Icebreaker: What is Plato's worst dialogue?Personally, I find Timaeus to be an unbearably dense snoozefest. Out of the Socratic dialogues, Apology is also philosophically completely uninteresting, even if biographically significant.
does anyone have any information about how apparently plato revealed secrets from the mystery schools that had before always been kept secret from the public?
I love Timaeus, the setup and exposition in the beginning brings tears to my eyes. I don’t often read it all the way through to the parts about geometry, but the biological theory is interesting. The drama of the first 10-20 pages though is top tier
>>24680918>mystery schoolsAre the Pythagoreans included here?
>>24680910filtered by the peak of his cosmological metaphysics
>>24680910Worst dialogue is probably one of the spurious ones no one even cares about like Rival Lovers merely because how forgettable it is with little bearing on the rest of the corpus. Aporia dialogues and Apology at least set up what is to follow.
>>24680910>Apology is also philosophically completely uninterestingRead it a few more times and realize Socrates was 4d chess manipulating them the whole time into killing him
>>24680910I'd say Erastai, but some of the dialogues like Theages and Clitophon compliment the Republic so even though they may seem boring they wind being interesting. Erastai hints at this but it's a dud.
>>24680910I'd agree with Timaeus being the worst. It's more necessary for those who need the kind of account it apparently gives, and there's not nothing to it, but a lot of it is exoteric and intentionally specious, as the opening of the Critias suggests.>>24680970>>24681021Erastai is great, it's the Republic in miniature, and the argument against polymathy is probably healthy for people today who come to something like the study of the liberal arts expecting they should know enough about everything to be a good dinner guest.
>>24680918No, but there's a handful of passages where they're brought up. Adeimantus criticizes certain purveyors of the Mysteries in Republic 364b-365a, Socrates appears to suggest that the immortal soul is only held by initiates in Phaedo 62b, and he further demystifies the Mystery teaching to amount to "be virtuous" at 69c-d, and Plato attributes to his deceased friend Dion a failing in grounding his friendships in being fellow initiates rather than in philosophy in the 7th Letter 333e (Dion's murderers were fellow initiates). I'm aware of the existence of a study on Euthydemus purporting to see references to the Mysteries in that dialogue, but I haven't read it.
>>24680918i have the same exact questions regarding plotinus as well. just where the hell did their ideas and metaphysical theories come from?
>>24680910apology is a banger shut the fuck up
Is it possible Plato and the other Greeks weren't aware of the ancient particulars that created the general archetypes of meaning for words like wisdom/piety/virtue because their ancient history was mythological? I'm not even sure if I'm asking something that makes sense. I used to think Socrates was cool and so smart for defeating his interlocutors when I started reading Plato but a few months later it just seems like word games. Is some ancient Greek's definition of virtue necessarily wrong if everyone else believes him except Socrates?
>>24680940>love Timaeus, the setup and exposition in the beginning brings tears to my eyesI might check out the beginning of Timaeus again because I can't recall it, but I agree that Plato is a great dramatist, especially during the mid-period dialogues like Phaedo and Protagoras. I might actually prefer Plato as an artist than as a philosopher.
>>24681033Well, I'd expect the illiterate prisoner to agree philosophy only produces the second best man. No wonder you needed to restart your school and still needed geometry.
>>24681077Read the Life of Plotinus by Porphyry. Plotinus' teacher Ammonius was crucial, followed by the study of both Plato and Aristotle, Numenius, and Pythagorean pseudipigrapha.>>24681108Plato was aware of it, but where that awareness took him depends on how you read the Cratylus, which is about whether words express the natures of that which they're words of. The other factor is to consider Thucydides on factions:>Civil strife therefore became a fact of political life, and those cities affected later rather than sooner, hearing what had happened elsewhere, went to ever greater extremes in inventing ingenious forms of attack and outlandish reprisals. Men assumed the right to reverse the usual values in the application of words to actions. Reckless audacity came to be thought of as comradely courage, while far-sighted hesitation became well-disguised cowardice; moderation was a front for unmanliness; and to understand everything was to accomplish nothing. Wild aggression was a mark of manhood, while careful planning for one’s future security was a glib excuse for evasion. The troublemaker was always to be trusted, the one who opposed him was to be suspected. The man who devised a successful plot was intelligent, the one who detected it still cleverer; but the man who thought ahead to try and find some different option was a threat to party loyalty and must have been intimidated by his opponents. In short, the way to be praised was to be first in planning an outrage and the cheerleader for others who had never considered it.This is the background to what Socrates and Plato were doing. It may be that the word itself is arbitrary, but if the word is attached to deeds that stir people into living a certain concrete way, then you still have something to deal with when you inquire.
