Some Notes on Plato

[Peter Kirby]

Plato Phil., Respublica Stephanus page 516, section a, line 8
ἐκ δὲ τούτων τὰ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ καὶ αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανὸν νύκτωρ ἂν ῥᾷον θεάσαιτο,

“Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself (ἐκ δὲ τούτων τὰ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ καὶ αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανὸν), more easily by night, looking at the light of the stars and the moon, than by day the sun and the sun's light.”

Plato, like Aristotle, appeared to have a conception of a "really real" heaven, totally apart from the spheres in which the sun and planets travel. And this passage is talking about the progression required to come to an understanding of such "really real" existence. It's possible to read it as Plato being a bit clever and saying that observing things in the heavens is the final step before contemplation of αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανὸν, where really real ideas are.

On one occasion, Plato's dialogue (Plat. Phaedrus 247c), in a parable, apparently has it such that this is called "the region above the heaven" (apparently something that Aristotle further distinguished by claiming that it has no place or limit):

"pass outside and take their place on the outer surface of the heaven, and when they have taken their stand, the revolution carries them round and they behold the things outside of the heaven. But the region above the heaven (τὸν δὲ ὑπερουράνιον τόπον) was never worthily sung by any earthly poet, nor will it ever be. It is, however, as I shall tell; for I must dare to speak the truth, especially as truth is my theme. For the colorless, formless, and intangible truly existing essence, with which all true knowledge is concerned, holds this region"

On another occasion, another dialogue (the Timaeus 28b, 31a, 92c) sees fit to exchange words between "cosmos" and "ouranos" and by either to designate what we call the universe, that which contains all things.

Now the whole Heaven, or Cosmos, or if there is any other name which it specially prefers, by that let us call it,—so, be its name what it may, we must first investigate concerning it that primary question which has to be investigated at the outset in every case,—namely, whether it has existed always, having no beginning of generation, or whether it has come into existence, having begun from some beginning.

Are we right, then, in describing the Heaven as one, or would it be more correct to speak of heavens as many or infinite in number? One it must be termed, if it is to be framed after its Pattern. For that which embraces all intelligible Living Creatures could never be second, with another beside it; for if so, there must needs exist yet another Living Creature, which should embrace them both, and of which they two would each be a part; in which case this Universe could no longer be rightly described as modelled on these two, but rather on that third Creature which contains them both.

And now at length we may say that our discourse concerning the Universe has reached its termination. For this our Cosmos has received the living creatures both mortal and immortal and been thereby fulfilled; it being itself a visible Living Creature embracing the visible creatures, a perceptible God made in the image of the Intelligible, most great and good and fair and perfect in its generation—even this one Heaven sole of its kind.

Yet this appears to be an unrelated usage. If we look at some other references (part of an analogy about how one at the bottom of the ocean thinks its observations of the ocean's surface would be observations of the heavens themselves--thus we are similarly confined to appearances):

Now we do not perceive that we live in the hollows, but think we live on the upper surface of the earth, just as if someone who lives in the depth of the ocean should think he lived on the surface of the sea, and, seeing the sun and the stars through the water, should think the sea was the sky, and should, by reason of sluggishness or feebleness, never have reached the surface of the sea, and should never have seen, by rising and lifting his head out of the sea into our upper world, and should never have heard from anyone who had seen, how much purer and fairer it is than the world he lived in. I believe this is just the case with us; for we dwell in a hollow of the earth and think we dwell on its upper surface; and the air we call the heaven, and think that is the heaven in which the stars move. But the fact is the same, that by reason of feebleness and sluggishness, we are unable to attain to the upper surface of the air; for if anyone should come to the top of the air or should get wings and fly up, he could lift his head above it and see, as fishes lift their heads out of the water and see the things in our world, so he would see things in that upper world; and, if his nature were strong enough to bear the sight, he would recognize that that is the real heaven (ὁ ἀληθῶς οὐρανὸς) and the real light and the real earth. For this earth of ours, and the stones and the whole region where we live, are injured and corroded, as in the sea things are injured by the brine, and nothing of any account grows in the sea, and there is, one might say, nothing perfect there, but caverns and sand and endless mud and mire, where there is earth also, and there is nothing at all worthy to be compared with the beautiful things of our world. But the things in that world above would be seen to be even more superior to those in this world of ours.

