What does it mean to be in accord with or contrary to nature? What this meant for the ancients, and for the philosophers of Liberalism, and contemporary thinkers is not the same.

I voted "Other" because it left room to explain why "The question is too unclear to answer".

Is there an external world? Yes.
Do we experience it as it is? No.
Is our knowledge of it an accurate representation of it? We try.

I took the following formula and made a first attempt at extending it:

cookery is flattery disguised as medicine (465b)

A knack is flattery disguised as techne.

Sophistry is flattery disguised as philosophy.

Rhetoric is flattery disguised as logos.

Opinion is flattery disguised as knowledge.

Pleasure is flattery disguised as good.

Socrates then puts it "like a geometer". (465b):

as self-adornment is to gymnastic, so is sophistry to legislation; and as cookery is to medicine, so is rhetoric to justice. (465c)

opinion : knowledge :: pleasure : good

It is in light of the good that the difference between opinion and knowledge can be seen.

But what I collect from the passage I quote is that you think that the difference between knowledge and true belief is that one has the skill to establish the truth that is at stake. — Ludwig V

I think so, but that is not the whole of it. There are two senses of establish The first is to determine that something is true, the other is to demonstrate that it is true. The first is a form of learning or coming to know, the second is the ability to provide and defend an account of what one knows. One wrinkle here is that A, who does not know, may be convinced by B, who also does not know, but is able to persuade A that he does.

The rejection of the claim that knowledge is perception can obscure the role of seeing in knowledge. Note that in a passage quoted about Socrates says:

... matters which one can know only by having seen them and in no other way, (201b)

There is also the case of knowledge via noesis, what the mind sees. There is the well known example of working on a math problem and not making much progress until "now I see!".

When Socrates says:

Well, it is just this that I am in doubt about and cannot fully grasp by my own efforts—what knowledge really is. (145 e)

I think he is expressing a genuine type of skepticism. We do know what knowledge is but in trying to say exactly what it is and is not, it alludes us.

... what Plato says in the Gorgias about episteme. — Ludwig V

What does he say?

Perhaps he didn't believe that his argument does refute Plato's version. — Ludwig V

What is Plato's version? Gettier may have an opinion on this, but is noncommittal. He does not know if his opinion, whatever it might be, is a true opinion:

Plato seems to be considering some such definition at Theaetetus 20 I, and perhaps accepting one at Meno 98.

Emphasis added.

The case cited from Theaetetus does not argue in favor of some version of JTB. It states that the judges:

... have judged without knowledge

This is not a version of JTB.

The passage from Meno also makes the distinction between knowledge and true opinion. Socrates says:

... yet that there is a difference between right opinion and knowledge is not at all a conjecture with me but something I would particularly assert that I knew: there are not many things of which I would say that, but this one, at any rate, I will include among those that I know.

Socrates claims that he knows they are not the same.

He goes on to say:

So that right opinion will be no whit inferior to knowledge in worth or usefulness as regards our actions ...

The assertion is that knowledge and true opinion are not the same, but there is no difference when it comes to actions based on one or the other. Theaetetus agrees but has already forgotten what he had just agreed with, that true opinions, are like the statues of Daedalus, do not stay put. So too, the man who acts on true opinion may not stay put either. Fleeing when his conviction fails.

For me, that's a dilemma. My problem is I haven't been able to develop a third alternative. — Ludwig V

If we let go of the false belief that knowledge is JTB the dilemma is dissolved. In both the Theaetetus and Meno mathematics plays a key role. Socrates KNOWS how to solve the geometric problem in the Meno, he does not just have an opinion, true or false, about how to solve it.

What one knows and what one believes are not the same, but one can believe he knows.

23:

The need to represent the absolute as subject has helped itself to such propositions as “God is the eternal,” or “God is the moral order of the world,” or “God is love,” etc.

Does Hegel intend for us to draw a connection between “God is love”, “The life of God and divine cognition ... as a game love plays with itself” (19),and the goal of philosophy as moving “nearer to the goal where it can lay aside the title of love of knowing and be actual knowing (5)?

In such propositions, the true is directly posited as subject, but it is not presented as the movement of reflection taking-an-inward-turn.

