We too readily assume that what is written as what ‘God said’ is in fact what God actually said, as if the words were God’s actual words. Given that we have yet to confirm this is even possible (and much reason to doubt), why do we accept this without question? — Possibility

If I am to discuss a story I take the story as it is written. If I read in a book:"Harry said" then I can safely say that according to the book this is what Harry said. If the book is a novel then the question of whether or not it was actually said goes no further. If the book purports to be historically accurate then whether Harry said this or if there even is a Harry comes into question. I do not read Genesis as history, and so the question of whether God said this goes no further than the story. I do, however, read it as a story about belief and faith.

The simple fact that what is apparently commanded here is not what transpired, despite Abram following it to the letter, is indication enough for me that Abraham misunderstood what (if anything) was asked of him. — Possibility

To me it is an indication that he did not want Abram to carry out the command. The story says nothing about a misunderstanding. But if I grant that it was a misunderstanding this still points to the danger. Many horrendous things are done because it is believed that this is God's will. In order to distinguish between what should and should not be done as a matter of faith we must turn to reason.

No, it is about faith in what we think God is. — Possibility

Perhaps that is true of some "we", but in the Jewish tradition God is ineffable. Faith is a matter of keeping His commandments.

But what is wrong for Abraham is to put his own fears and desires ahead of his relation to an infinitely significant existence, of which he was aware beyond conception. — Possibility

Since God says that Abram loved his son (22:2), "your son, your only son" (22:12) his desire would be to keep him alive. His proper relationship with God should be one of fear (22:12)

It’s only disturbing when we assume the command was beyond doubt. Abraham never assumed this. — Possibility

We are given no indication that he doubted, but even if he did, he was going to carry out the commandment.

Since we have strayed from the topic I will leave it here.

The Hebrews were horrified by the idea of child sacrifice. — frank

And yet their patriarch would have sacrificed his own son, and they still hold this up as a great example of faith.

Maybe the part about the test of faith was added later to a story which originally emphasized the angel's arrest of Abraham's hand and the presentation if the sheep that Abraham sacrificed instead. — frank

Rewriting the story is evasive. If you include the part about the angel staying his hand, you can't get rid of the part where he will obey and sacrifice his son.

This is often regarded as a story about faith, but it is more precisely about fear and obedience:

Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.(22:12)

There is in the story no indication of a misunderstanding:

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:2)

Abram hid what he was about to do from Isaac and his servants.

...it’s not about God — Possibility

It is not about God, it is about faith in God, and it is god who told him to do this.

it’s about having the courage not only to act in the absence of certainty — Possibility

Some see this as exemplary, but others look at this example and recoil. It is not simply a matter of the absence of certainty. It is contrary to what we hold most dear. It is shocking and disturbing that he would have obeyed. Are you not certain that it would have been wrong to do this?

Cebes is unaware of the problem and says that he is completely satisfied with Socrates’ account of the deathlessness of the soul and has nothing further to say. (107a)

Simmias says he has some lingering distrust:

I myself have no remaining grounds for doubt after what has been said; nevertheless, in view of the bigness and importance of our subject and my low opinion of human weakness, I am bound still to have some lingering distrust within myself about what we have said. (107b)

Socrates responds:

Not only that, Simmias. What you say is good, but also our very first hypotheses - even if to all of you they’re trustworthy - must nevertheless be looked into for greater surety. And if you sort them out sufficiently, you will, as I think, be following up the argument as much as its possible for human beings to follow it. And should this very thing become sure, you’ll search no further. (107b)

Socrates is telling them that they should not be so ready to accept what is said as the truth. There seems to be a play on a double sense of human weakness, the limits of human argument and Simmias’ ongoing concern that death means our destruction, that we are too weak to endure. In any case, there is a limit we human beings cannot go beyond, and we should not search further. That limit occurs at death.

Socrates leaves it there for us to sort it out. Generation and destruction are each one and together two, but it is by the division of what is one, that is, the cycle of generation and destruction, that they become two. Socrates has identified two causes: mental and physical. Mind arranges or orders things according to their kind or Form. Things are not Forms, they come to be and perish. We can now see the difference between Socrates’ unlearned or ignorant hypothesis and the one that has replaced it. The first used only Forms and could not account for things coming to be and perishing. It was a static model that did not allow for change. But change itself needs an account. The two accounts must be unified, made one, by the good, that is, by an account of why it is best that things are as they are. This has not been done.

The discussion of generation and destruction is guided by two considerations that at first may seem odd to have conjoined: physical causes and number. The overarching question of the dialogue is what will happen to Socrates. The concern is that the unity that is Socrates will be destroyed. In order to address this Socrates divides his unity into a duality, body and soul. It is by this division of one into two that he attempts to demonstrate his unity in death.

According to Cebes’ argument, body and soul are each one and together are two, each separate and distinct. Weaving is an ordering or arrangement. Arrangement or ordering, an activity Socrates attributes to Mind. The act of weaving requires something physically acting on something else that is physical. A disembodied soul cannot be a weaver. Unless the two are one, the man Socrates is cut in two.

Simmias’ account is physical. Body and soul are not separate entities, they are one. A harmony. But harmony is one from many. An attunement is an arrangement. A purely physical account is not adequate either. This is why Socrates initially rejected physical causes but later reintroduced them after the introduction of Mind. Physical things cannot order themselves without Mind.

The problem with Simmias’ account is that if body and soul are one then the destruction of the body is the destruction of the soul. Socrates attempts to separate them in order to save the soul, but can only do so by blurring the distinction between the Form Soul and a soul. If Soul is imperishable it does not follow that Socrates’ soul is. The human soul is átopos, literally, without place, unclassifiable,. It is not a Form and not a physical thing. If there is no distinction between Soul and Socrates’ soul, then it would not be Socrates’ soul that is undying. The fate of Socrates in death is not assured by the fate of Soul. Just as the snow is destroyed at the approach of heat, Socrates’ soul is destroyed at the approach of death, while Snow and Soul remain unchanged Forms.