>>24681125Lol shut up Alceste
>>24680918were all these guys part of an ancient psychedelic cult?
>>24681135Ah menexenus, I told you to keep all that to yourself. I say unto thee fair menexenus the advanced circle makes progress upon the primitive circle. You still need Mr. Des Cartes regardless and so in full pseudery I say go forth and restart your school again, you will get it right eventually. Or die first. Technically in that dialogue they agreed learning is a constant process throughout life you rascal.
>>24681159>Technically in that dialogue they agreed learning is a constant process throughout life you rascal.I didn't say they were closed to that, but once the polymathic young man starts going on about how the philosopher is like a pentathlete, which is pretty similar to lot of people interested in liberal learning today, it gets attacked. "I want to be broadly educated," say a bunch of people who just want to be impressive to others without mastery of anything.
>>24681170Typical menexenus. That was only after the interlocuter told them he didn't want to partake in exercises on circles.
>>24681179No it isn't, they all get involved (the wrestler as well) in discussing what a measured amount of learning is, but get stuck at figuring out both who the instructor of the soul is and how measured learning applies to the soul. Socrates gets them talking again by asking what are the sorts of things the philosopher learns, and the polymath freely opens his trap about whatever gets you a good reputation for being learned, and then freely (and bafflingly) insists that the philosopher doesn't have to have any mastery, "he must know them as is fitting for a free and educated man who is able to follow what is said by the craftsman in a way that distinguishes him from those present and who can himself contribute his judgement, so as to be reputed most refined and wisest among those who are present at any time when things are said and done concerning the arts." Has nothing to do with the wrestler mocking him earlier, he just starts saying it.
>>24681206To work on the primitive circle with the advanced circle you still need probability chum, and you seem to be too certain about all the wrong things.
>>24681228Kek enjoy your non sequiturs dude
>>24681235It's alright menexenus, you played a game of telephone and brought me back something completely different you rascal. My mercenaries always return to me, even Stirner, although I'm still not sure if that's a good thing. Schmidt got the last word from the young Hegelians and he basically said Hegel is unstoppable until he dies. He may or may not have also established the link between Hegel and existentialism, no need to devour your spirit all the time. Let Stirney know a carpenter was worth 5 Minas, he might pass for a single thaler.
>>24681108>meaning for words like wisdom/piety/virtue because their ancient history was mythologicalIsn't that the theme of many of the dialogue, looking at words such as justice, love, good and examining what they mean in a multitude of ways
>Blessing of Zeus, Socrates! Say, wise friend, what is it to be just?>>Indeed, for Zeus has blessed me plenty in an inquisitive fellow!>>Now, let us consider the shoemaker >>and the farmer>> one cannot, also, forget the athlete What is his problem? Why does he not deal with the naked abstract? Why must he only touch it through a vessel in analogy? Sometimes it’s egregious the types of analogies he wishes to be considered.
>>24681433>"Now, it seemed to me after these things” said he, “since I had given up on examining the beings, that I must beware lest I might undergo the very thing which those ones undergo who behold and examine the sun during an eclipse. For, I suppose, some destroy their eyes, if they do not look at the likeness of it in water or in some such thing. I was thinking through that sort of thing, and I feared that the soul would be altogether blinded in looking at the things with the eyes and attempting to grasp them with each of the senses. Indeed, it seemed to me necessary to flee into the speeches for refuge, and to examine those for the truth of the beings. Now then, perhaps that to which I am likening it does not seem likely in any fashion. For I don’t quite concede that the one who examines the beings in likenesses in speeches examines them more so than the one who does so in deeds."
