17 November 2025
1. Addendum
Last week I posted ‘Evaluating the Relationship between Christianity and Platonism.’ In some ways it turned out to also be a post on the relationship between Orthodox Platonism and Theurgic Platonism.
Over the last week I have thought of some aspects of this topic that I overlooked that I think deserve to be included. This addendum offers one additional observation:
1.1 In last week’s post I mentioned a few differences between Orthodox and Theurgic Platonism. One difference that I neglected to include is the place that Henads hold in Theurgic Platonism and how that undermines Orthodox Platonism. In Theurgic Platonism the Gods are thought of as Henads (sometimes translated as ‘unities’) that are placed between the One, the first hypostasis, or highest level of reality, and the Noetic realm of eternal objects, the second hypostasis, or level of reality.
In Orthodox Platonism there are no Henads between the One, and Nous, or eternal objects. The flow of emanation from the One goes directly to Noetic realities such as numbers, being, life, and mind, and so forth. The principle that governs, or gives us insight into, the nature of emanation is differentiation; the Noetic is more differentiated than the One (which is undifferentiated), and the material level of reality, or hypostasis, is more differentiated than the Noetic. This is the metaphysical map, and cosmology, of Orthodox Platonism.
When Theurgic Platonism places the Gods, or Henads, between the One and the Noetic the result is a disruption in the flow of emanation because the Gods are more differentiated than the eternal objects of Noetic reality. And, from the Orthodox Platonist perspective, there is no necessity, or even a casual reason, for adding this complexity; I mean that there is no problem in Orthodox Platonism that is in some way solved by adding the Henads, or Gods in this disruptive way.
This is, I think, a major difference between the Orthodox and Theurgic approaches.
2. The Good and the Material Realm
Human beings are not good. I don’t mean that human beings never do good things; sometimes, not often, but sometimes human beings do good things. What I mean is that when human beings do good things it is because of the presence of the Good and the One, it is because of the presence of eternity; the good that human beings do does not arise from human nature rather the good that human beings do arises in spite of human nature.
3. Chatting with ChatGPT
Recently I have engaged with ChatGPT in philosophical discussion. Most of my discussions are about whether a particular interpretation I have of a philosophical issue has some kind of precedent and if it does where I can find that precedent, such as what philosophers also held this view or something close to this view. For example, I have the view that the three old men who are depicted in Plato’s dialogue Laws are allegories for, or symbols of, the three hypostases (the transcendental One, the Noetic realm or the realm of eternal objects, and the material realm). The Athenian Stranger represents the One, the Cretan represents the nous, and the Spartan represents the material realm. I asked ChatGPT if there were any commentaries or essays about Laws that took the same, or a similar approach to Laws. It turned out that there are examples of those who take a similar approach but differ as to the specific allegorical nature of the three old men. ChatGPT added that this allegorical approach to the Laws is a minority approach and most writing on Laws uses a more straightforward kind of analysis. Nevertheless, this was encouraging to me. Finding that others understand Laws as a vast and complex allegory made me feel more at ease regarding taking that approach.
Thinking about this, I think the kind of question I asked is the kind of question that AI is good at. I wasn’t asking AI it’s own opinion; rather I was seeking information, using AI as a research tool. It felt comfortable and I was able to find the information I was looking for.
I don’t know where AI is headed or how AI will impact the field of philosophy. My observation is that new technologies never live up to the initial hype that its creators and early enthusiasts predict. I don’t see why AI will be any different. Nevertheless, I don’t feel any qualms about using it; we’ll see what happens.
4. Retreat
When I lived in Northern California I would go on spiritual retreats on an irregular basis. There was one retreat center in particular that I found very congenial; it offered very small facilities that were like hermitages. I structured my retreat by using the Eight Monastic Hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline) as a way of framing what I would do and when I would do it on my retreat. I usually modified the Monastic Hours so that they began at 6 a.m. and then unfolded through the day at two-hour intervals (6 a.m., 8 a.m., 10 a.m., Noon, 2 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m., 8 p.m.). This kind of structure worked very well for me. Every two hours I would do some spiritual reading, such as from the Enneads, followed by some contemplation. I wasn’t too strict about the timing; sometimes I would combine two of these hours into one session, for example. But in general I stuck with this framing and it worked well.
And I continued to use this structure now and then when I had a day off for a kind of mini-retreat. And now that I am retired and have more free time, I have thought about using this structure as the basis for all the days of my life that remain.
Such a commitment has the disadvantage of taking time away from other activities; but most of these other activities are no longer attractive. Such a commitment has the advantage of structuring my day in a manner that quickly becomes familiar so that I don’t have to think about if I have the time for spiritual reading and contemplation since that is the purpose of my days.
It is a retreat from the
world and its concerns. It is walking on
the road to eternity.
No comments:
Post a Comment