He turns back to stories that have been told:

We are told that when each person dies, the guardian spirit who was allotted to him in life proceeds to lead him to a certain place, whence those who have been gathered together there must, after being judged, proceed to the underworld with the guide who has been appointed to lead them thither from here.(107e)

The trustworthiness of the story is not questioned. This seems to be because arguments have come to its end, and stories are all that is left. In his last minutes Socrates turns from Hades to the Earth. It is here that he has been all along. (61d)

His tale of the Earth mixes science and myth. The Earth is a sphere in the middle of heaven balanced at rest without support or force. It is very large and we live in only a small portion of it, “like ants or frogs around a swamp”. Many other peoples live in many other similar parts.

Everywhere about the earth there are numerous hollows of many kinds and shapes and sizes into which the water and the mist and the air have gathered. The earth itself is pure and lies in the pure sky where the stars are situated … We, who dwell in the hollows of it, are unaware of this and we think that we live above, on the surface of the earth. It is as if someone who lived deep down in the middle of the ocean thought he was living on its surface. Seeing the sun and the other,heavenly bodies through the water, he would think the sea to be the sky; because he is slow and weak, he has never reached the surface of the sea or risen with his head above the water or come out of the sea to our region here, nor seen how much purer and more beautiful it is than his own region, nor has he ever heard of it from anyone who has seen it.

Our experience is the same: living in a certain hollow of the earth, we believe that we live upon its surface; the air we call the heavens, as if the stars made their way through it; this too is the same: because of our weakness and slowness we are not able to make our way to the upper
limit of the air; if anyone got to this upper limit, if anyone came to it or reached it on wings and his head rose above it, then just as fish on rising from the sea see things in our region, he would see things there and, if his nature could endure to contemplate them, he would know that there is the true heaven, the true light and the true earth, for the earth here, these stones and the whole region, are spoiled and eaten away, just as things in the sea are by the salt water. (109b - 110a)

There are similarities and differences between this story and the allegory of the cave in the Republic. In both stories humans are unaware of their true condition and believe that what they see is the whole of things as they are. The cave images are human artifacts, but what is seen in the hollows is by the nature of our condition.

What the humans say is based on what is seen or experienced. Because of the limits of our experience there are natural limits to our arguments. Myths have no natural limits. In both stories there is an image of an ascent to the truth, a journey from here to There. We have no experience of death and so Socrates’ arguments are not strong enough to transcend that limit. His myths of death, the journey from here to There, are myths about the ascent to truth.

It is only in myth that Socrates can find what is sought in argument: the good. Why it is best that things be as they are. In the myth we find:

The climate is such that they are without disease, and they live much longer than people do here; their eyesight, hearing and intelligence and all such are as superior to ours as air is
superior to water and ether to air in purity; they have groves and temples dedicated to the gods, in which the gods really dwell, and they communicate with them by speech and prophecy and by the sight of them; they see the sun and moon and stars as they are, and in other ways their
happiness is in accord with this. (111 b-c)

But the question of the good of the whole is not complete without the inclusion of human actions:

Such is the nature of these things. When the dead arrive at the place to which each has been led by his guardian spirit, they are first judged as to whether they have led a good and pious life. (113d)

Those who are deemed to have lived an extremely pious life are freed and released from the regions of the earth as from a prison; they make their way up to a pure dwelling place and live on the surface of the earth. Those who have purified themselves sufficiently by philosophy live in the future altogether without a body; they make their way to even more beautiful dwelling places which it is hard to describe clearly, nor do we now have the time to do so. (114c)

Immediately following this story Socrates 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)

Myths do not reveal the truth. And yet Socrates tells them myths. They are not a substitute for arguments, but argument has its limits. Simmias was not fully convinced by Socrates’ arguments. He was no longer distrustful of the arguments, but still has some lingering distrust within himself. (107b) Throughout the dialogue Socrates has referred to myth as a means of self-persuasion. Here again he says that one should “sing incantations to himself, over and over again”(114d)

Crito asks about final instructions. Socrates says they should take care of their own selves.(115b)

Socrates goes into a chamber to bathe. What should we make of this? Why care for his body when the whole time he has been treating it without regard and even with contempt?

Despite all that Socrates has said to convince his friends that what is happening is a good thing, they are distraught:

So we stayed, talking among ourselves, questioning what had been said, and then again
talking of the great misfortune that had befallen us. We all felt as if we had lost a father and would be orphaned for the rest of our lives. (116a-b)

Socrates, on the other hand, did not appear to be troubled at all as he took the cup and drank.


Perhaps the appropriate question is not whether this is a comedy or a tragedy but rather the question of how we choose to persuade ourselves. One might wonder how this can be seen as a comedy. To begin to answer that question we might consider that Socrates himself did not regard his life or its end as a tragedy. This is so not because of what happened but because of how he judges. Argument cannot reveal the good, why it is best that things are as they are. Socrates seems to have persuaded himself and wants to persuade others that what is best is to be persuaded that what is is best.

Being told he could not, as he ironically requested, pour a libation (117b), he says:

“I understand but I suppose I am allowed to, and indeed should, pray to the gods that my emigration from here to There may turn out to be a fortunate one. That’s just what I am praying for - and may it be so!” And with these words he put the cup to his lips and downed it with great readiness and relish. (117c)… these were his last words—"Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius (118a)

Much has been written about what this means. Asclepius is the god of medicine. This suggests that there has been a cure or recovery. Some interpret this to mean that Socrates has been cured of the disease of life. But he says “we” not “I”.

In the center of the dialogue Phaedo said that they had been “healed” of their distress and readiness to abandon argument. (89a) In other words, Socrates saved them from misologic,about which he said "there is no greater evil than hating arguments". (89d)

There is one other mention of illness. In the beginning when we are told that Plato was ill. We are not told the nature of the illness that kept him away, but we know he recovered. Perhaps he too was cured of misologic. Rather than giving up on philosophy he went on to make the “greatest music”. Misologic is at the center of the problem, framed by Plato’s illness and the offer to Asclepius. And perhaps conquering the greatest evil is in the end a good reason to regard this as a comedy rather than a tragedy.

