If someone holds a gun to your head and threatens to kill you, what if anything is terrifying you? Would it be the same if you knew it was a toy water pistol?

I will repeat your question:

why are you terrified it"? — NOS4A2

The answer ought to be personal because you are responsible for being terrified of it. — NOS4A2

This is easy for you to say since no one is holding a gun to your head. It may be that different people will react differently, but that is only part of the dynamic. You are not responsible for the fact that someone is holding a gun to your head.

As I said:

I think it would be better for the nation if Biden did not run again ... — Fooloso4

Speech, demeanor, gaffes, are not sufficient measures of cognitive ability and decision making capacity. Biden has dealt with the problem of stuttering since he was a child. This means that he is always aware of what he is saying. It is similar to talking on the phone is hearing what you said repeated.

As he has acknowledged, the problem gets worse when he is tired. His age is a factor here, but even a much younger person would find his schedule exhausting.I came across a comment about how every other president except Trump appears to have aged when leaving office. The explanation was that unlike the others he spent little or no time briefings, reading intelligence reports, and deliberating. Biden spends many late nights prepping.

In the US, I just feel sorry that Americans still believe in these two parties. — ssu

For many of us it is not a question of believing in these two parties or the electoral college but rather of what it would take to change things. It is not as simple as a third party or independent running. The problem of politicians hanging on past their prime goes well beyond Biden - Trump, Grassley, McConnell and others I am too old to remember. The system is designed to resist change.

I find it hard to know how Socrates and Plato thought of immortality. — Jack Cummins

The fact of the matter is: they don't know, but there are serious problems that cast doubt on the possibility. As with Forms and particulars one is the difference between the Form Soul and the soul of an individual. Another is the difference between a person and his soul. Even if the soul is immortal that does not mean that the person is. In one formulation Socrates' death means the separation of body and soul. His soul can become the soul of something else (Phaedo 82a-b), but what would it mean for Socrates to become an ass?

The idea of a 'heaven within' seems important in the interpretation of the Christian teaching, — Jack Cummins

There is no such thing as "the 'Christian teaching". There are various teaching within the NT, inspired teachings many of which were destroyed by the Church Fathers as heretical, and teaching that developed later such as the "official doctrines" determined by the Council of Nicaea. In addition there are the practices of esoteric interpretation and mystical Christian teachings.

The idea of inner wealth of 'heaven within' is also captured in the Buddhist emphasis on nonattatchment. — Jack Cummins

I tend to stay away from such comparisons where similarities are pointed out and differences ignored. In addition there is the problem of translation. Terms such as 'heaven' are typically unduly inflluenced by Western Christian perspectives. I do not know enough to sort it all out and suspect that most others cannot either.

What have your 8.1k posts amounted to? — Vaskane

Nothing.

The acts of martyrdom may not have been taken on without a belief in a literal afterlife. It is questionable whether many current thinkers would be prepared to die like Socrates. — Jack Cummins

When in Plato's Phaedo Socrates says:

... all who actually engage in philosophy aright are practising nothing other than dying and being dead.

(64a)

this should be seen in light of what he said in the Apology:

...to be dead is one of two things: either the dead person is nothing and has no perception of anything, or [death] happens to be, as it is said, a change and a relocation or the soul from this place here to another place .

(40c).

Not knowing what will be, the focus of the philosophical life must be on the here and now. On living a good life, an examined life. If one lives a good life then there should be no fear of punishment if there happens to be a next life. But if dying is the end then we should not squander what is given to us by living in expectation of rewards that may never be.

...the heavenly, or inner treasures and quest for 'truth'. — Jack Cummins

The quest for truth cannot occur at some other time in some other place. One interpretation of the claim that the kingdom of heaven is at hand is that it is to be found within, here and now. To look elsewhere, away from oneself, is to turn away from where one's responsibilities lie and one's inner treasures are to be found.

I think it would be better for the nation if Biden did not run again, but the political good is not the same as the political will and neither has much to do with the unscrupulous game of politics.

