Of course I have addressed it. But he insisted that Socrates was tried for atheism. To which I replied that
the charge was "making other new deities" which implies that he believed in those deities in the same way an artisan or sculptor making images of Gods for domestic or temple use would believe in the Gods represented by the images. We are talking about 4th-century BC Athens, not 21st-century Chicago.

However, an Athenian artisan or sculptor who made images of Gods did so because he believed in the Gods represented by the images.

Were this not the case, then all the artisans and sculptors of Greece who made divine images and those who commissioned the images, including the city of Athens itself, would have been atheist liars and frauds pretending to be religious. I think even you can see the absurdity of your claim.

Socrates made literary images of divine beings or metaphysical realities he believed in. Therefore, he was not an atheist. — Apollodorus

This is supported by the Symposium where it is said that Socrates is full of words or speeches that are like divine images fashioned by artisans. Thus, not "inventions", but literary images of metaphysical realities that Socrates and others believed in.

What is the point in Fooloso4 saying "Socrates and Plato are not atheists" and at the same time saying "Socrates was tried for atheism," "Plato banishes the Gods," etc., etc. and calling people names when they disagree?

I have already discussed Plato's use of myths. — Fooloso4

This isn't about Plato's use of myths. It is about your claim that Socrates at 114d is telling his friends that "one should “sing incantations to himself, over and over again”, which is not true.

And you can't infer from it that he is telling them myths, i.e., lies.

I think that's a reference to 'mantrayana', repetition of a sacred word of phrase — Wayfarer

The verb is ἐπαείδω epaeido “sing to someone as to soothe him” which is the same verb used at 77e in the sense of “sing someone’s fear away”:

https://lsj.gr/wiki/%E1%BC%90%CF%80%CE%B1%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%B4%CF%89

If it is a "mantra", what exactly would the "sacred word or phrase" be at 114d, 77e, etc?

That is a more "Straussian" perspective than I take. The esoteric versus exoteric argument relates to political arguments about an "intellectual" aristocracy. Strauss also is not a "secularist" that in your other writings are identified as "Marxist." — Valentinus

Well, I've been accused of being an "evangelist", "Christian Neo-Platonist", and many other things which are totally untrue. So, I'm not the only one doing that.

Besides, it seems that you haven't followed the discussion. I was citing Solmsen who I believe is a more reliable scholar than Strauss.

Solmsen shows how the emergence of an intellectual class in Plato’s time had resulted in religious beliefs becoming a subject of philosophical discussion.

But the trend to question religion was accompanied by an opposite trend (in addition to allegorical interpretations) to present arguments and theories as a theoretical foundation for theology, thus not to deconstruct religion but to reinforce it with the help of reason. — Apollodorus

I don't understand your passion to have the last word on the subject. If the meaning has been completely worked out, there is no need to read texts themselves. It is like an Hegelian synthesis that puts the pin into the last butterfly of a species. When you see an argument, the first thing you do is google who is against it. It is all dead for you. — Valentinus

I have no such passion whatsoever. It is an ongoing discussion, isn't it???

Yes, I did google Strauss after Fooloso4 claimed he is a leading scholar of Plato whom he follows and after noticing that he is not mentioned by other scholars like Gerson.

Fooloso4 is accusing me of reading Plato through "Neo-Platonist" eyes, but he appeals to Strauss who looks at Plato through the eyes of al-Farabi and Ben Maimon.

And Fooloso4 did suggest that Socrates was an atheist and that Plato "banished the Gods":

In the Republic he banishes the gods from the just city and replaces them with Forms — Fooloso4

This is not true. Plato only banishes poets and artists who make irreverent references about the Gods. This isn't the same as "banishing the Gods". Plato certainly doesn't banish God. So, if anything, he replaces the Gods with one supreme and transcendent Deity. But he does believe in heavenly bodies as Gods, so he doesn't banish God or Gods as such. As Solmsen and others point out, Plato is a religious reformer, not an atheist.

Incidentally, Socrates does not say "one should sing incantations to himself, over and over again".

The text simply says "There is a need to sing such things to oneself (as to soothe oneself)".

This clearly indicates Socrates' intention to soothe or comfort his friends, not to tell them myths or lies.

The second allows the dialogues to open up, to give a view of a complex terrain of interrelated questions and problems, or in some cases leading the reader into a labyrinth, and in all cases aporia. — Fooloso4

Well, that's exactly where the problem lies. You are not "allowing the dialogue to open up" at all. You are reading things into it that are simply not there. You are building a Straussian labyrinth (or rabbit hole) and jump right into it and expect others to follow you.

These are your own statements from page 12, are they not?

Immediately following this story Socrates says:

No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places … (114d)

Myths do not reveal the truth. And yet Socrates tells them myths. They are not a substitute for arguments, but argument has its limits. Simmias was not fully convinced by Socrates’ arguments. He was no longer distrustful of the arguments, but still has some lingering distrust within himself. (107b) Throughout the dialogue Socrates has referred to myth as a means of self-persuasion. Here again he says that one should “sing incantations to himself, over and over again”(114d)
....
Socrates seems to have persuaded himself and wants to persuade others that what is best is to be persuaded that what is is best. — Fooloso4

From what I see, your statement suggests that (1) Socrates is "telling them myths" and (2) has "persuaded himself and wants to persuade others".

But what he actually says is:

"... this or something like it is true concerning our souls and their abodes, since the soul is shown to be immortal..."

Besides, if Socrates' intention is to comfort his friends, why would he tell them at the very end "actually, all this is just a myth"?

It makes no sense whatsoever. And he does not say so.

But of course,the top boys think they are all "gods"in the making or actually "gods"....
Just witness modern culture... — Protagoras

Correct. People forget that politics is about power. Some "celebrities" imagine that because they have a few thousand followers they can run for the White House. Allegedly, this is because they want "to change the world", but in reality it is just a big power-motivated ego-trip.

Everyone thinks they are or should be "gods," which is why they dismiss Plato's teaching according to which becoming godlike involves cultivation of virtues and arduous intellectual training and, above all, self-discipline and self-control as well as detachment from material things and everything else that it takes to overcome selfishness, narcissism and arrogance.

