Taylor, Thomas 1804. General Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato. In: The Works of Plato, viz. his fifty-five dialogues, and twelve epistles, translated from the Greek; nine of the dialogues by the late Ployer Sydenham, and the remainder by Thomas Taylor: With occasional annotations on the nine dialogues translated by Sydenham, and copious notes, by the latter translator; in which is given the substance of nearly all the existing Greek MS. commentaries on the philosophy of Plato, and a considerable portion of such as are already published. In five volumes. Vol. 1. London: Thomas Taylor, iii-cxv. [Internet Archive]
"Philosophy," says Hierocles, "is the purification and perfection of human life. It is the purification, indeed, from material irrationality, and the mortal body; but the perfection, in consequence of being the resumption of our proper felicity, and a reascent to the divine likeness. To effect these two is the province of Virtue and Truth; the former exterminating the immoderation of the passions; and the latter introducing the divine form to those who are naturally adapted to its reception." (Taylor 1804: iii)
Taylor's translation of Iamblichus was my first introduction to ancient philosophy, so this feels like circling back. "Felicity" is his equivalent for happiness. Material irrationality vs divine form.
Of philosophy thus defined, which may be compared to a luminous pyramid, terminating in Deity, and having for its basis the rational soul of man and its spontaneous unperverted conceptions, - of this philosophy, august, magnificent, and divine, Plato may be justly called the primary leader and hierophant, through whom, like the mystic light in the inmost recesses of some sacred temple, it first shone forth with occult and venerable splendor. (Taylor 1804: iii)
Already got a title for the post.
Hence it is easy to collect [|] its preeminence to all other philosophies; to show that where they oppose it they are erroneous; that so far as they contain any thing scientific they are allied to it; and that at best they are but rivulets from this vast ocean of thruth. (Taylor 1804: iii-iv)
Taylor clearly does not distinguish religion from philosophy. The cart is before the horse, as depicted in this here image of other philosophy-rivers flowing from the ocean of Plato's philosophy: water flowing uphill, defying gravity.
Of all the dogmas of Plato, that concerning the first principle of things as far transcends in sublimity the doctrine of other philosophers of a different sect, on this subject, as this supreme cause of all transcends other causes. For, according to Plato, the highest God, whom in the Republic he calls the good, and in the Parmenides the one, is not only above soul and intellect, but is even superior to being itself. Hence, since every thing which can in any respect be known, or of which any thing can be asserted, must be connected with the universality of things, but the first cause is above all things, it is very properly said by Plato to be perfectly ineffable. (Taylor 1804: v)
Hen.
Let us then consider body, (that is, a triply extended substance,) endued with quality; for this is the first thing effable by us, and is sensible. (Taylor 1804: vii)
A point is extended to a line; a line is extended to a surface; and a surface is extended to a body.
For elements are always indigent of each other, and that which is composed from elements is indigent of the elements. In short, this sensible nature, and which is so manifest to us, is neither body; for this does not of itself move the senses, nor quality; for this does not possess an interval commensurate with sense. Hence, that which is the object of sight, is neither body nor colour; but coloured body, or colour corporalized, is that which is motive of the sight. And universally that which is sensible, which is body with a particular quality, is motive of sense. From hence, it is evident that the thing which excites the sense is something incorporeal. For if it was body, it would not yet be the object of sense. Body therefore requres that which is incorporeal, and that which is incorporeal, body. (Taylor 1804: viii)
Really mushy philosophy. We don't see bodies, we see the colors of bodies. When we see a piece of cheese in front of us on the table, what we're really seeing is the colour of cheese. Therefore cheese is something incorporeal.
Let it then be supposed to be that which is called nature, being a principle of motion and rest, in that which is moved and at rest, essentially and not according to accident. For this is something more simple, and is fabricative of composite forms. If, however, it is in the things fabricated, and does not subsist separate from, nor prior to them, but stands in need of them for its being, it will not be unindigent; though it possesses something transcendent with respect to them, viz. the power of fashioning nad fabricating them. (Taylor 1804: ix)
Absolutely incomprehensible.
