This is simply correct, what's the problem? — Maw

I think that in a situation where there is a conflict of cultures and ideologies, the more self-confident ones will tend to have better chances of asserting themselves, as demonstrated by Afghanistan where the Taliban have beaten the USA .... :smile:

Thoughts? Is this immoral? — javi2541997

I don't see how it could be "immoral."

By definition, a refugee is someone fleeing from a war zone to which he is supposed to return once the conflict is over.

So I think it makes sense for refugees to go to neighboring countries from where they can return home any time. Plus, those countries also are culturally closer to the refugee population than is Europe.

How so? — frank

Well, western liberalism teaches that men are worthless racists and misogynists and all that matters is refugees, elephants, rhinos, and polar bears.

China and Islam think otherwise, and they appear to be winning.

This raises the question as to which system wins in the end? One that makes self-criticism into a cult or one that is more self-confident and knows what it wants and that gets what it wants at all costs?

The war in Afghanistan is a clash of ideological systems that may suggest an answer.

Very funny. :smile:

England was a maritime empire. The British wanted to keep the Russians out of India and the Indian Ocean that was "their" water.

Of course, the Russians will now try to get in and so will China. It will be interesting to see how the Taliban are playing their cards.

Either way, I think western liberalism is beginning to look like a failed system.

The Taliban are funding themselves with opium/heroin, not the Afghan state.

The Afghan state is a separate issue. Until now it has been receiving Western aid amounting to 43 percent of its GDP.

That has now been suspended.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/27/afghanistan-taliban-economy-aid-sanctions-united-states-west/

The Taliban government may not last more than a few weeks or months without foreign assistance. The question is who will assist and buy some influence ....

Even Latin American gangsters fund themselves with cocaine. But they are not running a country. They are just buying themselves expensive cars, yachts, girlfriends, and guns.

However, to have a proper economy you need more than selling opium or whatever. You need a banking system with a central bank, foreign reserves, corresponding banks in other countries, etc. Otherwise you have no credit and investment and no economy.

This is where the West may get a chance to gain some influence. So we've got to wait and see. Unless Biden has some idea, which I tend to doubt :smile:

Correct. Islam has fanaticism, China has the intelligence, and the West has (nearly) given up.

With regard to Afghanistan, the Taliban don't even have a banking system. Their foreign reserves are sitting in New York and England is printing their currency.

Unless the Taliban want to return to the stone age, they will need to make some deal with the West, giving us some leverage.

However, they can equally turn to Russia and China in which case the West will have zero influence on anything ....

Nobody says that the oppression of women is right. However, in Islam (as it used to be in Christianity) men are supposed to be in charge. If the majority of the population believes in Islam, then you cannot avoid giving men a larger share of authority and power, including over women.

And yes, it does mean that "practically speaking our opinions don't matter because we have no will to surgically alter their culture".

Don't forget that the British went into Afghanistan to keep the Russians out, and the western position has been motivated by geostrategic considerations ever since.

If we are serious about "liberating women from Islam" then we need to sort out Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc. by enforcing a new religion or ideology.

But we are not doing that. If anything, we are trying to do it piecemeal and that allows for pockets of resistance leading to a backlash.

The fact is that the West is on the retreat everywhere, and China and Islam are on the rise even in the West.

I'm not saying women can't fight, either. In hindsight we should have spun up a couple of division of Afghan Amazons full of blood-lust for Taliban religious zealots. — James Riley

I think those Amazons would need to be non-Muslims.
Most Afghans agree with Islamic law, which is why the Taliban enjoy broad support.
So long as no alternative religion or belief system is enforced, there can be no alternative to Islam.

The Taliban have their main bases in Pakistan, where the movement started.
When on the defensive, the Taliban retreat to Pakistan from where they can launch new attacks.
To defeat the Taliban militarily, you need to sort out Pakistan.

As there is no political will in the West to do any of the above, the problem cannot be solved in a western sense.

That’s exactly my point! Any resemblance to a common “manner of speech” all of those four phrases have would have to be based on the fact they share the verb legesthai, which, as you say, is a necessary ingredient in a phrase asserting that something “is said”. Therefore, these phrases were not mere manners of speech, as you suggested. — Leghorn

However, it isn't my point. I simply gave “manner of speech” as an example. The central issue is that he uses the verb legomai, “to be said”, to refer to things said. Hence my question (which you did not answer), “How else can he refer to things said without saying ‘it is said’ or something to that effect?”

