Regarding religious considerations, the core of the Platonic project is encapsulated in several statements in the dialogues such as the following from the Republic:

We shall believe that the soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil, and so we shall hold ever to the upward way and pursue righteousness with wisdom always and ever, that we may be dear to ourselves and to the Gods both here and in the hereafter (Rep. 621c)

The phrase “upward way”, ano odos, indicates that Platonism is a process of vertical progress that takes the philosopher through a hierarchy of realities ranging from the human experience to ultimate truth, and that the means of entering it are righteousness (dikaiosyne) and wisdom (phronesis}, i.e., ethical conduct and spiritual insight.

However, if we encounter Gods or other metaphysical entities on our way to the highest, we will know this as and when it happens. So, we need not be overly concerned with the Gods.

Plato has a hierarchy of divine entities consisting in ascending order of (1) Olympic Gods, (2) Cosmic Gods, and (3) Creator God who is the Good or the One. The One is the unfathomable and indescribable Ultimate Reality, and the goal on which the philosopher must fix his mind.

All we need to know about the One is that it has two aspects, one in which it looks as it were “inward” and has no other experience than itself, and one in which it looks “outward” and sees the Cosmos which is the One’s own creation.

Now, supposing someone, e.g. a Greek, is a religious person, they may choose to worship the Olympic Gods by going to the local temple, or simply reciting a hymn or prayer to them at home. If one is not religious or does not believe in the Gods, one obviously need not worship or pray to them. But it may still help to acknowledge the Gods on a different level.

For example, starting with the astronomical facts, if you are facing north, you have the Sky above and the Earth below, the setting Moon in the west is to your left and the Sun rising in the east is to your right. By picturing that arrangement in your mind, you organize your inner world, and put yourself in touch with a larger reality. The simple acknowledgement of Sky, Earth, Moon, and Sun, already has a psychological and spiritual effect on your psyche.

In Jungian terms, you may create a mental mandala consisting of an outer circle described by the twelve Olympic Gods representing the heavens with the twelve houses of the zodiac and twelve months of the year. Inscribed in the outer circle, you visualize a square with Sky, Earth, Sun, and Moon on its four sides. Inside the square, you visualize the ocean with the Island of Paradise (the Island of the Blessed) in the center, and think of yourself as being there.

You can make it as detailed and intricate as you want, though it is best to keep it as simple and as realistic as possible. In any case, the purpose of visualizations of this type is to place the meditator in the right frame of mind, i.e., to facilitate detachment from everyday external surroundings and induce a state of consciousness in which new forms of awareness and experience may be explored. The rest is a matter of practice, always following the basic sense-withdrawal, concentration, and contemplation pattern.

The point I am making is that contemplating the Forms, e.g. the Good or the One, is an essential element of Platonism and Socrates repeatedly speaks of the need for the soul to look at intelligible or metaphysical realities “alone on its own” whilst turning away from the world of appearance (Phaedo 79d). But this is something that actually transcends religion. It is a highly flexible and adaptable procedure that can be practiced by anyone, including atheists and Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims or Jews, and using cultural elements from any tradition.

It's true there's no certainty on the level of discursive reasoning. — Wayfarer

And that is exactly what is required to distinguish knowledge from fanciful speculation. But, as was seen in the Phaedo, argument ends in aporia. So without the experience of being dead we have no knowledge of such things.

I think, possibly, the Platonic forms or ideas are not so remote or mysterious as many are making them out to be. — Wayfarer

Many would include Plato himself.

One clue for me is platonism in mathematics. — Wayfarer

The mathematician does not know the mathematical Forms. They are treated as hypothesis.

imagining real abstracts — Wayfarer

You make my point. Unless we know the original we do not know whether the image is really like what it is an image of.

But the counter to that is that they are the same for all who think - they're independent of any particular mind, but can only be seen by the rational faculty. — Wayfarer

We learn about triangles through images. We learn about number by counting.

But in addition to that imaginative realm there is also in Buddhism a precise definition of degrees and kinds of knowledge — Wayfarer

Again, you make my point. These are not things you know, they are things you are told about.

Imagination opens into other domains of being — Wayfarer

There is a difference between the power of imagination and imagining that what is imagained is a "domain of being".

If you make a statement, and two people notice the contradiction between that statement and others you make, does that turn the two persons into a single being? What a peculiar idea! But your thought experiment bears no relation to engaging in the contradictions involved in any particular discussion.

You brought the Phaedo passage into our discussion to support your view that we can experience divine truth through proper training in our lifetime. I observed that the text does not support your thesis. Fooloso4 has pointed out other contradictions between your statements regarding the passage you refer to and other statements you made in other discussions.

The reason for this similarity between your statements being challenged in different discussions could be explained by the fact that Fooloso4 and I are Siamese twins who were separated at birth.
He went on to become the Dean of Oxford University while I am an inmate in a Texas penitentiary, quarrying limestone under a relentless sun. The similarity of our language comes from the lullabies our nursemaid sang as we suckled upon our respective breasts.

Or maybe that is all an accident and the reason for the similarity is that we both have read enough Plato to notice the contradictions in your statements independently of the other.

All I can say for sure is that my question of why Socrates talks so much about his and our ignorance when you say he actually knows the truth has been left untouched by you.

The phrase “upward way”, ano odos, indicates that Platonism is a process of vertical progress that takes the philosopher through a hierarchy of realities ranging from the human experience to ultimate truth, and that the means of entering it are righteousness (dikaiosyne) and wisdom (phronesis}, i.e., ethical conduct and spiritual insight. — Apollodorus

There's a similarity to this in Early Buddhism: In Early Buddhism, the basic prongs of the practice are sila, panna, samadhi (morality, wisdom, concentration).

However, if we encounter Gods or other metaphysical entities on our way to the highest, we will know this as and when it happens.

A similar sentiment can be found in Early Buddhism regarding the efficacy of the practice.

Plato has a hierarchy of divine entities consisting in ascending order of (1) Olympic Gods, (2) Cosmic Gods, and (3) Creator God who is the Good or the One. The One is the unfathomable and indescribable Ultimate Reality, and the goal on which the philosopher must fix his mind.

