Plato and Platonism 101

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Thank you, Donald, for this most excellent thread.

 

Thanks Brian, for taking the time to state your appreciation.

 

Why would he want to do that?

 

In Plato's Seventh Letter, Plato gives an account of the evolution of his ideas. Plato is writing this in his old age, Seventy or so, but in the letter says that he had formed these opinions by the time he was about forty:

 

[324b] . . .

Now the manner in which these views originated is a story well worth hearing for young and old alike, and I shall endeavor to narrate it to you from the beginning; for at the present moment it is opportune.

 

In the days of my youth my experience was the same as that of many others. I thought that as soon as I should become my own master [324c] I would immediately enter into public life. But it so happened, I found, that the following changes occurred in the political situation. In the government then existing, reviled as it was by many, a revolution took place; and the revolution was headed by fifty-one leaders, of whom eleven were in the City and ten in the Piraeus—each of these sections dealing with the market and with all municipal matters requiring management—and Thirty were established [324d] as irresponsible rulers of all. Now of these some were actually connections and acquaintances of mine1; and indeed they invited me at once to join their administration, thinking it would be congenial. The feelings I then experienced, owing to my youth, were in no way surprising: for I imagined that they would administer the State by leading it out of an unjust way of life into a just way, and consequently I gave my mind to them very diligently, to see what they would do. And indeed I saw how these men within a short time caused men to look back on the former government as a golden age; and above all how they treated my [324e] aged friend Socrates, whom I would hardly scruple to call the most just of men then living, when they tried to send him, along with others, after one of the citizens, to fetch him by force [325a] that he might be put to death—their object being that Socrates, whether he wished or no, might be made to share in their political actions; he, however, refused to obey and risked the uttermost penalties rather than be a partaker in their unholy deeds.1 So when I beheld all these actions and others of a similar grave kind,2 I was indignant, and I withdrew myself from the evil practices then going on. But in no long time the power of the Thirty was overthrown together with the whole of the government which then existed.

 

Then once again I was really, though less urgently, impelled with a desire to take part in public and [325b] political affairs. Many deplorable events, however, were still happening in those times, troublous as they were, and it was not surprising that in some instances, during these revolutions, men were avenging themselves on their foes too fiercely; yet, notwithstanding, the exiles who then returned1 exercised no little moderation. But, as ill-luck would have it, certain men of authority2 summoned our comrade Socrates before the law-courts, laying a charge against him which was most unholy, and which Socrates of all men least deserved; [325c] for it was on the charge of impiety that those men summoned him and the rest condemned and slew him—the very man who on the former occasion, when they themselves had the misfortune to be in exile, had refused to take part in the unholy arrest of one of the friends of the men then exiled.

 

When, therefore, I considered all this, and the type of men who were administering the affairs of State, with their laws too and their customs, the more I considered them and the more I advanced in years myself, the more difficult appeared to me [325d] the task of managing affairs of State rightly. For it was impossible to take action without friends and trusty companions; and these it was not easy to find ready to hand, since our State was no longer managed according to the principles and institutions of our forefathers; while to acquire other new friends with any facility was a thing impossible. Moreover, both the written laws and the customs were being corrupted, and that with surprising rapidity. Consequently, although at first [325e] I was filled with an ardent desire to engage in public affairs, when I considered all this and saw how things were shifting about anyhow in all directions, I finally became dizzy; and although I continued to consider by what means some betterment could be brought about not only in these matters but also in the government as a whole, [326a] yet as regards political action I kept constantly waiting for an opportune moment; until, finally, looking at all the States which now exist, I perceived that one and all they are badly governed; for the state of their laws is such as to be almost incurable without some marvellous overhauling and good-luck to boot. So in my praise of the right philosophy I was compelled to declare that by it one is enabled to discern all forms of justice both political and individual. Wherefore the classes of mankind (I said) will have no cessation from evils until either the class of those [326b] who are right and true philosophers attains political supremacy, or else the class of those who hold power in the States becomes, by some dispensation of Heaven, really philosophic. (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, Seventh Letter, 324b-26a )

 

The final section is a reference to a famous quote in the Republic.

 

Plato did in point of fact found a school, usually referred to as the Platonic Academy.

 

 

 

 

Edit: Corrected some paragraph spacing in the quote, I am following the paragraph divisions of a printed version, not the online one, which I find clearer than the online one, but the text is from the online version at Perseus.

 

Edit: It suddenly occurred to me that some people reading this might not know that Plato did in point of fact start an actual "school", so I added the last sentence.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Zhongyongdaoist]

 

This is from the first chapter of Susan Moller Okin’s landmark study, Women in Western Political Thought, an examination of how male-dominated political philosophy has been shaped, in part, by the fact that women’s political status and women’s concerns in social life, have been systematically shoved to the margins of political theory.

1. Plato and the Greek Tradition of Misogyny

http://blog.fair-use.org/2008/12/04/plato-and-the-greek-tradition-of-misogyny-susan-moller-okin/

 

I discovered that book in my favorite used bookstore - back in the day - 10 to 15 years ago.

 

It doesn't surprise me in the least that Innersound can find and post a source critical of Plato, those are the only ones he looks for and the only ones he posts.

 

Search under "Plato champion of women's education" and you find a different set of results.  There is an interesting series that begins here:

 

Plato: Women in the Ideal State - Part I

 

and ends with this, which I quote at length:

 

Plato: Women in the Ideal State - Part VII

The Conclusion

 

Recall in the beginning of this investigation Socrates and Glaucon were noticing how ridiculous it would be to have women exercising naked along side of men in the gymnasia. The oddness of that image seemed to rule out the equal education of women. But then, Plato (in the voice of Socrates) began his argument. Here, then, is the result of that argument;

 

"Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the defense of their country; only in the distribution of labors the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking a fruit of unripe wisdom, and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about; --for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, That the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base." (Rep. 457a-b, I replaced pure text reference with a live link to the passage on Perseus Digital Library, ZYD).

Please read that passage aloud at least three times. No analysis or commentary that I could offer will convey these complex ideas and images with the power that Plato imbues in them.

>

"their virtue will be their robe"

"in his laughter he is plucking a fruit of unripe wisdom"

"he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about"

"the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base"

Do these words resonate for you with insight and mastery of communication as they do for me? If so, then you share with me an experience of the richness that Plato brings to thought and that philosophy creates for human potential.

 

The metaphor of nakedness as the striping away of appearances and prejudices imposed by society upon nature reveals Plato's deep intent. This position of total gender equality is a radical claim bound to be dismissed by his contemporaries. In anticipation of that rejection, Plato is asserting that it is society itself that must be challenged. It turns out that not just Plato's society needs challenge, but yours and mine. The norms and conventions of our culture are based in appearances, not natures (reality). Enforcing such norms creates an unnatural and corrupted society. Only by the courage to face truth through reason and to accept the consequences of change based in reason, can the society be redeemed. Otherwise, the culture and the people in it are doomed to ignorance, injustice, and repression of the fulfillment of human potential.

 

The theme of appearance vs reality is pervades The Republic and Plato's work generally. The most famous statement of that issue is The Allegory of the Cave which is also in The Republic.

 

This is pretty much how I interpret Plato, and all that this does is show what I have maintained practically from the beginning, which is that there are different interpretations to Plato, these are all just someone's opinion, and that these opinions are more or less accurate.  I am not done with my exposition of Plato and why there is a:

 

. . .  very purposeful ambiguity of Plato's text.

 

But I am done with the question of Plato's misogyny for now.

