Jesus preached to all who would follow the Law. Paul knew that the gentiles would not, and yet he felt compelled to "save them".

... provided you are using the correct translation. — Apollodorus

There is no translation that is considered the "correct translation". The Bloom translation is widely used and regarded as one of the best. It was published in 1968.

All this stuff about the 1940's and "hard-line liberals is nonsense. It is not an accurate description of me or Bloom. It is nothing more than your typical smokescreen.

Once again, everything I said is taken directly from the text.

You attack me, the translation, liberals, neo-Marxists, all without evidence or relevance.

I think you are confused. Christians are not Jews and Christianity is not Judaism. — Apollodorus

We could go round and round as you are so fond of doing. If you take the Sermon on the Mount as the words of Jesus andwhat he says about keeping to the letter of the Law, it is clear that it is addressed to everyone:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.(Matthew 5:17-20)

Using a gospel that is influenced by Paul is question begging.

This is just your standard response to whatever goes against your hermetic Christian Neoplatonist beliefs.

It must have escaped your notice that everything I said is directly from the text.

4

Socrates Argument For Why the Good Cannot Be Known

The argument is not easily seen because it stretches over three books of the Republic, as if Plato wanted only those who are sufficiently attentive to see it.

I begin by collecting the releverent statements. Bloom translation. Bold added.

"So, do we have an adequate grasp of the fact—even if we should consider it in many ways—that what is entirely, is entirely knowable; and what in no way is, is in every way unknowable?" (477a)

"Knowledge is presumably dependent on what is, to know of what is that it is and how it is?"
"Yes."
"While opinion, we say, opines." (478a)

"If what is, is knowable, then wouldn't something other than that which is be opinable?" (478b)

"To that which is not, we were compelled to assign ignorance, and to that which is, knowledge."

"Opinion, therefore, opines neither that which is nor that which is not." (478c)

“... although the good isn't being but is still beyond being, exceeding it in dignity (age) and power."(509b)

"You," I said, "are responsible for compelling me to tell my opinions about it." (509c)

“... in applying the going up and the seeing of what's above to the soul's journey up to the intelligible place, you'll not mistake my expectation, since you desire to hear it. A god doubtless knows if it happens to be true. At all events, this is the way the phenomena look to me: in the knowable the last thing to be seen, and that with considerable effort, is the idea of the good …” (517b-c)

He makes a threefold distinction -

Being or what is
Something other than that which is
What is not


And corresponding to them

Knowledge
Opinion
Ignorance



The middle term is somewhat ambiguous. What is not is something other than that which is, but to what is not he assigns ignorance. Opinion opines neither what is nor what is not. Between what is entirely, the beings or Forms, and what is not, is becoming, that is, the visible world. Opinion opines about the visible world. But the good is beyond being. It is the cause of being, the cause of what is. It too is something other than what is and what is not.

What is entirely is entirely knowable. The good, being beyond being, is not something that is entirely. The good is then not entirely knowable. As if to confirm this Socrates says that he is giving his opinions about the good, but that what is knowable and unknowable is a matter of fact. As to the soul’s journey to the intelligible and the sight of the idea of the good, he says that a god knows if it happens to be true, but this is how it looks to him. He plays on the meaning of the cognate terms idea and look, which can be translated as Form. A god knows if it “happens to be true” but we are not gods, and what may happen to be true might also happen to be false.

The quote at 517 continues:

… but once seen, it must be concluded that this is in fact the cause of all that is right and fair in everything—in the visible it gave birth to light and its sovereign; in the intelligible, itself sovereign, it provided truth and intelligence —and that the man who is going to act prudently in private or in public must see it. (517c)

But it is not seen, for it is not something that is and thus not something knowable, and so no conclusion must follow. In order to act prudently, he says, one must see the good itself. Whether one is acting prudently then, remains an open question. The examined life remains the primary, continuous way of life of the Socratic philosopher. A way of life that rejects the complacency and false piety of believing one knows the divine answers.

