I think the following is an accurate summary:

Yet there is a problem in the interpretation of Strauss’ thought that has been persistently
acknowledged in the literature and that goes to the heart of assessing his work:
determining his enigmatic intentions. He has been seen as an atheist, a deist believer in
natural law, a pious Jew, and an antiquarian. Was he a classicist who thought that fifth century Greek democracy was the highest form of civilization? Or a political thinker whose doctrine of natural right influenced the thinking of the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration? Or a Nietzschean engaged in an elaborate philosophical burlesque? Harry Jaffa, an American political historian, says that Strauss taught him to see that the Declaration of Independence embodied “eternal and eternally applicable truth”; Thomas Pangle, another student of Strauss, tends to see such things as more like conventions. Then there is the European Strauss, who is more concerned with problems like Zionism and the Jewish question, the legitimacy of the modern Enlightenment, the rival claims of
philosophy and revelation, and, most fundamentally, the possibility of restoring the
Socratic practice of philosophy as a way of life. To complicate matters further, there is
some textual grounding for each of these interpretations.
https://www2.grenfell.mun.ca/animus/Articles/Supplementa/Hynes4.pdf

Rather than argue to a set conclusion, Strauss' work is dialogical, dialectical, talmudic. It is the questions and problems of philosophy that are of interest to him. Philosophy for Strauss is not systematic or all encompassing. It does not close off but opens up inquiry in full awareness that philosophical inquiry always falls short of what it hopes for. Human ignorance not only leads to philosophy it guides it. It is both its condition and its problem.

That's an argument ad populum. — Apollodorus

Have you forgotten your own claims?

Regarding the “noble lie” theory, it is just a theory, typically advanced by those who believe in political propaganda like Strauss and his followers. — Apollodorus

As already noted, the phrase “noble lie” seems to be a (deliberate) mistranslation of the Greek original and it clearly distorts Plato’s intention. — Apollodorus

It is not just Strauss and his followers who interpret is as noble lie. Are you to impugn the integrity of five different translators? Even Lee acknowledges not only that it can be understood in this way but that this should be kept in mind.

I can see his point — Wayfarer

Let's be clear about what he is claiming:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/599832

As Valentinus pointed out:

↪Apollodorus
Your account has a frothy fever reminiscent of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. — Valentinus

It also borrows from the example of McCarthyism.

Let's count:

On the one hand I have cited five contemporary translations that say "lie"
On the other Lee who says it is ambiguous and we should keep in mind that it also means lie.

There is nothing here to even argue about.

No he doesn't!

That’s an old edition. — Apollodorus

So which is it? Did he say it or not? Could it be that he said it and did not say it because he said it in an earlier edition?

And anyway, Lee’s translation has “magnificent myth” and this is what really matters. — Apollodorus

What really matters is that I cited four contemporary authors who translate it as lie not myth. What really matters is that even Lee acknowledges that there is an ambiguity and that it can be taken to mean lie should be kept in mind. What really matters is that there is no conspiracy led by Leo Strauss or "University of Chicago operatives" and no evidence of:

... a (deliberate) mistranslation of the Greek original and it clearly distorts Plato’s intention. — Apollodorus

What you say is careless, groundless, reckless, and irresponsible. I won't dignify your many other accusations by even responding.

Here is how the phrase is translated in some recent editions:

C.D.C. Reeve translates "noble lie". Griffith: "grand lie". Waterfield: "noble lie". Sachs: "noble lie".

The Straussian conspiracy is even wider and more pervasive than suspected, having corrupted
the authors of all these translations!

you will find something calling that into question ... or 'it's a poetic image', — Wayfarer

So, not just falsehood and lie, but also "poetic fiction" — Apollodorus

It at least can be observed that Socrates not knowing whether it is true or not is a different matter than misrepresenting something he does know the truth of. — Valentinus

Well, the truth is he does know that he does not know that there is a transcendent realm of truth. I do think that what he says, however, is in service of the search for truth. It is perhaps intentional that some are to mistake the search for something found. They require answers and open ended questions leave them adrift. The Socratic philosopher, however, is led by reason not revelation.

