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

In the Idealism article.

My point was that his views can be contrasted to those of contemporary materialists like Democritus.

If you don't want to call it idealism when you're considering that contrast, that's fine. Call it what you like.

Think I'll just call him "Plato".

Neither term existed then. — Fooloso4

I'm trying to understand why that's significant to you. No one called Plotinus an early Neoplatonist at the time. We call him that for our own convenience. Is there a danger of confusion there? Maybe, but the convenience has proven more significant.

Plato's views are called idealism by professionals. So I'm just curious more than anything. Why the objection?

In the Idealism article. — frank

The article continues:

"Although we have just referred to Plato, the term “idealism” became the name for a whole family of positions in philosophy only in the course of the eighteenth century."

The article continues:

"Although we have just referred to Plato, the term “idealism” became the name for a whole family of positions in philosophy only in the course of the eighteenth century." — Fooloso4

Yes. I'm going to just note that your objection comes with no support understandable to me and move on.

In regards to the Enneads by Plotinus, that book is an ordering of reality in relationship to the One. It is a system that attempts to be consistent to itself. The semantics and concern are much different than the character of Plato's Dialogues where the conversation goes where it goes.

In regards to the Enneads by Plotinus, that book is an ordering of reality in relationship to the One. It is a system that attempts to be consistent to itself. The semantics and concern are much different than the character of Plato's Dialogues where the conversation goes where it goes. — Valentinus

I'm aware of that. I probably should have used Gnosticism as an example of the freedom we give ourselves in baptizing ideologies.

Better if you tell me why you think it isn't. — Janus


What? — frank

Neoplatonism is a much more specific term than "objective idealism" — Janus

Better if you tell me why 'neoplatonism' is not a more specific term than 'objective idealism', not to mention 'idealism'. If 'objective Idealism' is a specific term then it refers to Hegel's philosophy; if it is used to refer to Plato's (completely different) range of ideas as found in the dialogues, then the term has lost its specificity. Is there controversy about what the term 'neoplatonism' refers to?

Plato's views are called idealism by professionals. — frank

There are different schools of thought. There are also many scholars who avoid the use of anachronistic terminology. The idea is, to the extent it is possible, to understand an author on his own terms using his own terminology.

Trying to equate Plato's philosophy with neoplatonism would be no different than trying to understand Kant in terms of neokantianism, that is it would be bound to mislea — Janus

By Fooloso4's principle Neoplatonism isn't idealism either. :joke:

Whatever, let's move on.

I think @Fooloso4 is right to reject the use of what can only be considered anachronistic, unnecessary and unhelpful terminology. — Janus

Sure. But that raises the difficulty as to what constitutes non-anachronistic, necessary and helpful terminology. Are we going to start using Plato's own Greek terms? And how do we decide on their precise meaning when it has already been determined that the dialogues can, and maybe should, be interpreted in many different ways?

But that raises the difficulty as to what constitutes non-anachronistic, necessary and helpful terminology. Are we going to start using Plato's own Greek terms? — Apollodorus

A translation is being read here, not the original text. Anyway I don't want to derail this thread any further. I don't have time to read along with the text at the moment, so I already feel somewhat like an interloper. But reading just the thread I have found very interesting.



:up:

This got me thinking about why Plato chose Cebes to be a major participant in this dialogue. I will be trying to tie some things together in an upcoming post.

Plato brings an intimacy that is special to the dialogues. A chance to be there when they were.

I possess prophetic power from my master.

His 'daemon'? — Wayfarer

In the works of Plato Socrates daemon only warned him away when from doing things. One argument he made is that if death were bad he would have been warned.

Heraclitean pairs of contraries are different than strictly formal Parmenidean contradictions. Parmenidean negation and Socratic elenchus don't work for informal overlapping interacting pairs. Plato was well aware of the logical difficulties, and for the most part presents them to the reader as a challenge for better suggestions of resolution. We haven't advanced quite enough yet to fully do that. Just try a few and see. — magritte

That is a very interesting comment. Thanks for opening up that perspective. I guess what caught my attention was the way that the interdependent nature of opposites is assumed as more or less self-evident in those passages. I wonder how or if this sense is preserved in modern philosophy and science.

Fooloso4 So - who is the reference to? — Wayfarer

The swans owe their prophetic power to Apollo. Socrates says: "I hold that I myself am a fellow-servant of the swans, consecrated to the same god ..." which would seem to indicate that his master was Apollo. But (and with Plato there is always more to it) he goes on to say: "... that I possess prophetic power from my master no less than theirs" Which indicates that it is not Apollo.

Short answer: I don't know.

f the dialogue is phronesis. If Socrates was an atheist how prudent would it be for him to admit it? — Fooloso4

Socrates didn't tend to care much about prudence. He expressed admiration for Sparta in the middle of a devastating war. He managed to irritate the crap out of most Athenian citizens.

