follow the arguments, connect the dots, put the pieces together. Do what Plato expects of those who are suited to philosophy THINK. But as I've also said, he writes on different levels. He provides those who desire answers, those who want their opinions made for them, those who are prisoners in the cave, the images they believe are more than images.

So, we are back to square one then. If it is "there for all to see", why don't you tell us in plain English what it is? — Apollodorus

As you go round and round you forget what has already been said. He was not about to suffer the same fate as Socrates or allow philosophy to be silenced by those who, like you, are threatened by philosophy.

Plato never says anything. — Apollodorus

Not in the dialogues.The dialogue form is not just stylistic.

The only thing that Socrates says is that he knows nothing. — Apollodorus

Another example of your unwillingness to discuss things openly and honestly.

If Plato says nothing and Socrates says he knows nothing, then on what basis do you claim to know that Plato doesn't teach monistic idealism? — Apollodorus

I doubt you will understand this, but others here might, and it has been discussed in the literature. It may be preferable for you to believe something like that than the myths of the gods. Those who cannot abide the uncertainty of philosophy will latch on to something. He gives you something to latch onto.

But just like ordinary religious people nowadays, Plato et al. didn't arrive at their certainties by doing concentration and meditation techniques, did they?

I find it more likely that they were born and raised into their religion, and then later on propped it up with fancy explanations and justifications. As is common for religious people. — baker

Well, no one is born in a cultural vacuum, are they? Least of all educated people like Plato. Of course Plato made use of the materials available to him in the particular cultural context of his time.

However, it is important to understand that Plato did not blindly adopt the religious beliefs of Athenian society. On the contrary, he introduced a new theology with the cosmic Gods ranking above the Gods of mainstream religion, and a supreme non-personal God above the cosmic Gods.

Plato's introduction of the Forms and, above all, the Form of the Good clearly elevates religion above personal Gods. In fact, contemplating the Forms requires no religious beliefs whatsoever. Even atheists can do that.

And, of course, there is a strong probability that Socrates did practice some form of contemplation or meditation. It would seem strange for someone to advocate the contemplation of metaphysical realities and not practice it themselves.

The Symposium (220d-e) certainly relates how Socrates one morning remained standing motionless and absorbed in thoughts until next morning when he prayed to the Sun after which he went on his way, and that this was a habit of his. It is not difficult to imagine him in that state of contemplation or inner vision in which the soul has ascended to and entered the realm of the pure, the everlasting, the immortal and changeless where it dwells in communion with the realities that are like itself. See also Phaedo:

But when the soul inquires alone by itself, it departs into the realm of the pure, the everlasting, the immortal and the changeless, and being akin to these it dwells always with them whenever it is by itself and is not hindered, and it has rest from its wanderings and remains always the same and unchanging with the changeless, since it is in communion therewith. And this state of the soul is called wisdom (phronesis) (79d)

It is often assumed that Plato presents a dualist account consisting of Forms and sensible things, with Forms being the eternal truth and sensible things their imperfect image. It is this account that Plato himself calls into question.

In the Phaedo Socrates calls the hypothesis of Forms “safe and ignorant” (105c). In addition to the Forms, he later recognizes the necessity of admitting physical causes such as fire and fever (105c).

In what he calls his “second sailing” he investigates the “truth of beings” by means of accounts. The Forms are said to be hypothetical and the beings are not the Forms but the sensible things, to be navigated by means of the hypothetical Forms (99d-100a).

As to the causal relationship between Forms and sensible things, he says:

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. (100e)

Plato is well aware of what is known as the participation problem, but offers no solution to it. The precise nature of the relationship is not something he is able to articulate. If the relationship between Forms and things remains in question then the hypothesis of Forms remains questionable.
In the Philebus Plato introduces what Aristotle refers to as the indeterminate dyad, the limited (peras) and unlimited (apieron). Contrary to the fixed, unchanging nature of the Forms, indeterminacy is an ineliminable element of Plato’s metaphysics.

As Jacob Klein puts it:

each element of an indeterminate dyad is one, but both are two.

They are not simply two because there is one and one, but because each is together with its other, thus both are two in a double sense

Each element of the dyad stands together with and apart from the other. There is not one without the other.
The Forms are each said to be one, but the Forms and things of that Form are an indeterminate dyad, one and indeterminate many.

Consequently, even if knowledge of the Forms is possible it cannot give us knowledge of the sensible world.

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” — Tom Storm

I don’t know if that has anything to do with Nietzsche, but I think Jung is making a good point.

The main problem seems to be that people want to be enlightened without being enlightened. In other words, they want to be at once what they are now and enlightened. This, of course, is not possible because when you are enlightened, you no longer are what you were before.

Instead of being “what you are now (and enlightened)”, you will be “enlightened (and what you are now)”. The enlightened aspect being the dominant element, the what-you-are-now aspect will be completely subordinate to it, which means that you no longer are what you were before, though you may appear to be so externally, i.e., to others.

Enlightenment is often referred to as a form of “liberation”. In the Western tradition, this goes back to Socrates, Plato, and others for whom this liberation (lysis) is a liberation of the conscious soul, i.e., of intelligence, from the confines of embodied existence.

Intelligence or consciousness is, by definition, the principle of life, which is a free, living and creative force. However, through association with the limited and limiting physical body it inhabits, intelligence becomes caught up in limiting modes of experience in which it identifies more and more with the objective element of consciousness, i.e., body, material possessions, thoughts, and emotions associated with these, until awareness of one’s real identity recedes into the background almost completely.

The liberation process consists in intelligence extricating itself from everyday experience that is based on material reality. But this does not mean that material reality disappears, only that it is recognized as a product of intelligence.

According to Plato, there is no Reality other than Intelligence (Nous). Even if another reality existed, intelligence would be still needed in order for there to be awareness of it. It follows that there is nothing higher than the Intelligence that sees and imparts reality to all things, and everything else is secondary to it.

This is why Plato refers to the Highest Truth or Ultimate Reality as the “Light of All” (to Phos pasi), i.e., that which gives light, and reality, to all things (Republic 540a).