All we need to know about the One is that it has two aspects, one in which it looks as it were “inward” and has no other experience than itself, and one in which it looks “outward” and sees the Cosmos which is the One’s own creation.

A similarity to this can be found in Hinduism. A hierarchy of gods, the notion of a Supreme Deity (I'm a bit rusty on this by now).

If one is not religious or does not believe in the Gods, one obviously need not worship or pray to them.

What a bizarre claim!!

For example, starting with the astronomical facts, if you are facing north, you have the Sky above and the Earth below, the setting Moon in the west is to your left and the Sun rising in the east is to your right. By picturing that arrangement in your mind, you organize your inner world, and put yourself in touch with a larger reality. The simple acknowledgement of Sky, Earth, Moon, and Sun, already has a psychological and spiritual effect on your psyche.

Yes, similar can be found in Early Buddhism (e.g.).
Further: frames of reference.

In Jungian terms, you may create a mental mandala consisting of an outer circle described by the twelve Olympic Gods representing the heavens with the twelve houses of the zodiac and twelve months of the year. Inscribed in the outer circle, you visualize a square with Sky, Earth, Sun, and Moon on its four sides. Inside the square, you visualize the ocean with the Island of Paradise (the Island of the Blessed) in the center, and think of yourself as being there.

I do not recall hearing about such a thing in any Dharmic religion that I know of, though.

The point I am making is that contemplating the Forms, e.g. the Good or the One, is an essential element of Platonism and Socrates repeatedly speaks of the need for the soul to look at intelligible or metaphysical realities “alone on its own” whilst turning away from the world of appearance (Phaedo 79d). But this is something that actually transcends religion. It is a highly flexible and adaptable procedure that can be practiced by anyone, including atheists and Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims or Jews, and using cultural elements from any tradition.

Similar can be heard from, say, the Hare Krishnas. I see no point in trying to go into who borrowed (or stole) whose ideas. I also think that the similarities could possibly be only superficial and overrated, and not some kind of evidence that the process is true/real.

He is not speaking thusly to everyone who voted for his acquittal; only to those few who notice that, by repetition, he is reminding them of the spuriousness of the traditional tales of the afterlife. — Leghorn

I think he is addressing both those who recognize or will come to understand that these are things said rather than things known, and those who will believe they are things known because they are things said.

The latter is a salutary teaching. Believing it is true promotes justice in the soul and the city. Those who are philosophical by nature, however, desire the truth. But, as Socrates points out in the Republic:

the best natures become exceptionally bad when they get bad instruction (491e).

That these are things said and not the truth is a truth suitable only to those who are of the best natures and have been properly educated through an education that includes such salutary tales.

The possibility that "death is like being nothing" presents both an ethical and existential problem. Plato deals with the first in the Republic where Socrates argues that justice is a matter of the health of the soul rather than a calculus of rewards and punishments. He deals with the second in the Phaedo, where Socrates attempts to charm away childish fears of death. (77e) In doing this he appeals to "things said" as well as his own myths. But none of these myths say what will happen to Socrates or you or me. They take the part as the whole.

In the Phaedo he says that the soul of a man might be that of an ass in the next life, or an ant, or other animal. — Fooloso4

Again, reincarnation was an ubiquitious belief of the ancient Indo-European cultures. Pythagoreans certainly accepted it, and it was arguably accepted by Plato, hence the myths concerning recollections from previous lives. For various reasons, this mythology was suppressed in the early Christian era, around 400 AD by one of the Church councils. Thereafter it only survived in underground circles such as Catharism (and is generally the object of intense hostility whenever mentioned on this forum.)

Of course in the East it developed along entirely different lines, in the Buddhist world it is widely accepted that beings are reborn in one of the 'six realms' according to their karma (although the intricacies of Buddhist soteriology are rather difficult to understand, as there is no 'being who transmigrates', only a series of causal factors that give rise in repeated rebirths, the 'citta-santana' or mind-stream.)

You quoted my words, and they are before your eyes, and yet you seem not to be able to make out the last two: “for salvation”. — Leghorn

Socrates does pray to the Gods, does he not? And he believes in “salvation” (soteria) or “release” (lysis) of the soul by God or through righteous conduct (Rep. 621c; Phaedo 67a).

Don’t I deserve then to learn from you where exactly it fails to convince? And I am not speaking of the large question, whether Socrates was an atheist, but the small one, whether he would ordinarily be expected to employ all those phrases reminding us that the popular Greek account of the afterlife consists of “things said”. I have been arguing that he would not be so expected. You appear to have given up attempting to refute my evidence. Does that mean we have come to a tacit agreement on that small point? — Leghorn

I’m afraid there is little chance of any such agreement. His statements containing phrases like “as they say” do not in the least sound like “reminders” to me. They are simply statements of fact and do not constitute evidence of secret messages to atheist supporters in the jury (or among readers of Plato’s dialogues).

And anyway (just out of curiosity), if you are not arguing that Socrates is an atheist, what is it that you hope to achieve?

So since Socrates 1) prays to the gods, and 2) believes in salvation, it follows that he prayed to a god for salvation after his conviction? Is that what you are saying? For what I said, in contrasting him and Jesus, was that the latter did, according to the Gospels, explicitly ask God for deliverance from his fate, while the former never did such a thing in regard to his own. — Leghorn

Well, it was you who brought Jesus into it. Personally, I prefer to read Socrates (or Plato) on his own terms. Salvation may mean different things to different readers. For Socrates salvation or liberation (soteria, lysis) means a release (1) from a life of ignorance, (2) from the prospect of being found wanting by the divine tribunal in the afterlife, and (3) from the cycle of death and rebirth.

If this is his conception of salvation, then it seems reasonable to assume that this is at the back of his mind when he prays to the Gods that his transition from this to the other world may be attended by good fortune.

In fact, he himself says: “But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for me” (Apol. 41d). Clearly, he sees his death as a release (apallage). And he is confirmed in this by his daimonion, the inner divine voice that is his lifelong guide.

