The fact that you and I require an actual God to show up and say, 'Here I am kids ... — Tom Storm

How about an actual God who doesn't show up but through a ventriloquist says "Here's my kid" and "I am him or he is I and together we are three" ?

I thought Karp's essay was very good. What he does not say explicitly but is implicit is that the work of historians is guided by a philosophy of history. The relationship between the past and the future is often not given enough consideration. He rejects the idea that the past determines the future.

The central figure here is Frederick Douglass and his "Fourth of July Speech": https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/

Douglass found hope in a young America but one hundred and seventy years later America is no longer young. Have our ways become so entrenched that no real change is possible? I am hopeful enough to think that progress toward freedom, liberty, and equality is still possible but not confident enough to think it is likely.

Socrates answers that question in the affirmative — Apollodorus

Once again you refuse to follow the argument. Claiming it is a special case is special pleading.

"Incantations" and "charms" are not in the Greek text — Apollodorus

Are you claiming that Liddell and Scott is wrong? Were they influenced by Strauss?

Hence you made them up for the purpose of Straussian esotericism and sophistry. — Apollodorus

Quoting two different translations is not making stuff up

From the IEP:

and repeat such a tale to ourselves as though it were an “incantation” (114d).

https://iep.utm.edu/phaedo/

And Gallop:

-so one should repeat such things to oneself like a spell;

and Grube:

and a man should repeat this to himself as if it were an incantation

...not to tell them lies and also them them that he is telling them lies. — Apollodorus

It is your assumption that incantations and charms are lies.

There is no logical necessity for a person who makes speeches about Gods to either (1) disbelieve in Gods or (2) make things up. — Apollodorus

You are right, it is not a matter of logical necessity. But it does not follow that in making the gods the poets did something other than create them.

If speeches have a double form, the one true, the other false, then they have one form that is true. — Apollodorus

Once again, follow the argument. The true form must come later, much later, when philosophy is introduced to those who are old enough and mature enough and properly suited to it.

The onus is on you to show that Plato's speeches about the Gods are false. — Apollodorus

No, the onus is on you to read the dialogue. It is clear from the context.

The issue is whether Socrates and Plato believe in metaphysical realities. You have failed to show that they don't. — Apollodorus

Once again, a hypothetical is not a reality. Socrates' second sailing:

After this, he said, when I had wearied of looking into beings, I thought that I must be careful to avoid the experience of those who watch an eclipse of the sun, for some of them ruin their eyes unless they watch its reflection in water or some such material ...

So I thought I must take refuge in discussions and investigate the truth of beings by means of accounts [logoi] … On each occasion I put down as hypothesis whatever account I judge to be mightiest; and whatever seems to me to be consonant with this, I put down as being true, both about cause and about all the rest, while what isn’t, I put down as not true.” (99d-100a)

Rather than looking into beings themselves, he turns to accounts, to speech, to hypothesis. Belief in a metaphysical reality is an opinion. Without knowledge there is no true measure of the truth of those opinions.

The dialogues are not about Plato's or Socrates' opinions, they are about the critical examination of our own opinions. Plato creates distance between himself and the dialogues. He never says anything in the dialogue. To assume that what Socrates says in the dialogues is either a record of the man Socrates' beliefs or a reflection of Plato's own beliefs is an assumption without support.

Of course the soul is special, being unlike anything else. — Apollodorus

This is question begging. The question is whether or not the soul is immortal.

However, as Sedley and Long point out, the proof is already provided at 105c - e — Apollodorus

This is not a proof it is an assertion. The fact that Cebes is satisfied does not mean that we should be. Cebes agrees with everything Socrates says. That is something that should be taken note of.

Yes, "sing to one so as to soothe him". — Apollodorus

What it says is:

sing to one so as to charm or soothe him — Fooloso4

There is no doubt the charms and incantations were used to soothe their fear of death. Your objection was to the terms 'incantations' and 'charms'.

Socrates' intention is to soothe or comfort his friends with a narrative that he believes in, not to tell them lies and also them them that he is telling them lies. — Apollodorus

Whether Socrates believed these stories is an open question. See what he says in the Apology about what death may have in store for us. Of course no one tells you lies and at the same time tells you that they are lies! You really are having a hard time sorting this all out.

