WEBVTT 1 00:00:34.119 --> 00:00:39.320 All right, Jay's Analysis dot com. This time we're going 2 00:00:39.399 --> 00:00:46.520 to discuss Plato's fido in depth. I thought that it 3 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:50.479 would be helpful to readers of the article that did 4 00:00:50.520 --> 00:00:54.439 pretty well for a philosophy article dealing with the esoteric 5 00:00:54.520 --> 00:00:59.240 side of it, which is generally passed over if you 6 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:02.880 have any kind of academic treatment of the of the 7 00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:07.239 treatise of the topic, do you do a cursory glance 8 00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:09.359 in philosophy one O one, and then you don't really 9 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.840 deal with it again unless perhaps you take an upper 10 00:01:12.920 --> 00:01:18.200 level uh philosophy course on Plato. So what I want 11 00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:23.840 to do in this talk is make it more bring 12 00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:28.439 it down to a more general level where it can 13 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:33.200 be understood for by people that maybe haven't read Plato 14 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:37.079 in depth or are not too familiar with a lot 15 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:42.519 of the philosophical concepts. So, since Jay's Analysis is growing 16 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:45.879 quite a bit of late, and because my field is 17 00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:53.680 philosophy and classics and ancient ancient philosophy, medieval philosophy, et cetera, 18 00:01:54.439 --> 00:01:57.640 what I want to do is try to try to 19 00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:01.200 make things more accessible, so it's not all you know 20 00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:06.359 totally on an advanced level. Also, if you would what 21 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:08.319 I'm trying to do is so I'd like to get 22 00:02:08.319 --> 00:02:11.199 to where I can do this full time. And so 23 00:02:11.319 --> 00:02:15.240 if you would go ahead and subscribe or donate, and 24 00:02:15.400 --> 00:02:19.759 what I do is I give extra lectures, extra talks 25 00:02:20.439 --> 00:02:24.879 and information ahead of time to those that have subscribed. 26 00:02:24.919 --> 00:02:28.639 So basically, for four ninety five or a donation, you're 27 00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:35.719 going to get something better than university style education where 28 00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:39.599 you're paying you know, thousands and thousands of dollars, you know, 29 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:43.000 two thousand dollars per class or whatever, fifteen hundred dollars 30 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:47.360 or credit hour, which is crazy for you know, for 31 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:50.400 a statist Marxist to stand up there and tell you 32 00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:57.319 how Plato is gender warfare and class warfare, which is 33 00:02:57.639 --> 00:03:01.240 utterly retarded other than ridiculous. Uh. And I can give 34 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:07.680 you a better education, a better insight into Plato, for 35 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:11.879 a lot cheaper than that. So you could, uh, you know, 36 00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:15.520 you could go this route. You won't have some useless 37 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:18.240 piece of paper, but you'll have the knowledge and the 38 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:23.280 critical thinking and the ability to skill that I've been 39 00:03:23.319 --> 00:03:25.759 blessed with, that I could bless you with at least 40 00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:29.039 help you with, uh to go in and you know, 41 00:03:29.199 --> 00:03:32.000 smash these teachers, if that's who you have you know 42 00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:35.879 to you know, use these principles and apply them to 43 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:39.560 whatever fields you're in. You know, if you make music, 44 00:03:40.639 --> 00:03:46.919 Pythagoreanism platonism ties in, uh, very well with music. A 45 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:49.800 lot of it's based on musical theory. If you are 46 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:53.240 in business, you can use you know, logic and critical thinking. 