KNJIGA: Platon, "Parmenid"

Platon: Parmenid. Prevedel Gorazd Kocijančič. V: Platon, Zbrana dela, študijska izdaja, II. knjiga, str. 393–429. Ljubljana: KUD Logos, 2009. 9789616519427.

Iz enakih razlogov kot pred nekaj tedni Fajdrosa sem se zdaj lotil še Parmenida. Izkaže se, da je ta dialog še precej manj privlačno napisan kot nekateri drugi; Platonova literarna žilica se kaže več ali manj le na začetku, večina dialoga pa je potem čista industrial-grade filozofska besedna solata. Že prevajalčev uvod vsebuje nekaj impresivnih fraz, za katere čisto nič ne dvomim, da kaj pametnega pomenijo, ampak ker meni pač manjka predznanja in/ali možganov, da bi jih razumel, sem se ob njih predvsem režal kot pečen maček: dialog nas „uvaja v središče srhljivo od-mišljene »protologije«, motrenja prvih Počel vseh stvari“ (str. 394; si predstavljate, da ljudem rečete, da se ukvarjate s protologijo, oni pa si mislijo tam en dodatni k in vas prosijo za usluge, ob katerih vam gredo lasje pokonci :))); „Proklos je v negativni henologiji, nauku o radikalno apofatičnem Absolutu prve hipoteze, videl »najbolj božansko navdihnjene nauke filozofije«“ (str. 395). Škoda, da se henologija ni izkazala za vedo o kokoših :P

*

Nesmisli se potem začnejo že kar na drugi strani dialoga: „če je bivajočih stvari mnogo, bi morale biti podobne in nepodobne — to pa je nemogoče, kajti nepodobne stvari ne morejo biti podobne niti podobne nepodobne” (127e). Tako povzame Sokrat neko Zenonovo misel, ki jo potem kritizira — toda Sokratove pripombe se sploh ne dotaknejo tega, kar je po mojem mnenju najbolj očitno narobe v tej trditvi: besedi „podobno” in „nepodobno” uporablja tako, kot da sta to nekakšni lastnosti neke stvari same po sebi, ko pa je menda vendar očitno, da sta podobnost in nepodobnost lahko le odnosa med dvema ali več stvarmi (enaka zabloda se pojavi kasneje v 129a). Ena stvar je lahko nekaterim podobna, drugim pa nepodobna. (Da ne govorimo o tistem prvem „če“ — zakaj naj bi iz predpostavke „če je bivajočih stvari mnogo“ sledilo „bi morale biti podobne in nepodobne“? To je le zatrdil brez kakršnega koli argumenta.)

Po tem nič kaj spodbudnem začetku je šlo le še na slabše. Nekaj časa sem se še malo trudil, da bi iskal luknje v argumentih, kmalu pa sem nad vsem skupaj obupal in se sprijaznil s tem, da pač ničesar ne razumem. Začetni del dialoga je sicer še kar zanimiv — lepo je enkrat za spremembo videti, kako nekdo uporabi sokratovsko metodo proti Sokratu: tukaj Parmenid s kopico zvitih vprašanj vrta luknje v nauk o oblikah (eidosih oz. idejah).

Ta nauk se zdi tudi meni problematičen, vendar najbrž iz drugačnih razlogov kot Parmenidu. Kar se mene tiče, je glavni vir težav v tem, da ti ljudje opletajo z abstrakcijami, kot so oblike in ideje, hkrati pa se obnašajo, kot da bi bilo o njih smiselno govoriti na enak način kot o otipljivih, resnično obstoječih stvareh iz vsakdanjega življenja. Tako na primer govorijo o tem, da oblika „biva“ (131a; nikoli mi sicer ni bilo čisto jasno, zakaj filozofi temu ne rečejo z bolj normalno besedo „obstaja“), da je od nečesa „ločena“ (131b) oz. se nečesa „dotika“ (138a) in podobno. Saj ni čudno, da človek na ta način pride v nesmisle. Izrečeš lahko marsikaj, pa to še ne pomeni, da ima tista izjava sploh kakšen smisel (oz. kot pravi tista znana fraza, nekatere stvari ne le niso pravilne, ampak niti napačne niso).

