Plato and Platonism 101

Zhongyongdaoist · July 24, 2015

I intend this thread to be kind of an introduction to Plato and his influence.

I have chosen the following links as a starting point. The author of these posts, John Uebersax, is a Christian Platonist and so I do not agree with everything he says, but roughly 95%+ of what he says in these links, I could have written myself and in point of fact over the past thirty years have written things like this, but they are not in a form easily transferred to the internet. So with this in mind I recommend these links to Uebersax's writings as a good introduction to real Platonism:

Question: I have heard that Platonism ought to be approached as a ‘therapy of the soul’, or literally as psychotherapy? Can you explain this?

The Republic you never heard about in College

It concerns my growing realization that Plato’s Republic is not, contrary to centuries of popular opinion, a work about political science, but about psychology. The hypothetical utopia Plato describes in the work is an allegory for the politics and governance of the human psyche or soul.

This is not a new idea. I’ve mentioned it before, and cited works by others who have come to the same conclusion. But not until recently have I begun to appreciate its full implications.

Consider just one example. The whole edifice of the disastrous US foreign policy called neoconservativism is based on the theories of Leo Strauss, who read Plato’s Republic literally and in such a way as to, among other things, imply that the section known as the noble lie (Rep. 3.414ff) justifies the use of government lying to control citizens. Of course that’s absurd, but when backed by the authority of Plato, some have argued it has some legitimacy.

This nonsense goes away when we realize that the Republic is a allegory for the soul. Then all the meanings change. Things that would be utterly absurd in a real, external government, like selective breeding, the repudiation of pure democracy, etc., become very interesting and plausible when understood symbolically (e.g., taking these two examples, as the cultivation of positive thoughts, and not surrendering ones mind to the ‘mob rule’ of the most unruly thoughts or immediate desires).

To say this another way, in the last century alone there have been hundreds of articles and books written by political scientists about Plato’s Republic. What we should really have, and perhaps will have if the matter can be presented well, is, in the next century, hundreds of articles and books exploring the vast horizons of the subtle, spiritual psychology contained in the Republic. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

Some suggestions for a psychological/allegorical correspondence of key terms of Plato's Republic can be found here

What, Plato an Anarchist!?

Plato believed that the ideal political situation would be a State with citizens neatly divided into Worker, Soldier, and Guardian classes living and working in harmony under the leadership of a philosopher-king, right? Actually there are good grounds to question whether this is what Plato really means in the Republic.
Rather, Plato’s remarks in Republic 2.369b et seq. might be taken as his true view of the ideal political arrangement. There, before he mentions any other kind of government, he proposes a system that we might today call a natural law stateless society (or anarchy — but in the sense of having no government institutions, not social chaos). That is, Plato first proposes that if people were content with simple pleasures, they could live happily, in harmony with each other and with nature, and social affairs could be conducted without institutional government. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

To get some insight into Platonic "Intellectualism" and to distinguish it from modern "intellectualism" you need to read this:

Plato's divided line from the Republic

And Download this:

Higher and lower Reason

With this introduction in mind, then more of Uebersax's work may be found here:

http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/

I have not read all of them and I may not agree with things that he says in all of his posts, how much I might disagree I cannot say now. That said I will post more references to his site in subsequent posts. It seems to me that generally his site can be studied with considerable benefit to ones understanding of Plato in his religious, mystical and psychological interpretation.

I will also post links to and from other sites and insofar as time allows, and frankly that may be limited, answer questions related to these posts. I will also probably link to or copy posts that I have made elsewhere on the Dao Bums here. I will also post about books and authors who are most useful for a positive interpretation of Plato.

Aeran · July 25, 2015

I was actually just talking about this the other day - the modern mangling of Greek philosophy (which is much closer to Eastern philosophy than the European philosophy and modern "philosophy" seen as it's descendents and which Western academia seem to believe are the whole of human philosophy - ie. one can go through undergrad, post-grad and become a philosophy professor without having read a single piece which originated east of Greece, which I think is a pretty disgusting state of affairs) is both tragic in it's effect, amazing in the sheer amount of cognitive dissonance which must be required for the people who study it and makes for a good laugh when you consider what would happen if someone told these self professed "philosophers" in modern academia what guys like Plato and Pythagoras really believed in and got up to.

The arrogance and condescension which goes into the process of selecting the small parts of their writings which match modern thought and writing off the rest of as "well people were ignorant back then" is astounding.

Seth Ananda · July 25, 2015

Oh what a good thread. This looks like it will be very interesting, and time consuming dangnamit!

Thankyou Zhongyongdaoist

maldor · July 25, 2015

I would not say that it is popular opinion that The Republic is only a political work. Maybe that is what is expected from the title.

Karl · July 25, 2015

Plato was an evolutionist and a persuasive one, it suited the rulers of the time, it suits rulers now and all men believe they are Gold and all others are lead.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Karl

Zhongyongdaoist · July 26, 2015

I would like to post two quotes, both about the difficulty of interpreting Plato. Now this difficulty doesn't come from Plato's writing style like Kant or Hegel, though some of his dialogues are densely written, many are fresh and open and filled with realistic characters, for centuries they have be considered masterpieces of literature as well as philosophy, but rather from the seeming contradictions that appear from dialogue to dialogue. And then there is the dialogue method of exposition, in some cases a recounted exchange, in others almost like a script to a play. Who in these speaks for Plato? Some want to say Socrates, but that doesn't always make sense. Well, I will have more to say on this in my next post, but for now here are the quotes:

It has been claimed that Plato was an egalitarian; it has been claimed that he was a totalitarian. It has been claimed that he was a utopian, proposing a universal blueprint for the ideal state; it has been claimed he was an anti-utopian, demonstrating that all political idealism is folly. It has been claimed he was a populist, concerned with the best interests of all citizens; it has been claimed he was an elitist with disturbing eugenicist tendencies. It has been claimed he was other-worldly; it has been claimed he was this-worldly. It has been claimed he was a romantic; it has been claimed he was a prig. It has been claimed that he was a theorizer, with sweeping metaphysical doctrines; it has been claimed he was an anti-theorizing skeptic, always intent on unsettling convictions. It has been claimed he was full of humor and play; it has been claimed he was as solemn as a sermon limning the torments of the damned. It has been claimed he loved his fellow man; it has been claimed he loathed his fellow man. It has been claimed he was a philosopher who used his artistic gifts in the service of philosophy; it has been claimed he was an artist who used philosophy in the service of his art.
Isn't it curious that a figure can exert so much influence throughout the course of Western civilization and escape consensus as to what he was all about? And how in the world can one hope to draw closer to so elusive a figure? (Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger, Plato at the Googleplex, Pantheon Books, New Yort, 2014, p. 5-6, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

and

CHAPTER ONE

PLATO AS AN ENEMY OF FREEDOM
AND THE OPEN SOCIETY

It would be impossible to find a single category which would adequately characterize the modern enemies of Plato. Their name is legion, and they speak from positions which cover the whole spectrum of modern political thought. The Communist attacks Plato as a bourgeois idealist, while Western liberals have often attacked him as a Communist. The four most influential recent treatises, which we have already mentioned and to which we shall refer in this discussion, represent a wide variety of views. Warner Fite is an individualist, Winspear a Marxist (though not of the most extreme and consistent type), Crossman a Socialist member of the British Labor party, and Popper a self-styled utilitarian with strong sympathies for modern positivist thought. Similar charges against Plato have been made from very different points of view by Reinhold Niebuhr, the Neo-orthodox theologian, and Arnold Toynbee, the philosopher of history.

