[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[emjay]

We were assigned Crito and The Republic in philosophy 101. Loved Crito and the crisp lucidity of Plato's thinking. At the time, I didn't really like The Republic because of all the mean things he said about democracy.

In the 40 odd years since then, I've thought he might have been right. Today I think a benevolent dictatorship/monarchy might be the perfect form of government. The rub seems to be that benevolent dictators have been pretty thin on the ground within my lifetime...

I've read that some of the ancient pharaohs were pretty good. Akhenaten tried to introduce a form of monotheism to Egypt . However, he was apparently a bit of a cunt about it, as religious fanatics tend to be.

The only benevolent dictator I've read about was Ashoka The Great because . He became a devout Buddhist and did all kinds of peachy things---of course that was after his wars and casual killings of individuals.


"Ashoka (/əˈʃoʊkə/; Brāhmi: 𑀅𑀲𑁄𑀓, Asoka,[5] IAST: Aśoka), also known as Ashoka the Great, Piodasses in ancient Greece, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty son of Chadragupta Maurya, who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from c. 268 to 232 BCE.[6][7], Ashoka promoted the spread of Buddhism across ancient Asia.[4] Considered by many to be one of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka expanded Chandragupta's empire to reign over a realm stretching from present-day Afghanistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east. It covered the entire Indian subcontinent except for parts of present-day Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala. The empire's capital was Pataliputra (in Magadha, present-day Patna), with provincial capitals at Taxila and Ujjain. Ashoka after the war of kaliningrad get upset with the bloodshed and vowed to never fight again. He embraced Buddhism and patronised Buddhism in his rule and reign."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka

Interesting. I haven't read enough of Republic yet (but hope to over the next few days) to see exactly what you're talking about, but I'd guess if he favours that kind of government vs democracy he's arguing something like 'it's better to be ruled by one wise man than many fools' or something like that? If so I can understand that at least in the case of a court of law, where some cases at least - like the recent Epic vs Apple (which I followed a lawyer following it, in depth, on YouTube) - I was very glad when both sides chose a bench trial over a jury trial... because in that sort of very complicated case it looked like it would be much better decided by one person who knows the relevant laws inside out rather than on the whims and succeptibility to persuasion by rhetoric of a jury.

Anyway, as to the Buddhism aspect, I think that's interesting too because as far as I can see, there are quite a lot of parallels between Buddhism and the thoughts of Socrates in Phaedo (ie the reincarnation ideas about the soul) as well as there being quite a lot of similarity between Plato's ideas of Virtue and the similar ideas in Buddhism (eg Right Thought, Right Action etc)... so based on what you've said about this Buddhist ruler, I'm wondering if there was perhaps some Platonic influence there in the development of Buddhism.

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Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definitely add them to my 'syllabus' as I said ... but I'm hoping in the long run to read them all... so as soon as I get to the end of this playlist, try and find another, because it is good (to me) to have a discussion of sorts at the end of the reading to cement and clarify the ideas.

It was only only one suggestion. Symposium. The book is a collection of speeches on love given by different members at a party. The best speeches are those of Aristophanes and Socrates. But all of them are good, especially if you want to see how Plato thoroughly explores different takes on the thesis. I read Jowett translations mostly when I started to read Plato. They are fine. But NOT for the Symposium. I can't stress enough how superior the Avo Sharon translation is. If you can't find a Sharon translation cheap, I'll scan my copy in for you. But I can't imagine a used copy is more than 5 bucks. (Probably less.)

I've started on it but to be honest it feels completely different from the others and nowhere near as clear, especially as it's so much couched in the mythology of the day. Maybe I just don't know enough about love, but I'm just finding it really hard to follow and over my head... more like reading Shakespeare, which has never been my forte or interest. Do you like it for the ideas or the language? And is it perhaps an acquired taste/skill to read it (as reading Shakespeare is... you have to be familiar with the language of the day, and in this case also the mythology of the day)... more so than the other dialogues? Another thought is that the other dialogues I've been reading have all been on similar and related themes, since they've been part of the same curriculum, so that could also account for why they comparatively seem far easier to understand.

It just feels familiar at this point to what we've been covering in this thread, but I haven't really analysed anything yet to see where those similarities lie - that sounds like a fun project for later.

