Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 46

12 May 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 46

1.  In my recent reading of Timaeus my feeling was that Timaeus is an extended allegory with the Demiurge and the projects of the Demiurge being a personification of noetic realities.  I say this because it is noetic realities that bequeath the world system, or material realm, in which we live.  Looked at in this way nous is the Demiurge, or more accurately, the Demiurge is the personification of nous and the noetic realm.  Timaeus is about the nature of and order of the manifestations of becoming and begoning.  Becoming and begoning are not noetic realities, but nous is the foundation of becoming and begoning.

2.  “Now it was the Living Thing’s nature to be eternal, but it isn’t possible to bestow eternity fully upon anything that is begotten.  And so he began to think of making a moving image of eternity: at the same time as he brought order to the universe, he would make an eternal image, moving according to number, of eternity remaining in unity.  This number, of course, is what we now call ‘time.’”

(Plato, Timaeus, translated by Donald J. Zeyl, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1997, page 1241, 37d, ISBN: 9780872203495)

A distinguishing feature of this material realm is that it is ‘impossible to bestow eternity upon anything’ in the material world; that is because all things in the material realm are created and anything that is created will come to an end.  The closest we can come to eternity is a moving image of eternity.  The moving image of eternity with its sunrises and sunsets, with its waxing and waning moons, with its seasonal displays, is beautiful because eternity is beautiful (in a sense, the beautiful and eternity are the same).  But the beauty of the moving image of eternity means that the things of this image are temporary, whereas the beauty of eternity as such is beauty as such.

3.  Platonism has been around for over 2,000 years.  I sometimes wonder what Platonism might look like after another 2,000 years; that’s assuming that it will be around after another 2,000 years.  It’s impossible to be sure, of course, but I don’t think it is irrational or fanciful to imagine things along this line. 

Will there still be the original Greek texts of Plato and Plotinus?, or will people rely on some later translation in another language?  Platonism is one of the reasons that people are actively interested in ancient Greek and because of this the Greek texts might still be actively circulating.

Platonism has gone through many changes in its interpretation of itself; for example, there are changes on how noetic realities are understood.  In 2,000 years I think it is likely that Platonism will be interpreted through categories that we cannot imagine.

And what will the role of artificial intelligence be for Platonism?  Will we be able to download the Dialogues and the Enneads directly into our minds and ponder them through some kind of technological means?  Perhaps; but perhaps those innovations will have been cast aside.  It’s hard to say.

After 2,000 years it is likely that most of the nations here on earth will only be found in history.  But I suspect that the primary documents of Platonism will still be found and read and discussed at that time.

4.  Beauty is a central understanding of the Platonic tradition.  Some things are strikingly beautiful; for example, a sunset, or a forest path in autumn, or the desert under the full moon, and so forth.  Other things have a more hidden beauty.  When I was young, I lived for a few years on the north coast of Alaska.  The winter is severe, very cold, with snow as far as one can see in any direction.  The Brooks Range is to the south of the north coast and on clear days (which in winter only last a few hours) it can be seen, rising from the endless snow.  This is a different kind of beauty; it is glacial and stark, even threatening, but beautiful nevertheless.

5.  I understand emanation as a process of differentiation.  The One is pure unity and is, therefore, undifferentiated; that is why it lacks any sensory characteristics.  The task of the Platonist practitioner is to ‘return to the One’.  I understand this process of return as a process of de-differentiation, or the steady stepping beyond the differentiations of our material existence.  (This eventually also extends to going beyond the differentiations found in the noetic.)

De-differentiation is done through practices of equanimity, ataraxia, and most importantly, asceticism.  All the practices of de-differentiation are purifications that allow for the soul’s ascent. 

Returning to the One means becoming less and less differentiated which means less and less individuated, more and more like the One.

6.  “I [Porphyry] have shown in the previous two books [chapters], Firmus Castricius, that the eating of animal creatures contributes neither to temperance and simplicity nor to piety, which especially lead to the contemplative life, but rather opposes them.  Justice in its finest aspect is piety towards the gods, and piety is achieved especially by abstinence, so there is no need to fear that we may somehow infringe justice towards people by maintaining holiness towards the gods.  Socrates, in reply to those who argue that our end is pleasure, said that even if all hogs and he-goats agreed with this, he would not be convinced that our happiness lies in experiencing pleasure, so long as intellect rules over all. [See Philebus 67b] And we, even if all wolves and vultures approve of meat-eating, will not agree that what they say is just, so long as humans are naturally harmless and inclined to refrain from acquiring pleasures for themselves by harming others.”

(Porphyry, On Abstinence from Killing Animals, translated by Gillian Clark, Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 2000, page 80, ISBN: 9781780938899)

6.1  This is part of the opening paragraph for Book 3 of Porphyry’s series of letters to Firmus Castricius on refraining from killing animals either for food or for ritual sacrifice.  This paragraph consolidates a number of points that Porphyry uses to support the practice of vegetarianism; for example, that eating animals undermines the virtues such as temperance, piety, and living a simple life (which I take as meaning a life with few possessions).  Porphyry particularly emphasizes how eating meat ‘opposes’ contemplation, which is a point Porphyry makes in the opening of the first Book, or letter, to Firmus.  Notice also how Porphyry states that eating meat undermines justice and holiness towards the gods. 

This is followed by Porphyry arguing against the idea that the pleasure of eating meat somehow justifies such a practice, reminding the reader that Socrates argued against such an approach to ethics. 

Porphyry also integrates the Platonic teachings on non-harming into his overall critique of killing animals.  This passage is dense with reasonings on why eating and killing animals should be avoided with the primary message being that such a practice is contrary to what it means to live a philosophical life.

6.2  Later in Book 3, at paragraphs 26 Porphyry expands on the theme of harmlessness:  “When the passions have been abased and appetite and anger have withered, and the rational part exercises the rule which is appropriate for it, assimilation to the Greater follows at once.  The Greater in the universe is altogether harmless, and itself by its power safeguards all, does good to all, and lacks nothing . . . “ (As above, page 98)

6.3 And in paragraph 27 Porphyry writes: “A man who is led by passions and is harmless only to his children and his wife, but contemptuous and aggressive towards others, is aroused and dazzled by mortal things because the irrational dominates in him.  In the same way, the man who is led by reason maintains harmlessness towards fellow-citizens too, and further still towards strangers and all human beings; he keeps irrationality subjected, and is more rational than those others and thereby also more godlike.  Thus someone who does not restrict harmlessness to human beings, but extends it also to the other animals is more like the god . . . “ (Ibid, pages 98-99)

7.  On a Summer evening, the evening of the Summer Solstice, Plato walks through a northern Wisconsin forest on a broad path that most people do not see.  Beside Plato is a brown bear; they are walking together.  Now and then Plato scratches the bear behind the bear’s ears.  The slope of the path begins to descend to a small lake where there is a dock with Plato’s canoe tied to a post.  Sunset approaches.  Plato and the brown bear arrive at the shore of the placid lake.  They pause to look at the sunset.  The bear is glowing in the sunset light and with an inner glow as well.  The glow slowly becomes sparks of starlight.  The bear becomes sparks of starlight.  The bear becomes the sparks of starlight swirling in a disc like a galaxy.  The swirling light slowly fades.  Plato, standing on the shore, smiles.  The sun has disappeared but the night sky is clear.  Plato walks down the wooden dock to his canoe.  He unties it and steps into the canoe.  Plato takes a paddle and steers the canoe to the middle of the lake, turns the canoe to the right, and paddles down the middle of the lake.  The Milky Way is reflected in the water so that Plato is paddling on a path of stars.  The lake disappears.