Plato's The Republic, Book 7 Discussion, part 3⧸3 (tagYWOaXC7Q)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=tagYWOaXC7Q

Last time we had a couple of intentions. I was trying to focus on how to relate things to people. And then he was trying to find out the grammar and also using that grammar to relate to people. And Mark was trying to find other perspectives on the text and how they interrelate with that text. And I added the word inter there because I think it was appropriate. So who wants to start about their week, how they integrated stuff in their lives? Maybe a quick remembrance. So I’ve been doing in terms of intention on grammar, I’ve been doing a lot of yoga, which is an alternative way of knowing things. So I’ve been spending a lot of time in meditation, just thinking about embodiment and groundedness, thinking about a little bit of Plato. But when you actually do some like embodied meditative practices, the emphasis on some of the things that Plato emphasizes becomes more clear. And I don’t think it’s possible to grasp the importance of the examples that he some of the examples that he gives without actually having the physical experiences of doing things in the world, and particularly with other people. So like in a yoga environment, like if it can be a very opening and loving environment, let’s say, and that creates affordances that, you know, a lot of it like, there’s a spirit of gratitude there. And that does profound things. So I’ve been doing that a lot. And that’s helped me to see some of the limitations, I think, that Socrates points to. You want to expand on the limitations or something? No, I mean, I can, but not right now. I’m concisely fuzzy. Not can’t put it into simple language right now. We’ll get that one later. What’s your intention for the book club? I’m going to use it as a practice. So there’s a number one is I want to gain, I want to hear other people’s understanding of dialectic, because I’m not my understanding of what Socrates is saying about dialectic is I seem to be off on my own on this. I get the sense that he’s mocking the concept, but I think not, you know, I’m not, I’m not, I don’t think anyone else is reading it that way. Um, so affirming the first, like to gain an understanding of how other people are seeing this and yeah, I guess, I guess I’ll just leave it at that, but then the secondarily, I just, I want to use this as a practice for listening, like how to listen well. Maybe we should reintroduce the lectio divina thing like once a month or whatever. Cause that, that is a good practice for listening. Isn’t that not what this protocol is? Isn’t this not the lectio divina protocol? No, no, no, no, no, not the way that we, no, it’s not even close. Well, this is, yeah, well, we’re trying to do a different lectio divina, right? Basically making the spirit of the text from alive. Right. And so like, we’re kind of trying to do that here as well, but differently. Mike, you want to go next? Sure. So yeah, I mean, thinking a lot about the misapprehensions and outright deceptions of people in Plato’s cave. And also the fact that there are a lot of other concepts introduced in this same book that are perhaps more important than a proper understanding of Plato’s cave. Like caves in there, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be in the same book. But it doesn’t talk about the things people normally say it talks about. But also, you know, and I think we kind of touched on this last week, right? There’s three parts to this book, three distinct parts. And we’re on the third of these parts at this point. And this part does deal somewhat with dialectic, although I might argue that they don’t really give, we’ll say a concise definition. They’re sort of talking about it through negative examples rather than stating positively this is what it is. And I think that, yeah, you know, probably we’re just going to struggle with this third part, even though it looks a lot like just based on number of pages and stuff, like you’re going to get through it and then you don’t because there’s so much there. And again, they do the typical, Plato did the typical trick here where he once again mentions the cave in passing. Right. And again, it’s a den in the beginning and cave is not this is not referencing the same thing anymore. So that’s sort of interesting. So, so, yeah, I mean, I’ve just been noticing. How much actual words matter, how much. Misapprehension there is around these concepts, how much we rely on them like we a lot of people rely on their understanding or we’ll say the common misconception of Plato’s cave for what they’re doing. And I’ve just been noticing that. And so, yeah, my intention really hasn’t changed just to see these other perspectives and find out what other people have heard. And look, this is a bearer of a book. It’s the hardest so far from my perspective. And, you know, untangling dialectic to me, at least platonic dialectic or Socratic dialectic, which is fundamentally different from Hegelian dialectic, which most people think think of when they’re speaking, we’ll say in recent times is going to be interesting because I I’m I’m still struggling with it. I’ve read it. I’ve read this section, read this whole book three times so far. The clarity has not increased to the degree I would have thought. So, yeah, I’m looking forward to that. I’m actually interested in in the description of the Hegelian dialectic and whether people actually completely fail to grasp that too, because I would not be surprised. Yeah, I think I think we might want to actually read the text out loud at certain pieces here, like because I think that’s that’s probably important. And we’ve been doing too little of that. Yeah, I want to rephrase what I understood the previous bit to be about, right? It’s like it’s four pieces that basically give you ways of relating that set up the grounding that you can start participating in dialectic in. Yeah, I’ve I’ve been reading the New Testament. It’s it’s so much like there’s so many. Mirrors to this book, I’m I’m sometimes not sure which book I’m reading. And so that’s that’s that’s really fascinating. But yeah, in the Bible, they kind of deal with it differently, right? They want to have a use case more so than an explanation. But but yeah, they’re in the same same struggle. And so that’s that’s the way that it’s been popping up in in my life. And basically, the thing that stood out to me is that Plato is basically saying, well, if if you base yourself in these things, then. Right. And I think Christianity has kind of kind of a different answer there. And so it’s it’s. Going to be interesting to see why Plato thinks that the basing yourself in these things is is what gets you there. Why does that’s so important to him? Because like. I’m I’m not really seeing seeing it like there’s some presumptions that are made that are not clear to me. So. For my intention, like I. I think. Danny was talking about it, it’s it’s moving up and down the fractal layers. I think that’s what the dialectic process is. Kind of. And. I’m I want to. Yeah, I want to find a way to make that more tangible, because like I literally seem to have a really hard time communicating that to Danny. And so like that. I feel like that I can appeal to something that I haven’t discovered yet. Adam. Well. In terms of any reflections that I’ve had on the Republic or anything related to the Republic, generally. Not not really been thinking about it too much, other than that cave, other than coming coming back to that cave scenario and how I find it is mentioned rather often. And the way it’s laid out in the text so far as I’ve been able to to figure out, because once Mark pointed it out, I was like, oh, OK, I’ll read that up. And as it turns out, yeah, the two episodes seem to be quite distinct from from one another. So I think I posted a video a while back about it’s a song. It’s a popular song. It’s called Mumford and Sons. It’s called The Cave and it’s based on, supposedly based on the allegory of the cave. But it’s it’s it’s it’s in that faulty dynamic where they’re they’re saying that there’s the cave and somebody can escape it, etc, etc. So I’ve just been kind of thinking on that and kind of letting that kind of. Just stay there in the background, ruminate on it. And in terms of intention, kind of to get to to gain insight from other people’s perspectives and perhaps offers some of my own and or give them historical context as to what’s happening here, because even though we’re so late in the book, there’s still there is still something to be said for what’s being discussed here. I mean, even so so late as the. The philosopher king, I mean, that’s just a it’s such a crazy idea for the people at the time that it’s worth mentioning that, because I don’t think it’s going to be mentioned by most even commentaries on the text, because usually it’s it’s has something to do with the content rather than the context. Just what all of this is being said. So that’s really it for me. Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of context that needs to be added in book eight. I can tell you that they’re going to start about governmental systems. Yeah, they don’t. They don’t start at the bottom like they usually do with the material like in this in seven, they start with the material, right? And they build up, but in eight, they go the opposite direction. So. So, yeah, let’s start with this definition of dialectic. All right, so dialectic is the only science that does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure. Dialectic uses handmaids and helpers. And so we have the realm. It’s the realm of clear thought. I think that’s where dialectic manifests, right? So that’s definitely in the spiritual, right? And choosing the intellect. Well, so let me just jump in, Manuel. I’ve been trying to puzzle this through because, like I said, man, this book in particular is a real struggle. So and I’m reviewing I’ve been reviewing the text the whole time because. Just too much of a struggle there. They’re going from astronomy. We’re actually talking about the stars, right? And then they jump into I suppose that if the inquiry into all things we have gone through arrives at their community in relationship with one another and draws conclusions as to how they are akin to one another, then the concern with them contributes something to what we want. And where are we? Because I want to I want to this is five thirty one C. Is not a labor without profit, but otherwise it is right. And then. I too divine that this is the case, but it is very big job of which you speak Socrates, right? This is where they mentioned the dialectic. So there that’s the bridge from talking about. Astronomy to talking about the fair and the good to talking about what a big deal this is. And then they start mentioning dialectic after that. Right in the Glaucon. I said, isn’t this at least. Isn’t this at last the song itself that dialectic performs? Which is an interesting thing to say the song the dialectic perform. Yeah. What do you mean? I said the prelude or what? Do you know that all this is the prelude to an actual strain which we have to learn for surely you would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectic? Right? Well, that song in my book. The strain is the song that strain that we must learn is the song. Oh, yeah. And this is where Danny got the word reasoning. Surely not. He said I’ve never known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. So they’re using the word reasoning. As participating in dialectic. And then right, right. But but but in in we’ll say recent times mathematicians are masters of reasoning. Like math is a is the perfect reason reasoning machine. And so they can’t mean reason the way we mean reason. And and that’s not a small point. I think that’s actually the big point. And the word that they’re using for is not song but hymn of dialectic here in my text. Where is it that you made the word reasoning? Because I didn’t see that. Is that that’s in E 31 E. I read that as him saying that mathematicians have a tendency to be philosophically illiterate, let’s say. Yes. Yeah, but that that that’s not what we would consider reason. The word reason does not appear in my text in that section. So it regard a skilled mathematician as reasoning and assuredly not. And it’s in that sentence. I’ve hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. I’ve hardly ever known a mathematician. Because they become trapped. The mathematician is is just the user of a tool. That’s right. Like that’s in 531. They mentioned mathematicians in 531. Five thirty one E. Yeah. Not a word on mathematicians. So it’s it’s it’s reference. What do you mean? I said the prelude or what? Do you have that part? Okay. Can you read from there? Or don’t we know that all of this is prelude to the song itself, which must be learned? For surely it’s not your opinion that the men who are clever at these things are dialecticians. No, by Zeus, he said, with the exception of very few with whom I have encountered. Oh, interesting. Yes. It’s way more explicit here. Okay. But it’s also less archetypical. Okay, so. Okay, so. Train, which is of the inter. Hold on. Hold on, Manuel. I do. I do want to continue. Right. So with the exception of very few men I have encountered, but I said, was it ever your opinion that men who are unable to give an account and receive one will ever know anything of what we say they must know? So, so in other words, men who are unable to reason, right, because reason is giving an account. Like what is the reason you write that that’s giving an account for what you’ve done. So that I think is where the reason is coming from. So in my book, it’s but do you know, do you imagine that man who are unable to give and take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of