There are 613 basic laws and further rabbinic laws that together constitute Jewish Law. A lot of these are not applicable to non-Jews, for example, the prohibition against eating pork which would have been unacceptable to other cultures like the Greek and Roman ones. — Apollodorus

Jesus does not say this, Paul does. What is acceptable to other cultures is not thereby acceptable to those who, like Jesus, follow the Law given to God's chosen people; who are to be a light to other nations. (Isaiah)

A method, but not a doctrine; which is I think what you are saying. — Olivier5

Yes, zetetic skepticism. Knowing that neither he nor anyone else knows he inquires. He sets out to understand things as best he can, according to what seems best, knowing he does not know what is best.

... the desecration of the herms In 415 ... — Olivier5

Leo Strauss in his commentary on the Symposium discusses this at length. https://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/UChicagoPress.Ebook.Pack-2016-PHC/9780226776866.UChicago%20Press.Leo%20Strauss%20on%20Plato%27s%20Symposium.Leo%20Strauss%20%26%20Seth%20Benardete.May%2C2003.pdf

So what is he really saying when he pretends to agree that the moon and the sun are deities? — Olivier5

From the Euthyphro thread:

it was his radical doctrinal doubt itself that was irksome — Olivier5

To question beliefs is seen by some to be a denial of what is believed.

As an aside: in Judaism to ask why, or more strongly to interrogate, is an essential part of Talmudic understanding. Christians, however, often regard questioning as an attack on their beliefs. The discussion that follows is like Socratic dialectic. Contrary to this, Christianity establishes official doctrines of the faith.

Once again Socrates' irony is lost on some. Socrates does not say he believes the sun and moon are gods, he asks whether Meletus is accusing him of not believing that they are gods as other men do. He then says that Meletus is confusing him with Anaxagoras. (26d) Anaxagoras had also been indicted on charges of impiety, but fled. His books, Socrates points out, were still for sale for a small sum.

In the Republic Socrates says that the sun is the offspring of the Good. (506e) Nowhere does he refer to the Good as a god.

When talking about the Platonic dialogues it is standard practice to refer to Plato's Socrates simply as Socrates. Plato's Socrates is not the historical Socrates, but neither is Xenophon's.

There are some, who like Guthrie, back in the early 70's, tried to establish the historical Socrates. I don't know if there is much interest in that today. I haven't looked at Guthrie's "Socrates" in a long time, but I do remember that my impression at the time was that the evidence was thin and tenuous.

You means the reader, including me.

It was often the case in classical times that a school would have exoteric and esoteric doctrines — Olivier5

This is true. I have discussed this on several threads. Strauss, mentioned above, is actually responsible for the renewed interest in this, although he was pointed in this direction by Nietzsche.

One problem is that esoteric has connotations such as hermeticism (see the quotes from Eco above and, of course, our resident hermeticist), the occult, and mythicism.

The modern philosophers practiced it as well: "Reading Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing", Arthur Melzer. Here is a link to the appendix: "A Chronological Compilation of Testimonial Evidence for Esotericism": https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/index.html

But there is an oral tradition on Plato (neoplatonism) that attributes to him a form of monotheism where the One is the ultimate general principle, transcending all the eons. — Olivier5

I don't know if the oral tradition or traditions were ever written down, but we do not have evidence of them. So they can say pretty much whatever one wants to claim they say. In addition, and more importantly, history shows us that a teaching over time takes on a life of its own and veers away from the original.

Whatever problems there are with what is written is also a problem with what is said unless the author can be questioned, that is, dialogue.

What we do know is his concern for the human things - self, morals, political life.

For someone wanting to know his thoughts without needless pain, where to go...? — Amity

Ray Monk's biography: "Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius"

A critical difference is that philosophy relies on reason, the biblical religions on revelation. What is known as the problem of "Athens and Jerusalem".

Also therefore it's about dialoguing. The centrality of oral debate in Socrates is pretty obvious. He could have written books but didn't. — Olivier5

Yes, I agree. I think Plato's intent was to have the reader do the same.

