I don't recommend either Jowett or Cornford, except if nothing else is available.

I recommend Allan Bloom(pdf) It is what I used when I was teaching.


I have not read this translation but in general his translations are very good Sachs

I think you are right to see a Kantian world view in Cornford's thesis. I suspect he assumes what he sets out to prove regarding, as you describe it, "according to Plato, only the Forms can be known unconditionally." I want talk about those assumptions before trying to address your thought about subjectivity.

A central element in Cornford's thesis is the distinction he makes between ideas of Socrates and Plato. The dialogues are seen as a progression from the 'agnosticism' of Socrates to Plato's belief in the immortality of the soul (see the paragraphs preceding my quote of page 28 and page 3 of the introduction). My tiny ship would capsize if it attempted to cross the sea of arguments brought into being through Cornford' thesis. I will confine myself to observing some of the starting points. Cornford says the Anamnesis model reveals what the Midwifery model cannot. I have found nothing in Plato's writing that sets these two models against each other in some kind of zero-sum game. If one drops the requirement that there can only be one or the other, the absence of anamnesis in the dialogue is not an argument against it. To notice that, however, is not to argue that its absence is insignificant. It is an occasion to question how anamnesis is used in other dialogues. They do not perform identical roles there. Cornford does not open up that question.

That door is also closed for questioning the 'replacement' role Cornford assigned to the practice of Midwifery. The model emphasizes the limits of particular interlocutors. Those limits play an obvious role in all the other dialogues. It is not like a Stranger who shows up from out of town.

I need to change tunics and environment before addressing your remarks about Protagoras. Sooner than later, I hope.

Evils, Theodorus, can never be done away with — Plato, Theaetetus, 176a, translated by F.M. Cornford

:ok: but...

the good must always have its contrary — Plato, Theaetetus, 176a, translated by F.M. Cornford

Makes sense, yin-yang, but what if...

In the divine there is no shadow of unrighteousness, only the perfection of righteousness, and nothing is more like the divine than any one of us who becomes as righteous as possible. — Plato, Theaetetus, 176a, translated by F.M. Cornford

But then...

All other forms of seeming power and intelligence in the rulers of society are as mean and vulgar as the mechanic's skill in handicraft. — Plato, Theaetetus, 176a, translated by F.M. Cornford

Hmmmm :chin: We ain't seen nothin' yet.

deceiving themselves — Plato, Theaetetus, 176a, translated by F.M. Cornford

People and their delusions. Me and mine...

a penalty that cannot be escaped. — Plato, Theaetetus, 176a, translated by F.M. Cornford

Which planet?

Sophistry, is it pre-philosophy or post-philosophy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is Cornford's thesis. And it was going great except for the part about JTB (if that means true belief with an added account). Cornford says:

The dialogue is concerned only with the lower kinds of cognition, our awareness of the sense-world and judgments involving the perception of sensible objects. — F.M. Cornford, Plato's Theory of Knowledge, page 28

Socrates said that if we know enough to give an adequate account, that shows us knowing stuff. Including that as proving we could know stuff as a possibility was dismissed on the basis of circular reasoning, not because thinking it was absurd or ignorant.

That issue has nothing to do with Cornford's assertion.

:up: Thank you for these posts.

The Forms are excluded in order that we may see how we can get on without them; and the negative conclusion of the whole discussion means that, as Plato had taught ever since the discovery of the Forms, without them there is no knowledge at all. — F.M. Cornford, Plato's Theory of Knowledge, page 28

Cornford's epochal work still had shadows of Kant, especially in being mindful of the unknowable noumenal universe and its original in Plato. What can be known is limited by our senses. rational resources, plus what humanity brought into the world. For Plato that is the objectively real Ideas that guide us. Without this guidance we are lost.
As you say,

Theaetetus ... shows the need for an intelligible world not possible through the relativity of Protagoras or Heraclitus. It is done without recourse to Anamnesis and the separate realm of Forms — Paine

Therefore, Theaetetus, neither perception nor true opinion, nor even an articulation that’s become attached to a true opinion would be knowledge. — Plato. Theaetetus 129b, translated by Joe Sachs

That is, it would not be Platonic knowledge. If Protagoras had been allowed into the argument at this point he would have thanked Plato for properly developing Protagorian subjective knowledge. The difference is that subjectively I can always be certain of my knowledge of this moment and this moment alone.

The puzzle arises because modern Aristotelians and materialists take JTB for granted as the sound definition of knowledge and are shocked to discover that Plato demonstrated that this cannot be. What could be the difference? Cornford suggests that according to Plato, only the Forms can be known unconditionally. If we dismiss the Forms as abstract nonsense then which way should we look for an answer?

Cornford has many worthy challengers. In the text under discussion, and throughout this dialogue, he at least displays the virtue of being consistent in translating Kind for γένη and Form for εἶδος. — Valentinus

"Consistently" translating Kind for γένη and Form for εἶδος is complete nonsense for the obvious fact that meaning changes according to context!

Besides, I don't see why any serious reader of Plato would insist on sticking to Cornford who really belongs to a different era (1874 – 1943). The world has moved on since Cornford, has it not? IMO, precisely because Plato is so difficult to translate into modern English, different translations should be consulted, especially more recent ones that tend to avoid the pitfalls of their predecessors.

Anyway, the indisputable fact is that the Greek passage starts with “to kata gene diaireisthai”, “the division by genera (classes, or kinds)” and is part of the general discussion of the Method of Division or diairesis.

As can be clearly seen from the previous pages (252e-253b), the topics discussed are the three arts, grammar, music, and dialectic, and how their objects, viz. sounds, letters, etc. combine or not with the others. So, it is imperative to read the passage in its proper context.

The objects of dialectic are the Genera or Kinds (gene). Hence “division according to genera” (253d).

Of course, the Division Method may be applied to Forms, and Forms (eide) are, indeed, mentioned in the dialogue.

However, (1) gene does not refer to Forms and (2) focusing exclusively on Forms misses the whole point of the dialogue.

