This dispositional difference is in part reflected in Aristotle’s penchant for introducing terminological innovations to express old (i.e., Platonic) thoughts. In working through the Aristotelian corpus with a mind open to the Neoplatonic assumption of harmony, I have found time and again that Aristotle was, it turns out, actually analyzing the Platonic position or making it more precise, not refuting it. — Lloyd Gerson

Gerson's emphasis upon "who is a Platonist" here is misplaced. Aristotle's objections to Plato were not a "penchant for introducing terminological innovations to express old (i.e., Platonic) thoughts." The "innovations" were serious attempts to advance the discussion beyond the terms expressed by Plato. The numerous places where Aristotle says something like "Plato was not wrong when he said X" are the places where he is saying Plato was wrong in how the idea was expressed. And that difference was the important matter to pay attention to.

If the differences were not really a difference, the whole trajectory of Aristotle's inquiry can be written off as some kind of poetry slam.

Can we say, very concisely, that the Platonic forms were sought on Earth, by Aristotle, instead of in out-wordly "mathematical heaven" where Plato positioned them? — Raymond

Briefly put, Aristotle’s arguments are as follows:

(A). Time and motion are imperishable.
(B). Therefore, they must have an imperishable cause.
(C). This cause is the Prime Unmoved Mover.
(D). To be a cause of imperishable motion, the Prime Unmoved Mover must be eternally in actuality and immaterial.
(E). That which is immaterial is incomposite.
(F). Therefore, the substance of the Prime Unmoved Mover is incomposite actuality or activity.
(G). That activity is thinking (noesis), i.e., the activity of an Intelligence or Intellect (nous).
(H). Therefore, the Prime Unmoved Mover is an Intelligence or Intellect or “thinking thinking about thinking”.
(I). That Intelligence thinks according to participation in the intelligible.
(J). Therefore, it also thinks about all intelligibles.
(K). Its activity is life.
(L ). Therefore, it is life and life belongs to it.
(M). Therefore, the Prime Unmoved Mover, which is Intelligence, is God and the first principle (arche) upon which the heavens, nature, and all other things depend.

If we consider the fact that Aristotle uses “intelligibles” (noeta) and “Forms” or “Ideas” (eide) synonymously, we can see that his “Unmoved Mover” is identical with Plato’s Creator-God (Demiurge) or Divine Creative Intelligence (Nous Poietikos) whose content are Forms and which generates the universe using Forms as paradigms to give shape to matter. This is confirmed by Aristotle’s statement to the effect that intellect is determined by the essences that are its objects (Metaphysics 1072b22).

Aristotle’s argument that (A) God is thinking what is best, (B) God is best, (C) therefore God is thinking himself, does not mean that God is thinking only of himself. He is also thinking of intelligible objects (= Ideas or Forms).

Both Plato and Aristotle describe God (Demiurge/Unmoved Mover) as “good” or “most good”. And what Aristotle means by “prime” is that the Unmoved Mover is prior to sensible substance, i.e., it is the absolutely primary substance.

All we need to do now is to add Plato’s One or Good which is “above substance” (and thus above the Unmoved Mover or Creator God) and we obtain the same ontological hierarchy as that found in Plato:

(1). The Ineffable One (the Good).
(2). Creative Intellect (Unmoved Mover) containing Ideas or Forms.
(3). Ensouled Universe.

This is all the more the case if we recall that Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics says:

If our activities have some end which we want for its own sake, and for the sake of which we want all the other ends, it is clear that this must be the good, that is, the supreme good … Some, however, have held the view that over and above these particular goods there is another which is Good in itself and the cause of whatever goodness there is in all these others (Nicomachean Ethics. 1094a15-1095a30)

Obviously, Aristotle is fully aware that his metaphysical framework is largely identical with that of his teacher Plato. The apparent disagreement between them and resulting confusion is caused (1) by what Gerson calls “Aristotle’s penchant for introducing terminological innovations to express old (i.e., Platonic) thoughts” and (2) by Aristotle’s criticism of views held within the Academy that are thought to be Plato’s but in reality (as Gerson shows) are often those of Speusippus, the Pythagoreans, and others.

To return to Forms. In Plato, Forms are immaterial “paradigms” used by the Divine Creative Intelligence to generate the material world (Timaeus 28a7). This Creative Intelligence (Nous Poietikos) is a form of consciousness, which is why Aristotle himself refers to it as "nous" and as "thinking" (noesis).

Though they are referred to as "objects of (divine) thought", the Forms, as @Wayfarer says, are NOT "objects" in the ordinary sense of the word, nor could they be as no such "objects" exist in the Divine Intellect.

This is why Forms can be grasped only intuitively, in an act of intuition or insight (noesis) which is different from the discursive thought (dianoesis) whose objects are, say, ideal geometrical shapes such as triangle.

