Socrates' knowledge of ignorance is not simply a matter of knowing that he is ignorant, it is knowledge of how to live without knowledge of what is "noble and good".(Apology 21d) — Fooloso4

This is outrageous, and the section you refer to does not support it.

The problem that leaves me with, is whether anyone knows anything at all. If all anyone has is opinions, then where is the lodestar?

I also had the idea that opinion, doxa, concerned mainly the sensible realm whereas knowledge, noesis, concerned the realm of the ideas. Am I mistaken in so thinking? — Wayfarer

Don't you find it odd that people who supposedly were so skeptical about their own abilities to obtain proper knowledge, nevertheless had so much to say, with utter certainty, about gods and ideas and a number of other things?

Is it not more likely that their apparent skepticism about themselves was just a rhetorical device, a didactic device, or an exaggeration for the sake of humility, or some combination thereof?

The same pattern can be seen in religious preachers who love to point out how flawed and faulty man is, how flawed and faulty they are. And yet, somehow, despite all those flaws and faults, they were able to choose the right religion and figure out what The Truth is??

I think the problem stems from seeing Plato and company through modern secular eyes, as skeptics, giving them more skeptical credit than they're due, when in fact it would be more appropriate to see them as religious preachers. — baker

I think "religious preachers" is a bit exaggerated. Plato, in any case, is working with religious ideas that were already current at the time. Like other Greek philosophers, he is simply trying to make those ideas acceptable to thinking people by supporting them with rational arguments. He was perhaps more successful than others, which is why his ideas were later embraced by Christians.

Plato's idea of the Forms was already present in latent form in Greek culture, religion, and language. Plato's theory is a logical development of existing elements. Unfortunately, those who are incognizant of the cultural and linguistic background jump to the conclusion that it was an arbitrary "invention".

Similarly, Socrates does not reject religious beliefs, he merely wants thinking men to examine their beliefs and only accept those that can be supported by reason. This has led some to misconstrue him as a "skeptic" on "nihilist".

In reality, I think some of Socrates and Plato's views are compatible not only with monotheistic traditions but also with Hinduism and perhaps even Buddhism. His idea of "examined life" certainly seems generally acceptable, with some modifications.

You have copied and pasted your view once again.
I am not arguing one way or the other about your statement.
I was talking about how Aristotle uses the word nous.

My understanding is that the OP is about Socrates and how concepts like "enlightened", "rational", "virtuous" can be defined in the context of the Socratic "examined life":

In another thread about the importance of psychology, I stated that the examined life is of importance to Socrates in that it may lead to various terms that lead to a better life. Such terms can be called, "enlightened", "rational", "virtuous".

Yet, without context these terms are ambiguous in terms of living an examined life. If we to take what Socrates said as important to ourselves, then what does it mean to live an examined life, as surely it is to our benefit to do so? — Shawn

How can we discuss Socrates' concepts without referring to his statements in the dialogues???

This is outrageous, and the section you refer to does not support it. — baker

You are easily outraged! The quote is with regard to his ignorance. His knowing how to live in the face of his ignorance is what the examined life is all about.

You remember the elephant parable.

The situation is complicated by modernity, by the proximity of all of the world's cultures and forms of knowledge rubbing shoulders in the Global Village. — Wayfarer

This doesn't answer the question. If there were some determinable truth about "life the universe and everything" which was directly and infallibly knowable when one reaches the requisite level of consciousness, then all the sages everywhere who had reached that level of consciousness would agree with one another as to that truth. But this is patently not the case.

As I said, I don't deny that enlightenment in the sense of letting go of all egoistic concerns is possible, or that this would be a profoundly transformative state; what I deny is that achieving that state will let anyone see any absolute metaphysical truth. If you believe that is possible, then fine, but you should be intellectually honest enough to acknowledge that believing that cannot ever be anything more than a matter of faith, even for those who may have reached the ego-less state of being.

