I answer your questions when they are directed to comments I make. I don't when they refer to arguments you are having with others. — Valentinus

Well, you are systematically siding with @Fooloso4 and your own comments are indistinguishable from his.

Here is one of your staple comments:

The inquiry does lead to aporia. — Valentinus

My question was, if philosophical inquiry leads to aporia, then why would anyone engage in philosophical inquiry?

The way I see it, and this is the traditional view, philosophy is a quest for knowledge.

According to Socrates, knowledge of higher realities can be acquired only by looking into them with the soul alone by itself.

Therefore, the true philosopher (or lover of wisdom) practices "dying" which is separation of the conscious soul from the body and the material world (Phaedo 67e). (Obviously, as far as possible and for the duration of a particular session of intense inquiry.)

It isn't my fault that Plato has Socrates make those statements. I am simply following those statements to their logical conclusion.

Others may think that Socrates and Plato are either ignoramuses of fraudsters whose only teaching is "ignorance and aporia".

This is why communication between the two sides is impossible and there is no point in getting upset over it. I don't see Plato or Socrates getting upset over anything :smile:

My question was, if philosophical inquiry leads to aporia, then why would anyone engage in philosophical inquiry? — Apollodorus

Before you ask that as a general question, what is the role of difficulty in any particular inquiry? In the Republic, Socrates expresses uncertainty if he has adequately depicted the Good. He expresses doubts about whether Justice has been properly represented. The problems he marks out are boundaries he cannot get past at that moment.

How do those expressions of doubt relate to your question about the motivation to pursue questions?

In the Republic, Socrates expresses uncertainty if he has adequately depicted the Good. — Valentinus

So what? Socrates (or Plato) explains things as best he can in a small book that addresses many different issues. I don't think this is a reason for anyone to go on a doubt or "aporia" trip.

Questions are raised, some are well answered, others less so, but at the end of the day life goes on. The point is that the Republic does NOT end in or lead to aporia.

The topic was raised in the context of asking you to explain why Socrates put so much emphasis on the limits of knowledge when you suggested that something else was the intent of the enterprise.
Your efforts fail to support your thesis.
I have no idea what you mean by aporia if it is something that is supposed to exist outside of arguments where the term has a role.

Your efforts fail to support your thesis. — Valentinus

I haven't got a thesis. I simply read what Plato writes and follow Socrates' advice to make up my own mind instead of listening to Straussian aporeticists, esotericists, and skeptomaniacs.

And, as I said, the Republic does not end in or lead to "aporia".

The claim to the effect that "philosophical inquiry leads to aporia" is spurious and unfounded IMHO.

If if were true, it would make philosophy worse than science and pretty much useless. And that's why we must disagree.

You still haven't explained what the purpose is for emphasizing how ignorant we are if Socrates actually knows the truth.

I gave examples of the aporia Socrates encountered in the Republic. I have no idea what you think the word means. It seems to be an imaginary condition you imagine other people to be experiencing rather than a description of uncertainty about what is being said.

I haven't got a thesis. — Apollodorus

Noted.
I mistook your claim that Socrates actually knows what he claims not to know to be your thesis.
An easy mistake to make, under the circumstances..

Well, the mistake or misunderstanding is entirely yours. As I said before, you can try actually reading what people are saying, for a change. :smile:

Anyway, I fail to see why I would need to explain something that is perfectly obvious.

Plato is not saying that he knows the truth, he is simply suggesting the WAY to the truth.

Socrates explains it in very clear terms. He even uses the term “hunt” with reference to non-physical realities.

The philosopher, i.e. lover of wisdom or seeker after knowledge, can hit upon reality only by hunting down each reality alone by itself and unalloyed (Phaedo 66a).

How do we hunt down (thereuomai) an animal? By following its tracks until we see it. Alternatively, we lie in wait until it appears in our field of vision.

