It was a book I had just picked up ... — Apollodorus

The mods edited out a lot of what you said.

So, I'm afraid you are clutching at straws there. — Apollodorus

No, I am doing exactly what you did with Strauss, except in this case the evidence is stronger. You use the "psychological analysis" of a self-professed Nazi to support your own bias against socialism.

You object to being associated with the author of the book you touted, but can't seem to see that it is by a similar association you dismiss not only Strauss but generations of scholars who learned from him.

Strauss was certainly close to Fabian Socialists like Laski and Tawney — Apollodorus

They helped him emigrate, just as hundreds of other scholars were helped. What is clear if you would actually read him is that he was opposed to socialism.

My point was that anti-Platonism was a trend arising from liberal, Christian Socialist and Fabian Socialist circles. — Apollodorus

Strauss was educated in Germany not England. He was not liberal or Christian or a socialist.

So far, you have presented zero evidence for your claim that the Euthyphro or any other dialogue teaches "atheism". — Apollodorus

That's because I never said that they do. You have a distorted view of what the Socratic teaching is. It is not about telling you what to think, it is about teaching you how to think. It is zetetic. It is about inquiry, examination, evaluation, not indoctrination or insemination. Not the disclosure of revealed truths.

"secret teaching" — Apollodorus

If you were to do more than judge a book by not even reading the cover you would see that what Strauss is talking about is not a teaching in this sense of the term. It is, in fact, just the opposite. It is teaching in the way Plato describes in the Republic. It does not put something in the soul, it turns it around so that it can see. And, of course, here you will be mistaken in thinking it is the Forms that are seen.

The fact of the matter is, we do not see the Forms. Whatever you think it may be possible for us to see, what we can see here and now, if we are self-aware and honest, is that we do not see the Forms. They remain for us images, hypotheses. We remain in the cave.

I have recently discovered the writings of Remi Brague, — Wayfarer

From Wiki:

"Leo Strauss taught me that when reading a text, you must be open to the possibility that it contains different layers of meaning. All philosophical books written before the Enlightenment aim at both a wider audience and a small elite, able to understand the deeper meaning of the texts."

"... Strauss taught me to read very carefully ..."

You do not read with anything close to sufficient attention when you read at all. I quoted Plato and you call it "your statement". I correct you and you do the same thing again.

It is a willful blindness born of fear. Not only do you ignore my arguments, you ignore Plato's own. You dismiss the work of generations of scholars without having read a single page of their work because their teacher was born in the 30's and was helped to emigrate from Nazi Germany by scholars who were socialist.

This would be comically shallow except for the fact that this is the same kind of thing that led to McCarthyism in the US and ruined the lives of many people.

Except in your case it is Nazism. When you first came here you touted the work of Kerry Bolton. The connection is clear. By your own logic anyone who opposes Nazism would dismiss what you say because of this connection.

He is involved in several nationalist and fascist political groups in New Zealand.

In 1980, Bolton co-founded the New Zealand branch of the Church of Odin, a pro-Nazi organisation for "whites of non-Jewish descent".

He founded the national-socialist Order of the Left Hand Path (OLHP).It was intended to be an activist front promoting an "occult-fascist axis"

Bolton created and edited the Black Order newsletter, The Flaming Sword, and its successor, The Nexus, a satanic-Nazi journal

And to defend Bolton you cited Kevin B. MacDonald.

Kevin B. MacDonald (born January 24, 1944) is an American anti-semitic conspiracy theorist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and a retired professor of evolutionary psychology at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).[1][2][3] In 2008, the CSULB academic senate voted to disassociate itself from MacDonald's work.[4]

Understood. I'm asking if you noticed this on your own or if it was pointed out to you.

Yes, he was working in the 30's, like many other Jewish scholars he was aided in leaving Nazi Germany, and because you found the title of an article without any content you conclude you can dismiss him and generations of scholars who have come after him.

That is both remarkably arrogant and startingly ignorant.

Do you know what the content of the Tawney article is? Strauss was opposed to Marxism, Socialism, and historicism.

I suppose I should not be surprised by this. Previously you summarily dismissed the entire field of Biblical scholarship and American universities because they are all liberals and Marxists.

