PLATO'S PARMENIDES / THEORY OF FORMS

welcome to a special lecture focused on Plato's Parmenides Plato's Parmenides is a famous dialogue where Plato attempts to articulate the middle period of his theory of forms the theory of forms is meant to demonstrate the relationship between sense perception of the world and logical form or the content of our abstractions most philosophers interpret Plato's permitted ease as a logical exercise to extract the space of possible universes or beings the genesis of form the dialogue is a critical analysis of the theory of forms or the theory of ideas that takes place between socrates Parmenides and also Zeno Socrates attempts to explain the theory of forms the theory of oneness or unity what brings coherence and consistency to the sense perception of things and attempts to put both xenos position that there cannot be a multiplicity and Parmenides position that there is only one or the monistic impulse into his own theory of forms socrates articulates the theory as a relationship between the supra sensible ideas and sensible things for example when we find sensible things beautiful Socrates would say that is because these things are participating in the idea of beauty for Socrates the idea of beauty is transhistorical or eternal and the beautiful things are temporal sensible and fleeting thus when sense-perception partakes in ideas it can give true form to sense content where otherwise there would just be a chaotic multitude one can think about this relationship between super sensation or ideas and sensation or the world of things as a type of formal loop between sense perception and logical form Parmenides however in the dialog suggests that the theory is inconsistent and contradictory precisely because it does not take into consideration or include movement into the forms or the oneness or the unity from the perspective of plato's use of Parmenides as a character this can be seen as a type of platonic irony considering that the actual historical Parmenides is known for his static conception of oneness thus the fact that Parmenides introduces the idea of movement in the dialogue is a type of irony another interesting thing about the dialogue is that it is untypical of a platonic dialogue for Socrates to be the one undermined in the course of the dialectic Socrates is usually the figure who brings out contradictions and inconsistencies in other characters in other words Socrates normally functions as a point of negativity and not a positive source of knowledge however in this dialogue the roles are strangely reversed socrates claims to have knowledge and Parmenides is the point of negativity in other words socrates articulates his theory of forms and Parmenides says wait hold on there are inconsistencies and contradictory is the forms do not have movement in this motion of this point of negativity where contradictions and inconsistencies are pulled out from underneath a subjects position as a figure of knowing one can interpret this as a motion in Lacanian and juju kyun terms as the collapse of the big other the spar minute ease is here the function of collapsing Socrates big other in terms of the eternal forms Parmenides then attempts do what is referred to as a type of dialectical gymnastics Parmenides moves through all the possible relations between ideas forms and being sense in other words Parmenides moves between all possible relations between eternity and temporality Parmenides approaches this dialectical gymnastics under the presupposition that the one is a unity and that being is a multiplicity or other 'no stew the one and that the possible relations between one and multiplicity or logical forms and temporal being is that of presence and absence to state simply if the one is if the one is present what are the possible consequences for the others in being and time on the other hand if the one is not what are the possible consequences for the others in being and time the standard philosophical interpretations of this exercise is one of two options either this exercise is simply a language game a logical exercise with no real meaning or connection to being in time in other words it's totally impractical but nonetheless interesting to do from the point of view of logic in itself another position is that this is a type of negative theology in other words the one is in the end unsayable and unspeakable we can really not really have a conclusive positive answer of what the status of the one is and its relationship to others but nonetheless it is an important theological exercise these two interpretations can be classified as on the one hand postmodern everything is just a language game a logical exercise and the one has no real practical relationship to being or traditional there is a one and it's important to think about it theological implications but we can never have rational or a linguistic grasp of the one these two interpretations the postmodern and the traditional philosophical interpretations are a result of the fact that from this permanentiy and logical exercise there is really no positive result there's no one hypothesis which we can say conclusively structures the relationship between ideas and being thus when we go into each of the eight positions all eight of them have contradictions all eight of them have points of impossibility or inconsistencies and that negative feature the fact that all eight positions have contradictions and inconsistencies can be turned into a positive feature in other words what if we work from the idea that the one itself is a contradiction that the one itself is only accessible by playing with contradictions and seeing the pattern or the deeper structure in the contradictions themselves one might call this a esoteric reading of Plato against the standard idealist reading and a parallax shift on the status and the nature of ideas the fact that there is no positive result in terms of our knowledge and our understanding of the one the universal negativity of the status of the one is a sign that ideas are in a becoming against their own absolute knowledge or the negative result is itself absolute knowledge the dialogue itself here is structured in two parts the first part is the Socratic hypothesis the second part is the per minute Ian theses the eight logical deductions in the first part Socrates attempts to resolve the status of ideas as eternal by claiming that paradox and contradiction and opposition are a part of temporal being the fact that in our temporal being our lives are strong should by paradoxes contradictions and opposition's irreducibly however ideas in themselves according to Socrates are not paradoxical not contradictory and not in opposition as stated earlier Parmenides rejects this Socratic idea and suggests that it's flawed because the ideas in themselves need to have motion need to have form that moves and then suggests that the only way to allow the ideas themselves to have form and move is if the ideas in themselves are contradictory and are oppositional Parmenides then further suggest that only when