Plato, a Reality Game in Four Levels (Session 5)

Hello and welcome to the fifth session of Play-Doh, a reality game in four levels. I'm going to pass the mic off to the instructor, Rezinagrestani, now. Thanks everyone. Thanks, Theo. Okay, so as usual, let's start with questions, shoot your questions, and then I start talking about, as I promised, talk about first what Theo asked me to talk about a little bit and I suggested reading a little bit of that part in sophist talking about the distinction between being and non-being and you know how it unfolds and particularly distinction and who is a sophist really from the perspective of Plato and then

Hopefully we'll move on to a more detailed exposition on third minority lips. One simple question I had was if there's an easy way to distinguish between the good itself and the good life as mixture. Yes, the good life is a mixture. The good is the principle of mixing. It's the principle that affords such a mixture in the first place. And insofar as a mixture, insofar as a good

life is not simply a, what you might call to be a satisfying life, but it's also an intelligible life, basically, because as we saw intelligibility is required for eudaimonia, for good life, not only epistemological, ontological, but also axiological and practical. So the principle of the good is essentially, as a principle of mixing, is really what allows us to not only access the order of intelligibility but also be capable of acting on it in order to have a satisfying life broadly understood

adequately understood so it's both has to do with the capability of mixing and and the way, the function of mixing, the way that mixing takes place? Yes, because you see mixing obviously is not putting a stuff together. Mixing, we talked about that, mixing required a number of, you know, important elements. theoretical intelligibilities, practical intelligibilities, instrumentalities, products, purpose, external and internal purposes of the recipe of this mixing, but more importantly,

the process of Composterous, dialectical separation and integration of intelligibilities according to their own respective or relevant measure. And that measure is important. And on the divided line, the good is the fifth segment. The good is not the fifth segment. The good is the line itself. The good life, what you might call to be the realm of the good life, it starts from the fifth segment. But the The good itself, the form of forms is the line itself, is the continuity of the line that we have separated but also combined according to their own measures like Iconus, like Pestis,

like Dionea, and then at the end, idealities, formal idealities. I think Rosemary and Desjardins. Sorry? Rosemary Desjardins, I've just been reading the last chapter. I think she characterizes it maybe briefly as the fifth outside or... Yes, I mean, I think it's exactly that fifth invisible segment, which is the line itself. and people like john salis and

nicholas resher explicitly referred to the line itself as the fifth segment as the fifth domain that basically allows the separation and integration of these subdomains through which not only we can start to contemplate philosophy about the good itself but also be capable of embarking on the process of construction of a good life as the realm of intelligibility's inclusively understood and you see the continuity this is actually there is a

subtle point here the continuity of the line can never be captured in its totality by its segments by its discrete segments and it requires a constant perpetual process of separation and integration for fine-graining of this continuity which represents or stands for a good itself. Thanks, that answers my question a little bit. You see the continuity is not generates, is not generated and you know there is nothing, I mean even if you are

talking about like today's or even like the geometric Greek ancient mathematician, people like Zeno they do not believe and also in contemporary mathematics that continuity can be generated by integration. Continuity is there, but can you reconstruct it? The integration is part of the reconstruction of continuity, rather than something that can generate it. Right? Continuity is not a product of integration, but it's something that can be reconstructed by the process of integration, namely synthesis.

and we've touched on this this before but the line serves both as an epistemological model and as an ontological model. And as axiological. Axiological. Which I think Plato, that's why Christian was asking about Findlay versus Sellars. I think even though Sellars has a very modern look at Plato,

but I think that should not really lead us to believe that Plato would overemphasize the epistemological aspect of the divided line. Neither is ontological, metaphysical. He, in fact, would go for the axiological as the first principle. Axiological in the cosmological sense of Plato, Platonic philosophy that we talked about. Because the good is a cosmological principle for Plato, not in the sense of physical universe, but simply it's something that's beyond any particular horizon of thought. More comments, more questions?

I sort of have a question. Sure. so in this reading um like where do forms for things that aren't capable of self-cultivation come in in a way um like we talked for a while last time about you know formed in an ideal or a practice or you know something that's has sort of it's like an inexhaustible nature yes the general time infinite end yes but so but so then what so like what about forms for like

biological entities that well you see I think Plato would say that these are what you might call to be logoi. These are analytical idealities. These are not ideas as pertaining to the fourth segment. These are forms that pertain to the third segment. These are forms that are capable of that both have the Unchanging aspect of the ideas Maybe forms as pertaining to four segments, but also are capable of ramifying and covering over

Multiplicities Right so so they're sort of those are things that are inside time and not able they don't have like a relationship to time that's like creative or like they have in fact a creative aspect you see that the time what I was saying that they're unchanging the unchanging aspect of them is that they what you might call to be basically their generality. The idea that these concepts are not essentially immutable in the sense of ideas or true forms.

simply by virtue of ranging over multitudes, they take, in fact, a temporal aspect. Because this is, again, part of the ancient pre-Socratic philosophy, that anything that ranges over multitudes takes the temporal aspect. And this is the idea of the perils, the Heraclitian flux. So from this perspective, I think the realm of Lugoi has a temporal aspect, whereas ideas don't have a temporal aspect, because the third segment is essentially constructed by

the principle of Apeiron to Apeiron and to Peros, binding and unbinding, the infinite one and the indeterminate diod. And there is another thing that leads us to believe that they have a temporal aspect, is because you see only things don't have a temporal aspect that don't participate in anything. So ideas don't participate in anything other than themselves as two forms, the fourth segment. But we know from the divided line

that forms belonging to the third segment in fact participate in more general forms, namely ideas. Anything that participates from a polytonic perspective has a temporal aspect. Anything that engages with methexis. They participate passively, so to speak, or something like that. They participate passively, but you see, it's the soul that makes them active. It's the soul that makes them creative. In fact, you can talk about the construction of such forms, construction of forms, rather than forms that are given in advance, like a priori forms.

So there are these forms that are constructible, and there is, in fact, an element of creativity, and that's the job of soul as a craftsman, that starts working on these intermediary forms constructing it towards idealities. So like I'm kind of thinking this in terms of like the debate between like materialism and rationalism like what like is there an axiological dimension for like a self-organizing system that's not sapient? I would say Plato which of course I you know I don't believe this but I would say Plato Plato, there is a good reason to believe that yes.

Yes, because first of all, Plato is a teleological thinker. That's, for example, a lion should conform to its nature, adequately understood what this nature is, and this nature is formal, is a function of the lion, a function of the lion and the more you construct yourself as a lion to our dysfunction which is soul of the lion the more you can talk about an axial axiom or axiological aspect of what it means for something to be a lion so there is there

is in fact there is this still this teleological cosmology present in Plato, that everything should try to conform as best as it can to its forms. Because this is the value of its nature. Do you think that's, is that part of, is that something that's still useful from Plato, or is that something to be more left behind? I think it is not really useful in an important sense. I think, first of all, even if it could be useful, you have to really massively amputate a lot in this discussion and constrain it, narrow it down to the most minimal possible

framework. Because this way, this is essentially one of the critiques of Kant. the critique that he provides of teleological thinking and teleological functionalism. It's the so-called as-if argument. So it's the idea that Kant says that we can in fact talk about functions in nature. For example, a system can be said to be functioning in a good way if it corresponds to its functional or teleological functions. For example, a heart pumps blood and we can talk about

function and malfunction. Now they do a good job or not. Yes. But he says that this is only as an as-if argument. As if we were modeling hearts on our own practical reasoning. Practical reasoning precisely because practical reasoning is a normative idea of function. It's the idea that, for example, x is y, x is y, then I ought to do, for example, z in order to achieve, for example, y, or something like that. This oughtness of practical reasoning is the model of function. So Kant wants to argue that all, there is no such a, there is no function in any sense

in nature. These functions are modeled on as-if argument, as if we were treating it as a piece of practical reasoning, then we could say that the function of art is to pump blood and if it does end then it malfunctions. But Kant is very strict about this in the critique of pure reason, that you need to be very careful when you are dealing with as if arguments. You need to always understand these as analogical reasoning, analogical arguments, because once you take them as anything beyond analogy in themselves, such as for example you can say that in fact there is

a function for a heart, then you are being led to antinomies. Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's like, it, there's nothing in, things in nature only appear already in the context of this sort of overall self-cultivating project. Yes, and for Kent, he wasn't, doesn't want to talk about self-cultivating project. He wants to say that basically any function that you see in nature is already modeled, analogically speaking, on theoretical and practical reasons. Hence, as if they were a function.

