>>24858010
Also we might question if the skeptic leaves himself any rational grounds for being humane. No doubt, Hume also stumps for the "humane" and yet this bottoms out in sheer emotivism and irrational sentiment, as he himself allows. I think Hume is simply being honest here. The ancient Empiricist drive towards ataraxia is itself wholly selfish and solipsitic in a way, as is Kant's sterile, wholly formal ethics, even if it comes to laudable conclusions. This is what happens when real communion with being is denied and man absolutizes his finite participation in the Logos as the limit of the Logos itself.
The problem is not so much that this tends to bottom out in "pragmatism," but that this pragmatism reveals itself to be wholly irrational voluntarism in the end. The world ceases to be a ladder up to the divine.
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>>24852326
This, lol. People who appeal to "pragmatism," "efficiency," or "usefulness" without speaking to ultimate ends or the measure of these things is ultimately just defaulting into emotivism or extreme voluntarism.
Speaking of the useful is fine (pic related), but only if one has some notion of the Good to go along with it.
This, lol. People who appeal to "pragmatism," "efficiency," or "usefulness" without speaking to ultimate ends or the measure of these things is ultimately just defaulting into emotivism or extreme voluntarism.
Speaking of the useful is fine (pic related), but only if one has some notion of the Good to go along with it.
>>24800174
I find that Maximus has a much more developed praxis in his surviving works though. Like Aristotle, he understands the virtues sort of as the universals of right action, but he extends this to them being a participation in divine love. They are to divine love as the logoi of created things are to the Logos (Christ).
Like the Desert Fathers, he has a three part progression. First is practical philosophy, the cultivation of virtue, ascetic labors, and spiritual exercises. The Neoplatonists are not that different now. Proclus, for instance, is said to have led his students in communal prayer towards the sun thrice daily. They also engaged in small group living, some ascetical labors, etc. But the Christian praxis was more developed (or at least certainly more indepth records and explanations of it survive). The Liturgy of the Hours / Horologion is a communal spiritual exercise for instance, and extends from prior Jewish tradition (when Saint Peter has his vision about all food being clean to eat in Acts he appears to be going up to the roof for the set hour of prayer). The asceticism also tended to be more intense, even though they had a more positive orientation to the body.
Hence, the role of ascetical labors and spiritual exercises is worked into all the discourses:
>94. So long as we are manfully engaged in the holy warfare of ascetic or practical philosophy we retain with us the Logos, who in the form of the commandments came from the Father into this world. But when we are released from our ascetic struggle with the passions and are declared victor over both them and the demons, we pass, by means of contemplation, to gnostic philosophy; and in this way we allow the Logos mystically to leave the world again and make His way to the Father. Hence it is that the Lord says to His disciples: 'You have loved Me and have believed that I come from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world; again I leave the world and make My way to the Father' (John 16:27-28). By the world He meant perhaps the hard task of practicing the virtues; by the Father, that intellectual state which transcends the world and is free from all material propensity. When we are in this state the Logos of God enters into us, putting an end to our battle with the passions and the demons.
>83. According to the text, 'But we have the intellect of Christ' (1 Cor. 2:16), the saints are said to receive Christ's intellect. But this does not come to us through the loss of our own intellectual power: nor does it come to us as a supplementary part added to our intellect: nor does it pass essentially and hypostatically into our intellect. Rather, it illumines the power of our intellect with its own quality and conforms the activity of our intellect to its own. In my opinion the person who has Christ's intellect is he whose intellection accords with that of Christ and who apprehends Christ through all things.
I find that Maximus has a much more developed praxis in his surviving works though. Like Aristotle, he understands the virtues sort of as the universals of right action, but he extends this to them being a participation in divine love. They are to divine love as the logoi of created things are to the Logos (Christ).
Like the Desert Fathers, he has a three part progression. First is practical philosophy, the cultivation of virtue, ascetic labors, and spiritual exercises. The Neoplatonists are not that different now. Proclus, for instance, is said to have led his students in communal prayer towards the sun thrice daily. They also engaged in small group living, some ascetical labors, etc. But the Christian praxis was more developed (or at least certainly more indepth records and explanations of it survive). The Liturgy of the Hours / Horologion is a communal spiritual exercise for instance, and extends from prior Jewish tradition (when Saint Peter has his vision about all food being clean to eat in Acts he appears to be going up to the roof for the set hour of prayer). The asceticism also tended to be more intense, even though they had a more positive orientation to the body.
