“You shouldn’t take my criticisms personally
— Mark Dennis

This is a ridiculous demand.” It’s not a demand it’s a recommendation and a good one. Not my fault this is how philosophy is done. If you can’t take it then maybe you shouldn’t have replied in the first place. I didn’t mean to upset you but I don’t really know what you expect when some calls out what you say as untrue and misleading.

I don’t see myself as superior, I just know what I’m talking about and only speak what I know to be true. And yeah you did lie you admitted to it.

If you have no other way to counter my arguments but with ad hom and fake offense at calling you out for spouting nonsense then that isn’t really my problem.

Seriously if you get this upset at being corrected then philosophy isn’t for you quite frankly.

“Or it may have meant something totally different. My bet is that Heidegsteinbergerbaumfeld would say, if he were alive today that "philo sophia" ultimately and most profoundly meant, to the ancient Greeks in today's English vernacular, "whatever.”

“H., who is obviously a make-belief figure with a make-belief name, suggesting it's a joke what followed, but a joke with a serious and thought-out content, that philosophia means "whatever'.”

Making up a philosopher who agrees with your claim that philosophy can mean “Whatever” is a lie, it was not obvious it was a joke at all. So saying you lied when you admitted it wasn’t real isn’t untrue of me to say is it?

“It may also equally mean (since philosophy is free from the gags and binds of science), philosophically speaking, "whatever."” Here we have another statement where you try and claim philosophy can just mean “whatever” and philosophy isn’t free from the gags and binds of science either because we still have to pay attention to the facts that science reveals. It’s like how philosophy of language is the conceptual study of language but it still has to pay attention to the empirical branches of language like linguistics or semiotics and the facts they reveal.

I’m not trying to upset you or embarrass you I’m just being direct and honest in my engagement with you. Stop taking these things personally.

With regard to philosophy as the love of wisdom, Plato's Symposium is most instructive. The topic of discussion is Eros, the god of desire. Socrates says that the love of wisdom is the eros or desire for wisdom. The philosopher desires wisdom but does not possess it. (This is at odds with the image of the philosopher in the Republic who possesses wisdom.) Socrates' tale of his instruction by the woman Diatoma, plays off the various objects of desire and the role of opposites - Eros himself is the offspring of the god of wealth, who drinks too much wine at a banquet, passes out, and is taken advantage of my the goddess of poverty, who gives birth to Eros, the offspring of the opposites wealth and want. In line with the theme of eros and reproduction, the question arises what does the love of wisdom produce, that is, what is the offspring of ignorance and wisdom?

“what is the offspring of ignorance and wisdom?” I love this question! Really well put.

I would say the ideal offspring would be self knowledge. For only through wisdom, can we see how ignorant we are. I’d like to think that Socrates would agree. Maybe not. Who knows? It’s a nice golden mean though. Is self knowledge the virtue found between wisdom and ignorance?

I would say the ideal offspring would be self knowledge. For only through wisdom, can we see how ignorant we are. — Mark Dennis

I think that in one sense this is right, knowledge of ignorance is a between. Socrates claims that he possesses "human wisdom", by which he means he still does not possess the wisdom the philosopher desires.

Offspring are of you but other than you. Self knowledge is of you but not other than you.

“Offspring are of you but other than you. Self knowledge is of you but not other than you.”

But offspring are part of you or part of you makes up the some of them. Speaking from personal experience I learned far more of myself taking care of my own kid than going through my own childhood. It’s an altogether humbling and illuminating experience. However this should not be interpreted as me not recognising the individuality of my own child. I do.

However, within your criteria, maybe the answer could be Acceptance... in fact, wouldn’t knowledge be the offspring of wisdom and ignorance? Through wisdom we gain knowledge of ignorance?

in fact that probably wouldn’t be satisfactory to Socrates, as it would imply knowing something.

I think the offspring is philosophy. It is of you but other than you. Plato's "child" has gained a sort of immortality.

Philosophy is both the desire for wisdom and what that desire engenders. We might think in this regard of Socrates' role as a mid-wife. What one gives birth to may be a "wind egg" - a defective egg that will not produce a chicken. And in his role as mid-wife he helps not only in the delivery but in seeing it for what it is and discarding it, which can be hard, as he points out, because we love what is our own. Speaking less metaphorically, philosophy helps us evaluate our opinions and reject them when they are infertile.

But on what basis can we judge them if we cannot distinguish opinion from truth or opinion from true opinion? To begin to answer this question we must look not only as is usual to the Republic but to the Symposium. The Symposium is about eros and beauty, the Republic provides a beautiful image of truth as the ascent to the Forms. But the ascent is not compelled by eros but by force.