Maybe this is why some are against religion, because religion believes in a higher authority and puts would-be "gods" in their places. And this is why they hate Socrates and Plato ....

we must follow the argument wherever, like a wind, it may lead us (Republic 394d) — Fooloso4

But you are quoting that out of context, aren't you? Socrates was obviously talking about rational, evidence-based argument, not evidence-free speculation.

To say "Socrates says 'one must chant such things to oneself' (Phaedo 114d), therefore he indicates that he is telling myths or lies" is not really rational, evidence-based argument. It is evidence-free speculation just like your other claims about the immortality of soul, etc.

As you can see, your speculation is blatantly contradicted by Socrates' own statement to the effect that "this is the reason why a man should be confident about his own soul".

And I'm sure his models were used by the later Greeks and Romans as you say — Protagoras

Apparently, even by the British:

“These differences of opinion on economic matters within the Group did not disrupt the Group, because it was founded on political rather than economic ideas and its roots were to be found in ancient Athens rather than in modern Manchester. The Balliol generation, from Jowett and Nettleship, and the New College generation, from Zimmern, obtained an idealistic picture of classical Greece which left them nostalgic for the fifth century of Hellenism and drove them to seek to reestablish that ancient fellowship of intellect and patriotism in modern Britain. The funeral oration of Pericles became their political covenant with destiny. Duty to the state and loyalty to one's fellow citizens became the chief values of life. But, realizing that the jewel of Hellenism was destroyed by its inability to organize any political unit larger than a single city, the Milner Group saw the necessity of political organization in order to insure the continued existence of freedom and higher ethical values and hoped to be able to preserve the values of their day by organizing the whole world around the British Empire.”

– Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment

According to Quigley, the Milner Group was a group of liberal imperialist bankers, industrialists, and intellectuals, who were behind the conversion of the British Empire into the Commonwealth. Obviously, the Greek model suited their purposes.

But Strauss himself was an elitist who believed that only would-be philosophers like himself and his disciples were in possession of truth and everyone else were inferior human material.

So, basically, Strauss aimed to replace religion with another, belief-based system founded on atheist political theory. This is why he stressed Plato’s political philosophy and ignored or ridiculed his metaphysical and religious teachings.

But maybe Fooloso4 knows more about Strauss as he seems to be an unrepentant believer in Straussianism.

I think you got it all wrong. As I said, I'm here to learn.

And what I've learned from your comments is that Straussian esotericism isn't always the best approach to reading Plato.

There is a limit to how much you can reasonably read into a passage or text without running the risk of leaving evidence and reason behind and going down an endless rabbit hole from where it may be difficult to retrieve a sense of reality.

Sometimes it seems more prudent to just adhere to a prima facie reading than insisting on evidence-free interpretation and wild speculation that doesn't lead anywhere.

The Iranian example is a good one. But I think plato would have wanted a more expansionist version. Like the US or the UK. — Protagoras

That is entirely possible. After all, the Greeks had colonies throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea region. So, there was a lot of potential for Greece to become a maritime empire like England.

Perhaps Alexander's father Philip II already harbored some ambitions in this direction, and certainly Alexander himself set out to create an empire.

But I think the main element in Greek imperialism was cultural and Platonism played a central role in it, precisely because it appealed to many different people and especially to the ruling upper classes. All Greek (and later Roman) rulers fancied themselves philosophers and I'm sure Plato's idea of "philosopher-kings" had something to do with this.

This is one of the reasons China is boycotting Australian wine, barley and other products - they're really trying to make an example of Australia. — Wayfarer

I think this highlights the dangers of being too close to an increasingly assertive and aggressive China. People are taken in by cheap Chinese products and other benefits of economic cooperation but they forget that China is a dictatorship with many similarities to the National Socialist Germany of the 1930's

As I said, Plato's political theory may be interpreted in many different ways. It may be argued that he advocated a form of theocracy. But we must not forget that religion already played an important role in the Athenian city-state. So, the Athenian system wasn't too far from theocracy.

The thing is that "theocracy" means different things to different people at different times. Perhaps one example of modern theocracy would be Iran. Apparently, Ayatollah Khomeini was inspired by the Platonic vision of the philosopher king while in Qum in the 1920s when he became interested in Islamic mysticism and Plato's Republic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher_king#Modern_Iran

But, yes. It is totally wrong to portray Socrates as an ignoramus and then put all kinds of "atheist" or "skeptical" theories into his mouth as anti-Platonists do. He definitely sounds like a spiritual person to me and this has been pointed out by many respected scholars like A. E. Taylor.

And that is what strauss picks up — Protagoras

Of course he does, he was a political scientist.

However, Plato's politics has been interpreted in many different and mutually contradictory ways. To some he was a "communist", to others he was a "reactionary", etc. So, this is a matter of debate.

But the main point is that it is very difficult to interpret Plato's philosophy as "atheism" or "skepticism".

Certainly, we can't say "Socrates says he knows nothing", "Socrates hasn't seen the Forms", etc., and then read all kinds of spurious theories into it as Fooloso4 seems to be doing.

What matters to you is defending your Christian neoplatonist reading of Plato. — Fooloso4

Totally wrong. I am simply presenting the position of scholars and explaining why Strauss does not demonstrate that Plato is an atheist, as you yourself have admitted.

You keep forgetting that Strauss is a political philosopher with controversial views, not a scholar of Plato.

As already stated, the facts of the matter are as follows:

1. You have admitted that Socrates does not deny the existence of the Gods:

Socrates does not explicitly deny the existence of gods, — Fooloso4

2. You also have admitted that Strauss did not demonstrate that Plato was an atheist:

Of course he did not demonstrate that! — Fooloso4

3. And you have failed to demonstrate that either Plato or Socrates was an atheist.

So, basically, (1) you are denying the facts, (2) you are contradicting yourself, and (3) you call people "Christian neoplatonists" for pointing this out.

I think the main issue is what Plato's own intention was.