Abraham's sacrifice of his son is the paradigm of faith in God. It is also the paradigm of everything that is wrong with such faith, the willingness to sacrifice everything.

What did Jesus say? Matt: 5, 37 — tim wood

Well then, the "evil one" is in good company.

Maybe someone can help. I once came across an essay by a highly regarded philosopher about, if I remember correctly, why it is wrong a bake a child in the oven. The point was that we all recognize this as wrong but moral arguments as to why it is wrong fail.

I take it you are referring to Online Philosophy Club and Philosophy Now Forum in that order. When I was a moderator at Online Philosophy Club I would make sure that new topics were reviewed and approved within two days. The policies on who could approve posts changed at about the same time I left. I agree that when I was there things there could be a bit stilted. The Philosophy Now Forum is a cesspool. I left once it became clear that it was not a place for reasoned discussion. I am not friends with either site owner. But thanks for the kind words.

I think that perhaps two in "a half and another half are two" do not refer to some form of Twoness of the number two but to two as individuals, each being "a half"? — magritte

Thanks for your contribution. I am not sure I understand you. But based on what I think you are getting at.

It is the unit, the one, that makes counting intelligible. In one sense a half and a half is two, but in another it is one.

But with regard to twoness:

And you would loudly exclaim that you do not know how else each thing can come to be except by sharing in the particular reality in which it shares, and in these cases you do not know of any other cause of becoming two except by sharing in Twoness, and that the things that are to be two must share in this, as that which is to be one must share in Oneness ... (101c-d)

Note the similarity to the quote from 73e.

He is not claiming that Twoness is a thing known. It is an hypothesis.

From my discussion of recollection at 73 :

'But if that doesn't convince you, Simmias, then see whether maybe you agree if you look at it this way. Apparently you doubt whether what is called "learning" is recollection?'

'I don't doubt it,' said Simmias; 'but I do need to undergo just what the argument is about, to be "reminded". Actually, from the way Cebes set about stating it, I do almost recall it and am nearly convinced; but I'd like, none the less, to hear now how you set about stating it yourself.'

'I'll put it this way. We agree, I take it, that if anyone is to be reminded of a thing, he must have known that thing at some time previously.'

'Certainly.'

'Then do we also agree on this point: that whenever knowledge comes to be present in this sort of way, it is recollection?

He goes on to give an example of recollection:

'Well now, you know what happens to lovers, whenever they see a lyre or cloak or anything else their loves are accustomed to use: they recognize the lyre, and they get in their mind, don't they, the form of the boy whose lyre it is? And that is recollection. Likewise, someone seeing Simmias is often reminded of Cebes, and there'd surely be countless other such cases.'(73b-d)

There seems to be no distinction here between recollection and being reminded of something.

my point is that the values Nazism espouses is closer to a slave morality than Christianity is. — Ross Campbell

The fundamental difference is that the early Christians had no power. They turned inward because they were powerless to make outward changes. Their inwardness led to their power. Rather than impose rule on the world they learned to impose their will on themselves and rule themselves. Nietzsche saw this as a great advancement for mankind.

I am an atheist and I have no reason to hope there is no God, I simply find no compelling reason intellectually, conceptually, or spiritually to believe there is. We do not know if there is a God or not and so cannot say in what way things would be different if there was or was not a God. In addition if there is a God we do not know what God is and so cannot say what that might mean for the way things are.

The problems that science creates can only be solved by science and intelligent policy decisions.

The problem of knowledge is an ancient one. In the mythology of the "tree of knowledge" for example, the one tree produces fruit that is both good and bad. The story reflects changes that came about through productive or technological advances in agriculture, instruments, and tool making, including the making of weapons. These changes were in some ways good but in others bad. In any case, these advances have progressed, sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly, but fast or slow they have been unstoppable.

One definition of wisdom is knowledge of knowledge. This can mean, as it does in Plato's Charmides, knowledge of what you know and don't know (the irony is intentional), but it can also mean the knowledge of how best to use and control our knowledge. Good or bad, the only way forward is through knowledge.

That's not a correlation. The vast number of people in Western civilization were Christians. — Hanover

I am not suggesting a correlation. It is not because they were Christian that they were Nazis. What I am saying is that the fact that they were Christian did not prevent them from becoming Nazis. The OP points to the Christian emphasis on love, forgiveness, compassion, hope and kindness, but this did not prevent them from becoming Nazis.

He claims that:

Nietzsche characterizes slave morality as one which emphasized obedience, pity, conformity and following the herd. And he said that it's a morality based on resentment but it seems to me that this is more true of nazism rather than Christianity'. — Ross Campbell

My point is that this seems true of both, especially given the fact that they were both.

Nietzsche was openly critical of Christianity and he would describe that religion as being consistent with a slave morality. — Hanover

Yes, but if I understand him correctly Ross Campbell objects to that description.

You claimed that Nazism and Christianity go hand in hand, so it appeared you were making the argument that Nazis and the Christians, whose hands were clasped together, were all members of the same slave moral mentality. — Hanover

Perhaps I did not make my point clear enough. Hand in hand rather than opposed to each other.

With regard to all being members of the same slave moral mentality, from my first post:

His analysis is genealogical. — Fooloso4

In other words, Nietzsche was talking about a particular historical movement, that cannot be reduced to obedience, pity, conformity and following the herd, or transferred from one time and place to another. As a genealogy its concern is how that morality developed. A main point of which is how its weakness became its strength.

Again:

I would have hoped that in a thread whose title is Nietzsche's notion slave of morality there would be a discussion of Nietzsche's notion slave of morality. — Fooloso4

Christianity and Nazism are related by the simple fact that most Nazis were also Christians.

Many Christians were also anti-semitic which was one reason Nazism was attractive.

But none of this has anything to do with Nietzsche's notion of slave morality.

I would have hoped that in a thread whose title is Nietzsche's notion slave of morality there would be a discussion of Nietzsche's notion slave of morality. His analysis is genealogical.

