Renunciation

Renunciation

Time

Slow

Sunlight

Afternoon

February

A clear cloudless sky

The air is cold and dry

I am at peace in my room

In my silent hermitage

I sense the presence of God

The gentle touch of timelessness

Is so much more than I can grasp

I become inarticulate --

A coyote briefly trots by

A satellite is launched into space

Saturn is slowly turning direct

In Andromeda a new star is born

A sparrow appears on the windowsill

A new Buddhist Nun has her long hair shorn

An ocean wave becomes perfectly still

Anti-Platonism 1 -- David Hume

27 December 2022

Anti-Platonism 1 -- David Hume

“When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make?  If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?  No.  Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?  No.  Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

(David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, XII, Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy, 1748)

I think it is helpful to become familiar with what I call ‘Anti-Platonism’.  Such teachings, which are very numerous, help to clarify one’s own thought and to sharpen one’s own mind.  There are examples of Anti-Platonism in the Dialogues; mostly when Socrates disputes with Sophists.  Plato did not hesitate to bring into his Dialogues articulate views that oppose his own understanding.  It is consistent with that approach to turn, now and then, to contemporary Anti-Platonist arguments. 

1. In some ways I think of modernity as an Anti-Platonist project.  Sometimes this is explicit, meaning that Plato is specifically mentioned, and sometimes this is only clear if I have familiarity with Plato’s thought and perspective.

2.  Anti-Platonism is often openly hostile to metaphysics as such.  I used to see hostility to metaphysics as a very recent aspect of modernity, but that was because I had not been paying attention.  This quote by David Hume is a very good example of the kind hostility to metaphysics as such, that I am thinking of.

3.  A characteristic of Anti-Platonism is a deep intolerance to the idea of transcendence.  Hume regards transcendence as a complete folly.

4.  Modernity tends to think of itself as advanced, liberal (meaning open-minded), and above the primitive impulses of pre-modern societies and views.  But their often overt hostility and mean-spiritedness isn’t very far away. 

5.  One of the strategies of Anti-Platonism is to declare all metaphysical speculation or discussion to be without any meaning.  Only statements that can be quantified and empirically tested have meaning.  (It has often been pointed out that this idea does not have an empirical foundation, but never mind.)  In my own life, at an early period, I think I could have signed on to such an idea; it is attractive in its simplicity and adopting its perspective makes one feel in some way ‘above’ all those deluded religious and metaphysical thinkers without ever having to really grapple with what they argued or how they understood the world. 

I think what saved me from falling into this kind of error was music.  Music has always been a big part of my life; I am both a musician and composer.  Musical statements are meaningful in the sense that people value them, will spend time and treasure on the musical experience.  But though musical statements, such as melodies, rhythms, chord progressions, etc., are meaningful, that meaning is not empirically verifiable.  Nor does it make sense to say that, for example, a melody is true or false in the way that empiricists understand true and false.  In other words, there is this whole vast domain of meaning that I simply could not integrate into what I would now call an Anti-Platonist framework.  And for this reason, I was never able to take this line of reasoning seriously.

6.  It is interesting to me that Anti-Platonism understands the connection between metaphysics and asceticism and because Anti-Platonism is hostile to metaphysics it is also hostile to asceticism:

“Celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason are they everywhere rejected by men of sense, but because they serve to no manner of purpose; neither advance a man’s fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of society; neither qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor increase his power of self-enjoyment?  We observe, on the contrary, that they cross all these desirable ends: stupify the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper.”

(David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 1777, Section IX, Conclusion, Part 1; quoted at the blog ‘Grand Strategy’, 9 April 2019)

This kind of writing is just sad; it indicates the loss of the sense of an interior life.  But that is the world in which we live, a world where ‘monkish virtues’ are considered to be hindrances to a full life.  I used to think that it was contemporary psychology that undermined ascetic spirituality, but this quote by Hume indicates that this emerged far earlier than the practice of psychology. 

7.  To the extent that asceticism is foundational for Platonism, it is only natural that Anti-Platonism would regard the Ascetic Ideal and its attendant practices as foolish and, to repeat, meaningless.  For Anti-Platonism there is no transcendence, there is no emanation from the One, there is no the One.  The Cave in its darkest depths is the only reality.

8.  Nevertheless, Platonism has managed to remain alive and well even in the midst of modernity.  That is a great good fortune for humanity as a whole. 