For me, I can't really choose between them at this point; the dialogue form of Plato is definitely very engaging to put it mildly, but Aristotle is very clear and concise in his writing style too, so I appreciate both of them really, in different ways.

Aristotle certainly did the work of "proto-science" before the scientific method was discovered by humankind. He was much more valuable to the ancients for that reason. His ideas are more clear, as well. Plato is trying to get to the bottom of things we still don't fully understand today (politics, the human mind, etc.). Aristotle had things to say on those too, but I consider him less profound.

The thing about Aristotle being a proto-scientist is that he set himself up to become outdated. We still have virtue ethics and things, though. TBH, I have never completed Nicomachean Ethics or any of Aristotle's works. So maybe I'm selling him short.

As for a thread, you'd be surprised how many folks have mentioned Plato round these parts. I may start one just to see what happens. But, as you continue to read Plato, it's nice to be able to bring out cool (or confusing) passages for discussion/exegesis.

Yep, I see what you're saying about Aristotle's proto-science... and I personally love how methodical it is... vs the sort of stuff that Plato's talking about.

I haven't read any of the Nicomachean dialogues per se, but if you just want a summary/analysis of them, as I said, I'd highly recommend Adam Rosenfeld's YouTube videos on the subject. His passion for them is very clear in his lectures.

Cool, look forward to seeing that thread then. Anyway, I should be asleep now (it's 4am) so I'll say night night for now

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@emjay

You should get to the crux quite soon, it's a thin book.

Plato's views seem pretty radical to us, and probably to his peers in Athens as well . Athens had a kind of proto democracy, which was actually rule by referendum, with about 1/3 of adults being eligible to vote on every important issue. Women and slaves had no vote.

Plato argues that rulers should be brought up and trained as such, just like many other occupations. He uses the analogy of a ship's captain.

[vulcanlogician]

He uses the analogy of a ship's captain.

The ship of state. One of my favorite analogies. I don't think Plato so much hated the idea of democracy. I think he dislikes what it becomes. A bunch of idiots who don't know how to steer the ship and are too busy trying to "become the one who gets to steer" that they feel little need to actually learn how to steer it. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

He uses the analogy of a ship's captain.

The ship of state. One of my favorite analogies. I don't think Plato so much hated the idea of democracy. I think he dislikes what it becomes. A bunch of idiots who don't know how to steer the ship and are too busy trying to "become the one who gets to steer" that they feel little need to actually learn how to steer it. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

 Familiar? Yair

Le plus ca change, Plus C'est la meme chose

[emjay]

@emjay

You should get to the crux quite soon, it's a thin book.

I'm not as confident on that, since it took me several hours just to get through I and II, but I'm in no particular hurry.

Plato's views seem pretty radical to us, and probably to his peers in Athens as well . Athens had a kind of proto democracy, which was actually rule by referendum, with about 1/3 of adults being eligible to vote on every important issue. Women and slaves had no vote.

Plato argues that rulers should be brought up and trained as such, just like many other occupations. He uses the analogy of a ship's captain.

Yeah, that analogy seems familiar from the first book or two, where he talks about the captain of a ship not being about sailing per se (ie with the sailing aspect being basically incidental - it being more about ruling men), but I just haven't yet got to the point where such an example is concretely installed in this abstract ideal state of theirs (I know that sounds like an oxymoron ).

[Belacqua]

Yeah, that analogy seems familiar from the first book or two, where he talks about the captain of a ship not being about sailing per se (ie with the sailing aspect being basically incidental - it being more about ruling men), but I just haven't yet got to the point where such an example is concretely installed in this abstract ideal state of theirs (I know that sounds like an oxymoron ).

In your study of the Republic, have you been working with the idea that the whole thing is largely allegorical? There is a theory that Plato's primary interest is in how one governs oneself, and that the idea of a city-state is used largely because it's easier to talk about than psychology. Waterfield's introduction to his translation has this good passage:

Republic is Plato’s main attempt to define in non-abstract terms how an individual can fulfil himself, can attain happiness or ‘live the good life’, as a Greek would have said. A Greek would have expected such a discussion to be couched in political terms—and that is what we get, though not entirely in the way a Greek would have expected. 