By the like arguments we may show that the principle cannot be irrational soul, whether sensitive, or orectic. For if it appears that it has something separate, together with impulsive and gnostic energies, yet at the same time, it is bound in body, and has something inseparable from it; since it is not able to convert itself to itself, but its energy is mingled with its subject. (Taylor 1804: x)
Define:orectic - "of or concerning desire or appetite."
But the impulses of other irrational animals are uniform and spontaneous, are moved together with the sensible organs, and require the senses alone that they may obtain from sensibles the pleasurable, and avoid the painful. (Taylor 1804: x)
All birdsong is the same sequence of notes called Pachelbel's Canon.
Besides the one here is indigent of the many, because it has its subsistence in the many. Or it may be said, that this one is collective of the many, and this not by itself, but in conjunction with them. (Taylor 1804: xii)
Totality is the unity of plurality type stuff.
Hence there is much of the indigent in this principle. For since intellect generates in itself its proper plenitudes from which the whole at once receives its completion, it will be itself indigent of itself, not only that which si generated of that which generates, but also that which generates of that which is generated, in order to the whole completion of that which wholly generates itself. (Taylor 1804: xii)
Go generate yourself.
It has therefore, if it be lawful so to speak, an ultimate vestige of indigence, just as on the contrary matter has an ultimate echo of the unindigent, or a most obscure and debile impression of the one. (Taylor 1804: xv)
Define:debile - "feeble"; "having no strength, muscle, or power"; "botany. having no ability to bear or hold up flowers or leaves." Huh.
And indeed the soul which moves the body, must be considered as a more proper self-moved essence. This, however, is two-fold, the one rational, the other irrational. For that there is a rational soul is evident: or has not every one a consensation of himself, more clear or more obscure, when converted to himself in the attentions to and investigations of himself, and in the vital and gnostic animadversions of himself? For the essence which is capable of this, and which can collect universals by reasonnig, will very justly be rational. The irrational soul also, though it does not appear to investigate these things, and to reason with itself, yet at the same time it moves bodies from place to place, being itself previously moved from itself; for at different times it exerts a different impulse. (Taylor 1804: xvii)
Self-perception meets motivity. The ending quite naturally resembles Reggie Watts' "You can move objects from one area to another. You can feel your body. You can say, "I'd like to go over to this location," and you can move this mass of molecules through the air over to another location, at will."
But it would be absurd to say that the energies of every irrational soul are not the energies of that soul, but of one more divine; since they are infinite, and mingled with much of the base and imperfect. For this would be just the same as to say that the irrational energies are the energies of the rational soul. (Taylor 1804: xviii)
Thereby exploding Charles Fourier's theory that human passions are also god's creation. For how could the perfect being who created the ever-expanding universe, create something that is many.
Nor does irrational appetite desire itself, but aspires after a certain object of desire, such as honour, or pleasure, or riches. (Taylor 1804: xviii)
Oddly enough: (0) pleasure; (1) riches; (2) honour. Discovering (3) truth is supposed to be the highest pleasure, and gaining riches and honour merely lower pleasures, while food, drink and sex provide the lowest pleasures.
[...] for it appears in a certain respect to subsist by itself, separate from a subject; so that it becomes doubtful whether it is self-motive, or alter-motive. (Taylor 1804: xix)
Auto- and allo-motivity.
But let there be the united and the unical, and, if you will, the two principles bound and the infinite. Plato, however, never in any respect makes a negation of the one which is beyond all these. (Taylor 1804: xxii)
According to Urban Dictionary, a unical is "A man without testicles".
And in short, so far as it is admitted [|] to be one, so far it will be coarranged with other things which are the subject of position. (Taylor 1804: xxii-xxiii)
Kooskorrastus (vt Durant 1936: 6).