Some interesting work is being done with the interpretation of Aristotle:
Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates: On the "Nicomachean Ethics", Ronna Burger. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo5806420.html

The premise is that although Aristotle's work is not stylistically in the form of a dialogue it is dialogical.

@baker

[Edit: if] in response to my question:

What do you know of God's justice? — Fooloso4

you had responded that it is not something you know but something you accept as a matter of faith, that would have been the end of it. But instead you attempt to demonstrate that it is something you know syllogistically. And so, it becomes something to be examined by reason not religion,

Well, since they're using words, I assume they mean something by those words, and that they aren't just glossolaling or blowing hot air. — baker

Yes, they mean something by there words, but that does not mean that there must be some actual object that corresponds to the words.

You keep switching the goalposts, mixing two discourses. — baker

You've lost track of the argument:

What do you know of God's justice?
— Fooloso4
Whatever can be done by syllogism. — baker

You mean like this?

A just God would not allow injustice in the world
There is injustice in the world
Therefore God is not just
— Fooloso4

The second premise is false, so the conclusion doesn't follow. — baker

First, whether or not the second premise is true or false it is a syllogism, and thus demonstrates that God's justice cannot be concluded syllogistically.

Second, if the second premise is false then you are denying that there is injustice in the world. Now, you say:

Do I personally think there is injustice in the world? Of course I do. — baker

So, the second premise is not false after all.

The underlying assumption here is that if something can be imagined then it must be taken seriously as a real possibility.

We have no reason beyond perhaps entertainment value to take seriously the possibility that we are brains in a vat.

If it is possible that I am a brain in a vat then it is possible that we are all brains in a vat, including those who allegedly put our brains in vats. But then they are not really brains in vats at all.

That helps explain why not all logical consequences of a given idea are spelled out, or why an author may be careful avoiding certain subjects in his writings. — Olivier5

Contrary to the typical textbook and history of philosophy, it is not about conveying thought or ideas or information from one person to another. It is about the activity of thinking, of working things out, of making connections, of trying to reconcile seeming contradictions.

I think one reason some have trouble with this is that they are indoctrinated into the idea of revelation. That all we have to do is look and listen and the truth will be revealed.

Note that Plato may well have been voluntarily ambiguous here or there, for obvious reasons of self-protection. In those cases, the "true" Plato teaching may well be simply ambiguous by design. — Olivier5

This is an important point. The most influential contemporary work on this is Leo Strauss' "Persecution and the Art of Writing". https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo3633029.html

The art of writing has as its complement an art of reading. Those who think that the dialogues can be read in the same way one reads a doctrine or treatise or theory will never catch sight of what Plato is up to.

It does not appear to you because you close your eyes when it appears. — Olivier5

This has a lot to do with vested interest. If it becomes clear to you or I that we misunderstood something in the dialogue we are grateful to have learned something. But for those who see the dialogues as a religious or quasi-religious or proto-Christian doctrine that confirms their belief, then to see that they are wrong would be far more significant; a threat to their faith, an existential crisis.

Socratic philosophy is destabilizing. He is, however, aware that this can do more harm than good for those who are not able to find their own balance. And so, like a life raft, the dialogues leave enough ambiguity for those who need something to grasp hold of lest they drown.

Once again Socrates' irony is lost on some. Socrates does not say he believes the sun and moon are gods, he asks whether Meletus is accusing him of not believing that they are gods as other men do. He then says that Meletus is confusing him with Anaxagoras. (26d) Anaxagoras had also been indicted on charges of impiety, but fled. His books, Socrates points out, were still for sale for a small sum.

In the Republic Socrates says that the sun is the offspring of the Good. (506e) Nowhere does he refer to the Good as a god.

It is called a Stephanus number. It is a numbering system for citing the dialogues. Not all translations have them but you can find online translations of the Apology with them.