Lee does not say that. — Apollodorus

This is a direct quote from page 114. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.125807/page/n113/mode/2up

Wayfarer is the one who asked Philoso4 if he was saying Forms were a possible lie. — Valentinus

I am saying that as presented, the story of the ascent from the cave to the truth of the Forms can be regarded as a noble lie. It is as if what he says about dialectic in the Republic is no longer just a possibility but an actuality. The Forms are presented not as hypothesis but as what is seen when one leaps free of hypothesis. Here and elsewhere he says he has no such knowledge and yet he gives this image of the Forms as if this is the truth. And indeed to this day there are those who believe it is.

Is not something that is not known to be true but said as if it is the truth and persuades some that it is the truth not a lie?

My copy of Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon has a first edition publication date of 1889.

ψεῦδος is translated as:

a falsehood. untruth, lie

The online version says:

In Pl. ψεῦδος is freq. opp. ἀληθές ... R. 382d.

Now one can play six degrees of separation in a feeble, desperate attempt to discredit Bloom's translation, but Liddell & Scott's lexicon was published before Bloom or his teacher Strauss were even born.

This is what Lee says:

The Greek word PSEUDOS and its corresponding verb meant not only 'fiction' - stories, tales - but also 'lies' -fraud and deceit: and this ambiguity should be borne in mind. (page 114)

He translates the term as 'fiction' but points to the fact that the term also means lies, fraud, and deceit. He does not insist that in this case fiction is correct and lies incorrect, he says rather that the ambiguity of whether Socrates calls it a lie or a fiction should be kept in mind.

In any case it is an untruth told as if it were the truth. If it is just an innocent tale to be told then why is Socrates so hesitant and ashamed to tell it?

In none of the references I have read in the subsequent discussion has the 'noble lie' been said to describe the arguments for the immortality of the soul. — Wayfarer

You are right, what is said in the Meno and Phaedo are not identified as noble lies, but as was also pointed out, you don't tell someone you are trying to persuade that what you are saying is not the truth. As always with Plato, it is important to keep in mind who Socrates is talking to and what the setting is. In both cases, the argument fails and is replaced by myth.

The myth of the metals in the Republic is called a noble lie, but it is not the only one of its kind. Once again:

Could we," I said, "somehow contrive one of those lies that come into being in case of need ...(414b)

Even if Socrates believed in the immortality of the soul, presenting that opinion as the truth is a lie. Following the closing myth in the Phaedo he says:

“No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places …” (114d)

His myths do not reveal the truth, they provide something he thinks it is beneficial for them to believe is true. But what they may believe to be true is not the same as what is true

For every affirmation of the 'immortality of the soul' that is quoted, you will find something calling it into question. For every exploration of the reality of the Forms, you will find something calling that into question. ' — Wayfarer

If the text supports such questioning then Plato gives us reason to question. After all, this is exactly what Socrates says he does.

But I wonder how much of that interpretation is being driven by your own philosophical commitments? — Wayfarer

This is true of all of us. The question is, how well does the text support one interpretation rather than another? This is not to say that there is a final, definitive, interpretation. Any interpretation should be subject to revision in light of what is found in the text.

The below is adapted from another site I visit from time to time, by an independent scholar of Plato. — Wayfarer

Perhaps it is just an oversight that you did not identify John Uebersax. Given his own interpretive commitment I am not surprised you agree.

Do you think the subject called 'metaphysics' has any real reference? — Wayfarer

No, the term is used in a variety of ways to mean different things. I identified the indeterminate dyad as one of Plato's metaphysical principles.

Or is it, as you said in your previous post, simply about the mechanics of speech and thought? — Wayfarer

It is Parmenides in the dialogue, not me. And this is not what he says. It is not about the mechanics of speech and thought.

Not every philosophical argument comprises interpretation of Plato. — Wayfarer

But every argument about Plato necessarily requires an interpretation of Plato. The shadows in the OP refer to the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave.