47 00:03:53.479 --> 00:03:56.520 And you might have had a basic critical thinking of 48 00:03:56.560 --> 00:04:00.520 course in your in your you know, your undergrad or 49 00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:03.840 something like that. Maybe that's being phased out as we 50 00:04:03.879 --> 00:04:09.520 go into this global technocratic economy. But you know, again 51 00:04:09.639 --> 00:04:14.080 critical thinking is very useful for business and thinking in 52 00:04:14.199 --> 00:04:18.160 multi dimensional levels, right, so not just us against them, 53 00:04:18.199 --> 00:04:20.800 but in three D and four D and five D 54 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:25.360 chessboard levels of reality. It helps. It can help you 55 00:04:25.439 --> 00:04:28.959 to see things from different perspectives, in different angles, getting 56 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:34.959 getting a different viewpoint to help you think strategically, say, 57 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:39.800 in whatever business endeavor you're in. You know, in religious thinking, 58 00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:43.920 it can be advantageous have a lot of theologians, academics 59 00:04:43.959 --> 00:04:50.079 and religious affiliated readers and listeners so you can get 60 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:54.399 a better understanding of you know, these ancient texts that 61 00:04:54.519 --> 00:04:57.360 can help you in understanding you know, where you're at 62 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:00.680 in your theology. And again, you know, for ninety five. 63 00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:04.319 You can't be that that's a lot better than paying, 64 00:05:04.639 --> 00:05:08.759 you know, thousands of dollars for some guy who is 65 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:12.279 an idiot basically and not very well trained in anything, 66 00:05:12.759 --> 00:05:16.000 standing up there telling you what the text doesn't mean. 67 00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:22.800 So let's get into this. There's some really interesting elements 68 00:05:22.839 --> 00:05:28.240 throughout this dialogue that build on the previous dialogue of 69 00:05:28.759 --> 00:05:32.600 the Apology, where Socrates is giving it a defense of 70 00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:38.519 why he's on trial by the the people of Athens, 71 00:05:38.839 --> 00:05:43.199 the elders of Athens, for inciting the youth. So he's 72 00:05:43.519 --> 00:05:50.720 charged with rebellion and turning the youth to unsavory opinions 73 00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:56.439 and inciting revolution or rebellion and offending the gods. And 74 00:05:56.519 --> 00:05:59.639 so what we find in the second dialogue in my 75 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:05.160 my copy and Fido is socrates defense. He's gonna give 76 00:06:06.959 --> 00:06:15.399 his his view of the afterlife, immortality, the soul, and 77 00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:21.800 why he doesn't believe that he's wrong in his decision 78 00:06:21.839 --> 00:06:26.920 to submit to the elders of Athens in their decision 79 00:06:26.959 --> 00:06:31.480 of death. He also will give an interesting approach to 80 00:06:31.519 --> 00:06:36.680 the gods, where he will in one way speak of 81 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:39.759 them allegorically and in another way he will affirm them 82 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:41.959 in reality. So we're going to get into that talk 83 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:45.040 about why that might be. And as usual, I don't 84 00:06:45.079 --> 00:06:48.360 do my discussions with a bunch of notes and outlines. 85 00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:51.759 I just kind of freestyle like that better. That's my 86 00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:59.839 improv coming through. But what we know in terms of 87 00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:07.240 more recent and scholarly deeper studies is that Plato is 88 00:07:07.279 --> 00:07:12.040 borrowing a lot from Eastern thought. Of course, obviously this 89 00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:18.279 is Greece, but ancient far Eastern ideas precede this. We 90 00:07:18.360 --> 00:07:22.279 know that there's a body of tradition doctrine coming out 91 00:07:22.279 --> 00:07:27.800 of Egypt that informs Socrates, and this is explained in 92 00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:34.439 the Tomaeis at the beginning another important dialogue, but here 93 00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:39.439 we are focused on the question of the afterlife, and 94 00:07:40.279 --> 00:07:45.639 the other interesting, crucial Platonic idea that will come to 95 00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:53.000 the four is the doctrine of the forms and the 96 00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:58.879 eternality of truth. I'm also going to throughout this discussion 97 00:07:58.959 --> 00:08:05.560 give my own personal critiques and thoughts on on the 98 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:09.920 on the dialogue and why I don't believe we should 99 00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:17.519 accept a cyclical view of history, or panpsychism or transmigration 100 00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:23.759 of souls, reincarnation, UH and some other theological issues that 101 00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:27.920 we would take issue with coming where I come from. 102 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:35.279 So there's a discussion at the beginning about the priests 103 00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:40.279 of Apollo and Apollonian religion. If you've read Nietzsche, you know, 104 00:08:40.360 --> 00:08:46.679 Nietzsche categorize it, excuse me, categorizes it as the rational. 