Plato: On Truth and Falsehood ( Texts: Phaedrus)

[Imadrongo]

Could you clarify the difference between Platonism and Existentialism?

[zarathustra]

Try this Mel, and pleeease don't accuse me of being a catholic! Subjective relativism ( which is pretty strong in Genius Forum ) is closer to existentialism than Platonism e.g.

' when you step off a cliff...'

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... d=17033202

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[zarathustra]

Boyan, if you 'don't' care' about this discussion, why imput? Obviously your conclusions are tainted by your care-less-ness...
z

[Imadrongo]

Hmmm.

Video -- weird.

"Beauty isn't in the eye of the holder as the subjective relativists would tell you." -- Uhhh. :-S

Good = beautiful.

vs. Bad and harmful.

One book I won't be wasting time reading. :|

[DHodges]

Try this Mel, and pleeease don't accuse me of being a catholic!

You might not be Catholic, but essentialism and dualism are the underlying errors that make systems like Catholicism possible. They are based on a fundamentally wrong way of viewing the world. (Essences are the underlying idea behind ghosts, spirits, souls and gods.)

This is the importance of metaphysics.

Subjective relativism ( which is pretty strong in Genius Forum ) is closer to existentialism than Platonism e.g.

Who here is arguing a position anything like subjective relativism? That's the sort of viewpoint that is attacked constantly (esp. by David Quinn).

[David Quinn]

DQ said that Plato reached his belief out of his own 'conception' of the truth, a conception he had already defined for himself. Well, that's the whole point isn't it? DQs sums it up in a nutshell ( lets give him a little clap) And therein lies the paradox: Plato has his truth, you have your truth, I have mine and so on...

I'm only interested in those things that are beyond all rational doubt and beyond all possibility of being falsified. If people are interested in other things, that is their business. They can even call these other things "truth" if they they want, it has nothing to do with me.

I think you've become fixated on the label of "truth" here and not paying enough attention to the meanings that Plato or myself give it.

As far as the cave goes, it doesn't really matter if you're inside or out, the difference is only one of proportion in relation to reality ( not truth). DQ's arbitary assertions that the above issues are 'very simple' and that people like to complicate them is true - it's called thinking. And when DQ says his perception of the infinity is infininty broad, I take it to mean big and empty. And what is this 'tiny avenue' of truth? Is there only one route?

Yes, the path of reason.

So, when you get out of the cave, what do you see? I'll tell you what DQ sees - NOTHING, because his eyes are shut. If he'd really emerged from the cave and opened them what he'd see are the FORMS (ideals) and above THE SUN ( the source ) which he couldn't look at for long, let alone experience directly or understand.

Surely, you must have some sort of inkling that this is just a fairy-tale concocted by Plato. It's on a par with the Christian heaven - one just happens to be populated by perfect forms and the other by angels.

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[zarathustra]

We all want to understand what is going on in the world around us. We want sensible explanations that make the world intelligible and help us find our place in it. Unfortunately, our powers of reason are LIMITED such that an explanation isn't always possible - but that doesn't stop us from trying. According to Kant - and I agree with him - it is built into our rational faculties to demand ... a purely reasonable account of the universe, yet at the same time our faculties are such that we will NEVER be able to satisfy our demand. For Kant, the only way to extricate ourselves from this bind is to understand and acknowledge the inherent limits of our rational faculties and, having fixed their limits, restrict our intellectual efforts to tasks within our power. But, as Kant saw, the demands of reason are not easily subdued, and if they cannot be satisfied legitimately, reason will bring forth illegitimate offspring ( DQ and co's arbitrary metaphysics ) and find its satisfaction in them. In this way the human mind generates what Kant calls metaphysical or dialectical illusions...

The greatness of Plato lies partly in his use of metaphors to explain the unexplainable. That DQ can trivialize the works of a philosopher of his stature, who, after centuries still excites and inspires, demonstrate two things: he has NO IDEA as to the scope of Plato's work, has read little if any and understands even less. To compares Plato's vision to DQ's amateurish scribblings, is like comparing a tree to its shadow. In another 2000 years you can be fairly certain that DQ and his work will be indistinguishable from the dust of history, while Plato's works will still be basking in the light. Like us all, DQ is also going to die...and death, as Plato points out, is not a human experience...how 'reasonable' is that? But then, I'm sure DQ will come up with another arbitrary one liner to explain it all away!


