/lit/ - Literature

>>16387466
Rancid retarded pothead whore gtfo my room

>>16387466
and it would be, too

>>16387466
uh, yeah. shiggy dig. shiggy diggy diggy dig

>>16387466
lemme grab my Delta and I'll get you aristotled just fine, babe

>>16387466
>>16387474
Quite literally no, Plato was right in saying that to deny the Forms would be Sophistic and to deny knowledge itself, because he arrived at a greater metaphysical reality of what the Forms were that most people wont understand. Deleuze couldn't even escape them unironically.

>If the second half of his [Plato’s] Parmenides would be performed anew with today’s methods (and not Neoplatonically), then all bad metaphysics would be overcome, and the space would be open for a pure hearing of the language of Being.
-Letter to Heidegger, by Karl Jaspers

>The third passage of the Parmenides is the most profound point to which Occidental metaphysics has ever advanced. It is the most radical advance into the problem of Being and time—an advance which afterwards was not caught up with [aufgefangen] but instead intercepted [abgefangen] (by Aristotle).
- Heidegger

>>16387474
Don't be silly anon, you know I don't smoke pot! This joint only contains balsamic herbs, thry really help me with my asthma!
>>16387486
Oooh, I cannot wait! ^_^

>>16387466
>>16387493
U G L Y

>>16387466
>>16387493
Anons who do this definitely have gender dysphoria

If there is a form for all things, then there must be a form for each form, and a form for each of those form form's, and so on in an infinite vicious regress.

>>16387516
The Parmenides takes care of such problems.

>>16387516
>>16387519
This, since Forms are not auto-predicative.
Also in Timaeus you can find an answer for the variant of your argument which deals also with sensible objects ("the sensible x has something in common with thr idea of x, therefore there must be a form y which contains them..." and so on)

>>16387492
>with today’s methods (and not Neoplatonically)
>implying the sayer of this has read the Neoplatonists who greatly investigated the Instant

>>16387535
He has, but it is well known the neoplatonists are a different school of thought to Plato and early Platonism. They take the instant as a literal point in time rather than as the rooting of the forms in time on a whole.

>>16387466
PLEASE BE MY GF

>>16387497
>>16387509
Rude!
>>16387552
Only if you can refute Plato's theory of Forms, silly

>>16387603
now post her poetry

>>16387466
You got me believing in Platonic forms now ;)

>>16387466
>>16387603
Name the wench, Anon.

>has ovid tattooed on her back
damn she's perfect bros.

>>16387646
Azraelrenee on ig
Now refute Plato's theory of forms, you goddamned coomers

>>16387466
>>16387493
>>16387603
Don't listen to the whore! She is a siren trying to sing your soul away, and it is dependent on her vanity and the loss of the male honour for the Forms to be disproven!!!! She must have nothing higher than her own form, everything must be sensual and her, arch sensual beauty remaining(or perhaps it is a tranny but point remains). As this anon showed>>16387492 the Forms must no be disproved, you must not Renounce your faith under pressure good lads, do not fall for the whore's tricks!!!!!!!!

Her plan must not succeed for your very souls.

I will bite.
If the forms are pure and incorruptible, there is literally no way for the material to take part in them in any way.
The theory forms require things to partly take part in what must be completely perfect and thereby whole by that same theory.

>>16387662
The soul is the Form of the body. See Phaedo, Plato already took care of this critique, but most wholly in the Timaeus and Parmenides.

>>16387659
>(((Azrael)))

>>16387661
If Plato's theory of Forms truly is true, then we are in no danger when we try to refute it. In fact, it would be a beneficial endeavour, for by the end of it our conviction in said theory will be stronger and less dogmatic than before.
Why are you so scared of the truth? Could it be that... dare i say it, the theory of the Forms might be wrong?

>>16387659
>>16387676
>>(((Azrael)))
Ahhh you damn fools!! I tried to tell you here as an initiate >>16387661 but it was too late, this enchantress, this puppeting siren has always lured your very souls!!!!!

Repent! Repent! The time is near! Your souls can still be saved, "Repentance is the grand Christian act", do not give in, repent; Repent!

