WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:08.080 Welcome to everybody. Yeah, it's glad. I'm glad to be back. 2 00:00:08.519 --> 00:00:11.480 Um, I did a lot of reading last week. We've been brushing up 3 00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:14.000 and a lot of stuff. You know, I did do a full I 4 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:18.480 think we did an eight eight point lecture, eight part lecture years ago on 5 00:00:18.839 --> 00:00:22.839 the entirety of the Republic. I lectured through many of the dialogues, not 6 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:26.280 all of them, because you know, of course, this is a lot 7 00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:32.000 of stuff. Plato has a vast amount and Ariostota has also about the same 8 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:36.159 vast amount in English that we know about. So so we're gonna try to 9 00:00:36.159 --> 00:00:39.039 compact it as best we can. We're gonna get get into it. This 10 00:00:39.079 --> 00:00:42.439 is gonna be very difficult. So again, like we did last time, 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 right now in your questions, and I'll be happy to answer any of them 12 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:49.880 when we get to the end. Um, there's a lot fewer slides this 13 00:00:49.960 --> 00:00:53.679 time, and but that's not because of a lack of material. That's because 14 00:00:53.719 --> 00:00:57.719 we're gonna spend more time on each of the pages because there's just so much 15 00:00:58.079 --> 00:01:04.760 information here, so much to cover. First, we're gonna go into you 16 00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:08.719 guys, remember last time, the last slide we talked about some of the 17 00:01:08.799 --> 00:01:14.560 questions that were left open for Plato to deal with. Right, when Plato 18 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:19.760 comes into the realm of philosophy, he's taught by Socrates. One thing that 19 00:01:19.799 --> 00:01:23.760 we want to keep in mind is that throughout the Platonic corpus, the main 20 00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:27.920 character will be Socrates. Socrates, as far as we know, didn't write 21 00:01:27.959 --> 00:01:34.200 anything, and so it's going to be Plato that is the recorder or the 22 00:01:34.280 --> 00:01:40.920 author, right, who's utilizing Socrates as is key protagonist figure throughout the dialogues. 23 00:01:41.239 --> 00:01:44.439 This is going to be a unique approach, a new way to do 24 00:01:44.519 --> 00:01:49.439 this type of of a of a process of philosophy through a linktic method or 25 00:01:49.480 --> 00:01:53.799 through dialectical method question and answer. So most of the dialogues are going to 26 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:57.439 be a structured that way. There's going to be interlocutors, there's going to 27 00:01:57.480 --> 00:02:02.879 be opponents, there's gonna be people asking questions and trying to figure out get 28 00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:07.319 to the root of the issue in all of these matters. And this is 29 00:02:07.319 --> 00:02:12.159 where we get that phraseology of dialectical method, which is question and answer, 30 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:15.560 cross examination and response, a link goos or a linked us, a linkedic 31 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:21.960 method is this method of pedagogy. So remember we wanted distress as in the 32 00:02:22.039 --> 00:02:24.240 Q and A that we had last time. Is that's different than a metaphysical 33 00:02:24.280 --> 00:02:30.120 idea of dialectical tensions. And if anybody did get their Coppleston text book, 34 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:35.960 you'll notice that Coppleston throughout the Plato chapters mentioned that as well. He talked 35 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:42.280 about Plato's dialectical considerations, and dialectics is very important in history philosophy. It's 36 00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:44.360 going to come up a lot. It's one of those things that we wanted 37 00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:47.479 to be aware of as a recurring term because this is going to come up 38 00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:52.840 with marks. If you know what I'm about dialectics and dialectical philosophy, we're 39 00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:55.439 gonna have a hard time understanding marks when we get to krawl marks. We're 40 00:02:55.479 --> 00:02:58.240 not going to spend a whole lot of time on krawl marks, but we 41 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:01.719 do need to understand this, you know, horrible philosophy because it did have 42 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:07.879 such an impact, you know, on the world in modern philosophy. But 43 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:13.400 I'm just like hegel Marks, well Hagel land Marks, both very interested in 44 00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:19.360 dialectics and dialectical philosophy. And this does have its root in Greek philosophy. 45 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:23.680 And so these are the questions that the Presocratics left Plato with that, I 46 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:27.120 told you guys to think about and look for if you did get a chance 47 00:03:27.159 --> 00:03:30.360 to read the apology, you didn't have to read it. I'm not going 48 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:32.800 to grade you. It's up to you. But I think everybody here wants 49 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:36.759 to be here, and that's the advantage of what we're doing here. And 50 00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:38.680 so probably hopefully some of you did get a chance to read the apology. 51 00:03:38.719 --> 00:03:43.319 I didn't expect everybody to read everything. And you know, if you did 52 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:46.439 get a chance to read the complas and chapters on Plato, then you're way 53 00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:49.560 ahead of the game. So that's good, and you'll notice a lot about 54 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:53.240 to talk about is in those chapters. But also I did go pretty deep 55 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:55.680 into the Republic. I don't know how deeple get into that tonight. I 56 00:03:55.719 --> 00:03:59.360 do have a couple of slides on it, but we'll try to get as 57 00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:01.800 deep as we can. What is reality? What is man? What should 58 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:06.000 man do? Can man know? Can we give an account for what we 59 00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:11.919 know? What is knowledge? Is knowledge different from opinion? Is it a 60 00:04:11.960 --> 00:04:16.079 lower type of knowledge? Can we have objective certitude of knowledge? What about 61 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:19.439 objects in the world? Do they have identity over time? Do they have 62 00:04:19.480 --> 00:04:24.040 identity through change. What about the problem of the one in the many, 63 00:04:24.120 --> 00:04:27.360 which we brought at last time, which is so prevalent in the Presocratics. 64 00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:32.879 This is the question of how do we predicate of particulars commonalities that they share 65 00:04:32.920 --> 00:04:35.600 amongst their class of things. In other words, when I look at the 66 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:41.040 dog, I say, the dog is brown. Well, I point out 67 00:04:41.079 --> 00:04:45.560 that's a singular dog amongst a class of things called dogs. And what is 68 00:04:45.560 --> 00:04:50.160 it that makes that thing particular, that unique dog in contrast to the other 69 00:04:50.279 --> 00:04:56.199 dogs of which it is a class. Likewise, what is the common thing 70 00:04:56.839 --> 00:05:01.920 that those share amongst the class of dogs? Is it dogness? Well, 71 00:05:01.959 --> 00:05:09.040 we'll see pantheism, atheism, materialism, empiricism, rationalism, monism, dualism. 72 00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:12.720 As we saw. Those are the same issues throughout the Presocratics, still 73 00:05:12.759 --> 00:05:15.439 being discussed by philosophers today. In fact, I'm looking over at my shelf, 74 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:20.279 my philosophy shelf over there, and I see prominently displayed a new newly 75 00:05:20.319 --> 00:05:24.160 released book, The Problem of the One in the Many. So here we 76 00:05:24.199 --> 00:05:29.839 are two thousand and five hundred years later, academic discourse is still discussing these 77 00:05:30.199 --> 00:05:36.360 very prevalent topics throughout the Greek philosophers of ancient yore. Now we talked about 78 00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:43.680 dialectics not in a diological teaching sense pedagogical sense. We talked about it in 79 00:05:43.720 --> 00:05:46.959 a metaphysical sense. And we want to pay attention here because these are gonna 80 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:51.160 be very prevalent, recurring, as we said, and this came up in 81 00:05:51.199 --> 00:05:54.600 the Q and A, so I wanted to highlight this a little bit more. 82 00:05:56.240 --> 00:06:00.439 We're gonna notice that throughout the Presocratics and solemn Plato, and into the 83 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:04.519 Neoplatonists as well, and even into the debates. When we get through some 84 00:06:04.600 --> 00:06:11.199 of the patristic philosophers, the question of determinism versus free will will arise, 85 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:15.000 the question of the one in the many which I just mentioned, the question 86 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:19.680 of eternity versus time? Is it better to be an eternity? Is time 87 00:06:19.839 --> 00:06:26.959 of a diminished status lesser than the eternal? Right? Are these opposites? 88 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:31.959 In many cases these are cashed out in a philosophy of opposites. The one 89 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:35.480 is the opposite of the mini. Some philosophers will say that the Mini is 90 00:06:35.480 --> 00:06:41.399 trying to get back to that ultimate unification as we saw with Empedocles. No, 91 00:06:41.879 --> 00:06:46.879 the Mini is more fundamental than the one, right or the seeds of 92 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:50.160 the logos everywhere, Right, that's the mini that's preeminent in that idea. 93 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:55.439 Perhaps eternity is something that we need to get back to. And this realm 94 00:06:55.519 --> 00:06:59.279 of flux, this realm of time is somehow worse, bad, lesser. 95 00:07:00.120 --> 00:07:02.120 Maybe who which one? Which one is it? Maybe these are false dialectics, 96 00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:09.040 right, What about the notion of order matter potentia excuse me, exc 97 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:15.639 gonna order, which is the connected to the principle of being eternality structure? 98 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:27.160 Is that in dialectical tension with the principle of matter chaos potentia Aristotle as when 99 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:30.759 we get theirsol is going to use the term premium material prime matter, which 100 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:36.040 is a pure potential. Maybe that's in some sort of battle, fundamental war, 101 00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:44.399 contrast contradiction, struggle with order in any sense. Right, and we 102 00:07:44.439 --> 00:07:47.319 get to Plato, we're going to notice that he's very clear on his view 103 00:07:47.439 --> 00:07:51.680 of a lot of these questions which side he falls on. And we're gonna 104 00:07:51.759 --> 00:07:55.959 try to be as fair to Plato as as we can, because Plato at 105 00:07:56.040 --> 00:08:01.839 least tries he wants to reconcile and solve some of these dialectical problems that we 106 00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:07.160 saw last week in the Presocratics. So whether he achieves that that, I'll 107 00:08:07.199 --> 00:08:11.079 leave that up to you in your assessment of Plato. If you read the 108 00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:16.199 Copples some chapters, we know that a Copplison himself had the very same critique 109 00:08:16.279 --> 00:08:18.680 that you're going to hear me give, which helps me understand that I was 110 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:22.600 glad to get into this because I had the same reading of the Republic and 111 00:08:22.639 --> 00:08:26.079 the same reading of a lot of those that Copplison did so and I think 112 00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:30.160 he's a competent thinker, and that lets me know that, you know, 113 00:08:30.199 --> 00:08:33.720 I didn't have some vast misreading of these texts. There was a guy on 114 00:08:33.799 --> 00:08:39.480 the Twitter or some PhD guy a couple of months ago who was just going 115 00:08:39.559 --> 00:08:41.799 nuts on me, saying that I know you misunderstood everything. It's like you're 116 00:08:41.879 --> 00:08:45.600 wrong about all of it. You're totally wrong. Well, I mean, 117 00:08:45.639 --> 00:08:48.279 if i'm you know, basically come to the same conclusions of other, you 118 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:52.600 know, competent guys who are widely used, then I think I probably on 119 00:08:52.919 --> 00:08:54.039 good ground. And that doesn't mean it's true. I may be wrong, 120 00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:58.639 but it's it's good to find camaraderie in your readings. Now other things that 121 00:08:58.720 --> 00:09:03.360 pop up. This doesn't just relate to abstract metaphysics. These dialectics might relate 122 00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:07.519 to the social sphere. And we're gonna see that with Plato, because Plato 123 00:09:07.559 --> 00:09:11.159 will have debates about how should a city be run, how should a republic 124 00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:15.120 be run, what's the ideal form of government so that we don't fall into 125 00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:20.519 anarchy on the one hand of the dominance of the many, notice that anarchy 126 00:09:20.679 --> 00:09:26.320 might be spilling over onto the side of you know, too much particularization, 127 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:31.559 too much individuality. In Plato's view, Oh, maybe we got Antifa out 128 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:33.600 there, right, they're running there, they're going nuts. They're they're pouring 129 00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:37.840 piss and shit on everybody. They're throwing locks in people's faces, right, 130 00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:41.200 because it's chaos, anarchy, that's that's maybe that's what we need. Or 131 00:09:41.279 --> 00:09:45.840 no, wait a minute, what if we need the dictator to squash all 132 00:09:45.879 --> 00:09:48.039 the Antifa bugs going nuts out there. So if we just had a strong 133 00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:52.480 dictator, man who could come in, you know, a big old daddy 134 00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:58.720 stalin, a big old daddy mao right now, big dong. If he 135 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.799 comes in and lays down the law, he can squish all these petty Antifa 136 00:10:05.879 --> 00:10:09.480 people, or is this a dialectic and they both fall over into each other. 137 00:10:09.559 --> 00:10:16.440 Maybe there's some sort of intimate connection between societies that go from tyranny into 138 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:22.039 anarchy, or from anarchy into tyranny. That's in fact going to be one 139 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:26.440 of the points that we'll notice in the Republic. What about this idea that 140 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:33.720 stasis, permanence, invariance, eternality, is that better than change in flux? 141 00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:37.879 Well, we saw us on the prestocratics. One guy says permenites. 142 00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:43.480 Oh, everything is stasis, dude, Literally, everything is stasis. The 143 00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:46.440 things that you think are changing members ENO's paradox with the arrow. That's all 144 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:54.639 illusions, dude. Everything is pure permanence and stasis. Or is everything flux? 145 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:58.279 The other guy right, what her clitis? All is flux? All 146 00:10:58.360 --> 00:11:03.840 is fire. Adams going wild, going nuts, going buck wild, going 147 00:11:03.919 --> 00:11:11.519 crazy. Adams are constantly just having a party. There's nothing stable. You 148 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:16.120 got an Adam over here with the freaking lamp on his head. You got 149 00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:18.279 another atom over here, he's tripping acid. You got another atom over here 150 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:22.600 he's trying to grab butts. I mean atoms are going wild. That's all 151 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:26.879 that it is. There's no order which one is it? Or maybe there's 152 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:31.320 something in between rationalism versus empiricism. This is something that we said would come 153 00:11:31.399 --> 00:11:35.039 up. We're definitely going to see Plato taking a side in this debate. 154 00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:41.039 If you don't know, I think everybody probably has figured out Plato will side 155 00:11:41.080 --> 00:11:46.679 on reason. Reason is far superior to empirical sense. Data sense data is 156 00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:52.080 not totally useless. It does tell us some things. The sensible particulars he 157 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:58.399 calls them, are not completely a loser. They're not completely imaginary, but 158 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:01.279 there are copies and imitation, which we'll see in a moment. But for 159 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:05.039 the philosopher, in Plato's mind, reason is key. Reason is key, 160 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:11.919 and Plato will take certain ideas from presocratics and modify them and change. For 161 00:12:11.960 --> 00:12:13.799 example, he will be interested in the one of the many questions, and 162 00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:20.279 he will take from both Parmenides and from Heraclitis. You said, well, 163 00:12:20.279 --> 00:12:22.799 wait a minute, how it's got to be either or right, I mean, 164 00:12:22.840 --> 00:12:28.159 everything's got to be flux or everything's got to be permanent. Well, 165 00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:35.399 in Plato's either's two realms, one characterized by permanence, one characterized by flux. 166 00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:39.399 So Plato, as we can see, will be a kind of synthesis 167 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:46.320 figure between Heaclitis and Parmenides. Another prominent dialectic that pops up here is the 168 00:12:46.399 --> 00:12:52.440 soul or the mind, and sometimes these are equivalent identified, especially in the 169 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:58.320 Greeks and in some of the Latin Christian theologians like Augustine. Or is the 170 00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:01.399 body more pre emiti should we get more of a pre eminence to bodily things 171 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:05.200 since data the pleasures of the body, or are the pleasures of reason? 