But one possibility is more favorable to Socrates than the other, and gets longer shrift in the dialogue. I mean the possibility that life after death is spent among the dead in Hades. — Leghorn

The possibility of life after death seems to be more consistent with Socrates’ views given in the dialogues. This is precisely why he gives the other option first, because he intends to focus on the second possibility, the possibility of life after death, which is in line with his beliefs and teachings.

In fact, my personal impression is that Socrates’ views of afterlife are very close to those of the Orphic tradition as may be seen from the myth of Er in the Republic, the account of afterlife in the Phaedo, etc. The true purpose of his elenctic procedure is to get his interlocutors to hold those beliefs only that (according to Socrates) have been shown through rational argument to be the most reasonable or plausible.

The Phaedo talks about the immortal soul but whether or not the soul is immortal remains in question. — Fooloso4

It’s phrased in such a way as to leave it an open question.

What is the general point? — Fooloso4

I’m trying to respond to the questions you raised:

To put it differently, how does this three-fold division, cave, light of sun, Forms, correspond to the two-fold division of visible and intelligible? Are the Forms themselves more than images or are they shadows in the mind cast by Plato the image maker? Does the image of escape from the cave to a light above the light of the sun bind us more firmly to the cave? — Fooloso4

‘The visible’ is what is perceived by the senses, ‘the intelligible’ is what is understood by the intellect. According to the later tradition, matter is perceived by the senses, forms by the intellect.

If, then, the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.

Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality. — Thomistic Psychology, Brennan

It was a widespread practice in ancient asceticism. — Wayfarer

Although knowledge of the history and culture are informative we cannot simply assume that a widespread practice is what the puzzling claim about the practice of dying and being dead is about.

I think you have a determindly secularist reading of Plato. Obviously you will see the way I'm inclined to interepret it as due to my own somewhat spiritual preconceptions./quote]

And yet only one of us is attending to what he wrote while the other looks elsewhere. When Socrates says that death might be nothingness that is not a secular reading. It is more the case that those who have "somewhat spiritual preconceptions" avoid dealing with this.
— Wayfarer

Maybe that's because he doesn't fully understand them. Maybe he is dimly intuiting something profound about the nature of rational intelligence but hasn't been able to really think through all of the implications. — Wayfarer

If this is an admission that he does not have knowledge of the Forms, then I agree. "Dimly intuiting" does not square with the image of the mind itself seeing the Forms themselves. Without knowing the Forms themselves how do you know that this is an intuition and not something imagined?

I am trying to understand what 'the forms' might refer to, in such a way as to allow for the idea that they're real. — Wayfarer

Socrates "second sailing" is of primary importance. He says:

... I thought I must take refuge in discussions and investigate the truth of beings by means of accounts [logoi] (Phaedo 100a)

If knowledge of the Forms is seeing the Forms with the mind, then taking refuge in talk about the truth of beings does not lead to the truth of them but to opinions about them.

A bit more on Socrates second sailing:

After this, he said, when I had wearied of looking into beings, I thought that I must be careful to avoid the experience of those who watch an eclipse of the sun, for some of them ruin their eyes unless they watch its reflection in water or some such material. A similar thought crossed my mind, and I feared that my soul would be altogether blinded if I looked at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with each of my senses. (99d)

Rather than looking directly at beings he does something analogous to looking at their reflection in water, in other words, he looks at images created in speech. He blurs the distinction between beings as things seen with the eyes and beings as the Forms. In the Republic he says that the Forms are the beings themselves, the originals of which things seen with the eyes are images, and yet here he says that he would be blinded by looking at beings and so he takes refuge in speech and looks at images, at hypotheticals he posits and calls Forms.

In the Republic he presents:

... an image of our nature in its education and want of education ... (514a)

that culminates with the image of the philosopher seeing the Forms themselves. In the Phaedo he presents an autobiographical account of his own education, that culminates with his hypothesis of Forms. But the culmination of his account is not the culmination of his search. Philosophy remains radically incomplete.

It is this indeterminacy that some find intolerable. They desire that things be fixed and determined and knowable. Plato gives them what they want, stories and images they mistake for the truth.

A bit more on Socrates second sailing:

After this, he said, when I had wearied of looking into beings.... — Fooloso4

I wonder what 'looking into beings' might mean? Is it a reference to 'contemplation of the nature of being'?

It [mortification] was a widespread practice in ancient asceticism.
— Wayfarer

Although knowledge of the history and culture are informative we cannot simply assume that a widespread practice is what the puzzling claim about the practice of dying and being dead is about. — Fooloso4

Let's revisit:

The Phaedo talks about the immortal soul but whether or not the soul is immortal remains in question.
— Fooloso4

It’s phrased in such a way as to leave it an open question. — Wayfarer

One that only the dead can answer, providing death is not, as Socrates suggests in the Apology, nothingness. — Fooloso4

Again, in the Meno, Socrates suggests that the soul is immortal and subject to repeated re-birth:

Seeing then that the soul is immortal and has been born many times, and has beheld all things both in this world and in the nether realms, she has acquired knowledge of all and everything; so that it is no wonder that she should be able to recollect all that she knew before about virtue and other things. — Meno 81b

So, not only 'the dead' can answer, if the soul is able to recollect being born and dying.

It is this indeterminacy that some find intolerable. They desire that things be fixed and determined and knowable. Plato gives them what they want, stories and images they mistake for the truth. — Fooloso4

So, why do you think he does that? What might his motivation have been?

I feel that were it not for the Platonic ideas or forms, we would not have the culture we have today. — Wayfarer

I agree. The Platonic forms are fundamental in shaping our culture.

What I am suggesting is that there is another side of Plato's philosophy. The indeterminate dyads. According to the dramatic chronology of the dialogues Socrates was aware of the problem of the concept of forms from an early age. This suggests that all of the dialogues are informed by these difficulties

The indeterminate dyads cuts across the distinction between Forms and things. In various places both are spoken of as "the beings". See, for example, the passage in the Phaedo about Socrates second sailing at 99d discucces above. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/598406

The Timaeus points to another difficulty:

If the Forms are paradigmatic, then how useful they are diminishes the further the distance between Forms and "the city at war", that is, our world. — Fooloso4

Forms are not the whole of being, they are part of an indefinite dyad.