Making stories about the Gods may not entail the existence of Gods, but it may entail belief in the Gods described in the stories. — Apollodorus

Of course the stories are made with the intent that they be believed. That does not mean the person who makes the stories believes that what he makes up comes to life like Pinocchio.

The only alternative is to assume that the story makers, and by implication Plato, are liars which is absurd IMHO. — Apollodorus

We know that Socrates tells noble lies.

(414b-c)
Also:

Do speeches have a double form, the one true, the other false? Must they [children] be educated in both but first in the false? (Republic 376e-377a)

And the poet Hesiod says that the muses his that:

... they speak lies like the truth ... (Theogony 27)

The statement "you do not believe in Gods at all" is not the charge on which Socrates is being tried, it is an allegation that Meletus makes during the trial. — Apollodorus

Right, it took you awhile but you are getting there. Next step, do some research on what the term 'atheist' meant as it was used then.

Poets don't always make images without originals. — Apollodorus

When it comes to making images of gods they do. Or do you think the gods they tell stories about actually existed?

There is no evidence that Socrates did not believe in the metaphysical realities or beings he described or under whose inspiration he believed he was acting. — Apollodorus

The hyperuranion beings if only believed and not known are not metaphysical realities but hypothetical.

Soul, however, is a special exception. If upon the approach of death it were (b) to perish, it would also (c) take on the opposite property to the one it bears, that is, become a dead soul. Therefore in the special case of soul, perishing is ruled out, and on the approach of death there is only one thing left for it to do: it retreats … — Apollodorus

The claim that the soul is "special" and therefore what applies to other things he gives examples of as snow and three does not apply to it weak. It does not become a "dead soul" any more that snow becomes hot or three things becomes even. Neither the snow nor the three things retreats, they perish. If the soul is not like those examples then the argument still fails because the cases used in the argument are not comparable.

Socrates argues that the soul cannot be an attunement if the tuning existed prior to what is tuned. But there is an argument that Socrates neglects to pursue. 'Tuned and Untuned'. The tuning of a lyre exists apart from any particular lyre. It is the same relationship between the Equal and things that are equal, and the Beautiful or Just and things that are beautiful or just. In accord with that argument the Tuning of the Lyre still exists, but the tuning of a particular lyre does not endure once that lyre is destroyed. Why does he neglect this? The consequence would be the death of the soul along with the body.

The Tuning of the Lyre exists apart from any particular lyre. The Tuning is the relationship between frequencies of the strings. It is this relationship of frequencies that is used to tune a particular lyre. Analogously, the Tuning of the body exists apart from any particular body, it is the relationship of bodily parts, but the tuning of any particular body suffers the same fate as the tuning of any particular lyre.

So "again and again" is not in the Greek text! — Apollodorus

If you want to quibble over the difference between 'again and again' and 'repeat' then go ahead.

The text simply says "sing to oneself". And the verb used is ἐπαείδω epaeido "sing to" which is the same verb used at 77e in the sense of “sing someone’s fear away”. — Apollodorus

According to Liddell and Scott:

2 sing as an incantation, ἃ αἱ Σειρῆνες ἐπῇδον τῷ Ὀδυσσεῖ X.Mem.2.6.11; χρὴ τὰ τοιαῦτα ὥσπερ ἐπᾴδειν ἑαυτῷ Pl.Phd.114d, cf. 77e; ἐ. ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς τοῦτον τὸν λόγον Id.R.608a; ἐ. τινί sing to one so as to charm or soothe him, Id.Phdr.267d, Lg.812c, al.:—Pass., Porph.Chr.35: abs., use charms or incantations, Pl.Tht.157c; ἐπαείδων by means of charms, A.Ag.1021 (lyr.), cf. Pl.Lg.773d, Tht.149d.

Your compulsive obsession with finding some point, however insignificant, to argue against, is, if not pathological, small minded.

Well. if there is "speech about the Gods", then presumably there are Gods to speak about. — Apollodorus

You might presume so, but in making stories about the gods does not entail the existence of gods.

Plato compares the Good to the Sun. The Sun is a God in Greek religion. — Apollodorus

And Plato's philosophy is not Greek religion. Your failure to see the difference is why you cannot understand Plato's philosophy and see only religion.

