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We get down to the specific questions considered in this perplexing Platonic dialogue: Are there Forms for all adjectives? Does the Form of a property itself have that property? (Is the Form Large itself large?) How do Forms connect with particulars? How can we mortals have any connection to heavenly Forms anyway? Why even think there are Forms outside of particulars?
Listen to part one first or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition; your Citizenship gets you access to the follow-up episode where Mark and Seth hash through the second half of the dialogue. Please support PEL!
End song: “Young and Lovely” by Jherek Bischoff, feat. Zac Pennington & Soko. Listen to Jherek interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #65.
a more modern take on these issues:
https://soundcloud.com/instituteofartandideas/eternal-tales
I’m throwing the following out here for fun and speculation. Meaning, besides what I quote below, I don’t have a lot of evidence or argument to back up my conjecture. But all this talk of properties, and their reification, and so on, arrested my attention when I was working on an unrelated research project.
One can potentially quarrel with some of the assertions the author of The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible makes, but – bottom line? – this extended excerpt makes me think some of our problem might simply lie in the method by which ancient Greeks organized their linguistic and cognitive universe. Perhaps, also, the ancient Israelites were candidates for the first documented phenomenologists.
I have more thoughts to add if this teaser in any way captures some interest.
From pages 11 through 13, on the meanings of words:
“Abstract and Concrete
Greek thought views the world through the mind (abstract thought). Ancient Hebrew thought views the world through the senses (concrete thought).
Concrete thought is the expression of concepts and ideas in ways that can be seen, touched, smelled, tasted or heard. All five of the senses are used when speaking, hearing, writing and reading the Hebrew language. An example of this can be found in Psalms 1:3; “He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither”. In this passage the author expresses his thoughts in concrete terms such as; tree, streams of water, fruit and leaf.
Abstract thought is the expression of concepts and ideas in ways that cannot be seen, touched, smelled, tasted or heard. Examples of Abstract thought can be found in Psalms 103:8; “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger, abounding in love”. The words compassion, grace, anger and love are all abstract words, ideas that cannot be experienced by the senses. Why do we find these abstract words in a passage of concrete thinking Hebrews? Actually, these are abstract English words used to translate the original Hebrew concrete words. The translators often translate this way because the original Hebrew makes no sense when literally translated into English.
Let us take one of the above abstract words to demonstrate the translation from a concrete Hebrew word to an abstract English word. Anger, an abstract word, is actually the Hebrew word (aph) which literally means “nose”, a concrete word. When one is very angry, he begins to breathe hard and the nostrils begin to flare. A Hebrew sees anger as “the flaring of the nose (nostrils)”. If the translator literally translated the above passage “slow to nose”, the English reader would not understand.
Appearance and Functional Descriptions
Greek thought describes objects in relation to its appearance. Hebrew thought describes objects in relation to its function.
A Greek description of a common pencil would be; “it is yellow and about eight inches long”. A Hebrew description of the pencil would be related to its function such as “I write words with it”. Notice that the Hebrew description uses the verb “write” while the Greek description uses the adjectives “yellow” and “long”. Because of Hebrew’s form of functional descriptions, verbs are used much more frequently then adjectives.
To our Greek way of thinking a deer and an oak are two very different objects and we would never describe them in the same way. The Hebrew word for both of these objects is (ayil) because the functional description of these two objects are identical to the Ancient Hebrews, therefore, the same Hebrew word is used for both.
The Hebraic definition of is “a strong leader”. A deer stag is one of the most powerful animals of the forest and is seen as “a strong leader” among the other animals of the forest. The wood of the oak tree is very hard compared to other trees and is seen as a “strong leader” among the trees of the forest.
Notice the two different translations of the Hebrew word in Psalms 29:9. The NASB and KJV translates it as “The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve” while the NIV translates it as “The voice of the LORD twists the oaks”. The literal translation of this verse in Hebrew thought would be; “The voice of the LORD makes the strong leaders turn “.
When translating the Hebrew into English, the Greek thinking translator will give a Greek description to this word for the Greek thinking reader, which is why we have two different ways of translating this verse. This same word “ayil” is also translated as a “ruler” (a strong leader of men) in 2 Kings 24.15.
Ancient Hebrew will use different Hebrew words for the same thing depending upon its function at the time. For example an ox may be identified as an (aluph) when referring to a lead ox, a (shor) when referring to a plow ox, (baqar) when referring to an ox of the field or (par) when referring to an ox of the threshing floor.
