Ok. Thanks for the post

Well, I hope I'm not putting a damper on the discussion.

Please remember that for Plato there was no established codified set of rational rules or principles. The “Law” of the “excluded middle” had not been invented, though Plato did endeavor to break the ambiguity between the example or experience and the idea. The red apple is not what redness is. But when Aristotle invented that “law” and began to codify a logic on the basis of it, he had not understood the contradiction inherent in his invention because he did not recognize the positive role the departure from or that idea or active negation of that role in identifying both. In Statesman there is a discussion of the identity of a class (somewhere around page 264 if my notes are correct). The unity of a class is traced to a reductive process. That reduction, comically, at first proceeds as a simple intuition of what names the group as a group, but then the Stranger insists the reduction should proceed by a more arduous route, by dividing the group “roughly by half”. But the result turns out, actually, to be shorter that the shortcut. It also, comically, defines humanity as a biped without feathers. This is clearly playing with our minds. Why?

Again, if my notes are right, it is shown that only the shepherd knows what makes his flock a flock, and, by implication perhaps, only the statesman knows what makes the polity a polity. But the overall point is that number does not name or identify anything. It can only count, and count as a unified whole or oneness, what some personal responsibility or engagement has identified. And without that identity there is a contradiction between the concept of class and of its membership. That engagement that gets the count going by instituting a dialectical epochal terrain around it, is the infinitesimal. The least term in the reduction not capable of being identified or included by it. But since that neglected term brackets the whole and sets the context of the count of what is within it, it is the sine qua non, the most inclusive term of all. It makes all the difference. That is, as Socrates claims in Parmenides, moment is the only ends of time. The rest, though it span forever, is just empty terms. There is no one there identifiable between which one it is and there is no 'how many' there to that otherwise presumptive oneness.

Again, if my notes are right, it is shown that only the shepherd knows what makes his flock a flock, and, by implication perhaps. Only the statesman knows what makes the polity a polity. — Gary M Washburn

This should read:

Again, if my notes are right, it is shown that only the shepherd knows what makes his flock a flock, and, by implication perhaps, only the statesman knows what makes the polity a polity. — Gary M Washburn

Great posts ! Sounds like you're enjoying Plato as much as I do.

Plato is as deep as the ocean, and one can fish for insights at all depths. Translation of key terms and interpretation, the mindset of both the translator and the reader can turn our reading in a number of directions. I find that reading Plato is very different than arguing with and against him on each point. Neither is right or wrong, just different. What is clearly wrong is to read Plato as spouting a Socratic or Platonic dogma.

I agree with you that Plato is not and has not been understood, especially not by the brain of the Academy. Throughout the dialogues many of Plato's predecessors are both philosophically incorporated and unfairly excoriated. Aristotle followed this practice but now against his master.

By today, misrepresenting Plato has become a well-established habit. Even the superb Platonic analytic writings of the past 50 years have not had a measurable effect on the classroom or on the majority of philosophers. Plato is often seen as a misguided predecessor of Aristotle just waiting to be set right.