All I'm saying is that "socialism" isn't always what believers in it think it is, — Apollodorus

Yes, on this we agree. It is used as a term of condemnation without understanding what it actually is.

It's not about reason and good, but about concepts of them - whatever that means. Reason itself a tool — tim wood

Well, you present a concept of reason. Since we do not have knowledge of the good we must rely on our concept of the good, our views, opinions, discussions, as you say explication, and so on.

with the same moral significance — tim wood

Tools can be put to both good and bad use. If reason is a tool then it can be put to good or bad use, hence moral significance.

Rhetoric and Dialectic (logic) are two different animals. — tim wood

They are, but the point Rosen is making is that knowledge requires both, and, in addition, poesis.

Of course no one knows what will be in 10 or 20 years. Maybe Europe will be taken over by China and then we'll have Chinese-style communism instead of socialism. — Apollodorus

By this I mean two things. First, we do not know how successful and policy or program will be. There will be unforeseen and unintended consequences. Second, I think the looming environmental crisis will serve as a major challenge to myopic notions of individualism and isolationist nationalism.

By reason I suppose I must mean logic, reason itself being the use of it, and the argument the incidental form it takes. — tim wood

Just yesterday I came across this:

Nihilism is the concept of reason separated from the concept of the good. — Stanley Rosen

Reason for the ancients was not the same as modern reason modeled on mathematics. It was closer to our other uses of the term, such as when we ask for reasons why. Rather than build on grounds, Aristotle for example, begins with what is said, either some popular opinion or what some highly regarded person said.

And yet they remain popular. I think it is a combination of fear and resentment fueled by well funded right wing propaganda.

I think it fair to say, if you want to know what the right wing is doing look at what they criticize the left for.

It isn’t me you should be upset with — Apollodorus

The fact that I disagree with you does not mean I am upset with you. I don't know who you are but I don't imagine you have much power to change things.

...socialism was taken over by England’s Fabian Society and Labour Party — Apollodorus

No one can take over socialism. All they can do is promote a particular socialist position. In the same way, no one can take over democracy.

There is big awakening in Europe, Italy, France, Poland, Hungary, all of them are beginning to wake up. Even Scandinavian countries and soon Germany. — Apollodorus

The pendulum swings. No one knows how things will look ten or twenty years from now.

Although social security is popular the GOP is still opposed:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2018/11/02/republican-public-opposition-to-social-security-and-medicare/?sh=3de051b44e71

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nancyaltman/2019/08/26/republicans-are-pushing-myths-about-social-security-to-justify-their-demands-for-benefit-cuts/?sh=2e636a5e1107

This quote almost makes me want to read more Plato. I skimmed through the "Republic", and I found Socrates nothing but a clever arguer, with a sharp mind and incredible follow-through, however, someone also who never shied away from using psychological pressure to make his fallacious arguments stick. I think Socrates (at least in that book) came across as a person who had an insatiable appetite to win arguments.

To make things worse, I find you, Fooloso4, not only tendentious but also void of moral deplitude, clearly intrapretational, and definitely procumptious. — god must be atheist

I will neither affirm not deny what you say about me since I don't know what it means. I cannot tell if you made up these terms or just misspelled them badly enough that I cannot identify them and what might be their meaning, I will, at the risk of confirming whatever it is you say find about me, comment on what you find in the Republic.

Many years ago when I first read Plato my first impression was much like yours. He was out to win the argument and did so by questionable means. So I set out to make my own arguments against him. The more I tried to pick apart his arguments the more I saw not only how closely tied together they were but how they opened up larger issues, and eventually how those too hung together. My youthful confidence in what I thought I knew was shaken and I was hooked.

Two quick points: Socrates defends justice against the sophist Thrasymachus. He beats him at his own game. On the one hand he is defending justice against Thrasymachus' claim that justice is the advantage of the stronger. On the other, he is defending philosophy against sophistry and the claim that the sophist can teach the art of making the weaker argument stronger.

