:lol: Right, so a conspiracy then...

With regard to mysticism - there is a lot of different stuff called mysticism. — Fooloso4

I have read that the original meaning was to be an initiate of the mystery religions. If Plato was indeed an initiate it makes him a textbook example. If you read the history of Christian mysticism, Plato and Platonism are major sources of that although there has always been a tension between Semitic faith and Greek rationalism - 'what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?' Catholicism and Orthodoxy managed to synthesise them, but I don't know if Protestantism ever did. And, of course, mysticism has picked up many other meanings in the millenia since, not all of them salutary. But I'm someone with whom it has always resonated.

In the Phaedo, Socrates attributes causal power to the Forms: — Fooloso4

Right - but couldn't it be argued that this was to become part of the basis of Aristotle's fourfold causal schema, in the 'formal cause'? Which is just the kind of causal principle that fell ouf of favour with the decline of Aristotelian philosophy, although Aristotelian ideas seem to making something of a comeback in philosophy of biology.

With regard to mysticism - there is a lot of different stuff called mysticism. If we regard mysticism as the experience of a reality that transcends our everyday reality, that is something I know nothing about. — Fooloso4

Mysticism is about the hidden knowledge. In Plato, truth is supposed to be hidden until it is disclosed (alethia). Does it mean truth is mysticism in Plato?

This is an interesting strand. I suspect that philosophy is unattainable for most people who lead lives where the barriers to philosophy are significant and sometimes insurmountable. We're never going to understand the difficult problems or comprehend works by significant thinkers. The barriers might be culture, time, priorities, available energy, disposition, lack of education, capacity to engage with the unfamiliar and the complex, etc.

Well, this is partly why, for Plato, most people have to be left inside the cave, even if the philosopher must descend to recover the whole (since the Good inherently relates to the whole). Given the technology available at the time, most people had to work in agriculture, and this did not leave time for education or inquiry.

But of course, it is precisely education and inquiry—fostering the development and perfection of techne—which has allowed us to move past this constraint. Today, almost everyone in wealthier nations has the option to pursue philosophy. Texts and lectures are at our fingertips, and society has the capacity to provide everyone with an education in it.

And we do provide people with an education in philosophy of sorts. It's just not very intentional. And in some cases it's pretty defective. For instance, the 19th century metaphysics of "everything is just little balls bouncing off each other in different ensembles," and "things just are the subsistent building-block 'fundemental' parts they are made of," isn't popular in physics and metaphysics/philosophy of physics anymore, but it's certainly what I was taught and is still commonly appealed to as a sort of "default" in popular works on the special sciences. Meanwhile, existentialism and some post-modern thought often makes it onto English curricula, as does at least some bits of the classical tradition (although this might be reduced to just a Greek tragedy or two).

The opening of C.S. Lewis' "The Abolition of Man," has a great example of how this can take place in terms of a textbook ostensibly just about writing:

In their second chapter Gaius and Titius quote the well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall. You remember that there were two tourists present: that one called it 'sublime' and the other 'pretty'; and that Coleridge mentally endorsed the first judgement and rejected the second with disgust. Gaius and Titius comment as follows: 'When the man said This is sublime, he appeared to be making a remark about the waterfall... Actually ... he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a remark about his own feelings. What he was saying was really I have feelings associated in my mind with the word "Sublime", or shortly, I have sublime feelings' Here are a good many deep questions settled in a pretty summary fashion. But the authors are not yet finished. They add: 'This confusion is continually present in language as we use it. We appear to be saying something very important about something: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings.'1

Before considering the issues really raised by this momentous little paragraph (designed, you will remember, for 'the upper forms of schools') we must eliminate
one mere confusion into which Gaius and Titius have fallen. Even on their own view—on any conceivable view—the man who says This is sublime cannot mean I
have sublime feelings. Even if it were granted that such qualities as sublimity were simply and solely projected into things from our own emotions, yet the emotions
which prompt the projection are the correlatives, and therefore almost the opposites, of the qualities projected. The feelings which make a man call an object sublime are not sublime feelings but feelings of veneration. If This is sublime is to be reduced at all to a statement about the speaker's feelings, the proper translation would be I have humble feelings. If the view held by Gaius and Titius were
consistently applied it would lead to obvious absurdities. It would force them to maintain that You are contemptible means I have contemptible feelings', in fact that Your feelings are contemptible means My feelings are contemptible...

