On Plato's Trojan Horse by Spencer R. Milton

[In progress...] I am looking forward to an opportunity to think out evolutionary thought, justice and the soul.

The author has a reading of the Platonic cosmos of dialogues- excepting the Laws- which is going to be very helpful.

I have been trying to link the development of human communities to the modern anthropology discoveries, understanding these as developing together. The family is older than man. There were many kinds of humans, but our species was demarcated by domestication, and the avoiding of incest coincides with the linking of families in tribes. The totem systems are indeed very interesting, and stages of this development. We need to get a sense of the timeline involved as the background of these questions, and the exact dates matter less than the proportions and the development. The domestication of dogs may have occurred 3 times from wolves, the earliest in Northern Europe about 100-120,000 years ago Cats are rather a more a recent development, about 10,000 years ago, when grain was stored attracting rodents. The human estrus is as everyone knows different from all our nearest fellow primates and human types now extinct. This is VERY old, and intermediate stages seem to be lost, but it does seem to be related to the development of tribes and domesticaton, though the later seems relatively recent. Humans had fire for at least 2 million years- all the rare things are going to be lost to our archaeology- The oldest site with multiple hearths is only about 35,000 years old, in Czechoslovakia. Tribes are formed by linking families through marriages, and these tribes settled into the first villages coinciding with agriculture- when we learned to domesticate grain and fruit.

Genetic archaeology might take up the question of human communities- tribes and cities, looking for genetic markers. It may be that our type persisted as a rare line able to domesticate for millions of years, or it may be shockingly recent. But the avoidance of incest seems to demarcate or separate off our species from all other hominids, and this should be easy enough to find if we look for it.

The family then is the root of human community, while the tribe, village and city develop much later, and shockingly recently. While the family is older than man- so we know that the nature of man is not originally solitary scattered beasts, as Machiavelli and Hobbes must have it- man is by nature social or political, but for 2 million years this meant 'filial.' It is here that language developed, and as we watch children learn language and languages, it is clear that there is a natural disposition. While language, fire and families are 2 million years old and older, the political development of speech and reason is going to be much later. Aristotle also presents the political relations of ruled and rulers as intelligible in light of their originals in the family, with royal rule, statesmanship and despotic rule evident in the household or filial forms (Politics I).

As regarding the human estrus, the question arises as to how far the political development has sunk in to our nature. Cats bring their masters trophies, leaving mice in our pathway, apparently because in Egypt they were rewarded, perhaps for a thousand years, with fish for having killed rats and mice. The behavior became innate, and there are many examples regarding dogs bread for various purposes, and these purposes become a part of their innate behaviors. Beyond the obvious differences of male and female in child rearing, hunting and gathering, Aquinas notes, for example, that different kinds of men seem to be produced by nature for different political purpose- the most obvious difference being between those aimed toward war and those not, those intended to govern or counsel and those intended to work. Some are good at accounting, others at study, and one wonders in what other ways our political nature is evident in our innate differences.

These things become clear from what is a single line or comment in the Politics of Aristotle that the Cyclops each gave laws to their own families, while man is, rather, political. The Cyclops is very similar to a Neanderthal, and the one eye may be due to seeing that brow ridge from a distance. The site of the centaurs may similarly be resolved by considering how horsemen would appear to the Greeks who did not yet ride horses- in the days of Hercules and Theseus. For a long time after their contact with Scythians and Thessalians, the Greeks and Egyptians drove chariots, but still did not ride!

The mystery of the continuous rather than cyclical estrus that distinguishes the human system is not yet well explained- here especially as though intermediate stages are lost. How old is this change? We say that endogamy and exogamy correspond to these and later changes in man. The prohibition of fraternal incest coincides with the village, and these have been extended to include cousins as the city develops into the nation- a group of cities with genetic similarity relative to their neighbors. Remnants of fraternal incest include Egyptian kingships and Greek gods, and it may be addressed in the book of Tobit in a way. That these things are especially disturbing in psychological histories is the empirical indication that they are not healthy for the soul. Laws including the most ancient are usually upheld by reference to their natural ground in the health of the soul. Cannibalism and human sacrifice are by comparison more recent prohibitions, not pertaining to the tribe. These are abolished quite early in Egypt and Babylon, in the third millennium, and Abraham spreads the teaching to Canaan which he received from Melchizadek, about 1850 BC. Osiris traveled the world 25 years teaching to renounce cannibalism and practice agriculture instead. Prehistoric man is in many ways not beautiful, but quite ugly and disgusting!