Z

[Imadrongo]

Doesn't Kant turn around and root morality in some transcendental metaphysical principles?

[zarathustra]

Mel...you have an annoying habit of habitually applying the particular to the general. Don't ask me, find out for yourself. Take some responsibility for what flows through your pen, perhaps then, the quality of your observations and conclusions would be worth considering...

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[David Quinn]

The greatness of Plato lies partly in his use of metaphors to explain the unexplainable. That DQ can trivialize the works of a philosopher of his stature, who, after centuries still excites and inspires, demonstrate two things: he has NO IDEA as to the scope of Plato's work, has read little if any and understands even less.

Plato is a kindergarten philosopher who only has the capacity to excite kindergarten children. His reputation only holds good in the kindergarten section of the human race.

If he inspires people to push on past him and move up a few grades, then that's certainly a positive thing. But I'm not sure that he is all that successful at it. Instead, I think he encourages people to remain academic in their thinking and settle down in the fog of uncertainty. That is, to remain in kindergarten.

His biggest problem is that his thinking has no connection to reality. For example, when I look at a diseased-ridden tomato - putrid, stinking, splotched, sagging - I see a perfect form right then and there. Everything about it is utterly flawless, right down to the smallest detail. It cannot be improved upon in any way. So what need is there of Plato?

We are already living in a world of perfect forms. There is no need to invent another.

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[zarathustra]

DQ how ignorant you are. What a presumptious little pup. The tragedy is not so much that you don't know - but you don't want to know (ignorance)...Like so many 'small minds' you have an aggenda and you run with it, and anything that doesn't fit, you cast aside. It does nothing for your credibility...YOU HAVE NO IDEA, and that's why you will always remain an obscurantus - because you're stuck. I've read your so -called literary output ( a few pages mostly based on other people's ideas and a few abstract concepts ), all of course, beyond refutation ( i.e you can take it or leave it with no room for argument ) because its all based on fixed/abstract ideas which are then arbitarily applied....

I'll say it again: YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT PLATO IS ON ABOUT....

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[Jamesh]

my two bobs worth. I haven't read Plato's work.

What Plato is asking is how it is we can come to know about truth and falsehood?

Via collecting enough dualistic experiences as memories in the brain. To a developing kid much of what they are told by adults is accepted as being "truth", until they find out otherwise from later experiences (which includes the experience of mental reflection). One of the first things a baby learns is that truth is to be positively respected by their ego. They cry because of the truth they have discovered that crying may bring food or some other comfort. They believe in Santa because of the rewards it brings.

"Knowing" is not basically any different to anything else we might feel. It is a feeling. The surety of knowledge is the same "surety of existence" one may feel if for example one knows they are feeling angry or in love or whatever.

To explain this he postulated that our existence was ' an imperfect copy of a perfect world, the world of FORMS...'

The thing-in-itself has no physical form, rather it causes the appearance of physical form.

The thing-in-itself is the same for all things. One thing is all things, as its existence is dependent on there being all things as they are at that moment. There is no "total separation" between a thing and that which surrounds it, however there is the illusion of separation brought about by variations in form between the thing and that which surrounds it. The form of a thing may oppose that which surrounds it, and in doing so create observable properties, but in this very action of opposing it must be wholly connected to the rest of the universe.

The perfect world, the world of forms does exist. It is the dimensionless void, the realm of existence where that form that does exist is permanent and unchanging, and thus it is "perfect".
Trouble is this world has no properties, other than causal ones.

There are only two types of causes. Any action consists of two opposing sides. What one side gains the other loses. Note that in this context, one must use the terms gain and loss without any value judgement. A loss in the world of reality is not negative and a gain not positive. It is simply just how things change. The loss and gain is a simultaneous dependant action - a thing cannot gain from the other unless the other is capable of losing part of itself.

There are only two causal processes. Linear (single directional, limited and finite) and non-linear (all-directional, holistic, infinite-like). Linear casual processes relate to whole things, as if they were objective, as if they were Plato's things. Non-linear causal processes are what occurs to the entire thing-in-itself (which is actually the entire universe).

' an imperfect copy of a perfect world"

The physical world is neither imperfect nor a copy.