...until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it—believed, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval, our reverence or our contempt. The reason why Coleridge agreed with the tourist who called the cataract sublime and disagreed with the one who called it pretty was of course that he believed inanimate nature to be such that certain responses could be more 'just' or 'ordinate' or 'appropriate'to it than others. And he believed (correctly) that the tourists thought the same.The man who called the cataract sublime was not intending simply to describe his own emotions about it: he was also claiming that the object was one which merited those emotions. But for this claim there would be nothing to agree or disagree about. To disagree with "This is pretty" if those words simply described the lady's feelings, would be absurd: if she had said "I feel sick" Coleridge would hardly have replied "No; I feel quite well." When Shelley, having compared the human sensibility to an Aeolian lyre, goes on to add that it differs from a lyre in having a power of 'internal adjustment' whereby it can 'accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them', 9 he is assuming the same belief. 'Can you be righteous', asks Traherne, 'unless you be just in rendering to things their due esteem? All things were made to be yours and you were made to prize them according to their value.'10

What Lewis focuses on is the way in which, traditionally, a major goal of education was a proper orientation towards what is truly good, beautiful, etc., and the development of freedom as self-determination and self-governance. This is certainly something that has been deflated a good deal in modern education, particularly in the narrow focus on marketable skills that enable for higher consumption in the future. High levels of consumption become a sort of proxy for freedom, but of course many people are very wealthy and ruled over by vice.

If I could bring one bit of older philosophy back into curricula it would be the tradition of the virtues (originally given the boot on theological grounds at any rate). Because even if one rejects virtue centered theories, they still represent an excellent framework for understanding literature and other media, particularly why anti-heros and villains might seem very good in some senses, without being worthy of emulation.



One problem for Perl, or people talking a similar line on "two worlds Platonism" is that Artistotle sometimes seems to represent the position of the "Platonists" in the more simplistic terms (although this isn't always obvious because he is often brief). However, this could also simply be a move to show the difficulties in bad readings of Plato as well; he very often mentions "the Platonists" and not "Plato."

At any rate, I don't necessarily think "good readings" will always align with authorial intent. And we can also have readings where someone takes an authors work to its "logical conclusion," even if the author wanted to avoid that conclusion (e.g. Fichte and Kant).

But in terms of authorial intent, I am fairly suspicious of claims to have recovered it after millennia, whereas people who actually knew the author or who read the texts in their native language (as opposed to a long dead dialect) totally missed the point.

If Plato was indeed an initiate it makes him a textbook example. — Wayfarer

I think Plato's cave mimics initiation into a mystery cult. There is, however, a notable exception. There is no secret initiation rite. According to the Phaedo:

... sound-mindedness, justice, courage, and wisdom itself are purifications ... And the Bacchae are, in my view, none other than those who have properly engaged in philosophy.

(69c-d)

In Plato, truth is supposed to be hidden until it is disclosed (alethia). Does it mean truth is mysticism in Plato? — Corvus

On my reading the philosopher does not possess such knowledge. It is reserved for the gods.

Well, this is partly why, for Plato, most people have to be left inside the cave, even if the philosopher must descend to recover the whole (since the Good inherently relates to the whole). — Count Timothy von Icarus

My sympathy has always been with those in the cave. Why leave? You have everything you need there, including predictability. Ignorance has its charms and there is something dismissive of the real world (where most of us live) built into the allegory.

What Lewis focuses on is the way in which, traditionally, a major goal of education was a proper orientation towards what is truly good, beautiful, etc., and the development of freedom as self-determination and self-governance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I understand this outlook and I have read some Lewis. And I have read Roger Scruton who also makes these points rather well. But it's somewhat traditionalist and conservative isn't it? Which doesn't bother me too much, but I can certainly imagine an elaborate critique.

If I could bring one bit of older philosophy back into curricula it would be the tradition of the virtues (originally given the boot on theological grounds at any rate). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I understand this project and it will help with certain matters and probably enrich civic culture, but will it help us get a useful reading of Derrida or Kant? My concern lies with the often impenetrable complexity of philosophical discourse and literature.

At any rate, I don't necessarily think "good readings" will always align with authorial intent. And we can also have readings where someone takes an authors work to its "logical conclusion," even if the author wanted to avoid that conclusion (e.g. Fichte and Kant). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this is particularly interesting.