Plato’s central intention is not the application of Division to Forms, but to the distinction between philosopher and sophist, in order to avoid misidentification. Hence the title of the dialogue. Therefore, individual passages must be read in light of the whole, not in isolation.

The Sophist begins with division or distinction between people who may be “gods” or “mere strangers”, and then proceeds to discuss sophists, statesmen, and philosophers, and the difficulty of classifying them. And classification involves identification, in this case, how can we tell a sophist from a philosopher.

The mention of Cornford reminds me of when we discussed his views previously.

I continue to question the 'doctrinal' aspect of Cornford's argument. In regard to what is meant by: "what is meant by 'thinking' or 'reason'", that was a matter of interest at the time with many conflicting opinions,

Cornford's account of nous does not distinguish the mythical from the logos of inquiry.

But maybe in a sentence or two you can clarify.

How will the "pursual by interpretation of evidence" ever be independent of specific methods of interpreting ancient texts?
— Paine — tim wood

Take, for example, the debates over how Plato understood the ontology of Forms. I (and others) have challenged Cornford's interpretation that there is a monolithic Theory of Forms that is higher and prior to texts that do not fit into that view.

Some of those references are to Cornford's opinions and others are to his translations. I propose that they are integrally connected.

I used three sentences.

Perl's use of myth echoes what I hear in Plotinus' language.

Plotinus would probably agree with:
— Perl, Thinking Being, Chap 2, Plato, Pp 38-39

Rather, the flight is a mythic representation of the psychic, cognitive attainment of an intellectual apprehension of the intelligible identities, ‘themselves by themselves,’ that inform and are displayed by, or appear in, sensible things.

My problem with this reading of Plato is that the "Theory of the Forms" becomes fixed as a doctrine. I commented upon this last year in a reply to you concerning FM Cornford's interpretation of the Theaetetus. The biggest problem with this fixed meaning of form and anamnesis is that it becomes a kind of form itself that exists separately from those who speak of it.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to Cornford's position comes from the Sophist through the voice of the Stranger:

Str: Now let us move on to the others, the friends of the forms, and you should interpret their doctrines for us too.

Theae: I shall.

Str: “Presumably you make a distinction between becoming and being and you refer to them as separate. Is this so?”

Theae: Yes.

Str: “And you say our communion with becoming is through the body, by means of sense perception, while it is by means of reasoning through the soul that we commune with actual being, which you say is always just the same as it is, while becoming is always changing.”

Theae: 248B “Yes. That is what we say.”

Str: “Now, best of all men, the communing which you ascribe to both, isn’t it what we mentioned a moment ago?”

Theae: What was that? Shall we say what this is?

Str: “An action or an effect arising from some power, from their coming together with one another.” You probably do not hear their response to this so clearly, Theaetetus, but perhaps I can hear it, as I am quite familiar with them.

Theae: What then? What account do they give?

Str: 248C They do not agree with what we said just now to the earth-born men about being.

Theae: What was that?

Str: We somehow proposed an adequate enough definition of things that are: whenever the power to be affected or to affect, even to the slightest extent, is present in something; that something is something that is.

Theae: Yes.

Str: Now to this they reply that; “the power to be affected and to affect is a feature of becoming,” but they say that neither power attaches to being.

Theae: Don’t they have a point?

Str: A point which makes us say that we still need to find out 248D more clearly from them whether they also concede that the soul knows, and that being is known.

Theae: They will surely assent to that.

Str: “What about this? Do you say that the knowing, or being known, is an action, an effect, or both? Or is one an action, and the other an effect? Or do neither of them have anything to do with action and effect?”

Theae: Obviously they would say “neither”, otherwise they would be contradicting what they said before.[1]

Str: I understand. Instead, they would say that; “if knowing is indeed some action, it follows that 248E whatever is known must, for its part, be affected. Indeed, based on this account, since being is known by the act of knowing, insofar as it is known, it is changed to that extent because it is affected, which we insist does not happen to the quiescent.”

Theae: Correct.

Str: But, by Zeus, what are we saying? Are we actually going to be persuaded so easily that change, life, soul and thought are absent from 249A what altogether is, that it neither lives nor thinks, but abides unchanging, solemn and pure, devoid of intelligence?

Theae: No, stranger, that would be an awful proposition were we to accept it. — Sophist, 248A, translated by Horan

That puts a hefty dent into the reasoning of the Timaeus and runs over Plotinus' interpretation of that book with a tractor.

Note to add: I don't mean to say by the above that the existence of forms is being denied. It is just to show that there is more than a single way to consider their activity as depicted by Cornford.

Cornford's framing of a Theory of the Forms assumes a level of explanation that may not be on offer. — Paine

Do you mean his explanation for the exclusion of Forms from the Theaetetus? Cornford was a unitarian with respect to Plato's underlying metaphysics and believed that beyond the many things said there was deeper coherence. He also consciously excluded later Aristotelian interpretative influence. There is a review (here).

Plato seems to have deliberately hidden his metaphysics by sparingly spreading it throughout the dialogues, I have the strange impression that since Plato was his own editor and publisher, he periodically revised earlier dialogues stashing key pieces here and there. Consequently early readers like Aristotle could genuinely be obsoleted without their awareness. Furthermore the Academics might have had a later more complete copy of the works than the Lyceum.

Cornford's 'Platonist' sought out the metaphysical fragments then reread the entirety with an unerring guidance from that knowledge. Unfortunately only advanced scholars have the mental capacity to follow that plan. Certainly not me.

One feature that does not appear in the pure substrate model is the "wet nurse" role of the "receptacle". — Paine

That opens up Pandora's box.
The demiurge creates natural things by informing the chaotic substrate. I say things that are images, copies of their forms, that become, move, change, and perish like the substrate, yet retain formal identity. Things interact by kind, and have identity and temporal properties that can potentially be sensed. Things are less real than their perfect Forms and cannot be known because they move and change constantly.

The receptacle must contain and nourish objective things.

