We do see things differently, but I think it is safe to say that neither of us feel threatened by that or feels the need to convert the other. — Fooloso4

Well, I don't feel any sense of antagonism towards you, or from you, although I also feel as though our interpretation is poles apart. I do accept that there is a cognitive cognition which corresponds to what that article I linked calls 'divine illumination', and that this is what the 'ascent from the cave' is about. But I also note that the essay says 'For most people today it is hard to take divine illumination seriously, hard to view it as anything other than a quaint relic.'

Is this understanding the result of a realization or an experience or just something you believe to be true? — Fooloso4

If I had discovered a profound philosophical insight, or had such realisation, how could I convey that, or communicate it? What could be said?

he says in the Apology that his wisdom is human wisdom not divine wisdom. — Fooloso4

Recall that Plato is dualist. That comes across especially in the Phaedo where he discusses the separation of the body from the soul. I know your reading of the Phaedo will deprecate that interpretation. But when we say that something is 'human', I think the implicit meaning is 'as distinct from religious'. I think the current interpretation of Plato is colored by this implicit opposition, where the spiritual aspect is 'bracketed out', so to speak. But the intellect, nous, is equated in Greek philosophy with the capacity which percieves the Forms, and is the source of the idea of the 'rational soul' in the Western tradition.

I'm reading Pierre Hadot' Philosophy as a Way of Life:

For Hadot...the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were...spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research. However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things (PWL 84). Hadot acknowledges his use of the term “spiritual exercises” may create anxieties, by associating philosophical practices more closely with religious devotion than typically done. Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta, despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life. For this reason, they call upon far more than “reason alone.”

I understand why this is out of keeping with the zeitgeist - it 'creates anxieties' - but I've gotten over that. Much work, however, remains to be done.

That is why I say that the vertical axis, the dimension of real quality, has been lost in Western philosophy, which is a flatland of materialism and pragmatism. Ideas are simply the by-product of an hominid brain, shaped by and conditioned solely towards survival. There's no philosophy proper in that attitude. — Wayfarer

That's a powerful argument. I would argue that the vertical axis is still there and that we still climb it up and down daily, all of us, but it may be that some of us don't know it, are blind to it, or deny it.

In an emergentist view point (mine in any case), the vertical axis is being built patiently, as a tower would be, stone after stone, one emerging form pilled upon another, rather than being some preexisting ideal or transcendental axis. It's a work in progress (and regress), maybe a sisyphean task. Worthwhile still.

Another way to interpret the cave metaphor is to say that the shades seen from the cave are sense data, and the forms out the cave are the hypotheses we create or imagine, to explain the data. That would be a rationalist interpretation I suppose.

There is always a leap of faith to make to jump from data to explanatory hypothesis. That could be the ascent.

where the spiritual aspect is 'bracketed out', — Wayfarer

,

Does Plato identify a spiritual aspect? The spirited part of the tripartite soul in the Republic, for example, is not spiritual in the sense I think you are using the term. The chariot image of the soul in the Phaedrus does not have a spiritual aspect either. The desire for wisdom, in the Symposium, is described as erotic and eros is demoted. Like Socrates' daimonion, eros is not a god but half way between the human and the gods.

I'm reading Pierre Hadot' Philosophy as a Way of Life: — Wayfarer

I have read this. I agree that philosophy is more than the kind of distanced impersonal intellectual pursuit that it has become. But I think there is a difference between philosophy as eros for what one lacks and the fulfillment of that desire; between Socrates who says he does not know and someone who possesses knowledge of the Good itself.

Does Plato identify a spiritual aspect? The spirited part of the tripartite soul in the Republic, for example, is not spiritual in the sense I think you are using the term. The chariot image of the soul in the Phaedrus does not have a spiritual aspect either. — Fooloso4

I think it is quite clear that the spiritual part of the soul is that which is immortal in it, the principle of life that animates the body-mind complex.

Socrates says:

“… since that which is moved by itself has been seen to be immortal, one who says that this self-motion is the essence and the very idea of the soul, will not be disgraced. For every body which derives motion from without is soulless, but that which has its motion within itself has a soul, since that is the nature of the soul; but if this is true, — that that which moves itself is nothing else than the soul, — then the soul would necessarily be ungenerated and immortal. Concerning the immortality of the soul this is enough”.