There are all kinds of things I do not know but have beliefs about.

I acknowledge that I do not know but I do not believe in the existence god or gods.

I have conclusively shown that Socrates' dialectic is sound and is quite capable of producing valid knowledge when correctly understood and applied — Apollodorus

You have not shown anything. You have quoted spoonfed passages. An analogy does not show that dialectic is "sound". If dialectic is capable of producing knowledge of the Good then why don't you know the good itself? Why does Socrates say he is ignorant and is only giving his opinion on this. I have already cited the passages and followed the arguments.

You even claimed to have correctly understood Socrates' analogy of the Sun. — Apollodorus

Yes, and as an analogy I understand it as such.

And yet you are saying that dialectic is "dangerous" — Apollodorus

I am not saying it, I quoted the text.

Plato's concept of the Good is "foolish" — Apollodorus

Please quote where I said that.

I won't ask again for you to point out where I said what you accused me of saying above, because as you know, your accusation is a fabrication. Each time you do this you become less and less credible. It really shows the weakness of your arguments when you have to resort to such misrepresentations.

Their usual method is to start by taking a dialogue in isolation of other Platonic texts — Apollodorus

What is it you hope to accomplish by making such false claims?

Above on this same page:

The dialogues form larger wholes. Two or more dialogues are tied together in various ways, by the chronology of events, such as Euthyphro and Apology or extended to include Crito and Phaedo, or by a central question such as with the trilogy Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, or Phaedrus and Symposium on eros. That the dialogues are not independent, however, does not mean that they are not each wholes in themselves. — Fooloso4

Their usual method is to start by taking a dialogue in isolation of other Platonic texts, after which they use terms like "irony", "elenchos", "aporia", "skepticism", etc. to arrive at the most preposterous conclusions designed to demonize Plato and Platonists. — Apollodorus

Do you really find it hard to understand why scholars from different schools would use the same terms that are found in the dialogues?

Anyway, if you are not reading scholars like Sedley and Gerson, who are leading in the field, which scholars do you actually read then??? — Apollodorus

I have mentioned them before. I'll start with Leo Strauss and Jacob Klein, both Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Their students and students of their students include most notably Seth Benardete, Stanley Rosen, Allan Bloom, Thomas Pangle, Christopher Bruell, Laurence Lampert, Ronna Burger, Charles Griswold, and many others.

None of them "demonize" Plato. He is of central importance to their philosophical work.

Here it is again:

Totally untrue. I never "rejected mention of Leibniz" at all. I rejected your preposterous claim that according to Leibniz Plato was a covert atheist as were Ibn Sina, Clement of Alexandria, and Plato himself.

I can quote your own statements anytime should you wish me to do so. — Apollodorus

And again:

Yes, please do and don't leave anything out, including your own statements. — Fooloso4

And now, since you are unable to do that you further misrepresent it.

And, of course, all this bluster and noise provides a good cover by which you can avoid the substantive issues such as those raised in my last post regarding dialectic and Socratic philosophy.

"Will" did not even exist as a philosophical concept at Plato's time — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm curious where you came across this. I've only seen it once, from Eva Brann, but don't recall if she cited any supporting evidence.

As a matter of fact, I know far more than you think. And anti-Platonists like Dickinson, Shorey, and Crossman are rather notorious characters in the literature. — Apollodorus

Your second sentence shows the first to be false. It does not matter what you may know about anti-Platonists like Dickinson, Shorey, and Crossman, they are not who I read and do not influence the scholars I learn from. What you do not know is who the authors I read are and what it is that they say.

That's why you deny knowing anything about them, because you don't want to be associated with their names. Subversive liberals, Christian Socialists, Fabian Socialists. It's all politically motivated, without a doubt. — Apollodorus

I deny knowing them because I have never read them and they are not cited by the scholars I do read. Strawman bullshit.

I can quote your own statements anytime should you wish me to do so.
— Apollodorus

Yes, please do and don't leave anything out, including your own statements.
— Fooloso4

Do you need more time? I'm not surprised. It takes a very long time to find something that is not there. — Fooloso4

A feeble attempt to dodge. If this had been the only time I would have just moved on as I did elsewhere, but it is dishonest. You misrepresent what I say, claim you can quote where I said it, and when you are called out just pretend you never said it.

