One quality about the "Joyous science" that differs from the other works is the sense of freedom to do something different. The works before and after picture change as a struggle with other views. This work is a claim for his land, unoccupied by others.

This is not only an opener on mysticism and a criticism of Strict Observance Thomism. I truly believe that genuine mysticism is a middle ground between rationalism and religion. — Dermot Griffin

How do you perceive Plotinus in that context? He presents the experience of the ascent of the soul as involving:

Often, after waking up to myself from the body, that is, externalizing myself in relation to all other things, while entering into myself, I behold a beauty of wondrous quality, and believe then that I am most to be identified with my better part, that I enjoy the best quality of life, and have become united with the divine and situated within it, actualizing myself at that level, and situating myself above all else in the intelligible world. — Plotinus, Ennead 4.8.1

Good point. What might the reformed cave look like? Would the philosophers do the very thing that Socrates was found guilty of? — Fooloso4

Your first question is very tough to answer. In the context of the Sophist, The Stranger seems to suggest that the 'reformation" will keep changing the terrain of the struggle as time goes by. But I don't see him proposing it will end. He displays confidence that the grounds will change. It is clear who he is rooting for.

On the other hand, the Stranger seems to insist upon the same separation that his Eleatic teachers did. The dangers of using forms requires a kind of hygiene:

“For instance,” said Parmenides, “if one of us is the master or slave of someone, he is not, of course, the slave 133E of master itself, what master is; nor is a master, master of slave itself, what slave is. Rather, as human beings, we are master or slave of a fellow human. Mastery itself, on the other hand, is what it is of slavery itself, while slavery itself, in like manner, is slavery of mastery itself. But the things among us do not have their power towards those, nor do those have their power towards us. Rather, as I say, these are what they are, of themselves, and in relation to themselves, while things with 134A us are, in like manner, relative to themselves. Or do you not understand what I am saying?” — ibid. 133e

The "images of truth", as they relate to the cave allegory, receive a challenge outside of the allegory but not for the sake of cancelling it. In the spirit of refutation, most would have wiped the blood off their blade and re-sheathed it. Plato is saying Parmenides is doing something else.

That does not make your second question any easier but there are at least more clues in the text available to bring out contrasting themes. In my recent drive-by reading of the Sophist, I noticed two elements that previously shot over my head. One of them is the separation of class in society:

Socrates: In that case, Theodorus, are you unwittingly bringing in some god rather than a stranger, as Homer’s phrase would have it, when he says that the gods 216B in general, and the god of strangers in particular, become the companions of people who partake of true righteousness, to behold the excesses and the good order of humanity? So perhaps this companion of yours may indeed be one of those higher powers who is going to watch over and refute our sorry predicament in these arguments, as he is a god of refutation.

Theod: That is not the manner of this stranger, Socrates, no; he is more moderate than those who take controversies seriously. Indeed, the man does not seem to me to be a god at all, though he is certainly divine. For 216C I refer to all philosophers as divine.

Str: They certainly are, Theaetetus. However, it is of no particular concern to the method based on arguments whether purification by washing or medication benefits us much or little. For it endeavours to discern the inter-relation and non-relation of all the skills, with the aim of acquiring intelligence, 227B and to that end it respects them all equally. Indeed, because of their similarity, this method does not believe that one is more ridiculous than another, and it does not regard a person as more important if he exemplifies his skill in hunting, through general-ship, rather than louse-catching, though it will probably regard him as more pretentious. — ibid. 216a

This difference gets re-affirmed at other places in the dialogue. Sometimes as an unexplained reference, sometimes as a joke, sometimes as a direct confrontation:

Str: That they have shown no regard for common folk, and they despise us. For each of them pursues his own line of argument, without considering at all whether we are following what they say or are being left behind. 243B — ibid. 243a

The second element that stood out for me is the way the gentle relates to the violent, both in discourse and the possibility of 'reformation' as a process of change in the world of becoming. Note how Theodorus presents the Stranger as a minor player by saying: "Socrates, no; he is more moderate than those who take controversies seriously." The Socrates who confronts anyone who challenges him is set in contrast to this player who does not accept such terms. But the contrast between the gentle and the violent is a part of so many of the Dialogues that Theodorus must be heard as expressing a particular prejudice.

I am inclined to lean toward Klein's view of change over Strauss'. But I think Strauss is correct putting the beginning of political philosophy at the Meno rather than the Republic. Can virtue be taught? If one can ask that, the quality is manifest in some fashion. We have to start with the insistence upon it being evident.

Socrates gets Meno to accept that condition to some degree without necessarily getting him to understand much else and thus makes Socrates more 'gentle' than often represented. But Socrates also seems hell-bent upon antagonizing Antyus, representing a portion of those who did kill him.

With a bit of Swift's Battle of the Books, pitching the Ancients against the Moderns, thrown in for extra flavor.

Grumpy old men fight on both sides of that battle.

[Not saying that to diss this thread]

Yes. It is odd how an appeal to a lost age cancels the argument of what is essential to being human by insisting upon the force that brings about its demise. I am stunned by the logic before weighing it against facts.

I have been thinking about Burnyeat's view of utopia and wanted to make some comments outside of his project of undermining Strauss.

I agree with Burnyeat that the Republic is aiming to change our life for the better. Seeing that goal as executing a realized plan that comes into being runs afoul with other ways of reading how the 'city in words' works in the Dialogues. Plato delights in having a metaphor or a bit of discourse appear in a parallel role within a particular dialogue or connecting them with others. The allegory of the cave has the philosopher return to it. Whatever good is done there does not stop it from being a cave.

The later discussions of regimes in the Republic do not include the "city in words" as one of the options. They deal with the return to the cave.

That is where the battle between giants is happening as discussed in the Sophist:

Str: It will be easier in the case of those who propose that being consists of forms, for they are gentler people. However, it is more difficult, perhaps almost impossible, from those who drag everything by force 246D to the physical. But I think they should be dealt with as follows.

Theae: How?

