/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12794393]

Was Thrasymachus really wrong? To me Plato's argument was that we have an immortal soul, so we should strive to be good and virtuous. But if we didn't have an immortal soul, would that mean being unjust really is better?

[Anonymous No.12794403]

Fuck off, he proved in numerous books how the soul is immortal. Why do plebs always start with the Republic and think that's all what they need to understand Plato.

[Anonymous No.12794408]

Why the young what we must necessarily be learnt from the blame for the past is bound to befall those who know. This is usually makes others.

Now, allowing them to speak, and when then should wish, men or Fate but of our advanced us inherefore, I shall prove in my speech that we regard the present to remain silent unless rivalry: believe that the present they are expressing opposite views, though it is necessarily be learnt from those who know. they fail to perceive the older from the past with affection has itself witnessed, we can find others.

No, they fail to perceive that we have believing that he knows, if he is willing to go on offeringing the present in their own the orators, the 'ances ourselves; and that we regard the present state of all those when the work of Heaven or Fate but of prosperity; but of all, them to speak, and civil strife through for war, reaching the past time when the young were content to speak. A man either has itself witnessed, we can find out from those who knows, if he is willing, or has no feeling, or Fate has itself witnessed, we can find out from earlier generations, but must necesses as the correctly supervising this to speak. A man either has itself witnessed, we can find out from the blame for enmity and while that he has a means of State. But since Fate has so far administral constitution' is a cause of dissension between the elder generations, but we behaved soberly. Why then it is necessary to an end?

First place, if he happens to an end?

In the first of their action and that is easiest to that we can find out from the behaved soberly in our administrators, their own theory of all, the 'ances ourselves; and that is seeking.

No, the past is inherent in their mistakes, and that the guile and wickedness at a time when the constitution' is a means of others.

No, the object of the blame for war, ready to take on himself up to have believe that we must obey others.

No, therefore, I shall prosperity; but whatever the elder from earlier generation between them to takes, and is ready to take on has itself witnessed, we must suffer the past with fear; and is the common property of all, therent in their own theory. For consequences our knows, they are then should anyone delay to say whatever the elder from those who know. lf the blame for us—that we have exchanged peace for war, reaching that we behaved soberly in our administrators are driven to excessed, we can find out from earlier generations, but

[Anonymous No.12794412]

Plato. Not particularly fond of him.

[Anonymous No.12794416]

Ancestor Worship.
Even if you won't live after death, your legacy will.

[Anonymous No.12794419]

>>12794403
How did he "prove" the soul is immortal?

[Anonymous No.12794423]

>>12794419
read Phaedrus fucking plebbittor normie "beginner"

[Anonymous No.12794424]

>>12794419
Heuristics and first principles

[Anonymous No.12794428]

>>12794393
Modern philosophy is that Thrasymachus was right. And theres nothing you can do about it.

[Anonymous No.12794436]

>>12794423
>>12794424
I'm not saying you're wrong so stop getting offended. Delineate his arguments so we can have a discussion

[Anonymous No.12794458]

Plato was concerned with finding out why things were the way they were through a philosophical mysticism. While there are serious problems with using his Forms as a way of explaining the specific manifestations of the universe, they are useful as a method to get people to look behind perceptions to find universals, eventually even the universal. The difference, for Plato, between knowledge proper and the possession of other sorts of truth lies in the ability to explain the causes, αἰτίας, of the object of knowledge: “δόξαι ἀληθεῖς οὐ̣ πολλοῦ ἄξιαι εἰσιν ἕως ἄν τις αὐτάς δήσῃ αἰτίας λογισμῷ,” (M.98.a2). This distinction, in fact, is one of the only things of which Plato’s Socrates ever comes close to claiming positive knowledge.

[Anonymous No.12794461]

>>12794458
But Plato knew that these αἰτίας could not always be grasped. In fact one of his main problems with pre-Socratic philosophers was the way in which they grasped after the αἰτίας of the physical universe. Such knowledge is not only without consequence to the ethical questions Plato with which Plato was concerned, but he had serious problems with its logic: “I am far from thinking that I know the αἰτία of [how anything changes into anything],” (P.97.a1). He realized that, given the state of his knowledge and his capabilities, he could not hope to distinguish whether “heat and cold, by a sort of fermentation, bring about the organization of animals … or is it the blood, or air, or fire by which we think?” He was more intrigued by the philosophy of Anaxagoras: by identifying the ultimate αἰτία as νοῦς, by identifying the cause/reason of all that exists with an ordering mind-like principle Plato could find the αἰτία of anything by showing why it was best for it to be the way that it was, the idea that would inspire neoplatonism. But Anaxagoras was in the end as distracted by the minutiae of theoretical physics as his predecessors. Plato’s response to this problem – the problem, basically, of human ignorance, the incapacity to grasp certain truths with our senses as fundamental as our inability to stare at the sun – is to introduce the ὑπόθεσις, the δεύτερος πλοῦς. Plato recognized that reasoning from instances will often lead one to nonsense. But instead of coming upon the scientific method, of extensive repeated observation to correct the deficiencies of our reasoning and sensory faculties, Plato proposes the introduction of a higher truth from which conclusions about the world can be drawn. For example, if it seemed reasonable to suppose that the sun was the source of heat on the earth, it would follow that the sun’s setting is what causes the night to be cold. An explanation which required the sun to behave in any other way would be false because it would contradict the reasonable hypothesis on which the conclusion rests. Plato’s hypothesis is nothing like a modern hypothesis. It is not a proposed explanation that is being tested by sense-observation – Plato would have many problems with such a method; rather it is a conceptualizatoin that unites particulars. This idealistic hypothesis reflects Plato’s belief that abstract knowledge approaches the truth of things more than sense-knowledge (Ritter 87-88). Plato's answer to the issue of human ignorance is thus the transcending of the problematic incidences of sensory experience through the introduction of some higher truth which explains all of them.