Similarly, we follow the Sun’s tracks or reflections in water, etc., then follow its light, and, when our eyes have become accustomed to its brightness, we can look straight at the Sun itself (at least for a brief time) and see it as it is in itself (99e).

The same is true of the Forms. We follow their tracks in the images of particular objects of perception, we look into the truth of arguments about them, and when we have sufficiently trained our mind to become receptive and alert, we can start looking into the Forms themselves, by using thought alone by itself and unalloyed, and separated as far as possible from eyes and ears and virtually from the entire body (66a).

Plato does no more than to put us on the right track. The Truth-hunting has to be done by each lover of wisdom or seeker after truth, personally.

Likewise, the decision to go on the hunt is entirely for the individual to take. Plato puts no obligation on anyone to look into higher truth. People can still be good citizens and enjoy a life of peace and happiness by being righteous and wise.

Platonism offers something to everyone, including materialists. And those who like to find their supreme satisfaction in doubt, “aporia”, and similar things are at liberty to do so.

At any rate, I think we are more likely to arrive at truth by actively hunting for it than by perpetually questioning things and living a life of self-imposed ignorance, uncertainty, and doubt.

I think we are more likely to arrive at truth by actively hunting for it than by perpetually questioning things — Apollodorus

But isn't the life of Socrates one of actively hunting for the truth by perpetually questioning things?

The passage of the Phaedo you are referring to is part of an argument that the soul can only know the truth after the death of the body. To that extent, it does not support your vision of a school where one is trained by the Sifu to learn inner secrets for daily life.

Platonism offers something to everyone, including materialists. And those who like to find their supreme satisfaction in doubt, “aporia”, and similar things are at liberty to do so. — Apollodorus

Perhaps you could provide support for this statement. It seems to run counter to the very method of inquiry by means of division that Socrates insists upon.

I have demonstrated previously that your use of "aporia" is a part of your private lexicon which means it cannot be affirmed or denied by others.The arc of your use of the term resembles the following:

Ralph: Unlike you, Alice, I do not fall into a coma when I finish reading Jane Austen novels.

Alice: I don't fall into comas after reading Jane Austen novels.

Ralph: You were in a coma, how would expect to remember it?

But isn't the life of Socrates one of actively hunting for the truth by perpetually questioning things?[/b] — Valentinus

As I said, your comments are indistinguishable from Fooloso4's incomprehensible pronouncements.

Socrates is teaching others how to rationally examine their beliefs.

As for himself, he says:

I assume in each case some principle which I consider strongest, and whatever seems to me to agree with this, whether relating to cause or to anything else, I regard as true, and whatever disagrees with it, as untrue (Phaedo 100a)

He did not perpetually question whether to take poison. He had made up his mind from the start and he explains to Simmias and Cebes why it is the right decision.

I think there is a marked difference between Socrates' hunt for intelligible realities and the obsessive-compulsive disorder of the skeptomaniacs and aporeticists. :smile:

You once again resort to opposing what you purport others to mean rather than engage in statements as they are presented to you.

The passage of the Phaedo you quoted is an essential element in the method he employs when questioning things and opinions.

He did not perpetually question whether to take poison. — Apollodorus

How could that observation possibly inform the discussion we are having about the accessibility of ultimate truths?

I think there is a marked difference between Socrates' hunt for intelligible realities and the obsessive-compulsive disorder of the skeptomaniacs and aporeticists. :smile: — Apollodorus

I suppose there is a marked difference between the hunt for intelligible realities and the toy soldiers you have put on the grass to stop the hunt. But you aren't making any distinctions between that hunt and statements made by actual interlocutors. You have built a box where you deposit all challenges to your view. Socrates would not have been impressed by such avoidance to risk and error.

As already stated, I can see no difference whatsoever between your statements and those of your alter ego Fooloso4.

Besides, if you were consistent about your practice of perpetually questioning things, you would start by applying it to yourself, no?

But you seem to be applying it exclusively to others.