After which he says:

"but about its form we must speak in the following manner. To tell what it really is would be a matter for utterly superhuman and long discourse, but it is within human power to describe it briefly in a figure; let us therefore speak in that way. We will liken the soul to the composite nature of a pair of winged horses and a charioteer" 245e – 246a

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0174%3Atext%3DPhaedrus%3Asection%3D246a

Socrates says that the soul is immortal, after which he describes the immortal soul by means of the charioteer analogy.

It follows that the analogy must be read in the light of the fact that the soul is an immortal, spiritual entity.

Nowhere in all of this is the soul identified as "spiritual".

Nowhere in all of this is the soul identified as "spiritual". — Fooloso4

If the soul is an immortal, non-physical, and life-giving entity, I think that makes it spiritual, from Latin spiritus:

"spirit A supernatural being, often but not exclusively without physical form; ghost, fairy, angel."

spirit - Wiktionary

The dogs bark, the caravan moves on…. — Wayfarer

Now the question is, who's who.

What is at issue is the distinction between intellectual and spiritual.

Your claim was this:

Nowhere in all of this is the soul identified as "spiritual". — Fooloso4

My reply was this:

If the soul is an immortal, non-physical, and life-giving entity, I think that makes it spiritual, from Latin spiritus: — Apollodorus

The soul or spirit is, by definition, spiritual. The onus is on you to show that this is not the case.

Also, remember that you have previously made a similar claim to the effect that "nowhere do the dialogues say that the soul is immortal". As can be clearly seen, it is a false claim.

Does Plato identify a spiritual aspect? The spirited part of the tripartite soul in the Republic, for example, is not spiritual in the sense I think you are using the term. The chariot image of the soul in the Phaedrus does not have a spiritual aspect either. The desire for wisdom, in the Symposium, is described as erotic and eros is demoted. Like Socrates' daimonion, eros is not a god but half way between the human and the gods. — Fooloso4

I think he does.

Plato's theory of soul, drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, considered the psyche (ψυχή) to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how people behave. He considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being. Plato said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn (metempsychosis) in subsequent bodies. — Wikipedia

I'm not saying I accept this or believe it verbatim but I also don't see how it's plausible to deny it outright, or to reinterpret it in such a way that Plato 'doesn't really mean' the reality of soul when I think he plainly does.

This is what I mean by secular culture having redacted the spiritual aspect of Platonism. It can't outright reject Plato, as he is recognised as a founding figure of Western culture, but reads Plato in such a way as to harmonise him with a secular age.

What is at issue is the distinction between intellectual and spiritual. — Fooloso4

I also am ambivalent in respect of the word 'spiritual'. The terms I'm familiar with are psyche, nous, and logos. Many of these key concepts were assimilated and transformed by the Greek Christian theologians and are now seen through that lens, which is a big part of the interpretive issue in my view. (Isn't that is what 'hermeneutics' is for? Not that I've ever studied it in depth.)

I think the loss of the Greek term 'nous' is important. Nous has spiritual and rational overtones.

In the Aristotelian scheme, nous is the basic understanding or awareness that allows human beings to think rationally. For Aristotle, this was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals can do. This therefore connects discussion of nous to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions in a consistent and communicable way, and whether people must be born with some innate potential to understand the same universal categories in the same logical ways. Deriving from this it was also sometimes argued, especially in classical and medieval philosophy, that the individual nous must require help of a spiritual and divine type. By this type of account, it came to be argued that the human understanding (nous) somehow stems from this cosmic nous, which is however not just a recipient of order, but a creator of it. — Wikipedia

This is very much like what I believe (although poorly written). I also happen to think it's reconciliable with Kant, but not with standard-issue scientific materialism.