Right, so there you go again. — Apollodorus

Right, there you go again, ignoring the text. (26c)

(

because I make new Gods — Apollodorus

Like the poets, he is a maker of images without originals. Or do you think the Olympian gods or any other gods they made actually existed?

It is about your claim that Socrates at 114d is telling his friends that "one should “sing incantations to himself, over and over again”, which is not true. — Apollodorus

It is a direct quote. Here's another translation:

... and he ought to repeat such things to himself as if they were magic charms ...

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DPhaedo%3Apage%3D114

mythos can perfectly well mean "story" — Apollodorus

Right. You are catching on now. It was your own incorrect assumption that for the Greeks myths meant lies.

The quote continues:

which is the reason why I have been lengthening out the story so long.

Plato only banishes poets and artists who make irreverent references about the Gods. This isn't the same as "banishing the Gods". — Apollodorus

What the Greeks knew of the gods was through the tales of the poets. Banishing the poets means banishing the gods. In place of the Greek gods, speech about gods, that is, theologia, will be the creation of the founders of the city (Republic 379a)

So, if anything, he replaces the Gods with one supreme and transcendent Deity. — Apollodorus

He replaces the gods with the Good. He does not call the Good a god. That is something you read into the text.

But he insisted that Socrates was tried for atheism. — Apollodorus

I don't have to insist on it, just read the Apology. I've already cited the relevant passages.

Socrates says:

“ 'Greece is a large country, Cebes, which has good men in it, I suppose; and there are many foreign races too. You must ransack all of them in search of such a singer, sparing neither money nor toil, because there isn’t anything more necessary on which to spend your money. And you yourselves must search too, along with one another; you may not easily find anyone more capable of doing this than yourselves.' “(78a)

I have already discussed Plato's use of myths. As to whether the soul has been shown to be immortal see my responses above to Wayfarer.

The question is what the good thing is. — Valentinus

That is both the question and what one hopes to accomplish. But as long as what the good is remains a question we can never be certain that what we strive to accomplish is good. We seek what is best without knowing what is best.

I don't understand your [Apollodorus] passion to have the last word on the subject. — Valentinus

It strikes me as perverse. Anyone who has been doing this for more than a minute expects that there will be those who see things differently than you do, but once that difference has been stated and defended that really should be the end of it. Endlessly arguing the same thing across three different threads is at best pointless and intolerant and at worst ...?

When you see an argument, the first thing you do is google who is against it. — Valentinus

If your son is still reading I trust the two of you are getting a good laugh out of his continued attacks on someone he has not read. Not to the mention generations of scholars he dismisses because they were Strauss' students or students of his students. My favorite is when Apollodorus attempted to discredit him because he was writing in the 1930's and/or had been aided as an emigree by socialist academics.

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

There are two ways of reading the dialogues that move in opposite directions. The first attempts to limit them, to close them off, to put an end to inquiry and discussion. The first was is dogmatic, and sees the dialogues as conforming to and confirming the reader's beliefs. The second allows the dialogues to open up, to give a view of a complex terrain of interrelated questions and problems, or in some cases leading the reader into a labyrinth, and in all cases aporia.

To say "Socrates says 'one must chant such things to oneself' (Phaedo 114d), therefore he indicates that he is telling myths or lies" is not really rational, evidence-based argument. — Apollodorus

That line of argument is wholly of your own creation. This is not the first time you have done this. You falsely accuse me of saying something then argue against it. It is dishonest and intended only to win arguments. It is antithetical to your claim that you are here to learn.

More than once you have done this and each time I challenge you to point out where I said what you claimed I said you go silent and move on to something else.

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

What you say and what you do are obviously not the same. Or do you think learning involves repeated deliberate misrepresentation? Or is it the incessant attempt to push forward your own interpretation? Or is it the belligerent attempt to discredit someone you have not read and do not know anything about? You know nothing about what you misleadingly call "Straussian esotericism" and yet in your desire to learn you simply dismiss it.

Or perhaps when you say you are here to learn you mean ignoring Plato as well. Your prima facie is at odds with what Socrates says:

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

Several times I have traced the arguments in the text, connecting one statement with the next, but in your interest to learn you have simply ignored them. Preferring to take statements out of context as if the whole of the problem is contained in an isolated statement.

@Hanover said:

I cannot unravel a true logical contradiction as it’s been phrased and it’s why the interaction problem remains unsolved for many hundred years. The way out of a definitional contradiction necessarily involves clarification of definitions.