Thus too, whatever possesses symmetry, and whatever is true, and all principles, are in a certain respect connate with the first principle, so far as they are principles and fountains and goodnesses, with an appropriate subjection and analogy. (Taylor 1804: xxv)
Define:connate - "(especially of ideas or principles) existing in a person or thing from birth; innate."
As the monad and the centre of a circle are images from their simplicity of this greatest of principles, so likewise do they perspicuously shadow forth to us its causal comprehension of all things. For all number may be considered as subsisting occultly in the monad, and the circle in the centre; this occult being the same in each with causal subsistence. (Taylor 1804: xxvii)
"Occultly" (neo)pythagorean.
Hence, since the soul imparts life and motion to other things, on which account Aristotle calls an animal αυτοϰινητον, self-moved. it will much more, and by a much greater priority, impart life and motion to itself. (Taylor 1804: xxxi)
Loom on iseliikur.
But as this is by no means the case, it principally derives its immediate subsistence from a deity of a fabricative characteristic, whom Plato calls Jupiter, conformably to the theology of Orpheus. (Taylor 1804: xxxi)
Not sure what this is about. Jupiter is the Roman equivalent of Zeul and there's nothing in eithers Wikipedia article about them being creator-gods.
Lastly, from all that has been said, it must, I think, be immediately obvious to every one whose mental eye is not entirely blinded, that there can be no such thing as a trinity in the theology of Plato, in any respect analogous to the Christian Trinity. For the highest God, according to Plato, as we have largely shown from riresistible evidence, is so far from being a part of a consubsistent triad, that he is not to be connumerated with any thing; but is so perfectly exempt from all multitude, that he is even beyond being; and he so ineffably transcends all relation and habitude, that language is in reality subverted about him, and knowledge refunded into ignorance. (Taylor 1804: xxxv)
No doubt partly why Christian theologists denounce Plato's thought as incompatible with Christianity and the stuff that various church councils have revealed as religion.
"But those," says Proclus, "who treats of divine concerns in an indicative manner, either speak symbolically and fabulously, or through images. And of those who openly announce their conceptions, some frame their discourses according to science, but others according to inspiration from the gods. And he who desires to signify divine concerns through symbols is Orphic, and, in short, accords with those who write fables respecting the gods. But he who does this through images is Pythagoric. For the mathematical disciplines were invented by the Pythagoreans, in order to a reminiscence of divine concerns, to which, through these as images, they endeavour to ascend. For they refer both numbers and figures to the gods, according to the testimony of their historians." (Taylor 1804: xxxvii)
What sorts of "images" did the Pythagoreans use?
Since, however, we possess intellect, opinion, and phantasy, demonstrations are given with a view to intellect: and hence Plato says, that if you are willing to energize according to intellect, you will have demonstrations bound with adamantine chains; if according to opinion, you will have the testimony of renowned persons; and if according to the phantasy, you have fables by which it is excited; so that from all these you will derive advantage. (Taylor 1804: xli)
Finally something helpful for my undertaking: this connects "opinion" with the honour-lover psychological type. And naturally so, because honour, renown and opinion are related: "honour" is a type of opinion (the same person some consider honourable, others not). It's a more sensible connection between the parts of the soul and the divided line than e.g. Reeve's, according to which "The intellectual resources of a money-lover amount to no more than opinion" (p. 98), and the strained justification of why honour-lovers should be limited to figures or "scientific-thought" because of frustrated pleasures or something (p. 248).
"It is necessary, however, to evince, that each of the dogmas accords with Platonic principles, and the mystic traditions of theologists. For all the Grecian theology is the progeny of the mystic doctrine of Orpheus; Pythagoras first of all learning from Aglaophemus the orgies of the gods, but Plato in the second place receiving an all-perfect science [|] of the divinities from the Pythagoric and Orphic writings. For in the Philebus, referring the theory about the two forms of principles (bound and infinity) to the Pythagoreans, he calls them men dwelling with the gods, and truly blessed. Philolaus, therefore, the Pythagorean, has left us in writing many admirable conceptions about these principles, celebrating their common progression into beings, and their separate fabrication. Again, in the Timæus, endeavouring to teach us about the sublunary gods and their order, Plato flies to theologists, calls them the sons of the gods, and makes them the fathers of the truth about these divinities." (Taylor 1804: xliii-xliv)
Taylor is once again quoting Proclus on the connection with Pythagoreanism.
