Plato’s Theory of Forms is a philosophical concept that explains the nature of reality, positing the existence of eternal and unchanging Forms or Ideas as the objects of knowledge. This concept differentiates the abstract world of thought from the world of the senses, where art and mythology operate. Plato argued that abstract thought is “direct”, “unmediated”, and that mystical experiences are allegedly “direct”, “unmediated” insights.
The theory of forms has implications for knowledge, suggesting that knowledge is attained through contemplation of the Forms, rather than through empirical observation. It is a central concept in Platonism, which is credited to him among Neoplatonic mystics. His doctrine of knowledge as recollection, Ideal forms, human soul, love, transmigration, or afterlife are congruent with mysticism.
Plato’s Theory of Forms asserts that the physical realm is only a shadow or image of the true reality of the Realm of Forms. The Forms are posited as the stable, unchanging entities that provide meaning to our thoughts and words and cause the changing, unstable things we find.
The mysticism surrounding the theory of forms is proof that ontological concerns have not always been divorced from moral and aesthetic ones. Plato’s mysticism, inherited from Pythagoras, is on full display in his theories, which suggest that the physical world is not as real or true as Forms.
In conclusion, Plato’s Theory of Forms is a significant philosophical concept that posits that the physical world is not as real or true as Forms. Its mysticism and the pursuit of the ultimate experience are integral to understanding the nature of reality and the role of Forms in our understanding of the world.
📹 How Divine Madness can Reveal Mystical Truths – Plato | Ficino | Bruno
Plato is perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. He is renowned for his wide-ranging philosophical dialogues which laid the …
Is Plato’s Theory of Forms metaphysical?
The Theory of Forms is a metaphysical theory that focuses on the nature of reality and the place of human beings within it. It specifically examines the relationship between objects in the physical realm.
How does Aristotle’s view of metaphysics differ from Plato’s views?
Aristotle believed that the eternal nature of Forms made them ineffective for understanding change. He sought to determine the nature of reality, rejecting Plato’s view that it was transcendent. Aristotle believed that the world is our world and that knowledge should be universal and common. He introduced metaphysics to the world of sense experience, focusing on being qua being, which involves studying the different ways the word “be” can be used. Aristotle’s metaphysics aimed to understand the nature of reality beyond our experiences.
What is the problem with Plato’s theory of forms?
Plato believed that forms exist as essences in a transcendental world, apprehensible rather than sensible. Parmenides questioned the relationship between the form and the particular, arguing that the perfect ideal intermingles with its imperfect copy. He also questioned the limits of the number of particular things that can be considered a form. Socrates suggested that there are forms for beauty, truth, virtue, and justice, as well as fire, water, cats, and dogs.
Parmenides, however, was puzzled about the existence of a form for hair, mud, and dirt. Socrates suggested that these forms are patterns fixed in the nature of things, while other things are made in their image and likenesses. The participation of these things in the forms is nothing but their being made in their image.
Is Plato a mystic?
This book is divided into three chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of philosophy. Chapter 1 discusses the nature and possibility of the ultimate philosophical experience of the first principle of being, which Yount interprets as mystical. He argues that Plotinus was a mystic, and every element in Plato’s dialogues referring to this kind of experience leads Yount to argue that Plato was also a mystic.
Chapter 2 offers a comprehensive analysis of all topics classified under the general category of ‘Epistemology’, such as the nature of knowledge and its degrees, the method of dialectics, and the doctrine of recollection. In chapter 3, Yount examines a series of ethical questions, including happiness, love, purification, and virtues. He presents a “principle of compatibility” to assess the reality of the similarities or differences between Plato and Plotinus on all epistemological and ethical issues.
Yount presents a systematic account of all pertinent passages of both philosophers related to the topics discussed, reproducing a personal translation from the Greek or a translation by others that he amends or adapts. The main focus of the book is on the philosophical statements drawn by Yount from this complex comparative compilation of passages.
In chapter 1, Yount presents a philosophical analysis of the nature of the ultimate experience, which he believes is everlasting or self-sustaining, difficult and rare, ineffable, and has several requirements. He argues that if Plotinus claims to have an experience of the One or the Good, and if we can show that Plato shared that “vision”, then Plato can be said to have had such an experience.
Yount discusses concurrent readings in recent scholarship, and his position is that the Neoplatonic doctrine was already present in Plato. This conclusion leads him to criticize the interpretation of Lloyd P. Gerson (Plotinus, 1994), who took the very different position that one can best understand Plotinus when ignoring his so-called mystical stance.
Why did Aristotle reject Plato’s Theory of Forms?