172 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:13.120 Thought, logic? Doing math? Is that better and higher than I don't 173 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:18.600 know, having sexy time. Maybe that's what we should be doing. Well. 174 00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:24.399 Again, these are questions the Plato's grappling with, and they all come 175 00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:31.639 out of the Presocratics, and he's not gonna reject them all or accept them 176 00:13:31.639 --> 00:13:37.519 all. So he's a as Copison noted, a big leap forward in the 177 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:46.200 notable but limited speculations and processes of the presecratics that we covered last week. 178 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:52.080 And not just in terms of the immensity of the depth, the scope, 179 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:56.879 etc. But the vast amount of writings. I mean again, right, 180 00:13:56.919 --> 00:14:00.000 the plato works. I don't know if I'm over here, but I mean 181 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:05.679 they're big, old thick thing, right, And so oh, I'm into. 182 00:14:05.279 --> 00:14:09.559 The reason I have that diagram there is that this will be a fundamental 183 00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:16.159 to Platonic theology, and this is a triad or a triangle, but for 184 00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:20.720 Plato's purposes, there will be a lot of triplicities that will be present these 185 00:14:20.799 --> 00:14:26.679 triads. They're not all triangles. Triangles are triadic, but there's other kinds 186 00:14:26.679 --> 00:14:30.159 of triads there. Will notice when we get to the republic, there's a 187 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:35.879 triad of how this city should be governed in a three tiered structure that corresponds 188 00:14:35.919 --> 00:14:39.399 to the body of a man. Because the city, he'll say, is 189 00:14:39.399 --> 00:14:43.960 like a big man and it has a three tiered structure of mind, heart, 190 00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:50.320 body. The triads and Plato will pop up quite a bit, so 191 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:54.960 we should be looking for that. And in this system, again borrowing from 192 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:03.159 Pythagorean ideas, you'll have a movement that is primarily described numerically of a movement 193 00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:07.799 from the monad to the diad to the triad, from one to two to 194 00:15:07.960 --> 00:15:11.039 three. And the reason that he thinks that is that, well, if 195 00:15:11.080 --> 00:15:16.360 you have a monad and then you put another circle there where if there's a 196 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:22.320 movement from one point in the center to the next point in another circle center 197 00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:28.200 the bestica pieces. Then you get this overlapping line where you can now start 198 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:33.480 to draw a triangle in the middle of that, And so the monad produces 199 00:15:33.519 --> 00:15:37.919 the diad. It's not drawn there, but you could see right between one 200 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:41.600 of those top halves of the bestic pieces, you could you could draw a 201 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:46.919 triangle there if you connected right, if you connected them equally, speed on 202 00:15:48.399 --> 00:15:52.279 the and the side's equally you know what I'm saying. So the monad, 203 00:15:52.279 --> 00:15:58.080 the diad, and the triad are the fundamental principles and structures that make up 204 00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:02.000 everything, and even in the realm of the forms, and even in the 205 00:16:02.039 --> 00:16:03.200 realm of the here and the now, which we'll get to in a minute. 206 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:10.039 So everything in the world is constructed on the basis of these geometric archetypal 207 00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:17.279 forms and patterns. And again a lot of borrowing and overlap here with Pythagoras 208 00:16:17.320 --> 00:16:22.000 that we talked about last time. And these triads are not just things that 209 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:26.759 point us to the higher realm in Plato, they also are the fundamental structure 210 00:16:26.799 --> 00:16:30.919 of this realm. And I didn't have time to really get a lot of 211 00:16:30.919 --> 00:16:34.480 the stuff relating to the Tamaus. It can be its own really long lecture 212 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:38.960 because it's a very complex, very difficult dialogue. But the Tomaus will make 213 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:42.480 a lot of use of these triangles. I wanted to build up what are 214 00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:47.879 called the platonic solids. So if you've you've heard of this idea in ancient 215 00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:51.639 Greek metaphysics or the or geometry. I think this is pretty well known. 216 00:16:51.759 --> 00:16:53.320 You know this. You get to the polygons, the octagon, etc. 217 00:16:53.879 --> 00:17:00.759 Those are the platonic solids, and those in Plato's cosmology, his idea of 218 00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:04.319 the structure of the universe and the origin of the universe is cosmogeny. Those 219 00:17:04.519 --> 00:17:10.400 are fundamental to all of reality. All of reality is built up and structured 220 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:17.160 in these mathematical and geometrical forms, everything even down to the smallest atomic level. 221 00:17:17.519 --> 00:17:21.119 So he will borrow from some of the atomists this idea of atomism, 222 00:17:21.519 --> 00:17:23.079 but he doesn't he's not a materialist, so it doesn't believe that all of 223 00:17:23.119 --> 00:17:29.839 it exists as atoms. But he thinks that these structures of geometric forms and 224 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:33.480 order are not just at the macro scale, they also go all the way 225 00:17:33.519 --> 00:17:38.480 down to a microscale. Let's look at some of the important terms that we're 226 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:42.440 going to need to know for tonight and what they mean on a very basic 227 00:17:42.559 --> 00:17:48.279 level techne. I'm sure you've heard Richard talk about techne in this system. 228 00:17:48.359 --> 00:17:55.920 In this area, primarily we're looking at not the arts and crafts, but 229 00:17:56.119 --> 00:18:02.839 the doing of some art or the creation of some artifice. So in Plato's 230 00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:08.160 idea, the city needs to be run and structured in an artificial an arctifice 231 00:18:08.200 --> 00:18:12.279 type of way. So, even though Plato's not strictly speaking a technocrat in 232 00:18:12.319 --> 00:18:19.119 that he doesn't necessarily believe in computers running everything, the idea in Plato which 233 00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:25.160 we'll see in the Republic very clearly about mathematics being the model for the state. 234 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:32.559 That's an proto technocratic view. And thus Plato is a proto techne teacher, 235 00:18:32.680 --> 00:18:38.519 right. He believes in techne as a form of not just a governance. 236 00:18:38.559 --> 00:18:42.960 But the philosopher himself, right, is doing the art of philosophy, 237 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:47.799 which is the highest of the arts according to Socrates. And one of the 238 00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:51.680 dialogues that we'll talk about, and I think that's in Fieto Infieto, he 239 00:18:51.720 --> 00:18:55.200 says that, well, I tried to do some poetry Socrates does. He 240 00:18:55.240 --> 00:18:57.519 says, my poetry pretty much sucked. So then I realized that when I 241 00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:00.599 went to the Oracle Delphi, that I should just be a philosopher, because 242 00:19:00.599 --> 00:19:03.920 philosophy is way better than poetry anyway. So he kind of he says like, 243 00:19:03.960 --> 00:19:07.079 I tried out poetry, and then he dishes it like he negs poetry. 244 00:19:07.119 --> 00:19:11.400 He's like, yeah, poetry kind of sucks. He's like it's cool, 245 00:19:11.480 --> 00:19:14.920 but like philosophy is so much cooler, and he's like, by the 246 00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:23.119 way, I'm the best at that. So the art of philosophy, the 247 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:27.440 art of doing philosophy, and the reason that we're going to connect it with 248 00:19:27.480 --> 00:19:33.720 Techne is that in Socrates slash Plato, the art of doing philosophy for them 249 00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:40.920 is really close to being a mathematician, and that means structuring everything in the 250 00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:47.839 most rational, most formal, most ideal, most logical way. I mean, 251 00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:52.000 I think we could probably call Plato a kind of a Spurg, right, 252 00:19:52.079 --> 00:19:56.079 I mean we think of the Zuckerbergs and these kinds of guys as the 253 00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:57.720 Spurgs, right, I mean, and I'm not trying to be mean. 254 00:19:57.799 --> 00:20:02.160 I mean I probably have a good Dosa sperg in me, Like was the 255 00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:04.599 Oban say I got a dose of thetism. I probably got a little bit 256 00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:07.519 of that. Well. Plato did too, right, and he sees he's 257 00:20:07.559 --> 00:20:12.839 a kind of a mechanistic style of thinker. But I'm not saying that his 258 00:20:12.880 --> 00:20:18.400 philosophy is mechanistic. He doesn't see the universe as this strictly mechanistic system. 259 00:20:21.640 --> 00:20:26.440 Next up is the apologia. This is a defense. And if you read 260 00:20:26.519 --> 00:20:30.039 to Nice first lecture or Commune first dialogue, the Apology again most probably the 261 00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:34.799 most famous essay in the history of all philosophy, not very long, where 262 00:20:36.319 --> 00:20:40.599 Socrates on trial. Then you know that it's called the apology because that means 263 00:20:40.599 --> 00:20:45.440 a defense. And for people who have theological views, there's a whole whole 264 00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:51.160 domain of debate and theology called apologetics, which is the defense of one's position. 265 00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:55.799 So that doesn't just apply to theology. As you can see. You 266 00:20:55.839 --> 00:21:00.000 know, in the in the dialogue you have Socrates. They're giving a defense 267 00:21:00.119 --> 00:21:03.640 of his position and the role of a philosopher in society. And there was 268 00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:06.640 actually quite a few comedic parts, if you guys got to read it, 269 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:10.000 there were some funny parts, and he kind of busts some jokes and busts. 270 00:21:11.519 --> 00:21:14.720 He makes fun of some of the people in the city, so it's 271 00:21:14.759 --> 00:21:22.200 a there's an element of comedy there as well. Hubris excessive pride or denying 272 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:26.920 the gods with a use or function of reason. I think probably anybody who's 273 00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:30.359 had any courses in college or the courses on literature, you probably had the 274 00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:37.799 list of the key Greek literary terms. It is relevant here because there's going 275 00:21:37.839 --> 00:21:42.079 to be discussions of how the philosopher needs to be to not have hubris, 276 00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:48.240 and Hubris did come up, I think in some areas in what Homer and 277 00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:52.400 Hessia too, so it's part of the poetic tradition too. But excessive pride 278 00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:59.279 in philosophy is dangerous because it will blind and delude the philosopher from being corrected, 279 00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:02.519 and you know, the philosopher needs to be able to learn. In 280 00:22:02.559 --> 00:22:04.359 fact, Plato in the Republic, if I recall, he has this weird 281 00:22:04.920 --> 00:22:10.680 idea that like the philosopher king who's going to be running the city. He's 282 00:22:10.680 --> 00:22:15.799 like kind of the autocrat of the Plato's republic, the ideal city. He 283 00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:18.759 goes and studies geometry and math on a mountain for like, you know, 284 00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:22.279 twenty years, and then he comes back down to the town, and it 285 00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:26.200 is supposed to impress, you know, the mathematical knowledge, like onto the 286 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:32.559 city. Right, So there is this very almost ascetic view of mathematics, 287 00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:36.839 which who do we see that in by aggress So there's a lot of influence 288 00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:42.319 there as well. Next term that will pop up as useful is Idos is 289 00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:48.440 a Greek word that Plato uses oftentimes for the forms, and it means idea 290 00:22:48.599 --> 00:22:53.839 or the form. This will be central to Plato's metaphysic. The forms are 291 00:22:53.880 --> 00:22:59.359 the most popular and most famous, most well known, most fundamental element of 292 00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:03.640 Plato's physical view. The forms aren't the only thing that exists, but the 293 00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:07.920 forms have the most real existence. Our world is not totally fake, it's 294 00:23:07.960 --> 00:23:11.599 not totally a dream, but it's not as real as the realm of the 295 00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:15.920 forms. We'll get to that in the moment. Archais is another term that 296 00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:22.079 pops up in Plato's philosophy and in other Greek philosophers and in theologians and archi 297 00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:29.440 Here refers to archetype, exemplar, or pattern. And if you are familiar, 298 00:23:29.480 --> 00:23:33.079 for example, with Carl Jung's archetypes, same idea. Right now, 299 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:37.480 Carl Young kind of does his own thing with literature and this kind of stuff. 300 00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:41.640 But he's getting the idea of archetypes from Plato, from Platonic philosophy, 301 00:23:41.720 --> 00:23:47.240 so there is an overlap there. They have a similar origin in Christian theology. 302 00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:51.799 A lot of theologians in early Church we'll talk about reality being created on 303 00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:56.160 the basis of divine ideas. Even Augustine he makes a lot of use of 304 00:23:56.200 --> 00:24:02.119 this idea of divine exemplars that is also from Plato. And we'll also be 305 00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:06.160 present when we get to the neo Platonists. And if you guys do want 306 00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:08.119 to go above and beyond, there is a book that is a very small 307 00:24:08.200 --> 00:24:12.759 readable book by RT. Wallace, which is kind of the standard academic introduction 308 00:24:12.799 --> 00:24:17.880 to the neo Platonists. So and well, I'll talk about them in a 309 00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:23.200 little bit, but they have a specific reading of Plato into the early centuries, 310 00:24:23.319 --> 00:24:30.559 for second third century eighty, so this will be many centuries after Plato 311 00:24:30.559 --> 00:24:34.559 and Aristotle. The neo Platonists, Middle Platonists, and neo Platinists, they 312 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:41.519 will have a specific reading of Plato that's probably normative back then, but nowadays 313 00:24:41.480 --> 00:24:45.839 in academia have all kinds of readings of Plato. Right, So for example, 314 00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:49.440 some philosophers and scholars will debate, oh they played to really believe in 315 00:24:51.160 --> 00:24:56.720 the God that he talks about or is it just a symbolic form? So 316 00:24:56.279 --> 00:25:03.039 apa facis aipacis. This is another important idea in Plato or sometimes called apiphatic. 317 00:25:03.559 --> 00:25:07.799 It might be used in theology, it might be used in Platonism, 318 00:25:07.119 --> 00:25:11.200 it might be used in other Greek philosophy. And this is referred to in 319 00:25:11.200 --> 00:25:15.440 the Middle Ages as a via negativa or the way of negation. And what 320 00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:18.160 that means is that some things, by the nature of what they are, 321 00:25:18.799 --> 00:25:26.480 are so difficult or impossible to define that the best attempt at definition that we 322 00:25:26.559 --> 00:25:29.559 have is to do it by negation. So, for example, in the 323 00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:33.319 Middle Ages, some of the theologians and philosophers will talk about, well, 324 00:25:33.359 --> 00:25:37.720 we don't know what divine omniscience is in a strict definitional sense, so the 325 00:25:37.759 --> 00:25:44.079 best definition that we can give is what it is not that is by negation 326 00:25:44.319 --> 00:25:48.480 or apophosis. And this comes up even and I think in mathematics too. 327 00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:49.960 I'm not a mathematician, so don't hold me to this, but I think 328 00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:56.400 mathematics sometimes uses this where you have concepts like zero well, what is zero? 329 00:25:56.519 --> 00:25:59.160 Can you define it? Well, you know, it's not quantity or 330 00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:00.319 one or two or three or four. Right, So it's kind of this 331 00:26:02.200 --> 00:26:08.039 abstract negation. And it's the same with for Plato, the way that we 332 00:26:08.079 --> 00:26:12.759 will try to speak of the highest form, or the highest one, the 333 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:18.160 highest good, which is the beautiful, which is the God, and it 334 00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:25.880 is perhaps apyrone or beyond being and known apophetically or via negation. What does 335 00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:27.119 that mean? Well, it's not this thing, it's not that thing. 