Right - but if they are 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away', then how can they be said to exist?
An illustration: does the number 7 exist? — Wayfarer
the nature of their existence is contested by philosophers — Wayfarer
Does the number 7 come into being and pass away? — Fooloso4
Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra.Neoplatonic mathematics is governed by a fundamental distinction which is indeed inherent in Greek science in general, but is here most strongly formulated. According to this distinction, one branch of mathematics participates in the contemplation of that which is in no way subject to change, or to becoming and passing away. This branch contemplates that which is always such as it is and which alone is capable of being known: for that which is known in the act of knowing, being a communicable and teachable possession, must be something that is once and for all fixed
We remain in the cave of opinion — Fooloso4
The issue was how does one define, else understand, being - this, specifically, in terms of Plato's affirmations. — javra
I happen to agree. Hence my contention that there is something lost in translation in saying that "the Good is beyond being". This would entail that the Good is not. Which is contrary to Plato's works. — javra
I think it ironic how often Socrates' claim of ignorance is ignored. As I read them both Plato and Aristotle are skeptics is the sense of knowing that they do not know. — Fooloso4
but when we do not know what we do not know and believe we do know we are no longer even in the realm of opinion but ignorance. — Fooloso4
We seem to either be suffering from an absence of mirrors in which to see our own selves and conducts on this forum or else from a self-righteous arrogance of somehow being beyond foolishness. Or maybe both.
Because science and its paradigms does not seek to accomplish the exact same feat? Or any other field of human knowledge?
The proscription of thought, debate, and investigation on a philosophy forum by some is telling. — javra
You haven't been following the discussion too closely, then. Yes, Socrates/Plato stated that the Good as Form is beyond being. — javra
If there are areas in regard to which humans are necessarily ignorant (which I believe is unarguably true) — Janus
This is not even remotely similar to the human tendency to simply "make shit up" in the face of the unknown. — Janus
What "proscription of thought, debate and investigation" is going on here in your opinion? — Janus
Perhaps you could offer an example which is not merely the expression of a different opinion. — Janus
The other point is that once one starts to talk about "ineffable knowledge" one has entered a realm where argument simply cannot go. Do you think that can that be counted as "doing philosophy"? — Janus
Given an example of such "necessary ignorance" which should remain off limits to investigation? — javra
Ha. Scientific hypothesis are "made up shit in the face of the unknown" which can be empirically tested for. — javra
See my first question. If we are necessarily ignorant of X than there is an implicitly affirmed proscription of thought, debate, and investigation as pertains to X. — javra
Funny. All I have are opinions of various strengths, some of which pass a threshold beyond which I term these opinions fallible knowledge — javra
Where have I affirmed "ineffable knowledge" in any of this debate? — javra
I haven't read the entire thread. Since Socrates and Plato are not participating in this discussion perhaps you could provide a quote from the latter which unambiguously states this. — Janus
Plato identifies how the form of the Good allows for the cognizance to understand such difficult concepts as justice. He identifies knowledge and truth as important, but through Socrates (508d–e) says, "good is yet more prized". He then proceeds to explain "although the good is not being" it is "superior to it in rank and power", it is what "provides for knowledge and truth" (508e).[1] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good#Uses_in_The_Republic
Anything that is beyond human perception and judgement...that is anything purportedly "beyond being" or transcendent...God, rebirth, karma, heaven, hell...need I go on. — Janus
Scientific hypotheses are not arbitrary imaginings but are abductive inferences as to what, consistent with the overall body of canonical human experience and judgement, might be the explanation for this or that observed phenomenon. This is an entirely different kettle of fish to religious dogma or esoterica. — Janus
OK, now you seem to be speaking as though that proscription is a right and good thing. I had thought you were railing against it. So, which is it? — Janus
I meant an example of someone being unjustifiably proscriptive as to what others are allowed to think. — Janus
But some do affirm that those who are thought (by themselves and others) to be enlightened are capable of ineffable knowledge. So, I am trying to understand whether you are one of those who affirm such things. The other question, even if you do affirm such a possibility, is whether you think it can be part of philosophical discussion. — Janus
You clearly take issue with Fooloso4 for a secular and, shall we say, 'modern' reading of Plato and Aristotle? You think his take, though scholarly, stops short where it matters, right? — Tom Storm
At heart in most of these discussions you hold the position that there is a realm beyond the quotidian world and that this can be understood/accessed through a range of approaches - e.g., Buddhism, Tao, Jnana Yoga, and the classical Western philosophical tradition, which has been filleted by secularism and modernist understandings. — Tom Storm
The underlying historical cause of this phenomenon seems to lie in an unbalanced development of the human mind in the West, beginning around the time of the European Renaissance. This development gave increasing importance to the rational, manipulative and dominative capacities of the mind at the expense of its intuitive, comprehensive, sympathetic and integrative capacities. The rise to dominance of the rational, manipulative facets of human consciousness led to a fixation upon those aspects of the world that are amenable to control by this type of consciousness — the world that could be conquered, comprehended and exploited in terms of fixed quantitative units. This fixation did not stop merely with the pragmatic efficiency of such a point of view, but became converted into a theoretical standpoint, a standpoint claiming validity. In effect, this means that the material world, as defined by modern science, became the founding stratum of reality, while mechanistic physics, its methodological counterpart, became a paradigm for understanding all other types of natural phenomena, biological, psychological and social.