My sympathy has always been with those in the cave. Why leave? You have everything you need there, including predictability. Ignorance has its charms and there is something dismissive of the real world (where most of us live) built into the allegory.

Well, the people in the cave might have what they need and be having a good time. Recall, there is a second tier of people in the cave, those who, while still being bound to the cave, get to manipulate the shadow puppets. Who do we have up there? A more benevolent ruler along the lines of Ceasar Augustus or Trajan, or a Stalin?

To take up Boethius' extension of Plato's thought, the problem for the cave dwellers is that they are not in the driver's seat. They might have good fortune, and have good cave masters who bring them food, stability, etc. and they might not. They are not in the driver's seat, so even if they are happy, their happiness is unstable, threatened by the whims of fortune. This is Boethius great victory. He was the second most powerful man in Rome. He had a loving wife. Two faithful sons named consul. And he lost it all and was tortured and killed for doing what he thought was right (fighting corruption and pursuing justice). Yet he discovers how to be happy without relying on the vicissitudes of fortune. As St. Augustine puts it, better to flourish according to what cannot be taken from one.

And even if the cave dwellers set up a system where they vote amongst themselves to decide who will be unchained to manage things, there is the problem that they will be making uninformed decisions about who should go up while the leaders themselves will also be ignorant. Certainly, free and fair elections can still sometimes put (and keep) ruinous demagogues in power.

To stretch the metaphor a bit too far, the reason leaving the cave is good is not just the beauty of the sun, but also the ability to see how the cave should be run. And even if we cannot actually get out of the cave, we might suppose that getting ahold of the torches and learning how the shadow puppets really work might be useful. Of course, if we don't know what is truly best, we can also accidentally make things worse. There is a relationship between knowledge and self-determination.

But it's somewhat traditionalist and conservative isn't it? Which doesn't bother me too much, but I can certainly imagine an elaborate critique.

I think in a certain sense, yes. Lewis is a scholar of classical, medieval, and renaissance literature. He is trying to translate what he finds to be most valuable in those traditions, and in The Abolition of Man and some other places he also branches out to include what he finds valuable in Eastern traditions. I don't know if this necessarily puts it on the political "right" though, because those traditions have a lot of aspects that don't jive well with the political right, particularly how they view wealth and economics, and their more communitarian and corporate focus. It's sort of like how we could see an appeal to St. Gregory of Nyssa as an appeal to "tradition" in the 19th century, while nonetheless if his arguments against slavery are being invoked they can be quite radical.

I understand this project and it will help with certain matters and probably enrich civic culture, but will it help us get a useful reading of Derrida or Kant? My concern lies with the often impenetrable complexity of philosophical discourse and literature.

Right, there is also the question of people's aptitudes and interests too. Unfortunately, since philosophy isn't often valued as a core part of a basic education, translational work (i.e. making others' work accessible and applicable) also sometimes isn't valued as much. But I think that in philosophy, as in science, a bulk of the work is digesting a new paradigm and making it easily intelligible and seeing how it can be applied (e.g. the whole Patristic period, with lots of great thinkers, is in a way synthesizing and digesting Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism). If you want to read Hegel or Kant, great, but something like Pinkhard's version of Hegel is particularly valuable in that it isn't really a struggle to get through.

Excellent points.

Who do we have up there? A more benevolent ruler along the lines of Ceasar Augustus or Trajan, or a Stalin? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed and I've sometimes thought that the quasi ruling class (these days the Trumps and Musks ) are so desperate to hit the 'big time' but their glory amounts to being stuck in the same cave with the 'plebs' at the expense of transcendence 'outside'.

Right, there is also the question of people's aptitudes and interests too. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed that's the big matter for me. And let's not forget innate intelligence too. Not everyone has the same capabilities.

But I think that in philosophy, as in science, a bulk of the work is digesting a new paradigm and making it easily intelligible and seeing how it can be applied (e.g. the whole Patristic period, with lots of great thinkers, is in a way synthesizing and digesting Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism). If you want to read Hegel or Kant, great, but something like Pinkhard's version of Hegel is particularly valuable in that it isn't really a struggle to get through. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I like this idea a lot.

On my reading the philosopher does not possess such knowledge. It is reserved for the gods. — Fooloso4

What do you mean by "such knowledge"? Why is it reserved for the gods? Which gods do you mean here?

