the sophists were those who taught the young men how to be wise but they charged for their services. — universeness

Generally, what the sophists taught was how to win arguments, how to persuade others to do what is to your advantage. For some this is what it means to be wise. Socrates attempted to persuade them otherwise.

A good point about the long-game, but are we sure about the selfless benefactor? — Garrett Travers

There is a difference between the way the philosopher was portrayed and what was thinly veiled. The philosopher, despite the portrayal was not a selfless benefactor. It was a guide taken on to mask the danger philosophy posed to conservative society.

Virtue means excellence. In its highest form, the realization of the best humans are capable of. But this is something that can only be attained by a few. A "virtuous society" is problematic to say the least.

But, isn't it also mentioned among the comrades that the philosopher is the only one who can even be trusted to rule? Which thereby creates his obligation. What do you think on that? — Garrett Travers

The argument in the Republic, if I remember it correctly, is that their obligation to the city is based on their being raised and educated by the city, that the city makes possible their way of life. It does not take much to see how weak this argument is.

The sophists were a diverse group. The term came to have a negative connotation but it was not always used that way. On the other hand, the term 'philosopher' was sometimes used in a derogatory sense. They were no always held in high regard. In Aristophanes' Clouds Socrates is depicted as a sophist. When Plato criticizes the sophist I take the difference to be a matter of intention. The sophist's intention is to persuade, to "make the weaker argument stronger", without regard to the truth.

Socrates not charging money speaks to the issue of benefit. He did not teach in order to benefit himself, and did not refuse to teach those who could not pay. He also did not refuse to take money from his followers.

Isn’t the hinge proposition the condition of possibility for determinations of truth and falsity? — Joshs

If they are it is not in the Kantian transcendental sense.

That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some
propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.

(OC 341)

That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in
deed not doubted.

(OC 342)

If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put.

(OC 343).

as a profession. — Alkis Piskas

Did Socrates pursue philosophy as a profession?

Is a sophist a philosopher?

Thus, a strong state structure with a bit of Thrasymachus' inclincation toward strength is the only thing that can guarantee that the philosopher demographic can possibly expect to live free. — Garrett Travers

I think Plato's political philosophy played the long game. Rather than enter the political arena he shaped it from the outside, by asking fundamental questions about political life. By political life I do not mean politics in the narrow sense, but rather, life in the polis. In the Republic Plato does not simply deny that the philosopher acts out of self-interest, but that it is against the interest and benefit of the philosopher to rule. The philosopher is portrayed as selfless benefactor.

Justice is defined as minding your own business. This is highly ironic. On the one hand, the business of the philosopher king is the business of the city. On the other, everyone else is to mind their own business and not meddle with philosophy or philosophers. The philosopher is compelled to rule, but it is only by ruling that she is free to pursue philosophy. The philosopher is not simply the selfless benefactor she appears to be.

There is a double sense in which Socrates teaches Thrasymachus to be a better sophist. In one sense it means to improve his powers of persuasion by appearing to be something he is not, by hiding is true motivation, by being less honest. In another sense, he becomes a better sophist if he no longer disregards the benefit of his students and will teach them to take the benefit of others into consideration.

I think what Wittgenstein demonstrates, is that the idea of hinge propositions is fundamentally mistaken. — Metaphysician Undercover

What you have demonstrated is that your idea of hinge propositions is fundamentally mistaken. When he says:

The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing.

(OC 166)

it does not follow that hinge propositions are mistaken, but that:

This axis is not fixed in the sense that anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility.

(OC 152)

A key passage in OC is a quote from Goethe's Faust:

In the beginning was the deed.

(OC 402)

This is expanded upon:

But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or
unjustified; as it were, as something animal.

(OC 359)

I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but
not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state. Any logic good enough for a primitive means of
communication needs no apology from us. Language did not emerge from some kind of
ratiocination.

(OC 475)

Language games are an extension of man's acting in the world. Primitive hinges are pre-linguistic. They are not language games, they are an essential part of the form of life in which language games come to play a part. It is not that they cannot be doubted, it is simply that they are not.

A mistake that is frequently made is to treat hinges as if they are all the same. There are propositional hinges and pre-linguistic hinges. Empirical hinges and mathematical hinges.

