18 August 2025
Brief Notes on Various Topics – 60
1. Recently I have been thinking that analytic philosophy is autistic philosophy. Autistics are able to engage in what some people call ‘vertical’ learning. As I understand it, vertical learning means to drill down into a single topic and also to comprehend all other topics, or subjects, or areas of learning, based on the one thing that has attracted the autistic’s attention.
What autistic personalities are incapable of is what is sometimes called ‘horizontal’ learning. By horizontal is meant to think about how one subject relates to another subject; this kind of learning usually involves metaphorical or analogical thinking, something which autistic personalities find difficult to engage in.
Analytic philosophy can be understood as fitting into this pattern in that it drills down into analysis, and what they think of as logic, while ignoring, or dogmatically rejecting, other philosophical subjects. This rejection is particularly strong when autistic analytic philosophers discuss metaphysics.
Naturally, I am using ‘autistic’ to describe analytic philosophy as a metaphor; I’m not saying that analytic philosophers are diagnostically autistic. Rather I am suggesting that the pattern of analytic philosophy, its modes of study, communication, and relationship, seem to me to resemble what is described as autistic, or has features that seem to be illuminated by the metaphor of autism.
2. It’s interesting to me that I don’t find a lot written about Platonist asceticism. When I asked Chatgpt if there are books on this subject, it came up with only three, and only one of those was specifically focused on that topic (Platonist Contemplative Asceticism: Practice and Principle by Eric Fallick). This contrasts with very numerous books about various issues in Platonic interpretation such as how to interpret The Republic or the relationship between Platonic mysticism and other types of mysticism, or commentaries on various works such as The Symposium or an Ennead by Plotinus. All of these are valuable and insightful; I’m not objecting to writing about these other aspects of Platonism. What I’m suggesting is that contemporary writing on Platonism is unable to think of asceticism as foundational for Platonist practice, for how to do, or embody, Platonist practice. I can understand this; the role of asceticism in early Christianity is often overlooked, and Western Buddhism actively rejects the idea of renunciation as an inherent part of the Buddhist tradition. This means, I think, that asceticism as a way of life, and Platonism as a way of asceticism, is on the fringes of contemporary thought.
3. There are two contemporary Western philosophical approaches that are anti-metaphysical and therefore anti-Platonist. One is the analytic tradition which has its roots in philosophers such as David Hume. Analytic philosophy had its high point in the first half of the 20th century and still has many adherents.
The second anti-metaphysical tradition is what I tend to call the ‘Heideggerian’ tradition. Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics is, from one point of view, subtle and difficult; and from another point of view his critique is obscure and, some would say, incoherent and largely emotive. Be that as it may, Heidegger views Western philosophy as having ‘abandoned’ metaphysics by which he means, at least I think he means, that being as such has been put aside for the study of beings. Heidegger even accuses philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle of making this move. Heidegger then interprets subsequent Western metaphysical investigations as in some way the fruit of this poisonous tree, by which I mean that he seems to think of all subsequent metaphysics as emerging from this displacement of being as such for the study of particular beings.
Analytic philosophy attacked the heritage of metaphysics by constructing a theory of meaning that eliminated metaphysics because metaphysics does not adhere to the analytic theory of meaning. The Heideggerian tradition attacks the heritage of metaphysics by suggesting that the Western tradition of metaphysics has actually in some way ‘covered’ or distorted what metaphysics is about and therefore made access to being more difficult. But what I think is really interesting is that both traditions reject the efforts of previous philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, on the subject of metaphysics. This is where I see a common purpose that is shared by both contemporary traditions, though they come to this shared approach by taking different routes.
To be a Platonist at this time in Western philosophical history, means to be distanced from both streams of anti-metaphysical thinking. I look at it this way; Western metaphysical thought did not, and has not, abandoned being as such. Instead I see Western philosophy as offering a variety of interpretations as to the nature of being, as well as to the transcendence of being, as well of the relationship between being as such and individual beings.
Personally, I regard this rejection of the Western metaphysical tradition by both analytic philosophy and the Heideggerian tradition, as having an obsessively critical and narrow view of how to do philosophy. My view is that both traditions do not understand, for example, how words work, or the status of metaphysical thought and investigation. This rejection, again, in my opinion, is aligned with, and nourished by, the pervasive view that treats the past in a completely negative way in the sense that the past is understood to be deficient and the present is superior both in understanding and in science and technology. From this perspective the past has nothing to offer; in terms of philosophy this results in a dismissal of metaphysics in particular because metaphysics had a high status in the past and is therefore a target of those who adhere to the idea that the present is superior in every way to the past.
I know that analytic and continental philosophy are often configured as antagonistic to each other. But when looked at from the perspective of metaphysics I understand both traditions to share a common goal, a common purpose. The shared goal and purpose is to clear the field and practice of philosophy of metaphysics, shrinking the range of human thought. It is true that analytic philosophy and Heideggerianism offer different reasons for rejecting traditional, Platonic, metaphysics; but in a sense, that is a minor issue. It is the rejection of metaphysics itself by both approaches that, I think, is significant and deeply misguided.
