God in a Coma

Today we talked about symbols and the generative power of symbols. I started to think how the symbols fit into a symbolic order, and through this symbolic order Christianity has defined and redefined itself on a basis of the power inherit, or lack of power, in the symbolic rituals of the church. So, my definition for the symbolic order comes out of Lacan: The social world of linguistic communication. intersubjective relations, knowledge of ideological conventions, and the acceptance of law (which Lacan calls the "big Other").
The example of Prof. Layne's son talking about symbols relates to this order. The child in consumed by language and accepts the rules, norms, and ideological consciousness of a certain society. Through this acceptance of the symbolic order, Simon (Prof Layne's son) is now able to relate to and deal with others and the authority they posses. Lacan gets a little messy when he starts pulling the symbolic order from the Oedipus complex, but even through dealing with this Oedipus complex, the name of the father, a likeness to Christianity and the conception of God as father arises. When I say the Name of the Father I mean that which mediates your desire and communication through restrictions and law--think of the Freudian superego. Language as the mediator of the symbolic gives us the human act par excellence, originally founded on the existence of the world of the symbol, specifically on the laws and contracts. Even in using the phrase par excellence I make a philosophical point through some sort of symbolic authority. Why do I even say par excellence in my pseudo french accent, when I could just as easily say it is the quintessential. By using the phrase par excellence I am taking from a linguistic terminology that symbolically represents an intellectual. I become what I want to be through the words and the symbolic authority I give to language I use and how I relate to it by relating to others. I want others to see me as a philosophical power, and the way they can perceive me in this way is through the words I use to paint a picture of myself.

Anyway, that tangent was going on for too long. The symbolic order in Christianity broke down during the Reformation, and a need to reinvent God and his rituals were called for. It seems like a lot of people in this class like Nietzche, and I think he realized this lack of symbolic authority of the Church in his proclimation, "God is Dead." God is Dead isn't a call for atheism, but we are given a break from the taditional Christian ideology and are introduced to a new form of belief. The thesis "God is Dead" is only one part of a two-fold thesis: "God is Dead" and "Christianity has survived the Death of God." Looking at the survival of Christianity despite the death of God can help to elucidate just what type of ideology has been functioning since the reformation.

Nietzche's affirmation concerns a symbolic God. The inherent power of God is stripped from the rituals of Christianity and we are left with a "dead God" we must power ourselves. In this death of the symbolic we can find the two formulations of God that have been functioning throughout the history of Christianity. There is the God of scientists, philosophers, and theologians, and there is the God of Job, Jacan, and Abraham. The first God functions as an ontological God within and the throughout the symbolic order of linguistics, law, and ideology; the God of Abraham functions as the Symbolic God--it is the excess of the symbolic which leads to Nietzche's death of God. The God referred to in the affirmation "God is Dead" is the God that powers the symbolic. This powerless God is robbed from the traditional Christian rituals and belief and in this void we find Christianity replacing God in the power of the symbolic.

The Reformation was a way for the Chruch to try to re-activate God in a new way that could survive the death of the symbolic God. Once rituals become powerless, new forms of worship begin to spring up without having to rely on a symbolic master. The power of the master was now in the hands of the people, and with this power new forms of prayer are no longer contingent on rituals.

The problem of the symbolic lack of power manifests itself as the empowerment of those who were once enslaved. This can also be seen through the Hegelian master-slave dialectic, which at its core claims that the master/slave power/powerless relationship is equally contingent on both parties. The lines between master and slave are ultimately blurred. Rituals that produce nothing due to the absence of the symbolic God shows us how the invisible scaffolding of our consciousness, our moral conception of life and will to believe, affirms this master-slave dialectic within the Christian fath. Using religion as a crutch is key to the survival of Christianity despite the "DEATH OF GOD." Using religion as a way to diminish your self and as a way to produce a sense of alienation as means to raise yourself up into the religious sphere is captured by the typical Christian rhetoric of "I am a sinner but in God I am saved." In this proclamation Christianity is able to elevate itself from a false sense of self worth into assimilation with God. This gives an excellent example, AN EXAMPLE PAR EXCELLENCE, of fetishistic disavowal at work after the "death of God": I know very well that the symbolic God is gone from the rituals and that I have to take the place of God by becoming my own God, but I nonetheless act as though the symbolic God still functioned as the generative power in the rituals and beliefs I uphold.