 

Some might find the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's  discussion of the Feminist perspective on Plato's discussion of women in the Republic interesting:

 

Plato's Ethics and Politics in The Republic, Feminism section

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: I replaced "replace" with "replaced the " in my note above.

Edited August 28, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Since Plato's Seventh Letter has come up already, and I was going to have to refer to it anyway, I am going to go ahead and say some things about it now. I first read about Plato's Seventh Letter in the introduction to the 1937 Random House edition of Benjamin Jowett's translation of Plato's dialogues, and as it was important to me I will quot it in full:
 

A man is a philosopher not because he knows this or that but primarily because he is a certain kind of man; because the "inner city"—which is his own soul—is governed by reason. Philosophy is a personal experience; a way of salvation; wisdom. And by virtue of its intimate personal character, it is incommunicable by books, or even by speech. Teaching is effective only if based on the friendship of teacher and student; the student must have an adequate personal maturity to understand the truth. Ideas cannot be flung, so to speak, indiscriminately into the market-place, as they are done by books. And ideas are conveyed by contagion, from person to person. "For my philosophy does not admit of verbal formulation, but after prolonged application to the subject itself and after living together with it, it is born in the soul on a sudden, like a flame which is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter sustains itself." (Raphael Demos, Introduction, p. x, Plato, Collected Dialogues)

 
The similarity to descriptions of the mystical experience is striking as the student after years of preparatory study has an “instantaneous enlightenment” experience. This was one of the first indications that I had that Plato was a “mystic” and not a mere “philosopher” in the modern intellectual sense. Demos follows this up with this description:
 

 
Plato was confronted by the tremendous fact of Socrates—Socrates his master, a simple and honest man, despising wealth and human honors, caring only for virtue, willing to sacrifice his life for the right—Socrates, the rationalist and the mystic. And from the impact of the personality of the master upon the pupil, there emerged in the philosophy of Plato the doctrine of the supreme value of justice and virtue, and the doctrine of the immortal soul whose good lies not in the things of sense but in the contemplation of the eternal patterns and values.
 
We are apt to separate thought from practice, and technical study from personal problems. Plato does not. Furthermore, we are apt to separate reason from emotion. Plato does not. Reason is not merely detached understanding; it is conviction, fired with enthusiasm. The highest rapture possible to man is the rapture of the contemplation of the ideas. The pursuit of knowledge is animated by the eros for the ideas; and the final truth cannot be conveyed by concepts. So Plato has recourse to myths and allegories and vivid unforgettable images, in order to convey ultimate truths. His thought is both technical and mystical; his style both abstract and poetical. (Raphael Demos, Introduction, p. xi, The Dialogue of Plato, translated into English by B. Jowett, M. A., Random House, New York, 1937, Fourth Printing)

 
I became very interested in this Seventh Letter and wanted to learn more, but ironically, the Seventh Letter is not included in Jowett's translation of the dialogues! I would have to wait until I bought another set of the “collected dialogues”, the one edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, where I could finally read the whole Seventh Letter, but found this description of Plato in their introduction:
 

Plato was a philosopher and poet, but not a mystic. He was a poet in the sense that he wrote formal verse and is the author of one of the most notable of the Greek epigrams. Beyond that, as the author of the dialogues, he was a philosopher-poet exercising consummate artistry.. in his presentation of ideas. In this respect he differs from Lucretius, Dante, Pope; and others who have attempted to set forth in verse systems of thought not their own. If we put aside the requirement that poetry must be written in meter Plato is one of the supreme poets .of the world as well as of Greece; he has a place with Homer, Aeschylüs, and Dante, although no one of these men is also a philosopher. But his poetic insight has often been confused with mysticism, even with mysticism's most obscurantist manifestations. His discussion of the one and the many, the doctrine of love and eternal beauty, the Demiurgos, and similar matters, have all been mistakenly used, by mystics and occultists, as grounds for their owns doctrines. He has been a source of inspiration to many types of mysticism but his writings have been repeatedly misread. This misunderstanding has been greatly promoted and popularized by the writings of Philo and Plotinus. Philo claimed that Plato's Ideas and the Biblical angels are one and the same, and Plotinus' mysticism is actually called Neoplatonism. But Plato saw the world to be intelligible, that is, he held that system pervades all things. In order to indicate the nature of that reality he resorted to story, metaphor, and playfulness which have given comfort from time to time to esoteric writers. But the difference between Plato and the mysticism that has attached itself, to his philosophy-is essential. Plato's aim is to take the reader by steps, with as severe a logic as the conversational method permits, to an insight into the ultimate necessity of Reason. And he never hesitates to submit his own ideas to the harshest critical scrutiny; he carried this procedure so far in the Parmenides that some commentators have held that his own doubts in this dialogue prevail over his affirmations. But the beliefs of mystics are not products of critical examination and logical clarification; they are, on the contrary; a series of apprehensions; flashes, based on feeling, denying the rational order. The mystic's reports of his experiences are beyond discussion inasmuch as they are subjective and emotional; they must be accepted, by one who wishes to believe them, as a matter of faith, not knowledge. Plato's view of the world is that of an intelligible system that man can know by disciplined intellect alone. He was, in fact, the founder of logic, a logician and a poet, but he was not a mystic, he never exalted feeling above reason. (Hamilton Cairns, Introduction, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, including the Letters, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press, Tenth Printing, 1980)

 
Gosh, are they talking about the same person?

 

There is so much in these differing introductions that is worthy of comment, that I will separate them into two posts and  comment on them separately before comparing them and putting them in a wider historical context.  To anticipate part of this, my unspoken response to "(Plato) . . . never exalted feeling above reason", was, and neither did Plotinus!

[Seth Ananda]

Is there any way to have one drew free conversation somewhere about this subject?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

 

A man is a philosopher not because he knows this or that but primarily because he is a certain kind of man; because the "inner city"—which is his own soul—is governed by reason. Philosophy is a personal experience; a way of salvation; wisdom. And by virtue of its intimate personal character, it is incommunicable by books, or even by speech. Teaching is effective only if based on the friendship of teacher and student; the student must have an adequate personal maturity to understand the truth. Ideas cannot be flung, so to speak, indiscriminately into the market-place, as they are done by books. And ideas are conveyed by contagion, from person to person. "For my philosophy does not admit of verbal formulation, but after prolonged application to the subject itself and after living together with it, it is born in the soul on a sudden, like a flame which is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter sustains itself." (Raphael Demos, Introduction, p. x, Plato, Collected Dialogues)

 

the "inner city"—which is his own soul—is governed by reason: This is a reference to the conclusion of Book Nine of The Republic, which is one of the places where the psychological orientation of the Republic becomes clear:

 

[590d] . . . it is better for everyone to be governed by the divine and the intelligent, preferably indwelling and his own . . . this is the aim of our control of children, our not leaving them free before we have established, so to speak, a constitutional government within them and, by fostering the best element in them [591a] with the aid of the like in ourselves, have set up in its place a similar guardian and ruler in the child, and then, and then only, we leave it free. (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, The Republic, Book NIne, 590d)

 

which he follows with this, “Well,” said I, “perhaps there is a pattern of it laid up in heaven for him who wishes to contemplate it and so beholding to constitute himself its citizen."