I think Socrates would have strongly disapproved .... :grin:

If you make a statement, and two people notice the contradiction between that statement and others you make, does that turn the two persons into a single being? What a peculiar idea! But your thought experiment bears no relation to engaging in the contradictions involved in any particular discussion.

You brought the Phaedo passage into our discussion to support your view that we can experience divine truth through proper training in our lifetime. I observed that the text does not support your thesis. Fooloso4 has pointed out other contradictions between your statements regarding the passage you refer to and other statements you made in other discussions.

The reason for this similarity between your statements being challenged in different discussions could be explained by the fact that Fooloso4 and I are Siamese twins who were separated at birth.
He went on to become the Dean of Oxford University while I am an inmate in a Texas penitentiary, quarrying limestone under a relentless sun. The similarity of our language comes from the lullabies our nursemaid sang as we suckled upon our respective breasts.

Or maybe that is all an accident and the reason for the similarity is that we both have read enough Plato to notice the contradictions in your statements independently of the other.

All I can say for sure is that my question of why Socrates talks so much about his and our ignorance when you say he actually knows the truth has been left untouched by you.

To examine one's life begins with answering the question: Why is one alive? If one knows the reason one is alive, then what one must next examine is whether what one is calling "life" is Real, or an Illusion? And to even contemplate the question of an illusion, one must know the difference between an illusion, and Reality? The essential difference between Reality and illusion is whether one is permanent, or not? Everything in the illusion of life is subject to change. Peace

Hmmm ... Very interesting.

As a matter of fact, when I said "alter ego" I did not mean it literally. But now that you point it out, it must be said that:

You and Foolo joined the forum at the same time.

You hold identical beliefs.

You share the same anti-Platonist (and anti-Christian) commitment.

You use identical language and arguments.

Both of you have mysteriously studied Strauss, a non-entity in the field that few people have heard of, but have never heard of top scholars like Gerson and Sedley, etc.

And you always attack Foolo’s interlocutors when he can’t extricate himself from his own nonsense ….

In the everyday life of the intellectual there are many terms the intellectual uses which are "abstract terms". And by "abstract" I mean letters arranged in such a manner to imply the label or identify of something because what is being identified by that label is INVISIBLE to the brain and one's physical senses. Does what is being pointed at by those terms: God, Soul, Truth, Reality, Consciousness, Spirituality, Astral body, and so forth... have an existence that is contained in, or explained by, the labels for those elements... or are these labels terms for phenomena that the intellectual has never actually experienced? If one has not actually experienced the existence of what some "abstract label" stands for... is it not dishonest to argue against the existence of what such an abstract term [stands for], when one has not actually experienced that of which an abstract term points to? The term for this kind of dishonesty is known as "Intellectualism".

I think your description of "intellectualism" fits anti-Platonists very well.

Socrates, Plato, and Greeks in general, were practical, down-to-earth people. Yes, they liked thinking about and discussing things, but at the end of the day, their thoughts had a practical application.

This is why I doubt very much that Socrates was the skeptic and nihilist that anti-Platonists like to see in him.

You have no idea what I believe. That you think I have revealed that because I support one reading of Plato over another is the height of authoritarian fancy. Who fucking made you in charge of assigning identities instead of letting people decide for themselves who they are or what they think?

Calling me an "anti-Platonist" is a judgement you have made about my intentions because you are not able to defend your reading of Plato when I challenge it. There a number of ways to read Plato. From my point of view, you are the one who is trying to turn it into something it is not. That doesn't make you an "anti-Platonist." You are just another person who has a mistaken understanding about what is being discussed.

As for the rest of your paranoid account, I will only remark upon the relationship between primary texts of authors and the secondary texts that wrestle with their meaning. A sincere study of primary text can and is helped by looking at secondary texts. The way you describe it makes it sound like a reader is infected by ideas upon learning about them. If somebody is going to defend a certain reading by appeal to a secondary source, one still has to make their own stand about what is meant. Otherwise, one has deferred the discussion to other people and assumed the position of an interested bystander. Your emphasis upon the differences among secondary texts is not going to help you establish credibility as someone who is capable of reading the text on their own.

