This Greek Game... Dialectic and Plato's "cave"...
This is mostly for Jackie.
The rules have been defined. The door is locked from the inside and the way out... well... there isn't one. So why continue? A good question. As Jackie's last LJ post pointed out...most of the philosophy of the 20th century would have mattered nearly as much if it had not existed. So why do we do this? My hypothesis is that we associate philosophy with a set of "rules", most of which fit into "Platonic forms", which is to say that Plato, in a sense inventing the notion of Philosophy as opposed to sophistry, set the rules and the limitations in such a way that they are inescapable to anyone attempting to do Philosophy proper where anyone attempting to play by different rules is "not doing philosophy". (SEE FOOTNOTE 0)
Turn back the clock 3000 years or so, and become interested in a dialogue I am sure you have all read and have been interested in before. In fact, for most philosophers schooled in the americas... it may be the only dialogue you have read. Of course I am referring to Plato's Republic. Let us meditate on the dialouge.
According to Socrates, in order to have a Just state, there must be a set of necessary lies. The first of which is the myth of the metals... that is to say... of human essence(note the importance of "the nature of man" in almost all later political philosophy). Strange that we associate Plato with such a simplistic form of "platonism" when here Socrates (the supposed representation of Plato SEE FOOTNOTE 1) refers to human essence explicitly as a myth. The second lie, of which even some of the most anti-philosophical creatures were fooled into (see Nietzsche's "Peoples and Fatherlands" in Beyond Good and Evil), was the myth of the fatherland. People must beleive that were they were born has some family like relation to them, meaning that they must regard their state with as much respect as thier own father. This has created the "philosophical tradition" to some extent, as we are obliged to show respect to our philosophical predecessors (those who have made the laws of the philosophical father-state). The final lie in my view, although this is not explicit in the text, is the cave/divided line/sun. This is the lie that sustains the philosopher kings, keeping them in their place. While the myth of the metals is necessary for the lower classes of commoners, and the fatherland necessary for the guardians (think soldiers and patriotism), the myth of the cave or of the levels of existence, the whole metaphysical epistemic formal ball of wax, is necessary for the philosophers to maintain their place as well. From Aristotle to Descartes to Hegel to Marx to Russel, down and up the line, the rules have all been set such that the results never change anything but the languages we express them in. The dialouges of Plato express every philosophical position we have ever had... as nothing else counts as philosophy and falls into linguistics, science, sorcery, religion... whatever.
The point being that no one ever gets outside of Plato's cave while still believing in its existence. The epistemic nature of Socratic method binds us within a certain set of limitations... which we cannot escape without altering the epistemic nature of our context. This is why groups like the Dischordians, the Surrealists/Dadaists, the radical Positivists (Popper, Reich, Einstein) etc. have all been pushed outside of "philosophy proper" and into art, science, religion and so on. The story is that philosophy spawns disciplines, the fact is that philosophy cannot itself include them.
Gnosis, Socrates' highest form of knowledge, only attainable through dialectic, is the dialectic itself, and hence philosophy is self-contained and eternal, just as the truths of the Forms. This is the point at which philosophy does one of two things... breaks down as a tool or rejects tools whatsoever in its own name. The choice is really between Sorcery and Philosophy, symbols as tools or symbols as ends in themselves, which is why it is easy to see how Jackie could fail to "see the point of it all", as philosophy has the intent of removing the point to reveal the form. She has at least some small natural inclination towards Sorcery, Philosophy being a most unnatural inclination for the living.
Perhaps we will be talking more pragmatically in the future.
Footnotes:
0This for Jackie... Nietzsche is sometimes like this.
1 This understanding of Socrates as Plato's representative is most popular in societies that teach the middle and early segments of Plato's works. The later dialouges, particularly The Statesman, The Parmenides, and The Sophist all have different "spokespeople", with Socrates playing a smaller role.
The rules have been defined. The door is locked from the inside and the way out... well... there isn't one. So why continue? A good question. As Jackie's last LJ post pointed out...most of the philosophy of the 20th century would have mattered nearly as much if it had not existed. So why do we do this? My hypothesis is that we associate philosophy with a set of "rules", most of which fit into "Platonic forms", which is to say that Plato, in a sense inventing the notion of Philosophy as opposed to sophistry, set the rules and the limitations in such a way that they are inescapable to anyone attempting to do Philosophy proper where anyone attempting to play by different rules is "not doing philosophy". (SEE FOOTNOTE 0)
Turn back the clock 3000 years or so, and become interested in a dialogue I am sure you have all read and have been interested in before. In fact, for most philosophers schooled in the americas... it may be the only dialogue you have read. Of course I am referring to Plato's Republic. Let us meditate on the dialouge.
According to Socrates, in order to have a Just state, there must be a set of necessary lies. The first of which is the myth of the metals... that is to say... of human essence(note the importance of "the nature of man" in almost all later political philosophy). Strange that we associate Plato with such a simplistic form of "platonism" when here Socrates (the supposed representation of Plato SEE FOOTNOTE 1) refers to human essence explicitly as a myth. The second lie, of which even some of the most anti-philosophical creatures were fooled into (see Nietzsche's "Peoples and Fatherlands" in Beyond Good and Evil), was the myth of the fatherland. People must beleive that were they were born has some family like relation to them, meaning that they must regard their state with as much respect as thier own father. This has created the "philosophical tradition" to some extent, as we are obliged to show respect to our philosophical predecessors (those who have made the laws of the philosophical father-state). The final lie in my view, although this is not explicit in the text, is the cave/divided line/sun. This is the lie that sustains the philosopher kings, keeping them in their place. While the myth of the metals is necessary for the lower classes of commoners, and the fatherland necessary for the guardians (think soldiers and patriotism), the myth of the cave or of the levels of existence, the whole metaphysical epistemic formal ball of wax, is necessary for the philosophers to maintain their place as well. From Aristotle to Descartes to Hegel to Marx to Russel, down and up the line, the rules have all been set such that the results never change anything but the languages we express them in. The dialouges of Plato express every philosophical position we have ever had... as nothing else counts as philosophy and falls into linguistics, science, sorcery, religion... whatever.
The point being that no one ever gets outside of Plato's cave while still believing in its existence. The epistemic nature of Socratic method binds us within a certain set of limitations... which we cannot escape without altering the epistemic nature of our context. This is why groups like the Dischordians, the Surrealists/Dadaists, the radical Positivists (Popper, Reich, Einstein) etc. have all been pushed outside of "philosophy proper" and into art, science, religion and so on. The story is that philosophy spawns disciplines, the fact is that philosophy cannot itself include them.
Gnosis, Socrates' highest form of knowledge, only attainable through dialectic, is the dialectic itself, and hence philosophy is self-contained and eternal, just as the truths of the Forms. This is the point at which philosophy does one of two things... breaks down as a tool or rejects tools whatsoever in its own name. The choice is really between Sorcery and Philosophy, symbols as tools or symbols as ends in themselves, which is why it is easy to see how Jackie could fail to "see the point of it all", as philosophy has the intent of removing the point to reveal the form. She has at least some small natural inclination towards Sorcery, Philosophy being a most unnatural inclination for the living.
Perhaps we will be talking more pragmatically in the future.
Footnotes:
0This for Jackie... Nietzsche is sometimes like this.
1 This understanding of Socrates as Plato's representative is most popular in societies that teach the middle and early segments of Plato's works. The later dialouges, particularly The Statesman, The Parmenides, and The Sophist all have different "spokespeople", with Socrates playing a smaller role.