The art of writing has as its complement an art of reading. — Fooloso4

A good student of past writers should know a bit of history therefore, and in particular it is wise to keep in mind what sorts of ideas could have landed the studied authors in jail, if published or professed publicly. That helps explain why not all logical consequences of a given idea are spelled out, or why an author may be careful avoiding certain subjects in his writings.

That is but one reason among many to take a certain critical distance with a text. Especially when the text speaks of Socrates' trial and death... All apologies of Socrates have to be seen in this light: as not saying it all.

In that case, it's all speculation and a waste of time. — Apollodorus

Nah. We just need to stay aware that we can't reach certainty about what Socrates or Plato really meant. This in any case is not a philosophical question: it is a historical question. A future archeological discovery of, say, a lost copy of a book by Socrates could well solve it one day.

In the meantime, the way I see it, some of the truly philosophical questions about Plato would rather be:

- how did his thought, ambiguous and misunderstood as it may have been, influence the world in which we live? What's the trace of Plato in our thinking today, our intellectual debt to him? Or is this debt rather a liability, some sophisticated mental shackle we should get rid of?

- what in his thought, as we can surmise it, resonates today or can be useful today? How can it be understood anew? i.e. should we listen to Plato once more or has everything useful already been said about him?

Philosophy is not really about dead people, ever. It's about what we learn from past traditions and from our own inquiries, that can help us think today.

However, we have the texts under discussion, viz., the dialogues, and on that basis, we may infer logically (1) what the character "Socrates" is trying to say and/or (2) what Plato is trying to say through Socrates. — Apollodorus

(2) is doable, without any certainty in sight of course, but we can try and even perhaps make some progress along the way.

Note that Plato may well have been voluntarily ambiguous here or there, for obvious reasons of self-protection. In those cases, the "true" Plato teaching may well be simply ambiguous by design.

In other cases, Plato may have tried to be clear but failed to express himself clearly, at least in his writings. In these cases, the true Plato teaching may be unknown. Lost.

It does not appear from the text that either Socrates or Plato thought the Forms to be "hypothetical", "myths" or "noble lies".

It does not appear to you because you close your eyes when it appears.

I got bad news for you: Socrates is long dead and he never wrote anything, at least nothing that we know of. Therefore, all knowledge about Socrates is indirect, via a disciple or critique or another. So it's all hearsay, just like everything we think we know about Thales or Jesus is hearsay.

Even Plato didn't write down all of his teaching. There's what Aristotle called the 'unwritten doctrines'.

It follows that we cannot have much certainty about what Plato and Socrates truly meant to say.

Even if we designate something "noble lie", to most people's minds it is still a lie. — Apollodorus

That'd be why "presupposition" or "hypothesis" are perhaps better words.

But why does it have to be a "myth"? And why does a myth have to be a "lie"? — Apollodorus

Because it cannot be proven true, and yet it must be presented as true or at least taken to be true. Collingwood's concept of 'absolute presupposition' avoids the negative connotation of the words 'lie' and 'myth'.

You are quite good at misunderstanding folks and words.

An hypothesis is not something false. It is an idea assumed true, or supposed true, but not proven or perhaps even impossible to prove.

If an hypothesis is impossible to prove, yet leads to good results when assumed, it could be adopted as a useful doctrine, a foundational myth.

That may or may not be the case. — Apollodorus

It IS the case, and it WAS the point I was trying to make.

What were you trying to say? That there is a difference between a hypothesis and what the hypothesis is about? Isn't that glaringly obvious? If I speak about water, my words themselves don't turn into water.

Again, Collingwood comes to mind: The logical efficacy of a supposition does not depend upon the truth of what is supposed, or even on its being thought true, but only on its being supposed.
— Olivier5

That was exactly what I was saying — Apollodorus

I don't think so. Allow me to rephrase. Collingwood's idea is very close to the "noble myth". It says that certain hypotheses are good to make, irrespective of whether they are true or even believed to be true. They are good to make because supposing them leads to doing things and pursuing certain inquiries that might produce some good.