>>24681077dunno about plato but plotinus im assuming had lots of personal gnosis and for me no knowledge can beat gnosis though I know many disagree
You guys know Brandon Sanderson refuted all of you right?
>>24681084Tbh, I liked it a lot when I first read it because it's a good portrait of Socrates's character, but coming back to it after reading a lot more of Plato, it doesn't retain much value because, truth be told, it's not a philosophical work.Still better than Xenophon's I guess
>>24680945Probably yes, because they were an esoteric group.>>24680910Why TF would you want to know which dialogues anons have more , or less, interest in? If you started a “Plato general” you would have probably wanted to discuss the dialogues themselves if you weren’t a pseudo, but you apparently are.
>>24682335I'm looking for opinions and discussion retard. Hence why I mentioned my own. It's an accessible question that people with varying levels of experience with Plato can engage with.
>>24682358Cry me a river , sweaty hahahaha
is there a discord server or something that does weekly discussions about platonism?
>>24682897Some former Guenonfag tried to set one up a few weeks ago, but consensus of the anons that tried to join was that he kept kicking people out arbitrarily and everyone there only wanted to talk about anime. 4chan's far from perfect, but better to just have occasional threads here and open one when you're reading through something. Another anon tried to start read-along threads maybe a month ago, but he and most of the others interested seemed to dip out almost immediately, so unless you or someone else wants to take charge with a schedule like with the Enneads threads a few years back, occasional threads are pretty much all that can be hoped for atm.
How do people take this seriously?
>>24682897>>24682931>Be change you want to see in the worldMake a weekly “Plato general” , if you can find one at the time, if you are interested in having general discussions on platonism.
>>24682939If abstract concepts like justice have a metaphysical notion to them then it stands to reason that other ideas like chair, automobile and television set all have metaphysical bearing to them just the same. It is really the exact same as taking religious doctrine and then amplifying it to the extreme so that everything described with language has a Form to it.
What am I supposed to be getting out of reading Plato? I've read a couple of his dialogues and never felt like I was seeing anything interesting or insightful. Is there something I'm missing?
>>24683263Which dialogues have you read? There are definitely some which are more insightful than others, although all have a degree of value to them, I think
>>24683263Well, what've you read?
>>24681077From God, retard. Parmenides stated his doctrine was given to him by the goddess Nyx. The Greeks don't work when you think of them like mundane modern superficially 'rationalist' thinkers. With 'systems' and other fart-sniffing 'constructs'. You have to abandon the concept of modern philosophy as its understood by universities today. It makes a lot more sense when you realize the philosophers like Plato were the exegetes and 'scholastic' equivalent to their pagan religion. It's more like Vedanta than anything else. No wonder philosophers like Plotinus were so interested in trying to converse with Indic sages (probably Shaivites, as the Greeks often associated them with Dionysus)
>>24680918>oh lawd dem beans
>>24681131Speech Acts and Mental Acts are bound by necessity, they're just very far down the chain of being and emergence.
>>24683318I get skepticism regarding the Will to Systematizing, but the answer is literally "he looked for teachers and found them disappointing according to his hopes, then he was taught a bunch by Ammonius who taught him things he hoped were true, and then he read a bunch of authors and tried to work out what he could into a coherent set of teachings." Porphry says this outright. Plotinus' handful of experiences unifying with the One are posterior to and understood by him in light of what he was taught. I don't think understanding of the ancients is better gained by overcompensating for modern skepticism by ignoring the more mundane means by which some of them came to their doctrines.
I'm halfway through his complete works.When does Plato stops sockpuppeting Socrates and actually tells me what his own ideas are?
>>24683340He doesn't, he adds more figures like Timaeus, Critias, Parmenides, the Eleatic Stranger, and the Athenian Stranger. Keep on your toes.
