It's interesting that you know some Greek. But Plato is part of the Aristotelean and Thomistic tradition which tries to prove there is a God and that souls are transcendent and this is contrary to the modern philosophy I'm into. I'm not saying I can prove my beliefs but Plato never has a strong argument for his positions in our eyes and so we point out the flaws and show the alternatives. If you have an infallible argument the soul is separate from the body, do present it and I'll comment

But Plato is part of the Aristotelean and Thomistic tradition — Gregory

He is part of that tradition is the sense that he influenced their thinking, but this does not mean he would agree with them, especially not with Aquinas.

Plato never has a strong argument — Gregory

This is true, but perhaps this is because he did not hold the beliefs that some ascribe to him. The same may be the case with Aristotle, but that is a discussion for another time.

I don't have an infallible argument at all. In fact, it makes no difference to me either way.

I just think that when reading a dialogue we should try to understand its propositions, arguments, and conclusions within Plato's own framework.

Of course, dialogues may have several layers of meaning in which case it would seem indicated to start with the prima facie meaning and then look into other possibilities.

Presumably, Plato is trying to convey a message. If so, a working hypothesis assuming that everything he writes is just "myths" and "lies," would seem to undermine all efforts to extract anything meaningful from the text.

Plato says that 'in believing something, one accepts some content as true without knowing that it is true; one holds something to be true that could turn out to be false. Since our actions reflect what we hold to be true, holding beliefs is potentially harmful for oneself and others. Accordingly, beliefs are ethically worrisome and even, in the words of Plato’s Socrates, “shameful.”' — Wayfarer

I think that to label all beliefs "shameful" is an unwarranted exaggeration. Surely, not all beliefs are equal in terms of objective validity, moral and practical value, etc.

Also, there is a very large number of things about which we know very little and about which we hold beliefs or opinions until we learn more about them.

In other words, holding beliefs is an unavoidable fact of life. Unexamined, irrational or morally questionable beliefs may indeed be "shameful", but certainly not beliefs in general?

:up: Agree. But as I tried to articulate in this post, this runs up against the prejudices of a secular culture. 'Scepticism' in Plato's culture, is not the same as today's 'scientific scepticism'.

But because of the massive influence of Christianity on Western culture, the distinction between believing and knowing in respect of metaphysics has been blurred or even obliterated. And post-enlightenment culture will naturally understand Plato's metaphysics through that lens - positively for those favourable to Christian Platonism (e.g, Thomists, often Catholic), negatively to those who are sceptical about anything they deem religious (for example, philosophical naturalists). I think that's a powerful undercurrent in all of these debates, unstated but implicit. — Wayfarer

I don't see the point here. What you are referring to is the theory of participation, which I believe comes from the Pythagoreans. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good point. There is a very obvious agenda behind straw men like "Form of Harmony".

1. To being with, the Ancient Greek word harmonia is not the same as modern “harmony”. The primary meaning of harmonia was “arrangement” or “joining together” of separate things, for example, a linear succession of musical notes or scale.

A “harmony” would at the most be a good and/or beautiful arrangement or order as opposed to a bad one, not a separate class of things requiring an universal.

Even the Pythagorean harmony of the heavenly spheres was based on the concordant intervals between astronomical bodies.

For Plato, “harmony” is simply a form of Justice (or Proper Order). What we call “harmonious” city is a just city in Plato. “Harmonious” man is a just man, i.e., a man in whom the virtues such as temperance, courage, and wisdom, function properly and in the right proportion, etc.

2. Therefore there is no need for a “Form of Harmony” when there is a Form of Justice, i.e., Right Order and Proportion.

3. The theory of harmony is a Pythagorean one, here represented by Simmias.

4. Socrates rebuts the Pythagorean theory of soul as harmony by showing that the soul is not like the harmony of a musical instrument.

Simmias' argument is influenced by Philolaus. (61d) Perhaps the following will clear up some of the confusion:

Limiters and unlimiteds are not combined in a haphazard way but are subject to a “fitting together” or “harmonia,” which can be described mathematically. Philolaus’ primary example of such a harmonia of limiters and unlimiteds is a musical scale, in which the continuum of sound is limited according to whole number ratios, so that the octave, fifth, and fourth are defined by the ratios 2 : 1, 3 : 2 and 4 : 3, respectively.