For I believe there are in all directions on the earth many hollows of very various forms and sizes, into which the water and mist and air have run together; but the earth itself is pure and is situated in the pure heaven in which the stars are (δὲ τὴν γῆν καθαρὰν ἐν καθαρῷ κεῖσθαι τῷ οὐρανῷ ἐν ᾧπέρ ἐστι τὰ ἄστρα), the heaven which those who discourse about such matters call the ether (αἰθέρα); the water, mist and air are the sediment of this and flow together into the hollows of the earth.

This still doesn't bring us back to the τὸν δὲ ὑπερουράνιον τόπον concept mentioned earlier.

But it does provide another possible explanation of the phrase 'heaven itself,' as meant to contrast with the things in heaven as they are seen. The perception is just a shadow of the reality, which can be perceived only with the mind/soul.

Plato's Symposium (210) has a woman speaks of the "really real" and how anything that is such would exist neither in heaven nor on earth. (Apparently the proper method of loving boys is just one step on the journey to true enlightenment and the contemplation of pure beauty. And yes, there is a pun where it is said that this activity has created the child of "a true virtue.")

“‘When a man has been thus far tutored in the lore of love, passing from view to view of beautiful things, in the right and regular ascent, suddenly he will have revealed to him, as he draws to the close of his dealings in love, a wondrous vision, beautiful in its nature; and this, Socrates, is the final object of all those previous toils. First of all, it is ever-existent and neither comes to be nor perishes, neither waxes nor wanes; next, it is not beautiful in part and in part ugly, nor is it such at such a time and other at another, nor in one respect beautiful and in another ugly, nor so affected by position as to seem beautiful to some and ugly to others. Nor again will our initiate find the beautiful presented to him in the guise of a face or of hands or any other portion of the body, nor as a particular description or piece of knowledge, nor as existing somewhere in another substance, such as an animal or the earth or sky (ἐν ζῴῳ ἢ ἐν γῇ ἢ ἐν οὐρανῷ) or any other thing; but existing ever in singularity of form independent by itself, while all the multitude of beautiful things partake of it in such wise that, though all of them are coming to be and perishing, it grows neither greater nor less, and is affected by nothing. So when a man by the right method of boy-loving (παιδεραστεῖν [!]) ascends from these particulars and begins to descry that beauty, he is almost able to lay hold of the final secret. Such is the right approach or induction to love-matters. Beginning from obvious beauties he must for the sake of that highest beauty be ever climbing aloft, as on the rungs of a ladder, from one to two, and from two to all beautiful bodies; from personal beauty he proceeds to beautiful observances, from observance to beautiful learning, and from learning at last to that particular study which is concerned with the beautiful itself and that alone; so that in the end he comes to know the very essence of beauty. In that state of life above all others, my dear Socrates,’ said the Mantinean woman, ‘a man finds it truly worth while to live, as he contemplates essential beauty. This, when once beheld, will outshine your gold and your vesture, your beautiful boys and striplings, whose aspect now so astounds you and makes you and many another, at the sight and constant society of your darlings, ready to do without either food or drink if that were any way possible, and only gaze upon them and have their company. But tell me, what would happen if one of you had the fortune to look upon essential beauty entire, pure and unalloyed (τὸ καλὸν ἰδεῖν εἰλικρινές, καθαρόν, ἄμεικτον); not infected with the flesh and color of humanity, and ever so much more of mortal trash? What if he could behold the divine beauty (τὸ θεῖον καλὸν) itself, in its unique form? Do you call it a pitiful life for a man to lead—looking that way, observing that vision by the proper means, and having it ever with him? Do but consider,’ she said, ‘that there only will it befall him, as he sees the beautiful through that which makes it visible, to breed (τίκτειν) not illusions but true examples of virtue, since his contact is not with illusion but with truth. So when he has begotten (τεκόντι) a true virtue (ἀρετὴν ἀληθῆ) and has reared it up (θρεψαμένῳ) he is destined to win the friendship of Heaven (θεοφιλεῖ); he, above all men, is immortal.’

