Strife and Injustice

24 February 2024

Strife and Injustice

“Socrates:  Injustice, Thrasymachus, causes civil war, hatred, and fighting among themselves, while justice brings friendship and a sense of common purpose.  Isn’t that so?

“Thrasymachus:  Let it be so, in order not to disagree with you.

“Socrates:  You’re still doing well on that front.  So tell me this: If the effect of injustice is to produce hatred wherever it occurs, then, whenever it arises, whether among free men or slaves, won’t it cause them to hate one another, engage in civil war, and prevent them from achieving any common purpose?

“Thrasymachus:  Certainly.

“Socrates: What if it arises between two people?  Won’t they be at odds, hate each other, and be enemies of one another and to just people?

Thrasymachus:  They will.

“Socrates:  Does injustice lose its power to cause dissension when it arises within a single individual, or will it preserve it intact?

“Thrasymachus:  Let it preserve it intact.

“Socrates:  Apparently, then, injustice has the power, first, to make whatever it arises in – whether it is a city, a family, an army, or anything else – incapable of achieving anything as a unit, because of the civil wars and differences it creates, and, second, it makes that unit an enemy to itself and to what is in every way its opposite, namely, justice.  Isn’t that so?

“Thrasymachus:  Certainly.

“Socrates:  And even in a single individual, it has by its nature the very same effect.  First, it makes him incapable of achieving anything, because he is in a state of civil war and not of one mind; second, it makes him his own enemy, as well as the enemy of just people.  Hasn’t it that effect?

“Thrasymachus:  Yes.

(Plato, The Republic, translated by G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1997, pages 995 and 996, 351d-352a, ISBN: 9780872203495)

“Socrates:  Yes, for injustice surely breeds hatred, dissension and fighting among people, whereas justice brings concord and friendship: isn’t that so?

“Thrasymachus:  Let it be so, he replied, to avoid my contradicting you.

“Socrates:  You are doing well, my friend.  But tell me this: if it is the function of injustice to foster hatred wherever it is, when it arises among both free men and slaves, won’t it cause them to hate each other, quarrel and be unable to act in concert?

“Thrasymachus:  Indeed, yes.

“Socrates:  What if injustice arises between two people?  Won’t they quarrel and hate each other and be at odds both with each other as well as with those who are just?

“Thrasymachus:  They will, he replied.

“Socrates: But, my dear fellow, what if injustice arises within one person; surely it won’t lose its power, but rather retain it undiminished?

“Thrasymachus:  Let’s say it will, he replied.

“Socrates:  Does it then appear to have the kind of power that wherever it arises, in a city, a family, an army, or anywhere else, it makes it firstly incapable of cooperation with itself owing to factions and quarrels, and secondly makes it hostile both to itself and to every opponent, including the man who is just?  Isn’t that so?

“Thrasymachus:  Certainly.

“Socrates: And so, I think, dwelling in a single person it will bring about those very same effects which it naturally produces: it will make him firstly unable to act because of strife and lack of agreement within himself, and secondly he will be hostile both to himself and to those who are just.  True?

“Thrasymachus: Yes.”

(Plato, The Republic, translated by Chris Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy, Loeb Classical Library, Plato: The Republic Books 1-5, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2013, pages 105-107, 351d-352, ISBN: 9780674996502)

1.  This passage explains how Plato analyzes topics, such as justice and injustice, by referring to principles that transcend specific appearances.  The principle of injustice is the principle of strife.  Strife can be observed in nations, city-states, smaller communities, families, and even in individuals.  

2.  The topic investigated in The Republic is justice and how it manifests in various contexts, as well how justice is thwarted in those various contexts.  

3.  This passage helps us to understand the allegorical nature of The Republic.  There is a strong tendency in modernity to read The Republic as if it is a type of political treatise.  Most often I hear people referring to The Republic as a kind of utopia.  The view is that Plato was expressing his own political theory in The Republic and that dialogue is the place to go to find out what Plato envisioned as an ideal political organization.