How this relates the spiritual and the intellectual is like this. Nous is 'what sees or discerns the real'. That goes back to the Parmenides. Things which are capable of being apprehended intellectually, like number and geometric form, are held to have a higher degree of reality that sensable objects, because they're immutable and not subject to change and decay. So nous apprehends these ideas, and also the idea of the Good. In that sense, nous is the 'residuum of the real' in the human. Discovering that, or 'Remembering' it in platonic terms, corresponds to what is referred to as 'self-realisation', i.e. recoving your identity with the real as distinct from the phenomenal.

In modern thought, post Galileo, the link between the qualitative and quantitative measurement was severed, with the qualitative being assigned to the subject, therefore subjectivised and relativised, and what can be objectivised and quantified being regarded as the real. That's the whole problem of modernity in a nutshell.

I think there is a difference between philosophy as eros for what one lacks and the fulfillment of that desire; between Socrates who says he does not know and someone who possesses knowledge of the Good itself. — Fooloso4

Again, I think the interpretation of Socrates' 'agnosia' is critical. You're pretty close to saying that really, Plato doesn't know anything, he only writes about it.

I think the epistemological issue is that the kind of 'higher knowledge' that is implicit in these texts, can't be adequately expressed in third-person terms, because it requires an intellectual conversion. This is what later comes to be called 'metanoia' 'change in one's way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conversion.' Again, this then becomes depicted as simple 'repentance' and associated with Christian dogma, but I think it's much deeper than that. It's a meta-cognitive shift, a change about the understanding of knowledge itself.

Whereas, for knowledge to count in our scientific culture, it has to be expressible in mathematical terms, and verifiable in the third person, in broad terms. I know you may not believe that, but it's a very strong undercurrent, even on this Forum.

If the soul is an immortal, non-physical, and life-giving entity — Apollodorus

I don't think of soul as 'an entity'. Entity is 'thing' and soul is not a thing (but also not nothing). Consider Eriugena's five modes of being and non-being - a very difficult text, but indicates a dialectical way to consider the idea. The term 'spirit' is not in the Platonic literature to my knowledge, the usage '"supernatural immaterial creature; angel, demon; an apparition, invisible corporeal being of an airy nature" is only known from the 14th Century. Again I think you're rather indiscriminating in your usage of these terms and figures of thought; even though I agree that Plato has his spiritual aspect, I'm not quite comfortable with the way you go about representing it.

In an emergentist view point (mine in any case), the vertical axis is being built patiently, as a tower would be, stone after stone, one emerging form pilled upon another, rather than being some preexisting ideal or transcendental axis. It's a work in progress (and regress), maybe a sisyphean task — Olivier5

Well, that's evolutionary theory for you. The top down view doesn't have to be a design-engineering God, but forms that are latent in the Cosmos that are actualised - real-ised - by evolutionary processes.

Have you encountered https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/ ?

I also am ambivalent in respect of the word 'spiritual'. The terms I'm familiar with are psyche, nous, and logos. Many of these key concepts were assimilated and transformed by the Greek Christian theologians and are now seen through that lens. — Wayfarer

Well, I think either we are using terms like "spiritual" or we are not. If we are, then we can't backtrack by saying that we are "ambivalent" about the word "spiritual".

Latin spirit is more or less the equivalent of Greek psyche. It denotes an immortal, non-physical, life-giving reality.

An equivalent Greek term would be pneuma , "spirit".

"Pneuma (πνεῦμα‎‎, Lat. spiritus) is connected etymologically with πνέω ‎‎, breathe or blow, and has a basic meaning of ‘air in motion’, or ‘breath’ as something necessary to life. In Greek tragedy it is used of the ‘breath of life’. In early Greek thought pneuma is often connected with the soul.

‘Psychic pneuma’ also constitutes the soul and underlies sensory and motor activities in a number of ancient medical theories.

Pneuma - Oxford Classical Dictionary

Whatever we choose to call it, it is still a non-physical, life-giving reality. "Spiritual" in the sense of "psychic", and "pneumatic", i.e., "relating to spirit, psyche or pneuma" is simply the English adjective for "spirit" or "soul".

This being so, in what sense may it be said that spirit is not spiritual or that soul is not soul-like?

I think he does. — Wayfarer

The question is whether he identifies a part of the soul as the spiritual part. The Wiki quote says that it is able to think. But if I remember correctly you made a distinction between the thinking or intellectual and the spiritual.