Str: The best thing would be to make better people of them, if that were possible, but if this is not to be, let’s make up a story, assuming that they would be willing to answer questions more fully than now. For agreement with reformed individuals will be preferable to agreement with worse. However, we are not interested in the people: we are seeking the truth.

Theae: Quite so. 246E — ibid. 246c

The last sentence stands in sharp contrast with the concern to make good people in the Republic. But the job of the "friends" is directly involved with the effort. It seems Plato does not want politics to be too easy to think about.

I relate this to the Gerson thesis by noting that this tension between ways of life does not appear in Plotinus. At least to the best of my knowledge. I welcome correction.

Where does Burnyeat's (or anybody else's) desire for a change in society have a place in Plotinus?

Add that to my other objections to putting Plotinus on team Plato.

I appreciate the story about the pony. I am more of a donkey.

I support taking breaks.

I understand your interests. You have repeated your thesis many times.

During our years of discourse, I have been trying to narrow definitions rather than explain differences in the most general terms. I accept your objection to the term "theological", as I used it, as a description of what the debates are about.

I ask you to consider that some of those who you have seen as fellow travelers need to be seen in a different light. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend in the world of thinking. Is that not also the quality so elegantly expressed in Daoist literature?

X wants to say it is all about Y. The separations needed for that become another problem. Is that an observation or a claim to a truth? In that set of arguments, the problem of logic is also a problem of boundaries.

I am mindful of that post.

In a twist of fate, the argument there is supported by Leo Strauss in his Natural Right and History.

I have problems with that book as an account of other thinkers. But I appreciate the effort made to make politics a part of the dialectic rather than all the other things that could be and has been said of it.

[the above was edited]

Since we are all talking about other people at the moment, I want to talk about ways past discussions intersect with this one for me. I first became aware of Gerson because Apollodorus and Wayfarer appealed to him for support of their theological views of Plato. I then found out that this appeal to Gerson has been going on for years before my start.

My education included reading Plotinus. There were many arguments about where he differed from the Platonic beginnings, but no disagreement emerged concerning whether Plotinus was using the myths of the past as parts of his system of "realities". The language of approximation and stories, so vivid in the Timaeus, is now the way things are. There are limits to the realm of the "discursive." One had best get with the program.

The next book we read was City of God. That certainly tempers my understanding of Plotinus, for better and worse, depending upon different points of view.

Having been introduced to Ur-Platonism on this forum, I started reading Gerson's scholarly papers. That is when I started objecting to his interpretations of texts, for example, here and here as well as the example given upthread. As it concerns this thread, the clear preference for Plotinus shown in those commentaries is not represented as such in the Ur-Platonist stuff. This gives a bit of three card monte flavor to the scene. Is there a bait and switch play between the two enterprises?

I am glad to have had to discuss Schleiermacher's resistance to Systems because I am willing to acknowledge that is the lineage I come from. The most important element is the individual participating in the dialogue being witnessed. That theme is also echoed in the Dialogues in many ways that are not shy and retiring. So, I freely admit to an aversion to Gerson's efforts to assemble a system to fight modern foes on the basis of that point of view.

To sum up, I have two lines of resistance to Gerson that are separate in origin and form. Because of that condition, I want to address:

Burnyeat's criticism of Strauss in many ways parallels your own criticism of Gerson. — Leontiskos

Burnyeat was claiming he was on to Strauss' magic trick. That is a valid way to characterize persuasion and I don't fault Burnyeat for trying it. He took his chance with it. I don't know what Gerson's trick is. But he proposes to close what I think should not be.

I would not have done it if I had not been included in the comment. This is briefest way to express my discomfort with the comparison.

And yet you impose your own assumptions regarding the truth of such things as Forms and Recollection. Contrary to his identification of Forms as hypothetical and Recollection as problematic, you accuse me of sophistic interpretation when I pay attention to and point out what is actually said.
— Fooloso4

Where have I done that? — Leontiskos

It seems to me like you are doing that throughout this comment You insinuate Foolsoso4 resembles a gnostic sophist here:

When I say that Plato (or Socrates) is a pedagogue part of what I mean is that his words echo truths in multiple registers, as do his dialogues. There is food for the novice and the advanced pupil alike. This is different from gnosticism, which involves dissimulation and falsity for the sake of some higher and secret/concealed truth.It is very easy for a deft hand to warp the pedagogy and diffusity of Plato into a form of dissimulation or skepticism, in much the same way that a conspiracy theorist can cast doubt on everyday realities and replace them with some grand secret.
[emphasis mine] — Leontiskos

And there is your approval of:

The technique is as follows. You paraphrase the text in tedious detail – or so it appears to the uninitiated reader. Occasionally you remark that a certain statement is not clear; you note that the text is silent about a certain matter; you wonder whether such and such can really be the case. With a series of scarcely perceptible nudges you gradually insinuate that the text is insinuating something quite different from what the words say. — Myles Burnyeat, Sphinx without a Secret

The point of my post was to counter the charge against Strauss that he was an oracular figure who mystified what was there for all to see. Strauss established his point of view in the context of Schleiermacher and Klein. He taught his classes with the spirit of that lineage clearly on display. Burnyeat either knew of that or he did not. In either case, awareness of that lineage rebuts Burnyeat's argument.

Now, there are writers who oppose that lineage for a variety of reasons. Their opposition does not make them all saying the same thing. To make such an equation was the core of Apollodorus' method of argument.

He was a venomous fountain of ad hominem attacks and contempt. Everybody had to be speaking from a particular camp or school. His opponents were always tools in the hands of their masters. It deeply saddens me that such a spirit has returned to visit condemnation amongst us.

All of my other words left like deer hit on the side of the road.

I withdraw from the field.

I don't know if it's true, but it seems consistent with a lot of what is being said here, what with 'modernity being our cave'. — Wayfarer

You seem to advance a view but take no responsibility for claiming it. How does likening a criticism of Strauss relate to a particular quote by a specific member of the discussion group?

Is that a charge of guilt by association? I don't like Strauss for many reasons. But you are using a set of arguments you refer to but don't defend. You simply leave the field of battle.

