Good luck then.

Fooloso4 started an interesting thread and he presented his position clearly. He certainly taught little me about this dialogue. So he can be a teacher to me. — Olivier5

Thank you. If you are interested in Plato you might want to look at my thread on the Phaedo.

You made this one dialogue alive for me. I went back and read it — Olivier5

In the Phaedrus Socrates says of a well structured speech:

Every speech must be put together like a living creature, with a body of its own, it must be neither without head nor without legs; and it must have a middle and extremities that are fitting both to one another and to the whole work (264 c-d).

Plato does the same for his dialogues. They are wholes with all the parts having a function and working together. It is up to the reader to see the whole and how the parts fit together, to make it more than just inanimate words on a page, but as something alive.

I’m sure the prosecution of Socrates was political, with his supposed atheism being a pretext. I’d like to read something about that too.

What do you make of the theory that Socrates and Plato were connected to the Thirty, and that Socrates was sentenced to death because of that, in defense of democracy? — Olivier5

The connection was through Critias, who had been a student of Socrates.

It is generally thought that Anytus was behind Meletus. He was a leader of the democratic regime that overthrew the Thirty Tyrants. His son had been a student of Socrates and Anytus thought that Socrates had turned him away from the vicious ways of his father.

Another student of Socrates, Alcibiades, had fled Athens for Sparta, Athens enemy.

It seems pretty clear from the Republic that Plato's Socrates is antidemocratic, and holds a sort of Sparta ruled by a philosopher class as the ideal system. — Olivier5

Yep.

Let's not forget that this is a dialogue by Plato, right? Plato's main concern was not to criticize religion but to convey a metaphysical message. Socrates himself suggests that piety is of service to the Gods in aiding them to perform a certain "work". So, I think Gerson and other scholars are right.

More probably, Anytus thought that Socrates had corrupted his son. — Olivier5

We are in agreement. Turning his away from the vicious ways of his father would have been seen by Anytus as corrupting him. If he did not become a man of action, playing his role on the political stage and winning through ruthlessness he would have been corrupted.

It seems pretty clear from the Republic that Plato's Socrates is antidemocratic, and holds a sort of Sparta ruled by a philosopher class as the ideal system. It is quite possible that the real Socrates was doubtful of democracy. — Olivier5

One thing that should be kept in mind is that the Republic is a "city in speech" intended to make it easier to show that justice is, for the city is the soul writ large. The soul, according to Socrates, should not be democrat, it should be ruled by reason. As to actual regimes, the best city is the city with the best laws and the best laws are not arrived at democratically.

Have you envisaged the possibility that Socrates' accusers could have had a point? Not saying that they were right to sentence him, but that they may have had legitimate points. — Olivier5

Good question. Aside from the political motivations, I do think they had a point. The tension between philosophy and the city is a major theme of Leo Strauss. In so far as philosophy questions traditions, ancestral ways, and questions of justice it is a threat to them. The larger question is whether the old and established is the same as the good. If the answer is no, and I think Socrates would say no, then in order to improve things things much change. Those who resist such change would see this as harming rather than helping the city.

new metaphysics often compete with old metaphysics. — Olivier5

With regard to this, banishing the poets from the Republic means banishing the myths of the gods.

For the second time: of course it does. Who said it didn't? All I am saying is that you grossly misunderstand this metaphysical message. — Olivier5

And what I'm saying is that I'm not "taking Socrates' irony and false praise at first degree" as you falsely allege.

If you think that I'm "grossly misunderstanding Plato's metaphysical message" then please demonstrate where I do so. Otherwise, you're just talking for the sake of saying something, which is rather foolish and pointless IMO.

I don't think the Republic is intended to be a model for an actual city.
— Fooloso4

How do you interpret it? — Olivier5

That would require a very long and detailed explanation. One interpretation that I agree with is that it the Plato's philosophical apology for Socrates. His lack of a strong defense is at least in part explained by the difference between public persuasion and philosophical speech (17a-18a).

The Republic covers a very broad range of subjects from the theopolitical to the epistemological, from justice to power, from the proper order of the soul to the proper order of the city.

:up:

In more modern words, there should be some distinction made between justice and religion. — Olivier5

Separation of church and state?