The discovery of God as a "power" is a major reason why Christianity was able to survive the death of God. Before the Reformation, the symbolic rituals created a way for people to connect to the God that is "beyond" our world. The rituals acted as a way for the two realms of existence, the earthly and the heavenly, to meet. Once the symbolic God was lost from the rituals, the God functioning as "power" takes on a whole new meaning. The way to reach "beoynd" into the other realm of existence is utterly unattainable. The symbolic no longer acts as the quilting point between realms, but it does feed on infinite passion to attain a higher level of being through religious experience. The new power no longer functions as generative but as accumulative. This accumulation of power created God again after the Reformation by keeping God at a distance. To get in touch with God we must function as passion for God. But this is too much philosophy for one blog post.

Ultimately, I am not trying to paint an atheists interpretation of Christianity. I actually think that the similarities between fundamentalist Christians and atheists are scary. The modern atheist can look at the proclamation "God is Dead" and find within it something he/she can support, but within this support there has to be an unconscious belief in God. This unconscious belief affects the modern atheist just as much as the conscious belief that God is dead, in the sense that there is a space in which God dwells. The atheist is a subject presenting him/herself as a tolerant hedonist dedicated to the pursuit of happiness, beauty, pleasure--a profound and naive romanticism maybe?--and their unconscious is the site of prohibitions: what is repressed is not illicit desire or pleasure, but suppression itself.

Hopefully you read all of that. Class isn't boring, it is just hard for me to give a synopsis of what happened without going off on tangents.

Pagan Influence on Christianity

So, our discussion yesterday has prompted me to share some fun little facts that you may or may not have known regarding the extent of Pagan influence over Christianity. Despite the severe hatred which early Christians felt for the Pagans, as shown in Agora, some of their beliefs and much of their imagery, stems from outside sources. The book of Revelation, for instance, is a piece of apocalyptic literature which was written around 96 CE, but its influence is clearly rooted in Babylonian society, which existed around 586 BCE. The Babylonians were avid believers in astrology, and almost everything that they did was influenced by patterns within the heavens. The book of Revelation, which speaks of the number seven, stars, and a throne, is clearly a representation of the beliefs of the Babylonians. Revelation speaks of Satan's Throne and a man who was shaped "like a lampstand," which is a borrowed image of the throne of Zeus which resided in Rome. The images of monsters and demons, the sun as the eye of Zeus, the golden lamb, and the mountain as the throne of Zeus, which exist within Revelation, are also borrowed images from Pagan society. Clearly, then we are able to see that the Christians did not derive something out of nothing, which is a logical contradiction, but rather, they borrowed from what they already knew, regardless of how greatly they abhorred Pagan beliefs.

Unjustly Condemned

Reading Justin's First Apology made me not think that this man was overly revolutionary in his thoughts until I got to chapter four where he discussed persecution of certain people by association. He cries out for reason to allow men to judge men as men, not as x,y, or z, depending on their affiliations. Although he seems to place some sort of elitism on Christians due to their connection with greatness above and beyond everyone, he brings up a point that is still not being fully utilized today. The first judgement people place on others is based on appearance, then after learning more about them, more assumptions lead to a general idea on that individual. And in many cases, one affiliation, like a religious one, could instantly allow for someone to judge more critically of that person. Will we ever be able to live up to this ideal? When will it be that humans will be able to look at each other in the colorblind and religious blind way of Stephen Colbert?

A "scientific" look at justice

http://www.economist.com/node/18584074?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/thegoodgodguide

This is a pretty fun article. Happy Easter everyone!