I tend to believe that he wrote for educated intellectuals, i.e., a relatively small social and economic class who, as stated above, included philosophers with an interest in religion and religious people with an interest in philosophy.

This was the appeal of Platonism: (1) on one level it allowed the masses to preserve their religion, (2) on a higher level it provided intellectuals with a philosophy that at the same time was a theology, and (3) on the highest level it provided mystics with a philosophical and theological framework for their own spiritual practices.

So, yes, Plato's philosophy is certainly suitable for mystics.

From accounts about Socrates it may be inferred that he was a kind of mystic or contemplative, who had little interest in mainstream religion or politics.

I do agree. I was just trying to explain what the Straussian position taken by Fooloso4 is and why I believe it is wrong.

The point I was making earlier in my reply to Fooloso4 was:

I think you are using the wrong translation.

Socrates says:
“… when death attacks the human being, the mortal part of him dies, it seems, whereas the immortal part departs intact and undestroyed, and is gone, having retreated from death […] And so, more surely than anything, Cebes, soul is immortal and imperishable, and all our souls really will exist in Hades” 106e -107a

Cebes replies :
“For my part, Socrates, I’ve nothing else to say against this, nor can I doubt the arguments in any way”. 107a

Simmias agrees, but still has some doubts:
“… I’m compelled still to keep some doubt in my mind about what has been said” 107b

Socrates has the final word:
“As it is, however, since the soul is evidently immortal, it could have no means of safety or of escaping evils, other than becoming both as good and as wise as possible”

Concerning the myth he tells of Hades, Socrates says:
“… since the soul turns out to be immortal, I think that for someone who believes this to be so it is both fitting and worth the risk – for fair is the risk – to insist that either what I have said or something like it is true concerning our souls and their dwelling places” 114d

For some strange reason you keep leaving out "However, since the soul turns out to be immortal". — Apollodorus

And, as explained on the other thread, given that Socrates used his account of immortality and afterlife to comfort his friends, it makes no sense to interpret his expression "one must chant this to oneself" to mean that everything is just a myth. On the contrary, its only logical meaning is "keep saying it to yourself", i.e., "believe it and take comfort in it". This was Socrates' last instruction to his followers.

But, like everyone else here, I do my best to understand and I am, of course, willing to be corrected and instructed in the actual truth.

The neoplatonists are really platonists. Maybe those who got disillusioned with official politics or were more inclined to study and mysticism. — Protagoras

As shown by Gerson and others, some modifications in Platonic philosophy did take place in the course of history, but Platonism (including so-called "Neo-Platonism") is built on core features found in the Platonic corpus and is sufficiently consistent with Plato to qualify as Platonic.

In any case, Straussianism does not demonstrate anti-Platonist claims such as that Plato was an "atheist" or even a "skeptic".

Even as political philosophy, Straussianism has received justified criticism, e.g. :

“The most serious consequences of this [Strauss’s] essentialist political philosophy are: (1) it is egocentric and thus self-refuting as a political philosophy and (2) it is too scholastic a quietism to be directly relevant to political life despite Strauss’s own claim to the contrary” – H. Y. Jung, “Leo Strauss’s Conception of Political Philosophy: A Critique”.

More to the point, Straussianism is not a scientifically valid method of interpretation. It is more like a nihilist belief system based on a set of assumptions that are accepted as a matter of faith and whose conclusions remain unproved.

Tellingly, Straussianism’s central thesis is also its most controversial claim:

“The most controversial claim Strauss made was that philosophers in the past used an “art of writing” to entice potential philosophers to begin a life of inquiry by following the hints the authors gave about their true thoughts and questions” - Catherine H. Zuckert

Where did Strauss get his idea from?

“Recent works on Strauss have emphasized the way Strauss’s readings in al-Farabi and Maimonides influenced his “exoteric writing” thesis” – B. A. Wurgaft

Having borrowed his idea from Maimonides and al-Farabi (who lived in Muslim-occupied Spain), Strauss applied this to his reading of Plato:

“Having discovered the idea of esoteric writing in his study of Maimonides, Strauss arrived at a very novel reading of Plato. When reflecting on the esoteric writing style of Plato, instead of focusing on the confrontation between philosophy and revealed religion, Strauss found a tension between open philosophical inquiry and the needs of a closed political community … This tension between political life and philosophy led Plato to use the dialogue form, embellished by myths, as his distinctive mode of speech” - G B Smith

What else does this tell us aside from implying that Plato’s main interest in life was politics?

“Strauss leaves us with a picture of Plato, as a questioning skeptic, which points forward to the modern interpreter rather than backward. Strauss’s publicized turning back to antiquity was largely about reading eighteenth-century rationalism back into ancient texts” – Paul Gottfried

So, Strauss’s methodology does not seem to be quite kosher?

“Straussianism, from the founder onward, is dubious as a methodology” – Paul Gottfried

In fact, Strauss’s methodology is not only dubious but it fails to answer any philosophical questions whatsoever:

“[Strauss] has laid out the modern crisis so boldly and analyzed its main forms so thoroughly and he has taught us how to read the classic texts to grasp the problem of natural right. Yet, just when the issues are joined so forcefully, he fails to give an answer …. In Natural Right and History Strauss argues that classical natural right is superior to modern natural rights, but he nowhere shows how classic natural right is anything more than rhetoric … Nowhere does Strauss provide solutions to, or show how Plato or Aristotle provided solutions to, fundamental epistemological problems found in Plato's own work. Nowhere does he engage Aristotle's metaphysics or biology in search of natural right, in the way that Aristotle himself might have done. Nowhere does he seriously engage the nature of the physical cosmos. On his own view, philosophy must aspire to and thus assume a comprehensive account of the whole. But to invoke the whole--a cosmos--immediately raises the question of the grounds on which we can assume that whole to be intelligible. Such a move, of course, leads to classic natural theology, which Strauss studiously ignores … as a teaching about wisdom, about the very highest things, the Straussian secret is ultimately a check drawn on an empty account” – Richard Sherlock

So Strauss’s project is more rhetoric than philosophy. Not surprisingly, his work has been largely ignored by scholars:

“[Strauss’s] books and papers are freely available on the side of the Atlantic from which I write, but Strauss has no discernible influence in Britain at all” – M. F. Burnyeat

“Strauss’s works on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, to a significant degree, have been ignored by the scholarly community” – Gregory Bruce Smith

So, what is Straussianism for?