this is achieved that we can collapse the distinction between being and time and ideas and form as part of the same process the consequences is that Parmenides dialogue is a logical exercise or a language game but we have to see it as part of the eternal ideas in other words the eternal ideas resolve themselves as time we still need the logical forms to understand temporal being but we don't need the distinction between sense perception and logical form the meditation of logical form - sensual being is the process by which eternal ideas make sense of themselves thus the eight hypotheses are not a opening to a postmodern plurality of universes where anything goes and everything is truth and all universes are possible and true rather the different forms or plurality or the matrix of plurality has a matter of structural logic that can be discerned by understanding the logic of contradiction in this case the impossibility of eternity in or as time thus the impossibility at worked in the ideas is their symmetry with being and time there is a gap between ideas and being ideas cannot reconcile being in time there is being in time and ideas and forms that attempt to make sense of them give order coherence and consistency but they cannot do it absolutely which leads to a type of fracture or gap of different possible interpretations of the relationship between the one and being it is only possible in hindsight with historical hindsight in retrospect to understand that there might be a possible ninth hypothesis of the matrix itself in other words all eight hypotheses are in some sense valid part of the one idea as eternally changing collapsing the meaning between the difference between logical form and being in time the one idea is nothing but the process of being and time now let's run through all the eight hypotheses to understand their internal logical form coupled with a possible meta interpretation of the ninth hypothesis thesis one there is a one in other words there is a super essential eternal absolute and all temporal logical forms are a reflection of this eternal form this one however does not participate with being and time our reason and language cannot grasp the oneness or the unity there is always a distance between our language and reason and it thus there is a multiplicity of possible philosophical positions or rational linguistic stances unity of the one can never really be achieved in language and reason there can never be a universal coherence of positions unity with the one can only be achieved in a type of mystical ecstasy or a non rational non linguistic space thus we cannot define the one we cannot perceive the one we cannot know the one not in reason and not in language not in being nor in time however there still is a one and this is typically the position of what we could consider the Neoplatonic interpretation or the mystical interpretation these historical subjects believe there is a one but they do not believe that it can be communicated rationally or linguistically that it has to be experienced mystically thesis - there is a one there is a super essential eternal absolute and all temporal logical forms are a reflection of this eternal form however this one actively participates in being in time but is at the same time different from being in time thus there is a to eternal ideas and being in time but with no gap everything is one reason and language thus cannot differentiate truths and non truths because everything is truth we can see the one in everything an all mute motion is infused with one there is oneness in the tree oneness in the moon oneness and a grain of sand that all finite things are also infinite this leads to self referential paradoxes or infinite regresses if infinity is in everything all finite things and there is no end and no beginning to anything there is no way to discriminate of what is a one and what isn't this position is often taken up by Spinoza naturalists or even classical physics where basically everything is part of the absolute but is at the same time different from the absolute itself that we study finite natural things but there still is an infinite absolute thesis number three there is a one a super essential eternal absolute and all temporal logical forms are reflection of this eternal form however in this situation being in time participates in the one as parts they do this and they know this when they reach their internal limit or gain direction or find a structural wholeness in this way reason and language touched the one or our universalized by the one on these levels when they work in relationship to limits work in relationship to clear coherent direction and work in relationship to structural wholeness one acts as a limit to other humans one acts in such a way is that it allows humans to find internal and inter subjective organization in and as a one when they cannot participate in the one they fall into and call it chaotic multitude the most obvious forms of historical subjectivity x' that identify with this position are platonic idealist or conservative transcendentalists who are always in a battle between gaining internal order that reflects an eternity or falling into a chaotic multitude which they find as a sophistic language game thesis number four there is a one a super essential eternal absolute and all temporal logical forms are a reflection of this eternal form however this one has no relation at all to being in time being in time is a pure chaotic multitude language and reason on the side of humans cannot be integrated or universalized there can be no building up towards an understanding of unified knowledge or unified forms humans cannot say anything about the one nothing coherent about the one and there is nothing Universal about being or time either there is no true about miss or no ability for predication the most common interpretation of this metaphysical situation can be seen in the logic of absurdists that meaning is in itself absurd there is no eternal meaning there is no direction there is no wholeness there is only chaotic multitude or cynics who are negative about human motivations and civilizations where the appearance of the one takes hold over individuals and where appearance of the one starts to structure motion or skeptics who are negative about any notion of eternal truth or anything essential or supernatural about the world thesis 5 there is not a one there is no super essential eternal absolute and all temporal logical forms are a reflection of nothing at all in this situation one is not being in time or our language games can predicate it but it is just a true fiction there really is just a multiplicity without a one but the one nonetheless still functions as a fiction that's why the one is not the one can give coherence and so forth even though it is not reflecting anything eternally true or it is not reflecting any deeper substance human ideas about form and unity and oneness are only a similarity to but not actually a one not a one as a one but a one as non being what there is is just being in time plus the