That is, such propositions only reflect the negative movement, the movement away from itself, its otherness, which has not yet reached the moment of the movement when reflection turns back to itself. So, what’s love got to do with it? Love is the desire for unity. In religious terms it is the unity of man and God. In philosophical terms the unity of man and knowledge. In knowledge the desire for unity with God is overcome, for the movement has returned back to the self from the otherness of God.

One proposition of that sort begins with the word “God.” On its own, this is a meaningless sound, a mere name. It is only the predicate that says what the name is and is its fulfillment and its meaning. The empty beginning becomes actual knowledge only at the end of the proposition. To that extent, one cannot simply pass over in silence the reason why one cannot speak solely of the eternal, the moral order of the world, etc., or, as the ancients did, of pure concepts, of being, of the one, etc., or, of what the meaning is, without appending the meaningless sound as well.

Instead of saying: “God is the eternal” or “God is the moral order”, etc., why can’t we just say the eternal or the moral order without appending the meaningless sound God? The answer is provided in the next sentence:

However, the use of this word only indicates that it is neither a being nor an essence nor a universal per se which is posited; what is posited is what is reflected into itself, a subject.

We should keep in mind that Hegel says the subject is self-positing (18).In other words, the positing of God is the self-positing of the subject. But:

... at the same time, this is something only anticipated. The subject is accepted as a fixed point on which the predicates are attached for their support through a movement belonging to what it is that can be said to know this subject and which itself is also not to be viewed as belonging to the point itself, but it is solely through this movement that the content would be portrayed as the subject.

The positing of God is at that moment the positing of something fixed and unchanging, something wholly and completely other. But:

... not only is the former anticipation that the absolute is subject not the actuality of this concept, but it even makes that actuality impossible, for it posits the concept as a point wholly at rest, whereas the concept is self-movement.

The problem is that the subject, God, is thought of as being at rest and unchanging. As the theologians have argued, God is perfect and thus unchanging, for change implies imperfection.

Some years back there was a reading group on the preface to the Phenomenology. We went paragraph by paragraph. Here are a couple of my posts relating to love and the divine. It consists of quotes from the text followed by comments.

I am dividing in two separate posts to make it easier to read.

19. The life of God and divine cognition might thus be expressed as a game love plays with itself.

“Thus” indicates that the life of God and divine cognition follow from what has been said. God and the divine are not separate from but within the circle. A game love plays with itself, the game of uniting two as one, but to play the game one must first become two, dividing and uniting itself with itself. Divine life and divine cognition are being and knowing.

Hegel immediately adds that this idea must be thought with due seriousness, that it was won through the suffering, the patience, and the labor of the negative. The reference is to the life and death of Christ and the themes of suffering and sacrifice, death of the body and life of the spirit. Whatever Hegel’s own beliefs were on such matters, they are an important part of the history of spirit, if not in terms of actual events then in terms of the shaping of consciousness.

Precisely because the form is as essential to the essence as the essence is to itself, the essence must not be grasped and expressed as mere essence, which is to say, as immediate substance or as the pure self-intuition of the divine. Rather, it must likewise be grasped as form in the entire richness of the developed form, and only thereby is it grasped and expressed as the actual.

What does the pure self-intuition of the divine mean? First, this intuition is the subject’s intuition. As immediate substance it takes the divine to be other than itself. To be grasped and expressed as form requires that it be articulated both as self-forming and formed, as both the development of form and the entire richness of the developed form. It is only from this stage of its development, when it has become actual, that it can know itself.

This is summed up in #20:

20: The true is the whole. However, the whole is only the essence completing itself through its own development. This much must be said of the absolute: It is essentially a result, and only at the end is it what it is in truth.

He goes on to express this:

The beginning, the principle, or, the absolute as it is at first, or, as it is immediately expressed, is only the universal. But just as my saying “all animals” can hardly count as an expression of zoology, it is likewise obvious that the words, “absolute,” “divine,” “eternal,” and so on, do not express what is contained in them; – and it is only such words which in fact express intuition as the immediate.