Plotinus explains how individual intelligence comes to have an experience of Intelligence:

When it is in that place it must necessarily come to union with Intelligence, since it has been turned to it. And having been turned to it, it has nothing in between, and when it has come to Intelligence, it is fitted to it. And having been fitted to it, it is united with it while not being dissolved, but both are one, while still being two. When it is in this state it would not change, but would be in an unchanging state in relation to intellection, while having at the same time awareness of itself (synaisthesin hautes), as having become simultaneously one and identical with the intelligible (Ennead IV.4.2.25-34)

Those who have some experience of lucid dreams are in a better position to understand the true nature of consciousness. As research has shown, in the “ambient” type of lucid dreams, the dreamer is passively, though consciously, aware of the fact that he or she is dreaming. In the “active” type, the dreamer is able to actively engage with the events taking place in the dream and influence their course.

This illustrates how cognition is ultimately nothing but self-aware intelligence affected by the modifications brought about in itself by itself, and this gives us an idea of how a higher Intelligence might be able to bring about the whole of reality as a manifestation of itself.

Plato repeatedly draws parallels between the individual self and the Universal Self. The point he is making is that in the same way the individual self uses its cognitive powers to generate cognition in the form of thoughts, etc., the Universal Self uses its powers to generate the Universe.

As stated in the Phaedo and elsewhere, the only way to obtain a vision of higher realities is by intelligence extricating itself from the confines of everyday experience. Any mental state in which consciousness detaches itself from normal experience and returns to its natural state of freedom may be used for this purpose.

Such states can occur naturally, e.g. lucid dreaming or the state between waking and sleeping, etc., but also as a result of meditation or contemplation. Plotinus compares contemplation on light or light-like intelligence itself, to awaiting the Sun to rise from beyond the ocean, culminating in an experience of Oneness:

But as contemplation ascends from nature to soul and from soul to Intelligence, the act of contemplation becomes ever more personal [i.e., closer to the contemplating subject] and produces unity within the contemplator (III.8.8.1-8)

In other words, during the ascent to higher reality, the objective aspect of intellection becomes closer and closer to, and ultimately identical with, the subjective aspect.

Most modern philosophers are conditioned, or have conditioned themselves, to prefer to remain in the realm of thought. But, however “abstract” it might be, thought belongs to the objective side of consciousness. The subjective side, the thinker’s true self, is above that.

By dismissing Platonism and similar philosophical systems as “mysticism” they deliberately reject their higher self which is their true identity. This renders it impossible for them to understand the concept of enlightenment and, ultimately, to understand themselves.

In contrast, whatever philosophical systems like Platonism might seem to be to outsiders at first sight, they are first and foremost practical philosophy from start to finish, progressing upward from ethical conduct to intellectual and spiritual development and from there to realization of Ultimate Reality.

Plato explains, repeatedly and in unambiguous terms, that self-effort is required, and that this self-effort consists in a conscious redirection of our intelligence away from everyday experience and toward the Light of Reality.

Plotinus shows that the Platonic Way Upward does yield concrete results and he gives us an idea of the state of awakening experienced when individual intelligence approaches Universal Intelligence:

Often I wake up from the body into myself, and since I come to be outside of other things and within myself, I have a vision of extraordinary beauty and I feel supremely confident that I belong to a higher realm, and having come to identity with the Divine, and being established in it I have come to that actuality above all the rest of the intelligible world (IV.8.1.1-11)

The concept of “darkness” or “going through darkness” in order to see the light, is equally revealing. Obviously, this can be interpreted in many different ways. But in cognitive terms, the process leading to enlightenment is often described as a process of interiorization of consciousness consisting of several distinct phases: (1) waking, (2) dreaming, (3) deep sleep, and (4) pure, awakened consciousness.

On this account, consciousness in the first three stages withdraws as it were into itself until no awareness of external, material reality is left. From this point, consciousness either (a) returns to the dreaming and waking states (which is what normally happens), or (b) goes in the opposite direction, and having overcome the darkness of deep sleep, emerges on the other side, the side of infinite light from where the material reality left behind is seen as nothing but a manifestation of the same living, creative light of consciousness that is experienced as oneself.

The whole process is based on maintaining consciousness through all the phases of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. In the same way as we can be consciously aware of the fact that we are dreaming, we can (though with much greater difficulty) be aware that we are in deep sleep. This is when the true light of consciousness, the light of liberated intelligence, dawns on us and the enlightenment process proper begins.

This is what Plotinus and others are describing. Anything beyond that can no longer be described. But life becomes an expression of that state and the desire “to be one’s (unenlightened) old self and at the same time enlightened” becomes a fading memory.

But underlying its emergence is a much more significant switch: from using Plato as a source of ideas to think with to treating him as an object of study. — Christopher Rowe

My reading of Plato is informed by the idea of the reader as active participant, to think along with what is said, to take into consideration who he is talking to as well as the setting or circumstances, to raise objections, to work out implications, in a word, to think.

We should take seriously the fact that Plato is only mentioned in a few places in the dialogues and never speaks. We should not be too quick to assume that what Socrates or anyone else says represents Plato's own opinion. He is intentionally once removed. In the Phaedo it is reported that Plato was absent. The thoughtful reader will consider the significance of this.

I was just reading the Phaedo for a class and it hit me that Plato's argument that the soul cannot be analogous to a harmony is literally the same argument against strong emergence that is still giving physicalists a headache 2,000+ years later.

His initial arguments for the soul not being caused by the body in the way that a lyre causes a harmony all have key weaknesses. But given Plato has just had Socrates give a warning to the effect of "don't despise wisdom just because it turns out that some arguments you thought were good actually turn out to have huge flaws," I am pretty sure Plato leads with bad arguments on purpose (you always find new stuff in these).