3.1  But this passage suggests otherwise.  For one thing Plato specifically suggests that the teachings under discussion (the nature of justice and injustice) are principles that are equally applicable to groups of people of all sizes and types, and even to single individuals.  This is because Plato presents justice, and the negation of justice, meaning injustice, as a principle that is instantiated in human interaction.  In the case of an individual one can see the principle of justice operating because human beings are not unified; they have conflicting goals, hopes, and fears.  The conflicting nature of the human psyche interacts in ways that allow for justice or injustice to manifest; that is to say one can be just towards oneself, or one can act unjustly to oneself.

3.2  What Plato is suggesting is that an individual is a kind of republic and that the functions of an individual are similar enough to the functions of a republic that the philosopher can see that the same principles apply in both cases.

4.  This passage assists the reader in understanding why allegory and myth play such an important part in The Republic.  It is possible to map an allegory onto multiple situations; situations that might seem to be very different, even to the extent of possessing different natures when looked at only in a surface manner.  

5.  In Plato allegory (and metaphor, simile, and similar structures) is not just a literary device.  Allegory is a mode of philosophical investigation, a mode of reasoning.  In Platonism allegory is a necessary tool both for philosophical understanding and for philosophical investigation because it brings our attention through the use of such comparisons to non-sensory realities.

5.1  This use of comparison as structures of reason and inference is part of the earliest Greek philosophy.  For example, when Heraclitus says “Everything flows” (Panta rhei) he is pointing to a reality that transcends any specific example.  For example, Heraclitus is saying that a boulder flows, even though we do not observe the flowing of the boulder in the way that we observe the flowing of a river.  The inferential structure is to take an example of X that can be observed (a flowing river) and then infer that the same reality is present in examples where X cannot be observed through the senses.

5.2  Plato does this with more abstract understanding such as justice and injustice.  And Plato’s technique in The Republic is to use complex allegories to illuminate the presence of justice, and injustice, in multiple domains such as the individual psyche, the family, a group of friends, a community such as a city, and so forth.  We can infer that justice and injustice are present in humanity as a whole.  

5.3  I once saw a debate on Youtube between two people.  The host, in arguing for his position, at one point used a simile: “X is like . . . “  His opponent said, “No; I don’t have to respond to that.  I only use logic when discussing philosophical issues.”  The host didn’t know how to defend his use of simile and simply went on with the discussion.

This illustrates to me how these kinds of structures (allegory, simile, and so forth) have, for the most part, dropped out of the realm of philosophy and are no longer considered to be legitimate arguments.  I think this is attributable to the materialism of modernity as a whole; but in the field of philosophy I think this inability to use these ancient philosophical tools is due to the dominance of the analytic tradition and that tradition’s misunderstanding of how words work; this is especially true in the Anglo-Saxon world.  

5.4  Allegorical explorations and presentations are necessary because the foundation of Platonic philosophy is that which is ineffable, that which is beyond predication, beyond affirmation or negation.  In order to talk about this kind of reality a philosopher can use several strategies: the philosopher can remain silent, the philosopher can use only negations when discussing the ineffable foundations of existence, or the philosopher can use comparisons, meaning to say what the ineffable resembles, what the ineffable is like.  What the ineffable is like might be in the form of a metaphor or simile, it might be in the form of an allegory, such as the allegory of the cave, or it might be a mythos, such as what is found in the penultimate section of Phaedo or in the Myth of Er in The Republic or the Myth of Atlantis in Timaeus.  

These different strategies for talking about the ineffable have their drawbacks; remaining silent might be taken as aloof or simply posturing, using only negations to talk about the ineffable may lead the listener to think that the ineffable is a sterile and abstract idea that has no content and therefore no connection to anyone’s life, and using structures of comparison such as metaphor and allegory can lead to reifying, or personifying, the ineffable.  A good teacher will be aware of these possibilities for misinterpretation and a good reader will also be aware of them and do what the reader can to not misunderstand what is being said.

6.  The passage also helps us to understand how The Republic has several layers of meaning; one layer is for a political context, another layer can apply to social situations like a business, military units, and families, and another layer refers to the individual psyche and its conflicting tendencies.  This is one of the reasons why The Republic is so powerful and so moving; from our everyday interactions and lives to our commitments to the Way of Philosophy, The Republic is there to guide us, to offer us assistance in our great journey of returning to the ineffable One.

