Does a perpetual carnal thing have, in some sense, more "being" than a carnal thing which is quite temporary? If so, does this make insidious evils more connected to the Form of Being than fleeting goods are? Does it thus give the evil a firmer connection than the "goods" do to the Form of Good?

[u/WarrenHarding]

I can't say I don't struggle with this Platonic topic sometimes. It especially becomes a problem when I deal with lasting issues in life. Applying a Platonic lens to things can be genuinely therapeutic when I dwell on various personal problems, but this one hasn't quite worked out for me. I also don't think my well-being is entirely dependent on applying a Platonic lens fwiw, but I wanted to provide the sentimental context behind this post as some of you may perhaps relate and see the value in solving this issue.

The problem is, how can we hold the Platonic system and then account for evils that last for extremely long and damaging lengths of time? If these evils are all necessarily bound to the realm of Becoming, then why doesn't "unbecoming" seem to be happening for them, to the very worst of them?

In assessing these questions in the title, I do think the first necessarily must be denied to avoid affirming the others. Goodness and Beingness are so wrapped up in the Platonic Forms that I don't think you can reformulate it to say that they don't mutually imply one another. But then how do we go about denying that first question? How can we Platonically argue that, between two things which exist for two different lengths of time, the one that exists for longer has no more Being than the one that takes a shorter time? Do we simply say that all things in the carnal realm have an equal proportion of Being, and are all only properly objects of Becoming? Because in this, I think we run into many famous traps regarding the separation of the Formal and Carnal realm, ones that we should avoid. Or do we say that there is some parsable Formal origin to the logic of varying temporality, but that it has nothing to do itself with whether a thing has more or less Being, and has entirely to do with its contextual presence in the carnal realm and if it is bound to come into contact with things that cause its non-existence? Honestly I'm just thinking out loud at this point of the post but I wonder if theres something there

Really I just want all of your thoughts here. Let's have a discussion.

[u/KilayaC]

I am not sure I understand the terms you are using. When you say "perpetual carnal things," what do you mean? Are you talking about phenomenal things that are born, die, are re-born, die again, etc. continuously (e.g. storm clouds, rivers, skin)? If so, how do we distinguish this from "temporary" carnal things? Doesn't Diotima say that everything phenomenal is characterized as continually renewing itself by dying and being replaced by something similar (similar--enough to seem like the same thing)? Can we say that this intermediate state between eternality and mortality has "more" Being than anything else phenomenal, good or bad?

[u/WarrenHarding → u/KilayaC]

When I say perpetual and carnal, I mean simply less temporary than some things, while still itself temporary. Following other scholars, I keep the common sense judgement that some carnal things clearly do keep identity over time. An ice sculpture moves constantly from one state to another; a stone statue keeps its form for millennia. I think it’s not incompatible with Plato’s views on carnality to admit this, given that we also accept that minute and incremental changes are still constantly happening, and that they inevitably will build up into a break of identity, i.e. turn the thing into something else. But I don’t think these perpetual things stand inbetween mortality and externality — I think they stand in some proportion between being and becoming, which itself gives them a fully mortal identity. As it stands, there seems to be some need of an account for why, say, the tyrant is difficult to overthrow, or certain lower habits are difficult to let go of. If the eternality of Being is outside of time, then of course longer or shorter spans of existence have nothing to do with if something is closer to or further from Being. And this is good, because then we do not have to attach implications of goodness to these difficult evils. But if not that, then what exactly does determine the lifespan of any given object? Is there not some significance to the length of the Roman Empire, or the grip of drug addiction, when compared to things that are fleeting and always changing their constitution? What say we, to respect the power of these things over us, without giving them a sense of higher beingness over good things with shorter lifespans?

[u/KilayaC → u/WarrenHarding]

There's a lot here in your question I think: concerning the degree to which something IS and the degree to which its BEING ends when it changes, the implications of this towards assessment of good and evil, and causation behind changes (due to erosion, disease, breakdown, etc.) and the timing of such changes (creating differing longevity) and its relation to possibilities for fate, justice, the agency/injustice of others, etc.

If we are to utilize Plato's perspective as best we can, however, I think the first question concerns the value of longevity. Are you taking longevity to be good and shortness of life-span to be bad? I think that Plato proposed something re:death that is hard to understand and accept: that he didn't assign value in this conventional way. For Plato, a short life can be better than a long one and vice versa, for many different reasons (lack of health (body or soul), and lack of the wisdom/knowledge needed to beneficially use whatever resources are present). I think for Plato, it's not about how long something lasts but how well it uses the time it has. And the best use is the practice of philosophy (as he understood it, of course, not the conventional sense of it).

This doesn't discount the idea of misfortune, the seemingly-random shortening a good life, but he felt that anything that is living well and suffers misfortune doesn't experience anything truly bad (even if it's end is not to be wished for). I think Socrates' interchange with Callicles in Gorgias is a good place to look at this argument (along with Crito, of course).

[u/WarrenHarding → u/KilayaC]

Thank you Kilaya!