The Form "Triangularity" is the principle that enables discursive thought to form the abstract concept of ideal triangle. The Form of "Triangularity" itself is grasped by the faculty of intuition or insight (nous) while the ideal triangle is conceived by the faculty of reason (logos or dianoia).

If we bear in mind the literal meaning of Greek eidos as "that which is seen (as a shape or form)" we can see that the Form or Idea is inextricably linked with the way in which what would otherwise be an indeterminate mass is shaped by the cognizing consciousness into objects of determinate cognition. The patterns according to which this "shaping" or "forming" occurs are the Forms.

So, essentially, Forms are principles of order which the Divine or Universal Consciousness uses to organize itself in order to generate determinate cognition and "project" the world into existence.

As determinate cognition exists, consciousness cannot remain in an indeterminate state.

Nor can it generate determinate cognition without organizing itself for the purpose.

And the principles according to which it organizes itself are Forms.

Aristotle need not define or describe Forms in every detail exactly as Plato does. But I think it is clear that their views are largely in harmony with one another.

Absolutely! And it is precisely because they have started to incorporate the phenomenological and 'embodied cognition' approaches, which in turn grew out of the movement away from old-school scientific materialism. — Wayfarer

I have been reading quite a bit of Lloyd Gerson upon the strength of your recommendation. I have a growing number of problems with his thesis but leaving that aside, how does phenomenology fit into Gerson's schema where 'Platonism' or 'Naturalism' are the only possible approaches and the attempts to find 'rapprochement' between the two are a fool's errand?

I think Gerson’s overall point, and one which I agree with, is that naturalism as we know it today grew out of the rejection of Platonism and scholastic realism in the late medieval and early modern period. It defines itself as what Platonism isn’t. Helps to bear in mind Gerson’s depiction of the ‘five antis’ of Platonism - anti-nominalism, anti-mechanism, anti-materialism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism.

The early moderns were determined to escape the clutches of the Schoolmen, which indeed had become a stultifying dogma. Nominalism prevailed in the debate over (scholastic) realism and set the terms for modern philosophy. See this review.

Since you spoke approvingly of phenomenology, I was asking where you thought it fit in Gerson's schema where 'Platonism' or 'Naturalism' are the only possible approaches and the attempts to find 'rapprochement' between the two are a fool's errand" — Paine

I suppose you could say that phenomenology is a 'third way' that escapes the opposition that Gerson sees between Platonism and naturalism. It is of note that there are many touch-points between phenomenology and Buddhism, because the latter likewise eschews the 'substance and attribute' metaphysics of classical Western thought.

(Here's a good article on Buddhism and phenomenology. I'd skip the first half, scroll down to the image of the eye. The subsequent passages discuss many of the points that have come up in this thread. )

Since you spoke approvingly of phenomenology, I was asking where you thought it fit in Gerson's schema where 'Platonism' or 'Naturalism' are the only possible approaches and the attempts to find 'rapprochement' between the two are a fool's errand" — Paine

Here, once again, we can see how it is useful to separate Plato from Platonism.

From the Timaeus:

So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we prove to be incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t be surprised. But if we provide likelihoods inferior to none, we should be well-pleased with them, remembering that I who speak as well as you my judges have a human nature, so that it’s fitting for us to be receptive to the likely story about these things and not search further for anything beyond it. (29c-d).

His imprecision is seen here as well:

As for all the heaven (or cosmos, or whatever else it might be most receptive to being called, let us call it that) … (28b).

Why not be more precise? Isn’t it imperative to be precise in matters of metaphysics and cosmogony?

We are human beings, capable of telling likely stories, but incapable of discerning the truth of such things. In line with the dialogues theme of what is best, Timaeus proposes it is best to accept likely stories and not search for what is beyond the limits of our understanding.

Socrates approves and urges him to perform the song (nomos). Nomos means not only song but law and custom or convention. In the absence of truth there is nomos. But not just any song, it is one that is regarded as best to accept because it is told with an eye to what is best. One that harmonizes being and becoming.

In several places Socrates calls the Forms hypothetical. In the Phaedo he combines a hypothetical account based on Forms together with an account based on physical causes.

In short, Plato cannot be situated on either side of Gerson's schema.

I read Gerson's lecture; you gave me the link to the text of it. I have read a good portion of the book that lecture is basically the preface of. The "Ur-Platonism" is interesting as a general narrative but has lots of problems in the close reading of actual texts. I won't go on at length about what you have not read of Gerson.

Phenomena is what is shown and experienced. Science is empiricism. When you say Carl Sagan said, 'cosmos is all there is', and by that, he means the cosmos as discerned scientifically," is Sagan truly reducing phenomena to what can be proven in a model? Is his observation not similar to the humility expressed in the Timaeus? We live in this place. That circumstance and the conditions bounded by its existence is the foundation of anything that happens within that circumstance.