7.  Justice is a reflection of the unity of the One.  Things like friendship, peace between nations, are instantiations of that sense of unity as it manifests in the material realm.  Injustice is a consequence of the separation that is of the nature of the material domain.  In this way Plato connects the metaphysical with ordinary activity; Plato perceives ordinary activity in the material world as consequences of our distance from the unity of the One.  This is why The Republic is a metaphysical, not political, work.  And this is why The Republic’s purpose is to lead us back to that unity which transcends the divisions that injustice brings to our world.

 

Brief Notes on Various Topics - 38

17 February 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 38

1.  My experience of learning within the context of Platonism is that such learning has two phases.  One phase is full of insights, the understanding of meanings and implications that were previously elusive or difficult to access, and the making of connections between various Platonic presentations both within the work of a single author (such as Plato’s Dialogues) and across time among various authors in the Platonic tradition.  This phase is exciting and encourages someone experiencing this phase to continue with their Platonist study and practice.

The second phase is kind of ‘dry’.  I mean that there are times when the reading of Platonist works seems more like a task or duty and the practices, such as purification, asceses, and contemplation, do not seem to yield noticeable results.  This second phase is a kind of challenge.  It tests our commitments and stability.

I have found that after I went through these phases several times, experiencing the second phase was no longer an obstacle.  I simply waited patiently for this second phase to pass, which invariably it does.  

2.  “Socrates:  But among so many arguments this one alone survives refutation and remains steady: that doing what’s unjust is more to be guarded against than suffering it, and that it's not seeming to be good but being good that a man should take care of more than anything, both in his public and in his private life . . . “

(Plato, Gorgias, translated by Donald J. Zeyl, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1997, page 869, 527b, ISBN: 97808722034950)

3.  I think that for some of the dialogues it is difficult for people to see their ascetic nature and teachings.  Some dialogues, like Phaedo, are explicitly ascetic and those teachings are difficult not to see.  But for others, like The Symposium, the ascetic nature of the dialogue is not as strongly placed or as obvious.  The Symposium has a lot of flirtatious remarks that are placed in the context of a drinking party.  The dialogue also has a lot of humor.  

The asceticism of The Symposium appears in two contexts.  First, when Alcibiades describes how he tried to seduce Socrates but failed because Socrates was not interested in an erotic relationship with Alcibiades.  This clearly presents us with a portrait of Socrates that has left behind sexual desires.  I think some people miss that because Socrates is not a monastic in the way that, for example, the monastic followers of the Buddha are.  I think we tend to think, or picture in our minds, an ascetic as part of a community of practitioners who are identifiable by their clothing, comportment, and other signals (like their haircut).  But Socrates is not living that kind of life; instead Socrates is wandering around Athens and interacting with numerous people from all stations of life and even going to drinking parties if the occasion arises.  The commitment of Socrates to a chaste life is, therefore, given to the reader through his interaction with those who would seduce him.

The second context for The Symposium as an ascetic teaching are the two scenes where Socrates withdraws from what is around him into a contemplative trance; these are found at the beginning and end of the dialogue.  I have written about these before so I’ll just mention them here.  This kind of withdrawal, this turning away, is a demonstration of the Ascetic Ideal and its method; that method being to turn away from sensory stimulation.

4.  When considering the life of Socrates I think it is helpful to view Socrates as someone who entered the ancient path later in life.  According to our sources (Plato and Xenophon) Socrates was married and had children, and Socrates also participated in warfare in defense of Athens.  Both of these would tend to depict Socrates as an ordinary householder rather than a spiritual practitioner.  

What I’m suggesting is that the life of Socrates can be viewed as having two periods; the first was as an Athenian citizen immersed in the life of the polis, including politics, family, and war.  The second was after Socrates became aware of, and became initiated in, ancient teaching(s).  This second period came after he went to the Oracle of Delphi, and after his own initiations in ancient mysteries, and after he met Diotima.  As Socrates himself reports, these experiences changed his life in significant ways; most importantly, he became a philosopher.

There are two dialogues that I think illustrate this development.  The first is Parmenides where an elderly Parmenides interacts, and critiques, a very young Socrates.  Here the young Socrates is interested in philosophy but has not yet matured.  The second dialogue is Phaedo where Socrates talks about his interaction with Anaxagoras’s teachings and how Socrates was at first very much attracted to them, but upon examination found them wanting.  In this passage we see a somewhat older Socrates still wanting to understand deep philosophical issues, but not yet exposed to the teachings that would guide Socrates in that task.  We do see this full maturity and philosophical insight in a dialogue like The Symposium and The Republic.  

