In the discussion of poetry, I was hoping for a callback to Plato's Cave. It seemed a natural to add that the images cast on the walls are the works of poets, and philosophers who have experienced Good and Beauty would no longer want to read these works.
This book was a struggle for me, but I'm very glad to have read it. I hope to join the Zoom call on Sunday.
I also sensed a hint at the cave when talking about the shadow art. Definitely something there on truth vs. imitation. In essence now we're banning the cave?
Thinking about it further, there's the truth (the form), then the manifestation of the truth (a single bed), then there's photos or paintings of the manifestations. Today, we now can add AI generated images based on the photos. More is being done to get us further away from the truth or form. The cave seems to me firmly entrenched.
For those who plan on joining the Zhuangzi read-along later this year, the History of Philosophy in China podcast has wrapped up its segments on Confucianism and Mohism, and will begin its segment on Daoism with the June 28 episode. I presume that it will start with the Daodejing, and I'd guess that it will get around the Zhuangzi right around the time that we're reading it.
I felt led by the nose when I was reading Republic, just like Glaucon was by Socrates; from topic to topic, in abrupt fashion.
We started with the question of what is justice, then, all of a sudden, we were building the ideal city. Just when we were about to give up on all the political atrocities, Socrates jumped to the screening and training of the philosopher-king. The allegory of the cave appeared next, but before we had a chance to ask questions, we encountered the problem of the decay of governments. Not yet having recovered from our disorientation, we now dived into the different kinds of souls. Finally we received the answer that we had been waiting for since the beginning–why it is more advantageous to lead a just life. But, wait, that’s not the ending of the book; there’s still a description of the eternal afterlife to come!
We must each decide how we feel about Plato’s literary strategy for Republic. As I said, I feel I was being led by the nose; manipulated even. From a philosophical perspective, I believe Plato is doing us a disservice by organizing the dialogue in such a disorienting manner. By jumping from topic to topic in such quick succession, he never does each topic justice (yes, I am mindful that he addresses some of these issues in his other dialogues); and he never gives his reader a chance to stop and think and to scrutinize each idea. Most important, we are not presented with a clear and convincing explanation of how all these different topics are intertwined. Consequently, we end up overlooking the question of whether Plato’s ideas might stand and fall together. (As Michelle asked early on: given Plato’s argument by analogy, if we don’t accept his account of the ideal city, then shouldn’t we also reject his theory of the soul?)
Let me just discuss one example. The theory of forms is perhaps Plato’s most famous idea. And yet there are so many aspects of it that Plato does not address in this book that the reader is simply asked to take it at face value.
Unanswered questions about Plato’s theory of forms abound. The following come immediately to mind. Is there a form for everything, big or small, important or trivial? (David mentions the example of a couch in his comment.) How are forms related to one another? Is there a ranking of them by degree of importance? I have the impression that the Form of the Good is at the top; is it? Why? How does one achieve knowledge of forms? Is there a methodology? And given the huge (perhaps infinite) number of forms, is there a form of forms?
My fundamental objection to Plato (and all subsequent thinking influenced by him) is this cornerstone of his philosophical system–the creation and elevation of a separate, invisible world of universal, unchanging Forms or Ideas; and the simultaneous devaluation of the ever-changing, everyday world of human affairs. At one point in the Republic, Plato even goes so far as to call human affairs evil!
Nietzsche defines a nihilist as “a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist.” The world as it is that it ought not to be! That’s Plato! In other words, the everyday world that we all live in has no value. I wonder: what would commonplace philosophy mean for Plato? Can there be such a thing?
It is fitting that the dialogue more or less begins and ends with the banishment of poets from Plato’s ideal city. I think the real reason is that, for Plato, poets depict the world as it is too realistically and too joyously sometimes! He can’t tolerate that. I agree with Harold Bloom in his book Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?: it is far from settled who has left a bigger and longer-lasting legacy, Plato or Homer.
I'm in the brainstorming phases of a piece about grief and was moved by Socrates' addition of a final stage, Reflection. The prior stages (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance) are the provenance of the irrational part of the soul, so why not get as quickly as possible to acceptance and turn the experience over to the rational part of the soul? This, in my reading, gives meaning to the event. This is also easier said than done (and one wonders, what kind of grieving he went through, or is this admonition two removes from reality? :P)
I also liked the line that misery is a cup that "can never get its fill" which is a sort of adjunct to our common "misery loves company."