I think it's more likely we're taking in Plato's flair for poetic expression.

A comment made by Valentinus about Cebes got me thinking about why Plato chose to use him to play such an important part in Socrates’ last dialogue with his friends.

Early on Socrates makes a comment that will pr

ove to be ironic:

'There goes Cebes, always hunting down arguments, and not at all willing to accept at once
what anyone may say.' (63a)

As we have seen, this is in part true but in part not. There are things he readily accepts but he keeps returning to the same questions. There is a peculiar mixture of remembering and forgetting. It is Cebes who remembers Socrates’ story of recollection, but he loses the scent of the current argument. He is a lover of philosophy, but not a philosopher. He is like the lover of music who is not musical. He admires what the philosophers have to say, but seems incapable of making the “greatest music”. (61a)

The danger of misologic leads to the question of who will keep Socratic philosophy alive? Put differently, philosophy needs genuine philosophers and not just scholars.

Socrates turns from the problem of sound arguments to the soundness of those who make and judge arguments. He now introduces what is an all too common problem:

I run the risk of being in a mood not to love wisdom but to love victory., as do altogether uneducated people … I won’t put my heart into making what I say seem to be true to those present, except as a side effect, but into making it seem to be the case to me myself as much as possible. (91a).

What Socrates is saying here may not be what he seems to be saying. He is not saying that he is not interested in “making the weaker argument stronger” so as to gain victory. He is not going to try to persuade others, but to persuade himself that what he says seems to be true. Now persuading himself that what he says seems to be true is very different from attempting to say what seems to be true. It appears as if he is taking his own advice when he tells Cebes and Simmias that they themselves might be the most capable of singing their own incantations about death.

If this is correct, then what he is recommending is that sound arguments be put aside and in their place songs to make the soul sound. That something like this is what he has in mind is confirmed by what he goes on to say:

For I am calculating - behold how self-servingly!- that if what I’m saying happens to be true, I’m well off believing it; and if there’s nothing at all for one who’s met his end, well then, I’ll make myself so much less unpleasant with lamenting to those who are present during this time, the time before my death. (91b)

Here, for the first time, Socrates suggests that there might be nothing at all for those who die, that they have met their end. The timing is important, coming immediately after the questioning of the ability of arguments to establish the truth.

Socrates returns to the argument but, following Cebes example of the weaver, introduces a new definition of death:

… this very thing is death - perishing of soul (91d)

Socrates once again returns to recollection, and both Cebes and Simmias agrees that:

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

With this agreement Socrates returns to Simmias’ argument that the soul is a tuning. It is only with this being agreed on that Socrates is able to dispute Simmias’ argument that the soul is an attunement.

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

Socrates argues that the soul cannot be an attunement if the tuning existed prior to what is tuned. But
there is an argument that Socrates neglects to pursue. 'Tuned and Untuned'. The tuning of a lyre exists apart from any particular lyre. It is the same relationship between the Equal and things that are equal, and the Beautiful or Just and things that are beautiful or just. In accord with that argument the Tuning of the Lyre still exists, but the tuning of a particular lyre does not endure once that lyre is destroyed. Why does he neglect this? The consequence would be the death of the soul along with the body.

Then is this the same with soul? Is one soul, even in the slightest degree, more fully and more so than another, or less fully and less so this very thing - a soul? (93b)

Simmias denies this, but note the shift from ‘soul’ to ‘one soul’ and 'a soul'. If death is the “perishing of soul” then a soul, the one that perishes, is to the greatest degree "less fully a soul".

'Well, but is one soul said to have intelligence and virtue and to be good, while another is said to have thoughtlessness and wickedness and to be bad? And are we right in saying those things?'

'Quite right.'

'Then what will any of those who maintain that soul is attunement say these things are, existing in our souls- virtue and vice? Are they, in turn, a further attunement and non-attunement? And is one soul, the good one, tuned, and does it have within itself, being an attunement, a further attunement, whereas the untuned one is just itself, and lacking a further attunement within it?' (93c)

The proper analogy to good and bad souls would be good and bad tunings. Good and bad, virtue and vice, are not things in the soul, they are conditions of the soul, just as sharp and flat are conditions of an attunement. A good soul would be a well tuned soul and a bad soul a poorly tuned one.

'And moreover, since this is her condition, one soul couldn’t partake of vice or of virtue any more fully than another, if in fact vice is to be lack of tuning and virtue tuning? (93e)

Socrates has intentionally jumbled terms and Simmias is unable to disentangle them. Attunement itself cannot be non-attunement just as Equal itself cannot be unequal, but just as equal things are more or less equal, attuned things are more or less in tune.