Many of these key concepts were assimilated and transformed by the Greek Christian theologians and are now seen through that lens, which is a big part of the interpretive issue in my view. — Wayfarer

Yes, I agree.

Isn't that is what 'hermeneutics' is for? — Wayfarer

There are different views on this.Gadamer, for example, talks about the fusion of horizons, but Strauss, Klein, and others, influenced in part by Husserl and Heidegger attempt to "de-sediment" concepts and "retrieve" earlier ways of seeing things. Those who grew up outside the Christian religion have a somewhat easier time of it. No one escapes history and culture, but an awareness of it can help us not be trapped by our cultural assumptions and prejudices. Identifying how terms were used is an important part of it. If the term spiritual was not used then it becomes suspicious and needs further examination.

Deriving from this it was also sometimes argued, especially in classical and medieval philosophy, that the individual nous must require help of a spiritual and divine type. — Wikipedia

I bolded the important qualification. It is not, as some might think a given or a fact, it is part of an interpretation.

How this relates the spiritual and the intellectual is like this. — Wayfarer

Why the spiritual in addition to the intellectual? What is the spiritual? Is it like an attitude, or a receptiveness? And to what? Spirit, as in the holy ghost? As you probably know the German term 'geist' means ghost, mind, and spirit.

You're pretty close to saying that really, Plato doesn't know anything, he only writes about it. — Wayfarer

When his Socrates says in the Apology that he is ignorant he did not mean completely ignorant but that he did not know anything noble(beautiful) and good (21d). I am saying we should not assume that Plato did either. I think both Plato and Aristotle are Socratics in that they do not know the noble and good, but have opinions about them. They are philosophers as Socrates describes them in the Symposium rather than in the non-existent just city, that is, lovers of wisdom who desire what they do not possess.

Whatever we choose to call it, it is still a non-physical, life-giving reality. "Spiritual" in the sense of "psychic", and "pneumatic", i.e., "relating to spirit, psyche or pneuma" is simply the English adjective for "spirit" or "soul".

This being so, in what sense may it be said that spirit is not spiritual or that soul is not soul-like? — Apollodorus

The issue I see, as soon as you say 'it', then you're near to committing the fallacy of reification. To say 'it' is 'something' - life-giving or whatever - is to set yourself apart from 'it', to make of 'it' a something, a 'this' as distinct from 'that', an object, or potential object, of perception.

I'll illustrate this objection with reference to another philosophical and spiritual tradition, namely, Vedanta. It concerns a dialogue between the sage Yājñavalkya and various questioners regarding the reality of ātman (which for the purposes of this discussion is comparable to the Greek 'psyche'. I have condensed it for brevity but you can read it in full here.)

(Questioner:) "Yājñavalkya, answer this. There is an eternal Being which is immediately presented into experience and directly observed; which is the Self of all beings and internal to everything. Explain it to me. What is that which is innermost to all beings, which is internal to everything, which is non-immediate experience – not immediately experienced as through the senses when they perceive objects, and which is direct, not indirect experience?"

"This very Being in you is your internal Self" says Yājñavalkya .

"But what is this internal Being you are speaking of? Tell me that again," Uṣasta asks.

"He who breathes in through the Prāṇa is your inner Self. He who performs the function of expiration is your own Self that is working in the form of this outward breath, the Apāna. That which pervades your whole body, known as Vyāna, again, is the operation of your own Self. That which works as Udāna, whose activity consists of lifting the body at the time of death and performing certain other functions of that nature, that which is called Udāna in ordinary language, is really your own Self that is working. There is no such thing as Prāṇa, Apāna, Vyāna, Udāna, Samāna. They are only names that we give to the functions of the inner Self that is yours. So, Uṣasta, I tell you that this is really the inner Self of yours which appears as the various functions."

"Oh, you should not speak like this to me. You must explain it in a greater detail" says Uṣasta. He tells Yājñavalkya:

[Sanskrit - passage ommited]

This passage has two meanings. It may mean: "Tell me directly – 'this is the ātman' – just as you say 'this is a cow, this is a horse'. Do not give an indirect definition of it as you have just done."

