Plato for Dummies (I'm the Dummy)

[seattlegal]

OK.


OK. So this is the 'thing-in-itself', the substance or ousia is the absolute baseline of the thing, if the substance or ousia changes, it is not the thing it was.

Minimalist art seems to point towards this concept. {I like minimalist art. }

Where can you find red-in-itself, red-as-red, rather than things that are red?

Ask a minimalist artist

 

[Sam Albion]

"...a bare particular of an object is the element without which the object would not exist, that is, its substance, which exists independent from its properties, even if it is physically impossible for it to lack properties entirely. It is "bare" because it is considered without its properties and "particular" because it is not abstract. The properties that the substance has are said to inhere in the substance".

...reminds me of "The Two Truths"...

samvrttisatyam- complete/together with-qualities-truth... "Inherent relations" (?)

paramarthamsatyam- beyond(the)-question(of)truth. "The Bare Truth"

... something is named, and thought of as known, yet that known thing is no more than the sum of its parts. But, beyond the parts, is there a thing?

..............................................................................

"Avalokitesvara, in the depths of prajna, saw the emptiness of all five skandhas and sundered the bonds that caused him suffering. Know, then, that form is only sunyata, sunyata only form. Feeling, thought, and choice, consciousness itself are the same as this. Dharmas here are empty: all is sunyata. None take birth or die, nor are they stained or pure, nor do they wax and wane. So, in sunyata, no form, no feeling, thought or choice, nor is there consciousness. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind; no colour, sound, smell, taste or touch, or what the mind takes hold of, nor even act of sensing. No ignorance, or end of it, nor all that comes from ignorance; no withering, no death, nor end of them. Nor is there pain, or cause of pain or cease of pain or even wisdom to attain for wisdom too is sunyata. So, know that the bodhisattva, holding to nothing, comes to full and perfect vision. Hear then this great dharani, the radiant peerless mantra, the prajna-paramita, whose words allay all pain. Taught by highest wisdom, true and beyond all doubt: hear, and know its truth: gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha...

 

[Sam Albion]

theory of forms:

skanda: (lit.) heap.

... Of course Plato would suggest that "that non-material abstract ... and not the material world of change... possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality."

-- He's a frickin' philosopher. Of course he's gonna place great store in IDEAS. That's what he's selling...

... Forms (parts) do not change -- red is always red. But, red can be ... a car, a brick, a loveheart on a hallmark Valentine's card... the car, the brick, the loveheart: substances exist, but not without being created things...

 

[Sam Albion]

Forms: intellectual heavens?

"...a pristine region of the physical universe located above the surface of the Earth... a "place beyond heaven"...

Ideals: forms?

Abstracts!

And back again to the whole two truths thing, for me: conventional truth (samvrttisatyam), and ultimate truth (paramarthamsatyam).

... without a being having awareness of an item, does the item exist? Plato seems to suggest that yes, without a perceiver, some "forms" exist; noble ideals, such as truth, and beauty, and justice.

Yet -- we cannot perceive of these things without referencing that which came before, we rely on "conventional truths" to help us to appreciate the "ultimate truth"...

Perhaps?

"Our aim in founding the state was not the disproportional happiness of any one class,[24] but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a state ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice".

And, this sounds obvious, but... you cannot please 100% of the people 100% of the time...

I think Plato was up his own backside. Listen:

"The purged society is a regulated one presided over by academics created by means of state education, who maintain three non-hereditary classes[26] as required: the tradesmen (including merchants and professionals), the guardians (militia and police) and the philosophers (legislators, administrators and the philosopher-king). Class is assigned at the end of education, when the state sets individuals up in their occupation. Socrates expects class to be hereditary but he allows for mobility according to natural ability. The criteria for selection by the academics is ability to perceive forms (the analog of English "intelligence") and martial spirit as well as predisposition or aptitude".

Yet the Bosses will all be intellectual philosopher types, like himself.

Nice one, Plato, Lad!

He devises an ideal world, where philosophers are paid by the state to pontificate, and woe betide any peasants who meddle in such lofty affairs such as democracy and politics... that's not their place!

Nice one!


I can't believe that people still look at this rubbish as if he's got all the answers. Give me Neitzsche, any day...

 

[Etu Malku]

Watch this . . . it's MAJIQ!

THIS is a RED ball

 

[radarmark]

SG-- you are on the edge. His entire method is conceptual thought. Go with that and see how differently you percieve things. This is the trap of Platonism, of Hellenic thought, of Western Civilization. It is justification for modernism, scientism, and solipsism (well, we really do not have that, but we soliptic ethics and ideas). This is the core of Wittenstein and logical positivism.