336 00:26:27.160 --> 00:26:30.359 It's not that thing, it's not that it's not any of these things. 337 00:26:30.799 --> 00:26:33.640 It's the beyond of all those things. And remember, you know, a 338 00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:40.319 couple of the Presocratics use this idea of the oponne, the boundless, the 339 00:26:40.359 --> 00:26:48.000 beyond in precisely that way apatheia. This is important for the Greek philosophers and 340 00:26:48.119 --> 00:26:56.839 Greek thought and a view, A trait that they held highly esteemed in humans, 341 00:26:57.039 --> 00:27:03.119 especially very thoughtful humans and philosophers, was to achieve apatheian. Now, 342 00:27:03.160 --> 00:27:07.119 this does not mean passion the sense of like, you know, my marriage 343 00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:10.440 is cold and we don't love each other, and it's faith. We're not 344 00:27:10.480 --> 00:27:15.279 talking about passionless in that sense. Passionless in the sense of you're not governed 345 00:27:15.319 --> 00:27:18.799 by the body's passions, you're not governed by lust, you're not governed by 346 00:27:19.640 --> 00:27:23.799 your stomach, you're not governed by pride. Right, so that you can't 347 00:27:23.799 --> 00:27:30.519 be taught anything any of the passions, the vices that might govern us, 348 00:27:30.559 --> 00:27:36.119 that distract us, blind us, and keep us from focusing on the transcendent, 349 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:40.119 focusing on numbers, focusing on doing our math homework, learning our time 350 00:27:40.160 --> 00:27:44.319 stables. Right, I mean you want to the essence of Platonic philosophy, 351 00:27:44.759 --> 00:27:48.759 you need to be doing your time stables and not jerking off. Okay, 352 00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:52.880 that's the kind of philosphy that you would get from Plato and Socrates. And 353 00:27:53.039 --> 00:28:00.799 I'm being serious here. Why is he saying the sexuality is bad or that 354 00:28:02.039 --> 00:28:03.119 you having a wife is But no, no, he's not saying that. 355 00:28:03.160 --> 00:28:11.680 He's saying that any of the pleasures have the potentiality of enslaving us to the 356 00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:17.119 point that we are no longer able to really control and use our reasoning faculty, 357 00:28:17.559 --> 00:28:21.519 which is what should govern us. So he's not being like this kind 358 00:28:21.559 --> 00:28:25.480 of weird ascetic in the sense that, oh you should be you know, 359 00:28:25.680 --> 00:28:29.359 celibate or and he's not saying that he's saying that it needs to be under 360 00:28:29.359 --> 00:28:33.559 control. And there's that famous image of that from the one of the dialogues 361 00:28:33.559 --> 00:28:37.160 where you have the rider on the horse, and you know, Plato's saying 362 00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:45.119 that the horses right are like the bodily passions, and if you don't have 363 00:28:45.480 --> 00:28:51.000 a rider who can control and steer the horses in the chariot, then the 364 00:28:51.079 --> 00:28:52.759 chariot will just go wild and the gulf of cliff right. So you got 365 00:28:52.799 --> 00:28:57.400 to have a rider, and the rider represents reason. The rider is your 366 00:28:57.480 --> 00:29:00.839 reasoning faculty. It is or use of reason, your use of logic, 367 00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:08.160 your use of critical thinking, to govern your life in every year of life. 368 00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:15.079 So the philosopher is principally the person who achieves apatheia, that is in 369 00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:18.519 the sense of passionless, in the sense that he is not dominated or ruled 370 00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:22.519 by any of the vices or the passions. Rather he is dominant and ruled 371 00:29:22.519 --> 00:29:27.200 by reason. Logos obviously is a very important term. As we said, 372 00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:30.359 that would pop up. And in the context of Plato, I think there's 373 00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:34.680 a really good uh if you want. The Cambridge Companion of Plato is an 374 00:29:34.680 --> 00:29:40.400 excellent book. There's a whole entry in that that I read some years ago 375 00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:45.400 about logos and Plato, and it's really good if you want more source material, 376 00:29:45.480 --> 00:29:51.759 and it goes into how for Plato, logos is intimately connected not just 377 00:29:51.960 --> 00:29:56.279 with reason or explanations in terms of logic, but law like logic. So 378 00:29:56.319 --> 00:30:02.640 there's there's a law character too. Lo ghosts as well in Plato. Going 379 00:30:02.680 --> 00:30:07.359 from memories a few years ago when I read that, But another term that 380 00:30:07.400 --> 00:30:10.000 comes up, which is might be referring to the plural. This will be 381 00:30:10.079 --> 00:30:17.480 very commonly used later on in Byzantine theology is loge, and that's the plural 382 00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:22.599 of logos, and so there this means many reasons, multiple reasons, or 383 00:30:22.039 --> 00:30:27.200 ideas. So we might be referring to by logoss mind or the faculty of 384 00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:32.920 reason mind itself, or the faculty of reasoning, or the laws of logic 385 00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:37.279 in some metaphysical sense, they govern the universe. And then if we see 386 00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:41.000 the term loge, we might be referring to the many reasons by which this 387 00:30:41.160 --> 00:30:45.480 or that occurs, or the many ideas that man or God has about this 388 00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:49.319 or that thing. Ontology is an important term that we should know, and 389 00:30:49.319 --> 00:30:53.480 that is really just simply the study of being, what bees, what does 390 00:30:53.480 --> 00:30:59.400 it mean for an object to be? To exist? Other Sometimes ontology is 391 00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:03.200 just kind of a stand in for metaphysics. But metaphysics might deal with all 392 00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:07.960 kinds of things like free will, the you know existence, what is love 393 00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:11.920 right? These kinds of things, But ontology is a little more specific domind 394 00:31:11.960 --> 00:31:17.200 and metaphysics where we're just concerned with being itself and that relates to the Greek 395 00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:25.759 word for being too o num. Let's move to the apology. So this 396 00:31:25.880 --> 00:31:30.240 is where we want to start in Platonic philosophy, as we said, because 397 00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:37.359 it kind of kicks Platist philosophy off, and it's kind of them as we 398 00:31:37.480 --> 00:31:42.480 said, like the philosophical texts par excellence. And uh, it's also in 399 00:31:42.559 --> 00:31:48.640 a literary way, appreciated for its literary elements. Right, It's it's a 400 00:31:48.680 --> 00:31:53.000 well written story, it's got some humor. Uh, it's dealing with a 401 00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:56.519 lot of you know, high minded ideas, all of that into an excellent 402 00:31:56.599 --> 00:32:04.920 presentation. And I got actually quite a bit of notes on. So this 403 00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:12.359 is uhum Socrates again, Plato's teacher. Here is the protagonist, and here 404 00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:19.039 we have the righteous man, the righteous philosopher is accused by his interlocutors here 405 00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:28.839 of two maybe three two main problems you got, you gotta you're doing court, 406 00:32:28.920 --> 00:32:32.240 dude, you're indict they indict him. Why do they indict Socrates? 407 00:32:32.279 --> 00:32:42.240 Well, the charge is you are teaching atheism and corrupting the youth, and 408 00:32:42.559 --> 00:32:47.880 you are teaching new gods. So these are the accusations they're seeking. Are 409 00:32:47.880 --> 00:32:53.319 really mad, They're seeking some kind of punitive or penal damages, perhaps even 410 00:32:53.400 --> 00:33:01.680 death for whatever. Is this dangerous thing that philosophers do. And hence the 411 00:33:01.759 --> 00:33:06.440 idea of the apologia, right, the apology the defense. Okay, well 412 00:33:06.519 --> 00:33:09.240 let me give you my defense. Now, we notice that as we read 413 00:33:09.319 --> 00:33:14.880 through the defense, and this is great because we'll notice that what do we 414 00:33:14.920 --> 00:33:19.480 say in Lecture one? What did philosophers do? They question things, they 415 00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:24.319 consider presuppositions, They cross examine and look for contradictions. Right, remember that 416 00:33:24.359 --> 00:33:29.039 from Lecture one? Well, guess what Socrates is going to do all the 417 00:33:29.119 --> 00:33:31.200 above. And he says, well, I wait a minute, let's consider 418 00:33:31.240 --> 00:33:35.359 your charges against me. He says, first, you say that I am 419 00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:38.440 an atheist, but then you said I teach new gods. Well, if 420 00:33:38.480 --> 00:33:42.640 I believe in new gods, then I can't be an atheist. So immediately 421 00:33:42.640 --> 00:33:46.319 he points out a contradiction. So there we see the philosopher is cross examining. 422 00:33:46.559 --> 00:33:51.920 He's looking at the arguments that are being used against him. In this 423 00:33:51.960 --> 00:33:54.319 case, it really is against him, not just against his theoretical position, 424 00:33:54.359 --> 00:33:59.799 but again against him because they want him, they want him hung right there, 425 00:34:00.039 --> 00:34:02.559 really, Matt And he says, well, let me give you a 426 00:34:02.599 --> 00:34:07.000 defense of my lifestyle, because you seemed to be saying that you think I'm 427 00:34:07.079 --> 00:34:10.679 corrupting the youth. And so if I'm corrupt, then wouldn't you expect to 428 00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:16.280 see a corruption in my life? And he says, but none of you 429 00:34:16.280 --> 00:34:20.920 can actually point to anything corrupt in my life. I didn't do this for 430 00:34:21.039 --> 00:34:28.199 money, he says. I taught openly. I taught not for filthy gain 431 00:34:28.360 --> 00:34:32.039 and lucre. And he says, don't you think if I just was in 432 00:34:32.119 --> 00:34:37.840 it for the money, I would have become a politician. So even in 433 00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:39.960 two thousand, five hundred years ago in Athens, they knew to make fun 434 00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:47.199 of and laugh at the hypocrisy and corruption of politicians. And that's his principal 435 00:34:47.239 --> 00:34:52.400 example of a corrupt person. He says, Look, if I would really 436 00:34:52.400 --> 00:34:53.559 wanted to corrupt the youth. I would have become a politician. I could 437 00:34:53.599 --> 00:34:59.599 have done that. But did I do that? No? And he says, 438 00:34:59.639 --> 00:35:06.159 so I didn't corrupt your use by asking them questions. In fact, 439 00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:08.039 I didn't just go to the youth. He says, I went to all 440 00:35:08.119 --> 00:35:13.639 different strata people in society and I asked them questions. I cross examined them. 441 00:35:13.639 --> 00:35:17.320 I questioned their presuppositions. And that ended up making a lot of people 442 00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:22.119 mad. So I went to the politician, I went to the artists and 443 00:35:22.159 --> 00:35:27.840 the craftsman. I went to the musicians and those kinds of people. And 444 00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:31.800 the funny thing is socridy, says everybody who I asked, what is wisdom? 445 00:35:32.920 --> 00:35:36.519 What is you know? Justice? What are these things? What's the 446 00:35:36.559 --> 00:35:39.000 purpose of life? Etc? These philosophical questions, they all kind of just 447 00:35:39.239 --> 00:35:45.559 identified their own profession with it. Oh, well, wisdom is you know, 448 00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:47.920 doing politics? Oh, wisdom is being good at you know, ship 449 00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:54.440 building? Right? Oh, wisdom is you know whatever? And he said, 450 00:35:54.480 --> 00:35:58.920 you know, I would just ask a few rhetorical questions, that cross 451 00:35:58.960 --> 00:36:01.480 examination thing that we do as philosophers, And he said, I found that 452 00:36:01.559 --> 00:36:06.480 in most cases, the more questions I asked they just got mad and they 453 00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:08.880 couldn't really tell me what wisdom is. And he said, I don't see 454 00:36:08.920 --> 00:36:14.079 how I'm corrupt by seeking the truth. That's all I was doing. I 455 00:36:14.119 --> 00:36:16.559 was asking and wanting to know what truth is. And he says, I 456 00:36:16.599 --> 00:36:22.960 didn't assume that I knew what wisdom is. So he thought, so he 457 00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:27.920 says, why wouldn't I just go to people that probably how are wise and 458 00:36:28.079 --> 00:36:30.840 probably have more wisdom than me? And I didn't restrict it to one strata 459 00:36:30.920 --> 00:36:36.880 or ara of society. I went to everybody, and what do we find? 460 00:36:36.920 --> 00:36:39.559 Well, he of course says in the defense, that nobody seemed to 461 00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:42.840 know. So when I went to the oracle at Delphi, I went to 462 00:36:42.920 --> 00:36:49.400 this sort of religious mystical element, the oracle, and the oracle says, 463 00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:55.800 because you said that you didn't know Socrates, you are the wisest man in 464 00:36:55.840 --> 00:37:00.119 Athens. And he says, maybe that's what's made you all mad. Right, 465 00:37:00.159 --> 00:37:04.000 So they're kind of like probably a little jealous, right, I mean, 466 00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:07.480 we don't exactly know, but probably they're a little jealous, and probably 467 00:37:07.519 --> 00:37:12.960 they're mad because they didn't like being asked these difficult questions which they could not 468 00:37:13.039 --> 00:37:19.320 give a coherent answer to And so this method of questioning, this method of 469 00:37:19.400 --> 00:37:24.800 seeking a good account, is very important because as we get into Plato's works, 470 00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:29.480 Plato will be one of the first philosophers to raise the question of what 471 00:37:29.679 --> 00:37:34.800 counts as real knowledge. It can't just be opinion. It's got to be 472 00:37:34.840 --> 00:37:37.800 something more than that. And in saying that we need more than mere opinion 473 00:37:38.360 --> 00:37:44.000 to have true knowledge, we begin to ask the questions that are known as 474 00:37:44.119 --> 00:37:47.679 justification. Now that's not used at this time per se, but later on 475 00:37:47.800 --> 00:37:52.400 philosophy develops these branches in these terms, remember last time, under the domain 476 00:37:52.440 --> 00:37:58.079 of epistemology. In modern philosophy, especially after the Enlightenment, the question of 477 00:37:58.199 --> 00:38:02.840 justification for our epistom logical belief or commitments is going to be very important, 478 00:38:04.199 --> 00:38:08.519 but it's already anticipated in Plato. Plato will be the first to talk about 479 00:38:09.119 --> 00:38:15.599 justified true belief and what that entails in terms of giving an account or grounding 480 00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:22.000 for our beliefs. We'll also notice that here we have something unique to Western 481 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:25.079 thought, in Western philosophy, which is the rise of the individual. And 482 00:38:25.159 --> 00:38:29.880 some think mini thinkers actually have pointed this out. This is the idea that 483 00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:32.639 the individual is present here in a unique way that we may not have seen 484 00:38:32.760 --> 00:38:40.719 in other previous philosophical discussions and traditions. The individual here is is able, 485 00:38:42.199 --> 00:38:47.280 we see here to determine and come to truth in an objective way that is 486 00:38:47.400 --> 00:38:52.719 not determined by social consensus or by the court. Right. So, maybe 487 00:38:52.719 --> 00:38:57.599 prior to this most people would have thought, well, what's true is just 488 00:38:57.679 --> 00:39:02.800 simply what the authorities decide. If the court in Athens says that Socrates is 489 00:39:04.320 --> 00:39:06.960 guilty and a bad man, then it's got to be true, because they're 490 00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:10.480 the authorities, and who are we to go against the collective or whatever. 491 00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:15.599 Right. Well, here we have a notion that no, actually an individual 492 00:39:15.639 --> 00:39:20.039 can be right and everybody else wrong. That's one of the implications and one 493 00:39:20.039 --> 00:39:24.960 of the early notions of Western philosophy that will be unique and will characterize Western 494 00:39:24.960 --> 00:39:30.960 philosophy for minutes. Not in every philosopher, obviously, mal obviously Marx. 495 00:39:30.119 --> 00:39:34.840 Some of the philosophers will completely reject that idea or they don't like that idea. 496 00:39:36.519 --> 00:39:40.559 The philosopher questions, and he does not just go along with the collective 497 00:39:40.599 --> 00:39:45.320 or with the mob. Again, this is something important to Plato, the 498 00:39:45.320 --> 00:39:50.480 philosopher King the ideal philosopher, the ideal man, the just man is somebody 499 00:39:50.519 --> 00:39:58.119 who's committed to what's true and not just to pragmatic practical just get ahead. 