As to Plato, how do we diagnose his metaphysics if not based on the dialogues? — Fooloso4

Maybe you can’t, because the dialogues do not provide enough information to draw a proper conclusion. We shouldn't let our desire to know more about Plato’s views make us see things that aren’t really there.

There is also zero evidence that "the Platonic tradition" wasn't grossly distorted by the neo-platonists.

You seem to be wedged to their views, or to like them very much. That's fine, a bit passé in my opinion but fine. However, the neo-platonists were not the owner of the Plato copyright. They were just people who re-interpreted Plato in their own time, to suit their goals and answer their own questions.

We are all doing the same today. That's what reading old texts is all about: to try and reuse them today. Only fundamentalists care (or pretend to care) about what Plato really really meant in the secrecy of his soul. And even them only do so because of something important to them today.

In your case, you are trying to enlist the prestigious Socrates and Plato brigade in your fight against atheists and materialists, and to do so you must ignore the radical doubt introduced by Socrates, and make of him a BELIEVER. That's your bias, your take. It is a rather banal take, echoing and agreeing to the recuperation of Plato by the Church fathers. You are not trying to think by yourself; instead all your say is: "some old Christian scholars opined that Plato was all about nous and forms, so that's all there is to say about Plato; no need to enquire any further."

Fooloso4's take is more original: he understands Plato as a critique of naïve yet cocksure religion. He sees the Republic as an effort to imagine a city (be it literal or metaphoric) where religion would be replaced or transcended by philosophy.

I like his take best, I think it is far more likely to reflect certain actual ideas of Plato than yours. It also explains the death of Socrates quite well.

There are however differences between my take and Fooloso4's. I don't think very highly of Plato's metaphysics or of his political ideas, for one. I think he mistrialed democracy, failed to see its value. And here I agree with Popper, who sees Plato an an enemy of "open society". Another difference is that I see a lot of parallels between the trial of Socrates and that of Jesus; something which is probably closer to your take than to Fooloso4's.

I am in general agreement. I think it is wrong to assume that what we find in the dialogues represent Plato's own views on metaphysics. In addition, although dialogues do discuss metaphysical issues they end in aporia not answers.

My difference with "Fooloso4", although I don't think very highly of Plato or of his political ideas. — Olivier5

I do think highly of Plato. I think the Laws rather than the Republic are better representative of his political thinking, but we live in a very different world. I think that one advantage of Plato, and Aristotle as well, is that political philosophy is about more than just political order. They lead us to reflect upon more than just political expediency, on questions of how we ought to live and what are desires and goals are as a community and country.

I'm a fan of Aristotle, and he studied under Plato so I guess I should temper my critique of the latter.

"7. Thus the possibility of an applied mathematics is an expression, in terms of natural science, of the Christian belief that nature is the creation of an omnipotent God. This belief is what replaced the Greek conception of nature as the realm of imprecision by the Renaissance conception of nature as the realm of precision. The Platonism of Renaissance natural science is not fundamentally Platonic; it is fundamentally Christian. Christian thought is adapting Platonism to its own ends, or begetting upon Platonism an idea which Platonism proper could never have originated or even tolerated." An Essay on Metaphysics, Collingwood, p. 254.

The chapter from which this is taken is worth the read. "Axioms of Intuition." Pp. 248 -257, here.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.187414/page/n255/mode/2up

There is also zero evidence that "the Platonic tradition" wasn't grossly distorted by the neo-platonists. — Olivier5

And because there is zero evidence that it wasn't, presumably that means that it was. Great logic.

On the other hand, the fact is that Aristotle was a member of Plato’s Academy and he became Alexander’s teacher in 343 BC. Alexander was a great promoter of Greek language and culture including philosophy and this tradition was continued by his successors. In addition to Athens, Alexandria became a major center of learning and the seat of a major philosophical school in the Platonic tradition.

With royal patronage, Platonism became an established philosophical system that became part of higher education throughout the Greek (and later Roman) empire. Being based on Plato and Aristotle’s own works which were transmitted unchanged, it couldn’t have undergone too many changes.

