My reading of Plato

>My reading of Plato

The world that appears to our senses is defective and filled with error populated by entities called “forms” or “ideas” and these abstractions are eternal, changeless. But there is a more real and perfect realm and in some sense paradigmatic for the structure and character of the world of our senses. This is the World As It Is and I believe Plato was the first phenomenologist. But that's completely opposite to what we know about Plato, right? Plato says it's reality that's fucked, and there's a spirit realm of perfect shit, that's what we are told, right? More on why I think that Plato never meant that in a moment. Calm your tits and let me continue with my reading.

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I found that the most fundamental distinction in Plato's philosophy is between the many observable objects that appear beautiful and "the one object" that is what beauty "really is", from which those many beautiful things receive their names and their corresponding characteristics. Nearly every major work of Plato is, in some way, devoted to or dependent on this distinction. But here's the kicker: he never says it straight out. Think about it! It's all in dialogue form. How do you know he is not poking fun at this ridiculous abstracting? Oh because we have many people tell No, he really believes in that. Nevertheless many of his works explore the ethical and practical consequences of conceiving of reality in this bifurcated way. I believe what Plato really believed, given that his student was the Father of science, that we are urged to transform our values by taking to heart the greater reality and the defectiveness of the subjective world. I believe Plato meant through his dialogues that we must recognize that the body is a different sort of object from the soul—so much so that it does not depend on the existence of the soul for its functioning, and can in fact grasp the nature of reality far more easily when it is not encumbered by its attachment to anything abstract.

>who the fuck do you think you are extrapolating all this shit?!?!

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My reading is encouraged by the belief that the forces surrounding religion and politics over the thousand years around the birth of Christ shaped Plato's works and bastardized it and if it wasn't for Aristotle's space for metaphysics and the cleansing of religion by the Muslim caliphate, science would have been completely stunted by these institutionalized power hungry historically based forces (I.e. Rome, Judea, etc.). I believe Socrates isn't his "go to" guy, but a clown, perhaps fictional, and one that needs to die. Of course the oracle would say he was the wisest, the oracle doesn't know shit! In my reading of Plato he uses a very creative way of saying what he really believes by having this clown say it in the opposite and that what Plato really wants for us, and for philosophy is nothing short of a phenomenological science. I have found in a few of his dialogue works that, if you keep in mind this creative inversion technique, Plato really believes it is the body, not the soul, that always retains the ability to recollect what it once grasped of reality, and that the lives we lead are to some extent a punishment or reward for choices our ancestors made in their life (genes, inheritance, etc.). We all know this to be obviously true, that we are a product of our ancestors, but the genius of Plato, beyond the technique, is that he is saying that the body itself anchors is to reality and that subjectivity is a weak spook. Plato is doing existential psychology, he is at the forefront of creative writing and the psychology of being and that's why he is still the first, the head of philosophy. I believe that if we read through the bullshit of spooky readings we see that in many of Plato's writings it is asserted or assumed that the truly enlightened —those who recognize how important it is to distinguish the many (the many real things that are called good or virtuous or courageous, which is true) from "the one" (the one thing that goodness is, or virtue is, or courage is, which is retarded) —are in a position to become ethically superior to unenlightened human beings, because of the greater degree of insight they can acquire into the abundance of reality (I.e. zoology, astronomy, geology, etc.). You see that science belongs not to Aristotle, but to his all too brilliant and deceptive teacher, Plato.

(3/3)

You made it. Are you pissed off? You should be faggot

K E K
E
K

...

>The world that appears to our senses is defective and filled with error populated by entities called “forms” or “ideas” and these abstractions are eternal, changeless.

>forms
>sensible

>eternal
>perceptible

Not even being mean, how did you make such a big mistake? Your ontology is a mess, and to be honest if you misread such a crucial piece of Plato you probably misread a lot of other stuff too and probably need to reread it. Also you should read Copleston's section on Plato in his history of philosophy, which will clarify what seem to be still-muddy waters for you, and give you some firmer ground to stand on when you reread Plato.

t. did not continue reading past your ontological mistake

Well I actually read all your post and that picture and I absolutely disagree with you and your jpg.

That's fine. You stand opposed to basically universal agreement over 2400 years of Platonic scholarship. Questions of immanence/partaking of Forms are debates still going on in the field; the conception of Forms as intelligible and eternal is not one of them. You are wrong.

