He does not reject a condition, he rejects pictures — Antony Nickles

He is talking about "a" picture, not picturing or representations in toto.

A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. - Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely that kind of understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links.
The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental significance for us. It characterizes the way we represent things, how we look at matters. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?)

(PI 122)

A surveyable representation, an übersichtlichen Darstellung , (alternatively translated as perspicuous representation), a representative overview is said to be of fundamental importance. For it is from this vantage point that we see connections between things, how they relate to each other.

The fundamental importance of an übersichtlichen Darstellung is something that Wittgenstein will continue to develop. He is no longer concerned with the Tractarian question of the conditions for the possibility of representation, but rather with the ways in which representation, how we picture things, is how we look at them, and can both stand in the way of and lead to new ways of seeing connections.

Seeing things in a "new way" is not changing to another set of glasses (#103), it is remembering our ordinary ways — Antony Nickles

He concludes this passage by saying:

It never occurs to us to take them [the glasses] off.

A new way is not a matter of replacing one pair of glasses with another. The alternative is not limited to our "ordinary ways".

What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a new true theory but a fertile point of view. (CV 18) — Fooloso4

Copernicus and Darwin rejected the ordinary ways.

The picture of "representation" of the world, or what is the case, is what is taken apart in the PI as the product off the requirement for a crystalline purity (to give us the certainty we desire). It is representationalism that creates the idea of objective/subjective (personal "experience"), of fact/value. — Antony Nickles

The ways in which we picture the world is a prominent feature of both the Tractatus and PI. In the later work, however, he rejects the notion that logic is the a priori transcendental condition that makes representation possible.

That there are facts but they do no determine how we see the world is something he did not reject.

You are not allowing a distinction between what he says and the reasons he says it. He says the things about ethics in the Tract because of the requirement he has for us (him) in that work in order to be said to say anything. — Antony Nickles

It is not because of his concept of logic that he says what he does about ethics. It is the result of his relationship to the world, of his experience of what is important and meaningful. He distinguishes between this sense of meaningful and Sinn or meaning as referent.

As he shows in the PI, these criteria (the logical form of a thing) are already there, in our language, which holds our culture, which is the history of all the ways we are in the world. — Antony Nickles

Culture and history are not the whole of what he is getting at. Again, the importance of the "possibility of phenomena" and new ways of seeing things. "Logic as grammar" means that it is an activity. Language changes as a form of life changes.

My father went to Temple. — Jackson

I was much older than the other grad students. Maybe your father's age.

Where? Was it approved? — Jackson

Temple University, 2000. Yes, it was unanimously approved.

The Tractatus uses "transcendental" twice. — Jackson

Yes, as I just pointed out, with regard to ethics and again with regard to logic.

You might benefit by taking a look at that book. — Jackson

I have done considerably more than that. I wrote my dissertation on Wittgenstein. I do not say that in order to claim authority, but rather as a response to the suggestion that I "take a look". I have also posted quite extensively on PI and OC on this forum. Take a look.

There is a great deal of interpretive disagreement, which is what attracted me to do work on him. Although, like most everyone else, I want to be right, I am always open to the possibility that I am mistaken, and consider the opportunity to be shown things I have missed or misunderstood to be a welcome benefit.

Then tell me about Wittgenstein's discussion of the transcendental in the Philosophical Investigations. — Jackson

You are right. There is no discussion of the transcendental in PI. It is, however, fundamental to the Tractatus. But there is still in the later works a concern with possibilities:

… our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena. We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind of statement that we make about phenomena.

The conditions for such possibilities are, however, no longer regarded as a priori.

No. Transcendental means the condition for experience. A Kantian term. Clearly this is not W. meaning. — Jackson

What he says, as quoted, is that ethics/aesthetics is transcendental. It is only once this is acknowledged that we can discuss what it means.

I agree with you that he is using it in Kantian sense of the condition for the possibility of experience. In this case, he is talking about ethical/aesthetic experience.