Descartes used the terms mind and soul interchangeably
— Fooloso4

Yes, perhaps you are right (I am not a judge of that), but WHICH of the two, soul or mind, is more redolent according to Descartes? — god must be atheist

One thing that should be kept in mind is the constraints under which Descartes was forced to write. He took as his motto Ovid's saying:

He who lived well hid himself well

I will not go into what I think Descartes is saying behind the rhetoric, it would take us too far off topic and would no doubt cause a revolt by those who accept "official" interpretations (which is not to imply that my interpretation is original).

One with a nose can can catch a whiff of the old and musty in Descartes fresh bouquet.

The term predates Marx and Engels'. Marxism and socialism are not the same.

However, capitalist society saw itself forced to do something about those negative developments even without socialist revolution, hence liberalism ultimately won the debate. — Apollodorus

I suggest you do a bit more reading on the subject. It was not a full out revolution but the creation of unions to advance workers rights was a socialist movement. If liberalism won it was because of the socialists who advocated for the right of workers.

From that perspective, "social security" is just the bait used by clever socialists to promote communism ... — Apollodorus

Again, look at the history. Social security was not the bait, it was however denounced by its detractors as socialism and communism. It was signed into law in 1935. If it was a program to promote communism it failed. As a program to promote the economic welfare of the American people it has been a remarkable success comrade.

The problem is the two-valued orientation, — James Riley

I agree. Most regimes today, including the US, are mixed regimes.

Trump only lost because of the epidemic and because he made mistakes during the election campaign. This is not surprising though as he isn't a career politician. — Apollodorus

Trump is a demagogue surrounded by sycophantic plutocrats . He is exactly the kind of person Plato warned against in his criticism of democracy. His popularity has largely to do with the politics of resentment. By the time he ran for office the second time he was a career politician and remains so.

Socialism has time and again failed in the economic sphere. Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Eastern Europe, all were forced to revert to capitalist methods in order to survive.

You neglected socialism in the United States. We have had socialism ever since the New Deal. According to some even much earlier with the breakup of monopolies under the earlier Roosevelt.
— Apollodorus

Socialist parties can no longer attract voters — Apollodorus

He is an independent, but Bernie Sanders did quite well attracting voters.

individuality — Alexandros

A nice slogan, but one that rings hollow when one stops looking at an ideology and begins looking at actual people.

Apparently in modern times equality in restraint and servitude has become more attractive than equality and liberty. No thinking required for a mob. — Nikolas

Democracy, as Plato warned, can be the tyranny of the demos, that is, the mob.

Tocqueville also said:

Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

And:

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

And:

Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

The extent to which socialism promotes equality and liberty should not be overlooked. Without social security the restraint of poverty would leave millions in servitude. Without regulations children would still be in servitude to factory owners, our food supply adulterated with substances powerful manufacturers would still keep hidden from us, air and water quality would be far worse than they are. The list goes on.

The answer is: the question.

What would happen if a professional philosopher came on this site without anyone knowing that they were an expert? — Bartricks

What counts as a professional philosopher?

I suspect that no matter one's credentials, disagreeing with you would automatically disqualify them in your eyes. But let's take it one step at a time. What counts as a professional philosopher?

I do think our age has some noble spirits though. — j0e

I must confess that I do not know what Nietzsche means by noble spirits. Perhaps the problem is that I cannot recognize what I am not.

Having said that, I think that I might prefer not only to be thought of as a noble spirit but to actually be one. And this leads immediately to the question: by whose standards?

Both Witt and Nietzsche were pioneers, ahead of their time, probably used to being misunderstood. I find it plausible that the times caught up with them so that many more understand them than they might have dared hope. — j0e

Nietzsche is explicit in saying he wants to be misunderstood except by a few. Wittgenstein is not quite so explicit, but if his writing contains locked rooms that are not even noticed then he too writes in such a way that he will be misunderstood except by a few.

While it is clear that the commentaries have changed, this is not the same as saying that more now understand the works they are interpreting. For the commentaries differ, and so, there is still a great deal of misunderstanding. And since far more read the secondary material instead of primary texts misunderstandings are compounded rather than reduced.