Aristotle criticized Plato’s Theory of Forms for being too abstract and insufficiently rooted in the real world. The Theory of Forms posits that reality as it appears to us is different from reality as it really is, and that appearances are deceptive. Forms, according to Plato, are ideal, abstract entities that correspond to things in the world of appearances but are actually ideal versions of those things.
He discusses forms for abstract qualities like truth, beauty, goodness, and justice, but debates whether there are forms for ordinary objects. Aristotle believed that Plato’s theory was too abstract and insufficiently rooted in the real world.
What is the difference between Plato and Aristotle theory of forms?
Plato and Aristotle were philosophers with contrasting views on philosophical concepts. Plato believed in an ideal realm of Forms, while Aristotle focused on empirical observation and the study of the physical world. Plato’s metaphysical approach emphasized abstract reality, while Aristotle focused on the tangible world and knowledge pursuit through observation and analysis. They also had differing political ideologies, with Plato advocating for a utopian society led by philosopher-kings and Aristotle advocating for a more practical and moderate form of governance.
Who is the mystical philosopher?
A philosopher is an individual who engages in rigorous and profound reflection on a range of fundamental issues, including those pertaining to the nature of existence and the fundamental questions that arise from this. It is possible that your browser is blocking the video content.
What are Plato’s metaphysical views?
Platonism is a philosophical perspective that asserts the existence of abstract objects, which are non-spatial and non-temporal, non-physical, non-mental, and unchanging. These objects are not involved in cause-and-effect relationships with other objects and are not made of physical things.
Examples of abstract objects include the sentence “3 is prime”, which suggests that 3 is an abstract object, a real and objective thing that exists independently of us and our thinking. However, according to Platonism, 3 is different from the moon in that it is not a physical object, is non-physical, non-mental, and causally inert.
Similarly, many philosophers take a platonistic view of properties, such as the property of being red. According to Platonism, the property of being red exists independently of any red thing, such as balls, houses, and shirts. However, Platoists believe that in addition to these things, redness, the property itself, also exists, and this property is an abstract object. Ordinary red objects are said to exemplify or instantiate redness, but this suggests an acausal relationship between red objects and redness, which contemporary platonists would reject.
In summary, Platonism is a philosophical perspective that asserts the existence of abstract objects, which are non-spatial, non-temporal, and non-physical. It is a contemporary view that challenges traditional understandings of the nature of objects and their relationships with others.
What is mystic theory?
Mysticism is the practice of religious ecstasies, including ideologies, ethics, rites, myths, legends, and magic. The term “mystic” comes from the Greek noun “mystes”, which originally meant an initiate of a secret cult or mystery religion. In Classical Greece and the Hellenistic Age, the rites of mystery religions were largely or wholly secret. Early Christianity appropriated the technical vocabulary of the Hellenistic mysteries but later disavowed secrecy, resulting in a transformation of the meaning of mystes.
In subsequent Christian usage, mystes or mystic referred to practitioners of doctrinally acceptable forms of religious ecstasy. From late antiquity through the Middle Ages, Christians used prayer to contemplate both God’s omnipresence in the world and God in his essence. The soul’s ecstasy in contemplation of God was termed a “spiritual marriage” by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the greatest mystical authority of the 12th century.
The 13th century saw the term “unio mystica” (mystical union) used as a synonym. During this period, the range of objects of contemplation expanded to include the Passion of Christ, visions of saints, and tours of heaven and hell.
What is criticism of the Theory of Forms?
Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s Theory of Forms is centered on the notion that universals are not distinct from particulars. In contrast, Platonists maintain that each material entity possesses its own unique Form or Forms, which are separate from the entity itself.
What is Plato’s Theory of Forms also known as?
The theory of Forms, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical concept credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. It suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as Forms, which are the non-physical, timeless, absolute, and unchangeable essences of all things. Plato speaks of these entities only through characters, primarily Socrates, who sometimes suggest that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide knowledge.
Pythagoras’s texts suggest that he developed a similar theory earlier than Plato, proposing that the world is entirely composed of numbers. The early Greek concept of form preceded attested philosophical usage and is represented by words mainly related to vision, sight, and appearance. Plato uses these aspects of sight and appearance in his dialogues to explain his Forms, including the Form of the Good.
The original meaning of the terms εἶδος (eîdos), “visible form”, and related terms μορφή (morphḗ), “shape”, and φαινόμενα (phainómena), “appearances”, remained stable over the centuries until the beginning of Western philosophy. Plato used the terms eidos and idea interchangeably.