Robert K Hur might be a fine jurist but he is not a clinical cognitive neuroscientist and he did not conduct the battery of tests needed to make such a diagnosis. What conclusions would he have drawn from interviewing Trump or anyone else under similar circumstances?

Questions about both the mental and physical health of candidates has long been used as a political weapon. Biden might not remember it but Reagan suffered from Alzheimer's and Trump's mental health has from the start been called into question by mental health professionals - narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and paranoid personality disorder.

The potential jury pool is watching this mess. It may be enough for Willis to be removed from this case. — RogueAI

Maybe. Some jurors are capable of separating what the defendants did from what she did. I don't know if the fact that Trump's affairs and cover ups do not sway voters means that such things no longer matter so much or if they are just willing to overlook it when it comes to Trump. In any case, the prosecution may not be willing to find out.

What bearing does any of this have on the question of whether Trump and his co-defendants are guilty of election interference? What is it about this "improper" romantic relationship that should stand as grounds to disqualify her?

It seems to me that it is nothing more than an attempt to distract and shift focus. It may play well with some voters, but it has no legal merit with regard to the charges against Trump, Roman, and the others.

IMO, there aren't any "mysteries", just intractable uncertainties (i.e. ineffable / unanswerable questions) for us to play out (or reason together about) ...
occulting mystagoguery. — 180 Proof

Perhaps the latter is the result of unreasonable expectations about the former. As if by asking a question there must then be an answer. The natural sense of awe and wonder is lost. Replaced by artifactual realms beyond and a desire for escape and transcendence.

They are not random words. I create them and organize them at my own discretion. — NOS4A2

You do not "create" words. You make use of words, most of which have been around long before you. Whatever discretion you use in organizing them follows rules of syntax that have also been around much longer than you have.

But the sounds and marks themselves are without meaning. — NOS4A2

We have been over this before. Words get their meaning from within a shared language such as English, which you did not "create" By ignoring this you end up hopelessly confused and wanting to drag others down with you.

The fact that I deny words have meaning does not contradict that I mean something by using them. Can you notice the difference? — NOS4A2

You could not mean something by using them if the words did not have meaning. Your meaning something by using them means that they are not just random, meaningless sounds and marks.

I have been saying all along that I engage in meaning, that I provide meaning to those symbols. — NOS4A2

Words are not meaningless symbols that become meaningful when you provide meaning to them. And words are not meaningless symbols that become meaningful when we the reader provides meaning to them, as you also claim. If that were the case then when you say "A" you might mean 'X' while one reader might provide the meaning 'not X' and still another reader 'neither X nor not X'. Language would be impossible.

I am raising objections to the treatment of words as supernatural objects. — NOS4A2

You are objecting to a problem of your own making. It is by separating words and meaning that it appears to you that words must be supernatural objects if they are to have force. You limit the meaning of the word 'force' to physics and biology and wrongly conclude that if words were to have force it would be action at a distance.

I read the words and wanted to write something about them. — NOS4A2

Your wanting to write something about them is part of what it means for words to have force.

But none of this insinuates that the words made me do it. — NOS4A2

And yet you did respond. A drop of water has force. A torrent of water has force. But the force of one is not the same as the force of the other. You can resist the force of words, but that does not mean that they cannot be forceful.

I can only clarify what I mean as much as I can. The rest is up to you, but a little good faith might be in order. — NOS4A2

You have been extended far more than a little good faith! But no matter how often I point out the contradictions you either cannot see them or refuse to acknowledge them. You deny that words have meaning and yet claim that there is something you mean that you are clarifying with words.

So of course I have an opposing view. In my opinion the value of the work is not in its arguments and the resulting doctrines, but that it invites me to assess the arguments given and come to my own conclusions. The acquiescence of a budding tyrant like Glaucon ought to prompt a discerning reader to raise objections. — NOS4A2

By raising objections you are doing just what it is the guardians of one's soul must do! You are more in agreement than you know.

