Why can't the prisoner unshackle and free himself? — Shawn
Why is philosophy still associated with no inherent value, or even more practically, valued so little? — Shawn
Did you free yourself from your shackles? If so, how did you do it? If not, what seems to prevent you from unshackling yourself? — Bitter Crank
But to back up, is Plato's cave real--is it a valid metaphor of our world? Are people figuratively chained to the wall and capable of viewing only shaky flickering shadows on a wall? — Bitter Crank
The opposite is a very attractive -- that we know reality; that we are not stuck with flickering shadows of reality. Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose by your chains (and a world to gain)! — Bitter Crank
Was Plato himself free of the cave? He may have had the insight that what he saw of flickering shadows was not reality, but did HE know reality? I suppose he thought he did. Forms schmormes. — Bitter Crank
Maybe we should just burn philosophy's libraries. Smash its statuary; close down philosophy departments. Fire the faculty. Slam the door shut on 2500 years of rehashing stories like The Cave. — Bitter Crank
Yet, modern day man seems comfortable inside the cave, where opinions, ignorance, and one's unconscious might be found. — Shawn
The power of mathematics, being Plato's main interest at the Academy with geometry still hold true. — Shawn
“I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a philosopher of science recently retired from the University of Toronto. “Working mathematicians overwhelmingly are Platonists. They don't always call themselves Platonists, but if you ask them relevant questions, it’s always the Platonistic answer that they give you.”
Other scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago. — What is Math? The Smithsonian Magazine
The Western liberal tradition is profoundly hostile to the Platonic 'doctrines of illumination'. — Wayfarer
It's the task of liberal philosophy to make the world a safe space for the individual, grounded firmly in a naturalism which sees h. sapiens as simply another species, albeit a very clever one. Homo Faber. — Wayfarer
While the Medieval scholastics and other clergy so viciously appropriated Plato's Cave along with even the Bible, I don't believe that one can argue otherwise that the metaphor has not been treated fairly. — Shawn
I heard Plato was a really smart guy. — Shawn
Widespread education, literacy, freedom to think (when and where possible) and communicate has unshackled masses of people — Bitter Crank
Plato spoke of the shadows on the wall, upon which the chained would look upon. What Plato had in mind was the light upon which the figures or abstractions would appear.
Yet, the psychology of what Plato might latter call the ignorant and unenlightened was never apparent in his description of the ideas or forms which the figures would present themselves as imperfect shadows in Plato's cave...
The unenlightened suddenly become free to walk out of the shadowed cave by Platonic philosophers who would want them to enjoy themselves within the outside where one would contemplate the forms or ideas. — Shawn
Indeed, nowadays man has a tendency to resolve one's issues in the cave, conversing with a psychologist about the shadows on the figurative wall of their troubled mind, perhaps even laying on a sofa reasoning or even rather rationalizing their thoughts and conditioned behaviors to themselves. — Shawn
Why is this so? Why can't the prisoner unshackle and free himself? Why is philosophy still associated with no inherent value, or even more practically, valued so little? — Shawn
You have the wherewithal to declare what your values are, practice them, and defend them. If philosophy does anything, doesn't it enable you to think for yourself? — Bitter Crank
While in power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Taliban’s rights record was characterized by systematic violations against women and girls; cruel corporal punishments, including executions; and extreme suppression of freedom of religion, expression, and education. — Taliban restrictions - Education, Social and Justice
hell, print it on the currency -- YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. THINK FOR YOURSELF. — Bitter Crank
The idea of the perennial philosophy is that there is a kind of universal core of philosophy of which particular schools, including Platonism, are representatives or offshoots — Wayfarer
Influential members...representatives...they were all implacably opposed to modern Western culture, indeed, they wouldn't describe as 'a culture'.
...I wouldn't advocate for 'the perennialists' other than to say that their perspective is worth considering, as it's so remote from the usual run-of-the mill instrumentalism that passes for philosophy in today's academy. — Wayfarer
Secular culture retained the idea of the inherent worth of every human, which is the basis of human rights, while abandoning the belief in which it was originally grounded. So now the individual is the arbiter of value. The motto of liberalism is nihil ultra ego - nothing beyond the self; challenge it at your peril. — Wayfarer
So, that’s what secular means. At least in a contemporary American context; what it means to be secular in Japan, India, Yemen, or the Brazilian rainforest, is a whole other ball of wax. And there are so many related terms, such as secularism, secularization, atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker, apostate, heretic, infidel, spiritual but not religious, etc., etc. — Psychology Today: The Secular Life
Widespread education, literacy, freedom to think (when and where possible) and communicate has unshackled masses of people; they've left the cave. I'd say we have made enough progress in the last few centuries, to have no one but ourselves to blame for our persistent collective problems...]We are not 100% free, of course, but we are sufficiently responsible of our own actions. We are, to varying degrees, active responsible agents. If we fuck up, we can, we shall, we must, we will take the blame. — Bitter Crank
Committed to dialogue across cultures and traditions, the collection begins that dialogue with the common challenges facing all traditions: how to maintain cohesion and core values in the face of pluralism, and how to do this in a way that is consistent with the internal ethical principles of the traditions. — Cambridge subjects: religion, philosophy - dissent core beliefs
An Analysis of the Shadows. — Amity
What interested me here is the idea of ' a universal core'. Then came their implacable opposition to a modern Western culture not even thought of as 'culture'. Wow. Where is the 'core' ? — Amity
I think we need to be clear as to the meaning of 'secular'. — Amity
Then there is 'liberalism' - another 'Idea' or 'Form' ?