📹 Plato’s theory of Forms or Ideas
I discuss Plato’s theory of Forms or Ideas. Plato’s Forms/Ideas are “universals”, general, abstract things, in contrast with concrete …
It’s Christmas & I’m spending it alone. I’m listening to this while I’m seated inside of a Chinese restaurant, and around 11:00, I think of my older brother. My older brother is a paranoid schizophrenic, & the times I’d listen in on his manic rants, his hallucinations, and talks… he would go into such intricate rants. He’d create diagrams, puzzles, riddles. He’d create his own formulas, endlessly. He’d sometimes write on walls and our mirrors. When I’d have to clean up, I wouldn’t really pay attention to them. Just scattered numbers & letters. It’d fascinate me how he’d come up with these things, & what they all meant to him. He’d become heavily involved in various religions, he was even baptized as a Mormon (I still chuckle thinking about that.) He’d read into Taoism, introduced me to Aztec deities, Hebrew texts, just countless philosophies & multicultural beliefs … he was so smart. Even his rhyming, poetry, writing. You’d think he was a scholar. Unfortunately, he fell into a world of substance abuse & homelessness. His paranoia really prevented him from venturing into a route of education. No one quite understood his words. He was insane, to the world. To me, to our family, he was our scholar. Our poet. Our rapper, our philosopher.
Ahh omg, I’m a philosophy student at uni and I’m kicking my feet in the air like a twelve-year-old rn. “Phaedrus” is my absolute favorite dialogue; love characterized as divine madness is staggeringly accurate, in my opinion. True love, supported by the virtue of σωφροσύνη, is passionate but delicate, maddening but holy, and “seeing the idea of beauty itself in another person” (which doesn’t have to refer to their looks) is just the best description ever. It’s great
Devine madness is the one thing I will contest in this era is a true and enlightening gift while simultaneously being a wretched curse. To be blessed is to be shunned when one’s mind is opened to universal truths. A man gifted with divine madness is truly stranded ALONE on an island when surrounded by men who will consider nothing but the logic indoctrinated by the institutions they so cherish. Even to find a human willing to listen with an open heart that may not fathom the universes teachings is outside the comfort zone. To stumble on such a meeting of like minds in secret would be my only wish. Connecting with the “Gods” disconnected me from my family and peers. Yet this madness they perceive as negative showed me the madness of the masses. Patterns and geometry are how the universe tries to connect with common man. Thank you for giving insight it does give me starting points to know now I’m blessed not crazy.
I awoke spiritually in the 1980s, my mid and early 30s. Don’t ask me why or how, I certainly am not worthy of such experiences. A door opened up. I walked through. I am not an intellectual this lifetime, though, I have studied a great deal on my own. I suspect that you don’t need an intellectual understanding of mystical experiences if you have enough understanding to control the terrors of experiencing such power in your soul. It was terrifying, but my curiosity got the best of me. In the end, I am glad I had the courage to live this life. It comforts me that so many wise men have found the same doors I have. Love of God, the ONE, is a kind of madness, it is a good madness but it may propel you to places you would not willing to go if you had complete reasoning control of your soul. I love Bruno’s Heroic Frenzies. He understands.
I feel like I can actually weigh in here. I’ve studied somatics for 5 years, which is the study of the mind body connection. So my primary focus is Contact Improvisation dance, but part of it is also learning Tantra, learning about the nervous system, especially the vagus nerve, and our senses of interoception, proprioception and gravity-perception (weight, momentum etc). Just learning this stuff has actually rivaled my use of psychedelics and honestly, I haven’t felt the need to shroom in years because, although shrooms were very therapeutic, I’ve found movement to be much more so. And it doesn’t stop there–yes, I’ve had some pretty wild extra-sensory stuff happen to me through dance, or tantra. Now, here’s the crossover. There was a phenomenal book released around 2020 called The Immortality Key. The author finds pretty extensive evidence that not only was a hallucinogen served at Elusis and the feasts of Bacchus–more than likely the Eucharist of Christ was a hallucinogenic drink. AND IT DOESN’T END THERE! People of the same time period were really, really into ecstatic dance, to the point where the Library of Alexandria actually had a dance department. These things were all deeply, deeply interlinked. There’s a reason why it says “The Body is the Temple” in the bible. It really truly is. It is your access point to something much greater.
Man. What a great episode. ❤ thank you so much for not neglecting us practicioners. Ever since my time in PRS I have taught philosophy, magic and math are interrelated. Yet academia only has space for math and philosophy. Thank you for talking and covering those who also use the arts. ❤❤❤much love. Thanks for what you do.
