Plato Studies:

Re-Enlivened Socratic Words
A "Skeleton Key" To Plato's Dialogues

       The following are all transliterations of Greek words from Plato's Dialogues, followed by definitions which re-invest them with their original dynamic flowing life, reflected back into them from the dynamic life found in the practice of DEPTH Dialogue.

   Over thousands of years since they were first used in the Dialogues, these words have lost their original life and have become dead metaphors. Not only that, because of the deadness of their accepted meanings, they have been consistently mistranslated. This has made Plato's Dialogues almost totally inaccessible as living dynamic participatory events, which they are. It is one of the reasons why DEPTH Dialogue has been so long lost to the world.

    The new dynamism brought back into these words opens up a whole new depth of practical and transcendent wisdom from Plato's Dialogues, which in turn sharpens and deepens the practice of DEPTH Dialogue. Going in the other direction, these words inject the dynamism and life of the actual here-and-now practicing of DEPTH Dialogue into Plato's writings so that we can now have a more living, deeply informed engagement with them as true participants and not just readers or analysts.

    This whole, living matrix of word-qualities is, in a real way, a sort of skeleton key to Plato's Dialogues, and thereby to the true essence of the actual practice of DEPTH Dialogue. (This will form the basis for later dynamic commentaries on some important Dialogues of Plato.)

    Explore the following terms as a DEPTH Dialogue exploration. In other words, feel into the Life-in-you for each focus (each word) and take all the words together as a dynamic whole, coming to this gradually as you build up your feel for the individual word feeling qualities. Each word is extensively hyper-linked to other words, making the whole come together from the parts more easily.

    Just follow the hyper-links back and forth between words as you explore their feeling qualities, thereby gradually building up your felt-sense of the whole. (Use the "back" button in your browser to return to the word you came from when you follow a link.) You will probably need to go through the whole list of words more than once.

    The dynamic interactive wholeness of all of the following words taken together, is both a uniquely insightful commentary on all of Plato's Dialogues, because they are some of the most important key words in the Dialogues, and a deep elucidation of the essential process of DEPTH Dialogue. Therefore, the time and effort needed to explore them is well worth it.

NOTE: This is from my 1987 doctoral dissertation. The language is too academic to be easily understood. Today I would define these terms in much simpler, more direct language. That is a large project that I will plan on doing in the future.


agathos

Moral good, what is truly "good for me."  This becomes revealed or unconcealed (aletheia) as the necessary and prior condition of the natural state of happiness in the higher levels of cognitive-emotional-somatic functioning  (levels wherein the light of the divine shines forth - is revealed or unconcealed - in all the forms of experiencing. See theos.)

What I dialectically find to be truly "good for me" is what truly situates or releases me into my natural state of prior wholeness and natural happiness, in a way that is feelingly known. This happens in and through the deep dialectical exploration of eros.

Agathos is what is good according to physis discerned in logos in its essence (idea).

anemnesis

Often translated as "remembering." It is the  process of recollecting (i.e. collecting together) essential intent (idea) through direct intuitive felt-experiencing. The process of deep inquiry into ideai. The process of re-awakening to the shining forth (presencing, phainesthai) of being through deep self-inquiry, reaching into what was concealed (lethe, the unclear whole felt sense of some experience in the Life-in-you) and bringing it to unconcealment (aletheia.)

It is the specifically dialectical discriminating enactment of the essential process of direct bodily felt-experiencing.

aletheia

Truth, seen as an action of unconcealing what had been hidden or concealed (lethe, concealment in ignorance.) Specifically, the spontaneously arising revelation or unconcealment of the presencing (phainesthai) of Being, uncovering the idea in the logos, articulating the emergence of felt meaning.

