What did Socrates teach? Or why you only understand Plato if he is decolonised

What Socrates taught is, of course, the wrong question. For, if there is one thing that Plato is quite clear about, it is that Socrates taught nothing. Something else is going on when you encounter this figure. So what is it?
In this talk I look first at common errors concerning Plato, such as that he pitched body against soul or thought poets were best banned. Other mistakes include treating his philosophy as a training in eudaimonia and reading his dialogues as stages in his philosophical development - the early ones being close to the historical Socrates, the middle ones being the mature Plato, the late ones being the disillusioned Plato. Similarly, Socrates did not seek definitions.
The irony, given the sensitivity to this charge often from philosophers who misread Plato, is that this is a colonial reading of Plato. Scholars like Julia Annas have shown that reading Plato changed during the period of the British empire, when texts like Plato’s Republic came to be treated as a manifesto for young minds in public schools being preparing to rule the world.
Before that, Plato Plato was understood not to have a message but instead a path. Roughly speaking, the aporetic dialogues - the ones that end in radical uncertainty - offer a preparation in the form of an undoing. Then, next, into that space, the visionary dialogues speak. I'm indebted to the scholar Sara Ahbel-Rappe for so clearly stating that Socrates stands for a mode of being, thereby imparting a taste for it, stirring a love of it.
Socrates can't give that presence, because it is already within you. This awareness actually already belongs to us, and we sense a distant yearning for it because of feeling separate from it, through ignorance or forgetting. The way back is to clear the space that makes us more ready to know it once more.
This is the meaning of the message Socrates received from the Delphic oracle: knowing yourself means knowing yourself, at base, to know nothing because all your theories or assumptions or certainties will turn out to be limited or straightforwardly wrong. Take that on board and then, regarding yourself as poor, come to know the richness of life, which is not eudaimonistic but rather theotic: a participation by contemplation, or theoria, in God.
That divine end, stressing the inadequacy of an isolated sense of our humanity, must be the fundamental reason why Plato is so widely dissed. He ready does offend, though in Socrates saw why that disquiet is so wonderfully worth undergoing.

[@lukefarren3409]

Thank you Mark, yes I think the theotic Plato is often overlooked. He's quite clear in The Republic that the purpose of dialectic is the direct apprehension of the good. Aporia is the fertile ground from which theosis occurs rather than a final destination in itself as some suggest. He's talking about enlightenment, a moment of transformation that is necessarily preceded by not knowing, 'a sudden flash there shines forth understanding about every problem, and an intelligence whose efforts reach the furthest limits of human powers.’ (Seventh Letter)

[@chrisallard1819]

Marvellous - thank you

[@Cjbcampbell]

"That presence is not your own, though it thoroughly informs you" (13.20ish). Beautifully put - reminds me of Gilbert Simondon's information theory as well as Gregory Bateson. And perhaps it also speaks to Roger Penrose's love of pattern - the presence of mathematical truth is not your own, but it thoroughly informs the structure of thought-being.

[@ElizabethMohr]

Thank you, this is clear and very helpful.

[@markobrien4332]

Mark, would you consider uploading something on Meister Eckhart, one day, perhaps... lol. I believe there to be growing interest in Christian mystics. Thank you for all else you do anyway.

[@PlatosPodcasts]

Thanks for the suggestion. In the meantime, I'd much recommend Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within by Joel F. Harrington.

[@michaelmartinserafin2029]

There is an American named James Finley who presents a long-running podcast called "Turning To The Mystics", which goes into lengthy detail about the mystics. You can hear it almost anywhere.

[@PlatosPodcasts]

Will have a think. In the meantime do look at Dangerous Mystic by Joel F. Harrington

[@NGC-catseye]

Thank you for helping me understand self knowledge. 💖

[@flow963]

Yes! Very inspiring. Thank you Mark!

[@Jakelefleur]

Spot on mark, thank you for this. I would love for you to deliver a course/ release a book on Socrates & Plato... But I understand you're working on Blake and I'm sure that's more than enough for now! Are there any resources you'd recommend in the meantime?

[@PlatosPodcasts]

The two authors I mentioned are Julia Annas and Sara Ahbel-Rappe. Plus Gregory Shaw, who writes about Neoplatonism, gets Plato, I think. DC Schindler is another...

[@Jakelefleur]

Mark, I just listened to this again - it's very, very good

[@PlatosPodcasts]

The authors in the notes are a start. DC Schindler is another. The BBC's In Our Time on The Republic is adjacent, too, though not going the full distance.

[@Jakelefleur]

@@PlatosPodcasts thanks again. Are there any authors that highlight what you talk about at the end? As summarised in the last three paragraphs of your description ('Socrates can't give that presence...')... I've been reading Sara's 'Socrates: a guide for the perplexed', she seems to move in that direction, but doesn't seem to go the full way?

[@gunnargjermundsen3200]

Wonderful reminder. Making Platonic philosophy come alive again.

[@Cjbcampbell]

Thanks Mark!

[@ericnicholson870]

Even if some of the ideas may appear weird today the form of the dialogue make the protagonists seem everyday characters.

[@sandrahughes4640]

Wow loved this

[@Valosken]

Really cool discussion.

[@deed5049]

He taught what he was taught by his teacher in Alkebulon.

[@RichardDownsmusic]

Marvellous!

[@TheGrimStoic]

what have either got to do with Indian stepwells? (thumbnail)

[@dominiqueubersfeld2282]

By the way Plato very seriously defended slavery. How can you "decolonize" him?

[@fortunatomartino8549]

Sounds like St Paul and Jesus

[@Boardwoards]

plato was the reason for british colonialism... plato was a bad student learning nothing *on purpose* so he could control the thing being taught

[@alecmisra4964]

Sounds like you.

[@Boardwoards]

@@alecmisra4964 do go on. plato planned the republic and then it morphed without any honest break that wasn't a laundering charade straight through until senates were brought back. the allegory of the cave is a punishment literally what prisons are modeled after where you are allowed out when you follow societal rules... so all of europe in the dark ages were put in prison allowed out when they would be willing to do to others as had been done to them. tell me what i'm missing. examiners of his republic offered to him as funerary rites after they are put down same as socrates plato always resented the honest perspective in the way of power.

[@joshualong6619]

ouch