Yes, but how does one learn "from the things themselves"? We see particular things. And perhaps in some way the particular "informs" our soul with its form. But the medium of our learning is language, words. We don't just gaze mutely. We speak. The speech--even if it's as simple as "big" and "small" in reference to one's fingers--prompts the seeking.

@@platosworld i think there are some practical accounts of this in Republic and Meno. Socrates' dialogue with the slave boy to demonstrate mathematical objects of knowledge are remembered not taught is one. and his account in Republic of how the tension between objects that seem both big and small or tall and short or rough and smooth lead us to embark on a rational journey of finding what they have in common. in a sense it's the unveiling of a duality or dichotomy which leads us to seek its unity. but it isn't the word small or the word big which leads us to inquire, it's the tension of the ideas which they represent that gives us pause. and it gives us pause whether we can attach a word to these concepts or not. so i think words still work to help us organize and play with concepts. i certainly don't get the impression Socrates thinks they're useless! just that nothing can be fully expressed with words or given to someone who does not have some sort of idea of the word being expressed already understood in some way.

Thanks for the excellent comment. Your improvement to Theaetetus' position makes a lot of sense. But it also raises the question of how does one "know" a look? As they discuss earlier in the dialogue, does knowledge come "by" or "through" perception? This knowing also somehow involves comparison or analogy. And it involves the "look" or "form" "informing" the soul. It gives a new twist to the old saying, "I'll know it when I see it."

@@platosworld thanks for the kind words! i think this is the grand question of Plato's entire corpus really. i actually just stumbled upon Clitophon on my way to Phaedrus (which i'm reading right now) and if we're to take the interpretation that this character represents Plato and his frustration as one of Socrates' students, i think saying WHAT virtue (or any true object of knowledge) is, is what we learn Socrates thinks is impossible. we can also believe Socrates simply doesn't know. if that's the case, how do we know virtue and thereby right action without some sort of divine guide (like the daemonion he claimed he had in Apology)? personally, i think this is the exact inspiration that led Plato to create his cosmology and theology and his mysticism (if you accept the thesis that he was a mystic) in the first place. in Meno and Phaedo Socrates talks about the role of anamnesis and, more pointedly, the soul's role in apprehending objects of knowledge. it is not up to a temporal nature to gaze upon eternal things. so i think Plato thought the faculty in question is the soul. which already knows these objects of knowledge such as the virtues and goodness. which to me makes sense tbh. no philosophy or philosopher i think would deny we have moral intuitions! however... we're still left with the problem of discernment. there is also an account in Symposium about how gods (which are related to objects of knowledge) don't speak to humans directly, but rather that spirits (like Eros) shuttle messages to us and back. so maybe we actually learn things themselves via an extensive array of profound experiences available to us such as love, dreams, inspiration (sometimes in the form of mania), etc. those things are what shuttle glimpses of such objects of knowledge to us. and our soul remembers them from its time before embodiment. and thus knowing anything true requires a connection between soul, various spirits we tend to reduce to concepts, and our human faculties of reason and intuition.

and i think this is why modern platonism will never fix the epistemological gap unless it starts talking about some sort of soul faculty in a serious way.

@@ubestbegood Agreed. A helpful place to look is Averroes' discussion of the soul, building upon Aristotle, and informed (so to speak!) by Plato. Classical medieval thought is far ahead of modernity in thinking about the soul.

Thanks!

It's actually THA PHILEBUS

So glad you're finding it helpful. Enjoy your reading!

Undercompensated too.

My pleasure (so to speak), and you're welcome.

I hope it got better with each viewing. Let me know if you have any questions. All the dialogues are tricky, but the Lesser Hippias is particularly devious.

@@platosworld Is the final sentence saying that Socrates wavered on whether he can be as steadfastly devoted to philosophy analogous to Achilles?

@@brian782 Sorry for the late response; I missed your reply. My sense is that in this conversation Socrates is testing and experiencing the tension between the noble / beautiful and the good (which entails knowing how to be "bad" sometimes). If this is the case, then he must also have doubts about any sort of devotion, including to philosophy. On the subject of the possible nobility of philosophy, I'd recommend also checking out Plato's "Lovers / Rivals."

