I have to imagine that some fraction of WWJD evangelical Christians will be asking themselves sooner or later by this Fall — 180 Proof

I don't think they ask WWJD because they think they know what Trump has done, will do, and what has been done to him. While they may not regard him as The Messiah the do believe his is a messiah and like all messiahs persecuted by the enemies of God.

There is a book that investigates whether the God-elements in Descartes' meditations are fully sincere. — Lionino

There are several books and articles that address this. Years ago I read Hiram Caton's "The Origin of Subjectivity", which led me to look past the standard story to read him again more carefully.

In the thread "Descartes Reading Group" I argued that he was not sincere. We went through the Meditations one by one, starting with the Dedication, Preface, and Synopsis. To sum it up in a sentence, he displaces God with the "I'.

Sure, but what is at stake is not some bizarre or implausible interpretation. — Leontiskos

And yet there is in the history of philosophy many examples. The most infamous in Western Philosophy is Christianity's appropriation of Plato, but I suspect that you might not see it as either bizarre or implausible.

It's as if you first concede that Midgley is right and then, unaccountably, assert that she is confused, again without a supporting argument. — Leontiskos

I did not say that Midgley is confused.

Your rebuttal? "Philosophy has moved past this — Leontiskos

The story of the subjective turn is well known, but our discussion is not a talk on the BBC. We should be able and willing to look back at what Descartes said and not simply accept the story as if that is the end of the matter.

so you back away from your defence of Descartes only to be oddly antagonistic towards Midgley. — Banno

This really is quite strange. I am not defending or backing away from defending Descartes. I am defending an interpretation that is at odds with the standard textbook interpretation Midgley perpetuates.

At the least, there might be some philosophical merit in considering the place of those who are not reclusive white bachelors. — Banno

Why a philosopher or anyone else is a recluse may have little or nothing to do with philosophy.

This is Midgley's analysis:

Because independent thought is so difficult, the philosophic adolescent (even more than other adolescents) withdraws himself from the influences around him to develop ideas in harmony with his own personality. This is necessary if the personality is to be formed at all. But once it is formed, most people recoil towards experience, and attempt to bring their strengthened self to terms with the rich confusion from which it fled. Marriage, which is a willing acceptance of the genuinely and lastingly strange, is typical of this revulsion. The great philosophers did not return. Their thoughts, unlike yours and mine, had powers enough to keep them gazing into the pool of solitude.

I do not think this story tracks the lives of "the philosophical adolescent", but I have not done an empirical investigation. Did she? Rather than withdraw in order to develop ideas in harmony with their own personality, it may be a trait of their personality and/or neurology that leads them to withdraw. Rather than their thoughts having power enough to keep them gazing into the pool of solitude, it may have more to do with neurodivergence.

I will leave it to you and others to sort philosophers along the lines of their marital status. I prefer to pay attention to what they say.

It is shared by others, it is the fruit of a plain reading of his texts, and it is this received interpretation that has had its effect on the history of philosophy. — Leontiskos

And yet when I question the received interpretation you assume this is because I am fond of Descartes and upset, as it all of this is personal. Part of the movement of the history of philosophy has been the reevaluation of major figures.

Philosophers should have foresight about how their texts will be interpreted and how their method will influence their message. — Leontiskos

No one has the ability to anticipate all the different ways in which they will be interpreted. This too is part of the history of philosophy. There has never been an important and influential philosopher who has not been interpreted in various incompatible ways.

Even if Midgley has misconstrued Descartes, her misconstrual is shared by others. — Banno

Right. And she perpetuates it.

she may not be wrong about how the hegemony of the solitary white male has mislead philosophy. — Banno

Descartes was following a common meditative and contemplative practice in both the East and West. In both the same questions arise regarding whether this practice should be solitary and removed from the concerns and activities of public life.

As Midgley attests there have always been solitary thinkers. This is not because of Descartes and will not be changed by some yenta advocating marriage.

She says:

It is commonplace today that this branch of philosophy got into confusion by first artificially separating the Knower from the Known ...

I agree that this has led to confusion and that Descartes is as the center of the subjective turn. I also agree that it is a commonplace today. But philosophy has moved past this. Apparently no one told her. This movement began before her and has continued after her.