them? Right. So again, reason and giving an account are equivalent. A reason is an account. A justified account. Doing the process of reason is giving an accounting for, right, and having a reason is giving an account for something. Why did you do this? So that’s where it’s coming from. But I think that’s really important because we in recent times mix up the word reason and use the word reason to give an account. In recent times, mix up the word reason and use it three different ways. And that’s part of the mistake that we’re making because again, you wouldn’t say that a mathematician is unreasonable or incapable of reason. That makes no sense to our more recent sensibilities. Right. So Danny, does that help you? Because no, I’m totally on board with that. Yeah. No, no, no. But if you look at that, Socrates later on is giving a reason, right? So he’s not giving a logical justification. He’s giving a reason. Right. And in order to give a reason, there’s different rules. And I think that’s what you interpret as humor or whatever. But I actually don’t think it’s humor. I actually think that he’s saying, I have something ineffable and I know that I’m out on a limb here, right? So there’s an attitude change because he cannot hold it in the same way that you would hold a logical argument. Right. So just to state my confusion, Manuel and I were talking about this before. It’s the highest level claim that I’m having a hard time making that step. So in other words, like an argument for God. Like I see how dialectic can, as a science and technology, as a psychotechnology even, can be used to ascend the fractal layers and that there’s different ways of doing that. I see that. I read that as taking place at the level of the mind. Like there’s the level of the body and then there’s the level of the mind. But it’s that final step of, let’s say, the level of the soul or something. That seems to be molded by how you, I mean, it seems like that’s the change. I read in that as a change. So that’s my misunderstanding. You’re agreeing with the fractal nature, right? Yeah, for sure. 100%. Okay. Did you read Language of Creation? I’m halfway through it. Okay. So you know the graphs that he’s using, right? With the point above and then the points below, right? So the moving up the fractal would be, I think, the point above. So the moving up the fractal would be to establish that which is above, right? Like the principle. Yeah, that’s all totally clear. So that fractally reoccurs at every level, right? Right. But at every level below, it has to contain more of reality, right? So, sorry. Go ahead. So why can’t you do that until you end up at everything? Because dialectic, he says, has a danger to it. Its students can be lawless and dialectic can be abused to set your first principles. So dialectic… I agree, but I’m making an argument on principle, not an argument on execution. So yeah, that’s the step of, I think, the first principle he’s saying is the way that you perceive the first principle and establish it and hold it up is through the process of dialectic. And so I know he goes into forms. I just haven’t gotten to that oneness. I haven’t gotten to the oneness yet. Well, there’s no oneness to get to, right? Just disabuse yourself that you’re going to get there. There’s no there there. But I think it’s important actually, and it’s odd that we’re here. So right where we left off, right? Isn’t this at last the song itself that dialectic performs? It is in the realm of the intelligible, but it is imitated by the power of sight. And so you have to remember where the cave is gone, long gone. When you are not talking about the den, the cave, whatever it is, you’re talking about the noose, the soul. You’re talking, right? What they’re saying is in order to get your soul closer to the good, you need to use intellect. You can’t use your body, right? Like it’s not not that your body isn’t involved in the process. You’re using intellect and intellect alone. In other words, the good is ineffable. You can’t move towards it in the physical world. Like it’s not at the North Pole or something. We can just go there. Right? Is that the sun mark? Like, didn’t you? Well, and the interesting thing is, and again, we said, and I’m just picking up right where I left off. We said that sight at least tries to look at the animals themselves and at the stars themselves. And interestingly, finally at the sun itself. So also when man tries by discussion, by means of argument, without the use of any of these senses to attain each thing itself for what is right and doesn’t give up before he grasps by by intellectual itself. Right. That which is good itself. He comes to the very end of the intelligible realm, just as that other man was at the end of the visible. He’s setting up these these two ways and two constraints. There’s one based on the realm of the visible and the other one is based on the realm of the intellect. So I read this passage is comedy, by the way, like it’s I read this as hyperbole. No, like at last he finds himself at the end of the intellectual world as it’s just funny. Like there’s no there’s no end to that. It’s obviously boundless. No, there is. No, there is. That’s the point. The end of the end of the one, dude. Like if why is the sun last? Right. The sun is last because it’s the source of everything. Right. So if you’re looking around and you’re seeing things and you recognize that all the light that you’re seeing is coming from the sun, then you’ve you’ve realized that, oh, that is what light is. Right. Like light is the refracturing of something that’s bestowed upon us from above. Right. And and that realization, I’m going to use the best word ever, is like a matter. You gain a participation with the source. Like you you stop participating with the images that are presented. Right. And you can see how it permeates through all being. Right. And that’s that’s the whole point. Right. Like the source. Right. Because I was already using a spiritual metaphor when using being. Right. Because the source of everything is participating in every being necessarily because like it’s granting being like like the sun is granting light. And that’s what’s being described here. So like it’s it’s absolutely not funny. It’s it’s like that series is like, dude, like there’s there’s a source of things and you have a relationship to the source of things. But also you don’t have a direct relationship to it. Right. Because like the sun is kind of revealed by the fact that it’s giving light to everything. Right. Like it’s it’s not you don’t know it by itself in some profound sense. Because if you look at it, you’ll get blinded. Right. And then and then I just want to point out. So and again, it’s just like this is all one continuous section. I’m I’m flipping over a sentence or two, but it’s now the release from bonds and the turning around from the shadows to the phantom and the light the way up from the light. The way up from the cave to the sun. And once they are persisting, the persisting inability to look at the animals and plants and the sun’s light and looking instead at the divine appearances in water and at shadows of things that are rather than as before at shadows of phantoms cast by a light that when judged in comparison with the sun also as the quality of the shadow of a phantom. So before there were just shadows. Right. And again, he’s filling in and adding and extending this this set of metaphors. There’s at least three or four distinct metaphors. Right. He’s a separate metaphor from these other metaphors about water. Water in the cave are not mentioned in the same sections until here. Right. So he’s combining these metaphors and then basically saying the way to know that there’s two ways to know a shadow. One is a phantom of the shadow and the other is basically through intellectual in intellectual of the shadow. Right. In other words, your soul, your, your, your news, your mind can interface with those. You want to call them those things that that have light cast upon them directly, not as phantoms. And I would argue that the Bible would say ears to hear. Right. Like you’re you’re hearing something beyond what you’re seeing. Like you’re being called to to to that relationship. Right. So there’s a resounding of goodness going. Right. But look what he associates with this with he says all this activity of the arts. Right. Which we went through has the power to release and and leads what is best in the soul up to contemplation of what is best in things that are. Right. Just as previously what is clearest in the body was led to the contemplation of what is brightest in the region of the bodily and the visible. In other words, what so you go to you do gymnastics. Right. And that tunes you to the things outside of yourself. And then you do the equivalent of gymnastics in your head this dialectic and that tunes you to things that that are outside of your intellect in essence. But, but, you know, he’s making these parallels between visible shadows cast by the sun and shadows cast by your intellect and knowing those things directly versus indirectly. In the beginning of this particular book seven, he says you can’t know shadows directly because they’re shadows like they’re not direct things. And now he’s saying no there’s a way to know those things but he’s not talking about physical shadows cast by light. He’s talking about shadows cast by the intellect. But he’s also saying there’s there’s a way to know to know the source of the shadow. Right. Right. Right. Well, you know it right you know you know in knowing the source you know that it’s not a shadow or not merely a shadow. Right. It’s inherited. Right. And so, if you can relate to, to the authority, right that that which authors, the manifestation of the shadow. Right. Like now you, you gain a different relationship, like you. So now that’s the emanation right and if you participate with the emanation, then you can have a true participation, because that means that you’re relating to the wholeness and instead of a flattened image. Emmanuel, how would you relate this? I mean, the problem is they keep mentioning this is, again, I don’t see a clear definition of dialectic. I just keep saying that mentioning aspects of dialectic. No, I like the, the dialectic in my perspective. Right. Like a dialectician obtains the essence of something which means that the dialectic is with the essence. You commune with it. Right. So, so, like it’s, that’s what I think it is right like it’s, it’s the process of participating in communion with the essence of things. Yeah, I can, I can, I can see that here. Right. I don’t think they define it directly. Again, I think they define it by saying these are aspects of dialectic. And yeah, that that fits with what I’m reading. That’s helpful. And if you lack, then the next thing that they say is you lack the essence, you lack intelligence. Right. And then, because you lack intelligence, you’re in the realm of opinion because you can’t be in the realm of thought. Right. And I think I want to read this because I think it’s important. I agree with what you’re saying. He replied, which may be hard to believe yet from another point of view, it’s still harder to deny. This, however, is not a team to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, right. It’s making the same statement that this is a way of conceiving of something. Right. It’s not a claim of absolute truth. Let us assume all this and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain and describe that. That in like manner, say then what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic and what are the paths which lead to tither for these paths will also lead to our final rest. Dear Glaukon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here. Right. This is where he’s like, hey, dude, sorry. Though I would do my best and you should behold not an image only, but the absolute truth according to my notion. Whether that what I told you would or would not have been a reality, I cannot venture to say. But you would have seen something like reality of that. I’m confident. Right. So he’s making an appeal to his own authority at this point. Right. It’s like I can’t do like I can’t give any more reasoning than my personal authority. Right. Like I’ve had divine revelation and either you’re going to accept it and it’s going to conform to your experience or not. But like it’s out of my hands. But yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s just before we get into, you know, a better definition of opinion. But I must also remind you that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this right. So this is again a claim like there’s only one way in. Well, well, to a man experienced in the things we just went through. Well, it is in no other way. Right. And so, right. Again, you have to understand the context. Some people are born into bondage and they can’t ever get out. They are of a certain class. Right. These people they’re talking about are of an entirely different class. And that’s like really important. This is not a thing that’s available to anybody. Like not anybody can be Socrates or even Glaucombe. And that’s actually this is where people get confused. They think like the cave is giving them a formula to get themselves out of bondage. You see this in the matrix. Right. And free themselves and become, you know, the age of not of gnosis. Right. Become the knowledgeable people that can do the magical thing. Okay. Plato denies all of that in here. He says, no, you can’t do that. That’s impossible for a certain class of people. They have access. Right. To go to this place that is not merely inside the den or the cave. Right. And we again, right. I know this is from last week. We have to drag them back down into the realm where the class of the people who are