>I do not agree with much modern criticism, in greatly preferring the Inferno to the two other parts of the Divine Commedia. Such preference belongs, I imagine, to our general Byronism of taste, and is like to be a transient feeling. The Purgatorio and Paradiso, especially the former, one would almost say, is even more excellent than it. It is a noble thing that Purgatorio, "Mountain of Purification;" an emblem of the noblest conception of that age. If sin is so fatal, and Hell is and must be so rigorous, awful, yet in Repentance too is man purified; Repentance is the grand Christian act. It is beautiful how Dante works it out. The tremolar dell' onde, that "trembling" of the ocean-waves, under the first pure gleam of morning, dawning afar on the wandering Two, is as the type of an altered mood. Hope has now dawned; never-dying Hope, if in company still with heavy sorrow. The obscure sojourn of demons and reprobate is underfoot; a soft breathing of penitence mounts higher and higher, to the Throne of Mercy itself. "Pray for me," the denizens of that Mount of Pain all say to him. "Tell my Giovanna to pray for me," my daughter Giovanna; "I think her mother loves me no more!" They toil painfully up by that winding steep, "bent down like corbels of a building," some of them,—crushed together so "for the sin of pride;" yet nevertheless in years, in ages and aeons, they shall have reached the top, which is heaven's gate, and by Mercy shall have been admitted in. The joy too of all, when one has prevailed; the whole Mountain shakes with joy, and a psalm of praise rises, when one soul has perfected repentance and got its sin and misery left behind! I call all this a noble embodiment of a true noble thought.

Your souls can still make their way up that stony pass if it be that late in the night for you;-- Repent!

>>16387466
If all forks correspond to the form of the form and all spoons correspond to the form of the spoon then the existence of the spork disproves any notion of pure forms

Hair, mud, and dirt are in fact just what we see. It’s too outlandish to think there is a form for them.

>>16387684
You are not one familiar with Plato's late dialogues, in the Instance one can give over to hell and damnation, one still is a self-mover, free-will, you can choose death and as nothingness, you can go over by indulgence.

>>16387662
Plato talks about imitation, rather than replication. The imitation of something perfect and exact can certainly be imperfect. We can, for example, imitate, through graphical representations, geometrical shapes such as circles, while also knowing that there is no such thing as a perfect drawn circle. This last fact does not impede us from saying that the drawn circle is a imitation of the perfect one. Furthermore, denying this would imply that we could know nothing about the perfect circle (i.e. the formula for its area), which is patently untrue, and it would deny the possible partial applicability of such pieces of knowledge to drawn circles, which is also false.

>>16387492
Wait
There's third passage of the Parmenides?

>>16387695
I have spent the last 6 months reading the last dialogues (especially Parmenides, Timaeus and Sophist), albeit in translation, and I still dont know what you Istance-posters mean by Istance.

>>16387696
Based, you know your geometry.

>>16387703
Yes, most people get lost and do not see it. But it is right there. Here are the initiates my friend.

>>16387705
>and I still dont know what you Istance-posters mean by Istance.
In all likelihood all of those posts were by me, but I doubt many others are to understand it anyhow. This is a good brief explanation of it:

https://www.academia.edu/320473/All_of_a_Sudden_Heidegger_and_Platos_Parmenides_2007_

Plato's works are not simple talk, idle work, they are the mature philosophy of arguably the greatest thinker to ever live; do not treat them so . Even this short link will not do them justice, they are something that you must contemplate and understand in your own life as Plato said, it is your Damascus road, on your way to God. Even Weininger talked about it, "Nietzsche did not read Kant and did not find his way to God because of it" and so on.

>>16387674
It's been awhile since I have read all this stuff, but I was never wholly convinced concerning this.
Correct me if I am wrong, but when we experience a certain thing, we are meant to experience in part the forms in which that thing partakes - we recognize those parts insofar as our soul remembers the world of forms.
But there is no way for that thing to partake in the form, if the form is to be truly ideal. If it is corruptible in some way, that objects take only partly in one thing and not wholly, then they cannot be said to be immutable which defeats their entire premise.
So either forms are not pure, or what is impure cannot partake in them, whereby we would have no possible means to acknowledge them.
>>16387696
I do not follow that example. because in that case we know exactly what a perfect circle would be; we know that it can exist in our reality (but that is highly unlikely). In the case of forms, they cannot exist completely in our material reality because our material reality is flawed. We don't even have completely knowledge of them.
Maybe I am misremembering something or am looking at it from the wrong angle.

>>16387690
The spork is a synthesis of the spoon and the fork. Or perhaps the spoon and fork are the separation of an earlier eating utensil that was jagged.
The spork is it's own unique platonic form. As is anything.
In one way or another, as long as we've been using eating utensils, I think something of a "spork" existed. A nice object you could use to scoop and poke.
I like your example but it doesn't disprove plantonic forms. Does anything outside of linguistics do so? Idk.

>>16387720
>we know that it can exist in our reality (but that is highly unlikely)
Plato would argue that a perfect circle cannot be replicated in the sensible world, for a) everything sensible is in an heraclitean flux of becoming and b) (as it is explained in Timaeus) the geometrical constituents of reality (non-continuos elements) cannot produce such figures. You can extend a) to any possible geometrical object.
As such, geometrical (perfect) circles can be used as an example in this discussion.