Or, it may mean: "You have only told me, this is your inner Self in the same way as people would say, 'this is a cow, this is a horse', etc. That is not a real definition. Merely saying, 'this is that' is not a definition. I want an actual description of what this internal Self is. Please give that description and do not simply say, 'this is that".

Yājñavalkya says: "You tell me that I have to point out the Self as if it is a cow or a horse. Not possible! It is not an object like a horse or a cow. I cannot say, 'here is the ātman; here is the Self'. It is not possible because you cannot see the seer of seeing. The seer can see that which is other than the Seer, or the act of seeing. An object outside the seer can be beheld by the seer. How can the seer see himself? How is it possible? You cannot see the seer of seeing. You cannot hear the hearer of hearing. You cannot think the Thinker of thinking. You cannot understand the Understander of understanding. That is the ātman."

Nobody can know the ātman inasmuch as the ātman is the Knower of all things. So, no question regarding the ātman can be put, such as "What is the ātman?' 'Show it to me', etc. You cannot show the ātman because the Shower is the ātman; the Experiencer is the ātman; the Seer is the ātman; the Functioner in every respect through the senses or the mind or the intellect is the ātman. As the basic Residue of Reality in every individual is the ātman, how can we go behind It and say, 'This is the ātman?' Therefore, the question is impertinent and inadmissible. The reason is clear. It is the Self. It is not an object.

"Everything other than the ātman is stupid; it is useless; it is good for nothing; it has no value; it is lifeless. Everything assumes a meaning because of the operation of this ātman in everything. Minus that, nothing has any sense.

Then Uṣasta Cākrāyana, the questioner kept quiet. He understood the point and did not speak further.

(Bolds added.)

I hope you see the point. I think the closing remark, 'the questioner kept quiet' is on point. He's saying 'what is this ātman' (spirit) you're talking about? Tell me, I really want to know. Yājñavalkya tells him in no uncertain terms, this is not something you can know, even though it is actually yourself.

I also am ambivalent in respect of the word 'spiritual'. The terms I'm familiar with are psyche, nous, and logos. — Wayfarer

I think what Apollodorus was referring to is the position of "spirit", sometimes translated as "passion" (which I prefer), in Plato's tripartite soul. Passion, or spirit, takes the position of intermediary between body and mind or reason. In the well-ordered, healthy soul, passion allies with reason to exercise control over the body, But in the unhealthy soul, passion is swayed by bodily functions, resulting in an unreasonable mind.

This is important in Plato's comparison between the composition of an individual person, and the composition of the State. His State has three parts just like the human being, being designed after the tripartite being. There is the ruling class, the guardians, and the artisans or trades people (working class I suppose). The guardians are the middle, highly bred like dogs, high-spirited warriors to defend the interest of the State, having great honour, loyalty, and allegiance to the rulers. But in time, as the State starts to degenerate (the cause of degeneration being something to do with numbers), the guardians come to see honour, bravery, courage, ambition, as the highest thing in itself, falling away from the noble and good principles of reason. which are actually higher. Then the guardians are no longer guided by the noble principles of the intellect, they have no allegiance to the rule of reason, and so they are swayed by money, and the material goods of the lower part of the State. This is the unhealthy State.

You can see how the three parts of the human soul, reason, passion or spirit, and body, are comparable to the three parts of the State, rulers guardians, and artisans.

All perfectly sound, but note that your definition of it is given in a specific context, or domain of discourse, rather than an attempt to define the term 'spirit' in a general sense.

Why the spiritual in addition to the intellectual? What is the spiritual? Is it like an attitude, or a receptiveness? And to what? Spirit, as in the holy ghost? As you probably know the German term 'geist' means ghost, mind, and spirit. — Fooloso4

The connotation of 'spirit' is that it is affective as well as just quantitative, that it is or it has a dimension of being, that is is a being or being in itself.

I've often reflected on that lovely Hegelian word, Zeitgeist, and I do like the word 'geist'. I note it can be translated as 'mind' in some places and 'spirit' in others. That is rather like the Sanskrit 'citta' which can likewise be translated as 'mind', 'heart', or simply 'knowing'.