a running the cave and the class of the people who are constrained in the cave exists. We have to do that to them. And it is an imposition upon them for us to do that as creators of the city. But we have to do that for the betterment of the city. It doesn’t benefit the class of philosophers. Doesn’t benefit the class of the guardians. But it has to happen. So maybe that’s not you. Maybe you’re not of maybe you’re in the cave. You were born into that condition and you can never get out. Or maybe you’re running the cave. You are born into that condition and you can never escape it. Or maybe you weren’t born into the cave. You were born outside and you’re stuck in that middling center where you only understand shadows and not the good. Right. And again, those three classes are most people. You’re probably most people. No, not most people like everybody. Like, because they haven’t proven that you can do it yet. Well, you’re right. You’re right. Yeah. To be totally fair to the text, it’s not clear that the philosopher class is something you can do at all. And none of these classes are a choice that you can make. You can’t move between them. And we could argue from our recent perspective about classism and all that. But Plato is pretty clear that this is the way it is. And everybody kind of agrees, which is very strange to me. And they don’t really understand what they’re agreeing to in some sense, even though they’re very clearly agreeing with it. Basically, what he’s saying is we devised the ultimate system, right? We’re going to even include women, right? And as a virtue of that system, like some people are still going to be left behind. Right, right, right, right. You have to understand the point of the text. The point of the text is if you create a perfect system with logic, reason and rationality, and you assume you make the most absurd assumptions you can possibly make, this is a lot of absurdity in this book, to Danny’s point, it still doesn’t work. Like, in other words, utopic visions are dumb, and they fail. Like, it doesn’t matter how many affordances you give the people who say yes, but if. All the yes, but ifs in the world will not fix the problem. The problem is in using logic, reason and rationality to create a perfect world. That is never going to happen. It’s not going to work. It’s not an option. And Plato is going through in this in this text and proving that to you using more than one method. So if you missed it, you missed it. But it’s not like he was only talking to one audience here. He’s using a huge number of tricks to show you. To lead you there, right? To show you, no, this isn’t ever going to work. So, yeah, I think I think we just need to keep reading the text. And assuredly, no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular process, all through existence, or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature. For the arts in general are concerned with the desires or opinions of man or are cultivated with a view to production and construction. For or for the preservation of such productions and constructions. And as to the mathematical sciences, or maybe that’s why he’s using, he’s classified them all as mathematics, right? Like all the four. So that’s why he’s, yeah. As to the mathematical sciences, which, as we were saying, has some apprehension of true being, geometry and the like, they only dream about being. But never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses which they use on exam. Right. So we’re talking about axioms at this point, right? Like, oh, what or or or beliefs, I guess, right? Like, what what is that which I’m using to know what I know, which is, I guess. Well, in my book, it says leaving them untouched are unable to give an account of them. In other words, they can’t even talk about the hypotheses that spawn them. I think it’s correct. Right. That’s in mine, too. Well, but that’s what drives your science. Science can’t discern what drives it. That makes no sense. Plato’s pretty clear. That doesn’t work. No. For when a man knows not his own first principle and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what. How can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science? Oh, so so that’s interesting. So let me let me let me read mine when the beginning is what one doesn’t know and the end what comes in between are woven out of what isn’t known. What contrivance is there for ever turning such an agreement into knowledge? Agreement. Right. Agreement doesn’t give you knowledge. Ah, isn’t that interesting? In other words, appealing to the group does not tell you anything about the world necessarily because it’s not possible because they’re starting from position of unknowing. And they’re, you know, that there’s no way they can try from knowing from unknowing. So here, this is a proper definition. Then dialectic and dialectic alone goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure. The eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slog, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards and she uses as handmaids and helpers in working of conversion the sciences, which we have been discussing. Right. So is that is that supposed to be 533 D? Yes. Yep. All right. Let me read mine because I almost didn’t recognize what you were reading. Only the dialectical way of inquiry proceeds in this direction, destroying the hypotheses. Interesting. It destroys hypotheses to the beginning itself in order to make it secure. So first principles. Right. And when the eye of the soul is really buried. Which is really better. No, it just says when the eye of the soul is really buried in order to make it secure. Sorry, in order to be is really buried in a barbaric bog. That’s what it says. So it’s it’s a bog. Outlandish slog. Dialectic gently draws it forth and leads it up above using the arts we described as assistance and helpers. So it’s the arts that are assistance and helpers in the turning around. Out of habit, we called them kinds of knowledge several times, but they require another name. That’s interesting. Right. One that is brighter than opinion, but dimmer than knowledge. Thought was, I believe, the word by which we previously distinguished it. But in my opinion, there is no place for the dispute about a name when consideration is about things so great as those lying before us. So he’s saying all the things we were calling knowledge before are not knowledge. Well, if they’re not participating in being effectively. Right. Yeah. Yeah, which I would billion percent agree with. Yeah. But yeah, like I do like this lifting up. Right. It’s the cultivation, I guess. Right. But it’s in some sense, artificial. I like that idea, right. Like handmaids and helpers as opposed to light or whatever. Right. Like it is agentic work in some sense. Yeah. Last clear, clearness and science, right. In our previous sketch, and this in our previous sketch was called understanding. He’s actually making a play reference. So conversation in this translation, or maybe sketching out a proposition. Why, but why should we have a dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider? Basically saying it’s not important. They do this all the time. It’s basically like they run out of stamina and they see this pattern in many chapters. And that’s part of it. I’m not stamina, but it’s they’re running. They run into some kind of wall. There’s plenty of walls that we run into the end of the argument. They’re running into the limit of logic, reason and rationality, which are limited. And they’re showing you that limit. And they’re saying, look, logic, reason, rationality can’t do this. They’re insufficient to the task. They fail. Nobody wants to hear that. But that’s what the book said. The entire text keeps going there. That’s why it keeps running into the gods. They run into the gods when they say, look, there’s a limit to the logic here and then it just fails. Now, that’s not to say that you can’t get clever, which is why I don’t like clever people sometimes, and keep adding details. But like it’s explicit here. The name we give to something that is between knowledge and things below knowledge is not important. Why? Because you have to stop somewhere. You can’t keep going. Well, really, everything’s made up of molecules and really molecules are made up of atoms and really atoms are made up of electrons, protons and neutrons and really protons and neutrons. Where does this end? And the answer is it never ends. You can always add another name because you can always find another division if you try hard enough. And what they’re saying is, no, the madness must stop because it is madness and you can’t stay in madness. Well, or they’re saying we have a telos, like screw this other stuff. Right. Well, that’s how you that’s how you determine the stopping point is by the ending point. And people don’t like that. You know, final cause is first in intent and last in action. And that’s hard for people to wrap their head around because they want to believe it’s a paradox or contradiction or no, it’s not. It’s the pattern of reality. So then he says we are satisfied as before. We have four divisions. Right. So doing a good old thing to do for the intellect and to for opinion. Right. So that’s one axis. And then. Yeah, but yeah, but what are what are they in your book? Because in mine, it’s knowledge and thought and then trust and imagination. Which I found fascinating. The first division is science and the second understanding. The third is belief and the fourth perception of shadows. Oh, wow. Opinion being concerned with becoming an intellect with being. So that’s that’s the is that the is or gap? That’s the is or gap. And. And so to make a proportion. And then it’s using a different. Letter type. So as being is to becoming so is pure intellect to opinion. Okay, so that’s different axis and as intellect is to opinion. So is science to believe. Right. So science is that which deals with knowing and believe is that which deals with what could be. Yes. Yeah, the future, the potential. Or one is the past and one is the future. Right, because the only things that are real are things in the past. Things in the future are not real because they are not yet manifest. And understanding to the perception of shadows. Science is to believe and intellect is to opinion. So is science to believe and understanding to the perception of shadows. Right. So. From understanding you get science and from perception of shadows you gain beliefs. Their extractions, their higher, well, their dirty essence in some sense, or they’re relating to the essence. Like believe is relating to the essence of what’s behind the shadow. Okay. If anybody’s feeling confused, it took me like three weeks to straighten some of this out. No, I’m not confused. If anybody watches this, doesn’t get it right away. It took me like three weeks at all. No, I don’t. Look, you know, and again, like mind, knowledge, thought, trust and imagination. But this is the isot gap. Like it’s all the same thing. They’re all running against the course Plato probably hit it first, right, at least as far as it was written down. And this is the issue. It’s past versus future. Right. And it’s your opinion of where you should go that determines where you go, not some pre-existing set of conditions. And yeah, it is hard. It’s hard because all the translations probably use different four words for these concepts. It’s interesting, right? So that’s the separation between trust and belief, right? Where belief is like, I think trust is like a subset of belief. In some sense, it’s a material subset of belief. But let us defer to further correlation and subdivision of subjects of opinion and of intellect for it has been a long inquiry, many times longer than this has been. Okay. Did we want to keep reading or? In describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing and he who does not possess and therefore unable to impart this conception in whatever degree he feels may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence. Okay. Will you admit that much? So that’s the link, right? So you lack intelligence if you lack connection to the essence. That’s the framing that they make there. Where is that? In B. 34B. Yeah. Well, but he also says, so is not to run a file of arguments many times longer than those in the essence. Again, he’s pointing to the limit in a different way this time, right? There are limits to these things. Right. Would you say the same of the conception of the good, right? So now this is where Danny gets stuck. So he’s making the analogy with the essence of it. And failing to grasp the essence and lacking intelligence of that which you feel to grasp the essence with the conception of the good. Right. So basically it’s proclaiming that the good has an essence and that the essence is not a concept. So until the person is able to abstract and define rationally, right? So this is again giving reasons. The idea is that the person is able to abstract and define the essence of the good. So unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, right? So that’s a completeness argument. So he’s trying to get the essence of the good to be able to abstract and define rationally. So he’s trying to get the essence of the good to be able to abstract and define rationally. So he’s trying to get the essence of the good to be able to abstract and define rationally. So he’s trying to get the essence of the good to be able to abstract and define rationally. So he’s trying to get the essence of the good to be able to abstract and define rationally. So he’s trying to get the essence of the good to be able to abstract and define rationally. So that’s basically you being able to channel or articulate your participation with the good in conversation, right? So you’re an avatar speaking on the behalf of the good