The same way we know the telos of any other thing/activity - by looking for the end towards which it is directed. — Agustino

I'm trying to figure out this concept of telos/purpose.

Isn't the telos of everything (object and person) primarily to exist? It is better to exist than not exist and God delights in their existence.
Squirrels are created to be squirrels (and God saw that was good). Do squirrels serve a telos to also be food for foxes and for methods of distributions of acorns? Or is this not telos? Does God design nuts and squirrels and foxes together on purpose or are they related only by chance?

As for humans our telos is to draw closer to God thru virtue.
Wouldn't part of the telos of human sexuality be not just intimacy between partners but as a shadow/manifestation/mode of Divine love and our ecstatic union with God? Just like love of a parent is a shadow/manifestion/mode of divine love.

Plato himself, in the apology, provides an answer to human teaching/guidance:

"tell us who their improver is.

The laws.

But that, my good sir, is not my meaning. I want to know who the person
is, who, in the first place, knows the laws.

The judges, Socrates, who are present in court.

What, do you mean to say, Meletus, that they are able to instruct and
improve youth?

Certainly they are.

What, all of them, or some only and not others?

All of them.

By the goddess Here, that is good news! There are plenty of improvers,
then.....
How about horses? Does one man do them harm and all the world good? Is
not the exact opposite the truth? One man is able to do them good, or at
least not many;--the trainer of horses, that is to say, does them good, and
others who have to do with them rather injure them? Is not that true,
Meletus, of horses, or of any other animals? Most assuredly it is; whether
you and Anytus say yes or no. Happy indeed would be the condition of youth
if they had one corrupter only, and all the rest of the world were their
improvers."

So even men were to speak for God (which isn't what Plato is saying) at the very least this would be the domain of the rare few (i.e. True philosophers) rather than a large group of individuals such as a church and it's related bodies. This is consistent with his characterization of the masses knowing nothing of truth in the Republic. In addition, a major theme in the apology is that Socrates is the wisest because he knows his ignorance. I think you could argue that the religiouw intreprators of the law are pretending to be an authority on matters of which they are ignorant. Which I think is exactly the case.

I don't know if this was your point, but you taught me an interesting thing about censorship. It sounds great in theory and it's a tempting way to advance your views or moral code. But it's playing with fire and once you start it would be difficult to allow any freedom. As a society I think it's best to allow nearly anything and let individuals and families choose. (So censorship with channels so I know what I'm getting when I turn on the TV, but allow all kinds of channels).

Hmmm... yes there is a big difference from fantasy and rehearsal.
Common sense would say Plato's wrong to try to censor everything. Obviously violent video games don't make anyone who plays them murderers.
However, it is also obvious that you can't consume regular amounts of extremely violent or perverse content without it affecting you in any way.

But in general sure, I'll agree with you and not with Plato. At least censorship isnt going to solve all our problems.

Take a hypothetical murderer. There are a lot of factors that make someone a murder. Exposure to violent media is not in and of itself ever going to cause them to kill or not kill someone.

What about a parent though? Since you want to raise ethical and not psychologicaly damaged kids would you keep away R rated movies when they are five?

What about being a virtue seeking adult? Would you avoid overly gruesome films with senseless violence and poor moral messages? Would you pride yourself and think you were doing some worthy by boycotting anything with so much as a cuss word?

I think it all comes down to moderation, common sense, and your conscious. I didn't really think about how I came off like the thought police in my last post.

haha.. oh man. I'm in serious trouble if spelling or typos are at all related to virtue!!

Since we're talking of virtue I found this Saturday Night Live sketch hilarious.
https://youtu.be/xCFkTmI_9kE
It's how we would feel about many of our actions if we understood their true impact on others

I feel like I've hijacked your post away from Plato and on to my own personal views. We should go back to him agai — T Clark

Ehh.. it's fine. I enjoy the meandering topics.
Strictly talking about Platonism isn't that riveting.

Plato sure as heck never stays on topic in the dialogues. Almost as bad as Kierkegaard who goes back and forth on reviewing plays and philosophy

I think fantasy and media (everything from written and oral stories to movies and video games) are highly related. If you like fantasizing about fetishes wouldn't you likely consume media about that and there by strengthen the fetish?
Have you heard the popular Native American parable of the two wolves (one good and one evil) and how the one you feed gets stronger?
Of course the police should treat you the same regardless if you listen to Jay Z or motzart. But they'd still have a first impression and quick judgement.