 

Which while it is usually held to be a city that exists solely as an “idea”, may also refer to a cosmological level and the patterns of the planets and the stars and a type of “astrological” contemplation/meditation such as Plato refers to here in the Timaeus, prefacing it “(690a). . . that we are not an earthly but a heavenly plant up from earth towards our kindred in the heaven.”:

 

But he who has seriously devoted himself to learning and to true thoughts, and has exercised these qualities above all his others, [90c] must necessarily and inevitably think thoughts that are immortal and divine, if so be that he lays hold on truth, and in so far as it is possible for human nature to partake of immortality, he must fall short thereof in no degree; and inasmuch as he is for ever tending his divine part and duly magnifying that daemon who dwells along with him, he must be supremely blessed. . . . for the divine part within us the congenial motions [90d] are the intellections and revolutions of the Universe. These each one of us should follow, rectifying the revolutions within our head, which were distorted at our birth, by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the Universe, and thereby making the part that thinks like unto the object of its thought, in accordance with its original nature, and having achieved this likeness attain finally to that goal of life which is set before men by the gods as the most good both for the present and for the time to come. (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, Timaeus, 90a-d, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

he is for ever tending his divine part and duly magnifying that daemon who dwells along with him, he must be supremely blessed: In this quote the word "daemon" has a purely positive reference and has been used, for example by A. C. Graham, as a translation for Shen.

 

Moving on to the Seventh Letter.

 

my philosophy does not admit of verbal formulation, but after prolonged application to the subject itself and after living together with it, it is born in the soul on a sudden, like a flame which is kindled by a leaping spark: The complete quote puts it in an interesting context, starting out referring not merely to his contemporaries, but to all who seek to find his deepest thought in his writings, he says:

 

[341c] concerning all these writers, or prospective writers, who claim to know the subjects which I seriously study, whether as hearers of mine or of other teachers, or from their own discoveries; it is impossible, in my judgement at least, that these men should understand anything about this subject. There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith. For it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled [341d] by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself. ((Perseus Digital Library, Plato, Seventh Letter 341c-d))

 

What Plato is describing here is the experience of the “noetic” part of the Divided Line, the highest mental functioning in which the soul has an “insight” experience that confers understanding and competence. In other words the person who has had the noetic experience of the “Just” is not only capable of behaving in a truly just manner, but will always chose to do so, and will be able to explain in detail the hows and whys of the matter. This is not some sort of “gut feeling”, but a very articulate state of understanding guiding action.

 

He continues:

 

. . . if I had thought that these subjects ought to be fully stated in writing or in speech to the public, what nobler action could I have performed in my life than that of writing what is of great benefit to mankind and [341e] bringing forth to the light for all men the nature of reality? But were I to undertake this task it would not, as I think, prove a good thing for men, save for some few who are able to discover the truth themselves with but little instruction; for as to the rest, some it would most unseasonably fill with a mistaken contempt, and others with an overweening and empty aspiration, as though they had learnt some sublime mysteries. (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, Seventh Letter 341d-e)

 

This is part of the season for what I have referred to as the “purposeful ambiguity of Plato's text” In his writings Plato wishes both to avoid, in so far as possible, the contempt of the worldly, and to fill the fevered imaginations of the would be "philosopher" with opinions about truth that may eventually stand in the way of their truly apprehending that truth.

 

Plato was confronted by the tremendous fact of Socrates—Socrates his master, a simple and honest man, despising wealth and human honors, caring only for virtue, willing to sacrifice his life for the right—Socrates, the rationalist and the mystic. And from the impact of the personality of the master upon the pupil, there emerged in the philosophy of Plato the doctrine of the supreme value of justice and virtue, and the doctrine of the immortal soul whose good lies not in the things of sense but in the contemplation of the eternal patterns and values.

 

We are apt to separate thought from practice, and technical study from personal problems. Plato does not. Furthermore, we are apt to separate reason from emotion. Plato does not. Reason is not merely detached understanding; it is conviction, fired with enthusiasm. The highest rapture possible to man is the rapture of the contemplation of the ideas. The pursuit of knowledge is animated by the eros for the ideas; and the final truth cannot be conveyed by concepts. So Plato has recourse to myths and allegories and vivid unforgettable images, in order to convey ultimate truths. His thought is both technical and mystical; his style both abstract and poetical. (Raphael Demos, Introduction, p. xi, The Dialogue of Plato, translated into English by B. Jowett, M. A., Random House, New York, 1937, Fourth Printing)

 

The highest rapture possible to man is the rapture of the contemplation of the ideas. The pursuit of knowledge is animated by the eros for the ideas: While this concept occurs in various places in Plato, most notably, and in a sense obviously, in Diotima's ascent to the idea of Beauty, this passage in the Republic is very important:

 

[490a] (for a philosopher, ZYD) . . . The leader of the choir for him, if you recollect, was truth  . . . it was the nature of the real lover of knowledge to strive emulously for true being and that he would not linger over [490b] the many particulars that are opined to be real, but would hold on his way, and the edge of his passion would not be blunted nor would his desire fail till he came into touch with the nature of each thing in itself by that part of his soul to which it belongs to lay hold on that kind of reality—the part akin to it, namely—and through that approaching it, and consorting with reality really, he would beget intelligence and truth, attain to knowledge and truly live and grow, and so find surcease from his travail of soul, but not before?” (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, The Republic, Book Six, 490a-b)

 

This is an extremely important passage, though I will probably not say more about in what way it is important in this series.

 

The other ones I will comment on more later

 

 

 

 

Edit: Repaired link to The Republic, Book Six, 490a-b, above

Edited October 8, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Bubbles]

Hello Zhongyongdaoist, all

 

I salute your initiative to upgrade TDB threads to a higher level. This is a hard task.

 

As English is not my first language, I will not participate more in this discussion because it is very time consuming for me to write down in English such content, and my TDB time has drastically decreased.

 

Just a few thoughts about Plato not being a mystic. Should people read carefully Plato's writings, this kind of statements could be avoided.

 

Hope my thoughts make sense.

 

We can read in Republic VI, 490 ab

 

“that the true lover of knowledge  (ὅ γε ὄντως φιλομαθής) is always striving after being—that is his nature; he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which is an appearance only, but will go on—the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth (γεννήσας νοῦν καὶ ἀλήθειαν ) , he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail.”

 

We can see that reaching reality involves a physical challenge, and eros plays a double role:

 

(1) eros is the way of seeking (the constancy of the  philosopher’s love for truth plays a key role in reaching his aim)

(2) the end of the quest is a kind of union with what is.

 

The words used by Plato to describe this belong to the sensory and sensual register. The successful quest for Truth is somewhat linked to bliss.

 

Another example  I find interesting is that Plato shows in the Symposium  how such an empirical reality as love can, under specific requirements, bring us beyond empiricity. To recognize this, a special attention could be given to the very words Plato uses, words that hold traces of the materiality so hated by some neo platonists. It is the same vocabulary used by Diotima to describe the contemplation of Beauty Plato uses to describe the turmoil felt  by the master when he contemplates the beautiful young males.

 

Diotima uses two words for the action of seeing and for what is seen:  θεάομαι and εἶδος. We perhaps shouldn’t forget how Plato insists in his texts on the origins of the words (Cratylus) and the importance to have a rightful use of them. The first word means to gaze, to observe with a lot of attention an object worthy of interest and the second  the appearance, the figure , the look of someone.  The verb θεάομαι in its participle form is used in the Symposium to denote the contemplation of the young males (211 d 7), the contemplation of the laws, and activities (210 c 3), and the contemplation of the essence of Beauty (210 d 5, e 3, 211 d 2, 212 a 2).