Socrates' last argument is that the soul/mind cannot be like a harmony because the soul sometimes rules over the body. That is, mind sometimes causes the body to act. But how can a harmony cause an instrument to act a certain way? Simple answer: it can't. A harmony cannot cause the strings to vibrate different ways because the harmony is the vibration of the strings. In the terms of modern physics, we would say that any effect on the lyre caused by the sound waves it generates (the harmony) can ultimately be traced back to the strings itself. If the analogy were true, the harmony/mind must be causally inefficacious.

This is a killer argument. It is really just variants on this argument that leads to physicalists having to posit epiphenomenalism or eliminativism. But for Plato (and most people) it is prima facie unreasonable to say the mind has no causal powers vis-a-vis the body.

This argument still seems very relevant today because I would think that most people who embrace computational theory of mind or integrated information theory very much would like to compare the mind to a harmony or melody. It is an "emergent informational process." But for that emergence to be causally efficacious, you need some sort of "strong emergence" that gets around Plato's trap, and that is hard to come by.

Just to clarify though, the body/soul - instrument/harmony analogy is Pythagorean, not Platonic. Plato has Socrates argue against the analogy in the Phaedo. It's in the context of Plato's arguments in favor of the immortality of the soul. Plato doesn't like the analogy because it would imply that the soul (harmony) must disappear when the body (instrument) is destroyed. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks. But it's a useful metaphor anyway. I may have to disagree with Plato though, on the immortality of the Soul. I tend to think of it, not as a ghost, but as the immaterial (mental ; metaphorical) Self-Concept/Personality of a self-conscious being/body*1. Hence, they are harmonious in the sense of an abstract/concrete duet. But when the concrete aspect dies, the duet does not automatically become a perpetual solo, but perhaps could "exist" as a vague memory in another mind. Besides, how could that which was never visible "disappear", like the fictional Cheshire cat? On this topic, you could classify my compromised position as a Physicalist/Metaphysicalist or Realist/Idealist duet. Not exactly Strong Emergence, but co-existence.

On the other hand, I do agree with Plato that a hypothetical First Cause/Logos must have logically existed, in some abstract or metaphysical sense, outside of space-time and all secondary causes. Hence, eternal. That's because, according to expert cosmologists, our space-time world is not eternal, but somehow suddenly emerged from unreality into reality. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing what ideal eternal existence would be like (Nagel).

As an amateur philosopher though, I can use mind-made words to represent unreal concepts such as Zero, Infinity, Eternity, and Soul. Likewise, words like "God" can point-toward an imaginary eternal Mind that continually imagines (sustains) our own Reality. Sadly, such self-reference boggles the mortal mind, and can lead to circular thinking.

The human intellect has imagined a variety of immaterial abstractions --- e.g. numbers ; metaphors --- that seem to be logically necessary or philosophically useful. Such non-things may be figments of imagination, but they are "persistent illusions" for philosophical thinkers. So I take them seriously, as challenges to any hardline physicalist worldview. :smile:


*1. Soul/Body and Mind/Body pairs "exist" in different senses. Life, Mind & Soul/Self are subjective processes/activities, not objective things. For example, when the engine of a car dies, its transportation function (process) dies with it. Yet, a physical machine can be repaired and restored to its proper function. But AFAIK, a "disappeared" Life/Mind has never been resurrected --- except of course as an ongoing metaphor/belief in other body/minds.

Just to return to this, you have not answered why Plato, in his letter, when he clearly has an opportunity to present himself as a skeptic, instead chooses to say something very different, and even implies that he has shared knowledge of the forms with others (although not through dissertations.)

The Seventh Letter might not have been written by Plato, but it was decidedly not written by a skeptic.

Your reference to the Phaedo also doesn't say what you say it does in context. He doesn't call the forms "foolish" at 100. Rather, Socrates is making an argument for the immortality of the soul based on the assumption that something like the theory of forms is true. That is, he is (perhaps foolishly, or seemingly so) not going to justify the forms here again, but will show what follows from his understanding of them.

Plato does have Socrates say something to the effect of: "no one should take this exact narrative too seriously and think these things are just as I have described them," but this would seem to be a reference to the images he is painting. Like he says in the letter, you can't put this stuff into words. This is why he uses many different images to try to get the ideas across. This is why Socrates repeatedly demures from speaking on these issues directly, because they cannot be spoken of. The warning then is to not mistake his image, appearance, for the reality he is directing our attention to. It isn't to say something like, "and I actually don't know if any of this has any real merit because knowledge of such things is impossible, so don't take me too seriously."

And it's worth noting that "opinion" is in some ways a very inadequate translation of doxa. Today we tend to think of opinion as subjective, as having no real grounding outside itself. But doxa refers to images or what things "seem to be like." What things "seem to be like," is an important parts of what they are. The divided line is all one line, rather than two discrete lines, for a reason. Appearances are part of reality. The line is a hierarchy. To know such appearances, to move up the line, to know something of the truth (in the way the English "knowledge" is colloquially used). Plato's use of doxa has none of the connotations of the English "opinion," where we might think that "to only have opinion" means to lack any knowledge and understanding of a thing.

Again, if Plato knew nothing of the Good, but is just spinning tales based on pragmatic usefulness (a pragmatic consideration based on... what? he doesn't know anything of the Good right?) then would be acting like the very paradigm of the Sophists he criticizes so heavily. He would be someone who pretends to know what he doesn't know and who uses words to try to manipulate people for his own pragmatic ends.

I'm saying he's making an advance in ethical thinking in pointing out how is/ought frequently get conflated as if they have the same import. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This supposed conflation IS NOT a conflation at all. It is trivial to understand this IF the base model of reality is correct. That is there is ... passion (desire), reason (fear), AND ... BEING (anger). Being is the IS and each emotion contains a third of ought. That is to say ought is NOT merely desire. It is most associated with desire ONLY because we experience and communicate naturally AS IF time were unidirectional. Desire is the pull of perfection upon us, upon being, coming from the past accessible via only memory (and memory includes the current state of being from which the past may also be researched). But that limited association is WRONG.