Conceit to Knowledge

The other day I was studying for Thomas Aquinas test and there was one thing that really stood out to me as I was going through my notes.  Thomas Aquinas said one reason believers-in-God have faith is so they won't seem irrational to nonbelievers by trying to prove something with reason that can't be proven in that way.  A few days later I was thinking about this and also about our discussion of men of knowledge, men of simple ignorance, and men of double ignorance.  Before considering faith as something to prevent a nonbeliever from seeing a believer as irrational, I thought of belief in God as a conceit to knowledge.  But after considering the faith thing I would put a belief in God could into the simple ignorance category since the believer is not really making an irrational claim that he or she doesn't understand, but admitting that his or her belief is not completely proven by reason, but by his or her strong feelings about God (I don't know if that's exactly right, but do you get the idea sort of?).  It think it's beautiful when people feel so strongly about certain things that they don't need to justify them with logical explanations.

Limitless and the Unity of Existence

I went to see a pretty awful movie last night. We went to see a horror film and upon arrival learned that it was sold out. Luckily for movie sales.. not lucky for us.. limitless was due to start at the same time so we chose to watch it instead. Awful... don't go and see it BUT the opening credits are INCREDIBLE. As I was watching them, I realized that it made a nice metaphor for neoplatonism. As the opening credits show, all is unity. We surge through life, with many individual differences, experiencing many individual sense impressions, but in reality, all of these difference originates from one infinite unity.

Enjoy. (to view it, click on the link and scroll down to the video within the article.)

Desert Island Books

Recently we have been discussing different ways to analyze texts, and this in turn sort of lead into a conversation of interpretation spanning art in general, but we limited it to our favorite books.
Dialogue has various different parts: matter, form, nature, soul, intellect, and good. Digging deeper into these various aspects of the dialogue, I started to wonder about typical reactions to art and how "art consciousness" has shifted greatly since the Neo Platonists and today.

Here comes the exposition!

I am a musician and I appreciate when people enjoy the music I make, who wouldn't? But one thing that I have noticed, when describing art--be it a book or song--people like to use the terms "interesting" or "boring" when asked their opinion. For some reason this really annoys me. I think describing a piece of art as interesting or boring lends itself to a naive approach towards/understanding of art.

Looking at the various parts of dialogue used by Proclus, the categories boring and interesting seem to be out of place;indeed, they are not even present. What does it mean for something to be boring or interesting? (Apparently Hegel thought it was not a compliment to call something interesting) How do we experience boredom or interest? It seems to me that the interesting and the boring are both presuppositions of one another; two psychological categories that rest in the emotions and not in any sort of objective. The vicissitudes of these feelings prove their solipsistic nature--surely bespeaking the solipsistic milieu of art. Also, these feelings seem to stand in for concepts such as "the beautiful" or "the ugly." The way we register the interesting or boring is also interesting (ha). An interesting/boring object finds itself in our attention, we take cognizance of the object and then just as easily we let it go passing it off as boring or interesting. The effect doesn't last any longer than it takes for me to perceive, it only lasts as long as I am subject to the interesting/boring object, and only in the sense that I am sitting in church bored, but once I leave church I never dwell on this boring experience again. The same thing can be said about an interesting experience. The notion of the interesting arises when our conception of truth is no longer connected to art. Nowadays we connect truth to science.

I will figure out some more stuff to say about this in the next few days. Gotta get started on that paper!

In class when we talked about how there is the relationship between the reader of a text and the text itself it got me wondering how the reader's interpenetration of what they are reading affects its ability to have its potential reached. If someone is reading and engaging with the text, then the text will have meaning but what if a reader of a text misses the point of what is being written? When the writer writes something with one meaning and the reader takes a meaning away that is unrelated the text still meaningful?
I started wondering this when I found this website that invited its users to provide interpretations for the rap lyrics of various songs. Some could high light a section of the song and if it the artist used a lot of figurative language, someone could break down what was being said in layman's terms and allow others to talk about how their interpenetration differed from the one provided. And when I read through the meanings of particular verses they were taking away my first instinct was to say that they were wrong and missed the point. But since it is their opinion who am I to say they were wrong? And I found myself wondering if any neo-platinous would be able to say that the meaning one takes away from a text is wrong. Maybe the only wrong interpenetration would be to conclude that there is no meaning and leave the text lifeless.

