Am I missing something? Anything? I'm seven-or-so dialogues in and it's literally almost entirely just word games and playing with definitions, as if mere linguistics has anything to do with the concepts they try and communicate. Frankly, the more I read the more frustrated I become out of how 'nothing' everything seemsIs there any point in going on? Any at all?
>>25377495which dialogues have you read so far?you might try reading the symposium if you haven't yet.
Yes, philosophy is useless and even offensive because it takes your effort to leave you at the same exact place you started at. Only makes sense if you're a rich man with piano player hands who can't even deal with a light bulb, let alone anything more manually demanding.
>>25377503Going in order of my Hackett edition, so Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Cratylus, Theaetetus, and Sophist, the final of which I have stopped my reading at in frustration, since it feels to shine a light on a growing problem I've developed with his work (and people in general, over the last few years), yet it doesn't feel as if it's meant to be self-aware/critiquing in any way (unless I closed it over before a wonderful punchline) I can appreciate him as the guy who made a coherent system, which set a certain standard, but as a philosopher it just seems like sophistry to me
>>25377518the sophist is pretty abstruse, i can't blame you for getting frustrated at it. i do think it's supposed to be self-aware (it has to mean something that socrates is barely in it explicitly) but it can be hard to see past the formal arguments.i think you'd benefit from jumping around a bit at this point and reading something else. i already mentioned the symposium, which is very different in style from the sophist, and meno might be good too.euthyphro-apology-crito-phaedo is a good sequence to start with but beyond that point order matters less. you're going to come back to anything you want to study in detail later anyway.
>>25377535You might be right, I'll check some other dialogues out and see how I feel then
>>25377495>>25377518>Am I missing something?I am afraid so. The best I can recommend is reading the Euthydemos which contrasts eristics (the frivolous abuse of language) with Socratic dialectic. Then you can go and reread the Euthyphro and Crito. If you still don't get the point of those texts, there's no point in reading further for now. In such a case, revisit them in a few years and see if you feel differently.
>>25377495Socrates is destroying Athenian group think with acidic dialectic
>>25377495There's a passage in the Phaedo where Socrates gives some background to how he initially approached philosophy and how he altered his approach (it's in the biographical portion, if you remember, where he says he started off as a kind of natural philosopher). There he says, about his subsequent "second sailing",>Now, it seemed to me after these things...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. But anyway, this is how I made a start—hypothesizing at each time a speech which I judge to be strongest—on the one hand, the things which seem to me to be consonant to this I posit as being true, both about cause and about altogether all the rest. On the other hand, the things which are not consonant, I posit as not true.This I think describes more or less what you're encountering with some frustration. I would wish to point out that what's happening is less about the ranges of words (even in the Cratylus, where it's a joke throughout that, oh, turns out almost every word just means "to be in motion"), and much more about the opinions behind those words. That might just reveal another element to the dialogues that you might also find frustrating subsequently in this light, that they're not exhaustive enough in examining quite a few conceivable views. But Plato seems to start from the opinions different kinds of people hold about things, and examines their attachments or detachments to opinions about other things. Plato also tends to play around, hoping you'll notice something and try to compare and contrast.One decent example of this is the dialogue you're having some troubles with, the Sophist. Consider: it explicitly follows up from the apparently skeptical or aporetic Theaetetus, and in it (and its follow-up, Statesman) Socrates remains both present and in the background. Is the main speaker of Sophist and Statesman, the Eleatic Stranger, supposed to be simply a mouthpiece for Plato's views, or, in showing us a spectating Socrates, is he suggesting we should compare Socrates in the Theaetetus with the Stranger, and work out for ouselves whether these are the same approaches to philosophy or different ones?
>>25377518>>25377535The Sophist with its famous “Parricide of Parmenides” is a refutation of “thinking as Being.” Falsehood/ change/ etc work differently for the monist and for Plato. The monist would say that change/ Doxa is a part of the One but one you mistakenly see as outside of it not as connected to it in any way. Plato with his forms seems to confront this idea headon. Plato wants to show with his PATRICIDE that there is the Form (beauty for example) then there is the world of change which exists outside of it as in a mirror’s reflection. The Sophist isn’t particularly convincing to me personally but it must be understood in its framework as a rebuttal to the Eleatics. A lie or a falsehood is one real thing (a horse) and another thing (a horn or wings on that horse). It’s two separate things rather than purely Being as thinking (to auto gar einai) where presumably you couldnt have something and something else be different inside this same Monist thought-world.
>>25377518Note that Plato’s Sophist is seen as highly contentious - not for any of the actual arguments made in it however but because many (including myself) thought he didn’t properly understand the concept of Doxa. The dialogue is about refuting Doxa as nonsense and connecting it in someway to Being when the Eleatics already had it covered - the odos to Aletheia but also the odos to Doxa- how to properly “believe” or “understand” what you see before you. Raphae uses the phrase correctly evaluate.
>>There’s more to it but this is the main reason you shouldn’t trust Plato’s Sophist as a reliable account of Eleaticism or of anything really. It’s best use is as toilet paper.
