Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 27

22 May 2022

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 27

1.  I’ve noticed that I have insights into Platonist philosophy in waves.  I mean that after having an insight(s) I seem to go through a period, that usually lasts around three years, where no new insights appear.  During this period I find myself applying my new understanding to various aspects of Platonic philosophy.  My intuition is that my mind is engaged subconsciously with the philosophical/spiritual questions raised by Platonic philosophy continuously, but this rises to conscious awareness only intermittently.

2.  I have great admiration for people I know who found a spiritual home and have continued to cultivate the wisdom of that tradition over the decades of their life.  In contrast, I am a wanderer through spiritual traditions, unable to stay put in one home; always a visitor. 

I used to have negative feelings about this.  But in some ways this history has given me insights that are only available to wanderers like me.  For example, being able to comprehend Platonism as a Dharmic tradition is due to my years of primarily Buddhist study, but also the time I spent on the Jain tradition.  Without this background I would not have recognized the Dharmic nature of Platonism.  It is possible to understand that Classical Platonism and modern views of philosophy are very different without having clarity as to the nature of Classical Platonism itself.  For example, you could understand that Platonism is concerned with the transcendental and modern philosophy is not.  But this doesn’t tell you why Platonism is concerned with the transcendental or the function that the transcendental has in the Platonist tradition. And modernist philosophy is unable to illuminate this interest because it rejects the idea of the transcendental altogether.  In a case like this one has to turn to traditions where the transcendental is central.  In my case this was the Dharmic traditions.  (There are other aspects of Platonism that align with Dharmic traditions, like ethics, but going into those would make the post too long.)

3.  There are organized and disorganized religions (or spiritualities, if you prefer.)  Organized religions have an observable structure of authority and a pattern of learning that cultivates its view of the world in successive generations.  Disorganized religions lack an observable structure of authority.  Disorganized religions have practitioners and some practitioners gain a positive reputation and are consulted and listened to; but their authority is, for the most part, due to their dedication to their tradition over many years rather than because they have assumed some specific role or title within an organization.  Sometimes people like this are simply referred to as ‘elders.’ 

In the modern world I would place Platonism in the disorganized category.  There are people who have studied, and in some cases practiced, Platonism for most of their lives and because of this they are listened to and admired.  We might think of them as Platonist Elders.  But they do not assume a position of authority in an organizational setting.  It is like admiring a cook who has, over many years, perfected their craft; and this may be in a home setting, not as a professional chef.  Or it is like admiring someone who has been a potter for decades and clearly grown in their skill.  Or it is like someone who has grown in the skills they display in many, various, fields of human endeavor.

I’m not saying that Platonism is a craft; but I’m suggesting that the practice of Platonism has craft-like aspects such as becoming more skillful in communicating its views over time; and to the extent that reading is a craft, becoming a better reader of Platonic texts.  And the asceses of Platonism can also be viewed as skills that are cultivated in the way that a craft is cultivated.

4.  I was reading Ennead VI.4.12 and I noticed that Plotinus uses simile in this paragraph to argue for a certain view of the relationship between soul and the source of souls.  Here it is, “Just as there is often a sound in the air, and a word in the sound, and an ear is there and receives and perceives it; and if you put another ear in the middle of the space between, the word and the sound would come also to it, or rather the ear would come to the word . . . in this same way that which is able to have soul will have it, and another again and yet another from the same source.” (Armstrong translation, page 309)

Here Plotinus compares how many ears can hear a sound, or receive a sound, with the sound coming from a singular source.  For example, at a solo concert each member of the audience receives the same sound(s) coming from the performer’s instrument.  In a similar way material bodies receive soul from the source of soul which in our case would be the world soul which receives its existence from noetic realities, and these noetic realities receive their existence from the transcendental, the Good and the One.

Noting this, it brought back to me again how Platonist philosophers will use devices such as metaphor and simile to make a philosophical point.  I forget which Ennead it is in, but Plotinus refers to these as ‘comparisons.’  The important thing to keep in mind is that when Platonic philosophers refer to ‘reason’ and ‘rationality’ they include things like metaphor and simile (as well as allegory and myth) in their understanding of reason.  That is not true today in modern philosophy; using such devices would be a signal that they are not committed to the much narrower and depleted understanding of reason that pervades modernist philosophy, particularly that of the analytic branch.  I think this is a great loss for philosophy; but perhaps by becoming conscious of how such devices are used in Plato and Plotinus we can restore them to the house of reason.

5.  One thing I like about ascetic practices is that it is clear how to recover if you fail at an ascetic commitment.  The process is simply to renew one’s commitments to the ascetic practice.  It’s like a musician who, due to distraction, doesn’t practice one day.  The next day, realizing his mistake, the musician simply renews the commitment to daily practice.  Or it is like a meditator who has a commitment to a daily meditation practice in the morning, but one day oversleeps and has to go to work, and so misses the meditation session.  A simple renewal of the commitment is all that is needed to continue on the path. 

I think the one obstacle to this kind of renewal is that we often very harsh towards ourselves and if we fail in a commitment, we tend to think it has all fallen apart.  I don’t see it that way.  Life is complicated and unexpected things happen that can interfere with commitments and vows.  This is natural and to be expected.  The inability to embody a practice on a specific occasion does not entail the loss of intention and I think intention is the key to restoring the practice.  An everyday example is someone who is on a diet, but one day succumbs to temptation.  Again, this is natural.  By drawing on the power of intention the diet can be restored; similarly for ascetic practices.

This kind of back and forth can last a long time.  But gradually, over time, the periods of embodying the ascetic practice last longer, and then longer still, until they become second nature to the way we live in the world and it is no longer a struggle to maintain the ascetic practices one is committed to.