Even regardless of that caveat, Hadot's emphasis on the role of the 'unitive vision' is key. You still find that in Buddhist and Hindu teachings that are disseminated in the West - in fact I think that's why they found such a ready audience in the West, because they're providing something that had been lost in Western culture. The idea of spiritual practice as 'union' is the meaning of 'yoga' (in the philosophical sense, not the downward-facing-dog sense.) But it's almost entirely absent from philosophy as taught in the West, as Hadot says. There's a missing dimension. Like a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object. That's what I think underlies much of the misrepresentation. — Wayfarer

The fact that the concept of unification or union (henosis) occurs across wide geographic and cultural areas suggests that there may be some universal truth in it. In any case, it seems to presuppose a relation of identity between the unified elements which makes sense if we take the individual mind to be a microcosm of the universal mind.

I think the nous poietikos or “creative intelligence” is the key to understanding henosis. If we think of consciousness as a form of subjective light that “shines on” and thereby “sees”, projects, or brings into being its own objects such as universal Forms that in turn give shape and being to particulars, then we can see how cognition may come about in a Platonic sense.

That the mind is creative can be seen from dreams, especially lucid dreams. The only difference is that in this case the creative subject is not the individual or personal mind but a form of universal mind that creates the universe by seeing, or projecting it into existence. This is why the Forms or Ideas are not separate from the universal consciousness but their instantiations are perceived as separate objects by the individual mind, and why the Forms themselves can be grasped only when the individual mind elevates itself as far as possible to the level of the universal mind.

Given that what separates the individual mind from the universal mind is the experience based on identification with the physical body and the thoughts etc. associated with it, we can see why Socrates (or Plato) advises philosophers to intellectually and emotionally detach themselves from the physical body and appurtenances, and inquire into the Forms with the pure unalloyed reason alone, when the soul is undisturbed, “itself by itself” and in the company of realities like itself (Phaedo 65c ff.).

It will be worth remembering that in the Greek tradition the cultivation of virtues is a preparation for philosophy proper and that the Republic is about goodness and justice.

There are obvious ethical reasons why one should be good and just and not commit crimes, etc. But there is another reason that is just as important to Platonic philosophy. Being good creates a frame of mind that is conducive to a vision of the Good: the Good is seen by the good, only.

Otherwise said, if we compare the mind with the water of a lake that reflects the light of the Sun, we can see that the more agitated the mind is, the more it will reflect a higher reality in a distorted and fragmented way, and that the more calm it is, the more it will reflect that reality as it is.

Being an inseparable part of the soul, the mind is in the first place the mirror of the soul. This is why calm and focused meditative states of consciousness (as opposed to mental agitation) are conducive to knowledge of the self and of higher realities. We can only assume that this is what Socrates is doing when he remains motionless and “absorbed in thought” for long periods of time as related in the Symposium.

This is why we should not be distracted by the tale of the ideal city (that merely symbolizes the inner harmony of the soul) but pay attention to the dialogue as a whole that, in the manner of an Orphic mystery play, begins with Socrates’ descent to Piraeus and the vision of the Thracian Goddess, proceeds through several key allegories (of the Sun, the Divided Line, and the Cave), and ends with the uplifting vision of the column of light at the center of the world (616b).

Could the column of light symbolize the light of consciousness and could this be related to the experience of Plotinus and other mystics?

In other words, if ultimate reality is indeed the Good, which is light, goodness, beauty, etc. then reported beatific visions like that of Plotinus may well represent a glimpse of that reality, in which case Platonists could be right, after all.

And, we all die in the end. So futility is kind of built-in anyway. So... who knows? — Manuel

Kant argues that the human understanding is the source of the general laws of nature that structure all our experience; and that human reason gives itself the moral law, which is our basis for belief in God, freedom, and immortality. Therefore, scientific knowledge, morality, and religious belief are mutually consistent and secure because they all rest on the same foundation of human autonomy, which is also the final end of nature according to the teleological worldview of reflecting judgment that Kant introduces to unify the theoretical and practical parts of his philosophical system. — SEP, Immanuel Kant

Likewise the arguments for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo and other sources in Plato.

Nowadays such ideas are dismissed as antiquated or archaic, but I wonder if they're really understood. What we don't notice is that we're unconsciously treating human beings as objects or as phenomena, as part of the natural order, whilst overlooking the very faculty of the psyche which discerns reason.

The passage is too short to be able to discern much from it. It seems to be compatible with some more secular, "generous" versions of Christian doctrine, but it's not clear how far it is compatible with Buddhism. — baker

Here are some more passages:

They say that a person’s soul is immortal, and at one time it meets its end – the thing they call dying – and at another time it is born again, but it never perishes. They say that, because of this, one should live one’s whole life in the most holy way possible … (Meno 81b).
So since the soul both is immortal and has been born many times, and has seen both what is here and what is in Hades, and in fact all things, there is nothing it has not learned. And so it is no matter for wonder that it is possible for the soul to recollect both about virtue and about other things, given that it knew them previously (Meno 81c).
It is likely that people who have practised acts of gluttony, recklessness and drunkenness, and have not shown caution, come to be embodied in the species which include donkeys and beasts like that ... (Phaedo 81e-82a).

Plato’s Theory of Recollection (Anamnesis) is based on the belief that the soul is immortal and lives many lives, which is why mathematical and ethical knowledge, for example, is not learned but recollected.

Reincarnation (metempsychosis) is very much part of Platonism.

I asked you whether Platonism teaches dependent co-arising. — baker

And I gave you my answer. But let me put it slightly differently, though the gist of it is the same.

Paṭiccasamuppāda or pratītyasamutpāda refers to the Buddhist Theory of Origination (or Cause and Effect). Basically, it states that ignorance (avijjā) results in craving (taṇhā), craving results in attachment (upādāna), attachment in “being” (bhava), and “being” in decay and death (jarāmaraṇa).

In other words, a chain of cause and effect arising from ignorance and resulting in suffering, that can be broken through knowledge.

