All religions in this world are at their core trying to convey the same objective metaphysical truth.

All religions in this world are at their core trying to convey the same objective metaphysical truth.
Platonism is conveying that same truth as well, but without all of the cultural, dogmatic and superstitious corruption.

Read Plato

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    But Platonism was eventually incorporated into those same dogmatic and superstitious religions after the age of Christ, so the framework must have been there.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    When I was first heard about the Platonic forms in school it was introduced using the form of a chair. The concept of a chair is obviously culturally conditioned or at the most biologically conditioned. There is nothing objective about it. Every since then I've thought the forms were a stupid idea that enshrines common sense parochial notions as objective reality

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Read Parmenides

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        What objective form does he put forward? I see people talk about the form of the good but again that is obviously subjective.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          How is it subjective?
          In Euthyphro Plato proofs that the good is good because it is loved by the gods and it is not loved by the gods because it is good. Just how when you love something it is called something loved. You don't love it because it is something loved, you loving it makes it into something loved.
          The gods are unchanging and eternal, so since they decide what is the good, the good is eternal and unchanging too, which makes it the opposite of subjective.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >so since they DECIDE what is the good
            >which makes it the opposite of subjective
            Do you know what subjective means? If someone decides something it is subjective. You could say that it is objective that they made that decision but the same thing applies to me saying it is moral to steal candy from babies. It is an objective truth that I said that but it's not objective morality obviously.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >In Euthyphro Plato proofs that the good is good because it is loved by the gods and it is not loved by the gods because it is good.
            That's not what he says, he bypasses the whole dilemma entirely and says that God is the Good itself

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >In Euthyphro Plato proofs that the good is good because it is loved by the gods and it is not loved by the gods because it is good. Just how when you love something it is called something loved. You don't love it because it is something loved, you loving it makes it into something loved.
            >The gods are unchanging and eternal, so since they decide what is the good, the good is eternal and unchanging too, which makes it the opposite of subjective.
            You're still missing the point everyone else was making in the Euthyphro thread. Plato doesn't prove that the Good is loved by the gods or any such thing, and the traditional myths believed by Euthyphro may have eternal gods, but they're not unchanging, they're willful and so arbitrary.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Plato proofs that the good is good because it is loved by the gods
            No he doesn't

            >In Euthyphro Plato proofs that the good is good because it is loved by the gods and it is not loved by the gods because it is good.
            That's not what he says, he bypasses the whole dilemma entirely and says that God is the Good itself

            >and says that God is the Good itself
            No he doesn't

            Socrates "bypasses" the dilemma by trying to assert that both piety being that which is loved by the gods and the gods loving pious things because they are pious are the same thing, and Euthryphro doesn't contradict Socrates on that point because he's a dumbass.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You might be the first person I've ever seen to actually get filtered by fricking school. Holy shit. A chair is a manmade object designed for an individual to sit on. The fact that there are so many different names and appearances that chairs can take in so many different cultures is precisely the proof of the universality of the "form of the chair".

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >A chair is a MANMADE object designed for an individual to sit on.
        >proof of the universality of the "form of the chair"
        So is there a form of the car? Of the iPhone? You're doing the same stupid shit I saw as a child you're assuming culturally common concepts have some type of objective existence. Is there some degree of cultural acceptance that indicates objective reality to you? How popular does something have to get before it counts as a form to you?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >So is there a form of the car? Of the iPhone?
          Yes you fricking moron, how do you think we have people who can produce iPhones and who can use or even recognise iPhones as iPhones? There is a form of the iPhone as far as I am concerned - perhaps others may dispute my view. If something shares in coherence and universality in some manner, then it partakes in form. You are capable of recognising something because of its form and not because of its matter - if you mince an organ, it's still the same matter but it's just a blob of flesh, it's no longer an organ.
          >you're assuming culturally common concepts have some type of objective existence
          If a given concept does not have objective existence then how do you recognise it and how are you conscious of it? And if this concept has only "subjective existence", then who is the subject? The entire culture, like some kind of hive mind?
          As to the exact delineation of the forms and which forms existence and which ones do not, Plato offers a fairly reliable method for working with them, but I think it is a fool's errand to try to catalogue every form in existence, and the reasons for that are too many to mention or even ponder. The ancient Platonist did try to compile such a list, but their efforts were destroyed by barbarian morons and drowned in the oblivion of time anyway.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            What you're describing would make every thought and concept a form with objective existence. If that's what is meant by Platonism I've got no problem with it but it is most certainly not what most people mean by the forms. For instance what you've just said would make everyone's subjective idea of the good a platonic form of the good

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >What you're describing would make every thought and concept a form with objective existence.
            Prove this statement.
            >For instance what you've just said would make everyone's subjective idea of the good a platonic form of the good
            Not even remotely. The Good is an objective concept that different people can have different degrees of awareness and knowledge of - they can also have different degrees of confusion, ignorance and false conviction about this concept.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >>What you're describing would make every thought and concept a form with objective existence.
            >Prove this statement.
            Ok so you don't believe every concept is a form. So again is there a form of the car? Of the iPhone? What if I said a broken chair was the true form and that a fixed chair was just a corruption? What makes something just a concept and not a form? This is extremely important to your position since you're insistent that your assigning of the forms isn't just arbitrary cultural baggage.

            >The Good is an objective concept that different people can have different degrees of awareness and knowledge of - they can also have different degrees of confusion, ignorance and false conviction about this concept.
            Why? You've said not every concept is a form so how do you distinguish between forms and concepts that are simply popular? You're position appears to be what I said to begin with, pure cultural and personal biases masquerading as objective reality. Since you can't seem to articulate how to distinguish between concepts and the forms I say a chair is simply a concept and not a form.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >There is a form of the iPhone as far as I am concerned
            The problem with this is that iPhones are contingent. If for example Steve Jobs didn't drop out of college then we would never have Apple and iPhones would never have been invented. Or if humans evolved without opposable thumbs. So how could there be a perfect, timeless, unchangeable form of something that didn't exist?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            There's a few objections that can be raised to this off the top of my head:
            1. You are simultaneously assuming that time matters to timeless things AND rejecting that these things are timeless because time applies to them; nothing suggests that time here actually affects the world of forms, in fact if there is any relationship it is probably the inverse.
            2. You are positing hypotheticals when we already live in the one actual world, so whether a given form doesn't come into existence hypothetically doesn't matter if it does exists actually.
            3. Plotinus addresses this issue by asserting that the totality of things exists in the world of forms as potentiality. From this perspective, every possible object already exists, and God truly is the "creator of all things" - it's just that not all of his creations are actively manifesting in the physical world.

            >>What you're describing would make every thought and concept a form with objective existence.
            >Prove this statement.
            Ok so you don't believe every concept is a form. So again is there a form of the car? Of the iPhone? What if I said a broken chair was the true form and that a fixed chair was just a corruption? What makes something just a concept and not a form? This is extremely important to your position since you're insistent that your assigning of the forms isn't just arbitrary cultural baggage.

            >The Good is an objective concept that different people can have different degrees of awareness and knowledge of - they can also have different degrees of confusion, ignorance and false conviction about this concept.
            Why? You've said not every concept is a form so how do you distinguish between forms and concepts that are simply popular? You're position appears to be what I said to begin with, pure cultural and personal biases masquerading as objective reality. Since you can't seem to articulate how to distinguish between concepts and the forms I say a chair is simply a concept and not a form.

            On the first point you completely dodged by request and started putting forward random ideas and assertions so I am just going to assume that you yourself are confused on this topic and do not really know what your position is.
            >What if I said a broken chair was the true form and that a fixed chair was just a corruption?
            They both partake in chairness (the form of the chair) insofar as they are chairs, whether they are broken or unbroken has merely practical relevance and does not concern the universal form.
            Second point. I have only used the word "concept" twice outside of the times I have quoted you - both times have referred to the form of the Good. I have made no other statements about concept so I am not sure what position you imagine (or even assert that I hold). With that out of the way, if you want me to refute your view you will first have to define what you call "concepts" and tell me how you believe they are different from forms. Unless you do that, I can't help you. As far as I am concerned, in the physical world there is only form and matter, and I only use words like "concepts" for the sake of convenience where it is intuitive to do so.
            I already gave you a very good example and multiple explanations of the Platonic principle for determining what does and does not have form btw. It's the presence of coherence and universality. A given organ, like the heart, is coherent and universal - once you mince it, it's reduced to formless matter. Another example that Plato himself gives: mud has no form. It is just pure matter, which enjoys no rational purpose, coherence or universality. It's just an aggregation of particulars (dirt). So mud has no form, even though we have a name for it (making it a "concept", in your view, I suppose).

