Monday, February 17, 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics - 38

17 February 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 38


1.  My experience of learning within the context of Platonism is that such learning has two phases.  One phase is full of insights, the understanding of meanings and implications that were previously elusive or difficult to access, and the making of connections between various Platonic presentations both within the work of a single author (such as Plato’s Dialogues) and across time among various authors in the Platonic tradition.  This phase is exciting and encourages someone experiencing this phase to continue with their Platonist study and practice.


The second phase is kind of ‘dry’.  I mean that there are times when the reading of Platonist works seems more like a task or duty and the practices, such as purification, asceses, and contemplation, do not seem to yield noticeable results.  This second phase is a kind of challenge.  It tests our commitments and stability.


I have found that after I went through these phases several times, experiencing the second phase was no longer an obstacle.  I simply waited patiently for this second phase to pass, which invariably it does.  


2.  “Socrates:  But among so many arguments this one alone survives refutation and remains steady: that doing what’s unjust is more to be guarded against than suffering it, and that it's not seeming to be good but being good that a man should take care of more than anything, both in his public and in his private life . . . “


(Plato, Gorgias, translated by Donald J. Zeyl, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1997, page 869, 527b, ISBN: 97808722034950)


3.  I think that for some of the dialogues it is difficult for people to see their ascetic nature and teachings.  Some dialogues, like Phaedo, are explicitly ascetic and those teachings are difficult not to see.  But for others, like The Symposium, the ascetic nature of the dialogue is not as strongly placed or as obvious.  The Symposium has a lot of flirtatious remarks that are placed in the context of a drinking party.  The dialogue also has a lot of humor.  


The asceticism of The Symposium appears in two contexts.  First, when Alcibiades describes how he tried to seduce Socrates but failed because Socrates was not interested in an erotic relationship with Alcibiades.  This clearly presents us with a portrait of Socrates that has left behind sexual desires.  I think some people miss that because Socrates is not a monastic in the way that, for example, the monastic followers of the Buddha are.  I think we tend to think, or picture in our minds, an ascetic as part of a community of practitioners who are identifiable by their clothing, comportment, and other signals (like their haircut).  But Socrates is not living that kind of life; instead Socrates is wandering around Athens and interacting with numerous people from all stations of life and even going to drinking parties if the occasion arises.  The commitment of Socrates to a chaste life is, therefore, given to the reader through his interaction with those who would seduce him.


The second context for The Symposium as an ascetic teaching are the two scenes where Socrates withdraws from what is around him into a contemplative trance; these are found at the beginning and end of the dialogue.  I have written about these before so I’ll just mention them here.  This kind of withdrawal, this turning away, is a demonstration of the Ascetic Ideal and its method; that method being to turn away from sensory stimulation.


4.  When considering the life of Socrates I think it is helpful to view Socrates as someone who entered the ancient path later in life.  According to our sources (Plato and Xenophon) Socrates was married and had children, and Socrates also participated in warfare in defense of Athens.  Both of these would tend to depict Socrates as an ordinary householder rather than a spiritual practitioner.  


What I’m suggesting is that the life of Socrates can be viewed as having two periods; the first was as an Athenian citizen immersed in the life of the polis, including politics, family, and war.  The second was after Socrates became aware of, and became initiated in, ancient teaching(s).  This second period came after he went to the Oracle of Delphi, and after his own initiations in ancient mysteries, and after he met Diotima.  As Socrates himself reports, these experiences changed his life in significant ways; most importantly, he became a philosopher.


There are two dialogues that I think illustrate this development.  The first is Parmenides where an elderly Parmenides interacts, and critiques, a very young Socrates.  Here the young Socrates is interested in philosophy but has not yet matured.  The second dialogue is Phaedo where Socrates talks about his interaction with Anaxagoras’s teachings and how Socrates was at first very much attracted to them, but upon examination found them wanting.  In this passage we see a somewhat older Socrates still wanting to understand deep philosophical issues, but not yet exposed to the teachings that would guide Socrates in that task.  We do see this full maturity and philosophical insight in a dialogue like The Symposium and The Republic.  


I think it is easy for most people, including myself, to relate to this kind of biography which has a ‘before and after’ structure to it; meaning before he found the actual Way of Philosophy and after Socrates had found this way.  I think this is one of the reasons why Socrates as a kind of archetype has been so relatable down through the centuries; the story of Socrates is one that nearly all of us can relate to.


5.  Those readers who are particularly interested in Plotinus might want to know that a new collection of the scholar John Dillon has been published that contains 21 essays on various aspects of Plotinus’s writings and understanding.  The essays were published in various journals over a period of many years.  Dillon is famous as a scholar of Middle Platonism, but it is good to see his essays on Plotinus brought together in one volume.


The title is Perspectives on Plotinus: The collected Essays of John Dillon.  It is published by The Prometheus Trust in England; a group dedicated to the perspective of Thomas Taylor, but which has, in more recent years, widened its publishing to include books by Platonist scholars who are not necessarily connected to their organization.


I just got the book myself and have not had time to read it yet.  Looking at the titles of the essays cover a wide range of topics.  Some of the essays focus on unpacking specific Enneads, or even a passage in an Ennead.  Other essays discuss the relationship between Plotinus and other philosophers such as Philo.  Some essays discuss ethical issues, and so forth.


I am particularly interested in an essay Dillon wrote on the way Grace works in Plotinus’s writings.  The essay is titled “A Kind of Warmth”: Some Reflections on the Concept of ‘Grace’ in the Neoplatonic Tradition.  In the first year of this blog I wrote several posts about Grace in Platonism.  It is my view that Grace plays a significant, even crucial, role in Plotinian thought.  That’s not original with me; you can find Christian Platonists who argue for the importance of Grace in Plotinus but they naturally tend to interpret Grace in the manner of their Christian tradition.  Because of my many years of study in a Buddhist context, I tend to understand Grace in the works of Plotinus as closer to, though not identical with, the teachings of Pure Land Buddhism on the topic of Grace.  On the other hand, there are a number of contemporary Platonists who reject the idea of Grace as having any place in Platonism.  I tend to think that in this case they are likely influenced by contemporary secular materialism in coming to that conclusion.  It will be interesting to read what Dillon has to say on this topic.


I’m glad to see this collection made available and I look forward to reading what it has to offer.  For those interested it can be purchased from Kindred Star books in the U.S. which can be found at kindredstarbooks (dot) com.  For those in England you can go to prometheustrust (dot) co (dot) uk.



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