Post by johnbc on Oct 28, 2020 20:17:32 GMT
Plato’s idea of reminiscence is not a doctrine: it is a figure of speech, a poetic symbol. Plato’s reading has this problem, for Plato is not a philosopher like Aristotle, who expresses things in technical language. Plato is a poet, who is explaining everything in terms of symbols.
It is said that there was another aspect of Plato’s teaching, a more technical teaching given only to the most advanced students. That’s right, as Giovanni Reale proved, but that’s not what is in the dialogues. Dialogue is the beginning, the gateway, and this gateway is made in poetic language, without much precision. People spend a lot of time discussing “Plato’s doctrines,” but there is often no Plato doctrine: there are images, symbols to be understood. To say that your knowledge came from a previous life really requires an infinite sequence, because where did your knowledge come from in that previous life? It came from another previous life, and from another, and so on. But it is not a serious thing at all. Plato is using a figure of speech, as he does all the time.
When he explains love, for example, he says that in the past there were beings with four legs, four arms, two heads, etc., that were cut in half, and since then one part is looking for the other. Of course this is a figure of speech, because it would be a monstrous business. A two-headed bug cut in half? Good thing it cut, because before it was too ugly!
You should read Plato open to the suggestiveness of language, not wanting to draw philosophical conclusions, because the philosophical conclusions are not there. The conclusions are on the second floor, in the so-called “unwritten laws,” in the oral teachings. In the dialogues is just an infinite world of images, suggestions, etc. Socrates always shows that one opinion is wrong, the other is wrong, and so on, but what does he do when asked what his opinion is? He tells a myth; that is, he does not give an opinion, only suggests.
Susanne Langer who said that the symbol is a “matrix of intellections”, and therefore what Plato is giving you is not a philosophical intuition of truth, but a symbol that will proliferate in hundreds of intuitions. And this is the great advantage of reading Plato, for the symbol has a “hormonal” function in intelligence; it puts it to work. And that’s why it is pointless to discuss it.
Of course, the paradoxes that appear are really paradoxes, and you have to realize that they are; you have to be able to assemble the equation and realize the contradiction. But the equation is set up to open your intelligence to other perceptions: dialogues do not draw conclusions, but open the imagination to unlimited possibilities. And that’s why we read Plato, and it is in this sense that Plato feeds us with inspiration for the rest of our lives.
It is said that there was another aspect of Plato’s teaching, a more technical teaching given only to the most advanced students. That’s right, as Giovanni Reale proved, but that’s not what is in the dialogues. Dialogue is the beginning, the gateway, and this gateway is made in poetic language, without much precision. People spend a lot of time discussing “Plato’s doctrines,” but there is often no Plato doctrine: there are images, symbols to be understood. To say that your knowledge came from a previous life really requires an infinite sequence, because where did your knowledge come from in that previous life? It came from another previous life, and from another, and so on. But it is not a serious thing at all. Plato is using a figure of speech, as he does all the time.
When he explains love, for example, he says that in the past there were beings with four legs, four arms, two heads, etc., that were cut in half, and since then one part is looking for the other. Of course this is a figure of speech, because it would be a monstrous business. A two-headed bug cut in half? Good thing it cut, because before it was too ugly!
You should read Plato open to the suggestiveness of language, not wanting to draw philosophical conclusions, because the philosophical conclusions are not there. The conclusions are on the second floor, in the so-called “unwritten laws,” in the oral teachings. In the dialogues is just an infinite world of images, suggestions, etc. Socrates always shows that one opinion is wrong, the other is wrong, and so on, but what does he do when asked what his opinion is? He tells a myth; that is, he does not give an opinion, only suggests.
Susanne Langer who said that the symbol is a “matrix of intellections”, and therefore what Plato is giving you is not a philosophical intuition of truth, but a symbol that will proliferate in hundreds of intuitions. And this is the great advantage of reading Plato, for the symbol has a “hormonal” function in intelligence; it puts it to work. And that’s why it is pointless to discuss it.
Of course, the paradoxes that appear are really paradoxes, and you have to realize that they are; you have to be able to assemble the equation and realize the contradiction. But the equation is set up to open your intelligence to other perceptions: dialogues do not draw conclusions, but open the imagination to unlimited possibilities. And that’s why we read Plato, and it is in this sense that Plato feeds us with inspiration for the rest of our lives.