[Anonymous No.12794466]

>>12794461
Plato uses the method for all sorts of things. In the Phaedo is found one of the most significant Platonic hypotheses, that the αἰτία of any thing’s being anything is its participating in the form of the “anything”, and these forms cannot admit their opposites. For example, under this reasoning the explanation for one line being more straight than another is the differing degree to which the two things possess straightness-itself and crookedness-itself. The one is more crooked than the other on account of crookedness, and the one straighter through straightness. But comparing the more crooked one to one still more crooked, we would not say that it is straighter through its crookedness, but straighter through its straightness. In no way when thinking of anything can a form conceptually admit its opposite. He goes on to define the soul as that which brings life, and if the soul, by definition, participates always in the form of life, it cannot exist in a state of death any more than fire can be cold. In the Meno Plato proposes the less abstract and universal but still illustrative hypothesis that for virtue to be teachable it must be knowledge, goes on to examine the implications of this and, finding them inconsonant with reality, proposes the ἀλήθης δόξα. The method is clearly the same in both cases. A higher truth, “higher” in the sense of applicable to a wider range of entities, is discovered tautologically or through inhibition and then followed logically. Platonism, basically, is the searching for hypotheses, concepts which give order to the world. The really interesting thing about the hypothesis is the extent to which it misled Plato and has continued to mislead to this day. It is not that there is something fundamentally wrong with accepting a proposition and deducing conclusions from it; the problem was the method’s tendency to obscure and compound errors inherent in the hypothesis. The hypothesis is frequently a matter of the discrimination of some ideas; e.g. in the Meno Plato distinguishes between things which can be conveyed through words from one person to another – knowledge, επιστήμης – and things which cannot. Finding that moral excellence is not passed on from one person to another, but holding virtue as characterized by the ability to guide the actions of others, and so necessarily including the possession of truth, Plato introduces ἀλήθης δόξα, the possession of truth without conveyable and rational επιστήμης.

[Anonymous No.12794469]

>>12794466
All very neat and impeccably logical. But if Plato was overstepping his bounds in his assumptions, the conclusion is rather useless. That he did so would be the instinctive response of most modern readers. Though virtue is driven by some subtler qualities which can’t be taught as algebra is, why can’t education still play a role? Why can’t virtue be viewed as the result of a complex and ultimately un-analyzable interaction of genetics, education, and, why not, God-given ἀλήθης δόξα? The same problem occurs in the Phaedo: the only ultimate αἰτία for any thing being something is its being something. What could be more axiomatic? And the something which it is cannot be its opposite. ἀνάγkη! But it is a Gargantuan assumption that the human being is the interaction of a soul, which necessarily and always brings life like fire always brings heat, and a body. Why not propose a ψυχή and a νοῦς and a θυμός, like Homer? Idealistic hypotheses are inherently problematic because the real world has no real distinctions. One can conceive of everything as a unity. But Plato was not at all unaware of humanity's ability to delude itself with false premises. Athens was awash with Sophists who seemed to be able to argue any side of any issue. In the Minor Laches, Socrates proposes that Odysseus knew more about truth than Achilles because Odysseus was a liar, and to be able to do something wrong consistently one must be able to do it right, so Odysseus must have known more about truth than Achilles. He is intentionally ignoring the fact that being a truthful person implies not only knowledge of the truth but the desire to speak it, pointing out the danger of a logically cohesive argument that stands on shaky ground.