The claim that the Forms are more than just hypothetical requires that they are things known. Socrates has admitted that he does not know them. He tells a story about a transcendent experience in which the Forms themselves are seen. Not having seen them and having said that no one was wiser than him, that he was wiser that other men because he knows that he does not know, they are as part of the story mythological beings.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/556615

From the perspective of Socrates' second sailing, hypothetical beings. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11210/socratic-philosophy/p1
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/556018
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/556151

See 26c

Well, as usually, he kicks up some dust and thinks no one will notice that he has not answered. He is like someone playing chess who thinks that as long as he is moving pieces around he has not lost the game.

But in his defense it is quite troubling the edifice of your eternal verities comes crashing down from their imagined heaven to earth.

Could be. We really don't know. — frank

We don't. And that is why I said I suspect the answer to your question has to do with the assumptions you bring to it.

You asked:

Are mystical prophecies part of the human things you're talking about? — frank

Socrates was accused of atheism. If he did not believe in the gods then he would have regarded the mystical prophecies as human inventions.

So it's not "more to do with the assumptions you bring to it.". We rely on experts. — frank

It is both. If I find Benardete persuasive and you find someone else persuasive instead, then that has to do not only with them but with us.

@Banno

It looks like you are going to have to explain the difference between substantive and substantial.

Or you could learn from a scholar who specializes in ancient Greece. — frank

In fact I have. A scholar whom many consider one of the best - Seth Benardete. You may have someone else in mind. Who I find persuasive and who you find persuasive has a great deal to do with our assumptions about the relationship between the human and the divine.

What I am asking about is Jesus the man, not the mythology.

Jesus was Jewish. — Hanover

This is what I was getting at. Christians were for the most part pagans. I do not think Jesus would have approved of their making a pagan god out of him. The story of being born of a god and a human is not something he would have allowed.

The dialogue Charmides talks about the inscription. I do not recall the details. If I get a chance I will look it up, but part of the discussion was about the inscription being written by man and, if I remember correctly, the question of authorship and how it is to be understood.

The prophecies are part of the human things in so far as the prophecy is about human beings. As to their origin, I suspect that has more to do with the assumptions you bring to it.

You are getting some really awful advice.

Cicero said:

‘Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens… and compel it to ask questions about life and morality’ (Tusculan Disputations V 10–11).

It is not the Forms but to the human things that Socratic philosophy is about. No matter how metaphysical it is always the human things that ground the dialogues. "Know thyself". "The unexamined life is not worth living". It is through the human things that he regards the rest.

As for dialogues: The Apology and the Phaedo are most often used in both introductory and higher level classes. I also used the Republic but many students found it daunting. If you are reading it on your own a good commentary is very helpful. In my classes I used and recommend Bloom's translation and his introductory essay and notes.

See my other thread on Socratic Philosophy for more.

I do think it's often overlooked that Judaic ethics are considerably different from Christian ones on a foundational level, — Hanover

So where do you think Jesus fits in here?

Human sacrifice for the absolution of sin (ala Jesus) is antithetical to Judaism — Hanover

I think this was an invention to deal with the crisis that followed the death of their messiah. I also think that Jesus would have been appalled to learn that he had been deified and God was believed to be his father in the literal sense rather than in the Jewish sense found in the Hebrew Bible.

3

There is an often overlooked puzzle at the center of Plato's Republic. It has two connected parts.

One: If Socrates’ human wisdom is his knowledge of his ignorance then why does Plato have someone who does not know tell the myth of transcendent knowledge of Forms?

Two: Who is the true philosopher?

Only someone who has had the transcendent experience of seeing the Forms can know that it is more than just a story. Socrates makes it known that he has not had this experience. (533a) So why Socrates? Why not someone who has had this transcendent knowledge? Someone divinely wise, as she would be if she has had this experience? After all, there are Platonic dialogues where a stranger rather than Socrates is the main character.

Because he knows that he does not know Socrates desires and seeks knowledge. He is a lover of what he does not possess, a lover of wisdom. He stands in stark contrast to the philosopher in the city he creates in the Republic. The philosopher-kings possess the knowledge Socrates desires.