How does the fact that he is relating the vulgar view of the Greek afterlife explain why he so frequently reminds his listeners that the things he says are only things said? — Leghorn

I don’t think he does though. “It is said” or “according to things said”, etc., is simply a statement of fact. He does not say “Please remember these are just things said”.

But he does say this, as the ultimate sentence in his description of death as “the dreamless sleep” (40e): “For all time appears in this way indeed to be nothing more than one night.” (kai gar oudev pleiwv o pas chronos phainetai outw de einai e mia vuks). In other words, this dreamless night lasts for all time. There is no waking from it. It seems to be but one night precisely because it lasts forever. — Leghorn

1. He says “appears,” phainetai.

2. Where there is sleep there is a sleeper.

3. He gives “dreamless sleep” as just one possibility, the other possibility being “a change and migration of the soul from this to another place” (Apol. 40c).

4. Elsewhere he urges all men to accept his account of divine judgement after death:

And I invite all other men likewise, to the best of my power, and you particularly I invite in return, to this life and this contest, which I say is worth all other contests on this earth; and I make it a reproach to you, that you will not be able to deliver yourself when your trial comes and the judgement of which I told you just now (Gorg. 526e).

5. Similarly, he now ends his speech to members of the jury by reminding them of the “truth” that God does not neglect a good man either in life or after death:

But you also, judges, must regard death hopefully and must bear in mind this one truth, that no evil can come to a good man either in life or after death, and God does not neglect him (Apol. 41c-d).

It is not that it remembers not existing, but rather that it doesn’t remember existing. — Leghorn

If the soul is immortal and existed before, of course it cannot remember being the current person who did not exist prior to being born. But it may well have prenatal memory of itself as pure nous. It may also have latent memory of Forms, etc. This is what Socrates' Theory of Recollection is about which he expounds after the trial in the Phaedo!

Love is at the heart of Christian teaching . It's not a matter of debate. — Ross

Perhaps not of debate but of interpretation. How are we to "love our neighbor"?

Without a proper understanding of how to apply this in practice, it is meaningless.

Moreover, if love is so central, then it should be extended to all, Jesus (or God) included.

By follow he means the same thing as worship. He just uses a different word. When christians worship Christ they are FOLLOWING his teachings . — Ross

1. I don't think "follow" and "worship" are the same thing. You can perfectly well follow someone without worshiping them.

2. People worship pop stars, politicians, and other "celebrities". Why not a religious leader?

I tend to doubt that they sought political power for themselves. Socrates was the antithesis of politician and he was an old man. I think the basic idea was to influence society, including the political classes, through education, though Plato may have liked to see himself in the role of advisor to political leaders.

Obviously, there were failures, like Alcibiades. But Plato's pupil Aristotle became tutor to Alexander the Great and this may be an indication of some degree of success.

The main point, though, is that they succeeded in popularizing philosophy. Without Plato and Aristotle Europe and the world would be a different place. For example, there may be no philosophy forum .... :smile:

The Greeks seem to be divided between materialists and idealists. Plato, Parmenides, the Skeptics, all seem to be about the life of the mind. Those who posited different material substances as the cause of the world seemed to promote a materialistic agenda. Aristotle was different — Gregory

Aristotle definitely doesn't sound like a materialist. The question is how far he is prepared to go in his antimaterialism ....

As I understand Aristotle, there's one first principle which is Divine, perfect and alive. It's also worthy of reverence. That doesn't mean he believes in a single god or in a single divine thing. It just means that he holds there's a hierarchy between divine things. — hairy belly

Sure. I’m not saying you are wrong.

However, if there is a hierarchy of divine beings, then the topmost one is the supreme divine being or God. And if it is worthy of reverence, service, and contemplation, then we have a form of henotheism at the very least.

Of course, Christians, Muslims, and Jews have attempted to interpret this as monotheism, but the question is whether they are entirely wrong. The existence of additional divine beings does not necessarily pose an insurmountable problem. They may be comparable to the Angels of monotheistic religion.

Another possibility would be that Aristotle’s theology really is a kind of monism.