In regard to Nagel to describing the origin of the scientific method, my difficulty with relating it to the meanings of 'materiality' is whether that is an observation of what those descriptions will not satisfy or a limit on the practice itself. Do you think of it as a garbage-in garbage-out scenario?

No metaphysics (archai) before Plato? — 180 Proof

As SEP notes, the word was coined long after Aristotle's death. And Plato never used the term 'metaphysics'. But the core concerns go back to Parmenides and the pre-Socratics. Gerson's books on the subject - one of his books is called Aristotle and Other Platonists - develops the idea of there being an 'Ur-Platonism' which is the original source of what became the subjects of metaphysics. Indeed Gerson claims that Platonism *is* philosophy proper, and that unless that is recognised, it has no proper subject matter (the subject of his most recent book, Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy.)

I'm sure that someone has made the case for a thoroughly naturalist reading of the Tao Te Ching.

They're physicists, not philosophers. — Clarky

Ad hominem. D'Espagnat, in particular, has authored a number of books on philosophy and physics.

There's a reason I bring that up. Metaphysics has a way of resurrecting itself - as some philosopher noted, 'philosophy buries its undertakers' (referring to all the many positivist types, like Stephen Hawkings, who declared philosophy dead.)

Worth noting, and oft-overlooked, is the fact Kant authorizes the conception of noumena, but never....not once....ever gives an example of an object that represents that conception. — Mww

Thanks, that is a helpful discussion from you. Bear with me here, I want to tease out a point which I only have a hazy grasp of myself.

There is in Greek philosophy a distinction made between phenomenon (what appears) and noumenon (what truly is). The noumenal object is, then, an object of the intellect (nous, noetic), in that it is something - a principle, or a deductive proof - which is understood by the intellect in a manner different to that of sensory knowledge. It comprises the grasping of a concept, not the discerning of a shape or some such (preserved in the saying 'to know with mathematical certainty'.)

This is what I think Schopenhauer was commenting on - he is accusing Kant of ignoring this classical distinction and instead appropriating the term 'noumenal' to serve a different purpose in his own philosophy, without respecting the sense in which 'noumenal' was used in Greek philosophy.

Now, there's a passage in one of Lloyd Gerson's essays which is relevant to this point.

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism

Likewise a comment on Aquinas' theory of knowledge which makes the same point (derived from Aristotle):

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

Now that is plainly a different matter from what Kant intends with reference to the unknowable thing in itself, although there often seems to be a certain equivocation. But the point about the Aristotelian-Platonist attitude is that complete knowledge is only possible for intelligible objects, because in knowing them, there is in some sense a unity with them, which is plainly impractical with the objects of sense, which are all separate by definition. Whereas the introduction of the ding an sich in Kant acts in a different role.

@Tom Storm - the point I got to in the post that dissappeared was the results that come back if you google the term union of knower and known. (Interesting that the first entry on the list is Islamic, also derived from Aristotle.)

Maybe it is time for a Gerson showdown. I understand Sachs as challenging the "Ur-Platonism" idea put forward by Gerson.

Wayfarer would put transcendence in the prime position. The trouble there is saying anything truthful. Such arguments are in danger of becoming either mere ritual again, or nonsense. — Banno

I've just realised what the missing word is in nearly all these debates: it is esotericism. Here, I was going to say something about the content of esoteric philosophy, but really it will suffice just to call it out.

I just listened to a lecture on Lloyd Gerson's most recent book Platonism vs Naturalism: the Possibility of Philosophy. In passing, the lecturer mentions that in this book, Gerson deals with the more esoteric aspects of Platonic philosophy, which are often omitted from other sources. Whereas it is precisely those aspects that most interest me. (A book that @Fooloso4 has mentioned a few times comes to mind, Philosophy Between the Lines, although I haven't read it.)

I got interested in philosophy through my encounter with Eastern philosophy, which is often esoteric. ('Upaniṣad' is derived from the term for 'up close', i.e. they are teachings given directly from master to student. Not that I myself have actually been 'up close' but the kinds of ideas found in The Teachings of Ramana Maharishi, for example, are derived from those in the Upaniṣads.) Whereas esotericism is almost entirely walled off from 20th century English-speaking philosophy. If it can't be expressed in plain language, well then, not really a suitable subject for discussion - nonsense, in fact. (I suspect that the influence of Gilbert Ryle is writ large in all this although those other names you frequently mention like Austin and Davidson would be like-minded, I'm sure.)

Anyway, now at least I've come to recognise this - only took 10 years.

Thanks, although I suspect I'd have to read a lot more of that milieu to understand the drift (and must admit, feel little compulsion to do so.)