Sharply distinguished from orthotes, truth as factual correctness. This distinction, in felt-experiencing, is one of the primary aims of dialectical practice, wherein the discriminating function of nous (direct intuitive intelligence) as eikasia (the ability to see an image as an image) is distinguished from mimesis (imitation), wherein fantasy images substitute in consciousness for clear vision (theoria.)

aporia

A critical impasse in the drama of questioning/experiencing; a juncture point where your former habitual pattern(s) of thought, feeling and/or action no longer work and you are forced to enter into deeper self-examination and inquiry into truth.

arche

As in the word "archetype," and other such words. The source of the first arising of ideai in Consciousness; the first arising of all the impulses of Consciousness at the level of the divine (theos, which see.)

arete

A functional ability; efficient action, right action, appropriate action according to nature (physis); a "power" (e.g. the power of sight; morally, the power of right doing, of natural effective action.)

Moral arete, the primary focus of Socratic inquiry (in the "unfolding questions" specifically applied to eros), is the ability to function as human presence (psyche) in accordance with physis (i.e. in the rightful flow of the life force, the Life-in-you) in its natural directedness (telos.)

Virtue, meaning, in this context, a natural moral quality.

auto to auto

The self unto itself. The self-referential nature of preconceptual experiential cognizing in the beingness of  Consciousness in itself unto itself, with no outside reference. The is the source of the Spontaneous Emergence level of functioning.

The self of Consciousness is known to itself without any outer referent. This is the most basic condition of and for self-knowing, which in its most fundamental level is a process of self known to self.

The process of direct felt-experiencing which is the most basic foundation of DEPTH Dialogue, is one of total inner responsibility. No-one else can do it for you.

dialektike (Dialectic)

Deep self-referential felt-experiential moral inquiry through true speech (logos); mutual inquiry in relationship through dialoguing.  What we are calling here DEPTH Dialogue.

dihairesis

Procedure by division, in Socratic questioning and inquiry. It is applied through lines of questioning that develop fine articulation in the process of direct bodily experiencing. (See Articulating, in the Basics section.)

doxa

Opinion, belief, conventional speech, referring to representational images (eidolon) rather than to direct felt experiencing and its articulation in ideai. A fixed concept of conventional thought.

Alethes doxa (doxa that comes from aletheia) is "true opinion," which is an informed, correct judgment concerning something. This is not pure truth from inner felt-experiencing (alethiea) but an intermediary between ignorance and truth. It is an important intermediary because the attainment of rationality (the ability to discriminate real from unreal in the forms of appearances) is a necessary pre-requisite for doing dialectical inquiry. This ability to discriminate is a stepping-stone into the finer and fuller discrimination that DEPTH Dialogue gets into.

eidolon

Representational image in general. In the Sophist Plato divides eidolon into eikon (likeness, as in "icon") and phantasma (fantasy image.) All eidola are mechanistic images, meaning that they are dead, fixed, literalistic images. Sharply distinguished from eidos.

eidos (pl. eide)

This has been translated as "form," and is the basis for the belief that Plato had a "theory of forms." The dynamic view of Plato shows something quite different. He had no theories at all. The activity of Dialectic is beyond theories (see hypothesis.)

Eidos is an imaging of live energy presencing (phainesthai), coming out of direct felt-experiencing as an articulation of felt meaning (logos.) It is what Joseph Campbell calls, in referring to the essential quality of mythos (myth), a "metaphor transparent to the transcendent", a radiant imaging of Being, a transforming image (as distinguished from eidolon which is a dead, fixed mechanistic image.)

It is the felt-experiential essence of a whole bodily sense, taken shape and form so as to come clearly into cognition. You could call it "formative metaphor."

eikasia

The ability to recognize an image as an image, i .e. the ability to recognize a representational form (eidolon) as such and to distinguish it from eidos and idea (which are the pure forms of the presencing of Being, apprehended through nous.)

It is the de-hypnotizing ability of awareness. When you recognize an image as an image you then cease to be absorbed and overshadowed by it. Dianoetic eikasia is this ability, evoked and developed in the discerning and discriminating activity of dialectical inquiry.