We talked about the interpretation of text and there was a spark of interest in the nature of a text: whether it is objective or subjective. A thought a good modern example of this is Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury was overwhelmingly disappointed in the poor understanding of Fahrenheit 451. People thought it was about government censorship, because they claimed that temperature was the same temperature at which paper burned, and in turn the temperature at which book burnings can be committed (the temperature is actually 450 Celsius).

The book actually turns out to be about the numbing effects of technology. Bradbury, although a science fiction writer, was himself a Luddite. The government is not the problem, the people are. The irony of this is that the people of this society cannot recognize his message, perhaps because society has numbed them from working through the intricacies of a text.

Class Synopisis April 11th

We began class by talking about distinguishing between the contemporary way to read a text and the classical way. Neo-Platonists read him pedagogically, so as to progress from one part of philosophy to the next. Contemporary scholarship focuses on how Plato's philosophy develops as Plato himself develops. The classical way of reading Plato composed them into tetrarchies, containing three dramas and one seder play. Iamblicus was the one responsible for ordering the dialogues for the Neo-Platonists, moving from the particular good to the universal good. The Timaeus and Parmenides stand out as a synthesis of Plato's natural philosophy and religious philosophy respectively.

There is a purpose to this process though, reading a text as it is supposed to be read makes us one with the text. the Neo-Platonists did not fall into a post-modernism, were each person constructs meaning from the text. Because there is some objectivity to the relationship, we can get to the intended meaning of a text.

Next we moved to discussing the process of interpreting an actual text. There are six parts to it: matter (character, time, place), form (style), nature (either expository or investigative), soul (problems of the text), intellect (topic), and good (the transformation of myself and the text towards the One).

Next we talked about we talked the Commentary of Proclus on the Parmenides. Just as in epics, the commentary begins with an invocation of the gods interprets the text allegorically. We ended by dividing the text into four conversations.

"We are simply the universe experiencing itself"

I discovered this quote several weeks ago on my tumblr account, and because of how I found it, I cannot validate completely who it’s by, but it was attributed to Mercurius. Nevertheless, it is very relevant to Neo-Platonism and the relationship of the subject and the object. It reminded me of the thought exercise that we did in which I imagined everything that exists being contained within a sphere, and then asked “where am I?” I was both the subject, surveying all of existence, and myself part of existence. Just now the question might could be asked "am I the universe or am I experiencing it?" Both. It is us we are it. This quotation points out that even though we experience the universe, we are certainly part of it. All is one, ourselves included.

The Eternal Nature of Texts

After our discussion on Monday regarding the seemingly objective nature of texts, I have to say that I am somewhat inspired. The neo-platonic tradition is so unique in their practices, and I can see how this carries over into Christianity. This whole notion of the text taking on, not a life of its own, but rather, a life in the marriage of reader and text sounds ludacris, but I am inclined to agree that this is the case. In writing a text, the author has one thing in mind. If the text is never read, does it carry any weight or meaning, though? Clearly the neoplatonists would argue that it does not. Initially, I thought, "Hell yeah it does. What are you talking about?" I was so bothered by the notion that a book, novel, poem, or even article carries no meaning unless read. I don't think that is to say, though, that there is absolutely NO meaning whatsoever to the text. I think that is to say that its potential is only partially actualized in being written. In being read, however, the text takes on a completely different dynamic. Not only the first time it is read, but every time a text is read, a new relationship is built between text and reader. This gives the text a sort of limitless potential and eternal quality, and, to me, that is jsut delightful =)

