I just read it and reread at the difficult parts. The beginning is straight forward, so not requiring a whole lot of rereading, as Plato sort of eases you in to it. It might be a good idea to read a couple shorter dialogues first, to get used to the writing style.

I would simply advise you to be present to the text, and to recognize that this is one of those texts that you can reread for the rest of your life. Plato will be engaging you on multiple levels, and ideally you should allow the text to fire on all cylinders, without limiting or circumscribing it.

I suggest looking at the Republic as an analogy for the human self. Also, note your thoughts and reactions in reading it, more than trying to understand anything you think he might be telling you. Good luck.

A word of advice. Find a good translation. It really makes a difference. This one is pretty good and is available free: https://www.platonicfoundation.org/ . Alan Bloom's translation and interpretive essay is very good.

I read it slowly a book at a time, frequently going back and rereading sections in order to trace lines of argument and make connections. I raised questions and challenges and addressed them to the text as if I was talking to Socrates.

I do not know how it might have been if I read it on my own, but I read it in class and some of us were very taken with it and continued discussing it together.

Each time I read it I find something new.

I was excited and surprised that the text challenged my thoughts so directly five decades ago.

I took notes and annotated the text densely back then, noting connections as they appeared to me. I have a different point of view from those days but still receive the benefit of that work.

So, I suggest taking notes of your problems and impressions.

Oh thanks for the encouragement and tips! I absolutely should start with a smaller dialogue first, can't believe I hadn't thought of it

Yes, that's such a great mindset! It's not going to be a one and done.

Oh yeah, I heard about that! How the ancient Greeks (or Plato only, maybe?) though of the state as a kind of iteration on the self. I'm hoping to understand that more as I read on!
I also though it interesting that you mention noting my thoughts *above* understanding. Is that because it could drag me down to try to understand every single thing at first?

Hm! Good point and thank you for the resource! I have an English translation by Desmond Lee, but I was thinking of reading in my native language because the edition I got comes with *many* footnotes and additional context.

I raised questions and challenges and addressed them to the text as if I was talking to Socrates. — Fooloso4

I'm definitely aiming for this. Also, how lucky! Reading it with people who are invested and care must have been such a treat.

Ooof it's very encouraging to know that annotating yields benefits even 5 decades later. I'll definitely try to interact with the book as much as I can. Thank you!

Reading it with people who are invested and care must have been such a treat. — dani

You could start a reading group here, or less formally, post questions and comments as you read. You will get a lot of different answers which will lead to further discussion and disagreement.

Because of the place of information in our world, I think we bring the assumption that there is always something we are going to be told, that the goal is to find some knowledge, or that argument is meant to justify a conclusion (something you are working to “understand”). But Socrates is searching, and teaching/asking you to search along with him, thus the goal is in a sense self-knowledge, explicating all our judgments and criteria and practices that we mindlessly operate under without considering. Plato makes it seem like there is a solution to the questions, but no one he questions is “wrong” about how the world works, they just don’t meet the standard he desires.

You could start a reading group here — Fooloso4

Might as well be this one.


A passage from Book 7, 517b ff. This comes directly after the Allegory of the Cave, when Socrates and Glaucon are discussing the 'ascent of the soul' which is allegorised in the allegory.

Compare the realm revealed by sight to the prison house, and the firelight within it to the power of our sun. And if you suggest that the upward journey, and seeing the objects of the upper world, is the ascent of the soul to the realm known by reason, you will not be misreading my intention, since that is what you wanted to hear. God knows whether it happens to be true, but in any case this is how it all seems to me. When it comes to knowledge, the form of the good is seen last, and is seen only through effort. Once seen, it is reckoned to be the actual cause of all 517C that is beautiful and right in everything, bringing to birth light, and the lord of light, in the visible realm, and providing truth and reason in the realm known by reason, where it is lord. Anyone who is to act intelligently, either in private or in public, must have had sight of this. — Republic Book 7 517b

I've often read in discussions of Plato on this forum that he never claims that Socrates or anyone has ever seen 'the form of the good'. Yet in this passage, and even though Socrates has said 'God knows whether it happens to be true', he nevertheless says 'anyone who is to act intelligently....must have had sight of this.' That seems an unequivocal confirmation that the form of the Good is something that 'must be seen'.