While the village and tribe are more natural, cities have founders, or, are made by men. Machiavelli distills foundings into those by conquest and those by joining villages together, as did Theseus. But the centrality of the Oedipus question is then in one sense correct, if not as its author imagined. The image coincides with usurpation, if also kingship, as Plato seems to indicate in Books IX and VIII of the Republic. The usurper takes over the law, replacing the father illegitimately.

What he gets is that the fundamental debate regarding "evolution" assumes false imaginations on both sides- They are not reading Genesis, but imagining what it seems to say. Nor are the scientists considering formal and final cause.

p. 22: "The second sailing passage encodes the entire methodology of reasoning about function and purpose that Darwin and Dennett* would independently arrive at..." Socrates here addresses formal and material causes, with efficient and final causes to be spelled out by Aristotle, drawing the spatial "form and matter" out into time. In the Phaedo, formal and final are indistinct, as are material and efficient causes.The Darwinian Revolution is supposed to be that the species change or are not eternally the same, but come to be in what is like a tree of life- the forms themselves grow. But just as Darwin is not an atheist, he is not a materialistic metaphysician, either. Darwin himself is not a Darwinian, nor did he have Mendalian genetics as more than a suspicion. The discussion of purpose centers around teleological explanations of evolution- the girraf's neck grows long from reaching, not accidental variation. Des Chardan tried to uphold this Lamarkian view, but he fails. AI answers:

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Dennett: "Darwin's idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition. Whereas people used to think of meaning coming from on high and being ordained from the top down, now we have Darwin saying, "No, all of this design can happen, all of this purpose can emerge from the bottom up without any direction at all." And that's a very unsettling thought for many people."

Because the forms change by accidental variation and natural selection rather than an obvious direct intention, evolutionists think, in one sense, that form itself has been explained away. Yet it is the same mystery. Physics can teach that the table is not "solid" in every sense, but cannot explain the difference between any two things, including the wooden chair and table- let alone the ocelot and badger. Similarly- consider the wing, which emerges in 5 or 6 distinct lines of "evolution." This is by accidental variation indeed, but shaped as it is by the nature of earth and sky- what there are, as well as what is going on in the ecosystem. That life can become intelligent may be similar, if the human things differ dimensionally.

p. Offhand, the seeds planted by the dialectician are not about evolution, but about the soul, and their growth is not by a calculative "decoding," now fashion after"The Bible Code and the Da Vince code. It is rather by examining the things assumed about ourselves and the nature of justice and the rest of virtue.

About "esoteric" writing and logographic necessity- its arithmetic and geometric aspects are not intentional in terms of the calculative or the math faculties. The primary meanings are conveyed not by calculations but analogies. The author alludes to this in saying that Plato borrowed "the Elusian frame: the two level structure" from the Elusian mysteries (p. 21).

In writing, the center, for example may indicate something left out, if it is off center, and so be an indicator* to the writer- but he is focused on the meaning, the logos, not the geometry. *like cross checking a math equation- + and X by subtraction and division- cool itself!

a second danger is reducing the practical aspect of Plato to eugenics, and even partisan eugenics, as though a technology, and not philosophizing, were the way to increase justice in the world.

This is the opinion with which we begin, though, and the book will help us think out.

The problem with eugenics is that humans do not know what the aim is- do not have wisdom or a wise man.* We repeat that love's eugenics are cruel enough!* Domestication of humans would require a god, who is to man as man is to the animals.

p. 15:

The soul might be form with form as matter: consider: Living things are living form over matter, F/M, in MANY senses all at once organ systems are wholes but not organisms, etc. Now, if the soul is by nature self reflective, this might yield form over form, and be immortal, a resurrectable body. We would not know it if it were true, and cannot know such a thing is false. Our physics cannot explain the difference between any two objects!