Ought is included in all three emotions. There is an ought to reason. Some reason is done properly. There is an ought to being. You SHOULD be a better ... whatever. There is an ought of course to desire, as desire shows us the general direction of all oughts, towards perfection. But, as my previous post mentioned, hyperbolae is everywhere. Desire unbent PROPERLY by reason(fear) and being (anger) can miss the mark of perfection. Then it is immoral desire and causes rot and ruin and a presumed ought fails us. That shows that desire has oughts. There is an OBJECTIVE moral truth. And that destination, perfection, is the only CORRECT desire, the ought of desire. Again, BECAUSE of the differing current states of being, the linear path to perfection is different per chooser, giving rise to the confusion of morality being subjective.

I'd say it's question begging sophistry (in precisely the way Plato frames sophistry). To make the distinction is to have already presupposed that there are not facts about what is good. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That presupposition is a dangerous immorality. There are facts about what is good. It is very hard to state them because our state is not perfection and we are trying to speak on perfection.

Now, thanks to the theological issues I mentioned earlier in this thread, such a position was already common by Hume's time. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If I follow your tack here, you are suggesting that the assertion that 'there are NOT facts about what is good' was THE position that was already common by Hume's time. That means to me that the foolish and immoral confusion of subjective morality had become tempting to reason (fear) at least by Hume's time. In truth, immorality is (being) always tempting in exactly the three ways, cowardice(fear), self-indulgence(desire), and laziness(anger). If I am misunderstanding you, please let me know.

It went along with fideism and a sort of anti-rationalism and general backlash against the involvement of philosophy in faith (and so in questions of value), all a century before Hume. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, well, historically 'faith' has been an exercise in rampant idealism/desire and rampant fear. Left out often enough is wisdom itself. You can certainly understand why philosophy would represent a clear and present danger to religious pundits (being in essence). Clearly stating or trying to clearly state wisdom removes power from the pundits who prefer an impenetrable mystery behind which to hide (their immorality). The denigration of anger, of being, of WHAT IS, is typical of most aims at so called ideals. The tacit presumption is that there is something BASE about WHAT IS. As such, the immoral implication is that some form of desire (idealism) can get us to the right place, AWAY from this being thing. Likewise, the other large camp favors fear (pragmatism) and their cowardice presumes that near impossible seeming aspirations should be shunned, limiting what is possible to what is currently understood, rather than the infinity of truth that ACTUALLY IS, amid free will.

Hume argues to this position by setting up a false dichotomy. Either passions (and we should suppose the appetites) are involved in morality or reason, but not both. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Your meaning here is unclear as the sentence structure is confusing. This is especially true for a reader that includes reason within morality, like me. So, I am forced to pick the idea apart in parts.

Either passions OR WHAT are involved in morality or reason?

To me passion is desire renamed. To me reason is only fear, always fear. And both are each 1/3 of moral force. Anger and being is the other third.

Yet I certainly don't think he ever gives a proper explanation of why it can't be both (univocity is a culprit here of course). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Both passion and WHAT? Reason I suppose is the other side. Correct me if I am wrong. But the trouble in the math and the model is the missing third part, anger and BEING. The correct model is a trichotomy, not a dichotomy. And that tripartite system collapses into monism quite nicely, with love, the entire system, being the monad. Again, it cannot be reiterated enough that truth, God, ALL, etc are just synonyms for love. Consciousness is just another synonym.

For most of the history of philosophy, the answer was always both (granted, Hume seems somewhat unaware of much past philosophy, and his successor Nietzsche seems to get his entire view of it from a particularly bad reading of the Phaedo and not much else from Plato). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Although I have read much of each of these, I confess that I take reading for what they invoke in me as ... ENOUGH ... and that I shy away from saying I understood the other. My assertions then are only a confident stand on current belief. I offer that other takes on this are just more delusion. We only ever have our current stand to assert. Even if we take the supposed position of another philosopher to stand on that is our current state, performing an AS IF with no certainty of being right.

It's sophistry because it turns philosophy into power relations and dominance. Hume admits as much. "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions” (T 2.3. 3.4)." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Although I have had this very thought concerning reason, it is only tempting, a sure sign of immoral desire. So, this slavery thing, sort-of IN GENERAL has been shown to be immoral, yes? Do we believe that? If so, then enslaving fear seems immoral and I would assert that it is. Yes, I realize I am working with my model, and not maybe others' meanings.

Idealists show us the GENERAL path towards perfection. They are sensing the perfection with its being in essence, desire. But, fear, to me the eternal juxtaposition of desire, uses its tool reason, structure, ... really ORDER is the best term, to focus and refine desire. This is specificity. This is identity. This is distinction. From this limiting and refining force comes the truth of direction itself, of accuracy. Order restrains chaos and that can be done appropriately or inappropriately. But the general and the specific are ubiquitous, omnipresent. Like truth they are rather dull, and yet perfect, by themselves. The specific that unveils the challenge of free will is BEING, the middle ground where these pesky CHOICES play out.

So, again, the anger of being is required to assist us in this puzzle. This anger is responsible for the STATE of things currently. It is responsible for the eternal moment we refer to as NOW, and thus it SEEMS so vastly different and smaller in a way than the gulf of the past (fear) and the infinity of all possible futures (desire). But that middle path of now is where everything actually IS.

Not fear, not anger, not desire, none of them, are slaves to the other. They are equal forces, perfectly and precisely equal.

The temptation to make reason a slave is a misunderstanding of fear and a rejection of its sin, cowardice. Self-indulgence is thus immorally handed the reigns.

But anger knows. The middle way understands. Anger demands that fears and cowardice recede. Anger demands that desire and self-indulgence are not the way. Anger stands and IS amid courage. Anger demands that in some way, there is already a connection to the divine, self-sufficiency. This demand is the recognition that any current state is not a prison AND that any dream is possible and really already available (perfection, objective moral truth, does exist). You can tell that although anger is only an equal force to the other emotional forces, it is somehow closer to truth or unique in its presentation, the uniqueness of state, of being, in any case, in every case. Notice that the eternal NOW is still infinite though.

