If I've ever lived a philosophy its Catholicism. And in today's brief lecture on neo-Platonism, I really felt that Christian theology was coming. Like the film Agora, to sack the more vocal and open body of Hellenistic philosophy, it took a little time, but, the majority of people stopped discussing big questions they couldn't answer. Consider it mission accomplished.
Not to say discussion was put down. In my past religion classes we always got a little philosophical, but at some point skepticism and cynicism would set in and dialogue would get stuck in the mud, unable to move further. It went Good (purpose) to Happiness to God; they were all suppose to be the same thing and you should see each of them together, if seen in the right way. Someone might say, 'but what if I don't believe in God?' but it wouldn't go any further.
With the neo-Platonism of early Christian thinkers what I understood was this:
the one ----> duality.
As soon as we say that something is this or that, then we attribute unity to it.
So for example,
In x is y we attribute unity, and that seems to be enough for Plotinus.
But further in my reading, the insight was set again in Schopenhaur, Sartre, or even Camus or Dostoyevsky:
x is...? When did we decide that?
All things try to preserve one's existence. We use this simple logical trap though. We haven't proven anything.
one= being
one= good
good= being
I don't think that Plotinus is a poor thinker, and I have so much respect for him. I am reading him with preconceptions though. And I feel, even more so, that towards the end of the semester, coming full circle, I can be ok with skepticism. It isn't the best way to get around, as Jared pointed out, but it seems a necessary precaution to fight off dogmatism. That philosopsy, in order to reconcile the Good of Plato, the thought thinking of itself in Aristotle, and the Nature of the Stoics, that the ellipsis of the legendary Hypathia are only forged in the midst of fighting the Skeptics and Cynics off of their backs.
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