You claim that metaphysics began with Parmenides and yet you have not said anything about Parmenides. You did, however, refer to Plato's dialogue Parmenides.

You say:

Western philosophy is after all 'footnotes to Plato'. — Wayfarer

but you want to discuss the footnotes and not the source?

You say:

I think you have a determindly secularist reading of Plato. — Wayfarer

but you do not want to examine how well my reading squares with Plato. The problem may not be that my reading is secular but that your assumptions and historical categories do not fit. It may be that what you call metaphysics may not square with the text. To the extent that is true, your historical construct falls apart.

With regard to teleology, the move from what is to the conclusion of what must be is questionable. We might as well say that digestion is teleological. In Plato's Timaeus we find the comical image of a self-enclosed universe feeding on its own excrement.

That organisms on earth developed as they did does not mean that there is some principle, reason, or necessity determining such an outcome. Under other circumstances, life on other planets, it might be possible that capacities other than what we recognize as intelligence developed. It might be that what we regard as intelligence is as primitive to them as digestion is to us. If, as Protagoras said, man is the measure, then perhaps we are a false measure of what lies beyond us.

My argument is that an important part of what has been lost in the transition to modernity is the capacity to understand metaphysics. — Wayfarer

My argument is to pay close attention to Plato's arguments. If one is to understand Plato's metaphysics consideration must be given to the indeterminate dyad, to the limited (peras) and unlimited (apieron).
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/599321

Once again, the affirmation of the existence of Forms is, as Parmenides says in the quoted passage above, for the sake of speech and thought. The Forms are not separate entities that exist in our world. They exist in thought. The Form, as he says in the next paragraph, refers to the particular characteristic of each thing, not something other than those things. The Forms are not supersensible or metaphysical entities. They are hypothetical, literally, that which is posited and stands under what is said and thought.

There is a play on words here because the lie being discussed is about being born from the earth instead of from human parents. The ensuing discussion reveals the purpose of the lie is to diminish the power of inherited positions in society. — Valentinus

This plays out on several levels. The myth that:

they were under the earth within, being fashioned and reared themselves (414d)

is like the myth of the living coming from Hades. It is not only the myth of the earth being their mother, the breeding program too conceals the truth of one's birth. In the myth there is no father, no procreation. I have not worked it out, but perhaps there is some connection with the generations of the regimes.

The lie also conceals the truth that:

... for the most part you'll produce offspring like yourselves. (415a)

The first meaning of γενναῖος, the word translated as "noble", is to be true to one's birth. — Valentinus

Being true to one's birth, also has the sense being true to one's nature in addition to the convention of the parent's social status.

"“It’s not without reason,” he said, “that you were ashamed for so long to tell the lie.” — Valentinus

Perhaps Plato intends to remind us of Achilles' criticizing King Agamemnon for being "wrapped in shamelessness". (Iliad, 1. 149)

“But surely truth is also something that needs to be taken seriously. Because if we were speaking rightly just now, and a lie by its very nature is useless to gods, though useful to humans in the form of medicine, it’s clear that such a thing needs to be granted to doctors and not handled by laymen.” — Translated by Joe Sachs, Republic, 389B

This statement about lies begins with truth. Some lies told by those with the proper art and authority are for the sake of truth. If some lies are beneficial does this mean that the truth of the matter will prove to be harmful?

The statement regarding noble lies from the Bloom translation:

"Could we," I said, "somehow contrive one of those lies that come into being in case of need, of which we were just now speaking, some one noble lie to persuade, in the best case, even the rulers, but if not them, the rest of the city?" (414b-c)

In the first paragraph they deny the existence of the Forms in the world. In the second they confirm the necessity for the existence of Forms. One way to interpret this is to assume that the Forms exist in a transcendent realm, in a higher reality. But they also affirm that we have no knowledge of the Forms, and so cannot know that they exist in a higher reality. The affirmation of the existence of Forms, Parmenides says, is for the sake of speech and thought. It is the particular characteristic of each thing, not something other that the things of this world, that is the cause of the hypothesis of Forms, literally, that which stands under what is said and thought.