@@platosworld thank you. The symposium also questions capital “P” philosophy.

@@brian782 Exactly--you've got it. Republic VI does the same thing, sotto voce. We could probably multiply other examples.

You're welcome!

In the Gorgias, Socrates says that he enjoys being refuted even more than refuting others. The enjoyment of being refuted is that of seeing that you thought you knew something that you didn't know, and now you know that you don't know it. It is, in fact, an increase in knowledge. Being "stuck" (aporia--without a way out) is thus not a dead end but a way forward. At least out of the delusion of thinking that you know something. A good example occurs in the Greater Alcibiades 113d-119a--though there too Alcibiades backs away from truly accepting his ignorance.

@@platosworld Euthyphro doesn’t seem happy to feel the rug pulled out from underneath what he thought was his wisdom. And at least a few other interlocutors seem to have the same opinion of having their knowledge rendered obsolete. It doesn’t feel liek the birth of wisdom but mroe like a setback. So is happiness at being refuted something Socrates has taught himself ot view as a plus? To recognize refutation as a birth? (Hence being the midwife he calls himself) It’s a bitter pill to swallow and takes some time to recover for his dialogue partners. For which Socrates is always compassionate. But nonetheless it doesn’t feel like a reward when it happens. It’s difficult to view as a prize.

@@edgewaterz That's right. Most of the dialogues show the interlocutor failing to profit from being refuted. It hurts, and most people believe that what causes them pain is bad. Theaetetus, the example you allude to, is different. Socrates there describes refutation not as a birth but as preemptive abortion--the delivery of a "wind-egg." And Theaetetus responds well to it. The difference is both nature and nurture. It would be useful to compare Theaetetus and Alcibiades, both promising young men, each brilliant in his way, and each attracted to Socrates, but Alcibiades can't hold onto it. At the end of the day you have to see gaining knowledge of your ignorance as progress of the most rewarding sort. As Socrates argues in Rep 5 and 6, and as Averroes emphasizes in his commentary, it requires courage of a rare sort.

@@platosworld So it’s about happiness (eudaimonia)? When Socrates is refuted and discovers he doesn’t know something he’s happy. Meanwhile the rest of us become depressed or disillusioned. But Socrates would rather know he was wrong than not know he was wrong. That’s why it makes him happy to be refuted? Suggesting there is an extra step in the process the lay person isn’t consciously taking. We received bad information, but that’s ok, now we’re the wiser for it.

@@edgewaterz Perhaps this is too simplistic, but I see it as something akin to the pleasure that any of us feel when we realize we are getting better at something or are improving in some way. E.g., learning to play tennis is frustrating at first, and you constantly miss shots or get smoked. But as you practice you see your improvement and you enjoy that. Being refuted hurts at first, and maybe always has some sting to it, but over time it contributes to that pleasure of feeling that you're improving.

You're welcome!

You're welcome!

Thanks!

Right: it's actually a comic scene. To imagine the ghostly head of Protagoras rising up out of the ground in front of them to defend the claim that knowledge is perception. It's possible that Socrates doesn't do P justice. On the other hand, it's possible that Socrates presents the core of P's thought even more powerfully, or at least more explicitly, than P does in his "myths."

Thank you, Lucca! I'm very glad you've found the videos helpful. My name IRL is Keith Whitaker. These videos are my main Platonic products, though I also published an English translation of the Parmenides many years ago, and I edited the original Focus Philosophical Library, which contains many excellent English translations of Plato's and Aristotle's works (among others). Finally, I wrote an book on Plato's Laws: "A Journey into Platonic Politics." Apart from that, all my books and articles concern topics related to family wealth, such as on giving wisely, raising healthy children amid wealth, and structuring family trusts. You can find more about my day job here: www.wisecounselresearch.com/managing-directors Best wishes, Keith

​@@platosworldthank you, mr. Whitaker! I'm going to check everything presented. Best wishes, Lucca

Glad you found it helpful!

You're welcome! Glad you found it helpful.

You're welcome! That example is crucial. It highlights the central matters of language: conventionality and justice (correctness). Hope your exam goes well.

That makes sense. "Plausible deniability." Though Hippias sees through this disguise, and Socrates himself drops it. I like to think that in the unnamed questioner we get a glimpse of the real Socrates, so to speak, his insistent disintegration of seeming wholes (including himself).