In fact, modifications were far from arbitrary and were introduced solely for the purpose of increasing the inner logical coherence within the system. Platonists like Plotinus took great care to be as faithful to the original as possible and of course copies of original manuscripts were always available for reference.

At any rate, IMHO the very fact that Plato’s works and teachings were sponsored by the state would seem to indicate that they did not promote atheism.

So, I'd be wary of saying, or rather projecting, that Plato 'believed in God', any more than did the Buddha (who explicitly did not). But I also agree that this doesn't make him an 'atheist' in the modern sense, either. I think what it requires us to do, is considerably broaden our understanding of what constitutes the religious or spiritual life. — Wayfarer

One way to approach the matter is to look for what is the matter of human agency versus the influence of gods, fate, or what have you. The Cratylus dialogue finds Socrates arguing against a "natural" language given to us by default. That point of view is not a rejection of many elements being given to us. Identifying which is what is tricky.

The centrality of the trades-person in the Republic gives a particular topology of possible experience. There are conditions that need to be recognized before changing them can be an option.

As already stated, followers of Plato already referred to themselves as "Platonists" (Platonikoi) in antiquity and it would be absurd to claim that they were something else. Of course there were some variations according to different schools but that doesn't make the Platonism of one historical period a different system to the Platonism of other periods. — Apollodorus

Even by the time of Aristotle there was no such thing as one consistent "Platonism". Aristotle claimed to refute "some Platonists" with his cosmological argument. But Neo -Platonists took a position more consistent with Aristotle. So there must have been some fine tuning of "Platonism" and rejection of certain types of Platonism Therefore we can assume a reason for the name "Neo-Platonism" rather than simply "Platonism". And Aristotle himself is, in a way, a Platonist. The thing is, Plato had a lot of different teachings which could be interpreted in different ways.

And Aristotle himself is, in a way, a Platonist. The thing is, Plato had a lot of different teachings which could be interpreted in different ways. — Metaphysician Undercover

Correct. Plato's own system was far from finalized. Obviously, all the essential features were already in place. But there was some debate within the Academy concerning the exact role of first principles, Forms, Mathematical Numbers, and their relation to one another, etc.

These issues were not completely resolved in Plato's times and had to be worked out later. Eventually, an effort was made to systematize his teachings and at the time of Plotinus the final touches were still in progress. Aristotle certainly improved on some of Plato's ideas and Plotinus used Aristotle for his own fine-tuning.

Even so, something like what Gerson calls "Ur-Platonism" may be identified and all subsequent modifications are essentially in agreement with it. "Neo-Platonism" is a modern concept. Platonists themselves did not call themselves that and would not regard "Neo-Platonism" as a different or "new" system.

These issues were not completely resolved in Plato's times and had to be worked out later. — Apollodorus

Actually, if you look really closely, you'll see that the issues haven't been resolved yet. I think you have something to work on Apollodorus. Get back to your studies!

Actually, if you look really closely, you'll see that the issues haven't been resolved yet. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, looking at this thread, it certainly looks that way :grin:

But I wouldn't worry too much about it. When I was in my early teens, no one at school spoke of “Platonism”. It was always individual authors like Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus. So, when I first read Plato’s dialogues like Timaeus, Symposium, Republic, I was unaware of the existence of a system called “Platonism”.

However, the main points I took away from reading the texts were: the creation of the world by the Demiurge, the necessity of cultivating the four virtues in the attainment of societal and personal happiness, the importance of justice or righteousness as a guiding principle, the illusory nature of the sensible world, the tripartite soul and its ascent to higher planes of existence or experience, the nous, the Forms, the Good, the One, becoming virtuous and godlike as far as possible as the ultimate goal of life, and the role of philosophy and contemplation in facilitating the achievement of that goal.

It was several years later that I learned of Platonism as an actual system and what to me felt quite natural was that “Platonism” was based on exactly what I had read in the dialogues.