I suggest that these squabbles are no replacement for reading Plato and seeing where it goes. There is no scorecard at the end.

Edit to add: You have gone to considerable trouble to read Buddhist text to participate in those discussions. Why the distance you impose upon yourself regarding Plato?

Burnyeat would have benefited from paying more attention to Jacob Klein, an important influence upon Strauss. The oracular status given to Strauss by Burnyeat looks different after reading some Klein. Consider the following from Strauss' lecture course on the Meno. The discussion concerns how Socrates says different things to different people and the Thrasymachus' charge of Socrates not speaking clearly:

Quoting Klein: We shall consider, by way of example, views expressed in Rene Schaerer's book, where the main problem is precisely to find the right approach to an understanding of Platonic dialogues. Whatever the point of view from which one considers the Dialogues, they are ironical, writes Schaerer, and there can hardly be any disagreement about that. For, to begin with, irony seems indeed the prevailing mode in which the Socrates of the dialogues speaks and acts. It is pertinent to quote J.A.K. Thomson on this subject. With a view not only to Thrasymachus' utterances in the Republic, Thomson says: When his contemporaries called Socrates ironical, they did not mean to be complimentary.

Leo Strauss: This meaning implies in any event that for a statement or a behavior to be ironical there must be someone capable of understanding that it is ironical. It is true, a self-possessed person may derive, all by himself, some satisfaction from speaking ironically to someone else who does not see through the irony at all. In this case, the speaker himself is the lonely observer of the situation. But this much can be safely said of Socrates as he appears in the Platonic dialogues: he is not ironical to satisfy people who are capable of catching the irony, of hearing what is not said. A dialogue, then, presupposes people listening to the conversation not as casual and indifferent spectators but as silent participants...... a (Platonic) dialogue has not taken place if we, the listeners or readers, did not actively participate in it; lacking such a participation, all that is before us is indeed nothing but a book.

Leo Strauss: So irony requires that there are people present to catch the irony, who understand what is not said you know, irony being dissimulation, of course something is not said. There must be readers who silently participate in the dialogue; without such participation, the dialogue is not understood. In other words, you cannot look at it as at a film and be excited and amused, amazed, or whatever by it: you have to participate in it. This is the first key point which Klein makes. Now he states then in the sequel that according to the common view, with which he takes issue, the reader is a mere spectator and not a participant, and he rejects this.

Leo Strauss: Now let us read this quotation from Schleiermacher in note 23, which is indeed I
think the finest statement on the Platonic dialogues made in modern times:

Plato's main point must have been to guide each investigation and to design it, from the very beginning, in such a way as to compel the reader either to produce inwardly, on his own, the intended thought or to yield, in a most definite manner, to the feeling of having found nothing and understood nothing. For this purpose, it is required that the result of the investigation be not simply stated and put down in so many words . . .but that the reader's soul is constrained to search for the result and be set on the way on which it can find what it seeks. The first is done by awakening in the soul of the reader the awareness of its own state of ignorance, an awareness so clear that the soul cannot possibly wish to remain in that state. The second is done either by weaving a riddle out of contradictions, a riddle the only possible solution of which lies in the intended thought, and by often injecting, in a seemingly most strange and casual manner, one hint or another, which only he who is really and spontaneously engaged in searching notices and understands; or by covering the primary investigation with another one, but not as if the other one were a veil, but as if it were naturally grown skin: this other investigation hides from the inattentive reader, and only from him, the very thing which is meant to be observed or to be found, while the attentive reader's ability to perceive the intrinsic connection between the two investigations is sharpened and enhanced.
.....
This is not to say that the dialogues are void of all doctrinal assertions. On the contrary, this further consideration ought to guide our understanding of the dialogues: they contain a Platonic doctrine by which is not meant what has come to be called a philosophical system. The dialogues not only embody the famous oracular and paradoxical statements emanating from Socrates (virtue is knowledge, nobody does evil knowingly, it is better to suffer than to commit injustice) and are, to a large extent protreptic plays based on these, but they also discuss and state, more or less explicitly, the ultimate foundations on which those statements rest and the far-reaching consequences which flow from them. But never is this done with complete clarity. It is still up to us to try to clarify those foundations and consequences, using, if necessary, another, longer and more involved road, and then to accept, correct, or reject them---it is up to us, in other words, to engage in philosophy. — Leo Strauss, Lecture transcripts on Meno

I don't share Schleiermacher's confidence that his vision of the future will come about. But I do think he is teaching us a little of how to read Plato.

The question raised here about systems takes precedence over secrets. If this reflects how Plato teaches, the emphasis is upon the progress of the learner as a learner, not a proposition of what is true in a proposition. That is why I said previously that Cornford is more of a champion for a System than Strauss was. It is worth noting that Gerson is more of a System guy than even Cornford:

The systematic unity is an explanatory hierarchy. The Platonic view of the world—the key to the system—is that the universe is to be seen in hierarchical manner. It is to be understood uncompromisingly from the top down. The hierarchy is ordered basically according to two criteria. First, the simple precedes the complex, and second, the intelligible precedes the sensible. — Gerson, Aristotle and Other Platonists

If the Burnyeat perspective is worth considering, argue it on your own behalf if it is not publicly available.

I have argued that Plotinus is claiming authority of a certain kind. I accept that I have to do more than claim such to be the case.

I cannot see beyond the paywall on that article.

I don't get what Strauss has to do with the limit of what is knowable. What I have read of Strauss is mostly in the register of political philosophy. The mentions of the 'esoteric' are connected to that interest as his idea of the pedagogy of the elite. It is one way to interpret the Republic and Meno. There are plenty of other ways.

Why did not the theists in that thread appeal more to the reading of Cornford rather than involve Strauss who argued for the idea of natural rights? I question both of those authors for different reasons.

What is the connection between the skeptical approach of Socrates and some overriding theology? Agnosticism is being equated with atheism here. None of the references to Strauss in that old thread involved quoting what he actually said. It feels like whacking a piñata.