Parmenid lepo opiše primer, kako do oblike pridemo z nekakšno miselno abstrakcijo:* „ko se ti neko mnoštvo zdi veliko, se ti, ko to uzreš, morda zdi, da nad vsemi resničnostmi biva ena, ista uzrtost [= ideja], in zaradi tega meniš, da je Veliko nekaj en(ovit)ega” (132a). Toda če si potem misliš to idejo Velikega skupaj z vsemi konkretnimi velikimi stvarmi, si lahko predstavljaš, da za vsem tem skupaj zdaj stoji ena še večja ideja velikega in tako naprej (132a), tako da se ti takoj nakopiči neskončna vrsta vse večjih oblik — Parmenid to omenja kot slabost nauka o oblikah, čeprav se meni ni zdelo očitno, da je s tem kaj narobe. Podobne konstrukcije niso na primer v matematiki nič neobičajnega; Cantor je v teoriji neskončnih števil s takšnimi prijemi prišel do krasnih stvari. To je neugodno le, če imaš pač fiksacijo s tem, da hočeš imeti nek lepo majhen in pregleden nabor oblik.

[*V knjigi s prevajalčevimi opombami sem našel sicer naslednji zelo zanimivi odlomek: „Ne gre preprosto za abstrakcijo v našem smislu, ampak dejansko za paradoksno videnje nevidljivega. Naše težave z razumevanjem Platonove tematizacije eidosov izvirajo iz tega, da njegovi spisi predpostavljajo uzrtje nevidljivih, bivajočih resničnosti, medtem ko je za sodobni [. . .] common sense tisto skupno, kar veže mnogotero v enost, zgolj logična abstrakcija, posledica miselnega procesa odvzemanja in posploševanja“ (str. 1124).]

S podobnim razmislekom Parmenid zatrjuje, da „stvari niso udeležene v oblikah po podobnosti, ampak moramo iskati nekaj drugega, v čemer so udeležene“ (133a), kajti podobne stvari so gotovo udeležene v isti obliki, in če je oblika nekih stvari podobna tem stvarem, potem morajo biti tako ta oblika kot te stvari skupaj udeležene v neki novi obliki (prek katere so si podobne) in spet tako naprej v neskončnost (132d–133a). Toda tu se mi zdi, da je neupravičeno predpostavil, da podobnost med več konkretnimi stvarmi deluje po enakem mehanizmu kot podobnost med temi stvarmi in njihovo obliko; ampak samo zato, ker uporabljamo obakrat enako besedo, še ne pomeni, da gre za isti pojav. [P.S. Kasneje sem z zadovoljstvom opazil, da enak pomislek omenja tudi Ficino v svojem komentarju k Parmenidu, 27.2]

Potem ima še en zelo domiseln argument. Parmenid pravi, da so oblike v odnosih z drugimi oblikami, ne s konkretnimi stvarmi, in obratno; na primer, če je človek A suženj človeka B, je to odnos med konkretnima človekoma; in po drugi strani obstaja ideja sužnja, ki je povezana z idejo gospodarja; ni pa človek A suženj ideje gospodarja, niti ni človek B gospodar ideje sužnja (133d–134a). No, zdaj si pa v tem razmisleku namesto sužnja in gospodarja mislimo védenje in resnico, pa pridemo do zaključka, da imamo mi tule lahko le neko konkretno vedenje o konkretnih stvareh, ne pa o ideji resnice — s slednjo je lahko v odnosu le ideja védenja. Ideje so torej za nas nespoznatne (134b–c). Ta zaključek mi je všeč, se pa pri tem argumentu vseeno počutim nekako prinešenega okoli :) Z istim argumentom Parmenid celo zatrjuje, da bogovi (ki očitno tudi živijo v svetu idej) ne morejo ničesar vedeti o našem konkretnem svetu in imeti nobenega vpliva nanj (134d–135a).

Toda čeprav je Parmenid ves čas opozarjal na težave nauka o oblikah, to še ne pomeni, da se mu zdijo oblike problematične; nasprotno, zdijo se mu nujne: kdor „ne bo dopustil, da oblike bivajočih stvari bivajo, in za sleherno stvar ne bo opredelil nobene oblike, tudi ne bo mogel kamor koli obrniti (svojega) razuma [. . .] in tako bo povsem uničil zmožnost pogovora“ (135b–c). Ampak po mojem bi bilo treba najti neko srednjo pot med tem, da se abstraktnemu mišljenju popolnoma odpovemo, in tem, da o miselnih abstrakcijah (kot so oblike) govorimo na tak način, kot bi o resnično obstoječih konkretnih stvareh.