Okay so much for my anachronistic astonishment. The Perseus site has a note with some relevant references on Plato's ideal objects (link):

The Ideal object is distinguished by three leading characteristics, viz. (1) eternity and immutability; (2) absoluteness, or freedom from relativity; (3) self-existence. Compare the accounts of Ideal being given in Phaedo 78 C ff., Phaedrus 247 C ff., Crat. 386 D, 439 C ff., Rep. 476 A, 479 A ff., Soph. 249 B ff., Phileb. 15 B, 58 A, Tim. 51 D ff. The description has, necessarily, to be conveyed by means of negative propositions, i.e. by way of contrast with phenomenal objects. See also the parallels in Plotin. Enn. V. viii. 546 C, VI. vii. 727 C.

The Phaedrus, by the way, also has the story about the hierarchy of souls, reincarnation, and how terribly difficult it was to get it all right.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... edrus+248c

And this is a law of Destiny, that the soul which follows after God and obtains a view of any of the truths is free from harm until the next period, and if it can always attain this, is always unharmed; but when, through inability to follow, it fails to see, and through some mischance is filled with forgetfulness and evil and grows heavy, and when it has grown heavy, loses its wings and falls to the earth, then it is the law that this soul shall never pass into any beast at its first birth, but the soul that has seen the most shall enter into the birth of a man who is to be a philosopher or a lover of beauty, or one of a musical or loving nature (εἰς γονὴν ἀνδρὸς γενησομένου φιλοσόφου ἢ φιλοκάλου ἢ μουσικοῦ τινος καὶ ἐρωτικοῦ), . . . Now in all these states, whoever lives justly obtains a better lot, and whoever lives unjustly, a worse. For each soul returns to the place whence it came in ten thousand years; for it does not regain its wings before that time has elapsed, except the soul of him who has been a guileless philosopher or a philosophical lover; these, when for three successive periods of a thousand years they have chosen such a life, after the third period of a thousand years become winged in the three thousandth year and go their way . . .

Plato describes the gods, who don't suffer such uncertainties.

Now the divine intelligence, since it is nurtured on mind and pure knowledge, and the intelligence of every soul which is capable of receiving that which befits it, rejoices in seeing reality for a space of time and by gazing upon truth is nourished and made happy until the revolution brings it again to the same place. In the revolution it beholds absolute justice, temperance, and knowledge, not such knowledge as has a beginning and varies as it is associated with one or another of the things we call realities, but that which abides in the real eternal absolute; and in the same way it beholds and feeds upon the other eternal verities, after which, passing down again within the heaven (δῦσα πάλιν εἰς τὸ εἴσω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ), it goes home, and there the charioteer puts up the horses at the manger and feeds them with ambrosia and then gives them nectar to drink.

From Plato's descriptions in the myth of Er, there are also afterlives spent under the earth, as well as in the heaven, between incarnations (1000 years from birth to birth, seems to be the general rule here).

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... p.+10.614b

“It is not, let me tell you,” said I, “the tale1 to Alcinous told2 that I shall unfold, but the tale of a warrior bold,3 Er, the son of Armenius, by race a Pamphylian.4 He once upon a time was slain in battle, and when the corpses were taken up on the tenth day already decayed, was found intact, and having been brought home, at the moment of his funeral, on the twelfth day5 as he lay upon the pyre, revived,6 and after coming to life related what, he said, he had seen in the world beyond. He said that when his soul7 went forth from his body he journeyed with a great company and that they came to a mysterious region1 where there were two openings side by side in the earth, and above and over against them in the heaven two others, and that judges were sitting2 between these, and that after every judgement they bade the righteous journey to the right and upwards through the heaven with tokens attached3 to them in front of the judgement passed upon them, and the unjust to take the road to the left4 and downward, they too wearing behind signs of all that had befallen them, and that when he himself drew near they told him that he must be the messenger1 to mankind to tell them of that other world,2 and they charged him to give ear and to observe everything in the place. And so he said that here he saw, by each opening of heaven and earth, the souls departing after judgement had been passed upon them, while, by the other pair of openings, there came up from the one in the earth souls full of squalor and dust, and from the second there came down from heaven a second procession of souls clean and pure, and that those which arrived from time to time appeared to have come as it were from a long journey and gladly departed to the meadow1 and encamped2 there as at a festival,3 and acquaintances greeted one another, and those which came from the earth questioned the others about conditions up yonder, and those from heaven asked how it fared with those others. And they told their stories to one another, the one lamenting and wailing as they recalled how many and how dreadful things they had suffered and seen in their journey beneath the earth1—it lasted a thousand years2—while those from heaven related their delights and visions of a beauty beyond words. To tell it all, Glaucon, would take all our time, but the sum, he said, was this. For all the wrongs they had ever done to anyone and all whom they had severally wronged they had paid the penalty in turn tenfold for each, and the measure of this was by periods of a hundred years each, so that on the assumption that this was the length of human life the punishment might be ten times the crime; as for example that if anyone had been the cause of many deaths or had betrayed cities and armies and reduced them to slavery, or had been participant in any other iniquity, they might receive in requital pains tenfold for each of these wrongs, and again if any had done deeds of kindness and been just and holy men they might receive their due reward in the same measure; and other things not worthy of record he said of those who had just been born1 and lived but a short time; and he had still greater requitals to tell of piety and impiety towards the gods and parents2 and of self-slaughter.

