Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 45

5 May 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 45

1.  I recently saw two youtube presentations by contemporary British philosophers.  One of them was young, about 30 years old, the other was about 60 years old.  I am not familiar with either of them.

What interested me is that both of them expressed adherence to analytic philosophy of the type that reigned in the early 20^th century in Britain.  It sounded as if nothing had changed in the century since analytic philosophy emerged.  The young philosopher praised A. J. Ayer which really surprised me.  I haven’t heard Ayer’s name even mentioned in many decades, let alone praised.  And the older philosopher when asked about how metaphysical statements can be handled if, for example, one disagrees with a metaphysical assertion, offered that “We don’t do that anymore.  We (meaning philosophers) are no longer engaged in grand metaphysical visions; rather, our mission is to clarify and narrow the discussion.”  Or something like that.

It was a strange feeling for me.  This way of talking about philosophy was widespread when I was an undergraduate many decades ago.  To see it presented unchanged after all that time was frustrating.  I’m not the only one who feels that way; I’ve heard, and read, similar observations from quite a few other people.

If I were forced to pick one single part of analytic philosophy for criticism it would be that analytic philosophy does not understand how words work, it does not understand that words are inherently ‘analogical.’  That would be my starting point.

2.  I’ve recently become aware of the writings of Hippocrates and how they emphasize non-harming.  Here are two quotes taken from the Harvard University Medical School webpage; the first one is from the Hippocratic Oath:

“I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.”

And this second quote is from Hippocrates’s treatises on Epidemics:

“The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future – must meditate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.”

Hippocrates was born about 460 BCE and died about 370 BCE (about 90 years).  Various dates are given for Plato with birth ranging between 428 and 423 BCE and death at 348/347 BCE.  Hippocrates was born on the island of Cos and he is mentioned in Plato’s dialogues Protagoras and Phaedrus.

In the Protagoras there is a character named Hippocrates who is not the famous Hippocrates of Cos, the physician.  Socrates uses their common name to question the Hippocrates who is with him as they gather around the courtyard waiting to see Protagoras:

“Tell me, Hippocrates,” I said, “in your present design of going to Protagoras and paying him money as a fee for his services to yourself, to whom do you consider you are resorting, and what is it that you are to become?  Suppose, for example, you had taken it into your head to call on your namesake Hippocrates of Cos, the Asclepiad, and pay him money as your personal fee, and suppose someone asked you – Tell me, Hippocrates, in purposing to pay a fee to Hippocrates [of Cos], what do you consider him to be?  How would you answer that?”

“A doctor, I would say.”

(Plato, Protagoras, translated by W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1924, page 99, 311b-c, ISBN: 9780674991835)

This indicates that Hippocrates of Cos, the physician, was well known, likely famous for his skill as a physician.  It may also indicate that Socrates had some familiarity with some of the broader teachings of Hippocrates.  I find it intriguing to think about the famous teachings on non-harming found in both Hippocrates and in dialogues such as Crito where Socrates expounds on the meaning of non-harming, and I wonder if there is some cross-fertilization.  Or perhaps this teaching on non-harming comes from a common, more ancient, source that nourished both Socrates and Hippocrates.

In Phaedrus Socrates says the following about Hippocrates:

Socrates: “Well, isn’t the method of medicine in a way the same as the method of rhetoric?”

Phaedrus:  “How so?”

Socrates: In both cases we need to determine the nature of something – of the body in medicine, of the soul in rhetoric.  Otherwise, all we’ll have will be an empirical and artless practice.  We won’t be able to supply, on the basis of an art, a body with the medicines and diet that will make it healthy and strong, or a soul with the reasons and customary rules for conduct that will impart to it the convictions and virtues we want.”

Phaedrus: “That is most likely, Socrates.”

Socrates: “Do you think, then, that it is possible to reach a serious understanding of the nature of the soul without understanding the nature of the world as a whole?”

Phaedrus: “Well, if we’re to listen to Hippocrates, Asclepius’ descendant, we won’t even understand the body if we don’t follow that method.”

(Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, 1997, pages 546-547, 270b-c, ISBN: 9780872203495)

This passage does not contain a reference to non-harming.  Instead it emphasizes ethical training in ‘convictions’ and ‘virtues’.  There are several analogies operating in this passage.  One is the comparison between rhetoric and medicine, and the other is between body and soul, and that the curing of the body resembles the curing of the soul through rhetoric when rhetoric is correctly understood and taught.  The passage concludes that in order to understand the nature of the soul one needs to understand the world as a whole, which I read as meaning that which governs the whole world, specifically the world soul.

This is speculative, but it seems that Socrates was familiar with the teachings of Hippocrates.  It seems that Plato had a positive view of Hippocrates and perhaps that is attributable to the teachings on non-harming found in both of their writings.

