tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post7147599545919171969..comments2024-03-28T08:57:53.180+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Zuckert's Plato: Teleology and EternityLarry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-61623370453585030322009-10-26T11:13:35.593+00:002009-10-26T11:13:35.593+00:00"Nousness"?
What are you talking about?..."Nousness"?<br /><br />What are you talking about?<br /><br />"Value-neutral inquiry"? No, my argument is that human nature is not value-neutral at all. But I don't see how there can be any cosmic basis for morality.Larry Arnharthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-72844897289088117532009-10-25T01:48:59.273+00:002009-10-25T01:48:59.273+00:00Part of the problem is that the Timaeus was the on...Part of the problem is that the Timaeus was the only Platonic dialogue in Christendom for centuries, as I am sure you know. Anyone can see how that would lead to a distorted picture of Plato's cosmology.<br /><br />Your endorsement of the Eleatic Stranger's value-neutral inquiry has, in retrospect, made Richard Hassing's critique of your book much more tenable.<br /><br />Word verification? Nousness.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-52546591531894756632009-09-04T12:09:03.388+01:002009-09-04T12:09:03.388+01:00Another point in response to Lewis's thoughtfu...Another point in response to Lewis's thoughtful comments--<br /><br />If Plato's intention in writing the TIMAEUS was to expose the falsehood of Timaeus's cosmology, then wouldn't we have to conclude that Plato failed miserably? <br /><br />For almost 2,000 years, the TIMAEUS shaped the cosmology of the Western world, as most readers assumed that Plato intended Timaeus's cosmology to be taken seriously. Did Plato anticipate this mistake?Larry Arnharthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-63159372122712388132009-09-01T22:03:04.612+01:002009-09-01T22:03:04.612+01:00I just posted this comment regarding your latest e...I just posted this comment regarding your latest entry on my blog and I thought my approach might interest you.<br /> <br />The immanent and transcendent teleology of human natural desires<br /> <br />In his blog “Darwinian Conservatism” Larry Arnhart says ...“If human beings are by their natural desires directed to certain ends or purposes, then we can see those ends or purposes as intrinsic to their nature, regardless of whether these ends have any cosmic reference. Darwinian biology supports such an immanent teleology because it recognizes the goal-directed behavior characteristic of various animal species, including the human species.”<br /><br />But we say that human morality depends on an immanent teleology of human natural desires, leading to a “transcendent” teleology, in the sense that nature evolves to Godhood, that is, human beings will evolve to the next and the next and next species, all the way to Godhood. We are directed to this end as the Kosmos is directed to this end.<br /><br />This is the goal of the Evolutionary Outward Path first glimpsed in the Traditional Involutionary Inward Path, which sees (at least mystics see) the Soul or Spirit Within yet needs to further see the teleological direction of the Spirit Within evolving to Godhood in the Kosmos. <br /><br />Posted by Kenneth Lloyd Anderson<br />klamuse@gmail.com <br /><br />http://civilizingthebeast.blogspot.com/2009/09/immanent-and-transcendent-teleology-of.htmlKenneth Lloyd Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10852862610907259920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-41620447448288577222009-08-31T13:55:09.160+01:002009-08-31T13:55:09.160+01:00If morality depends on the question of the good hu...If morality depends on the question of the good human life, and if the Socratic philosopher believes that the philosophic life is the best human life, then there is a sense in which "the philosopher is a moral man."<br /><br />The fundamental question that interests me is whether the human good depends on some cosmic good, or whether the human good can stand on its own as rooted in the human nature of desire, regardless of whether this good has any cosmic support.<br /><br />Timaeus agrees with Socrates that philosophy is the highest life. For Timaeus, philosophy is the highest life because it participates in the eternal, noetic order of the cosmos. Sometimes, Socrates (Plato) seems to agree with this. But other times, Socrates seems to believe that the goodness of the philosophic life can be grounded in the human nature of desire without the Timaean cosmology.