I had a psychotic break five years ago that I am still trying to process. And one thing that happened was I was up all night reading about various religions, then the mental breakdown intensified the next day, I get sent to the mental hospital for a week, come back and look to see what I was looking up that night. The last thing I looked up was the Wikipedia article for divine madness. That freaked me out. So thank you for explaining what divine madness is, and maybe it will help me process my breakdown better.
The lens through which I look at this divine madness stuff is with a mix of Eastern philosophy I’ve picked up over the past year. Bankei’s Unborn, Lao Tzu’s Dao… some things only really reveal themselves when one opens oneself to paradox, seeming paradox at least. There’s a great filter where many stop dead in their tracks muttering to themselves that they must be mad.
Hi 👋 My name Evanna. I am 37yo in Australia. I have always loved mathematics. Ancient Architecture and Geometry are my special interests. I have had an interesting 2 weeks… I had chronic CTS, causing severe pain in my hands. I am profoundly grateful to have healed, however learned healing is not a straight line. I experienced Kundalini awakening and my nervous system was “re-wired.” This sent me insane for a few days. I was fluctuating between elation and pure enragement. I took up hula-hoop “magic” / dancing again, wrote poetry and practiced singing. I am learning suppressed energy can become dangerous, yet it would be irresponsible to act on every primitive urge to use it. I’m not sure this even makes sense. I just wanted to say this article came at a perfect time for me. I have been a subscriber for some time and really appreciate the way you carefully yet generously deliver this information. 🙏 ❤
I am so GRATEFUL to have found this today as I travel back to see family for the holidays & have spent the last year feeling in have lost my mind & it has been perfectly described as the last of the four manias. It came out of the blue one year ago & has tormented me almost every waking second since! I am not crazy. I am being guided. 🙏
I experienced the mannia and the frenzies all in one afternoon and evening. Seeking and diving deeply into the unknown and most possibly the unreal, reality raised its beautiful head and I was baptized in living waters in the afternoon and than transferred to an eternal seat in view of the throne of the living God that evening. Alas, asked by a couple of Kingdom Preists?, to return to earth, It was my decision, I didn’t want to. They offered a scenario that might comfort me more, and Than I felt totally embarrassed that I was even contemplating saying no. So I quickly said yes, was taken to a future event, and than returned to my earthly body. I did not know my mission, but over the past 50 years it’s all fallen into place and is going very well, especially for We the People. We’re very near the end of tribulation, which I believe started when She lost in 2016. Great articles. Thank you.
Fabulous article! I often find myself getting into arguments with Neoplatonists on Reddit, but I nearly always end up agreeing with Plato. I didn’t understand why, but now I do — my “path upward” is that of mania. So, the reason why I argue with Neoplatonists so often is because I argue that the gods are not intrinsically rational, and that one must go mad on purpose to comprehend them properly. Nice to see that that’s substantiated!
Wow thank you Justin, what a treat! I’m certain divine madness is an uninterrupted exuberance that, if someone can practice it, bypasses the conditioning effects of an alternative (conventional) education. I call the typical industrial education alternative. Even after all the damage has been done, part of a persons self-expression is toward authenticity… pure exuberance and self-expression. That’s my view, as a spiritual poet, devoted to divine love!
OMg I am freaking out! A few months ago I was taken into hospital with severe chest pains, and whilst I was waiting for my results I started seeing everything in what I can only describe as like a grid with everything and everyone in tiny pieces like as if built on blocks, I started hearing voices saying “she knows” she can see it, it was then i seriously thought I was going to die. The feeling I got was as if this was a higher source letting me the truth about reality before I die. They said I had had a small heart attack, but then on further testing it changed to pericarditis. It was a terrifying experience, I really did think the voices and visions meant I was about to leave this earth!
