There's a tension in the character of Socrates, in that he encourages skepticism but at the same time seems calmly assured of the existence of spiritual reality.

>>24516325 (OP)
that's because socrates WAS an atheist. Greek philosophy was atheism from its inception in the Milesian school. But after Socrates was executed, Plato decided that he would act like Socrates showed reverence to the gods. This is the beginning of Platonic irony, and also the genesis of all irony, the desire to shit on people without saying anything that they can use to actually attack you back.
Plato didn't even believe in any of the bullshit that the neoplatonists came up with later, either. He fully believed that the ideas were accessed through discursive reason, not through an intellectual intuition. "the one" was just an abstract principle, not a god. This is obvious to anyone who isn't biased.

>>24516340
>that's because socrates WAS an atheist

Why would he believe in the delphic oracle and his supposed mission then?

>>24516340
retarded take

>>24516370
He didn't. It was irony.

>>24516325 (OP)
The initiates are certainly given hints to the existence of a secret doctrine. Cornford is right to say that Socrates' failure to define knowledge in propositional terms in the Theaetetus definitely points the way towards the inadequacy of propositional knowledge to attain the final revelation. The revelation is the direct acquaintance knowing of the Forms, but of course this is left unstated. In passages, from the Republic, there is an indication that the truths revealed by dialectic are not ultimate. Socrates tells Glaucon that it appears that dialectic brings us to the end of philosophical enquiry. However, he then hints that there is a further path to ultimate knowledge that dispenses with images and symbols and attains truth directly. Glaucon is then told that, despite having the will to do so, Socrates is unable to show him this path:

[Q27] Tell me, then, what is the nature of this faculty of dialectic? Into what divisions does it fall? And what are its ways? For it is these, it seems, that would bring us to the place where we may, so to speak, rest on the road and then come to the end of our journeying. You will not be able, dear Glaucon, to follow me further, though on my part there will be no lack of good will. And, if I could, I would show you, no longer an image and symbol of my meaning, but the very truth as it appears to me.

>>24516375
cope

>>24516384
you are the person plato was making fun of. looks like his game worked. now chuds and religitards like you worship plato and his ideas are that much more popular. if he had never included all that nonsense and all those religious fables, you would have perceived him as le atheist and immediately dismissed him, just as the athenians of his time executed socrates.

>>24516340
Straussian bullshit.

>>24516340
I think there's massive skepticism of the Greek pantheon in Plato (and even pro-Plato ancients like Numenius see that), but I think atheism puts it too strongly. I think a case can be made that Socrates was in fact guilty of the formal charge of "not believing in the city's gods, but introducing new divinities/daimons," and a sign of that is that he baits Meletus into accusing him of total atheism, which he refutes by belief in daimons.

But atheism is harder to prove, because Plato never really gets around to presenting a "ti esti" question about the gods. There are hints of a treatment of that question in the theological discussion of the Republic, but that treatment is constrained.

I think your treatment of irony, in locating it in disbelief of the gods, is off course. I don't deny that Plato puts on kid gloves to deal with the subject sometimes, but he also presents Socrates sometimes as very boldly rejecting Athenian belief in the myths of the poets, but we shouldn't confuse that with wholesale rejection of gods as such. The irony is more often about the skeptical (in the Greek sense of inquiring) treatment of common opinions in general, about anything at all that the dialogues treat (friendship, virtue, the nature of politics, poetry, teling the truth and falsehoods, and, sure, beliefs in the gods), and a recognition of something like a hierarchy of human types that requires adjusting oneself to different people.

>>24516410
>>24516340 and >>24516400 aren't even what Strauss says. This sounds closer to BAP.

>>24516340
Socrates the man was agnostic and anything else is Plato attributing stuff to his mouth to give his idea of the forms legitimacy. Admittedly, the real Socrates was probably a deist of some kind of believed in something really general already thought up like Heraclitus' Logos.

>>24516459
>Socrates the man was agnostic
You know this how, exactly?

>and anything else is Plato attributing stuff to his mouth to give his idea of the forms legitimacy.
Likewise, on what grounds are you disagreeing with Plato's depiction?