No one escapes history and culture, but an awareness of it can help us not be trapped by our cultural assumptions and prejudices. Identifying how terms were used is an important part of it. If the term spiritual was not used then it becomes suspicious and needs further examination. — Fooloso4

I don't much like 'spiritual' as a word but what are the alternatives? I think in today's discourse 'spirit' is basically that half of the Cartesian duality that subsequent philosophy attempts to explain away. That is the only meaning it has for a lot of people. That's why scientism is so prevalent.

I think both Plato and Aristotle are Socratics in that they do not know the noble and good, but have opinions about them. — Fooloso4

I think that's the crux of the issue.

I don't much like 'spiritual' as a word but what are the alternatives? — Wayfarer

Good question. I don't find it in any of Plato's descriptions of the soul. I suspect it is a foreign import, an invasive species. Something that takes over and crowds out the native thought.

I don't much like 'spiritual' as a word but what are the alternatives?
— Wayfarer

Good question. I don't find it in any of Plato's descriptions of the soul. — Fooloso4

The SEP article on 'ancient theories of the soul' has 'spirit' as one of principle aspects of the human, and generally the aspect most compatible with reason.

The Republic also puts forward a new theory of soul, which involves the claim that the embodied human soul has (at least) three parts or aspects, namely reason, spirit and appetite. ....Taking himself to have identified reason and appetite as distinct parts of the soul, Socrates draws attention to other kinds of conflict between desires, which are meant to bring to light spirit, the third part of the soul. ...Socrates takes spirit to be a natural ally of reason, at least part of its function being to support reason in such conflicts as may arise between it and appetite (440ef, 442ab)

I wonder what Greek term it is a translation from - 'pneuma', perhaps? (That is mentioned later in the article in relation to the Stoics.)

The reason I don't like 'spiritual' is because of its many different uses, and also the different and sometimes conficting meanings of 'spirit'. But that doesn't mean I don't think there are qualities that correspond to spirituality.

I wonder what Greek term it is a translation from - 'pneuma', perhaps? (That is mentioned later in the article in relation to the Stoics.) — Wayfarer

The Greek term is thumos, spirited not spiritual. In the Republic the chief characteristic of auxiliaries or warrior class is spiritedness. It refers to such things as anger, recognition, honor, rage, passion. It is what the education in music is supposed to moderate.

For me, it's that the cave is in fact sealed, a tomb.

Kant showed us that we cannot interact with our physical world. Everything is mediated by the structures of the mind. We cannot see the noumenal world.

So what of the nominal world, the world of eternal forms, names in themselves? It seems to me that we also have a Kantian turn here in modern semiotics. Symbols forever refer to other symbols. Indeed, they help construct perception from the top down at least as much as sensory data does from the bottom up. However, symbols aren't eternal; they change, their meaning and are in constant flux, even at the level of individual understanding. My idealized form of the Good isn't what it was a decade ago, and there is no absolute truth to it outside references to other symbols. "There is nothing outside the text."

Thus, we can climb ever higher in our cave, but we can never escape to the light of the Absolute. Not only that, but we aren't truly in the cave together. We're alone in our own cave, only hearing others as they bang upon the walls of their own tombs. The shape of our tomb destroys these echos, so we never truly hear them either.

Perhaps, in a sort of Nietzschean mold, it is this climb itself from which we create meaning, not from any escape? Maybe, but I think we're more like Wiley Coyote, sprinting over thin air, about to plummet the second we look down.

The spirited part of the tripartite soul in the Republic, for example, is not spiritual in the sense I think you are using the term. — Fooloso4

All perfectly sound, but note that your definition of it is given in a specific context, or domain of discourse, rather than an attempt to define the term 'spirit' in a general sense. — Wayfarer

Right, because Fooloso4 (sorry, I said Apollodorus) had mentioned Plato's tripartite soul as context, in the passage which your reply was in response to, indicated above. The op concerns Plato's cave allegory, and the idea of the tripartite soul as presented in The Republic is very important to grasping the reality of the intelligible realm As the medium between body and mind, this third aspect, passion or spirit, is the means by which dualism escapes the common charge of an interaction problem. The interaction problem is a strawman which monist materialists hold up in a feeble attempt to ridicule dualists.