This is Socrates fighting with Thacymachus, Protagoras, and that one guy who suggests that "justice" is "whatever we currently prefer" in the Republic (his name escapes me because he has just one line and everyone ignores him, since, were he right, even the sophists would lose, since there is no need for their services when being wrong is impossible). — Count Timothy von Icarus

It only seems like some points of view are invalid. They are part of all only so that they may suffer examination and amid being, change by reason of unhappiness/suffering as a consequence of not BEING at/with/for perfection (THE GOOD).

Justice cannot be random desire. Instead, there is only one right desire, objective, the GOOD, perfection. The act and process of wisdom is to determine what the GOOD is and become it.

I detest the colloquial definition for sophistry. The 'art of wisdom' is a part of wisdom and NOT JUST charlatanry. So, the word (sophistry) is poisoned by foolish Pragmatists, that eschew desire (expressed via art) by way of reason as they APPLY a false definition to a RELATIVELY innocent term. Once they get you in their books, they 'know' (another delusional term) that others will believe their immoral definition. The art of wisdom can be beautiful and NOT charlatanry. That possibility must be respected and honored. It exists. What then is generally, or specifically GOOD wise art called? Is it then JUST wisdom? It is hard then to speak of wisdom in terms of anything but itself, or perfection. We then tend to lose track of the relative value of some wisdom to other wisdom. This then is an Idealist immoral tendency. This is all or nothing thinking. It is not perfect, so poo poo it. No! Relativity is real. The current STATE of being of things is one thing. Any given choice may in fact BETTER that state and thus be clearly MORE ... GOOD ... than not. I am speaking here of OVERALL state, not state with respect to any given or just a few virtues.

It is hard in life amid being (imperfect) to practice wisdom (the aim at perfection). Interestingly, it is worth noting that whereas some skill are indeed hard to practice, the skill of wisdom is THE SINGLE HARDEST skill that there is. That is because it is THE skill OF perfection (in every way, including being).

Note the sin of anger. Laziness in not challenging fear and desire is the core sin of being. That is not BEING enough to have the courage to stave off fears and desire, cowardice and self-indulgence.

The only difference is that now the struggle is internalized. This certainly goes along with Hume (and Nietzsche's) view of the self as a "bundle of sensations" (or "congress of souls"). Yet, Plato's reply is that this is simply what the soul is like when it is sick, morbid. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Plato, again, for the win.

Just from the point of view of the philosophy of language it seems pretty far-fetched. Imagine someone yelling:

"Your hair is on fire."
"You are going to be late for work."
"You're hurting her."
"Keep doing that and you'll break the car."
"You forgot to carry the remainder in that calculation."
"You are lying."
"You didn't do what I asked you to."
"That's illegal."
"You're going to hurt yourself doing that."
"There is a typoo in this sentence."

...or any other such statements. There are all fact claims. They are all normally fact claims people make in order to spur some sort of action, and this is precisely because the facts (generally) imply oughts. "Your hair is on fire," implies "put the fire on your head out." And such an ought is justifiable by the appetites (desire to avoid pain), passions (desire to avoid the opinions of others related to be disfigured or seen to be stupid), and reason (the desire to fullfil rationally held goals, which burning alive is rarely conducive to). — Count Timothy von Icarus

This explanation is VASTLY insufficient. The relative value of any ought is many-fold. That is to say each virtue has to weigh in on that choice. And EVERY virtue SHOULD weigh in on EVERY choice. leave even one out and you fail in that degree.

Consider:

"There are times when hair should be on fire"
"Being late to work can be acceptable"
"Hurting her is relative to truth as some suffering (hurt) is wise."
"Breaking the car may be morally necessary from this state to get to a better state even if there was also a way to improve without breaking the car."
"Forgetting as an act is the means by which we suffer and earn the wisdom showing the need for accurate memory."
"Deception is sometimes a path to better outcomes, even though it is a shame that should be used only sparingly; but deceiving a deceiver is a service to them, allowing them the suffering opportunity (seeing themselves in other choosers) to earn wisdom and revealing that intent is the proper thing to judge amid choice, not the consequences."
"I understand what you did not do what I asked you to." or "This is WHY is asked you to do it (followed by the actual reason)."
"Although that is illegal, order (fear) is NOT the only source for moral choice aimed at the GOOD."
"There may be a moral reason to hurt yourself, and you seem to be trying to hurt yourself."
"A typoo is actually an alien from the planet Yiaghall. If you refer to them in any way, they bless you with their 5th dimensional aid." And "OK smarty, you KNEW what that word was supposed to be, and you KNEW that upon review I would agree, so, why the intentional misunderstanding?"

At least on the classical view, the division is incoherent. There are facts about what are good or bad for us. To say "x is better than what I have/am, but why ought I seek it?" is incoherent. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I disagree. To invoke a lack of desire, to point it out, is an attempt, which could indeed be wrong, to express the fact that what IS currently is only a state and not perfect. There is then a tacit implication of a perfect state, a non-moving goalpost, to which one may aspire. Laying out this challenge is always wise unless the assertion is that perfection is already present and represented by this state of being.

What is "truly good" is truly good precisely because it is desirable, choice-worthy, what "ought to be chosen" (of course, things can merely appear choice-worthy, just as they can merely appear true). Why should we choose the most truly choice-worthy? We might as well ask why we should prefer truth to falsity, or beauty to ugliness or why 1 is greater than 0. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Acting in 'good faith' is a sword of Damocles proposition. This is again why Deontological morality is valid and Utilitarianism is a dangerous and immoral lie. If one acts with the strength of one's convictions TOWARDS or INTENDING the GOOD, that is generally good. This is the general OUGHT. It implies a destination. I name that destination perfection, and suggest it is best to consider that an objective state.

The state of perfection may be the most impossible state of being that there is. It sure follows reasonably that this is true. And then how to appeal to reason itself in approaching that state? After all, if we use reason and we admit that reason is making the more probable choices, then reason points AWAY from perfection. Is that really reasonable? So, reason is again seen to contain its primary sin, COWARDICE. The reasonable goal is always perfection, and it is the ONLY reasonable goal. It is also the least likely goal, and therein lies the challenge that anger understands, and reason often flees from.

