Conversations with Socrates and Plato: How A Post-Materialist Social Order Can Solve The Challenges Of Modern Life And Insure Our Survival
808
Conversations with Socrates and Plato: How A Post-Materialist Social Order Can Solve The Challenges Of Modern Life And Insure Our Survival
808eBook
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781789041446 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Collective Ink |
| Publication date: | 07/26/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 808 |
| File size: | 985 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
(I'm waiting for an opening sentence. Usually, in the weeks and even months before beginning a writing project, many themes and ideas float through my awareness. I then wait patiently for an opening sentence to come — a sentence that just "feels right" — and then the material seems to flow. It's as if the arrival of the opening sentence signals that the melody of themes and ideas that have been floating through my awareness is now sufficiently "baked" and ready for manifestation in the temporal order. So I'm sitting here, in front of my computer screen, feeling a readiness to begin, and waiting for the opening sentence to come —)
1) The Form of Social Justice
Socrates: Well, patience is a virtue, as they say, but even though you will live into old age, you do not have the time to wait for the usual opening sentence.
Neal: What? Are you saying that even if I wait another 20 years the opening sentence will still elude me? But even if that "perfect" first sentence never comes, every piece of writing must logically begin with a first sentence.
Plato: (smiling) Calm down, my friend. There's a joke hidden in what Socrates said; his statement does not literally mean what you think it means.
Neal: You guys seem to enjoy beginning our conversations by getting me confused right away ... will I have to wait until the end to get the punch line of this joke?
Socrates: No, I'll give you a big hint momentarily. But first I want to acknowledge what has not escaped your notice: that you are beginning this undertaking at the physical age of my own death.
Benedict Spinoza: — Just like you were the age at which I died (44) when we began our writing project together.
Plato: And, although we won't be superstitious about such things, there is some general truth to these symbolisms and synchronicities, so it is always good to acknowledge them when they occur.
Neal: Yes, I find these synchronicities somewhat curious, but don't know what to make of them.
Socrates: No need to make anything of them; (with humor) after all, maybe it's just a coincidence. Well, at any rate, here's that little hint I promised you: Neal: I'm listening.
Socrates: OK. Not only do you not have enough time to wait for the opening sentence, but also we do not have enough time to wait for it either.
Neal: But that's ridiculous. You guys live in the eternal order, in which all time is contained, so how could you possibly not have enough time? Wait, hmmm, I think I see something, but it still doesn't make sense to me.
Plato: What do you see?
Neal: Well, suppose there existed something whose true home was the eternal order — say (to Plato) one of those forms of yours — such a form could never appear in the temporal order, no matter how long one were to wait. Neither I, nor you, would have "enough time" for, say, the form of beauty, or the number three, to appear in the temporal order, since neither the form of beauty nor the number three have anything to do with time at all. But even so, an opening sentence is not itself an eternal object, but rather, is the beginning of a temporal manifestation of something, like perhaps, an instantiation of a form — like a physical thing that is beautiful, or a representation of the number three.
Plato: Not bad — you are suggesting that Socrates' statement contains some allusion to a distinction and relationship between the Real — the eternal order — and the so-called physical world — the temporal order. The Form of Social Justice is an eternal object, and as such, can never manifest itself as a temporal object, although efforts to participate in this Form — to create a just society in the temporal order — can certainly manifest. But there is a further, less metaphysical, reason why there can be no opening statement here, even in this temporal representation.
Neal: I've got it! It's the difference between linear and circular motions. If one is walking along a finite line, there is a beginning and an end to the line. But if one is walking around a circle, there is no beginning point. One has to just jump in and start walking.
Socrates: ... Or writing, as the case may be.
Plato: One might compare this situation to a large symphony orchestra playing beautiful music, rich in harmony and counterpoint. Our task is to describe the music to someone who cannot hear it. How might you "begin" describing the music?
Neal: Well, assuming the person has some background in music, I would describe the notes that each instrument in the orchestra is playing, and hope that the person might get some sense of the music's nature and beauty from such descriptions.
Plato: Then it wouldn't matter, I suppose, which instruments you described first, which second, and so on.
Neal: No. The instruments all play their parts simultaneously, and to get a sense of the music as a whole, our hearing-impaired friend must strive to keep in mind all the parts "at once". The various parts must be described repeatedly, but not necessarily in any order — the violins are doing this, while at the same time the winds are doing that, and the percussion is playing such and such rhythm, etc., etc.