To categorise the transitory nature, the non-permanence of things of form, as being "imperfection" is not realistic. At any moment things are always what they must be, they cannot be otherwise - so how can imperfection arise?

It is not that the physical world is a copy, but rather it and all form within is created from the same single type of dualistic causal process as is the "perfect" world. It is an effect of the perfect world, not a copy of same. The physical world exists as a caused spatial actualisation "within" the non-spatial infinite (read unchanging) world, but is also as much a child of the perfect world (in being caused by it). By the word "within" I do not mean linear-wise like inside/outside, but in a non-linear sense, as underlying the existence of every point of the physical realm, including space itself.

he further reasoned that each Form is an ideal, a model for its equivalent in human experience i.e. IN THE CAVE.

Each form is a particular manner in which the world is configured at that moment. The "ideal", namely that which is fundamental, is present in every property to a differing degree.

In other words, he believed that the knowledge of 'perfection was inbuilt...'

Inbuilt by all the past/present causes that created that the existence of that knowledge.

This question is so profound...when you really think about it: HOW IS IT? When there is nothing in our experience that would lead us to be CERTAIN about the difference of right from wrong, of truth from a lie, and yet we make all kinds of judgements in these matters.

There is the certainty in the action of never finding falseness in all one's experiences in the absolute truths one believes. That’s good enough for me.

[zarathustra]

You make some interesting points. But what you should consider, from the Platonic point of view, is the function of language itself and its relation to what you believe and experience. I don't think you have a clear notion of what Plato means when he talks about the Forms so I will try and clarify that point for you. You might even find that it compliments your own ideas. And please keep in mind that I do not agree with all of Plato's conclusions. But because he is the most influential philosopher in the history of philosophy, I figured he must have something interesting to say. His work is exceptionally beautiful and a real inspiration ( eye opener ) to those who would take the time to look.

For Plato, the highest form of what he calls 'divine madness' is the love of beauty (truth). Plato believed that we love beauty because our soul remembers having seen it when 'before birth it saw the Forms UNVEILED: perfect and simple and happy visions we saw in the pure light, being ourselves pure...' But Plato believed, that when the soul becomes incarnate it partially forgets, and is confusedly reminded when it sees the earthly copies of the Forms: a flower, a beautiful girl, a piece of music, a poem, and so on...Plato continues his exposition with an image of the soul as a charioteer with a good and a bad horse. As they approach the beloved ( beauty ) the bad lustful horse rushes forward and has to be savagely restrained while the good horse is obedient and modest. Plato believed that beauty shows itself to the best part of the soul as some thing to be desired, yet respected, adored but not possessed. Absolute beauty as the soul now recalls it is attended by chastity.

The good comes to us in the guise of the beautiful . Plato's account of the Forms, half mythical, half metaphysical, graphically suggests both the beginning and the ends of the 'awakening process...' For me, much of Plato's philosophy itself boarders on the poetic, the beautiful, by touching the 'sense' of these things inside me, and that is what makes it so great. Is it true? Well, that's another question...

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[David Quinn]

For Plato, the highest form of what he calls 'divine madness' is the love of beauty (truth). Plato believed that we love beauty because our soul remembers having seen it when 'before birth it saw the Forms UNVEILED: perfect and simple and happy visions we saw in the pure light, being ourselves pure...' But Plato believed, that when the soul becomes incarnate it partially forgets, and is confusedly reminded when it sees the earthly copies of the Forms: a flower, a beautiful girl, a piece of music, a poem, and so on...

Plato touches on something real here, but ruins it by invoking supernatural, metaphysical imagery. The "divine madness" that he speaks about are certain kinds of deep altered states that adults can experience on occasion - via the use of drugs, meditation, art, near-death experiences, etc - and which very young children can experience naturally as part of their growing consciousness. When an adult experiences these states they invariably seem familiar to him, not because he experienced them before birth, but because he experienced them as a young child (and subsequently forgot about).

These altered states, while interesting and amazing in their own right, only have a peripheral connection to the wisdom of a sage. They can awaken some insight into the nature of Reality for some people, but more often then not they can deluded people even more. Born-again Christians are a classic example of the latter.