In the Philebus Plato raises the problem of the “indeterminate dyad” . The limited (peras) and unlimited (apieron) is, as Aristotle called it, an indeterminate dyad. The two sides of an indeterminate dyad are dependent on each other. There is not one without the other. The two together are one.

The Forms are each said to be one, of which there are many things of that Form. The Forms and things of that Form are an indeterminate dyad, but the Forms are presented as if they stand alone and apart. There is, however, no ‘X’ without things that are ‘x’.

Each Form is one, but Forms are many. How many? In addition, each Form is both self-same and other. There is the Just itself and the Beautiful itself, but the Just is not Beautiful of the Beautiful the Just. The Forms themselves are an indeterminate dyad, same and other.

Becoming is supposed to be understood in light of being, things in light of Forms, the unlimited in light of the limited. Formulated in this way, the problem comes to light. How can the limited encompass the unlimited? When the many are reduced to one what it is that makes them many cannot be taken into account.

The Forms falsely represent the part as the whole. The undetermined as determined. The open-ended nature of philosophical inquiry as if it is completed and closed to further inquiry.

'real causes' — Wayfarer

After calling the hypothesis of Forms simple, naive, and perhaps foolish, and later "safe and ignorant". (105 b), he reintroduces physical causes. (105b-c)

It should be noted how he blurs the distinction between Mind and his mind. First he makes the assumption that Mind would direct everything according to what is best. And so:

it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is best. (97d)

Socrates is never able to show that it is best that things be as they are. He does, however, attempt to live his life according to what seems best. In addition, he replaces the way Mind orders things with the way his mind orders things according to the hypothesis of Forms.

According to Norman Gulley ... — Wayfarer

Plato situates his most sustained criticism of the Forms in the Parmenides, which takes place when Socrates was a young man. In other words, contrary to what Gulley and other advocates of reading the dialogues according to developmental periods, Plato makes the problem of Forms something Socrates was aware of from the beginning.

Even if I knew it as a simple truth, I know nobody would believe it because belief in re-birth is a strong cultural taboo. It can’t even be discussed on this forum. — Wayfarer

And yet, as you know since you have participated in it, there is a thread on just that. But I am not asking you to discuss your beliefs. I am asking you to ask yourself if this is something you know rather than a belief or opinion or just a possibility you don't want to deny.

Is it said that the forms are the subject of such a ‘noble lie’? If they are so central to Plato’s philosophy, that would be unlikely, wouldn’t it? — Wayfarer

It is about the difference between knowledge and opinion. The story about the ascent to the Forms is not about imparting knowledge. It leads the listener to an opinion not to the truth. He uses the term 'noble lie' to emphasize the fact that what is said is not the truth. But of course, telling someone a lie is not effective if you tell them it is a lie.

The intent of a noble lie is not to deceive but to edify. But what is edifying is not the same as what is true. We do not tell our children edifying stories in order to deceive them but to instill values, to set them on a safe path free of the doubts and confusion that they may still have to confront.

Some readers think that what is central to Plato's philosophy is some doctrine or set of doctrines including either a theory of Forms or the disclosure of Forms. What others take to be central is Socratic practice, what we see him doing in the dialogues. Dialogic inquiry not doctrine. The story of Forms is not exempt from the Socratic practice of critical inquiry.

I think 'lie' is a pejorative in the context, as it implies an intention to deceive. — Wayfarer

See the discussion of the noble lie in the Republic and the distinction between it and the "true lie" or "lies in the soul".

If I said I had had a recollection from a previous life, I'm sure it would be dismissed as imaginary. — Wayfarer

And would that be a true lie, a lie in the soul?

I am in general agreement with the first part of this although I do not think it is simply a matter of his thought being unfinished. It is, rather, the nature of the apeiron, the unlimited, which stands with and against the peras, the limited.

As to the second part, it is a testament to Plato's art that he makes the artful appear artless, as if he is in the process of thinking through what in fact has been finely crafted.