>>24516325 (OP)
This seems contradictory only if we treat "skepticism" and "confidence in spiritual realities" as the same kind of epistemic claim. In the dialogues, Socrates never doubts for its own sake; he probes assertions about justice, virtue, or knowledge because he finds them confused or complacent. His practiced skepticism targets ordinary human pretensions to expertise, what he calls "wisdom" in the ironic sense of people thinking they know what they do not know. It is methodological and therapeutic: by exposing false certainty he clears the ground for more adequate understanding. When he turns to questions about the soul, divine agency, or post-mortem existence, he proceeds differently. In the Apology he reports an inner sign, the daimonion, whose authority is personal and immediate; in the Phaedo and Republic he offers reasoned arguments (often explicitly labeled "likely stories" or "noble risks") for immortality and for an intelligible order that guides ethical life. He remains aware that these arguments do not reach the demonstrative certainty a geometer might demand. Nevertheless they carry, for him, sufficient rational and moral weight to guide action. Thus his composure before death is not grounded in dogma but in what he sees as the best available rational account of how a just life aligns with a larger, non-empirical order. The tension therefore marks two complementary moments of his intellectual posture. Toward human opinion: relentless elenchus, suspension of assent until confusion is revealed. Toward ultimate metaphysical commitments: a readiness to adopt the most coherent and ethically fruitful hypothesis while acknowledging its provisional status. Skepticism disciplines the search; confidence expresses the best judgment that remains after that discipline has done its work.

>>24516375
was it also irony that he had a holy rock of Apollo in his house

>>24517304
>Toward ultimate metaphysical commitments: a readiness to adopt the most coherent and ethically fruitful hypothesis while acknowledging its provisional status.
Yup, Socrates was a Kantian.

>>24516379
>Cornford is right to say that Socrates' failure to define knowledge in propositional terms in the Theaetetus definitely points the way towards the inadequacy of propositional knowledge to attain the final revelation.
Plato: pseudmagnet. Of course this anon is right that Plato was a mystic, but this is all that pseuds see in him and it's all they're attracted to. This is why Platothreads are the worst philosophy threads we have here - they're full of anti-intellectual stoners who think discursive thought is an obstacle to Mystick Gnowledge. All they want to do is talk about how you need a magic intuition of the Form of the Good, even though Plato himself valued discursive argumentation rather highly.

>>24517924
>Of course this anon is right that Plato was a mystic,
Can you define "mystic" in the relevant sense as you see it?

>>24516325 (OP)
A statement that can only come from a deeply diseased mind.
>there's a tension in encouraging kids to play with legos but at the same time seeming calmly assured of the existence of something beyond legos

>>24516325 (OP)
A common explanation of that is that it reflects the split between the early dialogues which are thought to depict the "historical" Socrates (rarely expounding his own ideas, focusing more on questioning the reasoning and assumptions of those around him), and the later dialogues where Socrates is seemingly more of a mouthpiece for Plato's own views.

>>24518017
Direct intuition of primary reality which, in its absoluteness, transcends any division and his hence inaccessible to a finite, discursive understanding. This is what he's talking about as seeing the Form of the Good in the Republic, Maimonides talks about it as 'flashes of lightning', Plotinus writes about it as 'vision', etc. I don't understand how you could read Plato and think all of the theological/mystical stuff was ironic; the religious beliefs that philosophers like Plato opposed were not mystical, they were crude and often self-serving superstitions, and he criticizes them as such.

>>24518214
How about this: the impression you get about every anon who talks about Aristotle is the impression I get about you talking about Plato, your view is pretty much the basic bitch Wiki- or SEP-tier understanding, and as you like to accuse everyone of not really reading Aristotle carefully, I'll say the same of you. In fact, au contraire, Plato thinks there's only discursive understanding; you didn't follow the train of arguments from Republic book 6 to 7 about the Good, where there's no knowledge of it to be had, and "a god doubtless knows if it happens to be true." In fact, you don't even notice that the depiction of philosophy in the Republic is distorted by thumos the whole time.

But keep being a smug prick about stuff you haven't studied anywhere near as well as others.

>>24516325 (OP)
he doesnt want to give you the answer. he wants to guide you to the answer so you can get the keys. teach a hobo how to fish and he'll sell his rod for fent. shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

>>24516379
>[Q27] Tell me, then, what is the nature of this faculty of dialectic? Into what divisions does it fall? And what are its ways? For it is these, it seems, that would bring us to the place where we may, so to speak, rest on the road and then come to the end of our journeying. You will not be able, dear Glaucon, to follow me further, though on my part there will be no lack of good will. And, if I could, I would show you, no longer an image and symbol of my meaning, but the very truth as it appears to me
Curious, how much did Socrates/Plato know of the Pythagorean mysteries?

