Some think that dialectic is a method that leads to knowledge of the Forms. But how can someone know this unless they have completed the journey? That it does is something we are told not something we have experienced. It is a matter of opinion. — Fooloso4

The problem of learning what you do not know is discussed in the Meno. I remember a class from long ago when the dialectic was argued by some to be a method of knowledge of the Forms themselves. The wily old professor said: "Well, Parmenides went to great lengths to question the existence of the Forms but, after all that, decided that we have to use them, despite those problems, in order to distinguish this from this and that from that." It doesn't sound like we will be getting tans outside the cave any time soon.

Dialectic leads to knowledge of our ignorance. It leads us to see that philosophical inquiry leads to aporia. — Fooloso4

The inquiry does lead to aporia. That doesn't mean we must start from zero every time. Debates are like wrestling matches. Whatever worked as a technique in one match is not a starting place for another. The desire for victory is stronger than the love of knowledge. Returning to a conversation that has undergone the rigors of the dialectic in order to form better opinions can be a starting place for a new conversation.

This raises several issues. If the whole is singular it seems reasonable to think there should be a single logos. But we do find these different approaches in the dialogues that address different aspects of the whole. Each, by bringing something to light occludes issues that come to light in another. None, however, either separately or all together, are comprehensive. Any speech of the whole must include us, the speaker. Our inability, the inability of the part, to give a comprehensive account of the whole says something not only about us but about the whole of which we are a part. — Fooloso4

I agree with that approach wholeheartedly.
So much so that I am uncertain about what counts as divine or not within it. Thus my previous concerns about comparing different models.

It was a living tradition based on personal practice and experience, not an academic endeavor in the modern sense. — Apollodorus

Socrates was killed for talking in public about his ideas.
Maybe there was a tradition of training involved that was kept secret. If so, the secret is still hidden from view.
Plato formed an academy, in the ancient sense, if you will.
I don't recognize any of my comments in your reply. Perhaps you are talking to someone else.

Where am I applying Aristotle's categories to Plato? My previous efforts on this thread were attempts to see them differently.

When you say: "Plato must be read within his own framework," is Plotinus excluded from that condition?

That view is echoed in Plotinus regarding the contemplation of the One.
He also used the same theory to explain the creation of the physical world in the fashion of the Timaeus.
I don't think he was offering the items à la carte.

I think that what you are getting at in the first part is two-fold. One, do not make the all to common mistake of thinking that argument and philosophy are the same. — Fooloso4

People who know, do not need the Dialectic. Socrates' rebuke of Glaucon, observing that we can leave that process "unintentionally" and become mere debaters, recognizes a vigilance that each must maintain for themselves. The perception of the sincere desire to know in the interlocutor is impossible unless the quality is alive for oneself. But the ways to check oneself and others is not only a matter of goodwill. Each conversation has its own life. The need to work through issues as they are raised requires different distinctions at different times. We can move closer to the truth by proceeding this way even if we are still ignorant by the measure of what is sought.

Where Plato points to the limits of our knowledge some mistakenly think he is pointing beyond them. — Fooloso4

I think of the different readings of Plato in a smaller circle of comparison. Either the various and quite different approaches seen in the Dialogues were necessary in view of what Plato was attempting or they were episodes of pretense. If he could have written it all down like a system in the fashion of Proclus, the whole process of the Dialogues is a sham.

“Shadow boxing”? I wasn’t aware that there was anyone to shadow box with. Perhaps you know more than I do. — Apollodorus

I was the referring to the indefinite identities of the following:

The problem tends to be compounded by some readers’ attempt to interpret Plato through Aristotle who erroneously interprets Plato’s Forms, for example, through his own categories. Thus “scholars” conclude that Plato’s statements are “ambiguous”, “unclear”, “contradictory” or “confused”. — Apollodorus

And then there are the committed anti-Platonists who deliberately use Aristotle to demonstrate the “inconsistency” and “incoherence” of a “Theory of Forms” that they choose to attribute to Plato but that simply does not exist in the dialogues in the form they claim it does .... — Apollodorus

I think what Gonzales says with regard to Forms and Aristotle’s interpretation of them is quite clear. — Apollodorus

I am not having trouble understanding the statement. I don't know who he is boxing with either so I am not in a position to evaluate his argument in the context it was given. But the problem of describing the forms as they really are is one thing. Having that be the reason "that Plato must shift back and forth between treating Forms "as a universal and treating it as an instance" is another. I brought up examples that do not fit with the idea of keeping the two activities in separate places.

