Would you say that Gerson's thesis is a tempest in a teapot regarding the limit of philosophy? Or is there something in his either/or that resonates with you? — Paine

I think the fact that thoughtful people all seek to live well, meaning that we all in that sense pursue the good and aim to be rationally self-governing rather than being slaves to our impulses, received opinions, addictions and so on, and that we thus participate in the dialectical search for the truth of the general human condition and of our own conditions in particular exemplifies what is best in Platonism.

I am no scholar of Plato, but I have read with interest what you and @Fooloso4, as much closer readers of Plato than I am, are having to say about seeing Platonism as being less a matter of fixed doctrine than it is of searching for what is good and beautiful and true and flourishing engendering while acknowledging that there can be no definitive answers to those questions.

I haven't read enough Gerson to form a clear opinion, but what I have read in the passages quoted in these forums make him look somewhat like a thinker with a predetermined agenda.

So I take it you don't think Gerson's "Platonists" were opposing the same sort of naturalism in their own day? — Leontiskos

I think the best way to approach this is through Aristotle discussing the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake :

It is because of this indeed that the possession of this science might be justly regarded as not for humans, since in many ways the nature of humans is enslaved, so that, according to Simonides, “a god alone can have this |982b30| privilege,” and it is not fitting that a human should not be content to inquire into the science that is in accord with himself. If, then, there is something in what the poets say, and jealousy is natural to the divine, it would probably occur in this case most of all, |983a1| and all those who went too far [in this science] would be unlucky. The divine, however, cannot be jealous—but, as the proverb says, “Bards often do speak falsely.” Moreover, no science should be regarded as more estimable than this. For the most divine science is also the most estimable. And a science would be most divine in only two ways: if the [primary] god most of all would have it, or if it were a science of divine things. And this science |983a5| alone is divine in both these ways. For the [primary] god seems to be among the causes of all things and to be a sort of starting-point, and this is the sort of science that the [primary] god alone, or that he most of all, would have. All the sciences are more necessary than this one, then, |983a10| but none is better. — Aristotle, Metaphysics, 982b29, translated by CDC Reeve

This argument that it is okay to pursue first causes extends to all who attempt it. When Aristotle makes arguments against others employing what Gerson calls Ur-Platonism principles, that doesn't make his interlocutors unqualified to speak upon it. They are all pursuing the nature of the world because it is their nature to do so.

The reference to Simonides invokes a struggle with tradition that is ever present in Plato's dialogues. An excellent essay on this topic is written by Christopher Utter.

I think the best way to approach this is through Aristotle discussing the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake — Paine

Okay, I have always liked that passage.

This argument that it is okay to pursue first causes extends to all who attempt it. When Aristotle makes arguments against others employing what Gerson calls Ur-Platonism principles, that doesn't make his interlocutors unqualified to speak upon it. — Paine

I don't think Gerson would focus on the idea that Aristotle's interlocutors are unqualified to speak upon it, though he might eventually say that. I think he would focus on the idea that they are wrong. If Aristotle can here be said to be espousing a form of anti-skepticism, then the claim would be that Aristotle's opponents are wrong. Thus I would want to say that "this argument. . . extends to" all, not only those who attempt it. It extends, for example, especially to those who reject the legitimacy of pursuing first causes. The ones who were already pursuing first causes don't really have any need of the argument.

The reference to Simonides invokes a struggle with tradition that is ever present in Plato's dialogues. An excellent essay on this topic is written by Christopher Utter. — Paine

Okay thanks, it looks like an interesting paper. I will have a look.

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

The point of my post was to counter the charge against Strauss that he was an oracular figure who mystified what was there for all to see. Strauss established his point of view in the context of Schleiermacher and Klein. He taught his classes with the spirit of that lineage clearly on display. Burnyeat either knew of that or he did not. In either case, awareness of that lineage rebuts Burnyeat's argument. — Paine

Fair enough, and perhaps you are right that Burnyeat was not sufficiently aware of this lineage.