Incidentally, as Gerson points out, if you were to ask any moderately well-educated person in antiquity what the goal of life is according to the teachings of Plato, they would answer “to become godlike as far as possible”. So, it seems to me that the main difference is not so much between Plato and Plotinus as it is between how Plato was understood in antiquity and how he is interpreted today by some academic authors.

If we insist that there were major changes, for example, from Plato to Plotinus, we should be able to show what those changes are and to what extent (if at all) they are inconsistent with (a) the text of the dialogues and (b) with how Plato was understood in the interim.

As Gerson says, and I agree with him, is that:

“… what we find in the dialogues is an expression of one positive, continuously refined, construct out of UP [Ur-Platonism]. Actually, as I have argued, the positive construct is properly located within the ongoing work of the Academy under Plato’s leadership and the dialogues represent in effect occasional dramatized summaries of provisional results in the course of that work … Aristotle’s own work, both within the Academy and then in his own Lyceum, represents an alternative positive construct out of UP … Plotinus did not think that a systematization of Plato’s Platonism was a novelty … As far as we know, he thought that the system was articulated by Plato, not for the first time, but most profoundly and persuasively. And by ‘system’, of course, I mean fundamental metaphysical principles, certainly not all the possible consequences that can be drawn from there … Was Plato a Platonist? My answer to this question is yes, with what I hope to have shown is a reasonable qualification. ‘Platonism’ refers to any version of a positive construct on the basis of UP. For all soi-disant followers of Plato from the Old Academy onward, Plato’s version takes the crown … As I have argued, the unification of the elements of UP into a single positive construct was of paramount importance. That is why Platonism is a metaphysical doctrine … I have argued in this book that Proclus’ praise of Plotinus as leading the way in the exegesis of the Platonic revelation is essentially correct. This is a view shared by scholars of Platonism and by Platonists, too, well into the nineteenth century …”

Gerson correctly points out that any contrary views are a recent development arising from the over-critical reading of individual dialogues independently of other dialogues which in some cases has led to the absurd inference among a few scholars that the dialogues represent no philosophical writings at all!

Gerson concludes that:

“Platonism is not primarily what we might term a ‘dialogic artifact’. It was primarily a way of life. And the focus of that way of life, at least within the Academy, was the positive construction of a theoretical framework on the foundation of UP. This does not make the dialogues irrelevant; it makes them what all Platonists took them to be, namely, λόγοι [logoi] of that way of life” - L. P. Gerson, From Plato to Plotinus, p. 309

Unfortunately the single-minded focus on speculative theories about Platonism, regarded as unquestionable established facts, has resulted in the dialogue itself being ignored.

I agree with Gerson when he says about:

over-critical reading of individual dialogues independently of other dialogues — Apollodorus

The dialogues form larger wholes. Two or more dialogues are tied together in various ways, by the chronology of events, such as Euthyphro and Apology or extended to include Crito and Phaedo, or by a central question such as with the trilogy Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, or Phaedrus and Symposium on eros. That the dialogues are not independent, however, does not mean that they are not each wholes in themselves. They can be seen in this regard as a version of the problem of the one and the many, with each being one, and together being both many and a whole or one. The Forms themselves represent the same problem.

.. among a few scholars... — Apollodorus

I don't know if Gerson identifies these scholars, but we should not mistake a few scholars for all scholars whose reading of the dialogues does not agree with his or your own.

It was primarily a way of life. — Apollodorus

I agree with him on this as well. Socrates' concern with the human things is a concern for a way of life - the examined life.

This leads back to the question of what guides that way of life. Euthyphro thinks it is some notion of piety, but he is unable to say what that is. To say that it is what the gods love does not tell us what it is that the gods love or how we are to determine what the gods love.

The Socratic way is the way of inquiry, engendered by the desire to become wise. It is to lead an examined life. Rather than assume, like Euthyphro, that you know what you do not know, knowing that you do not know you continue to inquire, to examine, to question.

