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.

I was thinking the "established interpretations" include the series presented through centuries of accounts given upon these writings. Those views changed over time. It is only fairly recently, however, that talk about how different the past was from the present became a reason to question the meaning of a text.

On that basis, your view of what happened from then and now is more reliant upon recent scholarship than those who see no reason to question previous descriptions.

We can be aware of the sources that shape our understanding of things and also be aware that there are earlier sources that differ from these. We can then address the problem of the extent to which we can lessen the influence of modernity on our understanding of those earlier sources. — Fooloso4

In this regard, my attempts to cleanly separate history and interpretation runs into a spot of bother.

The idea that ancient texts were saying something other than established interpretations was through a recognition of their development through time. Trying to reverse the flow is a new river mapped with conjecture and new methods of comparison.

I am more familiar with Gerson as a commentator upon ancient writing than his thesis upon Ur-Platonism. He is also often cited by others doing the same work of interpreting texts.

Gerson has often objected to the term 'Neo- Platonism' because it prejudices the perspective of what differs between later scholars and the original expressions. I grant that he makes a good point about classification. But this is why I keep harping about Plotinus as the elephant in the room. In the essay I linked to above, no mention is made of using Plotinus cosmology to comment upon Aristotle's De Anima. He just uses it. In such cases, where will the differences be found from which to make comparisons?

I haven't read enough Gerson to form a clear opinion, but what I have read in the passages quoted in these forums make him look somewhat like a thinker with a predetermined agenda. — Janus

As a question of the future, I don't know what accepting his either/or would look like. We are being asked to stop mixing the two modes. I wonder if he has talked about the replacement somewhere.

It does come across that way sometimes.

Leaving all that to the side, the topic here is a particular thesis put forward by Gerson. How can that view be challenged by a different view? Are there other ways of viewing the question that differ from Gerson's suppositions?

What makes asking that question very difficult in the present situation is that Gerson is a highly respected participant in a difficult area of study. His decision to make his claim is different from the years of his life as a scholar. Or if they are not different, that is not a component of the theory.

It makes challenging the theory difficult because the problems of interpretation get mixed with theories of history. So, for example, when I question Gerson's reading of a text, that is not equivalent to challenging his view of history.

Your approach is very reasonable. Would you say that Gerson's thesis is a tempest in a teapot regarding the limit of philosophy? Or is there something in his either/or that resonates with you?

I find being told to read something in lieu of a response is patronizing and consider it a withdrawal from discourse. I share your complaint.

We had a discussion about it a few months back and I'll refer to a very long post which summarizes the relevant points from those chapters — Wayfarer

I re-read the Perl text and I still have the same response given there:

For Aristotle, the hierarchical ordering of the different kinds of beings is based on the extent to which form predominates over matter in each.
— Eric D Perl Thinking Being - Introduction to Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition

Aristotle certainly put the active principle above the elements being acted upon. I am not aware of any passage that expresses a ratio of the sort Perl is putting forth.

I have been reading chunks of Plotinus lately and can report that he speaks about such a ratio.

It looks like Gerson and Perl read Aristotle in a similar fashion.

I now regret mentioning Wittgenstein because his remarks do not change my observation that Gerson is defining "naturalism" by means of Rosenberg saying:

I think naturalism is right, but I also think science forces upon us a very disillusioned “take” on reality. It forces us to say ‘No’ in response to many questions to which most everyone hopes the answers are ‘Yes.’ These are the questions about purpose in nature, the meaning of life, the grounds of morality, the significance of consciousness, the character of thought, the freedom of the will, the limits of human self-understanding, and the trajectory of human history.

That precisely outlines what science cannot provide and certainly cannot be described as "Platonist." But the statement is not "anti-philosophical" because it recognizes we have questions beyond what science tries to answer

Gerson gets this to be considered "anti-Platonist" by yoking it together with Rorty's campaign against Plato as emblematic of all that is wrong with Western metaphysics. The argument is specious. The two do not share a view of nature they have both signed off on. They do lack qualities that Gerson's view of nature require.

By that method, I could combine any two thinkers I disagree with.

Yes. He made that clear in Tractatus and that thought is consistent with the following works. But he did not oppose the practice of science, only the claim it replaced everything else.

I don't agree at all, I think they're motivation is completely different. It is something which Rosenberg celebrates and Wittgenstein mourns. Alex Rosenberg is a militant atheist which Wittgenstein, despite his reticence, never was. Remember he used to carry around Tolstoy's edition of the Gospels during his war service. The 'mystical aphorisms' in section 6 of the Tractatus, about the transcendent nature of ethics, would never be found in anything Rosenberg writes. — Wayfarer

I had not considered it as difference in motivation, only as a statement about what "science" does or does not provide.

I will have to think about your description of "Christian Platonists." I have to admit it is difficult for me to approach this with pure objectivity.

I appreciate that you considered the quote from Sophist as germane to the discussion.

How you would go about opposing this Rorty-esque approach to philosophy, — Leontiskos

Gerson starts with:

Rorty advanced the astonishing thesis that Platonism and philosophy are identical.