As to the the third part, using his analogy, from the harbor the reality of the distant ship at sea would be grasped as a miniature ship not capable of transporting men or goods. Although some may be satisfied with this vision, it is not a satisfactory vision of the truth, but a serious distortion of it.

I wonder what 'looking into beings' might mean? — Wayfarer

He is talking about the things seen with the eyes.

So, not only 'the dead' can answer, if the soul is able to recollect being born and dying. — Wayfarer

Do you know anyone who can answer?

So, why do you think he does that? What might his motivation have been? — Wayfarer

It is part of a salutary exoteric teaching aimed at the development of just souls. A noble lie.

A bit more on Socrates second sailing:

After this, he said, when I had wearied of looking into beings, I thought that I must be careful to avoid the experience of those who watch an eclipse of the sun, for some of them ruin their eyes unless they watch its reflection in water or some such material. A similar thought crossed my mind, and I feared that my soul would be altogether blinded if I looked at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with each of my senses. (99d)

Rather than looking directly at beings he does something analogous to looking at their reflection in water, in other words, he looks at images created in speech. He blurs the distinction between beings as things seen with the eyes and beings as the Forms. In the Republic he says that the Forms are the beings themselves, the originals of which things seen with the eyes are images, and yet here he says that he would be blinded by looking at beings and so he takes refuge in speech and looks at images, at hypotheticals he posits and calls Forms.

In the Republic he presents:

... an image of our nature in its education and want of education ... (514a)

that culminates with the image of the philosopher seeing the Forms themselves. In the Phaedo he presents an autobiographical account of his own education, that culminates with his hypothesis of Forms. But the culmination of his account is not the culmination of his search. Philosophy remains radically incomplete.

It is this indeterminacy that some find intolerable. They desire that things be fixed and determined and knowable. Plato gives them what they want, stories and images they mistake for the truth.

Forms are mathematical objects. — ArisTootelEs

Not according to Plato, or at least not according to anything I have found there. The divided line distinguishes between Forms and mathematical objects.

Aristotle claims that Plato regarded mathematical objects as intermediates, between Forms and sensible things:

Further, apart from both the perceptibles and the Forms are the objects of mathematics, he says, which are intermediate between them, differing from the perceptible ones in being eternal and immovable, and from the Forms in that there are many similar ones, whereas the Form itself in each case is one only. ( Metaphysics 987b14-18)

It was a widespread practice in ancient asceticism. — Wayfarer

Although knowledge of the history and culture are informative we cannot simply assume that a widespread practice is what the puzzling claim about the practice of dying and being dead is about.

I think you have a determindly secularist reading of Plato. Obviously you will see the way I'm inclined to interepret it as due to my own somewhat spiritual preconceptions./quote]

And yet only one of us is attending to what he wrote while the other looks elsewhere. When Socrates says that death might be nothingness that is not a secular reading. It is more the case that those who have "somewhat spiritual preconceptions" avoid dealing with this.
— Wayfarer

Maybe that's because he doesn't fully understand them. Maybe he is dimly intuiting something profound about the nature of rational intelligence but hasn't been able to really think through all of the implications. — Wayfarer

If this is an admission that he does not have knowledge of the Forms, then I agree. "Dimly intuiting" does not square with the image of the mind itself seeing the Forms themselves. Without knowing the Forms themselves how do you know that this is an intuition and not something imagined?

I am trying to understand what 'the forms' might refer to, in such a way as to allow for the idea that they're real. — Wayfarer

Socrates "second sailing" is of primary importance. He says:

... I thought I must take refuge in discussions and investigate the truth of beings by means of accounts [logoi] (Phaedo 100a)

If knowledge of the Forms is seeing the Forms with the mind, then taking refuge in talk about the truth of beings does not lead to the truth of them but to opinions about them.

IN the case of a private sensation, yes. — Banno

Does he discuss private language without private sensation?

What are the 'objects of the mind' ? — Amity

They are not objects of the mind in the sense of being products of the mind, but of being known by the mind. They include at the lower level of the divide line mathematical objects and at thehigher level the Forms. But since the Forms are hypotheticals, they are products of the mind. Further they are products of the imagination. The divided line turns out to be not so neatly divided.