I'll cite Plato here (surprise, surprise)
He's obsessed with censoring the poets in order to remove false notions and acceptance of vice from effecting the young (which I think less than 50 in his definition).
He proposes a interesting idea. If in all media and stories told to children and adults, the characters only use kindness and cooperation and even villains never practice violence would people be violent? Of course we still get angry and do things we regret, but I wonder if violence was never portrayed it might not be emulated except by mistake.
I've always found it odd how openly morally and conservative people can listen to music about violence and promiscuity.
Here's a quick thought experiment. Let's say your are listening to the radio or your iTunes playlist (where you have no control over the songs other than the station) in your car and got into a wreck where you pinned and cannot change the station or turn it off. When the police get to you are they correct in judging your moral character by the song currently playing? If not, then why were you listening to it?

correct behavior toward other people comes from inside. We are built to know how we should behave. What I have to do in order to know what to do next is to open my heart. — T Clark

Your thoughts are helpful as always thanks. We pretty much agree that morality comes from following one's inner guidance.
I say that this guidance comes from God thru illumination but I don't think human religions have a hand in that process. I don't think belief in God is neccesary to be moral since illumination is not gained thru belief.
I suppose you would say you don't believe in God and this moral guidance is innate simply because it is. Humans all sorts of other innate qualities, why not morality?
I would say humans have the ability to see thru their eyes because God creates them that way. You would probably say they see thru their eyes because they are human. We almost all get eyes if we believe in God or not.

I would suggest we face a same problem then. What about people who though illumined or possessing an innate moral sense ignore it and practice vice versus those who practice virtue? What's the difference and why does virtue "take" in one but not the other?
What about people, though rare, who seem naturally deficient of morality or loose their ability to act morally due to mental illness or brain injury? This last question is more of an issue for me with a Divine source than for you with an innate source but still troubles us both I think.

I would have to say that God grants differing levels of illumination to some people or perhaps illumines them more directly for His purposes which we cannot know. People will only be judged according to their capacity. A person with a frontal lobe injury will not be condemned to hell for being less inclined to not have angry outbursts even if such action is sinful. Actually I don't think any of us are condemned to hell and am a universalist.
As for the majority of situations where people choose vice, illumination only allows the possibility of moral action, it doesn't compel it. People who choose vice over virtue (and we all do this at least some of the time) earn our reward thru suffering and unhappiness. Perhaps Plato is right and we be repaid 10 fold for our actions in an afterlife or perhaps it's just karma in this life (punished by your anger not for your anger type karma).

What do you think? Are these real problems?

I'll drop the fake plato dialogue, was fun for only a few lines :)

I had one last question I'd love to be able to ask Socrates.
What about men who claim to speak for God either by prophecy or other religious authority and lay down commandments that are to be followed?
There is a resulting list of sometimes absurd requirements such as not eating meat and cheese together (Orthodox Judaism) or even men or women not allowed to hug outside marriage (the typically liberal Baha'i). Even the sabbath laws either on Saturday or Sunday. These laws exist sometimes for good reason but surely they are not the COMMANDMENTS of God (which thereby if they existed written by the finger of God Himself should be obeyed unquestionably).
I think I would advocate no commandment or moral law should ever be followed unquestionably. Going back to dharmic religions, my zen teacher taught me that the five Buddhist precepts (no killing, no sexual immorality, no lying, no stealing, no intoxicants) are "my own" meaning it's up to me, through my meditative practice, how I interpret them and follow them. I found that to be the most fulfilling and successful, at least I thought so, moral guide. By having ownership over the precepts I was more likely to live them out and didn't feel like I was "breaking" one but seeking a deeper way of living out the principle behind it. On the surface it might seem that encourages moral relativism and rationalization for immoral behavior, but I found in practice it was the opposite. Too set and rigid of rules such as the Jewish laws I found too hard to fulfill and I was forever "breaking" a commandment with cyclic binges of observance and guilt. It's ultimately part of the reason I ended up not pursuing conversion to Judaism.

This view of discerning virtue for oneself I think is consistent with Platonism/Monism. It is our illuminated reason that guides us towards virtue, not the opinion of the masses.

