You keep repeating the same things over and over makes you right?

You would make a great juror for the defense in a murder trial: "He said he was not guilty. His friends say he's not guilty. That's all the evidence I need."

Hey frank. You have not been paying attention!

You have already said many times that you read the dialogues through the eyes of the Neoplatonists. Repeating it every time I post something is at best ill mannered. Your's is not the final word on Plato, and yet you have a compulsive need to have it be so in this forum. Why? I strongly suspect it is really not about Plato.

I am not going to respond to your misrepresentations and perversions of logic

Of course it proves nothing. It is not about proof. It is about learning how to read an author who has something to hide. One must learn how to read between the lines, to make connections, to put the pieces together, to resolve seeming contradictions, to follow the argument even when it is laid out over three books. It is about being able to see the whole and how the pieces function to make the whole. In other words, the exact opposite of what you are doing when you take things out of context.

You are getting closer to the problem with your comment on Ibn Sina's concern for his fate. Plato had the same personal concern and for the same reason as Ibn Sina. What you forget is that Plato's teacher was sentenced to death for his teachings, for talking to everyone, for being open and candid.

Again, you need to be able to put things to get the full picture of the conditions under which Plato wrote.

Of course it proves nothing. It is not about proof. It is about learning how to read an author who has something to hide. One must learn how to read between the lines, to make connections, to put the pieces together, to resolve seeming contradictions, to follow the argument even when it is laid out over three books. It is about being able to see the whole and how the pieces function to make the whole. In other words, the exact opposite of what you are doing when you take things out of context.

You are getting closer to the problem with your comment on Ibn Sina's concern for his fate. Plato had the same personal concern and for the same reason as Ibn Sina. What you forget is that Plato's teacher was sentenced to death for his teachings, for talking to everyone, for being open and candid.

Again, you need to be able to put things to get the full picture of the conditions under which Plato wrote.

It points to political motivation thinly disguised as civil and religious piety.

Socrates says very clearly that “it turns out that the soul is immortal” (Phaedo 114d) — Apollodorus

Once again, context is important. When taking things out of content they may seem to mean something different than they do.

Socrates is wrapping up a myth he created about the immortality of the soul. Immediately following the myth and before the quote you take out of context he says:

No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places …

and following it:

he should sing, as it were, incantations to himself over and over again.(114d)

"It turns out" refer to the myth, It is a belief he says that one should risk, not to anything that has been established as true. One need not risk believing something established as true.

and that “therefore — Apollodorus

A fine example of your disregard for the arguments in the dialogues. You join two different arguments from two different dialogues as if one follows from the other. And then follow that with another statement taken out of context.

And on the subject of taking things out of context, your ill informed Neoplatonist rants refer to your claim Plato should be interpreting through Neoplatonism and what follows from that. And, more importantly, what does not follow, any attention to the arguments themselves.

by denying the fundamental principles upon which Platonism is based. — Apollodorus

Once again, Neoplatonism and the works of Plato are two different things. One choose to interpret the latter through the former. Using your analogy you study Plato from a Neoplatonist perspective. There are many serious scholars who think that is wrong. The bit about a materialist and anti-theist perspective is a non-sequitur. I follow the arguments where they lead. You ignore the arguments whenever they do not conform to what you want them to say.

As I said, it is imperative to keep up with the times, and not stay stuck in the outdated ideas of post-war neo-liberalism and intellectual nihilism. — Apollodorus

I previously provided a list of contemporary scholars doing work on Plato. They are, more and more, becoming representative of the direction current scholarship is going in. It is clear that you have not even looked up who they are. Instead you create a caricature that is not even close to the truth.

But you may do as you please. I don't care. — Apollodorus

And yet, you repeatedly come here, day after day, and post the same illinformed Neoplatonist rant.

It is a well-known fact that in ancient philosophy, astronomy was used as an analogy for psychological and metaphysical phenomena. — Apollodorus

Right, and Plato rejects that. Follow his argument as outlined above.

Given that Plato believed in an immortal soul — Apollodorus

But it is not a given. As you know, I posted a long thread on the Phaedo that shows that the arguments for the immortality of the soul all fail. The mythological stories may persuade some, but that Plato is persuaded by the stories he makes up is far from given.

the spiritual part of the soul — Apollodorus

Where does Plato say that there is a spiritual part of the soul? Certainly not in the Republic or the Phaedo.