In the aphorism Nietzsche talks about "nobler spirits and tastes" and "open[ing] the ears of those whose ears are related to ours". I don't think ours is an age of nobler spirits and tastes. Wittgenstein talks about how he is at odds with the spirit of the age. It is not a matter of cracking the code but of a sympathetic attunement, of kindred spirits. And since kindred spirits are so few, they write in such a way so as to address those spirits while keeping others out.

I don't think that even the author knows the exact meaning of their text — j0e

Texts take on a meaning of their own. But when Nietzsche and Wittgenstein talk about being understood they mean according to their own understanding.

So maybe we can say that W's work is somewhat 'esoteric,' — j0e

Well, there is no initiation or secret society, but there is something hidden that only some can understand. It is, using the metaphor of a locked room, an inner inquiry as opposed to an outward one.

they aren't passed around like secrets. — j0e

More often than not they are passed around without any awareness that they contain secrets, but what is behind a locked door is a secret.

It's easy to imagine several opposed groups of Wittgenstein interpreters — j0e

We do not need to imagine it, such groups exist.

In a draft for the forward to Philosophical Remarks Wittgenstein says:

For if a book has been written for just a few readers that will be clear just from the fact that only a few people understand it. The book must automatically separate those who understand it from those who do not. Even the foreword is written just for those who understand the book.

Anyone can read the book, but it is written for the few who understand it. If only a few will understand it then most who interpret it do not understand it, for they cannot hold different opinions about what the text means and all be correct.

Nietzsche said much the same:

On the question of being understandable–One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood. It is not by any means necessarily an objection to a book when anyone finds it impossible to understand:
perhaps that was part of the author’s intention–he did not want to be understood by just
“anybody.” All the nobler spirits and tastes select their audiences when they wish to
communicate; and choosing that, one at the same time erects barriers against “the others.”
All the more subtle laws of any style have their origin at this point: they at the same time
keep away, create a distance, forbid “entrance,” understanding, as said above–while they
open the ears of those whose ears are related to ours. — Gay Science Aphorism 381

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it, unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside! The honorable thing to do is put a lock on the door which will be noticed only by those who can open it, not by the rest. — Wittgenstein Culture and Value

Does Wittgenstein have such a room? Is he talking about his own writing? Why would he wish to keep "certain people" out? Does the difference between these people and some others have something to do with the ability of those who notice the lock? Is the ability to notice the lock somehow the key to open it? Is this merely a matter of attentiveness or is there something else that allows only some people to notice a locked room?

If Wittgenstein is talking about his own writing then it seems fair to say that his writing is, at least in part, esoteric. It appears to be a self-selective process. Those who gain access do so because of some ability or characteristic that others lack. It makes no sense to ask what is in the room if we do not even see that there is a looked room.

@baker

One of the meanings of "rational" is 'proportional', 'in ratio'

This meaning is crucial for understanding pre-modern thought, for problems such as the One and the many, and the Forms. Reason for the ancients functioned by way of comparison - this in relation to that.

But I have to say, that based on the comments to date, there seems little awareness of the 'esoteric/exoteric' distinction in the history of philosophy.
— Wayfarer
Rather, the assumption seems to be that such a distinction doesn't exist or isn't justified. — baker

I think it is important to make distinctions as to what esoteric means. The term is used to mean occult or arcane knowledge, but it is also used simply to mean a hidden teaching. There are many reasons why what one says would be kept from the authorities or public. As to whether the latter exists in the history of philosophy:

The famous Encyclopédie of Diderot, for instance, not only discusses this practice in over twenty different articles, but admits to employing it itself. The history of Western thought contains hundreds of such statements by major philosophers testifying to the use of esoteric writing in their own work or others’. — Melzer

I do not doubt that my words would benefit from editing, but if what you take away from what I say is that I do not care enough then I think it clear that you have not understood me or the conversational nature of the forum.