Static and Dynamic
In our Modern western language verbs express action (dynamic) while nouns express inanimate (static) objects. In Hebrew all things are in motion (dynamic) including verbs and nouns. In Hebrew sentences the verbs identify the action of an object while nouns identify an object of action. The verb (malak) is “the reign of the king” while the noun (melek) is the “the king who reigns”. A mountain top is not a static object but the “head lifting up out of the hill”. A good example of action in what appears to be a static passage is the command to “have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). In Hebrew thought this passage is saying “not to bring another one of power in front of my face”.”
I wasn’t able to embed my book reference hyperlink in my original comment post Here it is.
The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5653860ce4b0a1d6c2d24e2a/t/57d351fb03596e4e5be088c6/1473466881397/ahlb.pdf
I am on time number 3 of listening to this. This is in addition to reading the Stamford article, watching various youtube videos and going back to some of your previous podcasts such as Simon Blackburn and for Spinoza (because I remembered the pieces of God part and thought maybe it would help).
What I have come up with is this – Plato’s theory of forms is kind of like an analogy. It works in some situations but it loses its power the more you require of it. Trying to constantly save it doesn’t work. It makes everything very confusing and unless I am missing something provides patches for every problem but in doing so only illustrates further its limits. What it seems to do well is point out the struggle of anchoring what we know – what things really ARE, how much of what we know is tied to the notion of relationships between things. But I still struggle getting over that feeling that reading philosophy is unsatisfying in the way that ALMOST sneezing is.
Mostly it’s just awesome because this guy memorized this whole long speech just by listening to it! 😉
@Jennifer Tejada
“reading philosophy is unsatisfying in the way that ALMOST sneezing is.”
That is an incredible description. I would augment it by saying that in philosophy you will sometimes think that you sneezed, but realize later that you’re still very far from sneezing, and in fact, sneezing might be impossible.
Lol – so true. Sneezing is a unicorn.
Sometimes it cracks me up that there are pages and pages of philosophy and really – we are no closer to solving this dilemma than Plato was. It’s the big problem. Or at least one of them.
I empathize tremendously with you both. The reading and analytic unpacking can be pretty frustrating oftentimes, and confirms for me personally why (at a much younger age) I found the entire philosophical discipline such a categorical waste of time. Everything I’ve consumed since then, however = from PEL, and other public philosophy websites – brings home the lesson that this kind of cognitive exercise routine is truly a dialectical endeavor, and that going it alone is just a completely unreasonable proposition. I rest comfortably at night knowing it’s just a hobby, and am able to forgive myself when I momentarily have to ‘cheat’ and default to the readings or interpretations of others.
Piling on a bit now, I also don’t know that the seemingly-eternal intellectual quest involved here (that Jen points out) is not precisely the very point. That is, turn your puzzle over and over and over and over again, and – in the end – hopefully be armed with 10 different ways to break down a problem. The practical payout is a probably long-term proposition, but – just in the couple years I’ve been actively re-engaged with this genre of reading/analysis – I’ve seen incremental improvement in my argumentative cogency and coherence, both at work and elsewhere.
It’s still just something for fun and cognitive hygiene, but the rewards are subtle and (I would submit) build over time… especially when you can utilize a famous philosopher’s approach to some issue, and never once have to name-drop them! People think you are brilliant, and – for very legitimate and immediate, tactful reasons – it’s arguably best for them to just believe you came up with that method all on your own. (ha!)
Hi Luke,
Thanks for the email. I have seen your other comments on this episode and wanted to respond, but alas – I have nothing meaningful to add to your thoughts. I enjoy reading them nonetheless.
First things first – no one is accusing me of being brilliant so my efforts haven’t produced that fruit just yet. But I will say that, while I have no real solid grasp of anything I have read thus far in philosophy, I have found that it has helped me in other ways that I could not have imagined.
For example, I think there are a lot of people in the world who have these rich inner lives which can be helpful or sometimes detrimental but think they are completely alone in their weirdness. In my actual life I don’t share this part of myself because it just doesn’t come up. It can feel isolating to wonder about things in the way that readerly people do. We also tend toward depression more than those who are less inwardly focused I think. Reading and listening about these kinds of things, EVEN WHEN I am only able to grasp at the edges of what is being discussed, makes me feel like – ok, so I’m not the only one that thinks like this. Of course, I am not comparing my thoughts to Plato, but hopefully you know what I mean. I’ve also come to understand the human condition more. Things that I thought were unique to my own little inner drama are really things that all humans, since the beginning of time, have struggled with. Having this sense of common humanity gives me a perspective that helps me cope with life’s everyday realities and feel less alone.