Further along, attainment of this insight is linked with a particular faculty:

“Yes,” I said, “but the argument is now indicating that this capacity, present in the soul of each person, the instrument by which each learns, is like an eye which cannot turn to the light from the darkness unless the whole body turns. So this instrument must be turned, along with the entire soul, away from becoming, until it becomes capable of enduring the contemplation 518D of what is, and the very brightest of what is, which we call the good. Is this so?”

Notice 'present in the soul of each person'. A cross-cultural comparison might be ventured with the 'buddha nature' of Mahāyāna Buddhism, which represents the innate capacity for enlightenment that is present in every rational sentient being, albeit obscured by 'adventitious defilements.'

The metaphor of the "whole body" turning towards the light symbolizes a comprehensive transformation that's required for the soul to achieve enlightenment. In the context of Platonic philosophy, this isn't just about shifting one's gaze or changing a single belief but involves a profound and total realignment of one's entire being — encompassing ethical, spiritual, and intellectual dimensions, something akin to conversion (albeit without the fideist overtones imposed on it by later Christianity). This turning (a.k.a. 'metanoia') is necessary for the 'eye of reason', to noetically grasp the forms, which alone are real. The principle is that understanding the forms (especially the form of the good) is not just an intellectual exercise but requires a holistic transformation of the individual's character and perspective. Hence the curriculum of the Academy required education in all the arts and sciences and also in sport and athletic achievement.

The 'realm of becoming' refers to the sensible, material world around us — a world of change, impermanence, and appearance. In contrast, the realm of "being" is the world of forms, which is unchanging, eternal, and true. Thus, turning "away from becoming" means shifting one's focus from the sensory world - current affairs, you might say - to the realm of forms. This turning reflects Plato's epistemological and metaphysical views that true knowledge and understanding come not from the sensory experience but from noetic insight into the forms, with the form of the good being the apex. The movement away from becoming, then, is a metaphorical journey from ignorance to knowledge, from shadows to reality, mirroring the ascent described in the Allegory of the Cave.

One way I've come to think of the forms as being more like principles, whereas I think they're often confused with shapes (in the same way that 'ousia' is often confused with what we think of as 'substance'.)

You could start a reading group here — Fooloso4

Might as well be this one. — Wayfarer

Maybe that would better suit someone else. I've noticed I don't have the availability to keep up with the amount and depth of the comments that this forum generates! So I wouldn't like to take up the responsibility of a reading group here.

As to more informal and topical posts, yes! I might post one or two :)

Wow, thank you so much for posting this. I love the spirit of it, I support it, and I keep realizing I need to be reminded of it. I'm gonna make a note of this in my bookmark for The Republic, tysm!

Oh thanks for the encouragement and tips! I absolutely should start with a smaller dialogue first, can't believe I hadn't thought of it — dani

It's a good idea to get familiar with Plato's style. His overall humour and use of simile in a humorous way, can be very entertaining. Once you become acquainted with it, it may become very enjoyable to you. You'll be wanting to read more and more of it.

I've often read in discussions of Plato on this forum that he never claims that Socrates or anyone has ever seen 'the form of the good'. Yet in this passage, and even though Socrates has said 'God knows whether it happens to be true', he nevertheless says 'anyone who is to act intelligently....must have had sight of this.' That seems an unequivocal confirmation that the form of the Good is something that 'must be seen'. — Wayfarer

I think you ought to respect a difference between "the form of the good" mentioned in the quoted passage, and "the good" itself, discussed earlier in The Republic. The philosopher grasps the form of the good, in seeing that the good is the cause of all things, but does not grasp the good itself.