J - For the second, could you perhaps say briefly how analogous predication would apply here, in the case of what looks like two usages of "good"? It's quite possible I don't yet understand how that would work.

Short answer: just as the measure of a "good car" differs from the measure of a "good nurse" (the same things do not make them good) the measure of a "good act" or "good event" will differ from that of a "good human being" (and in this case the former are not even things, not discrete unities at all, which is precisely why focusing on them leads to things like analyzing an unending chain of consequences). — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is INCORRECT reasoning.

Truth does not change. Perfection does not change. It is objective.

If you cannot communicate why being a good car and a good nurse are defined in the same way that is only because you do not understand the GOOD. You have denied blame for your own imperfection in that understanding by pretending that the GOOD can change. You are WRONG.

I can share a long (but still cursory) explanation when I get to my PC, but the basic idea is that "good" is said many ways. The "good" of a "good car," a "good student," and a/the "good life" are not the same thing. Yet a good car certainly relates to human well-being, as any — Count Timothy von Icarus

If the GOOD is properly understood, then it will be the same GOOD in every way at the same time to everything in the universe, unchanging and omnipresent.

More specifically, to make these sorts of comparisons/predications requires a measure. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Agreed that at least an understanding is required, which is what measurement implies. Measure infinity! That challenge seems hard, yet we dabble in the concept.

It is the nature of perfection to remain elusive to understanding. This is why COURAGE to be (anger) is required. As our state approaches perfection, the strength of that elusiveness increases. Each step on the moral ladder is harder and harder. The cowards will be tempted to skew off in any direction. Notice then how fear becomes chaotic like desire when it is immoral, even though it is the general source or force of order.

This is in Book 10 and 14 of the Metaphysics I think (and Thomas' commentaries are always helpful). Easiest way to see what a measure is it to see that to speak of a "half meter" or "quarter note" requires some whole by which the reference to multitude is intelligible. Likewise, for "three ducks" to be intelligible one must have a whole duck as the unit measure. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed and this immoral act of separation is useful only amid the DENIAL of a final whole (objective). We cannot be objective. We can only TRY to be objective. Writing it that way EVERY TIME is required to be honestly trying. Be careful with assertions regarding subjectivity. "You are going to hurt yourself doing that." (ha ha)

For anything to be any thing is must have some measure of unity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If it is a fundamental truth that anything is a part of everything and that there is no real live between them, then anything IS everything at some level of awareness. Unity was always true. This is the source of compassion and that is a result of the force of anger. This relationship seems counterintuitive, but it is not finally.

We cannot even tell what the dimensive quantities related to some abstract body are unless that body is somehow set off from "everything else" (i.e., one cannot measure a white triangle on a white background—there are a lot of interesting parallels to information theory in St. Thomas). — Count Timothy von Icarus

And these observations offer a staggering assertion. All fear, all separation, is delusional. This is a tautology, if the observer is wise enough. The difficulty of wisdom is thus again shown. How do we leverage this wisdom in our choices to generally increase the GOOD?

We can realize that the need to measure is cowardice in part. It IS delusional. We cannot be separated from ALL. The only right measurement is ALL. But, to increase the comfort or at homeness within each deluded part (us), what force is needed? I ask with reasonable humility, could it be anger (confidence and courage)? Could it be also a desire that truth be truth and believed as such? Is that belief then in that way some OBJECTIVE thing, a single hardest right way to want, to fear, and be at home with in balance?

I think I already explained Plato's thing about how the "rule of reason" makes us more unified and self-determining (self-determining because we are oriented beyond what already are and have, beyond current beliefs and desires). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ah yes, the delusion of self-determination, reinforcing the delusional identity of the self. The self-made man is another hilarious immoral non-sequitur. We could go on and on. But the unity principle is that "you are me and I am you" The unity principle is that 'you are ALL and cannot be made to un-belong". You are a white triangle on a white background. And you may 'for the moment' consider the triangle or the background, but there is always finally only the whole.

The struggle to find for any distinction is the delusion that will cause the suffering to allow for that distinction to earn wisdom and reunite with all. The whole flux of this, the process of it, is guided along a single objective path, towards perfection, the GOOD.

Next, consider that organisms are proper beings because they have a nature, because they are the source of their own production and movement (not absolutely of course, they are not subsistent). Some non-living systems are self-organizing to some degree (and stars, hurricanes, etc. have "life cycles").The scientific literature on complexity and dissipative, self-organizing systems is decent at picking up on Aristotle here, but largely ignores later Patristic, Islamic, and medieval extensions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That which contains the seed of life is itself alive, obviously.

These distinctive delusions will hurt you (cause suffering) to (anyone that chooses to believe in them).

Yet non-living things lack the same unity because they don't have aims (goal-directedness, teleonomy) unifying their parts (human institutions do). — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is an immoral lack of awareness. Clearly, that which contains the seed of life, is itself alive.

Animism was always far more correct than religion ever has been.

The goodness for organisms is tightly related to their unity. In general, it is not good for an organism to lose its unity and die. "Ok, but sometimes they do this on purpose, bees sting and stinging kills them." — Count Timothy von Icarus

You show the contradiction and continue as if that is ok. Is that reasonable?

The white triangle is still there. But it behooves it to accept belonging amid belief. The delusional assertion of a sub-unity is finally unwise unless belonging is also equally accepted and there then is less stress on the separation, the sub-unity, as 'put upon'. Yes, the burden of choice faces each sub-unity. That is because it is alive. Any sub-unity, like the whole, is alive BEYOND even what humans currently imagine.

Exactly! Because what ultimately drives an organism is its goals. Brutes can't ask what is "truly good" but they can pursue ends that lie beyond them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Your self-contradiction without synthesis is STUNNING to behold.