In addition, it is clear that he also regards them as transcendent:

If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental.
What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental.
It must lie outside the world.
— T 6.41[/]

So too it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics.
Propositions can express nothing that is higher.
— T 6.42

It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words.
Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)
— T 6.421

But this does not mean he rejects ethics and aesthetics:

There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest.
They are what is mystical.
— T 6.522

He also says that logic is transcendental:

Logic is transcendental.
— T 6.13

Propositions can represent the whole of reality, but they cannot represent what they must have in common with reality in order to be able to represent it—logical form.
— T 4.12

Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical (unsinnig) … Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise from our failure to understand the logic of our language.
— T 4.003

By the logic of our language he means a priori logical form. But logical form cannot be represented, there can be no propositions about logic form.

Ethics is just the idea of how we want people to act around each other. Nothing mystical or transcendental about it. — Jackson

That is one way in which the term is used. It is not the way it is used in the Tractatus.

He said that ethics/aesthetics are transcendental.
— Fooloso4

That is not Wittgenstein idea at all, false. — Jackson

Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and æsthetics are one.)
— T 6.421

[Edited to indicate a quote from the Tractatus]

We are not relegated to the obscurity Witt originally put ethics and aesthetics into because of his requirement for statements to have certainty. — Antony Nickles

It was not a matter of certainty, but of propositions having a sense, a meaning; they represent some state of affairs in the world. Ethics/aesthetics do not represent what is the case. Ethics/aesthetics are not a matter of certainty but of personal experience.

He wanted it to be reducible to logic ... — Antony Nickles

No. Just the opposite. He said that ethics/aesthetics are transcendental. They stand outside the relations of things in the world, outside logical relations. That is why the have no sense, why they do not represent some state of affairs. But this does not mean that they do not have meaning in the sense of significance or importance for our lives.

The failing is not morality not being scientific; it is our decision to want it to be because of the fear that we must stand in its place. — Antony Nickles

But in the Tractatus he was arguing against the decision to want it to be a science. He ties it to our lived experience of the world.

But intellectualizing this as a "problem" makes the world seem hidden — Antony Nickles

Only if one assumes there is an objective morality to be uncovered.

The desire (to have moral deliberation reducible, a science) is the same desire Wittgenstein had in the Tractatus — Antony Nickles

The Tractatus attempts to show that it is not reducible to a science.

The point of the PI is to show that there is not one logic ... — Antony Nickles

He equates logic with grammar. And there is not one grammar.

... which is a revocation of the fixed criteria of certainty enforced in the Tractates ... — Antony Nickles

Right. Logic is no longer seen as the transcendent and transcendental scaffolding of language.

... that created the picture of aesthetics and ethics as a mystical part of our world (though the world is not without wonder and mystery). — Antony Nickles

I think he maintains a sense of the mystical, of experiences that we may wish to express, but which language cannot convey. He talks about this in his Lecture on Ethics (1929)

It is exactly the desire for purity that creates the idea that they are outside fact and logic. — Antony Nickles

Although he rejects the idea of a logical underpinning it does not follow that he rejects the experience of the mystical.

Just because we may not come to agreement does not mean there is no rationality, no discussion ... — Antony Nickles

The problem is, we do not possess the facts and logic to bring moral deliberation to a satisfactory conclusion. There is no moral science. Moral deliberation, although rational, is not reducible to facts and logic.

The analogy of conceiving as building is that it exactly is an action ... — Antony Nickles

Yes, but not in this sense:

work on changing your acts rather than somehow altering (or understanding) our perception — Antony Nickles

The point is that perception is not passive, it is active, constructive.

Your quotations from Witt's earlier work amount to the limitations he projected onto our ability to (rationally) discuss or understand morality and aesthetics. But it is exactly this picture that he is questioning and replacing through the work of the Philosophical Investigations. — Antony Nickles

And yet he says very little about morality and aesthetics in his later work. What exactly is he replacing the earlier picture with?

