No, but he did use the Socratic method, essentially. It can be used in good faith to inquire into concepts and underlying assumptions. It can also be used in bad faith to undermine discourse and place an infinite burden of proof on the other side.
These Platonists always amuse me. Never any granular explanation of how knowledge is gathered, just antiquated concepts and question-begging terminology. Also strange at the end about the purpose portion. He seemed to take issue with reproduction being a purpose, but itself not having a purpose. Does purpose need to be an infinite regress? Does his view of purpose go on and on forever and not bottom out somewhere? I think Platonists are drawn to the aesthetic of the Platonism. They like their beliefs to be from ancient Greek thinkers when in reality those thinkers knew very little about knowledge when compared to what we know now.
Yeah, their theory seems to be a very tight vacuous circle. Humans are ontological knowers, the world is ontologically knowable, and knowledge is communion between knower and knowable.
Any theory will have primitives that are unexplained by the theory. E.g. Newton's theory of motion has force, mass and gravity as unexplained concepts, and also relies on presuppositions about time, space and causality. That doesn't make it vacuous. Explanation is information reduction. With Newton's theory, we can describe and predict the motions of heavenly bodies, the flight of a projectile, an apple falling from a tree, etc. It doesn't get us to some foundation that requires no explanation; it just reduces many disparate things to a common framework, thereby vastly reducing the complexity of observation.
I think the Platonist view of purpose would be similar to their view of knowledge: a tight, vacuous circle. The purpose of life would be to serve "the Good", or something like that. What makes "the Good" good? Because it is "THE GOOD"!!
Platonism seems to be a way for post-Christians to keep certain parts of religion, while discarding the more absurd/unpalatable stuff.
did they expect to change your mind with socratic method?
ReplyDeleteNo, but he did use the Socratic method, essentially. It can be used in good faith to inquire into concepts and underlying assumptions. It can also be used in bad faith to undermine discourse and place an infinite burden of proof on the other side.
DeleteThese Platonists always amuse me. Never any granular explanation of how knowledge is gathered, just antiquated concepts and question-begging terminology. Also strange at the end about the purpose portion. He seemed to take issue with reproduction being a purpose, but itself not having a purpose. Does purpose need to be an infinite regress? Does his view of purpose go on and on forever and not bottom out somewhere? I think Platonists are drawn to the aesthetic of the Platonism. They like their beliefs to be from ancient Greek thinkers when in reality those thinkers knew very little about knowledge when compared to what we know now.
ReplyDeleteYeah, their theory seems to be a very tight vacuous circle. Humans are ontological knowers, the world is ontologically knowable, and knowledge is communion between knower and knowable.
DeleteAny theory will have primitives that are unexplained by the theory. E.g. Newton's theory of motion has force, mass and gravity as unexplained concepts, and also relies on presuppositions about time, space and causality. That doesn't make it vacuous. Explanation is information reduction. With Newton's theory, we can describe and predict the motions of heavenly bodies, the flight of a projectile, an apple falling from a tree, etc. It doesn't get us to some foundation that requires no explanation; it just reduces many disparate things to a common framework, thereby vastly reducing the complexity of observation.
I think the Platonist view of purpose would be similar to their view of knowledge: a tight, vacuous circle. The purpose of life would be to serve "the Good", or something like that. What makes "the Good" good? Because it is "THE GOOD"!!
Platonism seems to be a way for post-Christians to keep certain parts of religion, while discarding the more absurd/unpalatable stuff.