The description of the "craftsman" in the Republic has him making all things in the triple division heaven, earth, and under earth:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ep.+7.530a

“Do you not think,” said I, “that one who was an astronomer in very truth would feel in the same way when he turned his eyes upon the movements of the stars? He will be willing to concede that the artisan1 of heaven fashioned it and all that it contains in the best possible manner for such a fabric; but when it comes to the proportions of day and night, and of their relation to the month, and that of the month to the year, and of the other stars to these and one another, do you not suppose that he will regard as a very strange fellow the man who believes that these things go on for ever without change1 or the least deviation2—though they possess bodies and are visible objects—and that his unremitting quest3 the realities of these things?”

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... p.+10.596b

“And are we not also in the habit of saying that the craftsman (ὁ δημιουργὸς) who produces either of them fixes his eyes1 on the idea or form, and so makes in the one case the couches and in the other the tables that we use, and similarly of other things? For surely no craftsman (δημιουργεῖ) makes the idea itself. How could he?” “By no means.” “But now consider what name you would give to this craftsman.” “What one?” “Him who makes all the things (ὃς πάντα ποιεῖ) that all handicraftsmen (τῶν χειροτεχνῶν) severally produce.” “A truly clever and wondrous man you tell of.” (δεινόν τινα λέγεις καὶ θαυμαστὸν ἄνδρα) “Ah, but wait,2 and you will say so indeed, for this same handicraftsman (οὗτος χειροτέχνης) is not only able to make all implements, but he produces all plants and animals, including himself,3 and thereto earth and heaven and the gods and all things in heaven and in Hades under the earth.” (καὶ πρὸς τούτοις γῆν καὶ οὐρανὸν καὶ θεοὺς καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ τὰ ἐν Ἅιδου ὑπὸ γῆς ἅπαντα ἐργάζεται).

A note:

It is a tempting error to refer this to God, as I once did, and as Wilamowitz, Platon. i. p. 604 does. So Cudworth, True Intel. System of the Universe, vol. ii. p. 70: “Lastly, he is called ὃς πάντα τά τε ἄλλα ἐργάζεται, καὶ ἑαυτόν, ‘he that causeth or produceth both all other things, and even himself.'” But the producer of everything, including himself, is the imitator generalized and then exemplified by the painter and the poet. Cf. Soph. 234 A-B.

This is naturally an influence behind the Marcionite division between the maker and the true God, something Plato talked about five centuries before.

This wraps up together the doctrine of the really real forms and the doctrine of the craftsman who cannot hope to contain them accurately, while also providing a fairly good parallel for the illumination of the quote regarding coming to know of the things in heaven and of heaven itself:

