{"id":1746,"date":"2022-12-03T05:05:48","date_gmt":"2022-12-03T05:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/03\/whats-with-footnotes-to-plato-from-your-masthead-are-you-a-platonist\/"},"modified":"2022-12-03T05:05:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T05:05:48","slug":"whats-with-footnotes-to-plato-from-your-masthead-are-you-a-platonist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/03\/whats-with-footnotes-to-plato-from-your-masthead-are-you-a-platonist\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s with “Footnotes to Plato” from your Masthead?\u00a0 Are you a Platonist?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, all of us who uphold the Western (Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman) tradition are Platonists in a broad sense if Alfred North Whitehead is right in his observation that:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.  I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings.  I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.  [. . .] Thus in one sense by stating my belief that the train of thought in these lectures is Platonic, I am doing no more than expressing the hope that it falls within the European tradition. (Process and Reality<\/em>, Corrected Edition, The Free Press, 1978, p. 39)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So in that general sense I am a Platonist.  And I also like the modesty conveyed by "footnotes to Plato."  Some say the whole of philosophy is a battle between Plato and Aristotle<\/a>.  That is not bad as simplifications go, and if you forced me to choose, I would throw in my lot with Plato and the Platonists.  So that is a more specific sense in which I provide "footnotes to Plato." <\/span><\/span>Philosophy for me is a spiritual quest as it was for Plato, but less so for Aristotle. And our contemporaries? A sorry lot who, in the main, have lost the thread entirely. 
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, all of us who uphold the Western (Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman) tradition are Platonists in a broad sense if Alfred North Whitehead is right in his observation that: The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.  I do not mean the systematic scheme of … Continue reading “What’s with “Footnotes to Plato” from your Masthead?\u00a0 Are you a Platonist?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}