Gerson may be right about Platonism being about building a theoretical construct out of "Ur-Platonism", but if he is, this shows how far the Socratic way of life is from Platonism. I agree with those scholars who think that Plato and Aristotle are Socratic. But Plato and Aristotle know that the Socratic way of life is only for the few. The many need answers, and so, they give them salutary answers that will guide them.

It comes down to whether we put our faith and trust in and hold fast to these answers or if we do not rest content with what we are told and continue to inquire and examine and evaluate.

When I was in my early teens, no one at school spoke of “Platonism”. It was always individual authors like Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus. So, when I first read Plato’s dialogues like Timaeus, Symposium, Republic, I was unaware of the existence of a system called “Platonism”. — Apollodorus

We didn't get any education in philosophy in high school, so I wasn't exposed to Plato or Platonism until university.

If we insist that there were major changes, for example, from Plato to Plotinus, we should be able to show what those changes are and to what extent (if at all) they are inconsistent with (a) the text of the dialogues and (b) with how Plato was understood in the interim. — Apollodorus

What I find, is that in Plato's dialogues, Socrates produces unanswered questions. So if Plotinus made some progress toward answering some of those questions, that would constitute a change between Plato and Plotinus.

And the focus of that way of life, at least within the Academy, was the positive construction of a theoretical framework on the foundation of UP. — Apollodorus

I had to do a Google search to find out what Ur-Platonism is:

;

Here I briefly sketch a hypothetical reconstruction of what I shall call ‘Ur-Platonism’ (UP). This is the general philosophical position that arises from the conjunction of the negations of the philosophical positions explicitly rejected in the dialogues, that is, the philosophical positions on offer in the history of philosophy accessible to Plato himself. — Platonism Versus Naturalism, Lloyd P. Gerson, University of Toronto

I really do not see how a "general philosophical position that arises from the conjunction of the negations
of the philosophical positions explicitly rejected in the dialogues", can be called "a theoretical framework". I think these two are miles apart. A position of skepticism, which rejects philosophical positions, cannot be said to provide a theoretical framework. So any supposed theoretical framework would have to come from some principles other than those found in Plato.

We might say that Aristotle build a theoretical framework on UP, but we wouldn't call Aristotelian metaphysics Platonism, it's Aristotelianism.

Gerson may be right about Platonism being about building a theoretical construct out of "Ur-Platonism", but if he is, this shows how far the Socratic way of life is from Platonism. — Fooloso4

This is your logic:

1. Gerson may be right about Platonism being about building a theoretical construct out of "Ur-Platonism".

2. But if he is, this shows how far the Socratic way of life is from Platonism.

Something is missing there, viz., the logical connection between premise (1) and premise (2).

And you are not paying attention. What Gerson is saying is that, into the 19th century, scholarship saw Platonism exactly as the Platonists did.

It was in the 1800’s, after Schleiermacher, that scholars began to look at the individual dialogues in isolation from the corpus of Platonic works and the system of thought associated with it, and this has led some of them down a rabbit hole resulting in absurd claims to the effect that the dialogues have no philosophical content at all.

Gerson doesn’t need to name those scholars (though he does refer to Shorey and others earlier in the book) because we know exactly who they are. They are mainly liberals, Christian Socialists and Fabian Socialists starting with G L Dickinson (The Greek Way of Life) and R H S Crossman (Plato Today) who taught Classics at Cambridge and Oxford.

Crossman who had been a Classics don at Oxford wrote:

“Since the war it has become quite fashionable to pull Plato off his pedestal. But when Plato To-day was published, the idea was novel and made quite a stir”.

So, the practice of arbitrarily atomizing the dialogues started in the 1800’s and culminated in the 1930’s with a complete reinterpretation of Plato from which all metaphysical and even philosophical content was deliberately excised.

As Gerson points out, this procedure is obviously flawed and can lead to absurd results - as may be seen from unsubstantiated claims that Plato was an “atheist”.

A position of skepticism, which rejects philosophical positions, cannot be said to provide a theoretical framework. So any supposed theoretical framework would have to come from some principles other than those found in Plato. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, even a "position of skepticism" is a position.