Ancient Philosophy in Hegel

a few times in class we have brought up the the parallel between the way that Hegel posits his idea of the spirit and how it relates to the All Soul. They have many similarities in them, the main one being that the I or Soul in the case of the Neo-Platonist's must look at itself in order to reach Unity. Hegel's Spirit is a lot like this but in many ways it is different. The most obvious difference between the two is Hegel's focus on perception that is not present in the Neo-Platonist thought. Being that the I cannot directly look back at itself but must rather look at itself contemplating itself. Not: I->I ; but I->(I->object). Upon contemplating the two of them, I came to the realization that in many ways it has a connection to skepticism as well. Though it does claim that the spirit is something that one can know (which goes against skeptical thought) it does get to its conclusion in a very skeptical way. Unlike the Soul which reaches its logical end because being perfect it has no need of looking further. Hegel in a very skeptical manner reaches the spirit by way of negation. I fail to grasp all of it myself but from what I understand the spirit is infinite by negation. Hegel claims that it is the negation of its self and therefore if you use skeptical philosophy it will still be the same. kind of like this. Hegel uses the term the Infinate interchangeably with spirit, because it is its negation. I just thought it was interesting to see Ancient Philosophy in Hegel, especially one that I wasn't expecting to see.

Class Synopsis Friday April 8

We began class on Friday by reviewing Platinus, being sure to cover the major parts of Platinus’ theories that will be built upon by the later Neo-Platonists. The ones that seemed to stick out the most were Platinus’ monism (his belief that all is in all) and his theory about the One, Intellect, and the Soul. For this, we spent more time going over the distinctions between the three main parts and how they relate to each other. Specifically: the One being pure unity that looks at the Intellect, the Intellect is being that looks at the Soul, and the Soul being all. It is important to note that the reason why the soul cannot go beyond itself is because it is already all so there is no further for it to look. If it needed to look any further it would mean that the Soul is imperfect rather than perfect unity. From there we made a transition to other Neo-Platonists by way of how each philosopher posited that one could come upon unity.

Platinus believed that there were two paths to unity. One could get to unity by either faith or by way of knowledge. The next philosophers that we covered split greatly upon those lines. Porphry (232 AD in Athens) believed strongly that knowledge was the only way to get to the one. He rejected the allegorical truths and theurgies and instead believed that contemplation was the only way to get to the One. Conversely, Iamblicus (250-326 AD) believed the exact opposite. This was because he posited that the Soul was so descended that it knows the external world to much. He thought that religious rights are necessary for a person to turn inward and thus find unity. Additionally, he came up with the idea that aside from the monads (One, Intellect, and Soul) he thought there were more increments between the three which he called henads. A good example of this being the parts to the intellect: the intelligible- the objects of thought, the intelligible intellect- the thinking process, and the intellect- which had the ability to contemplate all these things. The henads would be very important to Proclus.

Proclus would take the henads along with Syrianus’ ideas of the participated and unanticipated and further the relationship of the One, Intellect, and Soul. Stating that in each part of the All Soul there is a division of participated and unanticipated, and within the participated there were further divisions in the Intellect just like in Iamblicus’ model. Additionally he came up with an analogy: the being- is intelligible or thing, life- being spirit, and the Soul- being creation (ie. what creates all of these). Damascius was written on the board but we did not cover him much, if at all.

Class Synopisis April 6th

We began talking about Plotinus' critique of discoursive reasoning. Discoursive reasoning poses a significant problem for talking about The One, because we always think in a subject-object distinction. Thinking isomorphically is impossible for us. Even when thinking ourselves, we always refer to ourselves as an object. Plotinus gives us the example of a sphere. We are asked to place ourselves in the sphere. Plotinus argues that we cannot imagine this without becoming the sphere (something that I find particularly hard to imagine). Now this is related to Plotinus' ethics: happiness is freedom from objects of thought.