Nevertheless, there are certain attitudes which they all hold in common. They share an acute sense of progressive modernity, of speaking for this present world. Hence, we must think of this as a modern attack. They also share a deep sympathy for equalitarianism and democracy, though they would doubtless define this latter term in divergent ways. They all agree that Plato is an enemy of freedom and the open society, a defender of political reaction and even tyranny. As we have already noted, they are the most articulate exponents of similar views widely held throughout the English-speaking world.

We shall now break down these broad charges into their distinct components and examine them one by one. We shall take note of the major charges urged by all the authors on our list, but shall focus our attention on the contents of K. R. Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies, which is by far the most extreme and pretentious anti-Platonic tract to be penned in recent times. Our aim will be to achieve a fair appraisal of these basic charges, not to defend Plato at any cost. Where we find certain criticisms to be justified, we shall candidly so state them. No author is infallible. In our opinion, Plato's political doctrines, as they are found in the texts available to us, are certainly not free from error. But where we find criticisms based on misunderstanding, we shall point them out, together with our reasons. (John Wild, Plato's Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law, University of Chicago Press, 1953, p. 9-10, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

The first of these I picked up at the library two weeks ago because it had a cute title and was a new book. The Author is good and as a beginning book might be worth a read, but for me it was a little boring and several more hundred pages than I wanted to read at this time.

The second book on the other hand was very influential in my final interpretation of Plato, my working model you might say, I liked the approach which I have emphasized above and I think that the book succeeded well in its stated goals.

For the first few posts I just want to lay some ground work and those who have paid attention to the links in the first may have already found some interesting food for thought in them. With this I want to point out that there are people who will say this about Plato, and that about Plato and for everyone who will assert one thing, there is usually another who will say the opposite. I will examine some of the reasons for why I think this is the case in my next post.

Thanks everyone for your interest and comments.

Bridge over Garbled Waters

Edit: Added link "Bridge over Garble Waters" to my next post the purpose of which is explained in that post.

Edited July 27, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

Aithrobates · July 27, 2015

Plato's work are not a description of some kind of system we can reconstruct by reading his numerous dialogs. It was well known in the antiquity that they where some kind of introduction to the real teaching that was oral.,that the theories you got from there had to be left behind latter.

In the end of antiquty, the (so called neo) platonist or pythagorist valued the writting of Plato exactly in the same way, and they believed that the true teaching was in the Chaldean Oracles.

His work (like Aristotle's one) has the virtue to compile elements from many teachings that were available at the time. We can use it as some kind of encyclopedia. But in doing this you have to be cautious as he introduces interpretations, and true innovations (like the idea of One Soul, as opposed to the Two Souls that we find before him, which is a lot like Hun & Po).

The intel provided can sometimes be very helpful in completing the fragmentary knowledge we have of other philosophers. But scholars tends to do the exact opposite, seing Plato and Aristotle as the most serious point of references, and interpreting other tradition in the light of the Athenians.

So I don't think there is a reason to compete in order to show who as the best understanding of Plato. Those works, we are arguing about here are nothing more than textbooks. They are wonderfull pieces of litterature, even of humour. But the real teaching is not here.

The real teaching lies in the fact the the teaching is not here.

Earlier traditions had a stronger initiatory on/off nature. "Take this teaching in your face, it puts your vision of the world upside down. Now you that can see yourself as dead to your former vision of the world,be reborn as a one you knows !"

Plato created a more progressive, and also more intellectual, way, a kind of middle ground that can be explored step by step before facing Reality. The dialogs are part of that, introductions to the doctrines, that make available the possibilty to think about the doctrine before (or without) doing the practices.

If you want to know what "Platonism" is about read the Oracles, or the Avesta, or the Torah... or ... etc ... :

... Platoni omologoumenos oposas Brakhmanes kai Ioudaioi kai Magoi, kai Aiguptioi diethento.

Numenius (Fr 1 a)

" ... agreeing with Plato what the Brahmins, the Jews, the Mages, and the Egyptians, have etablished "

Edited July 27, 2015 by Aithrobates

Zhongyongdaoist · July 27, 2015

Bridge over Garble Waters to previous post

When I started this thread I of course anticipated that our local Pythagorean fundamentalist would come over and share with us his inimitable style of spamming attacks. I had already worked out a strategy for that which I want to use as an experimental examination of a post that I made sometime back about dealing with such situations:

I recently saw a thread where a poster who normally likes to rock the boat had posted twice and nobody responded to either one... and the thread moved on... and that was the end of that poster's BS.

This reminds me of what I said here:

>As for what I said about a little editing, if someone comments in a way that leads to a serious loss of the topic, one can go to ones own comments, post a reference to the most intelligent 'on topic' post after yours and to your own response to that. In that way one can skirt around some of the borderline 'nutcases' who sometimes derail otherwise interesting topics and so can readers who are interested in following the discussion, at the same time legitimate criticism can also be maintained and people can have a chance to read it for themselves. Since what the 'nutcases' want most is attention, when they don't get it and see that they are being worked around, maybe they will let it drop, if they continue, then maybe the Mods should step in.[]

A little ignoring goes a long way too.

This is how I will implement this idea. When I make a new post I will edit my previous one with a link to it so that someone can follow my exposition without having it be broken up intervening periods of incomprehensible twaddle. I may add some links to parts of the discussion which I think are particularly worth considering, or add them to my new post like this:

Apeiron&Peiron Brings up the relationship between the Republic and Laws

Apeiron&Peiron talks about publication in ancient Athens

both of which I intend to respond to shortly.

I have no intention of responding directly to any of Innersound's rants because that simply buys into his strategy, which is to shout down and exhaust the original poster and at the same time fill the thread with spam making it incomprehensible to all but the most dedicated reader. His criticism all comes from a perspective that could best be described as “Pythagorean Fundamentalism”. I don't accept his musical taboo's based on the Devils interval, nor his criticism of all of modern mathematics based on it. Fundamentalism is not welcome here and will largely be ignored, even, if there should be such a thing, Platonic Fundamentalism!

Aithrobates contribution is duly noted, though I must and will respectfully disagree, but the basis of that disagreement can only emerge if I continue with my exposition of "Plato and Platonism 101."

Edit: Added "Bridge over Garbled Waters" to previous post.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

Aithrobates · July 27, 2015

Aithrobates contribution is duly noted, though I must and will respectfully disagree, but the basis of that disagreement can only emerge if I continue with my exposition of "Plato and Platonism 101."

OK. I'll wait for your posts, and respond (if I feel I have something contructive to say) only when enough has been said, so that we have a real discussion not a chit chat. In the mean time I'll try to browse my books to provide more precise expositions and references.

Note that the disagreement is perhaps not so deep. My english skills are limited so that I have a hard time writing long and nuanced argumentations. I was mainly expressing the fact there was no need to fight over Plato, like Innersound was starting to, as Plato is so much complicated to interpret.

( I fact I do not believe that there are no system at all in Plato's work, but that there are several systems , or several variations of a system. Plato exposes the doctrines of many of the traditions he knew about, mostly Pythagoreans ones (often first hand knowlege from initiates he actually spoke to). Where are the parts where he just exposed doctrines ? Where are the parts where he agrees with what he exposed - and that consitute his own system ? )

Zhongyongdaoist · July 27, 2015

OK. I'll wait for your posts, and respond (if I feel I have something contructive to say) only when enough has been said, so that we have a real discussion not a chit chat. In the mean time I'll try to browse my books to provide more precise expositions and references.