Now, there are writers who oppose that lineage for a variety of reasons. Their opposition does not make them all saying the same thing. To make such an equation was the core of Apollodorus' method of argument.

He was a venomous fountain of ad hominem attacks and contempt. Everybody had to be speaking from a particular camp or school. His opponents were always tools in the hands of their masters. It deeply saddens me that such a spirit has returned to visit condemnation amongst us. — Paine

That's unfortunate. I wasn't around at the time. Fooloso has continually reminded me of Burnyeat's article, but I could not remember the name of the article and so simply searched, "Burnyeat sphinx" on the forum, and found Apollodorus' post (which was in fact a response to Fooloso). I am thinking of Burnyeat more than Apollodorus, but I wanted to reference that exchange as an antecedent of the point I was making. I don't find it coincidental that after Timothy pointed up the incongruence of Fooloso's approach, others started coming out of the woodwork, testifying to the same impression.

Burnyeat's article is 15 pages long and I don't want to fall into a detailed dispute of the article, especially given the fact that it is not publicly available. I think the discussion regarding Gerson's thesis would be more fruitful, but there is plenty of overlap between the two, and it is interesting that Burnyeat's criticism of Strauss in many ways parallels your own criticism of Gerson.

For what it's worth, the editors included a postscript to Burnyeat's article:

This review was met with a storm of rebuttals from the leading Straussians of the day, plus a letter of support from Gregory Vlastos: NYRB 10 October 1985; 24 October 1985; 24 April 1986. The title ‘Sphinx without a secret’ derives from a short story by Oscar Wilde. — Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy, Volume 2

I get that you connect your view of the 'theological' with a renunciation of the 'material — Paine

I’m interested in a specific philosophical question, which is the subject of the quote from Lloyd Gerson. The thread is about Lloyd Gerson’s interpretation of Aristotle, as was the passage I’ve been discussing. It’s a philosophical question about the role of universals in the forming of judgement and the sense in which that undercuts materialist theory of mind. I can’t see how that can be construed as ‘theology’.

One of the key strengths of Gerson’s work is his detailed comparative analysis of the core doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. — Dermot Griffin

I think that this is the key weaknesses of his work. In Plato's Seventh Letter he says:

"There is no treatise (suggramma) by me on these subjects, nor will there ever be." (341c)

In other words, according to Plato in the Seventh Letter there are no core doctrines or any doctrines at all in his writings that can rightly be attributed to him. I have included more from the letter below.

According to the Phaedo, if there is a "theory of forms" it is, as part of Socrates' second sailing, a hypothesis. (Phaedo 96a-100a) It is a turn away from the attempt to see the things themselves as they are themselves, which like looking directly at the sun can cause blindness, to take refuge in speech. The hypothesis of Forms is called "safe and ignorant" (Phaedo 105c) The inadequacy of Forms is the starting point of the Timaeus.

With regard to Plato and Aristotle their shared common ground is that they are both Socratic skeptics, inquirers who know that they do not know. Their writings are dialectical or dialogical. The dialogue between Plato and Aristotle is part of their practice of thinking and writing as both internal and external dialogue. It models the reader's or listener's active role as skeptical inquirers.

More from the Seventh Letter:

If it seemed to me that these [philosophical] matters could adequately be put down in writing for the many or be said, what could be nobler for us to have done in our lifetime than this, to write what is a great benefit for human beings and to lead nature forth into the light for all? But I do not think such an undertaking concerning these matters would be a good for human beings, unless for some few, those who are themselves able to discover them through a small indication; of the rest, it would unsuitably fill some of them with a mistaken contempt, and others with lofty and empty hope as if they had learned awesome matters.

(341d-e)

For this reason every man who is serious about things that are truly serious avoids writing so that he may not expose them to the envy and perplexity of men. Therefore, in one word, one must recognize that whenever a man sees the written compositions of someone, whether in the laws of the legislator or in whatever other writings, [he can know] that these were not the most serious matters for him; if indeed he himself is a serious man.