In fact, you can collapse it even further and say that ignorance leads to wrong action or “sin” (in the form of wrong acts of volition, cognition, etc.), and wrong action leads to suffering.

Not much different from what other systems teach.

In Platonism, the root ignorance is ignorance of one’s true identity as pure, unconditioned and free intelligence. So it is a matter of correct self-identity.

If, as a result of ignorance, you self-identify with the body-mind compound, you generate mental states and a whole inner world that limits and conditions your intelligence, leading you further and further away from your true self.

You are creating what Plato calls a “clever prison” (Phaedo 82e) made of sense-perceptions, imagination, cravings, attachments, passions, thoughts, etc. In contrast, philosophy (i.e., the quest after true knowledge) sees that the prisoner himself is “the chief assistant in his own imprisonment”:

Philosophy, taking possession of the soul when it is in this state, encourages it gently and tries to set it free, pointing out that the eyes and the ears and the other senses are full of deceit, and urging it to withdraw from these, except in so far as their use is unavoidable, and exhorting it to collect and concentrate itself within itself, and to trust nothing except itself … (83a).
The soul of the true philosopher believes that it must not resist this deliverance, and therefore it stands aloof from pleasures and lusts and griefs and fears, so far as it can, considering that when anyone has violent pleasures or fears or griefs or lusts he suffers from them not merely what one might think—for example, illness or loss of money spent on his lusts … (83b).
Each pleasure or pain nails it [the soul] as with a nail to the body and rivets it on and makes it corporeal, so that it fancies the things are true which the body says are true. For because it has the same beliefs and pleasures as the body it is compelled to adopt also the same habits and mode of life, and can never depart in purity to the other world, but must always go away contaminated with the body; and so it sinks quickly into another body again and grows into it, like seed that is sown. Therefore it has no part in the communion with the divine and pure and absolute ... (83d).

So I for one see nothing special, unique, or "superior" about Buddhism, though I wouldn't reject it wholesale, either.

However, if we are serious about philosophy in the original Greek sense of "love of, and quest after, truth", then I think we will get there in the end, with or without Buddhism.

Putting the matter that way means that Aristotle is not invested in naming every instance of the shortcomings of other thinkers. He is very interested in the borders of the eternal and mortal but demands that a particular order of logic and a lived experience of the world be brought into the discussion. — Paine

Sure. My point though was that he does not seem to reject the idea of reincarnation as such. Reincarnation was not a minor detail in the philosophical discourse of the time and it was closely linked to Plato's theories of immortality and the Forms expounded in the dialogues that were being discussed in the Academy. Had Aristotle rejected it, he would have done so explicitly.

This is inconsistent. If only a disembodied soul can obtain "true" knowledge, then the knowledge which a human being, with a material body, has, is distinctly different from the knowledge of a disembodied soul. So it's inconsistent to say that the embodied powers are " the same powers that define it once death has separated it". — Metaphysician Undercover

The stated powers the nous has in the embodied state are the same powers it has in the disembodied state. The difference consists in the wider range those same powers can find application in the disembodied state, resulting in more accurate or "true" knowledge.

This is precisely why the body-mind compound is referred to as a "prison" or "tomb", as it prevents the nous from utilizing its powers to their full potential. For the same reason, separation from body-mind is referred to as "release" or "liberation" - which obviously implies release and liberation of the power to know and other powers already belonging to the released or liberated nous:

The lovers of knowledge perceive that when philosophy first takes possession of their soul it is entirely fastened and welded to the body and is compelled to regard realities through the body as through prison bars, not with its own unhindered vision (Phaedo 82d-e).

Otherwise said, once the power to know has been released from the restrictions or prison of embodied existence, it is able to know truly.

There is no "inconsistency" in this at all.

:smile: That Lysis is a personal name!

For the noun I would try dictionaries like Liddle Scott (Greek-English):

https://lsj.gr/wiki/%CE%BB%CF%8D%CF%83%CE%B9%CF%82

Or Bailly (Greek-French):

http://gerardgreco.free.fr/IMG/pdf/bailly-2020-hugo-chavez-20210815a.pdf

And if all fails, you can always refer to good old Wiktionary:

λῠ́σῐς • (lúsis) f (genitive λῠ́σεως) From λύω (lúō, “loosen”) +‎ -σις (-sis)

1. loosing, releasing, release
2. deliverance
3. redemption
4. parting
5. emptying
6. solution

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BB%CF%8D%CF%83%CE%B9%CF%82

In Plato, e.g. the Phaedo, it is used in the sense of release of soul from body, etc.

Remember, Plato demonstrates that the good cannot be equated with pleasure, by showing how pleasure has an opposing condition, pain, and the good cannot have such an opposite. — Metaphysician Undercover

See the distinction between opposite things and the opposites themselves in the Phaedo.

“… you do not understand the difference between what is said now and what was said then, which was that an opposite thing came from an opposite thing; now we say that the
opposite itself could never become opposite to itself, neither that in us nor that in nature. Then, my friend, we were talking of things that have opposite qualities and naming these after them, but now we say that these opposites themselves, from the presence of which in them things get their name, never can tolerate the coming to be from one another."

(103b-c)

And, we see that morality is induced through faith, rather than through knowledge — Metaphysician Undercover

A good example! Unfortunately for you it points to the opposite of what you claim. Euthyphro believes he is acting piously by indicting his father. Socrates argues that Euthyphro does not know what piety is. He turns the discussion to the question of the just. Whether what Euthyphro was doing was good turns on knowledge of the just and good.

Immoral things are often induced through faith. Atrocities done in the name of God. Acting as though one is doing the will of God. In such cases it is not a lack of faith but a lack of knowledge. They are doing what they think is good but what they are doing is the opposite.

You came to the right place, for I too am an expert on love. — Fooloso4

The question is: What is the right place? The Lounge?
Well, we are here now, so let's dance as if we were at a Symposium, talking love.