Perhaps you can present his argument with more definition.

I cannot tell who you are shadow boxing with.
Gonzales saying: "the form cannot be expressed in language" does not appear to support Socrates' effort to distinguish the dialectic from mere argument:

[454A] “Oh Glaucon,” I said, “what a noble power the debater’s art has.” “Why in particular?” “Because many people even seem to me to fall into it unwillingly,” I said, “and imagine they’re not being contentious but having a conversation, because they’re not able to examine something that’s being said by making distinctions according to forms, but pounce on the contradiction in what’s been said according to a mere word, subjecting one another to contention and not conversation.”
“That is exactly the experience of many people,” he said, “but that surely doesn’t apply to us in the present circumstance, does it?” [454B] “It does absolutely,” I said. “At any rate, we’re running the risk of engaging in debate unintentionally.” — Plato, Republic 454a, translated by Joe Sachs

Gonzales also appears to be no friend of Plotinus who links the generation of creatures to contemplation through forms:

Generation is a contemplation. It results from the longing of pregnancy to produce a multiplicity of forms and objects of contemplation. Begetting means to produce some form; and this means to spread contemplation everywhere. All the faults met with in the begotten things or in actions are due to the fact that one did stray from the object of one's contemplation. The poor workman resembles the producer of bad forms. Also lovers must be counted as those who contemplate and pursue forms. — Plotinus, Ennead III, viii, translated by Joseph Katz

I haven't known Nietzsche to say much of Pascal, but, perhaps you're right? — thewonder

Nietzsche talks about Pascal in a number of places. His objection to Christianity has to be related to objections to Pascal as a sort of struggle with the last worthy opponent supporting it.
How that might relate to the opinion I just gave about the Eternal Recurrence is hotly disputed in various quarters. I don't intend to contend on that level.

My reading is only one way to understand the text.

The fact of death provides a basis for which we ought to live according to Friedrich Nietzsche's thought experiment, that of the eternal return. To accept death is to admit defeat. We can only die and lose, and, so, perhaps there is something to accepting it? I would prefer, however, to wage my revolt for as long as I have either the health or mind to do so. — thewonder

I always read the Eternal Recurrence as a cancellation of the argument. I imagine Fred suffering sermon after sermon given by his father about death making sense. Acceptance of the moment as a given means there is nothing to wager about and if there were, you are broke.

In other words, a part of his ongoing argument with Pascal.

The Interlocutor (as he is commonly referred to), who asks questions and makes statements (confessions) basically from a metaphysical standpoint or as Witt's stand-in from the perspective of his younger self who was driven by the desire to find one theory of meaning in the Tractatus--the voice of temptation in reaction to skepticism; next would be the voice of correctness, which is commonly taken as common sense or as a solution to skepticism, but is only pointing out the grammar of our concepts for contrast; and Wittgenstein himself, only rarely (say #426; p. 192), with the attempts to learn the lessons in threading the needle between. — Antony Nickles

That is an interesting description. I like the Tractatus because it wrestles directly with the reader. A dialogue one can leave at any time. During dialogues, one has to perform rather than just explain.

Are you some kind of god that can advise and condemn as the situation requires?

That overarching system is consciousness itself. — hope

It seems like you enjoy giving the last word without making any effort to respond to your interlocutors in the terms they introduce. I get enough of that sort of thing at work.