For instance, let's look at the presupposition that "all events in this world have natural causes"; aka "supernatural beings such as gods and the likes do not intervene in this world." Assuming this supposition true rules out the possibility of miracles. So when confronted with something puzzling or mysterious, the person assuming it true will look for natural causes; she will not give up early in the chase, thinking "oh well it must be some god doing this". Instead, she will look for natural explanations for the mystery with a certain obstinacy. And in doing so, she might find something...

Hence science.

Note that some scientists are believers and some even believe in an interventionist god, so they would then disagree with the premise. And yet they are still scientists, because they still ASSUME, for all practice (scientific) purposes, that miracles don't happen and that every event in this world has natural causes.

The logical efficacy of a presupposition does not depend on it being true, or even believed.

And so, he provides what seems to be the truth, but is a lie, a lie that cannot be effective unless it is believed to be the truth. — Fooloso4

Again, Collingwood comes to mind: The logical efficacy of a supposition does not depend upon the truth of what is supposed, or even on its being thought true, but only on its being supposed.

, I din’t think its impossible for a sim to be just as rich or richer in complexity or detail than “reality” — DingoJones

Ok but then, if there's no perceptible difference between a sim and reality, if the sim is just as good as reality, then whether you are a brain in a vat in a sim or a brain in a skull in reality makes no difference whatsoever. The question is moot.

Appo is perhaps being obtuse in his insistence. — Banno

It's a little known fact, but when Apo was a kid, his father brought him to the temple in (phila)Delphia, where a sybil predicted that, if he ever agreed with a certain Footloso4, Apo's jaw would drop to the ground, his eyes would melt, and his genitals shrink to the size of a pea. So what's the guy gonna do?

I have some doubts as to whether Plato's thinking is axiomatic — Fooloso4

I'm not explaining this very well. Best to read the Essay on Metaphysics.

Mine too, actually. I am not accusing you of being a troll, but others than you who muddled the discussion on this thread. I am actually agreeing with you that talk such as "god is everything" has no meaning.

That Essay of his is available online. It has been discussed in this forum. I haven't finished it yet, but his theory of presuppositions is elegantly universal, and it helps one takes a certain critical distance with one's most basic tenets, those that underpin one's very thought. It is in fact liberating, in the way good philosophy books are.

The methodology is well described; he writes splendidly too, with much irony.

The book defines a clear and useful domain for metaphysics: the identification and discussion of absolute presuppositions. Historically it is one of many efforts to 'save' metaphysics in the face of positivism's assaults, and what Collingwood sees as the political consequences of positivism: fascism and communism. He wrote it during the war.

The book is not without neothomist blah. Collingwood is a Christian and makes no mystery of it. I have a sympathy for neothomists because their heart is in the right place. I am a very tolerant Atheist so talks of God get me antsy only a little bit, but there's too much of it in the book I think, and it clouds Collingwood's view of the enlightenment philosophers.

This thread is about the Greek arguments concernng the origins of piety, goodness, and justice... isn't it? — creativesoul

That's what it's about indeed, least we forget.

An internet troll is defined as someone who wants to disrupt the discussion rather than contribute to it.

Different techniques are used, one of which is to try and confuse others, to muddle the minds around and the discussion with nonsensical blah until no one remembers what they were discussing about anymore.

Sorry, I didn't mean to equate the concept of form with the one of presupposition.

I meant: Plato's theory of forms underpins his thought like an axiom would underpin a branch of mathematics.

This passage of Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics may ring a bell.



Such analysis [of absolute presuppositions] may in certain cases proceed in the
following manner. If the inquirer can find a person
to experiment upon who is well trained in a certain
type of scientific work, intelligent and earnest in his devotion to it, and unaccustomed to metaphysics, let
him probe into various presuppositions that his ‘sub-
ject’ has been taught to make in the course of his
scientific education, and invite him to justify each or
alternatively to abandon it.