Note that the disagreement is perhaps not so deep. My english skills are limited so that I have a hard time writing long and nuanced argumentations. I was mainly expressing the fact there was no need to fight over Plato, like Innersound was starting to, as Plato is so much complicated to interpret.

( I fact I do not believe that there are no system at all in Plato's work, but that there are several systems , or several variations of a system. Plato exposes the doctrines of many of the traditions he knew about, mostly Pythagoreans ones (often first hand knowlege from initiates he actually spoke to). Where are the parts where he just exposed doctrines ? Where are the parts where he agrees with what he exposed - and that consitute his own system ? )

All good points which is why I said that I would respectfully disagree. Your English by the way is very good.

Karl · July 27, 2015

All it means is that he didn't believe in free will-certainly not for those he considered as uneducated dross-the vast unwashed.

His musical equivalence was the same thing that we see applied by modern intellectuals who treat people as mathematical numbers and are happy to try theories on people as if they are some giant experiment.

As I said previously, in chemical terms-Iron and Gold. We see this reflected in Darwins thesis in which marked out Irish people as an underclass unfit to breed and only to be governed like cattle.

Plato was using the mysteries and Pythagorean edicts to try and evaluate humanity and put them in boxes according to his theory. The Prussian model was built on much of this system and today's state schools are the ultimate realisation of those theories.

maldor · July 28, 2015

Anyone who has experienced "unique states" will see it in everything. Was this what Plato was talking about, or was he simply trying to figure out a good way for cities to work?

I think one leads to the other. In the famous Cave it is clear to see he was showing how perspectives that are radically different are considered madness by others that hav eno comprehension.

Zhongyongdaoist · July 30, 2015

I want to talk about "knowledge" and "opinion". One of the useful distinctions that I got from reading Plato was a good understanding of the relationship between knowledge and opinion. This distinction has a lot of practical importance because just about everything that is bandied about in ordinary discourse as knowledge is nothing but opinion. Now opinion in and of itself is not bad, it is in point of fact for most things in life all that we have, however opinion also varies in value, whereas knowledge is always useful and therefore valuable, opinion can vary from very useful, to useless to downright harmful.

One of Plato's dialogues that deals with knowledge and opinion is called the Meno after Socrates chief interlocutor, Meno, and it was here that I learned a very useful beginning distinction between knowledge and opinion and also about the important concept of "right" opinion.

The ostensible object of the discussion is "virtue" and can it be taught, which leads to the question of knowledge, Socrates and Meno have reached the agreement that the person who "knows" is the person who can guide, but then Socrates continues, as he was wont to do:

[97a]

Socrates
But our assertion that it is impossible to give right guidance unless one has knowledge looks very like a mistake.

Meno
What do you mean by that?

Socrates
I will tell you. If a man knew the way to Larisa, or any other place you please, and walked there and led others, would he not give right and good guidance?

Meno
Certainly.

[97b]

Socrates
Well, and a person who had a right opinion as to which was the way, but had never been there and did not really know, might give right guidance, might he not?

Meno
Certainly.

Socrates
And so long, I presume, as he has right opinion about that which the other man really knows, he will be just as good a guide—if he thinks the truth instead of knowing it—as the man who has the knowledge.

Meno
Just as good.

Socrates
Hence true opinion is as good a guide to rightness of action as knowledge; and this is a point we omitted just now in our consideration of the nature of virtue,

[97c] when we stated that knowledge is the only guide of right action; whereas we find there is also true opinion.

Meno
So it seems.

Socrates
Then right opinion is just as useful as knowledge.

Meno
With this difference, Socrates, that he who has knowledge will always hit on the right way, whereas he who has right opinion will sometimes do so, but sometimes not.

Socrates
How do you mean? Will not he who always has right opinion be always right, so long as he opines rightly?

And the discussion continues from there, but it does establish a point that "right opinion" can be useful, but also that it differs fundamentally from knowledge, the analogy that I made was that right opinion was like having a very accurate map to Larisa, without having actually made the journey, but that knowledge was something that only a person who had made the journey and experienced the journey would have, with the implication that someone who had made the journey could make the most accurate maps and also correct inaccurate ones.

I'll expand on this in my next post and examine different types of "opinion" and then expand on what is involved in knowledge. As a passing note, some of Plato's dialogues are written like this, more like scripts of a play, and some are narratives written in the the first person of someone recounting their memory of the discussion, sometimes it is Socrates who recounts it, sometimes it is someone else.

Finally, this may seem pretty dull, but this is after all "Plato and Platonism 101" and we need to start somewhere and really this distinction is very useful and will help understand a lot about Plato and also about life itself.

Edit: Corrected some spelling.

Edited July 30, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

Karl · July 30, 2015

I want to talk about "knowledge" and "opinion". One of the useful distinctions that I got from reading Plato was a good understanding of the relationship between knowledge and opinion. This distinction has a lot of practical importance because just about everything that is bandied about in ordinary discourse as knowledge is nothing but opinion. Now opinion in and of itself is not bad, it is in point of fact for most things in life all that we have, however opinion also varies in value, whereas knowledge is always useful and therefore valuable, opinion can very from very useful, to useless to downright harmful. One of Plato's dialogues that deals with knowledge and opinion is called the Meno after Socrates chief interlocutor, Meno, and it was here that I learned a very useful beginning distinction between knowledge and opinion and also about the important concept of "right" opinion. The ostensible object of the discussion is "virtue" and can it be taught, which leads to the question of knowledge, Socrates and Meno have reached the agreement that the person who "knows" is the person who can guide, but then Socrates continues, as he was wont to do: [97a]SocratesBut our assertion that it is impossible to give right guidance unless one has knowledge looks very like a mistake.MenoWhat do you mean by that?SocratesI will tell you. If a man knew the way to Larisa, or any other place you please, and walked there and led others, would he not give right and good guidance?MenoCertainly.[97b]SocratesWell, and a person who had a right opinion as to which was the way, but had never been there and did not really know, might give right guidance, might he not?MenoCertainly.SocratesAnd so long, I presume, as he has right opinion about that which the other man really knows, he will be just as good a guide—if he thinks the truth instead of knowing it—as the man who has the knowledge.MenoJust as good.SocratesHence true opinion is as good a guide to rightness of action as knowledge; and this is a point we omitted just now in our consideration of the nature of virtue,[97c] when we stated that knowledge is the only guide of right action; whereas we find there is also true opinion.MenoSo it seems.SocratesThen right opinion is just as useful as knowledge.MenoWith this difference, Socrates, that he who has knowledge will always hit on the right way, whereas he who has right opinion will sometimes do so, but sometimes not.SocratesHow do you mean? Will not he who always has right opinion be always right, so long as he opines rightly? And the discussion continues from there, but it does establish a point that "right opinion" can be useful, but also that it differs fundamentally from knowledge, the analogy that I made was that right opinion was like having a very accurate map to Larissa, without having actually made the journey, but that knowledge was something that only a person who had made the journey and experienced the journey would have, with the implication that someone who had made the journey could make the most accurate maps and also correct inaccurate ones. I'll expand on this in my next post and examine different types of "opinion" and then expand on what is involved in knowledge. As a passing note, some of Plato's dialogues are written like this, more like scripts of a play, and some are narratives written in the the first person of someone recounting their memory of the discussion, sometimes it is Socrates who recounts it, sometimes it is someone else. Finally, this may seem pretty dull, but this is after all "Plato and Platonism 101" and we need to start somewhere and really this distinction is very useful and will help understand a lot about Plato and also about life itself.