Sorry to hear about the copyright nonsense…but I’m glad to see this one again, as it’s been a while, and is a very worthy topic to be revisiting! I wonder if an interesting conversation might yet be had on how a parallel set of concepts arises in Irish medieval thought, particularly in narratives like Buile Shuibhne, often translated as the “Madness” or “Frenzy of Suibhne,” a king who essentially gets PTSD (and the relevance of this to modern people with PTSD has been written about by my friend Erynn Rowan Laurie), and who then eventually becomes a poet as a result of his condition, and dies in the company of a saint in an odd situation (his original madness, to an extent, is caused by a saint’s curse as well). At some future date, I’d love to have some scholars of Hermeticism and other ancient/late antique/medieval philosophical ideas that are of a more esoteric bent get together with scholars of medieval Irish and see what might come of it in terms of cross-pollination. Some of the works drawing on apocrypha in Irish culture are just phenomenal in terms of their content…I think you’d have a field day with In Tenga Bithnua, for example. 😉
Thank you for making this one. I enjoyed listening to it so much and hung on every word that it felt like it was an hour long. This divine Love, these ” The frenzies” is our inheritance and I’m just blown away at this article. Thank you again and please keep up the good work. Would you please consider doing a article on what the mystery schools taught specifically, sacred geometry, breathing techniques or mental state (like Love) to be worked with and use of psychedelics in the spiritual training process. For example, Moses and the burning bush 🔥, as well as Paul walking in the desert on the road to damascus? 🙏🏽 🙏🏽 You’re doing God’s work here (universal mind, holy spirit, etc..) ❤️
When it comes to this a part of this process as Olympiodorus also points out is as follows; “At the start, our irrational side is like the Titans, destroying our rational and higher self. When we neglect our intuitive intellect, which is hidden within us and connects us to both the lower and higher aspects of ourselves, we become like the Titans (or traitors to ourselves). But when we align ourselves with this intuitive aspect, we become like Bacchus, in control and in harmony with our irrational side.” “The passive or feminine nature of our irrational part, through which we are bound in body, and which is nothing more than the resounding echo of the soul, requires her own form, which she has lost through Titanic dispersion into matter. For every external form or substance is wrought into an identity with its interior substance, through an in-generated tendency. She needs to be freed from such identification so she can act herself without the external image, having become established within according to the first-created life.”
Hi Dr. Sledge, love your work, and very happy to see Bruno in one of your vids. I was wondering if you would do a deep dive into Trithemius, his work I find fascinating, for example his tabula recta led to the development of the Vigenere cipher which went unbroken for 300 years. His books are also the first we find the Theban or “witches” alphabet
Thank you very much for this overview. I see some similarities in an experience I have gone through and it offers some consolation that thousands of years ago, respected people described something very alike. I would of course be keen and happy to help reconstruct how such kind of divine madness could have occurred, but I have, alas, not been able to record it all when it happened. Thank you again for your content!
I wonder if Plato thought of ecstatic states as being necessarily in conflict with rational argument and reason. It’s been a long time since I’ve read the relevant dialogues. We tend to take it for granted that the two are incompatible or in competition with each other. It seems to me this is an unexamined assumption of our own age. Reason and ecstatic ways of knowing complement each other and inform each other. It seems to me Plato knew this well.
Thank you for resurrecting this extremely important topic! The mystical side of Plato and the Academy is not a controversial topic among scholars of Plato, there are many papers and books on it. It’s really the wider philosophical community that is holding on to racist 18th century tropes of the Intellectual West vs the Mystical East. We readily accept that Indian philosophers aquire their wisdom through mystical means but can’t see how the accident Greek pagan sages were doing the same thing? It’s my speculation that rational dialectic developed among philosophers as a technical language of discourse. The various philosophical currents that developed in classical Greece were so deferent that they needed a way to standardize the rhetoric by which they can be presented and critiqued, hence the need for writing them in rational language.
I really need to start recording my dreams more often and regularly. I have moments where I feel myself elevated, opposite to the “falling” sensation when falling asleep. Usually accompanied by gods, voices, and symbolism that I’ve kept some recollection of in my own personal book of shadows. Is it simply dream nonsense, daemonic possession, or divine madness? Idk buts its cool
As a professional “hare gone mad with prophecy” of my city, you handled this kind of delicate subject so well I didn’t even realize there was a mental health aspect til I came to the comments afterwards. 👏👏👏 I’m not a huge fan of prog black metal (I’m packing my bags for exile now, don’t rush me /joking) but something that has never failed to “awaken my soul” is Celtic Woman’s cover of “You Raise Me Up” and Within Temptation’s “Mother Earth” I guess it’s to each their own, and I was a first soprano 😂
I’m a little late, but in my own ramblings through the little that is known of old Germanic beliefs, it became rather clear that Woden (Old English), which, at least by the migration era, was the “head” god, is very clearly linked to madness; seemingly in every sense. Old English, “wōd” (which lived into modern English as “wode, wood”) meant “excited, energised, spirited, frenzied, obsessed, furious, angry”. I was aware of ideas of “divine madness”, but it just struck me very interesting that a head god could have this at their core. I think this ends up being a broad concept that folk nowadays struggle a lot with.
On what you say about learning vs the soul re-membering (it’s previous genetic predecessors through epigenetics or even “junk” DNA), that’s pretty much the frequency of the akashic records and what Einstein meant with the unified field. I’m quite certain it is exactly as what most people experience in bursts like a eureka 💡 moment at which I expect that if tested it will show a peak in the bodies own Dmt-release.