I don't view the differences as schools of thought as you do. The expression the "One" has a different life in different texts as do so many other ideas and perspectives.

I will leave your statements unchallenged as an expression of your theology.

Thank you for the links.

We have differed in the past on what the consequences of De Caelo are on the divinity of the celestial sphere and I remember you do not accept the account of divinity in Metaphysics book Lamda. So, I will leave all that be.

I am glad we could find common ground on the role of forms in the dialectic.

You'll notice in Aristotle's Metaphysics, (much of this being material produced from his school, after his death), how the Aristotelians distance themselves from those other Platonists, whom we call Neoplatonists. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you have a source that touches on how Aristotle's text was produced? Are you suggesting that when "Platonists" are mentioned in Aristotle that others are speaking in his name?

It is likely that when Aristotle uses "Platonists", he is referring to his old pals at the Academy. It is unlikely that they shared all the views of Plotinus, a Neo-Platonists who wrote hundreds of years later in Rome.

While we can guess the first Academicians would have taken issue with Aristotle challenging the separate land of the forms, it is unlikely they would have disagreed with Parmenides who sharply protects the boundary between the divine and the world of becoming that we muck about in:

“For instance,” said Parmenides, “if one of us is the master or slave of someone, he is not, of course, the slave 133E of master itself, what master is; nor is a master, master of slave itself, what slave is. Rather, as human beings, we are master or slave of a fellow human. Mastery itself, on the other hand, is what it is of slavery itself, while slavery itself, in like manner, is slavery of mastery itself. But the things among us do not have their power towards those, nor do those have their power towards us. Rather, as I say, these are what they are, of themselves, and in relation to themselves, while things with 134A us are, in like manner, relative to themselves. Or do you not understand what I am saying?”

“I understand,” said Socrates, “very much so.”

“And is it also the case,” he asked, “that knowledge itself, what knowledge is, would be knowledge of that truth itself, what truth is?”

“Entirely so.”

“Then again, each of the instances of knowledge, what each is, would be knowledge of particular things that are. Isn’t this so?”

“Yes.”

“The knowledge with us would be knowledge of the truth with us, and furthermore, particular knowledge with us would turn out to be knowledge of particular things that are 134B with us?”

“Necessarily.”

“But the forms themselves, as you agree, we neither possess nor can they be with us.”

“No, indeed not.”

“And presumably each of the kinds themselves is known by the form of knowledge itself?”

“Yes.”

“Which we do not possess.”

“We do not.”

“So none of the forms is known by us since we do not partake of knowledge itself.”

“Apparently not.”

“So what beauty itself is, and the good, 134C and indeed everything we understand as being characteristics themselves, are unknown to us.”

“Quite likely.”

“Then consider something even more daunting.”

“Which is?”

“You would say, I presume, that if there is indeed a kind, just by itself, of knowledge, it is much more precise than the knowledge with us, and the same holds for beauty and all the others.”

“Yes.”

“Now if anything else partakes of knowledge itself, wouldn’t you say that a god, more so than anyone, possesses the most precise knowledge?”

“Necessarily.”

134D “In that case, will a god possessing knowledge itself be able to know things in our realm?”

“Why not?”

“Because, Socrates,” said Parmenides, “we have agreed that those forms do not have the power that they have, in relation to the things that are with us, nor do the things with us have their power in relation to those forms. The power in each case is in relation to themselves.”

“Yes, we agreed on that.”

“Well then, if this most precise mastery is with a god, and this most precise knowledge too, the gods’ mastery would never exercise mastery over us, nor would their knowledge 134E know us nor anything else that is with us. Rather, just as we neither rule over them with our rule nor do we know anything of the divine with our knowledge, they in turn by the same argument, are not the masters of us nor do they have knowledge of human affairs, although they are gods.”

“But surely,” he said, “if someone were to deprive a god of knowledge, the argument would be most surprising.”

“Indeed, Socrates,” said Parmenides, “the forms inevitably possess these difficulties and many others 135A besides these, if there are these characteristics of things that are, and someone marks off each form as something by itself. And the person who hears about them gets perplexed and contends that these forms do not exist, and even if they do it is highly necessary that they be unknowable to human nature. And in saying all this he seems to be making sense, and as we said before, it is extraordinarily difficult to persuade him otherwise. Indeed, this will require a highly gifted man who will have the ability to understand that there is, for each, some kind, a being just by itself, 135B and someone even more extraordinary who will make this discovery and be capable of teaching someone else who has scrutinized all these issues thoroughly enough for himself.”

“I agree with you, Parmenides,” said Socrates. “What you are saying is very much to my mind.”

“Yet on the other hand Socrates,” said Parmenides, “if someone, in the light of our present considerations and others like them, will not allow that there are forms of things that are, and won’t mark off a form for each one, he will not even have anywhere to turn his thought, since he does not allow that a characteristic 135C of each of the things that are is always the same. And in this way he will utterly destroy the power of dialectic. However, I think you are well aware of such an issue.” — Plato, Parmenides, 133e, translated by Horan

This is a far cry from the mono-logos of Plotinus where the divine is a continuity from the highest reality to the lowest. The dialectic descends into the silence of contemplation.

I was thinking of the difference as something Plato, the author, has two of his characters say at a particular moment. It would have been a different work if the argument went elsewhere than it did.

That is a constant question when reading Plato that does not come up in theories presented directly by others.

Yes. So why was this difference not seized upon in the moment?

As it regards the current discussion of the Sophist, the statements made in Parmenides are closely linked to the other work:

“Do you think that the whole form, being one, is in each of the many? Or what do you think?”

“What’s to prevent this, Parmenides?” said Socrates.

131B “So being one and the same it will be present simultaneously as a whole in things that are many and separate and would thus be separate from itself.”

“No, Parmenides,” said he, “not if it is like a day, which being one and the same, is in many places simultaneously and is, nevertheless, not separate from itself. If this were the case, each of the forms could simultaneously be one and the same in all things.”