We can talk about these kinds of functions. In fact, science does. Science does talk about, engineering does, talks about these. But these are all as if, they're analogical. This sounds a lot like, I don't have it on me, but what Rios says about forms, basically that the forms just function as hypotheses until supplemented by the principle of the good. Yes, I have read that some people have talked about forms of the fourth segment as hypotheses, and in fact, you can't really see this in republic, but as I mentioned, Plato becomes increasingly critical of his doctrine of form, not to the extent that so many commentators

say that he abundiced the doctrine of forms toward his later philosophical life, but he, In fact, does, I think, propose something like this, that forms as pertaining to the fourth segment need to be understood as hypotheses. I'm sorry, and who was the writer again who talked about that? Which one? I mentioned Giovanni Rio. Okay, okay. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. Yeah, thank you. it's uh it's a book called toward the new interpretation of uh plato any more adam any oh no no that's all that's that's all i wanted to know okay yeah

Okay, let's begin then. So I've written some notes because it gets a little bit torturous in this discussion, so I don't want to go off topic. So as you know, the distinction between sophist and philosopher hasn't always been a delicate or an ambiguous matter. In fact so many people, even Ray, thinks that the distinction between a sophist and a philosopher is in fact not as clear-cut as it is.

But in fact when you look in pre-Socratic philosophy, particularly the fight between Eliatics who are rationalists and other sects like Gorgias and Heraclitians and so on and so forth, you see that there is in fact a clear-cut distinction between a sophist and a philosopher. The thing is that this clear distinction between, or almost clear distinction between philosophers and the sophists actually comes to the foreground when heliotics emerge.

Eliottic, who are rationalists, are in fact those kinds of philosophers that completely obscure the distinction between philosopher and sophist. And this is part of Plato's sophist, to show that the Eliottic stranger is really a strange beast. He's a sophist, but he's a sophist that he thinks that he is a philosopher, and by some definitions, by all definitions, he in fact is not a sophist. But nevertheless, Plato wants to show that he is in fact a sophist. So it's important to understand that this ambivalence between sophist and philosopher in a technical sense,

not in a sense of who is a sophist and who is a philosopher, is something that comes to play a major role with the rise of Eleatic's philosophy. So in your point of view Reza, what is the difference really? I will go on, I will make the distinction. You see, the old distinction between a sophist and a philosopher, goes like this, that the sophist believes that what is said is what is. Toe on. What is said is what is. So, in so far as what is said can be decomposed or analyzed simply in terms of what you might

call to be deductive syllogism or other logical demonstrations, then simply you can say about what is by resorting to certain logical demonstrations that can be turned into techniques. techniques. So let's put it this way, that's, you see, the very most vulgar distinction between sophists and philosophers is that sophists is someone who sells wisdom.

So where is this coming from? You see, it's coming from this idea that the sophists were in fact a sect of philosophers who were believing, who were basically selling wisdom, selling knowledge to elites, politicians, generals, so on and so forth. Now the distinction comes here, becomes more prominent, is that you see, according to the principle of philosophy, knowledge is not something that can be solved, not because you can exchange it with money, but because it is not something that you can tell someone

that here is knowledge and give you money in exchange for this amount of knowledge. Now sophists believe that in so far as what is said is essentially what is, then we can sell in fact the knowledge of what is by training these people, generals, politicians, so on and so forth, by telling them how to say things, namely the logic of sayings. And the logic of sayings as something which for sophists is really the knowledge of what

is, is something that can be sold as techniques, as techniques of discourse. So this is essentially when the first, the old distinction between a sophist and philosopher emerges. Someone who thinks that what is said is what is, and by virtue that what is said can be decomposed into techniques of discourse that can in fact be trained to people and be exchanged with money or goods, then the knowledge of what is can also be sold. So that's basically how they sell, how they pretend that they sell or they can provide

people, their clients, with the knowledge of what is simply by training them in the knowledge of what can be said. speaking in the sense of the techniques of discourse. So is the most important thing that, not that it's the selling of the object of the technique, but the fact that it's the reduction of knowledge into simply rhetorical techniques? Absolutely, yes, yes. Yes, this is absolutely the kernel of the distinction, all the distinction. Plato wants to say that this is not really a good distinction.

So they don't have a criterion for truth versus falsehood. Yes, yes, absolutely. They simply are incapable of integrating logic, language and evidence. They're simply working, you might think of, in a very, I think that I don't want to, you know, go with other proportions, but I think it's in fact right to think of sophists as dogmatic rationalists, rather than dogmatic empressists.

are dogmatic rationalists, simply thinking that by virtue of logical demonstrations, technical logical demonstrations, which are not essentially rhetorical techniques in today's sense of rhetorics at least, maybe in the Aristotelian sense of rhetorics, simply by virtue of participating in logical demonstration, you can acquire the knowledge of what we are is. Are the techniques that you're talking about when you say it's not rhetorical in our sense you are they just more like formalisms? Yes. Okay. Discursive formalisms, yeah. So the distinction between you know the sophist

and philosophy hasn't always been a delicate or an ambiguous matter you In early pre-Socratic age, the sophist was identified as the one who trades wisdom with something other than wisdom. But in so far as the essence of wisdom, qua theoretical and practical knowledge, qua theoretical and practical know-dots, know-dots. So you see, the essence of wisdom is theoretical and practical know-that, knowing that such and such. So the essence of wisdom is know-that.

So insofar as the essence of wisdom, quote theoretical and practical know-that, cannot be exchanged with barter or money, the sophist supplies them in a form that can indeed be sold. This is a sophist as the finer or dissimulator of wisdom, and that's basically either true imitation or through bad representations. He replaces, so the sophists replaces the know-thats of wisdom with the know-hows of the technique.

So you see the discursive formalities or the rhetorics, the rhetoric feats of the sophists are essentially know-hows. So Safi is essentially someone who thinks that he can obtain the knowledge of the wisdom or exchange wisdom, namely know-thats with know-hows. And you can see from this perspective so many philosophers today who believe in this fall in this classification as sophists, reduction of no-dats, pure reduction, it's really important,

pure reduction of no-dats to no-hows. So this is, as I mentioned, this is a sophist, the finer of wisdom. He replaces the no-dats of wisdom with the no-hows of the technique, the arts of rhetoric, oration and rationalization, in a discursive logical sense, which once mastered can be utilized toward attaining any goal irrespective of it being justified on the basis of wisdom or not. What permits the sophist to accomplish this feat of forgery is the assumption that what is said is actually is, to honor. In other words, sayings are equal to that which is.