>>16387720
I am your first replyer, I encourage you to read Plato's Timaeus. From what I can remember the Forms allow all of being, and in some ways, are being, but they are not so limited and albeit materialistic a concept to merely be as another anon said in this thread "auto-predicative" in a mechanical way, that there is something that exists so necessarily the forms exist in relation to it as some ideal version of it. That is a misunderstanding. The forms exist in relation to material in the same way the soul exists in relation to the body, as the soul is a form; material and body are not evil, but the body becomes a cage of the soul when the soul is inverted and degraded. There is something much more mystical and non-conceptual in Plato, especially in his later dialogues, that most people miss. The Timaeus practically says at one point that this world is modelled after the forms but are distinct.

>>16387603
why does her foot look like the bottom of a shoe?

>>16387759
...because its the bottom of a shoe you troglodyte.

>>16387763
shut up tranny

>>16387756
>>16387758
Okay, it seems like Timaeus is what I should read to settle my thoughts on the matter. I certainly seem to have missed some important points of this theory, considering its continued influence on philosophy.
Thanks for the timely and explanatory responses, lads.

>>16387770
Welcome anon, and I thank you for your politeness. Enjoy the Timeus, it's one of his best.

>>16387466
>The Metaphysics Of Experience, A Companion To Whitehead's Process And Reality

PicRel is ToC

>>16387466
Sure! Just ask Mr. Plato "How do we have knowledge of the forms?" and watch this nominalist epistemological argument immediately cause Plato to collapse, profusely sweating, deeply discombobulated. As he tries to voice some answer tell him "why should we accept the existence of this realm outside of our experience, and if we do, why the particular realm you propose?". He will stammer, but you are not done yet. Then you say "If mathematical forms exist in a realm outside of space and time, how can humans, existing in space and time, have mathematical knowledge?". By this point he will probably be passed out on the floor, and you may proceed to leave.
I will take my rewards in the form of braps directly to the nose, please and thank you.

>>16387725
We can reduct an object to its base form. But we assume that object exists for the sole purpose of it's most-likely utility.
A spoon is used to scoop. But a spoon can be many other things. Spoons are not always used for scooping.
We can "eidetically reduct", as Husserl stated, an object to its base model then go further where it seemingly becomes a different object.
When is a shoe no longer a shoe? A fork no longer a fork? What is it? It's a matter of deletion or additition that transforms the object into something we'd say "is this instead of that."
A spoon could be melted into a key.
I enjoy the idea of primordial mental forms, as though each form has its essence that we must try to replicate in reality by building the perfect table. But I think there's a linguistic game at play, and I think there's really no such thing as an object that is just one thing. At least, an object momentarily exists as one thing.

I'd like reading reccs and insights on this if anyone is willing

>>16387770
Read the Republic first, in Timaeus Plato assumed that his readers are already familiar with that dialogue (otherwise you won't be even able to understand Timaeus' premises to his mythos, e.g. that the Demiurge is good, that the ideal paradigm is the best one, etc).

>>16387801
Plato would simply respond by repeating his doctrine of reminescence of the Forms. He did not just ignore this problem, anon

>>16387816
Read Difference And Repetition, Process And Reality, and Aztec Philosophy, then The Ego Tunnel by Metzinger.
I'm not even meming, that's what these books get into in DEEEEP detail.
I'd suggest Sherburne's A Key To Whitehead's Process And Reality, as it's a clarity edit of the primary text

>>16387801
Plato deals with all of these problems in his dialogues and especially his late ones. Parmenides entirely refutes the statement of the forms being "outside of experience".

>>16387850
Thanks, anon.
I deleted my post thinking it stupid going into Husserl, but oh well.
Some familiar titles there. I'll be looking into it.
If you could...give an anecdote on eidetic reduction within the frame of what you referenced and what you think. That'd be interesting.

>>16387876
1/4

2/4

3/4

4/4

>>16387876
1/2

2/2

>>16387876
In a meme though, PicRel

>>16387876
But let's consider the following:
You are talking about Abstraction.
A complex real object is modeled in the mind, into a generality. Like a real person can be abstracted all the way down to a stick figure.
Consider that you always already have done this, that the machinery of Consciousness is made specifically for the purpose of simplification, of caricature, of making quick and inaccurate sketches.
White Light, it seems like low color and high intensity but it's really all colors, as an example.
Our limited senses cannot report on the full environment, and what's more, our mental machinery cannot work out functional, accurate models in real time.
So you're already always abstracting what comes in the senses.

So, by knowing that what we perceive is only a hint of what is there, we get confused and think that it is the more and not the less abstract that is the real thing. And so on.

>>16387466
The whole basis and focus of the forms isn't the object of our senses nor a representation of the object but the mental category that defines it. By distilling a notion of 'white' as portending to 'whiteness' you just remove all quantification, what you're left with is the form, in other words the idea, this is prime 'a priori' evaluation where the conclusion is very much assumed and hence the heuristic - the method - of evaluation is flipped on its head. This implies a metaphysics prior to epistemology viewpoint where the method of evaluation is not to begin with the object but to go beyond the object and attempt to grasp qualia in lieu of an object, and then to subsume the object, as it were, in-place. The power and danger of this method lies in its natural allure; not just because it prioritizes phenomena in a way that emulates how our minds already perceive the world, that is, through concepts, but that also it sanctifies everything it touches and makes of the world a reflection of some eternal source, from this it gets its irresistible charm. The whole runaway train of phenomenology has inherited this abysmal curse.