(344c)

Any man, whether greater or lesser who has written about the highest and first principles concerning nature, according to my argument, he has neither heard nor learned anything sound about the things he has written. For otherwise he would have shown reverence for them as I do, and he would not have dared to expose them to harsh and unsuitable treatment.

(344d-e)

That's a 21st century thesis in the sense that Plato and Aristotle died 2500 years ago and we can argue about their texts ad infinitum. — Leontiskos

Some argue that the Seventh Letter was not written by Plato. As far as I know Gerson accepts its legitimacy. In the letter Plato says, as quoted:

"There is no treatise (suggramma) by me on these subjects, nor will there ever be." (341c) — Fooloso4

That is not a "21st century thesis", it is, if genuine, what he wrote. Even if you think it is a forgery it is not a 21st century forgery.

The problem is that Aristotle was Plato's literal student. Aristotle knew Plato, Aristotle was taught by Plato, Aristotle and Plato inevitably argued with one another about things, and Aristotle continued to argue with Plato in his own writings. — Leontiskos

This is only a problem if you claim that Aristotle rejected Plato. I don't think he did.

The claim that Plato held no doctrines or positions is almost certainly false — Leontiskos

The claim is that there is no written doctrines by Plato. No doubt he has his opinions on such matters, but Plato never spoke in his own name in the dialogues. Make of this what you will. If you want to discover Plato's doctrines in what one or more of his characters say in the dialogues then such claims must be weighed against what is said and by whom in other places both within that dialogue and in other dialogues.

But crucially false is the claim that we cannot discern doctrinal differences between Plato and Aristotle from their writings, and especially from Aristotle's writings. — Leontiskos

Not only can differences be found between Plato and Aristotle, differences can be found within the dialogues themselves and in the works of Aristotle themselves. Explanations abound as to why. Whether these differences are doctrinal is not the same thing.

He posits that Aristotle’s objections are directed at specific aspects of Plato’s formulations rather than at the underlying principles. — Dermot Griffin

Gerson's central focus, as a scholar, has been upon Plotinus and his contemporaries (broadly speaking).

Interpretations of both Plato and Aristotle are the medium of discourse where different opinions were expressed in Plotinus' time. In that context, Plotinus should be read as claiming what those "underlying principles" are. He is telling us what Plato means and quoting selectively to support his view.

Both Aristotle and Plotinus are alike in trying to establish an internal consistency to their theoria that differs from the language of Plato. This quality gets described as "systems" or "schools" but I think the difference in kind is too profound to delineate clearly.

My point is that it does not entail what you say it does. — Leontiskos

What does:

There is no treatise (suggramma) by me on these subjects, nor will there ever be. — Fooloso4

mean if not that Plato did not give us written doctrines?

It seems you missed the point of my post. — Leontiskos

Your post began by saying that the quote from the Seventh Letter was:

... a 21st century thesis in the sense that Plato and Aristotle died 2500 years ago ... — Leontiskos

How do you understand this if it does not mean what he said in the letter?

If Plato held no knowable positions, then Aristotle could not have argued with Plato. — Leontiskos

Of course he could. He was responding to what was said in the dialogues. Surely he was aware of how what is in the dialogues differed from Plato's own positions as they known by and discussed with those whom he trusted and not by and with others. He was also aware of how Plato was being interpreted. As you go on to say:

Aristotle had access to Plato's person, not just his texts. — Leontiskos

This does not mean that Aristotle disclosed what Plato kept from those he regarded as unsuited to hear them. If Plato did not make them public then it is almost certain that Aristotle would not disclose them.

Gerson accepts Plato's theory of Forms and argues against a break between Plato and Aristotle regarding Forms. But Plato himself gives us reason to doubt that he seriously held a theory of Forms. He did, however, apparently think it better that those not well suited to the truth believe in Forms rather than what the poets, sophists and theologians taught.