Like a song on the radio- soul would be the faculty, not the content- unless you are, like, Hegel.

p. 46: The poets are rejected also because what they say is false: The gods do not lie, change shape or cause anything but good.

p. 51: The poets will be permitted to return to the best regime when they can make an argument that they do not flatter and water the appetites. We say Shakespeare does that- writes poetry admissible in the best regime.

p. 55 How is it again that the the evolutionary reading resolves the difficulty and gives the reason reason that the poets are expelled from the best regime? Because of group selection? Why would group selection not equally favor keeping false and lying poets if they unite a people in relation to other cities and nations? Group selection is not going to resolve the difficulties in the Republic. Plato does not reduce philosophy to biology as the modern sociobiologists do, and as our modern psychology does, with grave consequences.

p. 56, What can it mean to say that the form of the good is "the principle by which natural selection determines what is good for organisms shaped by it?" Pragmatism: Truth is what works? This leaves aside the question of fitting what to what- the organism to its environment. We get what is the environment of animals- but what is the "environment" of humans? Surely it includes logic, math, and justice, to which we must adapt.

"The good" is very difficult, the last thing seen in any study, Irving Wasserman would say. There are categories like "doctor," and then there is "good doctor," set over the category doctor, like not just ANY doctor, and the best example best shows the nature of the thing.

There is the question of whether the good is a being or rather a relation, such as the fitting.

In Genesis, what is "good," when God saw that it was good? Did good come to be? It is a name of God, the "Good One," (Luke 18?) we say. We also like to ask, "on what day was water created- Genesis is vast. In the study, there is confusion between God as the good for US, the highest object (?) of desire, most honored- idolatry being as Tillich says to take something other to be Most High, and something else- good in himself, the cause of all being in overflowing. The good of the whole, in relation to the whole as it is with our deficiency.

It does seem that Plato and Socrates thought the particular forms are eternal, and thought of the world and human things as having always been this way- and that Lyle's geology of vast time and changes as well as Darwin's tree of life would have been news to him.

It will always be a question whether the beings that come to be on the tree of life try to survive in order to reproduce or reproduce in order to come to be.- whether the gene is the instrument or the primary organism, whether the chickens came before the egg. We say the goal is the chicken.

We shall see if the reference to geometry sheds light on the nuptial number.

Ion

The lodestone is the same as that coping stone set atop dialectic (Republic, 534e3): It is nous, and we say that that lodestone of the poets is the unconscious nous. The knowledge in the soul is the archetypes of Jung, and hence the cause of inspiration, or one cause, is the knowledge somehow in the soul of each.

The assertion that Homer wrote as a natural philosopher may conflict with the assertion that he writes from inspiration, pp. 71; 70).

p. 73 Neither is Plato a general, but Alexander did not know what to do with the world once he conquered it, and we find all political types to be similar- the general can think of little beyond make them revere and obey me, with the ends being by default whatever I happen to want."

Phaedrus, p. 122 The four madnesses are not mapped exactly onto the divided line, but are all kinds of poetic inspiration as described on the same "level" in the Ion.. These are prophecy or "mantike, heroic lyric poetry, tragic poetry, and love. Our psychiatry will not even acknowledge let alone study these, and cannot distinguish divine from other forms of madness- and these are often mixed. p. 124, "...not a malfunction. Evidence of what you are."127:

Love is the noblest form of divine madness- the force [?] that lifts the soul, restores its wings, and carries it toward truth. From this definition the charioteer myth followed naturally: ...every element grew from the definition in the way an organism grows from seed....it was alive because it was true.

If reason has desires of its own, what does this mean regarding nature? Could it have an environment of logos, as the body has of visible things?

Three check marks, though, for the study of Phaedrus: p. 125: reason has desire of its own., as does the heart, in seeking love and glory or honor, which is the appearance or manifestation of excellence. Romantic love appears to be love of the beautiful, but love itself seeks the child.