I think it is easy for most people, including myself, to relate to this kind of biography which has a ‘before and after’ structure to it; meaning before he found the actual Way of Philosophy and after Socrates had found this way.  I think this is one of the reasons why Socrates as a kind of archetype has been so relatable down through the centuries; the story of Socrates is one that nearly all of us can relate to.

5.  Those readers who are particularly interested in Plotinus might want to know that a new collection of the scholar John Dillon has been published that contains 21 essays on various aspects of Plotinus’s writings and understanding.  The essays were published in various journals over a period of many years.  Dillon is famous as a scholar of Middle Platonism, but it is good to see his essays on Plotinus brought together in one volume.

The title is Perspectives on Plotinus: The collected Essays of John Dillon.  It is published by The Prometheus Trust in England; a group dedicated to the perspective of Thomas Taylor, but which has, in more recent years, widened its publishing to include books by Platonist scholars who are not necessarily connected to their organization.

I just got the book myself and have not had time to read it yet.  Looking at the titles of the essays cover a wide range of topics.  Some of the essays focus on unpacking specific Enneads, or even a passage in an Ennead.  Other essays discuss the relationship between Plotinus and other philosophers such as Philo.  Some essays discuss ethical issues, and so forth.

I am particularly interested in an essay Dillon wrote on the way Grace works in Plotinus’s writings.  The essay is titled “A Kind of Warmth”: Some Reflections on the Concept of ‘Grace’ in the Neoplatonic Tradition.  In the first year of this blog I wrote several posts about Grace in Platonism.  It is my view that Grace plays a significant, even crucial, role in Plotinian thought.  That’s not original with me; you can find Christian Platonists who argue for the importance of Grace in Plotinus but they naturally tend to interpret Grace in the manner of their Christian tradition.  Because of my many years of study in a Buddhist context, I tend to understand Grace in the works of Plotinus as closer to, though not identical with, the teachings of Pure Land Buddhism on the topic of Grace.  On the other hand, there are a number of contemporary Platonists who reject the idea of Grace as having any place in Platonism.  I tend to think that in this case they are likely influenced by contemporary secular materialism in coming to that conclusion.  It will be interesting to read what Dillon has to say on this topic.

I’m glad to see this collection made available and I look forward to reading what it has to offer.  For those interested it can be purchased from Kindred Star books in the U.S. which can be found at kindredstarbooks (dot) com.  For those in England you can go to prometheustrust (dot) co (dot) uk.

The Impractical Philosopher

10 February 2025

The Impractical Philosopher

“Callicles:  This is the truth of the matter, as you [Socrates] will acknowledge if you abandon philosophy and move on to more important things.  Philosophy is no doubt a delightful thing, Socrates, as long as one is exposed to it in moderation at the appropriate time of life [as a young man].  But if one spends more time with it than he should, it’s a man’s undoing.  For even if one is naturally well favored but engages in philosophy far beyond that appropriate time of life, he can’t help but turn out to be inexperienced in everything a man who’s to be admirable and good and well thought of is supposed to be experienced in.  Such people turn out to be inexperienced in the laws of their city or in the kind of speech one must use to deal with people on matters of business, whether in public or private, inexperienced also in human pleasures and appetites and, in short, inexperienced in the ways of human beings altogether.  So, when they venture into some private or political activity, they become a laughingstock, as I suppose men in politics do when they venture into your pursuits and your kind of speech.”

(Plato, Gorgias, translated by Donald J. Zeyl, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1997, pages 828-829, 484c-e, ISBN: 9780872203495)

1.  This attack on Philosophy, and Socrates, is embedded in a discussion about if it is better to suffer an injustice or to commit an injustice, a view that is brought up in a number of dialogues.  

This discussion about injustice itself grows out of a discussion about the nature of ‘oratory’, which is the art that Gorgias teaches.  The structure of Gorgias is complex and at times it is difficult to keep in mind the various topics that have been raised.  But it is well worth reading, and rereading, Gorgias to get a sense of the intermingling, or interweaving, of the various topics that are raised.