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >1. You are simultaneously assuming that time matters to timeless things AND rejecting that these things are timeless because time applies to them; nothing suggests that time here actually affects the world of forms, in fact if there is any relationship it is probably the inverse.
            >2. You are positing hypotheticals when we already live in the one actual world, so whether a given form doesn't come into existence hypothetically doesn't matter if it does exists actually.
            This reads like pure determinism to me. Only this particular reality could ever have existed, which is why only existent-in-this-reality contingent things had Forms pre-created. There are really no contingent things at all.
            >3. Plotinus addresses this issue by asserting that the totality of things exists in the world of forms as potentiality. From this perspective, every possible object already exists, and God truly is the "creator of all things" - it's just that not all of his creations are actively manifesting in the physical world.
            So there exist Forms of things that have never and will never exist in the physical world? Doesn't this imply an infinite number of Forms exist of everything that could potentially exist (which is infinite)?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >This reads like pure determinism to me. Only this particular reality could ever have existed, which is why only existent-in-this-reality contingent things had Forms pre-created. There are really no contingent things at all.
            I am not really sure I understand your objection, to be fully frank, or why you would also direct this objection at the first point. I understand why you would do it for the second, but not the first. Anyway.
            You have it backwards. Forms are not "pre-created" for things on earth. Things on earth derive their existence and meaning from forms, to the extent that they are able to receive these things given their imperfect material nature. The ultimate end purpose of forms is NOT to manifest in the world. Rather, the purpose of the world is to manifest forms according to its ability.
            Personally I also don't really understand how positing "alternative realities" can be considered a serious arguments when these, for a fact, do not exist. They may exist potentially, but they do not exist actually and therefore it is strange to compare the actual and extant with that which in fact does not really exist.
            >So there exist Forms of things that have never and will never exist in the physical world?
            Personally, I think this is possible, and it is likely the case, yes.
            >Doesn't this imply an infinite number of Forms exist of everything that could potentially exist (which is infinite)?
            Again, you have this backwards. The particular follows the universal. The existence of the form determines what can exist, potentially or actually, so the infinity of particulars stems from the forms rather than giving rise to these forms. As to there being an infinity of forms, again, that is possible, and I personally do not see anything special or incredible about that. The Forms do not occupy space and are the direct product of the One, which is characterised by infinity and superabundance. There is no contradiction in there being an infinity of forms, nor is there anything surprising about there being an infinity of forms.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            We're going in circles now you already denied saying every thought and concept is a form and now you're claiming you can't distinguish concepts from forms. What I mean by concept is a thought in the mind or something spoken or written down to convey a thought from someones mind. Do you think every concept is a form? If so I already kind of agreed with that but I also pointed out that it destroys the form of the good since everyone has their own differing thoughts in there minds of what the good is.

            >So mud has no form, even though we have a name for it (making it a "concept", in your view, I suppose).
            So you do know what a concept is after all. So again how do you distinguish between concepts and forms? I claim your chair and good are just concepts and not forms since forms don't exist. Refute me.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >What I mean by concept is a thought in the mind or something spoken or written down to convey a thought from someones mind.
            So you think a concept is a thought but also a word or even a written word. And all of these are one and the same. Seems like a clunky concept. I don't think this level of discourse is worthy of replying to, but if this is truly how you define a concept, then no, not every concept is a form. In fact, most "concepts" that you describe would not be forms.
            >So you do know what a concept is after all. So again how do you distinguish between concepts and forms?
            I gave you an explanation and an example in that same paragraph, lazy boy. I can spoonfeed you an explanation, but I can't spoonfeed electricity into the neurons of your brain. You'll have to use that yourself.
            >I claim your chair and good are just concepts and not forms since forms don't exist. Refute me.
            Well your definition of "concept" includes words, so since neither chairs nor the Good are words, which is self-evident, I guess you're automatically refuted. Good showing though!

            To work off the mud example
            >which enjoys no rational purpose, coherence or universality.
            Rational purpose is subjective. Coherence is supplied by laws of physics and mud is certainly more universal than chairs.

            Tell me what the purpose of a car is and what the purpose of mud is.
            >Coherence is supplied by laws of physics
            You are, unfortunately, moronic.
            >mud is certainly more universal than chairs
            In what sense? In that there's a greater quantity of mud than of chairs? Yes, that's fully in line with Plato's explanation of mud as an aggregate of particulars or atoms (dirt) - something that is definitionally not a universal, and is in fact the opposite of a universal. But I suppose you wouldn't know what a universal is.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Well your definition of "concept" includes words, so since neither chairs nor the Good are words, which is self-evident, I guess you're automatically refuted. Good showing though!
            Neither chairs nor the Good are words? THEN HOW THE FRICK ARE YOU TYPING THEM?
            Your task which you are squirming so desperately to avoid is why the word mud is not a form and the words chair and God are.

            >that's fully in line with Plato's explanation of mud as an aggregate of particulars or atoms (dirt)
            Show me a chair that's not an aggregate of atoms. Oh the form of chair? Then the form of mud you stupid frick. Why does the chair whose every particular example is an aggregate of atoms get a form and mud doesn't?

            > something that is definitionally not a universal, and is in fact the opposite of a universal. But I suppose you wouldn't know what a universal is.
            So you're using some special meaning of universal? Mud occurs everywhere and even if every example of mud dried up it would be easy enough to make some more to instantiate the "form" of mud. Your idea of the forms is special pleading with you claiming some type of mystical intuition aka bullshit that allows you to distinguish concepts or words in your explanation from forms.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Neither chairs nor the Good are words? THEN HOW THE FRICK ARE YOU TYPING THEM?
            Anon... words are representation of things... a skyscraper is not in fact a collection of letters...
            >Your task which you are squirming so desperately to avoid is why the word mud is not a form and the words chair and God are.
            God it must be so humiliating being you lol.
            >Show me a chair that's not an aggregate of atoms. Oh the form of chair? Then the form of mud you stupid frick. Why does the chair whose every particular example is an aggregate of atoms get a form and mud doesn't?
            Because, like I said before - about five or so times now - the form of the chair has coherence and universality, and the individual chairs participate in this form, or in other words in chairness, the quality that makes something a manmade object meant for sitting. What is the purpose and meaning of mud, by contrast? It's literally just a collection of atomistic particulars. There's nothing cohesive, coherent, unitary and universal about mud. Chairs, on the other hand, are defined by those very things. A chair is not just a collection of particulars - it has a natural intrinsic function that it fulfils, namely, being an object to sit on. It always has this quality over other objects, including also things that have no form, such as mud.
            >So you're using some special meaning of universal? Mud occurs everywhere and even if every example of mud dried up it would be easy enough to make some more to instantiate the "form" of mud. Your idea of the forms is special pleading with you claiming some type of mystical intuition aka bullshit that allows you to distinguish concepts or words in your explanation from forms.
            Yes, we are discussing philosophy so I am using universals in the philosophical and qualitative, not quantitative sense. To give an example, the human being is a universal, and any given individual is a particular instance of that universal. The universal nature of humanity provides individual humans with their nature as humans. Mud on the other hand is a collection of particulars, it has no coherent nature. Can you define "mudness"? What is this mudness that mud shares in, in order to derive its (nonexistent btw) character from it? There's nothing. Therefore, there can be no form of mud. It is an incoherent aggregate, not a unitary thing with a specific character or form.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >there is no such thing as the form of mud because mud has no universality

            If I can apply the term “mud” to multiple individuals, which I can, then according to your logic there does in fact exist the form of mud.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            And how do these individuals share in mudness, do you suppose? I am at the edge of my seat, waiting to hear your explanation.

            Parmenides 130c-e:

            >"Well then, Socrates, what about those things that would seem to be laughable, such as Hair and Mud and Dirt or any different thing that's very worthless and lowly? Are you at an impasse over whether it is or is not necessary to say that there is a separate form ofeach of these, something different than what we can lay our hands on?"

            >"No, not at all!" answered Socrates. "For these things are as we see them right here, and it would be grossly out of place to think that there is some form of them. To be sure, it has troubled me that the same case does not apply to all, but whenever I come to this, I run off, fearing to fall and perish in some abyss of foolishness. In the end, then, I return to these things that just now we were saying are forms and I spend my time working over them."

            >"Well, you are still young, Socrates," said Parmenides, "*and philosophy has not yet grabbed you as it will, in my opinion. Then you will dishonor none of these things; but as for now, you still look to the opinions of men, because of your age.*"

            That is, there might or might not be a form of mud, but Socrates hasn't hypothesized about it at all, because he accepts it's as worthless and lowly as everyone says.