Zoology is not adequately expressed by the universal “all animals”, for in the universal the particular is negated or not expressed. All animals tells us nothing about any particular animal. In the same way, “absolute,” “divine,” “eternal,” tell us nothing about the particulars within the universal.

Whatever is more than such a word, even the mere transition to a proposition, is a becoming-other which must be redeemed, or, it is a mediation.

Hegel goes on to explain mediation:

21: ... mediation is nothing but self-moving self-equality, or, it is a reflective turn into itself, the moment of the I existing-for-itself, pure negativity, or, simple coming-to-be.

The transition from a word to a proposition is mediation for it must be thought and expressed. So too the absolute, the divine, eternal, must be mediated, that is, thought and expressed, given shape and content. But they are mediated by, the I. Existing-for-itself, the I is other than the subject or object of thought. At the same time it negates this otherness by making it one’s own by the understanding. What is thought, the universal, comes to be the subject matter, which is to say, the subject’s matter.

The I, or, coming-to-be, this mediating, is, on account of its simplicity, immediacy in the very process of coming-to-be and is the immediate itself. – Hence, reason is misunderstood if reflection is excluded from the truth and is not taken to be a positive moment of the absolute.

Reason is not unmediated intuition. It is not the understanding. It is positive in that it reflects on what is taken up in the understanding as immediacy without reflection on the process of unity. It is, in other words, reflection on a central problem of philosophy at least since it was first expressed by Parmenides: thinking and being are the same.

The movement in consciousness is from the immediacy of objects in consciousness, to their difference or negativity as objects of rather than from consciousness, to the immediacy of objects of consciousness, their sameness or positivity as objects from consciousness.

Reflection is what makes truth into the result, but it is likewise what sublates the opposition between the result and its coming-to-be. This is so because this coming-to-be is just as simple and hence not different from the form of the true, which itself proves itself to be simple in its result. Coming-to-be is instead this very return into simplicity.

Hegel expresses the same idea in yet another way, this time making explicit that it is not just something that occurs in the consciousness of the individual:

However much the embryo is indeed in itself a person, it is still not a person for itself; the embryo is a person for itself only as a culturally formed and educated rationality which has made itself into what it is in itself.

It is not the capacity for rationality but the culturally formed and educated rationality that allows the person to become for herself what she is in herself. While the importance of culture was recognized by the Greeks, it was to a large degree atemporal. The importance of history as self-moving and self-development was not a factor. The truth was regarded as unchanging. Today both views are represented and defended.

They just play. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is much more to it than that.

Somewhere Nietzsche reverses Matthews:

Seek and you shall find

along the lines of:

You see what you want see.

Isn't that the same for the artists? — Moliere

Yes, I think so. This is clearly seen in the case of jazz. The innovators made the rules that those who came after them learned and followed. But the innovators did not make the rules in the sense of first making them and then playing according to them. They played and those who studied them codified them.

I'm nowhere near the foundations. I just do my lab job — Moliere

My wife is a PhD biochemist, but has no interest in such discussions. She is interested in how things actually work, in finding answers. My son, on the other hand, is in the lab and enjoys these kinds of discussion.

I'm curious what you count as non-reductive science. — Moliere

Systems science. Morphology. Zoology. Environmental sciences.

reduction is the downward motion towards particulars, and holism is the upward motion towards universals. — Moliere

Not exactly. The study of animals is the study of particulars. A horse or a dog is a particular thing. It is not a matter of universals but of organisms.

If you can check out Gettier's original article, you can decide for yourself about my complaint. — Ludwig V

I have read it. It is actually Gettier himself who drags Plato in. He says in a footnote:

1. Plato seems to be considering some such definition at Theaetetus 20 I, and perhaps accepting one at Meno 98.

The passage from Theaetetus is like the Gettier cases in that the the distinction between knowledge and true opinion is maintained:

Then when judges are justly persuaded about matters which one can know only by having seen them and in no other way, in such a case, judging of them from hearsay, having acquired a true opinion of them,they have judged without knowledge, though they are rightly persuaded, if the judgement they have passed is correct. (201b-3)

But the questions of knowledge that Plato raises far exceed the narrower cases that Gettier addresses. In addition, for Plato the issue is not "are you justified for believing" in the sense of having some reason, however insufficient for believing, but "can you defend the belief" in such a way so as to demonstrate its truth.