>>24682931>>24683167fair enough, here's a good playlist i found for the beginners out there:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJvyy5BXhU&list=PLUUm2GzfiYp36i6fAbgGhtPpi1gd6EN4L
>>24683313>>24683317I've read Republic, Gorgias, Crito, Phaedrus, Symposium, The Apology and maybe a couple others that I'm forgetting. I read them as part of a class too, maybe that sucked the fun out of it or something but I wasn't really intrigued by any of them
>>24683340The consensus is that late-stage Plato is him expressing his own views. Still, as the other anon says, his does this through characters and never uses his own persona at any point.
>>24683263How to be a skeptic. It's crucial
>>24683543That's a pretty broad and heavy class selection. The most general thing to be said about the dialogues is that Plato inspects the common opinions about those subjects that most occupy human beings as objects of hope or desire, usually to throw cold water on the hope and desire of them to show that we tend to be ignorant of all sorts of things about them, such as whether justice is good and beautiful for the man who practices it according to the common opinions about it. Those dialogues also tend to abstract from each other, so, for example, Eros, which is so important in Phaedrus and Symposium as a philosophical passion of soul, is dismissed as a mere bodily appetite that gets in the way of philosophizing in the Republic or the Phaedo, but that's partly according to the differences between how those latter two dialogues are presented and who they're supposed to satisfy versus the former two, so Plato leaves his readers to work out whether and how those views can be harmonized with each other.There are more substantive elements to those dialogues (the almost identification of nature with Eros in the Symposium, the way the long palinode in the Phaedrus acts as a key to understanding the rhetorical approach Socrates generaly uses to attract or repel certain interlocutors in other dialogues, the account of thumos in the Republic as the source in the soul of victory seeking in argument), but if you've read through them and nothing stood out, then Plato may simply not be for you, or the circumstance of reading him for class has gotten too much in the way for you to read him at a reasonable pace to think about what's going on as you read. (I didn't think much of Plato at all the first times I read those same dialogues, I only liked Gorgias, and came to gradually give him more attention after a good re-reading of Gorgias.)
You guys got a chart for where to start with Plato? I never read any Greek philosophy stuff before
>>24684030I don't know if there's a 4chan chart, but the traditional way to approach Plato is in series of tetralogies, starting with what is often referred to as "The Last Days of Socrates" tetralogy, consisting of Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. This is what I began with and I'd recommend it. The first three works are all very accessible: Euthyphro and Crito mainly due to their brevity; Apology, to its drama sans philosophy. Phaedo is a step up as it is both the longest and involves the most complex philosophical arguments in the series. However, even here the particularly strong artistic flair ensures the work is both readable and memorable nonetheless.Beyond that, Plato's corpus is roughly divided into three stages: Early, Middle, and Late. You can also read these groupings as Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. From the dialogues previously discussed, the first three are consider from the Early period, whilst Phaedo is from the Middle. After you've read their tetralogy you can decide what level you feel comfortable with. I'd recommend though that you stay away from the Advanced level until you've become quite familiar with his other works.
>>24684617Thanks
>>24684030>where to startChronologically.
Is “The One” the heart of Crito? Was I mislead to think that it is about the social contract primarily and how one should stay loyal to one’s state because muh debt to the state? Is it all about god? “Let it be then, Crito, and let us act in this way, since this is the way the god is leading us.”
>>24684030
>>24685902Or is it because I am a schizophrenic zealot that sees reality through him?