Anyway, as I said, I think you deliberately misunderstood Socrates' analogy. — Apollodorus

Please point to where I misunderstood him. The analogy stuff is obvious. Unless you possess knowledge of the good it all remains at the level of talk. Something you accept as a matter of faith.

Dialectic is only dangerous when reason is used incorrectly and out of sync with the nous/truth/Good.
There is nothing contradictory there. — Apollodorus

How do we know that it is being used incorrectly and out of sync with the nous/truth/Good. If it is what leads to nous/truth/Good then when cannot say while on the journey that it is out of sync with what we do not yet know.

But a way of life necessitates some form of intellectual framework that guides us in everyday life. — Apollodorus

That is your assumption. One that I think is wrong and contrary to Socratic philosophy. It is zetetic, guided by inquiry. Any form of intellectual framework must be subject to critical examination.

This is what Plato presents in the dialogues. — Apollodorus

It has been pointed out to you several times and by more than one person, the dialogues often end in aporia.

as long as it is sufficiently clear to provide a form of guidance on the basis of which we can live our lives both outwardly and inwardly. — Apollodorus

You clearly bring your Christian biases to bear on your reading of Plato.

I know enough to criticize their methodology and so does Gerson. — Apollodorus

Bullshit! You do not know who they are or anything about their methodologies.

I can quote your own statements anytime should you wish me to do so.
— Apollodorus

Yes, please do and don't leave anything out, including your own statements. — Fooloso4

Do you need more time? I'm not surprised. It takes a very long time to find something that is not there.

That's what I'm saying, it isn't a syllogism because it doesn't show how you arrive at that conclusion. — Apollodorus

It's got wings and flies, it's not a dog.

I had already said what I think the Socratic way of life is, and it ain't about building a theoretical construct out of "Ur-Platonism".

The fact is that Gerson is not criticizing the scholars, he simply points out that their procedure is flawed. — Apollodorus

The fact is, you are criticizing scholars you know nothing about, simply because Gerson criticizes some other scholars.

Something is missing there, — Apollodorus

There is nothing missing. It is not a syllogism.

And you are not paying attention. What Gerson is saying ... — Apollodorus

What I am saying is that you pay far too much attention to Gerson. Unless a scholar from the 19th century can shed light on the dialogues, such things are of no concern to me.

Gerson doesn’t need to name those scholars ( — Apollodorus

No, he doesn't. You, on the other hand, use his criticism of those scholars to dismiss other sholars.

because we know exactly who they are. — Apollodorus

And exactly who they are are not the scholars I make use of. Simple strawman.

I wonder what Greek term it is a translation from - 'pneuma', perhaps? (That is mentioned later in the article in relation to the Stoics.) — Wayfarer

The Greek term is thumos, spirited not spiritual. In the Republic the chief characteristic of auxiliaries or warrior class is spiritedness. It refers to such things as anger, recognition, honor, rage, passion. It is what the education in music is supposed to moderate.

I don't much like 'spiritual' as a word but what are the alternatives? — Wayfarer

Good question. I don't find it in any of Plato's descriptions of the soul. I suspect it is a foreign import, an invasive species. Something that takes over and crowds out the native thought.

I think he does. — Wayfarer

The question is whether he identifies a part of the soul as the spiritual part. The Wiki quote says that it is able to think. But if I remember correctly you made a distinction between the thinking or intellectual and the spiritual.

Many of these key concepts were assimilated and transformed by the Greek Christian theologians and are now seen through that lens, which is a big part of the interpretive issue in my view. — Wayfarer

Yes, I agree.

Isn't that is what 'hermeneutics' is for? — Wayfarer

There are different views on this.Gadamer, for example, talks about the fusion of horizons, but Strauss, Klein, and others, influenced in part by Husserl and Heidegger attempt to "de-sediment" concepts and "retrieve" earlier ways of seeing things. Those who grew up outside the Christian religion have a somewhat easier time of it. No one escapes history and culture, but an awareness of it can help us not be trapped by our cultural assumptions and prejudices. Identifying how terms were used is an important part of it. If the term spiritual was not used then it becomes suspicious and needs further examination.