This can be compared to the way that Aquinas describes how we apprehend God as the cause of all things, through His effects, but we do not apprehend God directly. So, "must have had sight of this" in the quoted passage means to have grasped the logical need for this principle, the good, but it does not mean to have actually understood it in any complete way.

There is a separation between "the form of the good" which the individual philosopher's mind apprehends, and the good itself, which is separate or independent from the human being's mind. This is comparable to Kant's phenomenon/noumenon distinction. Aristotle, and some Christian theologians who follow him, develop this division as the distinction between the apparent good and the real good. When a philosopher apprehends "the form of the good", it is grasped by that philosopher's mind. As such it can only obtain to the level of an apparent good, which is the good grasped by individual minds. The "real good" remains separate and independent.

Notice 'present in the soul of each person'. — Wayfarer

The "good" which is present to the mind of each person is the apparent good. Enlightenment consists of acknowledging that there must be a real good which is separate and independent of oneself, and independent from everybody else. A moral soul will attempt to attune the good within one's self, the apparent good, to the real good, which is independent. The problem for the philosopher, and this is what makes philosophy the most difficult undertaking, is that we only have goods within ourselves, apparent goods, to serve as guidance for directing us toward the real good. We only have effects to serve as guidance to direct us toward the cause.

We can see an analogy toward the end of The Republic. The carpenter follows a 'form of bed' when constructing a bed. This is analogous to "the form of the good". It is a formula which serves as guidance to the carpenter. However, Plato describes how the carpenter must also respect the notion of an Ideal bed, this is the divine form of bed, the best possible bed. The carpenter knows that his personal 'form of bed', the formula which he follows in building a bed, is not the most perfect, ideal bed possible, it is not the divine form of bed. Nevertheless, he uses whatever means he can to make his personal 'form of bed' as close to the divine form of bed as possible, though he does not in any way actual grasp the divine form of bed.

Yet in this passage, and even though Socrates has said 'God knows whether it happens to be true' ... — Wayfarer

He also says in this passage "this is how it all seems to me". Why would he say that it seems this way to him if he knows it is this way?

...he nevertheless says 'anyone who is to act intelligently....must have had sight of this.' — Wayfarer

In the Apology he says that no one is wiser than him for he knows he he does not know anything noble and good.(21d) In other words, there is no one who acts intelligently.

Notice 'present in the soul of each person'. — Wayfarer

What is it that is present? It is not, as you say, the "attainment of this insight" or an "innate capacity for enlightenment". It is the capacity to know. Rather than pursuing those things most people desire, the soul turns its attention to the truth of what is noble and good. It does this using reason.

We who have not made the ascent from the cave act intelligently, to the extent we are able, by having our sight set on the good.

The carpenter knows that his personal 'form of bed', the formula which he follows in building a bed, is not the most perfect, ideal bed possible, it is not the divine form of bed. — Metaphysician Undercover

Quite right.

It is not, as you say, the "attainment of this insight" or an "innate capacity for enlightenment". It is the capacity to know. — Fooloso4

But there are different kinds of knowing, as spelled out in the Analogy of the Divided Line. And the specific kind of knowledge that characterises the Philosopher is spelled out in Book 6:

We must accept as agreed this trait of the philosophical nature, [485b] that it is ever enamored of the kind of knowledge which reveals to them something of that essence which is eternal, and is not wandering between the two poles of generation and decay. — Plato, Republic, Book 6

The 'two poles of generation and decay' are contrasted against 'something of that essence which is eternal'. Again it bears comparison to Indian philosophy (with which it was in fact contemporaneous). I understand all of this sounds too 'spiritual' in today's terms. It is felt to be superseded, a sentiment belonging to a vanished past. But as I see it, the spiritual orientation of Plato's philosophy has been deprecated in modern culture, because it is, as Lloyd Gerson says, antagonistic to naturalism, which is the prevailing orthodoxy.

I know you will probably not agree, but I'm used to being in the minority in these matters.