Plato continues his exposition with an image of the soul as a charioteer with a good and a bad horse. As they approach the beloved ( beauty ) the bad lustful horse rushes forward and has to be savagely restrained while the good horse is obedient and modest. Plato believed that beauty shows itself to the best part of the soul as some thing to be desired, yet respected, adored but not possessed. Absolute beauty as the soul now recalls it is attended by chastity.

A disciplined regime of meditation and ascetic living can help a person cultivate these states on a regular basis.

The good comes to us in the guise of the beautiful . Plato's account of the Forms, half mythical, half metaphysical, graphically suggests both the beginning and the ends of the 'awakening process...' For me, much of Plato's philosophy itself boarders on the poetic, the beautiful, by touching the 'sense' of these things inside me, and that is what makes it so great. Is it true? Well, that's another question...

They are states that can be experienced by a mind which is not tightly bound by habitual thought. A person can be shocked out of his habitual thinking - such as what happens in a near-death experience - and then, suddenly free and empty of content, his mind can rekindle the neuronal pathways which house all those long-forgotten altered states from the past.

As for whether they are true or not, that is the same as asking whether a piece of music is true. It is the wrong kind of question. If these altered states inspire a person to pursue truth and lead a life of wisdom, then they have value. If not, they become little more than entertainment and ego-fortification.

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[zarathustra]

The limitations of language ( esp. words ) is also something Plato deals with - something of which he is painfully familiar throughout the whole of his philosophical writings. There is, he believes, a 'gradation' of imagery promped by language that alludes to something 'beyond itself'. Images used to express profanities lead to 'something'; images used to express beauty lead to 'something'. For Plato there was a subject/object dichotomy at work here which is not reflected by the human condition but IS that condition.

For him the possibility of escape ( into the light ) is there but even if we did there would be NO WAY to convey this liberation to our fellow human beings. This is what Plato's Cave is all about. The cave dwellers are trapped in illusions. Some are content to watch the light from a fire project figures on to the wall, others become fascinated by the projection of their own shadows ( egos ) while every now and again someone manages to escape out the cave and into the light, where he experiences the Forms around him. 'What is it,' he thinks to himself, 'that illuminates these forms?' He then looks up and beholds the source of all light: the sun, and he is amazed, inspired, weeps tears of joy.

So, in his excitement, he rushes back into the cave to tell is friends what he has discovered. But first his eyes have to adjust to the darkness, before he can even find his way...when he arrives he finds his friends sitting around entranced by reflections and shadows...excitedly, he starts to explain what he has seen, the forms, the light, the space. But all for nothing. Because the cave is all they know, all they can think about, their whole universe. So they laugh at him, beat him, ridicule him...

It is at that moment the traveller realizes that his quest is useless, that he hasn't really escaped ...and that in order to understand what he has seen the cave dwellers would need to experience it for themselves...But even if they did, the subject/object dichotomy would still be there, between them and the light...but wait, they could become ONE with the light, In which case the subject/object dichotomy would dissolve and there would be no need to talk to anyone about anything...

Gurus, Sages and other so-called enlightened beings, according to Plato's philosophy, would not, nay could not be enlightened, because, they are by their very nature SENTIENT BEINGS, and the fact that they are, is a demonstration that, at some level, they are as deluded as the rest of us...perhaps even more...

Its very difficult to find fault with Plato's argument, especially when Plato realizes that he is at fault. DQ makes a feeble attempt, but in order to agree with DQ's position we need to suspend all thinking and accept his conclusions dogmatically and arbitarily. He tells us there are 'states' but that is only what HE TELLS US. Perhaps he has ventured outside the cave? So....?



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[Ryan Rudolph]

Plato was not enlightened. Although his teacher Socrates was. Plato was more of an academic than a fully enlightened sage. His brain was overly mathematical and grounded in empiricism. Usually if the brain is overly specialized in mathematics then the end result is the thinker has a certain dullness to him - a total lack of depth in his character.

[Jamesh]

zag said

For Plato, the highest form of what he calls 'divine madness' is the love of beauty (truth). Plato believed that we love beauty because our soul remembers having seen it when 'before birth it saw the Forms UNVEILED: perfect and simple and happy visions we saw in the pure light, being ourselves pure...' But Plato believed, that when the soul becomes incarnate it partially forgets, and is confusedly reminded when it sees the earthly copies of the Forms: a flower, a beautiful girl, a piece of music, a poem, and so on...Plato continues his exposition with an image of the soul as a charioteer with a good and a bad horse. As they approach the beloved ( beauty ) the bad lustful horse rushes forward and has to be savagely restrained while the good horse is obedient and modest. Plato believed that beauty shows itself to the best part of the soul as some thing to be desired, yet respected, adored but not possessed. Absolute beauty as the soul now recalls it is attended by chastity.