I enjoyed your explanation and defense of first cause, it was rather eloquent.
I simply lack the time to keep up with all these interesting threads, unless I devoted myself to keep up with them to expense of actually reading philosophy. I'll try to follow as I can.
The biggest thing I've learned so far is that the best I can hope for with a philosophy (in my case Monism) is one that is streamlined and internally consistent and which offers a plausible explanation for experience. You're thought does that, so I'm taking notes. Thanks!

Yeah, Plato's dialectic method and approach in general can be quite rigid. It's seeks an objective perspective for truth. He's part of the reason why western philosophy is so different from eastern philosophy.

Ahimsa is the idea of no harm found in eastern dharmic religions. I've found it very useful in guiding my own self examination and I use it heavily in my professional ethics (as a rehab therapist).

Yet, your point why I included the other two pillars (the whole pillar thing is my invention in the style of Plato). We have to be open to the illumination of God upon our whole souls. Plato says only our reason is illumined which then directs the rest of our natures. I think that we are illumined on multiple levels to include desires (for goodness, for altruism, love, etc) and spirit as well as just reason.

Do they indeed? — t0m

(Resuming dialogue form)

MM: Yes, the common people have many misconceptions of virtue.

Socrates: Let us endeavor to establish 3 pillars of virtue on which the whole of the good life rests. The first pillar is the widest and strongest, more critical for preventing a collapse of the whole structure. This great pillar, as I (@t0m) have just stated, is virtue of omission. Do not the sages of the east with their teachings of Ahmisa, say this is the key to virtue? So should it be with our state. Let us also remember what we have spoken about with overlooking little virtues and let it be the same for vice. Let no man imagine that omitting terrible deads like murder or banditry that he can then neglect all the small, daily ways in which he harms his neighbor. Let him also not compare himself with others, either higher or lower, to determine his virtue as this leads to either slackness or to dispair.

This first pillar of doing no harm is so great that perhaps our state would stand steady on it alone. But let us go further to name two more pillars which are subservient and cannot override the first. The second pillar is positive and compulsory action that is compelled by the voice of illuminated conscious. It is vice to neglect doing these actions typically involved in fulfilling one's responsibilities or in coming to aid of someone in immediate need where ignoring their pleas is unjust.
The third and least pillar is voluntary good deeds. There is no shame in not preforming them and indeed shouldn't be performed to exhaustion.

There is a common delusiion that least of this pillars is mistaken for the strongest. Proud people think they are virtuous because they give at church or hold open a door for an attractive woman. They practice virtue only at their convince and claim the whole prize for themselves.
Humble people are equally harmed. They feel at lack of character for being unable to donate to every worthy charity or to to volunteer for every cause and exhaust themselves trying. They leave the real source of Virtue neglected.

Boomer here. Of the generation getting blamed for it. I can tell you exactly when I saw it go wrong. The Vietnam war. I was a college student. College students got a deferment from the draft. The kids of the working class, the "deplorables" of the day, went to die in the jungle. That was was no joke. Several hundred men -- and it was almost all men -- died every week. . — fishfry

As an Iraq veteran I thank you for saying that. My father fought in Vietnam. It does seem that there are two different nations: those who believe in the cause and sacrifice heavily for it, and those who are entitled and take it for granted - so much so that I'm pretty disillusioned.

The biggest issue is that those of us who live within the safety of the wall, with the privileges and gains from the sacrifices of those on the wall, need to act with gratitude. We need to live in ways that do the most to be the best version of ourselves as a nation, and to think of more than ourselves, to further the common good. That's the America the troops fight for. If ever they realise, as I did, that really they are only fighting for the furtherment of greed, then they won't stay in uniform, and there will be no one left to defend us.

So, I'm not a NFL player, but I stand for the anthem, and I put my hand on my heart. I struggle with this, but I give my allegiance to our nation as it could be, though tragically not as it is.

Okay, yes that is straightforward enough.

I'm unable to answer this until I figure out what I mean by ideas (in general), by God and if it is even possible to say we can have an idea of God.

I had a stream consciousness response which I removed where I debated the whole thing.

Upon further reflection, I think I need to say that God is not completely unknowable, it is possible to have an idea of God.

In my Zen training, I was taught that my ideas are only mental constructs and never grasp the thing itself. My ideas don't exist. Even concepts like good and evil are just concepts. Reality just is as it is. God even more so is beyond such concepts.