Hence words once coupled with deductive reasoning provide a true account of the generic being, i.e. what is. To this effect, the technique provided by the sophist, the deductive art of saying, is sufficient to engage with any domain that lays claim to the sovereign knowledge of particular instance of being or what is, be it politics, science, art, philosophy. So you see, that's actually quite, I think, a fascinating thing because from this perspective of distinction, the whole idea of critical theory becomes a prosthesis of sophistry because

It tries to simply extend theoretical resources to particular instances of know-thats, knowing-hows of know-thats, like science. It has a specific know-how corresponding to know-thats. But critical theory thinks that it has accessed some critical generic know-hows that can simply challenge and question the sovereignty of any specific particular discipline of knowledge, be it philosophy, be it art, be it science, be it economy, so on and so forth.

Is that because... It's very important that these generic know-hows are what distinguish the sophists. Not essentially believing in know-hows capable of obtaining know-dots that makes you a sophist, but believing that there is a class of generic know-hows that can allow you to simply question and challenge the know-hows and the respective know-dots of particular disciplines of knowledge. But then I guess much of, sorry, excuse me, much of analytic philosophy. Sorry, there is a noise outside. Go on.

Much of analytic philosophy would fall into the same trap because of the tendency towards specialization. I think with analytic philosophy, it's more subtle than this Because, yes, for a good chunk, in 20th century at least, analytic philosophy has this tendency toward trying to look at specific, particular knowledge claims from the perspective of this kind of ossified, logical procedures. But I think it is more, not that it is not true, let's put it that way, it's not that

it is not true, it is more of a perception of continental philosophy, of analytic philosophy. When you look for example at Quine, when you look at people like Putnam, Goodman, Sellars, So many of these people don't believe in this, and in fact challenge this kind of thing, challenge this kind of approach. And so far as it is in fact built on a kind of metaphysical, implicit metaphysical assumption that there is a correlation already between these kinds of logical procedures and no-dats

of reality so like there's always like a structure in place that's still like a touchstone for truth even though yeah maybe it lacked like a total vision in a way sometimes yes yes but again as i mentioned i mean despite the fact that analytic philosophy at least in 20th century um had this tendency toward being pigeonholed, these really frugal philosophical forms of inquiry. There were in fact major trends in analytic philosophy that used to challenge in fact

these trends in analytic philosophy, within analytic philosophy. And particularly in the 21st century, I generally think that the new generation of and philosophers are quite aware of these and by no means can be classified in terms of those predecessors. Go on, Maria. Oh, I was just going to say, so the Socratic method either falls into that or is not to be expected to lead directly to, I know that, but to stimulate its immersion.

Your question is actually quite interesting, because you see, Socrates himself, as I mentioned the first session, quite a very ambivalent figure in Plato's dialogues. You see, of course, Plato wants to, once in a while, just for fun, to present Socrates as a true philosopher, as someone who has the iron feast of dialectical sovereignty over sophists. But nevertheless, for the most part, Socrates comes up as a sophist, and in fact this is to show that the reasoning, that Socrates is susceptible to rationalization, like all other Sophists.

He's a philosopher, and philosopher is also susceptible to these rationalizations, just like all other Sophists. But he wants to show that dialectics is not something that pertains to the figure of Socrates, But it is something that you might say to be the framework of the interaction between Socrates as representing a particular form of rationalization and sophists as those who represent a different form of rationalization. So dialectics from this perspective is not rationalization per se. is in fact the one that allows you to question rationalization.

Dialectic is essentially based on dualities, and these dualities is basically the figure of the dialogue. What really, ultimately, what sets apart Socrates from other famous sophists or proponents of erratic arguments that are presented in dialogues is not because he's a philosopher, but because he's a sophist who knows that he doesn't know nothing. Whereas the sophist believes that he knows everything by virtue of the equation between what is said and what is. Reza, do you know that you know nothing?

Or would you say something different? No, I said that Socrates knows that he doesn't know anything. That he knows nothing. So, Sakhalin essentially starts from the premise of ignorance. Simply he had already suspended the equation, the traditional sophistic equation between what is said and what is. Whereas the sophist begins with the premise of the equation between what is said and what and hence knowing everything. So this is a kind of posture that initiates what Plato's theory of learning, where you're...

Absolutely, yes. ...already... No, okay. And thinking. And this is essentially why is that, you know, that's, of course, philosophy from a historical... I mean, Plato from a historical standpoint is not the first philosopher. There were pre-Socratic philosophers and so on and so forth. He is the first philosopher precisely because he starts philosophy on this premise that it should start from the suspension of the given in any form. And this given for Plato, firstly and foremost, pertains to the given correlation or correspondence between appearances and reality. So the gesture of beginning with ignorance, that I do not know anything, suspends this

givenness of truth. So philosophy doesn't begin with truth as its first step. It becomes an objective for philosophy. Whereas the heuristic argument, which is the type of argument that the sophist usually engages, begins with a conception of truth that is given in advance. So it's like the basic idea that if I continue down my dialectical thread, I may end up on undermining one of my own presuppositions. Absolutely, and that's what you might call to be, you know, process of philosophy from this perspective is ampliated,

in the sense that your conclusions can completely override the truth of your premises. And this is initiated by the anoma? Anoma? The anoma? What is that? Is that, is that, it's kind of like a conventional term for something or maybe it's kind of like the instance within aicasia that spurs this dialectic.

You see, it begins with, it begins in, you see, the iconos, or the, Aikasia, isn't, you are referring to the onomo. Let me check to see what is the... I think it's maybe a term that's used for the seventh letter. Let me see. I haven't, I mean, I think I have seen this term, but maybe under a different spelling.

Let me see. Wictionary. OK. Name, no one. OK. OK, it simply means name. OK. Yes, OK. The thing about with names, Plato's theory of names is very different from the sophisticated idea of naming. So Plato's theory of names is not about application of labels to a stuff simply, simply a matter

of discursive conventions. This is very important. the sophists believe that names can be applied and let's put it this way you know from from the perspective of theory of language in ancient Greek philosophy naming essentially is a form of knowledge so the sophist believes that naming is a matter of discursive convention only and only and simply if I have if I can name something I can I have the knowledge of it it's a you

know it's kind of a almost a very 20th century or 19th century metaphysical assumption in logic but there is a there is Plato's theory of naming which is presented in the I could use is very different he wants to show that knowing Knowing how to apply a name to something is dependent on knowing that's what this object is. So the know-hows of naming are inextricable from the know-that's of the item being named.

from a modern perspective and more contemporary perspective, this is essentially what you might call to be a Brandomian position, namely integration of semantic and epistemological holism. That you can't have a robust or a healthy semantic holism without epistemological holism, and you can't have epistemological holism without semantic holism. Whereas the sophist wants to simply reduce or narrow down the semantic aspect of naming to logical discursive procedures, which can be a matter of conventions. But as Plato wants to argue, naming requires knowledge of the thing being named.

Yes, to apply name to something requires know-hows of naming, know-hows of conceptualization. But the know-hows of conceptualization cannot be significant in the overall knowledge horizon without you be capable of giving or at least addressing the no-dots, namely epistemological requirements of identifying, characterizing, and distinguishing a particular item from

other particular items, against the stunts. Let's. So this would be like. Chugot. Like a. Like the Copernican turn, like in order to know how, in order to have the framework in which you can discuss the way in which like the earth rotates around the sun, you first, I guess I'm not understanding how you can extract, how you pull them apart that easily. You can't, you see, according to Plato, this is absolutely impossible to pull them apart.