 

A similar comparison could be done between Symposium 211d, Phaedrus 51 a- 253 c and especially Charmides 154 a – 155 e where the erotic seduction is unequivocally referred to. In the Charmides, the beautiful Charmides is contemplated in his in εἶδος the same way one would contemplate the immanent apparition of something transcendent. The beautiful Charmides is said to be a agalma άγάλλω which is among different things a sacred statue infused with magical powers. It is probably no coincidence to find the very same word used to describe Socrates as the perfect lover, the perfect philosopher. The English word used to translate άγάλλω is image but everything is lost in this translation.

 

Symposium 216e 7

“Know you that beauty and wealth and honour, at which the many wonder, are of no account with him, and are utterly despised by him: he regards not at all the persons who are gifted with them; mankind are nothing to him; all his life is spent in mocking and flouting at them. But when I opened him, and looked within at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment whatever Socrates commanded: they may have escaped the observation of others, but I saw them.”

 

It seems that to Plato, the quest for Beauty, in its essence and absolute form can’t be cut off from the erotic experience, should we not forget that Diotima’s exposition is about quest for Truth as an erotic ascent.

 

 

Edit to add: Sorry I just saw your last post. I thought there was no new post after post #52. I quoted the same text from the Republic VI...

Edited August 30, 2015 by bubbles

[Zhongyongdaoist]

First of all thanks to Bubbles for an excellent contribution. At first I wanted to respond more directly to it, but I decided to continue with my original plan, but I will certainly refer back to it.

 

So what is my plan? Why did I quote from the introductions of two different sets of the “Collected Dialogues”?

 

In my discussion of the first one, I took quotes that are hard to deny the mystical or esoteric nature of, both Raphael Demos own statements and the quotes from Plato with which I elucidate them, but Huntington Cairns practically starts right off with, “(Plato was) . . . not a mystic.” Now there are a lot of interesting ideas in Cairn's discussion, many of them requiring a closer look, just to mention to focus on an important one, is Cairns account of mysticism and mystics:

 

But the beliefs of mystics are not products of critical examination and logical clarification; they are, on the contrary; a series of apprehensions; flashes, based on feeling, denying the rational order.

 

The mystic's reports of his experiences are beyond discussion inasmuch as they are subjective and emotional; they must be accepted, by one who wishes to believe them, as a matter of faith, not knowledge.

 

And if this is what I thought mysticism was, I would be in complete agreement with Cairns, and many people reading this would also probably more or less agree with Cairns. Mysticism they would say has nothing to do with words and logic and certainly the “mystical” experience which most reading this are either searching for or claim to have experienced, is just that an experience and not talk about experiences, but are mystical experiences necessarily “beyond discussion” and “subjective” and “emotional”, are they necessarily “based on feeling” and do they “deny the rational order”? Eventually I was to call this particular “model” of mysticism “Romanticist Mysticism”, because it is largely a post 1800 view of mysticism which developed as part of the “Romantic Revolt”, that was gathering steam around 1800, against what was being heavily propagandized as “Scientific Rationalism”, but was really Epicurean materialism dressed up in Newtonian fashion, and which I think should be more properly called Reductionism. I came to this conclusion based on readings in Seventeenth Century philosophy and what is called Neo-Platonism, all the historical niceties had not fallen completely into place, but based on my research there definitely was something that could be called “Rational Mysticism”, and Plato's work was the key to understanding it. I will return to this theme many times in the posts to come, and in point of fact have posted elsewhere on the Dao Bums about the confusion between Reason as conceived of from antiquity to the Eighteenth Century, and how it has been thought about through the Nineteenth and Twentieth.

 

Now to get back to my question, why did I quote from this two very different views of Plato, it was to show two different “models” of who Plato was. Both of these quoted authorities think they “know”, who Plato is, as several people here, have also claimed to know exactly what type of person Plato was, and in some cases quoted someone who also claims to know exactly who Plato was. But from Antiquity to the present many who have studied Plato in great detail complain about how hard it is to understand who he is and why he is doing what he is doing, but how someone understands an author is key to how they will understand his work and a person who thinks that Plato is just some ancestor, however distant, to modern "academics" is going to miss him entirely.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Last time I introduced the notion of Rational Mysticism, here is an excellent example of it, one of my favorite quotes from Volume One of Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy:
 

Light also is a quality that partakes much of form, and is a simple act, and a representation of the understanding: it is first diffused from the Mind of God into all things, but in God the Father, the Father of Light, it is the first true light; then in the Son a beautifull overflowing brightness, and in the Holy Ghost a burning brightness, exceeding all Intelligencies; yea, as Dyonisius saith, of Seraphins, In Angels therefore it is a shining intelligence diffused, an abundant joy beyond all bounds of reason yet received in divers degrees, according to the Nature of the intelligence that receives it; Then it descends into the Celestiall bodies, where it becomes a store of life, and an effectuall propagation, even a visible splendor. In the fire a certain naturall liveliness infused into it by the heavens. And lastly in men, it is a clear discourse of reason, an knowledge of divine things, and the whole rationall . . . From thence it passeth to the fancy, yet above the sense, but only imaginable, and thence to the sence [senses], but especially to that of the eyes; In them it becomes a visible clearness, and is extended to other perspicuous bodies, in which it becomes a colour, and a shining beauty (Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Volume One, Chapter 49 at the Twilight Grotto Esoteric Archives)

 
Right at the beginning is something of great general importance “Light . . . is . . . a representation of the understanding”, thus light is not the understanding itself, but rather it is an image (“imago” in Agrippa's Latin is translated as “representation”) and it is “. . . diffused from the Mind of God into all things . . .”, in other words Light is not the understanding itself, but rather an emanation of that understanding that represents that understanding to imagination and sense.

What is important for our purposes is “. . . in men, it is a clear discourse of reason, an knowledge of divine things, and the whole rationall . . .”, which takes us back to the two “mental” divisions of Plato's Divided Line (See John Uebersax's site), where “a clear discourse of reason” is the lower section, "dianoia (discursive thought)", and the higher one, "noesis (immediate intuition, apprehension, or mental 'seeing' of principles)", is “knowledge of divine things” and “the whole rationall”. The idea being that there could be a logical and rational “discourse” about “divine” matters, which is the provenance of dianoia, but of course this is not the same thing as the direct intuitive “apprehension” of “divine things”, which is noesis, but that both of these will be related to and complement each other and “the whole rationall . . . “ as a result. This attitude is typical of Platonic thinking from Plato, through the late Platonists like Plotinus, into the Renaissance and through the Seventeenth Century, and is basically what I mean by “Rational Mysticism”. By 1900 it was virtually unknown and considered an would be considered an oxymoron. What happened in between? I gave the short answer in a previous post, Romanticism, but Romanticism is only the last ingredient in the degradation of the Western mystical (and magical!) tradition. As I noted in my commentaries on the intellectual/historical necessary to really understand Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy:
 

Well, I hope I haven't bored anyone with this long digression into Christian thinking circa 1500, but I assure you that it was necessary. The reason why it was necessary is because there are three great intellectual 'schisms' that divide us at the beginning of the Twenty-first Century and the third millennium and the beginning of the Sixteenth Century and the Middle of the last millennium. By 1900 they were all in place and strongly influence the development of 'Occultism and Spiritual Paths' (The reference is to an interesting book by Mouni Sadhu) in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. These are the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the 'Scientific Revolution' and what has been called the 'Romantic' revolution.