“Thus,” said I, “these sparks that paint the sky,3 since they are decorations on a visible surface, we must regard, to be sure, as the fairest and most exact of material things but we must recognize that they fall far short of the truth,1 the movements, namely, of real speed and real slowness in true number and in all true figures both in relation to one another and as vehicles of the things they carry and contain. These can be apprehended only by reason and thought, but not by sight; or do you think otherwise?” “By no means,” he said. “Then,” said I, “we must use the blazonry of the heavens as patterns to aid in the study of those realities, just as one would do who chanced upon diagrams drawn with special care and elaboration by Daedalus or some other craftsman or painter. For anyone acquainted with geometry who saw such designs would admit the beauty of the workmanship, but would think it absurd to examine them seriously in the expectation of finding in them the absolute truth with regard to equals or doubles or any other ratio.” “How could it be otherwise than absurd?” he said. “Do you not think,” said I, “that one who was an astronomer in very truth would feel in the same way when he turned his eyes upon the movements of the stars? He will be willing to concede that the artisan1 of heaven (τῷ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ δημιουργῷ) fashioned it and all that it contains in the best possible manner for such a fabric; but when it comes to the proportions of day and night, and of their relation to the month, and that of the month to the year, and of the other stars to these and one another, do you not suppose that he will regard as a very strange fellow the man who believes that these things go on for ever without change1 or the least deviation2—though they possess bodies and are visible objects—and that his unremitting quest3 the realities of these things?” “I at least do think so,” he said, “now that I hear it from you.”

And the nice thing about this is that it is part of the context of the same passage:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ep.+7.529c

This seems to definitely say that the realm of the really real ideas (called a pattern here) can be called heaven:

“Well,” said I, “perhaps there is a pattern2 [παράδειγμα] of it laid up in heaven (ἐν οὐρανῷ) for him who wishes to contemplate it and so beholding to constitute himself its citizen.3 But it makes no difference whether it exists now or ever will come into being.4 The politics of this city only will be his and of none other.”

[DCHindley]

Plato Phil., Respublica Stephanus page 516, section a, line 8
ἐκ δὲ τούτων τὰ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ καὶ αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανὸν νύκτωρ ἂν ῥᾷον θεάσαιτο,

“Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself (ἐκ δὲ τούτων τὰ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ καὶ αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανὸν), more easily by night, looking at the light of the stars and the moon, than by day the sun and the sun's light.”

Plato, like Aristotle, appeared to have a conception of a "really real" heaven, totally apart from the spheres in which the sun and planets travel. And this passage is talking about the progression required to come to an understanding of such "really real" existence. It's possible to read it as Plato being a bit clever and saying that observing things in the heavens is the final step before contemplation of αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανὸν, where really real ideas are.

Peter,

I think the idea being conveyed was that the man, after becoming acclimated to seeing first reflections in the cave, then the things themselves when he comes out, can then discern what is in the heavens (probably meaning birds and clouds), and even the very heavens themselves, especially night (probably referring to the stars in the dark sky). The visible universe is generally called the kosmos ("adornment"), but here "heaven" seems to refer to what can be seen in the sky.

Plato did not divide the sky into multiple heavens as far as I recall, but thought that the higher one rose up into the sky, the more rarified and intense things get. The earth we know, in his view, is sediment in a vast sea. In that sea are innumerable grades of things, like when you shake a bottle mixed with different sizes of sand and pebbles, etc, the heavier and courser stuff settles at the bottom, then the other grades of material settle according to their grade. Above the settled matter is the water, which corresponds to aether.

IIRC, Plato did not consider any of his divine principles, ideas, and such, to reside in the material world, or even be subject to time or space limitations. If the water along with the settled sand is a stand in for the sky and the earth as we know it, then the air above it would represent the abode of those divine things, but that is not the same as seeing it as another "heaven".

Benjamin Jowett rendered this passage as:

After this he is dragged up the rough and steep
ascent into the daylight; where again he first sees the shadows, then
real objects, then the heavenly luminaries, first the moon and stars
by night, and last of all the sun by day. And when he has seen the
sun, he will recognize the truth about him, that he is in a manner
the cause of all things. He who has so far attained will not wish
himself back in the den nor covet the honours there adjudged to
those who make the best guesses about the shadows. And if he were
restored to his old place while his eyes were still unaccustomed to the
darkness, his fellow-prisoners would laugh him to scorn, and say
that Philosophy has the ruin of a man.

DCH

[Peter Kirby]

Plato did not divide the sky into multiple heavens as far as I recall

Correct.

IIRC, Plato did not consider any of his divine principles, ideas, and such, to reside in the material world,

Correct.

or even be subject to time or space limitations.

I would assume so.

[DCHindley]

Plato did not divide the sky into multiple heavens as far as I recall

Correct.

IIRC, Plato did not consider any of his divine principles, ideas, and such, to reside in the material world,

Correct.

or even be subject to time or space limitations.