The article compares Socrates' claim in the Symposium with his claim in the Apology, but it is not only the seemingly contradictory claims but the occasions during which he made them that should be considered. Being on trial in a court of law and a contest of speeches about eros are very different occasions requiring different ways of speaking. — Fooloso4

Yes. Different occasions, or places, sometimes require different ways of speaking or writing.
Responding to a serious life-threatening judgement or opinion from a High Court needs clear thought and careful analysis.
Responding to a group of male friends at an informal Symposium, is a lighter affair.
Each taking turn to offer his opinion...and competing for first place...I would like to have been there!

This contest mirrors that of the contest between philosophy and poetry. It is the poets who claim to be experts on love. For Socrates to claim to be an expert in the presence of highly regarded poets was both surprising and provocative. In addition, Socrates was not, as it is commonly understood, an erotic man. — Fooloso4

So, Socrates is not supposed to know about love because he is a philosopher?
Incredible.

But how different are Socrates' claims in the Apology and Symposium? As Socrates says in the Symposium, eros is the desire for what one does not possess. Philosophy is erotic in that it is the desire for wisdom. It is Socrates' lack of knowledge, as professed in the Apology, that is the basis of his knowledge of eros, the desire to know. — Fooloso4

Eros, then, is the desire to know the knowledge that one does not have.
If someone asks "What is philosophy?", how surprised would they be if told that it's 'Erotic!'
Great PR, no?

Knowledge of ignorance is not simply recognizing one does not know. Socrates' "human wisdom" is a matter of the examined life, of how best to live in the absence of knowledge of what is best. The "art of love", ta erôtika, is the art of living. Since we all desire what is good, the art of living cannot simply be the philosophical life. — Fooloso4

How best to live in the absence of knowledge of what is best. That is the question.
The examined life provides the answer?
This reminds me of another thread I started about paying attention.
What we pay attention to is important.
What or whose opinion matters?
So many strong and opposing opinions formed; how do we cut through them with care?
On a philosophy forum, that should be easy, no?
To give serious consideration to different views on e.g. what constitutes philosophy.

Are you certain that 'we all desire what is good'?
I suppose so, if 'what is good' is open to question.

When you say that 'the art of living cannot simply be the philosophical life' do you mean that the philosophical life is narrower than the art of living?
What if philosophy is seen as the art of living?

In the Phaedo Socrates says that philosophy is the practice of death and dying, the separation of body and soul. The joke here being that the only good philosopher is a dead philosopher. More serious is the question of the relationship between life and death, body and soul. I have discussed this here — Fooloso4

I remember that discussion well :clap:
What made you bring that into this conversation about opinion?
Perhaps, the question and differing opinions as to what philosophy is about?
Not just a body of work but a creative spirit. Both joined and equally important.

We are not souls temporarily attached to bodies. We are ensouled bodies. One thing not two. Desire does not cut along the distinction between body and soul. Since we know nothing of death, preparation for death turns from unanswerable questions of death back to life, to how we live, here and now. — Fooloso4

I agree. And all becomes clear, thank you.
How we live, here and now.
Knowing or learning what is important; to choose who best to converse with, about what and how.

***

What does that even mean?
To converse elenctically...especially on a philosophy forum?
— Amity

In the cited article Reeve defines it as "how to ask and answer questions". We may ask, in turn, what is the goal and what is the result of such inquiry? Socrates used it to demonstrate that one does not know what he assumed to know. This may lead to quite different results - anger, shame, resentment, or, as Socrates hoped, the desire to know, to a dissatisfaction with opinions. But this, in turn, can lead to a dissatisfaction with philosophy itself, to misologic, when it fails to provide the answers expected of it. — Fooloso4

Misologic. Had to look it up again...

Misology is defined as the hatred of reasoning; the revulsion or distrust of logical debate, argumentation, or the Socratic method.

Is that what you mean?
Basically, people expect answers or solutions from philosophy. When it fails to deliver certainty, then they see no use for it. Indeed, it is despised as a waste of time. Navel-gazing?

Plato or Socrates used dialogue to question assumptions on which opinions are based?
In a most entertaining play-like fashion. Asking and answering questions in different places and circumstances. Exploring and reflecting...
A bit like here?!
Dancing around the subject and object.

Philosophy is often treated as the art of argumentation - making arguments that attempt to be least vulnerable to attack, while attacking opposing positions. The limits of argument, however, are not the limits of philosophy. It is here that the "ancient quarrel' between philosophy and poetry is reconfigured. This is why the dialogues often turn from logos to mythos. The promise of dialectic in the Republic, the use of hypothesis to become free of hypothesis is itself hypothetical. The image of transcendence, from opinion to the sight of the Forms, is just that, an image. The mythic philosopher of the Republic who possesses knowledge is no longer a philosopher, that is, one who desires to know. The philosopher, like the poet, is an image maker. — Fooloso4

This final paragraph is the most relevant, in my opinion.
It highlights the source of my concern.

You describe well the art of argumentation.
The skills required are important to cut carefully without tears. But not all there is...

'The limits of argument...are not the limits of philosophy'.

Thank you, @Fooloso4.
Can we expect a thread on the Symposium? :wink:

The purpose of the incantations in the Phaedo is to charm away the fear of death. The saint is praising his god. — Fooloso4

The author's own repetition of the expressed incantations makes us stop and think.
Just as Plato's does...to charm the readers to think again...
Or I'm just making up a load of garbage to fill in my time.
The déjà vu is strong :nerd:

I take this to be about the difference between God as universal and the god who is his god. But I don't know that the saint sees them as different. It may be an expression of closeness, of unity. — Fooloso4

Still a comfort blanket, the removal of which would destroy him or his sense of (well)being.
Z is being kind, not wishing to leave him empty and vulnerable.

The saint might not see them as different but the author might.
And the readers are made aware by the clever changes.

I dunno.
I'll leave it there.

He accepted his punishment but did not accept that he was no longer a citizen. He performed the work of being a mid-wife for the birth of thoughts till his last breath. With that in mind, I think Plato was saying that there was no way to get rid of him. The purpose of Phaedo being, in part, something like Auden speaking of the death of W.B. Yeats:

The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
the current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers.