The next important Platonic dogma in order, is that concerning ideas, about which the reader will find so much said in the notes on the Parmenides, that but little remains to be added here. That little however is as follows: The divine Pythagoras, and all those who have legitimately received his doctrines, among whom Plato holds the most distinguished rank, asserted that there are many orders of beings, viz. intelligible, intellectual, dianoëtic, physical, or, in short, vital and corporeal essences. For the progression of things, the subjection which naturally subsists together with such progression, and the power of diversity in coordinate genera, give subsistence to all the multitude of corporeal and incorporeal natures. They said, therefore, that there are three orders in the whole extent of beings, viz. the intelligible, the dianoëtic, and the sensible; and that in each of these ideas subsist, characterized by the respective essential properties of the natures by which they are contained. And with respect to intelligible ideas, these they placed among [|] divine natures, together with the producing, paradigmatic, and final causes of things in a consequent order. For if these three causes sometimes concur, and are united among themselves (which Aristotle says is the case), without doubt this will not happen in the lowest works of nature, but in the first and most excellent causes of things, which on account of their exuberant fecundity have a power generative of all things, and from their converting and rendering similar to themselves the natures which they have generated, are the paradigms or exemplars of all things. But as these divine causes act for their own sake, and on account of their own goodness, do they not exhibit the final cause? Since therefore intelligible forms are of this kind, and are the leaders of so much good to wholes, they give completion to the divine orders, though they largely subsist about the intelligible order contained in the artificer of the universe. But dianoëtic forms or ideas imitate the intellectual, which have a prior subsistence, render the order of soul similar to the intellectual order, and comprehend all things in a secondary degree. (Taylor 1804: xlix-l)
Somewhat difficult. There are those (e.g. Chase and Clay) who argue that Plato got his doctrine of ideas from the pythagoreans. That the pythagoreans distinguished between rational and irrational (e.g. intelligible and sensible) is got from Aristotle's Metaphysics. And then there are those who claim that they were the first to deal with the theory of definition, i.e. organizing things into genus and species. Sadly, the second part of this passage is incomprehensible to me - what are the three causes? What even is this.
In the Timaæus, he manifestly asserts that the demiurgusu implanted these dianoëtic forms in souls, in geometric, arithmetic, and harmonic proportions: but in his Republic (in the section of a line in the 6th book) he calls them images of intelligibles; and on this account does not for the most part disdain to denominate them intellectual, as being the exemplars of sensible natures. (Taylor 1804: l)
Something, something, Gorgias 508a.
In what manner then, says Syrianus, do ideas subsist according to the contemplative lovers of truth? We reply, intelligibly and tetradically (νοητως ϰαι τετραδιϰως), in animal itself (εν τῳ αυτοζωῳ), or the extremity of the [|] intelligible order; but intellectually and decadically (νοερως ϰαι δεϰαδιϰως), in the intellect of the artificer of the universe: for, according to the Pythagoric Hymn, "Divine number proceeds from the retreats of the undecaying monad, till it arrives at the divine tetrad which produced the mother of all things, the universal recipient, neverable, circularly investigating all things with bound, immovable and unwearied, and which is denominated the sacred decad, both by the immortal gods and earth-born men." (Taylor 1804: lii-liii)
Golden Verses 46-51.
As the world too, considered as one great comprehending whole, is called by Plato a divine animal, so likewise every whole which it [|] contains is a world, possessing, in the first place, a self-perfect unity; proceeding from the ineffable, by which it becomes a god; in the second place, a divine intellect; in the third place, a divine soul; and in the last place, a deified body. (Taylor 1804: lv-lvi)
The world-soul graded according to the divided line.