I can see that you are very fond of Descartes, — Leontiskos

Not particularly. I am fond of interpreting texts. He plays an important role in the history of philosophy and is worthy of careful reading. Like others, he is subject to re-evaluation from time to time.

but what does this have to do with Midgley? — Leontiskos

She brought him up. She gives a standard textbook reading of him which in my opinion does not hold up under scrutiny.

Descartes helped occasion a shift towards the individual subject — Leontiskos

I agree.

Midgley’s reading is not controversial. — Leontiskos

True. But non-controversial does not mean correct. There is always room for differences in interpretation but there are others that I find hew closer to the text and are more interesting.

Do you have any arguments to offer against Midgley’s thesis, or are you just upset that she spoke against a philosopher you are fond of? — Leontiskos

First of all I am not upset. I find the assumption odd. Second if you look through my posts on this thread you will see that I have made several points where I disagree with her.

Witt seems to want to say that “truth” is nothing more than a manner of situating things in the world based on what we perceive as logically possible. — 013zen

What is true is what is the case. There are things that are logically possible but not true.

we are also incapable of knowing whether our picture is true or not — 013zen

What leads you to say this? He does say:

It is impossible to tell from the picture alone whether it is true or false.

(2.224)

But this does not mean we are incapable of knowing whether it is true or false. In order to determine if it is we must compare it to reality-.

A picture agrees with reality or fails to agree; it is correct or incorrect, true or false.

(2.21)

In order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality.

(2.223)

Reality is compared with propositions.

(4.05)

A proposition can be true or false only in virtue of being a picture of reality.

(4.06)

Rather, it considered as possible a relation between them that wasn’t considered possible before. — 013zen

More specifically, differences are not differences in kind but differences in degree.

Only in an age as silly as ours could one be taken to task for interpreting a philosopher in light of what he actually wrote. — Leontiskos

What he actually wrote is, as quoted earlier:

I decided to pretend that everything that had ever entered my mind was no more true than the illusions of my dreams ...

(Discourse Part 4)

I think some here are too preoccupied with defending Descartes to see Descartes' point. — Leontiskos

As far as I am concerned Descartes is not in need of any defense from me. He has done quite well on his own. I am not interested in defending him but in understanding him.

Only in an age as silly as ours could one be taken to task for interpreting a philosopher in light of what he actually wrote. — Leontiskos

I think you have this backwards. In our age of free speech we fail to take into consideration what philosophers of the past had to contend with.See the appendix to Arthur M Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines" which contains numerous first hand accounts by philosophers.

A few of the many from Descartes:

Upon hearing of Galileo’s arrest for his pro-Copernican theories, Descartes suppressed the
publication of his just-completed exposition of his own mechanistic and pro-Copernican physics,
The World. Instead, eight years later, he published his Meditations, a work ostensibly confined
entirely to metaphysics and theology. But in a letter to Mersenne, he reveals:

...there are many other things in them; and I tell you, between ourselves, that these
six Meditations contain all the foundations of my physics. But that must not be spread abroad, if you please; for those who follow Aristotle will find it more difficult to approve them. I hope that [my readers] will accustom themselves insensibly to my principles, and will come to recognize their truth, before
perceiving that they destroy those of Aristotle.

– René Descartes to Mersenne, January 28, 1641, Œuvres de Descartes,
3:297–98, quoted and translated by Hiram Caton in The Origin of
Subjectivity, 17

From the first paragraph of Descartes’ early, unpublished “Private Thoughts”:
I go forward wearing a mask [larvatus prodeo].

– René Descartes, “Cogitationes Privatae,” in Œuvres de Descartes, 10:213

From Montaigne's Complete Essays:

The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom
and power to judge things freely; but as for externals, he should wholly follow the
accepted fashions and forms.

– Ibid., 86 (1.23)

It is not new for the sages to preach things as they serve, not as they are. Truth has its
inconveniences, disadvantages, and incompatibilities.

– Ibid., 769 (3.10)

By profession they [the philosophers] do not always present their opinion openly
and apparently; they have hidden it now in the fabulous shades of poetry, now
under some other mask. For our imperfection also provides this, that raw meat is
not always fit for our stomach; it must be dried, altered, and corrupted. They do
the same: they sometimes obscure their natural opinions and judgments and
falsify them to accommodate themselves to public usage.