.

Who fucking made you in charge of assigning identities instead of letting people decide for themselves who they are or what they think? — Valentinus

Well, well, your true colors are finally starting to show. Do you always get upset in unison with Foolo on the other thread? Or is it just another curious "coincidence"? Maybe you are twins, after all …. :grin:

Fact is, I never said you should be an anti-Platonist. What I said was that you seem to share the same anti-Platonist commitment as Foolo:

You share the same anti-Platonist (and anti-Christian) commitment. — Apollodorus

As I said before, you are not paying attention and you seem to be far too emotional and angry to be a true philosopher IMHO.

Anyway, what you are saying is that I can’t tell people who they are or what they think, but you can tell others who they are or what they think. What shall we call that then, hypocrisy or something else?

Finally, you can’t really expect me to answer rhetorical questions that are just obvious straw men designed to distract attention from the issue at hand, can you?

The point I was making was that you keep asking me about the need to perpetually question everything but you never seem to apply that to yourself. You apply that exclusively to others, and I think this goes against everything that Plato teaches. "Examined life" means in the first place examining your own beliefs, emotions, etc.

I'd be interested in what your ideas of the 'unexamined life' might be. I'm wondering where the fault line lies between unexamined and examined? Is it a failure to ask questions? Is it a complacent acceptance of whatever life you are born in? Is a person who is born into a religion and never questions it (but pursues it with study and understanding) examining their life or simply building on unexamined assumptions?

I think it is a matter of balance. As Socrates puts it in the Phaedo:

I assume in each case some principle which I consider strongest, and whatever seems to me to agree with this, whether relating to cause or to anything else, I regard as true, and whatever disagrees with it, as untrue (Phaedo 100a)

Of course people should examine their beliefs, thoughts, emotions, etc., at least to some extent. As a matter of fact, we already do this, even without philosophy. But not go overboard and turn that into some kind of compulsive disorder.

At the end of the day, we can't just spend our lives doubting this or the other. Life requires that we take action and we can do that only on the basis of what we think is the best course of action. I don't see how doubt and uncertainty can serve as a basis for meaningful and active life.

:up:

. I don't see how doubt and uncertainty can serve as a basis for meaningful and active life. — Apollodorus

You may be right there. I must say I wrestle with this one but it doesn't keep me up at night. I inhabit the quotidian.

I must say I wrestle with this one but it doesn't keep me up at night. I inhabit the quotidian. — Tom Storm

That's probably the right idea. I've got the feeling that even Socrates wouldn't question that :wink:

It has been amusing to spar with you over your Karate Kid version of Plato. But now that you are using it to determine who is Christian or not, it is time to take the matter more seriously.

First of all, Socrates questions ideas and develops the best opinions he can in each of his inquiries. That is what he is saying in the Phaedo about what he calls true and what he calls false. He operates with those sets of opinions but doesn't say that operation is the equivalence of knowing the truth. He doesn't abandon his opinions from one day to the next but doesn't say they amount to the end of his inquiries.

The vision of a Socrates who cannot say what anything is from one day to the next is entirely an invention of your own making. He expresses a lot more certainty about some things than others. When he encounters sophistry, he doesn't agonize over whether his perception can be trusted or not.

What you have done, in your version of Plato, is to take this realm of better opinions and equate them with knowledge that requires no further verification. What it means for Socrates to question everything is that having the best opinion one can establish does not mean it is free from the need for verification. If any opinion did rise to the level where it could stand above all the contingencies that went into forming it, that starts to sound like knowledge.