Further, this is why "the good" becomes so important. The good is what is desired or wanted, and is what actually moves the will, if the will is not allowed to be free from pragmatic influences. ("Will" did not even exist as a philosophical concept at Plato's time, though the underlying principles were being exposed by Plato, becoming a commonly used philosophical term at a later time, around Augustine's exposition on free will).

The problem of the free will, is that while the will moves us to act, it may be bound to material desires and bodily habits, or we may free it from following such habits, allowing it to follow the reasoning of the intellect leading us toward truth and understanding. We may even allow the will enough freedom to contemplate the highest intellectual principles. But intellectual principles, immaterial objects themselves, must be judged for truth or falsity, by the reasoning mind, according to the skepticism of the Socratic method, or Platonic dialectics, and this judgement is itself an act of will. Therefore It is of paramount importance that the soul allow the will complete freedom from the influence of the material body (including even the brain activity which would be composed of acquired habits of thinking), in making those judgements.

We must escape the trap of what is known as "rationalizing". This is why pragmaticism cannot be accepted as providing first principles, because it has been oriented toward 'what works for giving us material luxury' rather than a true honest understanding of "good" which exposes this deficiency.

The reason I don't like 'spiritual' is because of its many different uses, and also the different and sometimes conficting meanings of 'spirit' — Wayfarer

This is why I prefer "passion" when speaking of Plato's tripartite soul. it is much more specific, and I believe completely consistent with what Plato had in mind, strong ambition and enthusiasm, which under the right guidance of a reasonable good, is a prerequisite for achieving the end. But without the guidance of reason, passion becomes contemptuous anger, or unruly lust Also, it is the same word used to describe the "Passion" of Christ, referring to the very strong will of Jesus, to proceed and continue in his course of action intended to deliver us from a corrupted spirituality.

It is what the education in music is supposed to moderate. — Fooloso4

That's right, this is why music becomes a very important aspect of Plato's republic. Nothing stirs the emotions (passion) like music does, and it is understood by Plato that different types of music might lead passion in different directions. So it is proposed that music be used to help direct passion.

The issue I see, as soon as you say 'it', then you're near to committing the fallacy of reification. To say 'it' is 'something' - life-giving or whatever - is to set yourself apart from 'it', to make of 'it' a something, a 'this' as distinct from 'that', an object, or potential object, of perception. — Wayfarer

I know what you mean. However, you could refer to the soul as “I” when talking about your own soul but when talking about soul in general, it would be “it” or, in Greek, “she”. But Greek doesn’t need a personal pronoun, so we are back to “soul” or “spirit” psyche and “spiritual” psychikos.

Psyche was already used by Homer in the sense of “departed soul, ghost” and by Pindar in the sense of “immaterial and immortal soul”. And of course it was used with reference to “conscious self”, “various aspects of the self”, “moral and intellectual self”, “primary substance and source of life”, “spirit of the universe”, etc.:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry=yuxh/

The adjective “spiritual” ψῡχῐκός psychicos of or related to the soul, opposite of σωματικός somaticos of or related to the body, was also in use:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=yuxiko/s

My point was that there is no reason why English “spiritual” can’t be used to refer to the soul. Aristotle uses it while also drawing a clear distinction between spiritual (psychicos) and bodily (somaticos).

“After Courage let us speak of Temperance; for these appear to be the virtues of the irrational parts (of the soul) … Now we must make a distinction between pleasures of the body (somatikai) and pleasures of the soul (psychikai)…” (Arist. Nic.Eth. 1117b)

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker%20page%3D1117b

The top down view doesn't have to be a design-engineering God, but forms that are latent in the Cosmos that are actualised - real-ised - by evolutionary processes. — Wayfarer

The two ideas (of latent forms and gods) are not that different to me.