This is a philosophy forum and if you want to claim that extraordinary knowledge is possible then it is incumbent on you to explain how that extraordinary knowledge could constitute knowledge in any sense that could be justified by logic, reason or empirical evidence.

From everything I have seen of your responses in these discussions I believe that you are not prepared to be honest about this; instead you behave like a politician, refusing to give a straight answer.

And besides that, there are scholarly and historical arguments for the idea of there being a higher knowledge that has generally been forgotten in the transition to modernity. — Wayfarer

You allude to mysterious "arguments" that all of us moderns have "forgotten". Well, here's your chance; just what are these arguments; explain them for us and let's see if they stack up under scrutiny. Perhaps they have been forgotten because as the understanding of logic and valid reasoning has advanced (and it has advanced) it has been seen that such arguments actually do not stack up at all.

I predict you won't be able to rise to the challenge just as it has been every other time we have reached this point in discussion. But, I am prepared to listen with an open mind if you try. On the other hand if I think I see a weakness in the argument of course I will point it out. That's what this forum is all about isn't it? Aren't we all here to learn, and to let go of arguments that we may be attached to if we are shown that they fail to pass muster? If you don't think that's why we are here, then what do you think? Are we here to find a guru?

I am not establishing a limit to what can be discussed in the dialogues.
My comment was a specific response to a particular statement. If it is not worth engaging with, just ignore it.

The difference is between knowing things for oneself, or taking for granted that someone else knows. — baker

Yes, I realized that the first is conviction that someone else knows and the second is conviction that oneself knows. Still both just amount to conviction.

The same pattern can be seen in religious preachers who love to point out how flawed and faulty man is, how flawed and faulty they are. And yet, somehow, despite all those flaws and faults, they were able to choose the right religion and figure out what The Truth is?? — baker

I think this is a useful point - false modesty and the frailties of human decision making are often used as a kind of cover for crass dogmatism.

As I said, I don't deny that enlightenment in the sense of letting go of all egoistic concerns is possible, or that this would be a profoundly transformative state; what I deny is that achieving that state will let anyone see any absolute metaphysical truth. — Janus

Interesting. I have not read about enlightenment traditions for decades. Is it not meant to include an awakening or illumination simultaneously with ego diminution? If not, it would hardly seem to count as enlightenment.

Interesting. I have not read about enlightenment traditions for decades. Is it not meant to include an awakening or illumination simultaneously with ego diminution? If not, it would hardly seem to count as enlightenment. — Tom Storm

Sure it is meant to include an awakening. To be free of ego and it's delusions would be to wake up. But the further claim is that the awakened sage knows the truth about life and death. I say that they may be convinced that they do, but that would only be on account of their lack of understanding of what knowledge consists in. Just because they may be awakened in the sense of free from ego, it doesn't follow that they could know what is unknowable. If, when we die, we utterly cease to exist, then we could never know that. If when we die consciousness and experience somehow continues, which is not logically impossible, then we could never know that until it happens. So the egoless sage, since she hasn't died yet, cannot know the truth about death. She may have a feeling of utter conviction that she does know, but that is still conviction, not knowledge.

Is it not meant to include an awakening or illumination simultaneously with ego diminution? If not, it would hardly seem to count as enlightenment. — Tom Storm

What if your ego does not change size? One would neither have to make it bigger to get somewhere or punish something for it becoming smaller. If that is the case, wouldn't perceiving the condition be an advance over whatever one thought before that?

I don't disagree with you - I am not in the enlightenment business - but a revelatory understanding of all which is true is part of the tradition - which is likely to be a myth.

I personally don't accept that anyone is free of ego. It's more how the ego is managed. Or stage managed...

I keep my ego in a leather pouch on my belt.

I keep my ego in a leather pouch on my belt. — Tom Storm

Noted.
I meant to say getting "free of a condition" is not the only register for understanding or "enlightenment", if you will.