In the Phaedo, Socrates says he feared blinding as when one looks at the sun during an eclipse- when it has the moon in front of it. Natural philosophy looks to animal and material causes of human things because the body is in the way. This is what it means, turning of the whole soul, and Christian Socratics can say the way of ascent is first penance. In the allegory, materialist natural philosophy would be an unchained prisoner digging and looking about the floor and walls inside the cave- for the causes of the artifacts paraded. Incidentally, what is it we say are the causes of these?

What could it mean to say that natural selection is the good according to Plato? What is common to all good things or instances of good is that they are selected? That survival is good? This could be no more so than the opposite, since death is also natural selection. Weak organisms are bad? Again, the Nazis were inspired by Darwin to grave cruelties, justified by the Thrasymachean argument that justice is the interest of the stronger. And how will justice be selected for if injustice is no more good than bad? Darwinism seems to teach that survival and reproduction- the animal ends of man are the serious natural ends, not because of natural selection, but because the humans studying it are not following virtue as the golden thread, the logos of which would be the light within the cave.

p. 161: The forms are the medium- the water in which you see the reflection of the sun rather than destroying your eyes by straining at it directly, teleological reasoning, reasoning about function and purpose and what things are for, is not a retreat from reality. It is the only method by which reality at that scale can be approached at all." You cannot perceive natural selection directly any more than you can perceive the sun. What you can do is reason about what it produces- about the functional organization it leaves behind, the structures that persist and the structures that dissolve....Natural selection- the good- cannot be directly perceived by any organism it shaped.

What if one were to say gravity is the good- see all things tend downward. And no one can see gravity. How a thing comes to be and the forces acting upon it cannot serve to distinguish any one being from any other, nor can it account for the forms- again the example of the shape of the wing in 5 different lines of accidental variation, is a good example.

pp. 155-157* We want to look up what Aristotle says about Empedocles. This is a very nice section.

Kin selection adds much to understanding relatives and relations. That we call a friend "brother" shows both the truth and limitations. Justice is ultimately related to to all humanity qua human, and the things of family and city turn out to be "somewhat closer to the body," that is, what is called "vulgar virtue." A difference in focus at least between Aristotle and Plato's Republic is the elevation of ethical virtue in Aristotle. In Plato, virtue is knowledge. But Socrates knows his ignorance, and hence in one reasoning would know himself to be "vicious." But Socrates is the best of men!

The filial root of human political nature and political ethics is shown when we say all men are our brothers, or should be treated as such- not, of course, as Cain treated Abel, or Romulus Remus, but as one ought treat a brother. The hyena offspring murder their own siblings

Kin selection as well as the avoidance of incest requires that the relations be recognized by the living generation- as in usual circumstances it is.

p. 183: There is no Greek word for "conscience-" it is a Latin word. This seems to mean not that the Greeks HAD no conscience, but that the word is contained within reason and nous- and THAT has many implications for how we are reading reason and nous.

We say that cns is nascent nous.

note: I'v been trying to find our "sophist" note back a bit. We Straussians have this basic 4 part account: a) Greek Natural philosophy undermined tradition by the appeal to nature rather than the gods as causes. b) The result is the sophists, who, believing there is no cosmic support for justice, advocate injustice. c) This compels Socrates to "help out when justice is being spoke of badly." Socrates assumes natural philosophy, and hides that to protect and cultivate tradition, recognizing that philosophy has harmed the city. But through the human, Socrates discovers a new kind of the study of nature- so we get the account of the "cause" of his remaining in prison- and Socratic replaces pre-Socratic philosophy. The Discovery of nature (evolves or) turns into natural right- and the motion is repeated in modernity.

What Socrates does is to combine the concern of the poets regarding the human things with the appeal to nature, resulting in the quest for the nature of the human things, through the laws and poems- beliefs and images that make up opinion. He appeals from the ancestral to the good, from custom to nature which proves to be their source, and to solicit opinion. An example is this: we study romantic love in every culture, as a human thing, as distinct from advocating a particular form of marriage. But through the particular forms of marriage, things about the nature of marriage appear, and this psychology proves to be the basis of any genuine psychiatry.