Specifically, it was his requirement for crystalline purity in the Tractatus that stopped him from realizing the regular ways we talk about these subjects, causing him to feel this part of the world was "mystical". — Antony Nickles

The demand for crystalline purity does not extend to the ethical/aesthetic. They are not matters of fact and logic. That there is anything at all he regarded as mystical.

Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again. (CV, 5)

This was written in 1930, after he returned to philosophy.

I take "working on oneself" to be an ethical admonishment--work on changing your acts rather than somehow altering (or understanding) our perception (as phenomenology wishes); that philosophy for Witt is not about seeing in a new way, but, to use this re-framing, realizing what we can expect from interpreting and seeing, say, by finding the limit of what they (and we) can and can not do. — Antony Nickles

I agree that there is an ethical aspect to working on oneself, but how one sees things is a prominent and recurring theme for Wittgenstein. Beginning with his 1914-1916 he connects ethics and aesthetics:

The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis; and the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connexion between art and ethics.

The usual way of looking at things sees objects as it were from the midst of them,the view
sub specie aeternitatis from outside.

In such a way that they have the whole world as background.

Is this it perhaps — in this view the object is seen together with space and time instead of in space and time?

Each thing modifies the whole logical world, the whole of logical space, so to speak.

(The thought forces itself upon one): The thing seen sub specie aeternitatis is the thing seen together with the whole logical space.(NB 83)

And in the Tractatus:

Ethics and aesthetics are one. (6.421)

To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a limited whole.
Feeling the world as a limited whole - it is this that is mystical.

(6.45)

If the ethical view, the view from outside, changes your acts, it is as a result of how one looks at the world rather than how one acts within it.

we do not "conceive things" — Antony Nickles

His analogy with architecture should not be ignored. Throughout his writings we also see the recurring use of terms related to building and construction. The German term 'Auffassung' translated in the quote as "interpretation" means conception. In the revised edition (Blackwell, 1998) it is translated 'conception'.

The connection between perception and conception is also discussed in “seeing as”. He has a great deal to say about the conceptual involvement with perception. The way we see things involves the framework we see them in as well as the context we put them in as part of a larger picture. This picture is to a large extent culturally inherited but not immutable.


Although not what is at issue in 126:

For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us.

with regard to interpretation of Wittgenstein and something hidden:

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on
it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it,
unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside!

The honorable thing to do is to put a lock on the door which will be noticed only
by those who can open it, not by the rest. (CV 7-8)

… our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena. We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind of statement that we make about phenomena.
...
Our investigation is therefore a grammatical one. Such an investigation sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. (Philosophical Investigations, 90)

By the possibilities of phenomena he means the various ways in which we can see things. This is connected to what we say about things, that is, the way we conceive things. This includes our misunderstandings, which limit the ways in which we can see things. They must be cleared away.

Such clearing is preparation for what may grow:

I believe that my originality (if that is the right word) is an originality belonging to the soil rather than to the seed. … Sow a seed in my soil and it will grow differently than it would in any other soil. (CV, 36)

He gives an interesting example of possibilities of phenomena:

What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a new true theory but a fertile point of view. (CV 18)

His concern is not novelty for the sake of novelty but with what a new way of viewing things can allow us to see.

The clear lines of distinction in the Tractatus between seeing and saying no longer holds. They are not separate but interrelated:

A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view of the use of our words.—Our grammar is lacking in this sort of perspicuity. A perspicuous representation produces just that understanding which consists in 'seeing connexions'. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate cases.
The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental significance for us. It earmarks the form of account we give, the way we look at things. (Is this a 'Weltanschauung'?) (PI 122)

It is not simply a matter of what is seen objectively, but of the person looking:

Working in philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more a working on oneself. On one's interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) (Culture and Value, 16)

His concern, however, is not with phenomenology as a method or discipline:

53. There is no such thing as phenomenology, but there are indeed phenomenological problems.
(Remarks on Colour)

The additional statements from 126 should be examined:

For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us.