The letter does not say that Plato holds no positions, or that none of his positions are inferable from his texts, or that none of his positions are inferable from Aristotle's texts. — Leontiskos

Nor did I say that. Once again:

In other words, according to Plato in the Seventh Letter there are no core doctrines or any doctrines at all in his writings that can rightly be attributed to him. — Fooloso4

If you are arguing that his core doctrines are unwritten that is a whole other discussion. Griffin's review of Gerson, however, addresses such things as the unmoved mover and the "theory of Forms", that is, what is written.

I already addressed this in the parenthetical remark at the end of that paragraph. — Leontiskos

Here is what you said:

Therefore Plato held knowable positions (insofar as we accept Aristotle's depiction of Plato's thought) — Leontiskos

Are you claiming that Aristotle made public what Plato intended to keep private? Wouldn't that be a breach of trust? Do you think he rejects what Socrates says about the problem of writing in the Phaedrus:

[E]very [written] speech rolls around everywhere, both among those who understand and among those for whom it is not fitting, and it does not know to whom it ought to speak and to whom not.

(275d-e)

Aristotle too was aware that what is appropriate to say or not to say must take into consideration who one is speaking to. He had no control over who was reading his work or listening to his lectures. And so, like Plato, only made public what he thinks will benefit the reader or listener while not disclosing what only a few might be able to understand.

One thing that bothers me about the Ur-Platonism idea, apart from the specific issues being discussed, is that there have been centuries of thinkers who have self-identified with belonging or not belonging to particular groups and here comes this bloke telling you where you belong. — Paine

But is Gerson doing that? I see him as trying to identify the broad outlines of the implications of Platonism - not defined solely in terms of Plato’s dialogues, but by the many schools of thought that have identified as part of that ongoing tradition. That’s where he locates the ‘five antis’ that he says are in common to all of them. So he’s inclusive, not exclusive.

There are several matters in that review I would like to address that concern Plotinus but not Gerson. So I will put the comments in your Metaphysics thread when I can make a logos of them.

I don't see Gerson's lens as exclusive. — Leontiskos

That is an interesting question to ask. How about Heidegger versus Ur-Platonism?

They are both critical of the dominance of modern science. They both rely upon an intensive study of classical texts. They differ sharply on views of historical development. Can they share the same view of the world?

This is where I wonder if you are barking up the wrong tree, because the comprehensiveness of Gerson's lens makes it hard for those who agree with him to see a contrasting picture. — Leontiskos

That fairly points to the limits of my thought experiment.

I am far from agreeing with Gerson's larger project but consider your questions worthy of response.

I will think about them.

I have in the past (asked) if these are things that you know and you admitted that you do not. — Fooloso4

Of course, the least wise thing one can claim is to be wise. But it's another thing to claim that the only form of wisdom is the knowledge that one does not have it, and which appears to be your claim.

I am disposed, but not innately, to not attempting to understand Plato in terms of 'naturalism'. The term does not have a clear agreed upon meaning. — Fooloso4

Well, Lloyd Gerson's book Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy gives it in painstaking detail.

Well, Lloyd Gerson's book Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy gives it in painstaking detail. — Wayfarer

Instead of the all too common "read this book" tell me what you mean by naturalism and then I can say to what extent I think this accurately describes or fails to describe my understanding of the dialogues.

I am not asking you to once again rehash your complaints against particular contemporary philosophers. In part what needs to be addressed is the relationship between your understanding of naturalism and thinking and culture.

We had a discussion about it a few months back and I'll refer to a very long post which summarizes the relevant points from those chapters — Wayfarer

I re-read the Perl text and I still have the same response given there:

For Aristotle, the hierarchical ordering of the different kinds of beings is based on the extent to which form predominates over matter in each.
— Eric D Perl Thinking Being - Introduction to Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition

Aristotle certainly put the active principle above the elements being acted upon. I am not aware of any passage that expresses a ratio of the sort Perl is putting forth.

I have been reading chunks of Plotinus lately and can report that he speaks about such a ratio.