... the use so often made of Plato in discussing JTB. — Ludwig V

My contention is that it is the misuse of Plato, based on a misunderstanding of the dialogue.

what is the spectrum between reductionism and holism? Are these two methods, or what? — Moliere

The spectrum is the subatomic to the cosmological, but much in biology focuses between the molecular or cellular on one end to the living organism and its environment on the other. Many methods.

... it's the discontinuities which make me feel doubt, at least in my rationalist story. — Moliere

Well, we should not mistake an incomplete story for sufficient one.

Just as the artists had to follow certain rules, so do the scientists. — Moliere

Rather than follow the rules cutting edge science establishes them.

,I am surprised. How do you make sense of the multiplicity while retaining reductionism as you've laid it out so far? — Moliere

I'm sitting in the peanut gallery. I take a pragmatic view. Reductionism in science has been and continues to be successful. That seems to be where most of the attention goes, but not all of it. Some scientists are more interested in larger scale views. If's not a question of one or the other but of what works.

In a way this almost relates to the OP, because I'm making the argument from success of the sciences -- but saying biology is very successful, and so a candidate for reduction. — Moliere

I'm not sure what you mean by a candidate for reduction. Much of biology is already reductive - genetics, DNA, genomes, biochemistry, molecular biology, biophysics, But systems science is non-reductive, it is dynamic and integrative.

Why would he use this as the model of an account if it is not helpful?
— Fooloso4

That is the puzzle. — Ludwig V

The reason, I think, he introduces it is not to provide a model of an account but to address "certain persons". Empedocles, for example, claimed there were four elements. Leucippus and his student Democritus, who proposed an atomic theory.

But I don't see that justifies citing the dialogue and then ignoring it. — Ludwig V

Are you referring to anyone specific? Do you think that this is what I am doing, despite my many references to the dialogue including Stephanus numbers?

In general I agree that we need to pay attention to the dialogue, but I am not sure what you mean when you say that the Theaetetus is of no help. Does this mean that it does not address JTB because you think it gives only one example of logos, a bad one, or that since the dialogue does not answer the question of what knowledge is it is of no help? I have already addressed the former. As to the latter, it is helpful to the extent that it says what knowledge is not, that is, JTB.

I think it would help to take a step back. You claimed:

Plato's idea of an account in the Theaetetus is what we might call an analysis of whatever we are giving an account of in terms of its elements. — Ludwig V

What you are referring to is Socrates dream, which begins at 201d:

I used to imagine that I heard certain persons say that the primary elements of which we and all else are composed admit of no rational explanation ...

What he used to imagine he heard certain persons say does not stand as Plato's idea of an account. Socrates intentionally distances himself, and Plato distances even further. Why relate it in terms of a dream? Why say that it is something he imagined he heard? Who are these persons?

My point is precisely that the model of account is not helpful for the problem he is considering — Ludwig V

Why would he use this as the model of an account if it is not helpful? The question becomes more pressing if this is the only account given, and that he could have provided a different kind of account but didn't.

The point of all these questions is to question your assumption. If this is not intended to stand as the model of an account we should not dismiss it on the basis of that false assumption.

Socrates pursuit of knowledge of knowledge is part of his desire to be wise. Abstracted puzzles fail to catch what is at issue in the question of knowledge.
— Fooloso4

That is certainly an interesting question. But Plato seems to veer away from it when Socrates says
Well, it is just this that I am in doubt about and cannot fully grasp by my own efforts—what knowledge really is. — Ludwig V

He does not veer away, he is in pursuit of the question of the relationship between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge can lead to ignorance, more specifically ignorance of ignorance. Socrates human wisdom, his knowledge of ignorance, is in a limited sense knowledge of knowledge. It is knowledge of both what one knows and does not know.

I'm not sure what you mean by "abstracted puzzles". — Ludwig V

More specifically, extracting things from the dialogue, as if they were stand alone arguments.