Plato can be properly understood only by studying Platonism ... — Apollodorus

That is a statement of your belief. In my opinion to understand Plato one must begin with a careful, open minded reading of the dialogues, not by imposing religious and metaphysical assumptions on them. In doing so one must ignore the dialogic arguments that threaten those assumptions.

There is a long and varied history of interpretation of the dialogues. In the ancient world, prior to and contrary to Neoplatonism, we find:

In their writings the most famous philosophers of the Greeks and their prophets made use of parables and images in which they concealed their secrets, like Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato.
– Avicenna (Ibn Sina), “On the Parts of Science,” 85

The cave is said to be "an image of our nature in its education and want of education". (514a) That education is the work of 'image makers' who shape our opinions and beliefs. For the most part they are the poets with their stories of the gods, and the statesmen who order our public life.

Plato too is an image maker. In addition to the image of the cave he provides an image of transcendent truth. One cannot escape the cave by seeing another image. To imagine that you have escaped the cave by reading about what is outside the cave is to do exactly what those chained to the wall do, take images as something more than an image.

What is often overlooked is the importance of the image of the fire which provides light in the cave. The decisive moment is not escape from the cave but in seeing the cave for what it is. It is by this light that one who breaks the shackles comes to know the source of our education, that is, the manufacturer of our beliefs and opinions.

One thing that is often overlooked is that Plato is an image maker. The ascent from the cave to the light of truth is itself an image on the cave wall.

The passage cited is about astronomy. It is the "fourth study" after solid geometry. It is the study "which treats motion of what has depth" (528e)

Glaucon says "astronomy compels the soul to see what's above and leads it there away from the things here". Socrates corrects him. When studied in this way it causes the soul to look downward. (529a)

He calls the stars "decorations in the heavens embroidered on a vaulted ceiling". The image of the starry night, is the opposite of the image of Good in the sun. Astronomy when studied as Socrates proposes is not the study of visible things in the heavens, it is about "what must be grasped by argument and thought, not sight" (529d) The "organ or instrument" in the passage is not some spiritual faculty, it is the instrument of thought, of reasoned argument.

Plato uses the term 'thymos" for the middle part of the tripartite soul, the spirited part. It is ruled by the highest part, reason. He does not identify a "spiritual" part.

Plato's exoteric teaching mimics the religious and mystical teachings of the poets, his esoteric teaching to something quite different. He cleverly disguises the exoteric as the esoteric, so that what is in plain sight can be quoted and revered as if were about some "metaphysical experience" and mystical reality. It is only when one follows the argument that what is really being said becomes clear. If one imposes assumptions about the "ultimate objective" of the dialogues, then it is no surprise if that is what will be see. But when one attends carefully to the details of the text and follows the arguments where they lead then things begin to look very different.

Have we not here a tradition from the ancients who hid their meaning from the common herd in poetical figures ... ?
– Plato, Theaetetus 180c-d

There are many things that can be objects of contemplation for Aristotle, that is, many things that can be seen with the intellect.

His treatment of mathematical objects is particularly instructive: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-mathematics/

Regarding Forms as patterns Aristotle says:

To say that the Forms are patterns, and that other things participate in them, is to use empty phrases and poetical metaphors ...

Metaphysics 1.991a

Looking at the divided line in the Republic, mathematical objects are seen with the mind. They are objects of thought, but what is seen are not Forms, they are images, likenesses.

The relationship between the top two parts of the divided line are the same as that of the bottom two, that is, a relationship of images to things.

Some readers forget that their perspective is a human perspective, not that of a god. Plato gives us images of beauty itself and the just itself and the good itself. Some mistake these images for the things they are images of and imagine they have become knowledgeable about such things having read about them. The objects of our contemplation are not the Forms but images of the Forms, what we imagine them to be.

Socrates provides an image of the Good, its likeness, the sun. That the good gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower, is, as he says, his opinion, not something he knows by having seen the good itself. It is an opinion he thinks it best that we hold too.

Note he says: "say" that the Good provides the truth to the things known (508e). This is the opinion he wants others to hold.