Do you mean Lloyd Gerson? — Tom Storm

Yeah sorry :yikes: I find him a very difficult read, because so much of his work is addressing other scholars and historical questions of interpretation. So I've only read snippets - come to think of it, that applies to many of my sources - but really got a lot from a lecture of which I also have the hard copy. That lecture conveys the gist of what was to become his latest book. I have this quotation from it in my scrapbook:

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Lloyd Gerson

which, as it happens, beautifully supports 'the argument from reason'.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Lloyd Gerson

The arguments in Aristotle do not follow this line of reasoning. The "identity" with the object is not a simple correspondence of "forms". Aristotle goes to great pains in his Metaphysics to distinguish between the relatively easy task of grouping beings by kinds from understanding causes. The often repeated maxim is that "we move from what is known by us to what is known by nature." Toward that end, we can establish some principles by analogy and others through experience. Gerson consistently overlooks the importance of this distinction when discussing substance (ousia) in Aristotle's writings. The idea of intellect as a pure process is presented as something we will never be able to directly experience for ourselves:

And in fact there is one sort of understanding that is such by becoming all things, while there is another that is such by producing all things in the way that a sort of state, like light, does, |430a15| since in a way light too makes potential colors into active colors.363 And this [productive] understanding is separable, unaffectable, and unmixed, being in substance an activity (for the producer is always more estimable than the thing affected, and the starting-point than the matter), not sometimes understanding and at other times not. But, when separated, this alone is just what it is.365 And it alone is immortal and eternal (but we do not remember because this is unaffectable, whereas the passive understanding is capable of passing away), and without this it understands nothing. — Aristotle

This idea of a self-sufficient process is closely bound with a very messy material set of conditions:

A problem might be raised as to how, when the affection is present but the thing producing it is absent, what is not present is ever remembered. For it is clear that one must understand the affection, which is produced by means of perception in the soul, and in that part of the body in which it is, as being like a sort of picture, the having of which we say is memory. For the movement that occurs stamps a sort of imprint, as it were, of the perceptible object, as people do who seal things with a signet ring. That is also why memory does not occur in those who are subject to a lot of change, because of some affection or because of their age, just as if the change and the seal were falling on running water. In others, because of wearing down, as in the old parts of buildings, and because of the hardness of what receives the affection, the imprint is not produced — Aristotle, On Memory, 1 450a25–b5

Yours is a fair challenge. I will try to gather a proper response as I can. — Paine

Okay, thanks.

Aristotle puts a lot of emphasis on the priority of the being one encounters. The generality of being a kind of thing is a pale shadow of the actual being. If that is the case, how 'forms' work in hylomorphic beings is different in the various "Platonic" models. — Paine

I don't at all doubt that this is the case. In fact my assumption is that the critique would involve the claim that Gerson is projecting some variety of non-Aristotelian Platonism onto Aristotle. Of course Gerson also advances the somewhat controversial thesis that Aristotle is best seen as a Platonist, but although this is related I'm not sure we need to get into it right now.

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

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

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

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

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

Which of Gerson's key claims, as presented in this thread, are non-Aristotelian? — Leontiskos

Okay, I will give it a try.

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

Plotinus says:

What conception then shall we for of matter? In what sense does matter exist? Its existence consists in potentiality. It is in the sense that it is potential. It exists in as much as it is a substrate of existence. "Existence" with regard to it signifies possibility of existence. The being of matter is only what it is to be. Matter is potential not just some particular thing, but all things. Being nothing by itself and being what it is, matter is nothing actually. If it were something actually, it would no longer be matter, that is , it would not be matter in the absolute sense of the term, but only in the sense in which bronze is matter. — Ennead, II, 5, 5, translated by Katz

In developing his ideas of actual being in relation to potential being, Aristotle says this:

Other thinkers, too, have perceived this nature (the belief in generation, destruction, and change in general) but not adequately. For, in the first place, they agree that there is unqualified generation from nonbeing, thus granting the statement of Parmenides as being right, secondly, it appears to them that if this nature is numerically one, then it must be also one potentially, and this makes the greatest difference.

Now we maintain that matter is distinct from privation and that one of these, matter, is nonbeing with respect to an attribute but privation is nonbeing in itself, and also that matter is in some way near to substance but privation is in no way such.

These thinkers, on the other hand, maintain that the Great and the Small are alike nonbeing, whether these two are taken together as one or each is taken separately. And so they posit their triad in a manner which is entirely distinct from ours. Thus, they have gone so far as to perceive the need of some underlying nature, but they posit this as being one, for even if someone [Plato] posits the Dyad, calling it the Great and Small, he nevertheless does the same since he overlooks the other [nature].