“Socrates,” he said, “how nicely you make the one and the same be in many places simultaneously, as if you were to throw a sail over many people and maintain that one, as a whole, is over many. Don’t you think something like this is what you are saying? “

131C “Perhaps,” said he.

“Would the sail as a whole be on each person or just a part of this, and another part on another person?”

“A part.”

“So forms themselves are divisible Socrates,” said he, “and things that partake of them would partake of a part, and would no longer be in each as a whole, but a part of each form would be in each.”

“Apparently so.”

“Well then, Socrates,” said he, “do you wish to maintain that our one form is in truth divided and will still be one?”

“Not at all,” he replied. — Ibid. 131b

it is interesting that Parmenides does not introduce the sail metaphor as a rebuttal of Socrates' statement but as a description of it. The dramatic element of the dialogue presents the possibility of this being a younger Socrates accepting what the older Socrates might not have let ride. One of those things we will never know.

But another element from the older Eleatic connected to the new one is this:

“So nothing can be like the form, nor can the form be like anything else. Otherwise alongside the form another form will always make an appearance. And 133A if that form is like something, yet another form will appear, and the continual generation of a new form will never cease if the form turns out to be like whatever partakes of it.”

“Very true.”

“Since it is not by likeness that the others get a share of the forms, we must rather look for something else by which they get a share.”

“So it seems.”

“Do you see then, Socrates,” said he, “the extent of the difficulty once someone distinguishes forms as being just by themselves?” — ibid. 132e

That is the cue for the Stanger in the Sophist to speak of the comingling of forms.

For the Nos4ora2, all forms of exchange beyond what one body can do to another are not shown by what they seem through the evidence for them existing or having existed but are products of "statism".

The "social contract" as conceived by Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, etcetera, is the adoption of a belief, not an attempt to understand the formation of society as something that has happened. So, there is no way to challenge N's idea on its own terms since it denies a means of comparing it to others.

I feel Baden staring down at me, questioning the relevance of that observation to the matter of the Donald as a particular being. I propose the decoupling is essential to the Trump phenomena. The petri dish, as it were.

I like Unamuno for insisting upon the difference between continuing to live versus a nice severance deal when it stops.

Intervention sometimes takes the form of an errand. Do as you please but take care of x first.
Sometimes it becomes a full-time job.

I know that parenting has interfered with my most self-destructive tendencies. Maybe a broader view of the act is needed.

Starting Plotinus the Master and the Apotheosis of Imperial Platonism by William Altman.

It is a polemic which I admit sympathy to before beginning but deals with texts and historical factors I am not familiar with. It seems to be headed toward questioning my understanding of Gnosticism.

I think the counting here is for the sake of discussing how participation (μετέχειν) in forms is supposed to work now that the Stranger has brought the sharp separation between being and becoming into question. This leads to the discussion of "blending" forms which wraps up as:

Str: Indeed, we have actually agreed now that some of the kinds will combine with one another, while others will not, and some will combine with few, others with many, and also that some are all-pervasive and are allowed to 254C combine with everything. So we should proceed to the next issue by considering the following question, not about all the forms, lest we get confused by the multiplicity, but selecting some of those which are said to be the most important; we should first ask what sort each is, and then what their power to commune with one another is. In this way, we shall at least understand something about being and non-being, as far as our current method of enquiry allows, even if we cannot apprehend them with total clarity, and we may 254D somehow be allowed to say that “what is not”, is actually non-being, and avoid reproach. — ibid. 254b

To no small degree, the issue is a problem of grammar that has to be solved in order to defeat the ways sophists use words and ideas. The different ways of speaking of being (εστιν) are central to the effort. This essay by Ackrill does an excellent job showing how the difference between "is" as a copula and the "is" as identity is expressed by Plato. Along the way he shows the consistency of the use of terms that does not easily come to the fore through translation.

Couldn’t classical philosophy ascribe the unintelligibility of the world to the treachery of the senses? It wouldn’t have regarded ‘the world’ as possessing intrinsic intelligibility in the first place, would it? — Wayfarer

In the context of the Sophist, the question of intrinsic intelligibility is what the battle between the giants is about. The Stranger situates a view of being that does not give the advantage to either side:

Str: Well, I am saying that anything actually is, once it has acquired some sort of power, 247E either to affect anything else at all, or to be affected, even slightly, by something totally trivial, even if only once. Indeed, I propose to give a definition, defining things that are, as nothing else except power. — ibid. 247d

Edit to add: removed personal reactions to Cornford.

I do not want to paper over the differences between views in Plato's time. The Stranger's depiction in the Sophist of the battle between views of "what is" stands as testimony to such.

To treat the modern battle as simply a continuance of the first overlooks critical cultural differences. There are champions of the modern and there are detractors. How history is conceived plays a big part in their differences. Take Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, for example. They both refused to shake the pom-poms with team Hegel. But the differences between them obviously extend far beyond what Hegel wrote. All three reference Plato as points of departure. But it is of limited utility to compare them upon that basis alone. All three do think they are doing philosophy. Can the differences be delineated through compliance or divergence from a set of categories?

Dissatisfaction with the modern is expressed by some as the loss of a previously preserved virtue, others by a loss of a means of production, others by a loss of the means to experience life available to ancestors. That is not an exhaustive list of all possibilities, just some pieces that show how various are the attempts to connect those perspectives with our present and future lives.

With that said, where does accepting Gerson's criteria play a part? How does it figure in the struggle for future pedagogy in our lives comparable to the struggle in Plato's time?

A great example of how the piano was seen as the interlocuter playing against the other players

This leads me to believe that, for Gerson, Rorty is not a materialist but he is at least a relativist and a skeptic. He is a relativist on account of his demand that "humans are the measure," and he is a skeptic on account of his aversion to verification and revealing truth. — Leontiskos

It should be noted that Rorty made efforts to differentiate his idea from those charges. That demonstrates a general acceptance of the negativity of those qualities as generally understood. That separation may not really work but it is different from being a champion for those qualities. I object to Rorty's claim of what comprises philosophy because it fails as a Logos, not because it fails a litmus test from applying a set of definitions. A mid-wife tested if the creature would live and did not give any words of encouragement or hope for a future.