It looks like Gerson and Perl read Aristotle in a similar fashion.

I find being told to read something in lieu of a response is patronizing — Paine

I'm sorry if it came across that way. It's more that, 'this is a deep and multi-faceted topic, which is extensively treated in this book.' As the thread is about the work of Lloyd Gerson, then I referred to another of his books, Platonism and Naturalism. And I did then proceed to provide a direct response.

Your approach is very reasonable. Would you say that Gerson's thesis is a tempest in a teapot regarding the limit of philosophy? Or is there something in his either/or that resonates with you?

I took it to be implied by your earlier declaration that 'modernity is our cave'.
— Wayfarer

Fair point. I think we can be in the situation of the prisoner who becomes unshackled but has not escaped the cave. We can be aware of the sources that shape our understanding of things and also be aware that there are earlier sources that differ from these. — Fooloso4

:pray:

The idea that ancient texts were saying something other than established interpretations was through a recognition of their development through time. — Paine

That's getting close to the point that I've been pressing all along. And the reason for my interest in Gerson: he's a dissenting voice in the modern academy. (Thomas Nagel is another.)

I ask you to consider separating what you view as a field of modern philosophy from the terrain of interpreting ancient text as carried out by academic scholars.

In that realm, Gerson is not a dissident but a well-received figure who many support and many others do not. He is far from being a voice in the wilderness. The way he is represented in your quote as a hero of historical understanding has very little to do with why he has a seat at the table of his colleagues.

What "naturalism" refers to is the loosest ball in this discussion. Gerson has said what he understands by that. I have been questioning the basis of that description as given in the thesis. I need more convincing before receiving the term as a known value in the discussion.

.

I do not want to paper over the differences between views in Plato's time. The Stranger's depiction in the Sophist of the battle between views of "what is" stands as testimony to such.

To treat the modern battle as simply a continuance of the first overlooks critical cultural differences. There are champions of the modern and there are detractors. How history is conceived plays a big part in their differences. Take Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, for example. They both refused to shake the pom-poms with team Hegel. But the differences between them obviously extend far beyond what Hegel wrote. All three reference Plato as points of departure. But it is of limited utility to compare them upon that basis alone. All three do think they are doing philosophy. Can the differences be delineated through compliance or divergence from a set of categories?

Dissatisfaction with the modern is expressed by some as the loss of a previously preserved virtue, others by a loss of a means of production, others by a loss of the means to experience life available to ancestors. That is not an exhaustive list of all possibilities, just some pieces that show how various are the attempts to connect those perspectives with our present and future lives.

With that said, where does accepting Gerson's criteria play a part? How does it figure in the struggle for future pedagogy in our lives comparable to the struggle in Plato's time?

What you call my and Strauss' "convoluted interpretation" is perhaps based on assumptions about how to read Plato that Strauss and others have called into question. — Fooloso4

No, for Burnyeat Strauss' problem is a kind of dogmatism combined with showmanship or privileged insight, and for me the critique would simply need to be adjusted for your unique form of dogmatism, namely one based on skepticism. The contrarian showmanship is much the same.

Here is an excerpt somewhat late into the article:

Let us be clear that if Strauss’s interpretation of Plato is wrong, the entire edifice falls to dust. If Plato is the radical Utopian that ordinary scholarship believes him to be,52 there is no such thing as the unanimous conservatism of ‘the classics’; no such disaster as the loss of ancient wisdom through Machiavelli and Hobbes; no such person as ‘the philosopher’ to tell ‘the gentlemen’ to observe ‘the limits of politics’. Instead, the ‘larger horizons behind and beyond’ modern thought open onto a debate about the nature and practicability of a just society. Those of us who take philosophy seriously will think that this clash of reasoned views among the ancient philosophers is more relevant to our present interests than the anti-Utopian ‘teaching’ that Strauss has single-handedly invented. So let me try to show that Strauss’s interpretation of Plato is wrong from beginning to end.