What should not be overlooked is that Nazism went hand in hand with Christianity.

The best and safest hypothesis according to Socrates is the hypothesis of kinds (eidos or Forms). Two “shares in the reality” of Twoness, one in the reality of Oneness. Recall that the discussion of Socrates second sailing came up from the need for a thorough investigation of the cause of generation and destruction (96a)


Mind arranges things according to their kind, that is, what kind of thing it is. But the arrangement according to kinds is only part of the story. Things are as they are, according to this hypothesis, because it is best that they be this way.

What happens when we use this hypothesis to investigate the cause of generation and destruction? It would seem that living things are alive because they share in the reality of Life and things that are dead because of the reality of Death. It follows that it is best that living things are alive and dead things dead.

There are two problems with this. First, it contradicts the argument that things come to be from their opposites. Second, it undermines what Socrates said about life being a prison and being alive the destruction of the soul by the body (95d). Unless, of course, it is better to be a slave and better that the body destroy the soul.

Socrates introduces the forms Bigness and Smallness.

Now it seems to me that not only Bigness itself is never willing to be big and small at the same time, but also that the bigness in us will never admit the small or be overcome, but one of two things happens: either it flees and retreats whenever its opposite, the Small, approaches, or it is destroyed by its approach. (102 d-e)

At this point an unnamed listener speaks up. Phaedo says he does not remember who it was. (103a) What is the significance of this? Perhaps the anonymous participant is the model for the anonymous reader who does not accept what is said but questions it.

"By the gods, did we not agree earlier in our discussion to the very opposite of what is now being said, namely, that the larger came from the smaller and the smaller from the larger, and that this simply was how opposites came to be, from their opposites, but now think we are saying that this would never happen?" (103a)

Socrates responds:

… you do not understand the difference between what is said now and what was said then, which was that an opposite thing came from an opposite thing; now we say that the
opposite itself could never become opposite to itself, neither that in us nor that in nature. Then, my friend, we were talking of things that have opposite qualities and naming these after them, but now we say that these opposites themselves, from the presence of which in them things get their name, never can tolerate the coming to be from one another." At the same time he looked to Cebes and said: "Does anything of what this man says also disturb you?" (103b-c)

The anonymous man to whom he turns and then turns away from is not given a chance to respond and does not interrupt. While it is true that Socrates was talking about things coming to be and now the Forms themselves, there is the problem of how they are related.

Although it appears that Socrates simply dismisses what the unnamed man said, the conversation moves in that direction. Socrates says:

Tell me again from the beginning and do not answer in the words of the question, but do as do. I say that beyond that safe answer, which I spoke of first, I see another safe answer. If you should ask me what, coming into a body, makes it hot, my reply would not be that safe and ignorant one, that it is heat, but our present argument provides a more sophisticated answer, namely, fire, and if you ask me what, on coming into a body, makes it sick, I will not say sickness but fever. Nor, if asked the presence of what in a number makes it odd, I will not say oddness but oneness, and so with other things. (105b-c)

Why would Socrates have previously gotten them to agree with an answer he now says is an ignorant one? Is Socrates’ new safe answer different from the answers he rejected as a young man because in part they made use of the senses? But how could he now know that fire is hot without the senses?

Before his second sailing Socrates rejected natural causes including heat, cold, and fire. (96b) As well, or so it seemed, to two being the result of adding one to one. He claimed that the safe
answer was caused by twoness. Upon closer reading, however, what he was saying is that neither the one added or the one added to becomes two. (96e) In other words, each one remains one and together they are two.

It is the unit, the one, that makes counting intelligible. We must consider how this relates to the Forms, which are each always one even when combined.

The significance of the unnamed man’s challenge now becomes evident.

Answer me then, he said, what is it that, present in a body, makes it living?

Cebes: A soul. (105c)

It is not, as the ignorant answer would have it, Life that makes a body living but soul.

Now the soul does not admit death?—No.
So the soul is deathless?—It is.
Very well, he said. Shall we say that this has been demonstrated, do you think?
Very sufficiently demonstrated indeed, Socrates. (105e)

But has it?

Well now, Cebes, he said, if the uneven were of necessity indestructible, surely three would be indestructible?—Of course.
And if the non-hot were of necessity indestructible, then whenever anyone brought heat to snow, the snow would retreat safe and unthawed, for it could not be destroyed, nor again could it stand its ground and admit the heat?—What you say is true. (106a)
Socrates is now doing exactly what he criticized the unnamed man for doing, mixing things and Forms of things. The Form Uneven can never become even, but three things are not indestructible. When the Hot is brought to snow it does not retreat safe and unthawed, it melts. The Form Cold, however, if the Forms are indestructible, would not be destroyed when the snow is.

One might object that the Forms “Triad” and “Snow” are indestructible, but this points to the problem of Socrates’ distinction between Forms and things. When it snows it is not the Form Snow that snows.

Must then the same not be said of the deathless? If the deathless is also indestructible, it is impossible for the soul to be destroyed when death comes upon it. (106b)

The Cold in snow is indestructible, but snow is not. If the soul is like snow then it too would be destroyed. But Socrates has confused Cebes, and no doubt some readers.

So the Soul will never admit the opposite of that which it brings along, as we agree from what has been said? (105d)

The opposite of what the soul brings along is Death. In accord with what has been said, snow brings Cold and three Odd. Snow cannot admit Hot without being destroyed. Three cannot admit Even and remain three. So, soul cannot admit Death and remain soul.

Then when death comes to man, the mortal part of him dies, it seems, but his deathless part goes away safe and indestructible, yielding the place to death. (106e)

According the examples, when the opposite approaches - Hot or Even, the Cold in snow and the Odd in three retreats. But if it is the soul in body that retreats then what is the opposite of soul that approaches?

Socrates has not been able to navigate the ship to safety. They are in treacherous waters, in danger of being shipwrecked, just as Simmias feared.