I think it is also a mistake to think that hinges can be neither true nor false. We do not generally question whether they are true or false. If we did they would not function as hinges, but it is possible to be wrong. We do not ordinarily question the ground beneath our feet, we simply stand and walk, but what is ordinary is not what is beyond being true or false.

Opposing people may empower them. But what is the alternative? Silence? — Paine

I don't know. We see it on the national stage and we see it here on this forum. We cannot eliminate sophists, zealots, and those who are convinced that they are in possession of the Truth and must endlessly promote and defend it. All make use of reason and evidence, but abandon them when they run counter to their own ends.

The entire dialogue centers upon trying to disprove Thrasymachus's assertion that justice is only the preferences of the powerful. — Paine

There are some interesting twists here. I will mention one. Thrasymachus is a sophist. His motivation is to recruit students. His potential students may come to question the extent to which he might benefit them if one's central motivation is to benefit yourself, which would include him. It is in his interest to moderate his claim, that it is of greater benefit to align his preferences with those of others, or, at least, to appear to do so. Socrates teaches him to be a better sophist.

The question of whether Thrasymachus will benefit or harm his students, is an echo of the accusation against Socrates' corrupting the youth of Athens.

You make a good point regarding inheritance. Inheritance is of central concern to the aristocracy. A polis in which there is neither the unchecked accumulation of wealth or its inheritance is anathema. If their sons accepted this principle of justice they would see it as a corruption.

I suggest that Wittgenstein's use of the term 'hinge' is related to his interest in mechanics and architecture.That is to say, we should keep in mind the function of a hinge.

I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the sense that anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility.

(OC 152)

Lest the analogy be misunderstood:

And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house

(OC 248)

And:

Here once more there is needed a step like the one taken in relativity theory.

(OC 305)

There is no absolute fixed point around which things revolve:

It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were
hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid; and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became fluid.

The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I
distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself;
though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.

But if someone were to say "So logic too is an empirical science" he would be wrong. Yet this is
right: the same proposition may get treated at one time as something to test by experience, at
another as a rule of testing.

And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an
imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or deposited.

(OC 96-99)

That such things are historically contingent is nicely, although inadvertently, illustrated here:

But is there then no objective truth? Isn't it true, or false, that someone has been on the
moon?" If we are thinking within our system, then it is certain that no one has ever been on the
moon. Not merely is nothing of the sort ever seriously reported to us by reasonable people, but our whole system of physics forbids us to believe it.

(OC 108)

Academic David Bentley Hart (who identifies as Eastern Orthodox) argues they are not Christian so much as new cults of reward and punishment. — Tom Storm

Disputes over who is and is not a Christian are as old as Christianity itself. We can go back even further to the faction between Paul and Jesus' disciples.

The early followers of Jesus were diverse, and guided by inspiration - in indwelling of spirit. The Church Fathers tried to put an end to that in their attempt to establish a unified catholic church with a single agreed upon, official message.

Hart's own identification as Eastern Orthodox is indicative of the disputes over who the true Christians are.

In Socratic fashion I will let this stand, at least for now, as a riddle to be worked out by those interested in reading and understanding Plato.

We should not overlook the significance of the fact that Plato did not write a dialogue called the Philosopher. Both the sophist and the statesman are said to resemble the philosopher, but while we have the dialogues Sophist and Statesman, which form a trilogy with Theaetetus, where is the philosopher to be found?

Nietzsche says that the "real philosophers are commanders and law-givers." (Beyond Good and Evil, "We Scholars")

Can you provide historical examples of the progression/regression of one stage to each of the others?

It is one thing to identify a regime as an oligarchy or democracy or tyranny, but quite another to identify the actual historical movement from one to the each of the others.

I don't think you can achieve the second clause of this sentence, without first assessing what, if anything, is true regarding the first. Which is what I was hoping to do. — Garrett Travers

I forgot to address this in my last post. The claim that what is most valued in each regime leads to its eventual downfall can be evaluated independently of an assessment of the historical accuracy of Plato's description of the movement of one regime to another, and, the question of whether regimes are "pure or mixed".