 
Part of the reason for the delay in posting this, aside from getting busy again, is figuring out how much detail to go into in regard to these "schisms" and how they contribute to, on the one hand a certain smug, but not rational, confidence in the correctness of reductionist materialism and on the other hand to an unquestioning rejection of logic and reason in matters mystical which is a limiting and no more justified attitude than that of the doctrinaire materialist.
 
While many people here may have no problem with the noetic notion of direct apprehension, the idea that logic in its propositional form could be used, is more of problem and I will have some suggestions in my next post.  Until then I will leave you with this quote from J. N. Findlay's essay "On the Logic of Mysticism":
 

“I think that, while mysticism and its logic can be developed in an undisciplined way, in which no attempt is made to achieve genuine consistency, and contradictions are even reverenced as stigmata of higher truth, mysticism can also be developed in a manner which has complete logical viability, even if it involves many concepts strange to ordinary thought and reflection. The logic of a mystical absolute is the logic of a limiting case, and we must not expect a limiting case to behave in the same logical manner as a case which does not fall at the limit (The Logic of Mysticism, Ascent to the Absolute, p. 179). (Excerpts from "On the Logic of Mysticism", emphasis mine ZYD, I just found this site which deals with Findlay's work while searching for quotes from Findlay's essay, the site might be worth a read.)

 
I first started reading Findlay back in the late 1970s because of his work on Plato, he was a very prolific author and, while I believe that I started using the term "Rational Mysticism" as early as mid-1981 and independently of any usage of his of the term, his writings certainly gave my own developing thought encouragement.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I have decided to add a new feature to this series, drum roll please:

What Innersound does not want you to know:

the conspiracy theorist's conspiracy revealed!
 
Over the time I have been looking at Innersound's use of sources, one thing has constantly been in my mind, aside from the fact that the quotes are often taken out of context, the sources often have ideas and opinions that directly contradict most of what Innersound is saying.  Here is an example from the first source cited above:
 

 

Morgan points out in an extensive argument that the majority
of the Republic contains allusions to education rituals, such as the
Eleusinian mysteries mentioned earlier.45 According to his explanation,
most of the allusions are critical of then-current Greek
practices. Education, however, takes a positive turn at this allegory.
The definitive ritual of education is the classic initiation rite,
to which this allegory clearly alludes. It is explained that
Pythagoras, a philosopher to whom Plato shows great affinities,46
descended into a cave, in which he was initiated into the highest
mysteries, physically symbolized by his being clothed in black
wool.47 Further legends about the mysterious Pythagoras claim that he descended into the underworld, and then returned, in
order to prove the immortality of man, 48 which also shows something
of a direct allusion in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. The
breaking of an individual's bonds within the cave is the ritual of
the elenchus, as is implied by the returning philosopher who must
convince others of the. errors inherent in their blissful forward
gaze, which further implies that philosophical initiation also
takes place within the cave of mysteries. This important tie
to Pythagoras highlights the later, very devoted attachment to
Pythagorean doctrines in Plato's work. Here, Plato suggests that
the individual must be initiated as Pythagoras was, to be able to
subsequently learn the doctrines that Pythagoras taught.
As yet, this discussion does not seem to complicate the doctrines
presented by the previous two analogies at all. Rather, it further
clarifies and synthesizes them. The mysteries, the truths to
be found in the upper portion of the Divided Line, are simply the
truths that had been taught by Pythagoras and that would be
taught by Plato.

 
 
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CFAQFjAKahUKEwjPgsKy2pXIAhUQM4gKHZ9ZApc&url=https://journals.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/StudiaAntiqua/article/viewFile/11647/11649&usg=AFQjCNG57zISG0GpEXmBRlVKmGqSgrMy4g&sig2=YK_jm0vRXQ4nJnj0gVdK4g&bvm=bv.103388427,d.dmo

pdf link.

Too bad Plato misunderstood Pythagoras - specifically the origin of knowledge as Emptiness aka formless awareness.

 
Aside from the embarrassing fact that in the quote the author says:
 

. . . the truths that had been taught by Pythagoras and that would be taught by Plato.

 
Indicating that he could not possibly be cited to support the idea that Plato did not understand Pythagoras, as Innersound asserts "Too bad Plato misunderstood Pythagoras . . .", there is this equally embarrassing beginning to the essay:
 

 

Plato in Context:

The Republic and Allegory

JOSEPH SPENCER

In his early work, The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche promoted the idea that Plato was the source of everything strait-laced in Western civilization. For Nietzsche, that meant that Plato had ruined the fun because he had repressed the Dionysian camp, casting himself prostrate before the Socratic altar. Because Nietzsche's claim was well received in his era of continental confusion and soul-searching, scholarship since has inherited the prejudiced opinion that the ancient philosopher was more than a little minted with predilections toward the clearly pious and saintly Apollonian Athenian.¹ Hundreds of volumes written in the last century are built on the premise that Plato was as we say he was—that there was not much more to him than his Theory of Forms and a few other idealist propositions. Indeed, once a conclusion has been drawn, it is easy to simply insert it again and again into the primary texts. In recent years, a few scholars have spoken out against this view, . . . scholars have come to admit that there was more to Plato than meets the scholastically trained eye, that he was seriously involved in the religious discussion of his era. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize that Plato was a seeker of religious truth, rather than a mechanical mathematician producing work after monotonous work with the same thesis.

Note “1” to the above adds these pertinent details:

1. This is a rather direct reading of Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, as his antagonism towards Plato is a dramatic climax that allows him to discuss his more serious topic how to help the German spirit reunite an with the Dionysian ideal. While Nietzsche is hardly the universally worshipped scholar, his same caricature of Plato is, however, extremely widespread outside of Plato scholarship itself. Introductory courses in philosophy and, even better, classes in English and History tend to present Nietzsche's Plato. Nietzsche makes this view bluntly vivid.

 
What, Nietzsche wrong about Plato? But wasn't Heidegger influenced by Nietzsche, and Derrida by the combination of Heidegger and Nietzsche?  What if the all wise Peter Kingsley was influenced by such academic misconceptions as these when he examined Plato?  I have complained, but never been specific about misconceptions related to Plato before, but I have not cited anything because I did not want to go dig it up from sources I read decades ago, but really, to have source such a trusty and reliable source as this one, so reliable that Innersound himself would quote it, handed to me on a platter, well, I just couldn't let it go by without expressing my gratitude to Innersound by using it.
 
Of course the problem is that Innersound himself, ignores things like this, they aren't what he is looking for and he certainly doesn't want anyone to read them, so he tells you what he thinks you should know and uses these sources to look like his own opinions have more scholarly backing than they do.
 
There are also some interesting points in this essay that I could use to begin some of my discussions, in particular the "rite of Elenchus" mentioned and what Socrates was really up to asking all those annoying questions, and what is has to do with the Greater and Lesser Mysteries as I mentioned in one of my previous posts.
 
So everyone download the essay Innersound cites:
 
Plato in Context: The Republic and Allegory, by Joseph Spencer, Studia Antiqua, Vol 4 No 1, Winter 2005

 

You'll find the section he cites on page 26 and after having read all of the things that Innersound does not want you to know be even more dismayed by his quoting it and maybe a bit upset about how much he is trying to hide from you.
 
Oh, and as a passing note, I have already posted here and elsewhere on the Dao Bums quotes that would indicate to all but the most hidebound fundamentalist that Plato is quite aware of knowledge originating in "formless awareness".