What do you mean by "such knowledge"? — Corvus

Knowledge of a reality that transcends our everyday reality. In line with the Republic it would be knowledge of the Forms.

Why is it reserved for the gods? — Corvus

In Plato's Apology Socrates makes a distinction between human wisdom, which is knowledge of our ignorance, and divine wisdom. Socrates says he knows nothing noble and good, (21d) It is reserved for the gods because they know such things and we don't.

Which gods do you mean here? — Corvus

No particular gods are identified.

Knowledge of a reality that transcends our everyday reality. In line with the Republic it would be knowledge of the Forms. — Fooloso4

Is the gap between the knowledge of the Forms and everyday life bridgeable by any actions or methods? Or are they two distinct entities which are inaccessible to each other?

In Plato's Apology Socrates makes a distinction between human wisdom, which is knowledge of our ignorance, and divine wisdom. Socrates says he knows nothing noble and good, (21d) It is reserved for the gods because they know such things and we don't. — Fooloso4

So it seems clear that they are claiming the existence of the gods, and the knowledge of the gods. But do they try to verify them via reasoning and logic? or do they keep silence on the presumed and presupposed divine existence?

Whatever the case, doesn't it sound like some sort of mysticism going on here? The world of idea which is different from the world of everyday life, possibility of the transition of souls into the world of idea after death, and the existence of divine knowledge that they admit, but don't know what they are ...etc sound like a form of mysticism.

Is the gap between the knowledge of the Forms and everyday life bridgeable by any actions or methods? — Corvus

I don't think so. Knowledge of the Forms is a matter of direct, unmediated apprehension. From and earlier post:

The third level of the divided line, if we are working out way up, is dianoia, rational thought. Reason functions by way of ratio, that is, understanding one thing in relation to another. The singularity of the Forms means that they are not accessible to reason. They are grasped at the fourth or highest level directly by noesis, by the mind or intellect, as they are each itself by itself. — Fooloso4

Or are they two distinct entities which are inaccessible to each other? — Corvus

The Forms are hypotheticals.

So it seems clear that they are claiming the existence of the gods, and the knowledge of the gods. — Corvus

Well, if the gods are noble and good then we are wise to know that we do not know anything about them.

Whatever the case, doesn't it sound like some sort of mysticism on their part? — Corvus

On whose part? On my reading the transcendent realm of Forms from the Republic is Plato's philosophic poetry. An image to compel the lover of wisdom to continue to journey.

Others believe it exists and that there are some who have direct knowledge of it.

I don't think so. Knowledge of the Forms is a matter of direct, unmediated apprehension. From and earlier post: — Fooloso4

Whose direct, unmediated apprehension? Are we able to apprehend them via direct unmediated apprehension, or the Gods?

If we can apprehend them, then it seems to be a bridgeable gap between the world of the Forms and the world of materials. Why was your reply a negative?

The Forms are hypotheticals. — Fooloso4

In what sense? Is it what Plato said?

if the gods are noble and good then we are wise to know that we do not know anything about them. — Fooloso4

We don't know if the gods are noble and good. That is what Socrates said maybe, but does he give the reasons and proofs why the gods are noble and good?

On whose part? On my reading the transcendent realm of Forms from the Republic is Plato's philosophic poetry. An image to compel the lover of wisdom to continue to journey. — Fooloso4

The transcendent realm of Forms from the Republic were the founding principles of the later occultism, Gnosticism, mysticism, and the Hermetic Kabbalists in the medieval times. There seems to be far more implications to the concept than just a philosophical poetry.

Others believe it exists and that there are some who have direct knowledge of it. — Fooloso4

Who are the "Others"? Any verification details on their beliefs of the existence via their direct knowledge?

Who are the "Others"? Any verification details on their beliefs of the existence via their direct knowledge? — Corvus

Plotinus spoke of having the experience of being present to the source from which our souls descended. The move is accompanied by a cosmogony where the veil between our lives and the "eternal" is very thin.

Plato did not describe the limits of knowledge that way. Neither did Aristotle.

Whose direct, unmediated apprehension? — Corvus

The philosophers of the Republic.

Are we able to apprehend them via direct unmediated apprehension — Corvus

I don't think we are, but according to the mythology of the Republic, some humans are.