500 00:39:58.159 --> 00:40:00.119 Oh, I'm just gonna go along with everybody. I mean, And let's 501 00:40:00.159 --> 00:40:04.079 think of an example where this was necessary. I mean, didn't quite a 502 00:40:04.119 --> 00:40:07.519 few people take the stabby in the last couple of years just to go along 503 00:40:07.599 --> 00:40:12.000 and get along. Well, we'll keep my job, so they're good. 504 00:40:12.039 --> 00:40:14.639 You stabby, he'll do something my dub. But I want to keep my 505 00:40:14.760 --> 00:40:15.519 job. Okay, Well, what's why are you gonna do? You gonna 506 00:40:15.559 --> 00:40:20.199 do your job when you're dead? Well more dub, But I want to 507 00:40:20.239 --> 00:40:22.639 lose my job. I mean, I'm not trying to be mean. I 508 00:40:22.679 --> 00:40:25.360 don't. I'm not hating on the people, but I'm saying this is illustrative 509 00:40:25.400 --> 00:40:30.960 because you know, if you had been into philosophy, you would have known, 510 00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:34.000 well, hey, well maybe I shouldn't just go along with what everybody 511 00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:39.159 else is doing. Right? Did Socrates just go along? Now? He 512 00:40:39.239 --> 00:40:45.320 didn't. Because whether we disagree with everything he taught or agree with everything you 513 00:40:45.400 --> 00:40:51.079 taught, the point is that here what he's doing is illustrative for us. 514 00:40:51.280 --> 00:40:55.599 The lesson here is that we should critically think, we should not live the 515 00:40:55.719 --> 00:41:04.280 unexamined life. And he's setting that example here by living and examined life and 516 00:41:04.360 --> 00:41:07.480 saying, oh, wait a minute, let's examine your accusations against me. 517 00:41:07.599 --> 00:41:12.159 You said I'm a corruptor of the youth, I'm an atheist teaching new gods. 518 00:41:12.440 --> 00:41:15.760 Those things don't make sense. Those are contradictions. If they're contradictions, 519 00:41:15.800 --> 00:41:22.079 then they can't be true. And I think what we're now some people might 520 00:41:22.119 --> 00:41:27.159 read this as an arrogant claim, right, because when he went to the 521 00:41:27.639 --> 00:41:30.960 oracle, the oracle says, you're the wisest man attens, right, because 522 00:41:31.039 --> 00:41:36.519 you didn't know, and you knew that you didn't know, so you were 523 00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:40.880 wise enough to try to ask and learn from everybody. And so I read 524 00:41:40.920 --> 00:41:46.559 this as a treatise against and critiquing humorists, because the politician, the artisan, 525 00:41:47.360 --> 00:41:55.079 the poets, the accusers in the courtroom, they're possessed with pride and 526 00:41:55.159 --> 00:42:00.000 humorists. And why is that Well, because they're not committed to what's true. 527 00:42:00.159 --> 00:42:04.960 They're simply out for their objective, for their ends. We've got to 528 00:42:04.960 --> 00:42:15.000 get this Socrates guy. You know, whatever it takes right, And so 529 00:42:15.079 --> 00:42:20.679 I read this as an attempted critique of Hubrists. The philosopher is the one 530 00:42:20.760 --> 00:42:24.599 that is truly humble. Why because he wants to be corrected, He wants 531 00:42:24.639 --> 00:42:28.679 to learn. He's the one saying, I don't know, teach me, 532 00:42:29.119 --> 00:42:32.639 hey, teach me hey, teach me right. He wants to be corrected, 533 00:42:34.400 --> 00:42:39.320 and that a continual process of wanting to be corrected in the dialogue, 534 00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:45.199 I think is what leads him to the attainment of truth. That's the point 535 00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:50.719 of the dialogue. Then he says and gives a defense. And this will 536 00:42:50.719 --> 00:42:54.079 get more and more controversial in terms of the readings that scholars have of both 537 00:42:54.800 --> 00:43:00.519 the apology and Socrates and Plato in terms of the theology. So another argument 538 00:43:00.559 --> 00:43:05.679 that Socrates makes is that you know, I wasn't commissioned to do all of 539 00:43:05.719 --> 00:43:09.480 this on my own. He appeals to a deity. The deity, he 540 00:43:09.519 --> 00:43:15.000 says, sent me to do this mission to teach philosophy to you people in 541 00:43:15.079 --> 00:43:21.239 Athens, and that is I'm impelled to do that by my damon. Now 542 00:43:21.280 --> 00:43:23.519 this doesn't mean a demon in the sense a Christian sense of a you know, 543 00:43:23.639 --> 00:43:28.679 malicious spirit that makes your head spin and you split up PCU. This 544 00:43:28.760 --> 00:43:32.199 is a damon in the sense of a higher guide, sort of a guardian 545 00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:36.960 entity. Amused, right, these are these are the ways that the Greeks 546 00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:40.559 viewed decided of damon. And he says, I have dreams and visions from 547 00:43:40.559 --> 00:43:45.039 a damon. Uh, that is a damon sent to me by God. 548 00:43:45.119 --> 00:43:51.440 And I've been commissioned to teach you people these things. That's his claim. 549 00:43:51.480 --> 00:43:54.280 So whenever you think of that, that's one of the claims of the defenses 550 00:43:54.480 --> 00:43:59.800 that he offers in his apologetic he also says, now, if you kill 551 00:44:00.119 --> 00:44:05.320 me and I am who I say I am, and I'm telling you the 552 00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:09.400 truth, it's worse for you, not for me. So you may think 553 00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:15.480 you're getting at me and you're taking me out, and you're this troublesome gadfly 554 00:44:15.719 --> 00:44:17.960 who is asking all these annoying questions will be gotten rid of. But this 555 00:44:19.039 --> 00:44:22.239 is going to be actually worse on your soul for doing this. And so 556 00:44:22.239 --> 00:44:27.519 Socrates notes that for the sake of philosophy and truth, he is willing to 557 00:44:27.559 --> 00:44:31.239 be a martyr. And this is because he he says, I thinking if 558 00:44:31.280 --> 00:44:34.719 iedo the other one of the other dialogues, he says, well, I 559 00:44:34.840 --> 00:44:38.239 have to be willing to accept the death, because if I don't willingly accept 560 00:44:38.280 --> 00:44:42.519 death without fear, then it kind of undermines all the philosophy that I've been 561 00:44:42.519 --> 00:44:45.199 teaching all these years, which is that we shouldn't have fear death. The 562 00:44:45.360 --> 00:44:49.519 righteous man, the just man right, And we'll see who the righteous just 563 00:44:49.679 --> 00:44:52.119 man is in Platonic philosophy in a minute. He should not fear death. 564 00:44:52.719 --> 00:44:57.679 And so Socrates has these buddies who are trying to convince him to run away. 565 00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:00.159 I will sneak you out of here. Come on, let's bring of 566 00:45:00.199 --> 00:45:02.639 jail like a you know, Ted Bundy. He says, I'm not breaking 567 00:45:02.679 --> 00:45:07.519 out. In fact, I'm willing to go to my death because it would 568 00:45:07.599 --> 00:45:10.679 undermine and would make me a hypocrite, because I've been saying all these years 569 00:45:10.719 --> 00:45:15.880 that the just man has nothing to fear in death, and even says stuff 570 00:45:15.920 --> 00:45:17.599 like why would I fear death? I get to go hang out with Homer 571 00:45:17.639 --> 00:45:22.519 and all these you know, cool poets and people. So it's like I'm 572 00:45:22.519 --> 00:45:24.559 happy that he's like, that would be cooler than hanging out with these you 573 00:45:24.599 --> 00:45:30.239 know, hubrist filled, boring ass Athenians are trying to get me. You 574 00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:37.159 know, put in jail or whatever. And Socrates sort of goes on to 575 00:45:37.199 --> 00:45:40.239 point out that, you know, my goal was just to help you guys 576 00:45:40.719 --> 00:45:47.320 think rightly and live rightly. That's supposed to be live right, not life 577 00:45:47.400 --> 00:45:51.239 right. But so in other words, again we see that for Plato, 578 00:45:51.320 --> 00:45:54.360 put On and philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics are intimately bound up together. 579 00:45:55.079 --> 00:46:00.599 You can't separate these their distinct things in terms of our considerations and the way 580 00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:04.960 that we live and do these things. But in philosophy these things cannot be 581 00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:08.159 divorced because we're again we're going to see, for example, the just man 582 00:46:09.719 --> 00:46:15.639 is the man who participates in the form of justice. And I forgot to 583 00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:21.239 put that term a texas etche x i s, which is important Greek term 584 00:46:21.480 --> 00:46:27.840 in Platonic philosophy for participation. So it's not just the forms, it's not 585 00:46:27.920 --> 00:46:31.880 just humans that participate in the forms. All of reality in this world is 586 00:46:31.920 --> 00:46:37.199 in a participatory relationship to the forms. The forms do not come into this 587 00:46:37.239 --> 00:46:42.039 world. We partake of that realm of the forms, but we are in 588 00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:45.760 a lower diminished status than the realm of the forms. We'll get to that 589 00:46:45.760 --> 00:46:49.400 in a minute. Truth is objective, is another thing we learn here. 590 00:46:49.440 --> 00:46:52.559 That's one of the points that the apology is that it's not a social construct. 591 00:46:52.760 --> 00:46:55.000 Right, what's true is not determined by the majority. Even if all 592 00:46:55.039 --> 00:47:01.280 the Athenians decide that what Socrity is teaching us false, it doesn't make it 593 00:47:01.320 --> 00:47:07.800 false. It may be false, but it doesn't make it false by some 594 00:47:07.880 --> 00:47:15.719 majority opinion. So truth is objective. Truth is not a social construct. 595 00:47:15.840 --> 00:47:22.400 It's discovered and it's also not the creation of the Athenian state. The state 596 00:47:22.440 --> 00:47:25.280 doesn't just get to make up truth right now in our days, right in 597 00:47:25.360 --> 00:47:29.320 our day, it's really no different, is it. I mean, the 598 00:47:29.400 --> 00:47:34.480 state believes that it can decide and determine truth. Right. Richard quotes the 599 00:47:34.559 --> 00:47:39.800 Richard the Karl Rove quote a lot. Right, we will say what's what 600 00:47:40.079 --> 00:47:44.440 is, and you will go in diligently study, and we will continue then 601 00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:47.039 to keep making history, and you will study what we do because it's what 602 00:47:47.079 --> 00:47:51.800 we make it and to be and what we say it is. That's the 603 00:47:51.880 --> 00:47:59.000 opposite of what Socrates is saying. Right clearly, and obviously too, it 604 00:47:59.039 --> 00:48:02.440 should be the case, it should be obvious that truth is not a social 605 00:48:02.480 --> 00:48:07.480 construct. Right, This is ridiculous I mean, just think about how and 606 00:48:07.519 --> 00:48:10.559 this is again something that we're going to see that you know, Plato rejects 607 00:48:10.599 --> 00:48:15.800 when he goes against the Sophists, where the Sophists are a kind of relativists, 608 00:48:16.199 --> 00:48:19.039 and they're gonna say, well, I mean, you know, truth 609 00:48:19.159 --> 00:48:22.599 is whatever anybody individually thinks it thinks it is. It's relative to every person. 610 00:48:24.119 --> 00:48:29.880 And for Plato this would be absurd. So you think that the laws 611 00:48:29.880 --> 00:48:32.920 of logic, the principles of geometry are just what anybody wants them to be, 612 00:48:34.920 --> 00:48:37.320 or they're just a social So if we all got together and decided in 613 00:48:37.360 --> 00:48:43.039 a social constructor that you know, the number seven is now the number ten 614 00:48:43.719 --> 00:48:45.239 like that, wouldn't it would actually change? I mean, you see how 615 00:48:45.239 --> 00:48:50.480 silly this is. Right, But there's quite a few people who believe this 616 00:48:51.719 --> 00:48:57.559 truth is relative truth and social construct whatever. And the state, by the 617 00:48:57.559 --> 00:49:00.039 way, the corporate state that we live in today, is more than happy 618 00:49:00.079 --> 00:49:04.800 to have people believing this, because that is a belief that enslaves you. 619 00:49:05.639 --> 00:49:07.760 If you can't come to truth, if you can't reason, you're not going 620 00:49:07.800 --> 00:49:10.599 to be able to reason about and figure out what's going on in the world. 621 00:49:10.639 --> 00:49:14.400 You're going to be a tool of the propaganda, and you're going to 622 00:49:14.480 --> 00:49:16.920 be that guy saying, well, good get to big Stein, so I 623 00:49:17.039 --> 00:49:22.920 can do my job even though I might dot right, that's illogical. Yeah 624 00:49:22.920 --> 00:49:28.440 I might die, Yeah, I might die a job. Or my favorite 625 00:49:28.440 --> 00:49:30.599 example of the last few years, this one. I'll never forget this one. 626 00:49:31.360 --> 00:49:43.159 Two thousand scientists sign a statement that the coronavirus doesn't affect Black Lives Matter 627 00:49:43.760 --> 00:49:52.360 demonstrations, but it does affect Trump rallies. This is the greatest example of 628 00:49:52.519 --> 00:50:01.119 like the most ridiculous magical thinking from so called scientists and propagandists, I mean, 629 00:50:01.559 --> 00:50:07.239 unbelievable, right, What better example of the absurdity of this magical thinking 630 00:50:07.239 --> 00:50:14.320 of so that that truth and science can be somehow a social construct, utter 631 00:50:14.360 --> 00:50:20.880 insanity. Next important dialogue we want to look at is the fiat um um. 632 00:50:20.960 --> 00:50:24.960 And I've chosen a couple of these just as selections, because there's many 633 00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:30.800 dialogues there's and there's many that are very important. Some of them are not 634 00:50:30.840 --> 00:50:35.000 so important. Ion is a funny one because they're he just has this brief 635 00:50:35.039 --> 00:50:38.679 dialogue with poets and musicians and he basically says, you guys are nuts, 636 00:50:39.400 --> 00:50:44.639 and he says, we're not going to have poets and musicians, you know, 637 00:50:45.320 --> 00:50:49.360 running wild in the republic. We're gonna shut you guys down, he 638 00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:52.000 says, because you guys inflame the passions, and if you let you guys 639 00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:55.599 go wild, you're going to destroy society. Now, I think that's a 640 00:50:55.599 --> 00:51:01.800 little ridiculous, you know, his idea, And it's also contradictory because I 641 00:51:01.880 --> 00:51:06.599 mean, here he's saying that he's guided by his dame on, but then 642 00:51:06.599 --> 00:51:12.199 he says that the poets and the musicians are possessed by the muse and so 643 00:51:12.440 --> 00:51:15.039 they're not you know, they don't listen to reason. So it's a little 644 00:51:15.039 --> 00:51:20.280 a little contradictory and hypocritical there on the part of Plato Socrates. But also 645 00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:25.239 at the same time, I mean, Plato himself is using poetics, using 646 00:51:25.639 --> 00:51:32.639 literary devices in his dialogues as he's saying that, oh, we're gonna censor 647 00:51:32.760 --> 00:51:38.599 the arts in the republic. So you see how this is again a little 648 00:51:38.719 --> 00:51:43.360 shaky ground here, a little contradictory. But well, we're gonna set that 649 00:51:43.360 --> 00:51:45.840 a cybermum. We're gonna look at the Pieto because it is one of the 650 00:51:45.840 --> 00:51:50.800 more important dialogues that's that's great to get into the metaphysics of Plato. And 651 00:51:50.880 --> 00:51:54.800 there's a few of these dialogues that are really important for the forms. So 652 00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:04.000 there is Parmenides, there's Sophist, there's Fiato, there is uh Meno. 653 00:52:04.159 --> 00:52:09.280 I think the or maybe I'm thinking of Phato. But these in the Republic 654 00:52:09.360 --> 00:52:15.800 and part of the Symposium really and the toma Us deal with the forms. 655 00:52:15.280 --> 00:52:19.199 So you want to get into Plato's forms doctrine, those are the of the 656 00:52:19.280 --> 00:52:22.719 dialogues that we want to be familiar with. Those are the ones that pretty 657 00:52:22.719 --> 00:52:27.920 consistently treat the doctrine of the forms. And that's why we're picking Fiato, 658 00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:31.440 because we're going to start again with the most difficult area, which is Plato's 659 00:52:31.480 --> 00:52:37.119 metaphysics. Now we don't have we in the in the Apology, we didn't 660 00:52:37.199 --> 00:52:40.320 have a lot of metaphysical stuff, And that's why it's typically an easier introduction 661 00:52:40.360 --> 00:52:45.320 to Platonic philosophy because there it's this you know, sort of I'm using entertaining 662 00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:52.719 read regarding his trial. But in these other dialogues, we're getting into other 663 00:52:52.800 --> 00:52:58.000 territory. It's gonna get difficult, it's gonna get more technical, it's gonna 664 00:52:58.039 --> 00:53:04.639 get more speculative, more abstract, and even though they're dialogues, they're still 665 00:53:04.760 --> 00:53:09.159 difficult. And I want to stress to everybody too that even plato experts, 666 00:53:09.800 --> 00:53:15.599 okay, struggle with areas of Plato. If you read the Coppleston text, 667 00:53:15.679 --> 00:53:20.920 there was that crazy page I don't know what's he's and Coppleston even says, 668 00:53:20.960 --> 00:53:23.119 I don't know what he means by this, Okay, So if you read 669 00:53:23.159 --> 00:53:30.159 pages one oh four, one oh five, there is this wild discussion of 670 00:53:30.639 --> 00:53:36.800 mathematical proofs for contingency and non being. I don't know. I don't know 671 00:53:36.800 --> 00:53:38.719 what that means. I mean, I think I understand what he's getting at. 672 00:53:39.840 --> 00:53:45.119 But even Coppleston says, you know, we'd have to ask some high 673 00:53:45.199 --> 00:53:49.360 level mathematicians or you know, people that are specialists in Plato to help us, 674 00:53:49.519 --> 00:53:52.920 because this is hard to understand, and there's a lot of areas of 675 00:53:52.920 --> 00:53:54.960 Plato that are hard to understand. There's a lot of areas in Aerosola they're 676 00:53:54.960 --> 00:53:59.679 gonna be hard to understand. And keep that in mind because even academics and 677 00:53:59.679 --> 00:54:06.960 school today struggle with understanding and grasping some of the arguments some of the texts 678 00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:12.760 and some of the mathematical postulations and claims doesn't mean they're not true. It 679 00:54:12.840 --> 00:54:15.400 just means that it's hard to understand at times what they mean. And in 680 00:54:15.519 --> 00:54:19.519 some of the other philosophers that we read, we're gonna we're gonna encounter hard 681 00:54:19.559 --> 00:54:24.800 parts. So what I'm saying is, don't get discouraged, because even though 682 00:54:24.840 --> 00:54:28.679 I put a lot of time into this, I've read a lot of Plato 683 00:54:28.760 --> 00:54:34.760 over the years, I'm not a Plato expert, and I still encounter difficult 684 00:54:34.800 --> 00:54:39.559 texts. So the Fieto is interested in some of these metaphysical questions, such 685 00:54:39.599 --> 00:54:45.760 as the immortality of the soul, and we have some arguments here which you 686 00:54:45.800 --> 00:54:47.639 know, we had seen in the Apology. He said, you know, 687 00:54:47.679 --> 00:54:52.800 I have these dreams and visions, and that's where this entity, this damon, 688 00:54:52.960 --> 00:54:54.519 speaks to me. And he says, you know, dreams and visions 689 00:54:54.559 --> 00:54:59.239 kind of suggest to me that the body is not all there is. There's 690 00:54:59.280 --> 00:55:02.800 also a soul, and I think that soul, because it's a higher form 691 00:55:02.840 --> 00:55:08.000 of reality he's saying, is immortal. And this leads him to the famous 692 00:55:08.599 --> 00:55:14.079 Platonic doctrine of the transmigration of souls or reincarnation. So he says to me, 693 00:55:14.119 --> 00:55:19.719 it looks like dreams teach us that there is a transmigration of the souls. 