>>16387759
Fuck thats where the meme is from

>>16387992
Which meme?

slutposters get the rope

>>16387603
CONCEIVED MADE CUSTOM EQUIPPED NURTURED FOR BBC

>>16387466
>>16387493
>>16387603
>>16387650
>>16388031

>>16388057
>implying she doesn't cuck him on the side with a BBC

>>16387650
From ovid to covid

>>16388057
maybe she does, but the children are white (and probably mutilated)

>>16387466
i wanna rub my cock on this slags feet and have her spit in my mouth

>>16387466
I want her to take a nice big stinky dump on my chest

>>16388118
that's not even that funny dude stop being disgusting man i gotta read this shit by accident

>>16387950
Plato's argument is a trascendental argument, so I'm not sure sure your critique applies. The form is identified insofar as without a form we would know nothing, and we clearly know something. This is more evident if, instead of taking the forms of qualia (which are as dubious as the form of artifacts - it is not clear that Plato thought that there are forms for these things) you examine logical forms instead, such as identity, likeness, difference, etc. Plato would argue that we simply could not concieve these concepts, had it been the case that Forms do not exist.
I think it is interesting, since logical forms can survive even a Kantian critique.

>>16388173
yea transcendental arguments ascribe a primacy to what they presume as the basis for following through each subsequent step... without a form we would know nothing because whatever mental transposition is taking place in this reasoning belongs not to a correspondent reality but a vague metaphysical calculus whose power is really the elimination of correspondence to begin with.

>>16388118
Based
>>16388127
Pseud

>>16388202
While I think understand what you're saying, I also think I'm failing to get your point. Are you arguing for or against platonic Forms?

>>16388207
>:-(

>>16387466
Coffee bad for me.

>>16387650
>t.

>>16387516
>high-school teachers dipshit retarded explanation of the forms is the sole reason for the antagonism of Plato
They are dipshits for tarnishing the name of Plato by attributing to him the very fucking idea he refuted

>>16387684
This is what all the Neoplatonists did, why they wrote 700 page commentaries on 30 page dialogues, to cover all critiques and even bring better ones by themselves.

>>16387519
>>16387530
>>16388421
So then how does Plato get around the Third Man Argument, then?

>>16387466
fuck off my sun light you bitch.

hijacking thread. After having read everything I marked in pic related, should I move on to the later dialogues (Tetralogies 6 and 7) or would it make sense to complete the lesser early dialogues beforehand?

How do Plato's forms fit in with modern science? Genuinely curious.

>>16388493
Don't listen to this list niggah what are you doing? That's a horrible order, it's not supposed to be taken as an order, but a very simple organisation.

You should read Euthydemus, and Laches first. And Philebus should be read directly after or at least kept together in your mind with the Phaedrus and Gorgias. For the reading the late dialogues, you should read in this exact order Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman as it says, but you can read Timaeus/Critias either necessarily DIRECTLY before them, or directly after, then read the Laws as the last work.

>>16388493
Also ignore the explanations given for the last two rows, they cannot hope to explain the dialogues complexity. Actually, all of them fail to do, so ignore all explanations. Just take the Parmenides explanation, it misses the basic orientation of the dialogue.

>>16388510
Heidegger should ground that for you, but many prominent scientists have been inspired by Plato, such as that famous quote by one of them calling the forms a greater approximation of quantum mechanics than anything else.

>>16388548
>forms a greater approximation of quantum mechanics than anything else

What does it even mean?

>>16388536
>>16388543
I didn't actually read them in that order, it's just the best overview I found. I went like this: Trial and Death > Meno > Republic > Symposium > Phaedrus > Cratylus > Ion > Protagoras > Gorgias

>>16388456
>>16387516
see
>>16167231
>>16167302
and i'd say as the last post pointed out that the forms have substantiality for being the reference to the intellect-principle while the phenomena are not being par excellence, thus insubstantial

>>16388850
>16167231
>Both arguments fall victim to the same problem of misunderstanding the forms. In Plato it is the youthful, inexperienced Socrates, in Aristotle is it the ignorant Aristotle. The fatal flaw in both is to consider the forms as if they are like their participants. Hence the form of man is a man, the form of beauty is beautiful, the form of large is large, and so on. This changes the forms from being one over many to one among many. In this view, the form has the same fundamental nature as its participants, and instead of being unique it becomes merely singular, and requires a form to thus explain its similarity with the many things. The forms are not like the participants as they are like each other, but has a fundamentally different nature, and thus cannot be equated as the argument wishes. The form of man is not a man, and it is not like a man, it is different essentially and in kind. Similarly a beautiful thing and the form of beauty are essentially different. What allows the form to be one over many is its transcendent nature and the way in which things participate in it and rely on it for their being. A beautiful thing is not like the form beauty, it exists and has its character because it participates in the form, but participation doesn't imply relation or similarity, which is what the third man argument implies.