2.  Callicles seems to be a practical man.  Because of this Callicles thinks that philosophy has some value, but we shouldn’t overdo it.  I suspect that Callicles is thinking that philosophy gives young men the tools they need to have to make a good argument, to detect logical fallacies that someone might use in their arguments, and in general to sharpen a young man’s intelligence.  In other words, Callicles is looking at philosophy as a set of tools that serve specific, worldly, purposes.  Callicles might feel the same way about learning how to draw; it’s good to be able to sketch something because it might make what you are talking about clearer to others; but if a young man spends too much time on drawing this will lead to practical matters not receiving the attention Callicles thinks they deserve.

3.  Callicles is an example of someone who thinks the material world is the only reality and for this reason all human activity should be judged from the perspective of the material world.  I’m not saying that Callicles would self-identify as a materialist; I think it is likely that Callicles participates in the civic religion of Athens.  But I am saying that the idea of the transcendental, and the idea that human beings should align themselves to the transcendental, including their behavior in daily life, is not something that Callicles would take seriously.

4.  Callicles lists the deficiencies a life in philosophy will lead to.  It’s worthwhile to go over them one by one:

4.1  Philosophers will be inexperienced in the laws of their city.  That’s interesting; there is an awful lot of political philosophy these days; think of Rawls, Nozick, and an earlier generation that includes Carl Schmidt, Herbert Marcuse, and Leo Strauss.  These are philosophers who are well regarded, if not always agreed with.  Does this mean that Callicles is wrong?  I don’t think so.  Rather I think this indicates how much the idea of philosophy has changed in modernity.

For Plato, and for Callicles as well, philosophy is a transcendental project and a way of life grounded in the ascetic ideal.  The ascetic ideal turns away, to the degree possible, from worldly affairs.  This is why Callicles can justifiably complain that someone who dedicates their life to philosophy will not know the laws of their city; because the life of a philosopher is focused on that which transcends such concerns.

This may seem unlikely to many modern readers who have the tendency of reading dialogues such as The Republic and Laws as political works instead of allegories offering guidance to the philosophical practitioner who is walking the way to the transcendental.  It takes a shift in one’s consciousness to read these works so that their ‘undermeaning’ shines through.

4.2  Philosophers will be inexperienced in the speech that is used in matters of business.  The focus of business is on buying and selling and generating a profit through those exchanges.  In this context it is helpful to note that Socrates did not charge money for his teachings and contrasted this with the Sophists who charged for their services (sometimes charging significant fees).  The speech of the philosopher is focused on the path to the transcendent; philosophical speech is concerned with purification and renunciation and with clarifying the nature of the timeless and transcendent.  This is a different focus, using a different vocabulary, and a different methodology; that methodology being dialectic.  Philosophical speech is about offering caring guidance on how to live a virtuous life which is foundational for the philosophical life.  In contrast, matters of business are focused on materially gaining an advantage over others.

4.3  Philosophers will be inexperienced in human pleasures and appetites.  Here I would say that Callicles is not speaking accurately.  Philosophers may be experienced in pleasures and appetites, but that experience doesn’t lead to a life focused on pleasures and appetites.  The biography of a philosopher can be one of discovering the hollowness of bodily pleasures and the diminishment that appetites bring to both body and soul.  This then leads to a turning away from pleasures and appetites and the discovery of that which transcends such ephemera.

It may be that some philosophers have no actual experience with human pleasures and appetites; that is because of their own fortunate karma.  I mean that a philosopher who has the good fortune of never having engaged in these pleasures and appetites is likely to have worked on putting them aside in previous lives, thereby having a foundation for ascetic practice already present in their consciousness or soul.

But whether a philosopher has learned of the great harms that accrue due to pleasures and appetites in this life, or in past lives, in the current life they live a life that is not based on the pursuit of them.  This is why philosophers in the Classical period lived lives that were observably different from that of most people, as Callicles observes.

4.4  Philosophers will be inexperienced in the way of human beings altogether.  This may be hyperbole on the part of Callicles, but I think he is making a valid point.  In a way the practitioner of philosophy is not a human being; what I mean by that is that the philosopher divests himself of many things that almost all human beings are concerned with and consider important.  Callicles finds this disquieting, or maybe disgusting.  