reflection of a self as an immaterial surface the most common metaphysical interpretations along these lines can be found in historical humans who identify as Stoics Stoics do not have any relationship to eternal ideas there is only our sense perception + self work we cannot have contact with the eternal ideas as a way to obfuscate or to hide or to pretend that we aren't doing real deep self work in philosophy this could also be interpreted along similar lines to de luces notion of sense and logic as a sense event or appear surface and not a deeper idea or eternal reality thesis 6 there is no one no super essential eternal absolute and all temporal logical forms are a reflection of nothing at all in this situation the one is a total nonentity in other words the one is not even a symbolic fiction being in time cannot predicate anything at all of a 1 the 1 gives no utility no validity and reason and language are only useful as a negation one is not even known in its non being the most common historical subjectivity who resonates with this metaphysical position could be seen as either Nilus who feel like there is no point to existence there is no oneness to existence there's just again the chaotic multitude or sophist who believed the truth of speech has no external guarantee no connection or relationship to eternal substance thesis 7 there is no one or super essential eternal absolute and all temporal logical forms are a reflection of nothing at all the one is not and being in time are just imaginary illusions symbolic fiction is here just a fiction of a fleeting coherence all there is is a fleeting substance Lusa pearance humans are one in that they gain a temporal fragile consistency but this is just a fleeting illusion thus the historical subjectivity x' who express and relate to this metaphysical position most deeply are either the buddhist or cognitive scientists for Buddhists there is just the truth of meditation of the inner void that is privileged over temporal appearances which are just fleeting illusions or for modern cognitive science where there is no true self there is no true knowledge there are just appearances and no homunculus or no point at which you reach the truth deesis number 8 there is no one there is no super essential eternal absolute all temporal logical forms are a reflection of nothing at all in this situation one is a nonentity and being in time are also nothing what there is are just perspectives of appearances and everything is relative to these perspectives in this situation not only is the one nothing and the appearance is nothing but that means that humans are themselves and nothingness nothing exists there is a multiplicity of multiplicities and the void of the perspective the most common metaphysical interpretation and the most common historical subjectivity x' that resonate with this view could be seen as a type of perspectivism that truth is relative to a perspective or also saw lips ism thats all obsessed with state that there is no way in which you can gain true knowledge outside of your own perspective in summary these eight positions are a series of theses on the status of the one and the meditation on the different possibilities of the one as present or absent coupled with its consequences for being in time or the others from Neoplatonic mysticism Spinoza naturalism platonic idealism absurdist universe stoic rationalism Sophists universe Bota Buddhists appearances perspectival solipsistic illogical atoms of possible worlds derived from the presence absence of the one and its consequences however from a Hague alien historical perspective or a historical phenomenological perspective this doesn't yet help us understand the matrix itself in order to understand the matrix itself we might have to consider a ninth hypothesis in this ninth hypothesis we consider that the one is a synthesis of both all logical positive and negative situations the contradiction in itself as referred to earlier where Parmenides suggested that in order to get movement into the ideas we had to suggest that the ideas of themselves contradictory both positive and negative thus the eternal absolute essence both is and is not including all eight hypotheses which correspond to eight different logical historical subjects this means that the one and being in time are the same thing logical meditation of being in time is the one form as a temporal appearance by placing contradiction into ideas themselves there is no contradiction with the one that is and is not simultaneously in contradiction disappears as a negative feature and is immediately the way in which you gain access to truth one form can give coherence and nothing can exist function within a framework both are true in relationship to an existentialist interpretation human positivity or oneness can emerge from negativity a chaotic multitude the way in which a self comes to an internal feeling of I am a self however human negativity not oneness of falling apart of disintegrating can also function as a neutral absorbing element or a void in the chaotic multiplicity the best example of a historical subject who internalizes and works with this logic could be a historical dialectical subject where positive language and reason deploys itself only to annihilate itself as time or psychic analysis where an analyst neutrality allows for positive language reason to destroy itself through coming to understand its own internal inconsistencies and contradictions the analyst is here a nothing within a positive framework thus to summarize the matrix inclusive of the ninth hypothesis as a meta historical perspective on the different logical forms of subject in history or a movement of the eternal ideas we get a logical sense of the very process in which historical subjectivity moves through time the conclusion that we can draw from this is that reality in itself is nothing but a confused mess eight logical possibilities between ideas and sense in this ultimate meta interpretation there is no realm of ideas external to the cosmos the one all or the realm of ideas is nothing but the eternal changes of being in time and in the end there is nothing but this movement itself as it deploys itself and destroys itself and that was an overview of Plato's Parmenides and his dialogue on the theory of forms where I attempted to demonstrate the way in which Plato articulated the relationship between sense perception and logical form this logical exercise was an attempt to extract the space of all possible universes and beings the genesis of their form thanks for watching and thanks for listening

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Keywords: philosophy, Plato, Plato philosophy, Plato theory of forms, Plato republic, Plato and Aristotle, Plato democracy, Plato philosophy in english, Philosophy lecture, philosophy of life, philosophy of science, philosophy podcast, theory of forms, theory of forms plato, theory of forms socrates, Socrates philosophy

Id: iOVRO-QMN1A

Length: 27min 52sec (1672 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 15 2020