694 00:55:20.920 --> 00:55:23.639 There's more than just bottle existence, because whatever the dream realm is or 695 00:55:23.639 --> 00:55:28.159 wherever it is, it connects to some ideal realm or some formal realm, 696 00:55:28.760 --> 00:55:31.679 the noetic realm. Some Floster's letter call it the mental realm, the idea 697 00:55:31.719 --> 00:55:36.880 realm, and dreams seem to connect to that, and they show us then 698 00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:45.679 that there's a distinction between physical body and mind or soul. The Fieto is 699 00:55:45.719 --> 00:55:50.239 interesting and unique too, because we won't just get an obsession on, you 700 00:55:50.280 --> 00:55:52.800 know, like the Timaeus. Is this really wild discussion of the origin of 701 00:55:52.840 --> 00:55:59.800 the universe and how the universe is structure. The apology is about, you 702 00:55:59.800 --> 00:56:04.840 know, defending his positions as a philosopher and argument everybody, Okay, but 703 00:56:05.039 --> 00:56:10.800 this is interesting because I Pieto is an epistemological, metaphysical, and psychological dialogue 704 00:56:10.920 --> 00:56:19.320 explaining all of these views. In Plato slash Socrates, we have a mentioning 705 00:56:19.400 --> 00:56:25.360 of the positive in terms of religion, where there are positive approbations given to 706 00:56:25.639 --> 00:56:31.280 the Apollonian religion. The Appollonian religion is characterized by the priests of Apollo, 707 00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:37.400 who had devotion to the Son, and not just the physical son, but 708 00:56:37.440 --> 00:56:45.000 the physical son is symbolic of the intellectual son, which is the Logos, 709 00:56:45.519 --> 00:56:50.280 which is the One, the God, the monad, the divine mind. 710 00:56:50.960 --> 00:56:54.719 And so there's an approbation here, and later neo Platonists of the same view 711 00:56:55.159 --> 00:57:01.119 that you know, religion is an inherently bad religion teaches us that the Logos 712 00:57:01.159 --> 00:57:08.280 of the universe is kind of like of the spiritual mental realm, is analogous 713 00:57:08.320 --> 00:57:19.400 to the Son of the physical realm. So hence the Apollonian Sun religion is 714 00:57:19.440 --> 00:57:23.920 something that Socrates and Plato make use of, as well as later neo Platonists. 715 00:57:24.320 --> 00:57:29.039 And it's going to be very clear in the Republic. I mean, 716 00:57:29.079 --> 00:57:36.159 he's gonna basically say that the God is the One and is the light of 717 00:57:36.199 --> 00:57:40.599 the universe, and he or it because he doesn't really conceive of it as 718 00:57:40.639 --> 00:57:49.159 personal per se. This God force basically shines its rays into the created order, 719 00:57:49.199 --> 00:57:52.079 and these rays are kind of like the forms, and then that gives 720 00:57:52.159 --> 00:58:00.119 rise to the physical reality. This is not a docrine of creation, it's 721 00:58:00.119 --> 00:58:02.679 a doctione. More so, perhaps of emanation, so the difference being that 722 00:58:02.760 --> 00:58:07.239 creation, for example, if you're a Christian, Christian theology posits that God 723 00:58:07.280 --> 00:58:13.679 created the world at Exnlo out of nothing. No Greeks taught that. The 724 00:58:13.719 --> 00:58:17.159 Greek philosophers thought that the existence of the world in the play, in the 725 00:58:17.199 --> 00:58:24.679 Platonic and neo Platonic view is kind of a never ending eternal begetting or an 726 00:58:24.760 --> 00:58:30.800 eternal coming forth from the One, or an emanation from the One. In 727 00:58:30.840 --> 00:58:35.880 the Pieto, we learn that, as we said, poetry is kind of 728 00:58:35.960 --> 00:58:40.079 dumb, but it seems to be dumb because he's not good at it. 729 00:58:40.239 --> 00:58:44.079 He says, which is funny, And he says, and by the way, 730 00:58:44.159 --> 00:58:47.920 but philosophy is actually better than poetry, because philosophy is the universal art. 731 00:58:49.199 --> 00:58:51.639 It is more universal, and so therefore it is better. And so 732 00:58:51.800 --> 00:58:55.400 we see even in this argument about the premisee of philosophy over poetry, that 733 00:58:55.599 --> 00:59:00.639 universality, the more universal thing is, the higher it is on. Plato's 734 00:59:00.719 --> 00:59:06.760 hierarchy, and Plato's metaphysical view is a chain of being view, and it 735 00:59:06.920 --> 00:59:08.840 is a hierarchical chain of being view. We'll get to the chain of being 736 00:59:08.880 --> 00:59:15.679 in a little bit very important not just to Plato, Aristotle, and the 737 00:59:15.760 --> 00:59:19.159 Church Fathers, but into the Middle Ages as well. The chain of being 738 00:59:19.159 --> 00:59:23.320 will be crucial to the entire medieval world view, in paradigm, in philosophy. 739 00:59:27.159 --> 00:59:31.599 Just as we said there's a higher principle, hierarchically ordered metaphysical structure to 740 00:59:31.639 --> 00:59:37.199 the universe, there's also a higher order in man himself. The body is 741 00:59:37.320 --> 00:59:44.639 lower baser, it's subject to decay, flux, sickness, corruption, pain, 742 00:59:45.320 --> 00:59:53.000 attachment to vice, addiction, and the mind, for the reasoning, 743 00:59:53.840 --> 01:00:00.360 is better to a higher ontological status. Higher on this chain of being, 744 01:00:00.360 --> 01:00:04.639 we could say, because it reasons about, and perceives and talks about, 745 01:00:04.679 --> 01:00:09.880 thinks about, contemplates the eternal and variant forms of things. So this is 746 01:00:09.920 --> 01:00:15.360 where we get introduced to the forms doctrine. This is the fundamental metaphysical doctrine 747 01:00:15.360 --> 01:00:20.719 of Plato, and this is that everything that exists is it exists on the 748 01:00:20.719 --> 01:00:27.239 basis of some form, pattern, principle, or archetype, or exemplar, 749 01:00:27.599 --> 01:00:31.519 all words us used to mean the same thing that exists in the one or 750 01:00:31.559 --> 01:00:38.159 in the mind of the one. These forms are the true reality. They 751 01:00:38.199 --> 01:00:45.440 are truth proper, they're truly truth, and even they are kind of underneath 752 01:00:45.480 --> 01:00:50.760 the one, right, so you have the One, the God, the 753 01:00:50.880 --> 01:00:53.760 monad, the mind, whatever. All of these terms are used. Sometimes 754 01:00:53.800 --> 01:00:59.920 even uses weird terms like the captain. The Father is used at least one 755 01:01:00.119 --> 01:01:05.800 time by Plato. That's the god thing, and from the God thing come 756 01:01:05.920 --> 01:01:12.880 these many forms. And these many forms are the patterns, principles and archetypes 757 01:01:12.880 --> 01:01:19.280 behind the many particulars in our world. And that's all of the particulars. 758 01:01:19.320 --> 01:01:25.559 All differentia of our existence are patterned on these forms. So there's a form 759 01:01:25.599 --> 01:01:30.880 of every particular. But it's hierarchical because amongst the forms, they kind of 760 01:01:30.920 --> 01:01:37.039 point you up to higher level forms, and the higher level forms point you 761 01:01:37.119 --> 01:01:42.639 up to the one, which is the good, the beautiful, the God, 762 01:01:43.559 --> 01:01:47.400 the Light, etc. All in one. So you can begin to 763 01:01:47.400 --> 01:01:52.480 see how if you know anything about, you know, ancient medieval theology, 764 01:01:52.480 --> 01:01:58.199 a lot of this term the terminology will be used by Christian, Jewish and 765 01:01:58.400 --> 01:02:01.840 Muslim theologians. Now they for in their theological views that a lot of the 766 01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:08.159 terms are going to be used by a lot of these especially medieval philosophical and 767 01:02:08.159 --> 01:02:13.159 theological thinkers. Right when we get to Mimenides, if we talk about Mimenides, 768 01:02:13.199 --> 01:02:17.280 Aquinas and salm Scotus. Right, A lot of these terms of medieval 769 01:02:17.320 --> 01:02:23.920 philosophers and theologians are coming out of this tradition as well, this Greek tradition. 770 01:02:25.599 --> 01:02:29.239 All right, So the forms here we are, we're getting into the 771 01:02:29.280 --> 01:02:32.000 forms another thing that we should I don't. I don't know why I sucked 772 01:02:32.039 --> 01:02:35.119 us in there. I think I was just going through my notes. But 773 01:02:36.039 --> 01:02:42.880 this is important to remember too that there are differing disputes amongst the Platonists and 774 01:02:43.320 --> 01:02:49.280 historians of Greek philosophy or whatever, that what is the real Platonic tradition. 775 01:02:49.440 --> 01:02:53.679 And if we take the Timaeus at face value, we have this story that 776 01:02:53.880 --> 01:03:00.760 Solon, who was a statesman who knew Socrates, went to Egypt, and 777 01:03:00.800 --> 01:03:07.000 when he went to Egypt, he was taught the mysteries of Egypt by the 778 01:03:07.039 --> 01:03:12.440 priests of the Egyptian religion, and when he came back to Athens, he 779 01:03:12.519 --> 01:03:17.440 taught that to Socrates. Socrates taught that to Plato. So quite literally, 780 01:03:17.519 --> 01:03:23.679 in the Tomaus we have this claim, this perspective that the mysteries of Greek 781 01:03:23.719 --> 01:03:30.280 philosophy come from Egypt. Again, many debate this, Oh, that's not 782 01:03:30.280 --> 01:03:32.440 true. It's just a myth. I don't know, but that's what it 783 01:03:32.480 --> 01:03:37.639 says. Okay, so you can interpret that however you see fit. It 784 01:03:37.679 --> 01:03:43.280 does seem possible to me. It's very interesting. We do have throughout Plato's 785 01:03:43.360 --> 01:03:49.639 writings this tendency towards the mystical. We even have tendencies towards secret societies. 786 01:03:50.159 --> 01:03:54.719 So it is very possible that Solon really did go and learn and was initiated 787 01:03:54.760 --> 01:03:59.719 into the mysteries of Egypt. Now, let's not be crass and silly here, 788 01:04:00.159 --> 01:04:03.760 not equating that in a one to one correspondence with modern Freemasonry. Yes, 789 01:04:04.320 --> 01:04:09.039 modern Freemasons. If you read Albert Pike's Morals and Dogma, he will 790 01:04:09.079 --> 01:04:12.880 talk about Pythagoras, he'll talk about Plato, he'll talk about soccer, He'll 791 01:04:12.880 --> 01:04:15.920 talk about a lot of this stuff. But that does not mean that necessarily 792 01:04:15.960 --> 01:04:21.559 than therefore there is a direct continuity from ancient Egypt to sol On, to 793 01:04:21.760 --> 01:04:30.199 Plato to Albert Pike. Okay, that that does not follow. So philosophy, 794 01:04:30.239 --> 01:04:33.079 though, is a tradition. So this is something that's again controversial. 795 01:04:33.159 --> 01:04:38.679 It's it's it's it's fascinating because a lot of people pass over this if you 796 01:04:38.800 --> 01:04:44.239 if you, I've had many college classes on Plato grade classes that discuss this 797 01:04:44.280 --> 01:04:47.920 stuff. Do you know how many of those classes mentioned anything to do with 798 01:04:47.960 --> 01:04:56.679 the Tamaus or the Fieto. Absolutely zero. None. Now, if you 799 01:04:56.840 --> 01:05:01.599 were specializing in Plato, if you were doing a PhD study in Plato or 800 01:05:01.639 --> 01:05:08.320 writing your thesis on Plato, maybe then you would be exposed to the Pieto 801 01:05:08.519 --> 01:05:13.440 or what's in the Tamaus or whatever. But it just kind of amazes me 802 01:05:13.679 --> 01:05:16.760 that, you know, you got all these professors who again, in the 803 01:05:16.800 --> 01:05:20.239 academic setting, especially nowadays. I mean I was in a college twenty years 804 01:05:20.239 --> 01:05:25.639 ago, but nowadays it's way worse. I feel like the only reason that 805 01:05:25.679 --> 01:05:30.400 anybody is in philosophy classes and today's university setting is to become a purple haired 806 01:05:30.400 --> 01:05:33.519 social justice where you're a freak. I mean, that's all you're getting pretty 807 01:05:33.599 --> 01:05:40.239 much now, I think, in these crazy state universities. But I'm sure 808 01:05:40.239 --> 01:05:45.679 there's some private Catholic schools or something that if you did a PhD you might 809 01:05:45.280 --> 01:05:50.679 get into these really esoteric elements of Plato. But they're there, so whatever 810 01:05:50.719 --> 01:05:57.679 you make of them. And even Coppleston in the last section of the chapter 811 01:05:57.840 --> 01:06:02.039 on Plato's forms was very explicit. This is pages we'll get to this in 812 01:06:02.079 --> 01:06:06.719 a minute, pages one oh seven and eight. That Plato is very clearly 813 01:06:06.760 --> 01:06:14.400 still a mystical and theological teacher. There is this element very clearly throughout many 814 01:06:14.440 --> 01:06:17.360 of the dialogues, especially the ones to deal with the forms, and that 815 01:06:17.519 --> 01:06:24.880 is because possibly he is saying that this is a theological tradition that comes to 816 01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:30.920 us Greeks from Egypt. So philosophy here is a tradition. It is not 817 01:06:30.119 --> 01:06:36.480 merely speculative. But again we don't know whether you know, Let's say we 818 01:06:36.519 --> 01:06:41.039 went to Plato's academy back in the day that Plato was alive and walking around. 819 01:06:42.199 --> 01:06:46.159 Does this mean that literally Plato would have inducted us into a secret society 820 01:06:47.400 --> 01:06:51.800 or is this a teaching device and a symbolic thing in the dialogues and we 821 01:06:51.840 --> 01:06:57.480 would have just been sitting around and doing math problems. Nobody knows. So 822 01:06:57.519 --> 01:07:00.800 these are areas of speculation regardless. What we do know is that in Plato's 823 01:07:00.800 --> 01:07:08.199 philosophy he does adopt the Pagorian idea that the forms are numbers. The forms 824 01:07:08.239 --> 01:07:15.480 are principally mathematical because mathematics can describe everything. And because mathematics is invariant, 825 01:07:15.920 --> 01:07:20.639 it's abstract, it's unchanging, it's clearly higher than the here and the now. 826 01:07:21.199 --> 01:07:27.719 But everything that exists right is dimensions, right, planes, surfaces. 827 01:07:27.760 --> 01:07:31.079 That's all geometry and numbers. This is one book with four sides and right. 828 01:07:31.119 --> 01:07:38.360 So number goes into all of these things and helps explain and give form 829 01:07:38.440 --> 01:07:47.480 to order to anything. Form orders, matter, and the discovery of truth 830 01:07:47.880 --> 01:07:54.960 in Plato's system is strictly speaking, discovery of form, the forms, the 831 01:07:55.039 --> 01:08:01.559 ideal forms of everything. It is not primarily knowledge of sense data. This 832 01:08:01.639 --> 01:08:06.039 is the most important point here. Plato does not think that sense data is 833 01:08:06.079 --> 01:08:11.440 totally useless. He does not think that everything in their sense data experience is 834 01:08:11.480 --> 01:08:15.840 an illusion. But it is not the real reality. It is dream like, 835 01:08:16.399 --> 01:08:21.000 it is an imitation. It is a copy of the aetos. The 836 01:08:21.159 --> 01:08:30.359 ideas which are more real, have more being. They are truth, and 837 01:08:30.640 --> 01:08:38.600 they ground knowledge, not sense data particulars. Not this cup versus this cup, 838 01:08:39.439 --> 01:08:48.079 but the cup, the God cup, worship the God cup. I 839 01:08:48.479 --> 01:08:50.920 think, if you when we get to David Hume, I'm going from memory 840 01:08:50.920 --> 01:08:55.359 here. But he has this discussion where he kind of laughs at this this 841 01:08:55.479 --> 01:09:00.039 idea where he critiques the causal chain argument of like er Statle and Aquinas, 842 01:09:00.560 --> 01:09:05.119 and he talks about the great pumpkin. All right, and maybe this is 843 01:09:05.159 --> 01:09:09.960 something that you know, Charlie Brown is joking about, right, the great 844 01:09:10.000 --> 01:09:14.960 pumpkin. And you know, David he was making this argument that well, 845 01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:19.680 you wouldn't look from look at a pumpkin patch and think that because pumpkins come 846 01:09:19.680 --> 01:09:25.039 from other pumpkins pumpkins, that back in history there is the great pumpkin. 847 01:09:25.880 --> 01:09:30.079 And that might be a play on Plato as well, because Plato thinks, 848 01:09:30.479 --> 01:09:38.960 he really does think that the forms the ideas are self subsisting causes. The 849 01:09:39.119 --> 01:09:45.840 forms of the things that exist are self subsisting causes of the particular objects that 850 01:09:45.920 --> 01:09:53.039 we experience. So quite literally, there is a form of cup. It 851 01:09:53.119 --> 01:09:57.319 really exists. In fact, the form of cup is more real than these 852 01:09:57.359 --> 01:10:04.840 cups. These cups participate in the cup with a capital C, but these 853 01:10:04.920 --> 01:10:15.720 are not capital C cup. And yes, presumably in this idea, your 854 01:10:15.960 --> 01:10:19.079 jockstrap cup would also have a form. There would be a form of that 855 01:10:19.239 --> 01:10:25.760 cup. And we do have critiques where this does get a little odd. 856 01:10:25.880 --> 01:10:29.920 So is there the form of poop is there the form of penis? I 857 01:10:29.960 --> 01:10:32.560 mean, these are some of the criticisms the Ariosotle will give this idea that, 858 01:10:32.640 --> 01:10:34.960 well, so wait a minute, so everything has a form, to 859 01:10:35.039 --> 01:10:40.800 the forms have a form. This will be known as Arisotle's classic infinite regress 860 01:10:40.880 --> 01:10:45.319 critique of the form doctrine. The other a critique that Aersolo gives famously is 861 01:10:45.359 --> 01:10:51.119 that he says, quote, Plato separated form from object. But if you 862 01:10:51.199 --> 01:10:56.119 read Coppelson, you know that even Coppelson says that this isn't really fair to 863 01:10:56.159 --> 01:11:00.840 Plato because Plato didn't consider the realm of the forms completely separate. In fact, 864 01:11:00.920 --> 01:11:06.399 that doctrine of methexas m e t h xis in the Greek means participation. 865 01:11:08.520 --> 01:11:14.079 So it's not the forms that are like coming into our realm, it's 866 01:11:14.239 --> 01:11:19.039 our realm that is sort of grasping for and participating in that realm of the 867 01:11:19.159 --> 01:11:27.119 ideal forms, because that's more real. So what kind of a philosophy characterizes 868 01:11:27.199 --> 01:11:33.199 Plato and Plato's doctrine the forms? Idealism? Plato is an idealist par excellence. 869 01:11:34.800 --> 01:11:40.279 Many other philosophers will also be considered idealists. Hagel is an idealist. 870 01:11:41.119 --> 01:11:45.239 Hegel is influenced by Plato, but he's not identical to the system of Plato. 871 01:11:46.479 --> 01:11:49.359 But for example, one of the things that Hagel will try to solve 872 01:11:50.319 --> 01:11:58.960 in Plato's idealism is Plato's difficulty with change. Plato has a difficulty accounting for 873 01:12:00.319 --> 01:12:04.479 how flux occurs. Why is there flux and change? And why is there 874 01:12:04.520 --> 01:12:10.880 the many of objects? If the objects are ultimately geared towards and participate in 875 01:12:10.920 --> 01:12:13.800 the one, why do we have many at all? If the one is 876 01:12:13.840 --> 01:12:16.039 the good and it's self sufficient, etc. Then why do we even have 877 01:12:16.159 --> 01:12:20.479 the many? And if you read Coppelson, Coppelison pointed that out that this 878 01:12:20.600 --> 01:12:25.199 has never explained, and probably Plato didn't know right, so there were areas 879 01:12:25.239 --> 01:12:29.399 where he just couldn't deal with or solve these, probably consider them insoluble, 880 01:12:29.479 --> 01:12:33.119 or he thought maybe later philosophy people will solve it, And so you get 881 01:12:33.159 --> 01:12:39.159 people like Hegel who will try to, in his kind of Platonic process philosophy, 882 01:12:39.279 --> 01:12:45.680 give an account for change, thesis, sentenis, etc. The process 883 01:12:45.800 --> 01:12:48.279 of the world historical moving towards the Omega point. All of these are ways 884 01:12:48.359 --> 01:12:57.000 for Hegel to try to account for change. In his idealist philosophy. But 885 01:12:57.159 --> 01:13:00.760 note as well that we do not mean idealism in some colloquial sense, like 886 01:13:01.079 --> 01:13:05.479 a twenty year old who wants to convert everybody to Marxism. Okay, we're 887 01:13:05.479 --> 01:13:12.000 not talking about an idealistic youth. We're talking about a metaphysical doctrine that all 888 01:13:12.079 --> 01:13:19.399 that exists fundamentally or that truly exists or that really exists is idea. But 889 01:13:19.560 --> 01:13:23.960 we got to be fair to Plato that he's not saying that this world is 890 01:13:24.199 --> 01:13:30.039 not real or is a simulation. Dude, we lusimulation in that is a 891 01:13:30.279 --> 01:13:34.279 kind of bastardized version of Platonism. But that's not really Plato's view, right, 892 01:13:34.359 --> 01:13:38.560 I mean, he does talk about this world as if it's dreamlike, 893 01:13:39.319 --> 01:13:44.760 as if it is a pale imitation and copy of the real world. But 894 01:13:45.000 --> 01:13:50.920 clearly there is a premisee given to the hierarchy in the ideal realm to unity. 