"What has been said" by whom? Are you taking us for a ride or something? — Apollodorus

In case there are some here who are seeing this and might be confused, read the quoted statements above by Rowe and Rosen. The desire for a neat little "package" tied with a pretty bow is antithetical to an educated reading of the dialogues.

So how would you sum up Phaedo in a few words (if you had to)? — frank

Are you joking or just ignoring what has been said?

But when it comes to comedy - listening to the audio really brings it out.
The request to be reminded of the Recollection proof: 'Not sure that I remember the doctrine !'. — Amity

I am glad you caught that. Plato's playfulness goes unnoticed by those searching for his doctrines,

Socrates gives some counselling:
There are plenty of 'charmers' in Greece - incantations to reduce fear.
However, I think the final words at 78b say it best:

And you yourselves must search too, along with one another; you may not easily find anyone more capable of doing this than yourselves.'
'That shall certainly be done,' said Cebes; ' — Amity

And to be clear, Socrates is talking about myths and those involved in the cults of mystical rites. Some here are advocating that we pay attention to them but ignore what Socrates says about them. If they are to be looked at, it should be from this perspective if looking at them is intended to shed light on the dialogue.

Thus what began in Strauss himself as an interesting method with the potential for plausible readings, not least of the Republic, has hardened, in the hands of some of his epigoni, into the treatment of Plato as an advocate for a conservative politics: — Christopher Rowe

I agree. One time I shared my concern about this with Rosen. He said that this is why he deliberately tried to distance himself from the "Straussians". More recently there has been a split between "East Coast" and "West Coast" Straussians over the conservative activism of those on the west/right. Whereas Rosen emphasizes the unresolved problems, they have convinced themselves that they have the answers. It is remarkable how Strauss has engendered such a wide, varying, and opposing set of views.

The approach taken by Fooloso4 is analytical — Amity

Based on the divisions in the article you cite my approach would be "Straussian":

Historically important modes of interpretation, like the Neoplatonic, and their modern counterparts—“unitarian,” “developmentalist,” analytical, esoteric, and Straussian

By contrast Leo Strauss and his followers specifically start from the multiplicity of the dialogues and the characters, situations, and conversations in them. At least in its original form, “Straussianism” is probably—at least in principle—the most sensitive of all approaches to the Platonic corpus (other than the most exclusively literary) to its dramatic aspects. Its methodology is hard to summarize but can perhaps fairly be said to consist in trying to see how the choice of characters, their setting, and their interactions affect the apparent outcomes of the argument.

From an earlier post:

There has been an important reappraisal in the way the dialogues are read. Influential figures are Jacob Klein and Leo Strauss, and his students including Alan Bloom, Stanley Rosen, Thomas Pangle, and Seth Benardete, and their students, including Charles Griswold, Rhonna Burger, David Roochnik, Laurence Lampert , and many others. — Fooloso4

These are the people I read and whom I have learned the most from.

An important statement from Strauss's student Stanley Rosen:

For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems. Strauss tended to emphasize the first and the second. I wouldn’t say he didn’t mention the third, whereas I concentrate on the third. — Fooloso4

Between this and Rowe's criticism it is clear how far apart those who look at the dialogue as a whole with attention to parts are from those who say:

Have you thought of just drawing out the significant ideas instead of providing your interpretation? — frank

The alternative isn’t Neitszche’s ‘Uber-mensch’ but a return to philosophical spirituality.
— Wayfarer

Nice words. The devil is in the detail, the myth that will accompany the spirituality, the lie-to-children.

See the Phaedo thread. Fooloso4 perhaps has something along these lines in mind in his account there.

It seems to me that the Ubermensch is in the ascendence. — Banno

A proper understanding of the ubermensch is that it is a return to philosophical spirituality. Only it is not Christian spirituality or any transcendent spirituality. It is Dionysian. A spirituality of the body and the earth.

For Nietzsche it is not the lie to children, but rather the child who has not yet been lied to:

The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a sacred Yes.” (Zarathustra, Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit).

What is necessary is that the deadly truth be hidden. But in truth it is too late. Thus the spirits need to forget and create a new beginning.

That's a good question. I don't think it is a step in logical argument, but I do think that Plato intends for the most thoughtful of us to work through the logic of the accounts he gives. In the next section that I will present (probably tomorrow) he will call the "safe answer" he proposes here as a hypothesis , an "ignorant" or "unlearned" answer, and will propose another.

I think the main purpose is rhetorical. It is the pharmakon against misologic. (89d) The truth is, logos or accounts or arguments cannot accomplish what is hoped for, knowledge of the fate of the soul. But this is not a truth they are ready to hear. Socrates does not want them to give up on philosophy so here he resorts to the myth of recollection, with its promise of knowledge and the safe passage of the soul to Hades and back. In the Republic to the story of the ascent from the cave to transcendent knowledge of the whole. This story in particular has inspired generations to pursue philosophy. And, as Nietzsche nicely sums it up, Christianity becomes Platonism for the people.

From the Rosen interview:

The purpose of the text is to stimulate the reader to think, and it does that by being an intricate construction with many implications, some of which are indeterminate in the sense that you can’t be sure of what Plato meant and what Socrates meant, but they are intended to make you, the interpreter, do your thinking for yourself ... I think that it would be better to emphasize that the dialogue has as its primary function the task of stimulating the reader to think for himself, not to find the teaching worked-out for him.

And from @Amity above:

Such an open-ended type of interpretation has its representatives among two radically different groups: among philosophical interpreters, for whom it makes Plato a philosopher much like them —more interested in, or expecting more from, arguments than in or from conclusions — Christopher Rowe

But the non-philosophers are reluctant to ground their lives on logic and arguments. They have to be persuaded. One means of persuasion is myth. Myth inculcates beliefs. It is efficient in making the less philosophically inclined, as well as children (cf. Republic 377a ff.), believe noble things....

I think that this is correct. It is something that I have been attempting to show. Cebes and Simmias are the image of just such non-philosophical readers and listeners. They have to have their childish fears charmed away by myth and incantations.
By contrast:

For Plato we should live according to what reason is able to deduce from what we regard as reliable evidence. This is what real philosophers, like Socrates, do.

