The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato https://archive.org/details/sixbooksproclus00unkngoog/page/n20/mode/1upChapter XII. The intention of the hypotheses, demonstrating their connection with each other, and their consent with the things themselves.Notes:1. "And what is the most wonderful of all, the highest negations are only enunciative, but some in a supereminent manner, and others according to deficiency. But each of the negations consequent to these is affirmative; the one paradigmatically, but the other iconically, or after the manner of an image. But the middle corresponds to the order of soul, for it is composed from affirmative and negative conclusions. But it possesses negations co-ordinate to affirmations." Does anyone want to have a crack at deciphering this?
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So not as much interest as was first claimed ay?
>>24836687I might be total retard here but this book is written like the hard part(Book I-II) of Spinoza's Ethics
>>24836687For a long time I thought it was developed by moderns like Kant and Hegel, this technique of writing long strings of words totally devoid of any substance. But now I see it was practiced even by the ancients.Don’t you guys see that this is bullshit? Don’t you believe that a philosophical text should not have to be “deciphered” but should rather be as clear and vivid as possible? How does one develop a taste for this hollow slop?
>>24838279Surely you can see that just because you don't understand something doesn't make it hollow slop? Do you really think a classic text like this would have been preserved for 15 centuries if it was just sophistry?I can tell that if you don't understand Kant then it is your problem because Kant is intelligible. In regards Hegel, I read the Phenomenology of Spirit pretty quickly and not too closely, and I did think parts of it were unintelligible but there were parts of lucidity that were very interesting. And yes, ideally things should be clear and vivid as possible, but when you're dealing with realities only accessible to abstract thought you have to be willing to accept that expression is going to have to be correspondingly technical. In short, don't be a sourpuss because you get filtered, just be better.But at any rate, seeing as how no-one seems to be actually interested in contributing I think I'm just gonna read it for myself.
>>24838279>Don’t you believe that a philosophical text should not have to be “deciphered” but should rather be as clear and vivid as possible?If written by someone who thinks like you, talks like you and lives like you, probably yes. None of this is the case with Plato. What "human", "life" or even "existence" means went through thousands of years of evolution after he wrote those texts. There is no reason an untrained individual should expect clarity.
>>24839903That’s a good point, but when I read Plato, Seneca, Plutarch, Quintilian I never have any trouble understanding what they mean, because they constantly use imagery and metaphor to illustrate their points and they avoid ambiguity and obscurity like the plague. None of them would ever tolerate such a sterile pile of words as the one in the OP to enter their works. Maybe Plato would have. My point is that anyone who really has something to say will strive to say it as clearly and lucidly as possible, and anyone who is trying to say something abstract or difficult will illustrate it with an image or a metaphor or literally any kind of content whatsoever.>>24839888I agree with you that I should give it a chance before judging it as harshly as I did, but I really don’t think my demand for lucidity was unreasonable. It’s just a basic standard of good writing, and a proof that the author really has something to say and doesn’t feel the need to hide behind words. Whenever Hume or Schopenhauer have to express a difficult or abstract idea, they are almost always careful to illustrate it with a concrete example or metaphor. It’s a basic level of respect for the reader. I’m sure there are thoughts of value buried somewhere in Kant and Hegel and Proclus, but why would I wade through hundreds of pages of empty verbiage to find them when at any time I could just read a good writer? If the writer doesn’t respect the reader enough to clarify and strengthen their expressions, then why should I respect them enough to assume there are thoughts hiding behind their jargon?
>>24839958>when I read Plato, Seneca, Plutarch, Quintilian I never have any trouble understanding what they meanYou're one of very few then. Academia is infamous for gobbling Plato up, but only after surgically removing and hiding the bits where he describes Book of Enoch esque narratives about how humanity gained knowledge from up high. Not rationally or through contemplating philosophical ideas. Mystically, through dialogue with actual spiritual beings. He is much more mystical than an average reader even suspects and this affects how he gets framed today.>anyone who really has something to say will strive to say it as clearly and lucidly as possibleI agree. And to be fair, the reason academia can't worship Plato enough is that he is one of the very first people to put the priestly worldview (world behind the veil, essences/forms, cognitive-rational awakening from illusions...) into terms that aren't weighted down by dogma, idiosyncratic tradition or hefty symbolism. So much so that they tend to omit the fact it is the priestly worldview at all, but I'd just be repeating myself.
>>24839987I’m pretty ignorant about all those sides of Plato. I’ve only read most of the major dialogues and the Republic, I never felt the need to get into Laws and Timaeus and all the heavier later stuff. But if he’s given credit for separating his metaphysics from tradition and dogma, I can’t help but think of the Buddhist sutras for example, which predate him, and in which we already find thoughts like “all compounded things are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow,” or the Vedantic texts where “the sun is reflected in many waterpots, but the reflections of the sun in the many pots are not actually the sun” etc. Not to start a dick measuring contest. Plato’s cool.