The early founders of the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century — such as Galileo, Boyle, Descartes and Newton — were deeply religious men, for whom the belief in the wise and benign Creator was the premise behind their investigations into lawfulness of nature. However, while they remained loyal to the theistic premises of Christian faith, the drift of their thought severely attenuated the organic connection between the divine and the natural order, a connection so central to the premodern world view. They retained God only as the remote Creator and law-giver of Nature and sanctioned moral values as the expression of the Divine Will, the laws decreed for man by his Maker. In their thought a sharp dualism emerged between the transcendent sphere and the empirical world. The realm of "hard facts" ultimately consisted of units of senseless matter governed by mechanical laws, while ethics, values and ideals were removed from the realm of facts and assigned to the sphere of an interior subjectivity.
It was only a matter of time until, in the trail of the so-called Enlightenment, a wave of thinkers appeared who overturned the dualistic thesis central to this world view in favor of the straightforward materialism. This development was not a following through of the reductionistic methodology to its final logical consequences. Once sense perception was hailed as the key to knowledge and quantification came to be regarded as the criterion of actuality, the logical next step was to suspend entirely the belief in a supernatural order and all it implied. Hence finally an uncompromising version of mechanistic materialism prevailed, whose axioms became the pillars of the new world view. Matter is now the only ultimate reality, and divine principle of any sort dismissed as sheer imagination.
The triumph of materialism in the sphere of cosmology and metaphysics had the profoundest impact on human self-understanding. The message it conveyed was that the inward dimensions of our existence, with its vast profusion of spiritual and ethical concerns, is mere adventitious superstructure. The inward is reducible to the external, the invisible to the visible, the personal to the impersonal. Mind becomes a higher order function of the brain, the individual a node in a social order governed by statistical laws. All humankind's ideals and values are relegated to the status of illusions: they are projections of biological drives, sublimated wish-fulfillment. Even ethics, the philosophy of moral conduct, comes to be explained away as a flowery way of expressing personal preferences. Its claim to any objective foundation is untenable, and all ethical judgments become equally valid. The ascendancy of relativism is complete. — “Bhikkhu Bodhi, A Buddhist Response to the Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence
Were Socrates/Plato to have understood "being" within the linguistic and cultural contexts of their time as consisting of that which comes into being and goes out of being, then the affirmation that the Good is not that just expressed would make sense. — javra
Your affirm this conclusion as thought it is true, or else as though it is the truth of what Socrates/Plato intended. — javra
Yet how is this affirmation not equivalent to the nonsensical statement that a certain given is neither X nor not-X? — javra
"If what is, is knowable, then wouldn't something other than that which is be opinable?" (478b)
"To that which is not, we were compelled to assign ignorance, and to that which is, knowledge."
"Opinion, therefore, opines neither that which is nor that which is not." (478c) — Fooloso4
I do not affirm that it is true, but I think it is an accurate description of what the text says. — Fooloso4
Is what is beyond being something that is or something that is not? — Fooloso4
Neoplatonic mathematics is governed by a fundamental distinction which is indeed inherent in Greek science in general, but is here most strongly formulated. According to this distinction, one branch of mathematics participates in the contemplation of that which is in no way subject to change, or to becoming and passing away. This branch contemplates that which is always such as it is and which alone is capable of being known: for that which is known in the act of knowing, being a communicable and teachable possession, must be something that is once and for all fixed
Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra. — Wayfarer
"If what is, is knowable, then wouldn't something other than that which is be opinable?" (478b)
"To that which is not, we were compelled to assign ignorance, and to that which is, knowledge."