Yet, I think I must listen to why I left Buddhism. I experience that God is not merely a passive, philosophical abstract. Rather I think that this Absolute is actively loving, actively sustaining, actively illuminating. So our idea of God comes from God thru illuminated reason and other illuminated faculties.

Kabbalah has a strange position that as an ex-Kabbalist I need to consider. Ein Sof is the Source, the First Cause but is ultimately unknowable. We only know God thru Hus emanations, which aren't Him but reflections of Him. Many theists too are apophatic theologians and say we know about God mostly thru negation. Yet they still cling to revelation and their respective traditions.
It doesn't make any sense to say God is completely unknowable yet illumines or loves us or creates us. For we then know at least that much about Him in so far as He is active in our experience. God can definitely be mostly unknownable, we only perceive a small sliver perhaps.

Another issue to address, which is what you point to, is if God grants us the idea of God then why is our ideas so different from one another? Is it because as religions would suggest, the majority are impaired or mislead and only one certain group received it correctly? Unlikely.
Or is that we are given only the most basic sliver that mankind has added all sorts of vain imaginings too? Most likely
Or is it the blind men and the elephant where depending on each ones context and personality and baises, everyone sees the Truth but differing aspects as a prism captures only part of the spectrum? Maybe, but this has points for being a charitable view.

So I need to fully answer these questions before I arrive at what you are asking.

You may need to explain more because you are assuming particular meanings to ideas and to God and perhaps meaning something different between idea and ideas in your statement.
I could take a few guesses about what you mean, but it would probably best if you just explain if you'd like.

My own understanding of ideas, mind, the soul and of Forms and of God are all conflicted and still being sorted out. I'm trying to see how closely I can conform to a monism or perhaps even Platonism while still being internally consistent and making sense of what I experience to be true. So far Plato has suprised me in the strength of his explanations and how well they create an effective world view.

You're in a life because there's a life-experience possibility-story about you. — Michael Ossipoff

Hmm... so our lives are narratives? I think this is intuitively true. In common language we talk about taking paths or ones story all the time.
Individual moments only make sense in context and it's the overall story that gives meaning.

The infinite possibility and infinite worlds is interesting. Are these determined by individual human choices? I'm not a propent of free will, but if one were to assert free will I think they'd have to go in this direction. There are all sorts of possible outcomes/worlds. I could right now leave my current life entirely and start a completely new life in another country. Why I would suddenly do so is irrelevant, only the fact that I could.

As for monism. Having one universal Source of reality doesn't mean we all have the same experiences. We can retain individual identities while having a shared source.

Thanks again for your post.

By forfeit rationality do you mean following empathy and compassion over objective reason? In there is no divine guidance then perhaps your right.
Again some plato. If God exists then one's self interest and happiness ultimately depend on being good (not just because of heaven/hell but for its own sake because God is most desirable good there is). So being good is rational and being evil is irrational and against ones own happiness though this may not be obvious.
If however, God doesn't exist. Perhaps it is more rational to seek self interest and happiness may lie only in temporary or subjective matters. In that case it might be irrational to do the moral thing. Rational self interest should then be constrained to protect the common good.

I did some brief digging into Divine Command Theory. There's lots there. More to add to my reading list :)

But I think asking for rational basis alone is like asking the eye to see without light. It goes back to the whole point of illumination. A common objection is how can atheists or agnostics be moral if morality comes from God alone.
Without being illuminated, this is true, one can only be moral by chance in a same way a blinded person might make their way in a large empty room only by luck.
However it's important to distinguish between illumination and intellectual belief. They are surely not the same. Even atheists have some illumination or perhaps even a great deal and may have a divinely inspired moral compass even if they don't attribute it as such. In fact, all of us, have some level of being illumined because God is the source of our very being. Without His presence we couldn't exist. So you can have morality come from God without requiring people to believe in Him to be moral nor make the mistaking morality for mere belief.

P.S. I have decided to start using the term God again. God illuminating us is an example of His/Her/It's active nature. It's not a passive, merely philosophical construct. I can use the word God without subscribing to any particular revealed religion.