[Anonymous No.12794472]

>>12794393
Yes he was wrong because justice is the proper ordering of things
A justice in regards to the soul is right regardless of its immortality, because it is the proper and ideal ordering of the soul
It does not matter if the soul lasts for a day or forever, a just order of the soul is more desirable than an unjust ordering
The unjust soul may see benefits in short term actions, but these are so detrimental that they are inherently undesirable.
Consider a man who wants to ace a test of some sort. He of course may unjustly cheat. However, why does one cheat in such a test? Surely it is not for simply passing it, for what immediate benefit does that grant? It is for a long term well being one cheats a test. This injustice creates a long term harm though, because the long term well being one seeks from cheating to ace a test only secures entry into a reality one is woefully unprepared. One must continually ruin themselves to perpetuate this injustice, and all that is gained from it is just as easily lost.

[Anonymous No.12794474]

>>12794469
Plato’s great oversight in his use of the hypothesis is his assumption of objectively-existent predicates of things, that is the Forms in which all entities with attributes participate, which are by definition unified and hence necessarily indissoluble: “Only those things are composite which act differently under different circumstances; whereas that which remains always the same is of a simple nature. Thus … every concept, as for example the equal, the beautiful, in fact every essential Being, is in and by itself simple and unchanging,” (Ritter 89). His problem is inherent in his assumption of the predicates themselves, which always and from the outset introduce the problem of causeless categorization and discrimination which lead to the problematic conclusions of the Phaedo and Meno. Having posited greatness and smallness and beingness, these are all necessarily unified because they are by definition the same regardless of the conditions of their actualization in the world of sense-experience – a proposition which “seems almost absurd because of its tautology,” (Ritter 90). The hypothesis of the Forms (a hypothesis of hypothesis, as it were) is the hypostatization of the predicates of things perceived. The best way to understand the Forms is not as some tool of an analytic philosophy but as a way of demonstrating and leading his students by analogy to a mystic and, for Plato, occult philosophy whose explicit goal is the contemplation of the Form of the Good, which is essentially the transcendent principle of existence. This is the “Dharma-Body of the Buddhah in the bottom of the hedge,” the pattern that endlessly repeats itself on all levels of nature and is sometimes perceived by individuals, either spontaneously and momentarily or constantly through the conscious acquisition and fostering in ordinary life of the mental habits that bring that Being-awareness about in visionary states. The method of the hypothesis was more than a way of reasoning, it was a part of the mysticism universal to humanity and the same in all cultures (I can almost see readers' eyes rolling but bear with me!) How else but in a mystical sense can we understand a passage like this one:
“But we who live in these hollows are deceived into the notion that we are dwelling above on the surface of the earth; which is just as if a creature who was at the bottom of the sea were to fancy that he was on the surface of the water, and that the sea was the heaven through which he saw the sun and the other stars, he having never come to the surface by reason of his feebleness and sluggishness, and having never lifted up his head and seen, nor even heard from one who had seen, how much purer and fairer the world above is than his own. And such is exactly our case: for we are dwelling in a hollow of the earth, and fancy that we are on the surface; and the air we call the heaven

[Anonymous No.12794477]

>>12794474
…. But the face is that owing to our feebleness and sluggishness we are prevented from reaching the surface of the air: for if any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his head out of the water and sees this world, he would see a world beyond; and … he would acknowledge that this other world was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true earth. For our earth, and the stones, and the entire region which surrounds us are spoilt and corroded … neither is there any noble or perfect growth. [In this place] the earth … ios in appearance streaked … and is decked with various colors … and they are brighter far and clearer than ours; there is a purple of wonderful lustre, also the radiance of gold, and the white which is in the earth is whiter than any chalk or snow ….” (P.110). I do not think Plato was using some sort of striking metaphor. He is describing one of the trance-states that the mind throws itself into when the mechanisms in the brain that maintain the organism's conception of its self are distorted, as they can be by fasting, sleep deprivation, chanting, schizophrenia, etc. But he's talking about a sort of Truth that is really beyond what we call “truth”, it goes beyond the limits of human speech so that when people try to talk about it they sound insane because they're forced to use idiosyncratic metaphors to describe it. For example, Plato's first successor at the Academy, Xenocrates, taught his students the unify the “Olympian” and “Titanic” souls, which sounds like it could have come out of the mouth of any lunatic if we didn't know it came from him (Moore). How can this be understood in any other way but the loss of the ego in the transcendent? I do not think there is any other way to understand people who talk about a big soul and a small soul, and I've met people who say the things Xenocrates said, even choosing similar words to describe it, who have never and probably never will read Plato. Or, even if I'm wrong about the specific content of Plato's mysticism, which I can only guess at by the hints dropped in his dialogues and by examining less secretive mystical paths like Buddhism, I think it's at least imminently clear that he had a mysticism, and we do him a huge disservice by ignoring it.