[Edit : The way the Forms are presented, as existing independent of but known by the mind, is problematic since they are also said to be hypotheticals. Once again we see here that we cannot simply take things at face value but must follow the argument if we are not content with blindly affirming what we have no knowledge of. We also see one way in which Plato is addressing two different types of readers. On the one hand he says that there are independent Forms, but on the other he indicates that things are not quite so simple. We are left to ask about the origin of the Forms. We are also compelled to consider in what way things would be able to "participate" in the Form. Socrates raises the question in the "Second Sailing" section of the Phaedo:

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.” (100e)

He raises the question of the relationship between things and Forms, but does not insist on the precise nature of that relationship. Why? It he had a coherent argument why wouldn't he present it here or elsewhere? He calls the hypothesis of Forms (100a) simple, naive, and perhaps foolish, and later "safe and ignorant". (105 b)

Now some will try to defend the idea of transcendent Forms with accusations of bias against those who question it, but in that case it would seem that Plato is biased against Plato.]

Sounds like abstract mental concepts. — Amity

They are said to exist independently. But Socrates, who presents these ideas, denies having any knowledge of them. They are part of Plato's philosophical poetry.

The body and the mind are inter-related. It's a 2-way process. — Amity

In some places Socrates talks as if they are independent, but in others he acknowledges that they are not.

Humans are the creators. — Amity

To use the Greek terminology in translations, the poets or makers.

What about nouns that I can't point to, like freedom, the United States, agency, Bigfoot, the current Queen of France, etc.? — Hanover

These are things about which there is enough familiarity to discuss them.

The sensation that only I have that I name 'S' is not like that. Or maybe you too have a sensation you call 'S'. Are they the same or even similar? How could we tell?

The eternal magic roundabout. I blame Plato. He got what he wanted. — Amity

I too think he got what he wanted. He knows that there are those who desire the mystical but are not content with the indeterminate. They want the mystery to be solved, the truth to be revealed, answers to be found. He gives them what they want in the way he wants. A theology he thinks preferable to what they might latch onto elsewhere. A theology of the beautiful/noble, just, and good.

He also knows that there are some who are not satisfied with myths or stories, however edifying. They prefer the truth that they do not know to the illusion of knowledge. They inquire and do not mistake stories of Forms for knowledge of Forms or even knowledge of the existence of Forms, and do not allow the promise of the knowledge of Forms occlude the fact that the Forms are for Plato hypotheticals. That one can leap from the hypothetical to noesis is not something they deny but not something they accept either.

A private linguist, each time they make use of a sign to represent a sensation, would be engaging in an act of ostensive definition. Each use would be novel. Hence, there is no rule being followed. — Banno

I don't think the problem is that a rule is not being followed, but that ostensibly he is not pointing to anything at all. He may have this sensation but he is not pointing to anything that would allow us to know what that sensation is.

I see a dog and I name it "dog," yet I tell no one and that private word exists for me. — Hanover

You could, however, make that information public. There is an object that is pointed to. The thing about a private language is that it cannot be made public. It is not simply that it would then no longer be private. His examples are of sensations that cannot be conveyed, because they are not specific enough to allow for anyone else, or, for that matter, even the person who has the sensation, to identify it, to give it a determination or, as he calls it, a post or a marker by which we can say it is this and not that.

isn't that what 'mortification' originally referred to? — Wayfarer

Do you mean Christian mortification? That imports a lot of stuff not found in Plato.

And the meaning of 'anamnesis' is recalling what the soul knew prior to this life. — Wayfarer

And what do you recall?

These are associated with asceticism and specifically, in the context, with Orphic asceticism. — Wayfarer

Socrates was not an ascetic. In the background of the same dialogue is the fact that at age seventy he has two young sons.

I think it presents a form of dualism that is plausible from a contemporary viewpoint, and compatible with Platonism — Wayfarer

The question is whether Plato is compatible with Platonism. The only way to determine that is to first attempt to read Plato without being under the shadow of later works. But you seem to think that these are not shadows but illuminations. I don't think we will be able to reconcile this difference.