When did religion become something other than politics? Was it with the death of the Messiah? Or will it come with the fulfilment of the Religious Right's vision of Armageddon? Trump did his part and God's work by making Jerusalem the capital. Meanwhile there is the war to save Christmas and bring prayer back to the schools, and protect God fearing people from making cakes for those they really fear.

I posted this in my thread on Socratic Philosophy. Since many of the same issues have come up in both thread I am posting it here as well:
An essential key to understanding the Republic is to understand the role of the dual position of opinion. It opines both what is below being and above or beyond being, both about the visible world, and the good itself.

Socrates is circumspect in his discussion of this. It is better to have an opinion of the good shaped by his opinion than one in which any and every man is the measure. To this end he conceals his opinion and in its place presents an image of the good not only as something known to the philosopher, an eternal, unchanging truth. But the concealment is not complete. Behind the salutary public teaching is the teaching suitable only for the few.

This was a common practice in both ancient and modern philosophy. In Plato we find:

But Hera's bindings by her son, and Hephaestus' being cast out by his father when he was
about to help out his mother who was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods Homer
made must not be accepted in the city, whether they are made with a hidden sense or
without a hidden sense.
Republic 378d

Now I tell you that sophistry [in the original sense of practical wisdom] is an ancient art,
and those men of ancient times who practiced it, fearing the odium it involved, disguised
it in a decent dress, sometimes of poetry, as in the case of Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides.
Protagoras 316d-e (see also Euthyphro 3c; Theaetetus 152e; and Cratylus 402a-c)

Plato also suggests that Homer, Hesiod and some other early poets were covertly presenting
Heracleitean ideas about nature when they gave their genealogies of the gods and other mythical accounts. As Socrates states in the Theaetetus:

Have we not here a tradition from the ancients who hid their meaning from the common herd in poetical figures, that Ocean and [his wife, the river-goddess] Tethys, the source of all things, are flowing streams and nothing is at rest?
– Plato, Theaetetus 180c-d

And about Plato and the practice in ancient times:

In their writings the most famous philosophers of the Greeks and their prophets
made use of parables and images in which they concealed their secrets, like
Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato.
– Avicenna, “On the Parts of Science,” 85

All ...who have spoken of divine things, both barbarians and Greeks, have veiled the first principles of things, and delivered the truth in enigmas, and symbols, and allegories, and 4 metaphors, and such like tropes.” And why should I linger over the barbarians, when I can adduce the Greeks as exceedingly addicted to the use of the method of concealment. – Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 233-34 (5.4), 247 (5.8)

It is well known, that the ancient wise Men and Philosophers, very seldom set forth the
naked and open Truth; but exhibited it veiled or painted after various manners; by
Symbols, Hieroglyphicks, Allegories, Types, Fables, Parables, popular Discourses, and
other Images. This I pass by in general as sufficiently known.– Thomas Burnet, Archæologiæ philosophicæ, 67

The ancients distinguished the ‘exoteric’ or popular mode of exposition from the
‘esoteric’ one which is suitable for those who are seriously concerned to discover the
truth.
– G. W. Leibniz, New Essays, 260

The ancient Sages did actually say one Thing when they thought another. This appears
from that general Practice in the Greek Philosophy, of a two-fold Doctrine; the External
and the Internal; a vulgar and a secret.
– Bishop Warburton, The Divine Legislation, 2:14

These are taken from https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/melzer_appendix.pdf

The site contains many more testimonials both ancient and modern. A real eye opener!

There are the easy to find statements in the dialogues for all to see, and for those who look carefully enough, something quite different.

An essential key to understanding the Republic is to understand the role of the dual position of opinion. It opines both what is below being and above or beyond being, both about the visible world, and the good itself.

Socrates is circumspect in his discussion of this. It is better to have an opinion of the good shaped by his opinion than one in which any and every man is the measure. To this end he conceals his opinion and in its place presents an image of the good not only as something known to the philosopher, an eternal, unchanging truth. But the concealment is not complete. Behind the salutary public teaching is the teaching suitable only for the few.