I was referring to when Critias related the story of what an Egyptian priest told Solon about ancient Athenians:

"The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined were our veritable ancestors of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonize and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens of your republic are these ancient Athenians" — Plato, 26d, translated by Benjamin Jowett

What is one to make of the "fiction that becomes a fact" immediately before a creation story is told? This is especially peculiar when the "fiction" involved questions the value of fictions. Yes, we are twice removed from the conversation.

I meant to ask if Plato and Aristotle are using the same model despite taking such different approaches. Aristotle takes the cosmogony and edits it so that it can become an argument. Plato works many different arguments that are not integrated into a system in that way. Plato often makes reference to the "fabulous" to draw out a quality he is in accord with or opposes. Since the two thinkers cannot be compared directly as competing models, what would using the same or different model of the divine look like in their case?

I figure I am asking Wayfarer's question from a different starting point. We have developed a language for what is "theological" or not. We have certainly changed our world view over the centuries. If we have lost something then it is going to be difficult to express. Otherwise, it is not lost at all.

We still make cosmogonies.

One way to express my uncertainty about interests can be observed at the beginning of the Timaeus.

The polity of the Republic, where storytelling is closely regulated, is inserted into a story about the distant past. That seems to complicate one's relationship to the cosmogony rather than provide orientation to our present endeavors.

Aristotle explicitly objects to the confusion in that text and generally seeks to clarify the contexts in which we talk about different things. Does that difference in approach mean Plato and Aristotle are using different models of the divine?

A "shared body of experience"? What do you mean by this? — Metaphysician Undercover

Aristotle often refers to what "what most of us encounter" versus the exceptions. If you need citations, I will provide tomorrow.
I will sleep now.

I think I understand the basis of your skepticism. What is unclear to me is how it relates to Aristotle. The guy kept arguing for a shared body of experience. Maybe he was wrong. Is there another way to understand the texts?

I am not sure if the matter is resolved through identifying different interests.

Your question about the models should stand out there for a while. A large rock in the river.

Ah, the mirror.
Use it for yourself.

But I know what was said by reading it while you stand outside knowing nothing.

It doesn't sound like you read much of the thread you commented upon.

I get it. But there you are, doing other stuff.

I thought I was observing that principle.

I am not a hater. Maybe you are not either. Proof is in the pudding.

So, you want something you personally worked out for yourself to persuade other people on the premise that you have a special relationship to the truth?

This has been tried before. Perhaps you should look into that.

Then talk about that.
Your conclusions are less interesting than your process.

You wish to speak with a certain authority but bring nothing new to the table. Informing other people how stupid they are is a rhetorical trick developed long ago.
My interest level is dropping.

It's expressed incorrectly most of the time. — hope

Probably so. Then you will have to demonstrate the difference if you want to bring in something new. And if that is not your intention, why bother?

What do you think is the relationship between models of the divine and models of the origin of the universe? — Fooloso4

I hope the questions don't get harder to answer after attempting to meet this one. They probably will, though.

The interest in understanding this place where we are born, taken by itself, argues against seeing them as separate sets of models. The possibility that our response to what has been given to us is a dynamic relationship with the original set up develops a separation that allows for a difference to be considered.

Amongst the arguments about whether this is the best of all possible worlds, the desire to change it is always well nigh behind.

But what if consciousness has no limitations? — Apollodorus

Then it becomes something anybody can say anything about. The Tao Te Ching doesn't talk that way.

On the contrary, it is expressed everywhere, as you suggested earlier.

Or maybe its nothing but a pointer to the true nature of consciousness. — hope

It seems to me that you want to have your cake of the inexplicable and eat it too.
If the true Tao cannot be expressed, your ostensive gesture toward it is another example.
As the great scholar Clint Eastwood once put it, a man needs to know his limitations.

The anthropomorphic element is an important criteria to employ when comparing models of the divine.
For instance, the creator in Timaeus seems to work in a similar fashion to how we make a plan and then build "copies" of it. While Aristotle uses a lot of the cosmogony found in that dialogue, he makes clear that nobody is going out for beers with the Unmoved Mover after work.