>16167302
>The allegory of the cave is really the best way to explain it. Think about the difference between the shadows and the model: they are fundamentally different in their essential being, and the many shadows (things) are dependent on the one model (form) for their existence. The third man argument would say that the model is like the shadows in their essential being. The absurdity of this image will get across how different the forms and the participants are. This shows that the third man argument results from considering the form as like the participants (ie large, beautiful, a man, etc) and thus as if the model was like the shadow. The essential difference in nature is what the third man argument misses, and what is shown most explicitly in the allegory of the cave. The dialogue Parmenides goes into this in more conceptual detail during the hypotheses.

>>16388580
The greentext?

>>16388659
I see, well good luck with it anyway anon.

>>16387537
>it is well known the neoplatonists are a different school of thought to Plato
Literally a 19th century fabrication, like the name Neoplatonism, by seething ""enlightenment"" protestant positivist rationalist.
If any the 'neo' should refer to Platonism's revival from the Aristotelian, Gnostic, Stoic, and post-skeptic post-destruction of the academy in the last century BC by Sulla, metaphysical fragmentations. Historically reminiscent of Dionysus cyclic death in fragmentation and Rebirth in reconstitution.

>>16387466

>>16387466

>>16389059
We can look at what they thought, and see it is objectively different from Plato's.

>>16389243
kek based diogenes. anyone have the story of diogenes asking plato why he's writing the book of laws when he already wrote the republic?

>>16387466
Why would a form exist?

>>16389439
Because a mind perceives it.

>>16389469
Not everything a mind imagines exists.

>>16389481
How so? If it can be imagined, by that act it exists, no?

>>16389493
Yes, in one's brain.

>>16389493
it exists as a series of neurons firing, but beyond that manifestation it does not exist.

>>16387466
Yeaj honey. I think we need another man in this relationship, a third man ;)

>>16389244
We look at what they thought, and see it is objectively the closest to correct interpretation of Plato.
Show me a Neoplatonic idea that conflicts with Plato without using retarded Hermeneutics such as reading each Dialogue in a retarded vacuum; and not, as they should be read, a unified whole, where what Plato says in X dialogue influences the interpretation of what he says somewhere else. There is in-fact no such thing as objective interpretation, all sacred texts demand a tradition of inspired exegeses, something Schleiermacher and his decrepits lacked.

>>16389527
so in that sense, music doesn't exist beyond sound waves?

>>16389615
>>16389059
thank you platonist anon we really need you here in threads about platonism, there will always be a crowd of people who don't understand what philosophy is and what platonism is (and that they are one and same thing) giving their opinions.

>>16387603
*Walks up to her asshole*

*takes a deep inhale*

>>16389652
A person's definition of music also exists in the brain of the listener.

>>16389615
>>16389244
>I have argued in this book that Proclus’s praise of Plotinus as leading the way in the exegesis of the Platonic revelation is essentially correct. Although this is a view shared by scholars of Platonism and by Platonists, too, well into the nineteenth century, it is a view that is today, especially in the English speaking world, mostly either ridiculed or ignored. Surely, one main reason for this dramatic change is the hermeneutical approach to the dialogues initiated by Friedrich Schleiermacher at the beginning of the nineteenth century. After Schleiermacher, scholarly focus has gradually shifted from Platonism as a philosophical system or worldview to the dialogues themselves. This shift has come to seem so salutary because it is, of course, true that a careful reading of each dialogue in its dramatic context is a good thing. No doubt, the bad odor left by nineteenth-century idealistic system building in the twentieth century also contributed to a wish to pursue a more enlightened or perhaps less grandiose approach to Plato. Yet from the perspective of ancient Platonists, the flaw in this procedure is obvious: no single dialogue can be adequately understood as philosophical writing without drawing support from elsewhere, especially from other dialogues. Some few scholars have inferred from this fact that the dialogues must therefore not be philosophical writings after all, that is, there must be no doctrine in them that the author intends to communicate to anyone in any way. The radical nature of this interpretation does not in itself disqualify it. What disqualifi es it is the fact that by using all the dialogues for the purpose of interpreting any one it is possible to discern in the dialogues philosophical doctrine as well as, we must admit, philosophical doubt. Rejecting the arbitrary philosophical atomizing of the dialogues, we can avail ourselves of the indirect evidence. The utility of this evidence from Aristotle onward is immense. Not only does it fi ll out the picture of Platonism in the dialogues, but it reinforces the claim that Platonism is not primarily what we might term a ‘dialogic artifact.’ It was primarily a way of life. And the focus of that way of life, at least within the Academy, was the positive construction of a theoretical framework on the foundation of UP. This does not make the dialogues irrelevant; it makes them what all Platonists took them to be, namely, λο´γοι of that way of life. Altering our optic from the dialogues to Platonism as a way of life enables us to give both developmentalists and unitarians their due. Indeed, it also enables us to account for the privileged position of Socrates in the dialogues and even the connection between the dialogic Socrates and the historical one. Socrates, we could say, was taken by his admirers to have had an anima platonica naturaliter, even if as a matter of historical fact he never attained to the theoretical basis for this.