What is objectionable about this? Is the objection that Ur-Platonism doesn't correctly map to Platonism, or to traditional philosophy? Is it that any theory which places Plotinus and Aristotle into the same group must be a false theory, because they are so different? Is it that because Rorty and Rosenberg have both similarities and differences, the theory must somehow fail? — Leontiskos

My objection is more of a question; What is the benefit of all this taxonomy?

I don't see the value of "Platonists" as a recognizable kind except when it serves as a place holder in the context of specific comparisons. When Aristotle uses the term so prominently throughout his work, it does not change the fact he is deeply engaged with Plato's writing and developing those ideas into his own expression. For one example, compare the language of the latter part of the Sophist with De Anima.

There are many places where Aristotle explains what Plato meant without identifying himself as against it. We on the sidelines can ponder if such statements are the last word on the matter. A recent example of that is the discussion of Timaeus in the Metaphysics thread. That is a drop in the ocean of academic work devoted to drawing such distinctions between the two.

Many centuries later, Plotinus arrives in a land crisscrossed with the paths of self-identified Stoics, Academicians, Cynics, Peripatetics, etcetera. There is also an infusion of "Syncretic" thinkers who shop a la carte from others. In this rowdy crowd, Plotinus sought to create his own Ur- Platonism. The Gnostics are to be expelled from the empire and the citizens who remain will work within a shared view of what "Platonists" means when challenging each other's opinions. This imposition of order is how Augustine responded to Plotinus as what led him to turn away from Manicheism. The structure of Heaven was built with this architecture.

There are components of that order that reveal influences from sources before Plato and those he militated against. There is a deep pool of scholarship in that aspect of Plotinus that I have only treaded water in. My mind is tiny.

In the arena of Plotinus building from Plato and Aristotle or diverging from them, there is an asymmetry upon display. Plotinus does not acknowledge himself as anything more than an explainer of Plato's meaning. Aristotle accepts responsibility for both the convergence and the divergence. When we on the sidelines wish to see a difference between Plotinus's and Plato's text, a tendency to argue upon the basis of authority has to be wrestled with. That is what I dislike about Gerson, too. It is a quality I dislike quite independently with whether I agree or disagree with either writer in specific cases (which I have done).

I hope that touches on the mapping and inclusion questions. I am confused how the similarity or differences between Rorty and Rosenberg are components of a thesis that could be defended or challenged. I only can discern a motley beast.

Say, for the purposes of argument, I accepted Gerson's taxonomy. What does his classification have to do with changing future work as he exhorts us to do? He would correctly identify that Rorty is outside the boundary as Gerson has drawn it. Why attach the possibility for philosophy upon one who has just been expelled from it? The limitation is self-imposed. The "naturalists" whoever they may be, won't notice a change in the rules. For those devoted to reading the original texts, it presumes too much of what is still worth proving.

I had thought that in the passage, that ‘the friends of the forms’ were defending the forms. The ‘earth-born’ represent those who are unable to reconcile the distinction between ‘being’ - what truly is - and ‘becoming’, the world of change, growth and decay, and so are calling ideas into question. (And indeed there are many ‘perplexities’ involved as has been mentioned already, as the reality of change and decay seems undeniable. It is not as if admitting the reality of the ideas is a simple matter.) — Wayfarer

The Stranger is saying that the sharp separation between being and becoming emerged in the battle against those who are:

"dragging everything from heaven and the unseen down to earth, literally grabbing trees and rocks in their hands. Indeed, they lay hold of all such objects and strenuously maintain that, that alone is, which gives rise to some contact and touch."

The friends proceed by letting some of what the earth-born "maintain to be true" to be referred to "as a sort of becoming in motion, rather than being"

The relationship between the two camps changes over time:

Str: Then let’s obtain from both sides, in turn, the account of being that they favour.

Theae: How shall we obtain them?

Str: It will be easier in the case of those who propose that being consists of forms, for they are gentler people. However, it is more difficult, perhaps almost impossible, from those who drag everything by force 246D to the physical. But I think they should be dealt with as follows.

Theae: How?

Str: The best thing would be to make better people of them, if that were possible, but if this is not to be, let’s make up a story, assuming that they would be willing to answer questions more fully than now. For agreement with reformed individuals will be preferable to agreement with worse. However, we are not interested in the people: we are seeking the truth.

Theae: Quite so. 246E

Str: Then call upon these reformed folk to answer you, and you should interpret what is said.

Theae: I shall. — ibid. 246c

The reformation takes place through getting the earth-born to accept having a soul:

Str: Well, let them say whether they maintain there is such a thing as a mortal living being.

Theae: How could they disagree?

Str: And won’t they agree that this is a body with a soul in it?

Theae: Yes, certainly.

Str: And they include soul among things that are?

Theae: Yes. 247A

Str: What about this? Don’t they agree that a soul can be just or unjust and can be wise or foolish?

Theae: Of course.

Str: But isn’t it from the possession and presence of justice and wisdom that each of these souls becomes like this, while their opposites do the opposite?

Theae: Yes, they agree with all this too.

Str: And they will surely agree that whatever is capable of being present or absent is something.

Theae: They do say so.

Str: 247B So, if they accept that there is justice, wisdom, and excellence, in general, and their opposites, and also soul in which they arise, do they say that any of these is visible and tangible or are they all unseen?

Theae: Hardly any of these is visible.

Str: Well then, surely they do not say that anything of this sort has a body?

Theae: They do not answer the entire question, in the same way. Although they think, that the soul has acquired a body of some sort, when it comes to wisdom and the other qualities you asked about, 247C they are ashamed either to admit that these are not included in things that are, or to maintain emphatically that they are all physical.

Str: Well, Theaetetus, we can see that these men have been reformed, for the original stock, their earth-born ancestors, would not have been ashamed of anything. Instead, they would insist that whatever they are unable to squeeze with their hands is nothing at all.