Deriving from this it was also sometimes argued, especially in classical and medieval philosophy, that the individual nous must require help of a spiritual and divine type. — Wikipedia

I bolded the important qualification. It is not, as some might think a given or a fact, it is part of an interpretation.

How this relates the spiritual and the intellectual is like this. — Wayfarer

Why the spiritual in addition to the intellectual? What is the spiritual? Is it like an attitude, or a receptiveness? And to what? Spirit, as in the holy ghost? As you probably know the German term 'geist' means ghost, mind, and spirit.

You're pretty close to saying that really, Plato doesn't know anything, he only writes about it. — Wayfarer

When his Socrates says in the Apology that he is ignorant he did not mean completely ignorant but that he did not know anything noble(beautiful) and good (21d). I am saying we should not assume that Plato did either. I think both Plato and Aristotle are Socratics in that they do not know the noble and good, but have opinions about them. They are philosophers as Socrates describes them in the Symposium rather than in the non-existent just city, that is, lovers of wisdom who desire what they do not possess.

How do you know that dialectics leads to knowledge of the Good? You accept it as an article of faith.

Socrates also says this about dialectic:

Don't you notice how great is the harm coming from the practice of dialectic these days?

If dialectic leads to knowledge of the good how is it that it can be a dangerous practice? How can it lead to both the good and its opposite?

Is Socrates lying when he says that he is ignorant? After all, he has no aversion to noble lies. But in what way might that be a noble lie? Perhaps it is something else he is lying about. What would he lie about that would be of benefit to both the individual and the city? It would have to be something noble or beautiful and good. Something that would inspire them to seek the beautiful and good itself. Something that would help to make their souls beautiful and good.

I can quote your own statements anytime should you wish me to do so. — Apollodorus

Yes, please do and don't leave anything out, including your own statements.

First, the assumptions that Socrates describes in the Phaedo are the method by which he proceeds. He assumes the existence of the Good and the Beautiful and the rest. He does not say he knows or sees them. This much is consistent with the description of dialectic in the Republic.

Second, it should be noted that the account of dialectic in the Republic differs from the story of transcendence from the cave. The latter was in terms of what is seen by the soul in some transcendent state. The dialectical is via speech, via the assumptions or hypotheses.

Third, the beginning free of hypothesis or assumption that, in some unexplained way, frees itself from hypothesis or assumption is the beginning or principle. It is what is arrived at only when one has completed the dialectical journey. It is for you not a principle you have arrived at, it is something you assume based on trust or faith.

As already stated, all knowledge and all objects of knowledge are emanations of the Good. — Apollodorus

As already stated, this is not something you know. It is something you accept or believe, an opinion. It is for all of us who do not possess this knowledge nothing more than a shadow on the cave wall.

Of course there is no need for the Good "to be responsible for the bad things". — Apollodorus

Then the Good cannot be the cause of the whole.

As explained by Plotinus — Apollodorus

Plotinus is not Plato. In whatever way evil exists it still exists, it is part of the whole, part of the world we live in. No adequate account of the whole can ignore or explain away the existence of bad things. The Good as the cause of existence and being (509b) must be the cause of bad things, for there are bad things, bad things exist.

What you fail to understand is that the dialogues are just brief sketches, not encyclopedic works. — Apollodorus

A non-sequitur. It is not a matter of the dialogues being encyclopedic but of them being self-consistent, both on their own and all together.

use your reasoning faculty — Apollodorus

Noesis is not a reasoning faculty. It is not dianoia. That is the point. We cannot transcend reason by the use of reason. Unless you can free yourself from hypothesis and know the Forms themselves they remain for you hypotheses, assumptions, something you accept on faith, something you believe because someone told you it is true.

don't expect to be spoonfed. — Apollodorus

Apparently, you do not see that this is exactly what is happening. You take statements at face value and go no further, as if the truth has been revealed. It is said and thus it is. Fine for revealed religion but not for philosophy.

What is at issue is the distinction between intellectual and spiritual.

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 (Phaedo 100a)

I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest. (Phaedo 100c)

It this is a principle it is one an assumption, an hypothesis, not something established as true.