The images of knowledge in the Republic are his exoteric teaching cleverly disguised as an esoteric teaching.
— Fooloso4

I think that is at least open to debate. You already said:

I too once believed that the ascent from the cave and the power of dialectic was a description of the mystical experience of truth. I no longer see things that way. — Wayfarer

My once believing it is attestation of how we are fooled by the disguise.

There is an esoteric teaching hidden in the exoteric teaching. It is about protecting philosophy from the polis and the polis from philosophy.

The 'mystical Plato' is perfectly at home in later Christian mysticism, where Platonism played a seminal role, — Wayfarer

The "mystical Plato" a failure to understand his use of mythos andpoesis. The conflation of the works of Plato and Platonism is a fundamental mistake.

The images of knowledge in the Republic are his exoteric teaching cleverly disguised as an esoteric teaching. But there is nothing esoteric about it. It is available to all who open the book. It his his salutary public teaching.

Plato, like Socrates before him was a zetetic skeptic, that is, one who seeks and inquires, driven and guided by his knowledge of his ignorance. (Stewart Umphrey uses the term but means different by it).

... you propose a very radical and relativistic interpretation of Plato’s cave that I have never heard of...whence did you obtain that opinion, that Plato is manipulating us through images of the ideas in this way? — Todd Martin

I am addressing some of this in the thread on esotericism.

My opinion was changed by one of Strauss' students, Stanley Rosen, a contemporary of Bloom. I am away from my books for the next few weeks and I think my memory may be faulty so I won't mention a particular book. He was the first to get me to see that the Forms were themselves images. Another of Strauss' students, also a contemporary of Bloom, Seth Benardete, stresses the importance of philosophical poesis, the making of images. Laurence Lampert distinguishes between Plato's salutary public or exoteric teaching and an esoteric teaching that is suitable only for those who are by temperament and intelligence. The common theme that unites them is Socratic ignorance. In brief, if we take Socratic ignorance seriously then the ascent from the cave is a poetic image. What drives the philosopher is an erotic desire (Symposium) to become wise. Short of that the Socratic lover of wisdom is a zetetic skeptic, one who inquires but does not know.

You might think of what you call 'manipulating' as the forceful dragging of the prisoner to see the source of our opinions and on the ascent to the truth.

Just because we don’t have it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real. So that is rather like an argument from ignorance. — Wayfarer

I am not arguing that it is not real. I am saying that I have no experience of it and so no longer simply assume it is real. To do so would be like the cave dwellers think that images are real. It is not an argument from ignorance it is a recognition of ignorance and the seduction of images.

I hasten to add, I don’t claim to possess such an insight either - but I don’t recoil from the possibility that Plato understood things that I cannot. — Wayfarer

I have no doubt that Plato understood things that I cannot. That does not mean that I would accept a mysticism that is read into the text as something found in the text.

To ‘reach what is free from hypothesis’ I would take to be the direct apprehension of the forms. — Wayfarer

Yes, that much is clear. My question is how dialectic can free us from hypothesis and give us direct apprehension of the Forms? How can we use hypothesis to free ourselves from hypothesis? If there is a method of apprehending the Forms then why does Socrates profess ignorance of the beautiful and good?

That excerpt we discussed the other day: — Wayfarer

The image of the turning of the soul is a depiction of what true knowledge would be. We have not been turned around in that way. But there is still a turning, a coming face to face with our ignorance. The passage should remind us of what happens when the prisoner is released from the shackles and turned around to see the light of the fire and the images that the images on the cave wall are images of.

There is another sense of the images of Forms. Not the things of the world, but the things of the mind. It is analogous to the mathematician's uses images. But the mathematician is not able to free himself of hypothesis and neither are we. The philosopher of the Republic is not the philosopher of the Symposium. The images Plato gives us fuel the desire to be wise, they do not make us wise.

On dialectic.

These things themselves that they mold and draw, of which there are shadows and images in water, they now use as images, seeking to see those things themselves, that one can see in no other way than with thought."
"What you say is true," he said.
"Well, then, this is the form I said was intelligible. However, a soul in investigating it is compelled to use hypotheses, and does not go to a beginning because it is unable to step out above the hypotheses. And it uses as images those very things of which images are made by the things below, and in comparison with which they are opined to be clear and are given honor."
"I understand," he said, "that you mean what falls under geometry and its kindred arts."