It has also given me both a great humility and ironically, slightly more confidence in my own capabilities. I’ve learned that everyone gets a thing on some level. Then there are layers and layers of meaning that I may not have access to. After listening to every PEL episode and then going back and starting over again I realized – I have grown as a listener, but also the PEL hosts have also grown and changed. I guess I found that really satisfying – as though perhaps I am not the doofus I once thought myself to be. I felt a little better about just being right where I am and not really worrying so much about where I wasn’t and might never have the free time to get to. I was just uneducated and that is something which can be remedied. I also learned by sitting with these ideas over time that they color my life and my way of taking in information. And all this happens with that knowledge that I still say – I really know zip about philosophy. I don’t know – I guess it’s like reading Tolstoy and finding it SO DAMN HARD and then realizing that after reading Nietzsche – Tolstoy suddenly seems a lot easier than before! We grow and change and sometimes it’s just not tangible but it has happened.
No matter what, It’s thoroughly enjoyable for me and necessary for my sanity. It’s changed the way I parent and move through the world. Whether or not I can convey any of what I learned to another person is neither here nor there for me! But I won’t lie – it would be really nice to impress people with my philosophical prowess. Maybe in another life. 🙂
Interesting, I’ve seen other commenters talk about philosophy in terms of its ability to improve one’s general organization of thoughts and argumentative/analytical abilities. I see it just as something really fun, the act of asking just to ask.
At the same time, I also think it has made progress, mainly by rejecting a lot of simple solutions to different problems, basically a lot of naivete. Like naive realism, naive empiricism.
I am no expert, but it would seem that the major “accomplishment” of philosophy, if accomplishment means contributing to a radical change in the worldview of the human race, has been to move humanity away from religion, and away from various feel-good arguments about cosmology and nature, but as an atheist, that’s probably not a surprising take. Post=modern materialism is practically the starting point of even vaguely philosophical thought for most people (who aren’t religious, and even some who are) in the Western World. That’s big.
In my efforts to impart philosophy to children I came across a book called Frederick. It’s about a mouse who writes poetry while the community gathers food for the winter. During the winter his poetry helps keep the community entertained. The questions from the book are something like – what is work? What is useful? Does Frederick deserve to have the food when he didn’t actually help gather the food? If we only ever did things that were certain to be useful how different a world we would have?! Not every activity’s benefits can ever be known in a way that is translatable, yet we all, or most of us, seem to know the importance of them – things such as art or philosophy or play.
If you like philosophy, do philosophy. If you like basketweaving, do basketweaving. If you don’t, don’t. Most things worth doing will, at times, be something you want to give up on.
That is all of my wisdom for today. ;->
just came across some of Sellars on Plato, this is a good one:
“The Soul as Craftsman: an Interpretation of Plato on the Good”
http://www.ditext.com/sellars/sc.html
Hi, Jen.
I think you put that very nicely, and I agree. It’s refreshing to see others admit to their own, languid learning curves, and to a change of worldview over time. I get the sense sometimes, and especially amongst the professional class, that admitting a failure to understand something, or the amount of time and effort it takes to master what one professes to know (or, blush, that you might even still be learning) is sign of weakness. Which is just not the case. It takes a lot of courage and humility to finally say “I tried, but I don’t know.”
Somewhere along the way during childhood – in my small pond I was labeled smart and I think I held that as an anchor for my sense of self. Coming to terms with my limitations was hard but ultimately kind of freeing. Its also helpful while raising kids to be able to say – it’s really ok to not understand something easily and it’s also ok to spend a lot of time doing something that, most likely, you will not be great at or contribute to. It’s ok to do something that does nothing but enrich your own life and doesn’t have an end game. I think that’s what I like best about philosophy – the sort of indulgence of it.
And funny enough – this conversation we are having fits well here IMO because I think Plato evolved. He had his theory of forms – then thought – no maybe not. It seems like we want Plato to have this cogent philosophical point of view but the reality probably is – he was learning as he went and it. Philosopher kings were probably not something he would fight ardently for – just an idea on his journey. Maybe not but it’s a possibility for sure.
Amen to that; I suffered long under the same yoke. I eagerly await the day when Platonic conceptions of the philosopher king inform PEL discussions about modern-day autocracies and theocracies. They probably seem exotic and foreign to us in the West, and possibly not even worth our time, but are so intimately-linked with this ancient strain of Greek and Western thought.
So, as the axiom goes, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” We should all perhaps do well to show some a trajectory of change in thought over time. Possibly if we didn’t, we might be proven to not having done the yeoman’s cognitive work.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
It was good so I looked it up.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.“
That settles it then…I am great.
😉
you might enjoy
https://emersoncentral.com/texts/nature-addresses-lectures/addresses/divinity-school-address/#complete-essay
Thanks! Will check it out.
sure, Emerson gives an account of how something like the Good or Justice might come to be recognized by earthy critters like us, I don’t share his faith that such Forms exist in any way but can see how one might come to such a kind of bottom up approach which starts with lived experiences.