105 00:08:47.879 --> 00:08:53.080 It's focused on the sun, as opposed to Dionysian religion 106 00:08:53.240 --> 00:08:58.759 that is focused on the irrational, the force of nature, 107 00:08:58.879 --> 00:09:05.120 the chaotic, the you know, the the Dionysian banquet where 108 00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:11.240 you get drunk and you engage in you know, Saturnalian 109 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:16.240 orgy or something like that. So if we were to, 110 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.480 you know, we could contrast maybe I don't know, who's 111 00:09:21.519 --> 00:09:25.399 somebody who's we could think of maybe Jim Morrison as 112 00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:30.360 somebody who's a Dionysian and say Kurt Gurdell as somebody 113 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:34.399 who's an Apollonian. So two very very different people, but 114 00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:38.799 good images of the Apollonian and Dionysian. So it's crucial 115 00:09:38.840 --> 00:09:42.759 that we recognize the mention of the priests of Apollo 116 00:09:43.960 --> 00:09:47.039 at the beginning of the dialogue because Apolonian religion is 117 00:09:47.399 --> 00:09:56.039 again going to be characterized by masculinity, rationality, order in 118 00:09:56.080 --> 00:10:03.360 contrast to chaos and flux and brute forces. Of Nature. 119 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:08.000 There's an interesting mention of the providence of God early 120 00:10:08.039 --> 00:10:15.519 on in the dialogue. So it's a debated topic in 121 00:10:16.519 --> 00:10:22.720 scholarship as to what exactly the notion of God is 122 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:30.679 that was bequeathed from Egypt to Socrates and Plato. Very 123 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:35.799 possible a lot of the early Patristic fathers, Augustine, for example, 124 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:40.679 in the City of God, speculate that perhaps the Egyptian 125 00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:46.200 thought was influenced by Moses and the Jews and their 126 00:10:46.879 --> 00:10:51.039 time in Egypt they're sojourn there, but we don't know 127 00:10:51.159 --> 00:10:59.320 for sure. Regardless, there's clearly cross cultural influences here between 128 00:10:59.639 --> 00:11:05.159 ancient Egyptian and Greek thought and you know, very very 129 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:10.200 possibly Jewish thinking. We know from the text of Exodus 130 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:12.679 that Moses was learned in all the mysteries of the 131 00:11:12.679 --> 00:11:18.240 Egyptians when he was young at Pharaoh's court before he 132 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:23.879 decided to go over to his native people, the Jews. 133 00:11:24.080 --> 00:11:31.759 So Moses learned the esoteric side of Egyptian thought, and 134 00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:39.080 it's very possible that, you know, in that interaction between 135 00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:49.279 the Jews in Egypt and in the Egyptian court Egyptian religion, 136 00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:53.279 that there was some sort of blending or body of 137 00:11:54.240 --> 00:12:00.080 doctrine that was passed down. And that's another important understanding, 138 00:12:00.240 --> 00:12:04.120 or an important point to understand here is that Socrates 139 00:12:04.279 --> 00:12:09.759 is the bearer of a tradition. So while it's in 140 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:18.720 vogue in modernity to deride ancient thinking, ancient wisdom, perennial teaching, traditionalism, 141 00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:26.600 this is a very different stance, a very different approach 142 00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:30.919 to the world and to living. And so the ancient 143 00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:36.679 world was one based on tradition. Ironically, the modern world, 144 00:12:36.679 --> 00:12:41.440 although it derives tradition, is not actually anti traditional. It's 145 00:12:41.480 --> 00:12:44.679 actually just a different kind of tradition. It's something more 146 00:12:46.120 --> 00:12:50.120 nuvo rich, something very or created by the new vo 147 00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:55.120 rich I should say, it's a new narrative, a kind 148 00:12:55.200 --> 00:13:04.919 of technocratic, you know, empiricist narrative that gained sway at 149 00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:09.000 the time of the scientific revolution and so forth. So 150 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:16.480 modernity's grand narrative is still a tradition. It's just a 151 00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:21.559 different tradition. And it's also a syncretic, blended tradition just 152 00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:25.039 as much as any other. So the real question is 153 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:30.360 not tradition versus no tradition, but tradition versus other traditions, 154 00:13:30.399 --> 00:13:34.360 and which traditions are true and that's really what the 155 00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:41.120 question that's the ultimate question of philosophy really is, what's 156 00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:45.200 the true tradition. There's some really good thinkers who deal 157 00:13:45.279 --> 00:13:47.879 with that, are deal with that very well. One of 158 00:13:47.919 --> 00:13:50.440 the best essays I can think of is there's an 159 00:13:50.519 --> 00:13:54.399 essay by doctor Philip Schard called Tradition and the Traditions, 160 00:13:54.720 --> 00:13:58.840 and in this he details what he sees as the 161 00:13:58.840 --> 00:14:06.480 central distinguish factor between perennial thought and biblical theism or 162 00:14:06.519 --> 00:14:09.879 a personal theistic God. But that's not where we're going 163 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:12.320 to go in this discussion per se. There will be 164 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:15.000 a little bit of that, but suffice to say that 165 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:19.039 the idea of a body of tradition passed on is 166 00:14:19.159 --> 00:14:26.080 crucial here and something that informs the Platonic approach to 167 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:33.320 knowledge that distinguishes it from others. So when Aristotle takes 168 00:14:33.320 --> 00:14:39.399 his departure from the Platonic tradition, although we can still 169 00:14:39.639 --> 00:14:48.720 place Aristotle in the school of Platonic tradition, the Aristotelian 170 00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:52.759 departure with hilomorphism, and I'll get into that later, marks 171 00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:58.120 a very distinct departure from the body of doctrine that 172 00:14:58.279 --> 00:15:02.840 is passed on here. But again, tradition is crucial here, 173 00:15:02.840 --> 00:15:06.039 and it's an oral tradition. We don't know exactly when 174 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:08.759 it was written down, because the oldest copies that we 175 00:15:08.879 --> 00:15:12.840 have of Socratic dialogues are actually pretty late, you know, 176 00:15:12.879 --> 00:15:18.799 eight hundred one thousand AD, so not actually BC. And 177 00:15:18.879 --> 00:15:21.399 if I recall at these are housed at Oxford or somewhere, 178 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:24.200 I don't know, something I read a long long time ago. 179 00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:36.440 But the the Greek view here, somebody like Spangler is 180 00:15:36.519 --> 00:15:41.480 very good in Decline of the West encapsulating the Greek 181 00:15:41.519 --> 00:15:46.399 approach to things, and it's very much based on. 182 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:52.360 Fleeing from the temporal, fleeing from the time from time, 183 00:15:52.559 --> 00:15:56.039 fleeing from the here and now. So there's a Greek 184 00:15:56.080 --> 00:16:02.600 fascination with eternity, and that's what will lee Greek thought 185 00:16:02.840 --> 00:16:12.600 in Plato from Egyptian thought to basically positing the forms 186 00:16:12.639 --> 00:16:19.559 at the expense of everything in the finite material, temporal realm. 187 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:22.360 And that'll be crucial later on as well. But before 188 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:26.480 we get into all that, we begin with a discussion 189 00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:29.320 of pleasure and pain and how the two seem to 190 00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:36.639 be dialectically connected, dialectically related, they seem to necessitate one another. Now, 191 00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:44.879 dialectics is going to be crucial to understanding Platonic thought, 192 00:16:45.879 --> 00:16:48.360 and this is one of the key indicators that it's 193 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:54.960 borrowed heavily from other Far Eastern cultures, possibly some syncretic 194 00:16:55.399 --> 00:17:02.480 Far Eastern view, from perhaps Persian thought or again Egyptian thought. 195 00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:05.680 But again we should point out that there are distinct 196 00:17:05.799 --> 00:17:10.519 markers that set Egyptian thought apart from the other ancient traditions. 