And then says:

What I aim to show is that Rorty (and probably Rosenberg) are right in identifying Platonism with philosophy and that, therefore, the rejection of the one necessarily means the rejection of the other.

In presenting this statement, there is more than a little sleight of hand in play with Gerson joining Rorty and Rosenberg together as fellow "anti-Platonists":

Rosenberg is the one who locates "naturalism" as the product of scientific activity:

I think naturalism is right, but I also think science forces upon us a very disillusioned “take” on reality. It forces us to say ‘No’ in response to many questions to which most everyone hopes the answers are ‘Yes.’ These are the questions about purpose in nature, the meaning of life, the grounds of morality, the significance of consciousness, the character of thought, the freedom of the will, the limits of human self-understanding, and the trajectory of human history.

This could be Wittgenstein saying: "We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched." Tractatus 6.52

But Rorty is not talking about that boundary when he condemns all of philosophy to be Platonism. He was a self-identified pragamatist. As such, he said things like:

In what follows, I shall be arguing that it helps understand the pragmatists to think of them as saying that the distinction between the past and the future can substitute for all the old philosophical distinctions — the ones which Derrideans call ‘the binary oppositions of Western metaphysics’. The most important of these oppositions is that between reality and appearance. Others include the distinctions between the unconditioned and the conditioned, the absolute and the relative, and the properly moral as opposed to the merely prudent. (Philosophy and Social Hope)

Rorty said contradictory things that Nick Gall does a good job of drawing out the problems of such declarations.

In any case, the project described as being: "the distinction between the past and the future can substitute for all the old philosophical distinctions" is clearly not equivalent to what concerns Rosenberg. Rorty is radically historist. Rosenberg offers no opinion about that sort of thing in the provided quote. "Plato", as a set of ideas, does not concern either in the least.

Gerson's synthesis of these different views is his philosophy of history, his theory of how we got to where we are now:

This is the thesis that most of the history of philosophy, especially since the 17th century can be characterized as failed attempts by various Platonists to seek some rapprochement with naturalism and, mostly in the latter half of the 20th century and also now, similarly failed attempts by naturalists to incorporate into their worldviews some element or another of Platonism. I would like to show that what I am calling the elements of Platonism—to which I shall turn in a moment—are interconnected such that it is not possible to embrace one or another of these without embracing them all. In other words, Platonism (or philosophy) and naturalism are contradictory positions.

That is a very sharp either/or. I don't know what that does not exclude from the pursuit of natural causes.

Whether you think Gerson's "Platonists" were opposing the same sort of thing in their own day? — Leontiskos

This is where I think Gerson should not quit his day job before becoming a philosopher of history. He establishes himself in that role but not in a way that can be compared with other attempts. That is why I had to agree with your observation about the futility of comparing Ur-Platonism with Heidegger.

It is low hanging fruit to point at the difference between results of an active scientific practice with questions over whether it would anger the gods to ask too many questions.

But I don't want to make a specific claim in that regard. As expressed elsewhere, I wonder about how a history of philosophy relates to an account of what is, without qualification, as Aristotle might say.

Perl's use of myth echoes what I hear in Plotinus' language.

Plotinus would probably agree with:
— Perl, Thinking Being, Chap 2, Plato, Pp 38-39

Rather, the flight is a mythic representation of the psychic, cognitive attainment of an intellectual apprehension of the intelligible identities, ‘themselves by themselves,’ that inform and are displayed by, or appear in, sensible things.

My problem with this reading of Plato is that the "Theory of the Forms" becomes fixed as a doctrine. I commented upon this last year in a reply to you concerning FM Cornford's interpretation of the Theaetetus. The biggest problem with this fixed meaning of form and anamnesis is that it becomes a kind of form itself that exists separately from those who speak of it.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to Cornford's position comes from the Sophist through the voice of the Stranger:

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

Theae: I shall.

Str: “Presumably you make a distinction between becoming and being and you refer to them as separate. Is this so?”

Theae: Yes.

Str: “And you say our communion with becoming is through the body, by means of sense perception, while it is by means of reasoning through the soul that we commune with actual being, which you say is always just the same as it is, while becoming is always changing.”

Theae: 248B “Yes. That is what we say.”

Str: “Now, best of all men, the communing which you ascribe to both, isn’t it what we mentioned a moment ago?”

Theae: What was that? Shall we say what this is?

Str: “An action or an effect arising from some power, from their coming together with one another.” You probably do not hear their response to this so clearly, Theaetetus, but perhaps I can hear it, as I am quite familiar with them.

Theae: What then? What account do they give?

Str: 248C They do not agree with what we said just now to the earth-born men about being.

Theae: What was that?

Str: We somehow proposed an adequate enough definition of things that are: whenever the power to be affected or to affect, even to the slightest extent, is present in something; that something is something that is.

Theae: Yes.

Str: Now to this they reply that; “the power to be affected and to affect is a feature of becoming,” but they say that neither power attaches to being.

Theae: Don’t they have a point?

Str: A point which makes us say that we still need to find out 248D more clearly from them whether they also concede that the soul knows, and that being is known.

Theae: They will surely assent to that.