I don't disagree with you - I am not in the enlightenment business - but a revelatory understanding of all which is true is part of the tradition - which is likely to be a myth.

I personally don't accept that anyone is free of ego. It's more how the ego is managed. Or stage managed... — Tom Storm

Yes, I am not arguing against it being part of the myth; it is the fact that it is part of the myth, and that the idea cannot be counted as knowledge that I am arguing.

I don't know if anyone can be entirely free of egoistic concerns, but I don't know that they cannot either, so I am allowing, for the sake of argument, for the possibility. I do believe that, to the extent that one could be free from egoistic concerns, that that would be the most profound transformation people may be capable of experiencing, because their whole orientation to life would necessarily become radically different than the ordinary.

As the Wiki article goes on to note, the nature of the distinction between nous and "the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals can do" was and is a highly contested topic. — Valentinus

I still don't understand why it's a distinction that is so hard to make. And the sentence you just read - 'why is it like that?' - that is characteristic of reasoning, is it not? And it has little or nothing to do with sensory perception. When you read that and formulate a response, your mind will search through memory, cases, examples, instances. That is an ability unique to rational intelligence.

The passage you quote addresses a larger issue, which is the immortality of the soul, or what faculty of the soul lends immortality. But I don't think that is necessary to simply establish the distinction between reason and sensation, or to ground the claim that humans possess a faculty of reason which other creatures don't (although apparently this is a highly controversial claim nowadays.)

I think the problem stems from seeing Plato and company through modern secular eyes, as skeptics, giving them more skeptical credit than they're due, when in fact it would be more appropriate to see them as religious preachers. — baker

Plato went to enormous lengths NOT to preach. To see him as a preacher is an injustice to his memory. His dialogues are models of reasoned persuasion. They sometimes contain exhortations and obviously have a religious aspect to them, but characterising him as a preacher looses the very real distinction between philosophy and religion. I think we tend to characterise it like that, because we tar anything religious with the same brush.

Don't you find it odd that people who supposedly were so skeptical about their own abilities to obtain proper knowledge, nevertheless had so much to say, with utter certainty, about gods and ideas and a number of other things? — baker

If by 'people', you mean those who speak through the Platonic dialogues, many of their utterances were not at all marked by 'absolute certainty'. There is much weighing up, arguments for and against, doubts raised and not always dispelled. Plato himself is very diffident in respect of his arguments about philosophical ultimates. He's no tub-thumper. Of course for subsequent generations Platonism became absorbed into the Christian corpus, and then it began to assume a dogmatic character that it originally didn't have.

This doesn't answer the question. If there were some determinable truth about "life the universe and everything" which was directly and infallibly knowable when one reaches the requisite level of consciousness, then all the sages everywhere who had reached that level of consciousness would agree with one another as to that truth. But this is patently not the case. — Janus

I'm familiar with 'the conflict argument' - that, because 'religions' disagree with each other, then only one of them is right, or more likely all of them are wrong. That too I see as an echo of Christian triumphalism, the idea that the Christian faith has a monopoly on truth, and also the logic that arises from that, via the opposition of exclusive and exhaustive truth claims.

But the reality is far more complex than that. Allow me to quote Albert Einstein - 'I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I do not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.' Obviously his particular genius was scientific, but the point I want to call out is the 'vastness' of the problem. It's not a simple matter, and not amenable to simplistic analysis.

From a religious pluralist:

The basic principle that we are aware of anything, not as it is in itself unobserved, but always and necessarily as it appears to beings with our particular cognitive equipment, was brilliantly stated by Aquinas when he said that ‘Things known are in the knower according to the mode of the knower’ (S.T., II/II, Q. 1, art. 2). And in the case of religious awareness, the mode of the knower differs significantly from religion to religion. And so my hypothesis is that the ultimate reality of which the religions speak, and which we refer to as God, is being differently conceived, and therefore differently experienced, and therefore differently responded to in historical forms of life within the different religious traditions.