at that point. Unless he knows, yeah, to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument, unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of the good nor any other good. Here apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science, dreaming and slumbering in this life. Before he’s well awake here, he arrives at the world below and has his final quietness. Right. But notice, Plato says science is never going to get you to the good. But he says clear as day. Yeah, like this passage to me just seems it’s like such an absurdly high standard. It’s totally unobtainable. You know, it’s like unless your irrationality is not. Well, I’m just it’s in addition. I mean, is this one more brick and book set up like that? All right. That’s what I’m saying. I mean, like I’m just saying there’s all the objection here. Is it wrong? I’m not objecting here. No, I’m not. I’m saying this. I’m just pointing to the hyperbole in the text like it’s very hyperbolic and he’s trying to and he’s trying to say he’s trying to say something about rationality with that hyperbole. Yeah, and it’s true. Rationality is garbage. Don’t use it. Period. End of statement. Like it has its limitations and it’s useless at understanding the good. And that’s explicit. And that is true. And that is provable. And he’s proven it. And it’s not wrong. And that will always be true. I don’t know if he says that. He does. He says it’s not going to work. Yeah, but he right. But that doesn’t mean right. Like you’re still in the realm of opinion. Right. But it doesn’t mean that you don’t know it. Like it just means that you don’t like because you don’t know all of it, you’re always wrong in some sense. No, no, no, no, no. He’s explicit about this. It does mean that you don’t know it. Right. Or you have to change the definition of knowledge, which is fine. Let’s suppose you did something clever, like you split knowledge into two different types. And then what he’s talking about is particular knowledge versus intuitive knowledge. Intuitive knowledge is on the opinion side of the equation where you can know the good. Particular knowledge is on the science equation where you can’t know the good. Still true. That’s the problem. And that is the problem. Right. In the same way that your mind cannot know what your body will change into when you go to the gym. Your body cannot know what the good is because it just does stuff. And there’s that’s the gap. Like there’s a gap there. Yeah, that sucks. But it’s there. And he’s saying explicitly you’re not using logic, reason and rationality to get to the good ever. Period. Full stop. End of statement. Not going to happen. Nobody likes that message. I get that. But it’s clear as day in here. And you was always using hyperbole. You use hyperbole the whole time. There’s no part of this book that isn’t hyperbolic. There’s almost no sentences that aren’t hyperbolic. And it’s obvious. And he’s doing that on purpose to get you out of rationalizing the text and trying to engage with it in that way and to take it seriously as a work that’s trying to tell you the limitations of the tools that you have. Where those tools are and which tools to use for which thing. This is, you know, and that’s good. But if we want science to get us to the good, we’re screwed. It’s not going to work. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We have much better tools for that. But like the problem I have with your point, Danny, is like this. This is not only about the good. Like this is about every essence. Like this is a universal statement about your capacity to know essences, not about the essence of the good. And he’s just making the argument in relation to the good, because that’s where it’s important. Yeah. So what everything Mark just said and what you just said is the way that I read this text. He’s saying dialectic is by participating with sources that emanate. It’s called you through the participation. You get to know their form like the form of a father. But then later he’s going to introduce this image of the father and the son. You can abuse the dialectic to put whatever first principle you want into place. And everything that flows out of that is going to depend on. Well, anyway, like not doing dialectic at that point. Dialectic is the process of getting to the first principle. He’s already stated that. So he destroyed knowledge long ago. And I read when I read this passage, it’s in agreement with where you get at. But I see the hyperbole in it and that I read this as though he’s also destroying dialectic too. By saying that dialectic can’t get you to a one. That’s the way that I read that. No, no, he didn’t destroy destroy knowledge like destroying knowledge never happened. He changed the definition of knowledge. He’s differentiated it a couple of different ways. He did destroy the idea that everything they were talking about previously in Calling Knowledge was actual knowledge. He did do that. So in a way, he destroyed knowledge. That’s not what’s important. What’s important is he’s not destroying dialectical here. Right. He’s talking about the limits of the tools. So, yeah, if you say, oh, I’m going to use dialectic and get to the good, you’re wrong. That is not going to happen. We’re not going to have a conversation or set of conversations or a way of interfacing, even though I argue dialectic is nothing to do with conversation. Not in this book anyway, not not Plato’s conception. That isn’t going to happen. The tool of dialectic is not going to be able to get you there through intellectual alone. Basically, what he’s saying is being true is contingent upon the good. So you cannot be true without the good. And therefore, any definition of truth that does not include the good is false. Yeah, I agree with that. That’s how I read it. Yeah. But you were saying that you start with the good, though, but you can’t start with the good, though. That’s that. I think this is maybe at the core of how we what we were disagreeing about earlier is that the definitely. This is why why you have dialectic like dialectic is that which allows you to start at the good. Because you can climb up to the good and then you can start looking down from the emanation of the good. Like, this is this is Jacob’s letter. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. OK. OK. But the disagreement is just that there’s like the ultimacy of the good. I think he was mocking the notion that you can get at the ultimate good. That’s that’s where we were disagreeing. But no, no, no. Like, he doesn’t make the statement of the ultimacy of the good. He separates the idea of the good from all other things. So is to distinguish it in the argument. Not making an ultimacy claim in here. And the idea of the good is not the good itself. Right. We also have to recognize that. Right. So if you claim is. Yeah. You will deny that such a man knows the good itself or any other good. And if and if he somehow lays hold of some phantom of it, you will say he does. So by opinion, not knowledge. And that taken in by dreams and is slumbering out of his present life before waking up. Here he goes to Hades and falls finally asleep. Right. So. But the fact that you can have an opinion about the good itself. And you can have an opinion about the good means that you can relate to it because else it’s not about the good. Right. Exactly. And things you can’t participate with are not good. And so, like. Yes, you cannot comprehend the good. Right. Like you cannot put your arms around it and take it out of place. You can’t have knowledge of it. Right. But then the knowledge that you have of it is in the realm of opinion, because you don’t have the comprehension. I don’t. It’s the same. Right. Like I can I can know that I should shovel the coals into the oven of a steam engine. Right. Like so I know of the steam engine. I just don’t comprehend it. So I’m not authoritative to speak about the whole thing. Okay. Surely you would not have the children of your ideal state whom you are nurturing and educating if the ideal ever becomes a reality. Okay. You would not allow the future rulers to be like post having no reason in them and yet be set in authority over the highest matters. Right. So now he’s he’s he’s basically making a connection between the person embodying the thing has to have a connection with the being of the thing so that they can have authority. Well, interestingly, I want to remind you this is fascinating. Then as for those children of yours whom you are rearing rearing and educating in speech, if you should ever rear them indeed, I don’t suppose that while they are as rational as lines, you would let them rule in the city and be sovereigns of the greatest thing. The interesting thing there is rearing in speech versus rearing indeed. Yeah. That’s something we’ve lost. Right. That’s that’s faith and works. Whom you are nurturing and educating. That’s that’s the way that. And I guess that’s the first that right so the the athletics, the music. Like those are in the realm of nurture. Right. But again, he’s different. He’s saying rearing and educating in speech. If you should ever rear them indeed. So education is not gymnastic. Right. If the ideal ever becomes a reality, that’s the way that. So the way that I read this is that he’s saying that if when you start to engage in dialectic, you learn that you can enchant the world and the world becomes sparkly. And my interpretation of where he was going is that education is the subordination and how you use that and put that towards something. But you can put that towards evil. Like you can you can you can put dialectic toward towards the purpose of laudalessness. But by just a tool. Yeah. But by engaging with the emanations of things, you it forces you to see that the world is mysterious and enchanting. And so when you start to look at things through those lenses, I think all he’s just saying is that here’s a tool. You can look at the world with these different lenses. But I don’t think that he’s necessarily. No. And then he points to some of the limits of doing that, too. Like, yeah, we can we can meditate all day long and do breathing exercises and we can have profound experiences and everything. But that’s why the metaphor of the city in the body is that’s why you need that’s why. So, like, yeah, you can have harmony at one level of a fractal. But then when you try to integrate that process up into larger bodies or down or down, you know, that’s the that’s the whole point. I think that’s integrating up at all. Like the integration has already happened in the philosopher game. And like he’s just at the top and he’s just like, no, like, this is how things are going to be. He’s at the top and he gets dragged down to tend to the lowest parts of the city and then he goes back up to the top and then he gets dragged back down to tend to the lowest parts of the city. Right. And he walks his way back up. Right. And it’s that process. But also they make a distinct difference between education through speech and indeed. Right. Rearing in my translation, which is important because that’s what we’re missing. We’re missing that distinction like that. The discernment that education doesn’t cover both aspects is super important. Yeah, he’s saying that post but literally lines probably the starting point of a race course. That’s like a reference to the start of the book. Yes. Right. So, so, OK, so you say you would not allow the future rulers to become like starting positions. Right. So that’s basically saying that instead of having the good as the emanation, you make the ruler. Because because the authority needs to come from the being. Right. The principles that they’ve discovered. And if they can’t embody the principles, then it goes wrong. So like that, like, I don’t know what you were talking about, Danny, but I don’t see that in in the piece exactly here. Well, I think the question that it should prompt you is, am I at harmony with the current system? And then to answer that, you have to know who’s ruling like what’s what what are we what domain are we talking about being ruled here? I think that’s the answer. That’s the question that should come up, I think. No, no, like in the book, they’re talking about the city, right? And the question is, so by saying that the city is not on Earth. Right. Yeah, they abstracted again up to shining city on the hill or heaven or whatever. And then they basically state that dialectic is the is the top of the studies. Right. That’s the integration. That’s the integration of study. Right. And then they say the distribution problem is that the distribution problem is that the distribution problem is the distribution problem. The distribution problem is ahead of you. It’s like, all right, now we have the thing. Who do we give it to? So they posit this as a separate problem. We have we have the tower of Babel. Now, how do we get everybody to speak the same language? We don’t know. How do we pick who’s involved in the tower? Like this is what I mean. Like they’re classist people. They understand people are not equal and not everybody is going to be everything because that’s foolish and anti evolutionary. So evolution, I still think it’s true. And therefore, and that’s where people get confused. They keep thinking, oh, this means anybody can do this. No, they say everybody can’t do this. Right. Not anybody can do this. And we’re going to decide who gets to and who doesn’t. You know, it’s a double whammy for these equality doctrine people. And it’s explicit. There’s no room for misinterpretation here. Then you will make a law that show that they shall have such an education that will enable them to attain the greatest skill and asking and answering questions. Right. So this is asking and answering questions was the way that you could prove that you knew the good. Right. Yes. And then they’re going to make it dialectic. And I agree. But to whom we are to assign these studies and in what way are they to be assigned are questions which remain to be considered. Remember, I said how the rulers were chosen before. The same natures must still be chosen and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest and if possible to the fairest and having noble and generous tempers. And the should also have natural gifts which facilitate their education. Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition for the mind, more often faints from severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics. Right. So making a hierarchy of complexity here. not mind, by the way. That soul in my text, not mind. Probably using news in the original Greek. Yeah. Further, he whom we are in search should have good memory, be a very solid man who is a lover of labor in any line. You will never be able to endure a great amount of bodily exercise and go through all of the intellectual disciplines of study which we require of him. The mistake at present is that those who study philosophy have no vocation. And this is, as I was before saying, the reason why she’s fallen into disrepute. Her true sons should take her by the hand, not the bastards. It kind of goes into what? And in my text, it is that men who aren’t worthy to take it up. So look, they’re making all kinds of judgments. Not anybody can engage in philosophy. They’re stating this as clear as day. And that cannot be understated that they’re making these distinctions between, and they’re saying some people have abilities and you need this set of abilities. It’s like, you must be this tall to ride this, go on this ride. It’s the same thing here. There’s a bunch of that going on. In the first place, her foetery should not have been lame or a halting industry. I mean, that’s a vocation, I think. I don’t even know that word. I mean that he should not be half industrious and half idle. For example, when a man is a lover of gymnastics and hunting and all other bodily exercises, but a halter rather than a lover of the labor of learning or listening or inquiring or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an opposite kind. And he may have the other sort of lameness. So that’s Luke, well, it’s not completely a Luke warmness, but it is kind of Luke warmness. It’s like you don’t want to apply yourself fully to the… Isn’t that blaspheming the Holy Spirit in Christianity and the only unforgivable sin? No, this is not something bad. It’s just not philosopher king level. They’re differentiating the qualities it takes to be at the top and saying these other people can’t be at the top because they lack these things. They’re not making a good bad judgment on them. They’re just saying, if you’re not this tall, you can’t get on this ride. That’s all it’s saying. To the truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed tall and lame, which hates voluntary falsehood, and is extremely indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood and does not mind wallowing like a swinish beast in the mire of ignorance and has no shame at being detected. So this is exploration, like the ability to let potential manifest at your social expense, I guess. So that you can find the truth instead of be stuck in something expedient. In respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard? For where there is no discernment of such quality states and their individual unconsciously err. So yeah, like if you don’t… So they’re talking of the virtues as discernment. And the state makes a ruler, and the individual a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is a figure, lame, or a bastard. That’s where the virtues step in. How many do we have now? We have like four qualifications already. All these things then will have to be carefully considered by us, and if only those whom we introduce to this vast system of education and training are sound and body and mind, just as herself, will have nothing to say against us. And we shall be the saviors of the constitution and of the state. But if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present. Interesting, putting that in the frame of the honor of philosophy. And yet perhaps in this turning just into earnest, I am equally ridiculous. So yeah, that’s him putting skin in the game. That’s pretty cool. I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much excitement, for when I saw philosophy so indeservedly trampled under the foot of man, I could not help feeling some sort of indignation at the art of her disgrace, and my anger made me too vehement. But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was, and now let me remind you that, although in our former selection we chose old man, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man, when he grows old, may learn many things, for he cannot no more learn much than he can run much. Okay, that’s the joke, I guess. Youth is the time of extraordinary toil. So this is where you stepped in, Danny, right? This is where it’s like, okay, I’m going to go with the old man. And now, when we start at the start of the process, things can go wrong. So I want to pick up the reading. Yeah, I can do it. And therefore, calculation and geometry and all other elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the mind in childhood, not, however, until the very end of the day. Should be presented to the mind in childhood, not, however, under any notion of forcing or system of education. Just pause me if you want me to pause. Why not? Because a free man ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise when compulsory does no harm to the body, but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. Very true. Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion. Hold on. So because the compulsive nature, right? Like it has no hold, right? So if the compulsive nature changes your relation, right? Like I think it changes what is primary, right? And the thing that becomes primary is the submission to the system, as opposed to having the knowledge in and of itself. Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement. You will then be better able to find out the natural bent. This is a very rational notion, he said. Do you remember that the children too were to be taken to see the battle on horseback, and that if there were no danger, they would be brought up close up, like young hounds have a taste of blood given them? Yes, I remember. The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things. Labors, lessons, dangers. And he who is most at home in all of them ought to be enrolled in a select number. At what age? At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over. The period of whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose. For sleep and exercise are unperpetuous to learning. And the trial of who is the first in gymnastic exercise is one of the most important tests to which our youths are subjected. Certainly, he replied. After that time, those who are selected from the class of twenty years old will be promoted to higher honor, and the sciences which they learned without any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being. Okay, hold on. They learned without any order. Forbidden knowledge. Like, we neglect to tell that there is a order at all. I think that’s important. I don’t know if that’s forbidden knowledge. No, but I think I… No, no, they’re learning the sciences, right, which is basically the basics, right, and they’re not concerned with looking up yet. Like, they’re using the science, they’re learning the science in the original sense, right? And that’s what I mean with the forbidden knowledge. And, well, we’ll get to that later on, right, because if you start looking up too early, you end up with the corruption, right? And since you don’t comprehend the essence yet, then you’re going to have a misalignment with the amination and stuff like that. So, like, that’s, I think, what they’re trying to point out there. Without any order in the early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being. Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root. Yes, I said, and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent. The comprehensive mind is always the dialectical. I remember my paws when I was listening on audiobook thinking that was… That sentence really helped me to… In my mind, that was the closest thing to his definition of dialectic. I don’t know if you guys have any reaction to that. The comprehensive mind. Yeah, I have two responses to the word comprehensive, right? That was the word I used, right? But there’s two ways to look at comprehensive, right? Like, comprehensive is the wholeness, right? It’s relating to everything, right? But it is also like a way of relating, right? Like to comprehend, right? So it talks about the fullness, but it also talks about your relationship in some sense. Well, yeah, for the man who is capable of an overview as dialectical, the one who isn’t. So it’s an overview is an important way of thinking about it. Another question is whether you need to have the overview at once or that you can summon it when it’s needed. I mean, for me, in my text, it’s education must be integrated into an overview which reveals the kinship of the studies. In other words, there has to be a binding higher principle involved, right? Or higher essence. And that I think is the point, right? That’s the point that Manuel made earlier. You need a higher essence. It’s not optional. I agree with you, he said. These, I said, are the points which you must consider. And those who have most of this comprehension and who are most steadfast in their learning and in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the usage at the age of 30, have to be chosen by you out of their secret of their select class and elevated to higher honor. And you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic in order to learn which of them is able to give up the use of sight and other senses and in company with truth to attain absolute being. And here, my great friend, great caution is required. Why great caution? So hold on. So give up sight, right? This is an act of fate. So this is where they sneak the Jesus in. Yeah. Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dialectic has introduced? What evil, he said. The students of the art are filled with lawlessness. Quite true, he said. Do you think then that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in their case? Or will you make allowance for them? And what way you make allowance? I want you, I said, by the way of parallel to imagine a superstitious son. Supastitious. What’s that word mean? Oh, never mind. Supastitious son who is brought up in great wealth. He is one of a great and numerous family and has many flatterers. When he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged are not his real parents, but the real are. But who the real are, he is unable to discover. Can you guess how can you guess how he will be likely to behave towards his flatterers and his supposed parents? First of all, during the period when he is ignorant of the false relation and then again when he knows or shall I guess for you? If you please, then I should say that while he is ignorant of the truth, he will be likely to honor his father. And his mother and and his supposed relations more than the flatters. He will be less inclined to neglect them when when in need or to or to do or say anything against them. And he will be less willing to disobey them in any important matter. Right. So we’re talking about binding at this point, right? Like there’s a bond that you have to the parents and like that bond. If that well, we’re going to put it on the strain that’s coming later, I think. And if we don’t put the bond on the strain, then the relationship will be proper or at least as proper as it can be. He will. But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would diminish his honor and regard for them and would become more devoted to the flowers, to the flatterers. Their influence over him would greatly increase. He would now live after their ways and openly associate with them. And unless he were of an unusually good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his supposed parents or other relations. Well, that is all very probable. But how is the image applicable to the disciples of philosophy in this way? You know that there are certain principles about justice and honor which were taught us in childhood. And under the parental authority, you’ve been brought up obeying and honoring them. This is true. There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right. And they continue to obey and honor the maxims of their fathers. True. Now, when a man is so good. Eva, I think maybe you want to make your argument later, but I think it’s more important to say, right, that there’s the things that are in alignment and then there’s the things that divert, right? And the things that divert are making an appeal on basically the hedonistic nature of you, right? And that’s the distinction that they’re throwing up here, right? And that’s the danger. Right. And he does make the appeal to the sense of right, but he is very intuitive and very abstract. Like, if you’ve got a sense of those of us with a sense of a sense of right are able to, you know, I mean, right. Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s the way I read it. He doesn’t I don’t think he does any better than that. No, but that’s why he’s talking about parents. It’s not right. It’s not it’s not he does any better than that. That is the best that can ever be done. And that is all that you need. You don’t need anymore. And that’s the problem. Like, that’s where people go astray. They want better. There isn’t one and they get confused and they expect to go beyond the play dough. And no one’s been able to do it since play dough. Usually they admit this, which is amazing to me that everyone leaves that out. You know, Michi certainly indicated that he wasn’t passed play dough and and Heidegger said he wasn’t passed play dough. Like, no one’s gotten past this. Play dough is not wrong. I. That’s why. It’s relating to children like he’s saying, well, no, we can’t just have old people do this. No, we need to have children because we need to expose them to the maxims. Like, like, if we if we get them to participate. Right. And I have the the proper examples, then they’ll integrate this sense of the play dough. And if if we don’t do that, then it’s it’s a void enterprise because then we’ll end up with corrupt philosophers. I mean, I don’t think anybody would dispute that children are imitative. Like the Bible talks about raise them up in the way and they will not go astray. And I think that’s a very good point. I think that’s a very good point. I think that’s a very good point. I mean, I don’t think anybody would dispute that children are imitative. Like the Bible talks about raise them up in the way and they will not go astray. So, I mean, there’s there’s definitely a heavy sense. I mean, imitation, it’s no no shadow of a doubt that there’s imitation here. I guess I guess let’s just keep going. We’ll see. In the next chapter, he basically he literally says the first thing we do is we send every capable human into the fields and get have them all the children that are not yet of impressionable age. And we collect them like that’s the first movie makes when he tries to manifest the city. So it’s it’s important, right? Like he’s saying like we need to have control over this process. Like if we don’t have control over this process, we’re doomed. Well, I think I mean, part of the reason that I read Topic Visions fail is because you can’t even have procedures in place to uproot the children. So I think that’s a very good point. Well, I think I mean, part of the reason that I read Topic Visions fail is because you can’t even have procedures in place to update it properly. I think that’s when I say that he’s again not what’s the word he’s using so destroying showing the limitations of dialectic. I think he’s saying that dialectic can’t even update completely properly over time or some no, that’s not right. I think he’s saying that dialectic can’t even update completely properly over time or some no, that’s not right. No, like dialectic is true by definition because it’s in relation to being being doesn’t change. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s that’s. The only qualification that he needs is to actually get a person there, which. That’s what he’s trying to do. That’s what he’s trying to do. Good. There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and attract the soul but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and honor the maxims of their fathers. That’s true. So this is this is this is the section that this is kind of part of the section that started me to write it’s like okay as you grow up. There’s a right way to challenge what you used to believe is true. Right. And part of the way that this guy arrived at that was through maturing and certain ways and I just don’t. To me it just seems just like I don’t know I don’t know if he’s talking about dialectic here at all anymore. This just seems like a true passage about life. I mean, yeah. Okay. But the problem here is right, like, the, the idea is that you get to a state where you’re in relationship with your principles. Right. And, and so what he’s saying is that if you get introduced to all of these other things. You get confused. And if you would do dialectic upon that confusion, you, you now no longer have the capacity to reach the prince, because because you’re confused. Yeah, I think if that’s the main theme of book seven is you need to get to the place where you can relate to principles and one on board. I mean, I think that’s an important message. I think he’s certainly saying that here. And whether or not, you know, we can know about you. It’s about, we need to have one person in the universe, attain this. Look, look, nothing in this text is about a person. Nothing. Not talking about person. Talking about groups of people in a city. It’s not making a statement about a personal journey that an individual go on. That is rejected in this text at every turn. That concept is rejected every turn. It’s saying you need to be part of the city. And because you need to be part of this city, you are embedded in this system. Because you’re embedded in the system, you’re affected by this. Because you’re affected by the system, the system needs to be of a certain nature in order to produce a certain set of results that result in a good city. And nothing to do with any person making any decision within the city at all. It’s explicit about that. And it says it over, over, over again. It’s not a manual for your personal life at all. It actually says that when we have the philosopher king, he will make all the right decisions so we don’t have to worry about the decisions. Yes, yeah, yeah. Well, I haven’t read that far, but yeah, I suspect that’s where we’re going. It’s a little bit back, right? Because every ruler or every person in an authority has to have a connection to the being that’s granting him that authority. So it’s like that’s the way that it’s solved. Like it’s just, okay, we need to channel being and we all need to stand like this. And then we have the proper city. Like that’s the way that we get the proper city. It really doesn’t give people tools. It talks about the tools that people use. It doesn’t say, hey, here’s a tool you can use this to be a better person. It’s not in this book. Do you think he will still honor and obey them as before? Impossible. And when he ceases to think them honorable and natural as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, he can be expected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his desires. He cannot. And from being a keeper of the law, he is converted into a breaker of it unquestionably. Now all that now all this is very natural in students of philosophy, such as I have described. And also, as I was just now saying, most excusable. Yes, he said. And I and I may add pitiable. Therefore, your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens who are now 30 years of age. Every care must be taken and introducing them to dialectic. Certainly, there’s a danger lest they should taste their dear delight too early for youngsters, as you may have observed. When they first get the taste, the taste in their mouths, argue for amusement and are always contradicting and refuting others in imitation of those who refute them like puppy dogs, they rejoice in pulling and tearing at all who come near them. Yes, he said. There’s nothing which they like better. And when they have made many conquests and received many defeats at the hands of the many or the hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which they believed before. And hence, not only they but philosophy and all that relates to it is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world to true, he said. So that’s the statement that postmodernism is evil. That’s what we’re going through right now is that refute many men or refuted by many men, they fall quickly into frown disbelief. In other words, they’re anti-structuralists. They try to tear down the city. That’s what we’re going through right now. Right exactly now. True, true, he said. But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such insanity. He will imitate the dialectician who is seeking for truth and not the heuristic. I don’t know what that means. Who is contradicting for the sake of amusement and the greater moderation of his character will increase instead of diminishing the honor of the pursuit. Do you want to react? So consider the truth rather than the one who plays and contradicts for the sake of the game. That’s what my text says. Right. In other words, the idiot postmodern or modern in that case either just plays the game. They’re just contradicting to contradict. They’re coming up with arguments. They’re saying you’re wrong to just tell you you’re wrong. You’re not saying you’re wrong because they can prove it. Or that there’s any good that’s going to come out of it. Like, so what? Like you could sit down all day and talk about contradictions that people have. Well, if you’re doing something for the purpose of contradicting somebody, then no good could ever come out of it. Basically, what they’re talking about is a process of purification. Right. You need to clean your soul from from all the fleshly ones so that you can have a true relationship that’s not corrupted by all the things that your flesh drives you to do. And the only way to get there is by becoming older and maturing out of your nonsense. Very true, he said. And did we not make special provision for this when we said that the disciples of philosophy were to be orderly and steadfast, not as now any chance aspirant of or intruder? Confusing language. Very true. Suppose, I said, the flaw, the study of philosophy to take the place of gymnastics and you to be continued diligently and earnestly and exclusively for twice the number of years which were passing by the exercise. Will that be enough? I think it’s funny. Would you say six or four years? Yes. Split the difference. Five years, I replied. At the end of that time, they must now be sent down again into the den and compelled to hold any military or other office which young men are qualified to hold. In this way, they will get their experience of life and there will be an opportunity of trying whether when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch. So again, there’s the compulsion to go back down. All this talk about the cave and going up is a bunch of bullshit and it’s total lies and they’re misrepresenting Plato explicitly. They’re saying, if you’re up there, you have to be dragged down, compelled, forced, whatever. That’s what’s up. These philosophers are like, yeah, we’re going to take you out of the university and make you lay bricks for a week. And they don’t want to hear that. So they’re not going to tell you that that’s what Plato says. That’s exactly what Plato says. He says it multiple times in here. There’s nothing about going up and you bringing yourself up and you coming out of the cave and you see none of that is in here. In fact, the opposite is in here. You’re already of a class and you’re moving towards something as part of that class and some higher forces coming down and forcing you down. And you’re paying a price for that, but it’s for the good of the city and your sacrifice of being able to move up towards whatever you’re moving up towards is required for the city to exist. You can’t stay in the ivory tower. And so it’s a very self-serving way of misinterpreting Plato’s cave by these people. Yeah, and I think going to the office serves two things, right? Like it serves for gaining experience, but it also serves for the re-understanding of the realm of the forms. It’s for the revivification of the lower levels. They said this explicitly. These people have a sight that the people that are down here do not have, so they can come down and give their wisdom and their knowledge to these people to make things better. And also they get contrast and appreciation for where they were. So there’s a lot of stuff going on. They also stated that the sight from above doesn’t work when you get back down and you need to relearn to see when you’re down. Right, that’s right. Because there needs to be a translation. Right, which means you can’t just go there and look at it and say, I know what’s wrong. You’re holding the hammer wrong when you’re holding the metal. No, you have to do it and relearn it. But also, you know, it says they must still be tested whether they will stand firm or give way when pulled in all directions. So again, this is about shaping and forming. And that’s why this is important. You can’t just stay up there and like contemplate the good all day. Danny’s favorite bit. Five years, they’re compelled to go. Okay. And how long is the last stage of their lives? Last 15 years, I answered. And when they have reached 50 years of age, this is 540, 50 years of age, then let those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every action of their lives and in every branch of knowledge come at last to their consummation. The time has now arrived. Yay. At which we they must raise up the eye of the soul to the universal light, which lightens all things and behold the absolute good. For that is the pattern, according to which they are to order the state and the lives of individuals and the remainder of their own lives also making philosophy their chief pursuit. But when their turn comes toiling also at politics and ruling for the public good, not as though they were performing some heroic action, but simply as a matter of duty. And when they have brought up in each generation, others like themselves and left them in their place to be governors of the state, then they will depart to the islands of the blessed and dwell there. And the city will give them public memorials and sacrifices and honor them if the Pythian Oracle consent as demigods, but if not, as in any ceased blessed and divine. You’re a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governor’s faultless and beauty. Yes, I said, Glaucon and our governance and our in our governesses too. For you must not suppose that what I’ve been saying applies only to men and not to women as far as their natures go. There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all things like men. Well, I said, and you would agree, would you not, that what has been