One might also give the name "philosophy" to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

The first refers to what he calls the "subliming of logic", that is, to certain assumptions about language, the acceptance of which makes it seem as though an explanation for the connection between thought and reality is required.

101. We want to say that there can't be any vagueness in logic. The idea now absorbs us, that the ideal 'must' be found in reality. Meanwhile we do not as yet see how it occurs there, nor do we understand the nature of this "must". We think it must be in reality: for we think we already see it there.

102. The strict and clear rules of the logical structure of propositions appear to us as something in the background -- hidden in the medium of the understanding. I already see them (even though through a medium): for I understand the propositional sign, I use it to say something.

103. The ideal, as we think of it, is unshakable. You can never get outside it; you must always turn back. There is no outside; outside you cannot breathe. -- Where does this idea come from? It is like a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at. It never occurs to us to take them off.

107.The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.) The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty. -- We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!

108. We see that what we call "sentence" and "language" has not the formal unity that I imagined, but is the family of structures more or less related to one another. -- But what becomes of logic now? Its rigor seems to be giving way here. -- But in that case doesn't logic altogether disappear? -- For how can it lose its rigor? Of course not by our bargaining any of its rigor out of it. -- The preconceived idea of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole examination around. (One might say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but about the fixed point of our real need.)

The second, philosophy as what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions, is a matter of taking the glasses off, of dispelling the preconceived idea of the crystalline purity of logic.

119. The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language. These bumps make us see the value of the discovery.

120. When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.) I must speak the language of every day. Is this language somehow too coarse and material for what we want to say? Then how is another one to be constructed?—And how strange that we should be able to do anything at all with the one we have!

In giving explanations I already have to use language full-blown (not some sort of preparatory, provisional one); this by itself shews that I can adduce only exterior facts about language.

Yes, but then how can these explanations satisfy us?—Well, your very questions were framed in this language; they had to be expressed in this language, if there was anything to ask!

And your scruples are misunderstandings.

Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words.

You say: the point isn't the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning. The
money, and the cow that you can buy with it. (But contrast: money, and its use.)

Some of the limitations of philosophy are the result of questionable assumptions about what philosophy is and does. There is more to philosophy than rational discourse. The imagination was of central importance to Plato and Wittgenstein as well.

What we see is not simply a matter of passive receptivity. The making of images, both mental and visual, is a way of seeing. The images on the wall of Plato's cave and Wittgenstein's "seeing as" or conceptual seeing, are a combination of something given and something imagined.

The play of images in Plato is more than it seems to be. Like two mirrors facing each other there is an endless reflection of reflections within which the reader plays a part. The use of images is one reason why Plato was interested in Geometry. It is also one reason why he often resorts to myths, both those that existed and those he created.

The dichotomy of seeing and saying continued from the beginning to the end of Wittgenstein's writings. The creative expression of language expands upon his earlier understanding of language as propositional, and both what is seen or pictured, including the frame, moves from the transcendent to the more mundane.

A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, fo it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably. (PI 115).

I think I summed up my position vis-а-vis philosophy when I said: Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry. (CV 28)

Do not forget that a poem, although it is composed in the language of information, is not used in the language-game of giving information. (Zettel)

Is this a useful approach ? It seems not to provide us with much. — Tom Storm

As Wittgenstein is using the term 'concept' he does not mean a rational construct, but rather, pictures of how things are. Such concepts do not provide a rational explanation, but rather, present ways of seeing things. Rational or scientific concepts stand in the way.

The expression "It is God's will" is taken to be an acknowledgement that we cannot know why things as they are. To posit a rational God you acts according to reason is to misunderstand this. It is also an acknowledgement that we are not in control.

One could read later W as a potential ally of theism in some way, right? — Tom Storm

In some ways both the earlier and later Wittgenstein are allies of theism, but in a way that is in line with what I pointed to in a previous post about "possibilities of phenomena". What he is doing clearing the ground to open up a way of looking at things. Tractarian silence is just such an opening up. But he is not an ally in the sense of providing arguments to demonstrate the existence of God.