If the distinction is made between physical and mental substances then the interaction problem must be confronted. Has Hanover solved the problem by clarifying definitions?

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

You keep forgetting that you have not read Strauss. If you did you would know that he was a scholar of Plato. Many of his students continue to do scholarly work on Plato.

You also keep forgetting that the topic of this thread is not Strauss.

Whether deliberate or not you have made clear your misunderstanding of what I have said. I am not going to go over it again. If you think you have correctly understood me but do not agree then what do you hope to gain by repeating it all yet again? Why so much intolerance of views other than your own?

I am not going to go over the same things with you again and again without end. You have stated your position, why repeat it? Why quote yourself repeating it yet again?

Still arguing against someone you have not read!

But Strauss is not the only one you have not read in your attempt to discredit him. Two of the authors you cite, Gregory Bruce Smith and Mark J. Lutz, hold Strauss in high regard, which would become clear if you actually read the articles you cite.

Like any thinker worthy of consideration, there are those who reject some or all of what Strauss says. You might as well make a collection of detractors of Plato.

But none of this really matters. What matters to you is defending your Christian neoplatonist reading of Plato. It has gone far beyond stating and defending your position. It reeks of desperation and intolerance.

In my opinion, Plato does not want the reader to just accept the arguments, but to examine and evaluate them. Why would he give the examples of three/Odd, snow/Cold, fire/Hot, if not to draw a parallel with soul/Life?

At 106a Socrates asks whether three things would be imperishable if Odd is imperishable and whether snow would slip away unmelted rather than admit Hot. Cebes agrees that the three things and the snow would be imperishable. Should we? We know that snow melts and having three of something does not mean I will always have these three things.

He is trying to convince Cebes and Simmias of the immortality of the soul. Cebes is convinced. Simmias is not so sure. Argument has its limits. It cannot determine what happens to us when we die. This raises the problem misologic, the hatred of argument, which can occur when someone expects too much from argument. (89d)

What is translated here as the "abstract idea" is the form. The passage continues with the example of Odd. The "something else" that has the name of the form is in this example three. Three is odd but not the Odd itself, that is, not the form or "abstract idea". Three never admits Even.

“So the soul will never admit the opposite of that which it brings along, as we agree from what has been said?” (105d)

The soul brings along Life. The opposite of what the soul brings along is Death. In accord with what has been said, snow brings Cold and three Odd. Snow cannot admit Hot without being destroyed. Three cannot admit Even and remain three. In the same way, soul cannot admit Death and remain soul.

Just as Cold and Odd retreat but not the snow or three, Life retreats but not the soul. Death comes and the soul perishes or is destroyed.

I agree. The problem as I see it is this notion that there is an absolute divine authority that has determined all matters ethical, and that by belief this authority becomes one's own.

Hanover uses a semantic distinction in place of an ontological one: physical means natural and therefore non-physical means supernatural. In place of supernatural we could substitute unnatural and therefore mind and thought are unnatural.

It is not an abstract 'subject' that sees things, but some particular thing that sees things. While it is true that it does not see itself seeing, it does not follow that it stands outside of the world of things as the early Wittgenstein had it, or that seeing is not a physical process that some physical things are capable of.

There is a fundamental distinction between a house that is the object of thought and a house I can live in, but both are things made, both the result of human activity. The "thinking thing" is not some part of me, the thinking thing is me.

Still defending your Christian neoplatonist reading of Plato. Protecting the one true religion from the heretics.

The problem with the analysis is that it misses the distinction between forms and particulars. It is the form that cannot admit its opposite and so "flees", not the particular. Socrates uses the example of Snow/snow. The form Snow does not perish but the snow on the ground does not " flee" at the approach of heat it perishes. In the same way, the form Soul cannot admit death and flees, but a particular soul perishes.

How can faith be anything but the excuse you give for believing when you don't have a good reason? — Tom Storm

I think there are two reasons one might believe. The first is intellectual and in my opinion not a good reason to believe. It is, however, the reason we often find being argued - the necessity of a first cause or designer. The second is emotional, and although not based on reason, is reasonable, if one is led to believe because in some way it resonates with them, gives them a sense of security, or meaning and purpose. Practical consequences, however, may not always be reasonable when faith is used as a substitute for good judgment.