If the ‘inquirer’ is skilful
and the ‘subject’ the right kind of man, these invita-
tions will be contemplated with equanimity, and even
with interest, so long as relative presuppositions are
concerned. But when an absolute presupposition is
touched, the invitation will be rejected, even with a
certain degree of violence.

The rejection is a symptom that the ‘subject’, co-
operating with the work of analysis, has come to see
that the presupposition he is being asked to justify
or abandon is an absolute presupposition; and the
violence with which it is expressed is a symptom that
he feels the importance of this absolute presupposi-
tion for the kind of work to which he is devoted.
This is what in the preceding chapter I called being
‘ticklish in one’s absolute presuppositions’; and the
reader will see that this ticklishness is a sign of
intellectual health combined with a low degree of
analytical skill.

Unless we knowledge of these things, which in the Republic is presented in the myth of transcendent experience, then the Forms remain hypothetical. — Fooloso4

True. My point is that the forms are not just any hypothesis, they are a fundamental, absolute presupposition, which underpins his way of seeing the world and his entire world view.

The concept of absolute presupposition comes from Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics. It presents a clear, modern framework for defining and understanding metaphysics. His central idea is that at the heart and begining of any thought, of any observation, there are axioms of thoughts. Basic tenets like "Nature is one". Or "nature is dual, there's always a ying-yang somewhere". These are what some call: a deeply held belief.

You will have recognised in the above examples a monist vs dualist world view, respectively.

In the case of Plato, I think the dualist ying yang is somewhere in the interplay between form and matter. Plato's forms are more than just the shape that things take, they come from above, and from the soul. They are mentally RECOGNISABLE shapes. Both real and abstract, therefore eternal.

In phenomenology, the idea of squares, the idea of circles are treated as mental essences. Correct me if I am wrong but I think Plato saw them as both mental (soul-like) and all around him, as essences of the things themselves, that could be recognized by the soul. That's what I tried to summarize in: "Things have objective AND recognisable shapes" (recognisable by our mind/soul).

Of course this is a very crude attempt at a synthesis and there's considerable flourish and expansions and others things in Platonism, but that piece above is a basic tenet, an axiom of his thought. A starting point.

Which is the reason, I propose, why Euthyphro rejects the term "hypothesis". It's something more fundamental.

If they [forms] are experienced then we know what they are by observation...? — Banno

Some sort of 'pattern recognition' is fundamental for perception to occur. Forms therefore underwrite perception rather than being themselves perceived.

This kind of thinking points back to good old Collingwood's absolute presuppositions, ie axioms of thoughts... These are indeed more than mere hypotheses, they are fundamental hypotheses, and cannot be proven true or false, neither by logic nor observation.

In this case, one could perhaps summarize the Forms idea as the following absolute presupposition: "Things have recognisable yet objective shapes". Or "shapes exist objectively, as well as in my mind, and in perception I am connecting the two".

Leads to utter nonsense, meaningless language use, equivocation fallacies, and inevitable self-contradiction and/or outright incoherence. — creativesoul

In other words, it leads to typical troll behavior.

Maybe Heidegger was right: "Only a god can save us." — Xtrix

Actually, a few dozen nukes detonated over the main United States and Chinese cities would largely take care of the climate change problem, at least temporarily, by bringing global GHG emissions way down. So maybe the devil can save us.

Excellent overview of the christian apocrypha. Good pick.

You are right that most people don't care or don't trust evidence on this kind of topic.

You correctly point to the examples of Hitler and Stalin. — Jack Cummins

The evidence either way is very slim, but if I had the time I would do the following researches:

Research project 1: plot the number of violent death caused by religions, then compare it with the number of violent deaths caused by other ideologies than religious throughout history.

Research project 2: calculate the percentage of major scientists throughout history who were educated in a Christian institution as a child.

Why wouldn't it?