The problem is not simply that the philosopher king does not exist, but that the philosopher as characterized in the Republic does not exist. Unlike Socrates, who tells the story, they possess divine wisdom. In the Apology Socrates claims that no one is wiser than him, and he is wiser than others because he knows he is ignorant. The philosophers in the Republic is a creation of Plato's philosophical poetry. They, unlike the philosopher in the Symposium, do not desire wisdom, they possess it.

Yes, this is quite clear. However, the reason I published was to discuss the relevance of such a prognostication listed above, not necessarily to discuss the "Just City," or lackthereof, itself. — Garrett Travers

Does it make sense to regard this as the:

procession of tyranny by describing each stage, or "unjust regime, — Garrett Travers

And:

The first deviant regime from just kingship or aristocracy — Garrett Travers

If there is no just city from which they follow as deviancies?

Theology has created a god based on the attempt to guard against any reasonable objection. Vanity of vanities.

The just city was a regime that never was and never will be. It is a city in speech, purportedly intended to see justice in the soul writ large. Very few both then and now would consider the regime of the Republic just. In some important respects it is closer to tyranny than to the other regimes described.

Rather than regarding this as an accurate description of the development of historical and present regimes, it useful to consider how what is most valued in each leads to its eventual downfall.

If we are to understand Aristotle we should first read Aristotle. In my opinion, Russell's History has had a detrimental influence of philosophy. Russell's influence, ironically, is in this regard parallel to Aristotle's. All too often it is his questionable opinion rather than the source that is considered.

Descartes describes his provisional moral code in the Discourse.

So what is one to make of the moral character of folk who hold someone who tortures folk unjustly in the highest esteem? — Banno

That someone's moral character can be judged on this basis is questionable. It is evident that not all Christians, or more generally, all who worship a monotheistic God do not all have the same moral character.

But the assumption that the Bible represents a single, unchanging, universal God is simply wrong. We cannot begin in the beginning. The stories in the Bible are not ex nihilo. They were told and retold in various ways, by various authors from various cultures with various beliefs and values. They are more representative of those authors than of some single entity that informs their stories.

In addition there is a history of interpretation, often quite contentious.

I take this to be the crux of the matter:

Classical interpretations having vanished, the notions of body, material, physical are hardly more than honorific designations for what is more or less understood at some particular moment in time, with flexible boundaries and no guarantee that there will not be radical revisions ahead, even at its core.

We can speculate and argue about such things as dualism, the mind/body problem, and the "hard problem", but all such theorizing is based on shifting conceptual grounds.

I'm concerned about the issue of finding a teaching job after studying enough philosophy. I hear it's difficult nowadays. Why is this so? — Shawn

There are far more PhDs awarded each year than there are positions available. In addition, the practice of hiring adjuncts (aka academic migrant workers) has significantly increased. Adjuncts are paid a small amount per course, have no benefits, and no assurance that their contract will be renewed. Someone teaching the equivalent of a full-time course load will not earn enough to live above the poverty level.

According to the American Philosophical Association there is a 29% chance that a student entering a doctoral program in philosophy will obtain a permanent, full time position. (https://www.apaonline.org/members/group_content_view.asp?group=110435&id=918649)

To follow-up:

Rather than see it as a contradiction, I think it felicitous to view each of the dialogues as presenting a part of a story of the whole that cannot be completed. The hypothesis of Forms (which is not, contrary to the typical textbook version, a doctrine of Forms, addresses certain problems while leaving others to be examined elsewhere.

so, if I get it, the main point is that because the particulars and the universals are an indeterminate dyad, the two cannot exist independently from each other, which contradicts Plato's doctrine of Forms ? — Hello Human

Yes, but it is not just the dyad particular and universal.

I don't really understand what is an "indeterminate dyad". — Hello Human

A dyad is a pair of opposites. As Jacob Klein puts it:

... each element of an indeterminate dyad is one, but both are two.

Two in a double sense. Both one and one, and in their "twoness" each belongs together with its other.

It is this otherness that makes the dyads indeterminate, that is, not fixed or fully determined.

However, speaking particularly about degrees in philosophy, in what aspects has philosophy become harder since the ancients? — Shawn

In general it has become more narrow and specialized. This can come at the cost of a loss of depth and scope, and so, a failure to understand not only the ancients, but can act as blinders preventing you from seeing the bigger picture, questions, and problems.

I like Arthur Koestler's definition: "the systematic abuse of a terminology specially invented for that purpose."