Is there any way of conceptualizing transcendence outside of the tropes of idealism, higher consciousness, contemplative traditions or god/s? — Tom Storm

If by conceptualizing transcendence you mean a rational concept, then this is what Wittgenstein is struggling against. He retains a sense of mystery, wonder, and awe of life.

I wasn't aware that W had shown the way out of theism or matters connected with higher consciousness. Thoughts? Did he not just 'fly over' them? — Tom Storm

I want to address this again in a way that might be clearer. He did not address the question of God as a matter of fact, but rather, conceptually. He did not attempt to confirm or deny the existence of God. His concern is with how the concept of God can play a role in our lives.

He says that the way to solve the problems of life is to change the way you live, but he seems to question man's ability to do this on his own. He calls on faith to bring about this change. Philosophy, it would seem, is incapable of bringing this about:

But here we need something to move you in a new direction - (I.e.this is how I understand it.) Once you have been turned around, you must stay turned around.
Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion. (CV 52)

His attitude is on the one hand pragmatic, but on the other, from his early to his late work there is a desire for transcendence.

To him that overcometh ... — ZzzoneiroCosm

The question is, what is it that is overcome? It is not the self, but rather external forces.

We may regard it as simple-minded and perhaps as a matter of avoidance -"the devil made me do it", but have we gone too far in the other direction by making the self the locus?

I wasn't aware that W had shown the way out of theism or matters connected with higher consciousness. Thoughts? Did he not just 'fly over' them? — Tom Storm

In a passage that has often been overlooked he says:

One might also give the name "philosophy" to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions. (PI 126)

Elsewhere he says:

I am not interested in constructing a building, so much as in having a transparent view of the foundations of possible buildings. (CV 7).

His concern is with "possibilities of phenomena" (PI 90). The possibilities of phenomena are not determined by either the facts of nature or of mind, but by our concepts. Much of Wittgenstein's work was an attempt to free us from the ways of representing things that hold us captive. This is an attempt to understand the grounds on which an alternative to science can be established.

... the words you utter or what you think as you utter them are not what matters, so much as the difference they make at various points in your life. (CV 85)

What is important about the concept of God, what God means, is a matter of how the concept is used. How the concept is used means not only how it is used within the context of one's life but also how the concept of God can be used to change one's life.

The paradox that Wittgenstein could not resolve is that in order to be saved one needs the certainty of faith, but such faith comes about only through redemption. To be saved requires that one must first be saved.

What problems do you see Wittgenstein dissolving? — Jackson

He regards philosophical problems to arise from linguistic confusion. By clearing up the language he shows the way out of the fly-bottle.

Our investigation is a grammatical one. Such an investigation sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. Misunderstandings concerning the use of words, caused, among other things, by certain analogies between the forms of expression in different regions of language. (Philosophical Investigations, 90).

You might say that a strictly psychological interpretation requires the elision of constrictive theological and mythological content. — ZzzoneiroCosm

When the content is theological and mythological an interpretation that ignores them is empty.

Your view that my interpretation is a deformation is clear to me. You just said it. — ZzzoneiroCosm

That is not my view. My view of what is at issue is not limited to the problems I see in your interpretation.

If you like: I've rewritten John's Revelation. That doesn't trouble me. — ZzzoneiroCosm

That does not trouble me either. As long as there is clarity regarding what is going on.

Open up chapters one and two of the KJV and ctrl-F the word overcome. His chorus of overcomes I take to be a call to self-overcoming. — ZzzoneiroCosm

These statements are not about self-overcoming. I found four mentions of overcoming in Chapter 2.The first (2:7)refers to the Nicolaitans (2:6), who were a revel Christian sect. The second (2:11) refers to (2:11) the devil (2:10). The third (2:17) also refers to the Nicolaitans (2:15). The last (2:26) Satan (2:24).