This was a common practice in both ancient and modern philosophy. In Plato we find:

But Hera's bindings by her son, and Hephaestus' being cast out by his father when he was
about to help out his mother who was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods Homer
made must not be accepted in the city, whether they are made with a hidden sense or
without a hidden sense.
Republic 378d

Now I tell you that sophistry [in the original sense of practical wisdom] is an ancient art,
and those men of ancient times who practiced it, fearing the odium it involved, disguised
it in a decent dress, sometimes of poetry, as in the case of Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides.
Protagoras 316d-e (see also Euthyphro 3c; Theaetetus 152e; and Cratylus 402a-c)

Plato also suggests that Homer, Hesiod and some other early poets were covertly presenting
Heracleitean ideas about nature when they gave their genealogies of the gods and other mythical accounts. As Socrates states in the Theaetetus:

Have we not here a tradition from the ancients who hid their meaning from the common herd in poetical figures, that Ocean and [his wife, the river-goddess] Tethys, the source of all things, are flowing streams and nothing is at rest?
– Plato, Theaetetus 180c-d

And about Plato and the practice in ancient times:

In their writings the most famous philosophers of the Greeks and their prophets
made use of parables and images in which they concealed their secrets, like
Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato.
– Avicenna, “On the Parts of Science,” 85

All ...who have spoken of divine things, both barbarians and Greeks, have veiled the first principles of things, and delivered the truth in enigmas, and symbols, and allegories, and 4 metaphors, and such like tropes.” And why should I linger over the barbarians, when I can adduce the Greeks as exceedingly addicted to the use of the method of concealment. – Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 233-34 (5.4), 247 (5.8)

It is well known, that the ancient wise Men and Philosophers, very seldom set forth the
naked and open Truth; but exhibited it veiled or painted after various manners; by
Symbols, Hieroglyphicks, Allegories, Types, Fables, Parables, popular Discourses, and
other Images. This I pass by in general as sufficiently known.– Thomas Burnet, Archæologiæ philosophicæ, 67

The ancients distinguished the ‘exoteric’ or popular mode of exposition from the
‘esoteric’ one which is suitable for those who are seriously concerned to discover the
truth.
– G. W. Leibniz, New Essays, 260

The ancient Sages did actually say one Thing when they thought another. This appears
from that general Practice in the Greek Philosophy, of a two-fold Doctrine; the External
and the Internal; a vulgar and a secret.
– Bishop Warburton, The Divine Legislation, 2:14

These are taken from https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/melzer_appendix.pdf

The site contains many more testimonials both ancient and modern. A real eye opener!

There are the easy to find statements in the dialogues for all to see, and for those who look carefully enough, something quite different.

No. I was referring specifically to what you said. The credibility of history books in general is not dependant on any one or group of books in particular.

Can you elaborate a little on that please? — 3017amen

The believability of history books is independent of any one history book.

3017 claimed that the gospels prove that Jesus existed, and if they don't then history books should not be believed. My point is that the believability of history books in independent of any one history book, if for the sake of the argument one takes the Bible to be a history book.

Why do you suppose that is... ? — 3017amen

I think it has something to do with the idea that since we do things to maintain or change our environment there is some human like being or beings that do the same on a lager scale; and that when they are angered and cause evil they can be appeased by offerings, or become well disposed to us by offerings, or swayed by us by our pleas.

Sure, but it was included in the Bible for some reason... . (Example, Ecclesiastes was the historical antecedent to Salvation.) — 3017amen

They are included because of the belief that there is a connection rather than complete break between the Hebrew Bible (OT) and the NT. After all, that is where all the Laws that Jesus talked about could be found.

They prove he existed. Otherwise, history books should not be believed. — 3017amen

The historical record does not stand or fall on the basis of whether these stories are believed to be a true and accurate account of what happened.

not all biblical accounts live in Revelation. The OT/Wisdom Books are much about reason, pragmatism, and Greek/Christian philosophy... . — 3017amen

The wisdom books were written long before Christianity. There is in them some influence from or common to Greek thought, but there is also resistance. When Proverbs says that wisdom is fear of the Lord it means something quite different from the Greek notion that depends on reasoned thought and argument.

The Christian Bible proves Jesus existed just as any other historical figure. — 3017amen

The existence of Jesus the man is something very different from the claims of his divinity. There was no need to prove that Jesus the man existed, it was not doubted, but in any case stories about him prove nothing.

quote="3017amen;558014"]Of course, Jesus was known to be part God and had a consciousness like humans.[/quote]

This was not known, it was believed by his pagan followers. It was also believed that others were half god half man, children of gods carried by human women.

