The Sphinx: Again the explanation is not that simple.
The dialogues may indeed have served as a blind
for the Sophists, inasmuch as they defend Platonic
principles according, apparently, to Sophistic
logical criteria. But the dialogues would thus serve
only a negative function, and that hardly seems to
justify the obvious effort of their preparation. Plato
was first and foremost a teacher, and he would
have designed the dialogues to teach.
The Chimæra: That appears to run afoul of your
previous statement that faith and reason are
mutually exclusive. If Platonic students studied the
dialogues only to become skilled at the Sophistic
argumentative procedures employed therein, they
would complete the Academy only as skilled
Sophists.
The Sphinx: We are at something of an impasse. I
confess that I cannot resolve this evident
inconsistency. Let us seek fresh counsel.
Quite suddenly there materializes a Gryphon.
The Gryphon: The dilemma can be resolved, but it is so
constructed that it defies resolution by Sophistic
logic. And that is precisely the trap into which the
two of you have fallen. Indeed the dialogues are
there to teach, but the student must put forth the
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effort to see past the Sophistic teachings to those
of Plato himself.
The Chimæra: But the argumentative pattern of the
dialogues is Sophistic, and any connection
between Sophistic logic and Platonic faith cannot
exist. Do you think to pursue me?
The Gryphon: The key to Plato rests in the Meno. Here
- He turns to page #364:
SOCRATES: Those who tell it are priests and
priestesses of the sort who make it their
business to be able to account for the functions
which they perform. Pindar speaks of it too, and
many another of the poets who are divinely
inspired. What they say is this - see whether you
think they are speaking the truth. They say that
the soul of a man is immortal. At one time it
comes to an end - that which is called death -
and at another is born again, but is never finally
exterminated. On these grounds a man must
live all his days as righteously as possible.
For those from whom
Persephone receives requital for ancient doom
In the ninth year she restores again
Their souls to the Sun above
From whom rise noble kings
And the swift in strength and greatest in
wisdom,
And for the rest of time
They are called heroes and sanctified by men.
Thus the soul, since it is immortal and has been
born many times, and has seen all things both
here and in the other world, has learned
everything there is. So we need not be surprised
if it can recall the knowledge of virtue or
anything else which, as we see, it once
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possessed. All nature is akin, and the soul has
learned everything, so that when a man has
recalled a single piece of knowledge - learned it,
in ordinary language - there is no reason why he
should not find out all the rest, if he keeps a
stout heart and does not grow weary of the
search, for seeking and learning are in fact
nothing but recollection.
The Chimæra: You imply, then, that it is not the object
of the dialogues to “teach” at all -but rather to
expose Plato’s students to demanding mental
gymnastics which will inspire them to recollect
knowledge of the Forms.
The Gryphon: You have recollected admirably. The
Gryphon dematerializes.
The Sphinx: Is it not interesting that the example given
by Socrates in the Meno employs mathematics and
geometry? That ties in rather neatly with the
inscription over the entrance to the Academy. To
the Platonic philosopher, then, that inscription
would have meant something more than mere
ability to calculate areas of triangles. In effect it
would say: “Let no one ignorant of the recollective
The Chimæra: Harking back to what you said
concerning Plato’s exposure to Pythagorean
concepts, it is quite appropriate. Mathematical
consistency was Plato’s “foot in the door”, so to
speak, where the Forms were concerned. Yet, in
view of relativity, does not that door slam shut
upon us?
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The Sphinx: That’s the Hades of it; it doesn’t. Or rather
it does, but another one opens simultaneously.
The Chimæra: Do you mean that relativity provides
access to another Form similar to mathematical
consistency, upon which a modern Plato could
base a Theory of the Forms?
The Sphinx: No, not really. But what relativity has done
has been to turn the Meno inside-out. Look here:
Socrates proves the immortality of the soul by
demonstrating its intrinsic grasp of mathematics,
which he considered a Form. Pause here and
consider: What, precisely, is immortality?
The Chimæra: I should say the continuous existence of
the mind or soul.