197 00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:15.720 And this could also have, like I said, resulted from 198 00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:20.359 an influence of the Jews in their sojourn, because the 199 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:25.480 Egyptian belief in the afterlife and the positive view of 200 00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:29.440 the body and the resurrection is something that is distinct 201 00:17:29.519 --> 00:17:38.640 from Greek thought and say, other Far Eastern traditions. So 202 00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:40.920 we've got I've got my book out here. We've got 203 00:17:43.039 --> 00:17:48.920 discussions of art and poetry. That's a debated topic in 204 00:17:49.799 --> 00:17:53.240 Greek thought in terms of the Blatonic view, because in 205 00:17:55.680 --> 00:18:00.000 the Republic Plato talks about how art is dangerous because 206 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:08.039 art can be marshaled by oligarchical forces or by brutish 207 00:18:08.079 --> 00:18:11.559 forces to incite the mob, incite the masses. So art 208 00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:15.440 has to be controlled, poetry has to be banished. But 209 00:18:16.079 --> 00:18:24.799 Socrates interesting change of thought here he talks about writing poetry. 210 00:18:24.839 --> 00:18:28.400 I had cleared my conscience by writing poetry, and then 211 00:18:28.440 --> 00:18:35.079 he goes on to talk about how philosophy is the 212 00:18:35.160 --> 00:18:40.480 highest of the arts. So a lot of unanswered questions 213 00:18:40.519 --> 00:18:44.720 in some of the Platonic teachings and dialogues. Perhaps Plato 214 00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:49.839 modified his views over time. Perhaps, you know, perhaps there's 215 00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:53.200 a little game at work here, play on words, a 216 00:18:53.240 --> 00:18:59.240 little paradox that he intentionally included in the works. Who knows. 217 00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:03.599 We don't know. That's a long debated discussion as to 218 00:19:03.759 --> 00:19:09.480 Plato's actual view of the arts. But what we do 219 00:19:09.599 --> 00:19:15.720 know is that the reference to Aesop's Fables seems to 220 00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:23.279 connect to the idea of religion and allegory because Plato, 221 00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:26.319 Socrates says, he has a recurring dream, and the recurring 222 00:19:26.440 --> 00:19:35.519 dream keeps telling him to what was the exact quote, Socrates, 223 00:19:35.559 --> 00:19:40.519 practice and cultivate the arts, and so he tried doing poetry. 224 00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:44.359 He wanted to write his own Aesop's fable, Socrates says, 225 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:47.079 but he said it didn't come out very good. So 226 00:19:47.319 --> 00:19:52.640 he just kept doing philosophy, and he came to the 227 00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:57.400 realization that philosophy is the greatest of the arts, and 228 00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:00.559 that he thought this was the meaning of the recurring dream. 229 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:13.799 But the recurring dream seems to suggest recurring life, because 230 00:20:13.839 --> 00:20:17.839 when we dream, we are in a different realm, the 231 00:20:17.880 --> 00:20:21.079 ether or whatever, and the soul or the psyche is 232 00:20:21.119 --> 00:20:27.880 experiencing things that seem to transcend the here and now. 233 00:20:29.079 --> 00:20:35.440 So is there a possibility of, you know, Plato thinking 234 00:20:35.480 --> 00:20:42.880 that dreams, you know, indicate this metaphysical past life or 235 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:47.960 higher dimension or so forth. Very possible, because the discussion 236 00:20:48.119 --> 00:20:58.359 begins to divulge or diverge into the issue of whether 237 00:20:58.440 --> 00:21:08.119 or not, excuse me, I lost my page here, whether 238 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:13.759 or not we had a past life, and dreams could 239 00:21:13.759 --> 00:21:20.759 be the indicator of that Plato things or Socrates things. 240 00:21:21.319 --> 00:21:25.079 So when we are asleep, you know, we're out of 241 00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:29.279 the body, and we're experiencing things in that psychical realm. 