Too, Socrates was no friend to democracy and preferred "alternatives" :wink: to what he probably saw as a group of ill-informed, poorly-trained, peasants trying to make decisions on matters they had not the slightest clue about, a not too flattering description of democracy and also the Greek gods with all their endless quarrels. The greek religion, it seems, was just too democratic for Socrates' tastes if you know what I mean. — TheMadFool

You could be right. However, if we are to judge Athenian democracy by the way they conducted their trials, with juries bought by the likes of Anytus, etc., then maybe Socrates had a point.

But I’m not sure Socrates was quite as “undemocratic” as he might seem. My impression is that what he and Plato really attempted to do was to bring some order to the confused society and culture they lived in, and this implied some religious and political reforms. How undemocratic these were is of course debatable.

Other than that, the issue at hand is the resolution of a person's fundamental moral (and other) doubts, which is a complex topic. — baker

Correct. So, ultimately, it is for the individual to work out a solution. With or without help from others, as the case may be. I think the main thing would be to be honest with oneself and make an informed effort to do one's best.

I suspect that simply acting in line with one's intelligence is not what Plato would applaud.
For one, it's inevitable that everyone acts in line with one's intelligence, so the idea is a non-starter to begin with. — baker

But according to Plato the nous does not exist in a vacuum. If we consider that it possesses latent knowledge of the Forms or is otherwise in contact with higher forms of knowledge or aspects of reality, then I think we begin to get a different picture.

I think it's is likely that just like the Buddha mentioned above, Plato, too, actually had very specific activities in mind and had a very specific moral system, — baker

Of course Plato had a moral system. In the first place, there were general guidelines of ethical conduct many of which were reflected in Greek custom and law, e.g., injunctions against murder, theft, adultery, perjury, slander, disrespecting the Gods and your parents, etc.

This was followed by the cultivation of the four cardinal virtues, self-control, courage, wisdom, and righteousness.

The acquisition of higher knowledge came after a period of moral and intellectual training that enabled the philosopher to understand what he was doing and what the way forward was.

In fact, this was the standard procedure in most Greek (and other) traditions and was later adopted by Early Christianity.

In theology 'God', as in a single God, is usually used for the sole creator God of monotheist religions. Aristotle had no such concept. His 'God', or 'Nous', was neither the sole god, nor a creator. As I wrote, it's the first cause, which, ironically, is also a 'final cause'. — hairy belly

“Usually”, but not always. It depends on the religion we are dealing with. I think what @Gregory is trying to establish is how Aristotle views God and whether this amounts to deism.

Of course, different readers interpret Aristotle differently. However, how many Gods are first principle, prime mover, and ultimate cause?

And why does he say to “serve and contemplate God” and not “serve and contemplate Gods”?

And I can say, 'man has failed'. It doesn't mean I refer to a single particular man, I just use a collective noun. Just before your first example, he refers to gods while speaking on the same topic, so, no it can't be interpreted like you said it can. Aristotle holds there are many gods. Not a single god. What stands above all, as the first cause, is 'Nous'. — hairy belly

Well, both "god" (theos) and "nous" may be used in different ways. But Aristotle does sometimes use "god" in the sense of "God", i.e., supreme deity as in Eudemian Ethics:

But this is what we are investigating—what is the starting-point of motion in the spirit? The answer then is clear: as in the universe, so there, everything is moved by God; for in a manner the divine element in us is the cause of all our motions. And the starting-point of reason is not reason but something superior to reason. What, then, could be superior even to knowledge and to intellect, except God? (Eud. 1248a)

This is therefore the case in regard to the faculty of contemplation. For God is not a ruler in the sense of issuing commands, but is the End as a means to which wisdom gives commands (and the term 'End' has two meanings, but these have been distinguished elsewhere); since clearly God is in need of nothing. Therefore whatever mode of choosing and of acquiring things good by nature—whether goods of body or wealth or friends or the other goods—will best promote the contemplation of God, that is the best mode, and that standard is the finest; [20] and any mode of choice and acquisition that either through deficiency or excess hinders us from serving and from contemplating God—that is a bad one (Eud.1249b)

That appears to me like God granting eternal Bliss to those who worship Him as I mentioned in my blog. — Ross

I wonder why. The text you quote does not say "worship". It says "follow", does it not?

To what use, to what end?
Unless one is omniscient, or gifted with enormous self-confidence, then how can one possibly know what is truly, objectively good? — baker

Well, if you work on the premise that what is good for some is bad for others, then either (a) nothing is truly good or (b) you just have to decide which option is the best in any given situation and act according to that and to your best abilities.