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4032-against-everything-thoreau-trailer-park
I want to quarrel slightly with you, Avi. In surveys of professional philosophers that I’ve seen, more often the abolition of slavery (and its corollary, the still-unfolding expansion of the circle of human dignity) is considered – if anything – the out and out ‘accomplishment’ of the discipline.
The slow-burn banishment of the superstitions of religion might also be a candidate, but I don’t expect that all of us everywhere will finally lose faith full-stop. Which is my particular philosophical interest (I would consider myself agnostic, as a matter of full disclosure, if not quite committed to the atheist camp).
How is it, for instance, that – as the industrialized world gets less and less faith-centered demographically – the rest of the global population is trending the other way? Do the latter inherently lack the philosophical, or cognitive, or self-reflective resources that the former do not? Why does faith and religion and the privileging of revelatory-wisdom – even amongst many in elite circles today – still have more purchase on some than the considered utility and virtues of secular law, liberalism (in the broadest sense), and simple rational-based public policy?
Something else is going on. It’s a live and consequential issue, and – though I concede to you that “post-modern materialism is practically the starting point of even vaguely philosophical thought” for many individuals today – it’s worth exploring why that may be the case (even for the self-professedly religious). There seems to be a widespread notion that the two dispositions (to the extent that religion stands in for a type of moral objectivism) should not be mutually-exclusive.
This strikes me as extremely curious, though perhaps I am not being generous enough on the matter. Suffice it to say, religion is not going away, superstition-bound or otherwise. We may all do well to (yet) take it more seriously.
On Friday, 14 September, Avi wrote:
“I am no expert, but it would seem that the major “accomplishment” of philosophy, if accomplishment means contributing to a radical change in the worldview of the human race, has been to move humanity away from religion, and away from various feel-good arguments about cosmology and nature, but as an atheist, that’s probably not a surprising take. Post=modern materialism is practically the starting point of even vaguely philosophical thought for most people (who aren’t religious, and even some who are) in the Western World. That’s big.”
@Luke
Thanks for the detailed response! I agree with you, the biggest philosophical change in human civilization (and I believe both of the change we’re discussing occurred out of the Enlightenment) is probably centered on expanding human rights (or dignity), freedom of the press, maybe not liberal democracy, but certainly liberal values, that are less concerned with religion/atheism and more with (I guess) pragmatic aspects of law and civil society. Of course, we tend to call the bent of that philosophy ‘secular humanism,’ and in that sense the two philosophical movements go hand-in-hand.
Also, slavery is still quite a large problem, and so are states that reject secular humanism and liberal democracy.
I will certainly avoid giving any hot-takes on the root causes behind the rejection of these values by certain nations and geographic regions! I know very, very little about it.
Hey, Avi.
The hot takes are fine by me, so long as you are not put out when I respectfully push back. : ) I concede to you that slavery is still a big problem in the world, of course. Perhaps I should have been more precise, therefore, and said the following: A big candidate for philosophical-disciplinary achievement, if we want to speak to those matters, is rather the marginalization of the acceptability of slavery (with religion playing a big role in that story, too). This is a sentiment or argument which dovetails with the balance of the Enlightenment project values you mention above, to include the almost obligatory nod that every contemporary sovereign nation must make – that is, to liberal (in the broad sense) values – even when a particular nation or state is transparently dictatorial or autocratic.
‘Secular humanism’ definitely is a common way of capturing all that, also conceded, I just want to argue that explanatory space remains for a religiously-inflected version of the same, even if perhaps (in some or many cases) that very faith-based sentiment is informed by these same Enlightenment-era values.
Finally, my only reservation with the whole ‘Philosophy’s achievements’ discussion is that it somehow inevitably seems to steer one into a Whiggish or teleological view of history, writ large. (Again, maybe I’m being too uncharitable here). This is highly-psychologically satisfying but, for any modestly-serious student of history, a rather romantic tale, possibly even a just-so story (I don’t know).
I’m grateful for your time and attention to my thoughts; thank you!
I think I agree, I don’t really have the knowledge to discern between which aspect of enlightenment values constitutes philosophy’s greatest achievements.
I think I tend to associate with Philosophy the questions that are more abstract, hence the focus on god over civil rights.
I think Philosophy is in pursuit of truth, and insofar as I think religion is false, the death of god constitutes progress towards at least my goal with Philosophy. Whether defining some opinions as true and some as false constitutes a teleology is a different question I would think
Compositional edits:
^”Do the latter inherently lack… what the former do (possess)?” … Something else is going on here.
I love it when my thoughts are confirmed.
Epistemology and Metaphysics are intricately intertwined.
Thank you so much.
I think that Aleister Crowley finally answered this the biggest question on mankind.
A must listen again.