Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

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Philosophy Now
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Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

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Ansiktsburk
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Re: Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Post by Ansiktsburk »

For those of you that have read Plato's dialogues: Do you agree with the view of the article, that the dialogue participants kind of wanted to find a holistic, rationalistic view of like everything? Floating around in a metaphysic view of the world.

I do not agree. The dialogues have to be read in the light of the knowledge available at the time. The did not deny things like science, the natural selection, getting piecemeal with stuff. Actually, the biggest challenge when reading the dialogues is the meticulous way Socrates and the boys goes into great detail about like everything. The methods they use are maybe not the ones you would choose today, but they do try to analyze everything thoroughly.

The picture you get from the article is one where the dialogues tries to give fuzzy answers to topics where details are needed, the impression I get is rather that they tried to give exact answers to fuzzy questions. And did a heck of a good job with it (especially Socrates), given the knowledge people back then had.

And the only vision I can see in Plato/Socrates is to understand stuff, having a pleasant time doing that.
Nick_A
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Re: Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Post by Nick_A »

It’s a frustrating time to be a fan of Plato. Public intellectuals routinely misrepresent him, and it’s hard to find courses that can unveil the richness of insight and meaning which the best thinkers of twenty-three centuries, from Plotinus to Iris Murdoch, have discerned in his dialogues.
I’ve verified by experience that this is true. The modern intellectual trend is the glorification of specialization and fragmentation and comparing fragmentary knowledge or facts scientifically. Those like Plato inspire us to open our minds and hearts to the wholeness of the big picture through the experience of intuition.

Where analysis is the use of conscious reasoning, Intuition is defined as the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. Fragmentation pulls us down into details while intuition inspires us to the experience of a quality of wholeness that reconciles rather than analyses fragments. This raises the question of what is lost through the obsession with fragmentation and specialization. Jacob Needleman offers food for thought in his book: “The American Soul:”
Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is the lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas.

Throughout history ideas of a certain kind have been disseminated into the life of humanity in order to help human beings understand and feel the possibility of the deep inner change that would enable them to serve the purpose for which they were created, namely, to act in the world as conscious individual instruments of God, and the ultimate principle of reality and value. Ideas of this kind are formulated in order to have a specific range of action on the human psych: to touch the heart as well as the intellect; to shock us into questioning our present understanding; to point us to the greatness around us in nature and the universe, and the potential greatness slumbering within ourselves; to open our eyes to the real needs of our neighbor; to confront us with our own profound ignorance and our criminal fears and egoism; to show us that we are not here for ourselves alone, but as necessary particles of divine love.

These are the contours of the ancient wisdom, considered as ideas embodied in religious and philosophical doctrines, works of sacred art, literature and music and, in a very fundamental way, an indication of practical methods by which a man or woman can work, as is said, to become what he or she really is. Without feeling the full range of such ideas, or sensing even a modest, but pure, trace of them, we are bound to turn for meaning.
So Plato has become old fashioned and the depth and meaning of his contribution is now only recognized by a relative few who have not yet become disciples of fragmentation. Can collective human being survive this loss or are we doomed to destroy ourselves through technology and materialism as the necessary consequence of the loss of the quality of ideas offering the experience of awe and meaning those like Plato have introduced into the World?
Eodnhoj7
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Re: Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

Nick_A wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 2:23 am
It’s a frustrating time to be a fan of Plato. Public intellectuals routinely misrepresent him, and it’s hard to find courses that can unveil the richness of insight and meaning which the best thinkers of twenty-three centuries, from Plotinus to Iris Murdoch, have discerned in his dialogues.
I’ve verified by experience that this is true. The modern intellectual trend is the glorification of specialization and fragmentation and comparing fragmentary knowledge or facts scientifically. Those like Plato inspire us to open our minds and hearts to the wholeness of the big picture through the experience of intuition.

Where analysis is the use of conscious reasoning, Intuition is defined as the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. Fragmentation pulls us down into details while intuition inspires us to the experience of a quality of wholeness that reconciles rather than analyses fragments. This raises the question of what is lost through the obsession with fragmentation and specialization. Jacob Needleman offers food for thought in his book: “The American Soul:”
Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is the lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas.

Throughout history ideas of a certain kind have been disseminated into the life of humanity in order to help human beings understand and feel the possibility of the deep inner change that would enable them to serve the purpose for which they were created, namely, to act in the world as conscious individual instruments of God, and the ultimate principle of reality and value. Ideas of this kind are formulated in order to have a specific range of action on the human psych: to touch the heart as well as the intellect; to shock us into questioning our present understanding; to point us to the greatness around us in nature and the universe, and the potential greatness slumbering within ourselves; to open our eyes to the real needs of our neighbor; to confront us with our own profound ignorance and our criminal fears and egoism; to show us that we are not here for ourselves alone, but as necessary particles of divine love.