But I think you are probably talking about radical skepticism there, which in my view is a form of nihilism. This is not what Plato is doing. The way I see it Plato is using skepticism more as a style of argument and mode of inquiry leading to knowledge than a rejection of all positions.

We didn't get any education in philosophy in high school, so I wasn't exposed to Plato or Platonism until university. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “we”, but some school kids have parents and some parents have Plato on their book shelf, so there is no need to wait for university. And, if I’m not mistaken, there are certain places called “libraries” where books may be borrowed and read, should there be an interest to do so .... :smile:

Something is missing there, — Apollodorus

There is nothing missing. It is not a syllogism.

And you are not paying attention. What Gerson is saying ... — Apollodorus

What I am saying is that you pay far too much attention to Gerson. Unless a scholar from the 19th century can shed light on the dialogues, such things are of no concern to me.

Gerson doesn’t need to name those scholars ( — Apollodorus

No, he doesn't. You, on the other hand, use his criticism of those scholars to dismiss other sholars.

because we know exactly who they are. — Apollodorus

And exactly who they are are not the scholars I make use of. Simple strawman.

There is nothing missing. It is not a syllogism. — Fooloso4

That's what I'm saying, it isn't a syllogism because it doesn't show how you arrive at that conclusion.

So it must be just random and unconnected statements then.

You, on the other hand, use his criticism of those scholars to dismiss other sholars. — Fooloso4

Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?

The fact is that Gerson is not criticizing the scholars, he simply points out that their procedure is flawed.

Maybe this upsets you because their procedure and conclusion sounds very much like your own?

That's what I'm saying, it isn't a syllogism because it doesn't show how you arrive at that conclusion. — Apollodorus

It's got wings and flies, it's not a dog.

I had already said what I think the Socratic way of life is, and it ain't about building a theoretical construct out of "Ur-Platonism".

The fact is that Gerson is not criticizing the scholars, he simply points out that their procedure is flawed. — Apollodorus

The fact is, you are criticizing scholars you know nothing about, simply because Gerson criticizes some other scholars.

I know enough to criticize their methodology and so does Gerson. Of course you would disagree with the criticism since you are following the same flawed methodology.

I know enough to criticize their methodology and so does Gerson. — Apollodorus

Bullshit! You do not know who they are or anything about their methodologies.

As a matter of fact, I know far more than you think. And anti-Platonists like Dickinson, Shorey, and Crossman are rather notorious characters in the literature. That's why you deny knowing anything about them, because you don't want to be associated with their names. Subversive liberals, Christian Socialists, Fabian Socialists. It's all politically motivated, without a doubt.

As a matter of fact, I know far more than you think. And anti-Platonists like Dickinson, Shorey, and Crossman are rather notorious characters in the literature. — Apollodorus

Your second sentence shows the first to be false. It does not matter what you may know about anti-Platonists like Dickinson, Shorey, and Crossman, they are not who I read and do not influence the scholars I learn from. What you do not know is who the authors I read are and what it is that they say.

That's why you deny knowing anything about them, because you don't want to be associated with their names. Subversive liberals, Christian Socialists, Fabian Socialists. It's all politically motivated, without a doubt. — Apollodorus

I deny knowing them because I have never read them and they are not cited by the scholars I do read. Strawman bullshit.

I deny knowing them because I have never read them and they are not cited by the scholars I do read. — Fooloso4

And yet you sound very much like Shorey and other anti-Platonists of the 1930's onward.

Their usual method is to start by taking a dialogue in isolation of other Platonic texts, after which they use terms like "irony", "elenchos", "aporia", "skepticism", etc. to arrive at the most preposterous conclusions designed to demonize Plato and Platonists.

Anyway, if you are not reading scholars like Sedley and Gerson, who are leading in the field, which scholars do you actually read then???

Their usual method is to start by taking a dialogue in isolation of other Platonic texts — Apollodorus

What is it you hope to accomplish by making such false claims?

