20 January 2025
Brief Notes on Various Topics – 35
1. Recently I read Alcibiades I and Theages, one after the other. Both of them are concerned with questioning the main character in the dialogue (Alcibiades and Theages respectively) with their desire to pursue political power and influence. For some reason I hadn’t noticed that common theme that both of them share before. Together these dialogues are cautionary instruction on the dangers of entering the realm of politics.
1.1 This reminded me of a tale from the Daoist classic, Chuang Tzu. I don’t have a copy of this work any more, so I’m relying on my memory. As I recall, there is a section where Confucius announces to Chaung Tzu that he is going to travel to various Chinese states in order to help them reform their regimes. Chuang Tzu responds by saying that Confucius will necessarily be co-opted by the power structure and that in the end Confucius will become just another courtly functionary aligning with various factions.
Plato doesn’t talk about this aspect of politics specifically, but I think it hovers in the background of discussions about the dangers of politics.
1.2 I have a theory (well, it’s more a speculation than a theory) about Plato’s letters. I’ve started thinking of them as creations of Plato meant to be read by his students in the same way as the dialogues were written to be read by his students. I have begun to view the letters as an alternative literary structure to the dialogue structure that Plato used when he felt his purposes were better served by the letter form. Just as in the dialogues Plato used historical figures and incidents as the basis of his dialogues, so also the letters use historical figures and actual situations as the basis for his letters. By using the letter form Plato is able to speak in the first person rather than through a character in the dialogue. Some of the letters are giving his students a warning about the dangers of becoming involved in politics; Plato does this by depicting what would likely happen to him in such a case. And some parts of the letters are about how spiritual practice manifests in the teacher/student relationship. And there are other subjects that Plato used the letter form for.
I realize this is speculation, as I mentioned above. Even so, I thought I would share this perspective.
2. I have the view that the sonic realm more clearly displays aspects of the noetic than any other sensory realm. For example, sonic objects can be, and often are, transparent to each other. I mean that sonic objects can occupy the same space at the same time. This is often heard in music where there are multiple lines pursuing their various courses at the same time. In popular songs there will usually be a bass line, a chord progression, and a melody; all presented simultaneously without any sense of discomfort. I think this mimics how noetic objects are mutually present to each other.
2.1 Sonic objects also display central features of the material realm in a way that is easily accessible to human consciousness. A good example is impermanence; sonic objects are impermanent, but the impermanence of sonic objects does not give rise to any anxiety; it just seems a natural feature of sonic objects. I mean that when a bell is struck we expect the sound of the bell to cease and that cessation does not give rise to any anxiety or resistance. Contemplating the way sonic objects arise and fall away is a good way to access how impermanence works in the material domain because there is very little resistance to understanding the impermanence of sonic objects. One can then make an inference (this is where wisdom comes in) that the impermanence of sonic objects does not differ from the impermanence of visual objects, or of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and mental fabrications. And so forth for the other domains of sensory experience in the material realm.
3. I sometimes wonder if copying one of Plato’s dialogues by hand might be a good spiritual practice for a Platonist practitioner. There are traditions that still admire this kind of practice. I have read stories of Japanese followers of the Lotus Sutra who copied by hand the Lotus Sutra even though the Lotus Sutra is easily available in printed copies and online as well. Those who have done this report a deepening of their understanding of the Lotus Sutra and a growing sense of intimacy with its traditions..
In the Jewish tradition there are a small number of people who produce copies of the Torah which they have done by hand. This practice is often combined with prayer. These copies are considered to be of great value.
And at various times I have run into others, such as Daoists and a few Theravada monastics who have undertaken this kind of practice.
The works that are copied may be short or long; that doesn’t seem to matter. I suspect that the act of copying by hand brings the body into the practice, as well as understanding, wisdom, and faith in the tradition. Such a practice is also a concentration practice which is of no small value.
4. I am more and more convinced that the practice of theurgy in some contemporary Platonic traditions, limits the grandeur of the One, of the ultimately transcendent.
5. It is often observed that spiritual practitioners frequently fall away from their practice, even after years dedicated to such practice. We have an example of this in the Platonic tradition. The individual Firmus Castricius is presented in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus as a significant follower of Plotinus; Firmus even had a role in the final days of Plotinus.
But in Porphyry’s On Abstinence, Porphyry addresses Firmus because of his falling away from vegetarianism. This evidently pushed Porphyry to write a book on the virtues of vegetarianism for philosophers; it is the longest work on this subject that survives from the Classical period. Porphyry hopes to convince Firmus to return to a vegetarian way of life. (As an aside, all of this implies that vegetarianism was an important practice for the community that gathered around Plotinus.)