>>16389721
>Plotinus was the inheritor of some six hundred years of Platonic exegesis when he resolved, late in his own life, to present his understanding of Platonism. Some of the salient features of that exegesis have been treated in the third part of this book. Plotinus would have no doubt been mortifi ed to hear the charge that he was doing something other than accurately representing and setting forth in a systematic fashion what Plato himself taught. But as Plotinus himself recognizes, there are loose ends in the Platonic construct and there are obscurities that are as often as not likely to be the result of doubt over the correct resolution of an issue. All the more reason, Plotinus probably held, that a systematic expression of Platonism was desirable precisely so that these loose ends could be tied up and these obscurities eliminated. In evaluating the cogency of this systematic expression we should not lose sight of these six hundred years that separated him from Plato and that naturally resulted in a philosophical climate different from the one found in the middle of the fourth century BCE in Athens. Nevertheless, we should really acquit Plotinus of the charge of deviating from Plato solely on the grounds of this six-hundred-year gap. To suppose that Plotinus simply must be the product of something called philosophical ‘development’ is, I maintain, to underestimate the philosophical acumen both of him and of his master.

UR-Platonism refers to—antinominalism, antimaterialism, antimechanism,
antirelativism, and antiskepticism; at least one of these axioms are present in every dialogue, all of them are implied in every major dialogue.

>>16387801
>"How do we have knowledge of the forms?"
Unironically an OOBE

>>16387650
Upper back too muscular nvm

>>16387801
Assimilation to God

>>16387466
Wow that girl sure is pretty

>>16389615
Well for one they seem to lose meaning by taking all of Plato entirely literally and instead of rising up to his level of complexity fall into the general practice of his ideas religiously, less philosophically. It's also up to their interpretations of him to a large degree, and long enough time had past for it to be essentially its own thing, though in debt completely to Plato still. One example of difference is taking the Instance less all-encompassing and as a place in time instead.

>The Neoplatonic interpreters of Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus among them, took the first hypothesis to be the proper culmination of the dialogue; here, Plato would point to the absolute, unspeakable, and in comprehensible One, the fundamental source that is itself “beyond Being” (epekeinatou ontos) and from which all secondary reality emanates. This ineffable unity is the cornerstone of the elaborate Neoplatonic metaphysics of late antiquity.

The Neoplatonists, as beautiful and profound and great as they are, do not arrive at the same metaphysical revelation as Plato in the sense of truth.

>>16389615
>>16389721
>>16389742
Furthermore, no one, or at least not everyone who does not accept the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato, thinks that Plato can be interpreted by a single dialogue, people create enormous constructions from many historic documents and sources as they can, and we can see a very accurate conception of what Plato believed and said in his own dialogues, not "dialogue" as in non-plural which I am still confused as to why you brought it up.

>>16387466
Not like you would understand. Keep on smoking that brain fogger.

>>16389867
>After Schleiermacher, scholarly focus has gradually shifted from Platonism as a philosophical system or worldview to the dialogues themselves. This shift has come to seem so salutary because it is, of course, true that a careful reading of each dialogue in its dramatic context is a good thing. No doubt, the bad odor left by nineteenth-century idealistic system building in the twentieth century also contributed to a wish to pursue a more enlightened or perhaps less grandiose approach to Plato. Yet from the perspective of ancient Platonists, the flaw in this procedure is obvious: no single dialogue can be adequately understood as philosophical writing without drawing support from elsewhere, especially from other dialogues.

>>16389842
>You’ll be willing to say, I think, that the sun not only provides visible things with the power to be seen but also with coming to be, growth, and nourishment, although it is not itself coming to be.
How could it be?
>Therefore, you should also say that not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their being is also due to it, although the good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power.
And Glaucon comically said: By Apollo (the undivided), what a daemonic superiority!

>>16387466
I hate women so fucking much bros. I wish I was gay or asexual so I wouldn't have to endure the temptations of these harpies.

>>16389842
>fall into the general practice of his ideas religiously, less philosophically.
You don't understand Plato nor philosophy at all.