His beginning is an inference from literary form. Plato wrote dialogues, dramas in prose. Therefore, the utterances of Socrates or any other character in a Platonic dialogue are like the utterances of Macbeth: they do not necessarily express the thought of the author. Like Shakespeare, ‘Plato conceals his opinions.’53

The comparison is, of course, woefully inadequate. There are dramas and dramas, and Plato’s distancing of himself from his characters is quite different from Shakespeare’s. It is not through literary insensitivity that readers of the Platonic dialogues, from Aristotle onward, have taken Socrates to be Plato’s spokesman; nor is it, as Strauss imagines, through failure to appreciate that a drama comprises the ‘deeds’ as well as the ‘speeches’ of the characters.

The dramatic action of the Republic, for example, is a sustained exhibition of the power of persuasion. Socrates persuades Glaucon and Adeimantus that justice is essential for the happiness of both city and man. He persuades them that justice can be realised in human society provided three great changes are made in the life of the ruling class. First, the family and private property must be abolished; second, women must be brought out of seclusion and educated to take part in government alongside the men; third, both men and women must have a lengthy training in advanced mathematics and active philosophical discussion (not the reading of old books). He persuades them, moreover, that these changes can be brought about without violence, by the kind of persuasive argument he is using with them.

The proof of the power of persuasion is that in the course of the discussion – this is one of the ‘deeds’ that Plato leaves the observant reader to notice for himself – Glaucon and Adeimantus undertake to participate in the task of persuasion themselves, should the day of Utopia come.54 A significant event, this undertaking, for Glaucon and Adeimantus belong to the aristocratic elite. In Straussian language, they are ‘gentlemen’: the very people Socrates’ persuasion must be able to win over if he means what he so often says, that a just society is both desirable and practicable.

Thus the ‘deeds’ of the Republic, so far from undercutting Socrates’ utopian speeches, reinforce them. Plato uses the distance between himself and the character of Socrates not to conceal his opinions, but to show their efficacy in action. Any ‘gentlemen’ who read the Republic and identify with Glaucon or Adeimantus should find themselves fired with the ambition to help achieve justice on earth, and convinced that it can be done.

Strauss, of course, wants his ‘gentlemen’ readers to form the opposite conviction, about the Republic and about politics in general. What persuasions can he muster? There is the frail comparison with Shakespeare. There is the consideration that Socrates is a master of irony and ‘irony is a kind of dissimulation, or of untruthfulness’.55 But to show in detail that Plato means the opposite of what Socrates says, Strauss resorts to a peculiar mode of paraphrase which he evidently learned from the tenth-century Islamic philosopher, Farabi.56

The technique is as follows. You paraphrase the text in tedious detail – or so it appears to the uninitiated reader. Occasionally you remark that a certain statement is not clear; you note that the text is silent about a certain matter; you wonder whether such and such can really be the case. With a series of scarcely perceptible nudges you gradually insinuate that the text is insinuating something quite different from what the words say. Strauss’s description of Farabi describes himself: ‘There is a great divergence between what Farabi explicitly says and what Plato explicitly says; it is frequently impossible to say where Farabi’s alleged report of Plato’s views ends and his own exposition begins.’57

The drawback with this mode of commenting on a Platonic dialogue is that it presupposes what it seeks to prove, that the dialogue form is designed to convey different meanings to different kinds of readers.58 If there is a secret meaning, one might concede that Maimonides’ instructions show us how to find it and that Farabi’s mode of commentary is the properly cautious way to pass it on to a new generation of initiates. But Strauss has not yet shown that Plato does conceal his opinions, let alone that they are the opposite of what Socrates explicitly says. Hence his use of techniques adapted from Maimonides and Farabi is a vicious circularity. . . — Myles Burnyeat, Sphinx without a Secret

Have you read Strauss or just relying on "Burnyeat's Eyes." — Fooloso4

I like Burnyeat. I have read more Straussians than Strauss himself, and at the beginning of his article Burnyeat explains that his critique is both a critique of Strauss and the Straussian pupils simultaneously, given the way that the pupils exaggerated the problems that Burnyeat sees in Strauss.