What does this mean for the different, and often conflicting, belief-systems of the religions? It means that they are descriptions of different manifestations of the Ultimate; and as such they do not conflict with one another. They each arise from some immensely powerful moment or period of religious experience, notably the Buddha’s experience of enlightenment under the Bo tree at Bodh Gaya, Jesus’ sense of the presence of the heavenly Father, Muhammad’s experience of hearing the words that became the Qur’an, and also the experiences of Vedic sages, of Hebrew prophets, of Taoist sages. But these experiences are always formed in the terms available to that individual or community at that time and are then further elaborated within the resulting new religious movements. This process of elaboration is one of philosophical or theological construction. — John Hick, Who or What is God

If you study comparative religion, as I did, there are discernable principles and commonalities. Huston Smith wrote in his introduction to Forgotten Wisdom, twenty years after he wrote The World's Religions (originally published as Religions of Man), that he came to understand the "core" worldview common to all religions.

That "core view" is this: there are "levels of being" such that the more real is also the more valuable; these levels appear in both the "external" and the "internal" worlds, "higher" levels of reality without corresponding to "deeper" levels of reality within. On the very lowest level is the material/physical world, which depends for its existence on the higher levels. On the very highest/deepest level is the Infinite or Absolute, depicted (paradoxically) in many different ways.

Far from showing that all religions are somehow "the same," Smith in fact shows that religions have a "common" core only at a sufficiently general level. What he shows, therefore, is not that there is really just one religion, but that the various religions of the world are actually agreeing and disagreeing about something real, something about which there is a real matter of fact, on the fundamentals of which most religions tend to concur while differing in numerous points of detail (including practice).

Of course any two religions therefore have much more in common than any single religion has with materialism. In fact one way to state the "common core" of the world's religions is simply to say that they agree about the fallacy of materialism.

And of course, you are free to say, as you're likely to, that you don't believe it. But I still agree with him, that there is a fact of the matter, which is occluded by the constitution of modern culture.

To be free of ego and it's delusions would be to wake up. But the further claim is that the awakened sage knows the truth about life and death. I say that they may be convinced that they do, but that would only be on account of their lack of understanding of what knowledge consists in. — Janus

If indeed through this 'awakening' one realises an identity beyond birth and death, then what could possibly exceed that? That is why there are references to 'eternal life' or 'Life' capital-L. This is mostly represented in mythological form, which has degenerated, in popular culture, to Christmas-card images. But what if there is a core of truth? I mean, for example, the immortality of the soul is precisely the subject of the Phaedo, which has been subject of another thread. And speaking of threads, this concern is a thread which runs through all world cultures and philosophies.

I do believe that, to the extent that one can be free from egoistic concerns, that that is the most profound transformation people may be capable of experiencing, because their whole orientation to life would necessarily become radically different than the ordinary. — Janus

:ok: Quite right. It's as simple, and as difficult, as that.

Interesting. I have not read about enlightenment traditions for decades. — Tom Storm

You are probably in the right place at the right time then :grin:

But you are right, enlightenment or illumination does imply some form of diminution of the ego, at least in the Platonic tradition. The ego or individual self is illumined by the Cosmic Intellect or the Good and is submerged and "taken over" as it were by it, similar to the flame of a candle in strong sunlight.

According to some, enlightenment is sudden and total, whereas according to others it is a gradual process that even continues after death.

I think @Janus is making a valid point. The "egoless sage", since she hasn't died yet, may indeed not know the truth about death. However, that depends on how we define enlightenment. If it is a special state that facilitates paranormal knowledge, then there is a logical possibility that there would be some prescient knowledge of afterlife.

'I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I do not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.' — Wayfarer

You, through Einstein you are making my point for me: "The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe."