What other option would you suggest?

We don't know, exactly, and there is just too much at stake to open ourselves up to a philosopher from a past time and take him as our spiritual master. — baker

There is no need to take Plato as our spiritual master. He is only a guide that suggests one path out of many. If people know a better path, they are free to take it.

But the true master is the nous, our own intelligence. Our task is to learn to listen what it has to communicate to us. This is the meaning of self-examination.

Actually, I think this is (or was) a popoular idea that one readily picks up in secular academia. I can't think of any names, but thinking back of philosophy classes at school, we'd talk about most of the old philosophers as if they would be secularists, non-theists, as if they would be "the good guys". At the time, it was a theme to recontextualize the religious/theistic claims of philosophers and to dismiss them, gloss over them. It's how secular academia made Descartes into "one of us". — baker

Correct. Starting in the late 1800's and early 1900's there was a Marxist and Fabian Socialist-influenced effort to dissociate everything, including Christianity, from religious beliefs and reinterpret it in terms of "social change" and "progress" for political purposes.

But I think that the belief in Socrates' and Plato's alleged "atheism" tended to be more implied or obliquely hinted at than expressly asserted.

Probably no actual theist ever defined theism as "belief in a god or gods", nor atheism as "lack of belief or disbelief in a god or gods". — baker

That is possibly true. However, as no ancient tradition seems to exist according to which Socrates was an atheist, I take it in the modern, dictionary sense of "believing that there is no God".

In the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire was divided into East and West. Thereafter, the Greek-controlled Eastern part carried on for a thousand years, whilst the Western part was taken over by Germanic tribes who forged a new Europe:

The Alemanni and Burgundians in Germany, the Franks in France, the Angles and Saxons in England, the Vandals and Visigoths in Spain and North Africa, the Lombards in Italy, the Bavarians in Austria, etc., etc.

It was the Franks who stopped the Muslim Arabs from invading France via Spain. Norman and Frankish warriors fought with the Greeks against Arabs and Turks. And it was the Vandal and Visigoth kingdoms of North Spain that started the anti-Islamic resistance in that country.

The Greeks were finally beaten by the Muslim Turks in 1453. But when Austrian Franks and Bavarians together with their Polish and Lithuanian allies stopped the Turks outside Vienna in 1683, putting an end to Islamic supremacy, Germans still headed the Holy Roman Empire of the West.

Napoleon brought an end to Old Europe by putting liberalism and money in charge. He was then beaten by the British, and the rest is history.

As for Islam, whatever power it may have today is based on oil. But oil is no substitute for history and culture. And Islam does not seem to be a force for progress ....

Socrates as many as four times reminds us that these are things only said, implying that they are not necessarily so. — Leghorn

Not necessarily. He is discussing things that are being said. He (almost) always starts with the current popular view of a particular topic. How else could he refer to things said than by using the verb legomai?

there is no afterlife, only a dreamless sleep — Leghorn

But he does not say "death", "dissolution", or "disappearance". If there is dreamless sleep, there must still be someone who sleeps. And someone who sleeps can wake up as explained in the Phaedo. One state gives rise to its opposite: being awake gives rise to being asleep and being asleep gives rise to being awake, etc. (71c ff.).

Yet we have no memory of this before-life. — Leghorn

However, absence of memory is not evidence of non-existence.

When we say "I do not remember living before", we are merely referring to "I" as this particular person as we know it in this life which naturally did not exist prior to being born. It does not mean that the pure, disembodied "I", the nous, did not exist.

On the contrary, whenever we say "I do not remember", the existence of the "I" is always presupposed. For, without it, we would be unable to say anything. But, since we are saying something, it must be admitted that there is a subject who says it.

It is that conscious subject who does not remember existing as this current person. And by the very fact that it is in a position to remember not existing in the current form, it demonstrates its previous existence.

Islam was successful in the past because it celebrated diversity and pluralism. — Tom Storm

Correct. They were forced to be tolerant. Arab culture was inadequate to support an empire and dominate the more advanced cultures of the conquered territories. The only medical system was that of the Greeks. The only philosophy going was Plato and Aristotle ....

This is why Muslim rulers initiated the Translation Movement that had hundreds of Greek and other texts translated into Arabic from the 700’s onward.