Have you ever considered the possibility that the misreading is the actual meaning of a text? Of course not. Plato would never condone lying to people. Even if it was golden.

Yeah, that is literally one of the main themes and difficulties of Platonic scholarship. You're not outwitting thousands of scholars and philosophers, you're just being a contrarian faggot who misunderstands not only Plato's ontology, but apparently his ethics as well, because his metaphysics and the obscurity in his written doctrines have basically nothing to do with the charter falsehoods proposed in Republic/Laws.

You can post as many Plato memes as you want; they won't make you any less wrong.

PS Have you read any secondary texts on Plato or are you just totally bullshitting the defense of your misreading and trying to back it up with "lel nobody knows what he meant anyway"?

You mean 2400 years of Platonic cucking. Since your the only one here I'm gonna be nice and honest- as far as I can tell, a genius, and Plato was most certainly that, is by the very extremity of his knowledge, is inclined to tell the truth, for all he knows he could be the only one around who knows, and at the same time, reveal it in such a way as to make it accessible only to a select few, for if the reigning powers were to catch wind of the idol breaking- that would mean not only his life but that of his loved ones. I have my reasons

Congratulations on babby's first wiki-tier grasp of Plato's biographical circumstances leading to the indirect exposition of his philosophy, and the obscurity veiling his positive doctrine.

Now read a real fucking commentary on Plato before shitting up this board again with easily answered questions that get addressed in every fucking intro to Plato, ever.

>doesn't read the whole post
>responds anyway
>gets confused as he replies
>gets mad
>succumbs to name calling
>still wants to know

R u lost?

>"omg bro, all u have to do is believe what everyone else does. It's orientation and matriculation."

Thinking really is dead

Not that user but it's quite clear how much you're posturing right now. Best stop.

I'm actually laying in bed scratching my balls

What people don't take into consideration is the climate during that time. We live in an age of such freedom we can't fathom the kind of scholarship that survives only through code and cyphers. It's enough to read and regurgitate and call our babble thinking. Sad.

>lol I dun evn care o-okay

You should hide thread.

Or what?

You should suck this dick faggot

>precocious pseud kid in absolute shambles

Lmao. Actually study the scholarship you're pretending to be better than. Or is that too le conformist for a natural wunderkind like you?

Lol right? This thread started pretty bad and then just got awful.

>here's what I think about the most famous philosopher ever NO I haven't read what anyone else thought clearly I alone am correct and how can you even prove otherwise because Plato was probably always lying hahaha

Embarrassing.

Basically

I actually studied Ion a week ago when I realized there was something fishy about the way Socrates kept saying really stupid shit yet was engaged in a conversation about a really interesting topic- if poetry comes from man or the gods- and i started thinking for myself (I know so edgy) and began to construct what I believe is a coherent argument in favor of Plato actually being a science hungry dude but b cause of the times was forced to write in code until his student, with the blessings of the emperor, was able to say out loud ALL YOU FAGGGOTS ARE SPOOKED AND DONT HAVE A NICKEL LF THINKING GOING ON BEHIND YOUR BEGUILED FACE

next

Are you even old enough to be posting here? Be honest.

>Plato isn't a monist because Plato is a pluralist because monism is retarded
No, you're retarded
I hope this is fucking bait, or have you actually never heard of the literary technique known as Socratic irony?

Interesting, but a few questions about that kind of reading:

1) Why would Plato write *so much* in that case, if his goal was a reductio of what we might call "Socratic Idealism"? Why not write the Republic and burn the rest as not as focused or essential?

2) What do you make then of other prominent speakers in the dialogues, like Parmenides, Timaeus, Critias, the Eleatic and Athenian Strangers? The Eleatic Stranger and Timaeus very notably maintain different understandings of the Forms than does Socrates, but how then do they play into your proposed reading, let alone the differences between Socrates's approach and those of others?

3) Since you mention Aristotle, what do you make of Aristotle's criticisms of Plato in his writings?

Different poster but I'm really curious to hear OP's opinions on the Parmenides in relation to Plato's use of Parmenides as a character in the dialogue. OP, what do you make of Proclus?

>I hope this is fucking bait
8/10 if it is. I don't think so; he sounds young.