So I agree with this notion of a double-reductionism, between wholes and parts. — Moliere

I did not mean a double reductionism. The opposite ends of the spectrum are not opposite ends of reductionism. Reductionism is one end and holism at the other end.

I think what gets me are the discontinuities, which I've been attempting to point out with my various examples of theories. — Moliere

The discontinuities may be a matter of our lack of knowledge.

I'd just say that scientific theories are frequently independent of one another developed by their own particular group of people studying that problem or companies working on a product. — Moliere

For a long time science became increasingly specialized, but there has more recently been an increase in multidisciplinary approaches.

I think I'm just very uncertain about there being only one way of putting it all: where others see unity, I see multiplicities upon multiplicities, and I see no reason to believe science will be finished. — Moliere

I agree.

We could re-interpret physics in terms of biology — Moliere

I don't know what that would look like since much or the focus of physics is not on living organisms. But here is where multidisciplinary approaches come into play.

The dialogue begins and ends with the question of reputation.

Socrates:
But what if he should praise the soul of one of us for virtue and wisdom? Is it not worth while for the one who hears to examine eagerly the one who is praised, and for that one to exhibit his qualities with eagerness?

Theaetetus
Certainly, Socrates.

Socrates
Then, my dear Theaetetus, this is just the time for you to exhibit your qualities and for me to examine them ... (145b)

Theaetetus quickly agree when Socrates asks him:

Then knowledge and wisdom are the same thing? (145e)

But Socrates has his doubts.

Well, it is just this that I am in doubt about and cannot fully grasp by my own efforts—what knowledge really is. (145 e)

It is significant that Theaetetus is a mathematician. They are skilled at providing proofs and demonstrations. The mathematician has demonstrated knowledge. It is not simply that he has a good reason the believe what he says, for example, about roots is true (147d). What justifies that he knows rather than believes is the ability to demonstrate that knowledge.

In some sense Theaetetus knows what it is to know, even though he is not able to say what it is that all forms of knowledge have in common. But Socrates' concern goes beyond giving a definition. In the exchange above, in asking Theaetetus to exhibit his qualities , he is looking to see not only if Theaetetus is virtuous and wise, but if one who possesses knowledge is virtuous and wise.

He addresses the same question in the Apology. The craftsmen have knowledge of their craft. This is not simply knowledge how but knowledge that. They know their materials. But they are not wise. It is then not only a question of what forms of knowledge have in common, but of how knowledge differs from ignorance, as well as how knowledge related to wisdom.

Socrates pursuit of knowledge of knowledge is part of his desire to be wise. Abstracted puzzles fail to catch what is at issue in the question of knowledge.

That means we're all being taken to watch the same movie, but we each return home with very different ideas of what the movie is about. — Agent Smith

That may be, but "meaning is use" means we must attend to how the word is being used. The etymology is helpful. The root 'leg -' means to collect or gather. When Heraclitus says:

Listen not to me but to the logos

this may be hard to understand, he is, after all, saying it. But if we think in terms of the root, he has gathered together in one place what he has heard from the logos itself. He is not speaking but allowing the logos to be heard.

Heraclitus, now I recall, does expound the notion of the logos. How stupid of me! Trust me to remember important stuff! — Agent Smith

No need to remember it. It is right there in the quote:

Having harkened not to me but to the Word (Logos) it is wise to agree that all things are one. (B50)

the notion of justification that is considered is obviously inadequate — Ludwig V

What counts as justification depends on what the justification is of. In the case of the car it is seeing or showing that the car is still there. Plato's question is quite different. He is asking about knowledge of knowledge, what it means to know. Knowing where your car is hardly stands as an adequate exemplar of the scope of knowledge. Of utmost importance for Plato is self-knowledge. How does one justify that one possesses self-knowledge? What would count as justification of ethical knowledge?

I think a good case can be made for biological teleology at the level of organisms. Cell differentiation allows for one kind of stuff, a totipotent cell, to become other kinds of stuff, all the other cells that make up the organism. It is purposeful in the sense that it functions toward an end, the living organism.

How does the conclusion that the beauty of nature is biologically significant lead to a belief in the limits of reductionism? — Moliere

The beauty of nature is manifest in appearance. The appearance is no longer present in reduction to something else.

