Posted on 12/26/2003 4:58:06 PM PST by Federalist 78
Yeah, and then you added Jefferson pissing on Plato.
It will require a philosophical defense of reason and a broadside attack on Weber and Nietzsche.
Sad thing is that there is not an intellect of Nietzsche's caliber and they only come around every millenia.
I know of few honest intellectuals who do not give him at least grudging respect.
I believe continually going back to Socrates and Plato is like our going back to a pristine age as if no greater mind were thinking philosophically and profoundly.
Just so happens it was both Darwin and Zarathustra that turned the old theocentric world upside down.
That is part of the religious tradition. It is a part of belief. It's not a historical fact.
Jesus taught using oration...but that doesn't mean he COULDN'T write.
And that is exactly the point. This is conjecture, not history. And that is what I found so disappointing about the article. A lot of opinions, wishful thinking, and superficial analysis.
Just so happens it was both Darwin and Zarathustra that turned the old theocentric world upside down.
Making it right side up for the moral morons?
Post #1 contains a link to Thus Spake Zarathustra and to comments about his writings from those who lived in that era.
BTW, Zarathustra's author is dead and God lives.
The odd thing is that the Christianity today happily floats around on all this jetsam while trying to drown it.
INDEED!!!
Auguste Comte, into a Christian sage
Lev may have come into this world around the time Gorki produced the first Ford Model-A (known as GAZ-A) and probably needs a little tune-up, to get running on all cylinders.
There is in fact a true law--namely, right reason--which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men and is unchangeable and eternal. By its commands this law summons men to the performance of their duties; by its prohibitions it restrains them from doing wrong. Its commands and prohibitions always influence good men, but are without effect upon the bad. To invalidate this law by human legislation is never morally right, nor is it permissible ever to restrict its operation, and to annul it wholly is impossible. Neither the senate nor the people can absolve us from our obligation to obey this law, and it requires no Sextus Aelius to expound and interpret it. It will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will it be one rule today and another tomorrow. But there will be one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times upon all peoples; and there will be one common master and ruler of men, namely God, who is the author of this law, its interpreter and sponsor. The man who will abandon his better self, and in denying the true nature of man, will thereby suffer the severest of penalties, though he has escaped all other consequences which men call punishment. Francis W. Coker, Readings in Political Philosophy (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938), 151.
Chapter 11. How Plato Has Been Able to Approach So Nearly to ...
Certain partakers with us in the grace of Christ, wonder when they hear and read that Plato had conceptions concerning God, in which they recognize considerable agreement with the truth of our religion. Some have concluded from this, that when he went to Egypt he had heard the prophet Jeremiah, or, whilst travelling in the same country, had read the prophetic scriptures, which opinion I myself have expressed in certain of my writings.1 But a careful calculation of dates, contained in chronological history, shows that Plato was born about a hundred years after the time in which Jeremiah prophesied, and, as he lived eighty-one years, there are found to have been about seventy years from his death to that time when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, requested the prophetic scriptures of the Hebrew people to be sent to him from Judea, and committed them to seventy Hebrews, who also knew the Greek tongue, to be translated and kept. Therefore, on that voyage of his, Plato could neither have seen Jeremiah, who was dead so long before, nor have read those same scriptures which had not yet been translated into the Greek language, of which he was a master, unless, indeed, we say that, as he was most earnest in the pursuit of knowledge, he also studied those writings through an interpreter, as he did those of the Egyptians,-not, indeed, writing a translation of them (the facilities for doing which were only gained even by Ptolemy in return for munificent acts of kindness,2 though fear of his kingly authority might have seemed a sufficient motive), but learning as much as he possibly could concerning their contents by means of conversation. What warrants this supposition are the 152 opening verses of Genesis: "In the beginning God made the heaven and earth. And the earth was invisible, and without order; and darkness was over the abyss: and the Spirit of God moved over the waters."3 For in the Timæus, when writing on the formation of the world, he says that God first united earth and fire; from which it is evident that he assigns to fire a place in heaven. This opinion bears a certain resemblance to the statement, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." Plato next speaks of those two intermediary elements, water and air, by which the other two extremes, namely, earth and fire, were mutually united; from which circumstance he is thought to have so understood the words, "The Spirit of God moved over the waters." For, not paying sufficient attention to the designations given by those scriptures to the Spirit of God, he may have thought that the four elements are spoken of in that place, because the air also is called spirit.4 Then, as to Plato's saying that the philosopher is a lover of God, nothing shines forth more conspicuously in those sacred writings. But the most striking thing in this connection, and that which most of all inclines me almost to assent to the opinion that Plato was not ignorant of those writings, is the answer which was given to the question elicited from the holy Moses when the words of God were conveyed to him by the angel; for, when he asked what was the name of that God who was commanding him to go and deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this answer was given: "I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He who is sent me unto you;"5 as though compared with Him that truly is, because He is unchangeable, those things which have been created mutable are not,-a truth which Plato zealously held, and most diligently commended. And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be found in the books of those who were before Plato, unless in that book where it is said, "I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, who is sent me unto you."
Either Jefferson read the worst translation ever made of The Republic, or his reputation as a thinker is vastly inflated. There is no unintelligible jargon in The Republic (and I have wasted countless nights on unreadable, jargon-filled books), which is not only the greatest work of philosophy ever written, but a literary masterpiece, as well.
Plato had him beat by 2271 years.
The author puts into perspective things that are truly determinative of Western Civilization versus ideas that spawn specific legacies of modernity. Quite a contrast.
Karl Jaspers put likes with likes in his excellent book Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus.
Clumsy, pretentious opening. No serious, independent thinker would lean on The Closing of the American Mind. Bloom wrote a powerful, provocative book, but it suffered from its own clumsy class pretentions, and Bloom's worship of Nazi Martin Heidegger (which Bloom's fans ignored, and critics failed to notice or grasp). "I'm not a philosopher, but I play one for NewsMax."
The best-known book of Plato-Socrates, written by Plato, since Socrates did not write but expressed himself orally, describes the ideal State and hence is entitled "The State," mistranslated into English as "The Republic," though "republic" is a Latin, not Greek, word that appeared after Plato’s death.
Dunce. The works were by Plato, who at times quotes Socrates, but at other times put his own words in Socrates' mouth. The Republic is one of Plato's books least influenced by Socrates. Why? Because Socrates never professed to have answers, only questions. But The Republic claims to have ALL the answers.
The ideal State of Plato-Socrates resembles the tyrannical Sparta, a mortal enemy of Athenian democracy, but this ideal State of Plato-Socrates is far more Spartan than Sparta. It is a countrywide cattle-breeding farm on which pedigree human cattle are raised.
Yeah, and it's Plato's ideal, not that of Socrates. I wonder if this mook even bothered READING Plato, or if he just skimmed Bloom.
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