I think what Apollodorus was referring to is the position of "spirit", sometimes translated as "passion" (which I prefer), in Plato's tripartite soul. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not exactly. The way I see it, the soul or spirit proper is the nous. But the nous is attached to a mind-body (psyche kai soma) compound:

A. Nous (intellect, spirit, pneuma).
B. Psyche (mind): (1) reason, (2) emotions, (3) sensations.
C. Body (soma).

For this reason, the whole nous-psyche and even the nous-psyche-soma compound may be referred to as (embodied) soul (psyche).

The mortal part is the body (soma) and the immortal part is the nous-psyche (intellect-mind) part.

"Spirit" must not be confused with the "spirited/emotional part" which is just one of the three aspects of the psyche or soul.

Also, it is the same word used to describe the "Passion" of Christ, referring to the very strong will of Jesus, to proceed and continue in his course of action intended to deliver us from a corrupted spirituality. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think the "Passion" of Christ refers in the first place to the suffering of Christ from late Latin passio "suffering, experience of pain". Though, I guess you can use it in the sense of "strong will" if you want to.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=passio

I think the "Passion" of Christ refers in the first place to the suffering of Christ from late Latin passio "suffering, experience of pain". Though, I guess you can use it in the sense of "strong will" if you want to. — Apollodorus

I believe that the Latin passio means equally "enduring" as it means "suffering". So we cannot focus only on the suffering aspect, but we must also consider the enduring aspect. The Passion of Jesus was not a simple moment of suffering, but an extended period which he choose to endure. This is what will power is all about, to endure suffering for the sake of a higher good.

"Will" did not even exist as a philosophical concept at Plato's time — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm curious where you came across this. I've only seen it once, from Eva Brann, but don't recall if she cited any supporting evidence.

This is what will power is all about, to endure suffering for the sake of a higher good. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure. If you put it that way, you could be right.

But what about "spiritual"? I tend to think that since the soul is immortal, non-physical, and the life-source in a living being, it wouldn't be wrong to refer to it as "spiritual". Or can we think of a better word?

I tend to think that since the soul is immortal, non-physical, and the life-source in a living being, it wouldn't be wrong to refer to it as "spiritual". Or can we think of a better word? — Apollodorus

As I said, the problem with saying that is that it makes of 'the soul' an object or an entity or literal force. Then the question will be asked, if you say 'the soul' exists, why can't it be found by science? If it's out of scope for science, how can that be? Isn't it just a pious fiction, a ghost? So you believe in ghosts? Isn't this just superstition? and so on.

That's why I posted the passage from Vedanta - it's an admonition against the objectification of the soul (ātman). Vedanta teaches that to 'know the Self' is not a matter of objective but of non-dual knowledge, jñāna, which is attained through meditation not discursive analysis. (Which, of course, sounds religious to our ears, although in rather a different way to mainstream belief.)

This understanding seems foreign because the culture of modern liberal individualism assumes a certain implicit background, the domain of subjects and objects mediated by science and the liberal state. To us, that is reality.

So I'm not saying that the soul doesn't exist but that her nature transcends the bounds of subject-object discourse and our assumed consensus reality. So, pardon me for saying, but the expression you have given above is actually rather coarse. It tries to bring the issue down to the level of the profane understanding, not to refine the understanding in such as way as to realise Truth.

I think the position of Vedanta especially in the Advaita tradition is very close to the Platonism of Plotinus. In discussing metaphysical realities, we have to start somewhere and for that purpose we use words, exactly as the Upanishads and other Shastras do.

Vedanta teaches that to 'know the Self' is not a matter of objective but of non-dual knowledge, jñāna, which is attained through meditation not discursive analysis. (Which, of course, sounds 'religious' to our ears.) — Wayfarer

Which I believe is exactly what I have repeatedly said. Except that to my ears it doesn't sound 'religious' at all.

I'm curious where you came across this. I've only seen it once, from Eva Brann, but don't recall if she cited any supporting evidence. — Fooloso4

I've read Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient Greek philosophy. Plato had "the good", and descriptions of how the mind, reason, must prevail over the material body, and Aristotle developed final cause as 'that for the sake of which', the end, but there was not yet a concept of "free will" in the modern sense. In the modern sense, "free will" is the source of activity in an intentional act.