242 00:21:29.960 --> 00:21:34.839 And the early on statement here in the dialogue is 243 00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:40.119 that he says, very well, then let me try to 244 00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:42.200 make a more convincing defense to you than I made 245 00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:44.440 at my trial. If I did not expect to enter 246 00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:48.279 the company first of otherwise and good gods, and secondly 247 00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:50.960 of men now dead, who are better than those who 248 00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:52.519 are in the world. Now, it is true that I 249 00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:55.480 should be wrong and not grieving at death as it is, 250 00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:57.640 you can be assured that I expect to find myself 251 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:00.759 among good men. I would not insist particular on this point, 252 00:22:01.160 --> 00:22:03.480 but now on the other I assure you that I 253 00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:06.440 shall now insist most strongly that I shall find their 254 00:22:06.440 --> 00:22:09.599 divine masters, who are supremely good. That is why I'm 255 00:22:09.599 --> 00:22:11.799 not so much distress as I might be talking about 256 00:22:11.799 --> 00:22:15.279 his death. So he has an assurance that in the 257 00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:19.000 next life he's going to be with the blessed, with 258 00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:24.000 the good, the good gods, the men that have gone 259 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:27.440 on to the afterlife, to Valhalla, I'm kidding, to the 260 00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:32.359 Eligian fields. And he says that philosophy is the preparation 261 00:22:32.519 --> 00:22:37.640 for death, so not fearing what happens to the body 262 00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:42.079 in this life is preparation for a passage into the 263 00:22:42.119 --> 00:22:49.200 next life. But because the body in the Platonic view 264 00:22:50.079 --> 00:22:54.400 is ever changing and its material and it's in flux, 265 00:22:55.559 --> 00:22:58.319 it has to be derided. So he talks about not 266 00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:02.319 giving into the pleasures of the body and the passions 267 00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:06.400 of the body, and to flee them and to instead 268 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:12.640 acquire gnosis. So the later gnostic traditions of Batristic era 269 00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:18.359 would definitely derive a lot of their impetus from platonic 270 00:23:18.440 --> 00:23:29.519 thinking and platonic dialogues. So the philosopher is the one who, 271 00:23:29.960 --> 00:23:32.160 as we know it, lives the examined life of the 272 00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:39.039 one who is interested in thinking through matters. But unfortunately, 273 00:23:39.079 --> 00:23:44.000 we have at this point an erection of the premissy 274 00:23:44.119 --> 00:23:52.279 of reason, of ideas of rational thought over against anything else, 275 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:56.319 and this will be, in my view, the chief dialectical 276 00:23:56.400 --> 00:24:01.119 problem at work here. Nevertheless, we're going to plumb this 277 00:24:01.359 --> 00:24:04.559 for any insights and good that we can. So the 278 00:24:04.599 --> 00:24:11.279 dialogue then transfers to discussions of absolute beauty, absolute goodness, 279 00:24:11.319 --> 00:24:20.400 absolute uprightness. Man sees by his soul, not by bodily sight. 280 00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:27.000 So the site that Plato is concerned with is enter 281 00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:31.960 the inner eye, the inner man, the soul, the psyche, 282 00:24:32.440 --> 00:24:39.680 seeing the true forms of things, and not the variegated, 283 00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:49.640 variant changing objects for his perception presented to his senses 284 00:24:50.359 --> 00:24:56.119 that must be transcended, gone over and against, and rejected 285 00:24:57.160 --> 00:25:03.640 for the ultimate eternal truths of things. So there's an 286 00:25:03.640 --> 00:25:10.519 anti physicalism here. And like I said, this is key 287 00:25:10.599 --> 00:25:14.759 to understanding the rest of the track of Western dialectics, 288 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:20.079 because from Plato and Aristotle on reason and rationality will 289 00:25:20.119 --> 00:25:25.759 be given premissy over other modes of thought, other approaches 290 00:25:25.799 --> 00:25:32.400 to existence, other approaches to moral ethics, whatever. It's all 291 00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:40.519 based around the functioning of reason. Where the noose in Plato, 292 00:25:40.920 --> 00:25:45.720 which is identified with intellect and rationality, is also identified 293 00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:49.119 with the soul. So there's a soul body dialectic here 294 00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:55.960 that will of course re emerge with Descartes, most notably 295 00:25:56.559 --> 00:26:04.920 in the scientific But as James Kelly pointed out in 296 00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:10.640 my interview with him, the intellect this you can almost 297 