Same. Another thing I'm curious about would be what OP makes of dramatic connections, e.g., that Phaedo, Parmenides, and Symposium all show something like the "education of Socrates," and his turn from teleological physics (Phaedo) to logos (Parmenides) and something like a response to the problems in the Parmenides via Diotima's teaching about eros (Symposium). That Plato has these elements in mind and yet still wrote Socrates as babbling about the Forms in Phaedo, when he could have edited it or done away with it, seems confusing if OP's thesis is right.

>a genius, and Plato was most certainly that, is by the very extremity of his knowledge, is inclined to tell the truth
What a fool you are.

OP probably thinks that Socrates is a static character who exists for comic effect, like some sort of Nietzschean ape to a Plato who is actually a Nietzsche dressed in a toga trapped inside the mind of an idiot on Veeky Forums.

Ah! Hello my friend. Thank you for reading. To your question

1. I don't know. I'm sure a lot more is lost.

2. I dare not make any half assed attempts of deconstructing any particular work given to the belief that each hold in themselves a key to Plato's actual beliefs and would require a severe drainage for maximal payout. Suffice it to say that my only aim here was to, off the cuff, extol what I believe, with the aforementioned particularities of the time and place in which the dialogues were composed, a thorough portrait of an early scientist/polymath/ghost buster writing in code. I am certain that we have not even begun to understand Plato. Given that he was Aristotle's teacher, a rereading of Plato with what I have describes off the cuff here could possibly open up many fresh yet ancient paths of thought. I am eager to reread plato after tonight

3. This is a great question. I think perhaps Aristotle is working with Plato on this. Aristotle is attacking the ideas head on where Plato was only allowed to indirectly. In this way Aristotle truly never strayed from his teachers path. The question is, since we have the explicit ideas of Aristotle, what were those of Plato? Which did Aristotle take as his own, and which ones did he leave out or potentially not understand? And was he correct in his assesments.

The study continues my friend

I am proud to be a fool by you

>a thorough portrait of an early scientist/polymath/ghost buster writing in code
If you said this to me IRL then, at this point, I would have laughed in your face, turned 360*, and walked away.

All right, then--by your own logic, being a fool, you ought to be untruthful, since truth is the province of genius.

and i would have fell to the floor weeping, crying my eyes out at having been deserted by the excellence of your presence and would wish to whatever god i had left to confide in me words that would make you proud, halt your attention, and with an authorial acceptance, embraced me as your own!

>guys what if Plato actually meant the opposite of what he wrote down.
>isnt this such a revolutionary interpretation!!
>I know im a madman for even thinking this but calm down guys

You have already confessed in your belief that my words to you are the untruth so it only follows that youde think me a fool, which i am glad to be, becuase i disagree on the premise of what i said, not who i am... faggot

a caricature, but nonetheless, yes. thats exactly right.

How old are you? Be honest.
im already laughing

>I hope this is fucking bait

i know you do. Your pathtic excuse for a brain relies on it

There is a part where Socrates finds himself in doubt about the existence of forms for natural kinds like humans and water and stuffs or mixtures like hair and mud. Its not hard to see Plato poking fun at the way Socrates does mental gymnastics to save his precious ideas yet is unable to give certainty to the most real and obvious of things.

>Proclus

bro by that time we are fully immersed in the spooking of the world. It seems like everything around this time was just laying down the bedrock of christendom and the reawakening of the abrahamic god meaning if proclus contributed anything it was the foundations of what would become the roman catholic church

Perhaps Plato was, in completely and utterly destroying monism, providing it with every possible logical argument it could produce. That these were so convincing that other, dumber people (some which are in this thread) would take these to explain their religous proclivities is probably something Plato didnt expect. Or maybe he did? Maybe he was like, if your gonna be a dumb follower might as well be somewhat coherent in your, albeit irrational, belief.

yung dumb and full of cum

try again. this time, with a little more effort at coherence.

How do you explain Aristotle's criticism of Plato's theory of forms in Aristotle's Metaphysics?

This supposes something along the lines that either Aristotle didn't understand Plato's doctrines despite being considered a star pupil, and also despite likely having sympathy for what you claim Plato's true doctrine was,
or that you are in the same position as the Neoplatonists (though some may resent I present them this way) by claiming that this was a secret or occultic doctrine that Plato did not attempt to clarify with his other illustrious contemporaries?