Overt discussion of political and other external issues would be a ‘hard’ aspect of the book; in Republic there are also ‘soft’ aspects to this discussion. It is possible to read the book as a predominantly individualist approach to the issues, with the tra­ditional political terminology of the debate suborned and largely turned over to metaphorical purposes, to describe the inner state of the individual. Metaphor is a familiar method for turning hard aspects into soft aspects; and it is typical of Plato’s sense of humour that he would turn the usual terms of debate on their head in this way.

This is not to say, of course, that the soft aspects of the book (those concerned with the inner state of an individual) are all the book consists of. As Plato projects the inner life of an individual out on to the larger screen of a mythical world where political factors play a part, he does also make some proposals which
are more concerned with outer politics than the inner politics of the individual—which are hard rather than soft. In fact, because he is such a skilful writer, he often writes for both layers simultaneously. But the hard aspects of the book are less than one might expect: the outside world takes on a half-life, but the inner life of the individual is the primary concern of the book. As a metaphor, the politics of Republic is stimulating and coherent; as a manifesto, it is naive and fragmentary. Anyone reading the book with a view to finding a political philosophy to follow or to criticize is going to be disappointed and will be forced to supply a lot of the evidence.

The ambitious project of the book is to demonstrate that morality is beneficial to its possessor—that, in fact, an individual gains in happiness by being moral whether or not any external advantages accrue to him. At the beginning of Chapter 3 Plato says that this is a tough task, since it is difficult to look inside a person’s mind and see what is good or bad there. He therefore proposes to work with a political analogy: perhaps morality will be easier to see if we construct a community, describe its political system, and look for morality in this imaginary community. If the analogy with an individual is exact, we shall then be able to dis­cover the features of the ‘political’ state of affairs in an individual. There is nothing ambiguous about this. In Republic Plato is not primarily interested in politics in the real world: he is constructing
an imaginary community, to serve as a paradigm. The primary purpose for any political exploration that will occur in the book is a ‘soft’ purpose—to help us understand an individual. And Plato constantly reminds us that this is the point of the ‘politics’: time and again he mentions the individual who is supposed to cor­respond to the imaginary state. These reminders can be found at 35ie, 369a, 43zb, 434d, 441c, 445c, 47zc-d, 541b, 543d~544a and throughout Chapters 11 and iz, 605b, and 608a—b.

This and the Symposium are both, in the end, largely challenges and puzzles -- in this way perhaps more like literature than the philosophy we're accustomed to. Waterfield is surely right to say that Plato is a genius writer, and capable of working at different levels and doing any number of things at once.

Socrates is said to have given up his scientific inquires because he thought science is worthless to us if we're still bad people. Likewise, I suspect that Plato's interest in politics is largely based on his desire to help us become good individuals.

[vulcanlogician]

It was only only one suggestion. Symposium. The book is a collection of speeches on love given by different members at a party. The best speeches are those of Aristophanes and Socrates.

I've started on it but to be honest it feels completely different from the others and nowhere near as clear, especially as it's so much couched in the mythology of the day.

What translation?

Maybe I just don't know enough about love, but I'm just finding it really hard to follow and over my head... more like reading Shakespeare, which has never been my forte or interest. Do you like it for the ideas or the language? And is it perhaps an acquired taste/skill to read it (as reading Shakespeare is... you have to be familiar with the language of the day, and in this case also the mythology of the day)... more so than the other dialogues? Another thought is that the other dialogues I've been reading have all been on similar and related themes, since they've been part of the same curriculum, so that could also account for why they comparatively seem far easier to understand.

An important distinction needs to be made among Plato's early, middle, and late works.

The early dialogues are called "aporetic" dialogues. Remember Socrates liked to show people they knew less than they really knew. (Called a state of "aporia.") Meno and Apology-- which you have read-- are early dialogues. Notice in Meno how the issue of whether virtue can be learned is never really settled. The question is explored, but you are left dissatisfied at the end. That's intentional. Plato wants to start the conversation, not finish it. Euthyphro is a good early dialogue too. Maybe required reading for all atheists.

Phaedo, Republic, and Symposium are middle works. In these dialogues, Plato keeps the aporetic vibe going throughout, but he spends more time trying to resolve the issues than in his early works. He doesn't want to just raise the question and send the reader off packing. He wants to argue his particular thinking on the matter. In the Republic, as Belacqua says, he wants to explore the just soul. He uses the analogy of the state to arrange the soul into parts reason/spirit/desire-- rulers/warriors/producers. Arguably, after book 4 he starts commenting on politics proper. Book 4 itself is my favorite book from the Republic.