What pops out is the puzzle of subjective sensation and the objects of perception as contrasted to the things of the chora.

A Platonic reading recognizes this distinction, an Aristotelian reading does not. Aristotle sees substantial objects where Plato sees dynamic things and perceived objects.

By the way, Valentinus, you seem to be very adept at pulling up the most highly relevant and significant passages from Plato. How do you do this? What supports that skill? — Metaphysician Undercover

Thank you for making that observation.

I have read a lot of Plato, some parts many times. I still possess The Collected Dialogues of Plato which I started reading 45 years ago. I have extensively annotated the texts and the index over the years. My copy of Liddell and Scott's lexicon was acquired at the same time.

I am mostly using the Cornford translation because it is easily at hand. You are quite right to notice the wide range of translations. How to understand the Greek of Plato's later dialogues is one of the most fiercely debated issues amongst classical scholars. Cornford has many worthy challengers. In the text under discussion, and throughout this dialogue, he at least displays the virtue of being consistent in translating Kind for γένη and Form for εἶδος.

I will have to think more about your charge of a 'category mistake' in this context. The method of division is used throughout the dialogues. Socrates has been charged numerous times for being sophistical on account of it. See the Greater Hippias at 301 for a particularly exquisite example of the style.

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

What is exposed in Theaetetus is that all the conventional ideas about knowledge, and what knowledge is, are faulty. When they look for something which fits the various descriptions of "knowledge" by common belief, (such as JTB), nothing can actually fit, or fulfill the criteria of the proposed descriptions. So they conclude that they must have the wrong idea about what knowledge really is. Cornford sees this as an indication that we need to turn toward understanding "Forms" to produce a true understanding of the nature of knowledge.

But the members of the dialogue find no way that anything which is commonly called "knowledge" could have the possibility of falsity ruled out. — Metaphysician Undercover

That description does not match the language in the dialogue. Socrates directly refutes Cornford's statement, "The dialogue is concerned only with the lower kinds of cognition", when he corrects Theaetetus' idea that knowledge is perception:

Soc: Therefore, knowledge is not present in the experiences, but in the process of gathering together what’s involved in them, for in the latter, as it seems, there is a power to come in touch with being and truth, but in the former there is no power. — Plato. Theaetetus, 186d, translated by Joe Sachs

At 187a, Theaetetus takes a second shot and says opinion is knowledge. After Socrates shows that as inadequate, Theaetetus says:

Theae: That true opinion is knowledge. Having a true opinion is surely something safe from error at least, and all the things that come from it are beautiful and good. — ibid, 200e

The matter of an account combined with true opinion was introduced by Theaetetus after Socrates said:

Soc: Then whenever the jurors are justly persuaded about things it’s possible to know only by seeing them and [C] in no other way, at a time when they’re deciding these things from hearing about them and getting hold of a true opinion, haven’t they decided without knowledge, even though, if they judged well, they were persuaded of correct things? — ibid, 201c

The addition of an account does not repair the problem that true opinion is different than knowledge. Socrates statement here does show, however, that true opinion can come from knowledge and good judgement. That is a far cry from not being able to rule out the "possibility of falsity."

It also rules out Cornford's charge that "as Plato had taught ever since the discovery of the Forms, without them there is no knowledge at all"

That description does not match the language in the dialogue. Socrates directly refutes Cornford's statement, "The dialogue is concerned only with the lower kinds of cognition", when he corrects Theaetetus' idea that knowledge is perception: — Paine

I agree that Cornford's statement is inaccurate.

At 187a, Theaetetus takes a second shot and says opinion is knowledge. After Socrates shows that as inadequate, Theaetetus says: — Paine

Let me put this in context. Theaetetus claimed that knowledge is perception, and they had discussed the principle of Protagoras, "man is the measure of all things". This lead them to a discussion of the difference between the opinions of Heraclitus and the like, that everything is in motion, and Parmenides with his group, saying all is One, and at rest. This led to a bit of a digression which threatened to derail the whole discussion by dragging it into a bigger problem, so Socrates moved to get back to questioning whether knowledge is perception.

He successfully separated knowledge from perception by associating perception with sensing. Then he discussed how something other than a sense must distinguish colour from sound, and also make judgements about likeness, difference, equality, numbers, also what is and what is not. So Theaetetus agreed that knowledge is something different from perception. Determining what knowledge is not, is said to be at least some progress toward determining what it is (187a)

Next, they turn to "judgement", and there is an issue because judgement might be true or false. True judgement is said to be knowledge. But there is a problem with false judgement, it appears to be impossible because it would involve not knowing what we know (188-190). Then Socrates offers the analogy of a block of wax. Knowledge is imprinted in the wax, and this is related to perceptions in judgements (191-196). Again, it is concluded that false judgement is impossible.

Then it is revealed that the problem with these arguments is that they use "know", and the usage of that term assumes something about knowing which ought not be assumed. So he proceeds to analyze what "having", or "possessing" knowledge means. He presents the analogy of an aviary where a man hunts and collects birds. The soul is like an aviary full of collected birds (pieces of knowledge). There are two types of hunting here, one whereby the man hunts birds (knowledge) in the wild, to bring into the aviary, and the other where the man hunts birds (knowledge already within the aviary. False judgement would be a matter of grabbing the wrong bird from within. But again, this cannot be right because it would mean that the man has no way of distinguishing the correct piece of knowledge which he has already learned. And if we say that some of the birds are pieces of knowledge, and some are pieces of ignorance, then how is it possible that a man with knowledge cannot distinguish knowledge from ignorance? So the issue is not resolved

At 201 it is proposed that knowledge is true judgement with an account. But this proposal ends up circling back on itself because "an account" really adds nothing to "true judgement". Then we still have the same issue with "true judgement", which was already discussed.