Now in things which are being generated, one of these [two natures] is an underlying joint cause with a form, being like a mother, so to speak, but the other part of the contrariety might often be imagined, by one who would belittle it, as not existing at all. For, as there exists an object which is divine and good and something to strive after, we maintain that one of the principles is contrary to it, but that the other [principle], in virtue of its nature, by nature strives after and desires that object. According to the doctrine of these thinkers, on the other hand, what results is that the contrary desires its own destruction. Yet neither would the form strive after itself, because it does not lack it, nor does it strive after the contrary, for contraries are destructive of each other. Now this [principle] is matter, and it is like the female which desires the male and the ugly which desires the beautiful, but it is not by itself that the ugly or the female does this, since these are only attributes. — Physics, 192a, translated by H.G. Apostle

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

It's a shame his work is not more approachable, because I think his central thesis - that Platonism basically articulates the central concerns of philosophy proper, and that it can't be reconciled with today's naturalism - is both important and neglected. — Wayfarer

That's true, but at the same time Gerson is opening up the can of worms within his own discipline and therefore providing a stepping stone for someone to do the work of translating it into the world of modern philosophy. I am fairly certain that this will happen.

I've long been interested in various aspects of scholastic and platonic realism, i.e. the view that universals and abstract objects are real. There's precious little interest in and support for such ideas here, or anywhere, really. But I'm of the view that it was the decline of scholastic realism and the ascendancy of nominalism which were key factors in the rise of philosophical and scientific materialism and the much-touted 'decline of the West'. But it's a hard thesis to support, and besides, as I say, has very little interest, it's diametrically at odds with the mainstream approach to philosophy. — Wayfarer

In the Catholic world it is just the opposite! That thesis is so prevalent that it is thought to be trite. That line says that the nominalism that was conceived with Duns Scotus and came to maturity with William of Ockham is the crucial error that fueled the loss of realism and set the stage for the modern period. I think there's a lot of truth to it, although there is nuance to be had.

Some of the sources I frequently cite in support... — Wayfarer

Thank you for all the sources! I am especially interested to read the essay by Maritain.

Let me find some time and get back to you with more sources regarding this thesis, including at least one popular adaptation of Gerson.

The current form of the argument from reason was popularised by C S Lewis in 1947, subsequently revised and reformulated after criticism from G.E.M. Anscombe. — Wayfarer

Regarding the OP, I have always found Lewis' argument to be sound. I would be curious to read Anscombe's criticisms beyond the footnote he gives. She is a very competent philosopher.

:up:

In other words, Platonism (or philosophy) and naturalism are contradictory positions.
— Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism — Wayfarer

What's referred to here as "naturalism" I think is more cogently conceived of as Pre-Platonism (e.g. Milesian, Ionian & Eleatic cosmologies) from which subsequent "Platonism" is abstracted (and then, IMHO, reified (fallaciously) into transcendent "forms" "categories" "essences" "emanations" "universals" "patterns" etc).

Anyway, Wayf, reviews of Gerson's book are intriguing so I'll pick it up (unless @Fooloso4's arguments / objections (here or elsewhere) persuade me not to bother).

The point I wish to make is that the tension between the natural order and the truth of religion that occupied the Scholastic philosophers did not exist for Plotinus.

This disconnect is a separate one from the issue Gerson opines upon. The difference between Plotinus and Aristotle regarding matter undercuts Gerson's attempt to group their views as sharing a common view of the order of nature. Much of the Ennead's arguments are oppositions to Aristotle, sometimes expressed specifically as such but more often by citing as incorrect descriptions that resemble Aristotle's positions.

While Plotinus has positions that do not agree with Plato, he does not discuss those as differences. To the best of my knowledge, Plotinus always knows what Plato really meant.

What is made explicit, as I have pointed out, is that all of the Forms are beyond coming-to-be and passing away but unlike the Good, they are said to be entirely and to be entirely knowable. — Fooloso4

In the Analogy of the Divided Line, isn't knowledge of the forms distinguished from knowledge of sensible things, and knowledge of geometery and mathematics? Knowledge of the forms being described as 'noesis', that which is the activity or pertains to nous, intellect.

I think that for heuristic purposes, a distinction can be made between 'being' and 'existence'. This is not a distinction that is intelligible in Ancient Greek due to the specific characteristics of the Greek verb 'to be' (for which see an illuminating paper The Greek Verb 'To Be' and the Problem of Being, Charles Kahn.) The distinction between reality and existence draws attention to the fact that the forms (i.e. intelligible objects) are not existent qua phenomena ('phenomena' being appearance). They are properly speaking noumenal objects, not in the Kantian sense of an unknown thing, but an 'object of nous'. So, in that sense, they are real but not existent (hence my rhetorical question, 'does the number 7 exist?')

Lloyd Gerson puts it like this in his paper Platonism Vs Naturalism:

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

This implication of matter-form dualism is preserved in Thomist philosophy:

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

So, put roughly, the ideas are real, but not phenomenally existent. The sensible phenomenon is existent, but not truly real. Of course modern philosophy is overall nominalist and empiricist and will not acknowledge these ideas. That is why Gerson argues that Platonism and naturalism are incommensurable.