Graeco-Arabic translation movement - Wikipedia

Unfortunately, this did not last. Islamic and Arab culture could not compete with the cultures of Greece, Persia, and India, and turned against "foreign sciences" that were perceived as undermining Islam. It didn't take long for the West to catch up and it all went downhill after that.

They had the best bureaucratic order and most advanced economic concepts. — Athena

It did not happen out of the blue though. It was all borrowed from the Greeks, Persians, and others. And there was a gradual transition (and learning) phase.

When Muslim Arabs conquered Christian countries like Syria, Egypt, etc., that had been part of the Byzantine Empire, they took over the entire administrative apparatus sometimes complete with Christian officials.

The same applies to architects, scientists, philosophers, artists, military leaders, etc. They did not disappear, they simply adopted Arab names and language and carried on as normal until they were gradually replaced with Muslims.

Who, pray tell, are these thinkers who assume Socrates was a secret atheist? — Valentinus

I don't know of any such thinkers.

That was precisely my point - as far as I am aware there is no popular or scholarly tradition according to which Socrates was an atheist.

Therefore, if he was an atheist, he must have been a secret one. But I have seen no evidence to suggest this.

There is an endless row of examples from human culture where one person's bad is another person's good. — baker

Correct. But this is what examination of one's thoughts, words, and actions is for.

Can we be reasonably sure that he wouldn't support Trump? Or Hitler? Remember, in ancient Greece, they practiced selective infanticide; unfit or unwanted babies were removed from society. And that was deemed good. — baker

Perhaps we can't be sure that he wouldn't. But we can't be sure that he would either. Personally, I doubt that Plato would have supported Hitler or Stalin. None of them sounds like the ideal philosopher-king to me. Besides, this is all speculation.

Selective infanticide was practiced in Ancient Greece? So, female infanticide is not practiced in Modern India? And abortion is not being practiced all over the world?

You could be right there. In any case, he seems to be holding some interesting and intriguing views, especially in the eyes of moderns who are unfamiliar with the religious beliefs and customs of Ancient Greece. So, I thought this discussion might throw some light on it and maybe provide some new insights.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST SOCRATES’ ATHEISM

Socrates was tried and sentenced to death by taking poison for “morally corrupting the youth” and for “impiety toward the Gods”.

With regard to religion, the exact charges reportedly were:

He does not believe in the gods the state believes in, but in other new spiritual beings (Pl. Apol. 24b-c)

His adversaries had charged him with not believing in the gods worshipped by the state and with the introduction of new deities in their stead (Xen. Apol. 10)

And Socrates’ own statement:

For he says I am a maker of gods; and because I make new gods (kainoi Theoi) and do not believe in the old ones (Pl. Euthyph. 3b)

Socrates’ main accusers were Anytus and Meletus who represented groups of people that held a grudge against Socrates. Anytus was a wealthy and powerful Athenian politician from a family of wealthy tanners, who had been angered by Socrates’ remarks about famous men being unable to teach virtue to their sons (Meno 94e), and by Socrates’ advice not to let his son follow a career in the family trade (Xen. Apol. 29).

Anytus is also said to have initiated the corruption of the judiciary by bribing the jury in a court case brought against him for a military fiasco in which he lost the city of Pylos (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 27).

According to Hermogenes who was present at Socrates' trial:

The Athenian courts have often been carried away by an eloquent speech and have condemned innocent men to death, and often on the other hand the guilty have been acquitted either because their plea aroused compassion or because their speech was witty (Xen. Apol. 5)

It can be seen from this that the fact that Socrates was indicted, tried, and found guilty, does not necessarily mean that he was guilty as charged.

If Socrates had simply been a known atheist, then (a) he would not have been allowed to preach his views for many years (he was in fact taken to court late in his life and by people who clearly had a grudge against him), and (b) it would have been in the prosecution’s interest to make his alleged atheism part of their case.

In Xenophon’s Apology, Socrates himself states after the trial that “the witnesses were instructed that they must bear false witness against me, perjuring themselves to do so” (24).

Socrates knew many people and likely had reliable information to make such a claim.

In addition, there seems to be no independent tradition according to which Socrates was an atheist.

This suggests that the charge of atheism may not be as credible as it seems.

Is there any positive evidence to indicate that he was not an atheist?