Much depends on the department's program and who you have the fortune or misfortune to study with. Some departments are more pluralistic than others, giving you more opportunity to find a match with your interests.

What are your thoughts about where to branch out once invested in philosophy as a degree? — Shawn

To what end? A teaching job? The outlook is bleak.The pursuit of knowledge? Then let your interests lead you to where they take you.

Could someone please explain the OP to me ? I can't manage to understand what it says for the most part. — Hello Human

I wrote the the OP. If you have questions, I will try to answer, but by giving an explanation I might simply be repeating myself and not addressing what it is you are having difficulty with.

It would be brave indeed to claim that any use is determinate. — Banno

To determine whether or not a word is "doing something" in a particular game is not to claim a determinate use of the word.

It seems weird to refer to language-games without reference to correctness, and it seems self-sealing. — Sam26

Language-games are more or less open-ended. The meaning of words can change. Whether or not a word is being used correctly is determined from within the game itself. This is not to say there is no correct or incorrect usage, but that correctness is a function of the game.

I can always say someone else's language-game isn't a language-game, because the word is not doing anything. — Sam26

Whether or not a word is doing something is determined from within the game itself.

By analogy, if you’re not using your words in accord with the rules of the language-game, then you’re not doing anything with your words – your words lack meaning. — Sam26

If I say: "bad means good", is that in accord with or contrary to the rules of the language game? That depends on the language game is being played. A musician might understand what it means if someone says "that guy's a bad mofo", but someone unfamiliar with the language game might well think it means something very different.

Is that a proper or improper use of the word 'bad'? Someone who is "hip" will understand, but someone who is not might be confused by what a part of the body has to do with any of this. Dig?

It is often assumed that Plato presents a dualist account consisting of Forms and sensible things, with Forms being the eternal truth and sensible things their imperfect image. It is this account that Plato himself calls into question.

In the Phaedo Socrates calls the hypothesis of Forms “safe and ignorant” (105c). In addition to the Forms, he later recognizes the necessity of admitting physical causes such as fire and fever (105c).

In what he calls his “second sailing” he investigates the “truth of beings” by means of accounts. The Forms are said to be hypothetical and the beings are not the Forms but the sensible things, to be navigated by means of the hypothetical Forms (99d-100a).

As to the causal relationship between Forms and sensible things, he says:

I simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful. (100e)

Plato is well aware of what is known as the participation problem, but offers no solution to it. The precise nature of the relationship is not something he is able to articulate. If the relationship between Forms and things remains in question then the hypothesis of Forms remains questionable.
In the Philebus Plato introduces what Aristotle refers to as the indeterminate dyad, the limited (peras) and unlimited (apieron). Contrary to the fixed, unchanging nature of the Forms, indeterminacy is an ineliminable element of Plato’s metaphysics.

As Jacob Klein puts it:

each element of an indeterminate dyad is one, but both are two.

They are not simply two because there is one and one, but because each is together with its other, thus both are two in a double sense

Each element of the dyad stands together with and apart from the other. There is not one without the other.
The Forms are each said to be one, but the Forms and things of that Form are an indeterminate dyad, one and indeterminate many.

Consequently, even if knowledge of the Forms is possible it cannot give us knowledge of the sensible world.

When I was teaching an introductory level course in philosophy it was evident that many of the students were not reading the texts at all, or were reading without sufficient attention, or in some cases without sufficient skill.

One semester I decided to depart from my usual approach of reading a few select primary texts and taught a section without any books. Students were required to identify some issue or problem of philosophical importance, present it to the class, and defend their position.

Many were of the assumption that philosophy is simply a matter of having an opinion, that one's "philosophy" is one's opinion. In Socratic fashion, I moved the discussion from stating to defending a particular opinion, to an inquiry into the unstated premises and assumptions that extended beyond the specifics of the topic to more general assumptions about opinions and truth.

Out of a class of thirty, twenty declared philosophy as their major. The truth is, it was not an unqualified success and I did not repeat it. I think there is something to be learned from the philosophers that was missing. I don't know if anyone went on to study philosophy due to this approach or would have gone on to study philosophy based on a more traditional approach. It may be that this is not even a good measure by which to gauge success.