It is significant that those who have opposed my interpretation have not said anything about the details of what Socrates says in the dialogue about myths. Instead they point elsewhere.

You said:

There's no comedy or tragedy because it's not a drama. — frank

In response I quoted Rosen making specific points as to the dialogues being dramas:

in Neo-Platonist times, interpreters of the dialogues took the dramatic form very seriously.

there was a tradition of taking seriously the dramatic form of the dialogue. It began in Germany in the 18th century with people like Schleiermacher. And that tradition extends through the 19th century, and you see it in scholars like Friedländer and in philosophical interpreters like Gadamer.

within the last ten years, even the analysts have began talking about the dramatic form of the dialogue

From an interview with Stanley Rosen, an influential scholar who has written extensively on Plato:

ROSEN: Well, firstly, the approach to the Platonic dialogues has changed over the course of history. For example, in Neo-Platonist times, interpreters of the dialogues took the dramatic form very seriously. And they read very complicated views into what would look to, say, the members of the contemporary analytical tradition like extremely trivial and secondary stylistic characteristics. Secondly, there was a tradition of taking seriously the dramatic form of the dialogue. It began in Germany in the 18th century with people like Schleiermacher. And that tradition extends through the 19th century, and you see it in scholars like Friedländer and in philosophical interpreters like Gadamer. And we now know, of course, that Heidegger in his lectures on the Sophist took the details of the dialogue very seriously. So, that has to be said in order for us to understand that the apparent heterodoxy or eccentricity of Leo Strauss’ approach to the Platonic dialogues is such a heterodoxy only with respect to the kind of positivist and analytical approach to Plato ... Final point, within the last ten years, even the analysts have began talking about the dramatic form of the dialogue as though they discovered this. More directly, the Strauss approach is characterized by a fine attention to the dramatic structure, the personae, all the details in the dialogues because they were plays, and also by very close analyses. https://college.holycross.edu/diotima/n1v2/rosen.htm

Rosen demonstrates the approach in Plato's Sophist: The Drama of Original and Image.

A few more points from the interview that are worth considering:

The purpose of the text is to stimulate the reader to think, and it does that by being an intricate construction with many implications, some of which are indeterminate in the sense that you can’t be sure of what Plato meant and what Socrates meant, but they are intended to make you, the interpreter, do your thinking for yourself ... I think that it would be better to emphasize that the dialogue has as its primary function the task of stimulating the reader to think for himself, not to find the teaching worked-out for him.

For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems. Strauss tended to emphasize the first and the second. I wouldn’t say he didn’t mention the third, whereas I concentrate on the third.

First of all, there is no unanimity in the tradition of reading Plato. I told you that what passed for orthodoxy is no longer orthodox. The same analysts who made fun of Leo Strauss and me and his other students, today are copying us, but with no acknowledgment. They are copying the Straussian methods, but not as well. Leo Strauss is a much more careful reader and a more imaginative reader, and I certainly am as well. You get these inferior, inferior versions of the same methods they criticized ten years ago. This thesis of a long, orthodox tradition, that’s nonsense. It doesn’t exist. Even if it did, it would show nothing.

That is why I am struggling and others might find it all too obvious and have a quicker pace. — Amity

The problem may be that others are only too quick to proclaim what is all too obvious and not pace themselves slowly enough to attend to the details that can turn the obvious into something quite different.

So, people learn through repetition; the repetition builds paths in our brain. Once people have been down the same path a few times, they find the place quicker next time round. — Amity

Consider the following from my last post. Socrates says:

I deliberately repeat it often, in order that no point may escape us, and that you may add or subtract something if you wish.(95d)/quote]

As I pointed out:

Socrates now summarizes Cebes’ argument but makes a significant change without Cebes’ noticing. Did he forget his own argument? Cebes said that every soul wears out many bodies, but Socrates says:

... the soul in its very entering into a human body was the beginning of its destruction, like a disease (95d) — Fooloso4

Also consider what Socrates says about incantations. Sometimes we come to believe something is true just through repetition.

There's the real problem with philosophy; our inability to remain silent. — Banno

Some days here I feel like I am about to be cured of that affliction.

Are you sure about that?: — Amalac

If you are asking about Wittgenstein then yes, I am quite sure. If you are talking about theology then in my opinion God is ineffable and theologians are always in one way or another always trying to eff him.

How would you interpret that passage? — Amalac

He is taking you to task. Trying to get you to think. Can you say what an illogical world would look like? Do you not see the problems?

... so it's still important to show why they are wrong, if indeed they are wrong. — Amalac

Why is it important? You can create any God you want, one that is and one or more that is not constrained by logic.

the arguments for their own sake. — Amalac

The argument is in my opinion not worth talking about. You obviously see things differently.

"God does not reveal himself" (Wittgenstein) — Mr.S

The full statement is:

How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.
— T 6.432

That statement follows this one:

Propositions can express nothing that is higher.
— T 6.42

T = Tractatus

With regard to the existential relationship:

Being happy means being in agreement with the world (NB 8.7.16)

Living in agreement with the world is living in accord with one’s conscience, which is the voice of God.

I am then, so to speak, in agreement with that alien will on which I appear dependent. That is to say: “I am doing the will of God” (NB 8.7.16)

NB = Notebooks

God is outside the logical relationships of things in the world. What is or is not logically possible has nothing to do with God.

Since propositions can express nothing higher, talk of God is without sense. What does make sense is what refers to the logical relationships within the world. To what is the case. To facts.

A two-way problem arises in this relationship of God with the empirical world: — Mr.S

You neglect consideration of an existential relationship.

If God existed (which in itself remains to be seen), there would also be an unfathomable gulf between his greatness, his omnipotence, his spirituality and his ability to access the material world. — Mr.S

Is this a concept of God that Wittgenstein endorsed?

The problem with that interpretation is that according to most accepted theological conceptions of God, — Amalac

I suggest that if your concern is with Wittgenstein then stick with what he said rather than concepts he does not explicitly ascribe to. Wittgenstein does not have a lot to say about God but he does say somethings. If your interest is, as the title suggests, Wittgenstein then check the early Notebooks.