2.1  Here is another translation of the passage from Phaedrus which I’m including because of its different emphases:

Socrates: “The method of the art of healing is much the same as that of rhetoric.”

Phaedrus: “How so?”

Socrates: “In both cases you must analyze a nature, in one that of the body and in the other than of the soul, if you are to proceed in a scientific manner, not merely by practice and routine, to impart health and strength to the body by prescribing medicine and diet, or by proper discourses and training to give to the soul the desired belief and virtue.”

Phaedrus: “That, Socrates, is probably true.”

Socrates: “Now do you think one can acquire any appreciable knowledge of the nature of the soul without knowing the nature of the whole man?”

Phaedrus: “If Hippocrates the Asclepiad is to be trusted, one cannot know the nature of the body, either, except in that way.”

(Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Harold North Fowler, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1914, pages 547-549, ISBN: 0674990404)

Notice that in the Fowler translation it says that to know the soul one has to know the nature of the ‘whole man’, whereas in the Nehamas and Woodruff translation it says you need to know the ‘world as a whole’.  I think this is a striking difference. 

3.  Plato doesn’t start with doubt; I mean the kind of systematic doubt that is distinctive of modern philosophy.  Plato, it seems to me, is much more accepting of the world.  That might sound odd for an ascetically inclined philosopher who often has negative things to say about the pursuit of pleasure and whose philosophy is ultimately about transcending the world.  But there is also a luminous quality about the world that Plato lives in and reveals to us.  The world is an expression of the transcendental and as such the world is, when comprehended through contemplation, the means for finding our home in eternity.

4.  If the world is all you have then the world does not have much to offer.  If the world is understood as a gate to noetic and transcendental realities, then that is the gift the world has for those who can accept such a gift.

5.  I keep running into various people making the assertion that Plotinus was a ‘rationalist’ whereas other Late Classical Platonists were not.  My understanding of ‘rationalism’ is that it is the view that reason is the final authority; when applied to religion it means that reason surpasses revelation, intuition, and so forth, as the source for religious understanding.  And I think that same understanding applies in a philosophical context.

Spinoza would be an example of a rationalist; his use of the geometric method signals this.  The same would apply to Proclus in The Elements of Theology.  But Plotinus does not use that kind of approach or method (neither does Plato).  The writing of Plotinus ebbs and flows, focuses on a point, then moves on to another point that is connected, usually, by some kind of similarity to the preceding point, or refers back to the main topic of the Ennead.  The style of Plotinus is more free form than that of Spinoza or Proclus (this is consistent with Porphyry’s description of how Plotinus wrote in The Life of Plotinus). 

Perhaps the people using this term to describe Plotinus mean something different by the term ‘rationalist’ or ‘rationalism’, but I suspect that this usage reflects a basic misunderstanding of the philosophy of Plotinus.  I say this because Plotinus uses intuition, suggestion, and most of all, contemplation as foundations for his philosophy.  I think Plotinus makes this very clear. 

5.1 It just occurred to me that those who think of Plotinus as a rationalist may do so because they do not understand what ‘contemplation’ means.  They may think of the word ‘contemplation’ as meaning something like ‘thinking about’ some topic.  But this is not what Plotinus means by contemplation; by contemplation Plotinus means going beyond reason, designation, and affirmation and negation.  This is explained in Enneads V and VI.

6.  A friend of mine recently asked me what attracted me to Platonism.  We have been friends for a very long time and my friend wondered why I dropped my affiliation to Buddhism, after decades of study and practice; and in particular why I started to identify as a Platonist which is an obscure tradition.  By ‘obscure’ my friend meant that Platonism is not normally understood to be a spiritual path, that Platonic teachings are not presented in this way in all but a few contexts.

I had not considered this question and at first I was stumped.  After a while, though, I realized that the change was primarily based on my experience of soul.  Buddhism, famously, has the doctrine of ‘no soul, anatman/anatta’.  I had learned a lot about this perspective and was skilled in communicating it to others.  But there came a time when I could no longer deny an underlying sense of continuity and unity that makes a person a person.  And at some point I could no longer deny that this underlying unity was what is meant by soul.

I didn’t immediately become a Platonist during this process of change in my basic view.  In fact, I spent a number of years wandering through various traditions trying to find a spiritual home.  Looking back, I think it was Phaedo in particular that opened the door to Platonism for me.  Over the years I had recommended Phaedo to people who wanted to understand the idea of rebirth because I think it is a clearer presentation than those found in other spiritual traditions.  So Phaedo was familiar to me.  But this time I read Phaedo focusing primarily on the arguments for the existence of soul and for the nature of soul.  That was enormously helpful and led me to want to know more about Platonism; this also indicated to me that Platonism is a spiritual tradition, or should be comprehended from a spiritual/religious perspective.

This change of affiliation wasn’t dramatic, or traumatic, for me.  Looking back, it appears to me more like the slow blossoming of a flower.