[454A] “Oh Glaucon,” I said, “what a noble power the debater’s art has.” “Why in particular?” “Because many people even seem to me to fall into it unwillingly,” I said, “and imagine they’re not being contentious but having a conversation, because they’re not able to examine something that’s being said by making distinctions according to forms, but pounce on the contradiction in what’s been said according to a mere word, subjecting one another to contention and not conversation.”
“That is exactly the experience of many people,” he said, “but that surely doesn’t apply to us in the present circumstance, does it?” [454B] “It does absolutely,” I said. “At any rate, we’re running the risk of engaging in debate unintentionally.” — Plato, Republic 454a, translated by Joe Sachs
Generation is a contemplation. It results from the longing of pregnancy to produce a multiplicity of forms and objects of contemplation. Begetting means to produce some form; and this means to spread contemplation everywhere. All the faults met with in the begotten things or in actions are due to the fact that one did stray from the object of one's contemplation. The poor workman resembles the producer of bad forms. Also lovers must be counted as those who contemplate and pursue forms. — Plotinus, Ennead III, viii, translated by Joseph Katz
I cannot tell who you are shadow boxing with. — Valentinus
Gonzales saying: "the form cannot be expressed in language" does not appear to support Socrates' effort to distinguish the dialectic from mere argument — Valentinus
Gonzales also appears to be no friend of Plotinus who links the generation of creatures to contemplation through forms — Valentinus
.First, then, we must learn the truth about the soul divine and human by observing how it acts and is acted upon. And the beginning of our proof is as follows: Every soul is immortal.(245c)
“Shadow boxing”? I wasn’t aware that there was anyone to shadow box with. Perhaps you know more than I do. — Apollodorus
The problem tends to be compounded by some readers’ attempt to interpret Plato through Aristotle who erroneously interprets Plato’s Forms, for example, through his own categories. Thus “scholars” conclude that Plato’s statements are “ambiguous”, “unclear”, “contradictory” or “confused”. — Apollodorus
And then there are the committed anti-Platonists who deliberately use Aristotle to demonstrate the “inconsistency” and “incoherence” of a “Theory of Forms” that they choose to attribute to Plato but that simply does not exist in the dialogues in the form they claim it does .... — Apollodorus
I think what Gonzales says with regard to Forms and Aristotle’s interpretation of them is quite clear. — Apollodorus
What a strange idea of "thinking for yourself".You choose the idea and opinions out of the suite of those culturally available to you that seem to fit best with your lived experience. — Janus
Thank you for the correction.Nope, Apollodorus does not say that "acknowledgement of doubt and uncertainty can lead to schizoaffective disorder". It is not the acknowledgment but giving in to doubt and uncertainty, especially when coupled with Straussian esotericism, that can open the trapdoor leading to schizoaffective or delusional disorder. Two totally different things IMO. — Apollodorus
That's just it: In order to become religious/spiritual, one has to kick one's intelligence, wisdom, and discernment to the curb, on account that they are inferior, not suitable for religion/spirituality.The problem is that those external points of reference are often hostile to us, and we have to find a way to rely on and trust people who, at the very least, don't care if we live or die.
— baker
Sure. This is what we have intelligence, wisdom, and discernment for.
What do you consider a classical education and at what age? — Tom Storm
Perhaps you can present his argument with more definition. — Valentinus
It is precisely because a form is neither a subject nor a predicate that we cannot speak of it as simply one or the other but must, if we are to speak at all, treat it as both. it is thus our very language that leads us to regard beauty both as a property and as something that has this property. Many scholars see Plato as not always, or even ever, clearly distinguishing between being a property and having a property
I think that what you are getting at in the first part is two-fold. One, do not make the all to common mistake of thinking that argument and philosophy are the same. — Fooloso4
Where Plato points to the limits of our knowledge some mistakenly think he is pointing beyond them. — Fooloso4
It was a living tradition based on personal practice and experience, not an academic endeavor in the modern sense. — Apollodorus
What a strange idea of "thinking for yourself".
I think "thinking for yourself" is about epistemic autonomy, ie. being autonomous in how one knows/believes one knows things. Like I said already, it's epistemic autonomy that is questionable.
Relative novelty of one's ideas isn't the measure of "thinking for yourself" (although this is how it is often understood in popular discourse). — baker
Believing one is epistemically independent of other people.I'd say this is far stranger. Firstly what could being autonomous in how one knows/ believes one knows things even mean? — Janus
You seem to have been disagreeing with my arguments that the enlightened person cannot rationally know that she knows whatever she thinks she knows, no matter how convinced she may be that she does, and yet here you say that epistemic autonomy is questionable. So, I can only guess you must mean something else.
Okay for now.As I said before in my view thinking for yourself is just thinking what seems to be in best accordance with and evidenced by your own experience, understanding and rational assessment
I seriously doubt anyone ever believes things the way you describe here. That's a caricature.rather than thinking something because some authority told you it was so without providing any empirical evidence or rational argument to back up their assertion.
Except that I would not ask the sage "How do you know?" anymore. There was a time in the past when I would, but not anymore. And no, this doesn't mean that I now accept their claims. It's that I contextualize the whole matter entirely differently. Namely, I don't see the declarations of a "sage" as being some kind of opening for a discussion and dialogue.So, if the purportedly enlightened sage tells you that there is an afterlife, and you say how do you know that and they say 'I just know', or 'I remember my past lives', you would be warranted in being skeptical about such a claim. That would be thinking for yourself. If you accepted the claim, and henceforth believed it yourself because you believed the person was enlightened and must know the truth, that would not be thinking for yourself.
