August 27, 2004
A Word on Plato
One of the things I find fascinating and appealing about Plato is the way his world view assumes an orderly, knowable universe, the existence and immortality of the soul, and other things that we would nowadays debate endlessly. I think the comfort inherent in an orderly universe is both part of his appeal and his strangeness, similar to that of religion (as I see it). Even coming from, for some moderns, a radically different perspective, he's still able to make convincing, imminently lucid arguments. Minor points, obviously, but these are the sorts of reflections I find much more enjoyable when shared. Otherwise they're just random comments lost in reams of notes.
By saying that Plato's "worldview assumes" all those things you completely disregard him as a philosopher and demote him to a pundit or polemicist. He speculates these things to be true based upon his reasoning. To miss this is to miss Plato's thought in favor of your own worldview, which states that these things must be assumed for they cannot be arrived at by reason. So what you really mean is that you find your own worldview fascinating and appealing because it helps you tuck Plato's thought into a neat little space on the shelf in your worldview.
I think Mallarme’s very point is that he doesn’t see the reasoning that leads to Plato’s conclusions w/r/t immortality, order, etc. He simply sees them put out there as givens.
The discussion might be better served by showing how it is you believe that Plato’s reasoning leads him to these conclusions.
Oh jebus. Fine, Plato doesn't "assume" it, but he does conclude it then use it *as an assumption* in his later writings. Harping on a particular turn of phrase to draw such broad conclusions about my own assumptions is not terribly helpful. I'm in no way trying to disregard him as a philosopher. That's practically the only reason I read him in the first place, so it wouldn't make much sense for me to get so much enjoyment and understanding out of him if I considered him a mere polemicist. Furthermore, you are making assumptions about my beliefs as well, ones which are not founded on anything but speculation. I am inclined to agree with Plato that the universe is knowable and orderly (though I'm not entirely certain), but that does not seem to be the only or even dominant opinion in modern thought, hence my comments.
Piraeus, thank you. You state my point quite well. I am not familiar with all his writings, but what I have read does not begin with the case that the universe is knowable then move on from there. They tend to begin from that assumption/reasoned speculation/belief.
Fair enough,
But I will post it on Piraeus at a later date, Mallarme
Mall:
You are correct. Mea culpa. My excuse: I quit smoking yesterday. Sorry for the snippy comment.
Hehehe... no problem. Congratulations on quitting. I hope you can keep it up. I also apologize for the tone of my comments. I regretted it shortly after posting them, so I hope they were not too offensive. Either way, please let me know when you post about Plato as I would love to read it. Unfortunately I'm not as good about checking the blogs anymore, so I may miss it otherwise.
Will do...aside from envisioning whirled peas...trying envisioning next Friday as a likely post date, as I have a sickeningly long project due for work, which I avoid even as I comment.