With all this cynicism (modern use) towards objects of thought, there seems to be a danger of denying the goodness of matter. This sort of principle, as my Aquinas professor will contend, crops up every hundred to two hundred years. In Plotinus' time it was the Gnostics (in other times it is the Manicheans, the Albigensians , or some sects of the Reformation). Plotinus contends that creation is not entirely bad and the world is not providential. Furthermore, salvation is not something waited for, it is something in us.

We moved on to talking about the Intellect. The Intellect is out of time, and likewise experiences no change (for time is a measure of change). We are discrete particulars of this Intellect. A question naturally arises: How do I not have knowledge of discrete particulars? The answer would be that this sort of knowledge is not a virtue. But there is perhaps major critique of this: this is imperfect knowledge. Not knowing everything, discrete or not, is still not knowing everything.

Next we posed the problem: How do we get to the One? There is an overwhelming significance to ritual in this conception. There is also an acceptance of all religions, but puts their gods at the level of the Intellect. This is particularly troubling for the Jewish/Christian/Muslim tradition, which describes their God analogously to the One (although that may be because of their influence from Neo-Platonism, especially the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. Earlier though, we said that Plotinus denied providence, a particularly central concept to many religions.

How to talk about The One

At the end of class, we reached a problem: How do we talk about The One? If the truth is non-representational, then is nearly impossible to form propositions that adequately represent it. So how do we talk about about. By calling it "The One," we are affirming some things. It is a being at the very least, although turns out to be Being, is undivided (thus one), and Plotinus argues, the cause of all other things. Now calling something the cause of other things is different than saying it is good. Calling something good supposes that it is composed of different parts, good being one (color might be another, body and soul would seem to also naturally be on this list. Denying something about it is also different. I deny that The One is composed, so is one. Yet Plotinus talks about The One, and says more than what has just been outlined. But how?

This question, I think can be answered by the Neo-Platonist Pseudo-Dionysius. Although Dionysius was a Christian, he was familiar with both Plotinus and Proclus. He came up with a theory to talk about God by using super immanent predication. First we affirm something of God like wise (or The One). Next we deny that of God (because He is not wise like us). Next we affirm that God is super-wise. Now I know that last one sounds silly, but the point is clear: if we talk about The One, it cannot be in the same way we talk about ourselves, we must talk by analogy. Clearly we must be able to talk about The One if we are to teach to others or even think about it, and the 2nd proposition of Dionysius theory gets around the critique of discoursive reasoning, because we do deny that The One is composed, but we also affirm something about it.

The One is Disney World

Title aside, I just want to type out some of the Plotinus' ideas in my own words, and with the use of discursive reasoning seek the multiplicity in unity.

The one thing that I really like about Plotinus is his use of relata and relations. He talks about how we can come to understand universals and particulars through a homogeneous unity. The individual is presented against this unity as an alterity, but an alterity that is only distinguishable through the possession of something denied to universal (I want to call this concept/Plotinus wants to call this Genera). What is this something that makes the particular stand out from the whole? I would guess it is the relationship between the subject and the object, the way in which the relata and relations make particulars and universals distinguishable only through the other. I can't have a concept of dog if I have only experienced one dog, but at the same time I can't understand dog without that first particular dog experience that is eventually supplemented by more dog experiences leading to a dog concept. There is a potential problem in this understanding of relata and relation based on a holistic view.

Things can only become individuals by means of how they relate to other things, but how could there be any objective relation at all? Maybe Plotinus would posit the One as the solution, but then that would make this issue an ontological one. Perhaps it is an epistemological issue. We can only grasp what things are through relations and through our subjective experience. This epistemological issue seems to have a strong footing in phenomenology, especially that of Merleau Ponty, in the sense that our knowledge or conception of the truth is limited to our ability to grasp the truth at a given time. This ability to grasp the truth is perhaps synonymous to our ability to grasp the One, but taking into account individual differences among people, different capacities would deny any Absolute, One, or graspable Totality. Where phenomenology went "wrong", in breaking things down to their essential structures and examining things in the "lived world", the Phenomenologist doesn't take into account Plotinus' ideal world and the sensible world as a unity and they are thus estranged. If the ideals are just useless simulacra symbolizing objects in the world, then the phenomenologist did not go wrong at all, they just took the good part (sensible world) and did away with the ideals. Perhaps Plotinus' whole system is, to quote Paul Elmer More, "a meaningless answer to an impossible question raised by a gratuitous hypothesis." But at the same time, a big part of me loves everything he says and can truly see how things become individuated through relations. The problem might be an ontological one instead of epistemological, or both problems are irrelevant and there is no raison d'etre (I've never studied French but it makes it sound more philosophical) of objective relation.