– Ibid., 408 (2.12)

And from Bacon:

I have no objection to your enjoying the fruits of your [old] philosophy…. [A]dorn your
conversation with its jewels; profess it in pubic and increase your gravity thereby in the eyes of the masses. The new philosophy will bring you no such gains…. It does not flatter the mind by fitting in with its preconceptions. It does not sink to the capacity of the vulgar except in so far as it benefits them by its works. Therefore keep your old philosophy. Use it when convenient. Keep one to deal with nature and the other to deal with the populace. Every man of superior understanding in contact with inferiors wears a mask.

– Francis Bacon, The Refutation of Philosophies, 108

I have provided evidence in support of my claim that you got him wrong. But you just skip over that as if it is just a game you don't want to play.

This is why I said that it is very much like a programmer writing a language setting out how the language will operate so that it doesn't run into errors. — schopenhauer1

He is not writing a language. He is using the German language.

In fact, all the propositions of our everyday language, just as they stand, are in perfect logical order.

(5.5563)

Sure, but imagine if any other thinker said that he doesn't have to explain themselves any further.. — schopenhauer1

Since you believe so strongly in comparing styles and content you should know that we don't have to imagine it. Other thinkers, both ancient and contemporary, have based their explanations on reality being granular. It seems likely that Wittgenstein was influenced by Plato's account in Theaetetus. (201d)

It just seems like a strange thing to NOT demand from a thinker trying to give you such a comprehensive take on the world. — schopenhauer1

It just seems strange to believe than any thinker could provide a comprehensive take on the world. In the preface to the Tractatus Wittgenstein says:

... the second thing in which the value of this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved.

and toward the end he says:

We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of
life remain completely untouched.

(6.52)

The problems of life are not scientific problems. They are not problems that can be solved scientifically. Or by propositional analysis. The focus of Wittgenstein's concern is not ontological or epistemological. He points to the limits of logic in order to safeguard ethics and aesthetics which lie outside its domain. To put it differently, his concern is not with what is on the table, but what we bring to it.

With the purpose of obtaining a one-substance cosmology ... — Process and Reality- A.N. Whitehead

Why should that be our purpose? Why one substance and not two or two million or no substance?

But it does start with a generalization of Locke's account of mental operations. — Process and Reality- A.N. Whitehead

Why should we start with Locke's account of mental operations? Why not start with whatever it is that makes mental operations possible?

Of time we cannot have any external intuition, any more than we can have an internal intuition of space. — Kant- Critique of Pure Reason

Why? Because Kant says so?

we shall first give an exposition of the conception of space. — schopenhauer1

Why should we begin with an exposition of the conception of space?

the representation of space must already exist as a foundation. — schopenhauer1

Why should a representation of space be the foundation of anything?

... this external experience is itself only possible through the said antecedent representation. — schopenhauer1

The luggage will either fit in the trunk of the car or it won't. It won't fit in this space because you can represent it as fitting.

We just accept that these statements must be true without why, how, what for, etc. — schopenhauer1

The same should be asked of a Whitehead and Kant fanboy.

I will try again. You said;

His definition is like one in computer programming it seems:
"From Gemini: General purpose: More broadly, an object can simply refer to a variable, a data structure, or even a function. In this sense, it's a way to organize data in memory and refer to it using an identifier (like a name)."

That is to say, it is a logical marker, a name. But then what's the use of distinguishing objects and atomic facts if you leave objects so undefined? You mine as well just start with atomic facts.. — schopenhauer1

An object does not refer to a variable. A variable can be used, however, to refer to an object. The term 'object' is not a particular object. It is analogous to a number. The term 'number' is not a particular number,
that is why we use variables such a 'n' or 'x' where no specific number or object is specified.

An object in not a data point. Data points do not make up the substance of the world.
Simple objects do.

An object is not a function. The possibility of and ways in which simple objects combine is determined by those objects themselves.

An object is not a way of organizing data. Objects are self-organizing in that the possibilities of combining are build into the objects.

Objects are not in memory. They subsist independently of what is the case.

An object is not a logical marker. It is a substantive thing.

An object is not a name. It is what is named in an elementary proposition.

None of this is a matter of what I say being right or wrong. It can all be supported and has been supported in this thread by reference to the text.

Wittenstein is not a god to me he could be wrong. — schopenhauer1

Of course he could! But you being wrong about him is still wrong.

