On Apr 15, 2012, at 11:48 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>
> A good deal of what Plato reports Socrates says....
The point is that Plato was never (except perhaps in the Apology) "reporting" in any sense of that word. He was writing philosophical dialogues in which "Sokrates" is one dramatic character among others. The meaning of any statement by any persona in a dramatic dialogue is to be found exclusively in the context of that dialogue. The relevant difference between Plato and Shakespeare is that Shakespeare's plays are works in themselves while each of Plato's dialogues also functions in context with all the other dialogues. To even begin to understand Plato one must take the point of view of a *participant* in the dialogue, not of a passive reader and still less that of a partisan critic.
" sounds like Socrates is passing along some kind of eastern-type
philosophy, which Plato can't quite understand.
> That's all I'm saying. No way to prove it. "
I should think not, since Sokrates notoriously never lived anywhere
but Athens and the original, and very recent, texts of the Buddha's
teachings (the only "eastern-type" philosophy then existent) were yet
unknown anywhere outside the subcontinent. Also, gnostic ideas are
Christian. not eastern.
>
>
>> It's a hypothesis. My take away from reading the dialogs.
>>
>> We know nothing about Socrates except what Plato tells us.
>>
> See the contradiction? your "take away" is based on writings of
> someone who doesn't grasp ideas that you know only from his writings?
> Would you say that Shakespeare doesn't grasp Hamlet's ideas?
>
>> On Apr 15, 2012, at 3:18 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>>>
>>> Plato...was incapable of really comprehending Socrates's gnostic
>>> teachings...
>>
>> What were those gnostic teachings? Where can they be found?
>
> Shane Mage
>
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos
>
>
>
>
>
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