Dia-noesis (hence, dianoetic) is the dialectical, discriminating employment of nous. Dialectical nous, with eikasia, is active participation in the primary universal principle of Dialectic, i.e. that fine discrimination in the process of experiencing (especially the experiencing of eros) leads naturally and spontaneously to dynamic pattern transcendence of all the forms of appearances, of all the forms of experiencing.

eikon

Image as representation, replica, likeness or imitation (mimesis.) Distinguished from image as presencing form (eidos.)  A form of eidolon.

elenchos

The process in Dialectic of deep felt-experiential examination of subjective experiences, leading to experiential felt shifts in those experiences and to transformations in your overal general internal organization of experience.

It is the dialectical process of the shifting and internal reorganization of experience. (See Dissolving, the the Basics section.)

episteme

Often translated as "knowledge." The origin of the term "epistemological."

Essential felt-experiential intuitive knowing, arising from the deep experiential exploration of Dialectic. It is the knowing that comes from knowingness (nous.)

epithymia

Desire (eros) as passion and appetite (pathos); an off-centered emotion.

One who is not centered (sophrosyne) is off-centered in passions which disturb and obscure awareness, interfere with clear felt-experiencing, and distort the body-mind (soma.) Such off-centered distortions of life energy are instances of epithymia.

Passion (pathos) is brought into being by eros. Eros is also the way out of passion and suffering, but only when it is deeply explored and thereby deeply transformed, through dialectical inquiry. Eros is both epithymia and theos (ecstatic bliss) at different levels of internal experiential organization. We all start off conditioned to being lost (lethe) in epithymia. Getting to theos is the action of nous in dialectical inquiry.

ergon

Action. The logos (true speaking) of Dialectic is known only in action. Word and deed are intimately connected in Plato's Dialogues and in dialectical inquiry. This is why many of the terms used here are used as "ing" words, e.g. "knowing" rather than "knowledge." This is because they are action processes. A Socratic word is an ergon.

eros

The life-force (Life-in-you) felt as desire,  love, attraction, pull towards what is perceived to be beautiful or appealing. What you love, care about, what turns you on, gets your juices flowing.

It is the impulse, the aspiration and the energy flow toward unity or uniting and wholeness, first experienced physically toward other bodies and sense pleasures and then on more and more subtle levels of felt-experiencing, until there is union with the form (eidos) of beauty itself, which is the ecstatic bliss or blessedness of the self known to itself (auto to auto) in pure transcendental Consciousness (Being.) For this see the "ladder of love (eros)"  and the commentary on Plato's Symposium.

Dialectic - DEPTH Dialogue - is primarily the deep, discerning exploration of eros. This exploration of the emotional moving force in us reveals eros as the energy that impels us automatically to the higher levels of functioning. Eros can also be the force that keeps us embroiled in suffering, leaves us lost in the passions (pathos), when left unexamined.

The exploration and deep examination of eros in us leads us out of ignorance (lethe) and off-centeredness (epithymia) because of the universal principle that fine discrimination in the process of felt-experiencing (dianoetic eikasia, see eikasia) naturally and spontaneously leads to dynamic pattern transcendence in all the forms of our experience.

eudaimonia

Happiness, blessedness, the bliss of Consciousness at the level of transcendental awareness, re-awakened (through anemnesis) as the divine (theos) in us through deepening felt-experiencing into ideai, guided by eros (love-desire.)

harmonia

The perfect relatedness and blending of all elements in psyche and polis by being returned to the true governance of ideai. A state of being, brought about by the spiritual/moral condition of sophrosyne.

hypothesis

In Socratic questioning, a tentative definition used as a suggestive, posited starting place for the inquiry. In DEPTH Dialogue it is when you have fully articulated and elaborated a subjective experience you are using as your current focus of exploration.