He is not explaining epistemology. He is saying that logic is a transcendental condition for epistemology.

but according to the Tractatus and Wittenstein’s view, these errors occur. — schopenhauer1

It is, rather, according to your misrepresentation of Wittgenstein's view in the Tractatus.

In the Symposium Socrates says:

I who declare that I know nothing other than matters of love ...

At first it may seem that this contradicts what he says in the Apology where he claims to know nothing beautiful and good (21d). But eros is a desire for something one does not possess. Socrates knows the desire to be wise. This is a kind of self-knowledge. Eros is a kind of madness. The highest kind, according to Socrates in the Phaedrus, is love of the beautiful. About which Socrates makes a beautiful speech.

Toward the end of the dialogue Socrates says:

Well then, let that be the extent of our entertainment with speeches.

(278b)

With regard to those who make such speeches he says:

I think it would be a big step, Phaedrus, to call him ‘wise’ because this is appropriate only for a god. The title ‘lover of wisdom’ or something of that sort would suit him better and would be more modest.

(278d)

Divine madness does not lead to knowledge of the beautiful or good. It inspires does not not result in what the philosopher loves, wisdom.

The Phaedrus is a play of opposites, of things that pull us in opposite directions. For the philosopher the pull of divine madness is opposed by reason and moderation, which finds its own extreme in the asceticism of the Phaedo. In the Symposium, this plays out differently. Some of the participants are suffering from a hangover and so the usual drinking competition is replaced by the more sober competition of speeches about eros.

As Plato has Socrates tell us in the Phaedrus:

But the person who realises that in a written discourse on any topic there must be a great deal that is playful ...

(277e)

But, considering your point, and reading other remarks that Witt makes, I'm beginning to get the sense that, perhaps, he was critiquing that very project. — 013zen

He was. But since he did so using their language it may seem as though he is in agreement with them.

Concepts like "evolution" are one possible description of the world — 013zen

A couple of remarks from Wittgenstein:

Do I want to say, then, that certain facts are favorable to the formation of certain concepts; or again unfavorable? And does experience teach us this? It is a fact of experience that human beings alter their concepts, exchange them for others when they learn new facts; when in this way what was formerly important to them becomes unimportant, and vice versa. (It is discovered e.g. that what formerly counted as a difference in kind, is really only a difference in degree. (Zettel 352)

He accepts that there are facts, but facts do not determine concepts.

Elsewhere:

What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a new true theory but a fertile point of view.

(CV 18)

The larger issue for Wittgenstein is ways of seeing, seeing aspects, "seeing as". The "fertile point of view" of "a Copernicus or a Darwin" is a conceptual revolution, the displacement of the Earth as the center or the rejection of kinds in favor of variations. We do not simply see things as they are but according to the way we represent or picture them.

I had to read that twice, eventually deciding that "he" must be Descartes — Banno

She. My proof-reader took the day off.

It is no more necessary for him to conclude that others exist than it is for a child to exist others do.
— Fooloso4
Mmm. Perhaps not as clear as was thought. — Banno

I should fire my proof-reader. It is no more necessary for him to conclude that others exist than it is for a child to conclude that others exist. The question of the existence of others does not arise for Descartes unless one takes his rhetorical device literally.

AMEN. But I still ain't placing any bets.

But it risks being ageist and sexist at the same time. — Ludwig V

My concern is that it advocates for a one size fits all standard - a mature person will marry. There are various reasons why someone does not marry, most of them having little or nothing to do with philosophy.

we should extend to our predecessors the sympathy and charity that we must all hope our successors will extend to us when their turn comes to assess what we have done or not done. — Ludwig V

Based on the link to Midgley's Rings and Books, this does not appear to be advice she follows.

- if philosophy is to be a practice based on human life, — Ludwig V

I recommend Pierre Hadot's "Philosophy as a Way of Life". It is a far more scholarly, insightful, and influential work. Although it may be somewhat unfair to compare his work to a radio talk.

Is that what you were saying? It all got a bit muddled.[ — Banno

It is what I said, explicitly and clearly:

Midgley is wrong when he says that other people's existence had to be inferred. — Fooloso4

If in your reading it got muddled that your difficulty.

How does Descartes conclude that others exist, without making an inference? — Banno

It is no more necessary for him to conclude that others exist than it is for a child to exist others do.