Why raise objections if words are nothing more than sounds and marks? Why use some sounds and marks to argue against the sounds and marks of others? The reason is because words are not just sounds and marks. The acquiescence of a budding tyrant like Glaucon has consequences. He is prompted to act, just as you are when you object. Despite your denial you admit the:

efficacy of words — NOS4A2

You do not know Plato well enough to know that nothing in the dialogue supports your claims.

Sure, that is also important. But I never said nor believe words were not important, and one should not assume, wrongly, that because words have no power that they are unimportant or that anyone is arguing such a thing. — NOS4A2

Again you skip over the issue - words have meaning. It is evident that words are important to you - as a form of auditory autoeroticism. You get off on hearing yourself talk.

No I’m only clarifying what I was trying to get at by using those words. — NOS4A2

If words do not have meaning then how can you expect to clarify what you are trying to say by using them?

If words do not have meaning then the sounds and symbols used are not important. They can be replaced arbitrarily by any other sounds and symbols.

Just more evidence that you are the agent of your own persuasion. — NOS4A2

You have it backwards. It is exactly the opposite. I am the agent of my own ability to guard against being persuaded by false arguments. In the passage you cited from the Republic, those who are to become guardians must be guarded against false arguments while they are young and do not yet have the agency to guard themselves. They will eventually become agents who guard against others having their true opinions taken away from them.

You believe what you want to. No amount of rhetoric can change it. — NOS4A2

Perhaps no one can change that you believes what you want, but certainly rhetoric can change what it is one wants to believe. It can persuade someone to want to believe that instead of this because that seems to be true and this does not.

Do you understand what Aristotle meant when he said that rhetoric is the counterpart to dialectic? Although it can be used to steal away true opinion, it can also be used to secure true opinion. The noble lie is a good example of the latter.

I’m not so sure of that. — NOS4A2

If you care to understand it and are not just mining for statements that seem to support your claims, then you would do well to start by acknowledging that you do not understand.

At any rate, I was only pointing out the arguments Socrates was making, and they were wholly unpersuasive. — NOS4A2

So you do not find what you do not understand persuasive?!

I’ve never said words are not important. — NOS4A2

What you have said on several occasions is:

I cannot believe words transport meaning from A to B because I have not been able to witness this occur. No one has. No one has looked at a symbol and seen anything called “meaning”.

You quoted me but did not address the bolded statement:

On the one hand, you claim that the words are not important, that what is important is that the reader provides them with meaning.

It is your belief that the reader provides words with "some semblance of meaning", but when the reader (in this case me) provides those words with meaning you, you point to your words, to what you said, as if the words have a particular meaning established by the words themselves.

The argument is self-defeating. You use words in an attempt to persuade the reader that words are not persuasive. You put it in the form of a question:

Might it be the case that the listener has much more to say about his “true opinions” than the speaker ever could, and in the end, the listener is the agent of his own persuasion? — NOS4A2

The answer to that question is no. You have not persuaded me. And based on what others have said, you have not persuaded others either. Your argument is weak and incapable of persuading anyone who is able to evaluate it rationally.

This is just your latest and most likely not your last attempt to separate Trump from his responsibility for what he says.

Believing is the power of a believer, not words. — NOS4A2

You point to what you believe to be:

...the asymmetrical dynamics of the interactions Socrates has in mind. — NOS4A2

but do not understand what it is he has in mind. The founder of the noble lie does not believe his own lie. His power is not in his believing but in having others believing his story. The power lies in the story being persuasive, in the words being believed.

I said “Men are able to use argument in order to strip each other ‘unawares of their belief’”. — NOS4A2

It is a point of clarification. What you said is clear in so far as the words are there to be read, but given the syntax and use of quotation marks how those words might be understood is not so clear.

What we should not be unaware of is your belief that:

... the reader uses them. He comes upon them, examines them, understands them, and provides them with some semblance of meaning to suit his own purposes. — NOS4A2

Have you stolen that belief from yourself? On the one hand, you claim that the words are not important, that what is important is that the reader provides them with meaning. But on the other, it is not the meaning the reader gives to them but the words themselves, what you said, that is important.

