Q. To better understand how Plato thought, I want to learn more about how the Greeks in general thought about metaphor and analogy. Plato's philosophical style I characterize as heavily analogical. The way the dialectic in general unfolds is never linear or logical. What are your thoughts? Are there any texts on analogical reasoning that can help me get a better grasp on the dialectic?
A. I’m afraid that this is one that I can't help much with. I don't know of any texts on analogical reasoning, and have never looked for any such, nor any works on the way the Greeks in general used metaphor and analogy since, again, I have never looked for or been interested in such. I don't know how many of my works you have read or watched on my internet venues, but you will see that I view Platonism and Plato's own teaching as spiritual teaching for the contemplative ascetic practice and ascent, not as 'thinking' or 'thought' in the modern sense or the modern idea of 'philosophy'. The dialectic is not a matter of discursive thinking or reasoning based on sense data, but rather is the contemplative ascetic practice of placing the soul in direct contact with Nous and the Forms therein in meditation/contemplation. The purpose of the 'dialectic' in the dialogs and the 'reasoning' in the Enneads is to facilitate this and help prepare the mind and soul for being able, after long great effort both in asceticism and contemplation/meditation, to make the ascent and enter this condition of contact with and assimilation to Nous, the Divine Mind-Thought--to enter the 'dialectical samadhi', as it were, to borrow a Sanskrit word from the Indian and derivative systems. (In general, by far, I think, the closest analogies or systems most useful for the Platonic practitioner for comparison are the Indian origin systems of certain schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, rather than Aristotelianism or the later modern Western systems of 'philosophy' based solely on thinking about things without yogic practice.) I have, if it is of any help, translated, quite literally, Plotinus' (short) Ennead 1.3, On Dialectic at my internet venues and in my book. I don't know if you have a translation of Plotinus/the Enneads, but some of the more accessible Enneads, such as 5.1, 1.6, and 6.9 might be helpful to you in general, along with the Phaedo, as I have mentioned, and the core books of the Republic, which add more explicitly about the Good/One to the teaching of the Phaedo. Today, I was rereading Ennead 1.6, On Beauty, in Greek, as I have many times, and was particularly struck by the statement, "But wisdom is the mental act in turning away from the things below and bringing the soul towards the things above." That is, it is principally and authentically attained in contemplation turning the soul away from the senses and their objects and towards the higher hypostases. And to do this requires renunciant and ascetic practice and this is as necessary as thinking to understand how things are and Plato's teaching. Just as an example, as incomprehensible as it may be to most moderns and particularly professor types, being a vegetarian/vegan is as essential to being able to understand Plato as any degree of knowledge of later 'philosophical' systems or historical knowledge!