It is a difficult book and not one I would recommend to someone looking for general works on ethics, but to say it has no ethics in it is wrong. Although challenging it is certainly manageable.

I was a moderator on another forum. Its a thankless job, except in cases like this when someone says thank you - so, thank you.

There are cases where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

If you do not agree with a decision make your case and move on.

That is very far from common sense, which considers emotions and thoughts as perfectly natural. — Olivier5

I think so as well. Perhaps he will defend the claim.

Don't whatever you do read Spinoza's Ethics. It has no ethics in it. — bert1

Rather than dismiss one of the greatest works of philosophy, it would be more sensible and modest to ask the question of why a book titled "Ethics" seems not to be about ethics. Rather and assume the text is wanting, perhaps it is your own understand of the text that is wanting.

Spinoza's signet ring was engraved with the word "Caute". This motto informed his writing and so should inform our reading of him.

As it is being used by 180 I take it to mean that what it being divided in terms of two different substances is actually a distinction between properties of the same substance.

If I understand him correctly, by "supernatural" Hanover means non-physical:

My definition of the non-physical, counter to yours, is that which is attributed to some force that is in principle beyond scientific understanding. Within that definition would be those emotions, inner thoughts, phenomenological states, and one's full inner life.

And so, emotions, inner thoughts, phenomenological states, and one's full inner life are not natural states but supernatural.

Still trying! You know nothing about Strauss' work and never will unless you actually read him rather than read about him by those who do not understand him.

You are not moving the discussion forward. You are simply repeating the same misguided complaints over and over, pulling passages from Plato out of context, and still not comprehending the difference between logos and mythos as used by Plato.

Just the other day I found this website

https://voegelinview.com/

and have referred to it couple of times already. It contains some very good essays. For anyone interested in the question of Plato and Platonism, "Plato's Critique of Platonism"

https://voegelinview.com/plato-s-critique-of-platonism-pt-1/

From these claims, the specter of a metaphysically and politically totalizing Platonism takes its shape. Now, totalization is simple; so it should be simple to present. And yet most commentators find the composition of the Eleatic dialogues – especially the Statesman – as anything but simple. They are inexplicably turgid, baffling, and even impenetrable. In my view, it is right to find elements of what has come to be known as Platonism in the Eleatic dialogues, but it is wrong to attribute them to Plato. On the contrary: in the Sophist and Statesman, Plato is presenting an explicit critique of Platonism, or more precisely a critique of those aspects of Eleatic or Megarian philosophy that have become identified with Platonism – in the modern period certainly since Hegel did so, but among the ancients as well.

What I gathered from my superficial reading on the subject is the conventional wisdom that Plato went through 'phases' or 'periods' like Picasso. — Olivier5

There are noticeable differences between the earlier and later dialogues, but the question of whether his thinking is marked by different periods is complex. For example, a later dialogue, Parmenides, is about Socrates as a young man. Parmenides is critical of the Forms. It remains an open question whether the Forms survive the attack, and if so, how they were altered. Theories of Plato's development based on theories of the chronology of when the dialogues were written should be considered in light of the dramatic chronology that Plato provides. In other words, if there was a change in his view of the Forms, the dramatic chronology suggests it is a change that informed Socratic philosophy from near the beginning of Socrates' own development.

in later dialogues he tended to be replaced by 'the stranger' ( — Olivier5

The stranger appears in some but not all the later dialogues. The question of who the stranger is is related to the question of who philosopher is. There is no dialogue "Philosopher", but the question is taken up in the Sophist and Statesman. The philosopher is in some ways like them, but in what way he is unique is never resolved.

Here is a nice summary: "The Real Name of the Stranger: The Meaning of Plato's Statesman"

https://voegelinview.com/real-name-stranger-meaning-platos-statesman/

In the dialogue we find Socrates, the Stranger, and "young Socrates".

It could be that the reports by Plato are inaccurate, or it could be that Socrates himself harboured some contradictions. — Olivier5

In the Second Letter Plato says:

"No writing of Plato exists or ever will exist, but those now said to be his are those of a Socrates become beautiful and new".

The dialogues are not reports. Plato distances the man Socrates from the person created in the dialogues. In addition, he distances himself from what is said in the dialogues.