By the way, there is good reason why the Loeb Classic Library replaced Shorey's translations of Plato.

Note here the asymmetrical dynamics of the interactions Socrates has in mind. — NOS4A2

If there is an asymmetry it is between someone who speaks persuasively about things that are not true and someone who is persuaded by false speech.

An early issue in the Republic is the ability to "make the weaker argument stronger". The stock-in trade of the sophist. Someone who is able to critically evaluate the argument will not be persuaded. Gorgias' words held not power over Socrates. The power of words is no match for the power of reason. But Gorgias was able to demonstrate that he had the power to part a fool and his money.

The power of the words [edit] comes from believing them to be true.

unawares of their belief” — NOS4A2

It is not that they are unaware of their beliefs. It is that they are unaware that their belief or opinions are being taken from them. Two reliable translations:

Horan "... takes something from them without their noticing"

Bloom "... takes away their opinions unawares."

Hegel says that within the development or self-movement of spirit the esoteric becomes exoteric. (Phenomenology of Spirit, Preface, 13) That is, what is at first only known to a few becomes in the completion of its development knowable to all.

Within the all-inclusive circle the implicit in consciousness becomes explicit for consciousness. Hegel gives the following analogy:

However much the embryo is indeed in itself a person, it is still not a person for itself; the embryo is a person for itself only as a culturally formed and educated rationality which has made itself into what it is in itself.

(21)

The embryo begins as something hidden. Through its self-movement it becomes something that is no longer hidden, something that stands out on its own.

This movement takes place in both directions. Science moves from what is outward or exoteric to what is internal and hidden or esoteric. And from what is esoteric or known to the few to what can be known by all.


Nietzsche points to:

The difference between the exoteric and the esoteric, formerly known to philosophers–among the Indians as among the Greeks, Persians, and Muslims — Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 30

What was once known to philosophers, but not to others, was in his own time no longer known even to philosophers. The reason for this that in these cultures:

... people believed in gradations of rank and NOT in equality and equal rights.

... the esoteric class views things FROM ABOVE DOWNWARDS.

We may not be talking about the same thing. Philosophers have hidden their meaning not because it contains mystic knowledge but because they want to avoid censorship. Two examples: the trials of Socrates and Galileo.

Plato took seriously the accusation against philosophy by Aristophanes. He did not think it corrupts the youth but it certainly leads them to question the ancestral beliefs. As Aristophanes shows in his play The Clouds, in the wrong hands this can be harmful. Plato and other writers have no control over who reads their works. He wrote in such a way that only those who are thoughtful enough and can question the text in the right way will see what is between the lines and make connections that the casual reader will not.

The standard definition ... — Corvus

If by esoteric knowledge you mean knowledge that is hidden because it is being kept secret then if it is made public it would no longer be esoteric. But the definition you give also includes what is understood only by a small number of people. In that case it would remain hidden from us because it is beyond our abilities to comprehend it.

In any case, your question was about:

mystical knowledge — Corvus

There are mystery cults that keep their knowledge hidden from those who have not been initiated. The initiation might include texts and teachings, or intoxicants or other measures to induce altered states. When the mysteries are revealed then they are for the initiated no longer mysteries.

But Fooloso, wouldn't you agree if mystical knowledge is demonstrated, then it would be no longer a mystical knowledge? — Corvus

That would depend on what you mean by the term. As I understand it, it is knowledge gained through some kind of transcendent experience. It is known only to those who have had this experience. Some attempt to bring about this experience in one way or another by an altered state of consciousness. Others claim that it is something that happens to you without regard to what you do. Not ever having had such an experience I cannot evaluate it. I cannot say whether it reveals something about the world or human beings or the individual. I do not know to what extent it is an interpretation of what happens.

The term mystical is also used to mean what lies beyond both experience and explanation, that is to say, beyond knowledge. The arche of existence or that there is anything at all.