I would also bring up the Diogenes anecdote, but I think it is spurious.

Just consider Plato's local wellspring

Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thucydides, etc.

does it follow that he would believe in the shit socrates was telling people in the dialogues? I dont think so, i really dont.

i addressed Aristotle's criticism here at #3

and please bring up the anecdote, its not spurious at all

But to build a chair you need an idea of a chair, it is not based on what appears to our senses. The ideal is the real reality, and that which governs the appearance of things in the world.

>But here's the kicker: he never says it straight out. Think about it! It's all in dialogue form.

Maybe in writing he knows that what is written, being an imitation of self-present speech, cannot truly represent what he is saying in a descriptive, one-to-one relationship between word and idea, and instead talks around the point to bring it up 'naturally' in the listener (reader) as he makes the connections between different points (like a dialogue itself, truth through discourse) and writes it in the soul, giving wisdom. Maybe Plato is the first post-structuralist.

what came first tho? the chair or the idea of a chair? or was the chair thought up by the very real necessity of our needing to sit on something?

>The ideal is the real reality, and that which governs the appearance of things in the world.

thank you for saying this honestly, because its exactly what i am trying to zap into oblivion. This is the enemy of the real, the idea that the ideas of man are more real than the very world that supports him.

>Maybe Plato is the first post-structuralist.
i wouldnt doubt that

>This is the enemy of the real, the idea that the ideas of man are more real than the very world that supports him.

claifying on this point, i go to francis bacon who says "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

You see science, real phenomenological science, is about getting in touch with the world, learning twhat is outside, as well as inside, but more importantly outside.

one thing that always gets me is that, while we are on this planet, fighting over our ideas, at any moment we can be struck by any one of the disasters that befall planets. Our own still bear the marks of such cataclysms. I find it difficult not to be hopeless, what when some writers or scientists talk about the possibility of controlling the weather, or traveling to other planets for safe havens, or protecting our planet from asteroids, they are drowned out by a call to prayer, or war.

>Maybe in writing he knows that what is written, being an imitation of self-present speech, cannot truly represent what he is saying in a descriptive, one-to-one relationship between word and idea, and instead talks around the point to bring it up 'naturally' in the listener (reader) as he makes the connections between different points (like a dialogue itself, truth through discourse) and writes it in the soul, giving wisdom.

yea yea thats the status quo intrepretation but im just not buying it.

>How do you explain Aristotle's criticism of Plato's theory of forms in Aristotle's Metaphysics?
>i addressed Aristotle's criticism here at #3

>literally one of the biggest philosophical controversies to emerge from the ancient world
>leading scholars still write book-length treatments of this issue and it remains unresolved to this day
>"guys I addressed this in those last 3 sentences"

This is the worst thread, with the most pseud OP, that I've seen on lit all summer.

Your welcome

Chutes and ladders motherfucker. I guess more chutes than ladders for some negro

Christ man you write like vomit drips. Stop with the thesaurus and parentheticals.

Anyway congrats on the brilliant thought experiment of intentionally reading the complete opposite meaning into what Plato says and surprisingly discovering that Plato meant the opposite of what he said. Amazing stuff.

>Not one good critique despite supposedly being more knowledgeable on plato than me

Even if you read all of plato and all his commentaries, Ur reading was useless cuz ur a Retard with no thoughts of your own. Even now u can only rely on name calling like a little school boy bitch. I'm wingin this shit and you had six hours to blow me the fuck out with your genius. But your not a genius. Ur just a rag for dead poets wipe on

Thanks man feels good

>you write like vomit drips

Very nice word play

The last part was sarcasm muh man

No that was tru my nigga str8up

Why not try finishing the sentence you fucking moron

I mean the last part of my post. About your method. It's shit.

Are you sure you understand sarcasm

I don't understand what you're trying to say.
>spooking
You're just a Stirnerite dilettante. Go shove something up your asshole and laugh yourself to sleep in the gutter like you're meant to do.

...

What was it?

Autism.

Hi! Could someone tell me what should I read to have a great comprehension of Plato's works?
I have already read the main greek myths, Iliad, Odyssey. Now I'm planning to read about The Pre-Socratics (I don't know if it is needed).
Loved to read everything what I've read from the greeks, but I want to dive in Plato's works as soon as possible.

Pythagoras and Socrates.