>>25377495No, you don't. Socrates is an infantile idiot who desperately tries to figure out basic concepts.
>>25377516This. The only thing that made these ancient intellectuals more insightful than a peasant with common sense was the study of other, mostly stem sciences. Any knowledge that requires you to act haughty to feel smart is a waste of time. Real knowledge improves you.
>>25378406Conceptual analysis remains the backbone of philosophy together with logic. How can we even meaningfully talk about stuff if we struggle to define "knowledge". Wittgenstein fetishists need not reply.
>>25378540Abstract concepts are elementary. Trying to define them using other concepts is a waste of time, it can't be done any more than you can describe iron as a combibation of other elements.Aristotelean logic doesn't allow you to deduce anything that you don't already know.>Iron is a metal.>Every metal is an element.>Therefore Iron is an element.Is an absurd non-thought. You knew all of that before, and you wouldn't be able to deduce anything that you didn't know (or possibly define) beforehand.Aristotle too was only good for keeping the monks busy.
>>25378638>Abstract concepts are elementary.Prove your assertion. :)
>>25377495>almost entirely just word games and playing with definitions, as if mere linguistics has anything to do with the concepts they try and communicatelogic, from the greek logikon, means 'something which has been arranged in words’.
>>25378816So it's invalid to dislike dictionary-definitions being used as arguments, because of a dictionary-definition?
I'm not a Plato expert, but I think saying that linguistics has nothing to do with truth is just a different perspective, or maybe an external critique. For Plato afaik those concepts had objective existence. I actually agree with you, but I don't find Plato easy to refute unless you just start from very different premises.
>>25377495The thing with famous philosophers is that if you think upon your first reading that they are dumb, yes you are missing something. You will probably only start to understand Plato in retrospect after reading others, then you'll revisit him. He is a smart guy. He is not basing his philosophy around dumb word games.
>>25379095Philosophy is a dumb word game inherently. It has nothing to do with the world or ourselves. You went and understood the entirety of western philosophy: ok now what? What changed? Where? How?
>>25379124I'm still figuring things out, but I believe the endpoint of any philosophy is transitioning into metaphysics. And if any of these metaphysical postulations end up being true, then understanding them is clearly of benefit, just as understanding regular physics is
>>25379202Imo only few metaphysical theories would have consequences, for instance if God exists that makes a big difference.What difference does it make whether numbers are abstract Platonic objects or if nominalism or fictionalism about numbers is true?
>>25379124The change is internal. Philosophy is the study of how to think. Thinking correctly is important, and knowing when there is no such thing is important.
>>25379124Now you have things like the scientific method and an understanding of the limitations of that method. You know with relative certainty that there aren't ghosts but there is important territory outside any map.
>>25378638yes ultimately everything is circular unless you bite the bullet somewhere and take some (perhaps arbitrary) point as a primitive. And deductive reasoning being a tautology in essence is well known, hence why we're forced to use inductive reasoning because it allows us to go beyond analytic truths (Hempel's DN model be damned).But we can meaningfully talk about concepts by defining them in other (perhaps simpler terms). Take political philosophy for example: It's possible to come up if a neat iff definition for justice. Pretty sure Plato does it in one of his early dialogues. That absolutely allows us to clarify what a certain concept is, even if ultimately is based on circular reasoning.
>>25379211Well if your metaphysical system has logic as its base, and uses mathematics as the 'language' or 'foundation' of the ordered cosmos, then trying to determine the most accurate way of understanding mathematics is very important.I use this example because it sounds a little mystical but really I'm just talking about physics, which in any decent sort of system, is always held very closely to metaphysics (I'll let you decide if this is just wordplay or not)
>>25377495What would you consider good philosophy?
>>25378933socrates saw the etymology as being decoding a word to find the message the ancient namegivers had placed inside it.