The addition of an account does not repair the problem that true opinion is different than knowledge. Socrates statement here does stow, however, that true opinion can come from knowledge and good judgement. That is a far cry from not being able to rule out the "possibility of falsity." — Paine

I suggest you reread the arguments where "false judgement" is shown to be impossible. The problem revealed is that their use of "know" assumes that what is known is true. And this is what supports the arguments against false judgement. It results in the problem of not knowing what is known. So it is this criteria, that 'what is known is true' (knowledge is true judgement), which allows these arguments and leads to this problem.

Therefore it is an inverted type of argument. The argument demonstrates that false judgement is impossible. Simply put, it does this premising that knowledge cannot consist of falsity, and, that every judgement is based in knowledge. Therefore false judgement is impossible. The inversion comes about because we must reject the conclusion as inconsistent with the evidence. False judgement is possible. And so, as Socrates indicates, we have assumed something wrong about knowledge in the first place, and proceeded with an inaccurate presupposition. This must be the idea that knowledge cannot consist of falsity. it is true judgement or opinion..

In other words, insisting that knowledge must consist of truth (i.e. ruling out the possibility of falsity within knowledge), is what makes it impossible for Socrates and Theaetetus to come up with an acceptable definition of "knowledge".

Burnyeat would have benefited from paying more attention to Jacob Klein, an important influence upon Strauss. The oracular status given to Strauss by Burnyeat looks different after reading some Klein. Consider the following from Strauss' lecture course on the Meno. The discussion concerns how Socrates says different things to different people and the Thrasymachus' charge of Socrates not speaking clearly:

Quoting Klein: We shall consider, by way of example, views expressed in Rene Schaerer's book, where the main problem is precisely to find the right approach to an understanding of Platonic dialogues. Whatever the point of view from which one considers the Dialogues, they are ironical, writes Schaerer, and there can hardly be any disagreement about that. For, to begin with, irony seems indeed the prevailing mode in which the Socrates of the dialogues speaks and acts. It is pertinent to quote J.A.K. Thomson on this subject. With a view not only to Thrasymachus' utterances in the Republic, Thomson says: When his contemporaries called Socrates ironical, they did not mean to be complimentary.

Leo Strauss: This meaning implies in any event that for a statement or a behavior to be ironical there must be someone capable of understanding that it is ironical. It is true, a self-possessed person may derive, all by himself, some satisfaction from speaking ironically to someone else who does not see through the irony at all. In this case, the speaker himself is the lonely observer of the situation. But this much can be safely said of Socrates as he appears in the Platonic dialogues: he is not ironical to satisfy people who are capable of catching the irony, of hearing what is not said. A dialogue, then, presupposes people listening to the conversation not as casual and indifferent spectators but as silent participants...... a (Platonic) dialogue has not taken place if we, the listeners or readers, did not actively participate in it; lacking such a participation, all that is before us is indeed nothing but a book.

Leo Strauss: So irony requires that there are people present to catch the irony, who understand what is not said you know, irony being dissimulation, of course something is not said. There must be readers who silently participate in the dialogue; without such participation, the dialogue is not understood. In other words, you cannot look at it as at a film and be excited and amused, amazed, or whatever by it: you have to participate in it. This is the first key point which Klein makes. Now he states then in the sequel that according to the common view, with which he takes issue, the reader is a mere spectator and not a participant, and he rejects this.

Leo Strauss: Now let us read this quotation from Schleiermacher in note 23, which is indeed I
think the finest statement on the Platonic dialogues made in modern times:

Plato's main point must have been to guide each investigation and to design it, from the very beginning, in such a way as to compel the reader either to produce inwardly, on his own, the intended thought or to yield, in a most definite manner, to the feeling of having found nothing and understood nothing. For this purpose, it is required that the result of the investigation be not simply stated and put down in so many words . . .but that the reader's soul is constrained to search for the result and be set on the way on which it can find what it seeks. The first is done by awakening in the soul of the reader the awareness of its own state of ignorance, an awareness so clear that the soul cannot possibly wish to remain in that state. The second is done either by weaving a riddle out of contradictions, a riddle the only possible solution of which lies in the intended thought, and by often injecting, in a seemingly most strange and casual manner, one hint or another, which only he who is really and spontaneously engaged in searching notices and understands; or by covering the primary investigation with another one, but not as if the other one were a veil, but as if it were naturally grown skin: this other investigation hides from the inattentive reader, and only from him, the very thing which is meant to be observed or to be found, while the attentive reader's ability to perceive the intrinsic connection between the two investigations is sharpened and enhanced.
.....
This is not to say that the dialogues are void of all doctrinal assertions. On the contrary, this further consideration ought to guide our understanding of the dialogues: they contain a Platonic doctrine by which is not meant what has come to be called a philosophical system. The dialogues not only embody the famous oracular and paradoxical statements emanating from Socrates (virtue is knowledge, nobody does evil knowingly, it is better to suffer than to commit injustice) and are, to a large extent protreptic plays based on these, but they also discuss and state, more or less explicitly, the ultimate foundations on which those statements rest and the far-reaching consequences which flow from them. But never is this done with complete clarity. It is still up to us to try to clarify those foundations and consequences, using, if necessary, another, longer and more involved road, and then to accept, correct, or reject them---it is up to us, in other words, to engage in philosophy. — Leo Strauss, Lecture transcripts on Meno

I don't share Schleiermacher's confidence that his vision of the future will come about. But I do think he is teaching us a little of how to read Plato.

The question raised here about systems takes precedence over secrets. If this reflects how Plato teaches, the emphasis is upon the progress of the learner as a learner, not a proposition of what is true in a proposition. That is why I said previously that Cornford is more of a champion for a System than Strauss was. It is worth noting that Gerson is more of a System guy than even Cornford:

The systematic unity is an explanatory hierarchy. The Platonic view of the world—the key to the system—is that the universe is to be seen in hierarchical manner. It is to be understood uncompromisingly from the top down. The hierarchy is ordered basically according to two criteria. First, the simple precedes the complex, and second, the intelligible precedes the sensible. — Gerson, Aristotle and Other Platonists

There are capital texts of philosophy. Others anticipate or summarize the main works, but reveal essential aspects. I will try to update this post and invite you to do the same.