Will you be defending substance dualism? — Banno

I won't, but pointing out what Midgley gets wrong does not require defending everything Descartes said.

What did Descartes get wrong, and what right? — Banno

See this thread.

The pop story of Descartes — Banno

Or, you could read and quote Descartes.

And it is this story that the aggravating Grandmother is using, — Banno

In that case, she too should have read Descartes rather than rely on what others get wrong.

The truth is, this is a serious and persistent problem in certain areas of academic philosophy.

Rings and Books reads now as a precursor to more recent streams in philosophical thinking such as enactivism and embodied cognition. — Banno

She is a bit late to the party. See, for example, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.

This is at odds with the views offered by Descartes — Banno

Husserl would not agree. See his Cartesian Meditations.

I also disagree with her emphasis on marriage. Although some are well suited to marriage and children, others are not. Her associating bachelorhood with immaturity raises the question of the extent of her interactions with a variety of different people

She refers to Aristotle but neglects to address the natural household relation that Aristotle discusses first, namely, master and slave. Nor does she address the numerous problems he discusses regarding marriage including war, destruction of cities, and revolution. Much of what he says regarding marriage centers around the division or labor and property. (Politics, Book 1)

As to Plato we know nothing of his private life or intimate relations. What we do know, however, is that several of his dialogues deal with love and friendship. The Republic raises serious concerns about marriage and its private, anti-communal effects.

Is it possible to be too preoccupied with defending Descartes to see Midgley's point? — Banno

Grandma Mary believes that those who are not married lack maturity, that they, like Plato, are adolescents. That by not leading what she regards as a "normal domestic life" their development was arrested.

But it is Descartes who is the focus of her criticism, as if if he only he had married there would not have been the turn to subjectivism.

What Midgley does not mention is that Descartes' mother died a year after his birth, that he was sent away at about age ten to the Jesuit college of La Flèche, or that he had a daughter, Francis, who died at the age of five. Rather than a deliberate and immature choice to not develop attachments, his attachments were severed from him.

Descartes has come under a great deal of criticism for the mind/body problem but it is his view of the body as mechanistic that led to advances in medicine.

I doubt that Midgley would have disagreed with your account of Descartes. — Banno

Midgley claimed that for Descartes other people's existence had to be inferred. I said she was wrong about this. Do you think she would agree that she was wrong?

It is a game played by people, plural. — Banno

Descartes wrote of, to and for a community of people past present and future. A community of philosophers and thinkers . But also for humans of lesser talents. His provisional morality, from the Discourse, is about living in the world with people.His idea of the perfection of the will is not simply about one's own advantage but for the good of others, the good of the human community.

Descartes, whose work extents to physics, medicine, and optics did far more for the welfare of man than Midgley. Where the ancients had no choice but to accept may things that were beyond their power to change, the modern philosophers were on the forefront of the mastery of nature. Philosophy was no longer about the problem of how to live but to solve problems by changing the conditions of life.

No philosophy, Descartes included, is without problems, but Midgley is wrong when he says that other people's existence had to be inferred. If blame is to be assigned much if it falls on Midgley and others who have misunderstood and misrepresent Descartes.

Are the simply objects that make up the substance of the world knowable? Wittgenstein says:

If I know an object I also know all its possible occurrences in states of affairs.
(Every one of these possibilities must be part of the nature of the object.)
A new possibility cannot be discovered later.

(2.0123)

He continues:

If I am to know an object, though I need not know its external properties, I must know all
its internal properties.

(2.01231)

And:

If all objects are given, then at the same time all possible states of affairs are also given.

(2.0124)

Can we know that all objects are given? Can we know all possible states of affairs? At best we can know what states of affairs have occurred. But actual states of affairs are not the only states of affairs that are possible. If that were the case nothing new could occur.

Without making it explicit Wittgenstein has drawn a limit to human knowledge. This limit is distinct from that of what can be said and what is shown.

And the specific kind of knowledge that characterises the Philosopher is spelled out in Book 6: — Wayfarer

Here is Bloom's translation of that passage:

"About philosophic natures, let's agree that they are always in love with that learning which discloses to them something of the being that is always and does not wander about, driven by generation and decay."

And Horan's:

“Well, let us agree something about the philosophic natures. Let us agree that they always love any learning which would reveal to them something of that being which always is, and does not wander in subjection to generation and decay.”