895 01:13:54.119 --> 01:13:58.800 So it's better to be ideal in the realm of the forms. It 896 01:13:59.039 --> 01:14:05.079 is better to be one than many. But why well, as Coppolison noted 897 01:14:05.159 --> 01:14:09.560 as well, we don't know that there's never really any answer as to why 898 01:14:10.520 --> 01:14:14.720 unity is superior to multiplicity, but it is assumed to be the case, 899 01:14:14.800 --> 01:14:16.840 and he would probably give arguments from numbers. Right, Well, all the 900 01:14:16.960 --> 01:14:21.800 numbers come from the number one, so one has some primacy and superiority to 901 01:14:23.079 --> 01:14:26.039 two, three, four, five, right, Because remember a lot of 902 01:14:26.079 --> 01:14:30.279 this will rely on mathematics. It is a mathe mysticism. It is, 903 01:14:30.359 --> 01:14:34.520 as a Coppolison called it, a form of pan mathematicism all his math, 904 01:14:35.279 --> 01:14:46.560 much like Pith Aggresson. Thus moving on to Intitus, numbers are discovered number 905 01:14:46.640 --> 01:14:51.199 and form, which the forms are versions of numbers in different numerical constructs. 906 01:14:53.520 --> 01:14:59.760 Number forms are discovered by reason, and particularly through this purification process that the 907 01:15:00.039 --> 01:15:04.079 loss for goes through, whereby over the years, as he gets older of 908 01:15:04.319 --> 01:15:09.680 doing philosophy, doing reason, and getting habituated to that, he is no 909 01:15:09.920 --> 01:15:14.920 longer enslaved to the bodies, to the passions, right, and so he's 910 01:15:15.039 --> 01:15:20.640 purified, perhaps a quasi ascetic endeavor, and then he's much more able to 911 01:15:23.119 --> 01:15:27.640 align his mind with the realm of the forms. And Plato will say that 912 01:15:27.760 --> 01:15:31.680 basically the same thing in the Republic, where he talks about something to the 913 01:15:31.760 --> 01:15:38.079 effect of, uh, you know, potential philosophy students in the Republic will 914 01:15:38.159 --> 01:15:42.760 be you know, basically doing math problems on a mountain for twenty years, 915 01:15:42.840 --> 01:15:47.720 and then they'll come back right and do civics. So so again, I 916 01:15:47.800 --> 01:15:50.680 mean, this sounds like on the one hand, it sounds reasonable. Well, 917 01:15:50.760 --> 01:15:53.600 yeah, it does make sense, So we want to, don't We 918 01:15:53.640 --> 01:15:56.880 want a mathematical or a logical guy running the city. But then it sounds 919 01:15:56.880 --> 01:16:00.479 like a nightmare because like the mathsburg who comes down from the city is going 920 01:16:00.520 --> 01:16:02.760 to be like Zuckerberg running every day. Everybody needs to be on a coumpine, 921 01:16:02.880 --> 01:16:11.399 right, That's what we're gonna get. Plato thinks that this he is 922 01:16:11.800 --> 01:16:15.560 at least partially resolving the one of the mini problem, and as we know 923 01:16:15.960 --> 01:16:19.680 in Coppleston, couples gives grants him that Okay, well, maybe in the 924 01:16:20.079 --> 01:16:25.279 domain of epistemology, he is solving the one of the mini problem with the 925 01:16:25.359 --> 01:16:30.720 doctrine of the forms, because we have many that share in commonalities essences or 926 01:16:30.880 --> 01:16:39.720 universals through the forms, and the particulars are the sensible objects that we you 927 01:16:39.800 --> 01:16:44.760 know, I'm sensing and touching and learning about this cup, and then I'm 928 01:16:44.800 --> 01:16:48.159 sensing and learning about this cup. These are sensible particulars, and they share 929 01:16:48.279 --> 01:16:54.239 a compness, which is an ideal essence or form common to both. And 930 01:16:54.439 --> 01:16:59.439 so they these objects share in multiple forms in Plato, and that will be 931 01:16:59.560 --> 01:17:02.119 something that Arisotle will completely disagree with. Arisotle will say, no, no, 932 01:17:02.520 --> 01:17:08.600 these two things they don't share in multiple forms. They can only have 933 01:17:09.119 --> 01:17:15.880 one common substance between them. That is a doctrine that Arisotle will reject in 934 01:17:15.960 --> 01:17:24.199 Plato. So the compass and grants that will perhaps just in the domain of 935 01:17:24.239 --> 01:17:29.319 epistemology, Plato has offered a step forward from the pre Socratics and a kind 936 01:17:29.399 --> 01:17:31.239 of solution to the problem of the one in the many, with the doctrine 937 01:17:31.279 --> 01:17:38.319 of the forms, with the doctrine of the divine ideas. However, metaphysically 938 01:17:39.000 --> 01:17:43.720 they're still problems and they're not solved. We don't ever get an explanation in 939 01:17:43.960 --> 01:17:48.199 Plato as to what's the real notion of this participation of our realm with that 940 01:17:48.359 --> 01:17:54.119 realm? Why do we have this realm? Why do we have the many? 941 01:17:54.279 --> 01:17:58.960 If the perfect monad one was self sufficient and perfect on its own. 942 01:18:00.039 --> 01:18:03.039 Of these kinds of questions ever get answered or solved, and clearly a complisent 943 01:18:03.159 --> 01:18:08.039 argued of you. If you guys read that he was struggling with these problems, 944 01:18:08.520 --> 01:18:12.079 his whole life knowledge then, according to Plato and the Faeto, cannot 945 01:18:12.119 --> 01:18:18.520 be identified with sense data, and so empiricism then is the opposite position to 946 01:18:18.640 --> 01:18:21.840 this, which is that all knowledge comes through sense data. All we know 947 01:18:23.039 --> 01:18:28.640 is the empirical sense data. Plato and Socrates would deride this. They would 948 01:18:28.720 --> 01:18:35.479 say, you are a low iq euratard because empirical sense data is only telling 949 01:18:35.520 --> 01:18:39.399 you about the realm of flux. And so if you think that's knowledge, 950 01:18:39.439 --> 01:18:42.479 you're an idiot. That's that's what he would say. Right, you are 951 01:18:42.560 --> 01:18:48.079 a sophist, You are not a good philosopher. The sense domain is in 952 01:18:48.279 --> 01:18:51.920 flux. How could that ever tell you truth? Right? And this is 953 01:18:51.960 --> 01:18:56.119 where we get these classic exam I don't know if you guys saw my debate 954 01:18:56.159 --> 01:18:58.920 with stuff on mol and you. I'm not dissing on stuff on or anything 955 01:18:59.000 --> 01:19:02.640 like that, but we had a debate where we sort of started kicked off 956 01:19:02.680 --> 01:19:06.640 the debate with this very question. I was making this argument which is in 957 01:19:06.680 --> 01:19:13.880 the Fieto, which is that you cannot identify the number seven with seven coconuts. 958 01:19:14.199 --> 01:19:16.560 And this is the argument in the fieto. Now they don't make the 959 01:19:16.640 --> 01:19:21.239 coconut argument, but that's the it's the same principle that's being argued in the 960 01:19:21.359 --> 01:19:26.359 fieto. So let's look a little bit more at the doctrine of the forms, 961 01:19:26.399 --> 01:19:30.239 and we have there as a diagram. Pythagoras is tech tractus, right, 962 01:19:30.319 --> 01:19:35.840 the ten point pyramid. Illuminate confirm. Look at that diers illuminate if 963 01:19:35.920 --> 01:19:40.279 he's good, the pyramid. Look at the words auci and I. Dude, 964 01:19:44.279 --> 01:19:48.720 it's just a geometry diagram. Dude, it's not illuminate confirm. But 965 01:19:49.159 --> 01:19:54.319 the Greeks talk about the Pythagoras talks about this attractus. And you'll notice there 966 01:19:55.319 --> 01:20:00.920 let me move you guys out of the way, and Mona the one in 967 01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:03.960 the top diad triad. And then of course, in Pythagoras is to attract 968 01:20:04.039 --> 01:20:11.279 us. He argues that the rest of the numbers also proceed from those prime 969 01:20:12.359 --> 01:20:15.359 those beginning principle one, two in three, right, everything else comes from 970 01:20:15.439 --> 01:20:19.239 that. And thus you can see that everything in reality is built up from 971 01:20:19.359 --> 01:20:26.439 these kinds of triads. And this is also applicable and useful, useful in 972 01:20:26.760 --> 01:20:30.399 Plato's doctrine the forms as well, because we want to be very precise here, 973 01:20:30.600 --> 01:20:34.520 not just on Plato's views of free will or whatever Plato's ontology. What 974 01:20:34.760 --> 01:20:40.079 is Plato's doctrine of being? Well, the forms are numbers. So again 975 01:20:40.199 --> 01:20:45.439 this is from Pythagoras. The forms are ideal in that they are not purely 976 01:20:45.640 --> 01:20:49.359 in the physical realm. They are not identified with physical things or physical objects 977 01:20:49.439 --> 01:20:56.439 or what he calls sense particulars. In fact, the forms exist transcendently as 978 01:20:56.800 --> 01:21:00.880 self subsisting causes of the world. Now again this does not mean creation in 979 01:21:01.039 --> 01:21:05.279 some biblical sense of creation x neilo. It just means that whatever exists and 980 01:21:05.359 --> 01:21:11.880 has being derives that existence and that being in a causal sense from the forms. 981 01:21:12.960 --> 01:21:18.439 The great cup in the sky causes all the cups to be. The 982 01:21:18.600 --> 01:21:27.119 world of objects participates a texas in et xis in this ideal world in some 983 01:21:28.119 --> 01:21:33.319 weird unitive way. But it is not a perfect unity, because we're still 984 01:21:33.560 --> 01:21:39.479 distanced from We're still lower on that pyramid, on that chain of being, 985 01:21:39.920 --> 01:21:45.479 which will see in a minute away from the God form at the top of 986 01:21:45.960 --> 01:21:53.000 the pyramid, at the top of the chain. And in the Neo Platonists, 987 01:21:53.000 --> 01:21:56.319 and I think probably in Plato two. You have this idea that all 988 01:21:56.399 --> 01:22:00.720 of the many that's down at the sort of the fractal body of this pyramid, 989 01:22:00.760 --> 01:22:03.159 which is think of it like a fractal that kind of like spins out 990 01:22:03.319 --> 01:22:10.479 from the one. All of those minis are trying to get back to the 991 01:22:10.560 --> 01:22:16.760 one. They want to be reunified with the one. And this is I 992 01:22:16.840 --> 01:22:20.600 think partly why, for example, Plato will say that, I think the 993 01:22:20.640 --> 01:22:26.319 phrase is soma sama. The body is a prison. The body, the 994 01:22:26.399 --> 01:22:30.960 physical body, it is a prison, and it is in the way of 995 01:22:31.119 --> 01:22:35.560 you getting back to the realm of the forms. So even though Plato is 996 01:22:35.600 --> 01:22:41.079 not a he doesn't hate the world. He's not a sort of a Hindu 997 01:22:41.960 --> 01:22:45.279 yogi who's like rolling around and shit to get away from the world, right 998 01:22:45.560 --> 01:22:51.720 and starving himself or whatever, there is still this idea that this world is 999 01:22:51.760 --> 01:22:56.199 sort of a prison. This world is a kind that's a prison, right, 1000 01:22:56.319 --> 01:23:02.079 this kind of The forms are transcendent, but they are not only transcendent, 1001 01:23:02.159 --> 01:23:05.479 which would cut us off from them. They are imminent in a lesser 1002 01:23:05.560 --> 01:23:13.359 way, because our realm is grasping and participating in some diminished way in the 1003 01:23:13.479 --> 01:23:17.680 forms. The forms are eternal and unchanging. They're not subject to time, 1004 01:23:17.920 --> 01:23:23.159 they're not subject to change, they're not subject to flux. And thus they 1005 01:23:23.199 --> 01:23:27.640 are in contrast to what character what are the key features and characteristics of time, 1006 01:23:27.800 --> 01:23:32.680 temporal existence, physicality, matter and the here and the now, solidity, 1007 01:23:32.760 --> 01:23:36.199 etc. The forms and Plato reconcile the one of the many, as 1008 01:23:36.239 --> 01:23:41.960 we just saw, and they become a ground for knowledge in an epistemic sense. 1009 01:23:42.520 --> 01:23:46.680 So again we just covered that true knowledge, knowledge specifically, is not 1010 01:23:46.880 --> 01:23:53.000 of material objects primarily, but of the forms. So remember, just as 1011 01:23:53.079 --> 01:23:58.800 we have light which enters our eye, that comes from the sun, and 1012 01:23:58.960 --> 01:24:02.439 this gives us knowledge of things. This is an allegory or an analogy that's 1013 01:24:02.520 --> 01:24:06.680 used by the Platonic philosophers, that the mind is that the eye of the 1014 01:24:06.840 --> 01:24:15.319 mind truly sees the essences of things, in the forms of things, and 1015 01:24:15.600 --> 01:24:24.600 thus they are ultimately moving in their mental movement towards the one, the son 1016 01:24:24.840 --> 01:24:29.399 or the logos of the mind, the universal mind, the universal reason. 1017 01:24:29.920 --> 01:24:35.319 Do you see this analogy here? In these two worlds, the one, 1018 01:24:35.840 --> 01:24:43.840 the highest form is beauty. So this reconciles his esthetics. Is the good, 1019 01:24:44.119 --> 01:24:49.279 which reconciles and unifies his metaphysics is the God. It is the ultimate 1020 01:24:49.399 --> 01:24:55.079 unifying principle. It is Father, and it is cause of the forms, 1021 01:24:55.319 --> 01:25:00.000 which are the cause and the structuring and ordering of our world. So again 1022 01:25:00.079 --> 01:25:05.479 do you see this, there's another triad Father, God calls beauty one. 1023 01:25:06.239 --> 01:25:14.560 This thing is the cause of the forms, forms, cause of our world. 1024 01:25:16.039 --> 01:25:20.920 So we've talked then about that is that's the essence. To be more 1025 01:25:21.000 --> 01:25:26.920 confusing with more philosophical term, that is the the locusts. That is the 1026 01:25:27.680 --> 01:25:33.159 primary things that we want to know about Plato's ontology. What about Plato's epistemology 1027 01:25:33.680 --> 01:25:39.399 is view of knowledge. Well, guess what it's intimately bound up with his 1028 01:25:39.880 --> 01:25:48.039 doctrine of ontology. This is doctrine of being. And we've talked about those 1029 01:25:48.079 --> 01:25:53.560 dialectics. That little diagram is just kind of illustrating that between being and non 1030 01:25:53.720 --> 01:25:58.840 being, there is becoming. And so these are in dialectical tension. The 1031 01:25:59.000 --> 01:26:03.760 things in our world which are subject to change becoming. They're striving to get 1032 01:26:03.840 --> 01:26:09.399 back to being proper, which is the realm of the forms. But we're 1033 01:26:09.439 --> 01:26:15.079 also kind of always teetering over into non being. Think about Marty McFly right 1034 01:26:15.159 --> 01:26:18.920 when he's uh, you know, they have the picture and Marty's disappearing, 1035 01:26:19.039 --> 01:26:21.720 right, Marty, Oh, Marty, Marty Right, He's going back into 1036 01:26:21.800 --> 01:26:29.600 non being in Plato's epistemology because it's intimately bound up with the ontology. We 1037 01:26:29.720 --> 01:26:32.880 need to understand that metaphysics first. For most of the ancient medieval philosophers, 1038 01:26:32.960 --> 01:26:39.279 guess what, metaphysics comes first. This is going to be a big departure 1039 01:26:39.319 --> 01:26:42.720 when we get to the Enlightenment, because the Enlightenment guys they flip it. 1040 01:26:43.279 --> 01:26:46.399 They say, you know what, all this metaphysical stuff that's secondary, if 1041 01:26:46.479 --> 01:26:49.399 even at all possible. In fact, we might not even do it. 1042 01:26:49.479 --> 01:26:53.720 David Hume says, throw out all this metaphysics gibberish. It's all garbage and 1043 01:26:53.720 --> 01:26:57.720 gibberish, committed to the flames. He says. They flip it, and 1044 01:26:57.920 --> 01:27:00.680 they say, first, you got to tell me about your pistemology and justify 1045 01:27:00.720 --> 01:27:05.520 your pistemology before you tell me any of this metaphysical jibberish gobbledegook. That's what 1046 01:27:05.640 --> 01:27:11.560 the Enlightenment guys will say. But for the ancient medieval guys it's the other 1047 01:27:11.640 --> 01:27:15.359 way around. No, no, no, no. Philosophy is essentially first 1048 01:27:15.399 --> 01:27:18.720 and foremost metaphysics. Then we can talk about epistemology, then we can talk 1049 01:27:18.720 --> 01:27:24.199 about psychology, then we talk about ethics and aesthetics or whatever. Knowledge must 1050 01:27:24.319 --> 01:27:28.520 be grounded. It cannot be mere opinion. This is a very important section 1051 01:27:28.600 --> 01:27:31.439 in the Republic where we have these discussions. It's in other dialogues as well 1052 01:27:31.479 --> 01:27:36.000 as to what counts us true knowledge? Well, in Plato and Socrates, 1053 01:27:36.119 --> 01:27:41.399 mind, it can't just be opinion. That's what the sofist said. Your 1054 01:27:41.439 --> 01:27:45.159 opinion, your opinion, man, We're all toil doing all knowledge merely opinions. 1055 01:27:45.359 --> 01:27:50.199 Dude. Everybody who's a relativist, guess what they have their analog in 1056 01:27:50.239 --> 01:27:55.960 the ancient world. The Sophist and Plato and Aristotle, as we said, 1057 01:27:56.560 --> 01:27:59.960 have quite a bit of debate with the sofists, and they think the sofist 1058 01:28:00.000 --> 01:28:06.479 are terrible. They they're destructive. They're caught in that bodily existence of the 1059 01:28:06.600 --> 01:28:13.520 here and the now. They're attached inordinately to matter and sense data, and 1060 01:28:13.640 --> 01:28:17.479 they can never rise above the sense data. Thus they are relativists. Just 1061 01:28:17.840 --> 01:28:23.279 like the flux of this world. All is change, all is flux. 1062 01:28:23.640 --> 01:28:27.479 They never get above it. And so if you identify knowledge with sense data. 1063 01:28:27.840 --> 01:28:30.239 Plato and Urso will say, your knowledge will not be grounded, it 1064 01:28:30.359 --> 01:28:35.680 will be like shifting sands, and these people cannot give an account for knowledge. 1065 01:28:35.720 --> 01:28:42.000 So here we have the first idea that will characterize epistemology and justification for 1066 01:28:42.079 --> 01:28:45.880 the next two thousand plus years of justified true belief. What it is to 1067 01:28:45.920 --> 01:28:50.800 give an account for our knowledge, and how it cannot be identified to or 1068 01:28:50.920 --> 01:28:57.159 reduced to in a reductionist way, to sensible particulars. Sensible particulars are not 1069 01:28:57.239 --> 01:29:02.199 true knowledge, and thus empiricism as a in other words, not just empirical 1070 01:29:02.319 --> 01:29:06.439 data because Plato. Of course Plato would not deny that you learn things through 1071 01:29:06.520 --> 01:29:10.800 sense data, but he says the knowledge that you learn through sense data is 1072 01:29:10.880 --> 01:29:15.399 intended to direct you to the higher levels of the forms. So we're not 1073 01:29:15.479 --> 01:29:19.720 saying that there's no such thing as empirical knowledge. It's just an empirical particular. 1074 01:29:20.159 --> 01:29:24.720 Knowledge of the sensible particulars is the lowest level of knowledge, so it 1075 01:29:24.840 --> 01:29:31.039 kind of corresponds to opinion. But you can through the rational process rise up 1076 01:29:31.119 --> 01:29:38.520 to the next level, which is knowledge of math and the universals, and 1077 01:29:38.680 --> 01:29:42.920 they point you to the knowledge of the forms and so in that way you're 1078 01:29:43.000 --> 01:29:47.680 moving upwards. Right. The intention is to constantly move up towards the forms, 1079 01:29:47.720 --> 01:29:53.319 and that will grant you a justified true belief and not mere opinion. 