What is this thing higher than the gods and to which they aspire? Maybe the cosmic nous of Anaxagoras, or Plato's eternal forms... The Christians of course have another answer. — Olivier5

But if it's higher than the gods, wouldn't that make it even more unavailable to humans?

How would you explain the human knowledge of justice?

Christianity, of course. It changed everything. — Olivier5

:ok:

Like everything, there were pros and cons with Christianity. It was more universal, less warmongering than national or city-bound religions like the Greeks' or the Jews', but also (I guess) stifling for creativity. You had to tow the one line of the one god. — Olivier5

Religions, once they become dogmatic, become a pain in the neck - any difference in opinion immediately acquires a good vs evil quality. What could possibly go wrong? I wonder if Greek philosophy (Plato & Aristotle) absorbed Christianity and used the authority the latter commanded for propagation far and wide or was it the other way round, Christianity sold itself as a belief having a lot in common with Plato's and Aristotle's ideas, thus claiming it had the nod of approval of these Greek thinkers, making Christianity more appealing to the populace, including the elite? Both?

Christianity, of course. It changed everything. — Olivier5

I don't think so. It was not Christianity, it was Islam.

Christianity did have something to do with it, but not in the way people think. The Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) was a regional power that did extremely well in the face of attacks from the Slavs, the Persians, and others. It was mainly the conflicts with Persia that weakened the Greeks in the Middle East after which they began to lose territory to the Muslim Arabs in the 600s. The next blow was when its capital Constantinople was sacked by West European crusaders in 1204. The last straw came with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453.

We must not forget that ethnic Greeks were a very small population. By contrast, the Germanic tribes that took over the West and the Slavs that took over the East of Europe were much more numerous. The Greeks had established themselves as a power through their culture and civilization that had spread far and wide. When that was destroyed by Islam, there wasn’t much they could do. In a sense, they were betrayed by the (Christian) West.

Some of the church fathers were trained as philosophers, eg St Augustine. So perhaps a bit of both. It is clear to me that monotheism responded to a demand for metaphysical clarity - it could not have been so successful without a certain predisposition to its message among Roman empire citizens (and other folks). — Olivier5

So, a mutual pact then! Both Greek philosophy (at least Aristotle's & Plato's) and Christianity benefited from the relationship betwixt them - Aristotle & Plato gained wide recognition, their influence extending over all of Western civilization while Christianity legitimized itself through the association. My, my, ideas working together symbiotically and synergistically like that at such a grand scale. When will the world witness another such phenomenon?

It happens all the time. Ideas have their own life, they hybridize all the time. — Olivier5

You mean to say, we just don't live long enough to notice it. Perhaps such events can be observed at a smaller scale at human-level time (5 - 10 years max) to be noticeable. Richard Dawkins' memes come to mind.

When I say that Christianity changed everything, I mean that the imposition of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire and the destruction of pagan temples and later the fight against heresies had a detrimental effect on the kind of freedom of thought that had characterized places like Athens or Alexandria — Olivier5

I see what you mean. However, the imposition of Christianity, though tending to have a negative impact, was not in the least fatal. The Greeks had enormous respect for Platonism and, as you say, many early Church Fathers had started as Hellenistic philosophers. Augustine says in his Confessions that he had been inspired to inquire into the truth after reading Platonic writings, probably Plotinus.

Christianity did not abolish philosophy. The centers of Hellenistic philosophy shifted from Athens and Alexandria to Constantinople where Classical philosophy was taught at the University of Constantinople from 425 CE to 1453 CE when the city fell into the hands of the Turks. That is a whole millennium in my reckoning.

All the works of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, etc. were preserved by Christian Greeks, Armenians, and others, and manuscripts were carefully copied by Christian librarians and even monks. The Arabs got copies of the manuscripts by soliciting them from the Byzantine court from the 700s when there was an extensive Translation Movement started by Muslim rulers who aimed to impart some cultural credibility to Islam just like the Christians did before them.

But Classical philosophy continued to be taught under the patronage of the Church at philosophical schools like Phanar College in Constantinople. As long as you did not profess to be a Pagan, you were free to learn and teach philosophy as you pleased, with some obvious restrictions. In fact, there was a Platonist revival in the Renaissance that spread to Italy through George Gemistos Platon, John Argyropoulos, Marsilio Ficino (who established a Platonic Academy at Florence) and many others.