In answer to such like cant, for it is nothing more, - a cant produced by the most profound ignorance, and frequently attended with the most deplorable envy, I ask, is then the Delphic precept, KNOW THYSELF, a trivial mandate? Can this be accomplished by every man? Or can any one properly know himself without knowing the rank he holds in the scale of being? And can this be effected without knowing what are the natures which he surpasses, and what those are by which he is surpassed? And can he know this without knowing as much of those natures as it is possible for him to know? (Taylor 1804: lviii)
The answer to "Who am I?" is for the neoplatonist the same as to "Who am I in comparison with Santa Claus and the tooth fairy?"
After this follows the irrational nature, the summit of which is the phantasy, or that power which perceives every thing accompanied with figure and interval; and on this account it may be called a figured intelligence (μορϕωτιϰη νοησις). This power, as Jamblichus beautifully observes, grows upon, as it were, and fashions all the powers of the soul; exciting in opinion the illuminations from the senses, and fixing in that life which is extended with body, the impressions which descend from intellect. Hence, says Proclus, it folds itself about the indivisibility of true intellect, conforms itself to all formless species, and becomes perfectly every thing, from which the dianoëtic power, and our indivisible reason consists. Hence too, it is all things passively which intellect is impassively, and on this account Aristotle calls it passive intellect. Under this subsist anger and desire, the former resembling a raging lion, and the latter a many-headed beast; and the whole is bounded by sense, which is nothing more than a passive perception of things, and on this account is justly said by PLato to be rather passion than knowledge; since the former of these is characterized by inertness, and the latter by energy. (Taylor 1804: lxi)
If I'm reading this correctly, then Taylor divides both rational and irrational parts of the soul into triads. The preceding pages dealt with the rational part and did not make enough sense for me to elucidate how exactly the "theoretic", "intellect in capacity" and dianoia are interrelated. Here, the irrational part is at least clearly ordered: (3) the phantasy, which is yet a kind of intelligence - of figures - and communicates with the rational parts; (2) the angry lion; (1) the desiring beast; and all of them are as-if encapsulated in (0) sense-perception.
But it contains intelligibles after the manner of an image, and receives partibly their impartible forms, such as are uniform variously, and such as are immovable, according to a self-motive condition. (Taylor 1804: lxii)
Plotinian nonsense.
For the essence of man subsisting as a medium between dæmoniacal natures, who always have an intellectual knowledge of divinity, and those beings who are never adapted by nature to understand him, it ascends to the former and descends to the latter, through the possession and desertion of intellect. For it becomes familiar both with the divine and brutal likeness, through the amphibious condition of its nature. (Taylor 1804: lxvi)
Demons - they know god.
The medium, therefore, must be that whose essence is eternal, but energy temporal. And the three orders which compose this frist middle and last are, the intellectual, psychical (or that pertaining to soul), and corporeal. For from what has been already said by us concerning the gradation of beings, it is evident that the intellectual order is established in eternity, both in essence and energy; that the corporeal order is always in generation, or advancing to being, and this either in an infinite time, or in a part of time; and that the psychical is indeed eternal in essence, but temporal in energy. (Taylor 1804: lxxiii)
Mind, body, and soul - now distinguished in terms of essence and energy.
Hence Plato, looking to this, says in the Timæus, that the world is mingled from intellect and necessity, the former ruling over the latter. For by necessity here he means the motive cause of bodies, which in other places he calls Fate. (Taylor 1804: lxxiv)
Necessity is the motive cause of bodies?
For if these sciences receive the soul replete with images, and knowing nothing subtile, and unattended with material garrulity; and if they elucidate reasons possessing an irrefragable necessity of demonstration, [|] and forms full of all certainty and immateriality, and which by no means call to their aid the inaccuracy of sensibles, do they not evidently purify our intellectual life from things which fill us with a privation of intellect, and which impede our perception of true being? (Taylor 1804: lxxvi-lxxvii)
Define:irrefragable - "not able to be refuted or disproved; indisputable."
