28 – 9 – 2022

The Presence of the Past

I think of the Platonic tradition as a philosophical conversation that has unfolded over many centuries.  The conversation is about the nature of eternity and the relationship between the ephemeral and the eternal.  It’s core text consists of the Dialogues of Plato.  Over the centuries philosophers have found these Dialogues to be inspiring and they have commented upon, unpacked, restated, and expanded upon the insights found therein.

This relationship to the Dialogues of Plato found in the Platonic tradition, differs from the way the past is usually related to in modernity.  In modernity, the present is considered to be more insightful, more profound, more knowledgeable, ethically superior, and in general simply better in every way than what is found in the past.  The past is steeped in ignorance and barbarism and modernity has overcome the past.  I refer to this view as ‘chronocentrism’.

This view of the past means that the past is to be rejected because it is inherently flawed, that it has nothing to offer.  The past is not considered to be a repository of wisdom; rather the past is a swamp of misguided views, a swamp that must be drained.

This leads to methodologies like deconstruction which claims to uncover the true meaning of ancient culture; an uncovering that always exalts the insights of the contemporary moment as opposed to ancient insights.  In contrast to deconstruction, the ongoing conversation of the Platonic tradition builds upon the prior insights of the Platonic tradition and sees its past as a source of nourishment, insight, and reliable guidance.

The Platonic tradition resembles an eternal spring whose waters refresh and nourish all who come to its shores.