I can see no reason why the divine/God would hate itself/himself. — Apollodorus

Any reason why it wouldn't?

:blush: Thank you! It's probably not true but you made my day.

Some Mandingue blues...

'When the wise points at the stars, you dissect his finger.' — Amity

Ha ha! Glad you liked it. I felt pretty good after nailing that one. :-)

, I couldn't help but feel how our way of life and rhythm differs.
Strange experience to watch this old culture struggling to keep alive...from the comfort of my home with all modern conveniences and technology. — Amity

I'll try and see where that takes me... I will start with the platitude or cliché that Africans have a good sense of rhythm. I think this is broadly borne by facts, as a crude generality, although there are good percussionists outside Africa of course (in India notably) -- African rhythms have a certain spontaneity, a dense creativity, an intensity that's difficult to match.

The movie tries to show how, in a Mandingue context (a tribe somewhat dominant in Mali), rhythm is everywhere, explicitly so.

Note that the Mandingue are said to have invented the blues. So their culture is more than alive: it has become a big part of our culture, through the music brought to the Americas by African slaves from the gulf of Guinea. From your desk top maybe you also listen to blues and jazz once in a while? If yes, you're listening to (highly evolved) Mandingue music.

As the griot says, rhythm is everywhere. In breathing, heart beats, life. In walking; in working (especially working together as shown in the movie). In speech and in music.

I bet something funny happens when you listen to it... The rhythm takes over you. First it makes you dizzy. Then, you want to surrender your body to it, and your soul too. You want to dance. Dance is a sort of walk to nowhere, in which your body follows or rather inhabits and marks the rhythm. So you start to move your feet under your desk. Tap tap tap. Shake your hand a bit, tchick tchick...

Them Mandingue make you want to move your ass and work with them, dance with them, play with them in that rhythm.

Rhythm becomes you. And you want to add to it, to contribute your own creativity to it. To blend in it but still exist in it as you.

And if they are several of you listening, you can dance together by the magic of the rhythm. Your dance becomes a ballet.

So rhythm is about being together, about several souls (or organs, for the body) fusing and becoming one in the same action but without losing individual identity and creativity.

Rhythm makes room in our mind for collaboration, like in a ballet, or like three guys hammering the same pole. Ting. Ting. Ting.

Indeed. Hitler and Stalin were sooo progressive.

Oh it does... The Church educated Europe. The 'dark ages' are a historical fantasy, a form of nostalgia for an idealized classical era. All the ages are 'dark' in one way or another. You think the 20th century was not dark?

he touches on some key points that are very hard to confirm yet sound valid — MAYAEL

You have examples?

Without "The Church" Western societies almost certainly would have been more ... civilized — 180 Proof

There are no counterfactuals, so this can't be proven, nor can the opposite. But it is a fact that historically, the societies that developed the fastest from a scientific standpoint were either Muslim or Christian.

Gods love themselves. — Apollodorus

Do they use godes, too? Sorry, couldn't resist...

Though, possibly, too complex for the intellectually or metaphysically challenged to grasp. — Apollodorus

You are confused and challenged because you are not looking at the right place. You are looking at the tools (concepts) used by Plato, not at what he says with these tools. You are staying at level of words, at the surface therefore.

When the wise points at the stars, you dissect his finger.

This is part of his knowledge of his ignorance. — Fooloso4

Okay, a knowledge that Euthyphro and his followers lack, full of their own certitude.

A pattern is not an instrumental cause, it does not cause anything to be like it. It is, rather, that by which we can identify something as being of that kind. — Fooloso4

A concept, in other words. Plato tried to eek out the meaning of concepts by interrogating them. That's a style of enquiry more that a metaphysical message. In fact I find a rather facile way of discarding concepts, to ask for their precise definition. Concepts are not easy to define, so yeah, Euthyphro could not really define piety to Socrates' satisfaction, but if if he had asked Socrates "define justice", I bet Socrates would have struggled too.