I would assume so.

Yes, very dialogue-ish.

So, waddya think? Was Plato into multiple heavens?

While I do not think so, it is possible that such an idea was developed by the Middle Platonists or perhaps Aristotle's or Zeno's schools. Unfortunately, my reference book has sunk beneath the sea of other books I have strewn about.

DCH

[Peter Kirby]

So, waddya think? Was Plato into multiple heavens?

No, but there were two things that could be called by the name of 'heaven', both the entire visible heaven (what everyone called heaven) or the realm of the forms (which Plato also called 'heaven').

The classical Greeks, in general, spoke of only one 'heaven'. Indeed their entire concept of the wheels-within-wheels movement of the Sun and the planets was partly developed in order to maintain the unity of 'heaven'.

While I do not think so, it is possible that such an idea was developed by the Middle Platonists or perhaps Aristotle's or Zeno's schools. Unfortunately, my reference book has sunk beneath the sea of other books I have strewn about.

I am not aware of Greeks, let alone very ancient Greeks such as Aristotle or Zeno, who disagreed.

It appears to be one of the points of disagreement between Christians (influenced by Judaism) and the pagan philosophers (influenced by Greek ideas).

Of course there may be a stray example here or there. I don't know.

[Clive]

Carl Sagan Cosmos Chapters 3 and 4 seem to be very relevant to several threads here.

[ficino]

Plato Phil., Respublica Stephanus page 516, section a, line 8

This seems to definitely say that the realm of the really real ideas (called a pattern here) can be called heaven:

“Well,” said I, “perhaps there is a pattern2 [παράδειγμα] of it laid up in heaven (ἐν οὐρανῷ) for him who wishes to contemplate it and so beholding to constitute himself its citizen.3 But it makes no difference whether it exists now or ever will come into being.4 The politics of this city only will be his and of none other.”

Hi guys, I think Peter's last quotation does not refer to the Forms as patterns but to the company of heavenly bodies.

Both Plato and Aristotle wrote about the heavenly bodies as having soul and being divine. E.g. in Plato's Laws, the Athenian explicitly says that heavenly bodies have souls (898d). In the Timaeus, we get the picture of the souls of purified humans returning to join their native stars in a heavenly society. That heaven is not a set of Forms, since there is a Form of Soul, which as a Form must be single, but there are many stars and many souls led by each star. Alcmaeon had previously written that the heavenly bodies, being in perpetual motion, have soul, and he had made an analogy between our souls and the ensouled heavenly bodies (Arist. De An. 405a29ff = DK 24A12).

The Republic, Timaeus and Laws reveal how deeply Plato was interested in Eudoxus’ discovery that the planets’ incommensurate motion can be calculated and is therefore rational. Plato saw in the celestial beings a society of divinities guided by justice. The heavenly society forms a paradigm for what earthly society should be, as well as a paradigm for harmony of the parts of the individual human's soul. As a result, Socrates can say in Republic 9 what you quoted above, Peter, that perhaps there is a paradigm of justice in heaven to which we can assimilate ourselves. He means the society of the heavenly bodies, which we can see at night and at which we can understand is a paradigm of justice. The stars and planets display justice because they are ensouled and move each with its proper motion (cf. again Laws 898e-899c), and each in its proper place, Laws 966e-967c. The Laws in fact holds out the heavens as a pattern of the ordered society that earthly states should imitate. But the stars and planets have individual identities, as their visible forms and calculable motions attest. So the heaven inhabited by the stars and planets is not the realm of Forms. Forms are single and are "seen" only with the "eye" of the intellect.

So I think the "heaven" in Republic 592 is not the Forms but is patterned on Forms. In turn, that heavenly society forms a pattern, paradeigma, for our earthly societies. Because of the imperfections of our world, an earthly society will never function according to the degree of justice that is found in the heavenly society of the stars and planets.

[Robert Baird]

Plato may have been unable to gain entry into the Mysteries at Eleusis according to one author - this lead to his theocratic acceptance which was later used by those called Illuminati. I am not sure that author is correct - nor can anyone be certain about anything relating to what is written - because the laws against telling truth were already quite oppressive as Socrates proves when he drinks the Hemlock rather than go into exile as his forbear (born of a Phoenician) Pythagoras did,

In the time of Plato any person divulging the meaning of the Pentagon-Dodecahedron would likely be put to death without a hearing. This year saw the discovery of a pentaquark and the word quark penned by Murray Gell-Mann is most interesting when you look into Gell-Mann being an Orisha worshipper as well as his role in the Aspen Institute, knowledge of linguistics and NLP.