            And he's not wrong about that. But that was also a very young Socrates. I think if you look at the rest of Plato's philosophy it is very clear what position one should take on this issue.

            Good on you and the rest of the people in this thread for attempting to refute this obscurantist nonsense, but you will not convince your opponents. Just read Plato to get a valuable insight into the history of Western philosophy and discard the mumbo jumbo. Anyone who believes in an actual realm of forms and the rest of the moronic stuff dogmatic Platonists believe in is beyond saving.

            Meant to respond to the anti-Plato anon, not this fool

            >this is the intellectual level of anti-Platonists

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >And he's not wrong about that. But that was also a very young Socrates. I think if you look at the rest of Plato's philosophy it is very clear what position one should take on this issue.
            I'm not sure that it is clear. One would have to ask, "Did Socrates learn to do what Parmenides challenged him to do? Do the accounts of the Forms and Ideas in, say, Phaedo and the Republic, stand on merits that avoid the impasses Parmenides makes clear? And if it turns out that the accounts in such dialogues fall prey to just such impasses, what are we to conclude about Socrates' accounts of the Forms? Did he learn nothing, or have trouble understanding Parmenides (as he suggests he did in the Theaetetus), or does he use accounts of the Forms akin to his young hypotheses for some other purpose?"

            Something like that would hae to be inquired into, otherwise it's sidestepped and evaded, but not actually addressed, in favor of preference for what Socrates seems to say most often. This wouldn't be a good defense or explanation of the Forms. (And consider his autobiography halfway through the Phaedo, where Socrates says he "trusts" a certain kind of account of the Forms; compare that with where "trust" falls on the divided line of the Republic...)

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Good on you and the rest of the people in this thread for attempting to refute this obscurantist nonsense, but you will not convince your opponents. Just read Plato to get a valuable insight into the history of Western philosophy and discard the mumbo jumbo. Anyone who believes in an actual realm of forms and the rest of the moronic stuff dogmatic Platonists believe in is beyond saving.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Meant to respond to the anti-Plato anon, not this fool

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >it has a natural intrinsic function that it fulfils, namely, being an object to sit on
            So then a physical chair actually has two forms, the Form of the Chair, and the Form of the Intrinsic Function of Sitting. Why not just reduce this down and have no Forms at all? If I can sit on a rock, clearly having the Form of the Intrinsic Function of Sitting doesn't mean much. Is it immoral to sit on things other than those which have the Form of the Intrinsic Function of Sitting?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            You can also sit in a tub of acid. It would probably reduce the amount of dumb posts online but it doesn't mean that the natural function of the tub of acid is to be sat in. Does that clear up your misunderstanding or do you need me to dumb it down even further?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Did you reply to the wrong post? I don't see what this has to do with mine. If you are unable to answer basic questions about Platonic thought, why are you posting this garbage?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Okay I'll take that as a yes.
            >So then a physical chair actually has two forms, the Form of the Chair, and the Form of the Intrinsic Function of Sitting.
            This is moronic. There is no "form of intrinsic function of sitting". The properties of the chair are contained in the Form of the Chair, or its chairness if you prefer. Sitting is an action, not a Form. If you desperately want to associate the act of sitting with a form, then you would associate it with the Form of Man, Form of Dog, etc etc listing every being that is capable of sitting. These beings can sit in anything, including a tub of acid - even though the tub of acid is obviously not meant for sitting in, because it will kill you. A chair, on the other hand, is different - its whole existence is just for the sake of being sat on.
            Does that clear this up? I am afraid it may not be possible to dumb it down any further than this, unfortunately.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            define "form" and "universality"

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >There is no "form of intrinsic function of sitting"
            But you just said in

            >Neither chairs nor the Good are words? THEN HOW THE FRICK ARE YOU TYPING THEM?
            Anon... words are representation of things... a skyscraper is not in fact a collection of letters...
            >Your task which you are squirming so desperately to avoid is why the word mud is not a form and the words chair and God are.
            God it must be so humiliating being you lol.
            >Show me a chair that's not an aggregate of atoms. Oh the form of chair? Then the form of mud you stupid frick. Why does the chair whose every particular example is an aggregate of atoms get a form and mud doesn't?
            Because, like I said before - about five or so times now - the form of the chair has coherence and universality, and the individual chairs participate in this form, or in other words in chairness, the quality that makes something a manmade object meant for sitting. What is the purpose and meaning of mud, by contrast? It's literally just a collection of atomistic particulars. There's nothing cohesive, coherent, unitary and universal about mud. Chairs, on the other hand, are defined by those very things. A chair is not just a collection of particulars - it has a natural intrinsic function that it fulfils, namely, being an object to sit on. It always has this quality over other objects, including also things that have no form, such as mud.
            >So you're using some special meaning of universal? Mud occurs everywhere and even if every example of mud dried up it would be easy enough to make some more to instantiate the "form" of mud. Your idea of the forms is special pleading with you claiming some type of mystical intuition aka bullshit that allows you to distinguish concepts or words in your explanation from forms.
            Yes, we are discussing philosophy so I am using universals in the philosophical and qualitative, not quantitative sense. To give an example, the human being is a universal, and any given individual is a particular instance of that universal. The universal nature of humanity provides individual humans with their nature as humans. Mud on the other hand is a collection of particulars, it has no coherent nature. Can you define "mudness"? What is this mudness that mud shares in, in order to derive its (nonexistent btw) character from it? There's nothing. Therefore, there can be no form of mud. It is an incoherent aggregate, not a unitary thing with a specific character or form.

            that there are "natural intrinsic functions", and that only chairs have this one specific function. So, it has, as you say, coherence and universality (unless there's multiple "natural intrinsic functions (of sitting") pertaining to different kinds of chairs?). So, how do you have a Form of the Chair (which is somehow independent of its shape, as the other anon already brought up three legged vs four legged chairs) AND a "natural intrinsic function", both of which are universal and are "participated in" by all chairs if you do not in fact have two Forms? Is the "natural intrinsic function" part of the Form of the Chair? Or is it some thing inside of it?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            you didnt respond to the rest of his post tho

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            If anon is having this much trouble explaining the basics of his ideas then I think that we need to start at a slower clip. But, if you insist, I'll do the meme arrows.

            >If you desperately want to associate the act of sitting with a form, then you would associate it with the Form of Man, Form of Dog, etc
            Why can't you have a Form for an action? Why does it have to be just an object? If the shape of a chair has no bearing on whether or not it participates in the Form of the chair, how can we even define nouns instead of verbs?

            >These beings can sit in anything, including a tub of acid - even though the tub of acid is obviously not meant for sitting in, because it will kill you. A chair, on the other hand, is different - its whole existence is just for the sake of being sat on.
            You still haven't explained why I can sit in the tub of acid, or on a rock, if they don't participate in the "natural intrinsic function (of sitting)".

            In fact, given that you're angry and are just going to miss the point, given that you have when the other anon in the thread brought it up, let me make it even simpler for you: How can there be "sitting" in absence of a Form of sitting? If there can be "sitting" in absence of a Form of Sitting, then why do we need a Form of the Chair?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >get asked a question
            >start spewing insults to defend your own ego
            You will never be a real philosopher.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Neither chairs nor the Good are words? THEN HOW THE FRICK ARE YOU TYPING THEM?
            Kek filtered by protagoras

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            To work off the mud example
            >which enjoys no rational purpose, coherence or universality.
            Rational purpose is subjective. Coherence is supplied by laws of physics and mud is certainly more universal than chairs.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Another example that Plato himself gives: mud has no form.
            Why do I keep seeing anons assert this in Plato threads? The Parmenides, where this comes up, uses it as an example of a deficiency of the approach of young Socrates, that he's too beholden to common opinions to investigate it for himself.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Bro you think I remember where I read this? I just know it was in Plato. If you think it's wrong then establish why it's wrong and I'll listen to you. But I think it's correct, so unless you provide arguments I won't be persuaded.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Parmenides 130c-e:

            >"Well then, Socrates, what about those things that would seem to be laughable, such as Hair and Mud and Dirt or any different thing that's very worthless and lowly? Are you at an impasse over whether it is or is not necessary to say that there is a separate form ofeach of these, something different than what we can lay our hands on?"

            >"No, not at all!" answered Socrates. "For these things are as we see them right here, and it would be grossly out of place to think that there is some form of them. To be sure, it has troubled me that the same case does not apply to all, but whenever I come to this, I run off, fearing to fall and perish in some abyss of foolishness. In the end, then, I return to these things that just now we were saying are forms and I spend my time working over them."