Naming, know-hows of naming and know-dots of item in question are inextricable. epistemic and semanticalism are inextricable. What's a sophist is in fact a logicist, a logicist, and from this it does not mean that he believes fully, at least to himself, that logic is capable of gain pure logic of demonstration, and gain traction on, you know, a stop going on the state of affairs in the external world, is that his logicism is in fact

has metaphysical presuppositions. So in fact, it's not really purely logical. Yeah, it's a solipsistic type of logic, right? Yeah. And this is kind of where the form of difference comes in too, right? can you elaborate on this a little bit like so for there to be a difference between truth and falsehood there has to be such thing as non-being something appearing but not absolutely yes yes absolutely I mean that's what I'm going moving toward that direction that the non-being is precisely what allows to

make you this difference. And what non-being. And it's a formal non-being rather than a substantive one, which is paradoxical. And that is the form of difference, right? It's like. It's a negativity, essentially. Negativity as the unit of thought. Like the term negation or something. Yeah, I'd love to hear you talk more about that. But it sounds like you're going to get to it soon. Yeah. Should we have a cigarette break? Sounds good. All right. OK. Coming back soon. Sure. All right. Hey, Christian, we're just taking a short break.

Thank you. my microphone or my speakers are working. Can somebody say something? Yeah, you're coming in. It's like a little bit aggro, but you're fine. All right, cool. I had to switch to a different laptop. I'm going to restaurant.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Sorry, I had to get a beer for myself. No problem. Sunday beer. Sunday beer. 5 o'clock somewhere. I don't care about what time it is or what day it is. So the philosophers use, Maria asked what beer they are. What are you doing? You don't have to tell me.

Well, this is, unfortunately, I used to, you know, drink some expensive beers and stuff, but I think that my taste is, unfortunately, is very vulgar. I have acquainted myself to Heineken only. So, I was just going to ask if I was understanding it correctly that the epistemic holism and semantic holism for the philosopher are overlapped. For the philosopher, yes. Already next week, yes. So, So, and the To-on and To-me-on is basically, essentially this, I'm moving toward this,

it's the idea that there's a distinction between To-on and To-me-on, between being and non-being. And the distinction that Plato wants to preserve, Parmenides wants to suspend. And as I will talk about it, essentially that's where the Eleotic stranger or the Eleotic visitor is represented as a sophist in which that old distinction between the sophist and the philosopher hasn't gone away, but its nature has mutated to something far more subtle and insidious.

Are we going to have time to talk about the dialogue Parmenides today? Probably not. But don't worry, we'll get to it. Yeah, I was revisiting it and it was just a complete mindfuck. Yeah, I think Parmenides, I mean, that dialogue is fantastic. It's just truly mind-bogglingly difficult. But Parmenides himself is also a very cryptic philosopher. I mean, I sent you the unnature. When you read unnature, Parmenides is unnature, I mean, you think that Nietzsche is such a dwarf compared to Parmenides because everything that Nietzsche is saying is Parmenides of Arie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you saying about Nietzsche? So basically, in Unnature, Parmenides in fact talks about eternal return. He talks about eternal return. And he basically brings it to the fundamental question of being. And you can see that this is like basically Nietzsche is like a poor imitation of Parmenidian thinking, which I think it is true. Nietzsche is not an irrationalist, as so many philosophers claim he is. That's, I think, a fundamentally inadequate reading of Nietzsche. Nietzsche is a Parmenidian rationalist, which from a Platonic perspective is a sophist, just like

And again, Plato calling someone sophist in that later definition of sophism, which I will talk about, is not essentially a disrespectful insult, like for example, the way that he He uses the word sophists for people like Gorgias, like the traditional sophists. He does not believe that these people actually sell wisdom. He tries to argue that the premise is essentially comes with an ignorance of ignorance. Ignorance of ignorance, rather than Socrates who

start with the premise of knowledge of ignorance, that I am ignorance. And we will talk about this both in Parmenides and I think really necessary work to understand this discussion on some of these manner, particularly Menno's paradox. Yeah, one thing I was really struck by just the poem on nature. I don't know, for me, the dialogue that Plato writes was so much more confusing to me than the poem on nature. Yes, of course. I mean, remember that Plato,

as I mentioned on the classroom page, Plato was a follower, a fanboy of Barmenides, for a long time because Parmenides is a rationalist philosopher and is a person who brings the idea of reason into philosophy. But so he has already huge influence in like the younger generation of philosophers, Plato being one of them. And you need to understand that this time frame between Parmenides on Nature and the dialogue Parmenides by Plato, there is huge amount of commentary and work that try to

disentangle the poem, and mostly done by the Eleotic philosophers. Basically, the whole idea is that this whole idea of being and thinking are one, the central thesis of Parmenides, is not some one thesis, is not just one thing. Eliatic philosophers start to ramify these to its variant forms. So it's essential for Plato to address all of these forms, or at least presenting an argument, a really sophisticated convolutive argument that can simply diffuse all of its variations.

So as I said in the old definition of the sophists, what permits the sophists to accomplish the speed of forgery is the assumption that what is said is actually is, toron. In other words, sayings are equal to that which is. As words, once coupled with deductive reasoning, provide a true account of generic being, or what is. To this effect, the technique provided by the sophist, the deductive art of saying, is sufficient to engage with any domain that lays claim to the sovereign knowledge of particular instances

of being or what is, be it politics, science, art or philosophy. One who obtains the technique of the sophist then is able to not only foray to all domains of thought and practice, but also scrutinize them for contradictions and falsities according to the self-sufficiency of discursive practices in the logistic sense. So by virtue of the assumed representational correspondence between what is deductively said, and what actually it is, all it takes for the sophist to discriminate truth from falsity is bringing the latter into contradiction or absurdities via the power of deductive

arguments and the scale of words, and in doing that exposing it as that which is not tomion, namely a falsity or non-being. In this sense, what ultimately makes a sophist is the ignorance of what makes him a sophist. And this is Socrates' formula of sophist hunting, how to detect a sophist. So by virtue of the assumed representational correspondence between what is deductively said and what actually is, all it takes for the sophist to discriminate truth from falsity is bringing the latter into contradictions or absurdities via the power of deductive arguments and the skill of words.

In doing that, exposing it as that which is not, or non-being. In this sense, what ultimately makes a sophist sophist is the ignorance of what makes him a sophist, that is, not knowing that what is said, word, is not the same as what is, being. So what I wanted to make, this is essentially, as Maria said, this is the kernel of the dialectical practice. That Socrates, or at least Plato's Socrates, starts to reformulate it. Because so many people who are criticizing dialectics, particularly in the critical theories,

is that I have heard this thing that, you know, it's basically they misunderstand the nature of Socratic irony. They think that it's simply dialectic is something that is supposed to show some sort of logical contradiction, logical contradiction in your claims or sins, exposing them, Simply, they try to reduce the idea of dialectics to an expose of badly deducted thoughts. But this is not really what Socrates' peculiar version of dialectics is about.

As I mentioned, it requires semantic holism and epistemological holism, The integration, not the fusion, the integration of know-hows of discursive reasoning and the know-thats of healthy representations. So, and this is why another reason that in dialogues, Plato intentionally, deliberately, suspends sometimes the distinction between the Socratic method and the sophistic version

of dialectics. And in virtue of that, Socrates comes up as, in fact, a sophist. And for example, in Menno is a particular prominent case where Socrates begins his discussion, his defense against Menno's erratic argument about the impossibility of knowledge, with feats of simply this kind of a sophistic forms of dialectics exposing the contradiction without having any

respect for the coherency of how knowing hows of discursive reasoning can fit with the knowing that's of knowledge. But usually, where Socrates comes up as a sophist, using dialectics as simply a form of rationalization, he slightly moved toward rectifying his position. So it's basically, Plato, there is another, like this is kind of a narrative trick in all dialogues, and that's, even though Socrates at the beginning comes up as a sophist who

has reduced the idea of dialectics to this method of expose of contradictions, which sophist does nevertheless he starts to realize that this is not really what i'm supposed to do as a philosopher but there is always like this kind of a happy ending in all parts of the dialogue whenever uh sophist is involved in the conversation so it is only with the rise of the eliotic school of philosophy that the distinction between the sophist and the philosopher becomes an exceedingly precarious one. What connects Parmenides, Melusius, and Zeno of Elia is not as much their doctrines as it is a series of enigmas or puzzles founded on the principles which they all have in common.

and this is the nature of this enigma what pertains to being i.e. the reality of that which is cannot be tracked with thoughts unless thought recognizes its subordination to being or what is acknowledging itself no longer as distinguished from being but as that which cannot and should not be separated from the generic being or that which is. So you see, Eleotics from this perspective is an insurgency against the old tradition

of the sophists, who simply equate what is said of thinking with what is of being. Marx wants to argue that thought cannot have any traction on the domain of being unless it subordinates itself to the domain of being, namely, it affirms and admits its indistinction from the domain of being. You might recall in the last instance, thinking is inseparable from being. And only then what is thought or said can be understood as relaying a significance about

that which is or being. So this is a twist here in the sense that the sophists trying to isolate, giving a sterile conception of thinking, which is according to their belief, which is of course false, is divested from and isolated from the domain of being. So what is said from an Eliatic perspective absolutely doesn't translate to what is, the knowledge of being. But according The old sophist is, is really the case, that what is said is sufficient for having the

knowledge of what is. Now, the heliotic solution is that if we want really to reclaim the significance of what is thought or what is said with regard to the realm of being, we need to subordinate thinking to being, namely in the last instance, abolish or suspend the distinction between the two. Because only then thought can be said, if thought is already in the realm of being, then what is thought can be said to be a knowledge of what is or being.

You see that this is also quite very, I mean, from a modern perspective, it's a kind of a material disposition. So, as I mentioned, what pertains to being, the reality of that which is, cannot be tackled with thought unless thought recognizes its subordination to being, or what is. Acknowledging itself no longer as distinguished from being, but as that which cannot and should not be separated from the generic being or that which is.

Failing to do so, in solving these problems, rational thought gives rise to more problems, each more entangled than the previous one, hence the appellation, Eleotic Hydra, as a problem that cannot be tackled by the philosopher unless the philosopher recognizes that what distinguishes her, namely thought, as differentiated from being, is an illusion of that which is not. The only viable mode of engagement with the Heliotic Hydra is to think as if thought and being are one, that in every and each instance, thought is an articulation of what is, whether

that which is, is characterized as mobility, fixity, nature, life, or in today's lexicon of materialism, force, drive, body, empirical law, contingency of capital. So in this figure of Hydra that the Eleotic Estrangea and Plato's Sophists distills and ventriloquizes, it is this figure of Hydra that the Eleotic Estrangea and Plato's Sophists distills and ventriloquizes. The Eleotic estranger is a sophist who also happens to be a sophist hunter. This Eleotic estranger, in fact, has stopped conversation with Socrates, attacking

other sophists, and he presents himself as someone who is very adept as identifying who a sophist. Just exactly like Socrates himself most of the times, that he is a sophist and a sophist hunter. So the Heliotic stranger is a sophist who also happens to be a sophist hunter, is proficient in dialectics, rational argumentation, and is capable of exercising the Socratic method to a devastating effect. In short, he is a doppelganger of the Socrates himself, the archetype of the philosopher. Now the Eleotic stranger is not a sophist in the old traditional definition to the extent

that he knows that being is not the same as saying. Yet he is a sophist. So you see, as I mentioned, Socrates has this universal sophist hunting formula. And the sophist is essentially one who doesn't know he's a sophist. It's basically, it starts with the premise of ignorance of ignorance. Ignorance of ignorance. Not knowledge of ignorance, ignorance of ignorance. So according to this self-proclamation by the Heliotic stranger, if he claims that he

knows that he is a sophist, then he is not a sophist, because he has started his premise with a knowledge of ignorance, hence he's a philosopher. So there is a complication here. Plato wants to show that he in fact fits the definition of Socratic formulation of how to detect, sniff out a sophist. Reza, I just have a question about Socrates. I think I've heard, I think it was from Alain Badoop, that some people think of Socrates as being a sophist

and Plato as being a philosopher? Have you like... You see, Plato, as I mentioned, I think, I mean, this can be, yes, this can be put forward, but I think that Plato wouldn't agree to this because you see, obviously, Socrates, the Socrates that is presented in dialogues is essentially a made-up figure by Plato. There is no historical connection. First of all, we don't have a historical picture of Socrates, we don't know anything about him other than through some commentaries and the dialogues themselves. So Socrates is essentially a particular avatar of Plato.

But yes, this is true to the extent that Plato absolutely nowhere in dialogues intervenes or says anything. We can't in fact say what Plato said, because Plato never says anything. This is the whole idea that Plato, Platonic philosophy is essentially dialectical, and that's why it's represented in the form of dialogues. That philosophy is not belonging to this individual versus that individual, Socrates versus Gorgias. It's simply a self-assembly of dialectical reason to the conversation or dialogue of two people who are bound to reason. Right, that's why Han-York Gottemmer made his book on Plato called Dialogue and Dialectic.

Yes, yes. So, I mean, this is, again, as I mentioned, this is really important that Plato was extremely suspicious of written form, particularly dialogues. In his letter he really acknowledges that these are vulgar exercises, but nevertheless that's the closest way that it can become to an actual dialogue to what is going on in real time in conversation between people who reason. It's almost in my mind make it makes philosophy and thought quite literally being.

One more time. Because it's now philosophy is no longer internal to this particular subject, philosophy is this activity that happens between dialoguers that seems like the ultimate subordination of thought to being. It is not because you see the figure of the dialogue is negation which we will come to this is negation, determinate negation. And negation is non-being. And non-being, why is that, why can in fact we can reason, we can have a conversation, because we are capable

of resolving material incompatibility and consequent relations between what we say and what we think, namely negating if, for example, I'm saying that this is red according to my capability of differential responsiveness to the presence of a red object that this is red. You would say that, no, this is green. But we go back and forth resolving the material incompatibilities and then we reach consequent relations. Let's agree that this is in fact green rather than red. So if it is green it means that it is not blue.

It is not, it is not, you see, the term in a negation. It is not blue, it is not white, it is not black. So the figure of negation, the figure of non-being is purely formal. And that becomes the idea that formality is not substantive. The distinction, the indistinction between thoughts or the subordination of thought to being can only be attained by interpreting thought on a substantive level. But Plato wants to argue that the kernel of thought is formal. of non-being, formal negativity rather than substantive negativity or substantive non-being.

Because if you do not have the formal non-being or formal negativity, then you can't talk about the distinction between thought and being so as to later on subordinate thought to being. And so then, and like the normative dimension comes back in there too. Yes, it's essentially yes. I mean, this is, you can see that Plato's rationalism is essentially a normative, has a normative input. So I love Theo that he always wants to bring it to the skeptical, no I just love it, this

is really good. This is quite actually very, I would say a very very Hume-ian, distilled Hume-ian super asset. That is, yeah that's my legacy. So you will like that article that I'm writing for Glassfeed. This is actually quite a defense of Hume versus Kant. Super, yeah. I'm looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to the book, so I hope that comes out soon. Yeah, there is a chapter. What's the book you're writing, Reza? Yeah, I finished it. It's Intelligence and Spirit. It's coming from Urbanomic. There is a chapter, in fact, in continuation of that Boltzmann paper

on defense of epistemological skepticism, and particularly Russell's Five Minutes Ago Paradox, which is famously Russell himself criticized his position and gave a counter-argument to his own initial argument. So I'm diffusing his own counter-argument against his own argument. And so it's considered to be one of the most skeptical scenarios, five minutes ago paradox. So let's get back to the Eliottic Hydra.

So the Eliottic stranger is a sophist who also happens to be a sophist hunter. is proficient in dialectics, rational argumentation, and is capable of exercising the Socratic method to a devastating effect. In short, he is the doppelganger of Socrates, the archetype of philosophy. The Eliottian stranger is not a sophist to the extent that he knows that being is not the same as saying. Yet he is a sophist, since for him thinking is being to the extent that being is all there is. The non-being of thought is predicated on that which it negates or separates itself from, which is to say the reality of that which is or being.

In other words, thought cannot be distinguished from being, for the latter is what thought ultimately is, the material conditions that constitute, according to our new materialist interpretation, if we interpret being materialistically. It is only Plato, not as Plato of the Daleks, that distinguishes the eleotic stranger as the sophist. The constitutive gesture of sophism in this new mutated form that the Eleotic radicalizes is not the equivocation between saying, language, and being, but aligning

the distinction between thought and being, the formal specificity of the former and the substantive genericity of the latter. Ultimately, the Eliottic stranger is a sophist, insofar as his knowledge of thought as being is precisely the outcome of his ignorance. That non-being of thought is not predicated on that which it negates, namely being, since the former's negativity of non-being is formal, not a substantive negativity, that can be said to be conditioned by that which is of being.

In other words, the sophistic feat of the Eleoticist Slanger boils down to this idea that he He wants to have his cake of rationalism and eats it too. That first comes up with the idea that thought is capable of distinguishing being, but then subordinate thought to being in the last instance. So Plato wants to show that this is completely an irrested argument in the sense that the movement

from thought being capable of identifying being to thought being subordinated to being requires collapsing the distinction between what is formal and what is substantive. Reducing the distinction between non-being of thinking, negativity of thinking, as the unit of dialectics and thought, to a substantive distinction between thought and being. Then by virtue of the Eleotic paradox, the Carmenidian paradox, can be shown that at the level of substantive distinction of thinking and being,

thought falls into infinite requests. to irrationalism. But this is only predicated on first distinguishing thoughts on a formal domain so as to be capable of identifying being, and then collapsing the formal distinction that allowed you to identify being to a substantive distinction which according to Parmenides does not exist it's kind of like sneaking in an absolute yes it is it is essentially and what you might call to be a

very very easily for a category mistake interesting wait wait what did you say about infinite regress and I didn't quite understand so The idea is that Parmenides discusses on this idea that there is no distinction between thought and being. And non-being of thought is simply a chimera. Because every form of non-being is predicated on the idea of being. thoughts negates is predicated on the being of that which is negated so non

being is essentially a paradoxical thought not being of thought is a paradoxical thought so and nature of this paradox is precisely that whenever we are trying to explain what is in fact non being substantively formulated We have to come up with a predicate which you might say to be pertaining to being rather than non-being. So every time that we want to define non-being, it will be led to further predication on being. And then if we want to negate that being, then we have to predicate it on another being.

If we want to do that, another being. So being is essentially inevitable. in this distinction hence the infinite regress did you say that being is narrative being is is narrative is that what you just said no no no no no no what did I say I just forgot essentially being is negative okay negative negative no no no being is not negative he wants to say that so So the nature of the paradox is like this, that non-being is a chimeric thought, is an empty thought, can't tell you an empty thought. So why is that?

It's because whenever we want to give a definition of that which is not, Tomiyan, we have to predicate it on being, of that which is. So the negation of being is always predicated on being. And every time that we want to save or secure a definition of non-being, we have to pass it on to further predications of being. So in the same way you could say that non-thoughts is predicated on thoughts? Not non-thoughts.

Non, non, not, no, this is, you see, essentially Parmenides wants to say that, so Parmenides wants to argue that the idea of reason as negativity of thought that can identify the difference between being and non-being is predicated on being. Hence the maxim, thinking and being are one. But Plato wants to argue that this move, while the first part of it is correct, the second part of it is absolutely not correct.

because the first part you have admitted that there is in fact a formal distinction between thought and being through which you can differentiate between being and non-being but then you go on and collapse this distinction in second step from the formal to substantive distinction. And Parmenides uses this, uses this maneuver, which is a kind of a sneaky, illicit, illegal movement in the argument, uses it to show the paradoxical nature of non-being of thinking or negativity or reason.

In a sense, he shows that if the distinction between thinking and being is substantive, We can never secure the non-being of thought or negativity of thought, reason, or what you might call discursive rationality, without predicating it on being, subordinating it on being. But as I mentioned, the second part, well the first part, the formal distinction, is correct. The second part, he is slightly, using a slight of hand, in the second part

collapses the formal distinction between think and being into a substantive distinction, and then tries to refute it, to show that it's a chimeric thought. I'm so I'm interested in hearing you talk about how how the form of difference is involved in in establishing this space for thought

that is between appearance and being or sort of outstrips the distinction between the two. I genuinely think that Plato obviously doesn't answer this question. And I mean, which is by no means a critique of Plato. It's simply, you know, he has done already so much. She has paid his philosophical debt. So we can't expect further in going to this. I think that this question cannot be answered unless the advent of the transcendental term in philosophy, namely Kant onwards, Kant-Hegel, particularly Hegel, and after that. And it ultimately comes, as I mentioned, to what it means.

means, in Kant it comes under the heading or the rubric of transcendental logic. That's representations, conceptual representations are constrained by causal representations. Then in Hegel it becomes the logic of rationality, the logic of discursive rationality, namely how to fuse, not only to understand what concepts or these difference-making components of thought are in themselves, the question of science and logic, but also in relation to transcendental

logic of Kant, namely how they gain traction on items in the world, which ultimately becomes, again, you can see that how this tradition unfolds to Sellars and Brandoom trying to fuse this semantic and epistemical reason. So I don't think that by any means we can say that Plato ever answered this question or in fact say that Platonic philosophy can answer this question. I don't think that it has adequate consensual resources to answer this question. Thanks.

Absolutely. So I have a long question, but it's like something that I wrote just thinking out stuff this past week. But it's like a paragraph long. Don't worry, read it.

will philosophy begins with misophy the process of knowledge expands through axioms as the loose suggests axioms not built on objectivity but on the arrangement or forms of intelligibility of discourse desire produces real desire or the real itself." That's an anti-Oedipus quote. The danger to Lucidus suggests throughout his work is, of the assertion of an a priori realism is a social political problem, the use of despotism to enforce reality, the use of force to impose a representation, a hegemony, a consensus

reality, a common sense. Kant and many representational idealists want to ensure that the thinker or the subject has a good will to guarantee truth, that thought in some ways wants truth, that despite the acquisition of knowledge through experience, thought itself as a rational enterprise craves the a priori, necessary and objective. Intelligence perhaps does not crave truth but only itself um and then i i mean i actually go on and i say and maybe not perhaps not even because thought is somehow split from itself and differs from itself and is torn from its own interests okay so khalen let me give a taste of your own escepticism okay i'm ready

So I think, and this is Finley bringing this in his book, The Hermeneutics of Transcendental philosophy, Kantan Hermeneutics of Transcendental. I think escepticism is a two-way street. And it's absolutely essential. Not in that greedy, skeptic sense of Scott Baker and the likes of it, that they just want to kind of question the totality of knowledge, but as a systematic and methodic sense of it, skepticus, like the Pyronic skepticism. as a method of scrutiny into methods and justifications and formations of knowledge crimes.

So it's a two-way street. Skepticism can be pitted against idealism so easily, as usually skeptics do. But the skepticism, a Kantian brand of skepticism, is revenge against you, which instigated by the transcendental turn, particularly by people like Sellars and stuff, it can also be pitted against the so-called empirical skeptics. The idea that how exactly you constrain thought to object.

So you see that constraining thinking to object can be interpreted in two ways, and that's usually the slogan of the empirical skeptics. So idealists can charge, use the same question with different connotations. Now what is exactly that object that you are saying? How are you really to posit, even as a hypothetical conjecture, in a very Jungian sense, the reality of such objects as the constraint upon thinking? So you see, this is ... So first I wanted to mention this, that skepticism, I think if

you are really cherishing skepticism, you need to see it in two ways, not simply as greedy skeptics think from empirical skepticism against rationalism or idealism, but from the idealist and rationalist perspective against the empirical perspective or the realist perspective. And I genuinely, I absolutely believe from this perspective, no one has really ever gave a convincing answer to the idea that what realism means. I do not believe Stellar says it. I do not believe Ray says it. I think this is a really serious question that what is exactly the object that you present

in order, as a constraint upon thought, so that hence later thought can posit the idea of realism. Because if, how do we know that there is an object that constrains our thoughts, or a being that our thoughts are subordinated to? I think this is a very serious question, and Finley really encapsulated this really, really brilliantly in that book. And Kant wants to answer this question by way of transcendental logic, which I think is actually transcendental logic manages

to answer this question, and hence why I'm not a skeptic. But nevertheless, the more I have thought about it, I see that there are holes in Kantian argument, particularly in the domain of transcendental logic. And reading Ray, reading Sellars, I think Sellars and Ray also has holes in their arguments. A little bit of this in the book, particularly in terms of the idea that Ray talks about this idea that that thoughts are constrained by pictures, by pictures, by causal representations.

Conceptual representations are constrained by causal representations, which is again another variant of the form of thought is constrained by object. hence we can posit reality, posit a realism. Hence our thoughts can in fact be mobilized towards realism. Now, but I will argue in the book that this idea is actually quite tricky once you start to escriturize it, because non-causal representation doesn't tell us anything about its nature. Doesn't tell us anything. That's actually, that's again, you reiterating the myth of the given in a different form so this is one then can

you read the not the realest part the second the second to the second like I think was the second line or the third line the okay so there's the first part where I talked about the anti realism and thought and thought or will imposing itself to form objectivity and then there's the second part which is the The danger of this view that Deleuze suggests is that the assertion of the a priori realism is a social political problem, the use of despotism to enforce reality, the use of force to impose representation. Okay, okay. So, thought, I don't think that, contra Deleuze, I don't think that thought imposes itself to

construct objectivity. What is a necessary condition, thinking, a priori cognition, is a necessary condition for making objectivity. And objectivity is, you need to be very careful, I mean, continental philosophers tend, for some dubious political reasons tend to deliberately give a very fuzzy and vague concept of objectivity. What Kant wants to simply talk about is, in a very modest sense, the transcendental argument, the knowledge of the existence of items as such.

So thought from this perspective is absolutely a necessary condition. It becomes only a sufficient condition in the Candian parlance when it is coupled with the causal constraint of items in the world, geggenstand, objects with a small o. So by no means Kantian transcendental turn is some sort of what you might call to be that thought is represented as this kind of dictator that determines what objectivity

is. in transcendental term requires the coextensivity of geggenestand and erkensis a priori erkensis they can't function without one okay so this is one and then the second thing again comes back to this idea which which that's why I kind of, I had made that snide comment about critical theory and stuff. It's essentially, again, a very critical, it's, I understand the words here, the idea that realism, this obsession with realism can lead you to be susceptible to accepting

the status quo as real, you know, simply the quietest, the quietest, what you might call to be the quietest metaphysical position. Now, I think... I think there's some value to the sort of that kind of critical theory perspective, but I also think they've kind of taken it way too far. Yes. No, absolutely. As I mentioned, there is a significant grade of truth. The initial good insight might have been, but they've taken it from maybe it should have gone to D, and they've taken it all the way down to XYZ. Yes, absolutely. No, no, no. Yes, absolutely. No, I think, so the thing is that I think Kant himself,

if we are talking about realism in terms of Kant, in Kant's vocabulary, Yes, that might basically be susceptible to this Deleuzian charge. But you see, the reason that people like Sellars and Brandum are important are precisely because they try to separate in a Platonic fashion different levels of this discourse that allows us to talk about realism. And the most basic, sufficient element or ingredient for us to be capable of talking

about reality is discursive rationality, namely the negativity, the negative units of thoughts, The power of conceptualization, the power of conceptualization, where epistemic holism and semantic holism implicate. Now discursive rationality is essentially the function of logic and language in the broadest possible sense. These functions are rule obeying and rule governed, not in the sense of some laws, but These are formal laws, not essentially in the formalism sense of mathematics and stuff, but a formalism of what to say according to norms of saying, logical norms of saying,

and what to do in order to say something, to assert something, to make up with a claim. These rules are formal. they cannot be collapsed into the substantive realm of social relations. You see, and this is Brandon's critique of the semantic naivete in his famous lecture, the critique of the genealogical critique, that basically what they are doing here is that they want to say that all these discursive rules in language and logic that allow you to make something about reality or anything, not just reality,

are ultimately social relations. So they basically want to collapse the distinction between discursive practices, social discursive practices, and all other social practices. But discursive social practices are not just any kind of social practices. They are formal in their nature, not substantive. They are not causal. Making that leap, that Deleuzean leap, you see, the Deleuzean leap to make that kind of claim is essentially what Plato charges against Parmenides.

First essentially bringing the idea of the formal in order to talk about anything, because without that formal distinction you can't talk about anything. But then collapsing that distinction back into the substantive. Whether you are materialistically interpreting the substantivity in terms of drives, capitalist real subsumption and so on and so forth. So it's like the strategically choosing when to being a subordinate to thought and when thought can be overpower or like dictate being. Yes. And what I, and again in response to Adam,

our continuation to Adam's response, is that I think, yes, critical theory makes a point, but this is not just something that critical theory has come up with. It is, in fact, something that has always been philosophy, but philosophers apparently at some point forgot about it. That power of rationality, power of discursive rationality, the power of negativity is necessary but is not sufficient to challenge the dogmas of reality, whether these dogmas, particularly when I'm talking about dogmas of social reality. You see? Nevertheless, it is necessary. No project, political project, no subversive movement against the oppressive social reality

can be launched without the power of rationality, because otherwise you are not capable of distinguishing what is to be thought and what is to be done at particular junctures. And what is exactly wrong in this juncture and what is exactly right at the other part? That essentially... Yes, Adam, go on, please. I think that's just a massive, massive blind spot that critical theory has. Yes. And you see that this is essentially, unfortunately, the more recent... Not the more recent, I don't want to lump everything together. You can see this in some strains of Marxism, academic Marxism.

That this is essentially what is happening that they want to... So let's put it this way. Like why do you think that people attacking this idea that, I mean the whole idea, first of all, no, just let me be shameless here. I think Marx's thesis of real subsumption is essentially based on this confusion. The idea that all the relations can be subsumed by causal forces, not causal in natural sense but social causal forces. Class determinations. Yes. This is essentially what the fucking sophists already said, that the formal dimension of

thinking can be subsumed in the substantive dimension in which thought doesn't exist, really, because it's all being. And that really leads to impotency. You see, political impotency... Absolutely. Political impotency should also be connected with impotence, with conceptualizing and critical impotency. But of course, as I mentioned, this is really also a tricky thing, that rationalist philosophers

shouldn't kind of be arrogant about this idea of reason and rationality and the critical conceptualizing resources. Because by no means, rationality can ever be sufficient for change in social realm. It is necessary. And what I want to argue is that some of these strains of Marxism don't even want to argue that it is necessary. In fact, they want to be done with it. They want to say that, okay, well, you know, particularly British imperialism, for example,

a lot of that was based on the British thought they needed to spread reason to the world. And that went horribly. So by that, you know, by that verge, it means we need to get rid of it all together. Yes, yes, yeah. You can identify, you know, where reason went wrong with, you know, British imperialism and scientific imperialism and all of that without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Absolutely. This is absolutely correct. I mean, this is a point that Sellars makes that, you see, it's only a reason that can, and this is a fundamentally, as we have talked about, is a fundamentally Platonic thesis, that it is only a reason that can put any other norm, social, economic, scientific, so on and so forth,

in peril. Without the power of reason, norms become conventions, and then they become oppressive. Reason, essentially to be understood, is the acid that eats away any norm that presents itself as the established standard. That's what Szilard calls the self-correcting enterprise, the power of putting all norms There's this strange way in which the crude materialist position utterly subordinates

thought to being, makes thought sort of just maybe not even epiphenomenal of becoming or being but the it seems like you still there still needs to be some sort of account of like the phenomenal experience and the or the and the external world and then but the way that I understand idealist to respond to that it's like you it's a granting of privilege to thought to participate in and shape what being is if only for ourselves but um okay I think you need

hold of your horses right here okay okay because you see not all idealists do that not all idealists would say that it is just for ourselves that I would say is a naive idea there are realist variants of idealism too right so that actually I was just gonna say is even stranger because now okay so now there's the realist idealist who believes that thought has the capability of shaping being which in turn shapes what thought will become. It shapes the conditions under which thought is made. Yes. But there's still that split between thought and being. So it's like

a memory problem that thought has because it's both shaping its conditions and and it's both actively forming the conditions under which it's made but separated itself from those conditions yes I don't think that this is essentially a false quake as long as you see that thought belongs to the domain of the formal, formal negativity. And essentially what you might say,

this is exactly what the project of rationality or reason is. Reason takes time, discursive rationality takes time. It becomes mature by understanding its own conditions of realization. But the understanding of its conditions of realization and what material substrate is predicated on requires the full mobilization and autonomy of its formal dimension, namely the organ of conceptualization. So essentially this is in fact a privileged status for the mind, but there is nothing wrong with this, because if you do not have, then essentially you have to admit to other variants which are far more debilitating precisely because they give you some sort of private

access to the realm of being, bypassing the time that discursive rationality takes. So then also, it's kind of important then that thought could survive, that thought could have a different material substrate. Absolutely, yes. Yes, and this is, as I mentioned on the page, classroom page, is that once you understand, you start to treat thoughts as a formal dimension, rather than not in the sense of formalism in the sense that artificial, classic artificial intelligence

talks about, in terms of some normative function I can deal with that. I can deal with that. Once you understand in terms of some normative functions, or in terms of some, what you can't quite call to be necessary conditions for the possibility of having mind, transcendental psychology, then you are capable of also thinking about that thought should not be restricted to any particular material substrates. So, in other words, it's not a question of how thought determines being, but rather that being gives thought the providence to determine not being, but existences.

Yes, although again, I tend to agree with this, but I mean, for the sake of just discussion, I think the views on this formula can vary quite drastically. In the sense that what you are saying is very much in tandem with sell-offs. in the sense that we shouldn't just think about how thoughts or reason emerged from nature, but also understanding that coming up with a conception of nature that allows

for the autonomy of thought, the formal autonomy of thought, or the formal autonomy of reason. This is Sellar's last paragraph in This I or We or It's the Thing which Thinks, which I'm agreeing with. But of course people like McDowell or Quine would say that this whole idea of being is just a philosophical farce. Being is only existence. Being is only existence. These are, all the other ones are just some sort of antiquated metaphysical dual ones. And existence is decided by the domain, particular domains of this force, existential quantifications.

So this is called the deflationary stance. Now there is people like Pete Wolfendale who believe that deflationary stance can in fact be wedded with realist stance in the sense that we agree on this idea that existential quantification is determined by the domains of discourse and let's get rid of all the other you know antiquated stuff but at the same time understanding that our domain of discourse is constrained by real items in the world

causal hence transcendental realism in the fashion of Kant but joined or updated with you know kind of a left-wing Szilardzian like people like McDowell and Brandon so there are these subtle variations of this you can I I don't want to derail the whole class but if this if it was doing that but I'd sort of want to respond to this question of like the in human thought because as soon as it seems like making thought inhuman like that already surrenders thought to know well that depends on how you define you in human if you are

defining human as the way that post humanism usually does I don't believe in that kind of inhumanism I think in humanism is really the idea that he humanism, not humanism, humanity, the figure of the human, is essentially a formal open-ended form. It is not a substance. It's not a being. Humans is not a being in that sense. It's a form. That can be revised, they can be expanded, but also so many things can fall under this form, essentially. For me this is the kind of inhumanism. Otherwise I think that other kind of inhumanism essentially becomes back to that, what we were in a square one, suspending

the formal distinction between human as the transcendental subject of judgments with the human as what you might call, let's say, Homo sapiens sapiens, a biological species. Two different things. Sapiens, when Brandon talks about sapiens, he doesn't want to talk about some sort of human exceptionalism. His attack is against biological chauvinism, in the sense that he wants to show, he wants to argue that we are all sentience that's what we are we are supported by neurobiological mechanisms generated by million years of evolution but we are

also something more than that and that something more than that is precisely what allowed us to understand the condition of our realization that's That's what basically sapience is, sapience as basically what you might call to be a normative form rather than as a material substance or a being. Hence, when I'm saying human or Brandon says human, we do not mean human as a rank on the ladder of beings because that would be just like collapsing distinction between formals human and substantive homo sapiens sapiens.

We simply mean it as a form, as a form. And it's really that distillation of this form, expansion, revision and construction of this form that amounts to the thesis of inhumanism. Any other path toward inhumanism outside of this necessary requirement leads to either vitalist eschatology, panpsychism, myths of singularity and superintelligence, so on and so forth. Thanks for responding to all that.

Absolutely. So I think we can end this session and definitely I promise, as I mentioned, don't worry about the time, we aren't behind, but as I mentioned, I will at least allocate two make-up sessions at the end so we can make sure that we can cover a good chunk of later's work. The next session I will start very briefly a little bit more on this idea of non-being and being, that we just saw what is exactly the nature of the argument, and our plate tries to diffuse it and detects the wrong illicit movement in Parmenides' argument. So I want to move a little bit and talk about the idea that Hunter was talking about non-being

as the index of difference between falsity and truth. And then we move to third man arguments and anything that you would like me to talk about. Did, does, has everyone seen that Ray will be participating on July 9th or the 16th? That was, that came up in the class. Say that again, Theodore. So Ray Bracier has been invited to participate in one of the sessions. Oh, cool. And Rezo is asking on the classroom if anybody had preference for either July 9th or July 16th as a date.

Actually, I need to take a look at Google Classroom anyway. Because that's a side issue. Okay. let me know in the like next couple of days and so I will email right sounds good excellent thank you everyone yeah thank you thank you as a fantastic comments as usual yeah it was good all of you