>>24518436
Depends, they weren't Pythagoreans, but they were likely aware of something or other on the subject given that they both had significant Pythagorean friends.

First post should have been someone asking OP what he means specifically when he says "skepticism" and why he describes Socrates as such

>>24516493
That’s pretty much the standard academic reading of the Platonic corpus so I’m not going to dignify that by posting links when you can look for yourself. Basically, anything after Apology and the aporia dialogues is considered Plato’s own thing.

>>24519531
Don't get condescending when you don't know the grounds of the academic positions, nor the fact that there's been a big move away from "Platonic developmentalism" for thirty years. But I swear every single contribution I've ever seen you make amounts to repeating something someone could've gotten from Wikipedia.

>>24519556
Tl; Dr- GWF HEGEL was a “Wikipedia browser” to you. Hegel’s development of Greek thought in his 1826 lecture book I bought

Metaphysics as nature of existence- Parmenides and other presocratics

Metaphysics as being tied to morality - Socrates

Metaphysics as dialectic and the forms - Plato

This is his progression of thought in Greece. Plato invented dialectic and the forms.

>>24516340
Faggot Jew.
>>24516325 (OP)
Skepticism of the world is compatible with idealism. Rather, it is its precondition.

>>24516340
Sounds like bullshit but it's still interesting

>>24517910
He was retarded?

>>24517924
Absolute Truth can be attained through acquaintance knowing only by those who are the truly initiated. Being initiated actually means not only being of the correct philosophical temperament but also being thoroughly practised in dialectic. Hence, dialectic or propositional knowledge has a role to play in the attainment of this ultimate knowing. It helps open and direct the "eye of the soul" (the noetic acquaintive faculty, or illuminative intuition) to its proper object
correlate.

Oh my god why is it always these threads that attract the random essay effort posters

>>24519933
>t. woman
yes it was obvious

>>24516340
lol no

>>24519570
Hegel isn't the "standard academic view," and again, the field has moved away from the work of people like Vlastos. Stylometric studies show that "late elements" in the dialogues are present in the "early" dialogues and vice versa. The fragments of Aeschines show that the "Platonic Socrates" of the "Platonic middle" dialogues Symposium and Phaedrus, re: Eros, lines up independently of Plato. But Kolner thinks just imbibing some anglo's view without knowing it's grounds makes for helpful or insightful discussion, which is silly and dumb. He has no argument for himself for why we should draw any distinction between the Socrates of Euthyphro and the Socrates of the Philebus.

>>24520686

>>24520697
That doesn't settle whether the depiction of Socrates in Plato is an accirate representation of "the spirit of Socrates as he historically may have been." No one seriously thinks the dialogues are stenographic transcripts of real conversations (with the possible exception of the Apology); Gorgias, Menexenus, and Alcibiades Minor all use historic anachronisms, and Diotima in the Symposium and the conversation with Parmenides are likely fictions, but there's no good and compelling reason to doubt Plato isn't depicting Socrates in a mode that Plato recalled strongly.

>>24520723
Do you even know what the Tubingen interpretation is?

>>24520686

>>24520741
>>24520754
Yes, and I think they go astray by looking for the unwritten teachings in places frankly in the dialogues. "LOOK, LOOK, HERE'S A PLACE IN THE STATESMAN WHERE HE BRINGS UP THE GREATER AND LESSER," while completely abstracting from anything those passages mean in the context of the dialogue.

>>24516340

>>24520766
cope

>constantly brings up how his eudaemon guides him
>he was a fedora

Plato juxtaposes skepticism of one's self and the external world using Socrates, as a means of discrediting skepticism outright. The paradox of skepticism is that to ask a question, one needs to know internally some facts to ask the question with (Wittgenstein noticed this), otherwise the words have no meaning, and nothing is asked -- thus gained or lost.
Socrates when applying skepticism then to himself, is unable to ascertain knowledge through his own base; this forces him to look outward, which as established above can not lead to knowledge.
This leads us to:
>Although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks he knows. I neither know nor think I know.
>Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

>>24516325 (OP)
>There's a tension in the character of Socrates, in that he encourages free gym membership but at the same time joins an aristocratic cult to cut the penises off sacred statues in order to install a Tyranny.