>>24685914You can't just do Protagoras dirty like that
>>24685902I don't think so. The thing to notice about the Crito is that, before Socrates makes the arguments from the perspective of the Laws, there's some effort made on his part to persuade Crito not to pursue his plan to break Socrates out of jail, and one should wonder then whether the arguments from the Laws are conducted as a last resort to persuade Crito, who's not a philosopher, rather than what Socrates and Plato primarily believe. If the other dialogues are permissible to bring in, then they suggest that Socrates (and perhaps Plato) did not simply think the Laws were simply good as they were, for Apology 37a-b Socrates complains,>I never intentionally wronged anyone; but I cannot convince you of this, for we have conversed with each other only a little while. I believe if you had a law, as some other people have, that capital cases should not be decided in one day, but only after several days, you would be convinced...And in the Republic 520a-b, Socrates argues,>"…when such men [i.e., philosophers] come to be in the other cities they quite reasonably do not participate in the labors in those cities. For they grow up spontaneously against the will of the regime in each city; and a nature that grows by itself and doesn’t owe its rearing to anyone has justice on its side when it is not eager to pay off the price of rearing to anyone."Presumably, then, the arguments of the Laws of Athens would have more merit if they had specifically sought to rear Socrates as a philosopher, instead of his having come to be one independent of what the Laws intended.But the thrust of the Crito is to show by example how the tension between the city and philosophy can be eased, and Socrates (and Plato) thinks that means submitting even if the Laws are unjust or the people have misused them in prosecuting Socrates, for if Socrates had followed Crito's lead, he would have confirmed the Athenians' suspicions that philosophizing intended to undermine the city (but there's also the slight acknowledgement that perhaps he would take Crito up on this if he were younger, 52d-e: “Are you then,” they would say, “not breaking your compacts and agreements with us, though you were not led into them by compulsion or fraud, and were not forced to make up your mind in a short time, but had seventy years, in which you could have gone away, if we did not please you and if you thought the agreements were unfair?").Crito's position is that of a man willing to break the law because he thinks, given his wealth, he would bring shame upon himself if he weren't to try to use his wealth to help his friend. Socrates is well aware that he himself is old, and that escape wouldn't necessarily lengthen his life too much, nor would the infirmities of old age be pleasant, so he's willing to take the hit and doesn't want to see his friend endanger himself for a few more meager years of Socrates' life.
>>24683340There are a series of letters attributed to him that involve him directly stating his own opinions on things, but they are more concerned with his failures at both educating Dionysius II and influencing his rule over Syracuse. Mentions are made to the philosophical lessons that he tries to teach Dionysius, but the lessons themselves are not the subject of any of the letters. Nonetheless, they're worth checking out if you want an indication of what Plato actually thought - especially Letter VII.
>>24686419To add to your suggestion, the second letter is also interesting, but they're both more suggestive than they are clear. Maybe about as clear as Plato gets about anything is his political advice in the 7th letter (around 336d and following, has parallels in the Laws).
How to stop being ignorant of geometry?
>>24680910>Timaeus is boringAre you this fucking dense? It's literally his most interesting and fucking foundational to Platonist cosmology. Middle Platonism, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, are founded on Timaeus, practically. It WAS his magnus opum in antiquity. Only later did people start saying the Republic was more important.
>>24686500But is it entertaining to read?>In his introduction to Plato's Dialogues, 19th-century translator Benjamin Jowett comments, "Of all the writings of Plato, the Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive to the modern reader."[19]
>>24686507It was repulsive cause everyone was a christcuck back then
Why didn't Aristotle become head of the academy
>>24686771No one’s sure, it's not even clear that the Academy was meant to take a different head after Plato died. His nephew, Speusippus, inherited the property it was on on account of being a relative, but what's left of the Academicorum philosophorum index Herculanensis (an ancient account of the early history of the Academy found among the scrolls in Herculaneum) makes it seems like voting for a scholarch to lead the school didn't begin until Xenocrates was elected. Some ancients give the impression that some in the Academy weren't happy with Speusippus, since Strabo reports that not just Aristotle left, but Xenocrates with him for a time.
>>24686801who wrote the history?
>>24686810It's by an Epicurean, Philodemus, but some of the passages from it are in a kind of draft where he was isolating and putting together passages from other writers, for example, he cites Neanthes of Cyzicus who himself cites Philiscus of Aegina and Philipp of Opus.