Combining this with the emphasis on how tragic poetry fixates on drama and conflict, appealing to the base emotions of the masses for entertainment, suggests an incredibly austere personality. One wonders, can I watch *one* episode of some nonsense? How many minutes/days/months must one be exposed to this kind of nonsense before it is a net negative and I am a giggling unthinking buffoon?
Nice discussion last night! I spent some time researching afterwards and found online at the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-myths/] the belief that some of Plato's 'myths', including notable Er, may have been invented by Plato.
My view of this Book X remains unchanged, since I was already calling into question Er's origins. Plato chose to employ a narrative approach to underscore his ultimate argument: the significance of justice transcends one's earthly existence and extends into the afterlife.
Jared, can you tell us a bit more about your rationale for picking the books you did for the future read-alongs? That can give us more purpose when we read and help the discussion along. And have you selected which translation of Chuang Tzu to use?
Book X was very interesting to me as a contribution to Plato's doctrine of the forms. In the other middle-period dialogues that feature the forms (the Meno and the Phaedo are the two I'm familiar with), the examples are normative qualities like the Good and the Beautiful, or what might be seen now as fundamental physical qualities like the Hot and the Cold, the Large and the Small, the Equal and the Unequal. The reader is left wondering whether there's the forms are many or few. Is there a Form for every predicate?
Book X takes us in the direction of an answer, using Bed and Table as examples of forms, which are imitated imperfectly by craftsmen. As far as I know this is the only place where we see this in Plato.
It suggests an interesting conception of forms that "couch" can be one. Like there is some eternal conception of "couch" that craftsmen can only make exemplars of, that predates even the first ever constructed couch. This sort of follows what we read in e.g. Phaedo, where the soul possesses eternal knowledge that we just need to "remember." I can't tell if it's utterly preposterous or completely genius though, to suggest that "couch" is some eternal form along the lines of, say, The Good or beauty or...
In the discussion of poetry, I was hoping for a callback to Plato's Cave. It seemed a natural to add that the images cast on the walls are the works of poets, and philosophers who have experienced Good and Beauty would no longer want to read these works.
This book was a struggle for me, but I'm very glad to have read it. I hope to join the Zoom call on Sunday.
I also sensed a hint at the cave when talking about the shadow art. Definitely something there on truth vs. imitation. In essence now we're banning the cave?
Thinking about it further, there's the truth (the form), then the manifestation of the truth (a single bed), then there's photos or paintings of the manifestations. Today, we now can add AI generated images based on the photos. More is being done to get us further away from the truth or form. The cave seems to me firmly entrenched.
GenAI as a 3rd remove from the truth is profound. I love that conception.
For those who plan on joining the Zhuangzi read-along later this year, the History of Philosophy in China podcast has wrapped up its segments on Confucianism and Mohism, and will begin its segment on Daoism with the June 28 episode. I presume that it will start with the Daodejing, and I'd guess that it will get around the Zhuangzi right around the time that we're reading it.
I felt led by the nose when I was reading Republic, just like Glaucon was by Socrates; from topic to topic, in abrupt fashion.
We started with the question of what is justice, then, all of a sudden, we were building the ideal city. Just when we were about to give up on all the political atrocities, Socrates jumped to the screening and training of the philosopher-king. The allegory of the cave appeared next, but before we had a chance to ask questions, we encountered the problem of the decay of governments. Not yet having recovered from our disorientation, we now dived into the different kinds of souls. Finally we received the answer that we had been waiting for since the beginning–why it is more advantageous to lead a just life. But, wait, that’s not the ending of the book; there’s still a description of the eternal afterlife to come!
We must each decide how we feel about Plato’s literary strategy for Republic. As I said, I feel I was being led by the nose; manipulated even. From a philosophical perspective, I believe Plato is doing us a disservice by organizing the dialogue in such a disorienting manner. By jumping from topic to topic in such quick succession, he never does each topic justice (yes, I am mindful that he addresses some of these issues in his other dialogues); and he never gives his reader a chance to stop and think and to scrutinize each idea. Most important, we are not presented with a clear and convincing explanation of how all these different topics are intertwined. Consequently, we end up overlooking the question of whether Plato’s ideas might stand and fall together. (As Michelle asked early on: given Plato’s argument by analogy, if we don’t accept his account of the ideal city, then shouldn’t we also reject his theory of the soul?)