Plato: The description is likely to be lengthy, is it not?
Neal: Yes. A person who cannot hear would have to study the score in depth, so to speak, and this can be a lengthy process. A person with hearing, by contrast, can simply listen to the music, and hear all the parts "at once".
Socrates: And, for someone who cannot hear, is it guaranteed that studying the score will give that person a sense of what the music actually sounds like?
Neal: No, of course not. Obviously, a trained musician who has become deaf, like Beethoven, will easily be able to construct in his mind the sound of the music by reading the score. But someone with no training, or who is tone-deaf, will never be able to get a sense of the harmony by studying the individual components.
Plato: So, to make the analogy explicit, the Form of Social Justice is a Reality that the soul, unencumbered by a body, can envisage all at once, as a single whole. Taking on a body causes the soul to forget its prior vision. But reading descriptions of the vision, as reported by some mystics and Near-Death Experiencers, may trigger a recollection of the vision. Whether, in any individual case, reading a description successfully triggers a recollection depends on how much philosophical training the soul has undergone, both during past and present lives, and in between lives. For it is not given to everyone to understand such things, and most embodied souls, that is, most human beings, are so spiritually tone-deaf that they cannot hear the (spiritual) harmony no matter how much they study the score.
Let me add that I am using the words "philosophy" and "philosophical" in the way I originally used it, not as people who call themselves by those names currently use that term. But this will become clear as we proceed.
Neal: Understood.
Plato: Yet many are the souls who, prior to taking on a human form, have caught a good sight of the Form of Justice, and although not explicitly recollecting the vision, are driven by the effects of that vision to do what they can to actualize on Earth the model of social justice that they have seen beforehand.
Neal: There is no other way, I think, to explain the difference between a human being who is motivated primarily by greed, and hence dedicates himself to the pursuit of wealth and reputation, and a human being who is genuinely motivated by the desire to help others. But, Plato, is this even possible? The forces of greed and separation are everywhere rampant, and the idealism of my youth is gone. It seems that the human race is now heading for self-destruction. Why should I believe that Justice can be realized "on Earth, as it is in Heaven"?
Plato: The short answer to your question is that the Form of Justice is worthy of study and verbal articulation regardless of whether it can be actualized "on Earth". I think I can convince you of this. But more practically, the survival of the human race depends on whether, and to what extent, Humanity collectively strives to realize this Form of Justice. It need not, and cannot, manifest the Form in its completeness, but it can regard the form as a model, to which it continuously looks to shape and structure its institutions and social norms, which are now structured by greed.
Benedict: (to me) I'm wondering whether you now agree with me, that greed is a kind of madness.
Neal: (smiling) Yes, most assuredly. But in the past it was not easy for me to come to this conclusion, since greed for wealth and reputation is a social norm, in which I participated. But now, it is difficult not to come to this conclusion, as it is everywhere obvious that the greed of those who seek wealth and status is destroying the planet.
Benedict: And any motivation that leads directly to suicide, whether individual or collective, must be recognized as insane. But words like "madness" and "insanity", although not inaccurate, carry emotional connotations, and it might be better to state the case more logically.
Neal: More logically?
Benedict: Yes. Would you agree to the following premise: human beings are inherently social, and hence must live together?
Neal: Yes, of course.
Benedict: Then, given that humans must live together, the only further question is whether humans must also live together discordantly, as is presently the case, or, can humans find a way to live together harmoniously?
Neal: Our survival depends on the latter being the case, so let's assume that it is.
Benedict: Good. And would you agree that, in order for humans to find a way to live harmoniously, they must first desire to live this way.
Neal: That's obvious.
Benedict: Then tell me: is greed — the desire to have more wealth and reputation than others — compatible or incompatible with the desire to live harmoniously?
Neal: Clearly incompatible. OK, I see the logic here.
Benedict: Lay it out.
Neal: Our first premise is: (i) if the human race is to survive, it must find a way to live harmoniously. The second premise is (ii) if a way of harmonious living is to be found, it must be sincerely desired by humans. Third, we have (iii), greed is inconsistent with the desire to live harmoniously. In fact, I think we can say more. Not only is greed inconsistent with the desire to live harmoniously with others, but is the exact opposite. That is, I believe that subsequent discussion will show that greed can be defined as the desire to live inharmoniously with others. So the "logic" is quite clear: it is not logically possible both to live harmoniously with others and to not live harmoniously with others.