Aristotle, then Hegel and Marx following him, completely threw off the understanding of Dialectic by making it a linear (or multi-linear) rational activity, leading from thesis (or hypothesis, something posited) to counter-thesis to synthesis. This is the form of drama (conflict enactment), not Dialectic. Dialectic transcends drama and the linear/multi-linear logic of the "formal operations" level, into the creative play of the Creative Generativity level and beyond.


idea (pl. ideai)

This, obviously, has been translated as "idea," but the functional view of Plato and ancient modes of conceptualization has shown that our modern notion of "concepts" has nothing to do with this. A concept, in the modern sense, is a purely mental abstraction. This mode of  functioning was unknown to the ancients. The view from modern DEPTH Dialogue is that it may even be a mode of pathos.

Idea is the felt-experiential intention, focus or direction within the process of felt-experiencing.

It is that natural central focus by virtue of which, in the act of putting your attention on a subjective experience to explore it in depth, the unclear bodily whole sense of ""all that" (whatever) comes first into a vague but formed shape (eidos) of a felt sense, and then into clear articulation (logos.)

It is the formative impulse from Cosciousness that is the immediate precursor of a formative metaphor (eidos.)

kalos

Beauty, that which gives pleasure or bliss in deep felt-experiencing, thereby being the motivator of eros.

koinonia

Communion, combination, community. In Plato there is a natural koinonia of ideai in harmonia; in other words there is a natural integrity and consistency in felt experiencing.

lethe

Forgetfulness. It is a state of sleepiness, trance or hypnosis, which is seen, upon deep experiential exploration, to be the common state of consciousness in ordinary living.

It is a state of forgetting or ignoring (= ignorance of) who we truly are and what we are truly capable of in our highest functioning, being immersed in social roles and the dramas (pathos) of life because of our unexamined eros.

When brought into focus through DEPTH Dialogue truth (aletheia) is no longer forgotten or unattended. It takes on new life as the unclear whole felt-sense of some experience in the Life-in-you, which upon being given your loving attention, comes into some new, unanticipated, form of awareness and then into the heart-felt speaking of truth from your depths (logos.)

logos

The act of true speaking from the Life-in-you.

True speech or authentic utterance of Being. It is the articulated form of the idea, the expressed felt meaning of a felt-experiential essence. Original expression of pure intelligence (nous) from source (arche.)

mimesis

Imitation, mimicry. This is distinguished from logos, or true speech, true expression coming from the authentic source of beingness in you.

It is indicating or representing a state or action from memory, rather than sourcing an entirely new form of being in the present moment.

nomos

Convention, conventional forms of thought, feeling and action, pertaining to both individuals and to society in general. Social norms. Mental fixation on literalness of appearances (perceptual/conceptual literalness.) Conventional representational thought and language, leading, when by itself, to the distortions and illusions of perceptual literalness.

nous

The natural intelligence that you tap into when you put your attention on the Life-in-you and let it come into expression, into true speaking and expressing (logos.)

It is immediate and direct transcendental intuitive intelligence, the quality and state of awareness that is capable of cognizing true ideai, in the act of felt experiential knowing. This quality of attentive awareness is re-awakened (in anemnesis) through the dialectical process of finer and finer discriminating in the energy and movement of felt-experiencing, so that levels of awareness that transcend ego-consciousness and conventional mental fixations (doxa) are entered.

Noesis is the activity of nous.

on

Usually translated as "Being." Being is our ordinary Consciousness prior to perceiving any objects whatsoever. In other words, Transcendental Consciousness without an object.

This has mistakenly been thought of as either non-existent (skeptical thinkers) or as an object of attainment (religious or spiritual seekers.) Being is not an object, so it can neither be non-existent nor can it be attained. It is who or what is aware of objects when we are awake and aware. Emptiness, Nothingingness (no-thing-ness.)