What David said is true to me. But I’d add:

I accept no "ideal" form for anything that is divisible into parts, and to me that is everything (except space - though space may be divisible (as inferred by the Big Bang theory - though such a theory can never apply to the Totality, to all sub-universes), it is an ideal form because it always must exist to some degree. In the meeting of dependent causal opposites there must always exist an area where the balance is 50/50, so space is permanent. So to for the opposite ends of Time, instantaneousness and staticness, however I actually believe time is everything - that is, expansion and contraction are mere forms of time from the perspective of the physical paradigm the mind utilises in order to name and use things).


I relate the concepts of beauty and ugliness to the fundamental causes. Beauty is anything that provides the possibility of self-expansion, and ugliness anything that may contract or limit our self.

Self-expansion is anything we like - food, wine and women, truth, rationality, beautiful things or scenes, technological things that enhance our actions, friendship and love of others. All these things release - or give the appearance of same - us from our present state, our known state of self. If we obtain these things we add them to ourselves - "she is my wife", "that is my car", "I know that to be true" etc.

The colour white for example is the colour of expansion, of openness of opportunity - it is no surprise that white is the most popular colour for inside walls, or the peace dove is white.

Contraction of self is anything that harms us, or might harm us. Ugly women, conflict, rotten food, old broken things, delusion etc etc.

The colour black is the colour of contraction - the colour of death and evil.

[zarathustra]

Ryan, if it wasn't for Plato, we wouldn't even know who Socrates was, let alone what he taught, because ALL his teachings come to us THROUGH Plato.

There are a lot of people in here who toss words like 'enlightenment' around like confetti, but I very much doubt they know what it means. Please, enlighten me, tell me what it means, so when you talk about it I can at least get a sense of what you're on about - i.e. what it means to YOU. Your other comments regarding Plato's character are not only ignoble, but base, and are not worthy of any reply.

Jamesh, what you're telling me is that you only accept an ideal form for something that cannot be divided into parts. Firstly, Plato did not say the Forms in themselves were ideal, but the ideal - indivisable - lie behind them, and to a greater or lesser degree, illuminated them. I suspect that this might be a difficult concept for anyone who is used to thinking in black and white.

What is a sub-universe?

DQ said a lot of things, what exactly is it he said that was TRUE for you? And why?

What do you mean by the opposite ends of time? Could you please explain this.

And WHY do you believe time is everything?

When you say that the mind utilizes time, do you consider the mind to be a seperate entity - with a mind of its own?

When you say self expansion, I assume you are referring to the body, and on another level, the ego. True?

As for colours: I see the world as made up of all sorts of colours, each depending on the other for its character and appearance...even the nutters who wrote the bible said somewhere that 'darkness declares the glory of light...'Assigning moral value judgements to black, white, old, young, is foolish, to say the least. Beauty ( truth) 'exists' in all things, all qualities, all you have to do is look for it. Socrates, for example, was said to be physically ugly and of dark complexion. Using your black and white snapshot of everything, with its rigidly imposed moral imperatives relating to the nature of good and evil, am I to assume then that Soctates was more evil than good!?


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[Ryan Rudolph]

Zarathustra wrote:

Ryan, if it wasn't for Plato, we wouldn't even know who Socrates was, let alone what he taught, because ALL his teachings come to us THROUGH Plato.

There are a lot of people in here who toss words like 'enlightenment' around like confetti, but I very much doubt they know what it means. Please, enlighten me, tell me what it means, so when you talk about it I can at least get a sense of what you're on about - i.e. what it means to YOU. Your other comments regarding Plato's character are not only ignoble, but base, and are not worthy of any reply.

Plato’s imagination was distorted. Many of his half-baked theories about reality prove that his being was not grounded in emptiness. One’s observations should merely reflect the way things appear in reality, but Plato constantly indulged in metaphysical mumbo jumbo and other bizarre ideas that contradicted the other. However, he seemed to be a skilled mathematician and academic, and his worked excelled the progress of civilization greatly, but on matters pertaining to reality, he was a total failure.