Benedict: We hasten to add, of course, that it is logically possible for humans to have simultaneous incompatible desires. But with respect to the desire to live harmoniously with others, greed, or the desire to "have more" wealth and reputation than others, goes off in the opposite direction. For the desires to "have more" than others or to be "thought better" than others are really desires to live in competition with others, would you not agree?
Neal: Yes, of course.
Benedict: Thus the desire of greed necessarily causes people to live inharmoniously with others, and is hence formally inconsistent with our present desire to describe a harmonious society.
Neal: I see your point. If a harmonious society were ever to come into existence, then the presence of greed in the psychological makeup of any given individual would be a threat to that society, since greed must necessarily destroy social harmony. Thus greed must be regarded as a serious mental illness.
Plato: — Very serious, indeed. We can easily make the case, which should be quite obvious now in your present culture, that the person who is predominantly motivated by greed and ambition is criminally insane.
Neal: Isn't that a rather harsh judgment?
Plato: — Not at all. It seems harsh to you only because you are living in a culture that idolizes greed and ambition; so it doesn't seem that unusual. But is it not insane to believe that one's worth and value depend on wealth and the opinions of others? And is it not by now obvious to you and everyone in your culture that those who are motivated by greed have entirely corrupted your economic and political process in order to amass and preserve their wealth?
Neal: Yes, it is quite obvious to anyone who (i) is not greedy, and/or (ii) has not been brainwashed by those who are greedy, that the greed of the wealthy is the only cause of this country's current economic mess. But what do you think of the objection — made by most philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists — that human beings are competitive and greedy by nature (not nurture), so that the best that humans can do is to manage excessive greed?
Socrates: (laughing) I think it is a ridiculous objection made by people who are themselves greedy. How will people who are themselves greedy "manage" the excessive greed of others?
Plato: Look at it this way: in previous conversations we spoke about (i) the "way up" and (ii) the "way down". What we called the way up is a movement within consciousness that may equivalently be described as a movement towards union with the Divine Being, or a movement towards the experiential knowledge of one's essential nature, or towards the recollection of one's true self, or in a word, towards self-knowledge. What we called the way down is a movement within consciousness towards separation, towards the forgetting of one's essential nature, towards establishing the ego (the seat of the lower desires) as ruler of one's mind.
Neal: And I assume that what we said before still stands: that the mind of any human contains simultaneous desires that go in both directions.
Socrates: Yes, and we emphasize that it is not "wrong" to have desires towards separation; it is partially definitive of what it is to be human.
Plato: But only partially definitive, since desires towards wholeness are also partially definitive of the human condition. And this is what your culture and its so-called scholars have completely missed. They have assumed that the human being is constituted only by desires towards separation.
Neal: Yes, the "selfish gene", and all that Behaviorist and Freudian nonsense that seeks to give an account of the human condition in terms of egoic greed alone. They are blind to the fact that altruism and compassion are as easily observed among humans as are greed, competition, and selfishness. They "see" only what their preconceived materialist beliefs allow them to see. But compassionate behavior can be observed in many animals, as well as in human beings.
Plato: Yes, but we are not going to waste much time here arguing with such people. For they are generally immune both to empirical evidence and to reasoned argumentation.
Neal: (with humor) So I take it we will not be inviting the likes of Thrasymachus or Callicles to join our discussion.
Plato: (laughing) No indeed! But I must confess to a sort of perverse delight I had with them in my dialogues.
Neal: And you kept them "in character" throughout, that is, they never become convinced of the truth even after you (or Socrates) establish the truth beyond a reasonable doubt.
Plato: Yes, it would be contrary to their personality types if they had the ability to become convinced of a gentler, kinder approach to life than the "might makes right" (Thrasymachus) approach or the "greed is good" approach (Callicles). But they don't have that ability. And, incidentally, neither do those hyper-skeptical pseudocritics of current parapsychological research. But you see, neither in my time nor in yours were such people motivated by the desire to discover what is true and good, and that is why we shall not invite them to participate in our discussions.
Benedict: (smiling) But of course, you can still require your students to read what these people have to say, but more as an exercise in fallacious reasoning than as a possible perspective that might be true. It is appropriate for 19-year-old students to sharpen their wits about such things, but when 40 or 50 year olds still attempt to justify and defend the lusts for fame and riches, well, this is simply a refusal to mature and "grow up".