The philosopher loves any learning that discloses or reveals something of that being which always is.
The desire (eros) to learn this is not to know it. This is not something the philosopher knows, but something the philosopher desires to know.

Are you engaged in exegesis, or advocacy? Sure, Descartes' ideas made sense for Descartes. but do you agree with them? — Banno

Descartes wrote under conditions of persecution that constrained him in ways that do not apply to contemporary thinkers in places where free speech is the norm. We should not overlook the role Descartes played in freeing the mind, and not just his mind, from the tyranny of the Church and Scholasticism.

Roughly, is philosophy to be public or private? — Banno

Philosophy was for Descartes public, and not limited to the society of his time.

And I conceive such hopes for the future that if, among the purely human occupations, there is one that is really good and important, I venture to believe that it is the one that I have chosen.

(Discourse, Part One)

His method, as the title of the work states, is the method of correctly conducting one's reason and seeking truth in the sciences. More specifically, it is a method of experiments and observations.

From the thread Descartes Reading Group:

Although Descartes isolates himself in his room for a short period of time, as a thinking thing he is not isolated. As a thinking thing he is connected to thinking itself, that is to say, to what is thought not just by him but other thinking beings before and after him. The nature of thinking is something we do together, a joint project, something that occurs between human beings. The thinking self is not just the individual but thinking itself, which is by its nature public.

The nature of thinking is not limited by the span of a lifetime. For thinking itself time is not moment to moment. It is a collaborative effort across time periods. Descartes was not primarily concerned with the past, however, but rather the present and future. More specifically, with his project for the perfectibility of man, which takes place over lifetimes.

Thinking for Descartes is not fundamentally contemplative or meditative but constructive. Thus he sought foundations on which to build. Although a lot of attention is paid to his epistemology it was groundwork for a science that would change the course of nature.

This has the uncomfortable result that one ceases to exist when not doing philosophy, or at least when one is asleep. — Banno

From the Second Meditation:

But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands,
affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions.

It is not that thinking or doing philosophy is a necessary condition for existing, it is that existing is a necessary condition for thinking is this broad sense of the term.

Cogito ergo sum, more correctly translated as "I am thinking, therefore I exist" is from the Discourse, not the Meditations.

This conclusion follows from:

But immediately afterwards I noted that, while I was trying to think of all things being false in this
way, it was necessarily the case that I, who was thinking them, had to be something; and observing this truth: I am thinking, therefore I exist.

(Part 4)

Doubting is for Descartes a deliberate methodological exercise.

I decided to pretend that everything that had ever entered my mind was no more true than the illusions of my dreams ...

(Part 4)

Obviously, to doubt is very different from pretending to doubt.

In the Meditations he deliberately secludes himself in order to find some reason to doubt whatever can be doubted. The picture of Descartes as a solitary figure does not tell the whole story. He traveled extensively.

More important, as with all of us, his temperament and character was not simply a matter of choice. There are many factoring influencing who we are and what we desire. He took his motto from Ovid:

Bene qui latuit, bene vixit". He who has kept himself well hidden, has lived well.

He had good reason to hide. By calling everything into doubt he called the authority of the Church into doubt, and gives that authority to the thinking person.

Yet in this passage, and even though Socrates has said 'God knows whether it happens to be true' ... — Wayfarer

He also says in this passage "this is how it all seems to me". Why would he say that it seems this way to him if he knows it is this way?

...he nevertheless says 'anyone who is to act intelligently....must have had sight of this.' — Wayfarer

In the Apology he says that no one is wiser than him for he knows he he does not know anything noble and good.(21d) In other words, there is no one who acts intelligently.

Notice 'present in the soul of each person'. — Wayfarer

What is it that is present? It is not, as you say, the "attainment of this insight" or an "innate capacity for enlightenment". It is the capacity to know. Rather than pursuing those things most people desire, the soul turns its attention to the truth of what is noble and good. It does this using reason.

We who have not made the ascent from the cave act intelligently, to the extent we are able, by having our sight set on the good.

Reading it with people who are invested and care must have been such a treat. — dani

You could start a reading group here, or less formally, post questions and comments as you read. You will get a lot of different answers which will lead to further discussion and disagreement.