If we can apprehend them, then it seems to be a bridgeable gap between the world of the Forms and the world of materials. Why was your reply a negative? — Corvus

My argument is that we cannot apprehend the Forms. This is a rejection of Platonism, but not of Plato. The Platonists believe in the reality of Forms. On my reading, Plato does not.

The Forms are hypotheticals.
— Fooloso4
In what sense? Is it what Plato said? — Corvus

From the Phaedo:

... I feared that my soul would be altogether blinded if I looked at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with each of my senses. So I thought I must take refuge in discussions and investigate the truth of beings by means of accounts [logoi] … On each occasion I put down as hypothesis whatever account I judge to be mightiest; and whatever seems to me to be consonant with this, I put down as being true, both about cause and about all the rest, while what isn’t, I put down as not true.

(99d-100a)

We don't know if the gods are noble and good.

Right. You said:

[/quote — Corvus

So it seems clear that they are claiming the existence of the gods, and the knowledge of the gods — Corvus

I should have asked who they are. I don't think there is anywhere in the dialogues that Socrates makes any claim about the gods. He does, however, refer to common beliefs about the gods.

The transcendent realm of Forms from the Republic were the founding principles of the later occultism, Gnosticism, mysticism, and the Hermetic Kabbalists in the medieval times. There seems to be far more implications to the concept than just a philosophical poetry. — Corvus

There were many in Plato's time who believed the poet's myths. The Forms are not presented as poesis, that is, image making. Many then and now believe there is a transcendent realm of Forms as presented in the Republic. If Socrates had presented them as stories they would not have the power they do.

Who are the "Others"? — Corvus

Don't those you just listed believe in a transcendent realm that can be known directly? Isn't that a feature of mysticism?

Don't those you just listed believe in a transcendent realm that can be known directly? Isn't that a feature of mysticism? — Fooloso4

Of course they do, but what I meant was the others from the philosophers, not from the mystics.

I should have asked who they are. I don't think there is anywhere in the dialogues that Socrates makes any claim about the gods. He does, however, refer to common beliefs about the gods. — Fooloso4

Have you read the other Plato such as Timaeus? It is filled with cosmogony and the Gods.

Plotinus spoke of having the experience of being present to the source from which our souls descended. The move is accompanied by a cosmogony where the veil between our lives and the "eternal" is very thin.

Plato did not describe the limits of knowledge that way. Neither did Aristotle. — Paine

Need more elaboration with the reference on this point.

I meant was the others from the philosophers, not from the mystics. — Corvus

Paine pointed to Plotinus. They are mystic philosophers.

Have you read the other Plato such as Timaeus? It is filled with cosmogony and the Gods. — Corvus

I have. I started a thread on it here.

A helpful starting point is how Plotinus talked about memory.

But surely, too, the soul must have memory of its own movements, of what it desired, for instance, and of what it did not enjoy and the desired object did not enter the body. For how could the body speak of what did not come into it? Or how will it remember with the help of the body something which the body has been in no condition to know at all? But we must say that some things, all that come through the body, reach as far as the soul, and others belong to the soul alone, if the soul must be something, and a distinct nature, and have a work of its own. If this is so, it will have aspiration, and memory of its aspiration, and of attaining or not attaining it, since its nature is not one of those which are in a state of flux. For if this is not so, we shall not grant it self-awareness or consciousness of its own activities or any sort of power of combination and understanding. — Plotinus, Ennead, translated by Armstrong, IV. 3.1. 26

Free version.

Paine pointed to Plotinus. They are mystic philosophers. — Fooloso4

A helpful starting point is how Plotinus talked about memory. — Paine

:up: :ok:

I have. I started a thread on it here. — Fooloso4

A great thread. Thanks for the link. The OP offers an interesting classic material for read.

@Tom Storm
How do you measure "wisdom"?

Mathematics is the highest discourse because it is always true.

I forgot if I shared this quote in this thread:

“For just as men of strong intellect are by nature rulers and masters of others, while those robust in body and weak in mind are by nature subjects . . . so the science that is most intellectual should be naturally the ruler of the others: and this is the science that treats of the most intelligible beings."

St. Thomas - Introduction to the Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics

Or "metaphysics is naturally the queen of the sciences."

Reminds me of a saying of my grandfather's. Whenever he needed help lifting something heavy he used to call out that he needed "somebody with a strong back and a weak mind," to come help him out. He remained full of Depression-era Brooklyn neologisms until his death in the 2010s :rofl: .