said about the state and the government is not a mere dream and although difficult, not impossible, but only possible in the way which has been supposed. That is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in the state, one or more of them despising the honors of his present world, which they deem mean and worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honor that springs from right and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they are and whose principles will be exalted by them when they set and order their own city. It’s a question. So it’s interesting, right? So they’re also conveying that down the hierarchy, right? Like they’re ministering, they’re not only doing it themselves, right? But they’re ministering down the hierarchy as well. So that’s two roles, like participating in the right being, but also letting being responsible for the manifestation of the being down the hierarchy. How will they proceed? They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city or more than 10 years old and will take possessions of their children who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents. These they will train in their own habits and laws. I mean, in the laws which we have given them. And in this way, the state and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most. Yes, that will be the best way. And I think Socrates that you have very well described how if ever such a constitution might come into being enough then of the perfect state and of the man who bears its image. There is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him. There’s no difficulty, he replied. And I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said. Do you feel that nothing more need be said? I think that apart from some like, okay, magical, these four practices are going to do the magical trick, right? Like there’s a bunch of assertions there, but like making that assumption, like I’m okay with the argument. And the argument is only a hypothetical, right? Like they stated that at the start. Right, that’s what everybody misses. They keep thinking, no, no, Plato has an answer. The answer is the philosopher thing and it works and we know how to do it. It’s like no, Plato denies all of that. He denies that it works. He denies that we know how to do it and he denies that it’s an answer to the problem. It’s hypothetical. It’s not something that can actually be. And this separation of people, right, from their parents and like all the trauma that will come with that, who knows? Like it’s not accounted for, right? It’s like all not accounted for. And they probably knew that stuff too. Like it’s not that they weren’t aware of it. Yeah, they’re exemplifying the absurdity. That’s a pretty tough theme to miss. I don’t know why it’s not more discussed, the absurdist aspect of the entire text. And so, yeah, talking about the form of the good, right, is like, well, how do we have access to it? And we’ve been talking about the cat-like answers, right, where you have intercessory beings where you can participate. And I guess that’s also here, right, because the philosopher king is your mediation, right, to the good. So like the implication is that if you’re in the hierarchy and you’re partaking in the hierarchy submitted to the philosopher king, then the good emanates upon you. Yeah, Danny, is the dialect clear to you now? I mean, there’s point blank explicit statements that are, I think, among the most important things in terms of rooting yourself. Like he says, justice is the greatest and most necessary of all things, for example. Like, I think that’s ultimately what’s relevant, probably, to proceeding with the text. Like your experience in the ineffable world is yours. The only disagreement that I think I’m having, I mean, in terms of participating with emanations as ways of knowing things and how that can change, how it’s necessary to, like the sun shines on the city, it’s necessary for you to see the sun, see that you’re in the city and harmonize with it. Like that as a metaphor is sufficiently clear or guiding behavior. Now, to the extent that that is, that there are rational extensions beyond that. I haven’t made that step yet. What do you mean rational extensions beyond what? I’m not seeing a one in the text at all. I’m not seeing… No, no, like what is the oneness of the sun that you’re seeing in the world? Like with your eyes. Like that plant is green, right? Like this is black. Like that’s like somewhat translucent. This is like solid. So like how do I see the sun in both of them? Because I can’t even see the sun from where I’m sitting. I think the sun isn’t even part of the things that I can see right now. The creation is a reflection of the creator. Right. But I think the philosopher king, justice and the creator, they’re not these fixed positions. Like he doesn’t say that these are like… like he’s saying like dialectic can be used to… Hold on. The creator is fixed. Like the sun is the sun. Like even if the sun is evolving over time, like we can have many arguments about that. Like for you, in your experience, it’s not. I think it’s just like it’s doing what it does. Right. So the value of dialectic is that there are qualities that you can’t access without. Like there are certain qualities which you can access by engaging with dialectic. How you engage with that and what those things are, are neither good nor bad. It’s just a power that you have, let’s say. No, no. They’re good by definition. No, no. The proper engagement with dialectic starts from the good. Like keep saying that. That’s why they said the sciences aren’t really science because they’re not participating in the good. They’re not dialectic. Like the science is not dialectic. It’s not. It’s just a sneaky redefinition. Right. It’s like, well, the true is also the good. Right. Because everything that’s not related to the goodness isn’t true. And it’s like, yes, but also not helpful. Exactly. That’s only helpful if you can look from the place of God, which is what all these Christians assert that they’re doing and they’re definitely not doing that. So. You first have to climb and then when you have climbed the whole Jacob’s ladder, then a reality opens for you. And before you’re there, you are constrained and you’re a sinner. And if you’re there, you’re no longer a sinner. Because now you’re participating in the being of good. Like that’s so far away that it’s not a concern. Like, just say like you have to conceive of that it is an option. Right. That you have to aspire to it. And that does means of doing so. But you’re not going to get there. If you get there, then great. But like, as long as you’re not there, like, stop worrying about it. Yeah, I mean, there were lots of things that were said that are valuable and profound that are explicit in this chapter or the book. I mean, this book is just full of things are are very are sufficiently clear. I’m not sure sorting out the technicalities of is super relevant to proceeding with the book. It’s even worse. Like he’s explicitly not stating the technicalities. He’s just saying like science and magic. Like, like, I’m really frustrated with Plato. Like, it’s like, how can you say this science and then this magic will happen? Like, I don’t see what you’re seeing, bro. Like, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but like, there’s there’s a lot wrapped up in that. I’d like to know that because, like, that’s where the magic happens. But like, like, I, I, I, you can you can see it as as the layering. Right. I tried to explain that last time. Right. So, yeah, you have the distinction. Right. And then you have the body of the distinction. And then you have how the body of the distinction manifests. And then you have that which governs the manifestation of all bodies. Like, that’s the four categories that that he effectively described. Right. And it’s like, OK, so how do I do that science? Right. I mean, if you think about where we are in Plato, by when we get when we hit a sentence like justice, justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things. Earlier on in the book, you’d be like, oh, well, justice is that having everything in right relationship. So I want to try to control my world and align everything else. But by now, when you hit a sentence like that, he’s clearly the messages on it’s not about controlling the city and designing the city structurally and putting everything into place structurally. I mean, this book seven is all about I mean, the dialectical process is an entirely different dimension to like laying out a city ontologically and saying there’s all these parts and mechanisms. But he is laying out the city. Right. But the purpose that he has with the laying out the city is not solving the problem of the city, but solving the problem that the city can solve itself. And dialectic is just one more tool. And that tool is speaking specifically towards the interface and relationship with goodness. It’s not usurping the other tools. It’s not replacing anything. It’s an addition. Right. Yeah. No, I’m not saying it’s a substitute or anything like that. He’s saying we’re yeah, we’re in a different we’re in a different dimension, the dimension of being like the guardians. There’s prerequisites and therefore by extension, there’s forbidden knowledge. When you go through education, you have to have the right prerequisites and you have to be in the right state. Like otherwise, you’re going to you’re going to turn dialectic into lawlessness. That’s what so he’s saying that we have to we have to account for quality. No, those are already universal. Like you already have backwards. The way you get to the guardians is through forbidden knowledge. Like the way you get to the city, the whole way this entire argument starts is forbidden knowledge. The theme, the beginning theme of the Republic is children. Therefore, forbidden knowledge. Therefore, everything else. That’s actually how the whole text starts. Right. I mean, that’s not the very starting point, but that’s the starting point for the set of arguments. This is a previous set of arguments that gets thrown out on grounds of, no, you’re only dealing with individuals. No, you’re only dealing with groups of people and other groups of people. Right. You really need to deal with the city. What are you saying with proper dialectic proper dialectic needs to be contained and constrained. That’s what he’s saying. And that’s what makes it proper dialect. And so and I suspect there are translation problems. Like, I think people are using dialectic where that’s not what’s being said in the text. Actually using different words. And I suspect that because he’s making a distinction between a good way of speaking philosophically and which would be the true philosopher, at least in my translation. Right. And a bad way, which would be sophistry. Yeah. I mean, the emphasis on constraining and containing it, I think, is the important piece. Like, you can’t what I was maybe allergic to partially. I don’t know exactly what it was, but just, oh, I found a way to I discovered a way to engage in dialectic. I’m just going to let it run because you see people you see people do that in all kinds of different. Oh, I figured out. I think is not a process. That’s the whole point is that he’s saying process doesn’t work. Don’t use process. That’s what he’s saying. Think don’t employ a process. He’s saying process is not the answer to anything. A process does not get you to a result. That is not what gets you to a result. Right. Anticipating your opinion about where that result is and what type it is. I eat goodness is what gets you there. And, oh, by the way, the process doesn’t actually matter. Right. And so if you want to bulk up your arms, there’s several processes to do that. Right. If they’re employed incorrectly, they won’t work under dangerous rely on the process. Also, I think what you need to do is take the ship’s captain analogy. Right. Like the captain goes into his cabin with his maps and his things for looking at the sky and all the crazy stuff. And then he comes out and he says, I have received a prophecy of the intellect. And that’s what it is. But it’s that at a higher level. It’s no more difficult. And there’s only one or select group of persons that can do that. So, right. It’s not that they can’t do it. It’s that if they follow that process, they will not have the same results because there’s more going on. Because proper dialectic is already wrapped up in goodness. That sounds like a good… Go ahead. Sorry. Well, I was going to make an assertion about the modern times, right? Because there are people who are going into the process of dialectic. And that’s pointed out by James Lindsay. But they’re presupposing, right? They’re saying that there’s an answer, right? And if we guide the process by the manifestation on evidence-based whatever, that we can manifest the dialectic as it expresses itself. So instead of the goodness being shown through the hierarchy, the goodness is dragged out of the emergence. And that’s the distinction. Well, then they’re treating dialectic like an agent that can manifest being in the world. Instead of saying, no, it’s a tool when pointed at goodness for doing a bunch of things. Very backwards from Plato. And that’s the danger. Like, there you have your danger. Well, and that danger is explicit in Book 7. Like I said, there’s three instances where he’s basically saying, otherwise it’s madness and people will just criticize everything all the time. Really. It doesn’t resonate with me at all. The hell we’re living in now. But it’s also the case that you have to be in the proper stance. It’s not like it won’t work if you think of it like utility. It’s like doing yoga. Like if you go try to do yoga to get something, it’s not going to work. Like you have to submit and