            >"Well, you are still young, Socrates," said Parmenides, "*and philosophy has not yet grabbed you as it will, in my opinion. Then you will dishonor none of these things; but as for now, you still look to the opinions of men, because of your age.*"

            That is, there might or might not be a form of mud, but Socrates hasn't hypothesized about it at all, because he accepts it's as worthless and lowly as everyone says.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      But there would be forms of chairs (and objects generally) for each and all paraochial condition and their combinations.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    metaphysics is moronic

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It's literally the only philosophy worth reading

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        metaphysics are the workings of those without the ability to access/understand science

        metaphysics continually get deboonked by physics
        "souls" get deboonked by neuroscience/general biology

        it's all moronation

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    (Eat your chocolates, little girl,
    Eat your chocolates!
    Believe me, there's no metaphysics on earth like chocolates,
    And all religions put together teach no more than the candy shop.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Platonism
    >not dogmatic
    "Uhh universals are real...because I said so!"

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      moron. The Socratic dialogue is a tool used to make you understand the Platonic concepts yourself or rather not to understand them, but to remember them. This is very different to the concept of faith.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    You don't know all religions in the world. In fact, I seriously doubt you have any meamingful knowledge of even 1 of them.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's just what Neville Goddard revealed. That's why Idealism is "correct".

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >All religions in this world are at their core trying to convey the same objective metaphysical truth.
    This is newage universalism bullshit. 20th century was disaster.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Christianity is Platonism for the people

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    define "coherent" and "character"

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Coherent - having a clear and consistent internal logic, being made up of elements that are in a harmonious order with one another; intelligible
      Character - a distinctive identity

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >intelligible
        mud is intelligible because i can clearly identify it in opposition to that which it is not unless you can explain how clearly identifying X against that which it is not doesn't make X intelligible
        >a distinctive identity
        mud has a distinctive identity because i can clearly identify it in opposition to that which it is not unless you can explain how clearly identifying X against that which it is not doesn't mean X has a distinctive identity

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    >You are free to disagree. I found it very intuitive.
    I mean, okay, but I did legwork to establish that there's no hard position in the dialogues against a Form of mud, and some evidence that it's worth positing and inquiring into more clearly. So,
    >If you think it's wrong then establish why it's wrong and I'll listen to you. But I think it's correct, so unless you provide arguments I won't be persuaded.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Oh, sure, okay, thanks for putting in the effort. I didn't realise that's still you. Good work anon. But unless you want to make an argument against my position, I am not especially interested in a dispute with you. I already have my own views on the matter that it would be hard for me to abandon without either being proven decisively wrong, or better, being shown a superior alternative. Saying that "it's worth to inquire into this more deeply" is nice and a reasonable position to have, but I've done my fair share of inquiry and this is the position I've arrived at, right or wrong - if my position is wrong, then I am waiting on others to show a better one.

      >intelligible
      mud is intelligible because i can clearly identify it in opposition to that which it is not unless you can explain how clearly identifying X against that which it is not doesn't make X intelligible
      >a distinctive identity
      mud has a distinctive identity because i can clearly identify it in opposition to that which it is not unless you can explain how clearly identifying X against that which it is not doesn't mean X has a distinctive identity

      >mud is intelligible
      Good God.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Good God.
        not sure what your argument is because you just posted a picture underlining a definition, i'm assuming it goes something like "mud is able to be understood only by the senses and not the intellect"?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Bingo anon, mud is in fact perceived exclusively by the sense and has no rational meaning whatsoever. It also has no character whatever, it is literally just an aggregate - you can merge two piles of dirt into one and then separate them into two piles again and nothing would change because neither pile has any form or identity, it's just pure matter. Meanwhile if you smash two chairs together and then separate their broken pieces into two piles you'll see an immediate, obvious and effective difference - they no longer reflect the form they once did.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Answer these then:

            Do individual lakes, ponds, and oceans participate in a corresponding form?

            Do individual clouds participate in a form?

            Does fire participate in a form?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I have not thought much about water, so I can't comment at this point. Fire, however, definitely participates in form, yes. The ancients considered it the purest of all elements precisely for its high degree of participation in form.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >rational meaning
            mud has a rational meaning because i can think of its perceptual qualities while at the same time not using any of the 5 senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste) to do so... unless you can explain how me being able to think of the perceptual qualities of X while at the same time not using any of the 5 senses to do so doesn't imply X has a rational meaning
            >It also has no character
            you already defined character as "distinctive identity" and i proved it has one because it is identifiable in opposition to that which it is not.
            >you can merge two piles of dirt into one and then separate them into two piles again and nothing would change because neither pile has any form or identity
            not sure why you're talking about dirt when the subject was mud but I can definitely identify a pile of mud by distinguishing it from that which it is not