[Zhongyongdaoist]

All of the above sounds very grand, but since Innersound has not read Plato he has missed this:
 

[29c] . . . whereas the accounts of that which is copied after the likeness of that Model, and is itself a likeness, will be analogous thereto and possess likelihood; for I as Being is to Becoming, so is Truth to Belief. Wherefore, Socrates, if in our treatment of a great host of matters regarding the Gods and the generation of the Universe we prove unable to give accounts that are always in all respects self-consistent and perfectly exact, be not thou surprised; rather we should be content if we can furnish accounts that are inferior to none in likelihood, remembering that both I who speak [29d] and you who judge are but human creatures, so that it becomes us to accept the likely account of these matters and forbear to search beyond it. (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, Timaeus 29c-d, The "I" in "for I as Being is to Becoming" seems to be extraneous and does not appear in any of the print versions that I have.  Apparently an artifact of the digital conversion process.)

 
In other words the whole account is nothing but "a likely" story!  What I found interesting about this when I read it was it contemporaneous quality, I was reminded of Thomas Kuhn's concept of "paradigm".  Had I not read this and thought about it I would have been much less impressed by Plato as a thinker, but viewing the discussion in the Timaeus and much else in Plato as "a likely story" given the state of mathematics and cosmology at the the time and not some grand revelation of esoteric truth to be taken as a dogma and used as a means of saying what Plato did and did not think, makes all of the models of Plato that have been built on it and other aspects of his dialogues a lot less convincing, especially when taken with his other statements of his where he distances himself from everything that he as written, and which I have quoted in my posts.  All of this academic speculation, whether laudatory or a condemnation of Plato, is just that, academic speculation.  Some of it is more thoughtful and interesting than others, but all of them are just models of who Plato was and what Plato may have thought.
 
I found Plato an interesting and much misunderstood thinker.  I found that the philosophy that descends from him had much to recommend it as a "working model" of reality.  I think other people might find him interesting also, if they give him a chance.  What I wish to bring out can only come from a patient examination of Plato's work and I will continue to do so.
 
I will not enter into any detailed responses with Innersound because of his apparent inability to not distort his sources, here is a great example, which has recurred in the above post:

 

This geometric magnitude as Apeiron changed Pythagorean alchemy into an irrational based harmonics from Music, Myth, and Metaphysics: Harmony in Twelfth-Century Cosmology and Natural Philosophy by Andrew James Hicks, 2012 Ph.D. thesis:

In fact, it could be argued that there are no discrete numbers at all, just magnitudes related by numerical ratios. This will prove significant.... On this point, it is worth recalling that Aristotle (at De anima 407a) had criticized Plato for presenting the soul as a spatial magnitude.... a debate that likely sprung from the Timaeus about whether or not the soul, the world soul in particular, is a ‘geometrical magnitude.’... Nevertheless, geometry does have an explicitly foundational role: and Calcidius begins by highlighting the word portio, his translation for mo‹ra: Plato, he writes, ‘does not say that he has taken a part of the simple and incorporeal soul-stuff, but rather a portion, that is to say, a kind of likeness of a part, which is similar to the geometrical point.’ From there he proceeds to build the first Adrastan lambda diagram, on whose left and right there flow from the apex of this geometrical point the first even and odd linear, planar, and cubic numbers: 2 4 8 and 3 9 27.

https://www.google.c...BqhVnyZA-KqlKtg
pdf link

 

This "quote" is made up of four sections separated by ellipsis, these excerpts occur in the paper as follows:

 

Starts as end of the last paragraph on p. 13

In fact, it could be argued that there are no discrete numbers at all, just magnitudes related by numerical ratios. This will prove significant....

 

Continues from the middle of p. 14:

On this point, it is worth recalling that Aristotle (at De anima 407a) had criticized Plato for presenting the soul as a spatial magnitude....

Continues on p. 14 at a reasonable distance:

a debate that likely sprung from the Timaeus about whether or not the soul, the world soul in particular, is a ‘geometrical magnitude.’...

 

And then jumps over 20 pages to conclude on p.35:

Nevertheless, geometry does have an explicitly foundational role: and Calcidius begins by highlighting the word portio, his translation for moira: Plato, he writes, ‘does not say that he has taken a part of the simple and incorporeal soul-stuff, but rather a portion, that is to say, a kind of likeness of a part, which is similar to the geometrical point.’ From there he proceeds to build the first Adrastan lambda diagram, on whose left and right there flow from the apex of this geometrical point the first even and odd linear, planar, and cubic numbers: 2 4 8 and 3 9 27.

 

I had to perform a search within the document in order to find this conclusion, after I gave up looking for a continuation in even a reasonable number of pages.  As far as I am concerned an ellipsis should not cover twenty pages without an explicit note and a good reason.  I should not have to do this type of homework and I think that the person who thanked Innersound for this quote owes me a thanks for doing homework that they should have done before saying thanks.  But this type of work that I have had to do every time I have looked at Innersound's "quotes" and his use of sources.

 

The text itself is an analysis of medieval musical theory I found it quite interesting, but Innersond has not demonstrated its relevance.  This is what I pointed out at the beginning, Innersound has no intent for a real discussion, he is blatantly hostile to Plato for reasons of his own conspiracy theories which he started concocting in early to mid adolescence.

 

This series is addressed to people who are open minded, I will not waste my time with fanatics, but I will point out their abuse of sources, when and where I chose, as I already have elsewhere, but I don't have more time for this now.

 

 

 

Innersound has been spamming again thus another:

 

Bridge over Garbled Waters

 

 

 

 

Edit: Added "Bridge over Garbled Waters"

Edited October 6, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Bodhicitta]

Thomas Taylor the 19th century Platonist and translator wrote a creed that is helpful in getting an outline of Plato's major insights.

 

http://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/Platonic_Philosophers_Creed.pdf

[Bodhicitta]

A biographical sketch and praise for Taylor:

 

http://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/html/thomas_taylor.html

[Mandrake]

Zhongyongdaoist:

 

Have you considered posting this in Wei wu wei, or in your personal forum? You could post a link there from here. I'm enjoying your posts, and the small amount of productive dialogue, but that's it. Good knowledge can be spoilt.

 

 

All the best,

Mandrake

[Nungali]

Zhongyongdaoist: Have you considered posting this in Wei wu wei, or in your personal forum? You could post a link there from here. I'm enjoying your posts, and the small amount of productive dialogue, but that's it. Good knowledge can be spoilt. All the best, Mandrake

 

Good suggestion ... I dropped out of the  Plato and Platonism 101 class a while back because this other professor came into the hall and the two of them started arguing. 

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Return Bridge to My Previous Post

 

 

Since Bodhichitta introduced Thomas Taylor:
 

Thomas Taylor the 19th century Platonist and translator wrote a creed that is helpful in getting an outline of Plato's major insights.

http://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/Platonic_Philosophers_Creed.pdf

and
 

A biographical sketch and praise for Taylor:

http://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/html/thomas_taylor.html

Innersound has been busy Googling Neo-Platonism to spam on these topics, which is why I put in another "Bridge over Garbled Waters".
 
Also included are these, which are an interesting if unanticipated development:
 

Zhongyongdaoist: Have you considered posting this in Wei wu wei, or in your personal forum? You could post a link there from here. I'm enjoying your posts, and the small amount of productive dialogue, but that's it. Good knowledge can be spoilt. All the best, Mandrake

 
and
 

 

Zhongyongdaoist: Have you considered posting this in Wei wu wei, or in your personal forum? You could post a link there from here. I'm enjoying your posts, and the small amount of productive dialogue, but that's it. Good knowledge can be spoilt. All the best, Mandrake

 
Good suggestion ... I dropped out of the Plato and Platonism 101 class a while back because this other professor came into the hall and the two of them started arguing.

