I'm definitely aiming for this. Also, how lucky! Reading it with people who are invested and care must have been such a treat.I raised questions and challenges and addressed them to the text as if I was talking to Socrates. — Fooloso4
You could start a reading group here — Fooloso4
Compare the realm revealed by sight to the prison house, and the firelight within it to the power of our sun. And if you suggest that the upward journey, and seeing the objects of the upper world, is the ascent of the soul to the realm known by reason, you will not be misreading my intention, since that is what you wanted to hear. God knows whether it happens to be true, but in any case this is how it all seems to me. When it comes to knowledge, the form of the good is seen last, and is seen only through effort. Once seen, it is reckoned to be the actual cause of all 517C that is beautiful and right in everything, bringing to birth light, and the lord of light, in the visible realm, and providing truth and reason in the realm known by reason, where it is lord. Anyone who is to act intelligently, either in private or in public, must have had sight of this. — Republic Book 7 517b
“Yes,” I said, “but the argument is now indicating that this capacity, present in the soul of each person, the instrument by which each learns, is like an eye which cannot turn to the light from the darkness unless the whole body turns. So this instrument must be turned, along with the entire soul, away from becoming, until it becomes capable of enduring the contemplation 518D of what is, and the very brightest of what is, which we call the good. Is this so?”
You could start a reading group here — Fooloso4
Might as well be this one. — Wayfarer
Oh thanks for the encouragement and tips! I absolutely should start with a smaller dialogue first, can't believe I hadn't thought of it — dani
I've often read in discussions of Plato on this forum that he never claims that Socrates or anyone has ever seen 'the form of the good'. Yet in this passage, and even though Socrates has said 'God knows whether it happens to be true', he nevertheless says 'anyone who is to act intelligently....must have had sight of this.' That seems an unequivocal confirmation that the form of the Good is something that 'must be seen'. — Wayfarer
Notice 'present in the soul of each person'. — Wayfarer
Yet in this passage, and even though Socrates has said 'God knows whether it happens to be true' ... — Wayfarer
...he nevertheless says 'anyone who is to act intelligently....must have had sight of this.' — Wayfarer
Notice 'present in the soul of each person'. — Wayfarer
The carpenter knows that his personal 'form of bed', the formula which he follows in building a bed, is not the most perfect, ideal bed possible, it is not the divine form of bed. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is not, as you say, the "attainment of this insight" or an "innate capacity for enlightenment". It is the capacity to know. — Fooloso4
We must accept as agreed this trait of the philosophical nature, [485b] that it is ever enamored of the kind of knowledge which reveals to them something of that essence which is eternal, and is not wandering between the two poles of generation and decay. — Plato, Republic, Book 6
I was thinking of reading in my native language — dani
But there are different kinds of knowing... — Wayfarer
And the specific kind of knowledge that characterises the Philosopher is spelled out in Book 6: — Wayfarer
"About philosophic natures, let's agree that they are always in love with that learning which discloses to them something of the being that is always and does not wander about, driven by generation and decay."
“Well, let us agree something about the philosophic natures. Let us agree that they always love any learning which would reveal to them something of that being which always is, and does not wander in subjection to generation and decay.”
By calling what we experience with our senses less real than the Forms, Plato is not saying that what we experience with our senses is simply illusion. The “reality” that the Forms have more of is not simply their not being illusions. If that’s not what their extra reality is, what is it? The easiest place to see how one could suppose that something that isn’t an illusion, is nevertheless less real than something else, is in our experience of ourselves.