Str: “What about this? Do you say that the knowing, or being known, is an action, an effect, or both? Or is one an action, and the other an effect? Or do neither of them have anything to do with action and effect?”

Theae: Obviously they would say “neither”, otherwise they would be contradicting what they said before.[1]

Str: I understand. Instead, they would say that; “if knowing is indeed some action, it follows that 248E whatever is known must, for its part, be affected. Indeed, based on this account, since being is known by the act of knowing, insofar as it is known, it is changed to that extent because it is affected, which we insist does not happen to the quiescent.”

Theae: Correct.

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?

Theae: No, stranger, that would be an awful proposition were we to accept it. — Sophist, 248A, translated by Horan

That puts a hefty dent into the reasoning of the Timaeus and runs over Plotinus' interpretation of that book with a tractor.

Note to add: I don't mean to say by the above that the existence of forms is being denied. It is just to show that there is more than a single way to consider their activity as depicted by Cornford.

I appreciate the reference to someone I should probably check out.

I will leave arguments regarding the topic to a later date.

So, you have delved into the contents?

But that approach does not support your description of empiricism.

The Cary approach seems to consider the dynamic I proposed.

I am far from agreeing with Gerson's larger project but consider your questions worthy of response.

I will think about them.

It would be interesting if you traced this,fleshed it out and developed it. — Fooloso4

That would require re-reading Augustine yet again. I will have to think about taking on such a project. My knees hurt in the morning. I will check out scholarship along those lines.

There is a kind of anthropomorphism at work here — Fooloso4

Well, that brings up an often-overlooked feature in Plotinus. The different kinds of life are seen as different distances from the One. The difference in De Anima, marked out between humans and other animals as what humans have but the others do not, is not expressed in Plotinus as creatures of a specific kind. They are different formations of soul sinking to various depths of descent into the negation of the intellect.

The philosopher, like the poets and theologians, deals in likely stories. They too are myth makers. They do not bring truth and light to the cave, They too are puppet-makers, makers of images that by the light of the cave cast shadows on its walls. — Fooloso4

From what I have read so far, Plotinus uses myth to express aspects of his system, not as a "likeness" to help with what cannot be directly experienced. For example:

The souls of men, seeing their images in the mirror of Dionysus as it were, have entered into that realm in a leap downward from the Supreme: yet even they are not cut off from their origin, from the divine Intellect; it is not that they have come bringing the Intellectual Principle down in their fall; it is that though they have descended even to earth, yet their higher part holds for ever above the heavens.

Their initial descent is deepened since that mid-part of theirs is compelled to labour in care of the care-needing thing into which they have entered. But Zeus, the father, takes pity on their toils and makes the bonds in which they labour soluble by death and gives respite in due time, freeing them from the body, that they too may come to dwell there where the Universal Soul, unconcerned with earthly needs, has ever dwelt. — Plotinus, Fourth Ennead, Tractate 3, Section 12 12

The soul being able to see itself in reflection is understood within a universal structure. The architecture for this was taken up by Augustine and developed into his view of a person. In that way, Plotinus is an ancestor of modern psychology. One can detect an embryonic formation of Descartes in:

When we exercise intellection upon ourselves, we are, obviously, observing an intellective nature, for otherwise we would not be able to have that intellection. — ibid. III. 9. 3

This is where I wonder if you are barking up the wrong tree, because the comprehensiveness of Gerson's lens makes it hard for those who agree with him to see a contrasting picture. — Leontiskos

That fairly points to the limits of my thought experiment.

Okay. I see how the language of being shaken has to be heard with the other descriptions.

This just keeps getting more difficult. I used to read it as a fairy tale of sorts.

I see how the question works both ways in your first paragraph. But is the "unmade and the un-generated being offered as an alternative in this context? I read it as: Stuff is getting made and nobody can explain why.

I am reluctant to accept the second paragraph. I recognize the literary parallel played out by Timaeus as a poet talking about poetry. But I also think the wonder, the theomazien, unites Plato and Aristotle, as brothers, in a way that pisses them both off.

I will look at Sallis beyond this discussion. I am not familiar with it.

Aristotle would thank you if he were not otherwise occupied.

Sallis does require work. But in one way, he is economical. He deals with text in a direct fashion, pitting words against other words, something the reader can confirm (or not) for themselves.
Quite different from the coma some academic writing induces.

Your expansion upon "bastard reasoning" helps put the 'lack of something to compare to' I referred to into context. Whether one agrees or not with Sallis' thesis as a whole, he puts the burden upon others to find an alternative explanation for this expression.

The combining of the "divine craftsman's" role as a producer with that of being the progenitor is another way to frame the problem of origin.

The difference between what is generated by nature and produced artificially in the frame of our experience is said to not be a difference for the cause of our existence. An idea without a readily available image.

I don't see Gerson's lens as exclusive. — Leontiskos

That is an interesting question to ask. How about Heidegger versus Ur-Platonism?

They are both critical of the dominance of modern science. They both rely upon an intensive study of classical texts. They differ sharply on views of historical development. Can they share the same view of the world?

Thank you for considering the matter.

Edit to add: removed gratuitous remark that might diminish the gratitude.