My pleasure--glad it helped!

Thanks--it's small, but dear to me

You're welcome! There's a pleasure intrinsic to the activity.

You're welcome!

You're welcome--glad you liked it.

You're welcome--glad it helped.

Not explicitly. However, Eros--love--is treated as a god in the dialogue. And at one point Socrates speaks with his head covered, in shame and fear that he has offended against the god. Then he offers a "palinode" to atone for his offense, in which he presents the beauty of the god or rather of speeches about the whole of things. So you could say that the dialogue explores the power (attractive and defensive) of the fascinus.

You're welcome!

Interesting. On the surface it's clearly comic. But I think you're right that there are tensions present too. Where do you see them?

@@platosworld Well, to be honest, I'm mostly new to Plato and so am probably not picking up on the subtler facets of the text/reading things a bit over-literally. At any rate it was the first dialogue I've read (as reading from the collected edition I'm using, starting from Euthyphro leading to the present Euthydemus) that depicts actual conflict between interlocutors, specifically anyway the apparently defensively angry Ctesippus in a few points of the text. My favourite being right after Dionysodorus stated that insofar as Socrates desires Clinias to become wise he desires him to perish, following which the text reads: "When Ctesipuss heard this he became angry on his favourite's account and said, Thurian stranger, if it were not a rather rude remark, I would say "perish yourself" for taking it into your head to tell such a lie about me and the rest, which I think is a wicked thing to say - that I could wish this person to die!" And a few other such points where Socrates comments to Crito that he jumped in between the two of them when it seemed they were getting rough which each other. Once again though I don't pretend to hold a full comprehension of the dialogue in its subtleties, or any of them for that matter, but it did strike me as different in this regard from the ones I've read thus far, though it was funny when Ctesipuss essentially said that he would tell the stranger to perish himself, if it wasn't apparently too rude. (Edited for various typos)

@@DLDLDLDLDLDLD Great observation. That is a crucial moment. The lover erupts at the implication that he would want his beloved dead. Quite the opposite. The dialecticians, on the other hand, easily imagine such a possibility. The exchange reveals something of the difference between lovers and philosophers.

@@platosworldbut philosophers are lovers too. Lovers of sophia, or wisdom! ;)

@@joeybossolo7Very true. But there is a difference between loving another person and "loving" something that never can love you back.

You're welcome! It is a challenging dialogue, in no small part since the question that lurks in all the dialogues--what is philosophy, who is the philosopher?--is made explicit here.

You're welcome--it is a challenging one!

Glad to help!

Thanks so much--and sorry to take so long to respond. The song is lovely. Watching it on YT reminds me of the last definition offered in the GH: beauty is what's pleasing in sight or hearing. (One could ask how the song would sound without the video.) As for the beautiful as that which inspires, it makes sense; in fact, I think that definition could be equivalent to the second-to-last one offered in the dialogue, that the beautiful is what's beneficial, i.e., that which promises some good. (To make that case would require analyzing "the promise of good.") Alternatively, your definition captures what seems like a universal response to the beautiful: wonder--wonder at an (apparent) whole. Thanks again!

I share your wish! In the meantime, you can check out the Leo Strauss Center at the U of C for courses in which LS discusses Zarathustra, such as this 1967 offering: leostrausstranscripts.uchicago.edu/philologic4/strauss/navigate/15/1/2/

@@platosworld Thanks!

Thanks--all great authors. The difficult thing about Plato's "tongue in cheek" style is to know when he's doing it and when to take him deadly seriously. As Aristotle supposedly said, when asked, "What's the profit of telling lies?" "When you tell the truth, you're not believed."

Thanks!

Glad you liked it

You're welcome!

You're welcome! Good to have you on board. New content coming soon

Thanks--video on Republic II coming soon

Thank you!

Thanks--great comment. One thing I didn't bring out in the intro is that Tom's adventures are inspired by his reading of adventure stories. In this respect, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is meant to take its place within the life-giving tradition of stories, inspiring young and old.