Indeed they (all things) pursue ends that lie as just another part of all, more moral agency. That is what evolution is and it proceeds from the dawn of time until time's end and the source of that evolution as a drive is objective perfection, the GOOD. Thus, all organisms, and even all rocks, because they are organisms of a kind, DO IN FACT ask 'what is truly GOOD'? because that is the only real question in existence. That question CAUSES existence.

And note, bees sacrifice themselves because they are oriented towards the whole, just as Boethius and Socrates do. This is because goodness always relates to the whole (because of this tight relationship with unity). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Agreed. Why is this not included though in the realization of all parts being the whole (for you, seemingly)?

So to return to how goodness is said in many ways, goodness is said as respect to a measure. The measure of a "good house" is a house fulfilling it ends (artifacts are a little tricky though since they lack intrinsic aims and essences; people want different things in a house). The measure of the "good duck" is the paradigmatic flourishing duck (no need to posit independent forms existing apart from particulars here BTW). — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is a delusional nod back to separation and identity, itself a delusion. The only GOOD identity is ALL. You are separate from ALL only by immoral choice. The act of being and even dying is your participation in the effort to overcome all of your delusions and admit to being all in the first place by re-becoming it. What part of all will you deny is you, is to be properly included in the final all?

Because equivocity is so rampant in our day, essentially the norm, let's not use "good person." Let's use "excellent person." The excellent person has perfected all the human excellences, the virtues. "It is good for you to be excellent." Or "it is excellent for you to be good." In either case the measure for "you," as a human, is human excellence, flourishing. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Renaming something DOES NOT change it in truth. Sophistry is still the 'art of wisdom' and that is despite the colloquial accepted definition, possibly a GOOD thing and not charlatanry.

Likewise, the GOOD must be realized and admitted as objective. Failing this, excellent can become 'good enough', a deeply immoral state. The only fair stopping point is perfection. This DOES NOT deny the good of resting.

But because reason is transcedent, we can aim at "the best thing possible," which is to be like God. God wants nothing, lacks nothing, and fears nothing. Yet God is not indifferent to creatures, for a few reasons but the most obvious is that the "best" lack no good, and love is one of these. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Reason is UNLIKELY to aim at perfection. It limits us via cowardice, its typical sin. If you are a proponent of reason OVER desire or anger, you ARE being cowardly as a guarantee. If you instead DO NOT ENSLAVE reason to passion (desire), and yet admit its grounding in BEING (anger, a current state), you can begin to realize and accept the profoundly equal forces of fear, anger, and desire; the ONLY three forces that are love when combined in all permutations. This love is God and truth and ALL. They are again, synonymous terms.

God can also just be the rational limit case of perfection, having the best life conceivable. We might miss much in this deflation, but it still works. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Nothing is missing if it is perfection.

It is a question to me still: "Can we really experience perfection?" Are there moment of it all the way? I say or assert NO. We are always only able to experience a less than perfect state. So, perfection as experience is an immoral error MOSTLY. I do not want to discourage it, the pursuit. So I caution only that perceived perfection is just BETTER than where we were as a state and that BETTER can seem like the best, even when it is clearly not ALL (the real perfection).

this quandary leaves us wondering what grand entity of moral agency will populate the end of the universe. Must they all, even amid their amazing levels of near perfection, submit to loss of delusional identity and merge to become perfect? How hard must that act be? Why is the separation 'bad'? Once reunified, does this longing for more and the need to have distinction CAUSE the next 'Big Bang' or other analogy/meme for the dawn of time? Restart!

{Humorously I hit the length limit on a post (lol). So this reply will be continued in the next post as a restart underscoring this point. The IMMORAL arbitary limit here is sad. It wasn't even as large a length of symbols as I can type in in one day. How terrible!}

I propose to discuss the text of my essay.

The contemporary assertion of the dualistic nature of humanity in a spiritual context, positing spirit and body as separate entities, appears to modern individuals as something commonplace, self-evident, and taken for granted. In their popular interpretations, a significant portion of Christian denominations lean toward dualism, viewing the body as a temporary vessel for an immortal spirit, which, after the completion of earthly life, continues to exist independently or is reborn in a new body.

The purpose of this work is to elucidate the source of the self-evident nature of the dualistic approach in Christianity and to explore alternative approaches and hypotheses regarding Christian anthropology.

The methodology of this study employs a comprehensive approach, encompassing a hermeneutical analysis of Scriptures (Old and New Testaments), a historical-critical examination of the development of theological thought, and a comparative analysis of ancient philosophical concepts and their influence on the Christian worldview.

The anthropological concept of the New Testament—the understanding of human nature—is a subject of intense debate among theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers. To substantiate the dualistic nature (body/spirit), the following biblical sources are traditionally cited:

Matthew 10:28: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” At first glance, this verse clearly suggests a distinction between body and soul, pointing to the soul’s independent existence, invulnerable to physical death.
2 Corinthians 5:6–8: “So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Here, the Apostle Paul expresses a desire to leave the body to be with the Lord, interpreted as evidence of the spirit’s potential existence apart from the body.
Luke 23:43: The Savior’s words to the thief crucified beside him: “And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” Proponents of dualism see this as confirmation of the soul’s immediate entry into paradise after death, prior to the general resurrection of bodies.
According to advocates of the view that soul and body exist as independent entities, these passages testify to the independence of spirit and body. On this foundation, subsequent constructs and superstructures concerning the afterlife and posthumous existence are built. However, the primary sources themselves do not fully disclose this content, leaving ample room for interpretation.

Let us consider the matter from a different angle. Christianity emerged within Judaism, in a region where Judaism was the dominant religion. If we view Christianity as a doctrine, its ideas arose either in opposition to or as a development of prevailing Jewish thought (e.g., Jesus’ sermon: “You have heard that it was said… But I say to you, ‘Do not resist the one who is evil’” — Matthew 5:38–39).