See no reason to read the presocratics... they were philosophers of nature
Basically taking shots at scientific stuff, no use for Plato, just read some wikipedia general shit about them

>Reddit-tier meme probably pulled off of SA
Kill yourself, buckaroo.

Rude

Fuck off and eat shit. Your opinions are of no consequence to anyone.

If you read anything of the original post youll understand when I say that Plato is someone that requires a lot of unpacking and that you should do well to understand the climate from which his writings sprang and the successors who took up the flame of his original aims. I would suggest going straight to Aristotle if you are not inclined to deconstruction and prefer to be told straight out what the aims and revelations of the ancient Greek philosophers were

Please stop hurting my feelings user

But is it possible to read Aristotle without reading Plato?

Yes. Aristotle is direct, he doesn't need to hide behind the writing via characters and dialogue, he doesn't need to worry about getting killed for what he says. His writing is so fucking clean its still amazing. Plato, not for the weak and feable minded. If you do read Plato, please leave out any assumptions (i.e. Socrates is talking on behalf of Plato and his beliefs). Read and consider all the arguments and arrive at your own conclusion about what has been said. Ask yourself, what do YOU think about it? You do yourself a disservice if you think you are being told what to believe. Aristotle has no qualm making bold assertive statements. Plato, quite literally, doesn't say anything for himself.

I appreciate your help. Thank you!
I'm planning to read the first dialogues of Plato, then I'll move to Aristotle.
Should I start with Apology? Is it appropriate?

Try Euthyphro

And remember, don't leave out your own opinion. Don't bend over backward and let someone tell you what to believe. Come to your own conclusion. If anything can be said about Plato it's that he is not plainly telling you anything but merely allowing you, albeit voyeuristically, to partake in a very very very interesting conversation in Ancient Greece

Ok! Thank you for the precious help.

Aristotle wrote dialogues too, they just didn't survive

>Don't bend over backward and let someone tell you what to believe
You're fucking retarded, desu

OP, care to go over a specific text or set of passages that you think best exemplify what you're talking about?

Ok

If you are able to read in context you'de understand that I mean- don't take the status quo reading. But since your dumb public school educated ass can't see things without having a fat old man in your butthole whispering to you the meaning of every sentence as you read, I can see why any deviation from his wet whisperings would leave you bleeding. Let it bleed faggot and watch me shit all over what you think you think you think you know

Of coarse I can, but you are missing the point. When you stand over Plato's whole body of work, when you contemplate the time he existed, when you consider the teachers he had and the teacher he became, and the students he had (specifically Aristotle), the assertions made by "scholars" about his beliefs just doesn't make ANY fucking sense. AT ALL. To say plato believed what Socrates says in his dialogues, for me, is completely erroneous. It just doesn't add up. And scholars believe what scholars believe what scholars believe. Fuck them all.

>don't take the status quo reading
there is no such thing you're a genre fiction fag writing about "the academy"

You're an idiot and that you feel the need to express yourself in this way only confesses to how dependent you are on me, what I say, and this whole thread you've been following. If you don't like it, leave. If you dont agree, state your case. But that you berate your slander as some sort of criticism only shows how silly you are. That you think you could actually get to my feelings in this way or the validity of my claims only goes to show how you are destroyed, not me.

>I think perhaps Aristotle is working with Plato on this. Aristotle is attacking the ideas head on where Plato was only allowed to indirectly. In this way Aristotle truly never strayed from his teachers path. The question is, since we have the explicit ideas of Aristotle, what were those of Plato? Which did Aristotle take as his own, and which ones did he leave out or potentially not understand? And was he correct in his assesments.

I never thought I'd see a conspiracy theory about classical philosophy. On what grounds could you take Aristotle's critiques of what he explicitly calls Plato's views at anything other than face value?

It's a conspiracy by the global feeble minded who should have stayed away from philosophy.

Aristotle is referring to Plato's teachings, not to Plato himself. That Plato became the scapegoat for the retardation of monism is the sacrifice he made for philosophy. Easy.

Believe it or not I would actually like to get confronted with a good critique of my reading. This constant insecure name calling posed as critique is getting boring. Is there anyone who actually reads plato who can engage in a real debate?!?!

your imaginary enemy is divided between unitarian, atomist, developmental or historicist, among others, go back to your videogames

>unitarian, atomist, developmental or historicist, among others