To read it as a metaphor is to render it impotent.
— Fooloso4

This is a claim with no factual basis.

A metaphor about the Apocalypse does not have the same psychological consequences believing what is foretold. People do not fear a metaphor or change their life because of something that they do not believe will actually happen.

make explicit – problematize – this horizon. — 180 Proof

Many regard problematizing as the problem with philosophy. As if, if they were of any worth they would solve problems. A case could be made that this is what Modern Philosophy set out to do.

Instead of solving problems Wittgenstein attempts to dissolve them. I will leave open for the moment the extent to which he succeeded.

Your view is fine, but it doesn't interest me. — ZzzoneiroCosm

It is clear that you have no idea what my view is.

I would ask the same question with regard to any text. It is not a matter of theology, but of how you read a text and the relationship between them. Does the text get lost when reading becomes a form of writing?

So,rorschach test?

If your preoccupations are theological ... — ZzzoneiroCosm

.

No, my interest is hermeneutical. Why start a thread on an influential theological text only to deform it and try to make it into something it is not?

You don't have to be faithful to a poem. You can dissect it and twist it until it's something useful to you. — ZzzoneiroCosm

By dissecting and twisting you end of with something that no longer resembles the thing you started with.

A "psychological reading" is ambiguous. Your reading seems to reflect more on you and your preoccupations then on John's experience or the psychological impact of his vision on centuries of readers.

This is not a theology thread. — ZzzoneiroCosm

You might want to avoid a theological discussion, but I do not see how the text can be read that way without ignoring what is actually said:

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. (1:5-6)

First is the claim of the lack of agency. It is not what we do or have done, but what has been done for us. Next is what we are to do, which is, to serve God.

Chapters 1-3: A plea for self-overcoming, self-transcendence — ZzzoneiroCosm

What evidence of this do you see? I see a good deal about repentance, but nothing about self-transcendence. To the contrary:

And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

“Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. (1:18-19)

Rather than self-overcoming and self-transcendence it appears to be about obedience and being saved in what is and will happen. The scope here is not the individual but the world.

submits to a psychological reading — ZzzoneiroCosm

What does this mean other than to impose an interpretation on the text that is not faithful to it?

The destruction of the earth read as metaphor — ZzzoneiroCosm

To read it as a metaphor is to render it impotent. One might still find it inspiring, but the force and magnitude of what is claimed is lost.

The limits of philosophy -
What is it that philosophy can and cannot do?

Argument -
What is the goal of argumentation?

I agree with Nietzsche regarding the importance of taste for one's philosophy.
— Fooloso4

I do not understand what you mean. — Jackson

Your preference for Aristotle based in part on your finding Plato too romantic I take to be a matter of taste.

Ok, but not my point. — Jackson

Arrogance is not simply a psychological problem, it is a philosophical problem, it has an influence on our thinking.

In the myth of the cave, Plato is describing silhouettes, not images. — Jackson

The cave is said to be "an image of our nature in its education and want of education". (514a)

The shadows on the cave wall are referred to as images. The shadows on the cave wall are also referred to as images. An image is a likeness. We can often tell what a thing is by seeing its shadow because the shadow is a likeness. The cave dwellers mistake these shadow images for the things they are images of. Understandably because all they have ever seen is images or likenesses of things, not the things themselves.

The "image makers" include those who shape public opinion. Homer', for example, gives us images of those who are brave, just, and noble. These images are, for many taken to be what it means to be brave, just, and noble. The poets also gave them their images of the gods, and again, they are not taken to be images but who and what the gods are.

No, words are not images. — Jackson

They are not visual images although something like the image of the cave continues to lead us to create our own images.

Arrogance. A psychological problem. — Jackson

For both Plato and Aristotle psychology or matters of character are not separate from but rather a part of philosophy.

I am more Aristotelian. Plato is too romantic and false for me. — Jackson

I agree with Nietzsche regarding the importance of taste for one's philosophy.