Above on this same page:

The dialogues form larger wholes. Two or more dialogues are tied together in various ways, by the chronology of events, such as Euthyphro and Apology or extended to include Crito and Phaedo, or by a central question such as with the trilogy Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, or Phaedrus and Symposium on eros. That the dialogues are not independent, however, does not mean that they are not each wholes in themselves. — Fooloso4

Their usual method is to start by taking a dialogue in isolation of other Platonic texts, after which they use terms like "irony", "elenchos", "aporia", "skepticism", etc. to arrive at the most preposterous conclusions designed to demonize Plato and Platonists. — Apollodorus

Do you really find it hard to understand why scholars from different schools would use the same terms that are found in the dialogues?

Anyway, if you are not reading scholars like Sedley and Gerson, who are leading in the field, which scholars do you actually read then??? — Apollodorus

I have mentioned them before. I'll start with Leo Strauss and Jacob Klein, both Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Their students and students of their students include most notably Seth Benardete, Stanley Rosen, Allan Bloom, Thomas Pangle, Christopher Bruell, Laurence Lampert, Ronna Burger, Charles Griswold, and many others.

None of them "demonize" Plato. He is of central importance to their philosophical work.

I'll start with Leo Strauss and Jacob Klein, both Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. — Fooloso4

Well, I don't know if you realize this, actually you probably don't, but you are proving my point. You are talking about the 1930's there, are you not?

So, you may or may not have read Shorey, but as per your own admission, you have read others from the same period, exactly as I predicted from the start just by reading your posts!

"Turning to the context of Strauss’s claims about esotericism helps to unravel a number of other important themes in his work, including what he calls the “theologico-political predicament of modernity,” the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, and the relation between revelation and philosophy (what Strauss also calls “Jerusalem and Athens”)"

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/strauss-leo/#Cont

"In the late 1930s his [Strauss'] research focused on the rediscovery of esoteric writing, thereby a new illumination of Plato and Aristotle, retracing their interpretation through medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy, and encouraging the application of those ideas to contemporary political theory."

"After receiving a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1932, Strauss left his position at the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin for Paris."

"Strauss moved in 1937 to the United States, under the patronage of Harold Laski"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss

Laski, of course, was a notorious Marxist and leading member of the Fabian Society (member of the executive) whose London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) was funded by Rockefeller foundations.

"Laski was one of Britain's most influential intellectual spokesmen for Communism in the interwar years"

"Laski returned to England in 1920 and began teaching government at the London School of Economics (LSE)"

And, "Strauss's closest friend was Jacob Klein" - Wikipedia

“Some time during 1934, R. H. Tawney, at that time professor of economic history at the London School of Economics and at the very height of his academic fame and intellectual powers, took pity on an unknown, unemployed German-Jewish scholar, one recently exiled from his land of birth, and much in need of professional patronage and institutional preferment. His name was Leo Strauss.”

S. J. D. Green, “The Tawney-Strauss Connection: On Historicism and Values in the History of Political Ideas”, The Journal of Modern History Vol. 67, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 255-277 (23 pages) The University of Chicago Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2125059

Like Laski, Tawney was a member of the Fabian Society executive committee.

So, "1930's", "Fabian Socialism", "esotericism", etc., etc. ....

I think you agree that there is no point looking into your other eminent scholars. Strauss himself is more than sufficient to demonstrate where you acquired your unsalutary fixation with "secret Platonic teachings", "atheism", strange "reinterpretations of Platonism", and the whole shebang. :grin:

Yes, he was working in the 30's, like many other Jewish scholars he was aided in leaving Nazi Germany, and because you found the title of an article without any content you conclude you can dismiss him and generations of scholars who have come after him.

That is both remarkably arrogant and startingly ignorant.

Do you know what the content of the Tawney article is? Strauss was opposed to Marxism, Socialism, and historicism.

I suppose I should not be surprised by this. Previously you summarily dismissed the entire field of Biblical scholarship and American universities because they are all liberals and Marxists.