Socrates now summarizes Cebes’ argument but makes a significant change without Cebes’ noticing. Did he forget his own argument? Cebes said that every soul wears out many bodies, but Socrates says:

... the soul in its very entering into a human body was the beginning of its destruction, like a disease (95d)

As if to emphasize this change, Socrates says:

I deliberately repeat it often, in order that no point may escape us, and that you may add or subtract something if you wish.

And Cebes said:

There is nothing that I want to add or subtract at the moment. That is what I say.(95d-e)

After Cebes says this:

Socrates paused for a long time, deep in thought. (95e)

Then says:

"This is no unimportant problem that you raise, Cebes, for it requires a thorough investigation of the cause of generation and destruction. I will, if you wish, give you an account of my experience in these matters. (96a)

One might think that what will follow is a discussion of natural science.

Listen then, and I will, Cebes, he said. When I was a young man I was wonderfully keen on that wisdom which they call natural science, for I thought it splendid to know the causes of everything, why it comes to be, why it perishes and why it is. (96a)

But he did not find the answers he sought.

One day I heard someone reading, as he said, from a book of Anaxagoras, and saying that it is Mind that directs and is the cause of everything. I was delighted with this cause and it seemed to me good, in a way, that Mind should be the cause of all. I thought that if this were so, the directing Mind would direct everything and arrange each thing in the way that was best. If then one wished to know the cause of each thing, why it comes to be or perishes or exists, one had to find what was the best way for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is best. (97b-d)

Socrates accepted Mind as the cause, but instead of inquiring about what Mind is, or how it arranged things, he sought an explanation for why it is best that things be the way they are. He did not find such an explanation in Anaxagoras or anywhere else. He thus launched his “second sailing” to find the cause. (99d).

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. So I thought I must take refuge in discussions and investigate the truth of beings by means of accounts [logoi] … 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, both about cause and about all the rest, while what isn’t, I put down as not true. (99d-100a)

Those familiar with the Republic will recall the story of the ascent from the cave where it was necessary to first look at images of things (beings) before being able to look at things themselves, and then finally looking at images of the sun before looking at the sun itself.

With his “second sailing” Socrates looks to what seems best in a double sense. First, he wants to understand how it is best that things are arranged by Mind as they are, and second, having failed to understand things as they are, that is, to attain truth and knowledge, he seeks what seems to be the best argument.

I am going to try to show you the kind of cause with which I have concerned myself. I turn back to those oft-mentioned things and proceed from them. I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest. If you grant me these and agree that they
exist, I hope to show you the cause as a result, and to find the soul to be immortal.
Take it that I grant you this, said Cebes, and hasten to your conclusion. (100b-c)

Cebes does not really seem interested in the forms and agrees without question in order to get to the point that concerns him, the immortality of the soul.

Consider then, he said, whether you share my opinion as to what follows, for I think that, if there is anything beautiful besides the Beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than that it shares in that Beautiful, and I say so with everything. Do you agree to this sort of cause?—I do.

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)

Socrates does not attempt to describe the precise relationship of beautiful things to Beauty itself. One would think it important to do so if it is to be accepted as philosophically sound. He settles instead for the “safest answer”. The image of sailing brings to mind, or rather, as we may recall, a “recollection” of the image of the raft sailing through life in the midst of danger.

It seems to me, Socrates, as perhaps you do too, that in these matters certain knowledge is either impossible or very hard to come by in this life; but that even so, not to test what is said about them in every possible way, without leaving off till one has examined them exhaustively from every aspect, shows a very feeble spirit; on these questions one must achieve one of two things: either learn or find out how things are; or, if that's impossible, he must sail through life in the midst of danger, seizing on the best and the least refutable of human accounts, at any rate, and letting himself be carried upon it as on a raft - unless, that is, he could journey more safely and less dangerously on a more stable carrier, some divine account. (85c-d)

According to Simmias' image, if we cannot gain knowledge, the raft will be out of our control and tossed about, unless there is a more stable carrier, some divine account. Is Socrates’ safe account just such an account? What is the cost of passage?

Socrates “assumes” the existence of the Beautiful itself and a Good itself, and so on. He does not try to prove them and does not say how they actually relate to things.

Recollect also the following: Socrates said he persuades himself that what he says seems to be true, (91a) which is very different from attempting to say what seems to be true. Is he trying to persuade himself that the forms seem to be true? Has he been successful? However we may answer this, one thing should be obvious: if the myth of recollection was true, none of this would be necessary. He would have simply recollected what he knew from being dead, the existence of Beauty itself, Justice Itself, the Good itself, and all the rest.

Socrates ends with a very odd bit of advice:

Then would you not avoid saying that when one is added to one it is the addition and when it is divided it is the division that is the cause of two? And you would loudly exclaim that you do not know how else each thing can come to be except by sharing in the particular reality in which it shares, and in these cases you do not know of any other cause of becoming two except by sharing in Twoness, and that the things that are to be two must share in this, as that which is to be one must share in Oneness, and you would dismiss these additions and divisions and other such subtleties, and leave them to those wiser than yourself to answer. But you, afraid, as they say, of your own shadow and your inexperience, would cling to the safety of your own hypothesis and give that answer. If someone then attacked your hypothesis itself, you would ignore him and would not answer until you had examined whether the consequences that follow from it agree with one another or contradict one another. (101c-d)

When one is added to one it is not the addition of one to one that makes two but it is two by sharing in Twoness. Socrates tells him that he should “loudly exclaim” this. Yelling has seemed to take the place of persuasion by reason.