I was thinking that the diagram of the one, intellect, soul could be easily appropriated to the centralized power of Disney World and the layout of the maps, if we conceive of both as a sort of brain.


Somewhat random aside--Adventureland is Frontierland are located on the left side (masculinity) and Fantasyland and Tomorrowland are located on the right (femininity). What this has to do with Plotinus, I haven't figured it out, but you can force anything if you use enough discursive reasoning.

Plotinus Review for Wednesday

For Plotinus, it seems to me that unity is being, and that could tells us something important about The One. It is by the virtue of unity that beings are beings; he uses a slew of arguments about its role. As soon as we say that something is this or that, then we attribute unity to it.

Ex. A

X is y.

In example a, we’ve attributed unity. Don’t bother with x is; if we can predicate something, then we might know Being, and in turn The One. But as Plotinus wrote, “We can see the totality of things when we look inside.”

For Plotinus, neo-Platonism was about virtue. We practice philosophy so that the soul can turn inwards towards The Divine Intellect and know The One. But although Plotinus has given us a clear path towards the unity, descending in an unbroken succession of stages from The One, The Divine Intellect, and The Forms therein through Soul, he did not write systematically like our charts on the blackboard. Instead, he studied in Alexandria for decades until finally exploding with treatises of his own. Turning inwards seems to be a process.

In Plotinus’s sixth ennead, The One or the Good is beyond the reach of human thought or language, and though we can talk about it, this insistence is to be taken seriously. What we know is that it is the supreme existence, no predicates need-be-applied. It is more, not less than mind. And in this way Plotinus seems to me to be dogmatic at first.

According to the ancient Greeks, the Unity of Virtue is a well-known tenet. And especially with Plato we find that Virtue is the way to The One. In Platonic thought, resurrected in Plotinus, all the apparently different virtues—piety or temperance—refer to different aspects of the same single property. With Aristotle, however, having virtue is a matter of having a character that disposes you to do the right thing in the right way, at the right time, to the right person, for the right reason. More, one needs to know what’s important to discern if the costs are worth suffering for what benefits. In some sense for Aristotle, virtue requires knowledge to reach The One or Nature or Eudaimonia, as he refers to it. Since different virtues concern different spheres of activity, the knowledge most centrally required for one virtue will differ from the knowledge most centrally required for another.

I like discursive reasoning. Reason brings us to knowledge. As Bertrand Russell once said, “philosophic contemplation, when it is unalloyed, does not aim at proving that the rest of the universe is akin to man. All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is best attained when it is not directly sought.” The One just seems too good to comprehend, or rather, too good to be true. The primary object of Plotinus’s philosophical activity is to bring his own soul and the souls of others by way of The Divine Intellect to union with The One. But is the free will free to choose not to create? Plotinus believes that all must exist in unity; it seems we are already one.

Plotinus realizes in the sixth ennead that The One, the Being of the Particular, is a manifold, and that Unity cannot be a manifold; therefore, there must be distinction between being and unity. He posits: “Above all, unity is The First, but Intellectual Principle, Ideas and Being, cannot be so; for any member of the realm of Forms is an aggregation, a compound, and therefore—since components must precede their compound—is a later. The Unity cannot be the total of all things.”