Hence, the role of ascetical labors and spiritual exercises is worked into all the discourses:
>94. So long as we are manfully engaged in the holy warfare of ascetic or practical philosophy we retain with us the Logos, who in the form of the commandments came from the Father into this world. But when we are released from our ascetic struggle with the passions and are declared victor over both them and the demons, we pass, by means of contemplation, to gnostic philosophy; and in this way we allow the Logos mystically to leave the world again and make His way to the Father. Hence it is that the Lord says to His disciples: 'You have loved Me and have believed that I come from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world; again I leave the world and make My way to the Father' (John 16:27-28). By the world He meant perhaps the hard task of practicing the virtues; by the Father, that intellectual state which transcends the world and is free from all material propensity. When we are in this state the Logos of God enters into us, putting an end to our battle with the passions and the demons.
>83. According to the text, 'But we have the intellect of Christ' (1 Cor. 2:16), the saints are said to receive Christ's intellect. But this does not come to us through the loss of our own intellectual power: nor does it come to us as a supplementary part added to our intellect: nor does it pass essentially and hypostatically into our intellect. Rather, it illumines the power of our intellect with its own quality and conforms the activity of our intellect to its own. In my opinion the person who has Christ's intellect is he whose intellection accords with that of Christ and who apprehends Christ through all things.
>>24501368
>75. Herod exemplifies the will of the flesh; Pilate, the senses; Caesar, sensible things; and the Jews, the soul's thoughts. When the soul through ignorance associates with sensible things, it betrays the Logos into the hands of the senses to be put to death and proclaims within itself the kingship of perishable things. For the Jews say, 'We have no king but Caesar' (John 19:15).
>76. Again, Herod exemplifies the activity of the passions; Pilate, a disposition that is deluded by them; Caesar, the ruler of the world of darkness; and the Jews, the soul. When the soul submits to the passions and betrays virtue into the power of an evil disposition, it manifestly denies the kingdom of God and transfers itself to the destructive tyranny of the devil.
>77. The subjugation of the passions is not sufficient to ensure spiritual happiness for the soul unless the soul also acquires the virtues by keeping the commandments. Scripture says, 'Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you,' that is, the operations of the passions, but 'because your names are written in heaven' (Luke 10;20), having been transferred to the place of dispassion by the grace of sonship gained through the virtues.
From the Century on Theology, Saint Maximus the Confessor
>75. Herod exemplifies the will of the flesh; Pilate, the senses; Caesar, sensible things; and the Jews, the soul's thoughts. When the soul through ignorance associates with sensible things, it betrays the Logos into the hands of the senses to be put to death and proclaims within itself the kingship of perishable things. For the Jews say, 'We have no king but Caesar' (John 19:15).
>76. Again, Herod exemplifies the activity of the passions; Pilate, a disposition that is deluded by them; Caesar, the ruler of the world of darkness; and the Jews, the soul. When the soul submits to the passions and betrays virtue into the power of an evil disposition, it manifestly denies the kingdom of God and transfers itself to the destructive tyranny of the devil.
>77. The subjugation of the passions is not sufficient to ensure spiritual happiness for the soul unless the soul also acquires the virtues by keeping the commandments. Scripture says, 'Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you,' that is, the operations of the passions, but 'because your names are written in heaven' (Luke 10;20), having been transferred to the place of dispassion by the grace of sonship gained through the virtues.
From the Century on Theology, Saint Maximus the Confessor
>>24503316
This is ridiculously at odds with Christianity. Christians praying the Horologian pray to be clear minded and given onto wisdom multiple times a day. The Patristics are filled with calls to take up ascetic labors that one might be prepared for the contest with the world, even onto excruciation and martyrdom. When Dostoevsky wants to attack Christianity through Ivan as a sort of foil for his own Christian understanding he rightfully has Ivan's Grand Inquisitor tell Christ that he expects too much of men and expects them to be too heroic, that the price of diefication and theosis is too high, the goal too arduous.
This is ridiculously at odds with Christianity. Christians praying the Horologian pray to be clear minded and given onto wisdom multiple times a day. The Patristics are filled with calls to take up ascetic labors that one might be prepared for the contest with the world, even onto excruciation and martyrdom. When Dostoevsky wants to attack Christianity through Ivan as a sort of foil for his own Christian understanding he rightfully has Ivan's Grand Inquisitor tell Christ that he expects too much of men and expects them to be too heroic, that the price of diefication and theosis is too high, the goal too arduous.
>>24470311
Based
Based