Plato, Protagoras. It exposes the thought of a rival and, at the same time, it shows the cultural environment of that time.
Source:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0177%3atext%3dProt.

Plato, Meno. First work in which he departs from the tradition of Heraclitus and underlines for the first time:
1. The belief in the immortality of the soul.
2. The extrapolation of the geometric to the philosophical.
3. The assimilation of philosophy to mathematics, poetic inspiration and religious experience.

Source:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0177%3atext%3dMeno

The philosopher is the natural successor of the poet, the priest and the seer, not the Ionic physicist. This orientation permeates the first seven chapters of this impressive text:

Cornford, F. M. (1952): Principium Sapientiae: The Origins of Greek Philosophical Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This is my first reading of the republic and i have been told by my cousin who is a grad that Jowwets trans. seems to be the norm. If anyone would like to comment on F.C.C.'s version and how it's better/worse than the others then go right ahead please and thank you.

It's from Francis MacDonald Cornford, Oxford University Press, The Republic. Sorry if I don't know which book it's from. It starts with The Abolition of the Family by the Guardians if that helps.

I can't see how a science of being as being is possible, except perhaps as a phenomenology which would have to start, as Heidegger did, with dasein: human being. — Janus

I think of being in terms of what i call "Dynamic Ontology" in the hope of reducing confusion by being more explicit in the meaning of my terms. I was inspired in this by a suggestion of Plato in The Sophist 247e:

I suggest that anything has real being that is so constituted as to possess any sort of power either to affect anything else or to be affected, in however small a de-gree, by the most insignificant agent, though it be only once. I am proposing as a mark to distinguish real things that they are nothing but power — Plato

Cornford points out that this is only a mark (horos) of being that would be acceptable to a materialist, not a definition (logos) of being, and that the question of what reality is remains open later in the dialogue. Still, I think we can make good use of it after a little refinement.

First, adding “or to be affected” to “to affect anything” is redundant. If I claim to be acting on x, but no effect is produced in x, then however much I am exerting myself, I am not acting on x at all. If I am not acting upon x, x is not being acted upon by me. Unless x is capable of re-acting in some way when acted upon by something, it is incapable of being acted upon by anything. So the condition “or to be affected” does nothing to increase extension. Second, “else” in “any sort of power either to affect anything else” is unnecessarily restrictive. If something can act on itself, then it exists, even though we may be unable to know its existence.

Being, then, is convertible with the capacity to act. Every thought of an existent involves some ability to act: to reflect light, to occupy space and so resist penetration, to affect thought. In fact, any “thing” unable to affect thought would be unknowable, and would never be considered an entity. Since this contrasts sharply with our unreflective concept of a minimal existent as a passive blob, it may help to recall that quantum field theory reveals all matter as constantly oscillating and abuzz with virtual particles.

In classical ontology, existence is the basis in reality for our saying that a being is, and essence that for our saying what a being is. In dynamic ontology, existence represents an unspecified capacity to act, and essence specifies an individual’s possible acts. Given these definitions, any act by an object (1) evidences its existence and (2), by being a specific act of which the object is capable, projects its essence.

If we can agree on these starting points, then at least some minimal science of being qua being is possible.

Collingwood also has good arguments to support the view that metaphysics can only be a science of the absolute presuppositions — Janus

I reject the notion of a priori knowledge, however fundamental. All that we know can be explained in terms of our awareness of interacting with reality. If I am aware of something acting on me, I am aware that it exists. Since it is acting on me in a specific way, I know it can act in that way and so have some minimal projection of its essence -- of its possible acts. In reflecting on my experience of existence, I see that existence entails principles such as identity, the impossibility of both being and not being at one and the same time in one and the same way, and that a possible being is either actual or not actual.

Then, I see that if my thinking is to apply to being, it must reflect these characteristics of being. These are not laws of thought. They are laws of thought about being. I can think that there is a plane figure that is both a triangle and a square, but there cannot be a plane figure that is both a triangle and a square.

Pure being is, as Hegel points out, coterminous with nothingness, and how could we have a science of nothingness? — Janus

No, being is not coterminous with nothingness. That's unreflective word play. No-thing has no properties, including terminal boundaries. Since it has no boundaries it cannot be co-terminus with anything.

Perhaps it could be said that mysticism is a science of nothingness; but in the domain of mysticism there would seem to be no possibility of the kind of definitive intersubjective corroboration that is necessary for a domain of inquiry to count as a science. — Janus

Being trained as a physicist, I used to poo-poo anything "mystical." Then I read W. T. Stace's Mysticism and Philosophy which provides a detailed phenomenology of mysticism. Since then, I have read extensively on mysticism and its cognitive value. While each experience is personal, many are tokens of a common transcultural typology.

St. John of the Cross, in reflecting on his mystical experience characterizes God as "todo y nada" (all and no-thing), and Eastern mystics frequently speak of and experience of "nothingness." I think mystics mean by this that that object of their experience cannot be classed as a phenomenal thing. Stace points out that one type of experience is completely free of sensory qualia, while his other type adds no sensory content to our perceptions. Both involve a profound awareness of unity.


To return to your basic thesis, could you give an argument for the impossibility of a science of being?

I've read you post several times and am at a loss. As I intend "ultimately a posteriori," it means that the principles in question are learned from experience, and are not known innately. I did not see you objecting to this, so I still don't know what you think we are disagreeing about.

This in effect re-grounds the knowledge of the thing into the process of the discovery of the thing, while demolishing the status of the knowledge as knowledge. — tim wood

I do not see how grounding knowledge in experience can involve anything retrograde -- anything that can be called "re-grounding." Nor do I see how anything that has origins can be "demolished" by giving an account of its origins. I can only conclude that some turn of phrase has connotations for you that it does not have for me.

Once done, and the thing known/defined/named, never again need it be discovered: we know it. — tim wood

Have I implied otherwise? How?