If you perceive "things" as "connections" or "beingness" as "becoming" or "parts" as "wholons"... the contradictions should be pretty self evident. The Tao One, Platonism Zero.

 

[seattlegal]

Watch this . . . it's MAJIQ!

THIS is a RED ball

LOL! All these paintball splats evolved from the pink one!

 

[Thomas]

It sounds like he is describing conceptual thinking. I'm one that believes that conceptual thinking is inherent to our minds. In fact, clinging to concepts can become a psychological impediment for some, a sign of maladaption to stress, imo.
Am I anywhere close here?

Yes and no ... one has to distance oneself from modern concepts, or the modern idea of concept.

Plato believes that the Ideas, are the real Real, the forms are real in themselves, participate in the Real, but are not themselves Real.

But the real Real is precisely that, it's not a concept, which is just an image in the mind, the Real actually is ... and it is possible to participate in its actuality.

Put another way — the Tao that can be spoken is not the real Tao, the real Tao cannot be spoken. Can it be conceived, as an actuality, or is the Tao simply an idealistic concept? If the latter, then the whole fabric of Taoism is founded on nothing more than an optimistic imagination ...

God bless

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

How do people blind from birth gain a concept of "redness" or "greenness?"

They can't ... or, I'm assuming they can't.

Sure, they communicate with sighted people, and can get an idea of "redness" or "greeness" via association with other things.

Yes.

Is logic based upon sensory information?

Yes.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

How can we create new things within our subjective minds if we are limited only to our sensory input?

what other input is there?

Sure our senses will be needed to guide bringing the concept from the subjective mind out into reality, but that doesn't explain the original conception in the first place.

It works the other way round though ... we begin by experience, in the womb, then in the world, and we proceed by ordering the data we extract from the experience ... as the old saying goes, 'there's nothing new under the sun'.

God bless

Thomas

 

[seattlegal]

How do people blind from birth gain a concept of "redness" or "greenness?"

They can't ... or, I'm assuming they can't.

We are social animals, and we are also psychologically affected by color in the environment. I'm sure blind people are probably more adept at picking up on the psycological effect of color on living beings than most people are. Have you ever had a blind person ask you, "What color is this room?"

Is logic based upon sensory information?

Yes.

Let me rephrase that: Is logic based upon first-hand sensory information? (Separating empiricism from logic here)

 

[seattlegal]

what other input is there?

There are innumerable things we cannot sense, but are affected by. (Radiation, ultrasound, etc., etc.)

Sure our senses will be needed to guide bringing the concept from the subjective mind out into reality, but that doesn't explain the original conception in the first place.

It works the other way round though ... we begin by experience, in the womb, then in the world, and we proceed by ordering the data we extract from the experience ... as the old saying goes, 'there's nothing new under the sun'.

God bless

Thomas

So we are not molded by Forms?

 

[Thomas]

Have you ever had a blind person ask you, "What color is this room?"

You've answered your own question then? How does the person know they're in a room, that rooms are coloured?

Let me rephrase that: Is logic based upon first-hand sensory information?

Well logic is the reasoning of data-input, whether that data is first-hand is, logically, not a necessity although, logically, reliability of sources then becomes an issue.

God bless

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

There are innumerable things we cannot sense, but are affected by. (Radiation, ultrasound, etc., etc.)

I would still include those within the sensory realm — they're not mental constructs — I would also say there are innumerable things we do sense, which are filtered out.

Current neuroscience points to the fact that the vast majority of what we call 'conscious decisions' are in fact unconsciously pre-determined before we consciously 'make' them ...

So we are not molded by Forms?

Well we are each and every one of us an instance of a Form, and indeed multiple Forms, although the human Form is the primary and principle Form.

We interplay with instances of other Forms, which is how we learn about them and us, and how we came to posit the idea of Forms in the first place.

God bless

Thomas

 

[seattlegal]

You've answered your own question then?

I have had a blind person ask me what color the room we were in was. I was wondering if the same thing happened to you.

How does the person know they're in a room,

Um, they went through the door? {Is this a rhetorical question? I hope so!}

...that rooms are coloured?

Being physically blind does not mean that a person is ignorant!

Well logic is the reasoning of data-input, whether that data is first-hand is, logically, not a necessity although, logically, reliability of sources then becomes an issue.

God bless

Thomas

Fair enough.

 

[seattlegal]

It sounds like he is describing conceptual thinking. I'm one that believes that conceptual thinking is inherent to our minds. In fact, clinging to concepts can become a psychological impediment for some, a sign of maladaption to stress, imo.
Am I anywhere close here?

Yes and no ... one has to distance oneself from modern concepts, or the modern idea of concept.