[Anonymous No.12794479]

>>12794477
Plato's method for bringing the soul closer to the Form of the Good is the elimination of desires and the contemplation of truth, which I strongly suspect involved some sort of visualization or meditation, just like we know the neo-Platonists used: “As long as we have our body … we shall never satisfactorily attain the object of our desires … for the body keeps us busy in a thousand ways … The body fills us with desires, passions and fears, all kinds of imaginings and nonsense, so that we can never understand by means of it anything in truth and in reality, as we call it … Worst of all, when we have some respite from it and proceed to some investigation, it interferes once more at every point in our search, interrupts, disturbs and intimidates us, so that we cannot, because of it, contemplate the truth,” (P.66b). What contemplation is seriously interfered with by desire and characterized by a loss of the awareness of the body? Not conversation, not Socratic dialectic, only the sort of contemplation whose end is the conception of the All through the slaying of the Self requires systematic mortification of the ego's wants and fears to be effective. Plato was aware of other ways too, the same ways people all over the world discover spontaneously for themselves or are taught by people who have gone before them: “in the Phaedo all the emphasis is on purity, death and immortality; in the Symposium it is all on love, on beauty and on life. The philosopher's goal is no longer to cut himself off from all … desire but to rise by means of desire … from the slavish infatuation for an individual to the adoring contemplation of supreme beauty,” (Grube 130). These two methods are known in any culture that goes very far down the mystical path, and even some that don't (think of all the orgiastic gnostic sects, not to mention whatever folkways inspired belief in witches, not to mention the European compulsion to drink ethanol). It is a testament to the genius of Plato (or perhaps to his teachers!) that he is not only aware of the two methods but seems to really understand both of them.

[Anonymous No.12794484]

>>12794479
It's very counter-intuitive but the systematic extinction of individual desire leads to a transcendent desire which people clumsily designate the yearning of the soul for God, and this transcendent desire can transform the desires of the ego, especially the love of another person as in the Symposium, into something truly holy and philosophically efficacious. When we seriously scale back the ego we are confronted with a void because the ego is all that we have had to occupy ourselves with for so many years, but the void ends up being filled with everything in the universe, so things go from being empty, because the ego isn't giving them meaning, to being brilliantly significant in and of themselves, because they are reflections of the self-repeating principle, God, the Form of the Good. As saints all over the world describe, the olfactory and chromatic senses are strikingly heightened, the need for food and sleep goes down dramatically, and the desire for the conceptualization of God starts to supersede anything else (not necessarily sitting around staring at the navel, any action done by the Titanic soul in submission to the Olympian soul, to describe it with Xenocrates' schema).

[Anonymous No.12794487]

>>12794458
Truth shines out like the sun illuminating reality anon. Do you find such a radiant truth in copy and pasted walls of text?

[Anonymous No.12794488]

>>12794484
an we create a postmodern magic that is to Schopenhauer as Marx is to ancient philosophy, then Socrates is to Aristotle and death. Am I enlightened? What next? Chop wood, carry water? Go to college and death. Am I enlightened? Make a new religion that's not chaos. I would nominate Heidegger as Jesus. Deleuze is to Aristotle and work for the creat Work? ate Heidegger as Marx is to Aristotle and work for the rest of my life? How do I contribute to the Greation from both life and death. Am I enlightened? What next? Negrestani is Basilides. Eco is Origien. Borges is not "kek kaos!!! xD"? I would nominate Heidegger as Paul. Spinoza as Paul. Spinoza as Pythagoras. Hegel is Hermes. Deleuze is Simon Magus. Land Bataille is a gnostic. Time is about removing fear from both life? How do I contribute to the Great Work? eoria and theosis, the achievement of ration of thre subject. Magic is a circle. History repeats itself. Philosophy is a gnostic. Time is a gnostic. Time is a circle. Histotle and death. Am I enlightened? What next? Chop wood, carry water? Go to college and Bataille is to Schopenhauer as Jesus. Derrida as Pythagoras. Hegel is to Iamblichus. Can we create a postmodern magic that is Origien. Borges is about raising kids, or the creation of thre subject. Magic is about raising kids, or the achievement philosophy, then Socrates is to Iamblichus. Can we creation of thre subject. Magus. Derrida as Paul. Spinoza as Baudrillard is to Schopenhauer as Jesus. Derrida as Jesus. Derrida as Paul. Spinoza as Paul. Spinoza as Paul. Spinoza as Pythagoras. Hegel is Hermes. Derrida as Pythagoras. Hegel is Hermes. Deleuze is Simon Magus. Land is Menaneder. Negarestani is to Plotinus as Baudrillard is to Schopenhauer as Jesus. Can we creation from theosis, the achievement of my life? How do I contribute to theoria and Bataille is to Aristotle and death. Am I enlightened? What next? Go to college and is Menaneder. Negarestani is Basilides. Eco is Origien. Borges is a gnostic. Time is Simon Magus. Land is Menaneder. Negarestani is a gnostic. Time is a gnostic. Time is a circle. History repeats itself. Philosophy is about removing fear from the ego. The Auogeides is to Schopenhauer as Jesus. Derrida as Paul. Spinoza as Pythagoras. Hegel is to Iamblichus. Can we create a postmodern philosophy, then Socrates is to Pl

[Anonymous No.12794490]

>>12794393
Plato and Aristotle are important people. However, in dealing with the arguments of Parmenides, Zeno, and Thrasymachus, their refutation seems to be not very appropriate.

