As to the quote from Plato, It is fragmented and out of context (from Wikipedia) so I don't want to comment on it. — Janus
[509b] the similitude of it still further in this way.1” “How?” “The sun, I presume you will say, not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation.” “Of course not.” “In like manner, then, you are to say that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still transcends essence2 in dignity and surpassing power.” — Plato, Republic, (509b)
Of course, people may have opinions, but those opinions cannot be informed opinions if what they are about is something outside the range of human perception. — Janus
So, it is not dogma, but presents a valid distinction between what can be tested and what cannot. And no, I have not said that ideas that cannot be tested have no value, but that they cannot coherently function as claims if there is no way to for the unbiased to assess their veracity. — Janus
Where are the thought police? All I'm seeing is critique, not suppression. — Janus
"Effing the ineffable" is the job of art and poetry, not rigorous philosophical discussion. — Janus
Here's a translation I found online — javra
Then not only does the knowability of whatever is known derive from the good, but also what it is, and its being, is conferred on it through that, though the good is not being, but is even beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power.
Though we disagree in some respects, ↪Fooloso4 beat me to it in the example he provided to the contrary. — javra
The term in question is ousia. — Fooloso4
"Effing the ineffable" is the job of art and poetry, not rigorous philosophical discussion. — Janus
Though we disagree in some respects, ↪Fooloso4 beat me to it in the example he provided to the contrary. — javra
My example is not to the contrary. It supports it. — Fooloso4
While I do not speak Ancient Greek, from my studies the word in Ancient Greek can convey different meanings or else sub-meaning. — javra
To be clear, do you by this intend to express that the Socratic dialogues by which Platonism was established are not rigorous philosophical discussions - this on account of often being poetically expressed? — javra
But thus much I can certainly declare concerning all these writers, or prospective writers, who claim to know the subjects which I seriously study, whether as hearers of mine or of other teachers, or from their own discoveries; it is impossible, in my judgement at least, that these men should understand anything about this subject. There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise (suggramma) of mine dealing therewith. For it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies (341c)
If not 'being' then what do you suggest it means in this context? — Fooloso4
My interpretation of 'beyond being' is that it means 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence', 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away'. That idea is made much more explicit in Mahāyāna Buddhism than in Platonism, but I believe there is some common ground. — Wayfarer
In the Seventh Letter Plato says: — Fooloso4
If not 'being' then what do you suggest it means in this context? — Fooloso4
comparison:
There is no scientific evidence for physicalism.
— Wayfarer
'There is no scientific evidence for evolution.'
'There is no scientific evidence for the earth being billions of years old.'
See the science denialist pattern?
You flatter yourself by referring to yourself as "questioning". — wonderer1
Some people do seem to seek for 'enlightenment' or even the bliss of 'Nirvana' as an end. — Jack Cummins
My interpretation of 'beyond being' is that it means 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence', 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away'. That idea is made much more explicit in Mahāyāna Buddhism than in Platonism, but I believe there is some common ground. — Wayfarer
What is made explicit, as I have pointed out, is that all of the Forms are beyond coming-to-be and passing away but unlike the Good, they are said to be entirely and to be entirely knowable. — Fooloso4
Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.
if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality. — Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophical Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Robert E. Brennan
I find that passage you quote itself open to a wide enough range of interpretations. — javra
And so I can't make heads or tails as what type of reply it's supposed to be - this to the question of whether you yourself find the Socratic dialogs are reputable, or else worthwhile, philosophy. — javra
Yes, it probably says so much about Western culture and the nature of consumerism and shallowness — Jack Cummins
Now you might believe that some have attained knowledge of them, but that is just an opinion — Fooloso4
Well said. — javra
Yes, it probably says so much about Western culture and the nature of consumerism and shallowness. It all comes down to money and images for so many, to where it turns the initial ideas of esotericide upside down and inside out. — Jack Cummins
Although I'm not sure, something along the lines of Wayfarer's suggestion currently seem quite plausible:
My interpretation of 'beyond being' is that it means 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence', 'beyond coming-to-be and passing away'. That idea is made much more explicit in Mahāyāna Buddhism than in Platonism, but I believe there is some common ground.