Philolaus presented a medical theory in which there was a clear analogy between the birth of a human being and the birth of the cosmos. The embryo is conceived of as composed of the hot and then as drawing in cooling breath immediately upon birth, just as the cosmos begins with the heat of the central fire, which then draws in breath along with void and time from the unlimited. Philolaus posited a strict hierarchy of psychic faculties, which allows him to distinguish human beings from animals and plants. He probably believed that the transmigrating soul was a harmonious arrangement of physical elements located in the heart and that the body became ensouled when the proper balance of hot and cold was established by the breathing of the new-born infant.

Fragment 1:

…since these beginnings [i.e. limiters and unlimiteds] preexisted and were neither alike nor even related, it would not have been possible for them to be ordered, if a harmony had not come upon them… Like things and related things did not in addition require any harmony, but things that are unlike and not even related … it is necessary that such things be bonded together by a harmony, if they are going to be held in an order.

In Fragment 6a Philolaus goes on to describe this harmony and what he describes is a musical scale, the scale known as the Pythagorean diatonic, which was used later by Plato in the Timaeus in the construction of the world soul. This scale provides Philolaus’ only surviving explicit example of the bonding together of limiters and unlimiteds by a harmony.

In the case of the cosmos as a whole, as we have just seen in Fr. 6, Philolaus argues that three starting points must be assumed, limiters, unlimiteds, and harmony, as a third element to hold these two unlike elements together.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philolaus/#Har

A harmony is not simply the combination of elements or any arrangement of elements, it is a particular order. There is no need for a separate soul to order the parts of the body. It is harmony that bonds together the elements.

I like the way that Plato introduces the idea of agency in relation to harmony, at 92c, where he has Socrates say: "How will you harmonize this statement with your former one?" Then by the middle of 93, he's right into the need for agency: "Does not the nature of each harmony depend on the way it has been harmonized?"

I understand Pythagorean cosmology to have been very scientifically advanced for the time. I think they promoted the idea that the entire cosmos consisted of waves or vibrations in an ether, and the various existents were harmonies in the vibrations. Anyway, the cosmos was understood to be highly ordered, as consisting of harmonies. I believe Plato has done a very good job arguing that such an ordered system of harmonies requires agency for its creation. The fact that agency was implied, but not accounted for, was a serious flaw in the Pythagorean cosmology So it had to be dismissed, and the Neo-Platonists produced a replacement cosmology which allowed for the reality of agency.

Ok, far tooo long for a response, and I am sorry.
Moreover, I forgot what I was going to say...
Anyway, here goes.

I don't doubt that in the text Socrates is depicted as one fearless to death and remorseless about the live he has lived, having lived it as best as is humanly possible. What I do doubt though, is if there can ever be such a man. The belief in his existence is what I call dogmatic, which, as it seems, follows necessarily from the whole of socratic/platonic philosophy. Have we been misled into believing that there is even a slightest chance that all this is possible and true, with Socrates as the main perpertator of this misleading? Is Socrates, in our eyes - and not in his, deified, having reached a status of apotheosis? In Socrates' own eyes, isn't his own deification a hubris?

Socrates, suddenly plagued by the thought that he might’ve misunderstood the daimonion, the divine whisper. That he may have mistranslated the music-dream. What if his whole life's pursuit of dialectic, of reason, was a grand detour? What if the divine meant not logos, but lyre? Not reason, but rhythm?

Aargh, what a terrible thing has befallen me in my last hours, to have me doubt my life's work!
Did I misinterpret the music-dream?

“Make music, Socrates. Make music.”

I thought the search for truth was song enough.

But what if it wasn’t?
What if the gods spoke plainly, and I—clever fool that I am—interpreted instead of listening?

What if they asked for song, and I gave them syllogisms?
What if they meant laughter, and I gave them logos?

I persuaded so many…
Turned the youths from the poets to the philosophers, from the myths to the arguments.
Did I lead them away from the chorus, from the dance?

But no! I won't drag myself into self-doubt, not now, at the very end.
The daimon never told me what to do—only what not to do.
And he was silent all through this path.
That must mean something. Doesn’t it?