In the context of Jewish ideas of the time, the prevailing notion was the unity of human body and soul. In the Old Testament, a person is regarded as a holistic entity (in Hebrew, nephesh, often translated as “soul” but more accurately meaning “living breath,” “person,” or “being,” rather than an immaterial substance). Death was perceived as a disruption of this wholeness. For instance, Genesis 2:7 states: “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.” Here, “living soul” (nephesh chayyah) does not denote a separate soul but the living human being.

Christianity introduced a revolutionary concept of resurrection at the time. This is a central doctrine of the New Testament, which does not envision the disembodied existence of the soul after death as the ultimate goal but points to the complete restoration of the person, including their corporeality. The doctrine of resurrection, emphasized in texts such as 1 Corinthians 15 and John 5:28–29, speaks precisely of resurrection as the return of the whole person to life. Scripture lacks direct and unambiguous references to the resurrection of the soul alone. It speaks explicitly of the resurrection of the body, as exemplified by Jesus Christ (Luke 24:36–43, where Jesus appears to his disciples in bodily form).

In the context of complete resurrection, the Christian practice of burying the deceased rather than cremating them appears particularly logical. The New Testament inherited the Jewish anthropology of the Old Testament, where a person is a unified whole (nephesh), and death is a temporary disruption to be overcome by resurrection (Daniel 12:2: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”). Burial practices, such as those of Jesus (John 19:38–42) and Lazarus (John 11:17–44), reflect this belief, symbolizing the expectation of bodily restoration.

The Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:12–14, 42–44, asserts: “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised… It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” Paul’s metaphor of the body as a seed sown in the earth (linked to burial) underscores its transformation, not its abandonment, affirming the body’s role in eternal life. Thus, the claim that dualism is inherent to Christianity appears less than convincing.

But where, then, did the notion of dualism in Christianity originate?

Early Christians anticipated the imminent return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:13–17: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first”; Mark 13:30: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place”). When this did not occur (the so-called “delay of the parousia”—from Greek parousia, “coming”), a theological crisis arose: what happens to the deceased in the interim between death and the anticipated resurrection?

In this regard, the historical context is noteworthy. By the second century, Christianity had spread into the Greco-Roman world, where Platonic dualism prevailed. The idea that the mortal body is merely a temporary vessel for the soul originates with the Greek philosopher Plato. In dialogues such as Phaedo, Plato argued that the soul is immortal and divine, while the body is its prison, the source of all suffering and limitations. The goal of philosophy, according to Plato, is to liberate the soul from the body’s shackles. This doctrine found widespread acceptance in the Hellenistic world.

Early Christian apocrypha, such as the Apocalypse of Peter (late 1st to mid-2nd century), and theologians like Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215) and Origen (c. 185–c. 254), began emphasizing the immortality of the soul, borrowing Plato’s concept of the body as the soul’s “prison.” Origen, for instance, actively employed Platonic categories to explain Christian doctrines, contributing to the spread of dualistic views. Later, Augustine of Hippo (354–430) solidified dualism in Western Christianity, integrating Platonic ideas into his theology, particularly in City of God (Book XIII). He viewed the body as the lower part of humanity and the soul as the higher, capable of communion with God. This raises the question: did new converts not accept Christianity within the prevailing philosophical framework of their societies, adapting it to existing worldview paradigms?

The above example of Platonism’s infiltration vividly illustrates the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer’s teaching on the hermeneutical circle and “prejudices” (Vorurteile). In his work Truth and Method, Gadamer argues that individuals perceive and interpret the world, texts, and doctrines through the lens of their cultural, historical, and personal experience. We always approach understanding with a certain “horizon of prejudices,” which are not negative judgments but rather the conditions that make understanding possible. These “prejudices” (or preliminary judgments) shape our perception.

In this context, it is worth citing an example from modern African Christian churches, such as those in Ethiopia or certain communities in South Africa. Their churches feature icons depicting the Virgin Mary and the Holy Son with black skin. This suggests that believers in these congregations envision the Savior and the Mother of God in accordance with their racial and cultural identity, which may contradict European iconographic canons but does not conflict with Scripture itself. This example demonstrates how cultural context shapes the perception and interpretation of religious imagery, just as the Hellenistic context influenced Christian anthropology.

Returning to the “delay of the parousia” and the need to make sense of the intermediate state of the deceased, the adoption by some Christians of Hellenistic ideas, particularly Platonism’s view of the soul as immortal and independent of the body, appears consistent. Texts such as 2 Corinthians 5:6–8 and Luke 23:43, even if they originally held different meanings in a Jewish context, could easily be interpreted through a dualistic lens, suggesting a temporary disembodied state of the soul.

Early Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–202) in his work Against Heresies, emphasized bodily resurrection and the wholeness of humanity, aligning with a monistic anthropology. Irenaeus argued that the body, as part of God’s creation, is redeemed alongside the soul, and that salvation pertains to the entire person, not merely their spirit. He criticized Gnostics who despised matter and the body.

However, as previously noted, by the third century, Origen and others began incorporating Platonic dualism, describing the soul’s intermediate state. This transition confirms the idea of dualism as a later adaptation and synthesis of Christian doctrine with the prevailing philosophical ideas of the era.

Dualism, though entrenched in later Christian tradition and becoming “self-evident” to most believers, relies heavily on philosophical accretions and is less consistent with the original Jewish and early Christian context of the New Testament. Texts that appear dualistic (e.g., Matthew 10:28, Luke 23:43) can be reconciled with a monistic anthropology if interpreted as descriptions of a temporary state after death, rather than assertions of an eternal disembodied existence of the soul separate from the body.

The true, original Christian message about humanity was likely more holistic, emphasizing the value of all that God created—including the body, which is not a prison but an integral part of the person, destined for resurrection and transformation.

But what if we deconstruct religious notions as later superstructures and approach the interpretation of the Gospel from a monistic perspective? What if there is no separate, disembodied soul existing apart from the person? What if the human body is not a cage, not a mortal and base vessel, but a valuable creation destined for glorification? What if humanity is valuable as such, in its inseparable wholeness of spirit, soul, and body, and its resurrection after death is the sole truth about the afterlife, offering hope for a complete existence in a transformed state?