"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.

The problem is, how does one free himself from hypothesis? How does one use hypotheses as a springboard? Does one simply jump back to what is free from hypothesis? How does one land at the beginning of the whole?

I think there is a tendency to deprecate the mystical aspects of Plato, as it sits uncomfortably with naturalism, but as Plato is such an important figure, then he has to be accomodated. — Wayfarer

I attempt, to the extent that I am able, to read Plato on his own terms, and certainly not from the perspective of naturalism. I too once believed that the ascent from the cave and the power of dialectic was a description of the mystical experience of truth. I no longer see things that way. Among other things, it occurred to me that I had no knowledge or experience of transcendence. Like many others I mistook his image of knowledge for knowledge itself, just like the cave dwellers mistake the images on the cave wall.

But what could philosophy be other than rational discourse? If the esoteric is outside the bounds of rational discourse, and if philosophy cannot be anything other than rational discourse, then how could the esoteric be within the purview of philosophy? — Janus

The same problem must be faced with regard to Plato's dialectic. Reasoned speech cannot lead to knowledge of the Forms. Dialectic is nothing more than reasoned speech.

Fooloso4 I think your reading is tendentious, — Wayfarer

Well, I could point to the work of various highly regarded scholars whose reading too is what you would regard as tendentious, but I never met a Platonist who was persuaded by such arguments, with one exception, That exception is me. Plato is deep enough to allow for differing interpretations.

But the implication is, Socrates has proceeded beyond 'image and symbol' - has indeed made that ascent - but that Glaucon cannot 'follow' him, i.e. is not equipped to understand his meaning — Wayfarer

Socrates, as you quote, says:

the very truth, as it appears to me

The two terms I put in bold need to be considered. How something appears is not the same as noesis. What appears to him may not appear that way to someone else. There is no such difference or ambiguity when it comes to seeing the Forms themselves. It not a matter of how they appear to me or you or Socrates.

The footnote to this remark is that Socrates will not insist that he perceives rightly, as to do so would be dogmatic. — Wayfarer

I don't know whose opinion that is, but the term itself, from the Greek, means opinion. If Socrates does not want to dogmatic then he does not want to insist that his opinion is true. If that is what the note means then I agree. It makes no sense to claim that if he knows the truth but does not want to insist on the truth.

At any rate, the following passages — Wayfarer

Right before those passages he say:

And may we not also declare that nothing less than the power of dialectics could reveal this, and that only to one experienced in the studies we have described, and that the thing is in no other wise possible?

Two points. Glaucon is not experienced in dialectic and so is merely going along with what Socrates says. He has no understanding of it. Second, he does not say that the power of dialectic does reveal this. Dialectic is not some magic power that transforms speech and thought into noesis.

To deny this is to deny the possibility of the knowledge of the forms, and of the form of the Good, which is fundamental to the entire enterprise .. — Wayfarer

Yes, that is the point. It should be noted that talk of the Forms is conspicuously absent in the Theaettetus, a dialogue about knowledge.

So - isn't the whole task of the philosopher to ascend from from opinion through dianoia to noesis 'through dialectic'? Isn't that what the remainder of the passage is about? — Wayfarer

Except that is not what happened in Socrates own case. The passage from the Republic 533a makes this clear. If what you mean by higher knowledge and truth is the leap from reason to intellection then I find it peculiar that Socrates never made that leap. The whole thing is an image of the truth, an image that "cannot be properly insisted on".

And so, if this is what you mean by "higher knowledge" and "higher truth", Socrates was not and never met a sage.