 
It must have been in the air because early last week I had a long PM chat with someone who suggested pretty much the same thing.  First to clarify the situation.  This is an "owners permissions" part of the board, all I have to do is request them, I mentioned this earlier:
 

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.

 
I have misgivings about the "owners permission" system, which I discussed in the PMs that I mentioned.  Though I have given some thought to them because of the PMs.  Now I have open requests to use them and that fact must certainly be weighed in the balance.  If we count this earlier post of Seth Ananda:
 

Is there any way to have one drew free conversation somewhere about this subject?

 
As implicitly making a similar request, and the PM, that would be four requests to trim out Innersound's spam posts.  If there are more such public requests, it may tip the scales and I will go ahead and request "owner permissions" and trim out the junk, however I will not count PMs directly, only public requests, so if you want to see a change, post that wish publicly.
 
Aside from being busy this last week, I have also been thinking of several different subjects for my next post.  I have decided that it is probably time to address the question of Socrates and those niggling questions and what they have to do with "the Lesser Mysteries".

 

 

 

 

Edit: I had to  edit the link for the "Return Bridge"

Edited October 6, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Seth Ananda]

Please request owners permission Zhongyongdaoist

[rex]

Zhongyongdaoist, please request owners permissions.

 

Maybe the mods can put Innersoundqigong's posts in their own separate thread?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Well.

 

In general, I don't want to criticize the person who made this thread but drew does have a valid point. His mode of presentation is somewhat obnoxious (IMO) but since nobody here seems to understand the gravitas of what he has said I can understand why it is the way it is.

 

Nevertheless, if you read drew's posts and understand them, then platonism is like trying to teach a person how to play the violin by writing odes about how nice it sounds. drew, I think, wants you to be playing the violin rather than talking about or around it. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

wants you to be playing the violin rather than talking about or around it: And so does Plato.  That is why I quoted this sometime back:

 

 

[490a] (for a philosopher, ZYD) . . . The leader of the choir for him, if you recollect, was truth . . . it was the nature of the real lover of knowledge to strive emulously for true being and that he would not linger over [490b] the many particulars that are opined to be real, but would hold on his way, and the edge of his passion would not be blunted nor would his desire fail till he came into touch with the nature of each thing in itself by that part of his soul to which it belongs to lay hold on that kind of reality—the part akin to it, namely—and through that approaching it, and consorting with reality really, he would beget intelligence and truth, attain to knowledge and truly live and grow, and so find surcease from his travail of soul, but not before?” (Perseus Digital Library, Plato, The Republic, Book Six, 490a-b, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

I talked about the Platonic distinction between knowledge and opinion here:

 

. . . 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. (Emphasis added, ZYD)

 

Modern academic philosophers collect and compare "maps to Larisa", they discuss them and write about them and argue about them, but never set out on the journey.  Plato wrote to inspire people to make the journey and outlined it as best he could.  To continue your own analogy, if he did the equivalent of writing odes about the beauty of the violin, it was to inspire people to practice on it harder.

[Nungali]

It seems to me that some people are caught up in their opinion being the right opinion. 

 

And are concerned for the audience.   Well, thanks very much chaps, for your consideration but we are not a bunch of morons . Many of us started reading this because we wanted to read Donald's take on it . I know his position as I have read a few of his other posts on the subject and I am interested. If I doubt any validity I am quiet capable myself thanks of delving into the depths of it, and following up refs and coming to my conclusions.

 

I am also interested in  the other opinion / side .... and might find at some stage I want to read more of Innersoundqigong's  take on it.  If I do, then I would be just as pissed off if Donald kept intruding. 

 

But this could be that I am not very educated in the field and not ready to comprehend a debate.  I would rather get more solid footing in both camps before a debate ensues. 

 

... but thats just me ... I am sure you guys are enjoying your debate, not going to back down and not  'commit the  sin' of 'censorship; as the other will claim it is a 'weakness' or a default. 

 

have fun ...    

Edited October 9, 2015 by Nungali

[rex]

I have no strict opinion. My response was more directly oriented at the people who are lining up and asking for censorship and the fact that Innersoundqigong does have a relevant point.

 

(just for clarification)

As a request was also put in to move Innersound's posts to another thread it's not censorship but an attempt to control a disruptive element in class. There are more skillful ways to draw attention to points of departure and ownership permissions is a tool provided by the board to deal with such things.

 

The attraction of this 101 thread is a presentation of a topic by a person who generously has something of value to offer. An alternative 101 class in a separate thread presented by Innersound will find its own interested audience.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

This post has been a little difficult to write, which is why the delay, but it deals with a very important and much misunderstood aspect of Plato's writings and his writing style.  I have decided to break it up into sections to keep each one simple, but they are important and bring to a point much of what I have written so far.

 

. . . Plato implies by this discussion that Socrates has a sort of ritual, something crass, simple, and monotonous,³⁵ in order to drive away the uninitiated and drive the true philosopher to truth. There are important hints of this idea in this dialogue's general structure, as well as in other contemporary dialogues. The first book of the Republic is a classic Socratic dialogue, through which the stubborn Thrasymachus is driven, wild with rage, from the conversation, while the others have their appetites whetted by the discussion. The first part of the dialogue, then, works as an initiation ritual for the desirous, much as the initiation rites that were performed as the opening to the Fieusinian mysteries. Similar initiation approaches appear in the Meno, Symposium, and other dialogues. Some further evidence may be brought to this point-, both MePherran and Morgan have interpreted the elenchus, the Socratic form of question-asking in a nearly monotonous and (as is often pointed out by interlocutors) obnoxious manner, as a sort of ritual. p. 23

(Note 35 to the above is interesting ZYD)

35. Ironically, these exact words describe the opinions of most first-time readers of the Socntic dialogues. (Plato in Context: The Republic and Allegory, by Joseph Spencer, Studia Antiqua, Vol 4 No 1, Winter 2005, p. 23-4, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

Back in the early 1980s I was reading Plato in a public place and a guy came up to me and said that he had started reading Plato himself a while back and said “You know, I think I know less now then I did before”. To which my reply was, “Good, you're making real progress” and then I explained to him what I am about to explain here.

Socrates "Ritual" is that of the lesser or prefatory mysteries and these are rituals of purification or "catharsis" as the Greeks would call have called it, from which which get the medical term “cathartic” and derived meanings, such as a “cathartic experience”, in which clears out a lot of junk and resolves issues. Socrates “cathartic” ritual is designed to clear the mind of false and conflicting opinions, and that is why I categorize some of the dialogues as “cathartic”. What I call the “cathartic” dialogues are those which are usually referred to as the “Socratic” ones, supposedly Plato's devoted portrait of his master doing what Socrates did best, which was ask niggling questions, and yes it is certainly that, but there is also a real purpose to it and that is made clear in the following quote from the Sophist:
 