Maybe there was a tradition of training involved that was kept secret. If so, the secret is still hidden from view. — Valentinus
People who know, do not need the Dialectic. — Valentinus
I think of the different readings of Plato in a smaller circle of comparison. Either the various and quite different approaches seen in the Dialogues were necessary in view of what Plato was attempting or they were episodes of pretense. If he could have written it all down like a system in the fashion of Proclus, the whole process of the Dialogues is a sham. — Valentinus
Some think that dialectic is a method that leads to knowledge of the Forms. But how can someone know this unless they have completed the journey? That it does is something we are told not something we have experienced. It is a matter of opinion. — Fooloso4
Dialectic leads to knowledge of our ignorance. It leads us to see that philosophical inquiry leads to aporia. — Fooloso4
This raises several issues. If the whole is singular it seems reasonable to think there should be a single logos. But we do find these different approaches in the dialogues that address different aspects of the whole. Each, by bringing something to light occludes issues that come to light in another. None, however, either separately or all together, are comprehensive. Any speech of the whole must include us, the speaker. Our inability, the inability of the part, to give a comprehensive account of the whole says something not only about us but about the whole of which we are a part. — Fooloso4
It doesn't sound like we will be getting tans outside the cave any time soon. — Valentinus
Returning to a conversation that has undergone the rigors of the dialectic in order to form better opinions can be a starting place for a new conversation. — Valentinus
So much so that I am uncertain about what counts as divine or not within it. Thus my previous concerns about comparing different models. — Valentinus
I think that when people believe experts and authorities, this has more to do with social dynamics and, to some extent, belief economy, rather than some "blind trust" or "not thinking for yourself". — baker
Except that I would not ask the sage "How do you know?" anymore. There was a time in the past when I would, but not anymore. And no, this doesn't mean that I now accept their claims. It's that I contextualize the whole matter entirely differently. Namely, I don't see the declarations of a "sage" as being some kind of opening for a discussion and dialogue. — baker
the human is a way in which the Universe comes to realise its own nature. — Wayfarer
It's not clear this is the case. Ideally, it should be the case, but I don't think it is, or only rarely. It seems that most people who believe experts and authorities in various fields don't even have a concept of "rigorously testing and demonstrating". Instead, their believing the experts and authorities is, essentially, a fallacious argumentum ab auctoritate.When people believe experts and authorities in various fields it is because they trust that those expert's expertise has been rigorously tested and demonstrated, and could be retested and redemonstrated if needs be. — Janus
You cannot "rigorously and without bias test the purported expertise" of scientists either. You don't have the resources, you don't have the data, you don't have the access, and they sure as hell aren't going to do it for you.The same does not apply with sages and gurus. There is no way to rigorously and without bias test their purported expertise, even in principle, let alone practice.
There's no guarantee that "thinking for yourself" will make you happy and successful either.But I know what kinds of cultures of gullible mythologizing actually arise around cult leaders and gurus of all kinds; the same kinds of lamentable human dynamics play out everywhere. People happily relinquishing their capacities to think for themselves; listening to the oracular voice of the "master" and believing every word; it's just sad in my view.
Resonates with me at a deep level although I don't fancy myself as capable of contributing to the effort. I hope someone in my lifetime, what's left of it, has that Eureka moment ASAP and then... — TheMadFool
It's not clear this is the case. Ideally, it should be the case, but I don't think it is, or only rarely. It seems that most people who believe experts and authorities in various fields don't even have a concept of "rigorously testing and demonstrating". Instead, their believing the experts and authorities is, essentially, a fallacious argumentum ab auctoritate. — baker
You cannot "rigorously and without bias test the purported expertise" of scientists either. You don't have the resources, you don't have the data, you don't have the access, and they sure as hell aren't going to do it for you. — baker
There's no guarantee that "thinking for yourself" will make you happy and successful either. — baker
Such people should keep away from philosophy, because studying that would only lead them to question everything, that is would only lead them to think for themselves — Janus
I think there must have been some form of training as this was the whole purpose of a school. — Apollodorus
This is the point where the mind's contemplative faculty, the nous, takes over from language and discursive thought, and leads the philosopher to a direct experience of the realities in question. — Apollodorus
The way I see it, Plato's works provide a number of general guidelines, not a system of water-tight theories, for the simple reason that any unclear matters would have been clarified in conversation with the teacher of your particular school. It was a living tradition based on personal practice and experience, not an academic endeavor in the modern sense. — Apollodorus
One thing that puzzles me about this last statement is that it doesn't square with your efforts in other places to see Plato presenting a unified theory of the soul. — Valentinus
One thing that puzzles me about this last statement is that it doesn't square with your efforts in other places to see Plato presenting a unified theory of the soul. — Valentinus
But if we are guided by me we shall believe that the soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil, and so we shall hold ever to the upward way and pursue righteousness with wisdom always and ever, that we may be dear to ourselves and to the gods both during our sojourn here and when we receive our reward, as the victors in the games go about to gather in theirs. And thus both here and in that journey of a thousand years, whereof I have told you, we shall fare well (Rep. 621c-d).
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