1080 01:29:53.920 --> 01:29:58.239 Opinions are like flux. They're unstable, they're tied to sense data. True 1081 01:29:58.319 --> 01:30:01.479 knowledge goes beyond the senses to the mind, seeing the form in a direct 1082 01:30:01.600 --> 01:30:05.880 sort of perceptive intuitive flash. I think he says something like that in the 1083 01:30:05.920 --> 01:30:10.680 Republic. He uses that language. And as we said already, the analogy 1084 01:30:10.800 --> 01:30:14.239 is to the sun and its rays coming up down to us giving our eyes 1085 01:30:14.279 --> 01:30:18.600 sight to the soul or the mind's eye, seeing the forms in an intellectual, 1086 01:30:18.840 --> 01:30:23.960 rational sense. Purification of the philosopher from the passions is what allows this 1087 01:30:24.119 --> 01:30:28.239 process, and that's why you have to learn about a math. Opinion must 1088 01:30:28.640 --> 01:30:33.560 move from no grounding to being grounded in a knowledge of the forms. Plato's 1089 01:30:33.600 --> 01:30:40.720 ethic will also flow from the metaphysic and from the epistemology. Who is the 1090 01:30:40.800 --> 01:30:44.479 just man? What is justice? As we said, those are going to 1091 01:30:44.479 --> 01:30:46.439 be questions that we came up with earlier from Plato. Well, the just 1092 01:30:46.680 --> 01:30:53.239 man is the rational philosopher who ponders. There, you see the meme. 1093 01:30:53.520 --> 01:30:57.520 I like that meme of pondering my orb. If you're if you're a fan 1094 01:30:57.560 --> 01:31:00.039 of memes, and I'm sure you've seen that. There you go, right, 1095 01:31:00.439 --> 01:31:06.760 Plato's ethic is the meme pondering man who ponders his orb right and right. 1096 01:31:06.840 --> 01:31:11.239 So you got to look into that, uh that Palatier ball there and 1097 01:31:11.319 --> 01:31:14.399 stare at it for a long time before you I'm joking at me, silly, 1098 01:31:14.439 --> 01:31:17.760 But the just man is the rational philosopher who doesn't just ponder, but 1099 01:31:17.880 --> 01:31:26.279 ponders rightly right towards the forms. Um, there's no surprise that these philosophers 1100 01:31:26.359 --> 01:31:30.319 think that the best and most just man is a philosopher. And so who 1101 01:31:30.319 --> 01:31:33.439 should who should run society? Well? Philosophers shit, right, I mean 1102 01:31:34.000 --> 01:31:36.840 obviously who else are going to be? All right? I mean we're the 1103 01:31:36.960 --> 01:31:41.279 best thinkers. Don't you want us philosopher kings running shit? Well, of 1104 01:31:41.359 --> 01:31:44.000 course you do. Now I'm being kind of silly, but I mean this 1105 01:31:44.159 --> 01:31:48.159 is really essentially what the teaching is. Well, why would we want philosophers? 1106 01:31:48.199 --> 01:31:50.399 I mean, these guys, these guys are annoying, their nerdy, 1107 01:31:50.640 --> 01:31:54.000 you know, they spurk out. Why do we want them running shit? 1108 01:31:54.279 --> 01:31:57.680 Right? Don't we want Joe Biden and running? So I wouldn't we want 1109 01:31:57.760 --> 01:32:00.319 Judge don Trump running things? Or don't we want I don't know? Why 1110 01:32:00.359 --> 01:32:05.560 do we want philosopher kings? Well, in Plato and Socrates, the philosopher 1111 01:32:05.680 --> 01:32:10.960 king is the most rational. And so if reasoning is the higher faculty in 1112 01:32:11.079 --> 01:32:15.720 man, above the body and even above the heart, right heart might correspond 1113 01:32:15.800 --> 01:32:20.720 to courage and valor, body corresponds to physicality and movement, but higher than 1114 01:32:20.800 --> 01:32:27.000 both of those is the rational faculty. And what did we see was the 1115 01:32:27.079 --> 01:32:31.000 definition of the philosopher, the man who lives the examined life, the man 1116 01:32:31.039 --> 01:32:35.439 who seeks wisdom. The unexamined life is not worth living. So clearly you 1117 01:32:35.600 --> 01:32:41.159 want a philosopher king ruling, because the philosopher is the one who's closest to 1118 01:32:41.279 --> 01:32:45.960 the realm of the forms, because he's governed by reason. And to be 1119 01:32:45.239 --> 01:32:51.880 just is to participate in the form of justice. And who does that better 1120 01:32:51.920 --> 01:32:58.640 than a philosopher who sits around and ponders his orb, who ponders the justice 1121 01:32:58.760 --> 01:33:05.680 orb. The just man is just because of his purification process that he's gone 1122 01:33:05.720 --> 01:33:09.479 through. In terms of Ian, we're talking about the philosopher here the just 1123 01:33:09.680 --> 01:33:12.760 philosopher man, not just the just man. But for any man who is 1124 01:33:12.880 --> 01:33:15.479 just, who may not be a strict well, I don't really know if 1125 01:33:15.520 --> 01:33:17.560 that's even possible. But for a man who is not so much philosophical, 1126 01:33:17.680 --> 01:33:21.680 we'll say he's a just man. He at least has some degree of participation 1127 01:33:21.760 --> 01:33:26.479 in the form of justice. I think is what Plato Ariosola was a Plato's 1128 01:33:26.520 --> 01:33:30.359 argive to say. The body is, as we said, characterized by the 1129 01:33:30.399 --> 01:33:33.439 passions and must be controlled by reason. And so this is not just for 1130 01:33:33.520 --> 01:33:36.439 the philosopher king, but for everybody. This is what everyone needs to strive 1131 01:33:36.520 --> 01:33:41.680 for. This is how we get just a just society and justice in society. 1132 01:33:43.039 --> 01:33:46.439 Since data empiricists are bound by the passions, and thus our sophists have 1133 01:33:46.640 --> 01:33:50.319 their opinion, and so they're not fit to rule. We'll notice if you 1134 01:33:50.439 --> 01:33:55.079 read the Republic there are several areas where argumentation is given that, look, 1135 01:33:55.159 --> 01:33:59.840 not everybody is fit to rule. Some people are fit to be balms, 1136 01:34:00.600 --> 01:34:05.359 okay, some people are fit to be janitors, some people some people are 1137 01:34:05.399 --> 01:34:10.600 not the philosophers, they're not fit. They're not bred to these things. 1138 01:34:10.960 --> 01:34:15.920 And guess what guess what that leads to. In both Plato and Aristotle, 1139 01:34:15.319 --> 01:34:19.800 absolutely they are eugenesis. They believe that there is a kind of breeding in 1140 01:34:20.279 --> 01:34:26.359 uh um. I'm trying to remember. Ariosol has a specific term where he 1141 01:34:26.960 --> 01:34:30.279 may just be bred. But you know, he talks about people bred to 1142 01:34:30.439 --> 01:34:34.159 be noble, bred to be statesman, bred to be to lead the Polish, 1143 01:34:35.119 --> 01:34:39.760 and I don't think he thinks it's completely biological, but he doesn't think 1144 01:34:39.840 --> 01:34:45.960 it's separable from biology and upbringing. And I think Plato thinks something probably pretty 1145 01:34:46.000 --> 01:34:49.199 close to that as well, because he does, if I recall, have 1146 01:34:49.359 --> 01:34:53.000 this discussion in the Republic that look, you know, some people are just 1147 01:34:53.000 --> 01:34:56.600 gonna be bombs, some people are gonna be janitors. Uh. Some people 1148 01:34:56.720 --> 01:35:02.079 are fitted to be in the second tier society, the guardians aka the warriors, 1149 01:35:03.279 --> 01:35:06.319 and then some people are more fitted beyond that to be the philosopher kings. 1150 01:35:08.319 --> 01:35:15.199 So know your place. I don't think that Plato's ideal republic is I 1151 01:35:15.279 --> 01:35:17.039 mean, it is a kind of a strict kind of tier, but he 1152 01:35:17.159 --> 01:35:23.359 does discuss the possibility of you know, people being promoted to a tier like 1153 01:35:23.520 --> 01:35:29.039 the guardian class is recruited right and raised in that way to be the guardian 1154 01:35:29.119 --> 01:35:32.000 soldier class, for example, and you might have somebody recruited out those into 1155 01:35:32.079 --> 01:35:35.720 something higher. I mean the philosopher king. You know, he may come 1156 01:35:35.760 --> 01:35:39.800 out of one of those classes, or he may just be raised and bred 1157 01:35:39.880 --> 01:35:45.840 from birth to be a philosopher. Right, But it is a fairly strict 1158 01:35:46.199 --> 01:35:53.479 strata caste society. I guess you could say when we get to the republic 1159 01:35:53.520 --> 01:35:58.560 in a minute. Thus, laws in a society, justice in a society, 1160 01:35:58.760 --> 01:36:01.600 order in a society must be based on the forms. If you're going 1161 01:36:01.640 --> 01:36:08.199 to have laws or justice at all. Thus you have to have philosophers running 1162 01:36:08.279 --> 01:36:12.920 society. Now, there's a little bit of a dispute and a debate between 1163 01:36:14.119 --> 01:36:18.880 Plato's Republic and what we get later in Plato's Laws in the Symposium, there's 1164 01:36:18.920 --> 01:36:24.159 some weird changes where he comes with this idea of the Council of Night, 1165 01:36:24.880 --> 01:36:29.800 which is weird. So maybe he doesn't think that society needs to be run 1166 01:36:29.920 --> 01:36:32.319 by one philosopher king. Maybe we get more of a counsel. I mean, 1167 01:36:32.920 --> 01:36:34.880 uh, well, that's a different topic. We're not going to go 1168 01:36:34.960 --> 01:36:41.039 into the symposium and the laws. But um, for our intensive I mean, 1169 01:36:41.079 --> 01:36:43.680 for our intents and purposes. I mean, the republic is what influences 1170 01:36:43.720 --> 01:36:46.439 everybody anyway, right, I mean, for example, communist dictatorships, all 1171 01:36:46.479 --> 01:36:50.840 the all the Marxists and communists, they don't look to the Symposium, they 1172 01:36:50.840 --> 01:36:55.279 don't look they look to Plato's Republic. Okay, so the Republic will be 1173 01:36:55.479 --> 01:37:01.680 very influential, not just on Marxists and communists, but also on Enlightenment thinkers 1174 01:37:01.720 --> 01:37:10.680 who want to have a republic. Enlightenment revolutionary republicanism looks to Plato. Fascist 1175 01:37:10.840 --> 01:37:16.800 dictators look to Plato. Imperial philosophy, and various empires will look to Plato. 1176 01:37:18.439 --> 01:37:25.359 Marxist communists will look to Plato. What is the USSR, the Union 1177 01:37:25.399 --> 01:37:31.119 of Soviet Socialist Republics, They will also look to Plato. So any system 1178 01:37:31.279 --> 01:37:39.520 of state governance that is intended to be ideal, clearly will necessarily have some 1179 01:37:40.079 --> 01:37:47.359 relation to public two Plato's Republic. All right, let's go to the Republic. 1180 01:37:48.119 --> 01:37:51.039 Now, The Republic is a very difficult book. If we want to 1181 01:37:51.079 --> 01:37:55.119 go into a lot of specifics, we can. I do have my copy 1182 01:37:55.239 --> 01:37:58.079 here. I've lectured, as we said, through it. I know it 1183 01:37:58.199 --> 01:38:00.800 pretty well. I'm not an expert in the Republic. Look again, it's 1184 01:38:00.880 --> 01:38:04.680 very difficult. There's there's areas that people are still debating, like magic rings. 1185 01:38:05.399 --> 01:38:09.960 I'm not joking, like we get these stories about it's it's a it's 1186 01:38:10.000 --> 01:38:14.319 a teaching device. Okay. I don't think Plato literally is saying that there's 1187 01:38:14.359 --> 01:38:17.520 a ring that makes you invisible. But we do have a magic ring that 1188 01:38:17.600 --> 01:38:21.319 makes you invisible, and it's there in this story, I think, to 1189 01:38:21.640 --> 01:38:25.640 teach about virtue, right, Like, well, let's hear here's a story 1190 01:38:25.680 --> 01:38:28.199 about a guy who has a magic ring, and well, what would you 1191 01:38:28.279 --> 01:38:30.880 do if you had a ring that made you invisible? Well, a lot 1192 01:38:30.920 --> 01:38:34.399 of people would abuse that power. And quite a few people have said, 1193 01:38:35.119 --> 01:38:41.159 yeah, Tolkien was clearly influenced by this story, and yeah, I think 1194 01:38:41.199 --> 01:38:45.680 that's probably the case. But we're not primarily concerned with the one ring. 1195 01:38:45.800 --> 01:38:50.560 And mister Frodos, so don't worry about that. Who's got the ring? 1196 01:38:50.840 --> 01:39:00.399 He's So the republic is more or they've taken the Hubbut to the republic, 1197 01:39:00.960 --> 01:39:08.039 as my legalist, their um the ideal city. What is the ideal city? 1198 01:39:08.239 --> 01:39:12.000 How should the ideal city, the republic be governed and ruled? How 1199 01:39:12.039 --> 01:39:15.520 do we structure a city, what's the right way to do it? So 1200 01:39:15.720 --> 01:39:19.800 Plato is our first city planner. It's if you've the nightmare of city planners, 1201 01:39:19.920 --> 01:39:23.439 right, well, Plato is the first city planner. He said, 1202 01:39:23.439 --> 01:39:26.000 I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you how to plan the ideal city. Now, 1203 01:39:26.319 --> 01:39:29.520 the ideal city, as we said the forums all right there, So this 1204 01:39:29.720 --> 01:39:33.119 is the form of a city. Plato doesn't think that you're in this world 1205 01:39:33.159 --> 01:39:35.720 ever gonna get the perfect city. Okay, I don't. I don't think 1206 01:39:35.760 --> 01:39:39.640 he thinks that. So I think he's, you know, he knows enough 1207 01:39:39.640 --> 01:39:43.399 about human nature to know that, yeah, okay, humans are always going 1208 01:39:43.439 --> 01:39:45.159 to be, you know, messing up, and you're gonna get corruption, 1209 01:39:45.319 --> 01:39:49.119 and so you're never gonna have this. But this is what we want to 1210 01:39:49.119 --> 01:39:55.840 shoot for. And the idol city is kind of like there's gonna be a 1211 01:39:55.880 --> 01:40:00.119 lot of triadic models, triads right that that are that are gonna pau up 1212 01:40:00.680 --> 01:40:04.399 kind of like three medals, right, Copper, silver, gold. Everybody 1213 01:40:04.439 --> 01:40:09.880 agrees that there's a you know, levels to this. Copper's good, but 1214 01:40:10.239 --> 01:40:15.720 silver's battle better and gold's the best. Likewise, the city is kind of 1215 01:40:15.800 --> 01:40:21.199 like a big man. The city itself is a collective guy. It's like 1216 01:40:21.279 --> 01:40:26.840 a big body of a macrocosm. Sometimes in Greek philosophy this is called the 1217 01:40:26.920 --> 01:40:32.279 macro prosipis. This will pop up in other philosophers as well. And Plato 1218 01:40:32.319 --> 01:40:35.800 says, think about it like a man, and the whole city has to 1219 01:40:35.880 --> 01:40:42.359 kind of be governed like a good just man governs himself. And if a 1220 01:40:42.840 --> 01:40:45.640 good just man can't govern himself, well he sure as heck can't govern a 1221 01:40:45.720 --> 01:40:50.279 city. And if we you know, what would Plato say about you know 1222 01:40:50.439 --> 01:40:55.319 Biden, these people, Well they're corrupt and you know they're not good governors, 1223 01:40:55.680 --> 01:40:59.640 right, He would say that, you know, these are primary examples 1224 01:40:59.640 --> 01:41:05.079 of people because they're enslaved to their passions in various ways. And Plato's answer, 1225 01:41:05.119 --> 01:41:11.119 of course is reasoning and logic and mathematics. If Joe Biden had just 1226 01:41:11.279 --> 01:41:15.680 done his time stables and he'd had just gone further into mathematics, he would 1227 01:41:15.680 --> 01:41:18.880 have been a great president. I'm joking, but I mean this is I 1228 01:41:18.960 --> 01:41:24.479 think, you know, along the words of what Plato would say. So 1229 01:41:24.640 --> 01:41:28.800 the ideal city is not just likened to either of these three three tiers of 1230 01:41:28.920 --> 01:41:32.199 metals or the metallurgical analogy which is very famous from their public It's also kind 1231 01:41:32.199 --> 01:41:36.840 of like the three elements of a person. Humans human beings are kind of 1232 01:41:36.880 --> 01:41:42.920 tripartite in Plato's vow. And that's because we have a body, right, 1233 01:41:45.159 --> 01:41:46.640 a boom doing I don't know what I'm doing, but this is the body, 1234 01:41:46.680 --> 01:41:49.720 if you didn't know. And then we have our heart, which is 1235 01:41:49.800 --> 01:41:55.680 a little better than the body, and that might correspond to courage, valor 1236 01:41:56.439 --> 01:42:01.119 bravery. And then there's an even higher faculty above that which is up here, 1237 01:42:01.760 --> 01:42:05.159 which is reason. So I think we have this three tiered structure. 1238 01:42:05.199 --> 01:42:08.760 And Plato says, you know what, society maybe should be structured like a 1239 01:42:08.880 --> 01:42:13.399 dude, because it's like basically like a big guy. And the head of 1240 01:42:13.520 --> 01:42:16.039 society. I wonder who that's gonna be. Well, that's gonna be the 1241 01:42:16.079 --> 01:42:20.920 philosopher king, because he's closer to the realm of the forms. Because he's 1242 01:42:20.960 --> 01:42:24.640 closer to the realm of the forms, he participates in a greater sense in 1243 01:42:24.680 --> 01:42:29.399 the forms, and he's going to be there for more just because he's closer 1244 01:42:29.479 --> 01:42:32.840 to the form of justice and to mathematics and to consistent logical reason, and 1245 01:42:33.079 --> 01:42:43.000 he'll be able to govern the body of society like a reasoned man governs his 1246 01:42:43.159 --> 01:42:46.800 passions as an individual. But he says, we're going to have this second 1247 01:42:46.840 --> 01:42:50.720 class of society who performs a specific function and are bred and fitted to do 1248 01:42:50.840 --> 01:42:57.600 that. That is these these guardians. The guardians correspond to the heart, 1249 01:42:58.119 --> 01:43:01.960 the second tier, and they are brave, their warriors, their soldiers. 1250 01:43:02.479 --> 01:43:08.399 And it gets even weirder their men and women, So women on the front 1251 01:43:08.439 --> 01:43:12.039 line. Plato who wants his women on the front line, But only the 1252 01:43:12.119 --> 01:43:16.880 guardian women. Only the badass amazonian you know, Scarlett Johansson him kay, 1253 01:43:16.920 --> 01:43:23.840 ultra assassin chicks. Right. They're bred for this guardian role, just as 1254 01:43:23.960 --> 01:43:27.239 men in the guardian role are. And it gets even weird. Or guess 1255 01:43:27.279 --> 01:43:32.319 what, they share all things in common, including each other. So no 1256 01:43:32.680 --> 01:43:40.840 husbands and no wives. The guardian class pumps whoever they want. Now, 1257 01:43:41.000 --> 01:43:45.000 the guardian class can't go totally crazy with this because they have to in some 1258 01:43:45.199 --> 01:43:48.760 way be a little better than the proles and the working class. They can't 1259 01:43:48.920 --> 01:43:54.079 be completely controlled by their passions. But we got to have a little more 1260 01:43:54.119 --> 01:43:58.479 of that going on with the guardian class. And so because they're bred for 1261 01:43:58.800 --> 01:44:09.439 war and for policing and for you know, being soldiers. We're not going 1262 01:44:09.520 --> 01:44:15.760 to have them tied down to the things that the working class, the body 1263 01:44:15.920 --> 01:44:18.720 of the society is going to be tied down too. So you have the 1264 01:44:19.119 --> 01:44:27.640 introduction of both a feminist idea and an egalitarian idea and a communist idea with 1265 01:44:27.920 --> 01:44:33.199 the guardian class. And then that lowest tier of the pyramid is the workers. 