I see a lot of code in what I read above but I cannot say I read it all. Socrates may not have written anything at all because like Pythagoras (who some say used the name Orpheus - a bard like his own druidic membership and training by Abaris, translates as Rabbi, the Druid) he followed the Law of the Magi. There are three laws (thus Trismegistus is like an amalgam character because no person can fully comprehend all three laws in one lifetime - though it is possible that through ritual such as we had with Perdurabo that some knowledge carries from one person to another, and I do not exclude the possibility that ascended master types including Vivekananda do occur occasionally) and those laws are as follows.

1. As Above, So Below - much talk of Heaven or other CONstructs is partially contained in this as is the Aether. The Antikythera was an astrolabe I think came from Rhodes and a school lead by Poseidonius whose writings were a major target for destruction due to what history was therein elucidated. Astrolabes are not usually such advanced computational devices or inclusive of astronomy and astrology (Above) but they all were useful in detecting minerals (Below). We have some quotes remaining in the writings of Herodotus or others which are attributed to Poseidonius.

2. Right Thought = Right Action - which is my lifetime focus.

3. Know, Will, Dare, Keep Silent (aka Scrire, Potere, Audere, Tacere) - the Keep Silent admonishment is not in force today after we had the release of some atomic fission knowledge which Fulcanelli presented to the Paris Academy of Science according to a member of Heisenberg's team who wrote Morning of the Magicians. He used the codes of the builders of the Cathedrals including Notre Dame to present this proof which I have not found a great deal of support for outside alchemical circles. I have read his Cathedrales book which I can de-code only partially The Black Madonnas being one of the parts I think I know after having the two volumes of Paracelsus which include the formula and ingredients for the making of a Philosopher's Stone (half in each book).

So as the Dictionary of Alchemy, The Arab Encyclopedia and the book written by Mircae Eliade with the title The Forge and the Crucible assert, alchemy is the science of all knowledge going back millions of years with no need of alien intervention such as the Elohim, Oannes, the Annunaki and other myths of religious dogma to explain.

The Father of Biblical Archaeology - Professor Albright of Johns Hopkins said the Bible is a Phoenician literary legacy. Finn and the Fianna are in the name Phoenician and they are Keltoi who sold sea-going boats to their colonies in Egypt as they built them where the Sumerian records say Sumer was colonized from - in 2850 BCE according to The World Book Encyclopedia from extant records. So there goes Oannes and the Epic of Gilgamesh which some think has merit, an allegory for Phoenician Sea People.

I have strayed from Plato and Timaeus so I must return to it. His relative who was a priest at the Great Pyramid of Iesa (translates as Jesus) told him a long-standing cover story to hide the facts of a worldwide culture they called Atlantis.

I will put a more modern addition to the foregoing insight to Plato and the other alchemists mentioned above shortly.

[Robert Baird]

It is incumbent on any serious student of the sages to actually study what system of thought they were part of, I think. But how many scholars are alchemists? It would be difficult to be a paradigm academic person and retain the kind of involvement an alchemist must have. It was even difficult for Socrates and Aristotle in far less socially controlled times. I am regarded by high Rosicrucians I have met - as an alchemist. I have demonstrated to them - in advance in one case - that I am adept! So you can be assured that my point of view is unique in regards to Plato, Socrates and other alchemists or humanists who have blessed the world with their great works and the over-arching Great Work we all must aspire to. That Great Work includes the Great Architect of the Masonic religion and it is akin to Intelligent Design.

So I humbly agree and disagree with Borro who knew the method of Aristotle well enough to see that Aristotle himself said a few years of studying science did not allow one to rise past the method itself and yet Borro did not adequately address the devious affect of Direct Inferential injection of theory upon the observations of reality that a true science must achieve. But Borro was not alone in this, and most of science still fails to integrate and apply their 'gradualistic' or 'reductivist' opinions to a reality that includes ethereal things. In fact many scientists reject the ether exists at all.