Again, to try and contextualise this, against the background of the scala naturae, the great chain of being, it means that sensible objects, being material, are at the lowest level. Matter is 'informed' by the ideas as wax is by the seal. That is the sense in which they're higher and less subject to decay (i.e. passing in and out of existence).

You beat me to the punch citing Phaedo where Socrates asks what causes could be understood or claimed to be true. That bears directly upon the reference to generative power in the Republic and the passage I quoted earlier:

509B “I assume you will agree that the sun bestows not only the ability to be seen upon visible objects, but also their generation and increase and nurture, though the sun itself is not generation.” — ibid

We can recognize the generative power of the sun without doubting its presence or knowing how it is possible. If the sun analogy is to carry forward into the presence of the Good, a similar gap confronts us.
In the analogy of the divided line, the generation of the forms is not revealed by stating they were made by the Good. Presumably, by this account, no amount of getting better at getting closer to the 'real objects' will reveal how the generation occurs by itself.

The question of that creative power is interpreted in many ways. There are creation accounts and myths, such as those found in the Timaeus and other dialogues, which imagine how the world may be constituted. It is not an appeal to a 'materialist' set of principles to observe there is a difference when Plato is using those stories and drawing the limits to our explanations through arguments. We have been arguing about Gerson's thesis since I got here. Much of that dispute involves how to read that difference in Plato's language. In view of these years of wrangling over texts and their meaning, do you see the opposition to Gerson's thesis as only a part of this one?:

In all humility, I think this accounts for a lot of the outrage resistance that advocacy of philosophical idealism provokes. Moderns don't want the world to be like that. — Wayfarer

I don't think Aristotle is wrong about that, either. I understand much of his actual science is outmoded - no surprise there - but elements of the metaphysics and other aspects of his philosophy are still current (or in fact timeless). I've learned that there's been a minor revival of interest in Aristotle's biology, due to the inescapable teleological features of, well, all living things. Edward Feser has a book on the revival, Aristotle's Revenge.

As it happens, the very first post I entered on the predecessor forum to this one, was about what I now understand to be Platonic realism, i.e. that abstracta (in that case numbers), are real but not materially existent. I've discussed and debated the issue many times but I find that it's neither well understood nor widely supported - principally because it is obviously incompatible with physicalism.

In any case, after much more reading and deliberation, I decided that some form of scholastic realism - realism concerning universals - simply must be true, for the reasons you've sketched out. What I'm referring to as the calamity of the decline of Greek metaphysics is subject of some influential books. One is Ideas have Consequences, which was a surprise best-seller by a Uni of Chicago English professor in the post-war period. It is all about the longer-term consequences of the decline of metaphysics:

Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence. — Richard Weaver

(This book is rather unfortunately nowadays associated with American political conservatism, with which I have no affinity, but I believe his basic argument still stands.)

Another more recent book is The Theological Origins of Modernity, Michael Allen Gillespie, around 2008. THere's a snynopsis here.

Then there are Lloyd Gerson's books, the most recent being Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy. Gerson's books are not very approachable for the lay reader as they are aimed very much at his academic peers, but he too supports Aristotelian or scholastic realism. But his main argument is to the incompatibility of Platonism and Naturalism, and the contention that Platonism is coterminous with philosophy proper. (Rather a good online lecture on this book here.)

Finally an essay called What's Wrong with Ockham - actually the source of that Weaver quote - which is on Academia (originally published on a now extinct website.) It too is a dense scholarly work, but the concluding section on what was lost with the Aristotelian 'aitia' (fourfold causation) is important:

Thomists and other critics of Ockham have tended to present traditional realism, with its forms or natures, as the solution to the modern problem of knowledge. It seems to me that it does not quite get to the heart of the matter. A genuine realist should see “forms” not merely as a solution to a distinctly modern problem of knowledge, but as part of an alternative conception of knowledge, a conception that is not so much desired and awaiting defense, as forgotten and so no longer desired. Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.

In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. Preoccupied with overcoming Cartesian skepticism, it often seems as if philosophy’s highest aspiration is merely to secure some veridical cognitive events. Rarely sought is a more robust goal: an authoritative and life-altering wisdom.

I am surprised to have discovered these sources, because they're mainly associated with Catholicism - Edward Feser and author of that last paper are Catholic professors - but I'm myself not Catholic. But I like to think of it as a uniquely Western manifestation of the philosophia perennis, which apart from the kinds of sources I've referred to, is nowadays mainly lost and forgotten.

Sorry about such a long and dense post, but it's a very large topic.