These are the contours of the ancient wisdom, considered as ideas embodied in religious and philosophical doctrines, works of sacred art, literature and music and, in a very fundamental way, an indication of practical methods by which a man or woman can work, as is said, to become what he or she really is. Without feeling the full range of such ideas, or sensing even a modest, but pure, trace of them, we are bound to turn for meaning.
So Plato has become old fashioned and the depth and meaning of his contribution is now only recognized by a relative few who have not yet become disciples of fragmentation. Can collective human being survive this loss or are we doomed to destroy ourselves through technology and materialism as the necessary consequence of the loss of the quality of ideas offering the experience of awe and meaning those like Plato have introduced into the World?
Part of the problem is Western Logic's inability to accept "the circle" as an inherent and unavoidable aspect of the reasoning process. A strict linear approach inevitably leads towards fractation and division. The line is strictly an absence of structure when taken in its own respect for it simply is spatial seperation.

The problem of Western logic, as a process of continual individuation, can be observed even within what it deems as the "fallacy". Take for example the "appeal to authority fallacy" where the argument is not viewed as strictly logical if it strictly appeals to an authority. The problem occurs if that one were to reflect on this "fallacy" that fallacy itself is an extension of authority from academic philosopher's. In this respect it commits to a regressive circularity and in itself is false by its own merits for the fallacy in and of itself is a fallacy leading one to inevitably admit that the argument from authority is necessary. However is the fallacy wrong? Does the reference to authority alone give a "whole truth"? In a seperate respect the fallacy is correct.

In these respects we can observe that not only a circular reflectivity observes the structure of an axiom, and either denies of affirms it, but simultaneously gives it the ability of "self-reflection" as a form of individuaton in one respect and a "part of many in a seperate". The western concept of individuation results in an inherent multiplicity that contradicts any form of unity. However that multiplicity in itself is an extension of "the one" and in itself is "one".

Take for example the mathematical example of 1. It is unity. 1 reflecting upon itself in turn reflects 2, 3, 4, etc. unto infinity. It may be observed that:

a) 1 is unity
b) from the unity comes many, with the many fundamentally being composed as structural extensions of the unity.
c) This multiplicity into infinity inevitably results back to a unity again through infinity.
d) 1 and infinity are synonymous for 1 maintains itself through infinite reflection which: continual maintains itself, other structures as extension of itself, and 1 and these structures as infinity which is equivalent to "1".

One could use another example in that of the philosophical argument. An axiom is presented, we will call it A. In order to justify Axiom A a linear form of reasoning to axiom B. This linear progression from A to B in turn justifies A. However the process must be continued unto infinity. The problem occurs is that Axiom A and Axiom B are strictly paradoxes, in the respect that they must be accepted as circular rationality...no different than a line which exists between two or more points. The line can only exist if and only if it is a reflection from a point. In this respect, all "linear" rationality is strictly a reflection between points. This reflection between point, for the linear argument to maintain any form of stability, must in turn be infinite; therefore all linear arguments are strictly a reflection of infinite points.

The problem occurs as the infinite reflection of points in turn forms itself into a point because:

a) The point is strictly an infinite set of points.
b) All infinity is stable by nature and in this respect inevitable must reflect the most stable spatial structure: The point.
c) The line in dependent upon infinite progression and in this respect infinite flux. Infinite flux cannot exist on its own as it is unstable; therefore any observation of flux exists if and only if thier is infinite stability for flux cannot exist without stability. In these respects an infinite line exists if and only if their is an infinite point, with the line being a deficiency in structure (or approximate) of the point.
d) All infinite linearism inevitably results in a infinite division of space as infinite curvature. This infinite curvature inevitably results back to circularity.
e) Considering the infinite line exists through an infinite propogation of points, linear reasoning results in an infinite number of circular rationales as "axioms" or "points". This infinite progogation of points, as points reflection upon both themselves and eachother inevitably leads back to 1 point.
f) I can go further but you get "the point". We can observe these natures in the behavior of the physical universe through the "wave-particle duality" where it is fundamentally just "points" (particles) reflecting to produce waves as lines between points (even the nature of curvature, as a gradation of the circle is striclty points reflecting points, as the circle itself is "infinitely" reflecting points.