— Wayfarer — javra
That being is free from birth and death
Because it is complete, immutable and eternal.
It never was, it never will be, because it is completely whole in the now,
One, endless. What beginning, indeed, should we attribute to it?
Whence would it evolve? Whither?
I will not allow you to say or to think that it comes from nothingness,
Nor that being is not. What exigency would have brought it forth
Later or earlier, from nonbeing?
....
Being the ultimate, it is everywhere complete.
Just as an harmoniously round sphere
Departs equally at all points from its center.
Nothing can be added to it here nor taken away from it there.
What is not, cannot interrupt it’s homogeneous existence.
What is, cannot possess it more or less. Out of all reach,
Everywhere identical to itself, beyond all limits, it is.
It is not existent--even the Victorious Ones do not see it.
It is not nonexistent--it is the basis of all Saṃsāra and Nirvāṇa.
This is not a contradiction, but the middle path of unity.
May the ultimate nature of phenomena, limitless mind beyond extremes, be realised.
If one says, "This is it," there is nothing to show.
If one says, "This is not it," there is nothing to deny.
The true nature of phenomena,
which transcends conceptual understanding, is unconditioned.
May conviction be gained in the ultimate, perfect truth.
As just one example among many, consciousness is "something outside the range of human perception". Yet to proscribe philosophical investigations of consciousness seems a bit authoritarian. — javra
What then do you make of value theory in general? Ought it not be philosophically investigated? Meaningful tests regarding, for example, the very validity of dichotomizing intrinsic and extrinsic value are certainly not yet available, if ever possible. Does this, according to you, make the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value something that "cannot coherently function as a claim"? — javra
Critique regarding what should and should not be philosophically investigated — javra
Though we disagree in some respects, ↪Fooloso4 beat me to it in the example he provided to the contrary. — javra
“Then you should declare that the form of the good bestows truth upon whatever is known, 508E and confers the power of knowing on the knower. Being the cause of knowledge and truth, you should think of it as knowable. However, although knowledge and truth are both beautiful, you would be right to regard this as different from them, and even more beautiful than both of them. And just as in the previous case it is right to regard light and sight as resembling the sun in form, but it is not right to believe they are the sun, so also in this case it is right to regard knowledge and truth 509A as both resembling the good in form, but it is not right to believe that either of them is the good. No, the character of the good should be accorded even greater honour.”
“You are speaking of an unparalleled beauty,” he said, “if it bestows knowledge and truth, and exceeds them in beauty. For you are surely not saying that it is pleasure.”
“Please show respect,” I said, “and consider a further aspect of its image.”
“In what way?”
509B “I assume you will agree that the sun bestows not only the ability to be seen upon visible objects, but also their generation and increase and nurture, though the sun itself is not generation.”
“How could I disagree?”
“Then not only does the knowability of whatever is known derive from the good, but also what it is, and its being, is conferred on it through that, though the good is not being, but is even beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power.”
509C Then Glaucon exclaimed quite hilariously, “By Apollo, it is utterly supernatural!” — Plato, Republic, 508D, translated by Horan,emphasis mine
:chin: Give an example of how "idealism" is "equally compatible" (as e.g. physicalism is) with the established facts of "evolution" or "cosmology". Thanks.I fully accept the established facts of evolution and cosmology. But they do not necessarily entail physicalism. They are equally compatible with an idealist philosophy. — Wayfarer
the supposition physicalism is only a paradigm, or set of methodological criteria (i.e. working assumptions), for making and interpreting explanatory models of phenomena and, therefore, not "entailed" by modern sciences. — 180 Proof
Am I not allowed to argue for what I believe can and cannot be coherently philosophically investigated? I don't believe things like God, karma, rebirth, heaven and hell can be coherently philosophically investigated on account of the fact that I have never encountered any coherent philosophical investigation of such matters — Janus
We can know nothing whatsoever about whatever might be "beyond being". The idea is nothing more than the dialectical opposite of 'being'. Fools have always sought to fill the 'domains' of necessary human ignorance with their "knowing". — Janus
:clap: :fire: Excellent, well put! Thinking is questioning – being-oneself-in-question – and not merely believing in answers ("esoteric" or otherwise).If philosophy is the desire for wisdom we should be wise enough to know that we are not wise. In the Apology Socrates says that he knows nothing noble and good. (21d)Knowledge of his ignorance is the beginning not the completion of his wisdom. It is, on the one hand, the beginning of self-knowledge and on the other of the self’s knowledge of the world.