I sometimes wonder about the beautiful. — Moliere

It is wonderous! The Greek terms καλός and κάλλος mean not only beautiful but fine, good, and noble.

I think, at times, the beautiful can seduce us away from the just. — Moliere

In the Symposium the love of wisdom is erotic. It can seduce us. Although Plato distinguished between the just. beautiful, and good, they are closely related.

Plato plays on descriptions of Socrates as ugly and beautiful.

In an attempt to bring this back to the thread topic, we should consider whether the beauty of nature is biologically significant. If we conclude it is, and I think we should, we have good reason to think reductionism does not tell us the whole story.

Good point.

Unlike Christian eschatology where there is a beginning and end it time, for Heraclitus time does not play a significant role. The arche is not a point in time, it is not the beginning but, rather a cause or principle without beginning or end.

For John time is not the cause of what happens in time, God is.

I'd say we cannot know that the most basic stuff of the world is physical — Moliere

Rather than cannot know I would say we do not know. But methodologically reduction has been enormously successful. I take a pragmatic approach. We should not abandon reductionism, but we should be aware of its limits.

One reason I doubt any assertion about what reality fundamentally is is because people smarter than I have disagreed upon the subject. — Moliere

This seems sensible to me. I am suspicious of any claim about what reality fundamentally is .

I am attracted to what the Daodejing says about

... attaining extreme tenuousness (chapter 16).

When I first heard this saying I thought it was the exact opposite of what Western philosophy was about, but I eventually came to see that is may be similar to Socrates’ wisdom - knowledge of one’s ignorance. Knowing that one does not know.

In Plato's Laws the Athenian Stranger says:

I assert that what is serious (to spoudaion) must be treated seriously (spoudazein), and what is not serious should not, and that by nature god is worthy of a complete blessed seriousness, but that
what is human, as we said earlier, has been devised as a certain plaything (paignion) of god, and that
this is really the best thing about it. Every man and woman should spend life in this way, playing
(paizonta) the most beautiful games (paidias)” (803c)

.

Whatever we make of this we should keep in mind that the Athenian Stranger is being playful. He is not simply advocating fun and games but beautiful games. And, of course, this raised the question of what a beautiful game is. And this in turn requires asking the question of what the beautiful is.

Of course. My hermeneutic preference is to first try and understand what an author is saying. In line with this to try and figure out what he is denying.

This dispute can be seen by comparing what he says with Heraclitus:

Having harkened not to me but to the Word (Logos) it is wise to agree that all things are one. (B50)

With talk of Logos what John says would have sounded familiar to an educated Greek or Roman, and perhaps to others as well.

With "in the beginning" what John says would have sounded familiar to a Jewish audience.

The key difference is a creator God who stands apart from His creation.

If John was aware of this difference he presents a brilliant rhetorical piece of writing. The word of God as opposed to the Word shifts the voice of authority.

It seems arche is very similar to God. — Agent Smith

I don't think that arche is an active principle in John 1. He says explicitly that the Logos was God. Note also that in the beginning God/Logos already was.

According to Kant a substance is the subject of predicates. Since a thing in itself cannot be known nothing can be predicated of it.

The OP seems confused — Janus

It looks that way to me.

but the OP also says that substance is just a word — Janus

He arrived at this by mentally deleting all the properties, and concludes that substance is just a word is wrong. He offers no other definitions.

You are presnting an Aristotelian understanding of substance. — Janus

Right, but it is an Aristotelian understanding that was presented in the OP.

In the passage from the Meno what must be held fast to are the images of Daedalus. But he goes on to say that this is an illustration of the nature of true opinion.

... while they abide with us they are beautiful and fruitful, but they run away out of the human soul ...

There is a connection here with elenchus and Meno's complaint that Socrates is like a torpedo fish. Socrates questioning leaves his interlocutor numb and unable to answer. If one has knowledge, however, then it is held fast to and abides. The interlocutor is not made numb and is able to give an account, a logos. Where there is knowledge there is not forgetfulness, rather than becoming confused one recollects what is known.

