November 14, 2022
These are notes that I found on
my outdated but useful AlphaSmart word processor. The reading and notes are a
response to the Secret History of Western
Esotericism podcast (SHWEP), which I began listening to in the autumn of
2020. Therefore, the notes were written after that, and likely in 2021. I will reproduce
the text here—as an artifact—with only a few grammatical corrections and
expansions for clarity. The latter are indicated in brackets.
***
Listening to the SHWEP has
prompted me to return to Plato’s texts after many years. Actually, the detailed
discussions on the podcast have inspired me to read Platonic texts I had never
read before (i.e., the Parmenides and the Timaeus). I have been struck by how
holistic Plato is when it comes to bridging the gap between rational and
extra-rational modes of knowing, let us [call them]. [What follows will be]
overly schematic in order to highlight some points I find significant.
From the perspective of
intellectual history (that is, from the perspective of what might be presented
in a course with “intellectual history” in the title), Plato comes across as
the father of rational philosophizing in the traditions stemming from the
Greeks. A nod is given to the pre-Socratics. I take it that this is roughly how
Plato appears in the analytical cannon, at least as a necessary link in the
chain leading to Aristotelian logic. I do not think that this is entirely inaccurate.
Nevertheless, I have been struck
by all the ways that Plato describes extra-rational inspiration impinging upon
the person, and therefore impacting discursive philosophy itself. In fact, he
seems to be always trying to integrate the extra-rational into the latter, as
if making it an essential moment of the whole.
Lokilech, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
"Diagram of the sheep's liver found near Piacenza with Etruscan inscriptions"—Wikipedia article on the Haruspex
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