be like, submit to the ritual. So just do the stuff. And then these things come out. Otherwise, it doesn’t. Dialectic, right? Dialectic or any other process and he exercise anything is insufficient to get a result. It’s insufficient not to say something won’t happen. It’s insufficient to get a result. So part of like, for example, to avert it, like I want to make the opposite case, right? Because this is where the tell us comes in. If you have a proper conception of where you want to go, you will go there. Right. That’s the horrible bit. You might not go fast because you miss all the tools, but you’ll go there. And yeah, that is more important than the tools, especially if the tools are like a speed board and you just ram onto the beach because you couldn’t steer. Because that’s what happens to most people. Yeah, they get something they can’t handle like dialectic. They employ it and they’re not able to handle it and it destroys them. They get angry and resentful and they want to bring down the government or whatever. So Danny wanted to use it as a practice. You wanted to see others people’s understanding about dialectic and practice, use this as a practice for listening. Mark wanted to have other perspectives on the intangling of the dialectic. And I wanted to find a way to explain the dialectic, which. So let’s see. Reflect on how we lift up to these intentions and what others things stood out and try to set an intent intention for the week so that we can integrate our experience. So I had an insight about dialectic, actually, because I think the whole book is a practice of dialectic. What it’s doing is it’s taking a problem and it’s expanding it to participate in a principle. It’s going up and up the stack of principalities to have a full integrated vision. And the integration is supposed to be ending in the goodness. And that’s where the justice also comes from. The fact that all of it is an integrated whole allows the emanation from goodness to have everything be in just relationship. And without having that connection to the goodness, it cannot be just. That’s where I’m at. Because because I and that’s maybe why it’s lifted up as the highest of the virtues. Right. And and why? It’s in some sense of a different category than the others. I guess mine was mostly an experiment, experiential reflection. It’s kind of maybe that’s I feel like I’ve been in a state of meditation. I’ve been like I said, I’ve been doing a ton of yoga. And this is like the only time in my week where I basically come out of a state of meditation. And there was tremendous amounts of tension in my body, which I’m very well aware of. And you know, but I mean, the idea that justice has to be connected to goodness, you know, like the experience of reading any book or going or doing anything with other people like we’re all coming at it from different places. And that’s just where you’re currently located. I don’t have any commentary on that. It just kind of came to me as being fundamentally important. So without getting woo, I’ll just leave it at that. But that’s kind of what they were talking about. Right. Like when when these children come come in corrupted from all these other influences. Right. That’s that’s the place that they’re coming from. Right. So they’re not coming from a place of maxims, but they’re coming from a place of confused maxims where where some of them are pointing towards the flag. Needs right. And so when when we engage with something right, we we always bring our baggage with us. And that is the thing that inhibits us from from right participation. Right. And there’s there’s many types of baggage, obviously. But but but the point is right. And that even in the book, Glaucon can have agreement with Socrates. Like and so yeah, like if we’re talking about someone with baggage like that, that guy is is a wreck. Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t baggage for sure. I mean, 100 percent. We all have accumulations of experiences and that has scarred us and changes our lens in certain ways. But I mean, it’s all it’s also it also could be framed positively. Like if you’re in if you’re more if you’re ahead of other people. Like just just the spirit of what’s called for whenever you engage with people, you don’t know what that’s going to be. You don’t necessarily know what you need, what they need. Anyway, that’s that’s kind of just being sensitive to those qualities or being perceptive of those qualities is something that I think is underemphasized in our culture. Like we’re not looking for where am I? Am I ahead? Am I ahead? Am I am I stronger than this person here? If so, how ought to I engage them? But I think. I was making a connection to the dialectic with that. Yeah, I lost it. Oh, yeah, I think I think it had to do with the dynamic nature. Right. So you were talking about you don’t know which way you’re going to have to react to people. And that’s going to rephrase that because that doesn’t resonate with what was whatever I said. It wasn’t about reacting to people or were you relating like relating? OK, yeah, I think they’re the same thing, actually. So anyway, so when you relate to people, right, you’re having to participate in a spirit. Right. So you’re participating in a being. Right. And so you’re being informed. And as a consequence, you can find an expression or an action or a way of participating that that you you can find an expression or an action or a way of participating that that you can be. But I think that’s what dialectic is right. Like, like, it’s just it’s in the intellect. Instead, like, there’s. As a consequence of of you, intelligising something right like there. There’s something that informs you and you don’t know what’s going to inform you or how to relate to it. And then you have to articulate a response. But that’s a dance. It’s not a static. Event, right, like, like it’s it’s it’s unvolving. And this is like this is why it’s no wing. Right. Like, it’s not I know this. I am knowing it or something. Right. Like, it’s a verb. It’s it’s the participation in its being that that gives you the authority to speak about it. So and I think I think that same quality of being is there. And I think I think that same quality manifests itself in conversation. Right. Because because now when I’m relating to you, I’m relating to the way that you’re manifesting and I’m relating to to the being that I’m connecting to. And I assume that you’re connecting to. And then that emanates a way to to answer the question. Yeah. When I talk to people and say I speak with authority, like that’s what I’m talking about. Yeah. What I heard there is that there’s two sides of that is that there’s perception and then there’s expression. And if you just have candid ideological responses, let’s say, you know, or you’re not you’re not being present with the spirit, you’re just you’re just expressing what is yours in your ineffable experience with the world. No, no, no, I don’t think it’s yours. Like I’m actually if you have a can’t ideological response, it’s not yours. Well, I mean, like, well, how do you reconcile like like I had experiences that changed my perspective this week. What language you use to describe that, like to me, that’s something that is in my head only like you described a can ideological response. That’s not yours by definition. Okay, I see what you’re saying. Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s fine with me. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it comes from a kind of came from outside. I wasn’t asking for it or even seeking it. It just had a way of opening. I’m just okay. It’s just. Yeah, you you had an you integrated something from outside yourself to change. But that’s a participation in being right. That’s what integration is. Integration is making something when somebody tells you Karl Marx had an excellent definition of capitalism, either lying and be you didn’t integrate that because you didn’t read because as you read it, you know that that wasn’t true. It’s not that hard. So where how I see it was saying is that you have the expression on the one side and you have the perception on the upstream, which is why if we can share common conceptions and language that will help us in some ways to commune a little bit better. So that was one I think that as a culture, I mean, the same thing when you when you meditate, for example, you’re there’s a way better way to commune together. I’ll never talk at all. Shut the hell up. Have a freaking meal. I don’t this reliance on conversation is evil. No, you can just eat with somebody. You can just hunt with somebody. You just fish with somebody. You just sit by the fire with somebody. Just go for a walk with them. Those are way better ways to commune way more reliable. There’s way less interpretation and the interpretation is of a different type. That’s what everybody’s missing. They’re like, you know what the pre-admits you say we can’t talk. That’s not the problem. You’re never going to be able to talk. Give that up instead. Do things. It’ll be way better. You can use talking in that process. But when talking is the primary process already corrupted and never going to work. And the problem with with talking is that you have to do it when you need to correct someone, right? Because they’re going to take an action or something. Right. And that’s where you need common ground. Right. But then the question is, what is the means by which you resolve the conflict? And if you go to the philosopher king, you listen to the philosopher king. That’s the way that you resolve the conflict because he knows and you don’t. And so the problem is that people think they’re authoritative through their opinions instead of through their knowledge. Because they never developed knowledge. They only have opinions and flavors of Marx’s book and stuff. And it’s yeah, you can use this in a conversation. Right. It’s like because if people are going to an authoritative source, you know that they don’t have it. Because if they would have an argument, they’d involve themselves in the argument because that’s the way that you speak with true authority. It’s like, I’ve thought about this a long time and therefore, right, or I’ve been talking about this for a long time. Right. Or I’ve had this experience and therefore. I just echo what Mark was saying about singing. I mean, if in my experience and the people who I know, whom I talked about this, who were active in a church for an extended period of time, the thing that sticks with them in the long run is the worship is generally like worship. Like usually it’s worshiping together. Right. That’s usually like, you know, that’s usually the core at the core of the thing that unites them. It’s like, okay, you can argue about theology and stuff like that. But like, it’s actually participating in the liturgy together. That grows something in a way that. It has to, Dan, because you’re participating in something that is higher than both of you. When you’re conversing, you’re trying to participate in the other person. That is not higher than you. And therefore you cannot commune. This is why conversation is actually a problem to be dealt with and not a solution. The problem is when we’re talking to each other as peers, as we are, right, we’re not communing about something higher. Now, having a book club fixes some of those problems. Not the ideal solution, but it’s way better than trying to talk out an issue. Because when we’re trying to talk about an issue, we’re sitting at the same level, fighting over supremacy to the point of Karl Marx. Yes, if the world were flat, you would have this problem. The world’s not flat. You don’t have that problem. But you don’t have to have that problem. You create the problem if you want. I don’t recommend creating problems because then you have to solve the damn things. And that sucks. If you avoid creating them, you don’t need to solve them. Now you can commune with something higher. You get together by moving higher together. You don’t get together by talking it through one on one or even one on meant. No, I’m not saying that can’t ever happen. I’m not saying that you can’t have a conversation around something higher. That is the solution to dialectic. Bad dialectic doesn’t try to get at the good. It doesn’t start from the assumption of the goodness. And good dialectic does. But what is goodness? Goodness is above you, outside of you. It’s bigger than you. It’s not the person you’re talking to. They’re not bigger than you. They’re just another person about your same size. The thing that was really profound, I watched Naruto and at a certain point, the bad guys, I’ve thought about the problem of evil so much and I have the solution. I’m going to put everybody to sleep. And then they’re going to dream and then they’re going to have peace in the dream. I’m going to assert this new principality and this new principality is going to emanate goodness and is going to resolve all the problems. Because within whatever else there is, we cannot manifest this. And that’s where you get bad dialectic. You place it in service of this one thing that’s going to resolve everything. Obviously, in order to do that, he has to get this amazing war happening. And then he’s kind of lucky that he has this magical power to actually pull it off or whatever. Because I would argue that nobody can pull that stuff off anyway. At a certain point, you’re just trapped within your limitation. And it’s the argument, right? Like, oh, if the aliens would come on Earth, we’d all unite. And it’s like, yeah, maybe in some sense for a certain amount of time. But also we’d have aliens fight and we can’t win. Maybe that’s a stupid solution. Maybe we’re creating more problems solving by solving it that way. Alright, want to wrap it up? Yeah. Alright, well thanks. See you guys next week. See ya.