The socratics, specifically Plato, put a high emphasis on geometry that inevitably constitutes not only the physical universe but the very nature of "logic" itself. In these respects Plato, who was also a student of Pythagoras in the respect that he attempted to acquire as many of his texts as possible, rooted all "being" in the observation of "geometry" which is the observation of "space". Considering the nature of even observation itself is rooting in space, through geometry, all acts of observation equate to space folding upon itself to form the point.

From the nature of points, and circular reasoning, we are simultaneously able to maintain "truths" through the act of self-reflection (in both subjective and objective terms as space curving upon itself) while simultaneously discovering and manifesting further truths through the propogative nature of the point. Circular reasoning does not, in any way shape or form, inhibit the progression of knowledge...it simply allows for its stability. Linearism does not allow for this stability and inevitable results in the fractal nature we observe within not only science but specifically philosophy itself.

I would argue that Plato is not only more necessary than ever, through the stable self-reflective capacity of geometry, but his proxy teacher Pythagoras. Ironically Pythagoras, as arguably the first philosophy is created the name "philosophy", gained all his knowledge through his travels observing the world's religions and mystery schools. In this respect, philosophy and science, is rooted in the spiritual aspects of man and cannot or should not seperate spirituality from it.

You have the problem of the duality between the transcendentalist and empirists solved through this observation of geometry considering Pi is a transcendental number.
Nick_A
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Re: Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Post by Nick_A »

Eodnhoj7

You are obviously aware of the result of the human condition to turn in circles and the gradual loss of the Platonic influence assures it will get worse. Scientific knowledge manifesting as technology will far outweigh emotional moral understanding and easily lead to catastrophe. Only the arguments will get better. Do you think it can change for a minority and in turn this minority would have a beneficial effect on humanity in general? For example, do you believe that people can unite in the desire to experience the higher conscious perspective which unites opposing opinions? Consider the beginning of the preamble from Transdisciplinarity, Do you think it is just wishful thinking or could it have a beneficial effect for humanity? Can others unite in similar efforts regardless of secular opposition to the existence of a realistic conscious higher perspective or the relationship between knowledge and opinions described by Plato?

http://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/chart.php#en

CHARTER OF TRANSDISCIPLINARITY

(adopted at the First World Congress of Trandisciplinarity, Convento da Arrábida, Portugal,
November 2-6, 1994)

Preamble

Whereas, the present proliferation of academic and non-academic disciplines is leading to an exponential increase of knowledge which makes a global view of the human being impossible;

Whereas, only a form of intelligence capable of grasping the cosmic dimension of the present conflicts is able to confront the complexity of our world and the present challenge of the spiritual and material self-destruction of the human species;

Whereas, life on earth is seriously threatened by the triumph of a techno-science that obeys only the terrible logic of productivity for productivity's sake;

Whereas, the present rupture between increasingly quantitative knowledge and increasingly impoverished inner identity is leading to the rise of a new brand of obscurantism with incalculable social and personal consequences;

Whereas, an historically unprecedented growth of knowledge is increasing the inequality between those who have and those who do not, thus engendering increasing inequality within and between the different nations of our planet;

Whereas, at the same time, hope is the counterpart of all the afore-mentioned challenges, a hope that this extraordinary development of knowledge could eventually lead to an evolution not unlike the development of primates into human beings;

Therefore, in consideration of all the above, the participants of the First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity (Convento da Arrábida, Portugal, November 2-7, 1994) have adopted the present Charter, which comprises the fundamental principles of the community of transdisciplinary researchers, and constitutes a personal moral commitment, without any legal or institutional constraint, on the part of everyone who signs this Charter.,………………………..
Eodnhoj7
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Re: Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

Nick_A wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:51 pm Eodnhoj7

You are obviously aware of the result of the human condition to turn in circles and the gradual loss of the Platonic influence assures it will get worse. Scientific knowledge manifesting as technology will far outweigh emotional moral understanding and easily lead to catastrophe. Only the arguments will get better. Do you think it can change for a minority and in turn this minority would have a beneficial effect on humanity in general?
A grain of sand can force a man to stop walking the path he is on. Observing a beautiful flower on the side of the road can do the same.

For example, do you believe that people can unite in the desire to experience the higher conscious perspective which unites opposing opinions? Consider the beginning of the preamble from Transdisciplinarity, Do you think it is just wishful thinking or could it have a beneficial effect for humanity?
It must be forced into reality through the application of reason. Take for example a seed. It simultaneously destroys both itself and the ground around it in order to give birth to a plant. This plant in turn resynthesizes the stability of the soil while manifesting the soil as part of itself. The seed represents the light of reason, the soil represents the darkness of ignorance. Life finds a way through the chaos for it transcends chaos into "being". It does not matter whether I, or you, or any of these scientists fail. Someone will take our places and unity will spring forth. Destiny is the truest form of unity.