But if the first principles are provided by intuition, and intuition is not reliable, then how is it possible that we start from a higher level of certainty in our logical proceedings? — Metaphysician Undercover

I think the distinctions Aristotle makes between the sciences makes the question different depending upon what is being sought:

"Since there is a science about nature, clearly it must be distinct from both a practical and a productive science. For the principle of motion in a productive science is in that which produces and not in that which is produced, and this is either some art or some other power. Similarly, the principle of motion in a practical science is not in the thing done but rather in the doers. But the science of the physicist is concerned with things which in themselves have a principle of motion. It is clear from what has been said that physics must be neither a practical nor a productive science, but a theoretical one, for it must come under one of these genera of sciences." — Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Kappa, 1064a, 10, translated by Hippocrates G. Apostle

Regarding the status of the color red, the old Philosopher seems to be favoring Janus during this discussion of Protagoras' view:

"Moreover, it is foolish to attend alike to the opinions and imaginations of disputing parties, for clearly those on one side must be mistaken.
This is evident from what happens with respect to sensations; for the same thing never appears sweet to some people and the contrary of this to others, unless in the one case the sense organ which jjudges the the said flavors is injured or defective. In such a case, we should believe those on one side to be the measure but not those on the other. My statement applies alike to the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and all other such. For the claim of our opponents does not differ from that of those who make each thing appear two by pressing below the eye with their finger, and say that there are two things, because two things appear, and again that there is one, for each thing appears as one to those who do not press a finger." — Ibid, 1063a

Is there anything more to it than nostalgia? — baker

That is an interesting way to frame the question, the pain of losing the past.

On a personal level, the past is what happened to me and what I can remember about the events. Short term memory becomes some other thing after a while. It is difficult to keep the past alive.

An interest in the "old books" can be based upon how they are the parents of the new ones. The new books try to mark out what is original against the background of what has already been said. The old books did the same. Is there an absolute now that allows us to escape that process?

I still don't understand why it's a distinction that is so hard to make. — Wayfarer

I don't think the distinction is hard to make. Aristotle goes to a considerable effort to distinguish them himself. But he also insists upon them being in the same universe. De Anima tries to frame what that world is like if the differences are understood as living in one place together even we don't know how that works exactly.

The passage you quote addresses a larger issue, which is the immortality of the soul, or what faculty of the soul lends immortality. But I don't think that is necessary to simply establish the distinction between reason and sensation, or to ground the claim that humans possess a faculty of reason which other creatures don't (although apparently this is a highly controversial claim nowadays.) — Wayfarer

The passage does address immortality but in a starkly different way than making it a matter of our faculties. We are not in a great location to say how the "separable and eternal" relates to individual experience. The scope of Aristotle's view is trying to grasp how the individual relates to universals. Humans are like other living beings in that regard, despite how different we may be in other ways.

I keep my ego in a leather pouch on my belt. — Tom Storm

Noted.
I meant to say getting "free of a condition" is not the only register for understanding or "enlightenment", if you will.

Is it not meant to include an awakening or illumination simultaneously with ego diminution? If not, it would hardly seem to count as enlightenment. — Tom Storm

What if your ego does not change size? One would neither have to make it bigger to get somewhere or punish something for it becoming smaller. If that is the case, wouldn't perceiving the condition be an advance over whatever one thought before that?

I am not establishing a limit to what can be discussed in the dialogues.
My comment was a specific response to a particular statement. If it is not worth engaging with, just ignore it.

You have copied and pasted your view once again.
I am not arguing one way or the other about your statement.
I was talking about how Aristotle uses the word nous.

I was replying to Wayfarer's reference to the meaning of nous as used by Aristotle. There are various ways to understand the text. I merely offer one of them. Perhaps you read the text differently.

I am very familiar with your view of Plato due to your constant repetition of the interpretation. If it is the only thing you have to say about anything brought up in regards to the matter, perhaps you should post your own thread where the discussion of your views can properly monopolize all discussions made therein.