Yeah... I'm rambling... but I am curious about the Symposium translation you're reading.

[emjay]

Yeah, that analogy seems familiar from the first book or two, where he talks about the captain of a ship not being about sailing per se (ie with the sailing aspect being basically incidental - it being more about ruling men), but I just haven't yet got to the point where such an example is concretely installed in this abstract ideal state of theirs (I know that sounds like an oxymoron ).

In your study of the Republic, have you been working with the idea that the whole thing is largely allegorical? There is a theory that Plato's primary interest is in how one governs oneself, and that the idea of a city-state is used largely because it's easier to talk about than psychology. Waterfield's introduction to his translation has this good passage:

Republic is Plato’s main attempt to define in non-abstract terms how an individual can fulfil himself, can attain happiness or ‘live the good life’, as a Greek would have said. A Greek would have expected such a discussion to be couched in political terms—and that is what we get, though not entirely in the way a Greek would have expected. 

Overt discussion of political and other external issues would be a ‘hard’ aspect of the book; in Republic there are also ‘soft’ aspects to this discussion. It is possible to read the book as a predominantly individualist approach to the issues, with the tra­ditional political terminology of the debate suborned and largely turned over to metaphorical purposes, to describe the inner state of the individual. Metaphor is a familiar method for turning hard aspects into soft aspects; and it is typical of Plato’s sense of humour that he would turn the usual terms of debate on their head in this way.

This is not to say, of course, that the soft aspects of the book (those concerned with the inner state of an individual) are all the book consists of. As Plato projects the inner life of an individual out on to the larger screen of a mythical world where political factors play a part, he does also make some proposals which
are more concerned with outer politics than the inner politics of the individual—which are hard rather than soft. In fact, because he is such a skilful writer, he often writes for both layers simultaneously. But the hard aspects of the book are less than one might expect: the outside world takes on a half-life, but the inner life of the individual is the primary concern of the book. As a metaphor, the politics of Republic is stimulating and coherent; as a manifesto, it is naive and fragmentary. Anyone reading the book with a view to finding a political philosophy to follow or to criticize is going to be disappointed and will be forced to supply a lot of the evidence.

The ambitious project of the book is to demonstrate that morality is beneficial to its possessor—that, in fact, an individual gains in happiness by being moral whether or not any external advantages accrue to him. At the beginning of Chapter 3 Plato says that this is a tough task, since it is difficult to look inside a person’s mind and see what is good or bad there. He therefore proposes to work with a political analogy: perhaps morality will be easier to see if we construct a community, describe its political system, and look for morality in this imaginary community. If the analogy with an individual is exact, we shall then be able to dis­cover the features of the ‘political’ state of affairs in an individual. There is nothing ambiguous about this. In Republic Plato is not primarily interested in politics in the real world: he is constructing
an imaginary community, to serve as a paradigm. The primary purpose for any political exploration that will occur in the book is a ‘soft’ purpose—to help us understand an individual. And Plato constantly reminds us that this is the point of the ‘politics’: time and again he mentions the individual who is supposed to cor­respond to the imaginary state. These reminders can be found at 35ie, 369a, 43zb, 434d, 441c, 445c, 47zc-d, 541b, 543d~544a and throughout Chapters 11 and iz, 605b, and 608a—b.

This and the Symposium are both, in the end, largely challenges and puzzles -- in this way perhaps more like literature than the philosophy we're accustomed to. Waterfield is surely right to say that Plato is a genius writer, and capable of working at different levels and doing any number of things at once.

Socrates is said to have given up his scientific inquires because he thought science is worthless to us if we're still bad people. Likewise, I suspect that Plato's interest in politics is largely based on his desire to help us become good individuals.

Cool, thanks for the additional perspective on it; I'll definitely keep that in mind as I continue to read. As it stands though I'm only on chapter three and only considering that, as with all the others so far, a first pass just to get the gist... I fully expect to reread some of these dialogues many times to get at the deeper and deeper levels, as your quote alludes to and the lectures I've been watching on YouTube also talk about... like layers of an onion, with new insights and connections coming with every reread.