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >mud has a rational meaning because i can think of its perceptual qualities while at the same time not using any of the 5 senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste) to do so...
            No you can't lol. Give me a description of mud without using any information pertinent to the five senses.
            You are clearly confusing perception with rationality which is why you hold this erroneous view.
            >you already defined character as "distinctive identity" and i proved it has one because it is identifiable in opposition to that which it is not.
            >not sure why you're talking about dirt when the subject was mud but I can definitely identify a pile of mud by distinguishing it from that which it is not
            Okay, in that case please describe a mud for me. Not just mud in general, but a mud, one mud. For something to have identity - as a quick etymological check will easily establish - means for it to be what it is. Now this means that 1) it has to be *A* thing, and 2) it must continue to be that thing. My example with the chairs amply demonstrates this principle since the two chairs, each of which has identity and form, lose these when they are crushed together. Of course from my example it's also obvious that mud has no identity. But if you are so adamant on this point, please describe *A* mud. One mud, meaning, mud that has identity (is one, a thing, something with character and consistency). Of course you won't be able to do that, because mud has no form and therefore also no individuality or character - it is an aggregate, pure matter, with no rational or qualitative content.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >No you can't lol. Give me a description of mud without using any information pertinent to the five senses.
            I indeed can't, which is why I defined (a definition is a statement of what is meant when a word is used) rational meaning on the ability to think of perceptual information without using the senses used to acquire such information to do so. My argument was literally that you need perceptual information to have "rational meaning" of any kind. Can you give me a description of a chair without using any information pertinent to the five senses?
            >For something to have identity - as a quick etymological check will easily establish - means for it to be what it is. Now this means that 1) it has to be *A* thing
            Indeed it does. For example, crowds, sports teams, dogs and cats are all collections of things which are distinguishable from their individual elements and from the things that they are not, and therefore have an identity. They are obviously identical with themselves, otherwise we could not distinguish a crowd from a group of people. But we can.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >I indeed can't, which is why I defined (a definition is a statement of what is meant when a word is used) rational meaning on the ability to think of perceptual information without using the senses used to acquire such information to do so.
            Too bad that's fricking wrong, anon. Rational thought is not recollection of perceptual information or memory of any kind. I've already given a rational account of a chair several times in this thread and you cannot possibly give a rational account of mud because there isn't such an account.
            >Indeed it does. For example, crowds, sports teams, dogs and cats are all collections of things which are distinguishable from their individual elements and from the things that they are not, and therefore have an identity. They are obviously identical with themselves, otherwise we could not distinguish a crowd from a group of people. But we can.
            1) A crowd is a group of people.
            2) When we speak of a crowd - meaning a specific crowd with a given identity - we say "a crowd", as you yourself have done just now. So there is something distinctive about that specific crowd that makes it stick out over other crowds, such as for example being a political crowd or a crowd of morons. Following this model, please describe *a* mud. One mud, please. This is not possible because there is no conceivable way for mud to have identity.
            3) Crowds AS SUCH do not have an identity, neither do sports teams nor dogs nor cats because these are aggregates. If the aggregate has something ELSE in addition to being an aggregate that distinguishes it from other aggregates, then and only then can we speak of an identity. In that case, point 2) applies, which you will not be able to address, as you haven't been able throughout the thread.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Rational thought is not recollection of perceptual information or memory of any kind.
            Since you disagree, can you tell me what you think rational thought means then? Like I have explicitly done? You haven't given your definition. You're just saying you disagree with mine, then refusing to elaborate.
            >I've already given a rational account of a chair several times in this thread and you cannot possibly give a rational account of mud because there isn't such an account.
            No, under my definition, you haven't. That's the only definition we have at present, because you haven't given yours. Either point out where in this thread you gave your definition, or post it now.
            >So there is something distinctive about that specific crowd that makes it stick out over other crowds, such as for example being a political crowd or a crowd of morons. Following this model, please describe *a* mud. One mud, please.
            A crowd is merely an agglomeration of persons. Where this distinction is present, none other is needed. It is automatically a crowd. I don't understand how a collection of people isn't identifiable as a crowd, because whenever I see a collection of people, I instantly identify it as a crowd. You're just saying it somehow isn't identifiable because it's an aggregate without explaining how this is a rational definition or pointing to where a definition of this kind has been used. When a term is commonly used and clearly defined, that's an issue.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Since you disagree, can you tell me what you think rational thought means then? Like I have explicitly done? You haven't given your definition. You're just saying you disagree with mine, then refusing to elaborate.
            It means reason, logic. The definition of rationality is something you can find anywhere, it's not specific to me.
            >No, under my definition, you haven't.
            Your definition is wrong.
            >A crowd is merely an agglomeration of persons. Where this distinction is present, none other is needed. It is automatically a crowd.
            Then all crowds are the same and equal to each other, right? Because that logically follows from what you have said, since no other distinction is needed.
            >I don't understand how a collection of people isn't identifiable as a crowd, because whenever I see a collection of people, I instantly identify it as a crowd.
            So I just went to check what actually caused us to embark on the quest of addressing distinctive character and apparently the central point of contention was the claim that actions must have their own forms - something that I already thoroughly refuted and you seem to have quietly dropped. So apparently this whole goose chase is without meaning since your central point has already been dismantled. But anyway. From that point on we went into the notion of Form serving as the basis of character, which then you asked me to define and I defined character as distinctive identity. So in other words in the context of this thread, we are discussing the character of a given object, in this case a crowd. Now I can assure you that there is no Form of the Crowd, because a crowd is an aggregate. A crowd also has no identity as a crowd - it has an identity only as a SPECIFIC crowd. There is no crowd that's just made up of itself - it is by definition made up of smaller units, individuals, whose distinctive natures makes the crowd itself distinct. So, when you have a crowd that consists of sports fans, you have a sports crowd, a specific crowd. But there's no crowd that exists only as such - every crowd is made up of specific people who give the crowd a specific identity, if we are to consider crowds to have identities. Every time you identify a crowd, no matter how superficially you may identify it, you are identifying a specific crowd made up of specific people, you are not, and never will, identify a crowd only abstractly, as a crowd, because an aggregate without units does not exist. You identify the aggregate as an aggregate of real, extant things (atoms, in this case individual humans). Because these real things are human individuals who have form, a certain level of identity and distinctness can be found even in a crowd. But mud is different, because it is made up of pure matter. There is no form involved at any point, it is thoroughly devoid of character and identity. Since this is so, mud is not intelligible and therefore not coherent either. Plus your non-argument about this was heading nowhere anyway.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Then all crowds are the same and equal to each other, right?
            All crowds are crowds. If you can find something I said that implies every particular crowd is indistinguishable from another particular crowd, please post it, then explain how that argument above logically follows from the quoted text.
            >It means reason, logic. The definition of rationality is something you can find anywhere, it's not specific to me.
            The problem is that this definition doesn't get us anywhere. It's too general and you're not even relating it to anything you said. What makes a chair rational, but not mud? Saying "it's logical" means nothing and get no one anywhere.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >All crowds are crowds. If you can find something I said that implies every particular crowd is indistinguishable from another particular crowd, please post it, then explain how that argument above logically follows from the quoted text.
            If you genuinely don't understand that after my detailed explanation - or apparently aren't even aware that I already explained this issue in the very post you replied to, at considerable effort to myself - then you are totally hopeless, and what's worse, you're not even funny anymore.
            Anyway, it was fun while it lasted but I guess I should've known that eventually your systematic wilful ignorance of literally everything I say would be what decisively ends the conversation. Peals before swine and all that. I will leave off with this, the last thing resembling a rational point, although of course you should've already taken a hint and understood this the first time I explained this instead of making me repeat myself multiple times.
            >What makes a chair rational, but not mud? Saying "it's logical" means nothing and get no one anywhere.
            Yeah it means something because you can give a rational account of a chair - due to its rational nature - but you can't give a rational account of mud. The other dumb objections you brought up (iPhones, cars) share an obvious rational nature with chairs. They have a purpose and a character. Even a moron like you can answer the question "what's the purpose of a chair". Or "give me a rational account of a purpose of a chair". But no such account exists for mud, which is why I mentioned it, since it's so fricking self-evident. Apparently, not self-evident for all.

            I left it out cause it was too long but there's also a part where they compare the Neoplatonists and Plato to the israelites and Moses or the Christians with Jesus.

            Yeah that sounds pretty dumb. Honestly, combined with this

            >In Roman times this dogmatic interpretation was expanded and consolidated... Platonist philosophers came to regard Plato's writings as the repisitory of the ultimate and final truths about the universe.

            >It is as if for Plotinus and the "Neoplatonists" Plato was speaking to us in the same way that Parmenides or Heraclitus had in their writings as possessor of his own "truth" - the REAL truth

            Straight from the text.

            , I guess the translators are just moronic sceptics or something. I recall skimming 3-4 pages of the intro and they seemed to be seething about "eastern wisdom" (Christianity). I assumed they were pro-Platonic. Guess I was wrong and they were just secular humanist rationalist sceptics instead, or something like that. It's still hard to believe these mediocrites exist, but hey I won't complain if they give me Plato translations.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >If you genuinely don't understand that after my detailed explanation - or apparently aren't even aware that I already explained this issue in the very post you replied to, at considerable effort to myself
            I don't know what to tell you. Mud is identical to mud. That means it has an identity. You can't just say it isn't identical to itself because its an aggregate. That makes zero logical sense. There is no possible syllogism in which that can be proven. It's completely inconsistent with the traditional definition of identity. I keep asking you what you mean because you keep refusing to explain why the things you're saying must actually be true.
            >Yeah it means something because you can give a rational account of a chair - due to its rational nature - but you can't give a rational account of mud.
            Okay, so when you a chair is rational, that means it's rational. That makes sense, thank you for defining it so clearly. This obviously demonstrates a willingness to engage in constructive discussion, in opposition to my definition, wherein rational was defined as "an object the perceptual qualities of which can be thought of while not using any of the 5 senses to do so". Also, the iPhone person is not me.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >You can't just say it isn't identical to itself because its an aggregate. That makes zero logical sense.
            Despite the fact that we've both used the word "aggregate" a number of times, you apparently do not even know what an aggregate is. Hint: it is not "itself", it is a collectivity constituted by many parts. So no, an aggregated is not equal to itself, because it does not even have a self - character and identity belong to individuated things, not to aggregates.
            >I keep asking you what you mean because you keep refusing to explain why the things you're saying must actually be true.
            I keep explaining this (I just did again). You are just too stupid to get it. Or you're playing stupid, one of the two.
            >Okay, so when you a chair is rational, that means it's rational. That makes sense, thank you for defining it so clearly.
            You must be joking. Fine. I'll rephrase. A chair is a rational object because you can give a rational account of it *that is true and meaningful*, which you cannot do for mud. There.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >it is a collectivity constituted by many parts
            >an aggregated is not equal to itself
            1. Reality is that which is real.
            2. An aggregate it is a collectivity constituted by many parts.
            3. An aggregate is not equal to itself.
            4. Reality is a collectivity constituted by many parts
            5. Therefore, reality is not equal to itself.
            6. If reality is not equal to itself, then it is not real.
            Not a very good argument, now is it?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >The other dumb objections you brought up (iPhones, cars) share an obvious rational nature with chairs. They have a purpose and a character
            Holy shit, mud can be man-made to build huts, make pots, bowls, cups, make bricks, and its character is as steady yet variable as any chair; you really gonna pretend particulate matter like sand is indifferently the same as a dense clay soil when you need to build something? None of your arguments stand up to Plato's scrutiny; the moment you define "rationality" as lazily and vaguely as you did above, is the moment anyone capable of introspection would've shut up.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Even mudbricks require a mixture of clay you moronic homosexual. Maybe if you act even more smug next time you will be able to cover up the fact that you are simply wrong. Not to mention that the object in question is mud, not mudbricks. The difference between - both qualitative and mundane - is so fricking massive that I don't even need to describe it. The reason why I gave the example of mud in the first place was to offer an obvious and glaring difference in quality between something that has form and something that does not. Mud does not have form and no amount of derailing and digressing to random irrelevant shit is going to invalidate what I said. The rest of the shit you say is on the same level of coping and seething etc, probably didn't even understand what I said. Basically keep being a smug moron but please stay somewhere in a dark lonely spot where you won't bother anyone else, thanks.

            >it is a collectivity constituted by many parts
            >an aggregated is not equal to itself
            1. Reality is that which is real.
            2. An aggregate it is a collectivity constituted by many parts.
            3. An aggregate is not equal to itself.
            4. Reality is a collectivity constituted by many parts
            5. Therefore, reality is not equal to itself.
            6. If reality is not equal to itself, then it is not real.
            Not a very good argument, now is it?