>>16387537
>They take the instant as a literal point in time rather than as the rooting of the forms in time on a whole.
also not sure whether you think the instant is only in time or whether it is pointing to as the nature of Soul as all time itself.
The Neoplatonists affirmed both of these.
VISITOR: But for heaven’s sake, are we going to be convinced that it’s
true that change, life, soul, and intelligence are not present in that which
wholly is, and that it neither lives nor thinks, but stays changeless, solemn,
and holy, without any understanding?
THEAETETUS: If we did, sir, we’d be admitting something frightening.
VISITOR: But are we going to say that it has understanding but doesn’t
have life?
THEAETETUS: Of course not.
VISITOR: But are we saying that it has both those things in it while denying
that it has them in a soul?
THEAETETUS: How else would it have them?
VISITOR: And are we saying that it has intelligence, life, and soul, but
that it’s at rest and completely changeless even though it’s alive?
THEAETETUS: All that seems completely unreasonable.
VISITOR: Then both that which changes and also change have to be admitted
as being.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
VISITOR: And so, Theaetetus, it turns out that if no beings change then
nothing anywhere possesses any intelligence about anything.
THEAETETUS: Absolutely not.
VISITOR: But furthermore if we admit that everything is moving and
changing, then on that account we take the very same thing away from
those which are.
THEAETETUS: Why?
VISITOR: Do you think that without rest anything would be the same, in
the same state in the same respects?
THEAETETUS: Not at all.
VISITOR: Well then, do you see any case in which intelligence is or comesto-be anywhere without these things?
THEAETETUS: Not in the least.
VISITOR: And we need to use every argument we can to fight against
anyone who does away with knowledge, understanding, and intelligence
but at the same time asserts anything at all about anything.
THEAETETUS: Definitely.
VISITOR: The philosopher—the person who values these things the
most—absolutely has to refuse to accept the claim that everything is at
rest, either from defenders of the one or from friends of the many forms.
In addition he has to refuse to listen to people who make that which is
change in every way. He has to be like a child begging for “both,” and
say that that which is—everything—is both the unchanging and that
which changes.

This is the transcendent Instant, the Mixed, the One-Being, or if you prefer 'super-essential Demiurge' or 'Supermundane Abyss', the fulcrum of the Limiting and Unlimited.
Likewise the Instant is at the root of the nature of Soul itself, self-motion. That which can go deeper than Tartarus and higher than Olympus.

>>16387719
Nietzsche was religious as a kid, he simply grew out of it. He read Kant's critiques at the very least. Plato falls apart for the same reason all hinterworldly philosophers do. They build the world beyond using the bricks from this one. The higher they stack, the less meaning the material world has. What a surprise that no hinterworldly philosopher was honest enough to renounce his body and continue his existence as something detached from it.

>>16387466
The forms as an idea stemmed from Plato's misunderstanding of geometry.

>>16390264
"Of course these men are alive," he said, "who have flown from the
bonds of their bodies as from a prison; indeed, that life of yours, as it
is called, is really death. Just look up and see your father Paulus
approaching you."
[3] When I saw him, I wept profusely, but he embraced and kissed
me and forbade me to weep. As soon as I could check my tears and
speak out, I said: "I pray you, most revered and best of fathers, since
this is truly life, as I hear Africanus tell, why do I linger on earth ?
Why do I not hasten hither to you ?"
[4] "You are mistaken," he replied, "for until that God who rules
all the region of the sky at which you are now looking has freed you
from the fetters of your body, you cannot gain admission here. Men
were created with the understanding that they were to look after
that sphere called Earth, which you see in the middle of the temple.
Minds have been given to them out of the eternal fires you call fixed
stars and planets, those spherical solids which, quickened with divine
minds, journey through their circuits and orbits with amazing speed.
[5] Wherefore, Scipio, you and all other dutiful men must keep your
souls in the custody of your bodies and must not leave this life of
men except at the command of that One who gave it to you, that
you may not appear to have deserted the office assigned you. But,
Scipio, cherish justice and your obligations to duty, as your grandfather here,
and I, your father, have done; this is important where
parents and relatives are concerned, but is of utmost importance in
matters concerning the commonwealth. [6] This sort of life is your
passport into the sky, to a union with those who have finished their
lives on earth and who, upon being released from their bodies, inhabit
that place at which you arc now looking" (it was a circle of surpassing
brilliance gleaming out amidst the blazing stars), "which takes its
name, the Milky Way, from the Greek word."

>If it is god, in the first place, who ‘loves humanity’, who is ‘philanthropic’, then, by assimilation to god, by becoming united to the Good and by sharing in it, the philosopher also shares in this divine philanthropy, an assimilation which manifests itself in political action.

>>16390299
Pray tell what was misunderstood regarding geometry?

If socrates is a man, and socrates is hooked nose, is hooked nose a form of socrates or is man? Is hooked nose man a form? Is socrates a form of socrates or is hooked nose? Is white man a form different from black man? These problems come from not distinguishing accidents from formal principles, and separating form from substance, now I'd like one sex please

>>16390374
He took it as the starting point rather than as the end point. If he hadn't done this, he would have never arrived at the idea of the forms to begin with.