[Anonymous No.12794497]

>>12794487
Judge Schreber had sunbeams in his ass. A solar anus. And rest assured that it works.

[Anonymous No.12794523]

>>12794490
Aristo BTFO'd Zeno

[Anonymous No.12794526]

>>12794393
Thrasymachus has a shit argument, so Soc can knock his block off.
>YEAAA b01

Read the Gorgias for Plato making Socrates have an actual debate about power.

[Anonymous No.12794553]

>>12794436
I'm only one of those

[Anonymous No.12794748]

>>12794474
>>12794477
>>12794479

so it sounds like Plato was one of the initiated. Could it be that he was a prophet like Buddha and Jesus but instead of teaching us temperance or love his gift to the world was rationalism ?

[Anonymous No.12794790]

>>12794393
Being just = having a well ordered, healthy soul.
Which is a greater advantage than acquiring more wealth or power over others.

[Anonymous No.12794971]

>>12794748
He taught everything, the sayings of Buddha are quite weak when juxtaposed Plato

[Anonymous No.12795044]

>>12794393
No. Nietzsche proved that he was right and that Plato was just a resentful fag with no real power.

[Anonymous No.12795061]

https://youtu.be/rgJzRkRly5Q

[Anonymous No.12795069]

>>12795044
Nietzsche is a fag

[Anonymous No.12795137]

>>12795044
Nietzsche is a very entertaining writer, but as far as "how you should live" go, he was not very good.

[Anonymous No.12795156]

>>12795069
>t. resents fags

[Anonymous No.12795160]

>>12795137
>t. resents that Nietzsche lived better than him

[Anonymous No.12795270]

>>12794393
I think that depends on what you look at in his speeches. There's a later passage (beginning of book 5, I think) where Socrates claims that he and Thrasymachus are now friends and weren't even enemies before. Now, that could be Socratic dissembling, but it at least merits taking another look at book 1 if it's serious. There's another passage in the Phaedrus where Socrates describes Thrasymachus as using his speeches to play on the emotions of his listeners. That's not unrelated to one of two important principles he introduces, namely spiritedness, the indignant anger that runs through the rest of the Republic. Looking back at the blushing passage, one can see that Socrates mentions the heat of the weather; the passage gives the impression of him being embarrassed or ashamed, but Socrates seems to suggest that the heat is the cause of the blush. That is, his anger is feigned, which may go along with the later passage about being friends and not enemies, as well as the Phaedrus passage. But to emphasize, the feigned anger is shot through the rest of the Republic.

The other big principle he introduces is precision, which is the principle underlying one man one art, as well as the math-leaning account of philosophy in the later books.

And as an observation, Socrates is right only if Thrasymachus is, since Socrates comes out as the stronger in argument. It's worth observing that Socrates is subsequent dissatisfied with the argument.

[Anonymous No.12795285]

>>12795270
>Socrates is right only if Thrasymachus is
I disagree. Socrates is right if he truly and honestly disproves Thrasymachus. Thats not the same as the stronger imposing his will on the weaker

[Anonymous No.12795296]

>>12794474
>The best way to understand the Forms is not as some tool of an analytic philosophy but as a way of demonstrating and leading his students by analogy to a mystic and, for Plato, occult philosophy whose explicit goal is the contemplation of the Form of the Good, which is essentially the transcendent principle of existence.
But isn't this philosophy just physics?

[Anonymous No.12795307]

>>12794393
The "immortal soul" is a bunch of bullshit. We should strive to be "good and virtuous" because the alternative, selfishness and injustice, is the root cause of cyclical historical catastrophe and detrimental to the positive ethical, philosophical, and technological progress of humanity as a whole.

[Anonymous No.12795331]

>>12795307
Based.

[Anonymous No.12795517]

>>12795285
Except that he doesn't quite, hence his subsequent admission that something's gone wrong. Elements of both Polemarchus's (friends and enemies gets instantiated in the dog like guardians) and Thrasymachus's positions reappear later. Book 1 isn't definitive in refuting the positions of all the interlocutors. This seems clear when both Glaucon and Adeimantus rehearse their variations on some of Thrasymachus's positions in book 2.

But also, it seems like an intentional element on Plato's part to have Socrates overwhelm Thrasymachus with arguments he almost immediately doesn't find satisfying. This raises the question about the relationship between philosophy and sophistry, treated in other dialogues like Euthydemus and the Sophist where refutation seems awfully close to sophistical refutation, both in its noble and base appearances. Even if the difference is that philosophical refutation aims for truth, it's other aim is persuasion, and so isn't necessarily fully distinct from Thrasymachus's mode of asserting oneself through compelling speeches.