            Platonism has its own coherent definition of what reality is, your hypothetical argument has no relevance to the Platonic framework because it doesn't even engage with it. It's also predicated on a misunderstanding of both what is being said in asserting that an aggregate is not equal to itself - which is to say, that an aggregate does not exist in itself and has no independent value outside of its constituent elements, something I already explained in another example but you failed to grasp, necessitating this further digression that you apparently also failed to grasp - and is also predicted on a misunderstanding of what is real - just because something is an aggregate and therefore derives its being, meaning and identity from something else does not mean that it is not real, it simply means that it has no independent character. Basically, your argument is not only irrelevant to Platonism, but also misses the individual point of what you are trying to address, and besides is internally inconsistent and wrong.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >It's also predicated on a misunderstanding of both what is being said in asserting that an aggregate is not equal to itself
            There is no misunderstanding. You explicitly stated "an aggregate is not equal to itself", along with "it is not 'itself'" (referring to an agrregate). There is no misunderstanding at all. Those are literally your words. It is an actual explicit rejection of the law of identity with regards to aggregates. (In logic, the law of identity states that each thing is identical with itself.) There is no semantic wiggle room for you here whatsoever. Your words are right there on the screen.
            >just because something is an aggregate and therefore derives its being, meaning and identity from something else does not mean that it is not real
            OK? That wasn't even the argument. You've taken my 6 propositions and constructed a strawman that reads "For any and all X, if X is an aggregate, X is not real". The argument is literally right there in the 6 propositions? Like, on the screen? Can you address it?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >There is no misunderstanding. You explicitly stated "an aggregate is not equal to itself", along with "it is not 'itself'" (referring to an agrregate). There is no misunderstanding at all. Those are literally your words. It is an actual explicit rejection of the law of identity with regards to aggregates. (In logic, the law of identity states that each thing is identical with itself.) There is no semantic wiggle room for you here whatsoever. Your words are right there on the screen.
            Yeah and somehow you still don't get what I am saying which is incredible.
            An aggregate has no identity except as a specific aggregate. So for example take an aggregate called A, made up of many different individual things (say a range x1 through x5000 or however much you want).
            In this case the aggregate A has identity as a specific aggregate, or as the following:
            A = x1 through to x5000.
            If you remove the specific, individual components - the x1 through to x5000 part, there is literally nothing left there. We can still posit an A, but it is empty. That's your "crowd". It has no content, it is a zero, a nothing. An aggregate is either specific or it does not have any tangible existence at all, it is equal to the sum of its parts but it has no unitary individual identity. So in other words when we speak of the identity of "a crowd", we are speaking of the identity that you get from adding up the identities of the individual human beings. It is the identity of the sum of parts, and not the identity of a unitary crowd that exists in and of itself - it does not. Its identity, character and form is secondary, and it is derived. The thing about mud is that it does not even have this derivative, secondary character, because it is constituted by pure matter and not by individual and articulated beings - it has nothing in it that could offer it any kind of character. It is a pure atomistic aggregate with no form, no character, no identity.
            >OK? That wasn't even the argument. You've taken my 6 propositions and constructed a strawman that reads "For any and all X, if X is an aggregate, X is not real". The argument is literally right there in the 6 propositions? Like, on the screen? Can you address it?
            Yeah I did, by pointing out that your argument is internally inconsistent. Proposition 6 does not even remotely follow from proposition 5. And as I already stated your so-called argument is literally irrelevant to the topic at hand.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Proposition 6 does not even remotely follow from proposition 5.
            That's because there's 6 propositions and not 2, but let me make it easier to read for you anyways.

            1. An aggregate is a collectivity constituted by many parts. (your words)
            2. An aggregate is not equal to itself. (your words)
            3. Reality is the sum total of that which is real.
            4. Reality is a collectivity constituted by many parts
            5. Reality is not equal to itself.
            6. Reality is not real.

            Why is this argument invalid? ("It's not relevant" isn't an answer, neither is "it's wrong". This is because you are expected to actually provide a reason why you think something is wrong when you are engaging in a discussion extending beyond mere opinion.)

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >"It's not relevant" isn't an answer
            It is in the context of the conversation which is about Platonism.
            >neither is "it's wrong"
            It is wrong.
            >This is because you are expected to actually provide a reason why you think something is wrong when you are engaging in a discussion extending beyond mere opinion.
            I already did, I told you that it is a non-sequitur, a defunct argument.
            I guess I'll just repeat myself again. Point 6 does not follow from Point 5. Do you understand? There is no logical connection between Point 5 and Point 6. Point 5 does not logically imply Point 6. Even if Point 5 is true, it would not make Point 6 true.
            An aggregate is still real even if it has no independent and unitary identity. It is constituted by real things, and is therefore a real aggregate, regardless of its lack of independent, unitary identity.

            ITT: fricken ignorant Americlaps thinking that primitive philosophy is somehow more valuable than primitive architecture.

            It's going to take you dullards two generations to turn everything into a technocratic command of jargon and land in a Kantian swamp.

            Prove me right, describe what i'm saying here as some form of -ism and dismiss it.

            >ITT: fricken ignorant Americlaps thinking that primitive philosophy is somehow more valuable than primitive architecture.
            Anon we can't recreate architecture from thousands of years ago and we can't even recreate stuff from 150 years ago. Architects today can only build McHouses and McOffices. Buildings are made of cheap mass produced materials with a shelf life of 70 years. We don't even know something as basic as how Romans made their concrete - ours is different.
            Given your lack of knowledge about architecture (modern or ancient) I suspect you are a less than stellar source on ancient philosophy too.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >I've already given a rational account of a chair several times in this thread and you cannot possibly give a rational account of mud because there isn't such an account.
            I guarantee you haven't done any of the hypothesizing necessary to make that claim. Your rejection of a "Form of mud" isn't rationally grounded, because you won't test it out of hand anyway, but a moral rejection, as rational as Callicles' claim that rhetoric is powerful and needful.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Two things.
            1. Work on your grammar.
            2. Make an actual argument next time instead of crying.
            Thanks.

            >Platonism is conveying that same truth as well, but without all of the cultural, dogmatic and superstitious corruption.
            Platonism has a lot of that too, most of Platos arguments are dogmatic, Platonists argue by quoting Plato as a dogmatic source of truth, Platonists regarded the Chaldaean Oracles as a reincarnation of Plato (and a second source of dogmatic truths), Platonism has a philsopophy of magic and astrology, the worldsoul is used to justify sympathetic magic, and so on.

            While it contains far less mystification than other religions for whom theology is mere Platonism-with-adornments, Platonism itself is throughly dogmatic and affirms much positive magical-mystic content of its era.

            >Platonism has a lot of that too, most of Platos arguments are dogmatic, Platonists argue by quoting Plato as a dogmatic source of truth

            That's NEO-Platonists. The original Platonists at the Academy never saw it that way. Notice that Plato himself never appears in any dialogues and outside of the Epistles he never wrote down anything that can concretely be said to be his own thoughts on the subjects.

            Post the names of the Neo-Platonic texts that you have read in full.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The introduction to the Hackett Plato decries "neoplatonists" as misreading Plato and taking everything Socrates says in the dialogues at face value as Plato's own opinion on the topics.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            you have just demonstrated you do not know what neoplatonism is

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >In Roman times this dogmatic interpretation was expanded and consolidated... Platonist philosophers came to regard Plato's writings as the repisitory of the ultimate and final truths about the universe.

            >It is as if for Plotinus and the "Neoplatonists" Plato was speaking to us in the same way that Parmenides or Heraclitus had in their writings as possessor of his own "truth" - the REAL truth

            Straight from the text.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Wow. I felt bad for skipping the introduction but I guess I was right to do so.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I left it out cause it was too long but there's also a part where they compare the Neoplatonists and Plato to the israelites and Moses or the Christians with Jesus.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Which is a modern projection born of embaressment at the dogmatic, religious, and irrational in Plato. The Neoplatonists are far closer to Plato and his spirit that the logicians of the late 19th and early to mid 20th century.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Okay, but the Academic skeptics are closer to Plato than any Platonists from Plutarch on, so

            Socrates says there's a literal daemon in his head that whispered prophecies to him at ominious times. Xenophon has Socrates telling him to consult the orcale at Delphi and to do what she says regarding whether he should join a war. Aristophanes satirtises the Socratic-Platonic theory of intermediary daemons standing between the gods in space and men on Earth as cloud-worship. Who do you think is closer to the real Plato, a mid 20th century middle-class university professor, or an late antiquity Egyptian priest consulting oracles and doing sympathetic god-work rituals with seeds of the holy forms he divines in objects?