“What most (albeit not all) Straussians do in academic positions is try to enforce political dogmas, partly by getting rid of critics and installing fellow-Straussians ….” – Paul Gottfried

Does this mean that Straussianism is a kind of academic cult with a political agenda?

“He [Strauss] alone among eminent refugee intellectuals succeeded in attracting a brilliant galaxy of disciples who created an academic cult around his teaching” – Lewis Coser

“I submit in all seriousness that surrender of the critical intellect is the price of initiation into the world of Leo Strauss’s ideas” – M. F. Burnyeat

So, is Strauss a philosopher at all?

In Strauss’s own words, “We cannot be philosophers, but we can love philosophy; we can try to philosophize.”

Here are some of Strauss’s pseudo-philosophical techniques and statements:

He begins with an inference from literary form. Plato wrote dialogues, i.e., dramas in prose. Therefore, the utterances of Socrates or any other character in a Platonic dialogue are like the utterances of Macbeth: they do not necessarily express the thought of the author. Like Shakespeare, “Plato conceals his opinions.”

Strauss paraphrases the text in tedious detail - or so it appears to the uninitiated reader - occasionally remarking that a certain statement is not clear; he notes that the text is silent about a certain matter; he wonders whether such and such can really be the case. With a series of scarcely perceptible nudges he gradually insinuates that the text is insinuating something quite different from what the words say.
For example, he attempts to show that Plato’s Republic means the opposite of what it means (and sometimes the opposite of what he himself says it means, vide supra, Ferrari).

He simply pronounces Plato’s Theory of Forms “utterly incredible”.

He offers no evidence for the accuracy of his readings.

Readers have to accept Strauss’s account of “the wisdom of the ancients” as correct, by believing that “the considerate few have imperturbably conveyed to their readers an eloquence of articulate silences and pregnant indications.”

By way of “answers”, he keeps repeating the mantra “we are prisoners of our opinions”.

So, it appears that Strauss’s claim that Plato and other philosophers used rhetorical stratagems including self-contradiction and hyperboles, to convey a secret meaning, applies in the first instance to Strauss himself.

But, whilst Plato allegedly uses rhetoric to say things he does not appear to be saying, Strauss often says little in order to say nothing: thirteen out of the fifteen chapters of his last book, Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy do not deal with works by Plato!

- Burnyeat, “Sphinx Without a Secret”

Having suggested that Plato’s works are motivated by political concerns, Strauss says that the Laws is Plato’s “most political” work and that “it may be said to be his only political work.”

“In the chapter on Book Nine [of the Laws, Strauss indicates that Book 10 is philosophic because it takes up “the problem of the gods,” but when he turns to Book 10 he does not specifically identify the problem that he has in mind.”

“Strauss says that the Laws is Plato’s most pious work without identifying what makes it most pious and without explaining if there is any connection between its political character and its surpassing piety” – Mark J. Lutz, “On Leo Strauss’s The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws”, Brill’s Companion to Leo Strauss’ Writings on Classical Political Thought

For the above reasons, Straussianism’s credibility and authority among scholars of Plato is close to zero.

Far from refuting the Platonists' position, Straussianism's reading of Plato actually reinforces it, showing it to be more consistent and more faithful to the original texts.

As previously stated, paradise being the ultimate goal of Christian religion and philosophy, it may be useful to see how beliefs about paradise can be analyzed in philosophical terms.

Questions about human life in paradise that span the spectrum of the major subfields of philosophical inquiry, include:

Will human persons in paradise be infallible or omniscient?
Which virtues might they possess, and will they grow in their possession of virtue?
What does justice require regarding who inhabits paradise?
How can bodily resurrection be secured?
What sort of free will might inhabitants of paradise possess?
Would the life of paradise be good or desirable?

Paradise Understood: New Philosophical Essays about Life in Heaven

But I would say that traditional descriptions of paradise also need to be taken into account.

The ancient Egyptians believed that the soul resides in the heart and so, upon death, each human heart is weighed on a giant scale against Righteousness (Maat, represented by an ostrich feather). The righteous souls who balance the scales are allowed to proceed on the journey to the Field of Reeds, where they will enjoy a happy existence for all eternity. Souls burdened by evil tip and fall into the jaws of death (represented by a crocodile-like demon), after which they are doomed to a restless life in the underworld. Paradise was usually located in the east where the Sun rises and described as boundless reed fields, like those of the earthly Nile Delta, or a series of islands covered in fields of rushes.

Aaru - Wikipedia

Greek religion had a rather similar conception of paradise, with a judgement taking place after death, following which righteous souls enjoyed a happy existence in paradise whereas the unrighteous were condemned to a shadowy life in the underworld. Interestingly, the Greek paradise was located in the Elysian Fields or Isles of the Blessed in the western ocean at the edge of the world, i.e., where the sun sets, not in the east where the sun rises as in Egyptian tradition.

In any case, the Greek paradise is described as a place abounding in shady trees watered by pure streams, where the blessed enjoyed musical and other pleasant pastimes. The Greek word πᾰρᾰ́δεισος paradeisos which was used in the Greek version of the OT for the Garden of Eden, is of Persian origin and referred to a green park or pleasure-ground as those maintained by Persian kings.

So, the Greek paradise seems to be a blend of several traditions, and the same seems to apply to paradise in the Jewish tradition according to which the righteous will be seated at golden tables and take part in food, drink, and other enjoyments (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anith 25a, Kethuboth 77b, Berakoth 57b).

The Islamic paradise seems to follow the same pattern and, interestingly, the Koran in addition to Arabic janna also uses the term فِرْدَوْس firdaws which is the same as Greek paradeisos but apparently is borrowed directly from Persian, which again, suggests a blend of traditions that were dominant in the Mid East at the time.