>>24840010>Buddhist sutras>separating his metaphysics from tradition and dogmaYou are right that Buddhism doesn't contain dogma in the sense that Abrahamic religions do. But they still have their own idiosyncracies, hefty symbolism and many non-strictly-rational practices (like Koan). People who try to understand Plato's model of reality can usually get it down more or less accurately after reading a couple passages. For Buddhism, you'd need a lot more and some would say you'd even need to try out the practices to understand what they're talking about. Academia will never do that, because their only guise of objectivity is in not committing.
>>24840021That’s interesting. I disagree, it always seemed to me that the eastern metaphysics, at least that of Buddhism and Vedanta, are very easy to understand, whereas I never really could grasp what Plato was getting at with the forms. In eastern metaphysics:1) Every object in the universe is held together by temporary conditions, cannot support its own existence, and will therefore eventually change or disappear. 2) This includes you, your body, your feelings, thoughts, sensations, beliefs, etc.3) In order to stop suffering, meditate on this fact and realize that you are (nothing, if Buddhist) (everything / God / pure consciousness, if Vedantin)I don’t agree with it, but the basic outline seems pretty simple and understandable to me. Meanwhile, wtf are the forms? Every object has some kind of spiritual archetype existing in a non material plane “somewhere?” What about non “natural” objects, does this air conditioner have a platonic form? Is there a platonic form for humans in general, or one for each gender, or what? And if so, how do we deal with the fact that all these beings aren’t actually simple and indivisible but are really composed of cells, atoms, etc? Sounds like bullshit to me. But I’m realizing now that I really don’t understand Plato at all
>>24840057>Buddhism and Vedanta, are very easy to understandidk about Vedanta, but I tried Buddhism and it was a tough reading. Maybe I'm too westernized, because when I read "YOU doesn't exist" then I'm immediately thinking of Cartesian cogito, but it turns out Buddhists were trying to tell me a discretely separate self is an illusion. Which is valid. But I find that Plato would have said it clearer...>wtf are the formsGreat question. Fuck if I know. Though coming from a religious tradition myself, I think it's something Plato literally experienced and built a philosophical system around later on.
>>24839958>but I really don’t think my demand for lucidity was unreasonable.I don't want to offend but it seems like you're demanding to understand something without putting in the effort to understand it. >It’s just a basic standard of good writing, and a proof that the author really has something to say and doesn’t feel the need to hide behind wordsA) I don't desire to read this for the quality of the prose, I desire to read it for the quality of the thoughts it contains, because I want to understand what he thought, not experience the manner in which he expressed it. B) Isn't it non sequitur logic to think that you (personally) have to be able to have a clear understanding of the text immediately or else it must necessarily be incomprehensible nonsense? As I said before, just because you don't understand it doesn't necessarily make it generally unintelligible, it's just not intelligible to you. (I'm reminded in this context of lecture I heard recently on Neoplatonism were the speaker said that, 'to the degree that lower has the capacity to receive the higher, they receive it.') C) >hiding behind words. The author isn't trying to hide, he's trying explain something intangible to the senses. He's trying to uncover what the Platonic tradition takes to be transcendent truths. I think he does show respect to the reader and the content he's trying to convey just in the act of having written the text, which evince his belief both that these truths are communicable between higher and lower orders and between rational beings. What's he's doing is the unpacking into greater detail and specificity the metaphors and examples that the original dialogues of Plato provide. If you don't respect a thinker enough to try and understand his ideas then it's no wonder you don't understand him. Of course it's a pity we can't ask Proclus questions and seek clarification. I'm reminded of something I read about Kant's lectures which were apparently immensely lucid, clear and profoundly moving to his students. >why would I wade through hundreds of pages of empty verbiage to find them when at any time I could just read a good writer?Because you want to come to terms of intimate understanding with his development of Platonic thought, not just be familiar with someone's summary of what he had to say.
>>24840021>Buddhism doesn't contain dogma in the sense that Abrahamic religions doThere's dogmas aren't the same type, but they're still dogmas. The Trinity is as much of a contradictory mystical dogma as the three marks of existence (everything is impermanent (except the dharma), all is dukkah (except once you achieve enlightenment), all is without identity (except the tathagata).
>>24840063>Great question. Fuck if I know. Though coming from a religious tradition myself, I think it's something Plato literally experienced and built a philosophical system around later on.Nta, but look at Phaedo 99a up to 100e. I'd be curious about what you'd have to say about that, but it doesn't sound to me like an experience more than a kind of resort in the face of certain difficulties.
>>24840057Dude wtf, is this >>24838279 you? Are people who are filtered by Plato's dialogues really coming into a Neoplatonism thread and claiming that they can't understand it so it must be nonsense? This is exactly troglodytes calling the person whose seen the real sun crazy because they've never seen it themselves. Smfh.
It's the same level of attitude of people who'd said its crazy to think the earth revolves around sun because they never heard the theory before or thought about it.