            >Aristophanes satirtises the Socratic-Platonic theory of intermediary daemons
            No he doesn't, he accuses him of saying the gods don't exist and worshipping nature instead.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            No he's satirising the worship of intermediary aerial daemons on the great chain of being, instead of the empyreal gods directly themselves, as cloud worship. You're projecting modern categories onto minds who thought very differently from you and whose ontologically understanding of the cosmos was radically different to yours.

            Again a simple read of Phadreus will show how narrow Academic skepticism is not at all close to Plato's teachings or spirit, and that Plato's skepticism is merely a tool used to create a grand positive religion of flights of the soul into space and orbits around Jupiter and other positive beliefs of a religious or magical nature, with the grand goal of the soul being transformed into a star-god with a perfectly round body doing perfect circular orbits forever in an eternal universe perfectly realising its eternal form and achieving the translation of the soul from transitory becoming into permenant eternal being.

            It's not a boring and narrow proto-analytic word game wankery of stodgy English uni professors. Plato is working in a completely different world to that.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >No he's satirising the worship of intermediary aerial daemons on the great chain of being, instead of the empyreal gods directly themselves, as cloud worship. You're projecting modern categories onto minds who thought very differently from you and whose ontologically understanding of the cosmos was radically different to yours.
            Wrong. The Clouds, as described by Socrates, are natural causes of natural phenomena, as Socrates extensively shows Strepsiades, and Socrates' worship is of Air, Aether, and other natural phenomena. Disagree with Aristophanes, if you'd like, but the comedy accuses Socrates not of beliving in strange daimons, but in Nature that doesn't need the gods. Nor does this require a "modern" conception of nature. Cf. both the Apology and Laws on the popular association of the study of nature with atheism.

            And you can't have it both ways. The Academy was skeptical before it produced the likes of Plutarch; you can't claim the Neoplatonists were "closer" when the skeptics were.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            No he's satirising the worship of intermediary aerial daemons on the great chain of being, instead of the empyreal gods directly themselves, as cloud worship. You're projecting modern categories onto minds who thought very differently from you and whose ontologically understanding of the cosmos was radically different to yours.

            Again a simple read of Phadreus will show how narrow Academic skepticism is not at all close to Plato's teachings or spirit, and that Plato's skepticism is merely a tool used to create a grand positive religion of flights of the soul into space and orbits around Jupiter and other positive beliefs of a religious or magical nature, with the grand goal of the soul being transformed into a star-god with a perfectly round body doing perfect circular orbits forever in an eternal universe perfectly realising its eternal form and achieving the translation of the soul from transitory becoming into permenant eternal being.

            It's not a boring and narrow proto-analytic word game wankery of stodgy English uni professors. Plato is working in a completely different world to that.

            To go further, there's no concept of modern nature in Plato: nature is full of gods and all of nature is a living god-animal, the worldsoul. Every river has, or rather is, a neried, every forest has dryads, groves cicada gods, every location a genius loci who governs and, often is, the place. All these local daemons are to be worshiped and understood in their prorper cosmological place in an enchanted world, governed by, and part, of the worldsoul, the intelligent living god-animal of "nature" in an eternal universe.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >please describe *a* mud

            Read the following sentence and see how badly mistaken you are:

            The mud that the car got stuck in was red.

            THE MUD THAT THE CAR GOT STUCK IN is *a* mud. And individual with characteristics that DISTINGUISH IT FROM OTHER INDIVIDUALS IN ITS CLASS.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Suppose I take a bit of that mud. Is the car still stuck in the same mud or it is suddenly stuck in a different one? What if I pour ten gallons more mud instead? Is it still the same mud? How do you identify that mud as itself, what makes that particular bit of mud itself? You can stick to the colour, sure, but that's not all the red mud in the world - then you would need to differentiate it from the rest of the red mud. But forget that, let's make this harder - how about considering all the red mud in the world as one pile, is it distinct as its own type of mud, separate from other types on the basis of its colour? We might be tempted to say yes, but the fact is that even this red mud will not be uniformly red. It will not be one mud, or a mud - it will just be a bunch of mud. And the same applies to the example you gave, at a lower scale of course.
            Mud-as-such is an unbound substrate and therefore indefinite, it cannot be outlined either on the basis of any special intelligible qualities or even on the basis of some kind of limit, because a purely physical limit is not a very strict thing.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Still no response to

            >Proposition 6 does not even remotely follow from proposition 5.
            That's because there's 6 propositions and not 2, but let me make it easier to read for you anyways.

            1. An aggregate is a collectivity constituted by many parts. (your words)
            2. An aggregate is not equal to itself. (your words)
            3. Reality is the sum total of that which is real.
            4. Reality is a collectivity constituted by many parts
            5. Reality is not equal to itself.
            6. Reality is not real.

            Why is this argument invalid? ("It's not relevant" isn't an answer, neither is "it's wrong". This is because you are expected to actually provide a reason why you think something is wrong when you are engaging in a discussion extending beyond mere opinion.)

            ? Maybe it's because you don't have one, other than "it's not relevant" or "it's wrong" (translation: "it explicitly refutes my central point so I can't respond to it").

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I was writing it lol.
            And yes it is wrong, and it doesn't even engage with anything I said - the conversation is about Platonism and you are dumping your free style reality arguments that have nothing to do with the framework of Platonism. From a Platonist perspective nothing about the argument you made even counts as a challenge because Platonism operates on an internal logic that has its own definition of reality, a definitely that you would need to engage with if you want to refute and undermine Platonism on that specific point - which is still unrelated to the argument we are actually having anyway.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            1. An aggregate is a collectivity constituted by many parts. (your words)
            2. An aggregate is not equal to itself. (your words)
            3. For all X, X is real if and only if X is included in the totality of existence.
            4. The totality of existence is the totality of existence if and only if it is equal to itself.
            5. The totality of existence is a collectivity constituted by many parts.
            6. The totality of existence is not equal to itself.
            7. The totality of existence is not the totality of existence.
            8. Therefore, there exists no X such that X is real.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >please describe *a* mud

            Read the following sentence and see how badly mistaken you are:

            The mud that the car got stuck in was red.

            THE MUD THAT THE CAR GOT STUCK IN is *a* mud. And individual with characteristics that DISTINGUISH IT FROM OTHER INDIVIDUALS IN ITS CLASS.

            >platonist realizes the problem with transcendent forms that everyone has been pointing out since fricking aristotle when lead through the slightest bit of socratic method
            like fricking clockwork lmfao

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    >Because actions do not exist in and of themselves but always occur due to an actor that is engaging in them
    But we can say the exact opposite. Objects do not exist in and of themselves but always occur due to an actor that is engaging in them. To say otherwise would imply that you could have chairs without chairmakers. This is to say nothing of the fact that what we really mean is that some guy shapes a lump of atoms into a shape that causes it to participate in the Form of the Chair, so why is it any different for there to be a Form of Sitting that participates when some guy shapes a lump of atoms into the shape of sitting?

    The criteria are met, so why not?

    Oh, sure, okay, thanks for putting in the effort. I didn't realise that's still you. Good work anon. But unless you want to make an argument against my position, I am not especially interested in a dispute with you. I already have my own views on the matter that it would be hard for me to abandon without either being proven decisively wrong, or better, being shown a superior alternative. Saying that "it's worth to inquire into this more deeply" is nice and a reasonable position to have, but I've done my fair share of inquiry and this is the position I've arrived at, right or wrong - if my position is wrong, then I am waiting on others to show a better one.
    [...]
    >mud is intelligible
    Good God.

    >chairs can be understood without use of the senses
    Good God.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      First bit: according to what you said, should I assume that in your view chairs ONLY exist when a chairmaker is working on them? Because that's what your argument actually says, whether you believe it or not. I invite you to reread and examine it carefully. Now, if this really is what you are saying, then I guess I can just laugh at you for being a moron and leave you at that. But if that's not what you are saying, then you'll have to obviously agree that once an object has already been created, it does, in fact, exist "in and of itself". At which point your whole argument becomes totally inane, which it really was from the very start, since you seem to be approaching the issue from a bizarre historical perspective even though we are discussing a logical problem.
      can be understood without use of the senses
      >Good God.
      Very cute but a chair is in fact a rational object with a nature and a purpose. Coincidentally this is also why literally everyone who tried to press my position had to beat a hasty retreat before the question of what the purpose of mud is. A chair has an appearance that can be perceived by the senses but it also has a form which is perceived intelligibly, otherwise you would not be able to perceive it as a chair.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        huh?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Not an entirely unexpected response.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Sure, the moment the chair maker finishes it's subject to change, and can become another particular-chair via having atoms moved by forces other than the chairmaker. You clearly didn't think that one through.