I was thinking of reading in my native language — dani

Definitely do that, but still settle for a good translation. In philosophy, I have seen that some translations have several unintelligible parts while others render the text perfectly understandable and easy to read, it makes a big difference.

But there are different kinds of knowing... — Wayfarer

I agree, and this is what makes epistemology so difficult. Epistemologists will try to reduce all knowledge to one category, one description or definition, which could encompass all knowledge. But this creates all sorts of problems because "knowledge" in its widest sense would include all sorts of fringe forms, like the knowledge which other life forms have, and the fundamentals like genetics and DNA. These fringe forms of knowledge present us with a kind of knowledge which we don't understand, "knowledge" which is not known by the common kind of "knowledge" which human beings are observed to have and use with their conscious and intentional interactions with their environment. I'll call this the "unintelligible" knowledge because it seems to escape our capacity to understand it.

So, the epistemologists will attempt to limit their definition of "knowledge" to the kind of knowledge which human beings employ in their interactions with their environment, thereby assuming a sort of boundary or separation between this type of knowledge, and the rest of the realm of "knowledge" which consists of that unintelligible type of knowledge which they cannot properly understand, define or describe. In reality though, the epistemological form of "knowledge" is just a small part of the overall wider form of knowledge. And, since it is a part of that unintelligible type of knowledge, the unintelligible actually inheres within it, as that unintelligibility is a feature of all the vast forms of knowledge. This means that the epistemologist's attempt to describe, or define a form of "knowledge" which is specific to human beings, and does not partake in the unintelligible aspect, is a mistaken venture. That is demonstrated in Plato's Theaetetus.

So, if we take Plato's divided line analogy, we find that common knowledge, what the epistemologists want to define as "knowledge" occurs around the centre, of the line, with two distinct categories on both sides of the centre. The centre division is the what Aristotle described in his Nicomachean Ethics as the division between practical and theoretical knowledge. Knowledge of forms, theory, are on the 'upper' side of the centre divide, and application to the sensible world, practise, is on the 'lower' side. Toward each extreme we head toward the more "pure" types of each, practise and theory, and as Aristotle explained, at each end the guiding principle is intuition.

The problem with the epistemological definition of "knowledge", is that by adhering to the centre portion, it attempts to exclude intuition from "knowledge", as not a valid form of "knowledge". This neglects the fact that intuition provides the foundation at the lower end of practical knowledge, and the guiding principles, 'meta-theory' , for understanding the eternal forms at the higher end. So epistemology tends to exclude these two extremes as not properly "knowledge", being the unintelligible aspect, even though the influence of intuition permeates through all knowledge.

I read it, but elaborate justifications of totalitarianism don't appeal to me.

And the specific kind of knowledge that characterises the Philosopher is spelled out in Book 6: — Wayfarer

Here is Bloom's translation of that passage:

"About philosophic natures, let's agree that they are always in love with that learning which discloses to them something of the being that is always and does not wander about, driven by generation and decay."

And Horan's:

“Well, let us agree something about the philosophic natures. Let us agree that they always love any learning which would reveal to them something of that being which always is, and does not wander in subjection to generation and decay.”

The philosopher loves any learning that discloses or reveals something of that being which always is.
The desire (eros) to learn this is not to know it. This is not something the philosopher knows, but something the philosopher desires to know.

I would read the text first, but I have two recommendations for secondary sources.

The first is Wallace's "Philosophical Mysticism in Plato, Hegel, and the Present." The book isn't really about mysticism, at least not in the sense of being about mystical experiences and contemplation. It's instead a very good treatment of Plato's entire philosophy. You might even want to skip the review sections on modern philosophy or on Hegel, it's really the Plato chapters (most of them) that are the best. It has one of the most clear explanations of the case for the reality of the forms out there.

The second is Schindler's "Plato's Critique of Impure Reason." This is perhaps a better source just on the Republic because it has a pretty extensive review of theories on each section of the book. I'll just warn that the introduction is a little off topic, but you can skip it and come back to it without missing much. I found it interesting though.