*

Kakorkoli že, to doslej je bil šele prvi, krajši del dialoga. Parmenid potem reče Sokratu, da bo te reči bolje razumel z nekaj več filozofskega treninga, pri katerem je treba razmišljati o vseh možnih posledicah, ki bi jih obstoj ali neobstoj ene stvari imel na vse druge stvari. Preostanek dialoga je potem primer take debate (oz. pravzaprav serije stavkov, po vsakem od njih pa „sogovornik“ Parmenidu le pritrdi), v kateri Parmenid razpravlja o posledicah tega, da Eno obstaja, ali pa tega, da Eno ne obstaja. Pri tem takorekoč na vsakem koraku popolnoma hladnokrvno in v isti sapi vleče zaključke, ki drug drugemu nasprotujejo, kot da bi bila to najbolj normalna stvar na svetu: „Eno ne bo niti drug(ačn)o niti isto s samim seboj niti z drug(ačn)im“ (139e); Eno je „podobno in nepodobno sebi in drugim resničnostim“ (147c); „nebivajoče Eno nastaja in propada, pa tudi ne nastaja in ne propada“ (163b); „najsi Eno biva ali ne biva, ono in druge resničnosti — v odnosu do sebe in med seboj — vsekakor bivajo in ne bivajo ter se kažejo in ne kažejo (kot) vse“ (166c).

Človek bi pričakoval, da se bo že pri prvem takem paradoksalnem zaključku ustavil in pomislil: hej, nekaj je očitno hudo narobe! Ampak on se za takšne malenkosti ne meni in gre veselo naprej. Več kot očitno je, da nisem dovolj pameten, da bi razumel te stvari, v tolažbo pa mi je lahko vsaj dejstvo, da po vsem videzu sodeč tudi mnogo pametnejšim ljudem od mene niso najbolj jasne: “A satisfactory characterisation of this part of the dialogue has eluded scholars since antiquity”, pravi Wikipedija. Vse skupaj se mi je zdelo kot takorekoč izvrsten primer mentalne masturbacije, ki ji je do popolnosti manjkal le še obilen bukkake na koncu.

Še en primer zelo sumljive argumentacije iz tega dela dialoga: Eno „ni celota niti nima delov“, kajti če bi imelo dele, potem ne bi bilo Eno, ampak mnoštvo; in če bi bilo celota, celota pa je „to, od česar ni odsoten noben del“, no, potemtakem bi Eno tudi tedaj imelo dele in ne bi bilo Eno (137c–d). To, da celota mora imeti dele, se mi zdi malo problematično; a za neko nedeljivo stvar pa ne bi mogli reči, da je celota? Pa tudi, samo zato, ker je o celotah in delih smiselno govoriti pri otipljivih rečeh iz vsakdanjega življenja, to še ne pomeni, da je smiselno o njih govoriti tudi pri tako abstraktnih pojmih, kot je Eno. Že res, da nam naš jezik omogoča, da pomen nekaterih besed malo metaforično raztegnemo z bolj konkretnih področij na bolj abstraktna, tako da lahko na primer o delu in celotah govorimo ne le pri človeku in drevesu, ampak tudi pri letu ali zgodbi ali čem podobno abstraktnem; ampak to pa še ne pomeni, da ne bodo te metafore sčasoma postale nesmiselne, če jih bomo nategovali v nedogled. Parmenid nam takoj čisto resno postreže s takim nesmislom: Eno „ni niti ravno niti krožno, saj niti nima delov“ (137e–138a). Kasneje podobno govori o tem, da se Eno premika (138c) ali da se nečesa dotika (148e).

Še ena ekstremna bizarnost: Eno „postaja vedno od samega sebe starejše, če napreduje v skladu s časom“ in ker „starejše postaja starejše, ko (tisto, kar je od njega) mlajše postaja mlajše“, lahko zaključimo, da Eno „postaja od sebe mlajše in starejše“ (152a–b). In njegov sogovornik seveda spet le prikimava kot zombi, namesto da bi skočil pokonci: to je spet očitna zloraba besed. Eno ob času t je res starejše kot Eno ob času t − 1; ampak ali je zato že smiselno reči, da je Eno starejše od samega sebe? Čim hočemo primerjati stvari po starosti, moramo upoštevati, v katerem trenutku jih gledamo, in potem „Eno ob času t“ in „Eno ob času t − 1“ že nista več ena in ista stvar; pravzaprav tudi nista več ista stvar kot Eno kar tako, neodvisno od časa. Ne dvomim v to, da bi se o teh rečeh dalo narediti zanimivo filozofsko debato, ampak Parmenid tu tega ne naredi, on le dirka naprej s svojim rokohitrstvom in upa, da ne bomo opazili, kakšne neumnosti naklada.