Can others unite in similar efforts regardless of secular opposition to the existence of a realistic conscious higher perspective or the relationship between knowledge and opinions described by Plato?

The current methodology is self-defeating due to its inability to reflect upon itself.

http://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/chart.php#en

CHARTER OF TRANSDISCIPLINARITY

(adopted at the First World Congress of Trandisciplinarity, Convento da Arrábida, Portugal,
November 2-6, 1994)

Preamble

Whereas, the present proliferation of academic and non-academic disciplines is leading to an exponential increase of knowledge which makes a global view of the human being impossible;

Whereas, only a form of intelligence capable of grasping the cosmic dimension of the present conflicts is able to confront the complexity of our world and the present challenge of the spiritual and material self-destruction of the human species;

Whereas, life on earth is seriously threatened by the triumph of a techno-science that obeys only the terrible logic of productivity for productivity's sake;

Whereas, the present rupture between increasingly quantitative knowledge and increasingly impoverished inner identity is leading to the rise of a new brand of obscurantism with incalculable social and personal consequences;

Whereas, an historically unprecedented growth of knowledge is increasing the inequality between those who have and those who do not, thus engendering increasing inequality within and between the different nations of our planet;

Whereas, at the same time, hope is the counterpart of all the afore-mentioned challenges, a hope that this extraordinary development of knowledge could eventually lead to an evolution not unlike the development of primates into human beings;

Therefore, in consideration of all the above, the participants of the First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity (Convento da Arrábida, Portugal, November 2-7, 1994) have adopted the present Charter, which comprises the fundamental principles of the community of transdisciplinary researchers, and constitutes a personal moral commitment, without any legal or institutional constraint, on the part of everyone who signs this Charter.,………………………..

You sent me this link already.
Nick_A
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Re: Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Post by Nick_A »

Eodnhoj7

Just so I understand you better, do you discriminate between intuition defined as “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.” And analysis defined as “the process of separating something into its constituent elements”? Are they related within the definition of reason?
Eodnhoj7
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Re: Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

Nick_A wrote: Mon Oct 16, 2017 2:38 pm Eodnhoj7

Just so I understand you better, do you discriminate between intuition defined as “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.” And analysis defined as “the process of separating something into its constituent elements”? Are they related within the definition of reason?



Intuition fundamentally is "emotive reasoning". The reason through ones emotions is strictly to observe the reflections between them (joy and anger are polar duals) but the nature of how they relate (x experience gives me y emotion). Considering the perspective of human beings being constituted as mind, body, and spirit (spirit can be an approximate of "emotion" dependent upon the language one uses) we observe a trifold symmetry of 3 in 1 and 1 and 3. The more they reflect (stabilize), relate (move), and synthesize (neutral centering) eachother the more one "observes".

However considering these are 3 in 1, the nature of the mind observing emotion does allow an "instantenous" stable approach to be observed within the intuitive process in one respect. However considering both thoughts and emotions are instantaneous, intuition can be blurred for experience or memory.

In regards to analysis the general concensus is a process of "atomization" or "breaking apart" as far as I understand it. It would be not much of a stretch considering the concept of "analysis" and "relativity" came to fruition within the philosophical community around the same time (do not quote me on that point however, I am going on poor memory.)

Considering reason, as the establishment of ratios/symmetry as "being" maintains a dual aspect of stability and flux its does synthesizes a third element as the axiom (for stability/flux to coexist through a neutral element). So to answer your question very briefly, are they related? Yes.
Ansiktsburk
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Re: Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Post by Ansiktsburk »

Nick and John -

Reading your discussion on "how to understand something", I want to take the examples of when Timaios discusses what a person is made up of, triangles of fire and what not, versus the discussion Platon has in numerous dialogues about what kind of state is the best, versus his discussions about friendship or love, which are pretty accurate still.

All things are not the same. Are not of the same category, you might say. Some things we CAN say immediately with no big risk of failure. Like mathematical facts or stuff we have learned from natural science, we can pretty much say - bang - this is what it is. OK, there are things there that gets discovered, whe do not exactly know how DNA and stuff works, but we can be pretty sure of how to calculate distances, speeds for most practical reasons. Some good things has happened there since old Aristocles.