And I'm not sure what the point of reduction is :D -- maybe, as Fooloso4 mentioned, I'm getting stuck on "reduction" too much. — Moliere

I think reductionism needs to be looked at from both ends - more complex things can be broken down into simpler components, but in order to understand complexes, attempting to reconstruct them from their components is not necessarily or always the best approach.

He was quite capable of presenting a different kind of logos which would have been less obviously unhelpful. — Ludwig V

Without the specifics of the account I can only speak in generalities. When you say he is capable do you mean Socrates or Theaetetus or Plato? If he was capable of presenting a different kind of logos then why didn't he? What is this different kind of logos? It should be noted that the problem of the logos of knowledge leads to the problem of knowledge of logos.

As I'm sure you know, mythos in ancient greek just means story, not necessarily false story. — Ludwig V

Yes, but in some cases, such as the myth of the metals is the Republic they are lies, even if noble lies. Myths are a mode of persuasion. In Plato's dialogues they are mostly salutary. It is not a question of true or false but of engendering good behavior. I do not think that Plato ever believed the myths but he did believe that believing them could be, for those in need of them, beneficial.

If he was not a saint it would seem sneaky.

While it is true that there are human capacities not shared with organisms with a lesser degree of order it does not follow that humans are designed in order to have these capacities.

There is another problem. Either your version of the design argument applies only to humans or organisms that are able

"to accomplish activities of a higher order," — Sam26

in which case only these things are designed or it applies to all things, in which case activities of a higher order does not apply.

There seems to be an equivocation in the use of the word 'purpose' between #1 and #2. In #1 something is designed for a purpose - the watch is designed to mark time. What is the purpose of the human body in #2 [added: for which it was designed]?

What I was trying to say about the use of a beginning in John is that it is different from how arche is used in the narratives about the primary elements. — Paine

It is also worth noting that what John says about the beginning is not what the story it alludes to says.

I found that puzzling, given that, so far as I know, he never abandoned the doctrine of reincarnation. — Ludwig V

Plato does not have a doctrine of reincarnation.Socrates tells some problematic myths. One problem is that if we start with the premise that knowledge is recollection of what was learned in a previous life then there would never be a time when knowledge was learned. But, on the other hand, if it was learned then it could not have been in that case that knowledge was recollected.

In the Phaedo the immutable human soul can become the soul of donkeys and other animals of this sort, or wolves and falcons and hawks, or bees or wasps or ants. (82a -b)

The problem is obvious. What happens to the human soul? The soul of these animals is not a human soul. Such transformation is contrary to the claim of an immutable human soul.

Socrates is well aware of the weakness of his arguments:

“Certainly, in many ways it’s still open to suspicions and counterattacks - if, that is, somebody’s going to go through it sufficiently. “(84c)

His hint should not be overlooked. If you go through the argument sufficiently then its weakness becomes apparent.

Plato's idea of an account in the Theaetetus is what we might call an analysis of whatever we are giving an account of in terms of its elements. — Ludwig V

An analysis of an account is itself an account, but the Greek term logos, is much broader than analysis. Perhaps @Paine can point to the passage from the dialogue.

Understood. The denial of atoms was intended to illustrate my point about terminology. The term atom is still being used, but it means something different than what Democritus meant. And now it is not only that atoms are divisible but that talk of particles is being rejected and replaced by fields.

if you advising me to adopt physicalism and reduction on the basis that it's the most likely story, and we cannot know more, so it's wise to accept this likely story? — Moliere

I am not advising you or anyone else who might be reading this to accept this or any other likely story. It may be that what is and has been going on may turn out to not be likely at all. I am approaching these questions speculatively and dialogically, but I don't expect much will come of it. The real work is being done elsewhere.

But I'm not sure where in this conversation the terminology has led me astray. — Moliere

Although I was responding to your post I was speaking in general terms. It is common in these discussions for someone to insist that ontology or reductionism or metaphysics means this or that, and will carry in their baggage.

I may have been misled by your mention of Kant. Kant on metaphysics and ontology leads to the kind of rabbit hole you are wisely trying to avoid.

There must be a university educated chief engineer ant who directs it all. — Tom Storm

That explains the tiny diplomas on the wall.