In Republic book iv, Plato’s examination of the different "parts of the soul” leads him to the conclusion that only the rational part can integrate the soul into one, and thus make it truly “just.” Here is his description of the effect of a person’s being governed by his rational part, and therefore “just”:
Justice . . . is concerned with what is truly himself and his own. . . . [The person who is just] binds together [his] parts . . . and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate, and harmonious. Only then does he act. (Republic 443d-e)
Our interest here (I’ll discuss the “justice” issue later) is that by “binding together his parts” and “becoming entirely one,” this person is “truly himself.” That is, as I put it in earlier chapters, a person who is governed by his rational part is real not merely as a collection of various ingredients or “parts,” but as himself. A person who acts purely out of appetite, without any examination of whether that appetite is for something that will actually be “good,” is enacting his appetite, rather than anything that can appropriately be called “himself.” Likewise for a person who acts purely out of anger, without examining whether the anger is justified by what’s genuinely good. Whereas a person who thinks about these issues before acting “becomes entirely one” and acts, therefore, in a way that expresses something that can appropriately be called “himself.”
In this way, rational self-governance brings into being an additional kind of reality, which we might describe as more fully real than what was there before, because it integrates those parts in a way that the parts themselves are not integrated. A person who acts “as one,” is more real as himself than a person who merely enacts some part or parts of himself. He is present and functioning as himself, rather than just as a collection of ingredients or inputs.
We all from time to time experience periods of distraction, absence of mind, or depression, in which we aren’t fully present as ourselves. Considering these periods from a vantage point at which we are fully present and functioning as ourselves, we can see what Plato means by saying that some non-illusory things are more real than other non-illusory things. There are times when we ourselves are more real as ourselves than we are at other times.
Indeed, we can see nature as a whole as illustrating this issue of how fully integrated and “real as itself ” a being can be. Plants are more integrated than rocks, in that they’re able to process nutrients and reproduce themselves, and thus they’re less at the mercy of their environment. So we could say that plants are more effectively focused on being themselves than rocks are, and in that sense they’re more real as themselves. Rocks may be less vulnerable than plants are, but what’s the use of invulnerability if what’s invulnerable isn’t you?
Animals, in turn, are more integrated than plants are, in that animals’ senses allow them to learn about their environment and navigate through it in ways that plants can’t. So animals are still more effectively focused on being themselves than plants are, and thus more real as themselves.
Humans, in turn, can be more effectively focused on being themselves than many animals are, insofar as humans can determine for themselves what’s good, rather than having this be determined for them by their genetic heritage and their environment. Nutrition and reproduction, motility and sensation, and a thinking pursuit of the Good each bring into being a more intensive reality as oneself than is present without them.12
Now, what all of this has to do with the Forms and their supposedly greater reality than our sense experience is that it’s by virtue of its pursuit of knowledge of what’s really good, that the rational part of the soul distinguishes itself from the soul’s appetites and anger and so forth. The Form of the Good is the embodiment of what’s really good. So pursuing knowledge of the Form of the Good is what enables the rational part of the soul to govern us, and thus makes us fully present, fully real, as ourselves. In this way, the Form of the Good is a precondition of our being fully real, as ourselves.
But presumably something that’s a precondition of our being fully real must be at least as real as we are when we are fully real. It’s at least as real as we are, because we can’t deny its reality without denying our own functioning as creatures who are guided by it or are trying to be guided by it.13 And since it’s at least as real as we are, it’s more (fully) real than the material things that aren’t guided by it and thus aren’t real as themselves.
Philosophical Mysticism in Plato, Hegel, and the Present - Robert M. Wallace
If you've read The Republic, how did you approach it? — dani
I've often read in discussions of Plato on this forum that he never claims that Socrates or anyone has ever seen 'the form of the good'. Yet in this passage, and even though Socrates has said 'God knows whether it happens to be true', he nevertheless says 'anyone who is to act intelligently....must have had sight of this.' That seems an unequivocal confirmation that the form of the Good is something that 'must be seen'.
...now, Plato affirms that the [lower] four levels [of knowledge] all present the qualities of a thing (τὸ ποῖόν τι), and only the fifth level corresponds to that which the soul in fact seeks, namely, the being itself.19 it is in relation to this concern that we ought to understand Plato’s ordering of the levels. If he groups knowledge and right opinion (along with νοῦς) together on a single level, it is because there is some feature they share in common, which distinguishes them from everything else.The feature Plato identifies is that they lie in the soul.