This kind of falling away is common; I have observed this often during my spiritual wanderings. And sometimes it is I myself who has abandoned a particular spiritual practice in my life, feeling that its efficacy has been exhausted.
Sometimes there are good reasons for the falling away of a spiritual practice; it depends on the situation. What I have observed is that if such a falling away is done due to a growing cynicism, or a nascent nihilism, then it strikes me as a sad occurrence. In such a situation it would make sense to try and bring someone back onto the spiritual path. On the other hand, for some it is necessary to leave a certain teaching and practice behind in order to continue the journey. From the outside these might look the same, but from the interior perspective of the practitioner they are very different. It is like a musician who moves on to a different teacher to learn a more advanced technique, or a swimmer taking on a new coach to learn a different way of racing through the water, and so forth.
6. I think it was Randolph Bourne who wrote, “War is the health of the state.” I was thinking about this in the context of Book I of the Laws. In Book I there is a discussion as to what is the purpose of legislation, of creating laws. One of them states that every law is for the purpose of preparing for war and that war is really the purpose of all legislation, it is what is always the underlying purpose of law. The Athenian Stranger counters in a fascinating exchange, coming to the conclusion that the purpose of laws is to bring peace to people living under those laws.
In a Platonic context, I don’t think peace is possible in the material world. I say this because strife is a basic feature of material existence. In Presocratic Philosophy strife is considered to be an elemental reality by Heraclitus and Empedocles and thus unavoidable. War is the purest expression of strife.
If the above is accurate, I think that implies that Plato’s depictions of communal societies in The Republic and Laws is actually a glimpse of the noetic realm, or they are allegories of the noetic realm. I say this because strife is not a feature of the noetic realm. Noetic realities are in concert with each other because they are one-many. Peace is only found there, in the noetic, not here in the material realm.
As usual Jim your comments are extremely edifying and there were a couple of resonances with contemporary discussions in philosophy that I couldn’t resist commenting on.
ReplyDeleteFirst as an Alea devotee I’ve always found your arguments regarding the use of the sonic domain for exploring things like the idea of emptiness compelling. But I’ve just been reading about the philosopher Frank Ramsey and one of the problems he found with Wittgenstein’s Tractatus is reminiscent of one of your points about the sonic domain. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein tries to argue that relationship between language and reality is that reality consists of states of affairs and language consists of propositions that map onto those states of affairs. But that’s a rather mysterious connection and Wittgenstein argues that the mechanism for that connection is logical structure. Without going into detail, that argument relies on logical propositions being tautologies (i.e. not themselves dependent on states of affairs). Ramsey shows that this doesn’t work as originally proposed based on the “color exclusion problem”, i.e. the fact that the logical proposition that two colors can’t be in the same place is not a tautology. It seems to me that your discussion of overlapping sounds would have been a much easier way to understand that argument.
Lastly re. evolving spiritual practices, it seems to me that one can maintain elements of a number of spiritual practices (despite the smorgasbord type objections). It seems to me that an interesting example of something resembling that, regarding vegetarianism actually, are the arguments of the contemporary philosopher Peter Singer. Though his moral philosophy has evolved from that of a utilitarian to that of a moral realist his arguments for vegetarianism have retained their power (in my view anyway).
Good morning Karl. Thanks for posting your comments. // Last year I had a brief online discussion with a guy who is a scholar of British Idealism. He had posted a quote from Bradley that the nature of an object includes it remaining the same over a period of time (I am paraphrasing.) I asked how Bradley would handle musical objects such as melodies because musical objects are always changing; in a sense they are never at rest over the time period of their existence. Yet they are recognizable as particular musical objects. I also used the example of a storm (I think I got that example from Whitehead.) He responded by saying that Bradley did not examine such objects, at least not explicitly, and it would be fruitful to have a discussion about how Idealism in general would treat such objects. From a Platonic point of view, it is the form of the melody that is trans-temporal and provides the means for recognizing the specific musical object. // Part of my purpose with Alea is to provide participants with the opportunity of experiencing certain realities through the sonic domain. I think it can work that way, though there is no guarantee. // I have the same view about retaining aspects of previous traditions I have been involved with. I didn't mention it, but one sign of a practitioner moving on that indicates that it could be constructive is that they bear no ill-will towards their previous teacher or spiritual community. In contrast, those who leave with an enduring sense of bitterness may be signaling that they have become cynical about spirituality in general. // Always good to hear from you. Best wishes, Xenocrates
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