Therefore it follows from this argument of ours that all souls of all living beings will similarly be good if in fact it’s similarly the nature of souls to be this very thing - souls. (94a)

The argument is as follows: soul is an attunement, vice is lack of attunement, and so the soul cannot be bad and still be a soul because it would no longer be an attunement. What is missing from the argument is that being in or out of tune is a matter of degree. Vice is not the absence of tuning but bad tuning.

Socrates closes this discussion by citing the authority of Homer, the “Divine Poet” (95a). Homer for the Greeks has been made divine, a god, apotheosis. Socrates appeals to Homer’s divine authority or less gloriously, to the authority of the poet rather than the strength of argument. He uses Homer’s authority in support of his argument against attunement on the grounds of the separation of body and soul, and the rule of the soul over the body. But the passage cited (Odyssey XX 17-18) is not a case of the soul ruling the bodily desire, but of the soul controlling its own anger. In an earlier post I discussed the problem of soul’s desire. In both cases the divide between body and soul cannot be maintained.

Socrates didn't tend to care much about prudence. He expressed admiration for Sparta in the middle of a devastating war. He managed to irritate the crap out of most Athenian citizens.

I think it's more likely we're taking in Plato's flair for poetic expression. — frank

Perhaps that is the case. On the other hand, the dialogue begins with Socrates trying "bodily" music composition to satisfy what his daemon might be requiring from him. That and the calls for phronesis are at odds with the harsh division between the body and the mind in many of the arguments.

Maybe all that time in fetters messed with his old modus operandi.

One cool thing about Plato is the way he presents the repeating theme of oppositions.

It will come through in a dry logical argument, then it shows up in the tone of the work.

What do you think it signifies? — Amity

I think it signifies that it is something other than what us moderns think of as a 'myth', by which we mean, something that could never happen. The way myths are told in ancient literature - not only by Plato - they're often allegorical presentations of truths which can't be stated directly. Which is convenient for modern intepreters, because they can also be dismissed as 'merely myth'.

The way myths are told in ancient literature - not only by Plato - they're often allegorical presentations of truths which can't be stated directly. Which is convenient for modern intepreters, because they can also be dismissed as 'merely myth'. — Wayfarer

Correct.

Interesting. Do you have any particular examples in mind ? — Amity

The very one we’re discussing! Socrates refers to ‘an ancient myth’ and also ‘the mysteries’. ‘The mysteries’ are a reference to the Greek ‘mystery religions’, notably Orphism (the cult of Orpheus) which taught a doctrine of re-incarnation very similar to ancient Hinduism (to which it was distantly related). It has been called the ‘ur-religion’ of Ancient Greece, ‘ur-religion’ being the ancestral indigenous belief system which originated with the ancient Indo-European peoples. (On a side-note, the original definition of a ‘mystic’ was ‘one initiated into the Mysteries.’ And if, as legend suggests, Plato was such an initiate, then he was literally ‘a mystic’).

BTW, Greeks, like others in the ancient world, were aware that great civilizations preceded them. They liked to think of themselves as descendants of the great elders (and they were, they just didn't know how as we do).

They would have been predisposed to honor old wisdom. We're the opposite. We think of ourselves as the highest point humanity has yet reached. We look with suspicion on our elders, ready to snicker at their folly.

So it probably helps to put ourselves in Plato's shoes in order to understand him.

So it probably helps to put ourselves in Plato's shoes in order to understand him. — frank

Correct. And the crux of the matter is, are they the shoes (1) of a philosopher or (2) of an author of comedy? I think the evidence tends to suggest (1) as the correct answer.

There is here, once again, a play of opposites. — Fooloso4

Of course there is. That is Plato's obvious method. But his play of opposites suggests that another reason for using humor may have been to provide a counterweight to the seriousness of the subject matter.

After all, spirit is light and joy. Humor is uplifting, while a somber mood may be depressing. And the purpose of philosophy is to elevate the spirit. Combining humor with metaphysical teachings does not seem to be a contradiction.

But it does contain elements of tragedy and comedy and has a spiritual message to convey. So, maybe something like the mystery plays of antiquity only more complex and sophisticated? — Apollodorus

If that's what it becomes for you, fine. The dialogue format was popular at the time. It's just the format Plato used.

I don't see a spiritual message. I see the expression of ideas that will course through philosophy for the next 2400 years.

To each his own?

I don't see a spiritual message. I see the expression of ideas that will course through philosophy for the next 2400 years. — frank

You don't have to see anything. The dialogues can be interpreted on many different levels, such as literal, allegorical, etc.

Platonism, by which I mean the philosophical and mystical tradition that regards itself as closely following Plato, does see a spiritual message in the dialogues, though.

But, as you say, "to each his own".

Platonism, by which I mean the philosophical and mystical tradition that regards itself as closely following Plato, does see a spiritual message in the dialogues, though. — Apollodorus

Of course. Have you read any books about Meister Eckhart?