To such as these, who have gazed on the dark and deformed face of their nurse, till they are incapable of beholding the light of truth, and who are become so drowsy from drinking immoderately of the cup of oblivion, that their whole life is nothing more than a transmigration from sleep to sleep, and from dream to dream, like men passing from one bed to another, - to such as these, the road through which we have been travelling will appear to be a delusive passage, and the objects which we have surveyed to be nothing more than phantastic visions, seen only by the eye of imagination, and when seen, idle and vain as the dreams of a shadow. (Taylor 1804: lxxix)
"The psyche lives through a cycle of deaths and rebirths, and each rebirth is preceded by an amnesia-inducing drink of the waters of Oblivion." (Reeve 2006: 108) - From my own reading of the Republic, I concluded with the distinct impression that Plato is effectively telling you not to drink from that river but to pass through it to the other side - throat parched but memories intact. Here Taylor is using it as a figure imo too willy-nilly, as if it made a difference whether you drank a little or a lot: you'll forget your journey nevertheless; he's implying that it is the amount of drink during your stay in the fields of Lethe that has an effect on whether your next life-cycle you'll metaphorically look up or down. This seems like a very suspect addition.
The following arguments, however, may perhaps awaken some few of those who are less lethargic than the rest, from the sleep of sense, and enable them to elevate their mental eye from the dark mire in which they are plunged, and gain a glimpse of this most weighty truth, that there is another world, of which this is nothing more than a most [|] obscure resemblance, and another life, of which this is but the flying mockery. (Taylor 1804: lxxix-lxxx)
"Lethargy comes from the Greek lethargos, originally meaning "inactive through forgetfulness.""
Thus, to mention a few from among a countless multitude. In the catalogue of those endued [|] with sovereign power, it had for its votaries Dion the Siracusian, Julian the Roman, and Chosroes the Persian, emperor; among the leaders of armies, it had Chabrias and Phocion, those brave generals of the Athenians; among mathematicians, those leading stars of science, Eudoxus, Archimedes and Euclid; among biographers, the inimitable Plutarch; among physicians, the admirable Galen; among critics, that prince of philologists, Longinus; and among poets, the most learned and majestic Virgil. (Taylor 1804: lxxxiv-lxxxv)
A rundown of famous ancient platonists.
In our own country, however, though no one appears to have wholly devoted himself to the study of this philosophy, and he who does not will never penetrate its depths, yet we have a few bright examples of no common proficiency in its more accessible parts. The instances I allude to are Shaftesbury, Akenside, Harris, Petwin, and Sydenham. So splendid is the specimen of philosophic abilities displayed by these writers, like the fair dawning of some unclouded morning, that we have only deeply to regret that the sun of their genius sat, before we were gladdened with its effluence. (Taylor 1804: lxxxvi)
Only Shaftesbury rings familiar. Maybe: Mark Akenside (1721-1770), James Harris (1709-1780), Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689). Who this "Petwin" could have been, not even ChatGPT can say.
We have said that this philosophy at first shone through Plato with an occult and venerable splendour; and it is owing to the hidden manner in which it is delivered by him, that its depth was not fathomed till many ages after its promulgation, and when fathomed, was treated by superficial readers with ridicule and contempt. Plato indeed is not singular in delivering his philosophy occultly: for this was the custom of all the great antients; a custom not originating from a wish [|] to become tyrant in knowledge, and keep the multitude in ignorance, but from a profound conviction that the sublimest truths are profaned when clearly unfolded to the vulgar. This indeed must necessarily follow; since, as Socrates in Plato justly observes, "it is not lawful for the pure to be touched by the impure;" and the multitude are neither purified from the defilements of vice, nor the darkness of two-fold ignorance. Hence, while they are thus doubly impure, it is as impossible for them to perceive the splendours of truth, as for an eye buried in mire to survey the light of day. (Taylor 1804: lxxxvi-lxxxvii)
Concerning how both Pythagoras and Plato "grudged to communicate to others, the knowledge of sublime and valuable truths" (Spens 1763: xxv). Taylor's justification of it comes across as It's not that Plato was some sort of intellectual tyrant; it's just that he thought that the bulk of humanity is dirty trash unworthy of his sublime truths.