Socratic philosophy is zetetic. It is inquiry directed by our lack of knowledge. If Socrates is taken to be, as I think Plato and Xenophon intend, the paradigmatic philosopher, then the fact that he remained ignorant until the end of his life should be kept front and center. — Fooloso4
Further to this, and apropos of the issue of esoteric philosophy. The following is a comparison of a passage from Parmenides, who is generally understood as the originator of classical metaphysics, and an esoteric school of Mahāyāna Buddhism called Mahamudra. — Wayfarer
Once there was a man --
Oh, so wise!
In all drink
He detected the bitter,
And in all touch
He found the sting.
At last he cried thus:
"There is nothing --
No life,
No joy,
No pain --
There is nothing save opinion,
And opinion be damned."
Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity (hence the omission of the principle of individuation). — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_and_Dionysian#Nietzschean_usage
Well, since very few philosophers or scientists dogmatically advocate "metaphysical physicalism", you're taking issue wirh a non-issue (or strawman), just barking at shadows in your own little cave, Wayf. :sparkle:physicalism as a metaphysical view. It's physicalism as a metaphysic that I take issue with. — Wayfarer
If you lived in a culture, such as India or China, where reincarnation was part of the culture, you might have a different view of that. And I suggest you're not interested in any 'coherent philosophical investigation' of such matters because you're pre-disposed to reject consideration of them. Hence your self-appointed role as secular thought police, which we see on display here with tiresome regulariy. — Wayfarer
So, again, please demonstrate how, as you claim, 'the established facts of evolution and cosmology are as "equally compatible" with idealism (i.e. antirealism) as with physicalism'. — 180 Proof
very few philosophers or scientists dogmatically advocate "metaphysical physicalism", you're taking issue wirh a non-issue (or strawman), just barking at shadows in your own little cave, — 180 Proof
So, again, please demonstrate how, as you claim, 'the established facts of evolution and cosmology are "equally compatible" with idealism (i.e. antirealism) as they are with physicalism'. — 180 Proof
it is you who are saying I am not allowed to argue — Janus
The truth of spiritual ideas cannot be either empirically or logically demonstrated and hence cannot be rationally argued for. The arguments are always in the form of authority, the idea that there is some special hidden knowledge available only to the elect. — Janus
Consider that when you think about triangularity, as you might when proving a geometrical theorem, it is necessarily perfect triangularity that you are contemplating, not some mere approximation of it. Triangularity as your intellect grasps it is entirely determinate or exact; for example, what you grasp is the notion of a closed plane figure with three perfectly straight sides, rather than that of something which may or may not have straight sides or which may or may not be closed. Of course, your mental image of a triangle might not be exact, but rather indeterminate and fuzzy. But to grasp something with the intellect is not the same as to form a mental image of it. For any mental image of a triangle is necessarily going to be of an isosceles triangle specifically, or of a scalene one, or an equilateral one; but the concept of triangularity that your intellect grasps applies to all triangles alike. Any mental image of a triangle is going to have certain features, such as a particular color, that are no part of the concept of triangularity in general. A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once. — Edward Feser
It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea'...also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.
We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at all times). Thus thoughts and feelings, minds and physical objects exist. But universals do not exist in this sense; we shall say that they subsist or have being, where 'being' is opposed to 'existence' as being timeless. — Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy - The World of Universals
For Empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses. The fact which obliges a correct theory of knowledge to recognize this essential difference is simply disregarded. What fact? The fact that the human intellect grasps, first in a most indeterminate manner, then more and more distinctly, certain sets of intelligible features -- that is, natures, say, the human nature -- which exist in the real as identical with individuals, with Peter or John for instance, but which are universal in the mind and presented to it as universal objects, positively one (within the mind) and common to an infinity of singular things (in the real).
Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is sugar or what is intruder. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And his field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge.
Such are the basic facts which Empiricism ignores, and in the disregard of which it undertakes to philosophize. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism
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