- What are the arguments against the idea that Aristotle was an anti-naturalist or anti-materialist, on Gerson's definitions? (Cf. "Platonism versus Naturalism")

That is an interesting question contrasting the ancient against the modern. I don't know how to think about Gerson's thesis in that context. My retort was to say that the "transjective"t sounded like a case of "having one's cake and eating it too" that Gerson objected to. A compromise between "materialists" and "idealist"; A position upon the history of philosophy as practiced now combined with an interpretation of ancient text.

The difference between Plotinus and Aristotle that I have argued for is not put forward with that design. The ideas seem different to me.

That is an interesting question contrasting the ancient against the modern. I don't know how to think about Gerson's thesis in that context. My retort was to say that the "transjective"t sounded like a case of "having one's cake and eating it too" that Gerson objected to. A compromise between "materialists" and "idealist"; A position upon the history of philosophy as practiced now combined with an interpretation of ancient text. — Paine

That's possible, but I understand Wayfarer's implicit source (John Vervaeke) to be using "transjectivity" to uphold Platonism and oppose naturalism.

The difference between Plotinus and Aristotle that I have argued for is not put forward with that design. The ideas seem different to me. — Paine

Good posts. I agree with what you say about Aristotle in them. I would have to go back to see what you've said about Plotinus.

The issue of the receptivity of matter raises the question of how there can be "natural" beings in a world where necessary events occur in conjunction with accidental ones. The view leads to an argument about the nature of actuality and potentiality (as I refer to upthread). What I have seen in Gerson overlooks the importance of the 'material' in Aristotle's pursuit of the natural. — Paine

Okay thanks, I think I sort of see where you are coming from. It is something like the idea that Gerson fails to recognize Aristotle's naturalism insofar as he overlooks the importance of the 'material' in Aristotle's thought. For Aristotle the specific matter in question must be receptive to the form it holds, and an undue emphasis on form will tend to neglect this thesis. Is it something like that?

I don't quite understand how the quote from Plotinus fits in. Presumably it highlights a Platonic critique of Aristotle, in which the formal principle(s) is clearly seen to overpower the material principle(s)? That for the pure Platonist Aristotle's matter will not be sufficiently determinate or explanatory?

Usually this is phrased in terms of materiality: the intellect can know all material things and must therefore be immaterial. — Leontiskos

I’ve become very interested in (although not very knowledgeable about) the idea of the ‘divine intellect’ in Aristotle and Platonism generally. The basic thrust is that the power of reason is what distinguishes the human from other animals - hence man as the ‘rational animal’. It preserves the tripartite distinction in Plato's diaogues of the rational element of the soul as being the highest part.

In Aristotle, that is expressed in hylomorphism. The material senses receive the material form - in other words, sense-data. But only intellect (nous) knows what a thing is. (I believe this is all from D’Anima III.) In this way, the intellect ‘becomes all things’. And the reason it can do that, is because of its immaterial nature. Lloyd Gerson paraphrases it as follows:

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Platonism vs Naturalism, Lloyd Gerson

(See also The Unity of Intellect in Aristotle's D'Anima.)

This is preserved in Aquinas' epistemology, as I understand it. And behind that, is a mysterious doctrine called 'the unity of knower and known'. If you search on that phrase, you will find many recondite scholarly papers mostly about either Thomism or medieval Islamic scholasticism. And I believe Rödl is articulating a similar theme. The underlying rationale is that of 'participatory knowing' and 'divine union' which have long since fallen out of favour in Western culture.

In Christianity (and Plato before that) what animates human beings is the (holy) spirit, that is the general and immaterial which breaths life into the lifeless body. — ChatteringMonkey

By the time Nietzsche arrives, the concept of 'the immaterial' has been largely misunderstood. Reconstructing it, the original term in Greek, (as I understand it, and as one not schooled in Ancient Greek) was psuchē (subject of Aristotle's 'On the Soul'), a term which is now generally translated as psyche, or mind. The Greek term however encompassed the totality of the being - which in modern terms would also include the sub- and unconscious aspects - and also qualities such as traits, dispositions and drives.

Aristotle held that the psuchē is the form or essence of any living thing rather than a distinct substance from the body (using the philosophical, not everyday, sense of 'substance'.) It is the possession of psuche (of a specific kind) that makes an organism an organism at all - the psuchē is the 'form of the body' as is often quoted, and nous the rational faculty (that faculty which is able to grasp rational principles.) It is the rational faculty (nous) within psuchē that grasps the essence of things, and this rational capacity is what makes it immaterial. Why? As Platonist scholar Lloyd Gerson put it,

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible ('the psuche contains all things'). Among other things, this means that you could not engage in thought if the mind were purely a function of a physical organ. Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Platonism vs Naturalism, Lloyd Gerson

Obviously a lot to be said about all of this, but the point is that, after having been incorporated into theology as 'the immortal spirit', the original Aristotelian understanding was largely lost sight of (although preserved in Thomas Aquinas and other works of philosophical theology.) But it comes across much more like an invisible entity, which no sensible person ought to believe in, when originally it was a more subtle concept.

