[MD] Plato's good

[X Acto]

Mark had said:
As I have said, I am no scholar of Plato which may be to my advantage
since I can read what he says with a "beginner’s mind" (D.T. Suzuki on
Zen).  That is without all the baggage of static knowledge.  As such,
I try to imagine what Plato was thinking.  It is of course impossible
to sit in the Academy and ask Plato questions within the MoQ
framework.  For example, we could ask Plato if he is making The Good a
form of Static Quality.  I am sure he would understand the philosophy
within MoQ, and my guess is that he would say that he is not making
The Good a static quality.  I believe he would say that he is pointing
beyond the static.  But of course we will never know.

Ron:
I would like to preface this discussion by pointing out that what we are
dealing with are traditional interpretations of Plato's good and what I believe
Pirsig responds to. To be a good philosophologist is to keep to the traditional
interpretation and hold the response of the Pragmatists as what course is best, but
for the philosophers among us, the interest in reading Plato becomes rekindled
when we begin to see how these works really have pioneered what we are concerned
with as followers of Pirsig, what is best in life. It is hoped that these quotes would
spark a re-reading and perhaps some interesting discussions concerning that very topic.
 
Having said that...
 
 
> Plato:
> Socrates to Glaucon on the good of education in "republic vii" 508c
 "Let's say, then, that this is what I call the offspring of the good, which the good begot as its analogue. What the good itself is in the intelligible realm, in relation to understanding and intelligible things, the sun is in the visible realm in relation to sight and visible things."

> 508d
> "Well, understand the soul in the same way: When it focuses on something illuminated by truth and what is, it understands, knows, and apparently possesses understanding, but when it focuses on what is mixed with obscurity, on what comes to be and passes away it opines and is dimmed, changes its opinion this way and that, and seems bereft of  understanding."

Mark's comment:
If I were to frame this in MoQ parlance, The Good is more like DQ
which gives rise to the good in the intelligable realm (SQ).  
 
Ron:
From our perspective it would seem that what is being spoken about is just that,
DQ and the relation to static intelligibility. As we see in the subsequent lines,
Intelligibilty is not the good and is a mistake to take it as the good .
(finger and the moon analogy). We also see how the good is superior to
truth and knowledge and that truth and knowlege are yet subserviant to it.
 
 
 
508e
"So that what gives truth to the things known and the power to know to
the knower is the form of the good. And though
it is the cause of knowledge and truth, it is also an object (or aim?)
of knowledge. Both knowledge and truth are beautiful things, but the
good  is other and more beautiful than they.  In the visible realm,
light and sight are considered sun-like, but it is wrong to think they
are the sun, so, here, it is right to think of knowledge and truth as
good-like but wrong to think that either of them is the good-for the
good is yet more prized. 
 
Ron:
I'm posting this in the "Plato's good" thread with the attempt at some profitable
discourse on the subject matter at hand and not so much as an arguement against
any traditional interpretation and subsequently any fingerpointing or refutation of
already made arguements concerning such matters. But when cast in an MoQ
light they posess greater clarity.
 
 

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