Hi Dr. Sledge, I’m a more recent addition to your subscribers, but I’ve really been enjoying your approach and presentation to all the topics you cover. On the topic of music that awakens the soul, have you listened to Lingua Ignota / Rev. Kristin Michael Hayter? Her last two albums in particular I would say are very relevant here. Quite powerful stuff.
Times where I flew too close to the sun experimenting on mushrooms, I was punished with absolute wisdom and burning of insanity. Merging with the universe was the most freeing and beautiful feeling of my life, but I’ve fallen back into sin. I now feel guilt for essentially using a shortcut to the divine and won’t take anything again
I like using weed to confront my shadows, when the drugs hit my shadows become loud and present. They rise to the surface where I can feel them and I usually get down to the crux of a shadow behavior through meditating & asking the individual shadows questions about why they’re their. It’s helped me like time travel or like super charge my shadow work. I’m that much closer to individuation.
Very interesting. I think that you should also compare this “frenzy of love” and Plato’s mania…. with the states of consciousness reached with the qabalistic meditations of Itzhak Luria or of Abulafia, as described by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in his book “Meditation and Kabbalah “.spiritual extasis is also known in India, see Yogananda explaining it here in the USA in the 20th century
Tho highly interesting, it strikes a chord with the hebraic tzaddik, which I think bears on this. From what little I have seen, the tzaddik is a personal path one self defined and observed, and perhaps from that alone considered somewhat crazy or lunatic already. Most don’t look at the hermit as a source of wisdom, tho sometimes it seems it should be.
I’m of the opinion gleaning from Iamblichus and Hermeias of Alexandria that theurgic ritual is a kind of art which instills the mania or ‘enthousiasmos’ in the soul. Divine inspiration is the goal and the highest point on the scale of virtues on which we advance most of the way by philosophy, but requires something beyond philosophy to establish the soul’s connection with her proper god on a supersubstantial and ‘henadic’ level. Ritual may not be the only way that this is accomplished, as some of the Platonist philosophers admit the soul’s ascent to the dialectician, the lover, and the musician.
Interesting there is some truth to that in my maddest periods i learned some crazy lessons learned about reality itself and about myself. These mad periods came about when I meditated to get as close to creater as possible whit sacred sounds wich showed me how creater his voice creates everything and keeps it in balance. I got episodes where i thought i had magic powers but then realised they where in my mind for the most part. But it showed everyone is creating ”magic” or creations and i just saw the connections and energy fields radiating from these creations. And it did let me see the interconnectivity of everything. Animals started behaving different like i could understand them.
I find it far more ableist to assume I and others like me would be offended by a word associated with the kind of illness we have and a type of mystical experience (which I’ve also had). I am mentally ill (manic-depression and Complex PTSD) AND neurodivergent (Tourette’s syndrome, OCD, and the 4 Ds, oh and by the way, mental illnesses don’t count as neurodivergence!), as well as being a practicing mystic who has had ecstatic trances (spontaneously and via meditation or frenzied dance). I’m intelligent enough to appreciate the nuances of a word. It certainly doesn’t bother me to hear terms like ‘Beatlemania’ or to read the Mad Hatter’s tea party scene, and I happen to be quite a sensitive person, mind you. What’s more, I’m keenly interested the so-called “Mad Monks,” Ikkyu Senju and Grigori Rasputin, the Korean mudang, Holy Fools, etc. Additionally, I consider myself a neo-maenad, despite the fact that I don’t drink (as I am very responsible about taking my meds). What I’m trying to say is we mentally ill people go through worse than hearing a largely archaic and very general term for our conditions being used in the context of one of its other definitions. Having people walk on eggshells around me because of my conditions makes me feel like some sort of helpless infant, which does bother me.
Schopenhauers quote, approximatively translated nearly literally: Der Wahrheit zu Teil ward, der nur ein kurzes Siegesfest beschieden ist, zwischen den beiden langen Zeiträumen, wo sie als paradox verdammt und als trivial gering geschätzt wird. Truth is only granted a brief (momentary?) victory between the two long periods when it is condemned as paradoxical and disregarded (valued poorly) as trivial. Maybe that’s nice for s o out there
If gazing on the physical beauty of young men is the first step in attaining enlightenment, then I must have been going to high school with WAY more philosophers than I realized. “It’s not porn, mom, it’s part of my search for True Knowledge!” (don’t at me, this comment only exists as an offering for the Engagement Fairy)
I have schizophrenia and i sometime feel as if God gave it to me to teach me something. Its a system placed over me, i have a voice, i have closed eye visuals where i seey ex girlfriend every night when i go to sleep, theres 2 copies of them, my voice has his own body and theres a copy of me right underneath my vision. Ive seen my doppelganger a couple of times and the ghost of my grandma. It feels like its designed by someone, its too weird. I wouldnt be mad at God if he did, maybe im supposed to get something from this. I mean all this suffering cant be for nothing right?