I read this one more recently so I don't know if it will stick with me the same way, and I will say it isn't quite as clear and concise, but I did think it was quite a good treatment and it offers a lot of other viewpoints up as well.

The Teaching Company also offers some good lectures on Plato. They are ludicrously overpriced on their website but Amazon, Audible, and Wonderium have more affordable ways to listen to them. Michael Sugrue's course on the dialogues as a whole is very good, although obviously spread pretty thin.

David Roochnik also has a course just on the Republic. I thought it was good, having more time to go into detail, but it just didn't seem to pull everything together the same way.

I'll leave an except from Wallace I really like:

By calling what we experience with our senses less real than the Forms, Plato is not saying that what we experience with our senses is simply illusion. The “reality” that the Forms have more of is not simply their not being illusions. If that’s not what their extra reality is, what is it? The easiest place to see how one could suppose that something that isn’t an illusion, is nevertheless less real than something else, is in our experience of ourselves.

In Republic book iv, Plato’s examination of the different "parts of the soul” leads him to the conclusion that only the rational part can integrate the soul into one, and thus make it truly “just.” Here is his description of the effect of a person’s being governed by his rational part, and therefore “just”:

Justice . . . is concerned with what is truly himself and his own. . . . [The person who is just] binds together [his] parts . . . and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate, and harmonious. Only then does he act. (Republic 443d-e)

Our interest here (I’ll discuss the “justice” issue later) is that by “binding together his parts” and “becoming entirely one,” this person is “truly himself.” That is, as I put it in earlier chapters, a person who is governed by his rational part is real not merely as a collection of various ingredients or “parts,” but as himself. A person who acts purely out of appetite, without any examination of whether that appetite is for something that will actually be “good,” is enacting his appetite, rather than anything that can appropriately be called “himself.” Likewise for a person who acts purely out of anger, without examining whether the anger is justified by what’s genuinely good. Whereas a person who thinks about these issues before acting “becomes entirely one” and acts, therefore, in a way that expresses something that can appropriately be called “himself.”

In this way, rational self-governance brings into being an additional kind of reality, which we might describe as more fully real than what was there before, because it integrates those parts in a way that the parts themselves are not integrated. A person who acts “as one,” is more real as himself than a person who merely enacts some part or parts of himself. He is present and functioning as himself, rather than just as a collection of ingredients or inputs.

We all from time to time experience periods of distraction, absence of mind, or depression, in which we aren’t fully present as ourselves. Considering these periods from a vantage point at which we are fully present and functioning as ourselves, we can see what Plato means by saying that some non-illusory things are more real than other non-illusory things. There are times when we ourselves are more real as ourselves than we are at other times.

Indeed, we can see nature as a whole as illustrating this issue of how fully integrated and “real as itself ” a being can be. Plants are more integrated than rocks, in that they’re able to process nutrients and reproduce themselves, and thus they’re less at the mercy of their environment. So we could say that plants are more effectively focused on being themselves than rocks are, and in that sense they’re more real as themselves. Rocks may be less vulnerable than plants are, but what’s the use of invulnerability if what’s invulnerable isn’t you?

Animals, in turn, are more integrated than plants are, in that animals’ senses allow them to learn about their environment and navigate through it in ways that plants can’t. So animals are still more effectively focused on being themselves than plants are, and thus more real as themselves.

Humans, in turn, can be more effectively focused on being themselves than many animals are, insofar as humans can determine for themselves what’s good, rather than having this be determined for them by their genetic heritage and their environment. Nutrition and reproduction, motility and sensation, and a thinking pursuit of the Good each bring into being a more intensive reality as oneself than is present without them.12

Now, what all of this has to do with the Forms and their supposedly greater reality than our sense experience is that it’s by virtue of its pursuit of knowledge of what’s really good, that the rational part of the soul distinguishes itself from the soul’s appetites and anger and so forth. The Form of the Good is the embodiment of what’s really good. So pursuing knowledge of the Form of the Good is what enables the rational part of the soul to govern us, and thus makes us fully present, fully real, as ourselves. In this way, the Form of the Good is a precondition of our being fully real, as ourselves.