Think of it this way, if it wasn't, there would be little need to invoke or posit God to begin with. — 3017amen

There is no more need to invoke or posit God than there is to posit the gods.

Similar to why someone posits the concept of evil. — 3017amen

The existence of evil and the existence of Evil as an entity are two different things. As it is used in the Hebrew Bible it means bad, adversity, affliction, calamity, and so on.

I guess that would depend on how you define "know". — Metaphysician Undercover

Noesis. What the intellect grasps or sees.

According to Plato In The Republic, the philosopher gets a glimpse of the good, enough to know of its existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

“... the good isn't being but is still beyond being, exceeding it in dignity (age) and power."(509b)

The good is not something that is.

The argument, laid out in the other thread, leads to the conclusion that there can only be opinion about the good itself.

The good is what makes intelligible objects intelligible — Metaphysician Undercover

He gives his opinion about it. (509c) Whether it is true or not, he cannot say.

“... in applying the going up and the seeing of what's above to the soul's journey up to the intelligible place, you'll not mistake my expectation, since you desire to hear it. A god doubtless knows if it happens to be true. At all events, this is the way the phenomena look to me: in the knowable the last thing to be seen, and that with considerable effort, is the idea of the good …” (517b-c)

A god could say, but he is not god and neither are we.

The problem as I understand it is with our inability to know the good itself.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/557494

I made a mistake. I thought you might finally be ready to discuss things honestly and openly. Wrong of me to expect you might change. Enough already!

This is so predictable that it has become comical. Whenever I point to Socrates' arguments that run counter to what you would want them to say you let loose a barrage of complaints and claims that address all kinds of things except what is actually said in the dialogue.

Unfortunately, there are some here who do not find it at all funny. They think it rude and obstructive and worry that others who may want to discuss the dialogue will be turned away by your incessant bickering.

I think we decided that it is undecidable, although I am not sure what it is we have to decided on.

But professional philosophers cannot make money ... — Banno

I have noticed the attempt to move philosophy from the world of academia where jobs are scarce to public forums. Seems to me to be more that a bit of pandering involved.

I don't know that this divides along the lines of analytical versus other approaches though.

I have never come across the band — Jack Cummins

It's old school. Real old school. Back before your time, back like when the other guys in the battle of the bands were saying it was the end times.

Whatever is causing things to happen is directly related to my ability to notice them. — Valentinus

I agree. And inquiry is in part allowing oneself to notice. If we think we have the answers or we have expectations about things we can miss whatever does not conform to our answers and expectations. Which is exactly what is happening in this thread. The inability to see or perhaps unwillingness to see what is being said.

I am not sure if this is a general observation about De Anima or if it is in response to something specific I said.

Do you have in mind the dual aspect of the intellect, Book lll, chapter 5?

The one sort is intellect by becoming all things, the other sort by forming all things.

I think Aristotle was trying to establish a basis for being an organic being in De Anima that is quite different from being a skeptic. — Valentinus

Socratic or zetetic skepticism differs from other forms of skepticism. Aristotle's morphology was something considered known. That the soul is the form of the body, lacks the same type and degree of evidence.

The Jesus Cult — 180 Proof

One of my favorite bands! Unfortunately, recording quality back then was very poor, practically non-existent.

Sounds interesting start a thread.

I think that Aristotle, like Socrates and Plato, was a zetetic skeptic. The matters under discussion, despite appearances, are not resolved. The reader is not a passive observer, but an active participant in trying to determine what seems best and most likely to be true without having the measure by which to know what is right and true and good.

Fear not. Paul tells you everything you need to know. He invents a new religion in which Jesus' admonition to follow the Law does not hold.

Using a gospel that is influenced by Paul is question begging. — Fooloso4

Interpretation has never been such a problem until the 1900's. — Apollodorus

More evidence of your ignorance of the problem.

IMHO that's rather irrelevant as you have no evidence for your claim. — Apollodorus

On the contrary. There is the Sermon and what Paul himself says.

And on and on and on endlessly and evasively arguing.

Why can't you just look at the dialogues as a contemporary of Plato and Socrates ... — Apollodorus

From anyone else I would consider this a joke, but it is not. It is a sad demonstration of your ignorance of the problem of interpretation.