In Christianity, paradise appears to be treated somewhat differently. Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43) and NT descriptions of afterlife evoke the image of a wedding feast (parables in Matt 22:2 – 14 and 25:1 – 13). Similar statements include “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God” (Luke 14:15) and “Many will come from the east and the west and shall sit down (at table) in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 8:11).

St Paul is a bit of a spoilsport by appearing to contradict this by stating that “the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink”, and St Augustine (City of God) follows Paul by rejecting the popular view of paradise where souls participate in various forms of enjoyment. Though he refuses to explain his reasons.

My personal feeling is that both Paul and Augustine are hiding something. In the first place, paradise is, by definition, a place of happiness. As suggested by Paul, there is a hierarchy of heavens and this logically implies a hierarchy of happy experiences. This makes it probable that, depending on individual spiritual development and needs, ordinary souls may indulge in ordinary enjoyments such as food and drink, whereas the more evolved ones would engage in more intellectually and spiritually satisfying activities such as philosophizing, singing hymns, meditating, etc.

Of particular interest in my view would be conversing with Angels. (And seeing if Socrates, Plato, and other prominent philosophers are there, too).

One of the criticisms of Strauss is that he not only believes in the esotericism and “hidden meaning” of ancient authors but he himself practices this esotericism in his own writing.

Strauss’s writing is a form of schizoid argumentation designed not to elucidate anything but to get the reader to agree with him and draw him into his cult-like circle of select “thoughtful philosophers”:

“… In general his [Strauss’s] explicit statements about matters of importance cancel each other out. (Plato’s ideal city is in accordance with nature; Plato’s ideal city is against nature.) Questions are asked but not answered, or the answer may not come for many pages, and depend on the recognition of a verbal echo. Unexplained and perplexing transitions may carry the point. Crucial insights are dismissed or float by. A single parenthetical reference to the text under discussion may substitute for an argument; or a long list of references may fail to contain the single most important one … For readers of Plato unwilling or unable to take the bait, there is a more particular cause of exasperation and alarm: Strauss’s belief that in writing as he did was not innovating but following a long tradition of thoughtful writing inaugurated by Plato …” (G. R. F. Ferrari, “Strauss’s Plato”).

For another excellent scholarly refutation of Strauss see:

Mikes F. Burnyeat, “Sphinx without a Secret,”New York Review of Books, May 30 1985.

But to revert to Plato. Plato’s theology is evident from the cosmological and metaphysical elements found in his corpus. There is an extensive literature on Plato’s theology by leading scholars like Sedley, Gerson, and others, for example:

D. Sedley, Plato’s Theology
D. Sedley, Plato’s Timaeus and Hesiod’s Theogony
L. Gerson, From Plato’s Good to Platonic God
P. Panagiotis, Plato’s Theology in the Timaeus
F. Solmsen, Plato’s Theology

Strauss is not normally mentioned in the literature for the simple reason that he is not a scholar of Platonism, in addition to having highly controversial views as well as a controversial methodology, and looking at Plato through the eyes of Ben Maimon and al-Farabi.

Leo Strauss on Farabi, Maimonides, et al. in the 1930’s| SpringerLink

In contrast, Solmsen, who fled Nazi Germany at the same time as Strauss, has a classicist background which makes him a much better source on the subject.

Solmsen shows how the emergence of an intellectual class in Plato’s time had resulted in religious beliefs becoming a subject of philosophical discussion.

But the trend to question religion was accompanied by an opposite trend (in addition to allegorical interpretations) to present arguments and theories as a theoretical foundation for theology, thus not to deconstruct religion but to reinforce it with the help of reason.

Plato’s own work must be seen as part of a wider effort to reform civic religion with the help of new standards drawn from a philosophical and philosophically elaborated system of values:

“Where will Plato take his stand in the battle raging over religion? We cannot as yet tell, though after reading Euthyphro we shall not be surprised to find Plato siding with the reformers of the mythical tradition. It is only in the Republic that Plato definitely joins the ranks of the expurgators and the reformers … Traditional subjects like religion, poetry, music, and gymnastics may retain their place but their content has to be revised, and they will have to be taught in a different spirit” (Solmsen pp. 64 ff.).

F. Solmsen, Plato’s Theology – Internet Archive

The content of Plato’s new religion becomes even more clear from later works like Timaeus and Laws:

“The late Dr. Rashdall once complained, with some reason, that the neglect of the Laws by Oxford teachers of Greek philosophy had done much to blind their pupils to Plato’s sincere and passionate “theism”. If these teachers or their pupils will take the trouble to read these two excellent little books [Solmsen’s Plato’s Theology and Skemp’s Theory of Motion in Plato’s Later Dialogues, the blindness, it may be hoped, will be pretty thoroughly cured” (A. E. Taylor, “Review of Plato’s Theology by F. Solmsen”).

As Taylor put it,

“… we should take note that, though religious faith in God was, of course, no novelty, Theism as a doctrine professing to be capable of scientific demonstration is introduced into philosophy for the first time in this section of the Laws [896e - 898d]. Plato is the creator of “philosophical Theism” (Plato: The Man And His Work, pp. 492-3).

Plato’s immediate successors such as Xenocrates and Philip of Opus acknowledge the theological content of Plato’s teachings, and the dialogues clearly allow the reconstruction of a basic theology in which the World-Soul is the central deity with the Demiurge/the Good also playing a role as I have shown here.

It follows that Plato’s dialogues are not about “atheism”, but religious reform. In fact, as shown by A. E. Taylor, Plato is against atheism:

“Atheism is treated by Plato as identical with the doctrine that the world and its contents, souls included, are the product of unintelligent motions of corporeal elements. Against this theory, he undertakes to demonstrate that all corporeal movements are, in the last resort, causally dependent on “motions” of soul, wishes, plans, purposes, and that the world is therefore the work of a soul or souls, and further that these souls are good, and that there is one ἀρίστη ψιχή, “perfectly good soul,” at their head. He indicates that atheism as an opinion has two chief sources – the corporealism of the early Ionian men of science, who account for the order of nature on purely “mechanical” principles without ascribing anything to conscious plan or design (889a - d), and the sophistic theory of the purely conventional and relative character of moral distinctions (889e - 890a). If these two doctrines are combined, atheism is the result” (p. 490).