1266 01:44:33.880 --> 01:44:39.720 In Plato's system, the workers correspond to the body that is the lowest 1267 01:44:39.880 --> 01:44:45.520 tier of this hierarchy here of this pyramid. And this is you got to 1268 01:44:45.560 --> 01:44:47.720 have these people, right, We gotta have a bunch of low iq dumb 1269 01:44:47.760 --> 01:44:50.680 workers out there. And in Plato's view, yes, they have to have 1270 01:44:51.039 --> 01:44:58.039 their population controlled, they have to be eugenically regimented. We have to know 1271 01:44:58.199 --> 01:45:00.800 you can't breathe with that dude, You're gonna breathe this guy. So all 1272 01:45:00.840 --> 01:45:05.760 of these, again sort of communist technocratic ideas, they find their route here 1273 01:45:05.800 --> 01:45:11.479 in Plato's republic. Now, I think for Plato's vantage point, um, 1274 01:45:12.560 --> 01:45:17.800 he's not intentionally trying to create a dystopia. I think he really thinks that 1275 01:45:17.960 --> 01:45:23.399 this is going to be the best way to run society. But but you 1276 01:45:23.479 --> 01:45:27.520 know, good intentions can do That doesn't mean that necessarily, I mean, 1277 01:45:27.560 --> 01:45:30.600 this can lead to hellish things, right, So just because he has good 1278 01:45:30.640 --> 01:45:35.119 intentions, right, but I think that trying to have the best understanding of 1279 01:45:35.239 --> 01:45:40.399 Plato in his system as we can. And remember when we started this all 1280 01:45:40.920 --> 01:45:45.239 this lecture or yesterday last week's lecture, we said, we want to try 1281 01:45:45.279 --> 01:45:50.680 to grant to somebody as much as we can to understand their system. So 1282 01:45:50.760 --> 01:45:55.399 as much as we might be angry about the eugenics and the population control, 1283 01:45:55.520 --> 01:45:59.199 which I don't believe in, um, we want to understand his system and 1284 01:45:59.279 --> 01:46:00.920 why he thinks that. So just keep that in mind, so don't get 1285 01:46:00.920 --> 01:46:09.039 triggered by the fact that he's a eugenesis. There's some other interesting elements that 1286 01:46:09.119 --> 01:46:12.560 we don't have time to I'm getting ahead of myself. So it's so, 1287 01:46:13.000 --> 01:46:17.079 as we said, the Republic is structured in a three tiered way, in 1288 01:46:17.199 --> 01:46:21.840 a triad, like a man is structured and like metals are structured in a 1289 01:46:21.920 --> 01:46:28.039 three tiered way. And as we said, the universe itself is kind of 1290 01:46:28.119 --> 01:46:30.960 also a perhaps a three tiered structure, where we have this world, this 1291 01:46:31.119 --> 01:46:35.159 realm, we have the realm of the forms and then we have the one 1292 01:46:35.560 --> 01:46:41.079 at the top of that, the god, the monad, the father or 1293 01:46:41.159 --> 01:46:46.119 whatever. So again, triads are constant in Platonic philosophy. And if you 1294 01:46:46.199 --> 01:46:50.640 read my book Meta Narratives, you know that even there were triads even in 1295 01:46:50.720 --> 01:46:58.039 the poets. Achilles shield is triadic. It's a triplicity, and it represents 1296 01:46:58.119 --> 01:47:02.439 the whole history of the Greek people. So it's a recapitulation on the shield 1297 01:47:02.560 --> 01:47:08.399 of Achilles itself of all of the Greek people and their history and their essence 1298 01:47:08.520 --> 01:47:11.920 or so to speed. And it has a three tiered layer on purpose, 1299 01:47:12.079 --> 01:47:15.079 because there's the underworld, there's this world, and there's the gods. So 1300 01:47:15.159 --> 01:47:21.600 there's triplicities in the poets. There's triplicities in Plato as well, or triads 1301 01:47:21.680 --> 01:47:26.159 or whatever terms you want to use. So, as we said, reason, 1302 01:47:26.319 --> 01:47:30.359 math and forms are also necessary to govern society, just like reason and 1303 01:47:30.479 --> 01:47:35.439 math and forms govern the individual. Just man. The just man unfortunately does 1304 01:47:35.520 --> 01:47:40.720 have to engage in the noble lie if he's the philosopher king. So the 1305 01:47:40.920 --> 01:47:45.800 state has to utilize noble mythological lies to control the citizens and to have order. 1306 01:47:46.920 --> 01:47:50.039 Yes, this is part of Plato's Republic, it's called the noble lie. 1307 01:47:51.680 --> 01:47:57.000 Now what exactly that is in terms of various societies could be different things. 1308 01:47:57.399 --> 01:48:00.680 I mean, for our purposes, I think everybody can probably figure out 1309 01:48:00.920 --> 01:48:04.720 some of the noble lies. The war on terror, right, probably many 1310 01:48:04.800 --> 01:48:13.159 neo cons would justify awards War on Terry, semester Gash dominant a noble laf. 1311 01:48:14.520 --> 01:48:19.439 That's my that's my dub right, I think I think to a lot 1312 01:48:19.520 --> 01:48:24.720 of geopolitical power players, right, if we were to talk to the big 1313 01:48:24.960 --> 01:48:30.039 Brazinski life, I think they would they would definitely say that sure, yeah, 1314 01:48:30.079 --> 01:48:34.279 well you have to have these lies to govern and control society. Where 1315 01:48:34.279 --> 01:48:40.319 does this come from? It comes from Plato's Republic. So let's be clear, 1316 01:48:41.119 --> 01:48:47.119 this is a statist text. Plato's Republic has basically the state as God 1317 01:48:47.199 --> 01:48:55.720 on earth pretty clearly, and other philosophers will follow in this train. Hagel 1318 01:48:56.239 --> 01:49:01.880 Hegel is also notoriously a guy who says that the state is the march of 1319 01:49:02.000 --> 01:49:06.119 God in history and the deification of the state, the state is God. 1320 01:49:06.239 --> 01:49:13.840 It is a status treatise, and so we get other odd elements that are 1321 01:49:13.920 --> 01:49:19.920 subjects to dispute debate. A interpretation it's very difficult the myth of Earth that 1322 01:49:20.199 --> 01:49:28.000 there's this really wild story at the end about this vision of the afterlife and 1323 01:49:28.159 --> 01:49:32.279 this sort of the universe is a big clock and souls are like going up 1324 01:49:32.359 --> 01:49:38.359 into the afterlife, but they're coming back down if they choose to come back 1325 01:49:38.399 --> 01:49:42.319 to this life reincarnation. I mean it's wild. I mean this is like 1326 01:49:43.560 --> 01:49:47.479 Joe Rogan DMT trip type stuff. Okay, So I don't know exactly what 1327 01:49:47.680 --> 01:49:51.359 the myth of our means other than it is perhaps too again bring in that 1328 01:49:51.520 --> 01:49:59.399 religious mystical element within Plato relating to the transmigration of souls, which is part 1329 01:49:59.439 --> 01:50:03.600 of the way that Plato thinks he can account for, Um, how we 1330 01:50:03.800 --> 01:50:09.079 have access to the forms in this life right, Well, we're remembering our 1331 01:50:09.119 --> 01:50:13.119 past life in the realm of the forms. Uh, and when we go 1332 01:50:13.279 --> 01:50:17.199 on and die, we go back into this mystical realm. I mean it's 1333 01:50:17.239 --> 01:50:25.479 wild. I mean it's like again, there's hard, difficult passages in plato 1334 01:50:26.239 --> 01:50:30.880 um, and a lot of the scholars are debating and and we just don't 1335 01:50:30.960 --> 01:50:36.159 know how literal it does Plato mean this Is this just a teaching device or 1336 01:50:36.239 --> 01:50:40.439 does he really actually literally believe that you know, when you die, you 1337 01:50:40.520 --> 01:50:44.439 go into this giant universal clock, mysticism or whatever. I mean, we 1338 01:50:44.560 --> 01:50:49.039 don't know so, but that's what's there. I think also secret societies come 1339 01:50:49.119 --> 01:50:51.960 up. I think that there's this implicat I'm going from memory, but there's 1340 01:50:53.079 --> 01:50:57.640 I think it there's an implication at one point in regard to I think maybe 1341 01:50:57.720 --> 01:51:00.800 maybe the noble lie that you know, will the noble like kind of requires 1342 01:51:01.399 --> 01:51:05.840 the Republic having this sort of secret society involved in its rulership as well. 1343 01:51:06.840 --> 01:51:11.600 But regardless, a lot of that sort of speculative and debatable. The philosopher 1344 01:51:11.720 --> 01:51:15.600 King, though studies geometry math for many years. When he is ruled by 1345 01:51:15.720 --> 01:51:18.520 reason and not governed by his passions, he is then fit to rule. 1346 01:51:18.920 --> 01:51:23.399 He comes down from the mountain, and so we see that. You know, 1347 01:51:23.920 --> 01:51:31.239 sometimes Plato's philosophies is characterized as overly mystical and it's about the escape into 1348 01:51:31.279 --> 01:51:36.399 the beyond, or it's just about the transcendent. Actually it's kind of practical. 1349 01:51:36.760 --> 01:51:41.479 Surprisingly, now, I don't think he's right about this, but it's 1350 01:51:41.520 --> 01:51:47.000 Plato's intent to have the philosopher King go get his PhD on the mountain. 1351 01:51:47.640 --> 01:51:51.920 Do all of his times tables and then come back down to Earth, to 1352 01:51:53.079 --> 01:51:58.640 the city from the mountain and impress those times tables onto the city and make 1353 01:51:58.720 --> 01:52:05.800 this damn city run. So the philosopher King imposes form upon the city. 1354 01:52:06.319 --> 01:52:10.720 It's a kind of art, a kind of craft. Thus, truth, 1355 01:52:11.079 --> 01:52:16.479 form, essence, justice are discovered. They're not created. They're discovered by 1356 01:52:16.520 --> 01:52:25.039 the philosopher King and imposed on the republic. Intimately connected with this idea of 1357 01:52:25.159 --> 01:52:30.960 Plato's triadic structure is the chain of being. This is going to be very 1358 01:52:30.039 --> 01:52:34.319 important in Plato. Excuse me an Aristotle. Aristotle will be a Plato's most 1359 01:52:34.359 --> 01:52:41.439 famous student, and Aristotle will have significant disagreements with his master, and we've 1360 01:52:41.479 --> 01:52:47.000 already alluded to some of those disagreements. Plato ariosol is not a complete denier 1361 01:52:47.159 --> 01:52:53.279 of the beyond or the higher realms, the celestial spheres of God. He 1362 01:52:53.439 --> 01:52:58.720 does believe in those things. However, he's much more emphatic about the importance 1363 01:52:58.720 --> 01:53:02.760 of the here and the now. The deity in that system is primarily a 1364 01:53:03.000 --> 01:53:09.159 causal agent, not a governing agent or something that you try to strive to 1365 01:53:09.319 --> 01:53:14.760 participate in. But he will retain, as Plato does, a form of 1366 01:53:14.840 --> 01:53:18.800 the chain of being, and as some of the pre Socratics did, which 1367 01:53:18.920 --> 01:53:25.119 is that the chain of being being the ontological structure of the universe, whatever 1368 01:53:25.199 --> 01:53:31.079 that is, is common to all. There's a continuous chain of being where 1369 01:53:31.359 --> 01:53:39.960 the gods, man, animals, rocks, etc. They all exist on 1370 01:53:40.039 --> 01:53:45.119 this continuous chain, but in different gradations. So what's at the top of 1371 01:53:45.159 --> 01:53:48.800 the chain of being? What's the realist being? For Plato, it is 1372 01:53:49.079 --> 01:53:55.720 the God. It is the God form, which is mind, which is 1373 01:53:56.000 --> 01:54:00.479 thought, which is the one, which is the good, which is the 1374 01:54:00.520 --> 01:54:06.439 beautiful. So that God duded up there at the top of that chain in 1375 01:54:06.600 --> 01:54:12.840 Plato's system, is the one that's the highest, most real form of being. 1376 01:54:13.960 --> 01:54:16.039 Below that, in Plato's system there wouldn't be angels, but there would 1377 01:54:16.039 --> 01:54:21.920 be sort of forms. And it's unclear and debated whether Plato believed that the 1378 01:54:23.239 --> 01:54:29.359 quote gods were actual deities or just symbolic of various forms. So, for 1379 01:54:29.479 --> 01:54:32.600 example, in the Timaeus he speaks of the gods, but it's unclear and 1380 01:54:32.680 --> 01:54:38.239 debated as to what actual status the gods have as sort of personal beings, 1381 01:54:38.680 --> 01:54:43.399 or whether they are just forms. Underneath that would be the rulers. This 1382 01:54:44.520 --> 01:54:46.560 picture here is more of a medieval idea of the kings and the queens. 1383 01:54:47.199 --> 01:54:51.239 But for Plato, obviously it would be the philosopher king. Under the philosopher 1384 01:54:51.319 --> 01:54:57.880 king would be the guardians. Under the guardians would be the commoners, the 1385 01:54:57.960 --> 01:55:02.680 proles, and then you would have have animals, plants and rocks, and 1386 01:55:02.880 --> 01:55:08.640 then non being. So that's the chain, right, And the further you 1387 01:55:08.760 --> 01:55:12.680 go down the chain, you're moving towards non being. The further you go 1388 01:55:12.800 --> 01:55:15.960 up the chain, you're moving towards being or true bearing being. And as 1389 01:55:16.039 --> 01:55:21.479 we know, in Plato's system, because it is a participatory system, true 1390 01:55:21.520 --> 01:55:29.640 being is thought, is idea reality. And Plato's system in an Aristotle and 1391 01:55:29.680 --> 01:55:32.560 in the Presocratics, as we saw, is still unfortunately plagued with a monistic 1392 01:55:32.680 --> 01:55:40.159 or a dualistic tendency. Plato is famously a dualist, and that whole idea 1393 01:55:40.199 --> 01:55:45.159 of the myths of Earth and the transmigration of souls is primarily concerned with how 1394 01:55:45.239 --> 01:55:49.119 do we relate this immaterial, invariant realm of the forms to this realm of 1395 01:55:49.159 --> 01:55:51.079 the here and the now. Even though we're saying the here and the now 1396 01:55:51.199 --> 01:55:58.119 participates in the forms, it's still a dualistic system. So there's fundamental problems 1397 01:55:58.159 --> 01:56:02.840 there about reconciling these two domains and explaining the origin of our domain from that 1398 01:56:03.159 --> 01:56:09.520 higher domain. But regardless, Plato still structures reality in this hierarchical form, 1399 01:56:09.600 --> 01:56:15.000 and this hierarchical structure will continue not just into Plato or to Aristotle and into 1400 01:56:15.119 --> 01:56:17.960 the Church Fathers, into Christian theology, and into it will go all the 1401 01:56:18.000 --> 01:56:24.039 way up into the medieval philosophers as well. This chain will not be significantly 1402 01:56:24.159 --> 01:56:31.239 rejected until we get to certain medieval philosophers who are nominalists like Akam, and 1403 01:56:31.359 --> 01:56:36.800 then more explicitly in his descendants, who are the empiricists. So the enlightenment 1404 01:56:36.840 --> 01:56:44.760 empiricists will draw directly from the medieval nominalists, and they will essentially throw this 1405 01:56:44.880 --> 01:56:46.560 thing out. Now, get that out of here. This is dumb. 1406 01:56:49.560 --> 01:56:53.560 Plato's forms, as we said, are hierarchical as well, and so they 1407 01:56:53.640 --> 01:56:57.439 descend in this triadic structure from the one who, which is the divine mind, 1408 01:56:57.880 --> 01:57:02.680 which in some way gives rise to or causes these forms. But there's 1409 01:57:02.680 --> 01:57:06.119 actually a contradiction, to be really precise here in Plato himself, because in 1410 01:57:06.199 --> 01:57:14.600 the Timaeus, the one is subordinate to the forms, and so he structures 1411 01:57:14.680 --> 01:57:17.239 reality, our reality on the principle of the forms that he's subordinate to. 1412 01:57:17.680 --> 01:57:23.680 But in other passages we have Plato speaking as if the one causes the forms. 1413 01:57:24.279 --> 01:57:28.319 So how Plato reconciled this, no one knows, and it's still debated 1414 01:57:28.359 --> 01:57:30.600 to this day. And perhaps he couldn't. Perhaps it is still a problem. 1415 01:57:32.159 --> 01:57:36.720 So coming to the end of this, we got almost wrapping up here. 1416 01:57:40.000 --> 01:57:43.079 I don't know how long we've been going, but I feel like we've 1417 01:57:43.079 --> 01:57:45.439 been going for a long time, that we can keep going for for a 1418 01:57:45.520 --> 01:57:49.039 long time, but we gotta we gotta encapsulated at some point. Coppleston admits 1419 01:57:49.079 --> 01:57:51.159 on page one, nine, six and seven, as we alluded to earlier, 1420 01:57:51.239 --> 01:57:56.079 that Plato is still a mystical theologian. Remember that when we talked about 1421 01:57:56.119 --> 01:58:01.840 Pythagoras, he disagreed with quite a few of his forbearers who were pre Socratics, 1422 01:58:01.880 --> 01:58:06.439 who were not theological or religious thinkers, and so there was this sort 1423 01:58:06.479 --> 01:58:14.319 of religious revival amongst the Ionians, the Milesians represent representing in Pythagoras. And 1424 01:58:14.399 --> 01:58:19.239 I do think that pretty clearly Plato being influenced by Pythagoras continues this mystical and 1425 01:58:19.359 --> 01:58:26.199 theological notion. Now, many modern philosophers do not read Plato this way. 1426 01:58:26.239 --> 01:58:32.079 They read him in more of a anti theistic rationalist way. It is possible 1427 01:58:32.159 --> 01:58:36.800 to read Plato that way, but even those people who have that reading do 1428 01:58:36.960 --> 01:58:44.479 admit that there are quite a few mystical and theological passages throughout the Platonic corpus. 1429 01:58:45.199 --> 01:58:48.359 And so Coppison goes into that and admits that on pages one ninety seven. 1430 01:58:49.560 --> 01:58:54.319 And so the reading that I take, which when I read a lot 1431 01:58:54.359 --> 01:58:58.319 of these texts, and yes, it's true that I could have just been 1432 01:58:58.399 --> 01:59:02.000 influenced by my theological subpositions. But as I'm reading a lot of these Platonic 1433 01:59:02.039 --> 01:59:04.479 texts, I'm like, well, this sounds like a kind of a theology 1434 01:59:04.560 --> 01:59:11.800 text. And so when we essentially what I'm getting a Zycoplison admits that. 1435 01:59:12.000 --> 01:59:16.399 And that's relevant because the specific school that will come out of Platonism later on, 1436 01:59:17.159 --> 01:59:21.560 the neo Platonists, they are known for reading Plato in this way. 1437 01:59:23.439 --> 01:59:28.199 They will say, yes, this is a religious text, and Plato should 1438 01:59:28.199 --> 01:59:32.760 be read as a religious and theological mystic. The path of the philosopher as 1439 01:59:32.800 --> 01:59:39.600 we said, is one of pure one of pure speculation, not of flighty 1440 01:59:39.760 --> 01:59:44.560 without a reason speculation, but reasoned, theological speculation. So for Plato, 1441 01:59:44.720 --> 01:59:48.319 theology and reason are not antithetical. They're the same thing. And that's how 1442 01:59:48.399 --> 01:59:57.039 I understand him. So he doesn't see mysticism as antithetical to reason. He 1443 01:59:57.159 --> 02:00:00.039 sees them as the same. And this is a very difficult especially if we 1444 02:00:00.479 --> 02:00:04.680 think in terms of post Enlightenment thought, because the Enlightenment will hinge quite a 1445 02:00:04.720 --> 02:00:12.119 bit on feediism. Faith is antithetical to reasoning and logic. That is not 1446 02:00:12.319 --> 02:00:16.640 Plato's view, and it's not the view of a lot of Church fathers. 1447 02:00:17.000 --> 02:00:20.039 Now there's a few of the people in the Patristic period who do think that. 1448 02:00:20.840 --> 02:00:25.439 For example, a famous a guy who was a Christian apologist for many 1449 02:00:25.520 --> 02:00:30.479 years who ended up leaving Christianity, Tertolian. Tertolian, ironically, who was 1450 02:00:30.560 --> 02:00:38.159 a famous apologist, had this view that no faith theology, it's the opposite 1451 02:00:38.239 --> 02:00:43.439 of reason. Okay, So there will be a pretty consistent debate later on 1452 02:00:44.640 --> 02:00:49.520 as we moved through philosophy as to this relationship between reason and rationality and divine 1453 02:00:49.600 --> 02:00:55.199 revelation or dogma and doctrine in the Bible. But at least in the neo 1454 02:00:55.279 --> 02:00:59.239 Platonic reading of Plato, which I think is correct, Plato does not see 1455 02:00:59.319 --> 02:01:04.840 this as a kind of divide reasoning is theology in Plato. In fact, 1456 02:01:05.560 --> 02:01:11.640 the path of the philosopher is not just pure ratiocination and speculation. It is 1457 02:01:11.720 --> 02:01:15.680 to raise the mind to divine truths and divine realities. It is a contemplation 1458 02:01:15.800 --> 02:01:21.760 of a higher mystical order. And there is perhaps this idea of religious initiation 1459 02:01:23.000 --> 02:01:26.159 in Plato. What exactly that is we don't know, but it is there. 1460 02:01:26.720 --> 02:01:30.520 The Timaeus, the Symposium, and the Republic do contain many theological and 1461 02:01:30.600 --> 02:01:34.039 mystical elements and references, and so, as Compelson admits, this is a 1462 02:01:34.239 --> 02:01:40.840 break from pre Socratic atheism and materialism. However, it's not a total break, 1463 02:01:41.479 --> 02:01:46.239 because Plato does retain Heraclitus's view of sensible reality as flux, but he 1464 02:01:46.319 --> 02:01:51.560 doesn't have reductionist view that all that exists is sensible reality in flux. He 1465 02:01:51.760 --> 02:01:57.880 also has Parmenite's view that that realm of permanence is just a higher realm. 1466 02:01:58.880 --> 02:02:03.800 Thus Plato is attempting to solve and reconcile some of the dialectical tensions and issues, 1467 02:02:04.600 --> 02:02:09.359 and probably first and foremost it is that question of the one in the 1468 02:02:09.399 --> 02:02:13.520 many. All right, So I hope you guys enjoyed tonight's introduction to Plato. 1469 02:02:13.840 --> 02:02:15.720 Obviously it's a lot. We can go way deeper. It goes way 1470 02:02:15.840 --> 02:02:19.479 way crazy. There's many, many dialogues, but we got to start somewhere. 1471 02:02:19.560 --> 02:02:23.159 We had to focus on something. So let's open it up to Q 1472 02:02:23.279 --> 02:02:23.439 and A.