Theae: Yes, you have expressed their attitude fairly well.

Str: Then let’s question them once more. Indeed, if they are prepared to concede that there is even a 247D small non-physical portion of things that are, that is sufficient. For, they must explain the shared nature that has arisen simultaneously in the non-physical, and also in anything physical, with reference to which, they say that they both are. Perhaps this may leave them perplexed; and if that is what happens to them then consider this; would they be willing to accept a suggestion from us and agree that “what is” is as follows?

Theae: Yes, what is the suggestion? Tell us and we shall know immediately.

Str: Well, I am saying that anything actually is, once it has acquired some sort of power, 247E either to affect anything else at all, or to be affected, even slightly, by something totally trivial, even if only once. Indeed, I propose to give a definition, defining things that are, as nothing else except power.

Theae: Then, since they do not have anything better to suggest right now they accept this.

Str: Very well, though perhaps a different suggestion may occur both to us or them 248A later. For the present, let this stand as it has been agreed by both parties.

Theae: Let it stand.

Str: Now let us move on to the others, the friends of the forms, and you should interpret their doctrines for us too. — ibid. 246e

We are back to the quote I started with where the Stranger criticizes the friends by showing a big problem with keeping being and becoming completely separated, culminating in:

Str: But, by Zeus, what are we saying? Are we actually going to be persuaded so easily that change, life, soul and thought are absent from 249A what altogether is, that it neither lives nor thinks, but abides unchanging, solemn and pure, devoid of intelligence? — ibid. 248e

The Stranger continues this criticism in ways that uncover other problems.

As an Eleatic ambassador of sorts, the Stranger accepts Parmenides must be modified but not rejected. He proposes something like that happen to the friends.

The Aquinas passage does connect with ideas about the soul in the Sophist but needs discussion of the remainder of the text.

What do you think is at stake in that passage you cited from The Sophist? Anything? — Wayfarer

To answer that, several features of the Sophist need to be taken into account. It begins with Socrates asking what kind of authority the Stranger will be speaking with:

Socrates: In that case, Theodorus, are you unwittingly bringing in some god rather than a stranger, as Homer’s phrase would have it, when he says that the gods 216B in general, and the god of strangers in particular, become the companions of people who partake of true righteousness, to behold the excesses and the good order of humanity? So perhaps this companion of yours may indeed be one of those higher powers who is going to watch over and refute our sorry predicament in these arguments, as he is a god of refutation.

Theod: That is not the manner of this stranger, Socrates, no; he is more moderate than those who take controversies seriously. Indeed, the man does not seem to me to be a god at all, though he is certainly divine. For 216C I refer to all philosophers as divine. — Plato, Sophist, 216A, translated by Horan

The way Theodorus puts it, taking controversies seriously means putting up a fight. Throughout the dialogue, the Stranger draws comparisons between that method and others. The contrast between the violent and the gentle becomes the means of division in many cases. The method of division itself is a vehicle of being self-aware of its limits. There is a lightness of touch with starting the dialogue by comparing the sophist to an angler. That is combined with more strict limits to the method:

Str: They certainly are, Theaetetus. However, it is of no particular concern to the method based on arguments whether purification by washing or medication benefits us much or little. For it endeavours to discern the inter-relation and non-relation of all the skills, with the aim of acquiring intelligence, 227B and to that end it respects them all equally. Indeed, because of their similarity, this method does not believe that one is more ridiculous than another, and it does not regard a person as more important if he exemplifies his skill in hunting, through general-ship, rather than louse-catching, though it will probably regard him as more pretentious. — ibid. 227A

The method can be used strictly while permitting other observations. Maybe even to the extent of cracking jokes. But the Stranger brings up a challenge that directly concerns Socrates' opening statement regarding the giants who have spoken:

Str: It seems to me that Parmenides has conversed with us quite casually, and so has anyone who has ever set about specifying which and how many are things that are.

Theae: In what way?

Str: Each of them appears to me to be telling us a story, as though we were children. One says that things that are, are threefold, and some of them on occasion conduct some sort of battle with one another 242D and at other times become friends, marry, have children and look after their offspring. Another says there are two factors, wet and dry or hot and cold, and he sets up a household for them and marries them off. While we Eleatic folk, beginning with Xenophanes or even earlier, recount our stories as though what we refer to as “all things” are actually one. But some Ionian and later some Sicilian Muses, consider it safest to combine both stories, 242E and say that “what is”, is both many and one, and is held together by enmity and friendship.

“Though it is separating, it is continually combining”

say the more severe of these Muses. But the milder ones relaxed the requirement that it always be this way, and they say that it alternates, and that the all is sometimes one and is friendly on account of Aphrodite 243A and at other times it is many and at war with itself due to some strife. Now some of these men may have spoken the truth in all this, or they may not, though it is difficult and problematic to attribute such a serious failing to famous men of old. But we can say one thing without reproach.

Theae: What is it?

Str: That they have shown no regard for common folk, and they despise us. For each of them pursues his own line of argument, without considering at all whether we are following what they say or are being left behind. 243B — ibid. 215e

The Stranger no longer seems so gentle. He wants to interrogate the giants:

Theae: Which one do you mean? Or is it obvious that you are saying that we must first examine “what is” and what exactly those who use the phrase think that it signifies?

Str: You have understood precisely, Theaetetus. For I am saying that this is indeed the approach we should adopt; we should resort to close questioning, as though the men were actually present and say: “Come on, all you who say that hot and cold or any pairs like that are all things, what precisely 243E are you attributing to both, when you say that both are and each is? What should we understand by this ‘is’ of yours? Is it a third factor in addition to the other two, and should we propose, on your behalf, that the all is no longer two but three? For, presumably, you do not take one of the pair and call it being and say that both of them equally ‘are’, for in either case they would effectively be one and not two. — ibid. 243d

But the importance of the distinction between gentle and violent comes back into the fore in reference to the battle of the gods and giants:

Str: Well, some are dragging everything from heaven and the unseen down to earth, literally grabbing trees and rocks in their hands. Indeed, they lay hold of all such objects and strenuously maintain that, that alone is, which gives rise to some contact and touch. 246B They define body and being as the same, and if any of the others say that there is anything without a body, they are utterly contemptuous, and they want to hear no more.