One of the many problems that appear after collapsing the two realms into one is that it turns Socrates' declarations of ignorance into a pretense. Now if it is a pretense, does that mean it works like the "noble lie" in the Republic? That would be a nefarious vision I can scarcely imagine. It would turn Socrates' demand for righteousness, based upon seeking the Good, into some agenda he is hiding from us.

When I challenge you to defend your idea that Socrates is only pretending to be ignorant, you reply by insisting that Socrates is not a skeptic who is unable to affirm or deny anything. My previous efforts to explain that such a character is not my understanding of Socrates' endeavor has fallen upon deaf ears. But the problem with your view is not addressed by your definition of my view. Your version of Plato turns the distinctions Plato is making into a meaningless puree of theological goo.

Maybe you are twins, after all — Apollodorus

Your fixation with this is keeping you from taking the challenges presented to you seriously.

I am the one who brought up this problem of a Socrates who pretends. I am the only who is arguing about it now.

What upset me was the way you characterized my arguments as "anti-Christian." You can trust that my efforts to undermine the criteria for your judgement will be coming from me and me alone.

Your version of Plato turns the distinctions Plato is making into a meaningless puree of theological goo. — Valentinus

Complete nonsense. Your phobia of religion seems to make you totally blind to my numerous statements to the effect that religion in Platonism is not necessary for the attainment of knowledge:

Religion is about belief (pistis) which is OK in the lower stages, but by definition, Platonism goes beyond religion or belief to the stages of reason (dianoia) and inner vision (noesis). — Apollodorus

However, if we encounter Gods or other metaphysical entities on our way to the highest, we will know this as and when it happens. So, we need not be overly concerned with the Gods. — Apollodorus

So, sorry to say this, but you are talking to your own aporetic and confused imagination ....

Have a nice day.

I have no phobia regarding religion. On the contrary.
I am addressing the problem with your Socrates who pretends to be ignorant. How you rank the various components of your cosmogony is meaningless if one removes the central distinction in Plato's philosophy separating opinion and knowledge.

@Tom Storm

Unfortunately, Socratic skepticism has been misrepresented in this discussion. If it is to be understood, it must be distinguished from other forms of skepticism. Two points:

Socratic skeptics make no claim about what can be known, it is rather, an awareness of what is not known.

Second, it is not a claim that extends to any and all kinds of knowledge. It does not lead to a paralysis of action or an inability to make decisions. We act and make choices, but when it comes to such things as what is good or just or noble, we do so on the basis of opinion not knowledge. The Socratic skeptic, however, does not simply settle for whatever opinion she happens to hold or has been told to hold. If there is transcendent knowledge, she is aware that she in not privy to it.

She knows she knows nothing of the soul separate from the body, but she does not simply leave it there. She questions what happens to our understanding of a human being when we divide him in two and regard only part of him, the soul, as who or what he is. She questions whether it makes sense to think that knowledge can only come from the soul apart from the body, apart from the ability to see and hear and feel. Apart from desire, for desire for Plato includes the desire to know. The location of desire, in the soul or in the body, differs in different dialogues, as, for example, the Republic, Phaedo, and Phaedrus. In some of the dialogues the soul is said to be immortal, but in the Timaeus, the soul of human beings is mortal. In addition, although in the Phaedo the soul is said to be immortal, the question of what happens to Socrates when he dies is not raised. If the soul becomes that of an ass or an ant then it is no longer Socrates' soul. Socrates, it would seem, is dead. Plato leaves it up to us to sort all this out as best we can. It is a serious mistake to take what is said in one place or another as the truth when what is said is contrary to what is said elsewhere.

As part of the examined life, she examines her opinions and the opinions of others. But such examination can only be done on the basis of opinion. The Socratic skeptic remains open to revising her opinions when it seems best to do so in light of reason and what seems to be good and true.

Thanks, that's an elegant summary.

↪Fooloso4 Thanks, that's an elegant summary. — Tom Storm

If you think that was elegant you should see me do interpretative dance. I do all the major philosophers.