And thank the gods I left no writings.
So that my truth may live as rumor, echo, myth.
Living inquiry is better than dead scripture, anyway. — Socrates

SHADE:
Hello, Socrates. Long have we awaited your return.

SOCRATES:
...

SHADE:
I am sent here to inform you that you are to stand trial for your crimes. I hope that you have fully recovered from your earthly trial, regain your strength my friend, you 're going to need it.

SOCRATES:
Why? What are the charges?

SHADE:
The charges are numerous, but they all stem from this:
That you gave philosophy a bad name—for all time.
And as you yourself once said, it’s better to pull out one’s eye than to lose one's name.

SOCRATES:
What! You can’t possibly pin that on me!
Just because I talked to a few blokes in the Agora, doesn't mean—

SHADE:
I’m afraid we can.
And we have ample evidence.
Tell me—do you remember a man named Plato?

SOCRATES:
Plato? Of course. Nice fellow. Didn’t talk much.
A bit of a recluse, if you ask me. Always lurking in the back. No friends around.
He hardly even looked at me.

SHADE:
Yes, well… that may be because he was recording you.
He developed a system of stenography. Quite advanced.
He recovered, wrote, and distributed most of your talks.

SOCRATES:
Wait, he did what?
That sneaky basterd!

According to some, Plato taught "animism" and "atheism". Is that true?

Ah, here it is!

Thank you, @Fooloso4; it would be remiss of us not to take advantage of having someone who knows what they are talking about to hand, and this is a text that has implications across our subject. It came up in the thread on reincarnation, mentioned in response to the question "what is it that is reincarnated": "There is no coherent idea or concept of the individual soul that is not tied to an actual individual" coheres neatly with the view I expressed there, so I'm interested in how this comes out in the dialogue; there seems then to be a deeper reading of the text that will be enjoyable to investigate.

But there is also the argument from recollection, which I have long considered somewhat dubious, yet is central to Plato's wider thought, and so worthy of reconsideration.

But mostly I'm looking forward to this reading because I expect the unexpected, the unknown unknown.

...and I have a question, too. Presumably - I haven't checked - the word translated as "art" is "techne"?

So immediately we are involved in the issue of Episteme and Techne?

The 'no pleasure without pain' question is an example of a bigger issue for Plato. No pleasure without pain; no large without little; no beautiful without ugly; no being without not-being - at least in the things we see when we look around us. But these contradictions are only appearances. In the world that can be grasped by the intellect and not by the senses then we can understand things as they are and not as they seem to both be and not-be at the same time.

On the other hand, some casual misogyny in chats between men brings it bang up to date. — Cuthbert

I get what you are saying.

However, I am not sure that any parts of the dialogue written by Plato are 'casual'.
There is so much there - I don't think a word is ever wasted - we could be here forever...

...and I have a question, too. Presumably - I haven't checked - the word translated as "art" is "techne"?

So immediately we are involved in the issue of Episteme and Techne? — Banno

The Greek term is mousikê. The translation I rely on uses the transliteration 'music' instead of 'art'. In Plato's Ion Socrates denies that poesis is a techne, it is, rather, enthousiasmos, that is inspiration. But here Socrates calls philosophy the "greatest music". As such it seems to cut across the distinction between episteme and techne. Despite what he says, Socrates is clearly a skilled (techne) storyteller, and further, his stories and images require knowledge (episteme) of the character of the person or persons he makes the story for. With regard to this, consider his calling himself a "physician of the soul".

That they're examples of the Ur-religion of the Ancient Greeks, relfected in Orphism, which was ultimately grounded in the pre-historic Indo-European mythology of the endless caravan of reincarnation and the fallen state of mortal man. Death in this context is a return to the source of life more than the ending of it all. The philosopher, being purified, being a 'good man', has nothing to fear at death because he will be 'joining the company of good men'. Philosophy is 'preparing for death' by letting go of the passions and attachments, as Socrates demonstrates by his calm demeanour. — Wayfarer

I think "life as a preparation for death" is indeed the key to understanding Socrates and Plato. However, we find parallels in Egyptian culture.

The ancient Egyptians viewed death as a temporary transition into what could become everlasting life in paradise. The Egyptian outlook on death was not focused on fear as much as it was preparing and transitioning into a new prosperous afterlife.