And there are examples of philosophers who, because of their inexperience in ordinary human affairs, find themselves in very dangerous circumstances; I am thinking of Boethius as a good example of this.  But the philosopher, once he has the experience of the Good, the Beautiful, and the One, knows that everything else is inconsequential by comparison.  For those who have not had this experience of the Presence of Eternity, that does not make sense.  For this reason there is a chasm between Socrates and Callicles that is almost impossible to bridge.

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 37

3 February 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 37

1.  The dialogue Euthydemus is, I think, a kind of farce; I mean that I think Plato is being deliberately humorous at times.  It borders on slapstick.  The sophists Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, who are brothers, make really outrageous arguments; so outrageous that others who are gathered around start getting angry.  Take, for example:

And Dionysodorus said, Well, take care, Socrates, that you don’t find yourself denying these words.

I have given thought to the matter, I said, and I shall never come to deny them.

Well, then, he (Dionysodorus) said, you say you want him (Clinias) to become wise?

Very much so.

And at the present moment, he said, is Clinias wise or not?

He says he is not yet, at least – he is a modest person, I said.

But you people wish him to become wise, he said, and not to be ignorant?

We agreed.

Therefore, you wish him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he is now?

When I heard this I was thrown into confusion, and he broke in upon me while I was in this state and said, Then since you wish him no longer to be what he is now, you apparently wish for nothing else but his death.  Such friends and lovers must be worth a lot who desire above all things that their beloved should utterly perish!  

When Ctesippus heard this he became angry on his favorite’s account and said, Thurian stranger, if it were not a rather rude remark, I would say “perish yourself” for taking it into your head to tell such a lie about me and the rest, which I think is a wicked thing to say – that I could wish this person to die!

(Plato, Euthydemus, translated by Rosamund Ken Sprague, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1997, page 720, 283c-d, ISBN: 9780872203495)

The above is immediately followed by Euthydemus ‘proving’ that it is impossible to tell lies.  And there is a comic section where the two brothers argue that if someone knows even one thing then that someone knows everything, and that if someone doesn’t know something then that someone doesn’t know anything.  

It is an exhibition of sophistry at its most outrageous.  And at times the responses from the young men involved in the conversation gets quite heated; at those times Socrates plays the role of calming everyone down.

I think Plato wrote this to exaggeratedly mock Sophists by indulging in hyperbole.  Plato does this to show how certain kinds of arguments are presented without any intention of them being helpful or conducive to finding the truth of a situation or the truth as such.  In my mind’s imagination I even pictured some of the scenes acted by the Three Stooges, the arguments are so outrageous.

According to some biographies of Plato, at an early period of his life Plato wanted to be a poet and that Plato at that time wrote plays.  Readers can observe an awareness of a kind of theatrical presentation in dialogues like the Symposium.  And I think the reader can also observe this in Euthydemus.  Both of these dialogues have comic episodes (Euthydemus more than Symposium).  I can easily see Euthydemus presented as a comedy to an audience in a theater or as a movie.

2.  I was talking to a friend the other day who said that old men are set in their ways.  We are both the same age; well into our 70’s.  I said this was true; it is certainly something I observe in myself.  As we age it becomes more and more difficult to absorb new information and perspectives.  That is why it is of great importance to practice contemplation at an early age, when one is still young.  I started my practice of meditation when I was in my early 20’s and never left it behind.  The same applies to the friend I talked with about old age.  Establishing the practice of contemplation is cultivating the habit of spaciousness and transcendence; I mean the habit of contacting that dimension, that hypostasis.  My observation is that it is difficult to begin the practice of contemplation in old age because it will appear to be a waste of time.  As we get older we get closer to eternity and contemplation is the door that opens onto eternity; it is the door to the presence of eternity.

3.  Years ago I had a dream that went like this: I was visiting a friend for a weekend.  His name was Lawrence.  (As an aside, I have an actual friend named Lawrence, but the dream Lawrence did not look anything like the waking world Lawrence.)  Lawrence lived in a second story apartment.  The weekend came and Lawrence asked me if I would like to join him for a weekly spiritual gathering that took place on Friday nights.  I wasn’t aware of this activity, but in the dream I easily accepted the invitation.  