>>25379636I might mean a narrower form of usefulness, for instance I would predict that mathematical Platonists and nominalists perform just as well in the lab, at school, at work. They can probably solve equations equally well and so on. Afaik many mathematicians are Platonists (I don't know if it's a majority) but that could be a selecrltion effect.To me it seems that questions like this are more about the knowledge itself, or maybe important as premises for further arguments. argu
>>25377495hoping for a redemption arc on this post. Plato is a genius, stick with him, or move to Aristotle who is 20x better
>>25378120>>25378136>>25378156I don't see this reading at all. To me, it's clear that Plato is not going after Eleatism whatsoever in the Sophist, nor refuting that Thinking is Being. If he were, then the Eleatic Stranger would have not received his titanic, sage-like portrayal. If anything, Plato is going after sophists who opportunistically distorted Eleatic thinking and argued that it is impossible to tell falsehoods. The claim of the sophists goes something like this: since false statements ostensibly are not, and yet false statements are intelligible, the concept of a lie is impossible. With this argument, you would not be able to judge that a statement is false, because to say that a statement is false is to say that the statement is not, but the statement *is* (as it is uttered and we can understand it) and nothing is not; therefore, no statements are false, and lying is impossible. In this framework, distinguishing the truth becomes conceptually impossible, which is very convenient for the career of a sophist!Obviously, this kind of rank sophistry, exhibited to its most extreme stereotype, legitimizes the art of bullshitting that so many sophists required for their business and utterly destroys the project of philosophy. So, Plato gets to business nipping this idea in the bud. And who is better able to refute a distortion of Parmenides and destroy the Eleatic pretenders than someone with the pedigree of the Eleatic Stranger? Plato literally brings a subject matter expert to evaluate the situation. The conclusion reached in the dialogue, at least on this subplot, is that "non-being" in its use simply refers to "other than" (aka difference, rather than nothing), so "is not" is not a reference to nothing in its colloquial use. Thus, the interlocutors are able to understand that false statements simply refer to a reality that is either nonsense or merely intelligible but not actual (a mislabeling of sorts).So, are the doxa eliminated in the dialogue? No. Clearly, the doxa are saved, if only to put the different kinds of doxa into their appropriate place relative to the degree of truth that they bear. All doxa refer to things, and thus to being. But some doxa are not appropriately labeled. They communicate appearances that are other than what they intent on the surface. In other words, they are either accidentally or intentionally mistaken thinking, but thinking nonetheless. That is all. The alleged parricide of Parmenides turns out to be a false alarm, and the core Eleatic doctrine is preserved. The dialogue ends almost like a fable where the evildoers are all punished and the good guys live happily ever after, at least on this point.
>>25381078Agreed, and your runthrough is exceptionally good, but this guy's just gonna deny whatever you point to.
>>25381104I am the original guy here and if > The alleged parricide of Parmenides turns out to be a false alarm, and the core Eleatic doctrine is preserved.Is your reading then I get behind it. Many I have seen seemingly take the dialogue as some sort of argument for Dualism though, same with Parmenides- Parmenides is written in such an obtuse way that it’s way more debatable there what Plato was getting at.
>>25377752Read it yesterday, and I enjoyed it greatly, but I remain unconvinced that Socrates/Plato isn't guilty of that kind of trickery too. I'll keep going for now and see how I feel, but I'm glad such things have been openly addressed
> Thus, the interlocutors are able to understand that false statements simply refer to a reality that is either nonsense or merely intelligible but not actual (a mislabeling of sorts).Doxa as envisioned by the Eleatics is absolutely the second one of these. My issue is that many even some on this board take the first one as what the poem is about which is just nonsensical - doood everything is a dream is the most tepid banality
Pump
>>25383517A thread that's dying should just die
>>25380929>>25379211Well, we increasingly use mathematics to describe society, economics, physics, basically every human area of interest. This is done because the maths is treated as the "most real" or most "objective", version of whatever you are attempting to describe. Nobody would dare turn around and say that mathematics is actually practically useless, just a bunch of deliberately obscure and self-sucking symbol shuffling. It could very well be so, unless we know why it works. For all we know, maths only has the single property of being disambiguous, which allows for more efficient social activity. If we knew what maths was like, or why it is supposedly effective, we can do different maths, or different activities altogether. If you think this isn't needed, consider that globally, physics departments shit out countless complex and mathematically sound descriptions that fail to obtain any physical phenomena.
This is why Arry mogs Play-doh.
>>25377495Reading my way through the dialogues and I feel the same OP. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be getting out of it, apart from how to annoy people
>>25377495If you're a dabbler new to philosophy simply reading them then yes you're going to miss a lot and it will just read like pretentious fancifulness. Group discussion/secondaries that point out the significance fills in most of the gaps.
Read them, move on and read other philosophy stuff and then come back and read them again
>>25385116>>25377495>damn I read plato and he's only a virtuous pagan >damn I read plato and he's only a precursor to aristotle>damn i read plato and he's only an unjustified scholastic authority>damn i read plato and he's only doing idealism>damn i read plato and he's denying life>damn i read plato and he's only [insert philosophical claims in vogue]
>>25377495Read Timaeus it's closer to him arguing for something than most of his other works >Because of the vast scope of the work, as well as its character as a monologue—by excluding exchanges between interlocutors the discourse is much more like an authoritative statement than a set of questions to be investigated
>>25385850Except that it's in the mouth of a man who's not Socrates (though complimented as philosophical), and who practically starts his speech by saying it's not strictly true, but a "likely story."
>We may say, therefore, as to things cognizable by the intellect, that they become cognizable not only from the good, by which they are known, but likewise that their being and essence are thence derived, while the good itself is not essence, but beyond essence, and superior to both in dignity and power.
>>25385853Yeah it's just closer to what OP seems to be interested in (likely in this case meaning getting closer to the truth rather than some statistical or theoretical claim)
>>25377495Read the Symposium first, dropped the Republic 3 chapters in, I feel similar to you OP. Socrates being a moffie didn't help.
>>25377495It seems increasingly apparent that fans of Wittgenstein and all nominalists are in league with Satan.
>>25386999Yes I'm surprised more of nu-/lit/ doesn't take issue with the cornerstone of western philosophy liking twinks