00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:13.519 call it a third eye perhaps even though it's actually 298 00:26:13.559 --> 00:26:18.839 identified with the soul. At the same time, throughout life 299 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:23.480 is seeing a bunch of images that passed before him. 300 00:26:23.519 --> 00:26:24.839 You know, as you lived your life, you see the 301 00:26:24.839 --> 00:26:29.440 phenomena of experience, and these are all transient passing. But 302 00:26:29.519 --> 00:26:33.519 the goal what you should be doing is seeing through 303 00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:37.079 these to the eternal forms. And there's going to be 304 00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:41.519 an awesome argument that will be presented that I think 305 00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:47.160 is philosophically one of the best arguments ever for how 306 00:26:47.240 --> 00:26:49.319 we know that truth is eternal and how we can 307 00:26:49.359 --> 00:26:56.920 actually have certainty about objective essences or forms or existing 308 00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:02.240 objective metaphysical principles that are not purely dependent upon our 309 00:27:02.240 --> 00:27:07.480 individual minds. That's really going to be the crucial positive 310 00:27:07.599 --> 00:27:12.720 argument that we can derive from Plato in this dialogue. 311 00:27:13.680 --> 00:27:17.599 So he says that the quest that the philosopher on 312 00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:21.480 is for reality, the quest for truth. And this is good, 313 00:27:21.559 --> 00:27:23.720 This is the approach that we should take to life, 314 00:27:23.799 --> 00:27:28.319 because life is full of con men, con artists, deceptions, 315 00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:35.680 rigged games all around us, from money, to relationships, to 316 00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:44.920 all sorts of things, jobs, meaning the future history all 317 00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:53.000 bound up with multitudes of psyops and deceptions and marketing 318 00:27:53.559 --> 00:27:59.799 scams and pitches. And so the philosopher can make practical 319 00:27:59.880 --> 00:28:05.079 use use of this in seeing through all the scams, 320 00:28:05.079 --> 00:28:10.240 seeing through the mirage to the reality. So the first step, 321 00:28:10.279 --> 00:28:13.880 he says, is not being a slave to your passions. 322 00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:19.720 A man is a slave to lust or to alcohol, 323 00:28:19.960 --> 00:28:23.839 or to greed or whatever vice. He's going to be 324 00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:25.640 consumed with that, and he's not going to be able 325 00:28:25.680 --> 00:28:28.400 to critically think or reason, not going to be able 326 00:28:28.440 --> 00:28:34.680 to live well or come to truth just common sense, 327 00:28:34.759 --> 00:28:38.480 because he's going to be obsessed with something that's fleeting, 328 00:28:38.559 --> 00:28:43.759 a fleeting pleasure and the eternal truths. Plato argues, which 329 00:28:43.799 --> 00:28:47.440 is this is true, the eternal truths of God, of 330 00:28:47.559 --> 00:28:53.079 truth itself, absolute beauty, absolute goodness, uprightness. These pleasures are 331 00:28:53.119 --> 00:28:59.200 actually better. They will give you a higher level of satisfaction, pleasure, 332 00:28:59.240 --> 00:29:05.839 of fulfillment than any of the baser passions and delights 333 00:29:06.640 --> 00:29:12.680 of a fleshly nature. So the philosopher has to kind 334 00:29:12.680 --> 00:29:24.400 of undergo a purification to be prepared for death. And 335 00:29:24.559 --> 00:29:28.759 that's the goal of the philosopher, because if you don't 336 00:29:29.160 --> 00:29:33.240 see through the mirage and the deceptions to the truth, 337 00:29:33.640 --> 00:29:35.640 then when you go into the next life, you won't 338 00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:38.440 be prepared. And that's really the crux of what we're 339 00:29:38.440 --> 00:29:41.720 getting at here. That's we might call it the Gospel 340 00:29:41.720 --> 00:29:47.160 of Plato, if you will, the evangelion of Socrates. So 341 00:29:47.200 --> 00:29:50.480 the profession of the philosopher is death, not a morbid 342 00:29:50.519 --> 00:29:56.559 obsession on death, but a noble courage facing death. So 343 00:29:57.400 --> 00:30:04.559 detachment and apatheia, and in Eastern thought, particularly Eastern Orthodox theology, 344 00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:08.680 apatheia is the idea of becoming passionless, not in the 345 00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:12.079 sense of having a love or something like that, but 346 00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:16.279 in the sense of not being dictated by base or passions, 347 00:30:16.680 --> 00:30:21.240 not allowing you know, selfishness and lust and greed and 348 00:30:22.119 --> 00:30:25.400 addiction or whatever, to dominate the way that we live, 349 00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:28.960 