The Sphinx: That would be the case if there were no
such thing as relativity. But there is. So let us say
rather that immortality is the ability of the mind or
the soul to exist unbounded by time, i.e. the fourth
dimension. Mortality is measured according to the
notion that time is a constant. But relativity
disproves this, showing that time may be retarded,
hastened, stopped altogether, or, presumably,
raised to infinity. Thus the prison of a so-called
temporal span of existence is no real prison at all.
It is only imagined as such by a mind untrained in
fourth-dimensional movement. The mind that is
immortal is one that breaks free of time, not one
that merely plods along within it as it ticks off the
æons.
The Chimæra: And so the same principles of relativity
that destroy Plato’s first-known Form now open
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the door to the very immortality which he sought
through knowledge of the Forms. Fascinating.
The Sphinx: Now we must consider the implications of
this as applied to the notion of recollection of
knowledge. When Socrates used the term in the
passage cited by the gryphon, he meant it of course
in terms of a fixed fourth dimension. He visualized
the soul as plodding along through the æons,
“seeing all things” along the way. Thus, by the time
it reached incarnation in Greece circa 400 BCE, it
had completed some 9.5 to 10.5 billion years’
“ s i g h t s e e i n g ” s i n c e t h e l a s t U n i v e r s a l
c o n c e n t r a t i o n o f r a d i a t i o n u n d e r w e n t
transformation into matter and antimatter,
making it possible for existence to displace
vacuum.
The
Chimæra: Just out of curiosity, how do you come
up with ten billion years?
The Sphinx: Simply by dividing the distances of the
known galaxies from the calculated metagalactic
center of this expansion cycle by their speeds
according to the Red Shifts, then taking an
average. But we digress again. We must still work
out the nature of the acquisition of knowledge.
The Chimæra: If the invalidation of time as a constant
has been shown, then the mind or soul could not
have acquired knowledge via an æonic sightseeing
trip such as Socrates describes. But the mind
possesses the capability to cast itself forward and
backward through time, since time is not fixed.
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The Sphinx: Correct. The process is to imagination what
directed thinking is to unconscious dreaming. It is
something like the Raja-Yoga technique of uniting
the mind to a single idea through force of will, or
like corresponding ceremonial magic techniques.
The Chimæra: But I thought that the object of Yoga is
to break the cycle of birth-death-rebirth through
union of the soul or mind with the whole of
existence. To one who achieves the eighth stage,
samadhi, the concept of knowledge - itself a
relative measurement of that which is known
versus that which is not known - would be
meaningless. All would be known, or, to use a
more precise term, realized. Nothing would
remain to be “learned”.
The Sphinx: Indeed.
The Chimaera: I think I am beginning to see your
point. There is an identity between the state of
samadhi and the innate condition of the mind or
soul as Plato perceived it. Both exist in a state of
absolute awareness, including, presumably, the
freedom to move through all dimensions including
that of time. Thus they break the bonds of both a
finite period and a finite path of existence,
achieving true immortality. Earthly incarnation
becomes a prison in terms of both time and space,
and it is the incarnated mind’s ability to travel
within time that allows it to break free from this
prison. The ambition of Plato, like that of the Yogi,
was to regain the freedom of mental movement
through all dimensions of existence - which, of
course, would provide access to knowledge of the
Forms.
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The Sphinx: That is right. And the final proof of this is
that Adepts in all cultures and all ages have
inclined towards this same realization, no matter
what exploratory methods they may have used and
what linguistic terminology they may have
employed. “Proof” in the scientific sense is the
achievement of identical results under identical
circumstances by independent researchers. Our
comparison of just two initiatory systems - that of
Plato and that of Yoga - meets these criteria
exactly, given that the “identical circumstance” in
this case is Earthly incarnation.
The Chimæra: Similar evidence could be obtained from
additional case studies of other initiatory systems.
But one substantiation suffices for our discussion.
The Sphinx: And now, I think, we are finally in a
position to understand Plato’s distinction of the
work of a true philosopher from that of a sophist.
Let us return to The Sophist. He turns to page
#998:
STRANGER: Well, now that we have agreed
that the kinds stand toward one another in the
same way as regards blending, is not some
science needed as a guide on the voyage of
discourse, if one is to succeed in pointing out
which kinds are consonant, and which are
incompatible with one another - also, whether
there are certain kinds that pervade them all
and connect them so that they can blend, and
again, where there are divisions [separations],
whether there are certain others that traverse
wholes and are responsible for the division? ...