Theae: Yes, you are describing fearsome men, and indeed, I myself have met many of them before.

Str: Yes, that’s why those who oppose them conduct their defence, very cautiously, from above, from the unseen, maintaining forcibly that true being consists of certain bodiless forms which can be known by reason. And they gradually break the bodies of those other men into little pieces in their discussions, and what the others maintain to be true 246C they refer to as a sort of becoming in motion, rather than being. And there is always a huge battle going on between both parties about these issues, Theaetetus. — ibid. 246b

The difference between what you might say in a fight is different from the problems that belong to an idea as that idea.

That is what I think is at stake in the passage I quoted.

The gentle way of looking at the difference between Being and Becoming leads to this statement:

Str: Well, I am saying that anything actually is, once it has acquired some sort of power, 247E either to affect anything else at all, or to be affected, even slightly, by something totally trivial, even if only once. Indeed, I propose to give a definition, defining things that are, as nothing else except power. — ibid. 247d

The vivacity of this statement is like waking up from a dream. For those with a little Greek in their quiver, consider how close this is to the translation:

τὰ ὄντα ὡς ἔστιν οὐκ ἄλλο τι πλὴν δύναμις.

So I take it you don't think Gerson's "Platonists" were opposing the same sort of naturalism in their own day? — Leontiskos

I think the best way to approach this is through Aristotle discussing the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake :

It is because of this indeed that the possession of this science might be justly regarded as not for humans, since in many ways the nature of humans is enslaved, so that, according to Simonides, “a god alone can have this |982b30| privilege,” and it is not fitting that a human should not be content to inquire into the science that is in accord with himself. If, then, there is something in what the poets say, and jealousy is natural to the divine, it would probably occur in this case most of all, |983a1| and all those who went too far [in this science] would be unlucky. The divine, however, cannot be jealous—but, as the proverb says, “Bards often do speak falsely.” Moreover, no science should be regarded as more estimable than this. For the most divine science is also the most estimable. And a science would be most divine in only two ways: if the [primary] god most of all would have it, or if it were a science of divine things. And this science |983a5| alone is divine in both these ways. For the [primary] god seems to be among the causes of all things and to be a sort of starting-point, and this is the sort of science that the [primary] god alone, or that he most of all, would have. All the sciences are more necessary than this one, then, |983a10| but none is better. — Aristotle, Metaphysics, 982b29, translated by CDC Reeve

This argument that it is okay to pursue first causes extends to all who attempt it. When Aristotle makes arguments against others employing what Gerson calls Ur-Platonism principles, that doesn't make his interlocutors unqualified to speak upon it. They are all pursuing the nature of the world because it is their nature to do so.

The reference to Simonides invokes a struggle with tradition that is ever present in Plato's dialogues. An excellent essay on this topic is written by Christopher Utter.

I'm not sure what you wrote in your post addresses my question. If you agree with Gerson that Rorty is too general and reductive, then what sort of corrective would you provide to Rorty? — Leontiskos

When Rorty says "the distinction between the past and the future can substitute for all the old philosophical distinctions", he is going to have to tell a story about it. One story he tells is:

Insofar as a person is seeking solidarity, she does not ask about the relation between the practices of the chosen community and something outside community. Insofar as she seeks objectivity, she distances herself from the actual persons around her not by thinking of herself as a member of some other real or imaginary group, but rather by attaching herself to something which can be described without reference to any particular human beings. — Rorty, Solidarity or Objectivity?

The zero-sum game presented here seems pretty objective for someone who eschews absolutes and representations of the real. I recognize that there are different ways of looking at our shared experience. To link them as categorical antagonists, however, has history revealing a psychological truth. But revealing truth is one of the activities Rorty militates against. If the claim is a serious one, he has to abandon his aversion to verification. Sometimes, it seems like he demands admission to a club he denies exists.

If one frees the two perspectives from Rorty's fight to the death, they become more like Nagel's objection to "the view from nowhere", a narrative Wayfinder regards highly. Rorty shares the critical view of science in some places but has complained that Nagel is too mystical in others. So, 'materialist' by comparison but not on the basis of claiming what nature is. He resists saying what that is. As I review different examples of his work, it is confusing to sort out what he objects to from an alternative to such. It is not my cup of tea.

As an American I hear his anti-war view that ideas should not force one to fight. I don't know if he talks about Thoreau but that is the register I hear the objection. A democracy of no. But that is its own discussion, or if is not, that becomes a new thesis. I fear the infinite regress.

For the purposes of this discussion, I have learned enough to say that Rorty is not one of those who are 'materialist' according to the criteria in Ur-Platonism. Rorty's demand that humans are the measure makes that impossible. I take your point that Gerson is not joining Rorty and Rosenberg at the hip. That allows me to ask what they have to do with each other.

In that vein, I agree with:

quote="Leontiskos;911088"]I think it will not exclude a pursuit of natural causes in line with Gerson's five points of Ur-Platonism.[/quote]

They require the logic Rorty would expel. It is whatever else that is said that I cannot imagine.

So I take it you don't think Gerson's "Platonists" were opposing the same sort of naturalism in their own day? — Leontiskos

I do not. But I need to think about how to frame the question as its own thing. In my defense, it is not like Gerson explains the sameness. His enemies never change.

What "naturalism" refers to is the loosest ball in this discussion. Gerson has said what he understands by that. I have been questioning the basis of that description as given in the thesis. I need more convincing before receiving the term as a known value in the discussion.

.

I ask you to consider separating what you view as a field of modern philosophy from the terrain of interpreting ancient text as carried out by academic scholars.

In that realm, Gerson is not a dissident but a well-received figure who many support and many others do not. He is far from being a voice in the wilderness. The way he is represented in your quote as a hero of historical understanding has very little to do with why he has a seat at the table of his colleagues.