As the city in the Republic exists only in speech and does not correspond to any actual city, the philosopher in this city exists only in speech and does not correspond to any actual philosopher.

So why did Plato have Socrates create this image? The answer has to do with the identity of the true philosopher. Socrates is the paradigmatic philosopher. What he does not know, others, namely the poets, the sophists, and the statesmen, claim they do know.

The problem is, if the philosopher cannot determine the truth then all other claims will have equal standing. The question is, who will be the educators and leaders in the actual city? Someone like Euthyphro can claim divine knowledge and someone like Thrasymachus can claim to know and teach what justice is. And so, Plato creates the mythology of Forms to take the place of the gods, and the philosophers who have true knowledge of the whole.

As the noble lie is to the city in the Republic, the mythology of transcendent knowledge is to actual cities.

Socrates plays a double role. Like the others, he is an opinion maker, but unlike the others he subjects all opinions, including his own, to critical examination. He remains firmly in the realm of opinion while giving the appearance of having transcended it. The truth is, the philosopher does not know the truth and thus must hide this truth. On the one hand, he hides it from those who are not yet prepared to live without answers, and on the other, from those who can never live without answers. And so, he provides what seems to be the truth, but is a lie, a lie that cannot be effective unless it is believed to be the truth.

The would be philosopher is drawn in and begins a spirited search for the truth. Some fall victim to misologic, disillusioned when they cannot find the answers they desire. Others believe the truth has been revealed, believing either that they have found the whole of it, or that they have not yet grasped the whole but know a part. And a few, the true philosophers, learn the art of philosophical inquiry and how to live an examined life without the illusion of knowledge.

Socrates' answer introducing the just as the whole of piety and impiety seems to unnecessarily multiply entities. — creativesoul

Actually, it is the opposite. One less entity. Rather than doing what one imagines will please a god or gods, one strives to do what is just.

I have always understood the problem to be an issue for divine command theory — creativesoul

Divine command theory is an offshoot of the question posed by Socrates: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved?" (10a)

Euthyphro says he does not understand the question. He cannot see passed his assumption that the pious is what he is doing. (5d) That he is doing is what the gods love. What he cannot say is how he knows what the gods love and thus that what he is doing is what they love, but he blindly believes he does know. Socrates introduces the idea that the pious is what is just. (11e )The question then becomes whether the pious is part of the just or the just part of the pious. Socrates' answer is just as odd is part of number, the pious is part of the just. The other part of number is the even. The other part of justice then is impiety. Socrates was found guilty of impiety.

That Essay of his is available online. — Olivier5

Thanks, I will take a look when I have a change. What I read many years ago was on the philosophy of history.

This thread is about the Greek arguments concerning the origins of piety, goodness, and justice... isn't it? — creativesoul

I would not say it is about the origin of them but rather the problem of piety and how it relates the goodness and justice. What Socrates tries to get Euthyphro to see is that piety without regard to goodness and justice leads to impiety.

As @Olivier5 has said, the thread has unfortunately been muddled by a troll who cannot abide the fact that his belief in Platonism is not the focus of every discussion of Plato's dialogues.

Plato's theory of forms underpins his thought like an axiom would underpin a branch of mathematics. — Olivier5

I have some doubts as to whether Plato's thinking is axiomatic. Using mathematical language, dialectic proceeds by way of addition and division, identifying the homogeneous and heterogeneous. I don't think this is axiomatic, for there are different ways in which we can identify things as the same or different. The Forms are a way of organizing thought and making sense of the world according to the way in which all 'x' are in some way the same and other than what is not x.

Since the dialogues often end in aporia, "what is x" remains in question. Not knowing 'x' we cannot establish the truth of whether some particular thing is or is not 'x'. We remain in the realm of opinion. But not all opinion is equal. The philosopher must determine which opinions seem most worthy of being held.

I hear the bell toll and for whom it tolls.

I don't know Collingwood well enough thought to comment on absolute presuppositions. It they are individual rather than universal then I think education, specifically a liberal or liberating education is still possible, at least for some.