*

Skratka, če je bil prvi del dialoga nekako za silo še zanimiv, je pa tale drugi del, kar se mene tiče, čista polomija. Verjetno bi lahko kak pametnejši bralec z bolj primernim predznanjem od tega dialoga res kaj odnesel, meni pa ni ostalo drugega, kot da se držim za glavo.

Mimogrede, v enem detajlu je pa Platonova literarna žilica pri tem dialogu čisto odpovedala. V uvodu dialoga vidimo, da ga pripoveduje Kefal, ki ga je slišal od Antifonta, ta pa od Pitodora, ki je pogovoru med Parmenidom, Sokratom in ostalimi tudi dejansko prisostvoval. Skratka, Platon pričakuje, da bomo verjeli, da so si vsaj trije ljudje takorekoč na pamet zapomnili trideset strani izjemno kosmate filozofske argumentacije in da je to, kar zdaj poslušamo iz tretje ali četrte roke, zvesta podoba originalne debate. Saj razumem, da sme pisatelj od bralca pričakovati, naj malo zadrži svojo nejevero, ampak kar je preveč, je pa le preveč :)

BOOK: Marsilio Ficino, "Commentaries on Plato" (Vol. 1)

Marsilio Ficino: Commentaries on Plato. Vol. 1: Phaedrus and Ion. Edited and translated by Michael J. B. Allen. The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Vol. 34. Harvard University Press, 2008. 9780674031197. lix + 269 pp.

Marsilio Ficino was a 15th-century neoplatonist philosopher who is among other things noted for his translation of Plato's complete works into Latin and the numerous commentaries he wrote on the work of Plato and his followers. This book contains Ficino's commentaries on the Phaedrus, one of Plato's dialogues.

In a way, I found this book very interesting, though probably not quite in the way in which I should have :) The thing I found interesting about it was to see how very different the Phaedrus seemed to Ficino than it did to me.

I read Plato's Phaedrus a couple weeks ago, and wrote a suitably irritated post about it, complaining about the poor argumentation, excessive license taken in the meanings of words, the overextended use of metaphors, and the overall muddle-headedness, wishful thinking and the tendency of Socrates to pull things out of his ass.

Ficino's view (unsurprisingly) couldn't be more different. One of the most notable features of the Phaedrus is Socrates' metaphor of the soul as a chariot with a pair of winged horses — a metaphor, incidentally, which Socrates kept dragging on for much longer than he should have, exhibiting an interest in the anatomical details of the horses' wings that would be more fitting for a veterinarian than a philosopher. Anyway, what seemed to me merely a picturesque (and ultimately somewhat belabored) metaphor is here referred to as a “mythical hymn”, and is studied and explicated with the level of devout dedication that you'd normally only expect from a pious believer studying his religion's sacred books.

The book starts with Ficino's translation of the “mythical hymn” part of the Phaedrus, which I think is a useful idea, to refresh the reader's memory. I'm not of course in any way competent to comment on the quality of Ficino's translation, but it seemed reasonable enough, as far as I can compare it with the translation I'd read a couple weeks before. One interesting change done by Ficino is to tone down the various homoerotic passages from the original, see e.g. 249a (p. 17), 255e, 256a (p. 35).

Although the “mythical hymn’ covers only about a quarter of the dialogue, this seems to have been the part that Ficino was the most interested in. His “argument” of the Phaedrus starts with a summary of the entire dialogue, but then 8 out of 11 sections of the argument discuss just the mythical hymn. This is then followed by Ficino's chapter-by-chapter commentary on the Phaedrus, in which again the vast majority of attention is focused on the mythical hymn part. In a few instances, Ficino takes up a page or more to discuss just a few lines of the original; elsewhere, when dealing with other parts of the dialogue, he spends a few lines of commentary to deal with several pages of the original. Overall the commentary is about 60% of the length of the dialogue itself, and around two-thirds of it deals with the “mythical hymn”.