And the man who can do that discerns clearly
one form everywhere extended throughout
many, where each one lies apart, and many
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forms, different from one another, embraced
from without by one form, and again one form
connected in a unity through many wholes, and
many forms, entirely marked off apart. That
means knowing how to distinguish, kind by
kind, in what ways the several kinds can or
cannot combine.
The Chimæra: I am well satisfied. Now that we have
resolved the questions raised by The Sophist, it
seems necessary to consider The Statesman as
well.
The Sphinx: We know that The Statesman was written
as a sequel to The Sophist - that Plato intended his
ideal statesman to be antithetical to the “worst
possible kind” of Sophist. Observe: He turns to
page #1074.
STRANGER: Therefore all who take part in one
of these governments - apart from the one based
upon real knowledge - are to be distinguished
from the true statesman. They are not
statesmen; they are party leaders, leaders of
bogus governments and themselves as bogus as
their systems. The supreme imitators and
tricksters, they are of all Sophists the
archSophists.
YOUNG SOCRATES: It seems to me that the
wheel has come full circle, now that the title of
Sophist goes to those who most deserve it, to the
men who get themselves called political leaders.
The Chimæra: That may be nothing more than another
of Plato’s invectives against the Sophists in general
- a bit of name-calling without real substance.
Such seems to be the opinion of academic critics,
who are prone to ignore this exchange. But let us
- 220 -
reexamine Plato’s alienation from the Sophists. As
I said earlier:
Even if we limit our scope to the school of
Protagoras, we know that Sophistic thinking
disavowed absolute knowledge. Despairing of
attaining such knowledge, they regarded even
its pursuit as worthless. So they taught a sort of
relativistic pragmatism as the only sound basis
for human affairs. Hence Protagoras’ famous
statement that man is the measure of all things.
The Sphinx: We then considered the Pythagorean
precedents for Plato’s conviction that the Universe
adheres to absolute and not relative standards. But
how does this tie in with The Statesman?
The Chimæra: The connection seems to be that Plato
considers statesmanship also to be absolute and
not relative. Observe the following key passage: He
turns to pages #1051-2.
STRANGER: Must we not do now what we had
to do when discussing the Sophist? We had to
insist then on the admission of an additional
postulate, that “what is ‘not x’ nevertheless
exists”. We had t
o introduce this postulate
because the only alternative to asserting it
which our argument left us was to allow the
Sophist to escape definition altogether. In our
present discussion too there is an additional
postulate on which we must insist, and it is this:
“Excess and deficiency are measurable not only
in relative terms but also in respect of
attainment of a norm or due measure.” For if we
cannot first gain assent to this postulate, we are
bound to fail if we advance the claim that a man
possesses statecraft, or indeed that a man
possesses any other of the special forms of
knowledge that function in human society.
- 221 -
YOUNG SOCRATES: In that case we must
certainly follow the precedent and admit the
additional postulate in our present discussion
too.
STRANGER: Our present task is greater than
our previous one, Socrates, and we can hardly
have forgotten what a very long time that took
us. However, while discussing these problems,
there is one thing to be said at the outset that it
is perfectly right and proper to say here.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is this?
STRANGER: That when one day we come to
give a full exposition of true accuracy in
dialectic method, we shall find the need of this
postulate concerning the due measure which we
have just enunciated. However, the statement in
the form we have made it and with the
demonstration - adequate for present purposes -
which we have given of it, is a very great help to
us, or so it seems to me. For it shows that two
propositions stand or fall together. The first is
that the arts exist; the second is that excess and
deficiency are measurable not only relatively but
in terms of the realization of a norm or due
measure. Thus if measure in this second sense
exists, so do the arts, and, conversely, if there
are arts, then there is this second kind of
measurement. To deny either is to deny both.
The Sphinx: That “existence of ‘not x’ postulate”, as I
recall, left something to be desired in terms of
logical integrity. The point hinged upon things that
were not themselves “existence” being able to
exist. In distinguishing them from “existence”,
Plato treats “existence” as an entity. But, when
saying that certain things “exist”, he treats “exist”
as a quality. That is inconsistent and hence
inconclusive. He glances at page #1003
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