This task was reserved for men who were born indeed in a baser age, but who being allotted a nature similar to their leader, were the true interpreters of his mystic speculations. The most conspicuous of these are, the great Plotinus, the most learned Porhyry, the divine Jamblichus, the most acute Syrianus, Proclus the consummation of philosophic excellence, the magnificent Hierocles, the concisely elegant Sallust, and the most inquisitive Damascius. By these men, who were truly links of the golden [|] chait of deity, all that is sublime, all that is mystic in the doctrines of PLato (and they are replete with both these in a transcendent degree), was freed from its obscurity and unfolded into the most pleasing and admirable light. Their labours, however, have been ungratefully received. The beautiful light which they benevolently disclosed has hithero unnoticed illumined philosophy in her desolate retreats, like a lamp shining on some venerable statue amidst dark and solitary ruins. (Taylor 1804: lxxxvii-lxxxviii)
A rundown of the neoplatonists. And indeed it appears that most of history has regarded them with scorn, and only recent centuries have welcomed them with opened arms.
It would seem that those intemperate critics who have thought proper to revile Plotinus, the leader of the latter Platonists, have paid no attention to the testimony of Longinus concerning this most wonderful man, as preserved by Porphyry in his life of him. For Longinus there says, "that though he does not entirely accede to many of his hypotheses, yet he exceedingly admires and loves the form of his writing, the density of his conceptions, and the philosophic manner in which his questions are disposed." And in another place he says, "Plotinus, as it seems, has explained the Pythagoric and Platonic principles more clearly than those that were prior to him; for neither are the writings of Numenius, Cronius, Moderatus, and Thrasyllus, to be compared for accuracy with those of Plotinus on this subject." (Taylor 1804: lxxxix, fn 1)
Dammit.
In the next place, they had books to consult, written by the immediate disciplines of Plato, which have been lost for upwards of a thousand years, besides many Pythagoric writings from which Plato himself derived most of his more sublime dogmas. Hence [|] we find the works of Parmenides, Empedocles, the Eleatic Zeno, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and many other illustrious philosophers of the highest antiquity, who were either genuine Platonists, or the sources of the Platonism, are continually cited by these most excellent interpreters. (Taylor 1804: xci-xcii)
The early neoplatonists had the advantage of by now extinct literature.
It is necessary to observe, that in those dialogues, in which Socrates is indeed introduced, but sustains an inferior part, he is presented to our view as a learner, and not as a teacher; and this is the case in the Parmenides and Timæus. For by the former of these philosophers he is instructed in the most abstruse theological dogmas, and by the latter in the whole of physiology. (Taylor 1804: xcviii, fn 1)
Parmenides teaches physiology (i.e. physics or ontology), and Timaeus gives instruction in the most abstruse theological dogmas. The latter description is so well put.