He goes on to say, using the Beautiful as his example of his hypothetical causes:

... I simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful. That, I think, is the safest answer I can give myself or anyone else.” (100e)

He does not explain the causal relationship between the Beautiful and what is beautiful. He skips over that important question. One cannot have a principle or principles that explain the whole if the relationship between Forms and things in the world is not explained. This is why Socrates then goes on to reintroduce physical causes as givens, that is, without explanation for what causes them.

The analogy of the sun to the good, is just that, an analogy. It does not explain anything.

Then the good is not the cause of everything, rather it is the cause of the things that are in a good way, while it is not responsible for the bad things. (Republic 379b)

If the whole includes bad things then the Good cannot be the cause or the explanation of the whole.
As an explanation it is, as he says, naive and perhaps foolish. It says that nothing else makes something good other than the presence of the Good.

Funny how you rejected mention of Leibniz, but now that you think he supports your argument you appeal to him. But let's not chase that round and round.

Nowhere in all of this is the soul identified as "spiritual".

Unfortunately the single-minded focus on speculative theories about Platonism, regarded as unquestionable established facts, has resulted in the dialogue itself being ignored.

I agree with Gerson when he says about:

over-critical reading of individual dialogues independently of other dialogues — Apollodorus

The dialogues form larger wholes. Two or more dialogues are tied together in various ways, by the chronology of events, such as Euthyphro and Apology or extended to include Crito and Phaedo, or by a central question such as with the trilogy Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, or Phaedrus and Symposium on eros. That the dialogues are not independent, however, does not mean that they are not each wholes in themselves. They can be seen in this regard as a version of the problem of the one and the many, with each being one, and together being both many and a whole or one. The Forms themselves represent the same problem.

.. among a few scholars... — Apollodorus

I don't know if Gerson identifies these scholars, but we should not mistake a few scholars for all scholars whose reading of the dialogues does not agree with his or your own.

It was primarily a way of life. — Apollodorus

I agree with him on this as well. Socrates' concern with the human things is a concern for a way of life - the examined life.

This leads back to the question of what guides that way of life. Euthyphro thinks it is some notion of piety, but he is unable to say what that is. To say that it is what the gods love does not tell us what it is that the gods love or how we are to determine what the gods love.

The Socratic way is the way of inquiry, engendered by the desire to become wise. It is to lead an examined life. Rather than assume, like Euthyphro, that you know what you do not know, knowing that you do not know you continue to inquire, to examine, to question.

Gerson may be right about Platonism being about building a theoretical construct out of "Ur-Platonism", but if he is, this shows how far the Socratic way of life is from Platonism. I agree with those scholars who think that Plato and Aristotle are Socratic. But Plato and Aristotle know that the Socratic way of life is only for the few. The many need answers, and so, they give them salutary answers that will guide them.

It comes down to whether we put our faith and trust in and hold fast to these answers or if we do not rest content with what we are told and continue to inquire and examine and evaluate.

where the spiritual aspect is 'bracketed out', — Wayfarer

,

Does Plato identify a spiritual aspect? The spirited part of the tripartite soul in the Republic, for example, is not spiritual in the sense I think you are using the term. The chariot image of the soul in the Phaedrus does not have a spiritual aspect either. The desire for wisdom, in the Symposium, is described as erotic and eros is demoted. Like Socrates' daimonion, eros is not a god but half way between the human and the gods.

I'm reading Pierre Hadot' Philosophy as a Way of Life: — Wayfarer

I have read this. I agree that philosophy is more than the kind of distanced impersonal intellectual pursuit that it has become. But I think there is a difference between philosophy as eros for what one lacks and the fulfillment of that desire; between Socrates who says he does not know and someone who possesses knowledge of the Good itself.

Philosophy as a call to action, not a recipe or formula. — Wayfarer

We are in agreement on this.

But when he says it is his opinion do you think he is really saying it is not him opinion but something he knows?

the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains

But he says in the Apology that his wisdom is human wisdom not divine wisdom. He makes that distinction. I take the passage to mean that the philosopher in the Republic who possesses divine wisdom is capable of this, but who is the philosopher who is no longer a philosopher as the philosopher is described in the Symposium, that is, one who desires but does not possess wisdom?