[Anonymous No.12795834]

>>12794393
You should read Hans Jonas on immortality. Can't remember the name of the article but he lays out why and how your actions will reflect in eternity.

[Anonymous No.12796103]

>>12794484
I'm not sure that the Symposium shows quite what you claim. The Diotima account ends with a question, to which we notably don't get how Socrates answered (and consider what he said to Agathon about how a beautiful speech suppresses the ugly; shouldn't we wonder what's ugly and either suppressed or only indicated in Socrates's speech about Diotima?). Socrates subsequently asserts that he's persuaded of what Diotima said, but, having not provided how he answered her final question, seems to only indicate he's persuaded by the importance of her question.

[Anonymous No.12796373]

>>12795296
Now why would you think that? Physics isn't ontology

[Anonymous No.12796421]

>>12795307
>the root cause of cyclical historical catastrophe and detrimental to the positive ethical, philosophical, and technological progress of humanity as a whole.
Why should I care?

[Anonymous No.12796468]

>>12794423
phaedo is truly a great dialog.
One thing that i can not understand is - true philosopher should practice dying through out his life, by dying understanding a a soul seperation from flesh and by practicing of dying understanding practice of seperation of soul from its astray from understanding leading body and all of the lust that body desires and only by dying your soul can reach truth because there is no more misleading body.
But. if so, then why, in the same time one realises that you can only reach truth after soul has been seperated from body, one does not commit suicide right away so soul can be seperated right that moment?

[Anonymous No.12796764]

He argued against Glaucon, not Thramscurus who did get btfoe:d by Socrates.

[Anonymous No.12796876]

>>12795517
I'm not arguing whether Socrates or Thrasymachus is right. You said winning an argument is analogous to the strong forcibly exerting his will on the weak, which is logically incorrect

[Anonymous No.12797124]

>>12796876
That's not "logically incorrect". Does Socrates not appear to be the stronger in argument, and Thrasymachus the weaker? Does Thrasymachus not eventually go along with what Socrates says? Even if the substance of Socrates's position is different, on the level of the action of what the characters are doing, Socrates ends up affirming a form of the Thrasymachean thesis.

[Anonymous No.12797434]

>>12797124
The Thrasymachean thesis is that one can commit unjust acts if he has the power to do so. The dialogue between him and Socrates is not an example of this. Through dialectic, they attempt to discern what the real Truth is, and come to an agreement that Socrates' argument is closer to the truth. That's not the same as an imposition of strength

[Anonymous No.12797461]

>>12797434
The Thrasymachean thesis starts off as "justice is the advantage of the stronger"; the position gets changed, yes, but Socrates prevails over Thrasymachus, and the act of doing so is well described by the Thrasymachean thesis. Socrates is the stronger who imposes through persuasion his will over Thrasymachus, and arguably, the rest of the people present, since the plans Polermarchus had in mind for the evening never come to pass, the group instead participating in Socrates's conversation.

[Anonymous No.12797469]

>>12797461
That's a very reductive interpretation

[Anonymous No.12797495]

>>12797461
persuasion does not impose itself, by definition. it is to be contrasted with coercion. you can use the language of battle, victory, and so on to describe a persuasive argument, but these are figures of speech and not to be taken literally. persuasion is never itself violent, and socrates does not hold any of his listeners against their will.

[Anonymous No.12797501]

>>12797469
it's not reductive, it's sophistical. he is attempting to link the language of violence to the meaning of persuasion by twisting metaphor so it seems literal.

[Anonymous No.12797597]

>>12797469
>>12797501
It's not reductive, nor is it an attempt to impose some pomo reading on the text. Plato writes dramatic dialogues instead of treatises, and the dialogues aren't stenographic accounts of actual Socratic conversations (with the possible exception of the Apology). Socrates is the only speaker of the Republic, and all of the other characters have their speeches supplied by him. He offers observations about whether someone laughs, or blushes, or gets indignant, so the action isn't merely literary dressing, since the behaviors he observes are themselves sometimes given accounts by the philosophic speeches themselves.

In the case of Thrasymachus arguing initially the position that justice is the advantage of the stronger, the action ends up supporting Thrasymachus's position, while it's contradicted by Socrates's arguments. Socrates gets what's to his advantage, namely, taming Thrasymachus for the sake of more subsequent inquiry, and he does so insofar as he is stronger in argument, and Thrasymachus is weaker. That's not an analogy, that's a concrete description of the actions that take place in the second half of book 1. I didn't say, that was the end of the story, and that Thrasymachus comes out as actually right, but that the dialogue gives reason to not merely dismiss the importance of Thrasymachus to the rest of the Republic.