How can you say what the motto is ? There are so many definitions and meanings ? — Amity
"Plato's Cave" is only a metaphor, y'know, playing like a shadow on your inner skull wall.Why is this so? — Shawn
"The prisoner" will shed his flesh soon enough; what's the hurry?Why can't the prisoner unshackle and free himself?
What value is "inherent value" anyway? Popularity says more about the crowd than it indicates the worth of their latest idol. Beware lest a statue slay you. :fire:Why is philosophy still associated with no inherent value, or even more practically, valued so little?
"Next, then," I said, "make an image of our nature in its education and want of education, likening it to a condition of the following kind ... (514a)
"Well, then, my dear Glaucon, " I said, "this image as a whole must be connected with what was said before. Liken the domain revealed through sight to the prison home, and the light of the fire in it to the sun's power; and, in applying the going up and the seeing of what's above to the soul's journey up to the intelligible place ... (517a-b).
... the phantoms of the human beings and the other things in water; and, later, the things themselves.
Both the fire and the sun correspond to the visible realm. By which light do we see? — Fooloso4
To explore these questions, it's necessary first to study the Parmenidies, don't you think? — Wayfarer
Isn't it the case that in the later tradition of Aristotelian philosophy ... — Wayfarer
What do you find in Parmenides that addresses these questions? — Fooloso4
The tradition assumes the former, but recent scholarship points to their affinity. — Fooloso4
Not in Parmenides, but in the dialogue — Wayfarer
He aims to show that the twentieth-century view that Aristotle started out as a Platonist and ended up as an anti-Platonist is seriously flawed.' — Wayfarer
the basic intuition of the rational intellect as 'that which perceives the forms' — Wayfarer
I don't know if that detracts from the general point. — Wayfarer
the basic intuition of the rational intellect as 'that which perceives the forms' — Wayfarer
It is identified with the immortal aspect of the human (in e.g. the Phaedo). — Wayfarer
The Phaedo talks about the immortal soul but whether or not the soul is immortal remains in question. — Fooloso4
What is the general point? — Fooloso4
To put it differently, how does this three-fold division, cave, light of sun, Forms, correspond to the two-fold division of visible and intelligible? Are the Forms themselves more than images or are they shadows in the mind cast by Plato the image maker? Does the image of escape from the cave to a light above the light of the sun bind us more firmly to the cave? — Fooloso4
If, then, the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.
Moreover, if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality. — Thomistic Psychology, Brennan
The motto of liberalism is nihil ultra ego - nothing beyond the self; challenge it at your peril. — Wayfarer
We do not attempt to escape because we do not know we are not free. The images whose shadows we see are:
... statues of men and other animals wrought from stone, wood, and every kind of material ... (514e-515a)
It should be noted that these images are not images of Forms, but of humans and other animals. — Fooloso4
It is said that it is "by nature" (515c) that one is freed from the wall, but it is by force that someone drags him out of the cave into the light of the sun. (515e) By nature I take him to mean the nature of that prisoner. It is not said who it is that drags him out. — Fooloso4
Who the puppet-masters are, also remains in question. The puppets are images. Do the makers have knowledge of the originals, or do they mistake the images they make for the originals? — Fooloso4
There is a problem with this analogy. The prisoner who escapes the cave does not see the Forms. She remains in the visible realm, culminating in the sight of heaven, the stars and moon at night, and the sun (516a) before returning to the cave. — Fooloso4
Outside the cave one first sees reflections in water:
... the phantoms of the human beings and the other things in water; and, later, the things themselves.
What are here called the things themselves are the things of our ordinary experience. But according to the hypothesis of Forms (511b), these are not the things themselves, but images of the Forms. In that case, the shadows are not simply images of images, but images (shadows) of images (puppets) of images (humans and other things) of Forms (which are called the things themselves) — Fooloso4
The fire in the cave is the image of the sun, and the sun is the image of the Good. Where are we in this three-fold division? — Fooloso4
Both the fire and the sun correspond to the visible realm. By which light do we see? — Fooloso4
To put it differently, how does this three-fold division, cave, light of sun, Forms, correspond to the two-fold division of visible and intelligible? Are the Forms themselves more than images or are they shadows in the mind cast by Plato the image maker? Does the image of escape from the cave to a light above the light of the sun bind us more firmly to the cave? — Fooloso4
It’s phrased in such a way as to leave it an open question. — Wayfarer
the immortal aspect of the human — Wayfarer
According to the later tradition ... — Wayfarer
The Stratocaster, with a longer sustain than a Telecaster, seems to have been central to their sound. — Banno
I need something to do in the cave. Bonus, no reverb — Fooloso4
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