Why does he say that? What is the 'divine element' he is speaking of? — Wayfarer

Because the just city can only be ruled by those who know justice itself, and beauty itself, and the good itself. The divine element is knowledge of the good. On my reading this is something desired, something to strive for, but human wisdom, Socrates' wisdom is to know that these are not things we know but only have opinions about.

It's plain that he is speaking, or having Socrates speak, from his own realisation. — Wayfarer

This is where we differ. I see it as Plato's philosophical poetry, an image of what such knowledge is like.

(And note well, there's a distinction between 'realisation' and 'experience' in such matters.) — Wayfarer

What is the distinction? Is the dimension of "real quality" a realization or experience?

And it's not just a theory, a collection of words, but a completely different understanding of life. — Wayfarer

Is this understanding the result of a realization or an experience or just something you believe to be true?

I'm sorry that this probably puts our views at loggerheads. — Wayfarer

We do see things differently, but I think it is safe to say that neither of us feel threatened by that or feels the need to convert the other.

The problem is, our materialistic culture knows nothing of the 'ascent of the soul' or 'the realm of pure ideas' ... — Wayfarer

How much do you think Plato knew? As you quote:

... according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed — whether rightly or wrongly, God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that

Some say that Socrates did not know but Plato did. But why then would Plato have Socrates tell this story? Why not a stranger as in some other dialogues? And why not have the stranger say that these are things he or she knows rather than Socrates for whom it is an opinion?

We philosophers leave such behaviors to MAGA capped trolls. — Olivier5

Right. I was referring the one of our resident MAGA trolls.
call

Blaming it on Descartes is what sophisticated thinkers do. — Olivier5

Oh, I misunderstood. That certainly does not apply in the case I was thinking of.

a sad relic of Cartesianism — Olivier5

In all seriousness, there are still some around in philosophy departments who do not credit animals with the ability to think. I recall one argument where the professor claimed that since animals cannot do what we do, think about what they are going to do next Tuesday or something like that, they cannot be said to think.

There is an interesting and touching new novel by Kazuo Ishiguro called "Klara and the Sun" about an artificial friend. Klara can reason and displays empathy, but is still regarded as an appliance. The book is elegant in its simplicity. A friend who visits this forum also read it and gain it high praise.

I thought it was the atheists who were to blame, or the Marxists, or the liberals, or the socialists, or the communists, or progressives, or the "loony left". Hell, why worry about differences when blaming everyone who does not hold your religious/political views. Blame the atheist/Marxist/liberal/socialist/communist/progressive/loony left.

Yes, it was unkind to monkeys to make this comparison.

Yes, there were other reasons than just the political risk of spilling too many beans. — Olivier5

I came across an interesting interpretation of Descartes that led to my own investigation. I would start a thread on it but I do not want to have to deal with resident anti-atheist fanatic shitting all over it like a caged monkey flinging his own feces.

... many democrats would have been concerned that something like this could happen again if Socrates and others were allowed to teach another generation. — Olivier5

Right, and this is a major reason why those, like Plato who wrote books that anyone could see, as opposed to private conversation, had to hide their subversive teachings in plain sight.

This was not just a problem in ancient Athens. Descartes took his motto from Ovid:

He who lived well hid himself well.

I should add, it is not simply about personal safety but to protect philosophy.

My difference with "Fooloso4", although I don't think very highly of Plato or of his political ideas. — Olivier5

I do think highly of Plato. I think the Laws rather than the Republic are better representative of his political thinking, but we live in a very different world. I think that one advantage of Plato, and Aristotle as well, is that political philosophy is about more than just political order. They lead us to reflect upon more than just political expediency, on questions of how we ought to live and what are desires and goals are as a community and country.

I am in general agreement. I think it is wrong to assume that what we find in the dialogues represent Plato's own views on metaphysics. In addition, although dialogues do discuss metaphysical issues they end in aporia not answers.

From what I can see — Apollodorus

The problem is, you are incapable of seeing beyond the narrow confines of your own mind and its single track beliefs.

You don't need advice from me, but I think you are losing your time with Apo. The guy is not smart enough nor intellectually honest enough, period. I for one keep my responses to him to the bare minimum, in hope that he might understand such simple statements. — Olivier5

I have reached the same conclusion.