Gorgias wants to withdraw at 458e but shame in the face of the crowd keeps him from retreating. Soc. reduces him to silence quickly, but G. still sticks around to listen and pays att'n. Polus, "the Colt," needs harsher treatment. Soc. shows how he fundamentally misunderstands himself (his attachment to what's noble). None of this is prejudicial: Soc. chooses this dialogue. He wants to learn from Gorgias, and does learn the limits of Gorgias' rhetoric ("an image of the art of politics") and his own, which fails to win over even the somewhat friendly Callicles.

@@platosworld Thank you. The only delineation of the "limits of Gorgias' rhetoric" in this dialogue was put by Gorgias himself in 457, that the skill can be mis-used, but that that is no reason to "banish the teacher". So I am sorry but nowhere do you provide evidence that Gorgias felt "shame in the face of the crowd". And Gorgias "sticks around", obviously, because he's staying at the house! Instead you make a newly derogatory assertion, that "Soc. reduces him to silence quickly". Er, no he doesn't. Gorgias had explained at length since 448 at Socretes's prompting the power of oratory even though one observer, Polis, points out that "Gorgias is worn out". Socretes responded by being deliberately insulting, putting forward bad-faith assertions he explains away with childish semantic concurrences, saying that Gorgias' skill is a "spurious counterfeit", "dishonourable","pandering" and "merely a knack". These are clearly crafted, ugly insults directed at Gorgias but Socretes gets away with them because they are not actually ad hominem. Even so, Gorgias answers like a gentleman, saying in 458, ".... but perhaps we ought to consider the rest of the company. Before your arrival I had already given them a long demonstration". This is an older man who is very tired. Even so, Gorgias continues, "if our friends approve, go on with the conversation and ask me anything you like". So why would you even use the pejorative phrase "reduces him to silence" when he does no such thing? The boorish Socretes cannot justify the insults he made early in 463, and when he again resorts to the same childish semantic categorisations about what an "art" is to justify himself, he forgets Gorgias' already undermined his point in 456. Socretes appears to realise that he is losing his audience and all he has left is to double down on the insults - exemplifying what I would say was his own staged admission by denial, when he said in 457, a propos of absolutely nothing, that "you may suppose that my purpose is not so much to elucidate the subject as to win a verbal victory over you". Socretes wants the debate to end in disarray because any audience can see he's lost the argument. So when Gorgias fails to take the bait and instead politely demands in 463 that Socretes "tell me what you mean when you call oratory a spurious counterfeit of a branch of the art of government", look how Socretes cannot answer him directly, abandons the dialectic method completely, and goes back on, again, an improvised conjuncture of spurious verbal categories full of desperate outliers, like "an unreal appearence of health" (for goodness' sake) and patent absurdities, like "true beauty.... is the product of training". How can anyone take the person who says such things seriously? Unable to win a debate with Gorgias, Socretes switches his attention to the inexperienced Polis because he makes for a protagonist better matched to his skills. It's interesting that at no point in your response can you justify saying Gorgias shows "shame" and "lacks seriousness" when Socretes is clearly playing a verbal game and doing it poorly. Perhaps you simply made a mistake.

@@cacadores3955 I've made many mistakes, and no doubt some mistakes in this introduction too. Whether I'm mistaken on the points you raise about Gorgias, I'm not sure. It will take me a few days to return to the dialogue and review your objections--I'll be back. Thanks

@@platosworld Thanks. And I don't claim I'm right - like Protagoras, I can only claim there is at least another way of looking at this dialogue since all we have are our impressions and all appearences are particular to the one who experiences it.

Glad to help!

You're welcome!

Sorry to take so long to reply ... Yes, you're right--thank you for the correction. The dialogue-within-the-dialogue falls into two parts: the dialogue with the pleasures (63b-c), in which they affirm including in the mixture of the best life all pleasures, and the dialogue with the arts or sciences or wisdom or mind or memory or right opinion (Socrates lays it on thick here!) (63c-64a), in which Mind admits only the true and necessary or pure pleasures and excludes the violent pleasures. This passage underscores Protarchus' attachment to Mind over pleasure--a certain type of beautiful mind--which ends up being codified in the ranking of the elements of the best life in the conclusion.

OK--I *think* I have enabled subtitles for all the Plato videos--let me know if I missed any

@@platosworld sorry... im from indonesia