Any comments on the Argument from Imperfection?

there's an argument in the Phaedo (which I don't recall being discussed in the thread on that dialogue) called The Argument from Imperfection (reference). Basically this revolves around the 'idea of Equals'. It points out that there is no physical instantiation or example of 'Equals'. It argues that things that we see as equal - two sticks, or two stones - are not really equal but merely alike. Plato argues that the ability to grasp 'Equal' amounts to grasping the Form of Equal, which is something that is done solely by the Intellect, not by sensory apprehension.

That argument has intuitive appeal to me, because I believe that it is indeed true that 'Equal' has no physical instantiation, and yet it is a fundamental element of mathematical and indeed general reasoning. — Wayfarer

It seems germane to the topic.

Define what religious belief is? Is it a proven claim? A deduced conclusion? If something isn't proven or doesn't possess any internal logic, if it is based on wild assumptions, what is it? — Christoffer

Impossible. Can't be done. The term covers such a diverse range of cultural phenomena, that it has no single meaning. There are those who say that the word itself is an impediment. But one thing it's not, is a compendium of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles proposing a testable hypothesis.

Are you familar with Plato's dialogues? Socrates, as you're well aware, was sentenced to death for atheism, but the Phaedo, the dialogue taking place in the hours leading up to his execution, is one of the main sources for the defense of the immortality of the soul. Is that a religious dialogue, or is it not, by your lights?

Are you familiar with the early Buddhists texts and the account of the awakening of the Buddha? What 'wild assumptions' do you think are conveyed in those texts? For that matter, what issue are they addressing?

What's the praxis of philosophy? What is it that you actually do when doing philosophy? Is it just looking up in the night sky and have some ideas about reality? Is it just deciding some rules you like about how people should act against each other? This thread's main plot is essentially "what is philosophy?" So what is it? If it's not religion, not science, how do you define it? — Christoffer

I'll go with the approach articulated by scholar and historian of philosophy, Pierre Hadot.

According to Hadot, twentieth- and twenty-first-century academic philosophy has largely lost sight of its ancient origin in a set of spiritual practices that range from forms of dialogue, via species of meditative reflection, to theoretical contemplation. These philosophical practices, as well as the philosophical discourses the different ancient schools developed in conjunction with them, aimed primarily to form, rather than only to inform, the philosophical student. The goal of the ancient philosophies, Hadot argued, was to cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos. This cultivation required, specifically, that students learn to combat their passions and the illusory evaluative beliefs instilled by their passions, habits, and upbringing. ....

For Hadot... the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were a series of spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research. However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things (PWL 84). Hadot acknowledges his use of the term “spiritual exercises” may create anxieties, by associating philosophical practices more closely with religious devotion than typically done (Nussbaum 1996, 353-4; Cooper 2010). Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions (6a), are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta, despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life. For this reason, they call upon far more than “reason alone.” They also utilize rhetoric and imagination in order “to formulate the rule of life to ourselves in the most striking and concrete way” and aim to actively re-habituate bodily passions, impulses, and desires (as for instance, in Cynic or Stoic practices, abstinence is used to accustom followers to bear cold, heat, hunger, and other privations) (PWL 85). — IEP

The philosophical issue with modern science, in particular, is that it leaves no place for man as subject. Science relies on the fundamental techniques of objectification and quantification, and can only ever deal with man as object. It is embedded in a worldview that isn't aware that it's a worldview, but thinks of itself as being 'the way things are'. And there's no self-awareness in that.

It's not until very recently that philosophical scrutiny reached a point that we usually call scientific in quality. — Christoffer

Positivism, again.

being an initiate didn't make one a mystic — Ciceronianus

Mystic: Middle English: from Old French mystique, or via Latin from Greek mustikos, from mustēs ‘initiated person’ from muein ‘close the eyes or lips’, also ‘initiate’.

The Oxford Dictionary used to state that a mystic was 'one initiated into the [Greek] Mystery religions', although the definition has now been broadened.

Surely this does at least suggest 'a transcendent realm accessible to the wise'? — Wayfarer

In the first paragraph, what " is thought to rule and lead us by nature" does not suggest a transcendent realm. Nor does "what is noble and divine". Contemplation is called divine but it is not and does not lead to transcendence. It is, according to Aristotle, the highest human activity. It is part of the fulfillment or realization or actualization of our nature, not a transcendence of it.

As to the use of the term 'divine': In the Phaedo Socrates calls Homer divine. In the Iliad Homer call salt divine (9.214).

A wise person must have a true conception of unproven first principles

...

Contemplation is that activity in which one's νοῦς intuits and delights in first principles."

Only a person who is wise can have a true conception of unproven first principles, but only a person who is wise can know whether a conception of unproven first principles is true. If we are not wise then at best we can have an opinion about first principles we assume is true, but cannot prove.

Theoria (contemplation) is related to our term 'theater', to view or see. Plato's cave is a theater. A place in which the distinction between seeing and acting is most pronounced. The prisoners are shackled to the wall and can observe but not act. What they behold is taken to be true and nothing they are able to know contradicts that belief.

The image of the cave is an image of religious practices that seek to experience the sacred and divine. The problem is there is nothing they see that shows them that what they see is not true. Contemplative activity does not provide a reality check. Rather than transcendence it is far more likely to entrap us in a cave with its hope and expectation of transcendence.

I suggest reading enough Plotinus to see his objections to Aristotle. Gerson does not simply take those remarks as the only way to read Aristotle. But it does change the perspective of what Platonism is about.

I don't claim to understand all the moving parts.

Edit to add: Gerson has been discussed numerous times here. I made an argument against one of his positions here.

For a more exhaustive discussion of the differences between Plato and the 'Neo-Platonists' there is Fooloso4's OP on Phaedo to consider. From that, you can see that people here have been disagreeing for years about it.

I realize that I am not up for rekindling those debates right now. It is summertime and the living is easy.

Gerson has been discussed numerous times here... — Paine

Thanks for the references. I just reread Phaedo last week so I will be curious to have a look at the thread.