Hence I have placed those dialogues first which ranks as wholes, or have the relation of a system, and afterwards those in which these systems are branched out into particulars. Thus, after the First Alcibiades, [|] which may be called, and appears to have been generally considered by the antients, an introduction to the whole of Plato's philosophy, I have placed the Republic and the Laws, which may be said to comprehend systematically the morals and politics of Plato. After these I have ranked the Timæus, which contains the whole of his physiology, and together with it the Critias, because of its connection with the Timæus. The next in order is the Parmenides, which contains a system of his theology. Thus far this arrangement is conformable to the natural progress of the human mind in the acquisition of the sublimest knowledge: the subsequent arrangement principally regards the order of things. After the Parmenides then, the Sophista, Phædrus, Greater Hippias, and Banquet, follow, which may be considered as so many lesser wholes subordinate to and comprehended in the Parmenides, which, like the universe itself, is a whole of wholes. For in the Sophista being itself is investigated, in the Banquet love itself, and in the Phædrus beauty itself; all which are intelligible forms, and are consequently contained in the Parmenides, in which the whole extent of the intelligible is unfolded. The Greater Hippias is classed with the Phædrus, because in the latter the whole series of the beautiful is discussed, and in the former that which subsists in soul. After these follows the Theætetus, in which science considered as subsisting in soul is investigated; science itself, according to its first subsistence, having been previously celebrated by Socrates in one part of the Phædrus. The Politicus and Minos, which follow next, may be considered as ramifications from the Laws: and, in short, all the following dialogues either consider more particularly the dogmas which are systematically comprehended in those already enumerated, or naturally flow from them as their original source. As it did not however appear possible to arrange these dialogues which rank as parts in the same accurate order as those [|] which we considered as wholes, it was thought better to class them either according to their agreement in one particular circumstance, as the Phædo, Apology, and Crito, all which relate to the death of Socrates, and as the Meno and Protagoras, which relate to the question whether virtue can be taught; or according to their agreement in character, as the Lesser Hippias and Euthydemus, which are anatreptic, and the Theages, Laches, and Lysis, which are maieutic dialogues. The Cratylus is ranked in the last place, not so much because the subject of it is etymology, as because a great part of it is deeply theological [...] (Taylor 1804: ciii-cv)
The totality. Taylor proceeds with from wholes to parts but also has theological considerations in mind. Personally, I would have picked up Cratylus up next because it deals with language and thus could be viewed semiotically.
As I profess to give the reader a translation of the genuine works of Plato only, I have not translated the Axiochus, Demodocus, Sisyphus, &c. as these are evidently spurious dialogues. (Taylor 1804: cv, fn 1)
Hmm. I wonder if these have been translated by now.
Of the translation of the Republic by Dr. Spens, it is necessary to observe, that a considerable part of it is very faithfully executed; but that in the more abstruse parts it is inaccurate; and that it every where abounds with Scotticisms which offend an English ear, and vulgarisms which are no less disgraceful to the translator than disgusting to the reader. Suffice it therefore to say of this version, that I have adopted it wherever I found it could with propriety be adopted, and given my own translation where it was otherwise. (Taylor 1804: cvii)
I did notice that the first few pages were almost identical. I'll take this as an indication that Spens's translation might actually deserve a reading - exactly because of the Scotticisms and vulgarisms.
To such as are destitute of these requisites, who make the study of words their sole employment, and the pursuit of wisdom but at best a secondary thing, who expected to be wise by desultory application for an hour or two in a day, after the fatigues of business, after mixing with the base multitude of mankind, laughing with the gay, affecting airs of gravity with the serious, tacitly assenting to every man's opinion, however absurd, and winking at folly however shameful and base - to such as these - and, alas! the world is full of such - the sublimest truths must appear to be nothing more than [|] jargon and reverie, the dreams of a distempered imagination, or the ebullitions of fanatical faith. (Taylor 1804: cxii-cxiii)
The base multitude of mankind. Jeebus.
It is well said indeed by Lysis, the Pythagorean, that to inculcate liberal speculations and discourses to those whose morals are turbid and confused, is just as absurd as to your pure and transparent water into a deep well full of mire and clay; for he who does this will only disturb the mud, and cause the pure water to become defiled. (Taylor 1804: cxiii)
One takes water out of a well. Why should someone pour water into a well?
Let not such then presume to explore the regions of Platonic philosophy. The land is too pure to admit the sordid and the base. The road which conducts to it is too intricate to be discovered by the unskilful and stupid, and the journey is too long and laborious to be accomplished by the effeminate and the timid, by the slave of passion and the dupe of opinion, by the lover of sense and the despiser of truth. (Taylor 1804: cxiv)
Gatekeeping some of the oldest philosophy we have because it contains some theology.