Let me just discuss one example. The theory of forms is perhaps Plato’s most famous idea. And yet there are so many aspects of it that Plato does not address in this book that the reader is simply asked to take it at face value.
Unanswered questions about Plato’s theory of forms abound. The following come immediately to mind. Is there a form for everything, big or small, important or trivial? (David mentions the example of a couch in his comment.) How are forms related to one another? Is there a ranking of them by degree of importance? I have the impression that the Form of the Good is at the top; is it? Why? How does one achieve knowledge of forms? Is there a methodology? And given the huge (perhaps infinite) number of forms, is there a form of forms?
My fundamental objection to Plato (and all subsequent thinking influenced by him) is this cornerstone of his philosophical system–the creation and elevation of a separate, invisible world of universal, unchanging Forms or Ideas; and the simultaneous devaluation of the ever-changing, everyday world of human affairs. At one point in the Republic, Plato even goes so far as to call human affairs evil!
Nietzsche defines a nihilist as “a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist.” The world as it is that it ought not to be! That’s Plato! In other words, the everyday world that we all live in has no value. I wonder: what would commonplace philosophy mean for Plato? Can there be such a thing?
It is fitting that the dialogue more or less begins and ends with the banishment of poets from Plato’s ideal city. I think the real reason is that, for Plato, poets depict the world as it is too realistically and too joyously sometimes! He can’t tolerate that. I agree with Harold Bloom in his book Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?: it is far from settled who has left a bigger and longer-lasting legacy, Plato or Homer.
I'm in the brainstorming phases of a piece about grief and was moved by Socrates' addition of a final stage, Reflection. The prior stages (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance) are the provenance of the irrational part of the soul, so why not get as quickly as possible to acceptance and turn the experience over to the rational part of the soul? This, in my reading, gives meaning to the event. This is also easier said than done (and one wonders, what kind of grieving he went through, or is this admonition two removes from reality? :P)
I also liked the line that misery is a cup that "can never get its fill" which is a sort of adjunct to our common "misery loves company."
Combining this with the emphasis on how tragic poetry fixates on drama and conflict, appealing to the base emotions of the masses for entertainment, suggests an incredibly austere personality. One wonders, can I watch *one* episode of some nonsense? How many minutes/days/months must one be exposed to this kind of nonsense before it is a net negative and I am a giggling unthinking buffoon?
Here’s an cool illustration of the Spindle of Necessity by Tyler Miles Lockett: https://www.reddit.com/r/classics/comments/15327no/platos_spindle_of_necessity_illustrated_by_me/
I enjoyed reading along with you all, see you on the next one :)
Nice discussion last night! I spent some time researching afterwards and found online at the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-myths/] the belief that some of Plato's 'myths', including notable Er, may have been invented by Plato.
My view of this Book X remains unchanged, since I was already calling into question Er's origins. Plato chose to employ a narrative approach to underscore his ultimate argument: the significance of justice transcends one's earthly existence and extends into the afterlife.
Jared, can you tell us a bit more about your rationale for picking the books you did for the future read-alongs? That can give us more purpose when we read and help the discussion along. And have you selected which translation of Chuang Tzu to use?
Book X was very interesting to me as a contribution to Plato's doctrine of the forms. In the other middle-period dialogues that feature the forms (the Meno and the Phaedo are the two I'm familiar with), the examples are normative qualities like the Good and the Beautiful, or what might be seen now as fundamental physical qualities like the Hot and the Cold, the Large and the Small, the Equal and the Unequal. The reader is left wondering whether there's the forms are many or few. Is there a Form for every predicate?
Book X takes us in the direction of an answer, using Bed and Table as examples of forms, which are imitated imperfectly by craftsmen. As far as I know this is the only place where we see this in Plato.
It suggests an interesting conception of forms that "couch" can be one. Like there is some eternal conception of "couch" that craftsmen can only make exemplars of, that predates even the first ever constructed couch. This sort of follows what we read in e.g. Phaedo, where the soul possesses eternal knowledge that we just need to "remember." I can't tell if it's utterly preposterous or completely genius though, to suggest that "couch" is some eternal form along the lines of, say, The Good or beauty or...