I ran into this exact same problem with Plato.
Then Plato has the analogy of the eye which I posted on, but it relates here just as well.
The eye is the soul and reason, you can't see without a working eye. This is true.
Yet you also can not see without light. Elsewhere he talks about the eye of soul being lifted out of the muck that obscures its vision.
So virtue is reasonable and is perceived by reason (it requires logic and understanding to be applied). But it also requires Divine Illumination to discern goodness from evil.
Only illumined reason leads to virtue. Darkened reason leads to super villains (of which there are many clever but unscrupulous people of heroic strength but lacking moral direction).

I've been thinking of a response, I haven't ignored or forgotten. It was a well thought out and interesting post.

Ahhh... clever
The God that our reasonable, logical mind conceives of naturally falls short of infinity and absoluteness. Yet intuitively we sense (but do not grasp) it's infinititude. So we know our concept is lacking.

So the strongest definition I've stumbled into thanks to this forum is that Reality is that which is made real by the Source of all reality (the Monad) and participates in the whole of all that is real. It's a completely circular definition. But if I'm going to be a Monist, I need to commit in my metaphysics and my ethics and pretty much every other way to one Absolute Source/First Cause of being and goodness and meaning. It's helpful because that's the whole point for me of philosophy, to seek the One. I just finished Book 6 of the Republic where Plato talks about the true philosopher as a lover of all Truth. It's not about opinions about metaphysics or this or that. It's about knowledge of the Absolute.

Moral principles are important to be freely chosen or imparted, otherwise it is just tyranny, and slavery. I — Wosret

You are right, but this is a counter intuitive truth. It would seem, on surface, that best way to promote morality is by force and by heavy progranda. Yet, you are correct this would not be true virtue since it would not be a free choice. In fact even a morally good nation where virtue is an easy or natural choice (the default) would do little to encourage true virtue that requires choosing against vice. In fact our current nation is probably ideal, it grants freedom to choose while providing an atmosphere where virtue is neither present nor truly known. That is a perfect situation to raise up rare individuals who seek out virtue and pursue it even against the common zeitgeist. I suspect the world has always been this way and I doubt good societies ever existed. I think virtue is a probably better with quality than quantity.

I agree with you that culture is made a scapegoat that everyone but oneself is prone to. Several factors are at play here. First, most people are basically good and decent yet being good and decent doesn't sell ratings or catch the spotlight. So we have the illusion that our neighbors are morally worse than we are. Second, we have many subcultures, many of them religious, which provide a contrasting narrative and offer a stronger moral code that people follow. Third, I would be bold enough to say I do not allow my culture to determine my values and have an ethic and worldview that us fundamentally oppossed to modern culture's ethic. This is because I'm heavily drawn to contemplation almost monasticism and firmly reject materialism. In high school I had dreams of becoming a monk, but I foolishly didn't listen. I blame culture for the lie that getting a job and having a family is the key to happiness and having them I feel a bit tricked. I think there is a way to be a family centered contemplative. The way I fundamentally differ from culture is that I know that my happiness is completely independent of my material or social success. I really don't care about my salary or promotions or what others think of me. Or perhaps more accurately put I know I shouldn't care and I struggle to live my life without seeking those things.

Remember that Plato's political work was call "the republic", making him a republican. — Wosret

Plato's political theory is completely unworkable. I think Plato meant the Republic on both a literal political level and on allergory to the individual soul to which it works much better.
He does say one gem though. If we raised our children without being ever exposed to anything short of collaboration in the stories they hear, they would learn those values over violence. I think about how ingrained and normalized violence and being unkind to others is in our culture. It's not okay to get what you want by unkind means or unjustly, yet culture sends all sorts of mixed messages there.

As an actual voter, I never vote based on gun rights. The issue doesn't really worry me. I used to own an AR-15 but I sold it and don't plan to own a firearm again. I am an army vet and would be happy if never heard gunfire again.

scouring the globe for danger — Wosret

This is very true. Fear is a tool used heavily both by the Right and Left in politics.

Thanks, I appreciated your defense far more than the redneck inlaws I have that blindly support the 2nd amendment and are still talking about Obama taking away their guns.
Obviously I'm little bit left on this issue, but a Republic friend of mine were talking about how we really need civilized public debates by non-politicians, perhaps even philosophers, that covered these issues with an emphasis on mutual respect. Of course this exists on university campuses but it needs to be more central to our culture. It's a sad thing that the ratings would be so low.