Precisely the conversation I was having with Nickolai on the other forum.

I wrote a book which was an opinion. I had never been to the place I wanted to go to. It was half a journey and was indeterminate in the sense of correct direction.

Now I refute my own work, although I see that opinion was part of the overall process, it has no real direction. It was not wrong or right, good or bad. It was simply a statement in time, bound by those experiences.

Knowledge though is not a memory map of how to get some place, or do some task. That is defined as a skill. Knowledge is knowing how to know which direction one must go.

Zhongyongdaoist · August 1, 2015

My main reason for calling this "Plato and Platonism 101" is not merely to deal with Plato, but to point out how what is usually called Neo-Platonism, but which I prefer to call Late Platonism, and its mysticism, but also its relation to Theurgy and practical magic, so, lest people get overly bored with the presentation so far. To spice things up, I am throwing in the following:

I guess I didn't necessarily get this out of Plato when I encountered him first---probably because it was shelved with political philosophy and that was, generally, how it was introduced within the translations....

I kind of like this way of interpreting---but, then again, I like to find reasons to look favorably on things.

Although....I am not entirely sure that this works for all of Plato. "The Laws" doesn't seem like it would as easily work into this mode of hermeneutics. Well, maybe it could. Topically, at least. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

Part of the reference here is to taking the Republic as a treatise on the soul and not a book of politics and I pointed out in my first post, and it questions whether Laws should be so interpreted.

In the Laws it is proposed to examine three “model” constitutions, the best, the second best and the third best. A lot of opinions about Plato's “political theories” are are really descriptions of the “second best” constitution, this is how Plato describes the Best:

[739a] The next move in our settling of the laws is one that might at first hearing cause surprise because of its unusual character—like the move of a draughts-player who quits his “sacred line” ; none the less, it will be clear to him who reasons it out and uses experience that a State will probably have a constitution no higher than second in point of excellence. Probably one might refuse to accept this, owing to unfamiliarity with lawgivers who are not also despots: but it is, in fact, the most correct plan to describe the best polity, and the second best, and the third, and after describing them to give the choice to the individual who is charged with the founding of the settlement. [739b] This plan let us now adopt: let us state the polities which rank first, second, and third in excellence; and the choice let us hand over to Clinias and to whosoever else may at any time wish, ill proceeding to the selection of such things, to take over, according to his own disposition, what he values in his own country. That State and polity come first, and those laws are best, where there is observed as carefully as possible [739c] throughout the whole State the old saying that “friends have all things really in common.” As to this condition,—whether it anywhere exists now, or ever will exist,—in which there is community of wives, children, and all chattels, and all that is called “private” is everywhere and by every means rooted out of our life, and so far as possible it is contrived that even things naturally “private” have become in a way “communized,” —eyes, for instance, and ears and hands seem to see, hear, and act in common,— [739d] and that all men are, so far as possible, unanimous in the praise and blame they bestow, rejoicing and grieving at the same things, and that they honor with all their heart those laws which render the State as unified as possible,—no one will ever lay down another definition that is truer or better than these conditions in point of super-excellence. In such a State,—be it gods or sons of gods that dwell in it,—they dwell pleasantly, living such a life as this. Wherefore one should not look elsewhere [739e] for a model constitution, but hold fast to this one, and with all one's power seek the constitution that is as like to it as possible. That constitution which we are now engaged upon, if it came into being, would be very near to immortality, and would come second in point of merit. The third we shall investigate hereafter, if God so will; for the present, however, what is this second best polity, and how would it come to be of such a character? First, let them portion out the land and houses, (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, Laws, 739a-e, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

Aside from the question what does Plato mean by "That constitution which we are now engaged upon, if it came into being, would be very near to immortality" in describing the "second best" constitution, I think a good case could be made that the above description of the "Best" state in this way:

"even things naturally “private” have become in a way “communized,” —eyes, for instance, and ears and hands seem to see, hear, and act in common,— [739d] and that all men are, so far as possible, unanimous in the praise and blame they bestow, rejoicing and grieving at the same things, and that they honor with all their heart those laws which render the State as unified as possible . . . In such a State,—be it gods or sons of gods that dwell in it,—they dwell pleasantly, living such a life as this."

is part of the inspiration for Plotinus' discussion here:

15. That Life, the various, the all-including, the primal and one, who can consider it without longing to be of it, disdaining all the other?
All other life is darkness, petty and dim and poor; it is unclean and polluting the clean for if you do but look upon it you no longer see nor live this life which includes all living, in which there is nothing that does not live and live in a life of purity void of all that is ill. For evil is here where life is in copy and Intellect in copy; There is the archetype, that which is good in the very Idea- we read- as holding The Good in the pure Idea. That Archetype is good; Intellectual-Principle is good as holding its life by contemplation of the archetype; and it sees also as good the objects of its contemplation because it holds them in its act of contemplating the Principle of Good. But these objects come to it not as they are There but in accord with its own condition, for it is their source; they spring thence to be here, and Intellectual-Principle it is that has produced them by its vision There. In the very law, never, looking to That, could it fail of Intellectual Act; never, on the other hand, could it produce what is There; of itself it could not produce; Thence it must draw its power to bring forth, to teem with offspring of itself; from the Good it takes what itself did not possess. From that Unity came multiplicity to Intellectual-Principle; it could not sustain the power poured upon it and therefore broke it up; it turned that one power into variety so as to carry it piecemeal.
All its production, effected in the power of The Good, contains goodness; it is good, itself, since it is constituted by these things of good; it is Good made diverse. It might be likened to a living sphere teeming with variety, to a globe of faces radiant with faces all living, to a unity of souls, all the pure souls, not faulty but the perfect, with Intellect enthroned over all so that the place entire glows with Intellectual splendour.
But this would be to see it from without, one thing seeing another; the true way is to become Intellectual-Principle and be, our very selves, what we are to see. (Internet Sacred Text Archive Plotinus, Ennead.VI.7.15, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

A state which I often refer to as "the Communion of all Souls". All great for the mystics among us, but for the magicians among us, here is a possible reflection of it in the Goetia:

Is the Goetic Spirit Dantalian the "infernal reflection" of Plotinus' image of the "communion of all souls"?

Probably just a coincidence.

This is already long enough, and may even be to some, surprising enough, so I will end this post here, but over the course of these posts I will return to the various issues raised here.

Zhongyongdaoist · August 5, 2015

Interesting.

I am slightly at a loss for the scale of this. In some ways, I am inclined to think in terms of Leibniz or Hegel with the monadic hierarchy / reality of spirit. I tend to use Leibniz's conception of monads for a lot of things. One major use is as a way of understanding the holographic structure of the body. In this way, each atom, molecule, organelle, cell, histone, organ, organ system and so on is an individual monad. The variably bounded agregates are also monads.

I am thinking that the harmony of these monads is similar to the harmony of the soul /the spirits in the community of spirits. In many ways, since monads are spiritual entities of differing complexities, it would make sense to me to correlate this to the spirits of the body/monads. Get rid of the blocks and stagnation and there is harmony and unity of action.