If you study comparative religion, as I did, there are discernable principles and commonalities. — Wayfarer

I did and continue to study comparative religion, mostly on my own and some at Uni. I started reading eastern philosophy and zen and Daoist literature when I was 16. I was fascinated by the idea of enlightenment until my late 30's, and practiced mediation daily for more than 18 years. I know there are commonalities. Why would there not be? The experience of ego diminishment or dissolution which can be had through meditation, the arts and psychotropics is familiar enough to me, and why would there not be commonalities, even cross-culturally, with such experiences, just as there are with psychedelic experiences? None of that entails that what is felt, no matter with what degree of conviction, is actually knowledge of any metaphysical truth.

If indeed through this 'awakening' one realises an identity as beyond birth and death, then what could possibly exceed that? — Wayfarer

I have enjoyed such experiences both with meditation, psychedelics and with the arts and in nature.They are peak experiences to be sure, but they are basically affective experiences. If you try to explain what great truth you feel, that you may be utterly convinced, you are seeing at such times, you find you cannot do so; which means that there is no "knowledge that" to be had there. These are heightened states of awareness, altered states of consciousness, they tell us nothing certain about the meaning of life or what, if anything happens to our consciousnesses after death, no matter how much we might feel they do.

Actually I'll retract what I said there somewhat; we cannot know that they are telling us anything true about the meaning of life or death, no matter how much we might be convinced that we do. I want to repeat again though, that I see nothing at all wrong with having faith in those convictions, but intellectually we are bound, I believe, to recognize that they are still and always will be articles of faith, not of knowledge. And this is very important because this is how fundamentalism, the proud conflation of faith with knowledge, is avoided.

If it is a special state that facilitates paranormal knowledge, then there is a logical possibility that there would be some prescient knowledge of afterlife. — Apollodorus

I agree with this; it may indeed be so; all I have been arguing is that we cannot know that it is.

I still don't understand why it's a distinction that is so hard to make. — Wayfarer

I don't think the distinction is hard to make. Aristotle goes to a considerable effort to distinguish them himself. But he also insists upon them being in the same universe. De Anima tries to frame what that world is like if the differences are understood as living in one place together even we don't know how that works exactly.

The passage you quote addresses a larger issue, which is the immortality of the soul, or what faculty of the soul lends immortality. But I don't think that is necessary to simply establish the distinction between reason and sensation, or to ground the claim that humans possess a faculty of reason which other creatures don't (although apparently this is a highly controversial claim nowadays.) — Wayfarer

The passage does address immortality but in a starkly different way than making it a matter of our faculties. We are not in a great location to say how the "separable and eternal" relates to individual experience. The scope of Aristotle's view is trying to grasp how the individual relates to universals. Humans are like other living beings in that regard, despite how different we may be in other ways.

intellectually we are bound, I believe, to recognize that they are still and always will be articles of faith, not of knowledge. — Janus

You may be bound to see it that way, but I don't concur. Just because something can't be quantified and measured, doesn't mean that it can't be known. But nevertheless we have quite bit of common ground, so maybe that's as much agreement as we're going to arrive at!

All I can say is that we must be working with very different notions of what constitutes knowledge then, in which case we will only keep talking past one another. I agree we do share common ground, so that's at least something!

we must be working with very different notions of what constitutes knowledge — Janus

There are, in various cultures, terms for higher knowledge - for example Jñāna, Abhijna, Prajñāpāramitā, Vidya (from Indian philosophy); gnosis, noesis (from Platonism). These conceptions have been obliterated in Western culture, which is why we can't recognise them. We have no reference cases for them, so to us they can only appear as statements of feeling or faith. That's my take on it.

We have no reference cases for them, so to us they can only appear as statements of feeling or faith. That's my take on it. — Wayfarer

My take is different. I think we don't recognize gnosis, noesis and so on as 'knowledge that' because 'knowledge that' should be determinably communicable and transparently justifiable. They would qualify, according to my understanding, perhaps as 'knowing how', but I think even more aptly as what I call 'knowing with', which I think of as the knowledge of familiarity in the biblical sense as expressed in (loosely paraphrased) " and a man shall know his wife and they shall become as one flesh".

