Talk:Metaphor of the sun

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This article is a good reason why I think the number of topics in Wikipedia is practically inexhaustible. As a matter of fact, the metaphor of the sun is reasonably important in Plato scholarship, and yet there are scores(probably hundreds if not thousands) of similar concepts, theories, myths, metaphors, etc., to be found in Plato. And then there are similar numbers to be found in the work of dozens of other great philosophers. And that's just history of philosophy! --Larry Sanger

Plagiarism

This article is plagiarized from http://www.crystalinks.com/platometaphors.html but I don't know how to add the template that tells people that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.253.230 (talk) 16:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The following quote from the article is just one of many examples of interpretations that are merely a result of the fact that the vast majority of notable, or not, scholars do not truly understand, not only the Greek language semantics and its expressive particularities, or even lack the necessary knowledge of the Greek language for that matter, but above all else, their total oblivious lack of knowledge for how the Greeks actually thought under an all-pervasive religious way of life and interpretation of reality. The main problem of nearly all interpretations of antiquity is that they befall into interpretations that stem from our own divisions of compartmentalized human activity and human endeavour in all fields, be these religious, scientific, artistic, political or philosophical, to mention but a few, thus making it ever impossible to truly understand how the Greeks in General, and Plato particularly, for that matter, thought. But to one who has understood and embraced the way the Greeks thought, as well as one who is highly knowledgeable of the Greek language, such statements by Plato and others are clear as day. Specifically, the problem arises because we examine ancient Greek philosophy in isolation from Classical Philology and Classics, Linguistics and especially ancient Greek Religion and their mysteries. It is absolutely ludicrous and the reason why we constantly see numerous idiotic and shallow interpretations of their words which we have merely extrapolated befit to our own standards or at least to what would be conceivably reasonable by our own interpretations. The fact alone that someone could write the following in the article, goes to show how utterly oblivious he or she is of Greek thought, Greek religion and especially Plato... and most of these people are today's colleagues and students of Plato, unfortunately.

"Indeed, exactly how it is Plato thinks "very existence and essence is derived to [the forms] from" the Good is a matter of considerable interpretive difficulty."

My silly friend... there is no difficulty to be had in the interpretations of his words if you truly knwo what he is talking abotu and you are not fondling thoughts in the dark. Perhaps the people who are in charge of writing this article ought to study notions ranging from simple ideas and terms such as Καλός and Κάλλος to extremely rabbit-hole-like subjects such as Greek mysticism and magic specific to the Greek Mysteries, which every single Greek would have participated in.

No Greek, Plato especially, would have deprived themselves of ancient rites such as Mystagogia, resulting in Epopteia, and some finally becoming a Christos. Their words in their philosophy and elsewhere are seminal for and signifying of the principal beliefs in their religious mystery oaths. Their views on what is good, divine and immortal, as well as what is otherworldly and metaphysical, are absolutely relevant to their religious views, which they upheld and adhered to throughout their lives, contrary to how we function today, and the reason why most people who try to understand them fail to see what Plato really means. Nonetheless, such interpretations would constitute "original work" and would also not be in line with pedestrian, mainstream literary and philosophical analysis, unfortunately.

____Ἑλλαιβάριος Ellaivarios____ 00:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC) Sir, you're right. But how-where can we find more genuine interpretation of Ancient Greek philosophy as average readers?

Re: sun metaphor

I recommend removing the words "arguably intellectual illumination" from the following quote: "the sun as a metaphor for the source of "illumination", arguably intellectual illumination"

NovaGnosis (talk) 15:23, 14 November 2012 (UTC)