4. Continuing with the Sentences of Porphyry, here is Sentence 6:
Not everything which acts on another, effects that which it does effect by approximation and contact; but those natures which effect any thing by approximation and contact, use approximation accidentally. (Thomas Taylor)
The things that act upon others do not act by approximation and by contact. It is only accidentally when this occurs [that they act by proximity and contact – emendation by the translator]. (Kenneth Guthrie)
That which acts upon something else, does not do what it does by approach or contact; but even those things which do perform an action by approach and contact, employ approach by accident. (Thomas Davidson)
Not every active being that influences another by approaching or touching the object of influence does so through direct touch and interaction, and some beings that interact in this way use approaching only as a side element of their activity. (Isaac Samarskyi)
4.1 I have incorporated the translation of the Sentences of Porphyry by Thomas Davidson. Davidson’s translation was published in a scholarly journal in 1869. I’m not aware of it being published in book form.
4.2 This is another of the Sentences that is mostly opaque to me in the sense that I am not sure what the purpose of the Sentence is. I mean it’s not clear to me how this Sentence fits in with the other Sentences.
4.3 The word ‘approximation’ used by Taylor and Guthrie has, I think, changed meaning since those translators used it. I think it more accurately means ‘approach’ which is used by Davidson and Samarskyi.
4.4 One way of unpacking a sentence like this one is to try and understand the words it uses and how the words fit together. Sentence 6 is about how some things influence or impact other things, when they do impact or influence other things. It seems to me that Sentence 6 is closely related to Sentence 3 which is also about things interacting.
4.5 I think one concern of this sentence is how incorporeal beings influence other beings when, by definition, incorporeal beings do not touch, approach, or otherwise contact material beings (though Porphyry does not explicitly mention incorporeal beings in this sentence). This would be an item of discussion in Platonism because noetic realities are incorporeal, yet it is noetic realities which house the incorporeal forms, from which are emanated material realities. The specific means by which emanation happens cannot be material in nature.
4.6 The use of the word ‘accident’ is interesting. In most Platonic works I have read the idea that things arise accidentally or randomly is rejected. But here Porphyry suggests that some things influence other things in a random manner.
The idea that things happen in a random manner was very widespread in Greek popular culture; for example the Gods were viewed as capricious and incomprehensible. The Goddess Tyche, Fortuna in Latin, was prominent and people often felt that fate governed their lives.
This attitude was present not only in popular culture, but also in some philosophers such as Heraclitus. There is a famous fragment where Heraclitus compares the activity of an eon to a child playing a game with dice. Notice that games have rules, implying some order in the cosmos. But the toss of the dice and the results that appear seem arbitrary and unrelated to the individual who tossed the dice.
Still, it is unusual for a Platonist, at least Platonists I have read, to suggest that things happen accidentally or randomly and I wonder how this fits in with Porphyry’s philosophy as a whole?
5. I have been thinking about how the Classical World viewed Plato as communicated in comments and biographies/hagiographies. Primarily the Classical World thought of Plato as ‘divine’ and as extraordinary and as blessed by the Gods. One aspect of this is found in the belief that Plato was born from a union between a God, Apollo, and Plato’s mother. His father had approached Plato’s mother for intimate relations, but withdrew when he saw the presence of Apollo.
This story, or mythos, lasted for a long time. According to some scholars it was Plato’s nephew, Speussippus, who was also the second head of the Academy, who first presented this mythos. I tend to think that Speusippus may have been the first to write about it, but I suspect that the mythos preceded that writing. In any case, the mythos seems to have an early origin. And the mythos was repeated and passed on throughout the classical period. For example, Plutarch, who lived about 40 to 120 AD, writes about it. So does Olympiodorus who died in 565 AD.
It’s interesting that I have not found in my reading any mention of Plato being thought of as a God, though he may be depicted as having God-like qualities. And I don’t find any mention of a cult of Plato in the sense of temples of worship being constructed for such activity. Perhaps the Academies in Athens and Alexandria served that purpose.
I do find mention of a yearly celebration of the birth of Plato, and sometimes Socrates at the same time. This seems to have consisted of a meal (probably vegetarian) and the reading of people’s philosophical essays. This was a way of expressing their appreciation for, and reverence of, Plato.
I think it is an intriguing picture where Plato is admired, given a kind of divine birth, but is not himself transformed into a God for the purposes of cultic worship. My reading of this is that it expresses that Plato is beyond the Gods in the sense of transcending the realms that the Gods inhabit.
According to Diogenes Laertius there were a number of epitaphs inscribed at Plato’s tomb, which was at the Academy. Here is one of them:
Excelling among mortals for temperance and justice,
(Plato’s given name was Aristocles, which was his grandfather’s name – translator’s footnote.)
(Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, translated by Pamela Mensch, Oxford University Press, 2018, page 156, ISBN: 9780190862176)
I like this epitaph. It emphasizes the virtues of temperance and justice, and adds that Plato won great praise for his wisdom. And Plato managed to do this without arousing envy which speaks to his divine character.
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