Would this definition of conceptual thinking, which predates Plato, suffice?

sankhāra:Formation, compound, fashioning, fabrication — the forces and factors that fashion things (physical or mental), the process of fashioning, and the fashioned things that result. Sankhāra can refer to anything formed or fashioned by conditions, or, more specifically, (as one of the five khandhas) thought-formations within the mind.​

Plato believes that the Ideas, are the real Real, the forms are real in themselves, participate in the Real, but are not themselves Real.

So the wiki article is incorrect when it states this:?

Plato's theory of Forms or theory of Ideas[1][2][3] asserts that non-material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.​

But the real Real is precisely that, it's not a concept, which is just an image in the mind, the Real actually is ... and it is possible to participate in its actuality.

Put another way — the Tao that can be spoken is not the real Tao, the real Tao cannot be spoken. Can it be conceived, as an actuality, or is the Tao simply an idealistic concept? If the latter, then the whole fabric of Taoism is founded on nothing more than an optimistic imagination ...

Yes, Taoism is all about being. (verb) Even non-being is considered to be an unstable state as compared to being, even though reality can certainly be uncertain.

 

[Thomas]

Would this definition of conceptual thinking, which predates Plato, suffice?

I'm not sure we're getting our wires crossed here?

It may well be that Platonic 'Forms' are nothing more than a mental construct, but that's not what Plato thought, nor is it what Platonism says. The Form is the Universal archetype, blueprint or template ... it's also the essence of the thing ...

There is a philosophical problems with the Forms, as everything has its Form, which is its exemplar, its archetype, its Ideal, which means every negative thing must also have its Form, and there the issue gets sticky ...
(Christianity solved it, but that's another discussion)

There's also the philosophical problem with essence and substance (as there is with purusha and prakriti), which posits a universal un-informed substrate material — the materia prima of the scholars — the thinking being along the line that the Form in a sense 'organises' this pre-material universal substrate into the substantial thing that is a representation of its form ... but we could be getting ahead of ourselves here.

So the wiki article is incorrect when it states this:?

No. I think I'm saying the same thing ... ?

Plato's theory of Forms asserts that the Forms possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality, they are 'more real' than the instances of the Form because without them there would be no instances.

God bless

Thomas

 

[seattlegal]

I'm not sure we're getting our wires crossed here?

It may well be that Platonic 'Forms' are nothing more than a mental construct, but that's not what Plato thought, nor is it what Platonism says. The Form is the Universal archetype, blueprint or template ... it's also the essence of the thing ...

There is a philosophical problems with the Forms, as everything has its Form, which is its exemplar, its archetype, its Ideal, which means every negative thing must also have its Form, and there the issue gets sticky ...
(Christianity solved it, but that's another discussion)

There's also the philosophical problem with essence and substance (as there is with purusha and prakriti), which posits a universal un-informed substrate material — the materia prima of the scholars — the thinking being along the line that the Form in a sense 'organises' this pre-material universal substrate into the substantial thing that is a representation of its form ... but we could be getting ahead of ourselves here.

OK, so the Form is the software program and the Substance is the what the software acts upon?

No. I think I'm saying the same thing ... ?

Plato's theory of Forms asserts that the Forms possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality, they are 'more real' than the instances of the Form because without them there would be no instances.

God bless

Thomas

OK, so the highest reality is actually abstract?

ab·stract
1
a : disassociated from any specific instance <an abstract entity> b : difficult to understand : abstruse <abstract problems> c : insufficiently factual : formal <possessed only an abstract right>

2
: expressing a quality apart from an object <the word poem is concrete, poetry is abstract>

3
a : dealing with a subject in its abstract aspects : theoretical <abstract science> b : impersonal, detached <the abstract compassion of a surgeon — Time>

4
: having only intrinsic form with little or no attempt at pictorial representation or narrative content <abstract painting>​

I knew there was a reason why I like minimalist art!

 

[radarmark]

SG, I think you have it pretty correct. The problem is that the Western Mind makes this world of ideas somehow (which I do not really understand) more basic or absolute than the physical. As I have oft stated I believe that mental and physical aspects of reality are real (I reject both Platonic Idealism and Scientistic Materialism).

 

[Thomas]

OK, so the Form is the software program and the Substance is the what the software acts upon?

Yes. So whilst I largely accept, within a Christian contxeyt, the idea of Forms, the idea of some substrate, the materia prima, I'm not too happy with, but then the odds are there's a scientific theory which would account for it!

OK, so the highest reality is actually abstract?

Again, even with the definitions offered, I think 'abstract' is a slippery term. Plato would say no, Forms are real, they might not be real to you, but that's another issue altogether ... and it rather depends on how you determine what's 'real'.

I'm with you re minimalism, btw ...

God bless

Thomas