ELEPHANT TO PLATT:
Disrelli (prime minster of England in Victoria's reign and the consumate
politician) once said that everyone likes to be flattered, but that in the
case of Royalty, one should lay it on with a trowel.
You words about my representation of Plato are very kind - try to remember
that this is *my veiw* of the matter only. Thank you. Thank you very much,
but *we're not worthy*. We are amused though. I hope Republican scepticism
and rancor is not dead, but only sleeping.
As to the rest...
PLATT WROTE:
>What struck me most from my first reading of your posts is the
>
>paradox implicit in Platoıs use of language to deny languageıs
>
>power to reveal truth, the same sort of paradox infecting
>
>deconstructionism. As Roger Scruton (not one of your favorites Iım
>
>sure because of his political views) wrote, ³The man who tells you
>
>truth does not exist is asking you not to believe him. So donıt.²
ELEPHANT:
Scruton's political veiws are interesting, and you are too quick to assume
my position there: Scruton is no Thatcherite. In terms of 20th Cent British
Conservatism Thatcher is the ideological anomaly, and Scruton represents the
mainstream tradition of conservatism with a small 'c' - something that might
(and in fact did) sit very well with political pragmatism. However I can
see past Scruton's political veiws to the core of entertaining philosophical
triviality underneath, and that quote would be an excellent example.
Scruton fails to distinguish between the two very different kinds of 'truth'
that there are (analytic and synthetic) - something I tried hard to do, and
which is the core of Plato's project with the Forms, in my veiw. The kind
of truth that doesn't exist is the kind that attaches to syntheses,
statements/theories which institute static patterns: 'the cat is on the
mat'. The kind of truth that does exist is the analytic kind: the kind that
attaches to statements about the sytheses: 'the statement "the cat is on the
mat" asserts a static pattern'. So we have two kinds of truth, and Plato is
only denying one of them. He thinks 'the cat is on the mat' cannot be
strictly speaking 'true' because it isn't a report of mystic reality, but an
institution of a practical one. 'True' adds nothing on particular to
'Good' in our pragmatic approval of 'the cat is on the mat'. Whereas in
contrast the sentence 'the statement "the cat is on the mat" asserts a
static pattern' is true, whether or not we happen to see the good in it.
In Plato's veiw it is just incoherent to suppose that 'the cat is on the
mat' expresses the mystic reality when the one deals in disctrete matter and
the other deals in the continuous. And the opposite of that contradictory
belief, viz that 'the cat is on the mat' does not express mystic reality,
thereby constitutes an analytic truth. It is analytic because it arises
from the discovery of a contradiction.
So Plato leaves himself a kind of truth with which to escape the paradox.
It is quite possible, atleast without paradox, to believe a man who says
"there is no such thing as empirical truth", because what he says can be
true in some way other than empirically. I don't mean to indicate
'religiously' or any such cop-out, but 'analytically' or *logically*: the
hardest kind of truth there is.
PLATT WROTE:
>From what you say, Plato didnıt go quite so far as saying truth
>
>doesnıt exist. But, he came close if I read you aright.
ELEPHANT:
Yes. The distance which separates him from saying that truth doesn't exist,
and thereby saves him from Scruton's 'paradox', is bound up in this
distinction between synthetic and analytic which I have tried to clarify.
Confusion arises because people have fixed ideas about what constitutes
'truth', and think that when someone denies this fixed idea they must be
denying the existence of truth. That ain't so. It is possible to find
things which better deserve the name 'truth' than the thing you once
attributted it to. We all have to be open to this kind of possibility all
the time - that's philosophy for you.
PLATT:
>And now permit me to offer a brief passage from "Symposium" as
>
>a meager defense of my belief that at least one of Platoıs
>
>conceptions of ³truth² was ³beauty:²
>
>
>
>³For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in
>
>youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his
>
>instructor aright, to love one such form only-out of that he should
>
>create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the
>
>beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if
>
>beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be
>
>not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And
>
>when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one,
>
>which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a
>
>lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that
>
>the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the
>
>outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little
>
>comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will
>
>search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the
>
>young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of
>
>institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all
>
>is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws
>
>
>and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see
>
>their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one
>
>youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-
>
>minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of
>
>beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in
>
>boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and
>
>waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed.²
>
ELEPHANT:
I'm sorry if you feel that the idea that Plato's truth can be *conceived of*
via beauty has come under attack. What I was actually trying to say was not
a denial of this, but simply a denial of the idea that Plato's truth is a
*variety* of beauty. The two claims are not the same. Platonic Truth is
not a subset of Beauty, in the way in which Jamesian Truth is a subset of
the Good (i.e. the subset of the good which contains statements and
theories). Nevertheless Beauty remains a very powerful clue to truth,
because the truth is a *cause* of the beauty. The passage you quote gives
ample support to the veiw that we are lead towards truth by beauty. I have
never denied that. What it does not support is the idea that the true and
the beautiful are one and the same. I quote: "contemplating the vast sea of
beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless
love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last
the vision is revealed.² - The vision (of truth) comes after appreciation
of beauty, it is not identical with or a subset of that appreciation of
beauty. Exactly what I have been saying.
I might also add that the passage you quote is a Very Beautiful one - no
true philosopher should overlook such things!
There are less obviously beautiful passages in Plato. Complex, dense,
difficult passages that you have to read a hundred times before you can get
on to the next bit with a snowballs chance in hell of understanding it. The
beauty there shines through in the impression that Plato is really
stretching the limits here, grasping at things even he is just working out.
And although this is not a scientific word count, Plato's complete works
occupy significantly more shelf space than any complete volume of
Shakespeare. There's a lot of difficult passages out there to try to
compare and integrate, if you are willing to try. A popular response of
late has been not to bother, and to allow yourself to think of Plato as
holding different veiws in different dialogues - or not holding any veiw at
all - much easier than trying to fit the jigsaw together, don't you think?
But if someone said that they had 'completed' their new Christmassy jigsaw
with rudolf's nose separated from the rest of his body, and donner and
blitzen in splended isolation connected to nothing, tiles for the sleigh,
presents and pere noel all strewn around, we wouldn't think much of their
acheivement. And if they said that they liked the picture better in peices
we'd send them to some happening art gallery somewhere and have done with
them. I think it does all fit, in the end: that's the beauty of it.
ta ta for now,
Puzzler.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:57 BST