 

 

Habits: The Ascetic Ideal -- 3

25 December 2022

Habits: The Ascetic Ideal -- 3

“It is said that Plato, after watching someone playing at dice, admonished him.  And when the man said that he played for an insignificant stake, Plato replied, ‘But the habit is not insignificant.’”

(Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, translated by Pamela Mensch, edited by James Miller, Oxford University Press, New York, 2018, pages 151 and 152, ISBN: 9780190862176)

1.  Cultivating habits that are helpful and useful for spiritual understanding is a common theme in spiritual traditions.  And avoiding habits that are hindrances to spiritual understanding are also a common theme in spiritual traditions.

2.  I see this kind of teaching as part of what Platonism means by ‘purification’.  Part of purification is to cease from engaging in activities that lead the soul to cling to sensory experience; avoiding gambling would fall into that kind of teaching.  The other part of purification is to cultivate habits that assist in our journey on the spiritual path, and are, in a sense, the spiritual path itself.  These are the traditional asceses of refraining from alcohol and intoxicants that cloud the clarity of the mind, sexual restraint, and vegetarianism/veganism.  But ascetic practices are not limited to these three and Plato in this interaction is applying the same logic to gambling, namely that we should refrain from gambling as it leads the soul to clinging to the material world.

3.  I think of stories like this one as revealing that at one level Platonist teachers were a kind of ‘spiritual coach’.  In sports, coaches will often admonish the athletes under their tutelage regarding diet, drugs, sexual behavior, etc., as part of their overall goal to transform them into excellent examples of athletic performance.  In a similar way, the Platonic teacher, or coach, suggests a life guided by purifications as a way of transforming a student into someone who has attained spiritual excellence.

4.  When I began to think of myself as a Platonist, I noticed that in comparison to Dharmic traditions like Buddhism and Jainism, there seemed to be something missing.  I had grown used to an explicit preceptual structure in Dharmic traditions such as the basic five precepts of Buddhism, and standard commitments that Jains adhere to whether they are lay or monastics.  There is no such list in Platonism, at least not in the simple and summary form one finds in Dharmic traditions.

Instead, in Platonism the practices that are the equivalent of Dharmic precepts are mentioned in scattered locations, in various Dialogues, and in subsequent literature.  This means that a student of Platonism won’t necessarily understand the practices of purification as specific asceses, at least at first.  It might take numerous readings to see the many passages that contain these teachings as not just something an individual takes on, but as defining commitments of the Platonic way.

It's possible that these kinds of purification practices were explicitly presented at some kind of ceremony which might have been done when someone officially joined a philosophical community.  There are hints of this in Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Killing Animals.  But these are only hints.

Eventually, with the help of some Platonist friends, I began to see the way purification practices are presented in the Dialogues, and other Platonist literature, as a plus.  Someone who diligently engages with works like the Dialogues and the Enneads, and many other works, will gradually come to an understanding of the significance of these specific purification practices.  And this gradual learning over an extended period of study leads, I think, to a more secure understanding of how purification works and the consequent rewards for a life framed by them.

Safe Harbor

Safe Harbor

Night falls

On the harbor

Night falls

Quick in winter

Saturn slowly descends

Into the fog

Hovering at the edge

Where the ocean and the sky blend

A stone stairway ascends

Stepping past the sun and the moon

Planets and galaxies dwindle and fade

Scattered petals from wind-blown blooms

All that's constructed and all that is made

Disappears in the depths of a hidden lagoon

There at the harbor of eternity

 

Participation

21 December 2022

Participation

“For what less does ‘literary skill’ have in comparison with ‘a particular literary skill’ and in general ‘body of knowledge’ in comparison with ‘a particular body of knowledge’?  For literary skill is not posterior to the particular literary skill but rather it is because literary skill exists that that in you exists; since that in you is particular by being in you, but in itself is the same as the universal.  And Socrates did not in his own person give being human to the non-human but humanity gave being human to Socrates: the particular human is so by participation in humanity.  Since what could Socrates be except ‘a man of a particular kind’ and what could the ‘of a particular kind’ do towards being more of a substance?  But if it is because ‘humanity is only a form’ but Socrates is ‘form in matter’, he would be less human in this respect: for the rational form is worse in matter.  But if humanity is not in itself form, but in matter, what loss will it have than the particular human in matter, when it is itself the rational form of something in a kind of matter?  Again, the more general is prior by nature, as the species is prior to the individual, but the prior by nature is also simply prior: how then could it be less?  But the individual is prior in relation to us because it is more knowable; but this does not make a difference in actual fact.”

