>>24118984
>I just don’t think you can say he had no theories in general, which I now realize is not quite what you were saying, but is a common pseud take here
Sure.

>As for Parmenides and republic specifically I think you’re bonkers to say Plato didn’t believe in a first principle, the Good.
It's not. The Good is a hypothesized idea. Go back and look at 506b-e. His Socrates is depicted saying outright that he has only an opinion about the Good, and being cagey about sharing all of that opinion, so he directs a discussion of the Good at Glaucon that's relevant to discussing what's necessary to rule. Given that an education for understanding it is spelled out very thoroughly, you need to ask yourself whether Socrates actually received such an education, whether Plato received such an education, and if neither did, whether either of them could know the Good otherwise. And I don’t think it's a quibble to point out that the Good isn't a principle discussed in the Parmenides. If you object that it is discussed in the guise of the One, you would still have to address why the One is treated as a hypothesis for a set of exercises that are explicitly said to be able to take any hypothesis the same way, such that you can do all 8 exercises over the Same or Rest.

>It’s a historical fact that you are wrong - ever hear of “ On the Good”?
Sure, and it's related by a man who wasn't there for it. Aristoxenus, who takes every opportunity to criticize Plato, was neither an impartial witness, nor any witness at all, it's contents aren't reported by Aristotle's surviving writings, and gossip that those present of Plato's students wrote reports of it aren't quoted by the Neoplatonists, who were the only ones asserting it was written about by Speusippus, Aristotle, and etc. And again, Aristotle differs with Speusippus and Xenocrates over the interpretation of Plato. That's large evidence that there was disagreement from the beginning about how to understand Plato's positions, and how to understand the dialogues.

>But you can just claim “Phaedrus, 7th letter, 4d chess” to that too which is why I normally ignore these sorts of posts.
If an author writes a lot, and they have passages about how best to write and how to read, then taking those into account is paramount. I don't need to bring in the 7th Letter, because the Phaedrus already says out loud how to go about taking the dialogues as pieces of writing, and, as I said above, you'll just ignore it, even though it's plain as day.

As for the rest, my points remain standing. Either the differences between the early Academicians is explainable by Plato "teaching" by questioning in the manner of his dialogues, leaving room for disagreement and uncertainty, or it's explainable by guessing that he told them straightforwardly without regard for whether they could actually understand it. The latter is less likely than the former.

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discussing philosophy here or anywhere becomes unbearable after reading Kant. I'm not a Kantian and disagree with most of what he said but he was…