"Opinion, therefore, opines neither that which is nor that which is not." (478c) — Fooloso4
↪Wayfarer You clearly take issue with ↪Fooloso4 for a secular and, shall we say, 'modern' reading of Plato and Aristotle? — Tom Storm
ROSEN: Well, firstly, the approach to the Platonic dialogues has changed over the course of history. For example, in Neo-Platonist times, interpreters of the dialogues took the dramatic form very seriously. And they read very complicated views into what would look to, say, the members of the contemporary analytical tradition like extremely trivial and secondary stylistic characteristics. Secondly, there was a tradition of taking seriously the dramatic form of the dialogue. It began in Germany in the 18th century with people like Schleiermacher. And that tradition extends through the 19th century, and you see it in scholars like Friedländer and in philosophical interpreters like Gadamer. And we now know, of course, that Heidegger in his lectures on the Sophist took the details of the dialogue very seriously. So, that has to be said in order for us to understand that the apparent heterodoxy or eccentricity of Leo Strauss’ approach to the Platonic dialogues is such a heterodoxy only with respect to the kind of positivist and analytical approach to Plato ... Final point, within the last ten years, even the analysts have began talking about the dramatic form of the dialogue as though they discovered this. More directly, the Strauss approach is characterized by a fine attention to the dramatic structure, the personae, all the details in the dialogues because they were plays, and also by very close analyses. https://college.holycross.edu/diotima/n1v2/rosen.htm
A few more points from the interview that are worth considering:
The purpose of the text is to stimulate the reader to think, and it does that by being an intricate construction with many implications, some of which are indeterminate in the sense that you can’t be sure of what Plato meant and what Socrates meant, but they are intended to make you, the interpreter, do your thinking for yourself ... I think that it would be better to emphasize that the dialogue has as its primary function the task of stimulating the reader to think for himself, not to find the teaching worked-out for him.
For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems. Strauss tended to emphasize the first and the second. I wouldn’t say he didn’t mention the third, whereas I concentrate on the third.
First of all, there is no unanimity in the tradition of reading Plato. I told you that what passed for orthodoxy is no longer orthodox. The same analysts who made fun of Leo Strauss and me and his other students, today are copying us, but with no acknowledgment. They are copying the Straussian methods, but not as well. Leo Strauss is a much more careful reader and a more imaginative reader, and I certainly am as well. You get these inferior, inferior versions of the same methods they criticized ten years ago. This thesis of a long, orthodox tradition, that’s nonsense. It doesn’t exist. Even if it did, it would show nothing.
:up:the core of the OP's question. The esoterica of the gaps.... — Tom Storm
:up: :up:I think it ironic how often Socrates' claim of ignorance is ignored. [ ... ] We remain in the cave of opinion. It is not that we do not know anything, but when we do not know what we do not know and believe we do know we are no longer even in the realm of opinion but ignorance. — Fooloso4
BTW, if you tack on questions to me after you've made a post, I might not see them. But maybe you already knew this? — javra
And how are any of the examples you've given "beyond human judgement"? Plenty of people judge these notions all the time. Some favoring these notions and others opposing their validity. — javra
Many who will uphold religions and essoterica will of course disagree with the dogma that they are "arbitrary imaginings". You seem to have some superior knowledge to the contrary. Care to share? — javra
I'm against any proscription of thought regarding reality. Hope that's blunt enough. The thought-police ought not prevent others from thinking freely as they will. As far as I see things, the ideas which result thereof can then be in part judged by natural selection. — javra
Yea. Any suppression of free thought regarding any existential topic will serve as an example of "unjustifiabley proscriptive". Scary to me to think otherwise. But repressive regimes are not unheard of. — javra
Dude, knowledge of what a sublimely aesthetic experience is felt to be shall often enough be ineffable ... other than by saying something like "the beauty of that there is beyond words".