(Plotinus, Ennead VI.3.9, Plotinus: Ennead VI.1-5, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988, page 207, ISBN: 9780674994904)

“The question may here be asked ‘What deficiency has grammar compared with a particular grammar, and science as a whole in comparison with a science?’  Grammar is certainly not posterior to the particular grammar: on the contrary, the grammar as in you depends on the prior existence of grammar as such: the grammar as in you becomes a particular by the fact of being in you; it is otherwise identical with grammar the universal.  Turn to the case of Socrates: it is not Socrates who bestows manhood upon what was previously not man, but Man upon Socrates; the individual man exists by participation in the universal.  Besides, Socrates is merely a particular instance of man; this particularity can have no effect whatever in adding to his essential manhood.  We may be told that Man [the universal – added by the translators] is Form alone, Socrates Form in Matter.  But on this very ground Socrates will be less fully man than the universal; for the Reason-Principle will be less effectual in Matter.  If, on the contrary, Man is not determined by Form alone, but presupposes matter, what deficiency has Man in comparison with the material manifestation of Man, or the Reason-Principle in isolation as compared with its embodiment in a unit of Matter?  Besides, the more general is by nature prior to the individual: but what is prior by nature is prior unconditionally.  How then can the Form take a lower rank?  The individual, it is true, is prior in the sense of being more readily accessible to our cognizance; this fact, however, entails no objective difference.”

(Plotinus, The Enneads, Ennead VI.3.9, translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page, various editions published between 1917 and 1930, found online at sacred-texts.com)

1.  I think this is a fine example of what Platonists mean by participation and why Platonists consider form to be prior to particulars, and that particulars depend for their existence on forms.

2.  I think a passage like this helps us to understand why Platonists were focused on the nature of numbers; because numbers are a good example of this relationship of the general to the particular, that the abstract number is present in particulars by participation.  For example, we can have 3 apples, 3 disagreements, 3 books by a particular author, 3 hours, etc.  All of these examples participate in the number 3 which is how we know that there are three of them, but the number 3 is prior to particular objects participating in them.  That is why Platonists say that numbers and their relationships are discovered rather than created by the human psyche.

3.  Another example of this kind of relationship is poetic form.  A poetic form is defined abstractly with a collection, or set, of requirements such as number of lines, rhyme scheme, syllables or poetic feet per line, etc.  Poets create in the form by their participation in the form, but the poetic form is prior to any poet’s participation.

4.  It takes a while for newcomers to Platonism to understand that from a Platonic perspective, forms are more real than material objects.  In my own case I had to remind myself how this works because I wasn’t used to seeing things in this way.  My experience with numbers (which is not great) was helpful, but, again, in my own case it was my experience with poetic form that opened the gate to the idea of form as prior to individual manifestations that participated in the forms, and that it is through this participation that we recognize the poems specific form.  I suspect that different people will have different routes to this kind of comprehension, based on their own familiarity with topics such as literary skill, grammar, mathematics, music, architecture, etc. 

 

 

Haiku

Cactus in the cold --

Pondering eternity

Nothing's new or old.

On Books

On Books

19 December 2022

Yesterday I posted regarding an essay by Pierre Hadot.  In the essay Hadot argues that ancient philosophy was primarily an oral culture, or rooted in oral communication and presentation.  Hadot suggests that the production of written works was not the primary purpose of ancient philosophy (what I would call Classical Philosophy).

At the end of the post, I talked a bit about books as a ‘living presence’, but I did not expand upon this perspective.  I think the relationship between books and contemporary Platonism is an intimate one, and I think Hadot’s comments bring to the foreground some of the issues of how books function in the Platonic tradition at this time.  Here are a few comments:

1.  The discussions about books verses the presence of a living teacher appears to revolve around the idea that a living teacher can communicate aspects that books cannot transmit.  But I am rather skeptical about this.  First, it is not clear to me that living teachers are more skillful than books are at such communication.  We experience errors in verbal communication all the time; misunderstandings, mishearings, irrelevant digressions, etc.  This is normal and nothing to complain about.  In Phaedrus it is suggested that books cannot defend themselves against misunderstanding by readers.  But what I want to suggest is that this also applies to an oral context in which a spiritual teacher of some kind is presenting their tradition.  What I’m getting at is that I don’t see that oral communication is inherently more effective in matters of spirituality than communication from a book.  An oral presentation is just as prone to misunderstanding as the reader of a book.