Why is it more dangerous to give an untrained, or even unscrupulous person a gun, than political power, and influence without being informed, or scrupulous? — Wosret

That's pretty funny and very true.

It's not fair to characterize gun owners and dumb rednecks. Fair point. But there is a big difference from being able to shoot okay and tactical skills. Granted, I think history is still deciding the effectiveness of poorly trained and poorly armed insurgents against well equipped militaries. The dynamics of war are always changing. So it's an open question.
Really my argument comes down to a cost and benefit analysis. Does the potential ability of a armed public to resist tyranny outweigh the current gun violence rate? Of course neither of these values would be zero under complete gun control, so the formula is complicated and there maybe a happy medium which may even be our current system. But I don't think because the 2nd amendment says so is sufficient reason to continue to gun violence.
Also perhaps the solution isn't as simple either. Perhaps if we as a society say gun ownership is critical to who we're are we need more robust mental health screenings and early warning systems and increased police presence in inner cities and better funded anti-gang initiatives. Maybe we want the right or privilege of gun ownership but aren't willing as a society to support their responsible use.

As long as self defense doesn't infringe on the rights of others to live and be free of violence. I do wonder what Locke would say about mass shootings and if they justified surrendering of arms to the state or if he says only the criminals should have that right taken away.

Thanks that's interesting. I worry in today's world that giving untrained people (maybe with marksmanship but without tactical trainging) small arms is unlikely to be a significant threat to an organized and well equipped state. That's why the FBI and police has SWAT teams with gear and training civilians don't have. Their job is arrest or stop armed criminals and they are very good at it. Yet modern history has shown the long term cost of fighting insurgencies. I don't know if arming the minority with small arms really prevents genoocide. It's a good question for historians.
If the second amendment is helpful to protect minority rights then it is the least important of the 10 rights (even after quartering) because without the other rights the state will just take away guns or arrest their owners. A bunch of rednecks with limited ammo in a vast array of calibers is no match for a uniformly equipped and well trained force with air superiority, armored vehicles, and superior firepower.

What's the philosophical rationale for an individual right to bear arms? Apart from that the US constitution says it.
I have two rationales against it earlier in the thread (Plato and Locke)

All my posts come back to Judaism somehow, so it's fine to keep bring up Toaism. Yes I would agree that the Tao is also a good explanation.

There's been a lot of people political back and forth, but this is a philosophy forum. What does philosophy have to say about gun control?
Plato, in think, would be in favor of strict gun control. Only the guardians would own and use guns and they would only use weapons in the best interest of the state, which they would be selected, trained for, and indoctrinated in. Common people would only be allowed firearms if it is was necessary for their chosen occupation (professional hunters, Olympic sports shooters) but everyone would focus on their chosen profession. Bankers would not also be hunters.

John Locke, would be for limited and reasonable restrictions. We have freedoms of our own bodies given to our souls by God. These freedoms include purchasing and using a firearm. However we loose this right when it infringers on others rights (to live and to be free from violence). We also forfiet some of our rights and power in a social contract to the police and military.

I think both these perspectives are helpful. Firearms belong mostly in the hands of the professionals (military, police). They may be used for recreation or hunting but their danger to human life far outweighs these uses. It's a very different hobby than golf. Golf clubs are seldom murder weapons. I don't think practically an armed populace protects freedom. The police are armed to the point and purposefully have SWAT teams for the express purpose of taking down armed criminals. Having guns won't stop you from being arrested. Likewise in a theoretical revolution to a tyrannical state, willing rebels would much harder to recruit than it is to obtain firearms. Preventing dictatorship by political means seems much more productive than stockpiling weapons. Then it's too late because you can't stockpile armored vechiles or military grade weapons. A bunch of small arms won't really help. Everyone will all different kinds of guns will run out of ammo very quickly in actual war situation.
I'd be willing to sacrifice my theoretical ability to keep a gun for the possible revolution in order to reduce the real and actual gun deaths in the country now.

Thanks for this thread, really interesting.
Thanks for T Clark for pointing it out to me.