Dr Sledge, you’ve mentioned a few times how the philosophical establishment is reflexively hostile to these sorts of ideas. However, I doubt that such hostility is absolute, and plenty of “canonical” figures have undergone reevaluation recently on other grounds (I think of Immanuel Kant and the ongoing controversy over his racism and the degree to which it is separable or inseparable from the philosophical meat of his work). Do you think there’s a way these observations could be introduced into the mainstream academic conversation such that they would be taken seriously? Either in philosophy or comparative religion. And what other barriers do you see, aside from prejudice? BTW I hate using the word “establishment”, it makes me feel like a conspiracy theorist about to rant about the deep state and commie academics.
Your lament about the lack of useful english language words that equate to what you’re talking about hits a bit hard. I’ve been working on something for a bit, much of it born from highly manic states, what Plato is talking about sounds like it could be what I experienced, but I haven’t been able to talk about that side of it at all and have instead tried to reach back to what was born from those states with a dialectical process, like explaining it that way. Teetering on the edge of insanity and talking about it just ends up with you being prescribed medication — or worse. It really opened my eyes to a side of things that our culture has nothing to say about except negative things, with negative connotations, and nothing I would have said could change their minds. If I had listed my “symptoms” to a psych professional I would have been diagnosed with a myriad of mental illnesses but would have been the most sane person in the building. Which, mind you, is enough to drive just about anyone insane. God what a world we live in.
My brother is in a mental hospital now. He hasn’t been sleeping and has been acting weird like never before. He keeps saying he sees it now and keeps questions why he saw it and he says he saw reptilians and is going mad. He will become absent minded and pee himself and say a lot of weird things and like he has a debt to pay back and even tried to cut his finger off. It’s because of his deep obsession with this bullshit. I’ve been there myself going mad with this bull shit and the one and only true Father God has saved me. Only Jesus brought me out of my illusions I never knew if I was awake or dreaming
Why does gazing upon the PHYSICAL beauty of “young men” (=teenagers who still can’t grow a beard) prompt the soul to begin its journey to the transcendental world of the forms where one can gaze upon the sublime form of beauty itself? I’m a gay man who finds that idea extremely creepy. If Plato’s soul was so noble, why was the PHYSICAL beauty of male youths so disturbingly important to him? 😒
plato and aristotle have a good point and we need to take into consideration both of their world views, appeared functionality and the full potential of the thing. it’s like anatomy vs. physiology. or genotype vs. phenotype. or like in biology: you can see diversity and a lot of different animals but there are underlying unity behind theme. laws of nature that governs all things. at the biology scale it would be cells, genes, codons, etc. it’s equal to archetypes or patterns or ideas in plato’s mind also in reality there are many objects and systems, but the underlying properties of them at the small scale are the same, you can refer to space-time and energy. or you can refer to more abstract concepts like mathematics that can describe everything, it consists of variables (containing a value), and relationships between them, and you can say that without some initial value to begin with, all there is in existence, are relationships. and then you can see the oneness ness of the universe, at the very abstract scale and the fact that it’s all relationships. assuming that you don’t have where to begin with (an initial value).
Great article. Quick Question: What would Plato say if there was a common feature among particulars thereby allowing us to abandon any reasons to conclude a universal? For example, all particular Plato’s have “X.” Therefore, there is no universal, idealized Plato but particular Plato’s with a common “X.” -Thanks much
Second, Plato understood that to acquire knowledge we already need to possess some knowledge. We are able to acquire knowledge because we KNOW where to look, how to look, when we have found it… That is called Meno’s paradox, if you’re interested. I think Plato drew the wrong conclusion that we must already have known EVERYTHING from the beginning. But it is reasonable to assume that we must have known SOMETHING at the beginning (which is however NOT just what we rediscover in the end).