Plato was a highly intelligent writer. And the intelligent believe in intelligence and write for the intelligent. The word “theology” theologia which Plato introduces in the Republic (379a) provides a key to the correct understanding of Plato. It is composed of the words theos, “god”, and logos, “word, discussion, study, reason”, therefore it can mean (1) “things said about God/s”, (2) “discussion of God/s” and, significantly, (3) “reason for God/s”.

In other words, Plato created a theology for philosophers that at the same time was a philosophy for the religious. His ideas satisfied both the religious and the philosophers among the intellectual class, while the non-intellectual majority preserved their traditional religion. It was the perfect solution, which is why Platonism became both popular and prestigious, and remained so for many centuries.

As pointed out by Gerson, Platonism was generally accepted by Platonists and scholars alike from antiquity into the 19th century. The Anti-Platonist trend only emerged in the 18oo’s. Some key promoters of this trend are:

Johann Jacob Brucker (Historia Critica Philosophiae, 1742–1744): rejects traditional allegorical interpretations of Plato, but accepts that he taught secret doctrines (without attempting to establish what these were).

Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann (History of Philosophy, 1798 - 1819): denies that Plato was a mystic but promotes esotericism and claims to have discovered Plato’s secret teachings.

Friedrich Schleiermacher (Introduction to Plato’s Dialogues, 1804 - 1828): claims that Plato was a metaphysical agnostic, stating that “In the writings of Plato his own peculiar wisdom is either not contained at all, or only in secret allusions which are difficult to find”.

Paul Shorey (What Plato Said, 1933): follows the one-dialogue-at-a-time method of reading, claiming that “the synopsis of any dialogue can be understood without reference to the others”.

Leo Strauss (1930’s): rejects the traditional view that theory should rule over practice; denies the metaphysical content of the dialogues; extends esotericism into concealed meaning, claiming that all philosophers write under political persecution and present an exoteric teaching available to all readers and an esoteric one that only “thoughtful” and “careful” readers can access by “reading between the lines” in order to extract a political message – giving Ben Maimon as example (Persecution and the Art of Writing, 1952).

In addition to the strange concept of (1) philosophers as persecuted through the ages and (2) philosophy being reduceable to political theory concealed in literary works, there are other issues with Strauss.

For example, “Strauss taught that the only natural human good is the philosophic life of the philosophic few, because he claimed "man's desire to know as his highest natural desire." And only the philosophic few have "the philosophic desire." They are the only ones "by nature fit for philosophy." Consequently, the great multitude of human beings who live non-philosophic but moral lives are "mutilated" human beings, who live lives of "human misery, however splendid" or "despair disguised by delusion." (Strauss, "Reason and Revelation," 146, 149, 176; "Progress or Return?," 122; The City and Man, 53-54.)

Oddly, however, Strauss never offered any demonstrative proof of this strange assertion.”

https://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/2019/07/does-aristotelian-natural-right-require.html

So, elitism may be added to esotericism and antimetaphysics among Strauss’s many strange teachings. And, of course, even the notion that he is “a careful reader” has been disputed as may be seen from the blog above.

But to revert to Plato.

Strauss may or may not be a “careful reader”, but I do believe that Plato is a careful writer. Everything he writes has a purpose.

If “careful reading” leads to dismissal of a large part of the corpus then there must be something wrong with the reading.

It is generally acknowledged that there is substantial metaphysical and theological content in the Platonic corpus.

For example, in the Timaeus, “The heavenly bodies are divine and move in their various orbits to serve as markers of time: the fixed stars to mark a day/night, the moon to mark the (lunar) month and the sun to mark the year. Time itself came into being with these celestial movements as an “image of eternity.” Individual souls are made up of the residue (and an inferior grade) of the soul stuff of the universe, and are eventually embodied in physical bodies. “

Plato’s Timaeus - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

IMHO we can’t just ignore the many references to God/s in the dialogues and claim that “Plato banished the Gods (or God)”. To do so, is not “careful reading” at all, it is ideologically-motivated distortion.

"In the course of recounting his conversations with others, Socrates says something enigmatic: “About myself I knew that I know nothing” (22d; cf. Fine 2008). The context of the dialogue allows us to read this pronouncement as unproblematical. Socrates knows that he does not know about important things. Interpreted in this manner, Socrates does not appear to be a skeptic in the sense that he would profess to know nothing. Even though some readers (ancient and modern) found such an extreme statement in the Apology, a more plausible reading suggests that Socrates advocates the importance of critically examining one’s own and others’ views on important matters, precisely because one does not know about them (Vogt 2012a, ch. 1). Such examination is the only way to find out."

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-ancient/#SkeIdeEarClaGre

The fact that Socrates appears to have some skeptical tendencies does not make him, and even less Plato, a skeptic.

So, it seems that you are buying too much into the "Socratic skepticism" idea and end up constructing and believing your own mythology which you assume to be the "truth".

It is telling that you do not have enough confidence in your own arguments to let them stand, or fall, as the case may be. — Fooloso4

Not at all. I am simply pointing out the inconsistencies in your claims. Isn't this what Socrates does and what philosophical discussion is about?

"So far, you have presented zero evidence for your claim that the Euthyphro or any other dialogue teaches "atheism".
— Apollodorus

That's because I never said that they do. You have a distorted view of what the Socratic teaching is — Fooloso4

You have already admitted that the dialogues do not teach atheism.

If all Socrates does is ask questions and express opinions, then it cannot be inferred from this that Plato was an atheist.

You seem to be cherry-picking Socrates statements and ignore those where he speaks of the soul's immortality or God in positive terms that do not sound like skepticism and even less like atheism.

You are not simply stating that "Socrates is a skeptic". You are saying he is telling myths or lies, therefore anyone who believes in the metaphysical realities discussed by Socrates is a believer in myths or lies.

