The Ascetic Ideal -- 1

5 December 2022

The Ascetic Ideal - 1

I see Platonism as grounded in what I think of as the ‘Ascetic Ideal’.  I mean that the ascetic frame of mind, and practices traditionally associated with asceticism, are foundational in Platonism and an integral aspect of what it means to be a Platonist.

1.  Asceticism is a turning away from sensory pleasures and stimulation.  In Platonism this is framed in terms of the ‘separation’ of the soul from the body; see the dialogue Phaedo.

2.  Asceticism is primarily a religious practice, but there are non-religious people who practice asceticism because they find a life of simplicity, or minimalism, attractive.

3.  I suspect that the Ascetic Ideal was transferred to Christianity from Platonism and that this transfer led to the emergence of groups like the Desert Fathers and, later on, monasticism. 

4.  In some societies the Ascetic Ideal is recognized, meaning that those who pursue an ascetic path in life, a life of greatly reduced sensory stimulation, a life in which most sensory pleasures are abandoned, is honored.  Early Christianity was such a society.  In China the ascetic inclination was practiced for religious reasons and also by many Chinese poets.  In India the Jain tradition has the Ascetic Ideal at the heart of its tradition; but this ideal also plays an important role in Buddhism and Hinduism. 

5.  In modernity, however, asceticism is not honored.  Instead asceticism is considered simply strange and likely to be understood as rooted in psychological problems.

6.  Platonist Asceticism arises from an understanding that the world of sensory appearances is less real than the realms upon which sensory appearances depend.  Sensory appearances are ephemeral, unstable, and for the most part, deceitful.  For this reason, the Platonic practitioner turns to that which is more enduring, more stable, to that upon which all sensory objects depend, to the source of all sensory things, and ultimately turns to that which is eternal.