But presumably something that’s a precondition of our being fully real must be at least as real as we are when we are fully real. It’s at least as real as we are, because we can’t deny its reality without denying our own functioning as creatures who are guided by it or are trying to be guided by it.13 And since it’s at least as real as we are, it’s more (fully) real than the material things that aren’t guided by it and thus aren’t real as themselves.


Philosophical Mysticism in Plato, Hegel, and the Present - Robert M. Wallace

This idea of freedom as self-determination and of the intellect being able to unify the person and make them most fully themselves ends up playing a big role in Aristotle (Book X of the Ethics), Boethius (the Consolation), St. Augustine, and St. Aquinas' view of the human food in the Summa Contra Gentiles, although they all develop it in novel ways. Aquinas and Hegel also expand it into discussions of essence and the intelligibilities of things in a very interesting way.

Or, if the idea of the Platonic ascent really strikes you fancy when you get to the cave, check out St. Augustine's "beatific vision" with St. Monica in Book IX of Confessions.

If you've read The Republic, how did you approach it? — dani

When I first read it, I was thinking it wouldn’t live up to the hype. But I was wrong — it really is important. It shouldn’t be intimidating, but I can understand why it would be, given — again —the way it’s been built up.

I’ve re-read it a few times and I also remember liking Will Durant’s synopsis of it. Happy reading!

It's worth considering how the description of the polis is framed originally as a means of describing how justice improves the self-governing soul.

Hegel's Philosophy of Right is an interesting continuation of many of the themes in The Republic, but it gets at the social level, the need for an organic self-determining consensus, in a better way.

Of course Hegel gets accused of being a totalitarian too, but I don't think this is really a proper reading. He is more just a fatalist who hadn't quite grasped the role advocacy organizations play in society, probably because they really didn't exist yet in his day.

I've often read in discussions of Plato on this forum that he never claims that Socrates or anyone has ever seen 'the form of the good'. Yet in this passage, and even though Socrates has said 'God knows whether it happens to be true', he nevertheless says 'anyone who is to act intelligently....must have had sight of this.' That seems an unequivocal confirmation that the form of the Good is something that 'must be seen'.

It can be seen, but not demonstrated. That's Schindler's thesis anyhow. In each of the three images Socrates creates in the middle of the Republic something has to come from outside the image to introduce the absolute. E.g., in the divided line, the absolute (Good) cannot lie on the line because the absolute contains both appearances and reality — what is good relative to other things and what is good in itself. In the cave analogy, it is Socrates himself who interjects and "comes in from outside."

This points to the historic Socrates, the man who lived a good life trying to help others, who was willing eschew wealth and comforts for the Good, and who ultimately died to demonstrate it. At the center of the Republic then is not a mere demonstration or argument, but an act, the act of the good man who must decend back into the cave because the absolute includes everything, including those trapped in the cave, even if it means suffering and death.

The nod to the historic Socrates is the answer to Galucon's earlier demand that the Socrates of the dialogue demonstrate how it can be the we would prefer to be the just man who is ridiculed and punished instead of the unjust man who is praised and rewarded. He can direct us to the summum bonum but he can't dissect it and demonstrate its goodness without losing something, rather the "whole body," of the reader must be turned to it.

...now, Plato affirms that the [lower] four levels [of knowledge] all present the qualities of a thing (τὸ ποῖόν τι), and only the fifth level corresponds to that which the soul in fact seeks, namely, the being itself.19 it is in relation to this concern that we ought to understand Plato’s ordering of the levels. If he groups knowledge and right opinion (along with νοῦς) together on a single level, it is because there is some feature they share in common, which distinguishes them from everything else.The feature Plato identifies is that they lie in the soul.