2.  I view books as a lifeform; that is to say I view books as living presences.  I think books, as a lifeform, also have soul, in a Platonic sense.  From this perspective, spiritual communication from books is a natural result of their presence as a lifeform, in the same way that scent is a natural result of the presence of flowers, in the same way that clouds are a natural result of the earth’s atmosphere, in the same way that nests are a natural result of the way birds live their lives, etc.  I’m suggesting that books are an emanation of human beings and their presence in the world. 

3.  I don’t want to be misunderstood, finding a gifted teacher of the way of Platonism is a wonderful thing; even finding a not-so-gifted teacher could prove to be helpful.  I am very grateful for the philosophy teachers I had in the past.  What I’m suggesting is that in the same way, finding the Platonic Dialogues and/or the Enneads of Plotinus is just as much a wonderful thing, just as helpful, and in some cases it may be more helpful.

4.  In the classical world there were great Platonic Academies in Athens and Alexandria and other less well-known ones in other locations.  In such a situation it would have been possible to connect with a living teacher of the Platonic tradition; that is what Plotinus did, a process which led Plotinus to Ammonias Saccas in Alexandria.  However, there are no such academies today, though there are small groups of dedicated Platonists that do the best they can.  But for most people in the world today, in the midst of modernity, the prospect of finding a living teacher of the Platonic tradition is remote.  Instead, what people find are the books, the written words, of Plato, Plotinus, and other Platonic Sages and what I want to suggest is that this is at least as efficacious as finding a living teacher because such books are living teachers.

5.  There are spiritual traditions where the value of written books is central to those traditions; two examples are Judaism and Confucianism.  In these traditions the meticulous study of works like the Torah and the Analects is part of the very definition of what it means to be a Sage.  In a similar way, I think a Platonic Sage is one who is dedicated to the books, to reading the books, of the Platonic tradition.

6.  Partly this has to do with the way someone reads.  In a previous post I said that spiritual reading requires a sense of humility.  Instead of a hermeneutic of critique one has to cultivate a hermeneutic of acceptance when reading works like the Dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus.

7.  At the end of Phaedrus there is an extended discussion about the written word verses oral interaction.  It is a very subtle analysis.  Nevertheless, I think that books have some advantages over oral interaction.  For example, a book can be read repeatedly.  I have done that with the Enneads for years.  What I have found, and what others have reported to me, is that repeated reading of the Enneads or the Dialogues always deepens the reader’s understanding and that often these repeated readings clarify what were before obscure passages or presentations difficult to understand.  In the case of the Dialogues of Plato this has to do with the primarily allegorical nature of Plato’s writing; allegory inherently has multiple meanings and implications beyond the plain, or lexical, meaning.  In the case of the Enneads the deepening understanding emerges from gradually comprehending how the knowledge of Plotinus all fits together; it’s like learning a new language where the various structures of speaking and meaning gradually become clear.

A second aspect of books is that books, as living beings, also give birth to other books.  I am thinking primarily of the great commentarial literature, both ancient and modern.  I remember an early encounter with this when I read a modern commentary on Phaedrus called Listening to the Cicadas.  It was very helpful and I found it inspiring that someone would be called to write a commentary on this ancient dialogue.  

This also applies to secondary literature such as the Handbook by Alcinous and all the other countless introductions and guides to Platonic understanding.

A third aspect is that the books of the Platonic tradition are instantiations of the wisdom of transcendence.  Just as beautiful things are beautiful because of transcendental Beauty, so also the core books of the Platonic tradition are filled with wisdom because of transcendent wisdom, wisdom as such, because of the One.  Thus these ephemeral books are guides to the grotto of eternity.

8.  I see this as good news for those of us living today in the midst of modernity.  It means that in spite of the hostility towards the transcendental inherent in the view of modernity, it is possible to find the path to wisdom in the living presence of the books of the Platonic tradition.

9.  The Dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus are good spiritual friends, living companions on the path to the One.

Themes and Variations

18 December 2022

Themes and Variations

I have been reading The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot: Philosophy as Practice, a collection of previously unpublished (at least in English) essays by Hadot which I think are of interest to contemporary Platonists and Stoics.  In the following quote Hadot starts by naming a number of European scholars, whose names I don’t recognize, and their assumption that classical philosophers like Plato tasked themselves with creating systems in the way that Leibniz, Descartes, Hegel, et al, created philosophical systems.  Hadot takes issue with this view:

“I think this is where the fundamental problem of interpretation of ancient philosophical authors arises.  Did the ancients consider the essential task of philosophy to be the production of written texts presenting a conceptual system?