Does that imply that all knowledge is a priori? I answer yes, with respect to the criteria that establishes the knowledge as knowledge. — tim wood

No, it does not, because some knowledge is purely contingent, and has no a priori component. That Charles Dickens was born February 7, 1812 will never be an a priori fact however well known it is. If we know something in light of general principles, not contingent on the case at hand -- as we know that if I have two apples and am given two more apples, I will have four apples -- then we may be said to know it "a priori" even though we learn arithmetic from experience. But, if the very reason that we know something, as Dickens' birth date, is contingent, then there is nothing a priori about it, however long we may have known it.

Still, if this is not how you wish to use the terms "a priori" and "a posteriori," that is your choice and not a matter that can be settled by argument.

So far your argument is a claim. But I do not find that you have argued it in substantive terms. — tim wood

It seems to me that no such argument is called for. We see how children learn, say, arithmetic. We give them different hings to count until they have the flash of insight (which is an abstraction) by which they see that the counting process does not depend on what is counted. We see the same kinds of abstractions occurring in other areas -- for example if something is happening, something is acting to make it happen -- and so, in a higher-order abstraction, we see that the principles of abstract sciences are grasped by abstraction. In light of this, it seems to me that the burden is on the camp of innate knowledge to show that such abstraction is impossible.

Is referencing <being> a flight to being, or an explication of experience/phenomena? — tim wood

I an not sure what "a flight to being" would mean. We are immersed in being, we can't fly from it or to it.

I would see it more as a penetration of experience -- drilling down to its transcendental core. One might think of seeing the forest instead of the trees.

You have <being> as "something that can act." (I note too you have <being> that we experience, and "a concept of <being>... there to help us.") How does it act? Would it both simplify and demystify to rebrand this <being> as just a capacity of the human mind? — tim wood

I got the explication of being as anything that can act or be acted upon from Plato in the Sophist. I believe it is F. M. Cornford who remarked that Plato sees this as sign/mark of being rather than a definition of being. In any event, we can drop the passive part because if we are acting on a putative being, and it does not re-act in some way, then no matter how much we are exerting our self, we are not acting on it at all.

I would see the power to act not as a definition, or as a mark, of being, but as convertible with being. It prevents us from mistaking being with passive persistence, but it does not define being because there is no more definition of "to act" than there is of "to be." It does help us clarify the distinction of essence as a specification of possible acts and existence as the indeterminate capacity to act.

If we reduce being to a capacity of the human mind, then we have made the ultimate anthropomorphic error and are on the slippery slope to solipsism. Also, we have fundamentally misunderstood mind, which is at one pole of the subject-object relation of knowing.

Nor is being is well-understood as the other (objective) pole. Being is only known to the extent that it has revealed itself to us by deigning to interact with us -- to include us in its game, as it were.

As a result of my own reflections about the nature being based on views which are not traditional I often do not think about the existence of God in the framework that many do, but see God as an underlying source. — Jack Cummins

I feel the same. I wrote an essay back in my undergrad years that 'God is not God', which was about the idea that 'God' often amounts an amalgam of ideas and conventions grounded in social history. I wanted to argue for something like 'the unknown God' which forever eludes definition but which is revealed through meditation.

As for Parmenides, I've come to realise that he is the real founder of westerm metaphysics. And of course metaphysics gets a bad rap in modern philosophy, for good reasons, as it has become ossified into verbal formulations which no longer convey anything truly vital. But I think that's because metaphysics proper demands a kind of cognitive shift, without which it is empty repetition and sterile argument. That is why in the Platonic tradition, metaphysics requires metanoia, nowadays misleadingly translated as 'repentance' but meaning something much deeper than that.

Like many, I encountered Bohm through his dialogues with Krishnamurti. I think I even own, or did own, his Wholeness and the Implicate Order. I feel a kind of intuitive affinity with it, but I'm wanting to understand the questions through the perspective of classical philosophy. I've recently discovered a classic textbook on Plato and Parmenides (Cornford) which I intend to try and study this year.

To go back to your question - I'm of the view that the phenomenal domain (sensory domain, physical domain) has no inherent reality. That is why I think materialism is a mistaken view - it takes the physical world as intrinsic or inherently real, independently of any judgement. Whereas, I say, whatever we assert to exist, relies upon judgement. So reality has an irreducible subjective pole, which is never disclosed to objective analysis, because it is always 'that which knows'. What 'the knower' is, is impossible to say, because we're never outside or, or apart from, that. This is something which is made much more clear in Upaniṣadic philosophy than in Greek philosophy.

The current culture however is overwhelmingly 'sensate' in its philosophy and view of life so naturally it invests the sensory domain with a reality which it doesn't have. Criticizing that or going against the mainstream in this matter, is an essentially subversive or couinter-cultural act.

So Plato's meno, Kant - anything else come to mind? — Manuel

That's all I can come up with at the moment, sorry.

The critic, Harold Bloom, was able to read and process 1000 pages in little over an hour with almost total recall. — Tom Storm

There was a savant, Kim Peek, the basis of the Rain Man character, who could read two books simultaneously and perform other astounding feats. Savants are a whole other area of mystifying capacity.

I suspect some brains are just abnormally fecund. — Tom Storm

I suspect the brain is analogous to a receiver~transmitter in some basic respect, rather than an originator of information.

I've discovered some books on it (e.g this.
— Wayfarer

I took a look at what was available to read on Amazon. — Fooloso4

(This is in reference to a book on Plato and Parmenides.) I'm of the view that the Western metaphysical tradition starts with Parmenides and that I have to get a better understanding of him. The standard text is Cornford, I am looking for something more contemporary. I found a publishing company called Parmenides Publishing, which lead me to Arnold Hermann and read some of the views. I'm warily eyeing the kindle edition of his Plato and Parmenides, but it's an expensive purchase and a difficult topic.