Notice, Plato is here talking specifically about the form of the relationship implied between the soul and reality. he is not, in other words, talking about truth or falsity, stability or instability, which is typically at issue when he dis- distinguishes between knowledge and opinion.21 instead, the significant issue in this context is place, i.e., the locus or terminus of the soul’s movement toward reality.

This is why he does not need to distinguish knowledge from right opinion in this particular context, because they both reside “in the soul.” What is important to Plato in Letter VII, and the one thing he insists on here, is that they are distinct, both from words (names or definitions) and shapes (images) on the one hand, and from the reality itself on the other. right opinion and knowledge may be “true” or correct in themselves—in fact they necessarily are by definition—but they nevertheless remain penultimate in relation to the soul’s aspiration to the real. it is also precisely this that gives them the same “rank,” as it were. unless reason is essentially ecstatic, it would make no sense to line up knowledge and opinion next to each other.22

The problem with debates between skeptics and dogmatists, or, in modern language, between “coher- entists” and “foundationalists” or perhaps between “relativists” and “absolutists,” is that both sides typically assume that knowledge has no other form than that of a possession that is able to be formulated propositionally. one side claims that some of these formulations have absolute and universal validity, the other claims that none do. But neither sees the mode of knowledge that Plato indicates here is genuinely absolute: it is not the soul’s possession of a thing, and so it is not a conceptual content that can be verbally formulated, but is rather the soul’s dwelling with the being of the thing itself, a relation that, precisely because it transcends verbal formulation, provides in fact the only genuine basis for one’s words.

There is an incredible tension here: the heart of a matter is what is most vulnerable; precisely what is most important cannot be said. and if it cannot be said, one can never give a fully adequate description of it or argument for it—at least not in words alone.

But by justifying it in this way, we are implying that its own goodness or necessity is relative to these reasons. a verbal defense will be adequate to the extent that a thing’s goodness is in fact reducible to these (relative) reasons that can be given for it. if such a defense succeeds, then it implies that the interlocutors accept the relativity of the thing’s goodness. it follows that to assume that all things can be given justification by argument is to assume that there is nothing good in an intrinsic way, nothing good in a more than merely relative sense. something that was good in an intrinsic sense would ultimately not be able to be justified in terms of anything but itself—and this includes any of its qualities, be they essential or accidental, which can be articulated in a proposition, for even an essential attribute is not the being of a thing, but the verbal sign of an aspect of it. socrates can defend justice only by being just to the end.36 one can thus give powerful arguments on behalf of, say, justice, and defend them in a manner that keeps one from seeming “ridiculous,” as Plato says, but all the while one remains at the penultimate level in relation to the being of justice. We can understand, then, why socrates refuses to give an “adequate” verbal account of the good and insists that he can speak of it only in the mode of belief. in other words, he cannot speak as if what he is saying represents knowledge of it (506c), and so whatever he says remains an image rather than the reality itself (cf. 533a).37 he thus shows himself in the Republic to be taking seriously what the author of Letter VII asserts; a modest silence about the heart of things is no false modesty, but a modesty that acknowledges what it means for something to be true in a more than relative sense. in this respect, Letter VII provides a decisive confirmation of our interpretation of goodness as the cause of truth: a thing is true because it exists in itself in a manner irreducible to its relations, and this is just what it means to participate in absolute goodness.

In Plato, there is a transcedent reaching out to things known, unlike Aristotle's conception of the mind coming to "be like" that which it knows. But I don't think they're really that different. Plato's framing has the benefit of showing how the quest for knowledge and the good allows us to reach past what we currently are, whereas Aristotle's has the benefit of showing how it transforms is internally.

I think overall, Plato is more optimistic about making this move. Aristotle has a similar goal in Book X of the Ethics, but it's less clear if man, hoping to "become like what is most divine," can ever reach that goal, which is why Aquinas has to add infused contemplation/grace into the equation in his commentary on the Ethics to allow the human being to actually achieve happiness in the beatific vision.