The Egyptian Gods judged the merits of human character and deeds when deciding who was permitted to be immortal. As a result, much of human-life was centered on the hopeful attitude that if one is moral, one will live forever in a blissful afterlife. (This is somewhat comparable to Christian concepts of religion.)

So, basically, for the Egyptians – at least the wise or the initiated into wisdom traditions – life was a preparation for death. It seems to me that Greek philosophy was influenced by the Egyptian outlook. This may provide part of the explanation for the fact that the Greeks developed the philosophical system they did, whereas others whose beliefs were more similar to those of the Sumerians didn't.

The Ancient Sumerian and Egyptian Attitudes toward Death and the Afterlife

Philosophy as life-long preparation for death would be more than just about “letting go”. It would also entail the cultivation of virtues and spiritual knowledge, etc. i.e., all the elements that together constitute Platonic philosophy.

"Concepts such as 'Beauty' don't exist by themselves, do they ?
They arise from the real world - we create such - why ? "

This is a viewpoint that Plato is dedicated to challenge. Man is not the measure of all things. Truth is different from mere appearance. Beauty (and justice etc) do exist "by themselves" quite independently of our mere opinions. We can apprehend beauty (justice etc) by exercise of the intellect. Poetry and myth are not enough.

He believed all that and at the same time was one of the most poetic and mythically inclined philosophers of all time. Quite a contradiction.

The Athenians lived on our side of the Bronze Age collapse. Out of the chaotic Iron Age came Athens.

What even Plato may not know is that something amazing is dying with Socrates. Athens is never going to be the same after its recent defeat at the hands of the Spartans. This defeat precipitated his trial.

One can imagine that just as Genesis is made of pre-Bronze Age images, maybe the waves of settlers along the Aegean who became the Greeks also held onto versions of the old stories. Those stories would have been as old to Socrates as Socrates is to us.

Those stories are about immortality.

The individual nous is in turn illumined by the Cosmic Nous or Divine Mind. So, there is a continuum extending from Ultimate Reality all the way down to the lowest levels of experience or existence. — Apollodorus

In which of the dialogues does Plato say this?

Quite true, but the distinctions between ‘dianoia’ and ‘noesis’ can hardly be subsumed under the single English word, ‘thought’ which is so general as to be practically meaningless in the context. So to say that ‘the real can only be discerned by thought’ doesn’t convey what depth of the ‘idea of the good’, as it is too easy to characterise it in terms of the kinds of casual thoughts that persons have from one moment to the next without any real rigour or direction.

In which of the dialogues does Plato say this? — Fooloso4

In Phaedro 97-98, the discussion of the books of Anaxagoras, where Socrates criticises Anaxagoras for assigning causes such as ‘air and aether and water and many other absurdities’, contrasting this with the ‘real causes’ which is ‘the real good’ that always ensures that things are in accordance with the good. He uses the simile of physical causes as being like the ‘bones and sinews’, which, of course, Socrates cannot act without, but at the same time, saying that the reason he’s in jail and not escaped to some other province has nothing to do with bones and sinews, but the requirement that he observes the law. Although I don’t discern there any equivalent expression to ‘cosmic law’ or ‘divine mind’, the presumption is still that things are guided by intelligence, not by merely material causes.

I think "life as a preparation for death" is indeed the key to understanding Socrates and Plato. However, we find parallels in Egyptian culture. — Apollodorus

Egyptian influence on early Minoan art is generally accepted. But there are also some interesting parallels between the Egyptian cult of the Mother Goddess and similar developments in Minoan culture. Obviously, Crete was just across the sea and there were trade and cultural links between the Minoans and the Egyptians.

Similar links also later developed between the Greek mainland and Egypt, with extensive Egyptian influence on Greek art in the 7th century BC. And then we have literary accounts of Pythagoras going to Egypt in search of secret knowledge which he apparently obtained from Egyptian temple priests.

“[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

Right, but that is very different from what Apollodorus is claiming. — Fooloso4

How is that "very different"? As I said before, Plato is best interpreted in the Platonic tradition of Plotinus and others. If you choose a different standpoint then it might help to let us know what it is.

Thank you.

Many Platonists today look to Plato for religious and quasi-religious answers,often of the Christian variety.