Nietzsche (and later Heidegger) were right to critique how 'spirit' became reified into a static, unchanging entity. However, I wonder whether this critique fully accounts for the dynamic aspects of Christian Platonism, which in its more sophisticated forms retained a more fluid understanding of soul and intellect. I suspect much of Nietzsche’s critique is aimed at a simplified, institutionalized understanding of 'spirit'—one that had been drilled into generations of students through rote learning and dogmatic instruction, often devoid of its original philosophical depth.

You make many cogent points in those posts that I have to think about as I write.

I take Gerson's point that a "likely account" does not refer to its "probabilistic" sense. — Paine

Describing chora as a place or as an extension is un-Platonic primarily because these are plainer ideas that stray too far from the complexities of text. Aristotle and Gerson attempt to assimilate what is taken to be Plato's word into their own simplified Aristotelian philosophical mindset. Plato is hard to read because the dialogues should force us to step outside of our practical self-serving schemas. If we don't take that step then we are left behind.

More importantly from my perspective, the metaphysical requirements of the chora as a theoretical entity override mere geometric (place) or dimensional (extent) considerations. The chora needs to be an indefinitely active maelstrom, a background that cannot be sensed in any way that randomly moves and changes itself and everything in it. Otherwise Plato's philosophy doesn't work for him.

The difficulty described by Timaeus is that the language of correspondence does not serve us as readily as it did in the other two models. — Paine

I agree with that take as it applies to chora and even to Plato's atomism. For one, the chora is too big and the atoms are too small to correspond to anything that we care to name given their ancient setting. OK, modern physics has caught up with language like universe, energy, forces, atoms and molecules but that cannot count except as conceptual crutches for us moderns.

The other difficulty is that third entity is prior to the other entities as a fundamental ground of natural being. — Paine

Yes, the chora must predate the gods and the entire creation story, just as the Forms must. Otherwise the demiurge has nothing to work with in creating the physical world, such as it seems. I'm not sure how that relates the heavens of the gods to the world though.

Trouble is of course that if something is beyond discursive thought then it cannot be said. We could not have an argument that reached such a conclusion. And indeed the ending of elenchus is often aporia - the method of dissection ends without resolution. — Banno

Aporia can be seen as precisely the points where dialectic ends and noetic insight is required. The fact that language and symbolic thought is inherently limited, is something that can and has been a subject of philosophical discourse. Wittgenstein’s aphorism at the end of the Tractatus ('that of which...') is often treated as a full stop — a way to shut down discussion of anything that can’t be stated in propositional terms (especially by you!) . But it can also be read as a threshold: an acknowledgment that there is something beyond what can be said — something that may be shown, enacted, or lived. Anyway, the idea that wisdom might transcend discursive articulation isn’t foreign to philosophy — it runs through Plato, Plotinus, and arguably into Wittgenstein himself. It’s also central to Eastern philosophy, where sometimes silence becomes the highest form of answer, akin to 'see for yourself!'

Mysticism is often a pejorative term, shorthand for vagueness or woolly-headedness. And, to be fair, it often is that. Theosophical Bookstore shelves are full of ‘mystical aphorisms,’ and it’s not hard to generate vague-sounding phrases that mimic profundity (we've had more than a few here, I remember 'Brother James'). But the actual mystics — whether Buddhist, Christian, or other — are people of of great discipline, clear insight, and spiritual rigor. What they describe is often not fuzzy at all, but the result of a highly refined insights. Easier to say than to enact.

There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject [of metaphysics]. For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself...~ Plato, Seventh Letter — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interesting that the root of the word 'Upaniṣad' is 'sitting closely' - the relationship of chela to guru.

Philosophical type activity moves from naive common sense, to the analytic dissection Banno enjoys, to the metaphyisical more constructive type (building more things to be dissected), then to more mystical transcending type... — Fire Ologist

There's a stream that might be called 'analytical mysticism' in Catholic philosophy. At least, it has its mystical elements, from its inhereted neoplatonism and the presence of mystics in the Church (You've mentioned that you're Catholic). Jacques Maritain, Bernard Lonergan, William Desmond - all great philosophers in that tradition. There are many more.

"Something in particular," not "some particular thing." Which is just to say, the term wisdom has to have some determinant content or else philosophy, the love of wisdom, would be the "love of nothing in particular." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Let's recall Lloyd Gerson's most recent book Platonism and Naturalism: the Possibility of Philosophy.

Gerson contends that Platonism identifies philosophy with a distinct subject matter, namely, the intelligible world and seeks to show that the Naturalist rejection of Platonism entails the elimination of a distinct subject matter for philosophy.