Here is a joke I made up awhile ago –

Q: Why did Diogenes cross the road?
A: To avoid an overly dull conversation with Plato.

[zarathustra]

Ryan: your a fucking ignoramus! You don't even have an imagination...
z

[Ryan Rudolph]

Zarathustra wrote:

Ryan: your a fucking ignoramus! You don't even have an imagination..

.

But I’m not the one having a long distance love relationship with a shoddy dead philosopher, which actually translates into a love affair with your own ego. Admiration is a vice, it makes one emotionally defensive. We feed our egos with admiration, and then are offended when someone attacks what we admire.

The pleasure you gained from admiring Plato is now the cause of your emotional attack towards anyone that questions his greatness…

Socrates on the other hand is very difficult to admire in an egotistical sense because his idea's and life's work doesn't give the ego anything to gobble up/feed off of.

[zarathustra]

Socrates occupies a foundational place in the HISTORY OF IDEAS but actually wrote NOTHING. Most of our knowledge of him comes from, guess where? THE WORKS OF PLATO! e.g Plato's account of Socrates's defense at his trial in 399 BC. In it, Plato outlines some of Socrates's most famous philosophical ideas: the necessity of doing what one thinks is right even in the face of universal opposition, and the need to pursue KNOWLEDGE (NOT NOTHINGNESS) even when opposed. Socrates felt that knowledge was a living, interactive THING. His method of philosophical inquiry consisted in questioning people on the positions they asserted and working them through questions into a contradiction, thus proving to them that their original assertion was wrong. Socrates himself never takes a position; in The Apology he radically and skeptically claims to know nothing at all except that he knows nothing. Socrates and Plato refer to this method of questioning as elenchus , which means something like "cross-examination". The Socratic elenchus eventually gave rise to dialectic, the idea that truth needs to be pursued by modifying one's position through QUESTIONING and CONFLICT with opposing ideas. It is this idea of the TRUTH being PURSUED, rather than DISCOVERED, that characterizes SOCRATIC THOUGHT. The Western notion of dialectic is Socratic in nature in that it is conceived of as an ongoing process. Socrates in The Apology claims to have discovered no other truth than that he knows NO TRUTH!!!!! HOW DO WE KNOW ALL THIS? I REPEAT: PLATO TOLD US! So get off your high horse, you pompous, sanctimonious, self righteous IGNORANT......

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[Ryan Rudolph]

Zarathustra wrote:

HOW DO WE KNOW ALL THIS? I REPEAT: PLATO TOLD US!

But Plato didn’t understand Socrates totally, only partially. He only understood some of his broad ideas like the Socratic method, but when it came to understanding the depths of wisdom that Socrates was acquainted with, he couldn’t keep up.

[zarathustra]

Ok, then tell me what he didn't understand, and where you attained THAT knowledge? Did you know Socrates personally? Have you discovered the missing book?

Z

[Ryan Rudolph]

Zarathustra wrote:

Ok, then tell me what he didn't understand, and where you attained THAT knowledge? Did you know Socrates personally? Have you discovered the missing book?

Socrates understood that empirical knowledge is limited/relative, and that it doesn’t give absolute certainty, he understood that the things we see in the world are just appearances, and they have no inherent existence in themselves. For instance: Plato would argue that the essence of a cup could be understood, that there is some sort of underlying nature that could be touched with the intellect.

However, Socrates experienced reality from a state of unknowing emptiness, so when he looked out at the world at the infinite number of interacting casual appearances, he realized that he couldn’t truly understand what he saw in the deepest sense. He could analyze the relationship between things, as pertaining to his own subjective interests, but if one thing is isolated, and one tries to understand its essence totally, it can not be understood.

For instance: if one asks – what is a rock? The first answer is minerals, which doesn’t tell you anything. So then one asks, what is a mineral? The answer is atoms, which still doesn’t give you the essence, so then one asks, what is an atom? The answer is protons, neutrons and electrons. So then one asks, what are they composed of? The answer is empty space and an infinite number of quantum particles… and it has no end, it goes for infinity, nothing can be understood in this sense. Plato believed otherwise.

Things can only be understood in relationship to other things, but Plato believed that one thing can be understood metaphysically by understanding its essence, which is total rubbish….