I deny that there is a scholarly consensus. — Fooloso4

This pleases me immensely; A consensus would make this thread mere scholasticism.

That's Aristotle, not Plato...

I asked you to provide textual evidence for your claim but you have not been able to. — Fooloso4

Of course I have. I said:

"The individual nous is in turn illumined by the Cosmic Nous or Divine Mind. So, there is a continuum extending from Ultimate Reality all the way down to the lowest levels of experience or existence"

To which you said:

"In which of the dialogues does Plato say this?"

Wayfarer already answered that. It isn't my fault that you don't read other people's posts. But here is the text from The Republic 509D-513E if you insist:

"And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind [...]

And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence [...]

You would say, would you not, that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation?[...]

In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power."

After which he introduces the line that divides the phenomenal from the noumenal or the physical from the spiritual as I pointed out in my earlier post which you also chose to ignore.

What the text is saying is that above the phenomenal world or world of appearances is the intelligible or noumenal world which is illumined by the Good (ton Agathon). The Good is also the source of all ideas that constitute the intelligible world, copies of which make up the phenomenal world. In other words, the whole of existence, including soul, originates in the Good and is bathed in its light just as the physical world is bathed in the light of the sun.

Very simple, really. I don't know on what basis you are denying it. You may have a reason but you refuse to tell us what it is.

For Plato, and others, there is a something more... a reification fo the use of "equal" — Banno

In my opinion, which is certainly not original, the Forms are themselves images rather than, as he says, what things are images of. But that is a discussion for another time.

In fact, I think there's a kind of 'anti-Christian' bias that is often at play - the wish to deny the religious or metaphysical dimension in the dialogues so as to project the kind of Plato that is more harmonious with this secular age. — Wayfarer

The following from my last posted reading:

… maybe this alone is the right coin for virtue, the coin for which all things must be exchanged - thoughtfulness. Maybe this is the genuine coin for which and with which all things must be bought and sold; and maybe courage and moderation and justice and true virtue as a whole are only when accompanied by thoughtfulness, regardless of whether pleasures and terrors and all other such things are added or subtracted … and maybe moderation and justice and courage and thoughtfulness itself are nothing but a kind of purifier. (69 b-c)

Socrates demystifies “mystic rites”, “genuine hidden meaning”, “mysteries”, and “purification”. (69c-d) The practice of dying and being dead turns out to be the practice of a life of moderation and justice and courage. — Fooloso4

Socrates demystifies “mystic rites”, “genuine hidden meaning”, “mysteries”, and “purification”. (69c-d) The practice of dying and being dead turns out to be the practice of a life of moderation and justice and courage. — Fooloso4

I don't agree that his intent is to demystify. Typical modernist secular analysis, making Plato safe for the secular academy. (We find exact parallels in the 'naturalisation of Buddhism' which likewise attempts to strip the entire tradition of any suggestion of a life beyond.)

All of the following arguments - the argument from opposites, the cyclical argument, the affinity argument - are arguments for the immortality of the soul.

There are two kinds of existences: (a) the visible world that we perceive with our senses, which is human, mortal, composite, unintelligible, and always changing, and (b) the invisible world of Forms that we can access solely with our minds, which is divine, deathless, intelligible, non-composite, and always the same (78c-79a, 80b).

Which, as I say, is the template for the development of hylomorphic dualism, notwithstanding Aristotle's revision of the nature of the Forms.

So, the rationale for a life of moderation, justice and courage, is so as to act in accordance with the Good. As has already been stated on the section on death, the philosopher has less reason to fear death, because he will find himself in 'the company of good men'. Added to which, the soul is most likely to attain knowledge when apart from the body:

it [the soul] thinks best when none of these things troubles it, neither hearing nor sight, nor pain nor any pleasure, but it is, so far as possible, alone by itself, and takes leave of the body, and avoiding, so far as it can, all association or contact with the body, reaches out toward the reality. — Phaedro 65c

Demystify that!

Plato was neither a realist nor idealist. The terms were not used and do not fit. What we take to be the real world was said to be an image of the Forms. The Forms are independent of the human mind. — Fooloso4

Yes, it's ontological idealism.

The SEP says he was an idealist. — frank

Where? Not in the article on Plato. The idealism article claims him, but with reservations.

Detail.