in the way which we'll again cloud our thinking and 350 00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:38.599 our judgment. So through, according to Plato, through thought, critical thinking, 351 00:30:38.640 --> 00:30:45.519 and rationality, apatheia can be achieved. But to be fair, here, 352 00:30:45.559 --> 00:30:50.240 it's not just through thought. It's not purely irrationalistic endeavor, 353 00:30:50.279 --> 00:30:54.799 because you also have to practice the virtues. You have 354 00:30:54.839 --> 00:30:58.039 to have courage, and you have to have justice, and 355 00:30:58.079 --> 00:31:04.079 so forth. Love truth, Love wasdom to attain apatheia, and 356 00:31:04.880 --> 00:31:10.079 thereby excuse me, thereby attaining wisdom. Now, there's an interesting 357 00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:18.440 mention in section sixty nine C and D about ritual initiation. 358 00:31:18.599 --> 00:31:23.480 He talks about the allegory of the priests of the 359 00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:27.920 different religions, particularly I'm guessing of the religion of Apollo 360 00:31:28.200 --> 00:31:32.559 that he mentioned earlier, and he speaks of it allegorically 361 00:31:32.599 --> 00:31:36.240 as a message about passing over into the next life, 362 00:31:36.880 --> 00:31:39.839 and he reads it as the gnosis of the philosopher. 363 00:31:40.319 --> 00:31:42.200 So there's a kind of a death that one goes 364 00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:46.720 through in this life where he's resurrected that anticipates the 365 00:31:46.720 --> 00:31:54.319 death and intellectual resurrection, not bodily resurrection in the next life. 366 00:31:54.559 --> 00:32:02.599 For Plato, resurrection in the next life appears to be reincarnation, 367 00:32:03.279 --> 00:32:10.799 not a bodily resurrection. So dialectical dualities, and what we 368 00:32:10.920 --> 00:32:14.200 mean by that is, you know, think of if you're 369 00:32:14.200 --> 00:32:18.799 familiar at all with Far Eastern Thought, it looks at 370 00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:25.640 in my analysis, it over time looked at operant principles 371 00:32:25.640 --> 00:32:28.279 in nature, so you would have night and day, male 372 00:32:28.359 --> 00:32:34.039 and female, black, white, things like that, and these these dialectics, 373 00:32:34.079 --> 00:32:38.400 these contraries, these oppositional forces seem to at the same 374 00:32:38.480 --> 00:32:43.880 time the intention, but also work together in a in 375 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:49.799 unison for a balance. So I don't want to unfairly 376 00:32:50.039 --> 00:32:55.000 paint Eastern thought as believing that there is no true harmony. 377 00:32:55.759 --> 00:32:59.880 They do believe that these oppositional forces need to be 378 00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:04.160 in harmony. Where I would disagree with Far Eastern Thought, 379 00:33:05.160 --> 00:33:11.200 whether you know Buddhist or Taoist or whatever Confucian. Where 380 00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:13.680 I would disagree with him is the means or way 381 00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:19.480 by which the harmony is achieved. So we'll get into 382 00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:19.920 that later. 383 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:32.599 But when he Plato discusses the soul in the body 384 00:33:32.759 --> 00:33:33.759 in God. 385 00:33:35.799 --> 00:33:38.559 It's important to understand the medieval chain of being well 386 00:33:38.559 --> 00:33:40.640 in the ancient world too. The medieval chain of being 387 00:33:40.640 --> 00:33:45.440 that we see in medieval Catholic theologians like aquietness, people 388 00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:49.480 like that. That goes back to Aristotle and Plato in 389 00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:54.599 the Greeks and ultimately probably to Egypt, where you have 390 00:33:55.440 --> 00:34:01.480 this scale, this continuum kind of changed, maybe like a pyramid, 391 00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:07.279 where everything that exists is structured on this pyramid. So 392 00:34:07.319 --> 00:34:11.440 you have at the bottom you have non being, which 393 00:34:11.480 --> 00:34:18.239 is the heaviest kind of being, things that are less mobile, rocks, well, 394 00:34:18.280 --> 00:34:21.599 you know, non being, and then maybe rocks or the dead, 395 00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:27.960 you know, because they're the wicked dead are placed in 396 00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:33.280 an immobile state of being for their crimes in this life. 397 00:34:33.920 --> 00:34:40.159 And then you would have, like I said, inanimate things 398 00:34:40.199 --> 00:34:45.119 like rocks, and then you would have vegetative life, which 399 00:34:45.199 --> 00:34:48.199 does have a kind of moving principle in a way, 400 00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:52.119 although still very limited. Then you would have animals, and 401 00:34:52.159 --> 00:34:59.199