There are no geometric shapes in nature. There's no perfect circle, perfect line, etc. All appearances of such stem from a weakness in eyesight; even a line drawn on a piece of paper with a ruler or compass is not perfect if measured closely enough with a magnifying glass. What appears like a perfect circle or line at a distance only appears that way because our eyes are not strong enough. Consequently, geometry represents nothing besides the weakness of our eyesight.

The forms are the same way. We sit in many different types of chairs, and the idea of a "perfect chair" may arise in our head, but only due to a weakness of perception. The "perfect chair" does not dictate all of the particular chairs; it is all of the particular chairs and our comparison of them that dictate the erroneous notion of the "perfect chair." The forms are merely an expression of a will that is too weak to dominate reality and requires its own mind to fill in and compensate for that insufficiency.

>>16390264
>>16390355
As Damascius, now in his late twenties, watched how people responded to persecution, he discovered many unpleasant things about human nature, reviewed his scale of values and lost confidence in several of his associates. But he also verified for himself the cardinal Platonic axiom that man is not an essentially evil creature: the behaviour of several pagans during the crisis~including that of his own younger brother Julian, who “was beaten up with many rods, but did not utter a word” (119J)-showed that, by triumphing over moral laxity, adversity may reveal unsuspected depths of bravery and nobility in quite ordinary men.*? Thus the persecution of 488/9 proved a turning point —and a positive one—in Damascius’ life, prompting thoughts like the following:
>Men tend to bestow the name of virtue on a life of inactivity, but I do not agree with this view. For the virtue which engages in the midst of public life through political activity and discourse fortifies the soul and strengthens through exercise what is healthy and perfect, while the impure and false element that lurks in human lives is fully exposed and more easily set on the road to improvement. And indeed politics offers great possibilities for doing what is good and useful; also for courage and firmness. That is why the learned, who sit in their corner and philosophise at length and in a grand manner about justice and moderation, utterly disgrace themselves if they are compelled to take some action. Thus bereft of action, all discourse appears vain and empty.

>>16390439
>There are no geometric shapes in nature. There's no perfect circle, perfect line, etc. All appearances of such stem from a weakness in eyesight; even a line drawn on a piece of paper with a ruler or compass is not perfect if measured closely enough with a magnifying glass. What appears like a perfect circle or line at a distance only appears that way because our eyes are not strong enough. Consequently, geometry represents nothing besides the weakness of our eyesight.
such incredible insight!
>The forms are the same way. We sit in many different types of chairs, and the idea of a "perfect chair" may arise in our head, but only due to a weakness of perception. The "perfect chair" does not dictate all of the particular chairs; it is all of the particular chairs and our comparison of them that dictate the erroneous notion of the "perfect chair." The forms are merely an expression of a will that is too weak to dominate reality and requires its own mind to fill in and compensate for that insufficiency.
see >>16388421

>>16387519

why do people constantly try to mock the theory of forms by trying to come up with a form for every individual object to the point of absurdity? did I miss something? in all of the dialogues Socrates is looking for the form of invisible principles like truth, justice, equality. the form of a basic fucking object would be whatever the pure form of the material that it is made out of (represented by it’s molecular structure(s)), and the shape that it is most closely fashioned in

>>16390454
>such incredible insight!
Insight that you don't seem to understand. What all of it means is that geometry, and by extension the forms, is an error. The entire thing stems from an error in judgement. Nothing is or can be learned through geometry or the forms; they are non-concepts.

>>16390439

This doesn’t refute the theory at all. I think you missed the point where the phenomena that we experience are not the actual forms themselves, but approximations of them, or a spectrum that one could imagine.

>>16389243
>>16389335

>>16390487
Our experiences are not approximations of an error in judgement. This notion makes no sense. The forms don't exist in any sense other than as errors in judgement, like geometry. They don't inform us or the world of anything — the world causes its weakest parts to erroneously imagine these forms.

>>16390355
Gee, a philosophy that shits on the material world also forbids suicide, that's a first. He really did pave the way for christianity. How was he so sure of the intellectual ability of the soul anyway, even according to him it fails at least once per birth.

>>16389947
>>You’ll be willing to say, I think, that the sun not only provides visible things with the power to be seen but also with coming to be, growth, and nourishment, although it is not itself coming to be.
>How could it be?
>>Therefore, you should also say that not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their being is also due to it, although the good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power.
>And Glaucon comically said: By Apollo (the undivided), what a daemonic superiority!
This is why no one takes you LARPing traditionalists seriously, you don't argue and just spout your usual phrases and defences. It's dishonest.

>>16387466
>>16387603
>>16387650
I can see how some men have lost their minds over women.