Forms, ideas, numbers, principles and so on, are not 'existent things', they're not 'out there somewhere'. Rather they are better thought of as constitutive elements of reason. But they're also not simply subjective or a product of the mind — Wayfarer

Correct. One way of looking at it is that the Forms are within the Universal Consciousness or "Mind of God", in which case they are subjective to the One, but "objective" to the many. As the individual nous expands its field or sphere of awareness, it gets closer and closer to the World Nous and thereby acquires an ever-clearer grasp of the nature of the Forms. In any case, Buddhists and Hindus, especially those who have some experience of meditative states of consciousness seem to find it easier to understand the concept.

Regarding the “noble lie” theory, it is just a theory, typically advanced by those who believe in political propaganda like Strauss and his followers. In reality, it is far from clear that “noble lie” is the correct translation in the first instance.

Desmond Lee makes the following observation:

Plato has been criticized for his Foundation Myth as if it were a calculated lie. That is partly because the phrase here translated ‘magnificent myth’ (p. 145) has been conventionally mistranslated ‘noble lie’; and this has given rise to the idea that Plato countenances political propaganda of the most unscrupulous kind. In fact, as Cornford points out, the myth is accepted by all three classes, Guardians included. It is meant to replace the national traditions which any community has, which are intended to express the kind of community it is, or wishes to be, its ideals, rather than to state matters of fact. And one of Plato’s criticisms of democracy was, in effect, that it was government by propaganda, telling the right lie to the people (cf. p. 263).

- H. D. P. Lee, Plato The Republic, p. 156

If we look at it objectively, some important points become obvious:

Plato’s foundation myth is simply replacing an old myth with a new one. It is not replacing truth with a lie.

A myth taken as a whole, may be false but it also contains truth, as Socrates himself says (Rep. 377a).

Myth enables philosophical inquiry to reach its goal (Rep. 614a).

This is the key to understanding Plato’s myths: they serve a philosophical purpose as well as conveying a truth.

And, of course, nowhere does Plato say that the Forms or God are just myths!

On the contrary, it is imperative to remember that, in order to develop our power of abstract thought, Plato urges us to study mathematics not in any way but in a particular way that prepares us for the specific task of grasping the nature of the Forms.

Such studies he says, “guide and convert the soul to the contemplation of true being” (Rep. 525a), a statement he repeats several times.

Calculation and arithmetic, which “plainly compels the soul to employ pure thought with a view to truth itself”, focuses not just on numbers, but also on spatial arrangements (such as military formations in lines and columns) which prepare us for the next stage involving geometrical forms.

Geometry, “the knowledge of the eternally existent”, focuses on pure geometrical figures consisting of the lines that were introduced in the previous stage.

Astronomy, which “converts the natural indwelling intelligence of the soul from uselessness to right use”, focuses on the correlations of spatial and temporal relations among geometrical solids (heavenly bodies) whose movement gives rise to day and night, etc.

Harmony, the study of which “is of use only when conducted for the investigation of the beautiful and the good”, takes us beyond spatiality by focusing on the ratios expressed by the figures studied up to this point and including musical pitch.

Thus, Plato’s training program takes us from the one-dimensional to the two-dimensional, from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional, from the three-dimensional to the three-dimensional in motion, and from the latter to time, thus covering all the dimensions of the material world and facilitating our understanding of the innermost structure of the world of becoming as constituted by intelligibles and dependent on being.

Plato’s statements are definitely no “lies”. The study of mathematics in the way suggested by Plato, does actually help in the development of the ability to think abstractly and to grasp abstract concepts.

It is true that Plato stops at the threshold to Forms having Socrates and Glaucon say:

You will not be able, dear Glaucon, to follow me further, though on my part there will be no lack of goodwill. And, if I could, I would show you, no longer an image and symbol of my meaning, but the very truth, as it appears to me—though whether rightly or not I may not properly affirm. But that something like this is what we have to see, I must affirm. Is not that so?” “Surely.” “And may we not also declare that nothing less than the power of dialectics could reveal this, and that only to one experienced in the studies we have described, and that the thing is in no other wise possible?” “That, too,” he said, “we may properly affirm.” (533a)

Still, we know that the method that takes philosophical inquiry forward and enables the philosopher to go beyond mathematical thought is dialectic, which further develops the soul’s internal capacity for insight until it is sufficiently finetuned to grasp the reality of the Forms. The Parmenides, Timaeus, and other works offer further points of departure in this direction.

In any case, it is clear that it is not sufficient to understand the inner structure of the world. Philosophical inquiry demands that we also understand the inner structure of the soul and the interrelation of soul and world. E.g., how does the individual nous relate to the Nous of the World Soul? The answer to this also provides the answer to the nature of the Forms and their relation to both the One and the many.

See also Mitchell Miller, Beginning the “Longer Way” – Research Gateway

According to Norman Gulley 'Plato's Theory of Knowledge', Plato introduces the theory of forms and anamnesis (Meno) because of his awareness of the limitations of the Socratic method of questioning, and in the attempt to develop a constructive theory of knowledge. — Wayfarer

I figure the Parmenides dialogue argues that Gulley has the sequence backwards.

At 133, the separation of the forms from our reality creates the largest obstacle to using them as an explanatory principle. "If nothing can be like the form, nor can the form be like anything."

During 134:

Parmenides: Whereas the knowledge in our world will be knowledge of the reality in our world and it will follow again that each branch of knowledge in our world must be knowledge of some department of things that exist in our world.
Socrates: Necessarily.
Parmenides: But, as you admit, we do not possess the forms themselves, nor can they exist in our world.
Socrates: No.
Parmenides: And presumably the forms, just as they are in themselves, are known by the form of knowledge itself?
Socrates: Yes.
Parmenides: The form we do not possess.
Socrates: True.
Parmenides: Then none of the forms is known by us, since we have no part in knowledge itself.
Soc: Apparently not. — Translated by F.M. Cornford

But Parmenides does agree at 135b to the use of the forms since we have few other options if we are to proceed through dialogue:

Socrates: I admit that, Parmenides, I quite agree with what you are saying.