If Leibnizean monadism is considered applicable here, then the same literal principles are present in the governance of a collection of people; therefore, the principles can be considered directly (1-to-1) correlated. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

One is better off just reading Plotinus rather than bringing in Leibniz in particular, though Hegel is a more complex proposition. I am mindful of Voegelin's criticism and Findlay's appreciation and thanks to Mouni Sadhu's The Tarot, am something of a closet Hegelian in my treatment of logic, but it is too complex to get into here.

I consider post Seventeenth Century Western Philosophy to have been hopelessly corrupted by the revival of Epicureanism by Pierre Gassendi circa 1600, and Descartes' botched attempt to preserve some notion of consciousness within a materialist framework by creating the mind/body problem.

I much prefer Henry More's solution, which is to toss out the Cartesian Baby, a miscarriage anyway, with the bathwater:

More was a rationalist theologian. He attempted to use the details of 17th-century mechanical philosophy—as developed by René Descartes—to establish the existence of immaterial substance.

More (1712) rejected Cartesian dualism on the following grounds: "It would be easier for me to attribute matter and extension to the soul, than to attribute to an immaterial thing the capacity to move and be moved by the body.' His difficulties with Cartesian Dualism arose, not from an inability to understand how material and immaterial substances could interact, but from an unwillingness to accept any unextended entity as any kind of real entity. More continues "...it is plain that if a thing be at all it must be extended." So for More 'spirit' too must be extended. This led him to the idea of a 'fourth dimension" in which the spirit is extended (to which he gave the curious name of "essential spissitude") and to an original solution to the mind-body problem. (Wikipedia article on Henry More, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

Though my thinking in terms of higher dimensionality arose more in the context of modeling "The One" as the "The Unity of a Whole", part of the problem set by Plato's Parmenides.

The most stimulating modern discussion of this is Mark Faller's "Being as Power in Plato":

Download an earlier PDF Version here

Read or download a more complete version at Academia.edu here

Too quote from the PDF version:

But with a dimensional magnitude such as volume, the length, height and breadth may individually vary without affecting the “whole.” This is the sense of what happens in the story Flatland when the sphere begins to pass through the plane. Its two dimensional shape within the plane varies and changes as the sphere adjusts its elevation. But the sphere itself does not change. A higher dimension is understood as just that kind of reality which remains invariant while its partial manifestations appear to be in flux.

The same would be true of our world if we think of time, the fourth dimension, as the "image of eternity (Timaeus)." We are complete beings in three dimensions with an "extension" into time. This means that we are "incomplete" in relationship to our fourth "power." According to the model of dimensions, this does not mean that the fourth axis does not already exist. Like in the theory of recollection, we need merely to "discover" that greater part of ourselves which "hovers" over us as our cause and real Being. The Stranger in Flatland or in the dialogues of Plato, as a self-conscious, evolved being, seems immune to the currents of accident: "Before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58)."

The interesting thing is how how well Faller derives all of this as an implication of Plato's treatment of geometry, and a play on words of the meaning of the Greek dunamis as both power in the ordinary sense and the mathematical sense.

There is also another interpretation of the Laws passage quoted above, which brings it back from a cosmological context into a model of the healthy functioning of the personal soul, but that will have to wait, I have kind of rushed to write this reply and it is long enough already.

Innersound's spam post merit another "Bridge over Garbled Water", though you can go ahead and read them if you want.

Edit: Took out a messy and unnecessary footnote reference to Flatland in Faller quote, see PDF for details.

Edit: Added "Bridge over Garbled Water".

Edited August 6, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

Zhongyongdaoist · August 6, 2015

Bridge over Garbled Waters to previous post

Since Innersound is being a bad again I have put in another “Bridge over Garbled Waters”. Most of what has been past over is Innersound's spam attack and Apeiron&Peiron's responses to it, however Apeiron&Peiron's last post is an interesting contribution and I would like to specifically address this now:

There are little things here and there that are good in neoplatonism like henosis and the use of form-based contemplations to help clear the mind and also some of the later practices in theurgy/thaumaturgy that can be helpful to some people. I mostly do the symbolic stuff as a form of prayer and the hinayana practice used to clear the mind. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

One of the the things that I am trying to address here is that “Neo-Platonism” doesn't just pull these things out of nothing, but they called themselves Platonists because they saw their own doctrines as rooted in Plato's writings. There is no “henosis” without Plato's Parmenides and specific passages in the Republic point in the direction of this type of use. This is just one example, though an important example, and I hope to develop these throughout this series of posts.

Now to return to Innersound, who aside from also being a Pythagorean Fundamentalist is also, to use a polite phrase, a conspiracy theorist, thus:

The Devil's Chord: The conspiracy to open the portal of consciousness and mystery of the octave

This is the ultimate conspiracy, imo, something I've devoted my life to since I first discovered it during my private music lession with a former University music professor -- a lesson I had when I was a teenager. The secret I discovered is called the 'comma of Pythagoras' in music theory but it contains a much more profound meaning -- one dealing with noncommutative mathematics and consciousness, something rediscovered in quantum physics as nonlocal entanglement. So normally the Perfect Fifth in music theory is measured as a closed circle but this is based on false mathematics -- logarithmic geometry in an attempt to contain infinity! The real harmonics are not logarithmic but instead are complementary opposites or asymmetric -- infinite resonate. This is called the "spiral of fifths."

O.K. so actually the "Devil's Chord" which is the tritone interval is literally the square root of two. Or to put it the other way around -- the square root of two, called the Power Axiom Set in mathematics, is literally derived from the Devil's Chord. Western mathematics is a conspiracy arising from the wrong harmonics of music, a materialist Freemasonic attempt to "contain" infinity using logarithmic geometry. I actually wrote a masters thesis on this topic but even that did not get into the core truth. Then I discovered the Actual Matrix Plan conspiracy based on the same conspiracy -- corroborating my discovery -- only supporting it. (Except for title, emphasis mine, ZYD)

Anyone who wants to read his garbled posts is certainly free to do so, but as a service to those people who find his interruptions irritating, I will continue to create bridges as needed. By the way, probably everything that Innersound will say here has been said before here:

Daoism and neoplatonism

Which is a perfect example of what I am trying to avoid. He has of course said it elsewhere also, over and over again, but that thread is a prime example.

My next post will continue with my exposition.

Edit: Added bridge to my previous post.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

Zhongyongdaoist · August 6, 2015

As I mentioned when I finished my earlier post:

There is also another interpretation of the Laws passage quoted above, which brings it back from a cosmological context into a model of the healthy functioning of the personal soul, . . .

where previously I had proposed a cosmological interpretation of this quote as a description of “the communion of all souls”, I now wish to give it an interpretation that is relevant to personal development. To concentrate on the most important part of it:

[739b] That State and polity come first, and those laws are best, where there is observed as carefully as possible [739c] throughout the whole State the old saying that “friends have all things really in common.” As to this condition,—whether it anywhere exists now, or ever will exist,—in which there is community of wives, children, and all chattels, and all that is called “private” is everywhere and by every means rooted out of our life, and so far as possible it is contrived that even things naturally “private” have become in a way “communized,” —eyes, for instance, and ears and hands seem to see, hear, and act in common,— [739d] and that all men are, so far as possible, unanimous in the praise and blame they bestow, rejoicing and grieving at the same things, and that they honor with all their heart those laws which render the State as unified as possible,—no one will ever lay down another definition that is truer or better than these conditions in point of super-excellence. In such a State,—be it gods or sons of gods that dwell in it,—they dwell pleasantly, living such a life as this. Wherefore one should not look elsewhere [739e] for a model constitution, but hold fast to this one, and with all one's power seek the constitution that is as like to it as possible. (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, Laws, 739b-e, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

On John Uebersax Blog to which I referred in the first post, about interpreting Plato's Republic as psychology, it says:

A large literature in psychology (for reviews see Rowan 1993; Schwartz 1995; Lester 1995, 2007) argues persuasively that any adequate view of the human mind must take into account its plurality, i.e., that normal mental function involves what can be thought of as multiple subselves, subpersonalities, part-egos, complexes, thought patterns, characters, etc. The existence of this pluralism, and frequent conflicts among components, is an obvious and fundamental feature of the human condition; the need to harmonize them is a requirement for happiness and healthy personality function. Every human being is confronted with the difficult but supremely important task of governing the elements of ones own mind.