Some Eastern philosophies make emptiness/nothingness into a sort of idolotrous goal of seeking, an ultimate only attained by buddhas or adepts. This is utter nonsense. Being, emptiness, nothingness, whatever you want to call it, is just awareness being aware. Even the drunk stumbling out of the bar has it. It is immediate, just there. That immediate, "just there" awareness by which we are aware of whatever we are aware of, is Being.

onoma

Name, what something is called. This is the symbolic form that refers to the thing in common language. It is the word as a sound or group of letters strung together. The sleeping mind has a tendency to grab onto words and take them as if they were things. This is the mistake of literalness. We see this in all forms of "fundamentalism," but it is not widely noticed that there is also perceptual fundamentalism, in which we take what we see and experience as real and solid without ever exploring or examining what is happening in us when we do that. Dialectic wakes us up to do just that.

orthotes

Truth as representational accuracy, factual (conventional) correctness according to nomos. A correct statement. Related to doxa and distinguished from aletheia.

ousia

Being as existence, or the essential being of something. Distinguished from On, Being in and of itself.

Parousia is presence, or the presencing of Being (see phainesthai.)  Being coming into felt-experiencing as your feeling of the Life-in-you.

paideia

Comprehensive culture and learning; higher education and learning, as much social and political as individual. Dialectical paideia is the specifically moral/spiritual higher learning that takes place through Dialectic.

pathos

Passivity, a state of subjective self-concern, being at the effect of outer influences or emotional passions. One is then is a state of epithymia.

The word "pathological" derives from this, but we do not take it in its modern meaning as something to cure, heal, correct or adjust. It is, rather, a moral commitment that we make in ignorance (lethe.) We can wake up (anemnesis) from the hypnotic trance of pathos through fine discrimination in the process of experiencing (dianoetic eikasia, see eikasia) brought about by Dialectic.

phainesthai

Shining forth. Presencing, meaning that a felt-sense of some form of the Life-in-you comes into your awareness. You feel and experience the presence of some form of experiencing (some eidos), on whatever level, as a felt-sense and not just as an object.

philia

Moral/spiritual friendship; unqualified spiritual love, mutual presencing of Being, true friendship in the logos. It is the action of giving appreciative attention. This is what takes place in DEPTH Dialogue between the dialoguing partners. It is what allows the process to happen.

phronesis

Practical wisdom, in the sense of correct discernment of right action in accordance with the idea of the good (agathos, what is "good for me.") This is the necessary practical condition for true happiness, as you bring your inner discernment into true speech and expression (logos.)

It is right action in accordance with physis and with the idea of the good.

physis

The flow of natural functioning; the life-force (life energy) in nature and in direct felt-experiencing (the Life-in-you.). It is the force of the natural arising of Being into felt experiencing or presencing.

poiein

The word "poetry" comes from this, meaning here not just literary creating but any creating. Specifically, in Dialectic it is the act of creating in physis (the flow of the Life-in-you.)  It is the totality of the artistic process of creating, in nature, action and experiencing.

pseudos

Falsity, falseness in perception, self-deception caused by perceptual illusions. A fantasy image taken literally (i.e., an eidolon or onoma taken to be an eidos.)  The corrective for this is dianoetic eikrasia (see eikasia.)

psyche

Most often translated as "soul," but the functional view of ancient language and conceptualization shows that Plato and the ancients did not posit the existence of a separate, self-existing spiritual entity, what moderns would call the "soul."

For Plato it is the aware (but not necessarily conscious) presencing of Being in felt-experiencing. It is the unique vibrational blend of qualities of the Life-in-you whereby you are recognizable as an individual being present here and now.

The human being is "not a thing or a person but a presencing of Being" (Heidegger.) This presencing is felt and experienced in awareness in the intimate relationship fostered by Dialectic.

psyches therapeia

Caring for the psyche, which is the fundamental attitude of dialectical inquiry.