[230b]
Stranger
So they set themselves to cast out the conceit of cleverness in another way.
Theaetetus
In what way?
Stranger
They question a man about the things about which he thinks he is talking sense when he is talking nonsense; then they easily discover that his opinions are like those of men who wander, and in their discussions they collect those opinions and compare them with one another, and by the comparison they show that they contradict one another about the same things, in relation to the same things and in respect to the same things. But those who see this grow angry with themselves and gentle towards others, and this is the way in which [230c] they are freed from their high and obstinate opinions about themselves. The process of freeing them, moreover, affords the greatest pleasure to the listeners and the most lasting benefit to him who is subjected to it. For just as physicians who care for the body believe that the body cannot get benefit from any food offered to it until all obstructions are removed, so, my boy, those who purge the soul believe that the soul can receive no benefit from any teachings offered to it [230d] until someone by cross-questioning reduces him who is cross-questioned to an attitude of modesty, by removing the opinions that obstruct the teachings, and thus purges him and makes him think that he knows only what he knows, and no more.
Theaetetus
That is surely the best and most reasonable state of mind.
Stranger
For all these reasons, Theaetetus, we must assert that cross-questioning is the greatest and most efficacious of all purifications, and that he who is not cross-questioned, even though he be the Great King, [230e] has not been purified of the greatest taints, and is therefore uneducated and deformed in those things in which he who is to be truly happy ought to be most pure and beautiful. (Perseus Digital Library, Plato Sophist, 230b-d, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

As I said in my old "Intelligble Order of the Dialogues", the Protreptic dialogues attracted the students, but:
 

Once a student was in the academy his schooling could begin, but how did it begin? In the dialogue the Sophist Plato makes this quite clear. One cannot be taught what one already believes one knows, and the worst kind of fool is he who believes that he knows something that he does not! Before one can learn one must unlearn all of the wrong ideas which one has acquired along the way. Thus the new student at the academy was probably subjected to a course of being purified of his ignorance which had been masquerading as knowledge. This process was accomplished by the dialogues which I call Cathartic. They usually have these features in common. Firstly they deal with one of the virtues, such as courage or self-restraint. Secondly they end with no positive conclusion, but rather with the conclusion that we don't know what that virtue is. Thirdly they point to the notion that virtue is knowledge.

This is how I described the dialogues usually considered early and “Socratic” in my classification of the dialogues:
 

Charmides. This dialogue deals with what the Greeks called Sophroysne, which is a concept rather poorly rendered by "self-restraint", but as the inclusion of the word-root "Soph" should tell you it did not mean simple inhibition but a restraint guided by wisdom and thus wholly appropriate to the situation.

Laches. This dialogue with the question of courage and answers that it must be more that simple mindless heroism, but exactly what? Socrates doesn't know either.

Euthyphro. This deals with the question of Piety and asks the question is something Pious because the gods love it or do the gods love it because it is pious? What is superior the whim of the gods or the eternal structure of reality?

Theaetetus. Granted then as all of the previous dialogues have intimated that each of the virtues is some kind of knowledge, what is knowledge? And here is the ultimate catharsis for not only does Socrates not know what knowledge is, but neither do you!

Cratylus. Here Plato continues to undermine the common notions of knowledge. For this is a long treatise on etymology and shows that a given datum, like a word, can be interpreted in many ways depending on how it is constructed, but unless we know of what it is made in the first place we cannot know what they mean when put together. For example we can say that "philosophy" is the love of wisdom, but what is "love" and what is "wisdom"?

Lysis. Here is the odd man out from these dialogues because it deals not so much with virtue, but with the nature of friendship and such questions as do the like or the unlike attract each other? This dialogue is laying a foundation for some of the higher teachings which will reappear in the Phaedrus and the Symposium.

 
You see those "niggling" questions have a point, the point being catharsis, a clearing out of the mind and a purging of the "conceit of knowing", which will allow real study to begin.

 

Aside from simply being very busy, another delay has been deciding exactly what to do about Innersound and his  posts, I think I have more or less decided, but for now I am locking this thread.  I will continue with my exposition as time allows.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

The idea of catharsis introduced in my previous post is why I posted this:

 

 

I have said elsewhere several times that I 'believe' that the most profound and useful form of introspection and self-inquiry is the inventory of beliefs. To take advantage of what Manitou has posted take an inventory of all the things that you do believe and then assume that you are wrong about them. Then take an inventory of everything that you don't believe and then assume that you are wrong about them. Then ask yourself why do I believe this, why don't I believe that.

It's no good saying that 'so and so', whether great mystic, prophet or teacher said it, because then you have to ask why do I believe what they said. You can't say that it is scientific, or 'church' doctrine because then you have to answer why do you believe that science or the 'church' can be considered authoritative. Eventually you come down to the decisions that you have made about what you believe and why you believe it.

Some people try to short circuit this process by saying "I don't believe it, I know it", but then the question is 'Why do you believe that you know it?' and what beliefs do you have about 'knowledge' that allows you to claim it?

I could go on, but I have said enough to get the general point across, however, I anticipate a criticism that such an inquiry is all about words and beliefs and I should get 'out of my head and into my heart and belly.' Since I have recently had reason to mention General Semantics on the Tao Bums and have mentioned it elsewhere in the past, I will quote an interesting story told about its founder Alfred Korzybski:

One day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he interrupted the lesson suddenly in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students on the seats in the front row if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. "Nice biscuit, don't you think," said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words "Dog Cookies." The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to vomit, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. "You see," Korzybski remarked, "I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter. (Wikipedia on Alfred Korzybski: Anecdotes)

We all 'ate' a lot of words growing up and a lot of them are there in our hearts and our bellies and the they determine who we think we are and how we act. Maybe we should get to know what they are.

and similar sentiments elsewhere on the Dao Bums.

Following up on this in posts to come I will go back to what I have posted on congruence previously in this thread:

 

 

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.

and examine the relationship between neurosis and enlightenment as brought up in this thread:

 

Neurosis / Enlightenment...

Is one exclusive to the other? A question that is often bought to mind when studying prominent Occultists, Yogis, etc. more commonly from the ‘outside view’ yet, certainly at times, from the ‘inner view’ as well.

This question was recently bought to light again while I was reading Gerald Suster’s book; ‘Crowley’s Apprentice – The Life and Ideas of Israel Regardie.’. p.90 ;
“If neurosis could co-exist with the highest illumination, then Magic alone wasn’t enough. Psychoanalysis was perhaps an essential preliminary, even a necessary accompaniment. And if, on the other hand, neurosis and illumination were mutually exclusive, what on earth was one to make of Aleister Crowley?”

I have always thought “illumination” and its cognate, "elightenment", to be, and yes a pun of sorts is intended, "opaque metaphors", poorly defined, except in terms of the psychology that Agrippa uses and to which I referred to earlier in this thread here:

 

 

Light also is a quality that partakes much of form, and is a simple act, and a representation of the understanding (Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Volume One, Chapter 49 at the Twilight Grotto Esoteric Archives)

in which “light” is clearly identified as an “image” or “representation” of divine “understanding”, thus anchoring the metaphor, but also putting it in the more profound, and yes Platonic, concept of a "representation".

I have for a long time preferred the metaphor of "awakening", as representing a shift in consciousness, but as also involving Wisdom, which I considered could be more easily defined, which is why as I go along I will comment on this thread:

What is this "wisdom" that they love?

Which has generated more smoke then fire from opinions about "wisdom" and the applicability of Hebrew and Greek terms to it. I hope to shed a little "light" on the matter.

In the process I can start to examine the differences between noesis and dianoia and how dianoia can help us sort out opinions, helping us to differentiate "good" opinion from "bad"opinion and help to bring out the real issues at the base of "differences of opinion", and also to achieve a better state of internal congruence.

I also will examine the reductionism/romanticism cultural divide that is the one of the big problems of modern Western Society and by its influence the world and part of the background dynamic from things like the conflicts between the science and humanities departments in Schools to the relationship of Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy in “Star Trek”.

This thread will remain locked for little while longer.