In my opinion, knowing that this philosopher said one thing and another something else is of limited importance. What is important is knowing how to think along with and evaluate what is said. But by doing the former one may increase her ability to do the latter. That others have thought about these things, and often with more insight than we have is not a resource that should be ignored.

To our great fortune, we have online search engines and easy access to professional explorations with bibliographies. With the aid of these, even we can take a stab at some of Plato's deepest thought. — magritte

I started doing this long before online search engines. Most of the books on my shelf are not available online. Although an online search is a valuable source, it can give an illusion of knowledge. The same can be true of books and teachers too though. Given the plurality and diversity of interpretation one must still determine which views seem most insightful. In the Phaedrus he gives us a guide as to how to read his works. Like a living animal, each part is to be understood as it functions in the living whole.

The key to Plato's metaphysics is the Line. — magritte

As important as the divided line is, it is not the whole of Plato's metaphysics. It is part of political dialogue, both in the public sense and with regard to the politics of the soul. Socrates acts as a guardian of the truth, or, more precisely, against nihilism. But as he acknowledged, he does not know the truth of the Forms. He creates an image of the philosopher that is contrary to the lover of wisdom. The philosopher in the Republic is someone who possesses the true. The lowest level of the divided line is not transcended or abandoned. It is our abode, the city, the cave.

I do not agree that the Line is the key. It is a key element but it fails to present the indeterminate whole.

But if we lined all three up then Simmias would be both great and small at the same time. — magritte

But this in not because the amount of Greatness he has changes, only that amount is greater or smaller than that of someone else. I don't see how this is an example of Plato's insufficient grasp of logical argument.

Forms cannot be deduced from any source nor can they be directly observed which leaves only scientific hypotheses by the way of divine inspiration which happen to be the 'likeliest' and therefore should not be doubted. — magritte

The hypothesis of divine inspiration is not a good reason to accept without doubt the hypothesis of Forms.

'greater than' and 'smaller than' are relative terms then everything and everyone participates in each of Greatness and Smallness to some degree. — magritte

Greater and smaller are relative terms when describing particular things, not the Forms themselves. Simmias is greater than Socrates and smaller than Phaedo, but Greatness itself is not greater or smaller.

What makes such problems especially challenging is that it is wise to assume that Plato's conception of participation to explain particulars and predication is fundamentally sound. — magritte

Plato raises serious doubt about this:

Socrates likens the Forms to originals or paradigms, and things of the world to images or copies. This raises several problems about the relation between Forms and particulars, the methexis problem. Socrates is well aware of the problem and admits that he cannot give an account of how particulars participate in Forms. — Fooloso4

In the Phaedo Socrates also says that the Forms are an hypothesis.

On each occasion I put down as hypothesis whatever account I judge to be mightiest; and whatever seems to me to be consonant with this, I put down as being true ...

And:

I no longer understand or recognize those other sophisticated causes, and if someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright color or shape or any such thing, I ignore these other reasons—for all these confuse me—but I simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful. That, I think, is the safest answer I can give myself or anyone else. (100c-e)

See also my discussion of the city at war in my discussion of Timaeus. The static Forms cannot account for a world that is active, a world in which there is chance and indeterminacy.

Neither the great Sophists nor Plato had sufficient grasp of the logical argumentation they were practicing and teaching. — magritte

Can you give some examples?

... what are your overlays of philosophy? — god must be atheist

What do you mean by overlays? You give an example of one of your own, strict adherence to logic and reason. While I see them as important, I think they are limited. Perhaps that is an adherence of Socratic ignorance.

Because the reason I am joining this conversation is different. I just wanted to find Fooloso4. — god must be atheist

I am still here, but for reasons that may be obvious to you and some others I have decided not to respond to what has transpired in this thread.

... if people argued against his ideas differently; that is, if the arguments were different in their very essence, then would Socrates have developed a different philosophy that would be different from his actual - historical? — god must be atheist

I don't think Socrates argued in order to be argumentative, but his arguments were at times sophistic and rhetorical. The difference between him and the sophists he was critical of was a matter of intention. His concern was to determine what in each case is best. Unless someone persuaded him that his views on a subject should be changed, the difference in his response to different opinions would not represent a different philosophy, but the arguments he used would be different. As a result, what some took to be his philosophy might be, at least to some extent different.