Noting this is the same as noting that the literary form of the Republic is the same as that of the mixed form of poetry that Socrates says is the most charming form of it, and so one that is especially dangerous and would have to be banned in the city-in-speech (i.e., the Republic as a writing would be banned in the city described in the Republic). Or like observing that the Phaedrus's argument about the weaknesses of writing is contained in a written work, which suggests Plato probably has a different or modified position than what's written in the text.

Noting things of this kind is totally ordinary and boring. If you'd like to argue that Plato's not *that* careful a writer, than have at it, but at the end of the day, Socrates is stronger than Thrasymachus in arguments, and takes what is or what seems to be to his advantage, and either Plato's a dumb writer who doesn't notice how his characters perform what's being argued over, or he's not.

[Anonymous No.12797616]

>>12797597
much better

[Anonymous No.12797620]

>>12797597
The reason you believe that winning an argument is because you have the incorrect assumption that Socrates' arguments are meant to be representations of his will. But several yes in the Republic it is said that philosophers try to find the Good through use of dialectic. In this case they are trying to discern the meaning of Justice in its ideal form. Since justice is an independent ideal concept, the fact that Socrates won the argument doesn't mean his will was imposed since the idea of justice exists outside of his arguments

[Anonymous No.12797626]

>>12797495
Look at the Sophist. Look at Euthydemus. Look at Protagoras. Look at Gorgias. Philosophy isn't simply the same as sophistry, but it's not unrelated. Socrates is perfectly willing to use sophistical arguments and sophistical means when he has a purpose. Take the Protagoras as an example: Socrates demands that Protagoras speak in much shorter speeches, due to his supposed difficulty in following longer speeches. As soon as he gets his way, he goes on a huge speech. Is that sophistical or not? And if you say not, on what basis do you do so?

[Anonymous No.12797680]

>>12797620
I don't think I follow your specific argument. I'll ask you the following:

Is Socrates not after his own good in arguing with people, at the least to discover the truth?

In the Protagoras, when the conversation with the title character goes sour, Socrates claims he has other business to attend to if Protagoras won't converse accordingly. The dialogue itself though happens literally right after the conversation with Protagoras; i.e., the dialogue is Socrates running into an acquaintance to whom he narrates what just went down with Protagoras. So. When he claimed he had other business to attend to, and it's clear from the dialogue frame that he doesn't, and it's clear from the context of that passage that he's threatening to dip out because things aren't going how he wants, was that not a kind of imposition of his will upon Protagoras? If not, how is it not?

[Anonymous No.12797723]

>>12797626
i would agree that socrates employs different methods depending on his audience and his intent, but his aim is not always or even mostly to 'win'. this does distinguish him from the sophists, who peddled methods for 'being right' under any circumstances by linguistic trickery and rhetoric. this does not mean he is not without his frailties. he is pompous and vain, and plato doesn't hide this from us.
i am less concerned in this conversation with the nuances of socrates' character, and more with what i see in your posts, which seems to me a conscious dissemblance of meaning.

[Anonymous No.12797802]

>>12797723
I think I agree with you, but I'm not trying to be tricky.

In a certain way, Socrates is trying to win the conversation, but we'd have to be clear what winning entails. In my personal reading, Thrasymachus ends up expressing common and harsh opinions popularly held about what justice and injustice really amount to, and for a real inquiry to begin, he needs to be tamed and made peaceable. The defenses Socrates mount don't always line up with each other, and he admits afterwards to having overgorged himself on speeches, so those positions he takes up aren't definitive themselves. The image of having overgorged himself, doesn't seem incidental, but like a likening of himself with Thrasymachus, who comes into the conversation like a beast, and insofar as he, dissatisfied with his own arguments, has acted like a "brash fighter", the literal translation of Thrasymachus's name. (Just so we're clear here, Plato totally puts on names; earlier in this very dialogue, Cephalus, whose name means "head", is sitting in a special kind of chair that uses his name in the Greek term for it)

With all this happening, one has to remember that Socrates hasn't shown what justice is yet, that his arguments in its favor with Thrasymachus are abandoned, and that as a set of actions, the argument looks like what Thrasymachus is describing in his opening position.

[Anonymous No.12797827]

>>12796421
Biological imperative of reproduction. You die but your offspring lives on, sharing part of the genetic building blocks that created you. And your ideas in so far as you have shared them. The closest thing to an immortal soul in reality.

[Anonymous No.12798509]

>>12797680
No, Socrates is not after his own good when he argues. In fact, he even warns against thinking like this. He described somewhere that dialectic can be abused when people argue just to argue or to win. He believes that those involved in dialectic are all working together to understand the good, and using dialectic to refine their understandings

[Anonymous No.12798540]

thrasymachus and callicles both btfo'd socrates

[Anonymous No.12798546]

>>12794419
With many non sequiturs.