That bears directly upon the reference to generative power in the Republic — Paine

Good point. I should have pointed out that the question of generation (and decay) is what the passages I quoted from the Phaedo regarding Forms and causes are about.

The ambiguity of Mind/mind is that whether Socrates has shifted from Mind to mind or whether what his human mind does in making things intelligible is an imitation or likeness of what Mind does.

Does that mean that at least some of what you claim [the Buddhist claims] — Fooloso4

More to the point, you seem to accept that there is:

... insight into deeper levels of reality — javra

Unless I misunderstood you, you point to Buddhism in support of this claim.

I'm still only part-way through this book ... — Wayfarer

Perhaps sooner or later you will come across something that addresses what I am saying rather than correcting misunderstandings that someone else might make.

You have missed the point about universals and mind.

If you look into the various mystical religious movements - sufism, Zen, Vedanta, Christian Mysticism - you will find there is extensive literature, a recognised lineage of teachers, in short a framework within which these disciplines are transmitted and made meaningful. — Wayfarer

There are people who are attracted to this kind of thing. The hook is always that you have to buy into it and be committed to it. To assess it you must first accept it.

But this is what hermenuetics is - intepretation of ancient texts, — Wayfarer

There is a difference between the interpretation of a text and accepting its claims. The fact that similar stories come up in different places is not a good reason to accept the stories as true.

Also consider 'mythos' as indicative of stages in the development of consciousness e.g. Julian Jayne's Bicameral Mind ... — Wayfarer

Yes, I have considered that. I don't buy it. I think it shows a lack of understanding of mythos and a gross underestimation of the sophistication of its authors.

I think all of our readings are by default modern. We cannot escape being modern. It is our cave.
— Fooloso4

Socrates says that the free prisoner would think that the world outside the cave was superior to the world he experienced in the cave ... — Wayfarer

If you have escaped the cave then you would see things differently than us cave dwellers. I have not. I can only see things as I can from within the cave.

As a brief justification, this because no human can be omniscient, — javra

Does that mean that at least some of what you claim the Buddhist knows about reality that the rest of us do not know is not something known by the Buddhist after all?

Nothing in science is infallible or perfectly comprehensive — javra

Right, but science is self-corrective. When it becomes evident that a theory is problematic it is revises or replaced. That is a feature of science.

How can the question of whether there is sufficient justification that it might be when there is divergence with regard to what it might be?
— Fooloso4

See the above mentioned. — javra

Analogously: is there sufficient justification for the claims of Christianity? Since there are many and at least in some cases contradictory claims in order to answer that wouldn't you need to know which claims? Doesn't the same true of Buddhism?

This is, or at least can be, part and parcel of an outlook termed perennialism. — javra

One criticism of perennialism is that it tends to homogenize divergent claims.

dismiss the possibility in such a manner that one then claims irrational others who find the possibility viable. — javra

Where have I said that?

I find that it boils down to underlying suppositions of physicalism vs. non-physicalism. — javra

Speaking for myself, it boils down to whether there is sufficient evidence for me to accept extraordinary claims.

In Platonist philosophy, forms are causal only in the sense of serving as models or archetypes. — Wayfarer

See, for example, Socrates discussion of his "second sailing" (99d):

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 ...

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 ...

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 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 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.” That, I think, is the safest answer I can give myself or anyone else.

(99d-100e)

He goes on to admit that this this is inadequate and that material causes are needed as well, but this discussion is in response to Anaxagoras' claim that Mind is the cause of everything. There is some ambiguity. Socrates says:

I thought that if this were so, the directing Mind would direct everything and arrange each thing in the way that was best.

(97d)

Is Socrates referring to his own mind or the human mind of Mind. I might say universal Mind.

As mystical insight is experiential and first-person, the criteria for assessing it are different to those of mathematics and science, — Wayfarer

The problem is, how can we assess it?

But there is an abundant cross-cultural literature describing it, not that I expect many here to be interested in it. — Wayfarer

Such stories are weak evidence for anything real corresponding to them. Should we accept that there are Olympian or Egyptian gods?