Unity is paramount to our ascent to The One. But by not correctly identifying the target, we miss that, which is The Good. We should aim for Reason. Those whom existence comes about by chance and automatic action and is held together by material forces have drifted far from the concept of unity and The One.

The Philosophy of Eclecticism

To me the philosophy of Eclecticism seems like a cop-out. I find it hard to believe that all philosophies, as different as they might be, can be tied into one— forced together in some sort of “natural” way, gathered, sewn together— without being downsized. I feel as if Eclectics are just little the middle person in the argument who agrees with both sides, saying that both arguments are right in some way, just so that they won’t have to think to hard about solving the problem. I know that this school of thinking developed because there were no new philosophies coming out and everything was falling into repetition, but I would rather repetition than submission. I believe that it would be better to continue being Epicureans, Stoics, Pythagorean, Aristotelian, etc. than just abandoning logic and metaphysics, putting everything into a big bowl, mixing it up, and saying “this is what I believe!” There is no reason or sense in substituting one set of logical foundations for another; this leaves philosophy shallow and weak. This philosophy can also be interpreted as weak because of its lack of a purpose. Yes, it unified the philosophies but what ultimate question was it trying to solve? Or was it just trying to make everyone from Rome to Greece happy (appeasement of the masses)? I honestly don’t know but hope to find out. Some of the theories presented by this philosophy, especially those on the soul, seem to have some worth and seem to be very complicated to understand (I have come to learn that the more complicated the theory that the better the concept turns out to be in the end) so this philosophy seems worthy of further investigation. I just hope that I can understand the explanation of the soul given by Plotinus because I think that that would be something interesting topic to talk over with a stranger on the streetcar when there is a delay.

The One and the Christian conception of God

I have always been fascinated by the conception of the infinite. Buddhist refer to the infinite as emptiness, Christians as God, and Neoplatonists as the one. All of these terms, attempt to get at a singular conception that dominates the metaphysics of every religion.

While I don't find the One to be problematic for some philosophies, I have noticed that from Christianity's philosophy on the Infinite, the One, or God arises an issue. Like neoplatonists, Christian philosophy argues that all material things emanate or originate from God, whose Being represents all of creation and the cosmos. God is infinite, meaning that every thing finite is of God but God does not just consist of all finite beings. Wikipedia nicely summarizes the implication of this conception of the One, or God: "all finite things have their purpose in it, and ought to flow back to it. But one cannot attach moral attributes to the original Source of Being itself, because these would imply limitation." Christians however, unlike neoplatonists, do attribute moral significance to the "Source of Being." Christians argue God represents certain characteristics: mercy, wisdom, compassion, omnipotence, etc. Conversely, the Christian God does not contain other characteristics: cruelty, dishonesty, malice, wrath, etc. The Christian God also desires certain behavior from finite being: worship, devotion, chastity, selflessness, hospitality to strangers, etc.

By attributing certain desires and characteristics to God, Christian philosophy contradicts its argument that God is the creator of all things, omnipotent, and the eminence of all creation. An infinite God cannot have finite characterisitcs as this would imply a limitation to God's Being. I realize that this issue is widely discussed as the 'problem of evil' and that this is a VERY amateur attempt at dealing with this issue but I think that Neoplatonists philosophy articulates the problem with Christian philosophy quite clearly.

Blog for week of march28th-april1st

Eclecticism was very interesting to me. I felt like it solved a lot of problems other Hellenistic philosophers had. However, it was somewhat stagnate with innovative ideas. I feel like at this time period we are still in a eclectic age. It made sense that it evolved during a sterile time period where schools oh philosophy were not present. Ethical polarization was probably the bright spot in their philosophy. All throughout Hellenistic philosophy the metaphysical world view and the ethical world view were very much disconnected. Eclecticism demonstrated how influential it was to philosophy when Plotinus emerged. It is evident in his philosophy when he explains the three hypo-stasis, which I am still very confused on. So far, i can agree with it, but im still going to need further explanation and elaboration on the theory before i can form a complete opinion.