But in the world of humans - in the world of politics, love, war, friendship, how to run a company, how to raise kids, the going is tougher. OK, we're pretty sure that Plato was wrong, and that the democracy is best. But definitely, here you cannot trust senses and do experiments.
And my view of the post-modern world is something like that people do get frustrated because the same progress is not done in the human world as in in the scientific world. People are spoiled with nice little truths. But at the end of the day, decisions will sometimes have to be made fast, without exact knowledge. A manager in a company will have to take decisions.As a politician for his resposibility within the state. Or a parent about what to do on the vacation. Plato discussed everything in this manner.
So, If there are facts, go use them. If I need to know something trivial, I look at Wikipedia and takes that for true, and that has never bited back at me so far. But as a manager, If I need to take decisions, the discussions in the management groups do really resemble a good Plato dialogue.

What I kind of want to say is - Probability beats truth nearly all the time.

Your thoughts on this?
Eodnhoj7
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Re: Rediscovering Plato’s Vision

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

Ansiktsburk wrote: Wed Oct 25, 2017 11:42 am Nick and John -

Reading your discussion on "how to understand something", I want to take the examples of when Timaios discusses what a person is made up of, triangles of fire and what not, versus the discussion Platon has in numerous dialogues about what kind of state is the best, versus his discussions about friendship or love, which are pretty accurate still.

All things are not the same. Are not of the same category, you might say. Some things we CAN say immediately with no big risk of failure. Like mathematical facts or stuff we have learned from natural science, we can pretty much say - bang - this is what it is.

Assuming we sense it correctly and the Hologram Theory is incorrect. However the scientific method used to determined those facts was founded through the relation of abstract points (hypothesis formulation being one, testing another point, etc.) that must circulate in order to exist and "prove" truth. We are back to geometry again.

OK, there are things there that gets discovered, whe do not exactly know how DNA and stuff works, but we can be pretty sure of how to calculate distances, speeds for most practical reasons. Some good things has happened there since old Aristocles.

Good and bad have always "happened", the question is how to maintain the balance. Take for example the problem of "over-population" that many moderns technocrats view as a problem. Their technology created an imbalance between both man and environment that resulted in the vary same problem they sought to avoid.

In response sterilization, war, etc. were proposed solutions which fracture standard moral balance as man's as a means. In this respect a "cannibalisitic" culture arises that causes further regression until it cancels itself out.


But in the world of humans - in the world of politics, love, war, friendship, how to run a company, how to raise kids, the going is tougher. OK, we're pretty sure that Plato was wrong, and that the democracy is best.
Democracy is when the appetites rule over the head. Plato was right about democracies eventually ending in totalitarianism. Which is what we are observing now.

But definitely, here you cannot trust senses and do experiments.
And my view of the post-modern world is something like that people do get frustrated because the same progress is not done in the human world as in in the scientific world.

Unless knowledge is able to maintain a symmetry with its environment it is not full knowledge. Scientific progress is strictly corporate progress, as corporations limit most of the research except to "what they want". And what do the corporations want? What the people want, because the people keep the corporations in power through their appetites.

In these respects we are observing a system in which "appetite" reigns as the universal dictator, through technology, under the guise of "democracy".



People are spoiled with nice little truths. But at the end of the day, decisions will sometimes have to be made fast, without exact knowledge. A manager in a company will have to take decisions.As a politician for his resposibility within the state. Or a parent about what to do on the vacation. Plato discussed everything in this manner.
So, If there are facts, go use them. If I need to know something trivial, I look at Wikipedia and takes that for true, and that has never bited back at me so far. But as a manager, If I need to take decisions, the discussions in the management groups do really resemble a good Plato dialogue.

What I kind of want to say is - Probability beats truth nearly all the time.

Thanks for the non-probabilistic truth. I am all for the discussion of ideas.

Your thoughts on this?

In very simplified terms: Ideas form reality.

If you don't believe this then look at the advertising industry or the subject of "convenience" and "luxury" which is the justification for all modern invention. With the ability to reason, or observe the structure of an idea, a good idea can quickly become a bad one. It is in this ability to reason we able to observe structure and maintain balance. People naturally form ideas, however without the ability to observe the forms of the ideas and what constitutes them, the ideas are merely reflections of the material environment around them...specifically the one closed to them: the stomach and genitals.

And as reflections of the material environment around them they are subject to high degrees of flux and become unstable. This causes further instability between percieve ideas and the environment around them.

I am not against the study of "matter", or the aristotelian perspective, at all. However if it is not balanced with the Platonic Perspective problems occur.

Modern science however is not rooted in either, but rather in the formation of measurement systems suited to whatever "they feel" is right. Modern science claims "objectivity" but its roots are strictly subjective.
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