But you have not demonstrated that this is the case, or even that Socrates is a skeptic. Gerson and other scholars do not believe that Socrates' position, or that of Plato, constitutes skepticism.

So on the one hand we have Socratic skepticism and on the other a mythology posing as truth. — Fooloso4

Skepticism does not equal atheism, either in Socrates' or Plato's case.

So, skepticism may be another "mythology posing as truth".

It follows that Socrates was the prototypical agnostic. — Olivier5

His defense in the Apology was his "human wisdom" his knowledge of his ignorance. — Fooloso4

It is logically possible that Socrates was an agnostic.

As to his "ignorance", it says nothing about his religious beliefs and even less about those of Plato.

I agree with @Bartricks. The statements listed are not arguments and they certainly do not prove that God does not exist, assuming this to be the intention of the thread.

And the other thing is that similar statements can be made about scientific claims without this "disproving" science.

I would be interested in seeing you demonstrate how Strauss came to unsubstantiated conclusions. I don't agree with him on many points but he has read the text carefully. — Valentinus

I said "Straussianism" by which I meant Strauss as applied by his followers like Fooloso4:

Straussianism is not only controversial but positively biased and, as can be seen, can easily lead to unsubstantiated conclusions. — Apollodorus

Fooloso4 claims that Plato is an atheist. But he has failed to demonstrate this and he has admitted that Strauss did not demonstrate that Plato is an atheist either:

Of course he did not demonstrate that! — Fooloso4

By following Strauss, he has arrived at a conclusion that he is unable to prove.

Round and round you go .... — Fooloso4

Well, life tends to be circular and repetitive. We do the same things day after day. The solar system we live in is circular and repetitive with planets constantly going around the Sun, etc.

This is why the Sun is so important. The allegory of the Sun needs to be read carefully and understood properly.

The Republic says:

“Which one can you name of the divinities in heaven as the author and cause of this, whose light makes our vision see best and visible things to be seen?” “Why, the one that you too and other people mean for your question evidently refers to the Sun.” “Is not this, then, the relation of vision to that divinity?” (Rep 508a).

“This [the Sun], then, you must understand that I meant by the offspring of the Good which the Good begot to stand in a proportion with itself: as the Good is in the intelligible region to reason and the objects of reason, so is this [the Sun] in the visible world to vision and the objects of vision.” (Rep 508b - c ).

And the Timaeus:

“Let us now state the Cause wherefore He that constructed it constructed Becoming and the All. He was good, and in him that is good no envy ariseth ever concerning anything; and being devoid of envy He desired that all should be, so far as possible, like unto Himself. This principle, then, we shall be wholly right in accepting from men of wisdom as being above all the supreme originating principle of Becoming and the Cosmos. For God (ὁ θεὸς ho Theos) desired that, so far as possible, all things should be good and nothing evil; wherefore, when He took over all that was visible, seeing that it was not in a state of rest but in a state of discordant and disorderly motion, He brought it into order out of disorder, deeming that the former state is in all ways better than the latter. For Him who is most good it neither was nor is permissible to perform any action save what is most fair" (Tim 29d e)

It is immediately apparent from the text that the Good is compared to the Sun who is a God. So, the analogy equates not only the Sun and the Good as ultimate cause, the former in the realm of the sensible and the latter in the realm of the intelligible, but also as godhead:

1. The Sun is the offspring of the Good.

2. The Maker and Father of the Cosmos (including the Sun) is God.

3. Therefore, the Good is God.

There is just one qualification. Though the text refers to God as “good”, the Good is not God in his totality, but only in his creative aspect that is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe.

Therefore, the Form of good is not God, it is only an Idea or Universal within the mind of God.

It isn’t about my beliefs, but about Plato’s beliefs as expressed in the dialogues. The dialogues must be read through the eyes of a 4th century BC Greek, not through the eyes of al-Farabi, Ibn Sina or Ben Maimon, and even less through the eyes of a Schleiermacher or Strauss.

When carefully read, the Platonic “secrets” mentioned by authors like Ibn Sina, do not refer to atheism but to the divinity of the Cosmos, the essential identity of the soul with the divine, and other things that were unspeakable under strict Islamic rule - as may be seen from the example of al-Hallaj.

IMHO Schleiermacherism and Straussianism, especially when combined, can only lead to nihilism which is diametrically opposed to what Plato teaches.

So, because you are unable to provide evidence for your claims, that makes others "ridiculous"?

I don't think so. :grin:

there was not yet a concept of "free will" in the modern sense. In the modern sense, "free will" is the source of activity in an intentional act. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think many concepts developed by later thinkers are present in the Platonic corpus in seed form and were likely discussed in the Academy:

“For this purpose He has designed the rule which prescribes what kind of character should be set to dwell in what kind of position and in what regions; but the causes of the generation of any special kind he left to the wills of each one of us men. For according to the trend of our desires and the nature of our souls, each one of us generally becomes of a corresponding character”

“And whenever the soul gets a specially large share of either virtue or vice, owing to the force of its own will …” (Laws 904b – d).

If we decide the causes of something and we make moral choices, according to our will then, arguably, there is some form of free will. Exactly how “free” that will is, is another matter.

So, it seems God disapproves of it - disapproves of snooping in that manner (assuming our moral intuitions about this are accurate and thus provide us with insight into God's will). — Bartricks

It may seem so. Provided that God "snoops" in the same way and with the same implications as humans do.

But I'm not sure this has been shown to be the case.

And the issue of omniscience seems to remain unresolved unless we stretch it a tad too far.

If you say so ....

The way I see it, the fundamental problem with using Straussianism to interpret Plato in an anti-Platonist sense, is that Strauss was controversial from the start (in the 1930s) and continues to be controversial even now.