“First of all, was writing books the principal task of the ancient philosopher?  Victor Goldschmidt seems to have accepted this supposition, when he formulates the postulate upon which the structural method rests.  ‘The structural method,’ he says, ‘places the emphasis incontestably on the written work, as the unique testimony wherein philosophical thought is manifested.’  Apparently, this sentence states something self-evident.  For how, after all, could we know the thought of the ancient philosophers except through their writings?

“However, it seems to me that the error here consists precisely in approaching ancient philosophical writing on the model of the modern philosophical writing.  First of all, these two types of writing are generally very different.  As the linguist Antoine Meillet has written: ‘the impression of slowness that the literary works of antiquity present is due to the fact that they were made for spoken reading.’  One could say that ancient writing has always a more or less oral dimension.  Ancient philosophical writing was particularly tied to orality; it was always tied, in one way or another, to spoken practices, whether because, as in Plato’s and many of the ancient dialogues, philosophical writing tried to give the illusion to the reader that they were participating in a spoken event, or whether because, more generally, the written texts were always intended to be read publicly.  The text was not written as an end in itself.  It was only a point of material support for speech destined to become speech once again, like the modern audio cassette or record, which function as an intermediary between two events: the recording and its replaying.  The spatial simultaneity of the modern written philosophical work is opposed to the temporal succession of ancient speech, delivered through writing.  Modern philosophical writing resembles an architectural monument, in which all the parts coexist: one can go from one to the other to verify their coherence.  By contrast, the ancient philosophical work is more like a musical performance which proceeds by themes and variations.”

(Pierre Hadot, The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot: Philosophy as Practice, translated by Matthew Sharpe and Federica Testa, Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 2020, pages 56 and 57, ISBN: 9781474272995)

1.  Hadot’s suggestion that writing was not the primary focus of ancient philosophy is an intriguing one.  Socrates and Ammonias Saccas, the teacher of Plotinus, are two examples of philosophers who did not seem to be concerned with leaving behind a written legacy. 

2.  A good example of the oral nature of Platonism is the Orations of Maximus of Tyre, which appear to be set pieces that he would read at various occasions; rather like a theatrical soliloquy. 

3.  According to Porphyry’s biography of Plotinus, Plotinus did not write essays until Plotinus was 49.  Plotinus continued writing from then on until his death; that means Plotinus wrote philosophy for the last 16 years of his life, though he taught for longer than that. 

4.  Along the theme of ancient philosophy being primarily an oral tradition, here is a description of Plotinus’s interaction with students at the school in Rome:

“When he [Plotinus] was speaking his intellect visibly lit up his face: there was always a charm about his appearance, but at these times he was still more attractive to look at: he sweated gently, and kindliness shone out from him, and in answering questions he made clear both his benevolence to the questioner and his intellectual vigour.  Once I, Porphyry, went on asking him for three days about the soul’s connection with the body, and he kept on explaining to me.  A man called Thaumasius came in who was interested in general statements and said that he wanted to hear Plotinus speaking the manner of a set treatise, but could not stand Porphyry’s questions and answers.  Plotinus said, ‘But if when Porphyry asks questions we do not solve his difficulties we shall not be able to say anything at all to put into the treatise.’”

(Porphyry, The Life of Plotinus and Ennead I, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966, page 39, ISBN: 9780674994843)

This may indicate that the Enneads have their origin in questions from the students of Plotinus.  Perhaps the Enneads whose topic is the soul owe their origin to this 3-day question and answer marathon.

5.  But Plato did write, and he was a master writer.  There exists a group of scholars who argue that Plato had an ‘oral teaching’, perhaps a kind of esoteric teaching, a teaching that was only offered teacher to student, and that this teaching is central to understanding Platonism.  Other scholars disagree with this interpretation.  I wonder if Hadot has something like this in mind when Hadot interacts with Plato’s writings? 

Hadot argues that the dialogues of Plato read like the record of conversations and in that sense retain a strong connection to orality.  I have read, though I don’t recall the original source at this time, that Plato, before deciding to follow the path of philosophy, wanted to write plays.  Many of the dialogues have a theatrical quality to them; good examples are Phaedo and Symposium.  On the other hand, the literary quality of Plato’s writings would seem to indicate that Plato had at least some interest in putting his thought down on paper.