But that aside, why should attempts at effing the heretofore ineffable be off limits? — javra
The purpose of the text is to stimulate the reader to think, and it does that by being an intricate construction with many implications, some of which are indeterminate in the sense that you can’t be sure of what Plato meant and what Socrates meant, but they are intended to make you, the interpreter, do your thinking for yourself ... I think that it would be better to emphasize that the dialogue has as its primary function the task of stimulating the reader to think for himself, not to find the teaching worked-out for him.
For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems. Strauss tended to emphasize the first and the second. I wouldn’t say he didn’t mention the third, whereas I concentrate on the third.
Not everyone will defend so stark a position as expressed here, but it is undeniably a major influence on today’s culture. And do notice the hostility that criticism of it engenders. — Wayfarer
The triumph of materialism in the sphere of cosmology and metaphysics had the profoundest impact on human self-understanding. The message it conveyed was that the inward dimensions of our existence, with its vast profusion of spiritual and ethical concerns, is mere adventitious superstructure. The inward is reducible to the external, the invisible to the visible, the personal to the impersonal. Mind becomes a higher order function of the brain, the individual a node in a social order governed by statistical laws. All humankind's ideals and values are relegated to the status of illusions: they are projections of biological drives, sublimated wish-fulfillment. — “Bhikkhu Bodhi, A Buddhist Response to the Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence
Don't you think however that there is also a lot of hostility in the other direction (from those who hold idealist positions), who persistently disparage physicalists? — Tom Storm
For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems ~ Stanley Rosen. — Fooloso4
[Strauss] criticizes the modern critique of religion beginning in the 17th century for advancing the idea that revelation and philosophy should answer to the same scientific criteria, maintaining that this notion brings meaningful talk of revelation to an end, either in the form of banishing revelation from conversation or in the form of so-called modern defenses of religion which only internalize this banishment. Strauss’s early musings on the theologico-political predicament led him to a theme upon which he would insist again and again: the irreconcilability of revelation and philosophy (or the irreconcilability of what he would call elsewhere Jerusalem and Athens or the Bible and Greek philosophy). Strauss maintains that because belief in revelation by definition does not claim to be self-evident knowledge, philosophy can neither refute nor confirm revelation:
The genuine refutation of orthodoxy would require the proof that the world and human life are perfectly intelligible without the assumption of a mysterious God; it would require at least the success of the philosophical system: man has to show himself theoretically and practically as the master of the world and the master of his life; the merely given must be replaced by the world created by man theoretically and practically (SCR, p. 29).
Because a completed system is not possible, or at least not yet possible, modern philosophy, despite its self-understanding to the contrary, has not refuted the possibility of revelation. On Strauss’s reading, the Enlightenment’s so-called critique of religion ultimately also brought with it, unbeknownst to its proponents, modern rationalism’s self-destruction. Strauss does not reject modern science, but he does object to the philosophical conclusion that “scientific knowledge is the highest form of knowledge” because this “implies a depreciation of pre-scientific knowledge.” As he put it, “Science is the successful part of modern philosophy or science, and philosophy is the unsuccessful part—the rump” (JPCM, p. 99). Strauss reads the history of modern philosophy as beginning with the elevation of all knowledge to science, or theory, and as concluding with the devaluation of all knowledge to history, or practice
:100:"Effing the ineffable" is the job of art and poetry, not rigorous philosophical discussion. Poetry may be evocative, but it presents no arguments. That which cannot be tested empirically or justified logically is outside the scope of rational argument. That doesn't mean it has no value ... — Janus
I myself try to refrain from sarcastic or ad hominem criticisms. Although I did notice recently that I was compared to a young-earth creationist for questioning what I call 'common-sense physicalism' (i.e. the idea that the mind can be understood through neuroscience). — Wayfarer
There is no scientific evidence for physicalism. — Wayfarer
I've often considered this. Are we missing some sort of esoteric oral tradition that justifies Plato's claim that philosophers are not fully trained until age fifty, or is it all just obscurantism to add mystique to "philosopher king?" — Count Timothy von Icarus
"Effing the ineffable" is the job of art and poetry, not rigorous philosophical discussion. Poetry may be evocative, but it presents no arguments. That which cannot be tested empirically or justified logically is outside the scope of rational argument. That doesn't mean it has no value, so don't mistake me for saying that. — Janus
(Culture and Value)Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry.
(Culture and Value)When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.
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