Augustine's expressionist semiotics is helpful here too. Signs can only direct our attention to the immutable. The grasp of it lies outside all signs, just as a proper grasp of a geometric proof lies outside any of the drawings used to direct one to understanding it.

Terrific post, thanks Count. I think that covers a lot of points that I have been struggling with, I’m on the road at the moment but will come back to it later.

It can be seen, but not demonstrated. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What I get from this, is that this is something that can only be known first-person, as it were. Not that it’s personal in any sense, but (as Buddhists say) ‘only knowable by the wise’. The wise are like finely-tuned instruments which can detect what others do not. But then of course to those who don’t know it, it might well sound like ‘moonshine’, as Socrates also says.

it's less clear if man, hoping to "become like what is most divine," can ever reach that goal, which is why Aquinas has to add infused contemplation/grace into the equation in his commentary on the Ethics to allow the human being to actually achieve happiness in the beatific vision. — Count Timothy von Icarus

‘Through a glass, darkly’ is the Biblical expression. In the Christian faith, it is something that is only seen on the other side of death, although in the Christian mystics, death might be understood symbolically as representing the ‘death of self’. All of which belongs to another age of mankind altogether.

The Phaedrus is also helpful here in the "love" is normally excluded from the analytical frame in a way moral goodness is not (at least not from the Enlightenment on, where it increasingly becomes something that must be "demonstrable to all rational agents."). We generally don't demand that people explain "being in love" in stark, analytical terms, or even allow that such can be given an adequate description.

The Phaedrus starts out with the terrible speech, laying out a sort of cold, analytical love based on rational self-interest because this is a relative sort of love defined in terms of relative goods. The love of the last speech is instead ecstatic, the lover of absolute beauty is in a way "out of their mind," but at the same time has a firmer noetic grasp on beauty than the analytical lover who sees beauty in relative terms. "Genuine love, by contrast, cannot be “explained” exhaustively, which means that it cannot be “situated” in any manifest way relative to self-interest, precisely because it has an absolute character, or, rather, because it represents the relation to an absolute object." (Schindler's Plato's Critique of Impure Reason)

This reminds me of how Plato describes the philosopher as wanting to couple/mate with the Good in the Republic. There is a going beyond the self and participation-in.

Being is love with Absolute Beauty starts to look a lot like being in love with Absolute Good though. Normally, the Doctrine of Transcendentals (the communicability of Good, True, Beauty, and Unity) is identified in its earliest form in Aristotle, but it seems to also be in Plato to some degree too.

In the Symposium Socrates says:

I who declare that I know nothing other than matters of love ...

At first it may seem that this contradicts what he says in the Apology where he claims to know nothing beautiful and good (21d). But eros is a desire for something one does not possess. Socrates knows the desire to be wise. This is a kind of self-knowledge. Eros is a kind of madness. The highest kind, according to Socrates in the Phaedrus, is love of the beautiful. About which Socrates makes a beautiful speech.

Toward the end of the dialogue Socrates says:

Well then, let that be the extent of our entertainment with speeches.

(278b)

With regard to those who make such speeches he says:

I think it would be a big step, Phaedrus, to call him ‘wise’ because this is appropriate only for a god. The title ‘lover of wisdom’ or something of that sort would suit him better and would be more modest.

(278d)

Divine madness does not lead to knowledge of the beautiful or good. It inspires does not not result in what the philosopher loves, wisdom.

The Phaedrus is a play of opposites, of things that pull us in opposite directions. For the philosopher the pull of divine madness is opposed by reason and moderation, which finds its own extreme in the asceticism of the Phaedo. In the Symposium, this plays out differently. Some of the participants are suffering from a hangover and so the usual drinking competition is replaced by the more sober competition of speeches about eros.

As Plato has Socrates tell us in the Phaedrus:

But the person who realises that in a written discourse on any topic there must be a great deal that is playful ...

(277e)