(I included portions in the quote that Paine might find interesting vis-a-vis Gerson.)

All of my other words left like deer hit on the side of the road. — Paine

Look, I didn't intend it that way. I will try and elaborate. I've been a particpant in many discussions about interpretation of Plato's texts on this forum, one in particular being Phaedo, a few years ago, and I've learned from them. That became quite vituperative in places - there was a participant, Apollodorus, who doesn't seem to be around any more. Overall I didn't much care for his verbal aggression, but I also didn't think his criticisms entirely mistaken, either. I find @Fooloso4 interpretations invariably deflationary - they seem, as @Leontiskos says, to equate Socrates' 'wise ignorance', to ignorance, tout courte. We've discussed, for example, the allegory of the Cave, which I had rather thought contained at least a hint of something like 'spiritual illumination'. But no, apparently, it's also an edifying myth, and Plato is, along with all of us, a prisoner, for whom there is no liberation. Or something like that.

I'm still interested in Plato, but I have inclinations towards 'the spiritual Plato' (not that 'spiritual' is a very satisfactory word, but what are the alternatives in our impoverished modern lexicon?) But why I respond to Gerson, is that he seems to confirm my belief that modern philosophy, overall, is antagonistic to, or incompatible with, the Platonic tradition, construed broadly.

But the claim has to do with, "assumptions regarding the truth of such things as Forms and Recollection." — Leontiskos

It is odd how much you talk about me and how little you talk to me.

The thread is on Gerson and Platonism. The OP claims that there are core doctrines of Plato. If this is true do you think those doctrines include or exclude the truth of such things as Forms and Recollection?

You say:

...and there need be no evidence of such assumptions in order for him to mount a defense against such an interpretation. — Leontiskos

The evidence is there right from beginning with the OP. And from the beginning you misrepresent what I said:

The claim that Plato held no doctrines or positions ... — Leontiskos

but you argued against your own misrepresentation. Yet even after I pointed out that I said in my first post "no written doctrines" you go on to argue that:

To maintain your thesis would require upholding the idea that Aristotle was no more privy to Plato's thought than we are, which is false. — Leontiskos

You accuse me of sophistry without citing examples, while your own is clearly on display.

If I am to judge from his posts on the forum since I have arrived, he reads Plato primarily against a foil of his own construction; hence the "contrarian polemicism." — Leontiskos

If that is the case then I am in very good company. You reject Strauss without having read him based on what Burnyeat said. But Strauss is not alone. Klein has been cited. If not cited here, John Sallis has been cited in other threads. He can be included as well. He has been influential in my interpretation of Timaeus. And then there is a growing number of Strauss' students who hold faculty positions throughout the U.S.

Some years ago I started a thread on the Euthyphro. I began with a straightforward summary. The first response was by the guy you raised from the dead:

I don't know what the question is but I'm sure Karl Marx has all the answers. Or so they say ....

I ignored this but someone else responded to him:

Please refrain from the gratuitous ad hominem commentary.

Several others spoke up in my defense. There is a whole history here that you seem to be unaware of. My interpretation goes against that of some others, but I have been working on my interpretation and revising it when it seems necessary since long before I was aware of this forum.

- Thanks, I plan to get to this, but I also want to <link> to my last post in our discussion of Gerson.

I don't really understand what you're asking of me. I'm not conversant with nor particularly interested in the minutae of scholarly interpretations of Plato. I suppose the key point I've been interrogating since day one on forums (and I retain a copy of my first post in my scrapbook) is the nature of the reality of mind and a questioning of the reductionist view which attempts to explain mind and life in terms of neurology and evolution. I see glimmers of what I'm looking for in all kinds of places, Plato's dialogues included. The reason I choose that particular excerpt from Lloyd Gerson is because of its succinctness.