Parmenides: But on the other hand, if in view of these difficulties and others like them, if, a man refuses to admit that forms of things exist or to distinguish a definite form in every case, he will have nothing on which to fix his thought, so long as he will not allow that each thing has a character which is always the same, and in so doing he will completely destroy the significance of all discourse. But of that consequence I think you are only too well aware.

Socrates: True. — Ibid

From this point of departure, "developing a constructive theory of knowledge" requires the dialectic approach rather than the abandonment of it.

It does. The Stranger is identified as a member of that circle. (216a) How do we reconcile Parmenides' denial of not-being with the Stranger's affirmation? The solution is in the dyad 'same and different'. — Fooloso4

The Stranger reaffirms the Parmenides denial while presenting the dyad of 'same and different' during the discussion of false statements:

Stranger: And if it were not about you, it is not about anything else.
Theaetetus: Certainly.
Stranger: And if it were about nothing, it would not be a statement at all, for we pointed out that there could not be a statement that was a statement about nothing.
Theaetetus: Quite true.
Stranger: So what is stated about you, but so that what is different is stated as the same or what is not as what is--a combination of verbs and nouns answering to that description finally seems to be really and truly a false statement. — Sophist, 283c, translated by F.M. Cornford

The Eleatic Visitor has only conceded that language can deceive when used a certain way. He has not overturned the school of Parmenides.

Being concerned with "that which is not" is the mark of a sophist (254). — Metaphysician Undercover

The text of that passage is:

Stranger: It is, then, in some such region as this (where kind is distinguished from kind) that we shall find the philosopher now or later, if we should look for him. He too may be difficult to see clearly, but the difficulty in his case is not same as in the Sophist's.
Theaetetus: What is the difference?
Stranger: The Sophist takes refuge in the darkness of not-being, where he is at home and has the knack of feeling his way, and it is the darkness of the place that makes him hard to perceive.
Theaetetus: That may well be.
Stranger: Whereas the philosopher, whose thoughts constantly dwell on the nature of reality, is difficult to see because his region is so bright, for the eye of the vulgar soul cannot endure to keep its gaze upon the divine.
Theaetetus: That may well be no less true. — Sophist, 253d, translated by F.M Cornford

Aristotle appears to be referring directly to this part of the Sophist during his explanation for why there can be no science of 'accidental' being:

In the same way, the geometer does not investigate the attributes which are in a manner accidental to figures. nor the problem whether a triangle is distinct from a triangle whose angles are equal to two right angles. And this happens with good reason; for an accident is a mere name, as it were. And so Plato was not wrong when he ranked sophistry as being concerned with nonbeing. For the discussions of the sophists deal most of all with what is accidental, so to speak; for example whether the musical and the grammatical are the same or distinct.... — Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Epsilon, 1026b, translated by H.G Apostle

The passage connects to both the distinguishing between kinds and the use of 'same and different' being discussed in the dialogue. This also points to the indeterminacy being discussed in the OP since Aristotle argues that without accidental being, every thing that occurs would happen by necessity.

Aristotle also frames the matter of sophistry as a bait and switch operation:

And therefore the teaching they gave their pupils was ready and rough. For they used to suppose that they trained people by imparting to them not the art but its products, as though anyone professing that he would impart a form of knowledge to obviate any pain in the feet, were then not to teach a man the art of shoe-making or the sources whence he can acquire anything of the kind, but were to present him with several kinds of shoes of all sorts: for he has helped him to meet his need but has not imparted an art to him. — Aristotle, On Sophistical Refutations, 184a, translated by E.M. Edghill

In this context, the role of the Sophist as a whole dialogue can be sought after. In what way does it impart the art of the philosopher?

Socrates was not denying things change. He was saying that if nothing stayed the same, there would be no knowledge.

Plato is not content with Parmenides' position either. The dialogue of that name has old man Parmenides schooling young Socrates on how difficult it will be to speak of a world of becoming to be connected to a realm of eternally present Being. This frames the career of Plato as one of attempting to do exactly that.
In the Theaetetus, Socrates seeks the 'nature of knowledge' that can refute Protagoras' appeals to the immediacy of experience on which to say 'man is the measure of all things.' This approach requires accepting the world of becoming as a starting place for the inquiry. At 178b, Socrates points particularly to predicting the outcome of future events where Protagoras is hiding. So at 179d, Socrates says:

We must, then , look more closely into the matter, as our defense of Protagoras enjoined, and study this moving reality, ringing its metal to hear if it sounds true or cracked. However that may be, there has been no inconsiderable battle over it, and not a few combatants. — translated by F.M Cornford

While Socrates declines to address Parmenides directly in his inquiry he is looking to establish a third way that is not premised upon either absolutely stated position. Parmenides is not sufficient for his needs.

I think that to say that a Form is a kind, is a misunderstanding of Forms. — Metaphysician Undercover

The text refers to the use of Kind and Form in the following way:

Stranger: Dividing according to kinds, not taking the same form for a different one or different one for the same - is not that the business of the science of dialectic?
Theaetetus: Yes.
Stranger: And the man who can do that discerns clearly one form everywhere extended throughout many, where each one lies apart, and many forms, entirely marked off apart. That means knowing how to distinguish, kind by kind, in what ways the several kinds can and cannot combine.
Theaetetus: Most certainly.
Stranger: And the only person , I imagine, to whom you would allow this mastery of dialectic is the pure and rightful lover of wisdom. — Sophist, 253d, translated by F.M. Cornford

The Greek from the Perseus site for the first line by the Stranger (with the words in question underlined by me) is:

Ξένος
τὸ κατὰ γένη διαιρεῖσθαι καὶ μήτε ταὐτὸν εἶδος ἕτερον ἡγήσασθαι μήτε ἕτερον ὂν ταὐτὸν μῶν οὐ τῆς διαλεκτικῆς φήσομεν ἐπιστήμης εἶναι;

Are there examples of division and recognition of forms in the Dialogues that depart from this use?

That is hardly an answer to my question regarding the use of division in other dialogues.

Cornford does a better job than Fowler of relating the use of εἶδος in the passage.