In the Wiki article on Platonic solids they say there have been earlier examples in places like Scotland, which have been found. It is good to see them say they have no idea when such things were understood. Then they go into trying to say who described them in written records first. It is important to remember that the totality of astrological knowledge is related and so is the Earth Energy Grid. Also keep in mind that astrolabes such as the Antikythera were used to locate valuable metals. Wiki then says these words -The fifth Platonic solid, the dodecahedron, Plato obscurely remarks, "...the god used for arranging the constellations on the whole heaven". Aristotle added a fifth element, aithêr (aether in Latin, "ether" in English) and postulated that the heavens were made of this element, but he had no interest in matching it with Plato's fifth solid.[3]

So obscure was Plato that he kept his life and Aristotle spoke nothing of it either. Thus they avoided the summary execution they would have suffered if they spilled the beans about the Pentagon-Dodecahedron.

In the last decade I have taken it upon myself to create a whole new history of man's cultural development which shows Pythagoras was actually not the first sage or alchemist. That kind of fiction is the work of people who sought to claim all advancement was of their own making as they developed Empires and refined various means of enslaving people. These same Spin-doctors try to say there was no Hermetic School of thought or no alchemy until after the time of Christ.

In 1960 Dr. Neal Ward Gilbert wrote Renaissance Concepts of Method which was reprinted in 1963. He documents the debate that "Foreshadowed the great expansion of scientific research" in the ensuing years. (1) I side with Peter Ramus who proposed that the Aristotelian science is not different than the Humanist pedagogical efficiency. I know the Humanists include the great sages or alchemists including Aristotle. Unfortunately the academic world hides the book The Secretum Secretorum which was a letter to Alexander explaining alchemy. Thus I will have to get past the Euro-centric propaganda that hides the alchemical root of the teaching of the family of Merovingians including Yeshua again. There is a great deal of circumlocution and vague attempts to distill wisdom in all philosophy and the verbiage or jargon can send a lay person into paroxysms or convulsions of laughter given the oxymoronic nature of defining wisdom. I will endeavor to simplify and make less use of the obfuscating semantical diatribes. But beyond the semantics of academics lies archetypes and codes that must be understood if we are to pierce somewhat the nature of Socrates and Plato or other humanist/alchemist/sages. The Socratian Dialectic or 'questioning' has much to offer society at present, as I see it.

"Thus we find that John of Salisbury, Lambert of Auxerre, and Albert the Great--in discussing 'methodus' as they found it in Boethius' translation of the Topics or in the standard medieval definition of dialectic--tended to emphasize the point that method is a short cut to knowledge, or a short art or compendium. As yet, however, no very well-developed doctrine went with this rather vague formulation, which, as we have seen, is somewhat foreign to both Plato and Aristotle, and which yet purported to be a 'Greek' notion. In fact, 'methodus' did not become a common philosophical term until much later, in the Renaissance, when, as Melanchton observed, it was adopted by 'the dialecticians' for the most correct order of explication." (2)

All right, maybe this is true--but we must question the specialized de-construction of the early thinking which was more whole and integrated. The sophists that Socrates railed against can appear in many forms and even Hume and Ayer in a far later time seem quite sophistic despite their attempt to denounce mere sophistry. Things are not always as easy as they might appear, to say the least. Words are part of the way we think it would appear. I think Socrates and Plato were less affected by the meaning attached to words partially because Plato observed that disciplined knowledge or wisdom had diminished in the millennium since the Phoenicians gave them a writing alphabet.



"But it is not clear what Hume took their 'sophistry and illusion' to be, precisely speaking. It is not clear, either, to what extent his own philosophical practice and propositions require us to revise and loosen his two criteria for what is not sophistry and illusion.

In speaking of necessarily true propositions, Ayer evidently has in mind much more than the contents of formal logic and pure mathematics. He takes it that all these necessarily true propositions are merely analytic. That is, they are not made true by any necessities in the world, any natural necessities, but just by meanings of words alone and the logical structures into which they enter." (3)

Hume ridiculed and destroyed all truth of Irish contributions to culture, as best he could. He was (is) not alone.

The following tidbit is necessitated due to not being able to post URLs from Trinity College's website .edu/depts/phil/p...ls/scotus.