“I do not think Strauss’s influence is as great in this country as some of Burnyeat’s remarks might suggest. It is no more “discernible” in our mainstream scholarship than in that of Britain. (Three good books on Socrates’ political thought have appeared during the last six years, one of them in the UK, two in the US; all three ignore Strauss completely: his name does not appear in their index.)” – Further Lessons of Leo Strauss: An Exchange, The New York Review, April 24 1986

“Strauss’s reading of the Symposium, like his reading of the Republic, is remarkable for its own “demotion of metaphysics” in Plato, and in my concluding remarks, I will question this status, or disappearance, of metaphysics in Strauss’s Platonism … Readers of On Plato’s “Symposium” can be left wondering about how Strauss can metaphilosophically ground his elevated claims on behalf of philosophy versus the poets and to what extent his own work remains a decisively rhetorical or poetic presentation of philosophy.” Matthew Sharpe, The Poetic Presentation of Philosophy: Leo Strauss on Plato’s “Symposium”2013

https://read.dukeupress.edu/poetics-today/article-abstract/34/4/563/21103/The-Poetic-Presentation-of-Philosophy-Leo-Strauss?redirectedFrom=fulltext

“It is hardly a secret that the figure and thought of Leo Strauss continues to provoke impassioned reactions from advocates and critics” J Bernstein 2014

Etc. etc.

So, for nearly a century, Strauss has been controversial and remains so to this day. He is not mainstream at all.

Be that as it may, here is an illustrative example of how Straussian influence can lead to flawed interpretive methodology.

Starting from an anti-metaphysical position, someone may be tempted to claim that Socrates’ statement “you must chant this to yourself” (Phaedo 114d) somehow proves that he is telling lies and, by extension, that everything that is being said in this and other dialogues is just “myths”.

However, the objective reading of the dialogue suggests that Socrates is doing his best to convince his friends of the immortality of the soul and of a happy afterlife for the virtuous (or righteous) in order to comfort them in the face of his imminent death. “Chant to yourself” means nothing else than “convince yourself”, i.e., “take comfort in my words”.

On reflection, it would make little sense for Socrates to tell a long story to comfort his friends only for him to say at the very end “actually, this is just a myth”.

When we start with unexamined (and I think unsubstantiated) assumptions of this kind for the sake of taking all metaphysical content out of the text, and use them to build an interpretive structure in the name of “Socratic skepticism” then we build a very shaky structure indeed that is no better than a house of cards.

IMHO such an approach is neither philosophically nor logically sound, but ideologically motivated. Strauss, after all, was not a scholar of Platonism. He taught political philosophy and he was influenced by anti-Platonists like Heidegger. So, Straussianism is not only controversial but positively biased and, as can be seen, can easily lead to unsubstantiated conclusions.

It isn't about opinion, it's about evidence. You can opine anything you wish. But you shouldn't pretend that you have evidence when you have none. Very simple really.

This is really convoluted. If he makes them he knows their origin. — Fooloso4

It may be "convoluted" to the intellectually challenged.

However, an Athenian artisan or sculptor who made images of Gods did so because he believed in the Gods represented by the images.

Were this not the case, then all the artisans and sculptors of Greece who made divine images and those who commissioned the images, including the city of Athens itself, would have been atheist liars and frauds pretending to be religious. I think even you can see the absurdity of your claim.

Socrates made literary images of divine beings or metaphysical realities he believed in. Therefore, he was not an atheist.

Plato, Xenophon, and others certainly did not believe he was guilty as charged.

Too bad you were not around to tell Socrates and the court and Plat and Xenophon and others that. — Fooloso4

Do you really not realize the absurdity of what you are saying, or are you just pretending?

Whether someone is guilty or not depends solely on the evidence.

Miscarriage of justice isn't unheard of. If Socrates was taken to court and/or sentenced for political reasons or because the jury erroneously believed he was guilty, that doesn't make him guilty as charged.

Suppose the state takes you to court on some cooked-up charge or you are set up by someone who holds a grudge against you and you get sentenced to death and executed. Does that make you guilty of the crime alleged???!!!

And, as I quoted, it does not include the bad. — Fooloso4

And as I said, the Good is an intelligent first principle that transcends and contains all other things:

If the Good is the source of the existence of all known things, i.e., all known reality, in the same way the Sun is the source of light, then the Good must be the source of, and contain, everything that is real or known to us, in the same way particles of light are contained within the sphere of light radiating from the Sun. This is the logical implication. — Apollodorus

The same is clear from the Timaeus:

[33b] And he bestowed on it the shape which was befitting and akin. Now for that Living Creature which is designed to embrace within itself all living creatures the fitting shape will be that which comprises within itself all the shapes there are; wherefore He wrought it into a round, in the shape of a sphere, equidistant in all directions from the center to the extremities, which of all shapes is the most perfect and the most self-similar, since He deemed that the similar is infinitely fairer than the dissimilar … [33c] For of eyes it had no need, since outside of it there was nothing visible left over; nor yet of hearing, since neither was there anything audible; nor was there any air surrounding it ... For nothing went out from it or came into it from any side, since nothing existed … “ (Timaeus 33b – c).

The Good is an all-containing living being just like the Cosmos. The bad may logically be defined as absence of good. But Plato doesn't say and we can only go by what he says.

No, it means he makes them. — Fooloso4

You are clueless, aren't you? He makes them because he believes in them, just like any other believers make images of Gods because they believe in the Gods represented by the images. Even a kid can see that!

In the final analysis, there is no evidence that Socrates was an atheist and there is even less evidence that Plato was an atheist. It's just your wishful thinking caused by reading too many books by the anti-Platonist brigade.

If even Strauss failed to demonstrate that Plato was an atheist, how on earth do you imagine that you are going to succeed?

As I said, you are clutching at straws and wasting your time.

The question of atheism was meaningless anyway since Socrates was not an atheist. He believed that the charge against him was wrong. That's why he contested it.

Your statement was this:

By the standards of the city Socrates was an atheist. — Fooloso4

What the city of Athens believed is beside the point. The only thing that matters is whether or not he was an atheist. And that can only be decided on the basis of evidence.

1. There is no evidence that he was an atheist by the standards of the city.

2. There is no evidence that he was an atheist in general.

3. There is even less evidence that Plato was an atheist.

That's why you can't find any evidence and you're still looking for it! :rofl: