Plato, a Reality Game in Four Levels (Session 3)

Hello and welcome to the third session of Play-Doh, a reality game in four levels. I'm going to pass the mic and camera to Reza Negra Stani now. Okay, thanks everyone. So, Oliver, you had a question. Do you want to start and then we see any other person? Yeah, okay. It's entirely related, but I want to know where you stand on the question of responsibility. as it pertains to sort of Levinas. I am afraid that I do not have any robust knowledge of Levinas. So you need to tell me what Levinas' responsibility entails.

I mean in the way in which is one always, is one is the individual responsible for for everything that could possibly be and every and everything infinitely it's an individual infinitely responsible or where is that line drawn according to you I mean it's a big question but I want to sort of get this out of the way before we go on to talk about the intricate epistemological factors you see according to Plato at least the idea of responsibility which he does in fact bring it up a few times in his works responsibility is not something

that is a matter of everything and nothing so it is not given in advance in terms of infinity responsibility is something that is a task a task of recognition that can only be unpacked step by a step so it's infinity is only presupposed but in fact Plato cautions that you can't do this really to to simply take the abstract idea of responsibility as infinite responsibility of the self and try to work on it he thinks that's responsibility should be concrete a step by step. So, for example, for philosopher, philosopher is the figure of the responsible

person. Responsible person in the sense that he is not responsible, he or she is not responsible to himself or other people, but he is only responsible to himself. The only way that the idea of responsibility can start according to Plato, which is a Socratic idea, at least Plato's Socrates, is that responsibility always needs to start from the self itself. It is not going to cover responsibility to being outside of it in the prima facie, in the first place. It always starts from the self it inhabits.

And only then, once it has truly become responsible to the self and it inhabits, it can step outside of it and embrace its infinity. Okay, so not a self-determined responsibility as much as an initially self-determined but then vocational. Well, it is actually, you see, when we mentioned a number of times that the idea of intelligibility is in Plato, you can't pigeonhole them into one aspect or another. Namely, it cannot be

said that what Plato says is about ontology, or it's epistemology, or it's axiology. It's always at these three levels. So the self, the responsibility of the self to itself also needs to be understood in terms of these three dimensions. And these three dimensions, axiology, values and disvalues, which for Plato is probably the most important one, ontology and epistemology. And from this perspective, self-determination is really the idea that you start to distinguish

or determine the composition of your own self, and the composition of your own self not only in terms of the primordial questions of philosophy, what I ought to do and what I ought to think, but also in terms of values and disvalues that I associate with truth as I unpack what I am actually as a matter of fact. So this is a self-determination. Self-determination is already at work in the idea of responsibility and in fact is indissociable from it. But again, as I mentioned, self-determination, at least in today's contemporary philosophy

vocabulary, self-determination is something that is associated somehow with collective self-determination. But for Plato, collective self-determination, even though exists, and that's the whole figure of the citizens who need to work basically perfect souls, but that can only happen if each of these individual selves have already initiated the process of self-determination, the self which they in which they inhabit so another go on Oliver I was just

gonna say the way I'm understanding you is so in a way the self learns itself like Socrates and the Delphic Oracle would say know by itself yes the primary the primary task yes absolutely yes learning in learning oneself one learn the position and and state and its relation to other selves yes and place place it has to serve in the order of the society or even or even a greater

yes great history at large yeah yes yes yes and and this is so in the cave as I mentioned you know in the first book of Republic there is this conversation about you know in a very metaphoric mythic sense the philosopher of Socrates begins with descent into the darkness descent into the cave it's already so it already presupposes that no one can be said to be philosopher unless he or she has learned itself. Namely, first has arrived from the cave, out into the open, examined the objective realm,

and then philosophy begins by descending back into the cave so you can inform about the objective world. But that cannot happen unless through, as I mentioned, the process of self-cultivation, as you said, the Delphic Oracle, the notai self, which learning yourself means that you, and this is again comes back the idea of demi-orge or craftsman, that knowing yourself or learning yourself is not something just about knowledge. Knowledge, when we are looking at knowledge from a contemporary perspective or the idea episteme is very different from what Plato calls episteme. Knowledge of the self, accordingly,

is the craft of the self, how you can craft the self according to forms. This is what no thyself consists of. So it's a process of construction rather than simply a process of theoretical learning in a more contemporary sense. Like in the Nietzschean sense of become who you are. Yes, but Plato has a caveat for this. And that's why this sets apart by ions of philosophy Plato from Nietzsche. Plato says that learn who you are, become who you are according to good reason.

according to good reason and that good reason was exactly good reason which is the principle of intelligence which is the good that makes it different from Nietzschean become who you are that can ultimately inevitably lead to simply a reinscription of the individual self namely who what you become and becoming what you who you are ultimately ends up being who you were in the first place simply becomes a reiteration but that but ultimately that reiteration is is always in the in the in the profound sense of self overcoming a continual

Yes, but I don't think that it's really an overcoming precisely because, I mean, the idea of become who you are is directly tied to the idea of eternal recurrence. And eternal recurrence of the self in this sense is the return of the identical, not the return of the difference. This is very pivotal in Nietzsche, that eternal recurrence, once being ascribed to the self, is not about the return of a different self, a novel self, a better self, but the return of the identical self.

And of course Nietzsche gives it a fundamental profound aspect that this identical self, learning that is becoming you you can never it's always being an identical self at its core that's also venerable but of course Plato doesn't believe in this Plato and I that's why I said in the first session that I think ultimately in beyond good and evil famous Nietzsche's line against Plato Plato is a man of the ground, ultimately can be used against Nietzsche, whereas Plato is the one who is not the man of the ground. He craves for the abyss, he craves for something else, and that distinguishes ultimately Plato

and Platonic thought from Nietzschean thought. So things are a difference, a difference that can be made. Right. This is exactly what I'm thinking. Well, I've been in a lot of fights in my life, sticking up for myself, sticking up for other people. But I don't want to be remembered as a guy who's always in the fights. even if I'm trying to take responsibility for things that are out of my immediate, that are beyond what I actually have to do. So at some level there's just I have to tell myself I'm not responsible for this

and then at the same time like is that going to be determinative of a sort of grand or self-identity if I'm known for having already reached beyond that level in terms of sticking up for other people who I'm not responsible for. So is there a way to go back from that? You see, this is, I think, we will talk about this. Plato believes, you know, from a philosophical perspective, you know, he's a philosopher, he believes in the power of speculation, not a power of, you know, facts or empirical facts.

He believes that from, particularly in Middle Period works, he believes that this idea of attendance to the selves, is ultimately attendance to the self in itself, namely to the idea of being. So once you really attend to yourself, you depart from yourself in that rudimentary parochial sense of what selves are, having interests. So basically Plato interprets the Delphic Oracle extremely innovatively, in the sense

that attendance to the self is ultimately attendance to the realm of being, the realm of in itself. So once you complete this task, or at least move within it, then what you do is that you You recognize that you are equally responsible to all other beings inhabiting the domain of being, the domain of itself. So this is a twist in Plato, as very different from the Stoic or more practical side of Socrates.

to the self is ultimately attendance to the realm of being, of in itself. And hence everything else that partakes or participates in this realm, the realm of being, which is basically infinity. So a mindfulness. Yes, a mindfulness. Yes, the mindfulness. Part of the vocation of... Yes. Right, okay. Thanks, sorry. Can we continue? Sure, okay.

Any questions? Anyone? Maria, Hunter, Adam. Okay. I guess I have one question about the bottom level of the divided line, the Acacia. Yes, the iconos, the images, the fleeting. I mean, I was looking at the actual text, and it seems like there's a lot of evidence in support of kind of like the traditional, like, so I guess like the traditional reading at the bottom is that it's like, kind of the opposite of what you're saying, right?

Like that it's like causally the most posterior level or something. That it's images of images. That it's something like works of art practically, basically. Or like Plato's least favorite. No, no, no. That is true. That is true. I mean, it's the appearance of appearances of appearances, which Plato attributes to art, not in the sense that we understand what art is. You see, Plato never uses the word art in any sense. He associates it with poets, and there is a good reason for it. Poets, we need to understand who poets are in the time of Plato.

Poets are mimics. They carry around, and this is I think in the book three or one of the Republic, they carry around a mirror that they can mimic all of reality. they are what Plato calls a pseudo craftsman. So they mimic, even they mimic right, or basically reproduce the appearance of even appearances. So they are really the ultimate, you know, what you might call the bottom of the images. And the reason that he so castigatingly treats poets is because poets in the times of Plato

are the ones, he doesn't really, he goes from later on works, he goes to dramas, he goes to poetry and there are accounts of it. But the thing is that those poets that he castigates so vehemently are the ones who who are, you might call, the propagandists. So these are different species of poets that's basically Plato attacks as representing the most basic type of images. And as you say, the appearance of appearance of appearances. There is a, I think in Fido,

Fido, he uses this idea again attributed to the poets and the idea of image, where Socketus talks about this idea of this people who carry around a mirror and they are demiurge. And they just say that, well, they are demiurge, they produce everything, but only through a mirror. They simply hold a mirror to something and then say that we have created it. a perfect copy of it. But this perfect copy is what you might call to be the appearance of appearances. It's interesting because he quotes the Iliad so many times throughout his work. He quotes Homer so much,

but it's as if he's not merely just regurgitating it like the oral tradition would have it, but he's kind of using it in a philosophical way. Yes, yes. And as I said, he's very, you know, he talks, there's a figure of Agathon, who is a famous person, what I call the artist, and he actually gives quite a very positive praise of some of these people. But this idea that poets ultimately, for Plato, he is vindictive against them, precisely because the poets, you need to understand it's written in a certain context, where Athens, Greek social life was

in complete instability. Basically the sophists were putting down democracy, which was simply a watered-down idea of goodness, and the tyrants using poets and dramatists to advance their goals. So Plato essentially wants to target these people. It's not as if that Plato indiscriminately attacks all of these people. He believes that actually in Phileo, in Philebus, he believes that there is a vocation as important as philosophy in these disciplines.

Wait, and what's the importance? He thinks that there is, in fact, a vocation in these disciplines as important as in philosophy, in his later works. But, so, I want to, yeah, I wanted to just emphasize that this idea that, yes, the artists, at least in a Platonic sense, not in today's, so do not make what Plato calls our artists, is not your artist. If so you are, if you are an artist, don't get offended. What he considers an artist is essentially a propagandist, for a point of view. Someone who mimics appearances for a personal gain or some political gain.

This is what's, you know, and also one more thing that this is, again comes in Fido, that there are these lines that, between Socrates and other people, where Socrates says something that to the extent that this kind of what you might call to be base form of art is essentially a form of art that tries to be relevant. But by becoming relevant, it loses its input. And that's, I think, that's a very, you know, kind of important

moment in dialogues where Socrates makes a distinction between an art that tries to be relevant and an art that simply fulfills its own vocations. He wants to identify an art or poetry that wants to be relevant as essentially a bad art, an art that is illusory, that is going to be misleading. So it's good if it fulfills its own vocation because everything is good if it's Yes, absolutely. It's also like, I mean, last time you were, I think, presenting a reading of this fourth

level of imagination in terms of sort of you know pre-objective sensory flux um sort of you know like like kind of stimulation of the nervous system and that kind of thing yes it is and and there is actually good evidence of this in in book i think eight of uh republic where he comes back to divide line but most importantly in philabus his most mature war where he actually talks about sensory flux when he talks about iconos. As I mentioned, Republic is the most discussed work of Plato, but Republic, according to Plato

himself, is his worst book, a book that he had to compromise in order to make philosophy teachable. his more mature work are the late periods like the sophist like philebus like timos particularly philebus and philebus this whole idea of a dialogue has been even the narrative of style has been changed. And he comes back and he looks at some of the main themes of Republic, particularly the idea of the and also the divided

line lines diagram. And there he gives interpretation of images as what you might call to be the flux of sensations. The second segments are not fleeting anymore, but are transient objects, are transient objects, to which we can ascribe names precisely because they are no longer fluxional or transient or fleeting. I'm sorry, not transient, they are no longer fleeting, but they have some stability, and this stability is what you might call to be an object to which you can ascribe a name.

This is, again, a topic that is brought up in theitators. What is exactly allow us to ascribe name to things? There should be some unity, some stability. so there are so it's very good to really the best way to read Plato as I mentioned is backward read Republic in the light of later works in the light of Philebus, Chimaos and Sophists but this interpretation also this interpretation is not by any means

orthodox anymore, orthodox anymore. In fact, this is really considered to be the most canonical interpretation after, you know, so there is this, as I mentioned, there is this school in Germany. They had a famous Department of Platonic Studies in transition from 19th century to 20th century. As I mentioned, with everything before 20th century, you need to really look at it. Anything also built on those interpretations, we can very suspiciously, because there are really interpretations based on either Aristotle or Neoplatonic interpretations of Plato,

not Plato himself. So Tobinjan is full of sire to look at, of creating an assembly of all these works, early period, middle period, late period, and putting them together, and they see that there are some evidence, that there are references to topics that are not in the dialogues, that are not in the dialogues, but in fact are subtle talks about them, which brings them to this idea that there might be some unwritten doctrine, some unwritten works, and this is also being, again, this claim is being confirmed by Plato's

letter and his disdain for writing format. So they started to reconstruct this, and basically the interpretation of the Republic was completely changed in the light of these fragments from later works, from earlier works, from Aristotle's citations of Plato. So the Tobinjan school, I think, is very good in terms of at least enabling a fundamentally new interpretation of Plato, in contrast to the traditional Aristotelian, no-Platonist

interpretation. And again, I have given some reading lists, but I think the best works on this whole idea of the divided line and in the light of not just republic, but also later works is one John Finley, Plato and Platonism, Rosemary Desjardins, Plato and the Good, Giovanni Ryle toward the new interpretation of Plato and John Sallis, Logos and Being. So it's almost like this level, the realm of imagination is the like the window into the real or like the the sort of like realm

of like pure contingency that like like the other three realms are there to make sense of almost Yes, but you see, yes, but I think we need to be very careful of using the word reality when we are talking about Plato. Plato thinks the reality that we say about objects, what you might call the pure contingency of objects out there, items in the world, it's not really reality. It can never be reality. this is what made Plato an idealist that he thinks that reality is the form and forms only

well but I mean the real almost in like the Lacanian sense yes yes a little bit yes yes but the domain of being in the sense that we interpret being namely you know if you Coming from a continental trajectory, we usually interpret being in a materialistic sense. Being is simply an object out there. It's the universe, cosmological universe. But being, for Plato, only and only pertains to forms. Forms have beings.

Everything else has been by virtue of the being of forms, the ontology of forms. So this is the idea of being completely. You should get rid of it as being connected to objects in the world. This is, for Plato, it's not being real. One question. What was the other female author besides the garden? that you recommend? Una Hariri. Oh, right. I remember that. Yes. What's the name of her book? I can't remember. She hasn't written, I think,

a book on Plato. It's just collections of essays. Una Hariri. She basically wrote... There is another one. Her name is Rose Chouverine. She's very good, and we will use her when we are talking about the sophist. Can you write those names down, please? Yes. I think this is the spelling. I'm not sure.

Any more questions? Adam, Maria. Where? Sure. Where are? Hey, Adam, I think your signal is breaking up a bit.

I was asking where he's writing these names down. Oh, I have them in the sidebar here, and I'm going to post them in the classroom. as well. Oh, okay. Do you have X? Do I get into the classroom through my new center account? Yeah, and if you want to contact me after class, I'll help you get into the classroom too. Okay, thanks. Okay. Okay, so what I gathered from what we were just talking about, am I yes what I gathered from what we were just talking about is that the forms

have a realm of their own yes independent of independent of any discursive well not necessarily independent of discursive no it is independent of discursive absolutely independent of discursive it cannot be expressed It's inexplicable and yet is not necessarily equatable with what we would understand to be reality or mindless detectable aspects. Yes, yes. You see the discursive aspect The discursive aspects is

The third segment in the divided line which we will talk about today is Discursive aspect is an intermediary aspect. It is not by any means the force It's something through which we we gain traction on four, so the discursive aspects. And the thing about it is that there is a line in Plato where he talks about the divinely line, but also the idea of the good in terms of a hierarchy in which... So you have something at the bottom, what you might call to be the substrate, which is the principle of the good, and after that ideals or multiplicity of unchanging forms.

The thing is that within this hierarchy is that you can always get rid of what is coming above without compromising or destroying what is lying below. And this is, I will try to, during the break I will try to find this exact line in Republic where he talks about this, that you can always destroy what is dependent on something without destroying that on which it is dependent. So the discursive aspect, you can completely get rid of it without getting rid of forms.

So forms are independent of discursive aspects. Okay. But then any reality that's independent of the discursive, would that not imply that Parmenides is incorrect, that being and thinking are not the same? Yes, absolutely. Being and thinking are not the same. And that's the idea, that's the main topic of the sophist. That's Plato in the Middle Period and the Early Period, he still carries an Eleatic, you know, philosophy in the sense that he is still bound to Parmenides, because Parmenides believes also in reason,

and that's really one of the main things that why Plato holds so long on to Parmenides. But in the sophists, represented in the greatest discussion between Theotitus and the Eleotic stranger, he, that becomes clear that Plato no longer believes thinking and being are the same. Not only that, but now he believes that the Eleotic philosophy, of which Parmenides is the prime example, represents the last stage of sophism. Eleotic stranger is a sophist precisely by conflating thought and being.

And we get into this and there's a very, very complex discussion about this. Foundation of medicine, kind of, really, isn't it? The scientific principle or any way of saying that medicine is a science rests on this understanding. Yeah, but even more generally the idea that it has, you know, social and cosmological ramifications because when you say that thought is no longer being, thought becomes that which is not, no longer that which is. Tomiyan.

Yeah. So when thought becomes that which is not, then you might say that death that basically eliminates that which is no longer has any bearing whatsoever on the domain of thought, nor does the life. That thought becomes autonomous, only embraces its own interests. This is the final conclusion of this idea that when saying that thought is ultimately that which is not, and that basically its non-being is the non-being of form, formal

non-being, which have their own beings. And by virtue of that you can talk about all sorts of antique domains. But this being of thought, and that brings us back to this, what is exactly the being of forms? The being of forms is not being of existences, it's the being of the form. In today's contemporary sense, it's a formal being. Formality. Is it also being of value? Being of value, yes. Because values for Plato are also rational. And reason functions not by virtue of its physical substrate, but by virtue of its own logos.

This logos is non-substantive. obstantive, namely it lacks that kind of base existence or base reality. It's simply the being of form or formal being. So it's like axiology is prior to ontology in a way. Yes, I think later Plato would say so, yes. Axiology is prior to practical intelligibility. Agnizological intelligibilities are prior to practical intelligibilities, and practical intelligibilities are prior to what you might call to be epistemic ontological intelligibilities in a modern sense. so it's

it's finitude that ensures a surplus sorry in the sense in which it's a finitude that ensures the perpetuation of a surplus in the way in the way in which in the way in which the I lost it. I had a really good point there. It was about finitude, categorization,

axiology, taxonomy. These are the properties of an order already having been established or created. which is the same thing as to say the real is like in the Hegelian sense the real is irrational, the rational is real as the essence or quiddity of the sort of generalization that sustains that finitude as a system. but saying that the inaccessibility of the forms which is also it's not inaccessibility no I didn't say inaccessibility I said that you cannot ultimately you can only create perfect

copies of them as an individual as mind as mind can only create or strive to create perfect copies of them, it cannot create them. It can know them, and by virtue of knowing them, they no longer are inethical. So inaccessibility no longer in terms of ineffability. They are in their own independent domain, but that does not render them fully inaccessible to our episteme and our practices. Because if that was the case, really, then we could not really even conceive of making something good, something beautiful, according to these forms.

I guess I'm trying to like pin down where this lies between like sort of a metaphysical reading of like the form of the good causing as well as making intelligible all the other realms versus like i mean it's like it's obviously closer to like a pragmatist reading of like sort of nothing can without the realm of value nothing appears because nothing matters You see, this realm of value, you need to be thinking about values not in terms of what we call values.

So these values, what are exactly values for Plato? So again, it comes back to the idea of Demiurge. Let me just, so I will just give you one example of what exactly he's talking about when he talks about values or norms. What are these? And then we'll have a cigarette break and then we'll come back. So this goes like this. that the kind of values that Plato is interested in, and they are the kind of values that for Plato make the axiological system, these are called objective principles.

They belong to theusis, to nature, not nature in the sense that we know in contemporary philosophy nature, but the nature of their own being, which corresponds to a four. And these values are essentially different from what you might call to be norms or normative values which Plato associate with the nomos. Nomos for Plato are codified laws or social conventions or in fact conventions that we make among ourselves and they can be later on codified into laws.

A good example of this, which Plato, and as I mentioned, that everything that Plato talks about ultimately all of these ideas come back to the idea of the good, the idea of this craftsman and the demurge. So Plato makes this example of, you know, in a republic between two craftsmen who makes table and bed, in Timaos he makes a different example. Very briefly, how we can identify norms qua conventions from normative values qua objective principles is that think of a builder's guild.

Think of some masons, some builders, they have determined according to some objective principle and what is this objective principle is? So they have, sorry, they have determined according to some objective principles how to make a house. So what are these objective principles? It entails the process of making a house. you can't use any material you want to create a house because it will fall. But also it has a purpose, this objective principle. A house has a purpose of sheltering people and that's what makes it a house, it's an

artifact. So every artifact has a purpose, an external and internal purpose at least. to this internal and external purpose, then you can make a house. And making a house, again, follows objective principles of how you put material ingredients together, how you combine them according to some ratios and principles, and finally you create a solid house that can shelter people. Now this is what this objective principle of according to a purpose. a purpose that ultimately belongs to the realm of forms, justice, beauty, good knowledge,

so on and so forth, is what Plato calls a normative value quo and objective principle, and it belongs only to fuses, to nature, not to nomos. This is important. It does not belong to nomos. Now imagine that according to these objective principles of how to make a house, there is a builder's guild. This builder guilds, in order to streamline the process, it starts to turn this into codified laws, that if you are going to make this house you need to use these kinds of beams, you need to use that kind of wood, you need to make such a standard, on and so forth.

This is a nomos, a norm or normative value quonomos, not as an objective principle. It does not have objectivity. It has sociality, it does not have objectivity. Now according to Plato, nomos or these normative value quonomos which are a matter of sociality of reason, rather than objectivity of reason, are always susceptible to corruption. Imagine again this builders' guild, the members of it, start to ask people to use only materials to which they have access. Basically, they have a monopoly of certain kind of wood, they put this into the codified

law, namely to the normative value, and they ask everyone to make a house according to their interests. That's the corruption of a norm. So norms, from sociality of norms, can always be corrupted, but not its objectivity. And that objectivity is what really axiology is about, not the sociality. Now, and using the objectivity of reason is what ultimately can subvert the corrupted aspect of social normativity, namely the domain of normasis, domain of laws. And hence, because of this, rationality admits a certain subversive force for Plato against

the tyrannies of time, social tyrannies of time, and their normative values. So this axiology in the sense of what matters or not, we need to understand is what matters or not is a matter of objectivity of locus, objectivity of truth and goodness. I looked a little bit at that Sellers essay that you recommended. Soul as Craftsman. Yeah. and um it was kind of obscured to me but like it seemed it seemed also like he was uh saying that even in the realm of real values or like fuses values there's sort of on the one hand the value of like say you're building a house of the the product of eventually having

the house that's one kind of satisfaction and then the other satisfaction is the value of the process the value of the process and and that that has and that like for the whole that actually has to be the highest uh principle yes so the satisfaction i mean it's um absolutely and this is you see this whole process it's what plato calls a mycton to mycton to mix mixing what what What does it mean to have a good life is to have a mixed life. What does it mean to have a mixed life means that you combine different aspects according to their own measures. You separate them out according to their own basically measures.

This process is ultimately what a good life is, the ultimate source of satisfaction. Sounds kind of like Whitehead or something. Yeah, probably, yes. Shelling. Shelling, yes. Shelling and Whitehead. Because the process is the goal. I mean, but that's just, that's another way of just making an excuse for the fact that you're not successful. Which is also another excuse for, well, it's the best revenge, really. Well, this is exactly where, you see, that's what exactly played. Plato would say that the product is also necessary for the process, a product that can be in

fact changed rather than...so what is product? Product means the totality, achieved totality. For Plato, product means something and that's why he's not wiping or shelling, because he's a rationalist, he's an idealist. He believes that the product should be there for process to be justified. But this product shouldn't be something that is just what you might call to be the unchangeable product because nothing is unchangeable other than forms. There is no totality other than the totality of forms. Any other totality should be revived, should be changed further by other processes.

And that's, I think, Plato, what you might call to be, from this perspective, is also a pragmatist. He does not believe that you need to set goals so high that you can't accomplish them. Your eye should always be beyond the terrestrial scope of things, toward the realm of forms, of forms, the form of the good, but you should also be capable of making products in near and medium terms so you can enjoy the consequences of your own processes. Yeah, and so there's no ultimate concrete telos. Yes, there is no concrete telos, yes. So it's more like Deleuze kind of, it's like the pure and

empty form of time? Plato is the person who I think is, I think there are two philosophers who are the most important philosophers of time, Plato and Hegel. And we will talk about this idea of what is exactly time for Plato. I think basically any other philosopher who has talked about time, it has been either indirectly influenced by Plato or Hago. They are both in, both, they are, you know, aligning on the same point, this idea of what you might call pure and empty time. That the exploration of time allows you to, by way of reason. Now

the most important thing that Plato, unlike Deleuze, does not believe that you can explore time just by material processes. It's the task of Logos. The task of Logos is what allows you to explore time. And by exploring time, what you ultimately achieve is that you liberate yourself from the achieved totalities of your life, namely you get out of the cave. so time has no relation to the realm of the forms as it is in itself forms are timeless you see time first of all we need to understand

that time for Plato and that's what I said is most important is that time for Plato is not temporality time is exactly what time is nothing exists in time time admits no one forms are timeless because they are the expression of time no reality they admit they are basically what you might call the view from nowhere and nowhere they don't belong to any place to any particularity to any to any particular index of time history temporality so on and so forth this is is what's played to what you might call to be a temporal philosopher of time. He believed

in temporality. That's basically the idea of mixture of multiplicity and oneness that allows for a series of temporal articulations of events. But ultimately, forms are not temporal, or timeless in that sense, unchanging. This would imply that were the textual to be able to influence the material or what we might call reality, then a form or an understanding of a form, a particular way of perceiving time could override time as a sequential duration

or could allow someone to take on a new in which time functions differently in their life as it related to other people. I think neither Hegel nor Plato believe in sequential time in a kind of duration. That's something of a more modern thing. I mean, you need to understand that this is also very much in tune with the idea of the mythic account of time, that time admits no one. That's as simple as possible. Temporality is just some psychological time. That's it for various people. and this is very much in tune with what you might call to be interpretation

um post-Waltzmann interpretation of time that there's no such thing as temporality it's just a psychological time it's not there's no time component in it it's how time appears to you it's a phenomenalistic account of time nothing of a phenomenal phenomenalistic account of time then the only level on which we we find ourselves able to relate is sort of experience or the experience yes and that's what does it exactly mean to you know enlarged your field of experience so you can in fact understand this truth of time you know it's what you are called it's emptiness and I don't want to

get into details but the thing is that the idea of temporality time as temporality has agential import And it is important because it allows you, if you think about temporality in terms of what you might call to be different models of experience, of time, then that of course as you said allows you to basically think different worlds, different possible worlds. This is exactly what possible worlds are, counterfactuals, possible worlds.

And so what I wanted to say is that the idea to say that time admits no one, time is basically a no one, does not belong to a particular instance, nor ever a particular instance or or a sequence or duration can ever capture the idea of time is not by any means an impotent idea. It's actually from both Hegelian and Platonic perspective, it's a liberating idea precisely because it allows to broaden the scope of the temporal experience of the subject, of the agents. no longer inhabiting one temporal understanding of time, in one notion of history, in one notion

of achieved totality of this history, so on and so forth. Okay, let's have a cigarette and then we come back. Okay, cigarette. Okay, see you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Where's everyone been? It's felt like an eternity. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

I just got back from when my granddaughter had her birthday wedding in 2056 it was a lot of fun am I on speaker? yeah your mic is on Oliver and just you know so let's start and finish the wild line very briefly and then move to the idea of demi-orge and craftsman so I mentioned that you know

this idea of process to mix or to mix is is important for Plato and the goal of this process as I mentioned the first session is to produce to construct but what does it exactly construct well it constructs so many things it constructs not only instrumentalities but ultimately its import lies that it constructs intelligible unities intelligible mixtures this is what Plato calls satisfying lives satisfying lives are intelligible unities or

or unities of intelligibilities. They allow intelligence as a principle that acts on behalf of the good to further expand its capacities of knowing and doing things. When I said that unities of intelligibilities or intelligible unities, these intelligibilities, as I mentioned, are not just theoretical intelligibilities pertaining to knowledge in the traditional

sense, but also practical intelligibilities and also axiological intelligibilities. And of course, that makes tomikto, the process of mixing, not just any kind of process among all other processes in the world, but a sui generis process, a process par excellence. Because the process of mixing entails dialectics, what Plato in Theoreticus calls composteros,

separating and integrating everything according to some measures relevant to it this measure is implementation of a measure appropriate measure is afforded by logos or logoi. Plato calls them mathematicals. These mathematicals are not essentially mathematics in today's sense, but analytical idealities. And analytic, the domain of analytical idealities

the divided line is the third segment the third segment is an intermediary stage intermediary level between unchanging forms and multiple particularities or multiplicity of objects in the second domain the domain of pistis where you have opinions or conjectures derived from sensible domain regarding regarding matter-of-factual claims or statements about how things in the world stand with regard to one another.

So Plato, in this sense, gives a very special metaphysical status to mathematics, that if mathematics or analytical idealities or logos have such a power in structuring the world around us, it's because they have an intermediating quality, in the sense that they represent both unchanging forms, what you might think of them as unchanging mathematical objects, like the concept of a form, concept of a line, concept of whatever you might think of it

in terms of logic, mathematics, and other analytical idealities. But also these objects, even though they have unchanging forms, unchanging quality, they also can be multiple. So they have both multiplicity of the lower sensible domain pistis, of items in the world, multiplicity of items in the world, but also unchanging quality of forms. And you see that Plato basically claims that in order for us as souls, as minds, to be

be capable of structuring the world, exploring the cave, in addition to unchanging forms, you need to have an intermediary forms, namely local or mathematicals, which also can gain traction on multiplicities of things in the world by virtue of themselves being multiple, both unchanging and multiple, like mathematical objects. So he's essentially creating the first kind of theory of what is exactly mathematics,

what is and has such a power. for us to, we can use it to a structure in the world to say so this is the third domain where you have basically tools for bringing particularities, particular instances belonging to the domain

of the sensible under the domain of the form but also applying the unchanging aspects of the form to these particular instances. So this makes a very pro-Kentian formula. This is exactly what the concept is. can be applied to particular items, but also you can bring particular items or objects under the same concepts. the germ of a structuring gesture of the mind without this intermediary stage

that can link the unchanging aspect of form to the multiplicity of objects mind can never soul can never craft what is going around it can never grasp it so So this makes, as I said, this makes mathematics of highest importance in terms of the function of the soul, not the forms, the function of the soul. Because soul, for Plato, is the craftsman of the intelligibilities, epistemological, ontological, axiological, practical, so on and so forth.

question before I move forward this seem this ground the possibility of vicarity does this mean that is this what this metaphysics ultimately is the only way that a phrenesis or a or leaving the cave in the first place can be possible and then also how one how one responds when one leaves a cave if one leaves a cave um whether one goes back or what or and how to think about it but I will I

don't I am not sure if it is the only thing that I don't think it's a sufficient means to leave the cave but yes it's basically as I said is a tool is the most important tool for exploring the cave. For exploring the cave. Oh, sorry to interrupt you. We kind of see this at the beginning of Theatetus, where they're dividing knowledge with powers. Is this kind of an example where we see this category occurring in the dialogues? Yeah, in Theatetus, actually Theatetus is the best example representing the third segment of a divided line. instead of but in theitetus instead of attributing this this function this

function of bringing multiplicities under the unchanging and applying the unchanging to the multiplicity is not attributed to the mathematicals but is attributed to the general function of logos and language a reason and language logical language. You see what in Theoreticus there are numerous instances where language is specified as having a particular function. What it does, so they talk about Heraclitus, you know, the idea of the flux of multiplicities which is indeterminate because it's fleeting, it's transient, you can never step two times in

the same river. So how can you determine this structure, what this flux actually is, what are the contents of this flux? So in Theatetus Plato associates a function with language, which he literally calls it freezing, freezing the flux. Language freezes the flux. Language stabilizes, you know, what you might call in contemporary sense, it extracts invariances simply what you might call discursive practices, which is the domain of logos. Discursive practices,

what they do is that they bring this ever-changing multiplicity of things to a standstill. They a snapshot of it, that's a concept, a snapshot of it, an invariance, a snapshot of it, and then that snapshot can be revised, the contents of it, not its form. The contents of it can be revised so you can start to structure the multiplicity of this flux which has been thus and so being photographed or has brought to a standstill, being frozen.

So this is the function in The Exodus that Plato says that language, there is in fact, he says something like this, that if there is something, a structure in the world, given the fact that everything is always constantly changing, coming to be and ceasing to exist, is because we have something called language that is capable of freezing these blocks, it into determination. The indeterminacy of things as such brings it into linguistic determination,

to logical determination. And that logical determination is capable of, by virtual freezing this ever-changing flux is capable of slowly, basically elaborate the contents of this multiplicity. Bring it back to its original form. Just kind of like in the syllabus where he starts sort of dividing pleasure into memory and is that similar in the sort of dividing of this flux of pleasure sort of creating like this logical framework. Can you elaborate a little bit? Well I'm looking

at Theotetus right now and he's just saying like how learning knowledge is preserved and so it just sort of creates this possibility of preservation and remembering and memory and these are logical categories that in the syllabus he's talking about pleasure and he's saying well in order to not live of like an oyster you would actually have to even remember in that case freeze pleasure at some point and sort of you're measuring it there yes yeah yeah you are talking about the idea of recollection yes yeah yeah that's that's exactly what it is language and logic are the instruments of recollection and we will talk about this idea of recollection what exactly this

recollection, this remembering is, which is one of those really, really important and often misinterpreted topics in Plato's work, starting with Menno's paradox. And that's basically the idea of recollection, that what sets us apart from other sentience is the idea of recollection. idea of recollection is not just remembering something it's the idea of that we are capable of always remembering things through the lens of language through the lens of language of these so I'm sure that you know you're familiar

with Kant that in Kant you have the same kind of principles but not exactly the same so in Kant you have a function of memory and memory is essentially what enables the domain of the inner sense or inner perception so you get sensory flux and then it goes to the you have an impression of this and kept your encounters with items in the world and according and based on the function of the memory this impression original impression of how you have been affected

by the items in the world can be reproduced so this is the idea of canter reproduction and then this reproduction also has its own anticipation so you anticipate that if you have originally in the past you were impressed by objects thus and so and you have similar reproduction of them in the present then you anticipate that in the future it will be the same so you see it's a form of organization organization of the sensory blocks of multiplicity of things. Now, memory, this is the function of the memory in Kant, which is essential

for the ideas of anything that is come after. It's a necessary condition. For Plato, the function of memory, however, is not simply at this basic level. It's always what you might call to be an episodic memory. It always starts from the concepts, from the forms coming back, forms to logos, and then the memories of those, how I have been affected by these such and such items in the world. So the idea of recollection is essentially, is not just a function of the memory. It's a rational recollection, according to the language, my use of language. It's very, very much so in tandem with Greta Steins' theory of language and memory.

It seems like there's also this elision between ontology and epistemology here, that it's by virtue of this level that we come to know things, but also that they come to be generated. like I can think of that in terms of like a like almost like a Boolean logic or something where like like it needs to be like a program running or something that's that's like that's like generating a world yes yeah yeah no absolutely this is like it's not just a lens yes yes as I mentioned you know this is uh I think when the first session that's it's just

forms are programs. If you don't have them, you can't really have this window into external world. Yeah, I mean, that's basically what the transcendental is, the true transcendental for Plato is. So dianoya is like and, or, and not, or something? Dianoya, hmm, Or is that an oasis? No, it's that an oasis. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Can I say, is it possible to say that you can't actually write a dictionary that would be good for forever?

because although due to our experiences and environments in which we learned and grew up in and were taught and learned the understanding of the meaning of the words you cannot step into the same river twice the meanings of the words the meaning of that statement is different in some way but relatively similar for each of us and therefore the definitions of words are always changing or evolving

according to the new and improving understanding we have of concepts Yes, you see this is the idea that's basically we have already, when we are saying this, we already have moved from the third segment, the Anoya mathematical idealities, to the realm of forms, the realm of the unchanging and timeless forms. Now, a very intuitive example, and I understand it comes with a lot of distortion of what

Plato means by forms, would be, for example, the concept of measurement, or the concept of a tree. Now the form of this concept is always unchanging. It's timeless. It's just a general invariance. The contents of it, namely its meaning, the content of it, or positional content of its meaning, is changeable. Now you can think of this, again as a concept of measurement. So you have the concept of measurement. What is measurement?

It's just a form. A form that addresses some basic invariances of how to measure, separate out things from one another or integrate them together. Now, look at the history of science. concept of measurement, the content of it has changed so much that what today's science is called measurement is no longer measurement what in 18th century or in medieval times they called it measurement. Measurement is now based on eigenvalues, whereas old times

they were basically based on geometry and you know the metrics same thing about the concept of the tree so these forms are important the form of the concept is not changing nothing's content nothing's meaning and mathematical idealities mathematical idealities you might think of them as having something at the same time unchanging because they belong to the realm of no forms or no essence or idols and also they have multiplicity of contents they are context sensitive they can be renegotiated they can be revised um

with recollection I'm kind of looking at Philippus and it says something it's It's almost as if perception is distilled down into these pure categories that the soul then sort of, it's not remembering because there's no perception attached to it. It's sort of applying this purified experience to something new. Yes. I mentioned, I think, again, first session. You see the doctrine of forms changes the doctrine of forms quite drastically. from the middle period to transitional period to the later period. And as I mentioned, the idea of forms is only reserved for the form of the good.

The other ones from now on are identified by a word called tycoma, which is category. So usually in history of philosophy, people think that Aristotle is the one who came with categories. But no, categories were already in place within Plato. And what are exactly categories to which you can perform the act of recollection? Categories in today's term might be called to be pure generalities, pure invariances, that in a Kantian sense that they have not been extracted from particular sensible encounters with particular items in the world, but by the manner of the mind in organizing such

encounters. So this is exactly what Kantian idea of pure concepts or categories are. do not pertain to experience of sensible perceptual domain, namely particularities of experience and experiential encounters, but they have been organized by the manner by which mind organizes such particular encounters. So they are already, in a Kantian sense, are a priori, so as in Plato, they are already transcendental. Do the contents of Dianoya need to be known and used to exist?

The contents of Dianoya, yes. Yeah, because they are both contentful and formal. They have multiplicity of what might be contextuality, but also they have the unchanging form yes I mean that's exactly what allows mathematics to occupy such a metaphysical a special metaphysical status in Plato's divided line so like a mathematical discovery that hasn't been made yet isn't in Dianoe I know that's kind of a dumb way of putting it. Isn't in dialogue.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. So how is the extent of my responsibility measured? Sorry? How is the extent of my responsibility measured? Okay. your responsibility in terms of you know in a very platonic sense according to Plato yes how is the extent of my responsibility be yes okay so this comes back to this like those famous line that's let's talk about the self you

not talk about the responsibility, but let's talk about the self. So Plato has this universal dictum that he believes that it should be applied to everything that exists in nature, not in the contemporary sense of nature, but more in the sense that it has a nature, and self is one of it. So, he says that one should be like a good butcher who always carves at the joints rather than splintering the bones. So, what is exactly this? This metaphor is the task of dialectic shir, a person who is capable of having some epistemic,

ontological, and axiological intelligibilities, who is capable of first separating out different aspects of self from one another. This becomes the measure of responsibility, first separating out different aspects of self, those parts that pertain to pleasure, those parts that they ought to be fulfilled in terms of knowledge, beauty, so on and so forth. And only then you can reflect on the question of what is it that I am responsible to, or

how I can measure my responsibility. So Plato, in this sense, what I've been trying to say is that the measure of responsibility rests on the measure of separating out and integrating correspondingly different aspects of self. And for that we are no longer talking about axiology or epistemology or ontology, but different forms of intelligibility all at once. And that's basically where the question of philosophy comes to light.

What I ought to think and what I ought to do. And this is simply the process of learning. Learning the kind of measures to which I can identify different aspects of myself. They ought to be fulfilled. When I understand my talents and capabilities, then I can focus myself towards making use of those. You see, this is the twist in Plato, that this process of learning coincides with the process of reconstruction of the self.

So this is a twisted thing because the self that you learn is a self that is being reconstructed. So the self that is being reconstructed is no longer the self that you thought that you are learning. What's a new self? So this makes the process of this self-discovery a process also of self-construction. In the sense that this process of self-reconstruction is not simply that I learn my capacities, what my potencies are given by nature. Plato doesn't give a shit about nature has given to you or what capacities nature has afforded to us.

Plato thinks that by learning the self, you reconstruct the self. And by reconstructing the self, you equip it with new capacities that haven't been given by your nature. Simply you unbind your capacities. You create new ones rather than learning them in a parochial sense. So we're all becoming. We're all... Yeah, sure, absolutely, yes. But becoming does not exclude the possibility of laws or binding forces of intelligibilities that we can use in a phrenesis vicariously.

You see, the process of self-construction or self-cultivation, which is one of those, I think it is absolutely not exclusive to Plato. It is really at the core of all ancient philosophies, Confucianism, cynicism, you know, Platonism, is that the process of self-construction or self-cultivation is essentially the expression of the principle of intelligence as that which has the capacity to extract the intelligible and act on them. This is exactly like the self example, that as you render yourself intelligible, you also

act on these intelligibilities and by acting on these intelligibilities the intelligence expands boundaries beyond what is given to us and this is what for plato intelligence can never be identified or even reduced to the physical domain intelligence only and only the realm of noesis it's essentially part it's essentially something that is that has that involves crafts involves a process of construction what's like so makenshaft or the learning

and working carpentry of things that's what gives us of responsibility in the world yes but you see Plato has just as Plato has different levels of for example cognition Plato also has different levels of craftsmanship and this is part of part of Fido's conversation in which craftsman so you have the regular tech craftsman the regular carpenter, builder, so on and so forth. Then he also mentions some different kinds, but at the end he says that there is one form of craftsman that is among the rarest of craftsmen.

that's the craftsman of the concepts he associated explicitly as a craftsman who can name things using language naming things what does it mean to name things to classify them this is this is this is so you have different kinds of craftsmen some of them are about tech in the sense that they can be you can they are simply matter of know-hows. But some of them are not just a matter of know-hows, of how to do something, but also the matter of knowing how and knowing what. And that's where the idea of the pure craftsman in Fido comes to light, as a craftsman who can craft names

for things in the world, which is basically the philosopher, the person who has the mastery over concepts. So it seems like that would entail not just like first philosophy, but also being able to articulate a vision or something like that. Yes. This is like the popular conception of God, really, throughout history. Yes. Like the sort of non-common conception of God, this creator, this creativity. Yes, yeah, sure. I mean, that's exactly why Plato associated the idea of Demiurge with God.

But for Plato, it's, I think, far more ambivalent that he just believes in a principle of intelligence, a principle of intelligence. And he does not believe that this principle of intelligence can be represented by an entity, by an entity. So he, and this is one of the most important things that's any, as I mentioned, any achieved totality. So God, in Christianity, you think of God as the totality of all creativities. Totality of all creativities.

But according to the principle of intelligence, acting on the behalf of the good as its most basic substrate principle, any achieved totality is simply an illusion. So, this is very much in tandem with why, with this Socratic, you know, education. The reason that they executed, one of the charges that they brought against Socrates was impiety, you know, the rebellion against gods.

And precisely Plato has preserved this, that any form of totality of creativity is just an illusion and should be undone by the principle of intelligence. So it's a little more like Christ than God, basically. as sort of the figure that overturns I mean my understanding of Christ is quite conventional Christian but if you really like talking about some like Baru's idea of Christ

probably right can I interrupt I want to say then does the intelligibility not have a sense in its finitude of being a totality that is to say if the intelligibility itself is not falsifiable in all cases like were a word to have the possibility of its meaning changed, would that not... The tangibility at the level of form is unchangeable. The level of content is falsifiable and hence open to revision and renegotiation.

And that's what analytical ideologies represent. I have a question on the sidebar that I think is related to this a little bit tangentially, but it's regarding the parmenides as the last figure of sophism. and is it that you're saying thought or intelligibility is not parallel to being and then so what then is the relationship of of thought to being and what's the relationship of thought to form is or the is it that forms are the forms of intelligibility because it seems like thought itself differs from

forms and then and then or one more thing to add on to is if if we're granting primacy to thought over being or forms over being then aren't we isn't this just like redoing a type of metaphysical traditional metaphysical dualism no it doesn't fall into the metaphysical dualism of what you might call you know between body and soul mind and world precisely because metaphysical duality arises when you have a substantive duality when you have a

substantive opposition namely like you say that like Descartes that thoughts has its own substance and world has its own substance. So the distinction between thought and being is not substantive according to Plato, it's formal. What distinguishes thinking from being is not its substance, because it does not have a substance. its form, its formal aspects. It's like exactly like formal dimension of language and logic. The formal aspects of language and logic don't have

anything in common with how world functions. They have rules, they have autonomy of rules. This is the idea that the distinction between thoughts and being is ultimately formal according to and that's Plato and that's his last you know his last move against the Eleatic philosophy to instead of imagining thought and being at the level of the distinction between thoughts and being at the level of substance, substantive distinction, it brings thoughts, elevates to thought to the realm of form. So the distinction between thinking and being is no longer substantive,

but it is formal. At the level of substance, there is no such a thing as distinction, that essentially everything is being. I have a question, would the distinction more so be the distinction between um then thinking and existing because you said forms have being yes yeah yeah yeah absolutely existence yes yes yes yes i meant being in more contemporary sense rather than uh platonic sense because because so this is this is exactly this is what you know the answering Theo's first question is that so being as Christian was saying what I

meant by being here was existence you know like being of the world external world in a materialistic sense that you know we define being these days so at a level of substantive there is no distinction the distinction between thoughts and being is the form law. So you get non-being of thoughts and non-being of thought is no longer paradoxical. It no longer falls under the Eleatic paradox. Precisely because the non-being of thought is formal, not substantive. It simply pertains to its form, how it functions. Now again coming

Going back, so this idea of being that I mentioned properly should be said to be existence because Plato reserves the idea of being for forms, for thoughts. That the first ontology that is possible for us to lay any claim about a state of affairs pertaining to the external world, saying that it is the case that a theoretical dictum, theoretical claim, is that we should have an ontology of thoughts. The ontology of thoughts is what Plato might call the being of forms.

Only in the virtue of ontology of thought, how thoughts are in themselves, their logic, form allows us to make a claim or a statement whether true or not about the state of affairs in the world now the question that our thoughts really formed or not. Plato distinguishes between thoughts and a thinking soul, as toward, particularly

toward again his later career. So thoughts, if you think of thoughts as as ends of thinking, ends of thinking, ends of thoughts. These are forms. But a thinking soul, like a conceptualizing mind, is simply someone who enforces the forms, who simply acts on behalf of this form, so it does not represent the forms as such. thoughts yes from that perspective of thought the kingdom of the kingdom of ends of thoughts are exactly what forms are like our idealities so I follow

following that then thought is within being but it differs from being formally is that yes and then sort of existence of being being let's just Christian as Christian pointed out that created confusion that's just saying that existence you see Parmenides says that thought and being are one so being is exactly what you might call be the modern sense of being okay the materialistic sense of being and thought is exactly what you might call the conceptual atmosphere since that they are one they are one precisely because they haven't been differentiated at the level of form, but they both reside at the same

level, the level of substantive differences, which Plato says there is no substantive difference either. But what Plato does is that by bringing the knife down and cutting, severing the relation between thinking and being, distinguishing thinking from being, from Parmenidian being, at the level of form and no longer at the level of substance, he also changes the concept of Parmenidian being. That the Parmenidian being, which was the being of outside world, the Apeiron, is now

the being of thought. Being of thought. So namely, what you might call the thoughts in themselves or forms in themselves. So for Plato, when Plato talks about being, particularly in later works where he has fully differentiated himself from the Eleotic tradition, his being, when he mentions being, that is not the Parmenidian being anymore. It's a being of form, forms in themselves. So in a way he maintains the permitting equivocation while transposing the problem from existence to an ontological...

No, what he does is that he wants to argue that we cannot have in fact a criterion of reality or existence for anything whatsoever without a domain of discourse ruled by forms. This is exactly what you might call to be a transcendental realist position, a deflationary account of being. That it is like what Quine says, that there is no such thing as existential quantifiers that demarcate things in the world are set by the domain of discourse and provides an

existential quantifier. Otherwise there is no such a thing. Otherwise, we basically, you get, without this domain of discourse, without this being of forms, and the criteria of existence and inexistence, possibility, impossibility, necessity, and contingency, that it provides, you get essentially an inflated account of reality and being, which, according to Plato, is ultimately what the cave is. The cave is this. so what Plato wants to do that is to elevate thoughts in the realm of orcs and then reapplying back to the cave so you can illuminate the inconsistencies in the cave

can I follow up again So thought and being are still parallel, and yet it differs formally. They are not parallel, really, anymore. You see, thought now has an asymmetrical relation. Okay, let's put it this way. Are you meaning Parmenidian being in what you just said? thought and Parmenidian being are parallel. Because as I mentioned, being for Plato at this point is not a Parmenidian being. It's the being of forms.

Yes, if it is being of forms, yes, they are basically one and the same thing. But if you mean Parmenidian being, namely being of the world or the universe, no, the relation is asymmetrical. because then the this not parmenidian being this platonic version of being is somehow wrapped up in time it's just with some form of development then right a development of discourse development of discourse develop yes you see the forms themselves particularly the form of the good is unchanging, it's timeless. It would be absorbed, as Socrates says, to say that, for

example, the form of a tree changes. The form of a tree never changes. It's the particular instance of a tree that changes, its content. And this change of a content, where basically you move from timelessness to what you might call the temporal progression is exactly the third segment, the realm of analytical idealities. The tree example is so difficult because, I mean, if we're to give some sort of genealogy of the evolution of biological life, we would of course say that the form changes, right?

We would say it's still the content changes. We would say that we abandon some forms because there are some categories in a Kantian sense that can be discarded because they do not pertain to the reality of that which is. and hence they can be considered as mimicked or bad copies of forms, bad concepts that are discarded, like ether. But the good forms are the ones that are there, and their content changes. but the thing is that once the content changes that doesn't really

affect the form of those concepts the form of the concepts yes you can either discard it but you can't change it forms this is that famous line in Parmenides that forms are incorruptible forms are incorruptible And then that famous line in Parmenides that he talks about these foul ideas, like let's talk about like for example defecation, excrement, rot, decay, that these are really corruptions and no, Saketis says that no, it's bullshit. Even if it is corruptible, it is a foul idea, like the form of excrement.

Nevertheless, it is still incorruptible. The form of it is incorruptible. Nothing really can be said about an inherent being to a form. It's like it's just codswallop to say something like, the unity of the inherent unity of a form is the measure of its goodness that doesn't mean anything it has no purpose to talk about the form you see this idea of the unity for example Plato and also other philosophers

also Plato talk about this this inherent unity is not just some sort of what you might call to be a sterilized unity that's just there. Yeah, it doesn't have... No, it's this unity. What is exactly the import of this unity? It's because... This unity is important because if you can recognize it, the unity of the form, then you can bring particular instances to participate in it, like a concept. concepts are unities, are intelligible unities. Yeah, sure, the intelligible unity of the concept doesn't mean anything, but it does has a pragmatic input, namely unbinding the order of intelligibility.

You can classify things by it, by bringing certain objects all under such a concept. So this is the input of this unity. I guess I'm having a little trouble distinguishing between Dianoya as like a grammar of thought and Dianoya as a sort of like contingent cultural state of the art in a way. I think it's a grammar of thought. By no means uh what you might call to be saying that it's a culture no it's already I mean cultural including science. Okay. I think this is like the difference you brought up earlier between the whole issue of potentially corruptible norms and the actual objective principles.

like what you say, because I mean, do you have like parochial cultural forms that are like present in our like manners of communicating? But when you apply like the objective principles, it ends up being functionally interior to the particular cultural aspects of peace and blood. Yeah, I think that's a good point that you just made. Yes, I think when we talk about the cultural dimension of normativity, we essentially include the sociality of norms, and the sociality of norms, that basically makes it susceptible to be not an objective principle, makes it becomes enormous, and enormous is always a

corruptible thing. That's why norms needs to be revised as normuses. Whereas objective principles, you can determine how to make a better house by creating a better objective principle. But nevertheless, objective principles are objective precisely because they do not abide by the socio-cultural things that are going around them. Its norms, namely normoses, laws, codifications, that have this quality. Whereas, as Christian said, I think analytical idealities first and foremost pertain to these

objective principles, extraction of these objective principles. This is what I was wanting to discuss when I was talking about responsibility this whole time. How that to this self-determined and vocational aspect of responsibility when also we have the value of an item or object relating or being determined or measured by its relation to the form

or the form of it in a particular way. I think I lost you, or did you lose me? or what? A little bit but I think just from the part that I got is that I for example let's think about the house you know the product of a of a of implementing certain objective principles so it has connection with forms So the idea, for example, it can be beautiful, it can serve the purpose of justice, accommodating

people who don't have houses, so on and so forth. But it also needs to abide by certain principles regarding practical intelligibilities of how to make a house, not just those higher order forms under which it has been crafted, according to which it has been crafted. And these are, these practical intelligibilities, some of them are instrumentalities, some of them are, you know, require theoretical knowledge, some of them, you know, skills, some of them other kinds of stuff, practical reasoning. So the idea of responsibility when you think about this in terms of this kind of house,

It's like it requires acquaintance with not just the higher purposes forms as such but also what entails in doing something. We can't just be responsible to ourselves or other people by having the idea, namely the idols or the form of what is good for you and what is good for us and what we have justification of doing so on and so forth. But you absolutely

need to know and learn what to do things correctly, how to implement this responsibility in certain contexts, in different contexts, correctly, according to practical reasons, theoretical reasons, so on and so forth. So from this point, you see that this is again comes back to the main, one of the idea of the estate craft in Republic, that the task of the politics is not just crafting the estate according to these ideal forms, but it absolutely should have the competence of intelligently doing things. A politics that simply abides and is responsible to those higher forms or higher domains is

an empty politics because ultimately the matter of responsibility towards citizens and state is a matter of fulfilling them. And fulfilling them you need to have the where we thought to do things correctly, practical intelligibilities at different levels. but also theoretically intelligible with it. And that's what makes, from a contemporary perspective, you see that today's Marxism or communism is essentially something that Plato would have completely hated, precisely because it has under these ideals, it strives to reach these ideals, but it has zero competence in getting things done or having the knowledge of getting things done.

And that's ultimately what responsibility is. Responsibility, as I mentioned, always needs to be understood in the broad, integrative expanse of intelligibility, of not only higher forms, but also theoretical and practical intelligibilities, et cetera, et cetera. Maria, your question, bad copies of forms second-order appearance, and can they not be brought together into determination to gain traction. You see, as I mentioned, for art, what Plato calls art is essentially not what we mean

by art what he calls by artists or artisans or artisans essentially not artists when so with that said when he talks about mimicry what they are completely unsalvageable there are appearance of appearances in the sense that they have what is so basically we start from appearances already from the phenomenological appearances in the case the propagandist poets of Plato's what Plato admonishes as an as a charlatan as an artist not in today's sense but

in all time, he is essentially someone who reduced even this order of appearances by holding a mirror against it and pretends that it is reality. So it is not that a bad copy is some indeterminate thing, it is in fact a piece of work or a piece of thoughts or a piece of a statement that claims to be a reality but in fact it's simply it's bad copy of appearances so just go but would all thought would would all thought or you're saying that like any thought or any appearance not just any appearance could be

traced back to maybe a more originary appearance like because the way I understood you're talking about poets is you see according to Plato thoughts are not reducible to appearances that's the whole point that thoughts are forms ultimately but there are some thoughts but there are some thoughts that try to mimic appearances as realities. These are second or bad copies. These are what basically Plato admonishes as bad thoughts. Would this be like bad representation? I think it's not just bad representation. As I mentioned, it's a representation that

claims about the reality of things, about the reality of words. It's what you might call to be a totalizing statement about the state of affairs. that I I is essentially this is a soft what the sophist does a sophist thinks that all words are equal because they all pertain to how things are or what things are essentially a claim or a or basically that doesn't have any measure a claim that doesn't have a determined

measure. That lays claim to reality, to the totality of being, is what you might call to be in Plato's second order appearance, a bad copy. That famous example in Phileo, someone who takes a mirror, goes through the city and tells people that, see this is a reality I can show you its picture in the mirror simply just so the idea is that this form of thought is essentially a form of thought that you might call to be hasn't matured from the realm of the sense of it so all it can

do is that it can reproduce thing in the realm of the sensible without ever moving toward the measures of thinking, the measures of thought or the realm of words. In Republic I think there is, I can't remember, it's in the book 8 or book 9 that they talk about this about that this kind of you know this kind of framework that framework of thinking in which you always subordinate thought to

the order of appearances, and by virtue of that, once you get the habit of subordinating thought to the order of the sensible, the order of appearances, you ultimately believe that what you think is real. And Plato associates in the book, I think in Book 9 of the Republic, associate this with tyrants, which he calls the dreamers, that they live in a dreamy world. And then at the end of the syllabus he talks about how some people look at animals and their pleasure, and then he equates that to like seers and how they get signs from birds. Yes, yes. So essentially, the bad copy, I mean, you see, it's not a bad copy that we might say that, for example, a representational copy that today we make in art.

A bad copy, according to Plato, is a representation or a thought that has never managed to get out of the domain of the sensible. It's essentially a person who thinks that thoughts in fact need to be subordinated to the order of the sensible, to the order of appearances, and that can produce the reality of what there is. Thank you. Okay, should we finish today and meet next week?

And the reading for the next week, Soul as a Craftsman, and I try to scan this chapter by Giovanni Rio toward new interpretation of Plato on the idea of Demiorge so we can read it and discuss that and kind of after that we will blend in the idea of Demiorge and the idea of the good as the principle of the divided line and then from that we expand these different directions like the idea of dialectics that come by your mixture how to mix the idea of

knowledge what is exactly knowledge and how you can have practical and theoretical knowledge and the kind of paradoxes that trouble the account of platonic account of knowledge so on so forth the mirror is an eye yes the mirror is an eye could you perhaps give a brief summary of the fourth line of what the fourth line okay the fourth line as I mentioned that the fourth line is the realm of being Platonic realm of being, not Parmenidian realm of being, is what you might call to be the ontology of forms.

namely an ontology a being in a platonic sense a being through which you can in fact posit the existence of things in the universe but also the reality which soul tries to explore not the reality of force the reality that which the reality that souls tries to explore so the most important thing

about the realm of the noesis is that noesis or the intellect or the domain of intelligence as such is not the good itself. It is what...so again, as I said, everything in the wide line has an intermediary function. So for example, mathematical ideologies have an intermediary function between forms and or idealities and pistis or you know the domain of opinions about nature of things now the thing about the the fourth segment is

that also is an intermediary segments it mediates between the realm of the good the form of forms as the unity or the wholeness of the continuous line, the totality of the line, and its segments. And its segments. So, but precisely because of this being a mediating function, it is not the good itself. It is a principle through which the good expresses itself, through which the good can be expressed

in the domain of the sensible and the intelligent one. Now one of the reasons that I don't want to go further in explaining what exactly idus or idealities or forms are, namely describing the nature of the fourth segment, is because The fourth segment is exactly what represents the idea of demiurge, the idea of a craftsman, an intelligence that is capable of crafting things according to the principle of the good.

This process of the craft consists of the elements of the fourth segments, the forms, whereas the objective principle is the good itself, as what undergirds the forms, the beautiful, justice, knowledge, soul, and so forth. So the fourth segment is like revising and updating? The fourth segment is not revising and updating. It's what you might call to be, it's a process of, yes, let's not put it in terms of construction as revising and updating, but simply as constructing, as crafting.

Revisability comes down, not to the form, because remember forms, according to Plato, are unchanging. Revisability comes down to the realm of the, first realm of the intelligible, which is the idea of mathematical or analytical idealities that gains traction on the domain of the sensible. But yes, if it's essentially forms, the fourth segment is the realm of the construction, craftsmanship in that all-inclusive sense of the craft that I mentioned, not just ordinary craftsmen. And this is the main theme of the republic.

This craftsman is being argued first in terms of, you know, a citizen, first ordinary craftsman, like a carpenter, and then the citizen crafting the household and stuff, and then the estate's crafts, the estate's man who crafts a city, a polis, not of the citizens, when ultimately there is one craft that belongs to the domain of forms and forms only, and that's the craft the mind, the craft of the soul itself, which Plato thinks that it essentially belongs to the territory of philosophy. So, I have one question.

So it seems like the whole problem of the demiurge causes a radical phenomenalization or existentialization of all fleshed out to the divided line, it makes really only the formative crafting aspect really the only thing that has legitimate being. Yes. Yeah. As I mentioned, I mean, this is, of course, this is just completely in tandem with Plato's idealism, that mind, like Hegel, mind is ultimately what structures the world in the broadest possible sense. There is no such thing as a structure. And this structure requires

a craft, a craft that does not only consist of instrumentalities like ordinary craft, means and ends relations, but goods in themselves, knowledge, justice, beauty, but also practical intelligibilities of different forms, theoretical intelligibilities, axiological intelligibilities, and only to such an encompassing process of construction is that we can in fact say anything about the world. Could I get away with saying that the divided line is like the journey and the goal?

What is the goal? The end or goal is the allegory of the cage. No. The divided line is the journey. The divided line is in fact the allegory of the cave simply in diagrammatic form. Forms are the sun, are the celestial bodies. Actually forms are not the sun, forms are celestial bodies to be more accurate. Sun is the good. Sun is a principle that allows these differentiations to be made, separations to be made. Earth from celestial bodies, cape from the surface, surface from the cave, but also different

what you might call to be ascension to different semantic hierarchies, semantic heavens. what basically the function of the Sun is in allegory of the cave which is you might call it to be the substratum or the continuous stratum of the divided line, the continuous line itself that allows for differentiation and integration of dozens of segments. Okay. All right. Thanks, everybody. Does anybody have any last questions?

Only logistical questions. Maybe we should... So also, Hunter, I think I mentioned to you, mentioned to all of you, other than Plato and the good by Rosemary Desjardins on Divided Line. There is also a fantastic essay written by Nicholas Rescher on the epistemology of the Divided Line. So that's also a fantastic resource and Nicholas Rescher is a superb, superb philosopher. He's famous for writing a fantastic book on epistemology in the 1970s. Okay, cool.

Yeah, thanks. Check that out. Wait, is that in the classroom? Yeah, is it in the classroom? Okay. Cool. All right, have a good day, everybody, and we'll see you in a week. Next week. Okay. Bye, everyone. Thank you very much.