A number of controversies surround Strauss and his work. First, in recent years, Strauss has been accused of being the intellectual godfather of the neo-conservative political movement and thus of being the intellectual force behind the Bush administration’s plan to invade of Iraq. Second, no aspect of Strauss’s work is as hotly contested as his claims about esotericism.

There's a link between 'perennialism' (which is the academic notion of there being a world-wide and history-transcending perennial philosophy of which the ancient Greeks were exemplars) and reactionary politics. I think the reasons are obvious - the tension between the idea that there are perennial moral truths, and the Enlightenment and post-modern attitude that deprecates any such idea. That 'reactionary' aspect of such thinking found extreme expression in Julius Evola. (And I was depressed to learn that the scumbag Steven Bannon gave talks on Guenon, another exponent. And I think it's why Karl Popper declared Plato an 'enemy of the open society'.)

Strauss employs the term “theological-political predicament,” to diagnose what he contends are the devastating philosophical, theological, and political consequences of the early modern attempt to separate theology from politics. However, Strauss in no way favors a return to theocracy or, like his contemporary Carl Schmitt, a turn toward political theology. Instead, Strauss attempts to recover classical political philosophy not to return to the political structures of the past but to reconsider ways in which pre-modern thinkers thought it necessary to grapple and live with the tensions, if not contradictions that, by definition, arise from human society. For Strauss, a recognition, and not a resolution, of the tensions and contradictions that define human society is the necessary starting point for philosophically reconstructing a philosophy, theology, and politics of moderation, all of which, he claims, the twentieth-century desperately needs.

:up:

I have recently discovered the writings of Remi Brague, a current French academic, whose ideas are often compared to Strauss (although he denies being a 'disciple' of Strauss.)

Was humanity created, or do humans create themselves? In this English translation of Le Règne de l’homme, the last volume of Rémi Brague's trilogy on the philosophical development of anthropology in the West, Brague argues that with the dawn of the Enlightenment, Western societies rejected the transcendence of the past and looked instead to the progress fostered by the early modern present and the future. As scientific advances drained the cosmos of literal mystery, humanity increasingly devalued the theo-philosophical mystery of being in favor of omniscience over one’s own existence. Brague narrates the intellectual disappearance of the natural order, replaced by a universal chaos upon which only humanity can impose order; he cites the vivid histories of the nation-state, economic evolution into capitalism, and technology as the tools of this new dominion, taken up voluntarily by humans for their own end rather than accepted from the deity for a divine purpose. — The Kingdom of Man: The Genesis and Failure of the Modern Project

This is more or less the theme I've been exploring.

Well, Strauss has been accused of many things just as he and others have accused Plato.

However, as stated by R H Crossman, it had become fashionable by the first half of the 20th century "to pull Plato down from his pedestal". Crossman and other Fabian Socialists were at the forefront of this trend.

As Gerson points out, new interpretative procedures emerged in the 1800's and 90's that are fundamentally flawed and lead to absurd conclusions including that Platonic works have no metaphysical or even no philosophical content.

The problem with the esotericism of authors like Strauss is that it can lead to any number of readings that are ultimately incapable of being proved.

In addition to atheism, another "secret teaching" that classicists like G L Dickinson saw in Plato was homoeroticism.

http://www.glbtqarchive.com/literature/dickinson_gl_L.pdf

This may have constituted "secret teaching" in the eyes of late 19th and early 20th century readers, but it is highly unlikely that this is how Plato himself saw it.

And, of course, according to one's political inclinations, some saw Plato as a revolutionary and others as a reactionary - and this is still the case today.

I think this illustrates the danger of imposing modern readings on 4th-century BC texts. We can't simply dismiss more than two millennia of Platonism just because modern worldviews have changed.

I have recently discovered the writings of Remi Brague, — Wayfarer

From Wiki:

"Leo Strauss taught me that when reading a text, you must be open to the possibility that it contains different layers of meaning. All philosophical books written before the Enlightenment aim at both a wider audience and a small elite, able to understand the deeper meaning of the texts."

"... Strauss taught me to read very carefully ..."