Perhaps it may be my own perspective on the words used after the fashion of Cratylus ( the book that talks of the origin of words). But i usually refer to what you call ideas as principles (things intelligible) and sorts( or things sensible). A way to explain this could be using numbers, while I’m not very talented at math, this seems to be fairly straight forward. For example, you can have any odd number or any even number as a sort but the odd and the even as a principle is something different. Like how you can group together many things into one group. This was shown in the book Sophist I believe. That being said it seems appropriate to use the manner of syllogism or this is to that as that is to this, what the material is to the intelligible, shadow is to reflection. So the principles or ideas as you call them would be closer to reality just as a reflection is a better representation of a being than a shadow. This could be a parallel to what was mentioned in 2 Corinthians 4:18. It seemed the focus was on the material, being in a state of change, while the intelligible is more constant and un-changing. Not so much as less “good” but closer or farther away from it. The good being like the sun and the resulting reflection and shadow from the being after it.
i half agree. I do thing that we are born with things we already know like how to breathe but those things are instincts and not things that we would get from knowledge. I think that knowledge is gained from pondering things and attempting to better understand the world around us… which we are born with this ability to learn.
if there are different opinions as to which features are good; or what constitutes the “ideal” person or table; is there a way to rank the relative goodness or perfection of said opinions? Is there room for preference in this theory? Is there an ideal color on the color wheel for example? An ideal letter of the alphabet?
@theyasin33 I get what you are trying to say but if you remember in the Republic, philosophers were also considered pointless as well. They don’t fight, they don’t make things, they just think. My point is if philosophy is dying like you say then it has been dying since it started. However, I believe that as long as man are alive and able to think for themselves, their is no way that it could die.
Perhaps, but that may just be because our language works in opposites. We have no words to describe something to be simultaneously warm and cold or perfect and imperfect… The Presocratic philosopher Hericlitus says that reality is contradictory and that everything is a unity of opposites being a bit of everything. Each object is a bit parched and a bit moist. Moving, yet immobile. So you are right that one cannot be privileged over another, according to Hericlitus, there is no distinction,
Nature in general can, however, function as a form to any idea inasmuch as a source of ideals: In this sense fallen nature is contrasted with a supposed celestial realization of structural forms, the essence of something of a theory of ‘forms’ come to have, developed, or acquired from habit, or the constitution or compose a usually basic element, part, or characteristic to make (as a word) by derivation or composition as put in order, arranged to become formed or shaped, as taking form arise if only to assume of a specified form, shape, or pattern or outline of a conclusive events. The theory of ‘forms’ is probably the most characteristic, and most contested of the doctrines of Plato. If in the background Pythagorean conception of form is completely illusionary, but the cause of normative constructs as mental activities can assess the structural functions or immediate environment in the effect to other centralities. Where the ‘idea’ is given to birth, this position of a particularly peculiar point in space and time, showing it’s stationed in the mind. The mind would assess the permanent actions that stimulate the retinal vision, so as the idea is given to grow. This creation of idea, said Pythagoras, allows our entry, as generated by the idea into the domain or Reality, i.e., changing illusion into something understandable. The idea brings to us, the reality from which came through the illusionary ranges of chaos and disorder, in which we are without alternatives, but the ‘idea’ as our offensive.
Platos Idea of the Good is a static one. The Idea of the Table ( the perfect one was probably the one in his house) is just copied by carpenters to lesser standards. We see and know the Good but are to weak to pursue and just let it slip ( it’s good enough) . The Good can only be reached by contemplating or reasoning, according to Plato. There is no Bad, just less goodness. Personally, the Idea of Quality by Pirsig following Zen methods seems much more natural to me than Platos Good.
Plato says that Humans have all the knowledge already in them, but that we have to use Reason to “recollect” that knowledge. He says that we are basically ignorant without wisdom. Based on what you understand about Plato´s Theory of Ideas, do you agree or disagree with Plato? Why or Why no? Please I need an urgent answer! Thanks!!!!
An urgent answer? This debate is 2.500 years old! But OK, this is my view: While there are a lot of difficulties, Plato got some things brilliantly right. First, some knowledge is innate: we are born with it. Many still question this, but I think it is pretty obvious: we immediately know how to breath, for instance. If not, we wouldn’t be here. Sure, this is ‘know how’ rather than ‘knowledge that’ something is the case, but from a biological perspective the difference is not that important.
Aristotle never finished his writings to form. It is modern sophisticates who refer to his writings as works. Perhaps that is why he didn’t formalize certain terms as Plato did when he imagined a deeper, more inwardly meaningful beauty that he expressed in the higher case of “Beauty.” In regards to the universals and Plato’s viewpoint, the Almighty in his Fullness while in the Garden of Gethsemane utilized an inorganic cup as a expressive Form of Himself making it universal. Tricky huh?
Really bad and unclear drawing. You’re scribbling tiny words in the middle of the page while you’ve got a face taking up almost half of the picture. If you have a list of the things you want to talk about you can prioritise what you are drawing and writing. Much of what you are doing just isn’t helpful.