Dialectic itself could be called psyches therapeia. But it is nothing like modern pyschotherapy. Rather, it is a felt shift to wisdom (sophia, meaning, moral right action) through acts of fundamental inner self-correction (experiential moral choice.)

sophia

True wisdom. This means moral wisdom, in the sense of gaining the functional ability to bring the spontaneous forms that flow from the Life-in-you into true speech and expression (logos.) This level of functioning naturally results in true happiness, by direct participation in theos.

It is the aim of philosophy, which means philo-sophia (philia, giving appreciative attention, to sophia.) This is an act of devotion of the awakened intellect in you to the Life-in-you. This action is what the later philosopher Spinoza called the emotion that transcends all the pathos emotions, taking us into sophrosyne and blessedness (ecsatic bliss in theos.)

soma

Body as organic, living, aware, felt-experiential process, not as object or thing.

sophrosyne

Usually translated as "temperance" or "self-control" but these are terms that derive from protestant christian ascetisism and not from Greek Platonic eroticism, which is what the functional view of Plato sees as the basis for DEPTH Dialogue.

A dynamic view of this is that of a condition of being centered, present within self, steady within the essential presencing act of felt-experiencing, while exploring and examining your eros (pleasures, loves, attractions.) Also, this condition carried into true speech and action (logos.)

A simple translation of this would be "truthful inner feeling" or "truthful inner felt-experiencing." It means being true to what you really feel inside, based on direct sensitive bodily felt-experiencing, rather than simply responding to superficial feelings that come from urges, impulses or unconscious triggers.

This may be the most important word in Plato's Dialogues because it is the key to understanding the deep inward practice of Socratic Dialogue,which could be characterized as practicing sophrosyne in eros. (See the section in The Heart Of It on Deep Loving Friendship for an in-depth discussion of this.)
 
Contrasted to epithymia, being off-centered in your being and acting.

techne

The word "techological" comes from this. Skill, know-how, practical aptitude, craft.

There are certain elements of Dialectic that are essential, like feeling the Life-in-you and asking questions into that life. There are also elements that are a matter of know-how, like the specific questions to ask. While not essential, these are important, like tools are to any artist.

(See the section on Basics for a thorough discussion of the techne of DEPTH Dialogue, and the Advanced section for the art of it.)

telos

Vector and directedness of the life force (Life-in-you) in any action. It is the direction of the original intention (idea.) Purpose, aim, direction. Where the energy is headed or pointed. Not an aim or goal, because that is a conscious choice of coming out of memory. This is deeper, coming from source (arche) into true speech (logos.)

theoria

Clear vision of ideai and eide brought about through the function of nous.

A view or viewpoint, a picture of whatever is under consideration. In DEPTH Dialogue, it is your current focus of attention. (Also see hypothesis.)

theos

The divine. The divine self-radiance of Being, the life-flow that spontaneously springs from transcendental Consciousness. We experience it directly as the Life-in-us.

It is source (arche) as light and love-radiance in Consciousness. The divine, blissful level of Consciousness where ideai have their first impulse of arising and taking shape (forming into eide.) This is a level of experiencing characterized by inner light or luminosity springing from transcendental Consciousness (hence, divine) whereby all forms of experience shine forth (phainesthai.)

When we get into it, we function at the Spontaneous Emergence level.

thymos

Passion, spirit (as in the phrases, "a spirited horse", "a spirited fighter"); inner drive or power; vital force.

ti esti

One of the fundamental primary Socratic questions.

"What is it?"

This is asking for the essence of something, the essence of your subjective experience of a specific focus, which is seen time and time again in the Dialoues where Socrates first asks this question and then dismisses answers based on mere thoughts or opinions, so that the inquiry can go deeper.

It is asking to bring an unclear felt sense (what is concealed, lethe) into articulated felt meaning (unconcealing, aletheia.)

tode ti

This thing, this something.

It is what we are seeking when we ask for the essence of something (ti esti.) It is what we are looking for when we ask for the crux or essence of "all that" (whatever) in our felt-experiencing. It gives us its eidos and its ousia (its essential being.)

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