All you say is what I had in mind when I made the point about knowing/doing. I agree with you about the “impersonality” of The Good, but “Socrates” would not find that an imperfection and hence the charge of “atheism” and misleading the youth of Athens; on to the hemlock.

The issues you raise about knowing The Good (The Sun) analogously through it impact on us apply to all encounters with the “Other Than.” Remove the analogous nature of the encounter and the Other Than no longer is “Other Than.” The elusive nature of it entails analogous expression. This leads me to appreciate Heschel’s language about “enchantment.” This pertains to a personal “Other Than” also, don’t you think?

Re.my second point: a quick response to your question:
No, if such a politican wishes to be “in power” in any meaningful sense. I could write more, but this comment is already too long!

Blessings, Jim

Thanks for dropping by. I’m not familiar with Assagioli’s psyshosynthesis, so I can’t really comment.

Best wishes,
Cynthia

Here are a few thrown together thoughts related to your comment about the Good. When Glaucon presses Socrates to tell him precisely what the Good is, Socrates refuses; yet, he is willing to describe “a child of the good” (506e). So Socrates gives an indirect description of the Good by way of the analogy of the sun (the Form of the Good is related to the intelligible as the sun is related to the visible). In addition, the Good provides the Truth, which is analogous to light, and truth is required for the intelligible things to be grasped. At 508e Socrates says that the Form of the Good is the cause of knowledge and truth, and it is also the cause of being. Yet, as you suggest, the Form of the Good is elusive; it is beyond being (it isn’t a being among beings). We don’t have direct access to it, but I don’t think this means that we have no awareness at all of it. Analogous to the way that we can’t look directly into the sun but are aware of its presence through its effects (warmth, light, etc.), so too even though we can’t grasp the Good directly, we are nonetheless aware of its presence. Because the Good is beyond being and the cause of all beings, we cannot define it. In the end, I find Plato’s Good very attractive except for that one glaring flaw, viz. it is impersonal.

I’m sure these are not new thoughts to you, but I thought I’d throw them out there anyway.

Best wishes,
Cynthia

Any way you slice it, Apollo-Dionysus (FN) etc., you end up with the resolution being immanent, with whatever transcendence there is the result of the capacity of persons to integrate and control the disparate elements in the spectrum that is us. More and more Assagioli’s psyshosynthesis presents a clear answer to these “binary” dilemmas by positing a higher-self. Remove the new age gloss and you have something worth considering.

Thanks for your comment. I’m swamped at the moment with grading, but regarding your first point, I had not formulated it precisely that way, but what you say makes a good deal of sense. I’d have try to think it through with other Platonic dialogues as well (Symposium, Phaedo, Phaedrus etc.). Regarding the second question, I’d like to hear your answer.

With all good wishes,
Cynthia

First, knowing/doing become one, according to “Socrates” if that which is known is truly The Good. Is your analysis, thus, not a question about the nature of The Good and your conclusion a suggestion that The Good remains perpetually elusive?

Second, is it possible for the “politician” in a so-called representative democracy to be anything other than an electoral utilitarian?

Third, see my May 12 post (on hopelens.wordpress.com) “No more ambiguity” for a way out of the annoying s/he syndrome.