        But you didn't answer the question: are you suggesting that sitting only exists when one individual, and ONLY one, sits? It's intelligible and universal, so why doesn't it have a Form?

        You sure are wienery for someone who knows so little of this stuff.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    read a few of the posts in this thread
    i want to kick you idiots in the head

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Define “head”

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        the thing that, once i kick, turns all your notions of subjectivity into nothing because you'll be gurgling in a pool of your own blood

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Nope. It's foolish of anyone to presume to understand the nature of the gods, matter of fact everyone has been abandoning the attempt for thousands of years.
    This perenniallism and theosophy is a degenerate modern cope.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >just give up bro, don't try to reach consistent knowledge about the most important things
      >JUST GIVE UP OR YOU'RE A DEGENERATE OKAY

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Theaetetus 146e-147c

    >SOCRATES: Yes, but the question, Theaetetus, was not this, of what things there's knowledge, nor how many sciences there are either, for we didn't ask because we wanted to count them but to get to know knowledge whatever it itself is. Or am I making no sense?
    >THEAETETUS: Yes, that's right of course.
    >SOCRATES: Then examine this as well. If someone should ask us about something trifling and ready at hand, for example, about mud (Punning on use of pelos for both clay and mud) whatever it is, if we should answer him that there's the mud of potters, the mud of furnace makers, and the mud of brickmakers, wouldn't we be ridiculous?
    >THEAETETUS: Perhaps.
    >SOCRATES: First of all, for one thing, because we surely must believe that the questioner understands our answer whenever we say mud, regardless of whether we add that of dollmakers or of all the rest of the craftsmen whatsoever. Or do you believe that someone understands some name of something if he doesn't know what it is?
    >THEAETETUS: In no way.
    >SOCRATES: So whoever does not know science does not understand the science of shoes either.
    >THEAETETUS: No, he doesn't.
    >SOCRATES: So whoever's ignorant of science does not understand the leatherworking (science), or any different art either?
    >THEAETETUS: That is so.
    >SOCRATES: So the answer to the question "What is science?" is laughable, whenever one answers with the name of some art, for though one's not been asked this, one answers with the science of
    something.
    >THEAETETUS: It seems likely.
    >SOCRATES: And in the second place, though it surely must be possible to answer trivially and briefly, one goes round on an endless road. For example, in the case of the question of mud, it's surely trivial and simple to say that should earth be kneaded with a liquid there would be mud and to dismiss whatever it is of.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >nobody reads

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        We read it moron, maybe make a point next time and someone will give you a (You).

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Platonism is conveying that same truth as well, but without all of the cultural, dogmatic and superstitious corruption.
    Platonism has a lot of that too, most of Platos arguments are dogmatic, Platonists argue by quoting Plato as a dogmatic source of truth, Platonists regarded the Chaldaean Oracles as a reincarnation of Plato (and a second source of dogmatic truths), Platonism has a philsopophy of magic and astrology, the worldsoul is used to justify sympathetic magic, and so on.

    While it contains far less mystification than other religions for whom theology is mere Platonism-with-adornments, Platonism itself is throughly dogmatic and affirms much positive magical-mystic content of its era.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Platonists argue by quoting Plato as a dogmatic source of truth
      You can refute him whenever you want

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Okay, the Platonic argument that planets must have souls because they are self-moving is made redudant by inertia not requiring energy to move (merely to accelerate) and gravity providing the cause and direction of motion. The further deduction that round bodies and circular motion is morally and aesthetically perfect because the god-planets are round and move in circles is made redundant too.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          The perfect nature of the planets as ensouled gods is also made redudant by the observation that planets are not perfectly circular in shape and do not move in perfect circles, and therefore even if they were ensouled to cause their movement, they would not be gods because they are not perfect.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Platonism has a lot of that too, most of Platos arguments are dogmatic, Platonists argue by quoting Plato as a dogmatic source of truth

      That's NEO-Platonists. The original Platonists at the Academy never saw it that way. Notice that Plato himself never appears in any dialogues and outside of the Epistles he never wrote down anything that can concretely be said to be his own thoughts on the subjects.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        No that's a modern projection of anachronistic modern logicians and scholars who tried to turn Plato into one of them by handwaving or covering their eyes at the Plato that actually was who embarrassed them. Simply read Phaedrus and its magical journey of the soul to the stars, the possession of Socrates by cicada daemons, the dictate that mad prophecy is the greatest of all goods, etc. Plato is very much a man of his times, which to us today appear supertitious and irrational. Plato was great to partly rise above that and give philosophy true voice above dogmatic myth and ritual, but there was much dogmatism and myth still in him.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Socrates says there's a literal daemon in his head that whispered prophecies to him at ominious times. Xenophon has Socrates telling him to consult the orcale at Delphi and to do what she says regarding whether he should join a war. Aristophanes satirtises the Socratic-Platonic theory of intermediary daemons standing between the gods in space and men on Earth as cloud-worship. Who do you think is closer to the real Plato, a mid 20th century middle-class university professor, or an late antiquity Egyptian priest consulting oracles and doing sympathetic god-work rituals with seeds of the holy forms he divines in objects?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Plato himself attempts to portray different sides of an issue without being directly involved himself. Only a fool thinks everything Socrates says is dogmatically attached to Plato himself.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The Neoplatonists regularly argue by simply quoting "divine Plato" or his reincarnation the Chaldean Oracles as a source of truth, in the same way a Christian would quote Jesus Christ or Saint Paul or Peter from the bible. I don't disagree that Plato (or Socrates) invents and makes much use of the dialectical method and rational logic, but much of Plato, and more of Platonism, is positive and dogmatic, and carries with it the magical beliefs of its era. It's naive and dishonest to not admit the positivism of Platonism.

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I read Gorgias this past week and that's what I keep thinking. Really feels like Socrates kicks off Abrahamic religion in a lot of ways.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      There is a good argument he did, that the Torah was written at the same time as the Septuagint "translations" by israeli Platonists using the resources of the Library of Alexandria as per Plato's instructions in Laws to create a governing myth.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The scriptures of the pentateuch were compiled during the reign of Josiah which is 200 years before Plato.

        Not saying that Plato obviously didn't influence israeli thought (trying to counteract Platonism with "traditional israeli thought" was the whole point of Sirach) but they already had a lot going on before Plato.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          That theory is disproven by the Elephantine papyri showing no influence of the Pentateuch laws, rituals, or even names (no Abraham, Moses, or Aaron amongst over a 100 israeli names!) in the israeli temple on the Egyptian outpost near Sudan at that time. Those israelites of the second temple era had their own temple at Elphantine, were polytheists who worshipped other gods alongside Yahweh, had a fasting ritual akin to passover without any of the passover names or particularities, worked on the Sabbath without a hint of shame or illicity, and so on. They were in communication on religious mattera with the Jerusaleum temple, so were not eclectic. It's not compatible with the theory of a settled second temple Judaism. The case that it was written with the Seputigant by Hebrew Platonists in Aledandria is textually much stronger due to inclusion of regional sources only in translation at the library, and that the recognisable form of Judaism wasn't a norm amongst israelites until the Maccabeans established it by forced conversion. Before that israelites were merely a group of Canaanite polytheists who had Yahweh in pantheon.

          https://vridar.org/2018/10/12/hebrew-bible-of-hellenistic-origin-gmirkin-responds-to-anthoniozs-review/

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    ITT: fricken ignorant Americlaps thinking that primitive philosophy is somehow more valuable than primitive architecture.

    It's going to take you dullards two generations to turn everything into a technocratic command of jargon and land in a Kantian swamp.

    Prove me right, describe what i'm saying here as some form of -ism and dismiss it.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I haven't slept in like two days so I am going to sleep. Don't get too wienery without me here, or whatever.

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    >Look bro. In the Platonic view, a chair derives what makes it a chair from the Form of the Chair. What is the Form of the Chair? Earlier in the thread I defined it as a manmade object made for the purpose of sitting. The appearance of the chair does not matter. The shape of the chair does not matter. What matters is the character, purpose, function of the chair - in other words, what makes the chair a chair. I already specified what that is - in this post and in previous posts. The chair-related properties of the chair that a chair has, it has in virtue of its participation in the Form of the Chair. I cannot possibly be any clearer than this.

    Not the anon you are replying to , but this is very wrong from a Platonist point of view.Its more Aristotelian that defines objects by their ends. The Platonic view is that the forms and real objects are the same "in virtue". Plato is not a two world dualist like you make him out to be. Please read more carefully the dialogue Parmenides.

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Was Plato the first Traditionalist?

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