I often wondered how Ficino was able to pull such an extensive, complex and detailed system of interpretation out of some short passage of Plato (his ‘commentary’ occasionally discusses things of which I could not find the slightest trace in the passage supposedly being discussed — e.g. the mentions of Saturn in the commentary of ch. 28, p. 155; and the discussion of Mercury in ch. 49, p. 187), but then, judging by the translator's notes at the end of the book, Ficino was actually building on the work of ancient Greek Neoplatonists such as Plotinus and Proclus.

The impression I got from reading all this is that Neoplatonists such as Ficino treated Plato as almost a kind of religious prophet, every sentence and every word of whose work must be full of importance and meaning, and it's up to his devoted followers to figure out what exactly these things mean. Things which don't make any sense in Plato are taken to have an allegorical meaning, which is then discussed at great length. What had seemed to me as throwaway remarks by Socrates in his poetical description of the soul/chariot's ascent towards heaven are here studied in minute detail and believed to provide valuable hints as to the precise structure of various levels of increasingly abstract ‘worlds’ and the various orders of gods and daemons inhabiting them. (See esp. 247b–c where the souls “reach the summit [. . .] stand firm upon the heaven's back [. . .] gaze afar at the thing which are beyond heaven. The superheavenly place”, a few lines which Ficino then discusses for 3 pages.)

Frankly, I'm somewhat disappointed by all this; it isn't what I had expected. Neoplatonism comes across as more like a sort of religious mysticism than a worthwhile intellectual pursuit. Instead of trying to study the world that we actually live in, they escaped into a hypothetical ‘higher’ world, which they pretended to study but they weren't really doing anything other than making things up out of thin air. Their tendency to invent abstrusely detailed, systematic descriptions of such higher worlds reminded me a lot of theosophists and new-agers. Ficino's inclination to hang on every word of the Phaedrus and insist that it must be part of some larger, carefully thought-out system of higher worlds and beings also struck me as being of an essentially religious character.

Indeed I can't help wondering if Neoplatonism wasn't simply a sort of substitute religion for a certain type of intellectuals, much like in a later time others would use darwinism or objectivism for a similar purpose. For example, some passages in the Phaedrus and in Ficino's commentary (e.g. chs. 19, 28, 30, 35; as well as ¶8 of his Ion commentary; and his argument to Phaedrus, 10.6–7 on pp. 87–9) seem to be (rather strained) efforts to draw parallels between the traditional ancient Greek gods and the various concepts from Plato's home-grown theology. I can easily imagine this sort of thing flourishing during a certain period in ancient Greece, when the traditional religion was increasingly seen as too ridiculous to be taken seriously (at least by educated people), so they welcomed the efforts of Plato and his successors to come up with a more refined and intellectual belief system. I wonder if Ficino was similarly unimpressed by some of the messiness of traditional christianity and its theology, and consequently sought solace in trying to combine it with platonism.

For other typically religious elements in the Phaedrus and Ficino's commentary on it, see e.g. the ideas of how souls get reincarnated into men of a higher or lower station (philosophers being the highest, naturally) depending on how much of the Truth™ they have seen earlier during their ascent towards the platonic heavens (Ficino discusses the resulting nine classes of people at length in ch. 24 of his commentary), and how your soul must earn its place in heaven by several thousands of years of philosophical study (ch. 25). I have already complained about these things in my post about the Phaedrus, and there's no point in repeating myself. But it's interesting to note that the parts of Phaedrus that Ficino is the most interested in are exactly those that reek the most strongly of religion.

Incidentally, there's a very interesting appendix by the translator (pp. 209–12), in which he describes a bit more clearly the system of ‘higher’ worlds as envisioned by Ficino; he even goes so far as to admit: “The situation may seem complicated if not thoroughly confusing” (p. 211). In another appendix, the translator points out that “however arcane and difficult it might appear to us now, Ficino's response to the Phaedrus' mythical hymn was relatively straightforward compared to Proclus' interpretation” (p. 220).