I can certainly understand where that thinking comes from in what I've observed of Plato so far; his fondness for using similes (and this is to this as that is to that, if that is the same thing... eg craftsman acts to the benefit of the craft, so ruler if likened to that, should also be acting for the benefit of the ruled... but whether this is the case in the counter example given of who a shepherd benefits with regard to a flock (ie the flock or himself); I'm curious to see how, or if, Plato resolves that little dilemma in the rest of the dialogue) and metaphors everywhere, including, kind of nested. So if I had done my due diligence, as my YouTube teacher would have suggested, I should have been on the lookout from the get-go for little metaphorical sleights of hand like that from Plato, but as I say it's just my first pass, and I'm not that far into it, so I think I can be excused of that So yeah, I look forward to seeing the big picture and what he has to say about the psyche through this metaphor.

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I've started on it but to be honest it feels completely different from the others and nowhere near as clear, especially as it's so much couched in the mythology of the day.

What translation?

It's a Kindle ebook, "The Complete Works of Plato", translated by Benjamin Jowlett. I know you've talked about preferred translations, but as I've just said to Belacqua, at the moment I'm only really trying to get the gist of these dialogues... a first pass as it were, and all the other dialogues I've covered so far have been very clear, so I didn't expect getting a different translation to mean much to me at this point... in other words I thought you were maybe talking from a connoisseur's point of view rather than a layman's. I'm sorry about that, I meant no offence. I'll look for the other translation if it's that different.

Maybe I just don't know enough about love, but I'm just finding it really hard to follow and over my head... more like reading Shakespeare, which has never been my forte or interest. Do you like it for the ideas or the language? And is it perhaps an acquired taste/skill to read it (as reading Shakespeare is... you have to be familiar with the language of the day, and in this case also the mythology of the day)... more so than the other dialogues? Another thought is that the other dialogues I've been reading have all been on similar and related themes, since they've been part of the same curriculum, so that could also account for why they comparatively seem far easier to understand.

An important distinction needs to be made among Plato's early, middle, and late works.

The early dialogues are called "aporetic" dialogues. Remember Socrates liked to show people they knew less than they really knew. (Called a state of "aporia.") Meno and Apology-- which you have read-- are early dialogues. Notice in Meno how the issue of whether virtue can be learned is never really settled. The question is explored, but you are left dissatisfied at the end. That's intentional. Plato wants to start the conversation, not finish it. Euthyphro is a good early dialogue too. Maybe required reading for all atheists.

Phaedo, Republic, and Symposium are middle works. In these dialogues, Plato keeps the aporetic vibe going throughout, but he spends more time trying to resolve the issues than in his early works. He doesn't want to just raise the question and send the reader off packing. He wants to argue his particular thinking on the matter. In the Republic, as Belacqua says, he wants to explore the just soul. He uses the analogy of the state to arrange the soul into parts reason/spirit/desire-- rulers/warriors/producers. Arguably, after book 4 he starts commenting on politics proper. Book 4 itself is my favorite book from the Republic.

Yeah... I'm rambling... but I am curious about the Symposium translation you're reading.

Yeah, I'm nowhere near being able to make the sorts of distinctions you're making... thanks for the education... you (and Belacqua) seem to really know your stuff As for Euthyphro, that was the last one I watched before starting to read and watch, so I really should read that and then watch the video again.

[vulcanlogician]

We may be derailing Neo's thread a bit here. I think we can get it back on track though, and even make the pitstop at Plato relevant. We can compare Plato to Aristotle real quick, focus on the necessaries of Aristotle, and then head back to Aquinas.

I am somewhat familiar with hylomorphism. Enough to conduct an analysis comparing it to Plato's forms. I wonder, though, how much hylomorphism is present in Aquinas's 5 ways?

@Neo-Scholastic Is it? ^^

If hylomorphism is impertinent to the subject matter, then I see little value in examining it. But if it IS relevant, let's explore it. I've always thought hylomorphism is better than materialists take it to be. It takes what Plato says about intelligibility and removes Plato's forms from it. It's a cleaner and more succinct rendition of Plato's forms.

But, as I said before, I'm curious how much hylomorphism is present in Aquinas's thinking.

[emjay]

Yeah, that's probably my fault, vulcan, sorry, since my focus is a lot broader than yours in all of this... basically to learn about classical philosophy and Aquinas, long term, and where it all feels interconnected or potentially interconnected. And that scope has broadened even more since starting this, since I'm enjoying reading the classical philosophy in it's own right as well as as it pertains to Aquinas.