But then, you're making ignorance the yardstick for how their claims are to be judged. — Wayfarer

I assume you do not accept every claim about things you do not know.

Lots of questions that don't address the question I asked. — javra

Actually my questions are in response to the question you asked.

That worldview is Buddhism. Just as physicalism is an umbrella concept to many a variety, so too is Buddhism. — javra

If that worldview is based on knowledge of reality then why not a single unified view or description of reality?

... it was about sufficient justification to uphold that it might be, — javra

How can the question of whether there is sufficient justification that it might be when there is divergence with regard to what it might be?

Something fishy about this affirmation. — javra

Unless I misunderstood you, you argued in favor of the benefit of holding "the Buddhist worldview." My point is that there can be different worldviews that are beneficial.

If a Buddhist monk’s worldview — javra

What is that worldview? Is it individual or common to all Buddhist monks? What are we to make of divergent views within and between Buddhist schools of thought?

at least some Buddhist monks have actual knowledge into the nature of reality that others don’t grasp ... — javra

What do they say about the nature of reality? Why should we accept that what they describe is actual knowledge into the nature of reality?

... then the empirically verifiable benefits of their upheld worldview upon their Central Nervous System would by entailment be nothing more than a wild coincidence devoid of any explanation. — javra

That a worldview has benefits for those who hold it only shows that holding this worldview has benefits, not that the worldview corresponds reality. An unrealistic or false worldview might also have benefits.

What is the basis of the worldview? Is it the result of what is viewed, of what is seen in a way similar to the philosophers of the Republic see? These philosophers are, by the way, markedly different from Socrates or how philosophers are described in other dialogues. Or is it a worldview that is based on opinion and attitude? Something we can all accept and benefit from?

The question is, to what extent is knowledge instrumental in actualizing the possible? — Pantagruel

My question in line with this tread is the extent to which possible knowledge is mistaken for actual knowledge. I might grant that it is possible that someone has knowledge of a transcendent reality that most of us know nothing of, but it is a questionable leap across an abyss from what cannot be absolutely ruled out to ruling it in, to accepting it as privileged knowledge of a higher reality.

A savant card-counter could win a huge amount of money from a game of blackjack that would leave most people broke. — Pantagruel

That they can do this is not merely a theoretical possibility. They can demonstrate their ability to do this. How does one demonstrate that there is a realm of Forms that they have knowledge of?

Does anything more follow from "is possible" than is possible?
— Fooloso4

Possibly. — Pantagruel

Ha! And possibly not.

This touches on my interest in intuition, understood as deep learning in neural networks. It seems to me that there are two seperate issues involved.

1. Having demonstrable knowledge.
2. Having an explanation for that knowledge. — wonderer1

Intuitions often turn out to be wrong. In all such cases there is no demonstrable knowledge.

my impression is that intuition has been mysterious and subject to being explained in supernatural or mystical terms until the 1980s — wonderer1

This has been the case with many advances in science.

More precisely, they would not do anything to prevent what they believe is the prophesied final holy war that will usher in the end time and their being raptured.

"Mystical" could in one sense just mean "beyond our current understanding." — Pantagruel

Does anything more follow from "is possible" than is possible?

Individuals with certain mental capacities are capable of grasping complex mathematical concepts far beyond the ken of most folks. — Pantagruel

If someone claims to have mathematical knowledge it can be demonstrated. Can the same be said of someone who claims to have mystical knowledge?

You keep saying that 'we' do not know and can never know the forms - does this 'we' include Plotinus, Proclus, all the philosophers before and since? — Wayfarer

I think so. But we (you and I) don't know what Plotinus or Proclus knows, do we? They claim to know something we do not. You seem inclined to believe them. I am not. Many others have claimed to know something we do not. I am not inclined to believe them based on their reports of mystical experience.

Consider that when you think about triangularity, as you might when proving a geometrical theorem, it is necessarily perfect triangularity that you are contemplating, not some mere approximation of it. — Edward Feser

According to Plato's Divided Line mathematical objects are not known by noesis. They are hypothetical, objects of reason or dianoia.