Greek Scholars in the Renaissance - Wikipedia

No, it just intrumentalized it, tried to control it, and thus stifled it. — Olivier5

Not early on. The kind of Christianity that survived had a deep affinity for Platonism. Through people like Augustine, Platonism lived on for centuries.

With the rise of the Protestants, the Church became rigid and bloodthirsty. Could that be what you're thinking of?

I don't dispute that there were excesses under Christian rule that should not have happened. But it could have been worse. Philosophy saw its power and influence curtailed but it managed to survive. In fact, there was nothing to replace it until the arrival of science and rampant materialism.

It's complicated. Constantine himself was no theologian and couldn't care less which version of JC the bishops would chose. He just wanted the disputes to stop. — Olivier5

Right. That is why I said it was political.

FIXED — Olivier5

Lol A bit too many "mays" and "ifs", and still no evidence. It can't be established that he is even "trying to be patricide". You just said he was a fool who didn't know what he is doing.

All we know is he intended to take his father to court because he believed it was his duty to do so.

But it could well be that Jesus just invented whatever location came to mind, not even aware that there weren't many Samaritan's outside of Galilee. — Olivier5

Good point.

It could well be the case as a theoretical hypothesis, but unlikely as it wasn't Jesus who was telling the story.

So, Eco was probably right about over-interpretation.

It just needed to be out in the country, sort of isolated.

No offense, but Umberto Eco said somewhere that there can be such a thing as over-interpretation. — Olivier5

[Added: No offense taken. Mature people can have, express, and discuss different points of view.]

From Eco's Interpretation and Overinterpretation. Here is a partial list of the main
features of what he calls a Hermetic approach to texts:

A text is an open-ended universe where the interpreter can discover infinite interconnections.

Language is unable to grasp a unique and preexisting meaning — on the contrary, language’s duty is to show that what we can speak of is only the coincidence of the opposites.

Language (and authors’) fate is nevertheless redeemed by the pneumatic reader who, being able to realize and to show that Being is drift, corrects the error of the author-Demiurge and understands what the hylics (those who thinks that texts can have a definite meaning) are condemned to ignore.

Language mirrors the inadequacy of thought: our being-in-the world is nothing else than being incapable of finding any transcendental meaning.

Language (and authors’) fate is nevertheless redeemed by the pneumatic reader who, being able to realize and to show that Being is drift, corrects the error of the author-Demiurge and understands what the hylics (those who thinks that texts can have a definite meaning) are condemned to ignore.

To salvage the text — that is, to transform it from an illusion of meaning to the awareness that meaning is infinite — the reader must suspect that every line of it conceals another secret meaning;
words, instead of saying, hide the untold; the glory of the reader is to discover that texts can say everything, except what their author wanted them to mean; as soon as a pretended meaning is
allegedly discovered, we are sure that it is not the real one; the real one is the further one and so on and so forth; the hylics — the losers — are those who end the process by saying “I understood.”
The Real Reader is the one who understands that the secret of a text is its emptyness.

If I understand him correctly overinterpretation is related to the pneumatic reader. I will leave it to the readers here to decide who in this discussion and this form are pneumatic readers.

I don't think a story from Luke is comparable to a Platonic dialogue. Plato was an extremely careful writer, I don't think Luke meets the same standard. In addition to set a timeframe by the detail is not an interpretation, the significance of the timeframe is. With regard to Eco, the interpretation I suggested is mundane, not at all what he is criticising.

More generally, where do we draw the line between interpretation and overinterpretation? I don't think Plato puts that in there without reason.

You remind me of him, BTW. — Olivier5

Only someone like him would think the dialogue was not a condemnation of his pretense to wisdom and piety.

First of all, the dialogue is not about "the dilemma".

Second, it is my opinion that a proper interpretation of the dialogue looks carefully at the details.

Third, I was asked:

Fooloso4 What would be the relevance of the Naxos reference? — Olivier5

I gave some some suggestions as to what the relevance might be.

And Fourth, I responded to what you and Apollodorus said. But now that I show that this is a real concern in the literature and that my suggestions are not without support, you want to just drop it and move on.