No actual sages in the sense of having divine knowledge.
— Fooloso4

I don’t regard ‘divine knowledge’ as interchangeable with higher knowledge. Not all wisdom teachings are necessarily theistic. I suspect that it’s the reflexive association of ‘higher’ with ‘divine’ that is often at the basis of the rejection of the idea of ‘higher truth’. — Wayfarer

I was referring to Socrates and the distinction between human and divine wisdom. As I understand it, he points to the limits of human knowledge. I don't think Plato's teaching are theistic. It is, after all, the Good not the God.

In the Republic after Socrates presents theimage of the Forms Glaucon wants Socrates to tell them what the Forms themselves are. Socrates responds:

You will no longer be able to follow, dear Glaucon, although there won’t be any lack of eagerness on my part. But you would no longer seeing an image of what we are saying, but the truth itself, at least as it looks to me. Whether it really is so or not cannot be properly insisted on.(emphasis added) — 533a

Socrates presents an image of the truth not simply because that is all he can show Glaucon but because he cannot, to use another image, ascend the divided line from eikasía to noesis via dianoia, that is, from the imagination to insight via reason. Grasping hold of the truth remains out of our reach. While philosophers tend to focus on reason and dismiss the power of imagination, it is what art, religion, and philosophy have in common. It is why philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein talk of philosophy as poetry, poiesis, the making of images.


What is "higher knowledge" and "higher truth"? Are they transcendent truths and knowledge? Exstatis? Are they truths and knowledge that you are privy to or just truths you believe others have attained?

There were no actual sages? — Wayfarer

No actual sages in the sense of having divine knowledge. At least none that Socrates ever met and none that he identified as such. Someone worshiped for possessing divine wisdom does not necessarily possess it.

According to the IEP entry on Hadot:

The Sage was the living embodiment of wisdom, “the highest activity human beings can engage in . . . which is linked intimately to the excellence and virtue of the soul” (WAP 220). Across the schools, Socrates himself was agreed to have been perhaps the only living exemplification of such a figure (his his avowed agnoia notwithstanding).

by ignoring esotericism, we risk cutting ourselves off from a full understanding of Western philosophical thought.
— Melzer

That would never happen. Not in a million years. Everyone is aware of that. — Wayfarer

There are a great many scholars who do in fact either ignore it or deny it.

There is another important use of the term 'esoteric' as laid out in great detail in Arthur M. Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines".

Philosophical esotericism—the practice of communicating one’s unorthodox thoughts “between the lines”—was a common practice until the end of the eighteenth century. The famous Encyclopédie of Diderot, for instance, not only discusses this practice in over twenty different articles, but admits to employing it itself. The history of Western thought contains hundreds of such statements by major philosophers testifying to the use of esoteric writing in their own work or others’. Despite this long and well-documented history, however, esotericism is often dismissed today as a rare occurrence. But by ignoring esotericism, we risk cutting ourselves off from a full understanding of Western philosophical thought. — Melzer

Examples from throughout the history of Western philosophy are given here: https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/index.html

In Plato's Symposium Socrates says the difference between a sage and a philosopher (Ancient Greek: φιλόσοφος, meaning lover of wisdom) was that the sage has what the philosopher seeks. While analyzing the concept of love, Socrates concludes love is that which lacks the object it seeks. Therefore, the philosopher does not have the wisdom sought, while the sage, on the other hand, does not love or seek wisdom, for it is already possessed.

Seems to indicate that ‘the sage’ is superior even to Socrates (and by implication Plato and Aristotle also). — Wayfarer

There is no Socratic dialogue with a sage. It is not that the sage is superior to Socrates but rather that elenchus reveals that no one who professed wisdom or had the reputation for wisdom was wiser than Socrates, and Socrates was wiser than others in that he knew that he did not know.

It should be noted that the image of the philosopher in the Republic is at odds with the philosopher as the lover in pursuit of wisdom. The philosopher of the Republic possessed the wisdom that that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle sought. He exists only in speech, only in poetic images.

I haven't studied Strauss but I was intensely influenced/inspired by the lectures on Hegel by his friend Kojeve. Anyway, I like the way Strauss puts it, an active role. — j0e

You might find Strauss' On Tyranny of interest. It contains the correspondence between Kojeve and Strauss.