I'm confused now - why would there be no 'sensibles' - whatever you mean by that ? — Amity

In the intelligible realm there are no sensibles, only objects of the mind.

But shouldn't that be a bit grander: 'The Mysteries of the Truth' ? — Amity

To draw someone to philosophy he dangles the mysteries, the promise of the truth revealed. But the truth is, the Forms are hypothetical. The result is that there are two different kinds of readers of the dialogues. Those who image something grander, something higher, something transcendent, and those who, like Socrates himself, are grounded by self-knowledge, which includes the awareness that we know nothing of transcendent truths.

Gotcha.
But many still argue the point. Endlessly. — Amity

It is a matter of desire. We desire wisdom. In the Apology Socrates distinguishes between human and divine wisdom. His wisdom is human wisdom, but some confuse the desire for divine wisdom with the possession of divine wisdom. They fail to realize that they do not even possess human wisdom. They are chasing dreams and think such dreams are a higher reality.

Yes, and philosophy is 'practicing for death'. — Wayfarer

What does this mean? How does one practice dying and being dead? If you have never been dead how do you know you are practicing it in the right way?

It's not avoidance. After Plato's death, his philosophy was the source of inspiration for generations of philosophers — Wayfarer

There is a difference between the attempt to understand what an author said and looking at how others might have been inspired by what he said. It is not that it is without value to look at how others were inspired but being inspired does not mean or require that one has understood an author.

No doubt.

Nice Vox amps on stage but the guitars are not plugged in.

244. How do words refer to sensations?

Whether or not this is a problem depends on the example. If I have a toothache there is no problem understanding what I am referring to. If, however, I say "I have a sensation" then I have not referred to anything, I have not identified the sensation. Giving it a name gets us no further.

Although having a toothache is, like all sensations, private, the sensation is common enough that we can refer to it. It is in this sense public rather than private. But we do not have to have personally experienced toothache; far less likely, we do not even have to have even experienced pain to know what is being referred to and to refer someone having toothache to a dentist.

Which translation are you using ? — Amity

Bloom.

[numbers added. 1)] To put it differently, how does this three-fold division, cave, light of sun, Forms, correspond to the two-fold division of visible and intelligible? [2)] Are the Forms themselves more than images or are they shadows in the mind cast by Plato the image maker? [3)] Does the image of escape from the cave to a light above the light of the sun bind us more firmly to the cave?
— Fooloso4

I have no idea. Hadn't even thought of it in these terms.
Good questions. What and where are the answers, if any ? — Amity

1) Both the cave and terrestrial life are within the visible realm, but according to the analogy, the cave would be the visible and the terrestrial intelligible. One problem is, how intelligible is the intelligible realm? Can there be any knowledge in the absence of sensibles?

2) The Forms are hypotheticals. Images presented by Plato, cleverly presented as if one has been initiated into the mysteries of the truth.

3) The inability to identify images as images is what the lack of education of the prisoners is all about. Education is not about hearing some story about a world outside the cave that the select have seen. Believing it is the truth itself is to mistake the image for the truth. But the truth is, they may insist that there are Forms, but they have no knowledge of Forms. Rather than being drawn closer to the truth their imagination takes them further away.

The Stratocaster, with a longer sustain than a Telecaster, seems to have been central to their sound. — Banno

For anyone who might care about such things, Hank Marvin's signature sound was the Strat and lots of reverb. In the video though, all three guitars are made by Burns. Notice the headstock.

I need something to do in the cave. Bonus, no reverb needed.

It’s phrased in such a way as to leave it an open question. — Wayfarer

One that only the dead can answer, providing death is not, as Socrates suggests in the Apology, nothingness. An "open question" is very different from:

the immortal aspect of the human — Wayfarer

According to the later tradition ... — Wayfarer

Looking away from Plato to a later tradition is, in my opinion, to avoid Plato. What Plato seems to be saying is often not what is going on when one looks closely.