6.  On the other hand, Plato’s writings exhibit the idea that ancient philosophy was written in a way that resembles that of ‘themes and variations’ found in music.  A good example of this is the topic of beauty.  Two of the dialogues of Plato, Symposium and Phaedrus have beauty as a central focus.  And references to beauty, and closely related topics, are found elsewhere.  Plotinus continues with this way of unpacking the meaning of beauty, writing two Enneads, I.6 and V.8 on beauty, but with numerous digressions about beauty found in other Enneads.  Readers find the same theme and variation approach with discussions about the virtues, forms, hypostases, soul, etc. 

7.  Hadot is suggesting that the primary purpose of ancient philosophy was not the production of texts, or of systems.  What, then, was the primary purpose of ancient philosophy?  In the case of Platonism the primary purpose is to guide practitioners to the transcendental, The Good, The One, The Beautiful, to that which is eternal.  The writings of the Platonic tradition, looked at from this perspective, are guidance that a living teacher needs to unpack and apply for a student to comprehend and internalize.  This makes sense to me.  Understanding non-sensory dimensions of existence is subtle and is easily misunderstood; a good guide will help a student in this kind of awareness in many ways.  More subtle still is that which is beyond all sensation and at the same time the source of all sensory experience.  It is very easy to misunderstand what is meant by The One (I’m speaking from personal experience).  Having a good teacher and guide to this most subtle of understandings is a great good fortune.

8.  In closing I would say, though, that personally I have found the writings of Plato and Plotinus to be a type of living presence, very much like having a living guide.  Understanding these writings as guides requires patience, and bit of plain old endurance, as the reader struggles with new ideas and new ways of living.  But such patience is rewarded by insight, wisdom, and a clear vision of the path that leads to the eternal.

 

 

Is Platonism a Dharmic Tradition?

16 December 2022

Is Platonism a Dharmic Tradition?

As my practice of Platonism has blossomed, and as I have become more secure in the view, theory, literature, and Way of Platonism, I have been struck, at times, by how similar Platonism is to Dharmic traditions.  By “Dharmic traditions” I mean the traditions of India; in particular, Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.  I studied and practiced Buddhism for about 30 years, both in the U.S. and abroad.  I also spent time delving into the Jain tradition, though I did not have a formal Jain teacher.  Because of this background I often see similarities between Platonism and Dharmic traditions that perhaps others might miss.  Here are a few thoughts on this topic:

1.  I’m not the only one to make this observation about Platonism.  In another post I quoted Eric Fallick from his essay An Extremely Brief Introduction to Platonism, “Platonism is a spiritual or religious or soteriological system that offers a path to release from the endless cycle of reincarnation and its concomitant misery.  It belongs to a family of such systems, compromising Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and Platonism.”  (See the online blog – platonistasceticism.blogspot.com )  In addition, Indian scholars such as Vishwa Adluri seem to see a connection between Dharmic traditions and Platonism, as well as some Western scholars such as Edward Butler. 

2.  The implication of looking at Platonism this way is that understanding Platonism is better done through a comparison with Dharmic traditions than it is done by comparing Platonism with contemporary Western philosophy.  This is because the concerns of Western philosophy have drifted very far from the concerns of Platonism; this is acknowledged by Western philosophers themselves when they write on their relationship to Platonism.

3.  In my own case I was introduced to Plato’s Dialogues when I was a Philosophy Major at University.  But Platonism was never presented in a Western University context as a spiritual, or religious, or salvific, system.  After leaving University I subsequently took a deep dive into Buddhism.  When I returned to Platonism decades later, I saw Platonism with new eyes and Platonism made more sense and felt more alive and relevant to my life.  I no longer saw Platonism as a step that inevitably lead to contemporary philosophy; rather I saw it as an approach to life that had been abandoned by Western Philosophy under the influence of modernity.

4.  One teaching that links Platonism to Dharmic traditions is the centrality of rebirth.  This is a teaching that the West has rejected because rebirth does not have a place in materialist, or reductionist, world views.  The intensity with which the West rejects rebirth was demonstrated to me in my long association with Western Buddhism.  During my period of involvement with Western Buddhism I saw how Western Buddhists carefully discarded anything in traditional Buddhism that clashes with Western materialist and modernist assumptions and foremost among these is rebirth.  Numerous Western Buddhists, referring to themselves as ‘Secular Buddhism’ refer to rebirth as a ‘superstition’ (their word) and therefore something to be discarded.

