Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Plato

  • The Aporetics of Primary Substance

    I am nothing if not self-critical. And so a partial retraction may be in order.  In A Problem for Hylomorphic Dualism in the Philosophy of Mind, I opened with: 1) A primary substance (a substance hereafter) is a concrete individual.  A man, a horse, a tree, a statue are stock examples of substances.  A substance…

  • A Platonist at Breakfast

    Amazing what one can unearth with the WayBack Machine. This one first saw daylight on 3 March 2005.  ………………………… I head out early one morning with the wife in tow. I’m going to take her to a really fancy joint this time, the 5 and Diner, a greasy spoon dripping with 1950's Americana. We belly…

  • Plato, Power, and Existence

    The return of the Eleatic Stranger. Substack latest. Theme music:  Barbara Lewis, Hello Stranger EmmyLou Harris, Hello Stranger

  • A Platonist at Breakfast

    Tablemate: These eggs are undercooked! Platonist: If it won't matter by tomorrow morning, why does it matter now?

  • Existence Exists: Analytic or Synthetic?

     Recently over the transom: I am A. Kashfi, Professor of philosophy from Tehran University, Iran. I am currently engaged in studying your esteemed book A PARADIGM THEORY OF EXISTENCE. In this book, you argue that “existence exists”. Regarding this proposition, a question has arisen for me. I would be grateful to have your response. Is…

  • Roberto Rossellini’s Socrates

    Substack latest. The philosopher at the hour of death.

  • The Lethal Chamber of the Soul

    I float the suggestion that the problem of the external world was originally ontological, not epistemological. The material world is the great lethal chamber of the soul. Only spiritual heroes can arouse themselves sufficiently to escape from its stupefying effect upon consciousness. (Paul Brunton) The Brunton quotation is distinctly Emersonian, as witness: The influence of…

  • Intimations of Elsewhere: Sensible Reminders of Hidden Beauty

    Salzburg, Austria, December 1971. A young Austrian girl, radiant and beautiful, walked into the kitchen. I lost all desire for the food I had prepared.  My soul sprouted wings. The visible beauty triggered a memory of a timeless Beauty. Anamnesis pierced for a moment the amnesia induced by the bodily senses. Dayton, Ohio, 1978. Gripped…

  • Platonism and Christianity: Josef Pieper on Phaedrus 246c

    At the center of the confrontation between Platonism and Christianity on the question of the survival of death lies the tension: immortality of the soul or resurrection of the body? More fully:  immortality of the disembodied soul or resurrection of the en-souled body? Connected with this is the question of whether and to what extent…

  • Simone Weil in the Light of Plato

    Substack notes on Phaedo 83. Thomas Merton, Journals, vol. 4, p. 57 (10 October 1960): The superb moral and positive beauty of the Phaedo.  One does not have to agree with Plato, but one must hear him.  Not to listen to such a voice is unpardonable, it is like not listening to conscience or nature. Absolutely right.…

  • A Battle of Titans

    Substack upload. It is sometimes said that there are only two kinds of philosophers, Platonists and Aristotelians.  What follows is a quotation from Heinrich Heine which expresses one version of this useful simplification.  Carl Gustav Jung places it at the very beginning of his Psychological Types (Princeton UP, 1971, p. 2. Jung does not properly source the…

  • Adeimantus, Machiavelli, Bloom, and Strauss

    Recent events make it clear that the West is on the wane. The sun is setting on the Land of Evening. As the West goes under, the philosopher, like the proverbial owl of Minerva, spreads his wings in the gathering dusk so as to attain an altitude from which to survey the passing scene.  He…

  • Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Divine Simplicity

    Dominik Kowalski has a question for me about footnote 3 in Peter van Inwagen's "God's Being and Ours" in Miroslav Szatkowski, ed., Ontology of Theistic Beliefs, de Gruyter, 2018, pp. 213-223. (Van Inwagen's essay is right after my "Does God Exist Because He Ought to Exist?, pp. 203-212. I managed to upstage van Inwagen, but…

  • The Dialogue Form

    Scott Johnson, Learning from Euthydemus: The dialogue form is conducive to venturing otherwise forbidden thoughts in a time of persecution. The form might usefully be employed to address the shibboleths shoved down the throats of students like Euthydemus in our own day. Let us have our best teachers turn to the dialogue form with students…

  • Callicles and the Marquis de Sade

    Substack latest.