How tf do I STUDY platonism,
>>24687082keep reading the dialogues until Socrates pops up in your mind and starts debating you
>>24687082Well, if your aim is Platonism per se, you'll have to occupy yourself with some of the dialogues alongside writings like some of the essays in Plutarch's Moralia, Plotinus' Enneads, and probably the Neo-Platonic commentaries. Iamblichus set up a kind of curriculum for his Platonist school consisting of a few years of study in Aristotle (the Organon, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Physics, De Anima, Metaphysics, maybe De Caelo), followed by twelve dialogues: Alcibiades Major, Gorgias, Phaedo, Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Phaedrus, Symposium, Philebus, Timaeus, and Parmenides, in that order.There's other ancient summaries and handbooks like those of Albinus, Alcinous, Apuleius, and the "Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy". If you really wanted to get into the most systematic formulation of Platonism, you'd probably want to aim for reading Proclus' Theology of Plato ad Elements of Theology, but they presuppose a lot of study of the primary texts of Plato and Aristotle.
>>24687111No, Anon, that's a Daimon!
>>24687111>111>>24687136that post was approved by the eudaimon
>>24686500I guess from the perspective of the history of ideas, then yes, I can understand why you would find it interesting and maybe when I start reading the neoplatonists etc I'll revisit it, but reading it outside of that context, purely as a work of philosophy, it sucks.
>>24685902>>24686077In the Phaedo, Socrates express views on suicide and piety that have pretty noticeable parallels to his views on social contracts:>There is an explanation that is put in the language of the mysteries, that we men are in a kind of prison, and that one must not free oneself or run away (62b)Here Socrates is referencing an idea espoused by the Pythagoreans: >The ancient theologians and prophets testify to the fact that the soul has been yoked to the body as a punishment of some kind and that it has been buried in the body as in a tomb - Philolaus, as quoted by Clement of Alexandria So, here the parallels between how the soul is described and Socrates position in the Crito are pretty obvious: Socrates is imprisoned, yet does not free himself or run away, and so too must the soul do neither of these things, imprisoned though it is. Furthermore, the reason why Socrates brings up the first quote I use (62b) is because he is making an argument as to why one must not commit suicide. The argument goes as follows:Premise 1: We, as guardians, would be angry if one of our possessions (slaves) killed itself against our demandsPremise 2: The gods are our guardians and we men are their possessionsSubconclusion: Therefore, the gods would be angry if we killed ourselves against their demandsPremise 3 (implicit): We should not anger the godsConclusion: We should not kill ourselves against our gods' demandClearly here the big takeaway is that whatever is demanded of the gods should be obeyed. I'd imagine that the loyalty we pay the gods overrules that by which we owe the state since the gods have greater claim over the creation of our existence than the state does, which is one of the reasons Socrates gives for obeying the state's commands in the first place. The state contract also seems weaker since, unlike our ownership by the gods, it is somewhat consensual. Since we own our supreme loyalty to the gods, I'd say its only while their demands are concordant with our gods desires that we should obey the state, but whether the debt we owe to the state is irrelevant in the determination of where our loyalties lie I can't say right now as it depends on whether that's what Socrates means by the final line of Crito that (>>24685902) you use. I'll need to revisit Crito again because I'm a bit rusty.
>>24689059Yeah, he refers to doctors of the body in relation to whose advice an athlete should consider. Then, he speaks of the one before whom we feel fear and shame before everyone else, if he really exists – the doctor of the soul, if you will. And I think the principle of not returning harm depends on the one, for who differentiates right from wrong? Thus, I think that although Socrates did not agree with the specific instance of him being put to death, he still recognised the laws as being sanctioned by the one. And, besides, Socrates doesn’t say one must abide by all contracts, only just ones.
Okay, this might be a funny question, but does anyone know what age range Plato was writing for?It struck me earlier today when I was halfway through Euthydemus that, with its humour, particular setting amongst youths, and easy arguments that Plato might have written this particular dialogue for young boys (11-15 maybe?). There are even moments throughout the dialogue where Socrates will sum up and explain what's just been debated in case it went over the reader's head.