Its hard for me that this point to say how much familiarity I had with psychology in my mid-teens, I know I had some, but what I remember most was early Transactional Analysis and on an esoteric level a familiarity with Fourth Way material. Gestalt psychology was also an influence, but I don't recall that it emphasized a plurality of selves. I had my own take on Transactional Analysis, and didn't think that the “parts” were different selves except in pathological cases, such as multiple personality disorder.

Circa 1987 when I was preparing a series of lessons based on traditional Western Magic as expounded in Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, within its Platonic context, I worked out a technique of personality integration based on Transactional Analysis and Platonic psychology and ethics. In 1990, I met a group of NLP practitioners who were anxious to study Magic and in return I learned NLP, they were astonished at how much my personal integration techniques mirrored NLP, and I learned about NLP's version called Congruence:

Congruence in NLP is when behaviour (words, tonality, physiology, etc.) matches the words and actions a person says and does.

It is rapport within oneself, or internal and external consistency, perceived by others as sincerity or certainty.

Carl Rogers coined the term congruence to describe the match or fit between an individual’s inner feelings and outer display. The congruent person is genuine, real, integrated, whole, and transparent. The non-congruent person tries to impress, plays a role, puts up a front, and hides behind a facade. Rogers realized that congruence between feelings and actions can never be total, but his experience convinced him that choosing to be real with others is the single most important decision a person can make.
A healthy individual will tend to see congruence between their sense of who they are and who they feel they should be. While no one tends to experience perfect congruence at all times, some argue the relative degree of congruence is an indicator of ‘health’. (NLP World, article on Congruence, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

I think that Plato's description is also an example of this state of congruence, of internal consistency and cooperation between the various selves, as the most desirable state of consciousness for a person, that of complete internal agreement.

I have pointed out two different, but in my view of Plato complementary interpretations of this passage from Laws, none of which have anything to do with politics, the ostensible subject of the dialogue, so why are they here? Is this another hint like those in the Republic that there is more here than politics?

So why am I emphasizing this? Because the notion that the Laws is about politics is someone's opinion, the only person who ever knew what is was really about, has long since passed from this world, and those who may had received right opinion from him, have also departed. So there is no knowledge of what Plato meant, but of those opinions put forward as interpretations since then, how close do any of them come to Right Opinion, and how should you judge that claim? This is the reason why I posted about the contrary interpretations of Plato:

. . . I want to point out that there are people who will say this about Plato, and that about Plato and for everyone who will assert one thing, there is usually another who will say the opposite. I will examine some of the reasons for why I think this is the case in my next post.

So that people will not be unduly swayed by citations of secondary sources, which are necessarily only the opinions of the authors, and may or may not be good ones, but instead to weigh the matter in their own minds, and reach their own conclusions. When secondary sources disagree, there is only one recourse and that is to the primary text, the dialogues and letters themselves.

I decided to do some examination of knowledge and opinion first, before addressing in more detail those reasons for different opinions which result from what I consider the very purposeful ambiguity of Plato's text.

maldor · August 7, 2015

"I haven't seen too many people combine Pythagoras, Kant and Heidegger."

Its the phenomenological tradition. Heidegger bastardised Husserl though.

maldor · August 21, 2015

Has this thread died ?

My understanding of The Republic is that it is a discussion about how to move people towards enlightenment in order to better move other people towards enlightenment.

It is about the role of the enlightened ("wise" people) to help society and direct education towards increasing the number of enlightened people in society.

We can argue that it is about society or the individual. I think the main point that it is about both. There are plenty of examples in ancient philosophy of metaphors for the mind and I am sure this wasn't lost upon the readers of the time.

Zhongyongdaoist · August 21, 2015

Has this thread died ?

My understanding of The Republic is that it is a discussion about how to move people towards enlightenment in order to better move other people towards enlightenment.

It is about the role of the enlightened ("wise" people) to help society and direct education towards increasing the number of enlightened people in society.

We can argue that it is about society or the individual. I think the main point that it is about both. There are plenty of examples in ancient philosophy of metaphors for the mind and I am sure this wasn't lost upon the readers of the time.

Thank you for your interest, no it is not dead, but I have become extremely busy offline, some of which has even been productive!

In general I find that Innersound's ramblings are the best ad hominem accusations that anyone could ever ask for, which is why even though I could ask for owner permissions and get rid of all of them I have chosen to simple bridge over them. However, I also somewhat concerned with whether nonsense like this actually needs addressing:

But, as G.E.R. Lloyd details – comparing Chinese and Greek medicine and philosophy – the Greeks were already fixated on exterior materialist “muscle” – the iron psychology. Camille Paglia makes this point about the older Greek statutes having small penises and big muscles (“Even brawny Hercules was shown with a boy's genitals.” (p. 114,

Sexual personae)504 – it's actually because they were shamanically sublimating their jing sexual

energy. So these statutes represent a vanishing mediator back to the Pre-Socratic Pythagorean

shamanic culture whereas the Platonic Greeks actually sucked off the jing energy as sperm – the

older males would literally suck off the younger males so that the older males could increase the

energy. “[The Greek boy] occupied a presexual or or suprasexual dimension, the Greek aesthetic

ideal.” (p. 115) This homoerotic materialist technospiritual culture also relied on misoygny of

women so that the females had to be kept in the houses.

Anyone who has actually read what Plato has said will know that this is nonsense, but how many here have? The evil misogenist Plato naturally has his sock puppet, Socrates, cite the teachings of Diotima as authoritative in the Symposium, oh, wait a minute she is a priestess, how did she get out of the house? The evil misogenist Plato advocates the education of women and their participation in the government of the state in the Republic, oh, that must be a pack of lies to cover up Plato's real sinister intent. G.E.R. Lloyd is pulled in for some respectable window dressing to citations from a Lesbian Feminist whose opinions about sex and culture are controversial to say the least, which bracket Innersound's amazing fantasy:

the Platonic Greeks actually sucked off the jing energy as sperm – the older males would literally suck off the younger males so that the older males could increase the energy.

Certainly the most "original" take on platonic love that I have ever seen. Oh, wait a moment, platonic love is a lie too, how silly of me, and I suppose just about everyone else, never to have noticed.

I hope that I have not been wrong to ignore nonsense like this, and to try to keep this thread on a high level of discourse, because frankly, as much as it would be fun to lampoon Innersound's nonesense, I don't have the time to address junk like this, and for now I am going to continue to assume that most readers of this thread understand that, and appreciate the amount of time that it does take to undertake a thread like this.