And when you must give an account of your hypothesis itself you will proceed in the same way: you will assume another hypothesis, the one which seems to you best of the higher ones until you come to something acceptable, but you will not jumble the two as the debaters do by discussing both the beginning and what emerges out of it, if you wish to discover any truth … but if you are a philosopher I think you will do as I say.”
What you say is very true, said Simmias and Cebes together. (101d-102a)

Compare this to the description of dialectic the Republic:


"Well, then, go on to understand that by the other segment of the intelligible I mean that which argument itself grasps with the power of dialectic, making the hypotheses not beginnings but really hypotheses—that is, steppingstones and springboards—in order to reach what is free from hypothesis at the beginning of the whole. When it has grasped this, argument now depends on that which depends on this beginning and in such fashion goes back down again to an end; making no use of anything sensed in any way, but using forms themselves, going through forms to forms, it ends in forms too." (511b)

In the Republic hypothesis is used to get free of hypothesis, back to the beginning of the whole. Here, however, Cebes and Simmias are told to go from hypothesis to hypothesis, but they do not free themselves from hypothesis. They are told not to discuss the beginning, but, of course, they can’t because they have not arrived at the beginning. They have not arrived at the forms. At best they have arrived at what seems to them best. The philosopher, if Cebes and Simmias are philosophers, does not have knowledge of the whole either through dialectic or recollection.

I didn't know about the Bacchants. — Amity

I should add, in case it is not obvious, that wine and fertility are about bodily pleasures. And yet, Socrates throughout the dialogue has railed against the pleasures of the body. Here too, the context is "being mastered by pleasure" and the "exchange pleasures for pleasures", but he refers to the rites of the Bacchants "Riddles" and "mysteries" indeed!

Socrates is quite clear it is not rites that purify:

Exchanged for one another without wisdom such virtue is only an illusory appearance of virtue; it is in fact fit for slaves, without soundness or truth, whereas, in truth, moderation and courage and justice are a purging away of all such things, and phronesis itself is a kind of cleansing or purification. (69c)

There is, however, one more piece of the puzzle:

There are indeed, as those concerned with the mysteries say, many who carry the thyrsus but the Bacchants are few. These latter are, in my opinion, no other than those who have practiced philosophy in the right way.(69d)

The thyrsus is the wand, but not all who carry the wand and participate in the rites understand them. They have, as it were, the props and go through the motions, but do not practice philosophy in the right way. And, if any confusion still remains, once again, practicing philosophy in the right way means,
"in truth, moderation and courage and justice".

And I fancy that those men who established the mysteries were not unenlightened, but in reality had a hidden meaning when they said long ago that whoever goes uninitiated and unsanctified to the other world will lie in the mire, but he who arrives there initiated and purified will dwell with the gods. — Phaedo 69c

Socrates is talking about the Bacchants, those who have been initiated into the rites of Bacchus, that is, Dionysus; the god of the grape, wine, and fertility. Wearing masks is also part of the rituals. The Socrates' and Plato's masks are significant in this context.

Here too the irony should not be lost. Socrates' talk of phronesis and moderation are in sharp contrast to the divine madness the rituals were intended to induce. But, as the Phaedrus makes clear, Socrates was not opposed to divine madness. There is here, once again, a play of opposites.

Surely the expression that ‘there is an ancient doctrine that we’ve recalled’ signifies something more than here-say, in the context of one who believes that true knowledge is recollection of knowledge obtained before this life. — Wayfarer

You seem to have missed the irony. They have recalled the doctrine. They have not recollected. It remains something they have been told rather than knowledge they have attained.

In general, it is a way of looking at the human condition; the bitter-sweet connections, the experiences of pain/pleasure. — Amity

Both Plato and Socrates are more than aware of the human condition - the interplay between body and mind. The need for a sense of humour... — Amity

You make some good points.

As I have said before, with the dialogues we need to look not only at what is said but at what is done. Here are two examples from the Phaedo of Socrates laughing.


At 84d: "When Socrates heard this he laughed quietly " (or in other translations "gently")
At 115c: "laughing quietly" (serenely)

This looks interesting:

From the summary of the book "Plato's Laughter":

Counters the long-standing, solemn interpretation of Plato’s dialogues with one centered on the philosophical and pedagogical significance of Socrates as a comic figure.

Plato was described as a boor and it was said that he never laughed out loud. Yet his dialogues abound with puns, jokes, and humor. Sonja Madeleine Tanner argues that in Plato’s dialogues Socrates plays a comical hero who draws heavily from the tradition of comedy in ancient Greece, but also reforms laughter to be applicable to all persons and truly shaming to none. Socrates introduces a form of self-reflective laughter that encourages, rather than stifles, philosophical inquiry. Laughter in the dialogues—both explicit and implied—suggests a view of human nature as incongruous with ourselves, simultaneously falling short of, and superseding, our own capacities. What emerges is a picture of human nature that bears a striking resemblance to Socrates’ own, laughable depiction, one inspired by Dionysus, but one that remains ultimately intractable. The book analyzes specific instances of laughter and the comical from the Apology, Laches, Charmides, Cratylus, Euthydemus, and the Symposium to support this, and to further elucidate the philosophical consequences of recognizing Plato’s laughter. https://www.sunypress.edu/p-6468-platos-laughter.aspx

Socrates mentions his scornful and critical 'comic poet' - ? Aristophanes — Amity

Nietzsche said:

I know of nothing that has caused me to dream more on Plato’s secrecy and his sphinx nature than the happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his deathbed there was found no “Bible,” nothing Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic—but a volume of Aristophanes. How could even a Plato have endured life—a Greek life to which he said No—without an Aristophanes?

Socrates is not being presented as believing Homer is divine.

Do you understand that? — frank

Socrates calls him divine. In what way is his calling him divine not presenting him as being divine?

What he means by this is another matter. And whether or not he believes it cannot be determined without first figuring out what he means.

Once again, you said in some cases my interpretation is wrong, but you have not given a single case. So what are those cases? Saying that he calls him divine is not an interpretation. It is a direct quote from the text.

In some cases, your interpretation is just wrong. The bigger problem is that you seem to think there is one right interpretation. — frank

I do not think there is one right interpretation, but you have not given me a single case of where you think my interpretation is wrong. Without details your accusations are empty. Provide specific cases and where you think my interpretation does not agree with what is said in the dialogue, as well as what you think is a better interpretation, and we can talk.