I'm currently slogging thru the Republic, so it's a fitting discussion.
I really love Plato's division of the state in to Rulers, Guardians, Craftsmen. Does Kojeve talk about this all in just a literal political sense? I think that's how most people read the Republic. Yet Plato himself says that it is allegory to finding justice/virtue in a large and easier to see form of a hypothetical state. I'm only on book 3 of 10, so I'll have to wait how he then relates this to the Individual. I suspect he says, or if he doesn't one can say, that this is a more true as allegory than as literal political theory. However this may just be my biased interest in personal virtue more than political theory.
Where I think Plato is going is that the Ruler is our rational soul, the guardian is our will or ego that fulfills or neglects our duty to follow the light of the Ruler, and the craftsmen or passions of the body which while useful at times should not be left in charge. In a way this is simmilar to Freud's Ego, Superego and Id.
Does Kojeve go in this direction at all or is he mostly concerned with political theory? Even on the surface I think it's a fun parralels that in our search for meaning and virtue it's become quite clear that persuasion or coaxing of our baser natures isn't working. We can't bribe or accommodate ourselves or others into being good. We need to take control and excerise tyranny over our own selves if we are to get anywhere.

Let me see if I understand you correctly. You objected to me using the word God to describe a range of possible meanings (because I lack certainty on exactly what/who God is), but you don't object if it use it to describe a First Cause or Source of being?
Just because there is a First Cause doesn't mean it's a diety. I do agree theists hold that God is the first cause, but the terms are not synonymous.
I'd like to suggest that Kabbalah is closest in this explanation of divinity. Ein Sof is the Absolute Source, but is itself unknowable. We don't know if it is a God or a passive force or what. It's just an unknowable Absolute. From this Absolute emanate things like virtue, goodness, existence which owe their being to the Absolute and in some way reflect, though imperfectly the nature of the Source.
I just realized the best solution to your objection of an imprecise definition of "God" is to refuse to speak of the nature of the Absolute and to only say it is unknowable in and of itself, yet it is the Source of all good things (which is redundant since evil things have no real existence).

Hmm... I never knew that.
Though it doesn't take away from Thorongil's point about using the term God or Theism in other than typically used ways. There is clearly no hard rule about this and philosophy does it all the time, just look at Kant's footnotes and his love of redefining words all the time.
However, in this particular case while I could redefine "God" it's best if I don't. At least not to redefine Him as my Absolute Source of being, meaning, and virtue. It's important for me to differentiate the two concepts. That way I can that say the religious God (a deific figure prayed to and intellectualy believed in and experienced thru a religious tradition) is a real expression of the Absolute. Thereby contrasting the two related concepts.

Getting deeper into Plato's Republic and in reading all your comments, I'm beginning to see how I should ground everything in the Monad, the First Cause. Suffering and evil can only be understood, as they really are, from the perspective of the Source of all happiness and good.
Morality must be seen from the Source of virtue, being and existence must been seen from their Source. My very life derives meaning not from me but from my Source, my Creator.
This creates not only stronger explanations (though admittedly circlular ones), but it keeps the focus on my mysticism and my development of virtue on the Absolute. This of course is the reason to be a mystic in the first place.

isn't necessary. Lots of people don't know what they talk about. — Frank Barroso

Since this comment was towards me, I'd like to say I took no offense. I was factually wrong and Thorongil corrected me. We could all try to be more civil, of course but it's fine.
I'm going to cut down on the cross faith references outside of scripture, the more name dropping I do the more messy it makes my argument. I'll also try to put in the extra time and use more direct quotations. It will teach me to be more careful in my references and I may learn more by looking up all my sources.

Everything becomes mere metaphor. — Thorongil

I'm not a liberal Christian, though my priests are at my family's espicopal church. So I'm well acquainted. Bishop John Spong used to a be rector there long ago.
I would agree, liberal Christianity everything becomes a metaphore, not sure of what exactly maybe God's love.
I'm totally on board with the mere metaphor. For me it's metaphor of the one Absolute, the Monad.

No. He distinguishes between two different kinds of theism, rejecting one and arguing for the other. Have you read him yet? — Thorongil

Okay, you might be right on Tillich too. I've read several of his books and sermons. Honestly I don't know why he's still Christian. Especially with a sermon like Shaking the Foundation. He sets up a wonderful view of God seperate from the church (this isnt exactly the right way to put it, forgive me) but then tacks on Jesus as God almost artificialy. I get equally frustrated with Maimonides who is brilliant and I don't understand why he then accepts Rabbinical Judaism and all 613 mitzvot wholesale. I'll fully admit I have an anti-church bais when reading them.