Now, to address something more interesting, if less salacious, an important point in the interpretation of some dialogues, of which Laws and Republic, are the prime example, is that they are applicable both to human psychology and to cosmology, their applicability to the political life of the ancient Greek city state, or to political theory in general being much less important. The reason for this is that in Platonism the Cosmos, in both its visible and invisible aspects, has the same relation to what Plotinus would call the "Soul of all", as the individual soul has to our body and mind. They are in point of fact basically the same type of entity and that is the reason for so much that is important in Platonic doctrine, not the least of which is the Microcosm/Macrocosm analogy which is so important to the Platonic theory of Knowledge, about which I will post next.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

Zhongyongdaoist · August 21, 2015

(I had originally prepare this before my post on "congruence" above, which I chose to post first, then, as I noted above I got very busy and did not have time to return to this. I was not happy with its length and decided to say some other things first, but I have decided to go ahead and post this, to make abundantly clear that Knowledge in Platonism way more than merely opinion of any type, right, good, or bad.)

I want to talk a bit about knowledge to contrast it with opinion. Going back to the divided line, which I pointed to on Uebersax site, “knowledge” is the province of “noesis” or mindfulness and is achieved only through direct contact with the “ideas” themselves, one thing about this contact is that it is not merely a contact with something outside of oneself, it is really a connection with and an awakening to a part of oneself, thus the goal of Philosophy is self-knowledge, not some mere “intellectual” acquaintance with opinions of this or that.

To emphasize this I want to point out a very old synomym for “idea” in Plato's sense which started to be used among the Middle Platonists, those active from about the First Century BCE to the Third Century CE, and that is “archetype”:

Plato
Main article: Theory of Forms
The origins of the archetypal hypothesis date back as far as Plato. Plato's ideas were pure mental forms that were imprinted in the soul before it was born into the world. They were collective in the sense that they embodied the fundamental characteristics of a thing rather than its specific peculiarities. (Wikipedia Article on Archetypes, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

Thus all real knowledge is soul knowledge and self-knowledge. Again all well and good for the mystics among us, but what about the magicians? Quoting from my discussion on Agrippa's doctrine of Occult virtues, which is too long to reproduce here:

they are called occult qualities, because their Causes lie hid, and mans intellect cannot in any way reach, and find them out. Wherefore Philosophers have attained to the greatest part of them by long experience, rather then by the search of reason: They are "occult" because hidden and unlike elemental virtues, which can be deduced from the qualities of the elements and the proportion of their compound, the occult or "hidden" virtues must be found out by experience.

What is referred to as man's intellect above is, Dianoia, the lower of the “inlellective” faculties of the divided line, I will deal more with that later, but why am I introducing Occult Virtues? Because:

Chap. xi. How Occult Vertues are infused into the severall kinds of things by Idea's, through the help of the Soul of the World, and rayes of the Stars: and what things abound most with this Vertue.

Platonists say that all inferiour bodies are exemplified by the superiour Ideas. Now they define an Idea to be a form, above bodies, souls, minds, and to be one, simple, pure, immutable, indivisible, incorporeal, and eternall: and that the nature of all Idea's is the same. Now they place Idea's in the first place in very goodness it self (i.e.) God, by way of cause; and that they are distinguished amongst themselves by some relative considerations only, least whatsoever is in the world, should be but one thing without any variety, and that they agree in essence, least God should be a compound substance. In the second place, they place them in the very intelligible it self (i.e.) in the Soul of the world, differing the one from the other by absolute forms, so that all the Idea's in God indeed are but one form: but in the Soul of the world they are many. They are placed in the minds of all other things, whether they be joyned to the body, or separated from the body, by a certain participation, and now by degrees are distinguished more, and more. They place them in nature, as certain small seed of forms infused by the Idea's, and lastly they place them in matter, as Shadows. Hereunto may be added, that in the Soul of the world there be as many Seminal Forms of things, as Idea's in the mind of God, by which forms she did in the Heavens above the Stars frame to her self shapes also, and stamped upon all these some properties; on these Stars therefore, shapes, and properties, all vertues of inferiour species, as also their properties do depend; so that every species hath its Celestiall shape, or figure that is sutable [suitable] to it from which also proceeds a wonderfull power of operating, which proper gift it receives from its own Idea, through the Seminal forms of the Soul of the world. For Idea's are not only essential causes of every species, but are also the causes of every vertue, (Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book 1, Chapter 11 )

they define an Idea to be a form, above bodies, souls, minds, and to be one, simple, pure, immutable, indivisible, incorporeal, and eternall: On the highest level they are simple, but as they descend they mix with each other and become more complex.

they place Idea's in the first place in very goodness it self (i.e.) God: While Agrippa my mean God in a circa 1500 Roman Catholic sense, this is not to be confused with god as thought of by your local neighborhood fundamentalist yahoo and it can also be separated from any taint of Abrahamic revelation by being conceived of as Plotinus' One, or even the Dao.

In the second place, they place them in the very intelligible it self (i.e.) in the Soul of the world: Here they are on a lower level and are a part of the animating power of the Universe. It must be remembered that a Platonic world is a living soul, filled with souls, not a mechanical universe consisting of dead matter.

They place them in nature, as certain small seed of forms infused by the Idea's: Here we start to get closer to our own world and this idea of a seed of forms was to prove “fruitful” as I began to look at them as “seeds of power” which the Platonic Magician learned to cultivate, both in him or herself, but also in the external world.

For Idea's are not only essential causes of every species, but are also the causes of every vertue: This simply reaffirms what I said before, the causal efficacy of the “ideas” is manifest all the way down to our world, where they manifest as “power” that can be harvested and harnessed.

This cosmological structure going from ideas in the “Mind of God” to their manifestations as physical objects here on earth, is called “the Great Chain of Being" and was the fundamental idea of how the Cosmos functioned from the Hellenistic period to about 1800. Its History and development have been admirably chronicled by A. O. Lovejoy in his book of the same name, The Great Chain of Being.

Because the whole practice of traditional magic is dependent upon these “ideas” as the creative power and structure behind all physical appearance, and by using Natural Magic, we can start an ascent to higher and higher levels of that knowledge, as Agrippa outlines in his work.

The post from which these quotes are taken can be found here:

Introduction to Agrippa's Doctrine of Occult Virtues

and is worth a look, unfortunately the series of posts was not completed as I had hoped because I ran into some problems with free time, but I hope to post more there and finish it up at some point.

To summarize the above, for a Platonist, Knowledge is Power.

We can also use the type of training for the “Mystical Ascent” such as Plato outlines here, in the famous speech of the Priestess Diotima to Socrates:

[210]
. . . to the greater and more hidden ones (Mysteries of Beauty, ZYD) which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only—out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is one and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow–minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention:

Diotima's last words
He should view beauty, not relatively, but absolutely; and he should pass by stepping–stones from earth to heaven

‘He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous Beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)—a nature which in the first place is everlasting, [211] not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever–growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.

This, my dear Socrates,’ said the stranger of Mantinea, ‘is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of Beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible—you only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes to see the true Beauty—the divine Beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life—thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember [212] how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?’ (Diotima's Second Speech from Plato's Symposium on John Uebersax Site)

Uebersax's complete discussion is worth reading here:

Diotima's Ascent to Beauty (Symposium 201-212)

This in a sense brings us back to Maldor's comments:

Anyone who has experienced "unique states" will see it in everything. Was this what Plato was talking about, or was he simply trying to figure out a good way for cities to work?