It is in this sense that we, for example, know the world in the "alethic" sense, as the world is "unconcealed" as Heidegger would say in the "clearing" that is Dasein. I think this alethic understanding of knowledge is behind Heidegger's priveleging of poetry in his later philosophy. I enjoy reading poetry and I also write, and there is definitely something revealed in poetry; something in a sense that is known. I'd say the same for literature in general and the visual arts and music as well.

I agree with this; it may indeed be so; all I have been arguing is that we cannot know that it is. — Janus

Correct. I'm not sure about the implications of "cannot know" though. Possibly, "do not know" is somehow less strong and more impartial. And, of course, it applies either way.

But, more generally, I think we were trying to establish how Socrates (or Plato) viewed things and then see how the discussion develops from there.

I think it is essential to understand that philosophy in general has been theistic from its very beginnings in Ancient Greece until recently. — Apollodorus

What about the pre-Socratics? They were decidedly anti-mythos in seeking to replace mythos with logos and thereby marginalizing (or even in some cases eliminating?) "the gods". Philosophy begins with reasoning about (wonder at) phusis and cosmos as a departure from theogony – Thales, Pythagorus, Democritus, Parmenides et al. Not theo-centricity at all, but logo-centricity – even the Socratics down to the Neoplatonists and Stoics.

Roman Catholicism co-opts Stoicism and Neoplatonism, and brings about (or accelerates) and prolongs the Dark Ages yadda yadda yadda such that philosophy, etc has been striving the last few centuries to liberate thinking itself from blinkered vestiges of apologetic scholasticism, perhaps going to extremes on occasion, in order to recover that inaugural, pre-Socratic fire of logos stolen from mythos-cum-theologia. And by "pre-Socratics" I mean the ancient Greek era of thought that is lucidly meditated on in the incomplete Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, which does not confuse the archaic with the 'mystical' or religious, rather than constipated Heidi's fetishistic oracular '"history" – archē, to apeiron, alētheia – "of Beyng"' mystagogy.

We have no reference cases for them, so to us they can only appear as statements of feeling or faith. That's my take on it. — Wayfarer

I don't know - give it another 20 years, I suspect the endless and insufferable Marvel movie franchise will spawn a world faith and provide us with a range of post-postmodern Gods and realms worthy of the classical age. Some of us will be longing to get back to Neo-Platonism.

There are, in various cultures, terms for higher knowledge - for example Jñāna, Abhijna, Prajñāpāramitā, Vidya (from Indian philosophy); gnosis, noesis (from Platonism). These conceptions have been obliterated in Western culture, which is why we can't recognise them. We have no reference cases for them, so to us they can only appear as statements of feeling or faith. That's my take on it. — Wayfarer

I definitely agree with this. The fact that there is no scientific definition or proof of something, does not mean that it does not exist. There are powerful emotional states like love, for example, that seem to have no precise scientific definition. Science cannot even adequately define consciousness, let alone paranormal states of it.

Going back to Socrates, if we are to be consistent about the "examined life", then we need to look into the issue of enlightenment more thoroughly and, at least from my own researches, it seems that certain mental training techniques like concentration, meditation, and contemplation, in which as Socrates says, the soul or consciousness is "all by itself and gathered into itself," and undisturbed by the body-mind complex, do lead to certain states of mind or consciousness where some rather interesting things are experienced, including an extraordinary sense of peace, joy, and mental clarity and alertness.

This, of course, does not constitute proof of soul, immortality, afterlife, or God. But it does prove that there are states of consciousness that are not normally experienced and only in certain very specific circumstances. Nor can these states be transmitted or even described to others. If nothing else, this suggests that we should not dismiss things just because science cannot find them and put them under the microscope.