A word of advice. Find a good translation. It really makes a difference. This one is pretty good and is available free: https://www.platonicfoundation.org/ . Alan Bloom's translation and interpretive essay is very good.

I read it slowly a book at a time, frequently going back and rereading sections in order to trace lines of argument and make connections. I raised questions and challenges and addressed them to the text as if I was talking to Socrates.

I do not know how it might have been if I read it on my own, but I read it in class and some of us were very taken with it and continued discussing it together.

Each time I read it I find something new.

I think she is on the right track in not treating philosophy as the activity of disembodied minds, but it does not seem to occur to her that being unmarried does not mean being celibate.

She is not an astute reader of Plato. One of the main reasons he wrote dialogues was to point to the importance of temperament. Women are to play an equal role as guardians in the Republic. They were to do gymnastics (naked exercise) right alongside of the men.

Midgley misses Descartes' rhetorical strategy. How could he call the authority of the Catholic Church into question without suffering the consequences? He does it by calling everything into question, except God, and takes on the appearance of a champion of the Church and its teachings. He did not infer the existence of other people. He did not write and publish as the result of inferring their existence.

when Wittgenstein states that "the variable name 'x' is the proper sign for the pseudo-concept object (T. 4.1272)." - he is simply saying something about the essence of symbolic representation in formal logic. — Sam26

He is saying something about conceptual notation, but it is important to understand why formal concepts are represented as variables and proper concepts are not.

The concept of an object, as Wittgenstein envisions it, is not real in the sense that it lacks empirical content or logical significance within his analysis. — Sam26

I agree that it lacks empirical content, but it does have logical significance. Objects make up the substance of the world and play an essential role in the logical structure of the world.

Strangely, he refers to objects as pseudo-concepts, and at the same time, they form the building blocks of atomic facts. Maybe it's a pseudo-concept because no concept can capture their essence. I'm not sure. — Sam26

Note what else he regards as pseuo-concepts:

‘complex’, ‘fact’, ‘function’, ‘number’, etc.(4.1272)

In a proposition a proper concept tells us what is the case. "The book is on the table", but "The object is on the object" is nonsense.

I must point out that you don't have to understand all of this to understand Wittgenstein's basic ideas in the Tractatus. — Sam26

I don't think anyone understands all of it. I regard it more as an activity of thinking through interpretation rather than an examination of a set of doctrines (4.112). Despite what he says in the preface, I don't think the truth of the thoughts communicated are unassailable or definitive. Or that he has found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems. Nor do I think that the problems he addresses are the extent of the problems of philosophy.

I think some clarification regarding the term 'object' might be helpful. At first I was puzzled because he used 'object' to refer both the simple and compound objects. 'Object' is what he calls a "formal" or "pseudo-concept". (4.126 - 4.1272)

Formal or pseudo-concepts are expressed in conceptual notion by a "variable name" such as 'x' Particular objects such as tables and chairs and books, however, are concepts proper. The distinction between formal and proper concepts is not made along the lines of simple or complex, but between what has been identified or specified and what has not. Analogously the formal concept 'number' can refer to any or every number, but 'six' or 'eleven' is not a formal concept. The former is expressed by the variable name 'x' and the the latter by the sign '6' or '11'.

In a proposition the variable 'x' is not a "name" in the ordinary sense of the term. The simplest sentences are not made up of variable names. But Wittgenstein's investigation is logical or conceptual not empirical. In a complete empirical investigation objects would not have variable names. The simple objects would be identified and distinguished in the simplest propositions as particulars with particular rather than variable names.

I look and see a fact in the world such as "the apple is on the table". As no-one else can see into my mind, in that telepathy is not a thing. I can only picture facts to myself. — RussellA

The proposition "the apple is on the table" is a picture of the apple on the table.

But who knows what these logical relations are. These logical relations cannot be determined by the picture alone. — RussellA

The logical relation of the model to the car? It is a representation, a picture, of it. If I don't know what it it represents I may not know it from seeing the red piece of wood, but I might not know that even a life-sized model with an actual red car of the same make and model represents the accident.

Within the same picture can be innumerable logical relations. — RussellA

Yes, and it is possible that some picture can represent all of them.

Objects such as chairs, tables and books are not Tractarian objects. These are objects in ordinary language. and the Tractatus is not dealing with ordinary language. — RussellA

They are not the objects that make up the substance of the world. They are, however, objects talked about in the Tractatus. The pseudo-concept 'object' covers both.