(To Plato) And yes, I know you have qualms about exposing young people to philosophical arguments at all. But I'm sure we will discuss this in more detail later.
Neal: So, if I may summarize, we shall assume as a premise that the human being is constituted by many desires, some of which move towards Separation (greed, ambition) and pit humans one against the other, and others of which move towards Union (the desire to know, to help, to love). And ideally, as you have said, the latter desires should rule over the former, which is rarely the case.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Conversations with Socrates and Plato"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Neal Grossman.
Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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Table of Contents
Foreword 1
Chapter I Introduction 5
1 The Form of Social Justice 5
2 Three Perspectives 13
3 Two Concerns 18
4 The Insanity of Greed 25
5 The "Way Up" and the "Way Down" 31
6 A Toddler's Temper Tantrum 37
7 Plato Tells a Story 45
8 First Principles? 56
Chapter II The Infant or Newly Embodied Soul 63
1 Original Purpose 63
2 A New Social Contract 70
3 Needs of the Infant 75
4 Thinning the Veil 86
5 Existential Angst 96
Chapter III Linguistic Consciousness 104
1 Lying 104
2 A Social Order Without Lying 113
3 Non-Linguistic Modalities 119
4 Language and the Illusions of "Past" and "Future" 128
5 Teaching the Moral Law 139
6 A "Western Educated Gentleman" Objects 145
7 An Ounce of Prevention 153
Chapter IV Emotional Intelligence 162
1 Emotional Hygiene 162
2 Inner Awareness and Outer Events 172
3 Envy and Compassion 181
4 Three Possible Responses to the Suffering of Others 192
5 What Children Learn By Haying Competitive Games 202
6 A Symphonic Analogy 211
7 Giving and Receiving Attention 218
8 Instilling Good Habits 232
9 Guarding Against the Usual Suspects 245
10 The Spiritual Source of Greed and Ambition 258
11 Cooperative Competition 269
12 The Inherent Delight of Focused Attention 282
13 Touching One Another 288
14 Appreciation Without Envy 301
Chapter V Sexuality 311
1 The Necessary Pleasures 311
2 "Female" and "Male" 319
3 A Social Order In Harmony With Biology 329
4 Teaching Sexual Exploration To Children 343
5 Romeo and Juliet: In Love or In Lust? 354
6 Defining the Word "Love" 361
7 Divine Love 372
8 Surrender [Or Subduing Linguistic Consciousness] 380
9 Nonresistance To Pleasure [Or, What Diotima Taught Socrates] 391
10 Befriending the Sexual Energies [Or More Teachings of Diotima] 398
11 The "Problem" of Sexual Jealousy 417
12 Socrates Solves the Problem [Or Socrates Sets a Trap] 424
13 The False Premise 431
14 Sex and the Soul 437
15 Sex and the Golden Rule 450
Chapter VI Reason [Or, The Flower of "Holy Curiosity"] 457
1 A Social Order Based On Unconditional Love 457
2 Three Cells Walk into a Bar [Or Socrates Tells a Story] 469
3 The Stream of Thoughts 480
4 Calculative Thinking [Or What Reason Is Not] 488
5 On Reasons, Causes, and Rationalizations 494
5 Discerning True Beliefs From False Beliefs 504
7 The "Holy Curiosity of Inquiry" 518
8 Reason and the Three Motivations of the Soul 525
9 A Sad and Sorry Tale 533
Chapter VII Beauty and Inspiration 546
1 Sensory Beauty 546
2 Conceptual Beauty 560
3 Inspiration [Or Divine Madness] 564
4 Why Knowledge Inspires 582
5 The Voice For Reason 596
Chapter VIII Adults 610
1 What Will People Talk About? 610
2 Living Arrangements [Or Learning from the Bonobos] 620
3 Partnering 631
4 A Possible Portal 643
5 Identifying Leadership Qualities 657
6 Of Wholes and Parts 676
Chapter IX Old Age, Dying, and Death 694
1 Preparing For the Return Home 694
2 The Spiritual Delights of Old Age 703
3 Fear of Love 712
4 Divine Determination 723
5 Healing Emotional Residues 729
6 Waves of Gratitude 742
7 Justice 756
8 The Transition 761
9 "I Forgot We Were Only Playing" 773