1. The accusation of “making new Gods” may itself be such an indication. Making Gods does not necessarily mean inventing non-existent entities. Artisans in Ancient Greece made images or statues of Gods in whom they actually believed. Following ceremonial dedication, a statue was treated as if living and was inhabited by the deity during epiphany. Similarly, when the Israelites made a gold image of a calf which they worshiped, as described in Exodus, they did not invent the deity, they simply made a religious representation of it (possibly under Canaanite or Egyptian influence). Socrates himself did not make concrete images but he made literary images in his speeches about demons, Cosmic Gods, and Forms, i.e., entities he apparently believed in.

In a speech about Socrates in Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades compares him with a Silenius statue full of words that are like divine images that mesmerize the audience like the song of a Siren, Alcibiades himself feeling left “in a condition of a common slave”:

Whether anyone else has caught him in a serious moment and opened him, and seen the images inside, I know not; but I saw them one day, and thought them so divine and golden, so perfectly fair and wondrous, that I simply had to do as Socrates bade me (Sym. 216e-217a)

It is not difficult to see how speeches about Socrates’ Siren-like words being like “divine images” that captivated the minds of younger men, could inspire rumors of his “corrupting the youth by making new Gods”.

2. During trial, Meletus claims that Socrates does not believe in the Sun and Moon or any other deities.

However, Socrates first points out that (a) the claim that the Sun and Moon are stone and earth is Anaxagoras’, not his own and (b) that his alleged disbelief in any deities contradicts the original claim that he believes in new Gods:

I am glad that I have extracted that answer, by the assistance of the court; nevertheless you swear in the indictment that I teach and believe in divine or spiritual agencies (new or old, no matter for that); at any rate, I believe in spiritual agencies, as you say and swear in the affidavit; but if I believe in divine beings, I must believe in spirits or demigods; - is not that true? Yes, that is true, for I may assume that your silence gives assent to that. Now what are spirits or demigods? are they not either gods or the sons of gods? Is that true?

[Jury] Yes, that is true.

But this is just the ingenious riddle of which I was speaking: the demigods or spirits are gods, and you say first that I don't believe in gods, and then again that I do believe in gods; that is, if I believe in demigods.

Indeed, in the Phaedo, Socrates recounts to his friends how he had long distanced himself from Anaxagoras’ materialist teachings that he found unsatisfactory and disappointing (Phaedo 98b-c).

He now says:

At any rate, I believe in spiritual agencies, as you say and swear in the affidavit; but if I believe in divine beings, I must believe in spirits or demigods; - is not that true?
[Jury] Yes, that is true (Apology)

3. Socrates’ statement that he believes in spiritual entities is consistent with numerous other statements in the Phaedo, Gorgias, Republic, etc. For example, he says that the soul is immortal and that those who believe this and care for their soul should take his account of afterlife or something like it as true (Phaedo 114d). He says that he is convinced of divine judgement after death and urges all men to join him in this belief in order to save themselves in the other world (Gorgias 526e). He repeats this in the Republic (621c), etc.

4. According to his own statement at trial, Socrates took part in public sacrifices to the Gods:

One thing that I marvel at in Meletus, gentlemen, is what may be the basis of his assertion that I do not believe in the gods worshiped by the state; for all who have happened to be near at the time, as well as Meletus himself,—if he so desired, — have seen me sacrificing at the communal festivals and on the public altars … For it has not been shown that I have sacrificed to new deities in the stead of Zeus and Hera and the gods of their company, or that I have invoked ill oaths or mentioned other gods. (Xen. Apol. 11, 25)

In Memorabilia, Xenophon states that Socrates always offered sacrifices at home and at public temple altars (1.1.2), suggesting that it is hard to believe that someone who devoutly performs religious rites does not believe in the Gods in whose honor he performs the rites.

5. This, and other instances throughout Plato’s dialogues seem to be inconsistent with atheism. For example:

Socrates tells Critias to carry on his discourse by invoking the aid of Apollo and the Muses (108c).

Socrates prays to the Cosmos (as a God) to grant them the knowledge to provide a truthful account (106b).

Socrates invokes the aid of the Muses in making his first speech on love (Phaedr. 237a)

Socrates refers to the Sun as “one of the Gods in heaven” (Rep. 508a).

Socrates is said to have prayed to the Sun at sunrise after a long contemplation (Symp. 220d).

6. In Apology, Socrates concludes his address to the jury with the following statements:

But you also, judges, must regard death hopefully and must bear in mind this one truth, that no evil can come to a good man either in life or after death, and God does not neglect him (41c-d).