I think one leads to the other. In the famous Cave it is clear to see he was showing how perspectives that are radically different are considered madness by others that hav eno comprehension.

Having introduced the origin of the word "archetype" in Platonism, at some future point I will address its relation to the theories of Carl Jung.

Zhongyongdaoist · August 26, 2015

I had been studying what I could of Cornelius Agrippa's Occult Philosophy since the summer of 1972, and reading what, at the time, was the standard literature on Renaissance magic and occult practices, and indirectly acquiring something of a vague understanding of Plato and what is usually referred to as Neo-Platonism. Sometime in around 1976, 1977 at the latest, I had a curious idea, it occurred to me that within the context of what I understood of Platonism, Agrippa's Occult Philosophy could be understood as a rational system of magic. This came as a surprise to me, since at the time I accepted the unquestioned post romanticist meme that all mysticism and magic was irrational, it not anti-rational. Now what I mean by rational is this, it seemed to me that given a set of premises derivable from Platonic doctrine as I, admittedly superficially, understood it at the time, one could work out an equivalent to Euclid's Geometry, in which all of the “laws” of magic as Agrippa wrote about it, and apparently understood it, could be derived from these “first principles” as a series of theorems and corollaries, etc. This idea fascinated me as I came to think of magic as possibly being a type of “Platonic” engineering, and I decided to undertake a study of Platonism to see if in point of fact this was the case. This was a surprising turn bearing in mind how negative my earlier evaluation of Plato, as I have noted elsewhere on the Tao Bums, in my teens was, but since I had been as much a teenage science nerd as magic nerd, a rare combination in the mid-Sixties, I found the idea irresistible and started on a study into Plato and Neo-Platonism that was to last several years, and one which much to my surprise, had very fruitful results.

As part of this study I read a lot of secondary literature on both Plato and Neo-Platonism before finally starting to read the dialogues themselves. Nothing in the secondary literature really prepared me for all the details of the dialogues themselves, many of which were very interesting from an esoteric point of view, but I will get to that later in this series.

At a certain point I wanted to organize the dialogues, there are a lot of them and not finding the categories in the secondary literature really convincing or useful, I decided to look at them in a way that I had used for a long time and which I call “functionalism”, the idea being, assuming that there is an end in view, how would any particular dialogue help to achieve that end. Based on everything that I had read it seemed reasonable that Plato intended to found a school, so that was my basic criteria, but I also looked at the social conditions of ancient Athens to get some idea of what this would entail, which is why awhile ago I said:

Apeiron&Peiron talks about publication in ancient Athens

Which refers to this:

. . . in the ancient world ‘publication’ meant a reading aloud, that is, the dialogue existed, not in space as on a printed page, but through time as it was recited.

Though there are also some other interesting points in his post, which I hope to be able to address at another time.

In a bit I will quote from one of my little essays “An Intellible Order of the Dialogues”, which I wrote almost thirty years ago, giving my own classification of Plato's dialogues, but first we need to examine teaching in Athens in Plato's lifetime.

At this time in Athens being a teacher was pretty much a do it yourself thing, so that Plato would have had to start from the bottom up, not merely working out a curriculum, but also writing the “textbooks”, because at the time there basically were none. Books were hand written scrolls, written either by oneself or a professional scribe, and in either case were expensive and time consuming items, which few people could afford, thus “publication” basically meant public reading. Interestingly a fair number of the dialogues are written in narrative format and thus would probably be read by one person, on the other had some are written more like plays with parts and may represent a point at which Plato had been successful enough that they were performed by groups of students at Plato's academy.

Now, what types of things would Plato have to write? Well, he would have to write his own advertising. Interestingly there is even a Greek name for this, protreptic, or exhortation, meaning an exhortation to the study of philosophy and several examples of this exist from antiquity. So here is my short introduction and discussion of those dialogues that I considered protreptic:

The following order is based upon the idea that Plato wrote the dialogues with a certain purpose in mind for each one of them. The first purpose which he must have had in mind was to get students for his school this results in a category of dialogues which we can call protreptic. The protreptic dialogues are designed to inspire potential students with the desire to study at the Academy. They have several common characteristics. The foremost of which is that they are stylistically some of Plato's best work. Secondly they usually show Socrates in a very good light. Third they often show Socrates in contests with the best of the Sophists and Rhetoricians of his age. Fourth they always contrast the Socratic/Platonic method with that of his competitors and find the other wanting. Among the protreptic dialogues we find the following:

The Apology. This dialogue defends Socrates against the popular misconceptions which existed at the time. Since Socrates was one of the big calling cards for Plato's school it is necessary to clear his name of any bad connotations which may tarnish the academy by association.

Crito. This dialogue is also of a defensive nature and was probably used by Plato to assure the Athenian Demos that the Academy was not a secret society devoted to the overthrow of the Athenian laws and constitution.

Gorgias. This dialogue is a contest between Philosophy and the art of rhetoric which at the same time addresses the questions of happiness, power, and hedonism reaching the conclusion that the path of philosophy and the cultivation of virtue lead to true happiness in both this life and the next.

Protogoras. This dialogue is a contest between Philosophy and Sophistry. It is interesting because it shows Socrates being convinced by the course of the argument to accept a position which at first he did not. It deals primarily with the question of whether virtue can be taught or not. Of course it is necessary to be able to teach virtue otherwise there could be no academy could there?

Euthydemus. This dialogue shows Socrates in competition with some young students of sophistry and compares their ill use of logic with the Socratic Dialectic. Its purpose is to show Socrates as a good influence on the young, as well as to contrast the good use of logic in dialectic to the bad use of it in what the Greeks called "eristic" or contentious reasoning.

Once a student was in the academy his schooling could begin, but how did it begin?

Plato gives us a little bit of an answer here in the Gorgias. Socrates is doing his usual annoying questions routine, to a rather tough customer, Callicles:

[497b] . . . Does not each of us cease at the same moment from thirst and from the pleasure he gets by drinking?
Callicles
I cannot tell what you mean.
Gorgias
No, no, Callicles, you must answer him, for our sakes also, that the arguments may be brought to a conclusion.
Callicles
But Socrates is always like this, Gorgias he keeps on asking petty, unimportant questions until he refutes one.
Gorgias
Why, what does that matter to you? In any case it is not your credit that is at stake, Callicles; just permit Socrates to refute you in such manner as he chooses.
[497c]
Callicles
Well then, proceed with those little cramped questions of yours, since Gorgias is so minded.
Socrates
You are fortunate, Callicles, in having been initiated into the Great Mysteries before the Little: I did not think that was the proper thing. So go on answering where you left off—as to whether each of us does not cease to feel thirst and pleasure at the same time.
Callicles
I grant it.
Socrates
And so, with hunger and the rest, does he cease to feel the desires and pleasures at the same time?
Callicles
That is so.
Socrates
And also ceases to feel the pains and pleasures at the same time? (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, Gorgias, 497b-c, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

Callicles is about to erupt into a fit of extreme umbrage over these "niggling" questions, but if there is anyone who deserves "Death by Niggling", it is surely Callicles, but why the nigggling questions in the first place? Hint, it all has to do with the Lesser and Greater Mysteries and the purification of the Soul, with which we will deal shortly.

Brian · August 26, 2015

Thank you, Donald, for this most excellent thread.

Taoist Texts · August 26, 2015

Based on everything that I had read it seemed reasonable that Plato intended to found a school,

Why would he want to do that?

Plato and Platonism 101

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