I realize that I am not up for rekindling those debates right now. It is summertime and the living is easy. — Paine

Fair enough. :smile:

The problem with Gerson is that he does not distinguish between the different roles Matter (ἡ ὕλη) plays amongst the 'Ur-Platonists' he assembles to oppose the team of 'Materialists' he objects to... — Paine

Okay, that is an interesting difference between Aristotle and Plotinus. I am much more familiar with Aristotle than Plotinus. I found a source which corroborates what you say, and may also relate to what you say about Aristotle and Plotinus' disagreement on the soul in the other thread:

The anti-Aristotelian conclusions [in Ennead II.5] are two. While sensible reality, according to Aristotle, involves continuity of change based on the actualisation of proximate matter, Plotinus breaks this continuity by defining matter only as prime matter which can never be actualised. While Aristotle mentions in De Anima II.5 a certain potentiality in the soul, Plotinus argues that it is rather active power than passive potentiality. — Sui Han, Review

For myself, the many points Plotinus and Aristotle may agree upon are not as interesting as where they clearly do not. — Paine

The article that has already been referenced in this thread is Gerson's "Platonism Versus Naturalism." There he gives this definition of anti-materialism:

Anti-materialism is the view that it is false that the only things that exist are bodies and their properties. Thus, to admit that the surface of a body is obviously not a body is not thereby to deny materialism. The antimaterialist maintains that there are entities that exist that are not bodies and that exist independently of bodies. Thus, for the antimaterialist, the question "Is the soul a body or a property of a body?" is not a question with an obvious answer since it is possible that the answer is no. The further question of how an immaterial soul might be related to a body belongs to the substance of the positive response to [Ur-Platonism], or to one or another version of Platonism. — Lloyd P. Gerson, Platonism Versus Materialism | cf. From Plato to Platonism, 11

Are you then of the opinion that either Aristotle or Plotinus are not "antimaterialists"? That Gerson has not categorized them correctly?

I don't want to get too sidetracked so will keep this brief.

The myth of anamnesis requires having at some time previous to this life learned what is in a later life to be recollected. In this earlier life knowledge could not be recollection. However this knowledge was gained it was not by recollection.

Without reincarnation there can be no anamnesis or recollection. If, as Socrates claims in the Phaedo, the human soul is immutable then how can we make sense of the idea that it can become the soul of donkeys and other animals of this sort, or wolves and falcons and hawks, or bees or wasps or ants. (82a -b)?

Accepting that Socrates' soul is immortal is not the same as accepting that Socrates is immortal. Plato addresses this problem in terms of number. If the soul is one thing then the body is another. Is Socrates then some third thing?

Right, and it doesn't have a good solution I can think of. That's part of the problem. I tried to lighten it by making the modern plotline about budget disinfo merchants full of levity, a bit absurd, but I don't know if it works. It makes for stuff that is more fun to write at times though.

Well, if we need inspiration…

She shuffled some books on her desk, found what she was looking for, a small rectangular package. The label on the front of the package was a gold on orange holographic image. From one angel it showed a muscular, bearded man in a toga, rolling a stone up a steep hill. Depending on how you tilted the package, you could make the stone roll up or down the hill, in endless repetition. But, if you tilted it far enough, a totally new image would appear, the face of a man, eyes comically red. Many customers didn’t know it, but this was the face of the French existentialist, Albert Camus. Above his face popped out the words:

“Absurdly Good Weed(™)”

Then, below the face:
“One must imagine Sisyphus stoned.”

She opened the package and pulled out a joint.

And what sort of story would a disinfo merchant fall for?

Hilde looked back down at the books cluttering her desk. Her eyes locked on Plato’s dialogue on the immortality of the soul, the Phaedo.

[/quote]

Still, Chris wasn’t naive about what most people would say about their work. Purveyors of misinformation.Disinfo merchants. Propagandists. Liars. Trolls.

Or, as one journalist for the Des Moines Register had put it, Nigel was “a rotund British cancer on the American body politic, not talented enough to metastasize, but hardly benign.”

“Fucking self indulgent purple prose — who does this asshole think he is writing for?” Nigel had fumed, showing the article to Chris. “Not talented enough? I turn down bigger jobs all the time. I keep a low profile because I’m not a moron like this absolute pleb.”

This had been during the phase when Nigel was using “pleb,” as his go-to insult. The insult held no classest connotations when wielded by Nigel. He frequently painted billionaires and officials in high office with the label.

“Pleb,” for Nigel, was short for “plebian of the soul,” a term he had adopted after being turned on to the works of the ultra-conservative, caste-system-advocating, esotericist, Julius Evola. He had come across the facism-adjacent, wizard, or sorcerer, or what-the-fuck-ever people who do “magic” call themselves, via some godforsaken VR community that Nigel had been frequenting back then.

Evola had convinced Nigel that he was an “aristocrat of the soul.” From that it followed that his enemies were “the plebs,” the low-class mob hoping to drag others down to their level of “spiritual mediocrity.” This was worse than Economic Marxism — worse than Cultural Marxism even — this was… Spiritual Marxism.

Nigel had been particularly insufferable during this period, frequently accusing Chris of “Spiritual Marxism” and its attendant ills, whenever Chris had pushed back on his increasingly unhinged ideas. For Chris, the turn had been evidence that even his boss, so astute in fathoming the psychology of the masses, was not immune to the lure of intrigue, controversy, and self-flattery.

It had also been a period of significant “biohacking,” Nigel’s preferred term. Biohacking was “the rational and intentional alteration of one’s own neurochemistry to help maximize productivity, achieve one’s goals, and fully realize one’s potential.” It was, “better living through science,” “the use of entheogens to achieve a fit-to-purpose physicochemistry conducive to the demands of the modern workplace.”

Biohacking, per Nigel, was a premier example of “the application of Logos to Psyche,” the “triumph of Gnosis over Eros.”

Chris had secretly thrown out the man’s cocaine stash, a key “biohacking reagent,” after he had, only half-jokingly, referred to it as “Aristocrat’s Powder.”

In retrospect, this inflation of the man’s eccentricities had foreshadowed his downfall, the end of the first company, and his fourteen month, all expenses paid “vacation” to the Yazoo City Federal Corrections Complex. He had been a bubble ready to pop, destined for the “Zoo.”