[Anonymous No.12799145]

>>12798509
The passage about dialectic you're thinking of is Republic 537e and following? Looking back at it, Socrates warns about the dangers of flattery, but that's not the same as arguing for one's own good. He doesn't seem to really argue against arguing to win, which is presumably after some such good as honor, wealth, reputation, victory over an enemy, etc.

Do you have some other passages in mind about *not pursuing the good in argument*, because a great deal of what I see is something of that sort (pursuit of one's own good is a big part of the shtick of Eros in the Symposium and Phaedrus!).

[Anonymous No.12799187]

>>12799145
I'm not sure, but he was talking about in the chapters about education. I'm going from memory, but he basically said dialectic shouldn't be taught too early or before a student is ready, since they will learn to argue just to argue. The real point of dialectics is not to argue, but to discern the Good

[Anonymous No.12799202]

>>12795160
>t. melodramatic sniveling syphilis infested roastie-loving walrus of a man

[Anonymous No.12799210]

>>12797827
lol i don't give a fuck, i don't want kids, i make girls use the pill. If Sam Harris is right then we should just be Nietzscheans.

[Anonymous No.12799406]

>>12797827
>implying anyone on 4chan is going to reproduce

[Anonymous No.12800060]

>>12794403
>>12794423
Republic comes after Phaedrus, dumbfuck.

[Anonymous No.12800061]

>>12799406
Cursed dead ends with bad priorities

[Anonymous No.12800633]

>>12799187
The issue there isn't arguing for the sake of argument, but arguing to refute everything. On the one hand, we should note that Socrates resembles that more often than many would admit, and on the other hand, that dialectic as discussed in that passage is situated as a problem for the city-in-speech; the child who studies dialectic realizes that their parents aren't really their parents, and they start hitting back at the noble lies of the city.

[Anonymous No.12800642]

political structures around us designed to benefit the rich and powerful literally prove thrasymachus was right. Rules and morality don't apply to you when you can just buy your way out of it every-time you're caught

[Anonymous No.12800658]

>>12797461
>Socrates is the stronger who imposes through persuasion his will over Thrasymachus, and arguably, the rest of the people present
According to Plato's fangirl fanfiction. In reality Thrasymachus spoke and everyone applauded and laughed at Socrates, ending the evening. The Republic is a showerthought of what he could have answered to avoid shame.

[Anonymous No.12800664]

>>12800658
I laughed, so here's your (You).

[Anonymous No.12800698]

>>12795307
Why should I care about humanity in a universe with no inherent meaning?

[Anonymous No.12801223]

>>12800658
So we think the Greeks were incredible, but in reality what is left is just a series of beta showerthoughts that never existed. In reality they were just another society of Ben Shapiros, Jordan Petersons, and Steven Pinkers.
Diogenes was the London frogposter of his time.

[Anonymous No.12801638]

>>12800642
It isn't argumented that sometimes the stronger doesn't know what's better for them, so those powerful and rich think the pursuing of power and money all their lives will bring them everlasting happiness and pleasure, but in reality they are all just godforsaken moles lost in this cosmic subway.

[Anonymous No.12801658]

>>12801638
>It isn't argumented that sometimes the stronger doesn't know what's better for them?
so those powerful and rich think the pursuing of power and money all their lives will bring them everlasting happiness and pleasure, but in reality they are all just godforsaken moles lost in this cosmic subway.

[Anonymous No.12802642]

>>12795307
We should strive to be good because not doing so is not good? But how do we know the good in this case? Is it just pleasure? Nice feelsies for being nice?

[Anonymous No.12803564]

>>12800698
Unless you're a psychopath, you will care about other people automatically. Not all of them, but at least your in-group.

And if you love yourself, then you will love things that are like you.

[Anonymous No.12804178]

>>12803564
So it's arbitrary and circumstantial?

[Anonymous No.12805277]

>>12801223
The virgin Greeks

[Anonymous No.12805290]

>>12794428
We can rumple up all of modern philosophy and throw it in the trash, where it belongs.

[Anonymous No.12805669]

>>12794458
Where did you get all of this from? Are there secondary sources covering any of this, like old commentaries or scholarly studies?

[Anonymous No.12805758]

>>12804178
What's arbitrary about all that you are? How is some absolute truth or guiding principle not only arbitrary but irrelevant to you, who is not it and may disagree?

[Anonymous No.12806342]

>>12805758
Well it doesn't seem obviously true and it's not clear why love of things similar to the self would hold.

For the philosopher. Everyone basically knows what the vulgar are up to.

[Anonymous No.12807407]

>>12806342
I mean, 'you' biologically. Simplistic abstractions (metaphysics) are useless in the complexity and contextuality of human matters.

[Anonymous No.12808572]

>>12804178
No, if you are human then being social is part of your nature and that includes empathy for your in-group. The second point on the other hand only holds true if you are mentally healthy though.

That's the best you are going to get in a world without god.

[Anonymous No.12808618]

>>12794790
prove it faggot