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6/30/2025, 4:50:08 PM
>>24508272
I'm familiar with this sort of argument but I think it's fairly unconvincing on its own. It's more convincing paired with the need for infinite being to ground intelligibility and to describe a truly self determining freedom. Pic related. Aquinas' five ways too.
Let me share a quote
By calling what we experience with our senses less real than the Forms, Plato is not saying that what we experience with our senses is simply illusion. The “reality” that the Forms have more of is not simply their not being illusions. If that’s not what their extra reality is, what is it? The easiest place to see how one could suppose that something that isn’t an illusion, is nevertheless less real than something else, is in our experience of ourselves.
In Republic book iv, Plato’s examination of the different "parts of the soul” leads him to the conclusion that only the rational part can integrate the soul into one, and thus make it truly “just.” Here is his description of the effect of a person’s being governed by his rational part, and therefore “just”:
Justice . . . is concerned with what is truly himself and his own. . . . [The person who is just] binds together [his] parts . . . and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate, and harmonious. Only then does he act. (Republic 443d-e)
Our interest here (I’ll discuss the “justice” issue later) is that by “binding together his parts” and “becoming entirely one,” this person is “truly himself.” That is, as I put it in earlier chapters, a person who is governed by his rational part is real not merely as a collection of various ingredients or “parts,” but as himself. A person who acts purely out of appetite, without any examination of whether that appetite is for something that will actually be “good,” is enacting his appetite, rather than anything that can appropriately be called “himself.” Likewise for a person who acts purely out of anger, without examining whether the anger is justified by what’s genuinely good. Whereas a person who thinks about these issues before acting “becomes entirely one” and acts, therefore, in a way that expresses something that can appropriately be called “himself.”
In this way, rational self-governance brings into being an additional kind of reality, which we might describe as more fully real than what was there before, because it integrates those parts in a way that the parts themselves are not integrated. A person who acts “as one,” is more real as himself than a person who merely enacts some part or parts of himself. He is present and functioning as himself, rather than just as a collection of ingredients or inputs.
I'm familiar with this sort of argument but I think it's fairly unconvincing on its own. It's more convincing paired with the need for infinite being to ground intelligibility and to describe a truly self determining freedom. Pic related. Aquinas' five ways too.
Let me share a quote
By calling what we experience with our senses less real than the Forms, Plato is not saying that what we experience with our senses is simply illusion. The “reality” that the Forms have more of is not simply their not being illusions. If that’s not what their extra reality is, what is it? The easiest place to see how one could suppose that something that isn’t an illusion, is nevertheless less real than something else, is in our experience of ourselves.
In Republic book iv, Plato’s examination of the different "parts of the soul” leads him to the conclusion that only the rational part can integrate the soul into one, and thus make it truly “just.” Here is his description of the effect of a person’s being governed by his rational part, and therefore “just”:
Justice . . . is concerned with what is truly himself and his own. . . . [The person who is just] binds together [his] parts . . . and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate, and harmonious. Only then does he act. (Republic 443d-e)
Our interest here (I’ll discuss the “justice” issue later) is that by “binding together his parts” and “becoming entirely one,” this person is “truly himself.” That is, as I put it in earlier chapters, a person who is governed by his rational part is real not merely as a collection of various ingredients or “parts,” but as himself. A person who acts purely out of appetite, without any examination of whether that appetite is for something that will actually be “good,” is enacting his appetite, rather than anything that can appropriately be called “himself.” Likewise for a person who acts purely out of anger, without examining whether the anger is justified by what’s genuinely good. Whereas a person who thinks about these issues before acting “becomes entirely one” and acts, therefore, in a way that expresses something that can appropriately be called “himself.”
In this way, rational self-governance brings into being an additional kind of reality, which we might describe as more fully real than what was there before, because it integrates those parts in a way that the parts themselves are not integrated. A person who acts “as one,” is more real as himself than a person who merely enacts some part or parts of himself. He is present and functioning as himself, rather than just as a collection of ingredients or inputs.
6/30/2025, 3:39:31 PM
>>24508446
Yes and no. Yes, it is fairly accessible and has good notes. But it's also more "theology." Unfortunately, Maximus philosophy is dabbled throughout works that focus a lot of asceticism, Biblical exegesis, and more strictly theological concerns, as well as praxis. Von Balthasar's book Cosmic Liturgy is really good here, but also not accessible.
I might recommend pic related as a first stop actually, and you might get by ignoring the Hegel and contemporary parts. Once you understand Plato's psychology, I think it is easier to get more from Maximus. Eric Perl's Thinking Being is very good on the metaphysical side too, but rather technical.
Wallace is extremely accessible, but the cost is that it isn't Christian and leaves out a lot that deepens Plato's insights in Christianity. But it's a good starting point because it is accessible.
Yes and no. Yes, it is fairly accessible and has good notes. But it's also more "theology." Unfortunately, Maximus philosophy is dabbled throughout works that focus a lot of asceticism, Biblical exegesis, and more strictly theological concerns, as well as praxis. Von Balthasar's book Cosmic Liturgy is really good here, but also not accessible.
I might recommend pic related as a first stop actually, and you might get by ignoring the Hegel and contemporary parts. Once you understand Plato's psychology, I think it is easier to get more from Maximus. Eric Perl's Thinking Being is very good on the metaphysical side too, but rather technical.
Wallace is extremely accessible, but the cost is that it isn't Christian and leaves out a lot that deepens Plato's insights in Christianity. But it's a good starting point because it is accessible.
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