Russell's universals unlike Forms are not causes.

See Paine's post above.

I am not interesting in turning this into yet another discussion of the limits and problems of materialism.

What in my opinion and consistent with knowledge of ignorance is that whatever it is we might take the Forms to be we do not have knowledge of them. They remain hypothetical. They remain for us images on the cave wall.

Now you might believe that some have attained knowledge of them, but that is just an opinion. The coin of the realm of the cave.

I find that passage you quote itself open to a wide enough range of interpretations. — javra

This much seems clear:

1)There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise (suggramma) of Plato

and

2) his philosophical thinking does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies.

And so I can't make heads or tails as what type of reply it's supposed to be - this to the question of whether you yourself find the Socratic dialogs are reputable, or else worthwhile, philosophy. — javra

If philosophy is the desire for wisdom we should be wise enough to know that we are not wise. In the Apology Socrates says that he knows nothing noble and good. (21d)Knowledge of his ignorance is the beginning not the completion of his wisdom. It is, on the one hand, the beginning of self-knowledge and on the other of the self’s knowledge of the world.

Socratic philosophy is zetetic. It is inquiry directed by our lack of knowledge. If Socrates is taken to be, as I think Plato and Xenophon intend, the paradigmatic philosopher, then the fact that he remained ignorant until the end of his life should be kept front and center.

You do not say what you regard as "reputable and worthwhile philosophy" but I take it to mean some set of logical propositions that inform us about the truth of things. In that case, you would not regard Socratic philosophy to be reputable and worthwhile. But I do.

My interpretation of 'beyond being' is that it means 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence', 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away'. That idea is made much more explicit in Mahāyāna Buddhism than in Platonism, but I believe there is some common ground. — Wayfarer

What is made explicit, as I have pointed out, is that all of the Forms are beyond coming-to-be and passing away but unlike the Good, they are said to be entirely and to be entirely knowable.

To say that the good is beyond being is not to say that it is less than being, that it is not. It exceeds being, it is more than not less than what is.

While I do not speak Ancient Greek, from my studies the word in Ancient Greek can convey different meanings or else sub-meaning. — javra

Isn't that true of many words? If not 'being' then what do you suggest it means in this context?

To be clear, do you by this intend to express that the Socratic dialogues by which Platonism was established are not rigorous philosophical discussions - this on account of often being poetically expressed? — javra

In the Seventh Letter Plato says:

But thus much I can certainly declare concerning all these writers, or prospective writers, who claim to know the subjects which I seriously study, whether as hearers of mine or of other teachers, or from their own discoveries; it is impossible, in my judgement at least, that these men should understand anything about this subject. There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise (suggramma) of mine dealing therewith. For it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies (341c)

Corrupt in what way? — GRWelsh

The primary defense used by the MAGA nation is something we learned on the playground as children. "I know you are but what am I" or "I am rubber and you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you".

In response to charges that Trump is corrupt the response is: Willis or Biden the Democrats or the Justice Department or whoever is part of the "anti-Trump movement" is corrupt. Different allegation same response. He would claim that Carroll raped him except he is afraid that would make him look weak.

Here's a translation I found online — javra

There are several newer translations that are preferable to Shorey's.

Wayfarer brought to my attention this new online translation of all the dialogues: https://www.platonicfoundation.org/

Horan translates the passage as follows:

Then not only does the knowability of whatever is known derive from the good, but also what it is, and its being, is conferred on it through that, though the good is not being, but is even beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power.

This is in line with the highly regarded Bloom translation. The term in question is ousia. Since there was no equivalent term in Latin Cicero coined essentia, from the Latin esse, to be. It means, literally, "the what it was to be". Given the various way the term 'essence' has come to be used, it causes a great deal of confusion as a translation of the Greek.

Though we disagree in some respects, ↪Fooloso4 beat me to it in the example he provided to the contrary. — javra

My example is not to the contrary. It supports it.