3.1431 "The essence of a propositional sign is very clearly seen if we imagine one composed of spatial objects (such as tables, chairs, and books) instead of written signs.

The key word is "imagine". Wittgenstein is using an analogy. He is not saying that tables, chairs and books are Tractarian objects. — RussellA

The key words are "propositional sign", that is, the variable 'x'.

the Formal Concept establishes the relations between its parts, "x" and "number". — RussellA

'x' is the "name" of the formal concept 'number'.

if "number" is a pseudo-concept then "x" must also be a pseudo concept. — RussellA

The variable name 'x' is not a concept.

The same [as applies to 'object] applies to the words ‘complex’, ‘fact’, ‘function’, ‘number’, etc.
They all signify formal concepts, and are represented in conceptual notation by variables ...

'x' or some other variable is how formal or pseudo-concepts such as 'object' and 'number' are represented in a proposition.

If we were only picturing facts to ourselves, then we are using a Private Language — RussellA

First, we do not only picture facts to ourselves. Second, even if we did that would not be a private language unless no one else could understand it and what is pictured is something no one else could be aware of.

Even if we were picturing facts to ourselves, we would have to make the conscious choice whether i) the red in the model is picturing the red in the world or ii) the wood in the model is picturing red in the world. — RussellA

The picture that comes to mind need not be the result of conscious choice. With regard to the model of the accident the color of the car has no bearing on what is being depicted. What a picture represents is a logical relation:

A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states of affairs.
(2.11) — Fooloso4

They are pseudo-concepts because they are simples.
2.02 "Objects are simple" — RussellA

'Object' is a pseudo-concept but not all objects are simple objects. Spatial objects such as a chairs tables, and books ( 3.1431) are not simple objects.

On the one hand the propositional variable "x is a number" signifies a formal concept and on the other hand the variable x signifies a pseudo-concept object. Therefore, a formal concept cannot be a pseudo-concept. — RussellA

'x' is the variable name for the pseudo concept 'number'. (4.1272) Substituting "a number" for 'x' gives us: "Number is a number" which is nonsense. The variable name 'x' cannot be used for both the pseudo-concept 'number' and 'a number'.

From the picture itself, we cannot know. We need someone to come along and tell us which is the case i) or ii), and if that happens, this destroys the Picture Theory, which is meant to stand alone. — RussellA

That depends on the medium of representation, whether what is being pictured is intended to communicate something to someone else, and what it is that is being represented.

We picture facts to ourselves.

(2.1)

A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states
of affairs.

(2.11)

The fact that the elements of a picture are related to one another in a determinate way represents that things are related to one another in the same way.
Let us call this connexion of its elements the structure of the picture, and let us call the possibility of this structure the pictorial form of the picture.

(2.15)

Yes a red toy car can picture a real red car, but the flaw in the Picture Theory is the statement "had to be stipulated", which has to happen outside the Picture Theory. — RussellA

I don't see the problem. A proposition is a picture. A picture that makes use of both a visual and a propositional representation is still a picture.

Why cannot it be the case that wood pictures a truck, metal pictures a bicycle and marble pictures a car? — RussellA

It can. If the picture is intended to show the relative positions of a truck, a bicycle, and a car involved in an accident then a piece of wood. a piece of metal, and a marble can represent the situation. We make use of such pictures all the time.

There is no necessity that a red piece of wood pictures a red car, and yet the Picture Theory depends on this unspoken necessity, which seems to me to be a fundamental flaw in the Picture Theory. — RussellA

Just as the car does not become the bicycle, it is necessary that whatever it is the represents the car in the picture does not become something else.

There are two kinds of objects, concepts proper and pseudo-concepts. — RussellA

'Object' is a pseudo-concept. A particular object is not.

So one cannot say, for example, ‘There are objects’, as one might say, ‘There are books’.

(4.1272)

In our ordinary world, something that falls under a concept proper can also be a concept proper. — RussellA

Right, but the issue is whether something that falls under a pseudo-concept is a pseudo-concept.

I jumped in because too often Aristotle is viewed through the eyes of Aquinas. I think this is a mistake.What Aristotle leaves open and unanswered Aquinas answers theologically. To put it differently, they are on opposite sides of the ancient quarrel between philosophers and poets.