Anyhow, this is the way in which I found this book interesting; it was fascinating to watch how these people were able to construct an elaborate system of quasi-theology out of a few vague passages in Plato. But as an actual commentary on Plato, I'm not sure how useful I found it. There are very few passages of Phaedrus that I understood any better after reading Ficino's commentary — although, of course, he wasn't aiming it at uneducated readers like me. I did think his commentary (ch. 15) made Socrates's argument about the immortality of the souls (245c–246a) a little clearer, although not any more convincing. Many of his interpretations seemed to me to be a bit stretched, such as when he explained Socrates's tale of the cicadas (259b–d) as daimons, who seem to be some kind of intermediaries between humans and gods (ch. 35 of Ficino's commentary, p. 171; in ch. 38, p. 177 he says the cicadas are an allegory for local gods); or when he insisted that, in Socrates's Egyptian tale of the invention of writing (274c–5b), the god Theuth is at best a mere daimon while king Thamus is not in fact a human but the god Ammon or Jupiter himself (thereby explaining why Theuth would bring his invention (i.e. writing) to Thamus for review and approval; ch. 49 of Ficino's commentary, pp. 187–9).

An interesting bit from the translator's introduction, regarding the influence of Ficino's studies of Plato: “throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries references to Plato are often to Ficino's argumenta rather than to the dialogues themselves” (p. xxiv).

On Ion

At the end of the book there's also a short letter by Ficino, in which he discusses another dialogue by Plato, the Ion. In this dialogue, Ion is a rhapsode — a reciter and interpreter of Homer's poems. Ion claims, very bizarrely, that he is only good at talking about Homer's poems and not about those of any other poet; in view of this, Socrates has an easy job arguing that Ion's ability comes from divine inspiration rather than from human skill. This struck me as yet another cheap manipulative trick by Plato; he invents such an unrealistic character as Ion just to facilitate his argument.

The second part of the dialogue is even more preposterous. Socrates gets Ion to admit that a poet like Homer talks about all sorts of topics, without actually being an expert on any of them, and yet gets much of this right: you can't explain this otherwise than by the fact that the poet is also divinely inspired (by the way, Ficino thoroughly agrees with this nonsense in ¶7). I could hardly believe my eyes, even when I first read the Ion many years ago. Could Plato really have believed that we wouldn't notice the obvious explanation: a poet must know well enough about these various subjects to mention them in a way which will seem plausible to his audience; that's all. It helps if he knows more about them than his audience does, although if he doesn't, he can probably (if he has any skill as a writer of fiction) still fake his way well enough that a non-expert reader won't notice anything. And he can also consult with the actual experts if he wants to make absolutely sure. In fact nowadays this is something quite normal — a writer is pretty much supposed to do a bit of research on a topic that he plans to mention prominently in his fiction; and writers are often criticized by experts when they did too sloppy a job of that. I wonder if this practice was really unknown to the ancient Greeks, or was Plato just pretending not to be aware of it? (Maybe Plato was just bad as a fiction writer and that's why he gave up fiction in favor of philosophy early in his career, and then proceeded to write bad fiction in the guise of philosophy? :P)

Anyway, Ficino's letter about Ion of course finds no fault with any part of it, and mostly focuses on the idea of poets being divinely inspired. He points out that this is an example of one of the four “divine frenzies” mentioned in the Phaedrus (244a–245a; the other three being prophecy, poetic inspiration and a priestly frenzy that leads to mystery cults and the like; cf. ¶4), and for him it's yet another proof of the existence of something divine (¶7).

Eh well. I'm afraid I don't have much use for arguments like these. Just because we can't explain the sources of poetic talent and inspiration in some better way, doesn't mean that we have the right to invent a whole bunch of supernatural entities and claim that it comes from them.

Much of Ficino's commentary discusses things that aren't even mentioned in the Ion; thus he tries to draw parallels between the four divine frenzies from Phaedrus and the soul's ascent through four higher worlds of Neoplatonism (¶3–4), and he somehow comes up with pairwise assignments of the nine Muses to the heavenly spheres and many other such allegorical parallels (¶8).

There's a fine passage from ¶8, showing Ficino's approach to interpreting Plato: “When Plato says God, he means Apollo, and when he says the Muses he means the souls of the world's spheres.” (P. 205.) Really, with that kind of freedom of interpretation, he could just as well say that by the Muses Plato actually means Snow White and the seven dwarfs...

*

In a way, the elaborate castles in the clouds that have been built up by these Platonists are a remarkable creation of the human mind, not entirely unlike poetry or religion or mathematics or art and other such things. But they don't tell us anything about the world, only a little about the human mind and its capacity to make things up. As such, I'm not particularly interested in studying them — if I want to read fiction, I'll just pick up a novel instead — but I can certainly imagine why some people find this stuff fascinating.