The place was within walking distance.  While walking I asked a bit about the group.  Lawrence responded that it is simpler to just visit and participate in what is happening; he added that nothing very strange would go on.  I asked if there was a teacher and Lawrence laughed and said that some of the participants refer to him as The Sage Who Waits Patiently for Grace.  Then Lawrence laughed again and said that I could call him Dunstan.  (As an aside, there was a Christian hermit named Dunstan who was important to me at one point in my life; I would visit him in his hermitage.  But the Dunstan in the dream didn’t look anything like the Dunstan I knew in the waking world.)  

We arrived at an ordinary house.  Lawrence simply went in; I learned later he had permission to bring a guest.  The group did not advertise; knowledge of its existence was by word of mouth.

Everyone was sitting on chairs in silence.  Lawrence explained that the pattern for Friday evenings was contemplation practice for an hour and then Dunstan would give a talk, or have a question and answer session.  The chairs were not arranged in rows, but seemed to be grouped together among friends or associates.  There were about twenty people.  Lawrence guided me to a small group and we joined them by simply sitting down with them in some empty chairs.  In the dream I already knew contemplation practice and did not have to be instructed.

After the time for contemplation ended with the sound of a small bell struck three times, Dunstan came into the room.  He sat down in what I judged was his chair,  though it was nothing special.  Everyone rearranged their chairs to roughly face Dunstan, though there was no attempt to create neat rows.  Dunstan then gave a talk about a Platonic dialogue; I think it was the Republic but I don’t remember specifically what he said.  After the talk there were a few questions.  The session ended when Dunstan thanked everyone for coming.  There were refreshments served consisting of tea, chips, and dips (all vegetarian).  People began to drift away and Lawrence decided to leave when about half the people were still there.

That’s when the dream ended.

This dream was one of those dreams that we remember clearly without having to write the dream down.  The dream felt nourishing; it happened at a time when I was starting to self-identify as a Platonist, meaning that I was thinking of Platonism as the spiritual tradition I wanted to settle in.  The dream seemed to confirm that feeling.  The dream has stayed with me in the sense that when I recall it my recall is detailed and still feels nourishing.  

4.  There is a section in Protagoras where Socrates analyzes a poem in great detail.  Everyone is impressed.  But then there is a sense that they need to move on to other issues, the one the group started with.  Socrates is indicating that the digression on poetry is a secondary consideration:

“Discussing poetry strikes me as no different from the second-rate drinking parties of the agora crowd . . . When a poet is brought up in a discussion, almost everyone has a different opinion about what he means, and they wind up arguing about something they can never fully decide.  . . We should put the poets aside and converse directly with each other, testing the truth and our very selves.”

(Plato, Protagoras, translated by Stanley Lombardo and Karen Bell, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1997, page 778, 347c-348a, ISBN: 9780872203495)

Plato is famous for having an ambiguous, and skeptical, relationship to poetry.  Here the criticism of poetry seems to be that poetry only generates conflicting opinions rather than leading to truth.  Disagreements about a poem or poet do not seem to be resolvable and Plato is interested in dialectical discussions that have a direction and can at least theoretically be resolved.

On the other hand, Plato quotes Homer in a manner that seems to indicate that Homer had an authoritative status.  

I can understand Plato’s complex relationship to poetry.  As a poet myself, I have often observed the kind of thing that Plato refers to in Protagoras.  My personal feeling about poetry is that I think of poetry as a skill like carpentry, gardening, pottery, baking; things like that.  The baker shapes flour, the potter shapes clay, the carpenter shapes wood, and the poet shapes words.  But poets tend to think of poetry as in some way superior to things like carpentry and baking; they tend to think of poetry as above, or more refined, than those kinds of activities.  I don’t share that view.  I consider poetry to be an ordinary activity; that poetry is like birds singing or coyotes howling.  Writing poetry can bring a lot of satisfaction, just as baking muffins, or shaping clay into a mug can.  That’s enough for me.

5.  It’s late in the afternoon.  I hear a desert owl in the distance; kind of early for the owl, I don’t usually hear the owl this early.  The sun will set soon.