I go to die, and you to live; but which of us goes to the better lot, is known to none but God (42a).

On balance, Socrates seems to hold religious beliefs that are similar to those of Athens’ intellectual classes. Yes, he does advocate examination of one’s beliefs in general, which is only natural as he believes in intelligence and knowledge, but he does not seem to advocate that people discard all their religious beliefs.

In particular, Socrates does seem to connect wisdom with some spiritual or divine agency. Even his own quest for wisdom is said to have been prompted by a statement attributed to the God Apollo.

More generally, what we must not overlook is that religious beliefs were quite common among ancient philosophers, and it seems unwarranted to assume that they, and Socrates, were secret atheists.

Further reading:

Mark L. McPherran, The Religion of Socrates
Darrel Jackson, “The Prayers of Socrates”
James A. Notopoulos, “Socrates and the Sun”

Yes, if Platonism believes in eternal truths like the Forms, then it is incompatible with materialism and naturalism.

There was a popular 1960's book about Tibetan Buddhism 'liberation through knowing the One Mind', but it was by a Californian theosophist who never set foot in Tibet. Such ideas are very easily misconstrued — Wayfarer

I think Theosophy was responsible for a lot of confusion which is not surprising as it was invented by Blavatsky and promoted by subversive elements like Annie Besant for their own agendas. When genuine spirituality is in decline, it creates a vacuum that impostors rush to fill ....

This in turn gave rise to "Transcendental Meditation" and other fraudulent New Age projects promoted by the hippy movement that developed around the belief in drug-induced "shortcuts to enlightenment".

Some books says that Plato thinks that we are all born with the Forms from the past life. We never learn new things. The knowledge is all in the mind and forms already with us, and we just retrieve them. — Corvus

Correct. This is Plato's Theory of Recollection (anamnesis) according to which souls having lived before and having experienced the Forms, have latent knowledge of them, which knowledge can be retrieved through recollection.

Plato introduces this in the Meno and Phaedo:

“What you think,” he [Socrates] asked, “about the argument in which we said that learning is recollection and that, since this is so, our soul must necessarily have been somewhere before it was imprisoned in the body?”
“I,” said Cebes, “was wonderfully convinced by it at the time and I still believe it more firmly than any other argument.”
“And I too,” said Simmias, “feel just as he does, and I should be much surprised if I should ever think differently on this point (91e-92a)”

As related in the Timaeus, in the beginning God created the Cosmos as a living being endowed with a soul and reason. He next created the Cosmic Gods, i.e., the Earth, Sun, Moon, Stars and other heavenly bodies as living creatures, from whom were born Cronos and Rhea, Zeus and Hera, and the other Gods:

Wherefore, as a consequence of this reasoning and design on the part of God, with a view to the generation of Time, the Sun and Moon and five other stars, which bear the appellation of “planets,” came into existence for the determining and preserving of the numbers of Time. And when God had made the bodies of each of them He placed them in the orbits along which the revolution of the Other was moving, seven orbits for the seven bodies. The Moon He placed in the first circle around the Earth, the Sun in the second above the Earth; and the Morning Star and the Star called Sacred to Hermes He placed in those circles which move in an orbit equal to the Sun in velocity, but endowed with a power contrary thereto; whence it is that the Sun and the Star of Hermes and the Morning Star regularly overtake and are overtaken by one another. As to the rest of the stars, were one to describe in detail the positions in which He set them, and all the reasons therefore, the description, though but subsidiary, would prove a heavier task than the main argument which it subserves. Later on, perhaps, at our leisure these points may receive the attention they merit. So when each of the bodies whose co-operation was required for the making of Time had arrived in its proper orbit; and when they had been generated as living creatures, having their bodies bound with living bonds, and had learnt their appointed duties … Thus He spake, and once more into the former bowl, wherein He had blended and mixed the Soul of the Universe, He poured the residue of the previous material, mixing it in somewhat the same manner, yet no longer with a uniform and invariable purity, but second and third in degree of purity. And when He had compounded the whole He divided it into souls equal in number to the stars....(38c-41d)

Rather clever them Romans, weren't they? :grin:

Buddhism focuses on how to live wisely, how to achieve mastery over oneself and to conquer fear and overcome suffering to achieve happiness. Christianity on the other hand teaches salvation. — Ross Campbell

I don't think this is entirely correct. Christianity does teach the cultivation of virtues, living a righteous life, etc. :

"For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness" (Matthew 21:32).

"Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come" (Acts 24:25).

Practicing righteousness, wakefulness, watchfulness, discernment, prayer, contemplation, meditation, etc. are all part of the Christian tradition.

Unfortunately, this is no longer taught in the West, as a result of which people tend to turn to Eastern traditions instead and denigrate everything Western ....

The Form was always very tricky part in Plato. — Corvus

Very tricky indeed. But nevertheless essential, I think.

No matter where I looked, the platonic forms were not found. — Corvus

Well, Socrates says:

The man who as far as possible uses his thought in its own right to access each reality, neither adducing the evidence of his sight in his thinking nor bringing any other sense at all along with the reasoning, but using his thought alone by itself and unalloyed, and so attempting to hunt down each real thing alone by itself and unalloyed, separated as far as possible from eyes and ears and virtually from his entire body, for the reason that the body disturbs his soul and, whenever it associates with it, doesn't let it acquire truth and wisdom, is the man who will attain to the knowledge of reality (Phaedo 66a)

You hunt something down by following its tracks until you see it. The tracks of the Forms are the universals, the things whose properties can be perceived in particulars ....

My question is if the reach of language exceeds experience (2nd case above), doesn't this mean experience, all manners of experience, is, for that simple reason, always effable? — TheMadFool

That isn't an entirely bad question. And, of course, we could call the Good, the One, or God a "Quale" if we really wanted to. :smile:

However, my point is that what matters is not to name the object of experience but to experience it. And if we choose to name it, we may equally go for one of the names used by Plato himself (or by later Platonists). "The One" seems fairly neutral (as opposed to "God", for example) and would fit an object of experience of this nature IMO.

The modern translation is ‘intellect’ but it’s a bit starchy to convey the gist. The Wiki entry is a good intro. ‘nous’ is preserved in vernacular English as being cluey or having a kind of insight — Wayfarer

I think "intellect" can be misleading. To understand Plato we need to understand the Greek terms he is using.

The word nous comes from the root gno- (PIE *gneh, “to know”) from which gnoos > noos, and it signifies the knower, i.e., that within us that is aware, knows, and understands.

Therefore:

A. The nous is the knower.
B. The nous is our true self.
C. Being a knower is our natural or true self.
D. Knowledge is of two kinds, of oneself and of things other than oneself.
E. Knowledge of other things is impossible without reference to the knowing self.
F. The highest form of knowledge is self-knowledge.
G. To attain self-knowledge we must rise from objectivity to pure subjectivity.

There are the following levels of awareness:

1. Perceptible object “out there”.
2. Mental image of object.
3. Thought about object.
4. Ideal object conceived in the mind.
5. Form of the object or combination of Forms (Size, Shape, etc.) constituting the ideal object, intuitively grasped by the nous or subject.
6. Nous or subject being aware of itself (pure subjectivity).

As subjectivity refers to the knowing self, we may use the question “Who am I?” which can be answered as follows:

1. (Gazing at the external object): “I am the knower or perceiver of the object”.
2. (Closing the eyes): “I am the knower or perceiver of the image of the object”.
3. (Thinking): “I am the knower of the thoughts about the image”.
4. (Conceiving the ideal object): “I am the knower of the ideal object”.
5. (Contemplating the Forms): “I am the knower of the Forms”.
6. (Contemplating the consciousness from which the Forms arise): “I am that”; “I am myself”; “I am”; “I”, etc.

In this way, we progress from the distant perceptible object "out there" to increasingly closer layers of awareness until awareness itself (or something as close to it as possible) is reached.

Clearly, this requires systematic mental training, that can be a life-long endeavor, in order to reach the final goal. However, a few hours or days of practice should at least give us an idea or intuition of what it is about.

At any rate, if Plato is right about the soul, Forms, the One, etc., then I think this would be one way of testing it for oneself.

Does God being physical/material affect theism in any significant sense? Speaking for myself, I'm totally ok with God being physical. — TheMadFool

I think that "God", if he exists at all, could be anything.

The point is not to decide in advance what ultimate reality is. The point is to have an experience of it.

In the meantime, there can be nothing wrong with referring to it as "the unfathomable, ineffable, One".