And as an artist, Plato's bashing of images is offensive. — Jackson

This must be considered in light of his pervasive use of images.

Socrates acted in accordance with what seemed to him to be just, but was willing to change his mind given an argument he found persuasive or evidence that he was wrong.
— Fooloso4

That seems pretty normal. — Jackson

But not of one thinks they already know what is and is not just.

Is it not also knowing the kinds of questions and matters you are unable to answer or resolve easily for yourself or others? — Tom Storm

I think so. When I was teaching, many students, like Socrates interlocutors,became confused and were aware of their ignorance. But, of course, they were not thereby made as wise as Socrates.

False modesty. I know what I know and act on it. — Jackson

Well, it is not false modesty in so far as he attributes ignorance to all of us.

Have you ever changed your mind about anything you regard as just or unjust?

There are many who make the same claim about knowing and acting who claim to know and act on things contrary to you.

Socrates acted in accordance with what seemed to him to be just, but was willing to change his mind given an argument he found persuasive or evidence that he was wrong.

I don't find that inspiring. — Jackson

Plato took the problem of inspiration very seriously. Countless people have been drawn to philosophy through Plato's myth of transcendence. Only it would be far less convincing if it were presented as a myth instead of something closer to an initiation into mystical knowledge. That it is a myth is something that many reject. They see it either as a wrong theory or the truth itself.

My criticism of Plato is that he reduces the universe to knowledge claims. That the universe itself is a form of knoweldge. — Jackson

I do not think he reduces the world to knowledge claims, but rather, he gives us reason to be skeptical of such claims. The problem is what he calls in the Phaedo, misologic, a hatred of reasoned argument, a form of nihilism. It is to guard against this that he tells stories of transcendent knowledge.But for those who look more closely, he also points to the inadequacy of the Forms.

I have discussed this

Here

and

Here

and elsewhere, including my commentaries on Phaedo

and Euthyphro which is also germane to the problem justice and acting on assumed knowledge.

I don't find that inspiring. — Jackson

Which do you think is preferable, to think you know what you do not know or to know you are ignorant?

How does one experience the forms? — Jackson

You don't.

I can know particular things about justice, but how does one experience the form of justice? — Jackson

Hence Socrates profession of ignorance,

Nirvana fallacy? — Agent Smith

I'm not sure I know what you mean. Despite the mythology of transcendence in the Republic, the Phaedo, and elsewhere, I think Socratic philosophy is grounded in the world of everyday experience.

If we're uncertain about something do we need to confirm this uncertainty, or 'hold it to be true', to ourselves? — praxis

What does it mean to confirm one's uncertainty? Confirm that you are uncertain? Attempt to eliminate the uncertainty? There are many things about which I am uncertain for which the uncertainty cannot be eliminated. Some of those things seem to be more likely to be true than others.

The expression of belief is nothing more than a sign of solidarity with fellow "believers" ... — praxis

This may be true with regard to some beliefs for some people but not others. There are beliefs that are matters of opinion. There are varying degrees with which one may hold those opinions.

... and a shared uncertainty is a leash, allowing yourself to be led like a dog. — praxis

Again, this may be true with regard to some beliefs for some people but not others. Without greater specificity this discussion becomes rudderless.

As per the Oracle of Delphi and Socrates, the quiddity of wisdom is awareness of (one's own) ignorance. — Agent Smith

I think there is more to Socratic ignorance than simply knowing or acknowledging that you are ignorant. The examined life is an inquiry into the question of how best to live in the face of ignorance of what is best.

First, you say that believing expresses uncertainty and knowing expresses certainty, but then say that believing can express certainty. — praxis

The latter is the result of the failure to make the distiction of the former.

There is also the fact that what we know can turn out to be wrong, and in those cases are we actually only believing when we think that we're knowing? — praxis

Right, but as you say, in such cases we only believe that we think we know. The distinction is maintained.