Notice, Plato is here talking specifically about the form of the relationship implied between the soul and reality. he is not, in other words, talking about truth or falsity, stability or instability, which is typically at issue when he dis- distinguishes between knowledge and opinion.21 instead, the significant issue in this context is place, i.e., the locus or terminus of the soul’s movement toward reality.
This is why he does not need to distinguish knowledge from right opinion in this particular context, because they both reside “in the soul.” What is important to Plato in Letter VII, and the one thing he insists on here, is that they are distinct, both from words (names or definitions) and shapes (images) on the one hand, and from the reality itself on the other. right opinion and knowledge may be “true” or correct in themselves—in fact they necessarily are by definition—but they nevertheless remain penultimate in relation to the soul’s aspiration to the real. it is also precisely this that gives them the same “rank,” as it were. unless reason is essentially ecstatic, it would make no sense to line up knowledge and opinion next to each other.22
The problem with debates between skeptics and dogmatists, or, in modern language, between “coher- entists” and “foundationalists” or perhaps between “relativists” and “absolutists,” is that both sides typically assume that knowledge has no other form than that of a possession that is able to be formulated propositionally. one side claims that some of these formulations have absolute and universal validity, the other claims that none do. But neither sees the mode of knowledge that Plato indicates here is genuinely absolute: it is not the soul’s possession of a thing, and so it is not a conceptual content that can be verbally formulated, but is rather the soul’s dwelling with the being of the thing itself, a relation that, precisely because it transcends verbal formulation, provides in fact the only genuine basis for one’s words.
There is an incredible tension here: the heart of a matter is what is most vulnerable; precisely what is most important cannot be said. and if it cannot be said, one can never give a fully adequate description of it or argument for it—at least not in words alone.
But by justifying it in this way, we are implying that its own goodness or necessity is relative to these reasons. a verbal defense will be adequate to the extent that a thing’s goodness is in fact reducible to these (relative) reasons that can be given for it. if such a defense succeeds, then it implies that the interlocutors accept the relativity of the thing’s goodness. it follows that to assume that all things can be given justification by argument is to assume that there is nothing good in an intrinsic way, nothing good in a more than merely relative sense. something that was good in an intrinsic sense would ultimately not be able to be justified in terms of anything but itself—and this includes any of its qualities, be they essential or accidental, which can be articulated in a proposition, for even an essential attribute is not the being of a thing, but the verbal sign of an aspect of it. socrates can defend justice only by being just to the end.36 one can thus give powerful arguments on behalf of, say, justice, and defend them in a manner that keeps one from seeming “ridiculous,” as Plato says, but all the while one remains at the penultimate level in relation to the being of justice. We can understand, then, why socrates refuses to give an “adequate” verbal account of the good and insists that he can speak of it only in the mode of belief. in other words, he cannot speak as if what he is saying represents knowledge of it (506c), and so whatever he says remains an image rather than the reality itself (cf. 533a).37 he thus shows himself in the Republic to be taking seriously what the author of Letter VII asserts; a modest silence about the heart of things is no false modesty, but a modesty that acknowledges what it means for something to be true in a more than relative sense. in this respect, Letter VII provides a decisive confirmation of our interpretation of goodness as the cause of truth: a thing is true because it exists in itself in a manner irreducible to its relations, and this is just what it means to participate in absolute goodness.
It can be seen, but not demonstrated. — Count Timothy von Icarus
it's less clear if man, hoping to "become like what is most divine," can ever reach that goal, which is why Aquinas has to add infused contemplation/grace into the equation in his commentary on the Ethics to allow the human being to actually achieve happiness in the beatific vision. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I who declare that I know nothing other than matters of love ...
(278b)Well then, let that be the extent of our entertainment with speeches.
(278d)I think it would be a big step, Phaedrus, to call him ‘wise’ because this is appropriate only for a god. The title ‘lover of wisdom’ or something of that sort would suit him better and would be more modest.
(277e)But the person who realises that in a written discourse on any topic there must be a great deal that is playful ...
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