I think the rejection of rebirth in Platonism was foundational for the subsequent rejection of rebirth in Dharmic traditions on the part of Western practitioners of those traditions.  I say this because Western culture had already become skilled at sidelining the teaching of rebirth in Platonism and therefore it had those skills ready at hand when confronted with the pervasive, and definitive, teachings on rebirth in Dharmic traditions such as Buddhism. 

5.  Another common view shared by Dharmic traditions and Platonism is the presence of what I call the Ascetic Ideal.  I mean that the practices of renunciation are foundational for traditions like Platonism and Jainism.  Furthermore, that these traditions share an analysis of the spiritual journey that views renunciation as causally related to spiritual realization.

6.  Vegetarianism, and sometimes what we would call Veganism, is also a teaching shared by both Dharmic and Platonist traditions.  This dietary restriction is understood to be a necessary component for the practice of Philosophy in the Platonic tradition; see Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Killing Animals.

7.  It is unclear to me if there is enough evidence to show a direct historical influence between Indian Dharma traditions and such Western traditions as Pythagoreanism and Platonism.  I wouldn’t say there is no evidence for such connections, but I have not run across what I would think of as evidence that most historians would consider convincing.  The most telling evidence I have run across is that Plotinus, after finishing his studies with Ammonias Saccas in Alexandria, tried to make it to India to study with Indian teachers of wisdom.  The journey to India was thwarted (see ‘The Life of Plotinus’ by Porphyry) and Plotinus ended up in Rome, to the West’s good fortune.  But this does show that Plotinus had an awareness of Indian traditions and teachings, though how extensive this knowledge was is not known.  And Plotinus was many centuries later than Plato or Pythagoras.  Still, the idea of an actual relationship between Dharmic and early Western philosophy is an intriguing possibility.

Long Journey

13 December 2022

Long Journey

“. . . [T]he soul must let go of all outward things and turn altogether to what is within, and not be inclined to any outward thing, but ignoring all things (as it did formerly in sense-perception, but then in the realm of Forms), and even ignoring itself, come to be in contemplation of that One, . . .”

(Plotinus, Ennead VI.9.7, Plotinus, Ennead VI.6-9, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988, page 329, ISBN: 9780674995154)

“. . . [T]he soul must be kept formless if there is to be no infixed impediment to prevent it being brimmed and lit by the Primal Principle.  In sum, we must withdraw from all the extern, pointed wholly inwards; no leaning to the outer; the total of things ignored, first in their relation to us and later to the very idea; the self put out of mind in the contemplation of the Supreme; . . . “

(Plotinus, The Enneads, translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page, various editions 1917 to 1930, online upload found at:

 https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plotenn/enn710.htm )

Brian Hines comments on this quote in his book Return to the One:

“Here Plotinus describes the scope of the mystic philosopher’s detachment.  There are three levels of withdrawal from all outward things.  First, the spiritual seeker turns away from both sense-perception and any thoughts or memories of the physical world.  This leads the soul, now disconnected from materiality, into the spiritual world, the realm of forms.

“Next (2), the ethereal beauty of higher realms also must be left behind.  For even though the spiritual world is much more unified than the physical universe, it is still a one-many, not the One.  There are sights and sounds and other sensations in the World of Forms.  These too must be ignored, says Plotinus, just as physical perceptions were before.

“Finally (3), after casting aside all else, the soul must ignore even itself to truly contemplate the One.  This contemplation is so complete that nothing separates the contemplator and the contemplated except the slightest degree of otherness: soul becomes a drop in the spiritual ocean.”

(Brian Hines, Return to the One: Plotinus’s Guide to God-Realization, Adrasteia Publishing, Salem, Oregon, 2004, pages 234-235, ISBN: 9780977735211)

1.  This is a long journey.  It requires dedication.  It is not an easy path.  But each step on the journey has its rewards as the practitioner approaches, closer and closer, to the One. 

2.  This is a long journey.  It requires numerous lifetimes to complete.  I do not think it is possible for someone to finish this journey in a single lifetime as progress is slow; it is slow because it is meticulous.

3.  This is a long journey.  It is like a dove deciding to fly to a distant galaxy.

4.  This is a long journey.  It is like an immense glacier completing its journey to the sea.