<br /><br />Zuckert and others rightly stress the erotic character of Socratic philosophy as perpetual search for the truth that is never satisfied, so that the Socratic philosopher might accept that complete knowledge is unattainable--perhaps because the whole is not itself fully intelligible--while still finding the pursuit of truth satisfying.<br /><br />But even here I wonder whether the erotic Socratic philosopher can do without cosmology. How does the Socratic philosopher know for sure that his life is the best? One answer would be suggested by the PHILEBUS that such a life is the most pleasurable, the most desirable, life for those who can live it. This wouldn't require any kind of cosmology. <br /><br />But then often times it seems that the erotic Socratic philosopher believes that he is climbing a "ladder of love" up to the contemplation of the beautiful in itself, which is unchanging. This seems to assume a noetic cosmology in which Mind rules over everything.<br /><br />In the PHILEBUS (28c), Socrates suggests that the idea of Mind ruling over everything is just an expression of the vanity of philosophers (as Nietzsche said later). <br /><br />But then much of what Socrates says and does in the dialogues indicates that his devotion to the philosophic life of the mind depends on the assumption that Mind really does rule over the whole cosmos.<br /><br />If Plato or Socrates deny that there is any cosmological support for morality, do they also deny that there is any cosmological support for philosophy?Larry Arnharthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-52042085957371136042009-08-31T01:40:17.637+01:002009-08-31T01:40:17.637+01:00I have been reading your your recent posts on Plat...I have been reading your your recent posts on Plato (and those on Nietzsche) with great interest.<br /><br />You have consistently argued that Plato and Socrates do not ultimately accept the arguments that they make to the effect that morality must be based upon a "cosmic model of eternal, teleological order". If I understand you correctly, you then want to argue that Plato and Socrates actually affirm a position closer to your own, that morality only requires a "natural" foundation.<br /><br />My question is this: does it necessarily follow that Plato and Socrates believe in a morality with natural support just because they do not really believe in the existence of a morality with cosmic support?<br /><br />Isn't there another possibility? Isn't it possible that Plato and Socrates do not actually believe in morality as such? In other words, perhaps the reason that Plato goes through so much effort to elaborate a cosmologically based morality while constantly pointing out the problems that attend to such an undertaking is because he thinks that moral reasoning does in fact assume such a basis but that such an assumption is unsustainable. The philosophic life, as opposed to the moral or political life, might then be said to consist largely in an attempt to give a critique of morality, rather than simply an account of morality. <br /><br />If Plato or Socrates thought that a morality based on nature alone was possible, without any recourse whatsoever to cosmological or metaphysical foundations, wouldn't they just have elucidated such a doctrine? They needn't have bothered, in that case, with all the cosmological and metaphysical mumbo-jumbo (and, boy, is there a lot of that stuff in Plato). <br /><br />Perhaps I am mistaken, but I would have thought that you depart from Plato's thinking precisely on the point of the very possibility of morality. Both you and Plato could be said to agree (and please do correct me if I am mistaken here) that there can be no cosmological basis for morality. Plato, however, might think that morality requires such a basis and that, in its absence, morality itself is radically problematic, or that it is religious rather than reasonable. You seem to deny that morality requires such a basis and therefore find yourself able to argue that there is indeed a true morality which is discernible by human reason in the natural world. One very important implication of your argument, it seems to me, is that the philosopher is a moral man, perhaps even the moral man par excellence, and that, contrary to the view of Plato, there is not necessarily a conflict between the philosopher and the city.<br /><br />Have I understood you correctly? And will you in your present work be exploring your agreements and/or disagreements with the kind of interpretation of classical political philosophy that I have indicated here? How, for example, does Darwinian Conservatism understand the tension between philosophy and politics, which seems to inform all of Plato's writing, or does it understand itself to have resolved that tension, which Plato appears to have regarded as permanent?<br /><br />Best regards,<br />Lewis SlawskyLewisnoreply@blogger.com