>>24840084>contradictory mystical dogma>all is dukkah (except once you achieve enlightenment)See, this is one of the differences from religions and dogmata as we know them. That all is suffering is not a proposition to be accepted or rejected, it's a problem statement that the noble 8 (?) fold path is attempting to solve. Christianity comes to you with a proposition, a historical claim, and derives practices from thereon. Buddhism doesn't come to you with a historical claim or any kind of propositional model, it comes to you with a set of practices to begin with. And they know you'll bite because loss of agency, self-deception and ultimately suffering is a universal risk.>>24840087>Phaedo 99a up to 100e.>doesn't sound to me like an experience more than a kind of resort in the face of certain difficultiesI'm going to misinterpret the fugg out of this because I'm not trained in ancient greek philosophy, but it checks out with mystical accounts:>Now there is a danger in the contemplation of the nature of things>) 'I was afraid,' says Socrates, 'that I might injure the eye of the soulContemplation had spiritual connotations and "eye of the soul" is (in my religious tradition) understood as the nous, the higher-most organ of the soul, able to commune with God.
>>24840071I hear you anon. Surely just because I don’t immediately understand something doesn’t mean it’s unintelligible or empty. And of course I agree with you that ultimately the reader has to do some work, but I think there’s a huge difference between working to understand the the thought and working to parse the text so you can even make sense of what the author was trying to say. I’m not asking for style, just clarity.And as far as writing about things intangible to the senses, that’s all well and good, but if these abstractions don’t eventually come back down to earth and touch on something concrete, then wouldn’t you agree that they have no meaning? That we might as well write about Allah or Zeus or the multiverse if we’re gonna stay in the abstract without ever applying our thoughts to observable reality? And if these abstractions really do touch on observable reality, then why weren’t we given an example to clarify that connection? I know I could be wrong here and it’s doubtful that Proclus or Porphry or whoever would be famous today if they really had nothing to say. But are we seriously gonna pretend that the passage in the OP contains any substance? Even OP clearly has no idea what it means, the dude is talking about “taking a crack at it.” Meanwhile if we took even the densest paragraph out of any work by Hume, it would be immediately obvious to everyone exactly what he was talking about. And we could discuss the idea instead of trying to “decipher” it. Anyways, I appreciate that I was a bit heavy handed. I think I’ve just been spoiled by writers like Hume, Locke, Berkeley, Rousseau, Schop etc. who express even the most abstract ideas with full strength and clarity. So I get frustrated when other writers don’t have the same standard. But it’s entirely possible that I’m just the lower who is incapable of receiving the higher. Shrug.
>>24840094Yeah, that’s me. But I wasn’t claiming the passage in OP is nonsense because it contains contradictory ideas. I was claiming it’s nonsense because it contains no ideas at all, just empty words. But I would love to be proven wrong if anyone ITT can explain what that passage means or demonstrate it with a concrete example
>>24840106>Contemplation had spiritual connotations and "eye of the soul" is (in my religious tradition) understood as the nous, the higher-most organ of the soul, able to commune with God.But he doesn't say he understands the Forms by the eye of the soul, he's saying he fears his soul could be blinded by trying to grasp the beings directly. His second sailing is an attempt to grasp the beings by what's said about them in speeches, i.e., through opinions, and he says that he hypothesizes or posits the Forms as causes "simply, artlessly, and perhaps naively," "hypothesizing at each time a speech which I judge to be strongest...the things which seem to me to be consonant to this I posit as being true."
It’s very easy to make this kind of word soup. The highest development of the Good is what we have called the One. The One is nothing other than existence qualified by the supersensible, or, in other words, the highest manifestation of intuitive reason. But ‘being’ as a predicate applies only to natural things and never to the Idea, which therefore is applicable to the One only via dialectical negation. But the affirmation of etc. etc. etc.
>>24840132That is fair, he does take the route of intellectually hypothesizing the forms, but that there are forms that we should aim to get right at all, seems to be argued from an experience.
>>24840159Well, but I think it has to be a more ordinary experience of weighing opinions. "Indeed, it seemed to me necessary to flee into the speeches for refuge, and to examine those for the truth of the beings...I am going to attempt to demonstrate to you the form of the cause which I have busied myself with, and I am going back to those things that are *much-spoken-of* and I am *beginning from them*, hypothesizing that something is beautiful itself by itself and good and big and all the rest."
>>24840178I'm not sure if we're talking past each other so just to clarify: I agree, the experience of hypothesizing and synthesizing opinions about forms is ordinary and natural. Seeing things in themselves directly (as in forms) is super-natural. And because the latter is usually not available (or safe), Socrates uses the ordinary route for the most part. If I'm ever granted a peek of the direct vision, I'm gonna do all that too.
>>24840212We might be. Maybe we can make the differences clear, though.>I agree, the experience of hypothesizing and synthesizing opinions about forms is ordinary and natural.So, based on those passages in Phaedo, I don't see him as saying he's hypothesizing opinions "about the Forms," but rather hypthesizing Forms as an attempt to explain what the beings are, where the beings are the primary things, and the Forms are a safe means to understand them.>Seeing things in themselves directly (as in forms) is super-natural.He seems to say something different, though I hesitate to say the "the opposite"; appeal to the Forms would not be direct, but is his indirect approach to the beings. It's very strange, but that's how he puts it, surprisingly.