The wing is selected for, but it is first because of the nature of earth and sky that the aerodynamics works- selection does not cause that, but operates under it.

Similarly, justice and cooperation- two different things- work because justice is true.

But injustice also works.

I am thinking of the cooperation and indeed a form of justice and filial fidelity among gangsters- the justice within a band orf thieves. Watch how the Don punishes defection! What if an underling were to steal from him, or even withold money! Oh, but do not commit injustice or even accidentally harm his family, or any that ask for his protection!

A possible answer to this would be that it is subordinate cooperation within a supervening defection, if one were to continue to assume that justice and cooperation or devotion to a common good are identical.

There is justice in foreign policy, and contrary to Hobbes & co, it is of the highest importance. Nations are punished in this world, says George Mason, because they cannot be punished in the next.

Note: I would like to tell Milton about the chair, and about the frost on the window.

The chair is made of wood. But what is the shape of the chair

made of?

Smash the chair- you still have all the wood,

but no chair.

What a thing is depends on the shape, and not the wood.

The table is made of the same wood. What is the difference?

They say that every molecule in our bodies- even in the DNA- is different every 7-10 years. What is the same is the form. But we do not think that plants are immortal therefor. One does wonder, though, about form reflecting upon itself, as about the flowering of the tree of life. Self knowledge may not be unrelated to immortal life.

Artificial things are easier to see regarding shape and purpose because we are the cause, and so can know this better, or in a more immediate way. Living animals are beyond wonder in form and purpose and distinction, of badger and beaver, maple and oak. To speak of a designer may be an understatement.

Natural philosophy cannot account for the difference between any 2 kinds of things, or any two things in our world at all, with only 4 elements and energy. Physics has not progressed since Aristotle.

Earth air water and fire are the 3 conditions of matter, solid, liquid and gas, + energy. We say since matter and energy are inter-convertible, energ-ism is a form of materialism. There is no matter without form- unless that were dark matter or something- but there is form without matter, as shown simply enough in math, but there are KINDS of kinds.

Cooperation may be different from justice. I am thinking of the co

The frost on the window grows from the natures of glass and ice crystal, and maybe a bit of dust.

Plato printed the critique of Homer in Republic, which would be more likely to get one killed than the teaching of Empedocles.

We say Plato wrote dialogues not to hide a secret teaching for selfish purposes while destroying a city, but so that the teaching of Socrates would not be lost- given that philosophy cannot be written.

Review:

I should try to write a review of the Plato's Trojan Horse book. Despite the use of sensationalism in order to survive, the book is very helpful in attempting to read the dialogues as a whole, and posing the challenge of trying to say what is correct, and if the thesis is wrong, why. Socratic philosophy as a whole assumes Greek natural philosophy and the development of the sophists, challenging Socrates to help out when justice is being spoke of badly (Republic II). So it would be `quite an open question what of natural philosophy enters into the thought and cosmos of Plato. We can work on the difference between form as an explanation of kinds and what it is that Darwin and Empedocles propose. Plato knew about the problem posed by inventions- new kinds, and the new kinds in nature would be a variant of that difficulty, which he may well have left as a question along with those in the Parmenides, where the "forms" are questioned. Direct theorizing about nature may have been more playful, if Plato followed Socrates in holding that we cannot know about those things in some final or authoritative way. We can surely have a lot of fun thinking about them!

What the author offers that is new may not be what he claims to offer. What if evolutionary theory were simply irrelevant to the question of selfishness?" What if the biologists and the consequent popular teaching replacing ethics with survival of the fittest have thought it to imply selfishness because they themselves are of predominantly animal natures covered over with a thin layer of tradition? What Milton has done is to shake up the animal assumption by focusing on the opposite- cooperation and the equally advantageous aspects of group selection. What has not been shown is that justice and injustice can be reduced to self interest versus cooperation, nor that Plato understood that forms evolve through natural selection and applied this to justice and politics, retaining the reduction of the human things to materialist natural philosophy.