Greetings Andre, Andre quotes Northrop: > > 'In Plato's philosophy there are two 'ground principles'' as his famous > lecture 'On the Good' specifically stated: one, the rational, > mathematical,formal principle; the other, the intuitive, immediately > apprehended, emotional, aesthetic principle termed 'the indeterminate > dyad', > or the potentially differentiable aesthetic continuum.
Now right there that seems an excellent description Phaedrus's classic/romantic split, does it not? I was always curious about the term "romantic" in ZMM. Romantic has all kinds of connotations for our modern culture that cloud my philosophical understanding. But this description makes very clear a sort of sexual distinction in human consciousness. > ...In his dialogue the Timaeus, which brings > together the aesthetic, emotional, 'eros' principle of the Phaedrus and > Symposium and the rational, scientific logos principle of the Republic, he > tells us that the former is the female and the latter the male principle in > the nature of things...Failing to make an important distinction, Plato went > on quite arbitralily to brand the aesthetic, emotional female principle as > evil and the male rational principle as good' (p 58-9). Interesting indeed! It still interests me as to the reasons why Plato 'encapsulated' this > female, (Good) principle (ZMM p373) and associated the male, (Logos) > principle with Truth. Was this because the rational, scientifically viable > idea of the good was revealed through the investigations in the natural > sciences ...'and made articulate in the resultant empirically verified > philosophical theory of nature'? In other words, was the male principle > easier to 'understand' than the female principle? > It was for Plato! He was male. Which is the point you're making I think. I'm not a Greek scholar, but I've read before that there was a strong component of the anti-feminine in Greek culture. In reading Josiah Royce and what came to me in comparing his philosophy with Pirsig's was that in the classic/romantic split, Phaedrus, was actually oriented romantically. I didn't get that right off because he was so technically proficient. But If this was so, then it goes a long way toward explaining his conflict with Plato and classical philosophy which denigrates romantic sensibilities. Could ZMM be primarily a redemption of the feminine in intellect? How VERY PC. :) It seems rather that we are now in an era of scientific discovery which has > confronted us with philosophical/ metaphysical questions and explanations > that seem inadequate to meet precisely the result of these discoveries. In > this sense it seems that the shortcomings of the intellectual level is > partly due to its inability to fully grasp its own grand-parent > level i.e in/organic patterns of value. Yes! That makes sense. Our most fundamental Organic pattern of value is the male/female experience and any intellectual system which denigrates the female side of things, throws away one half the human intellectual experience. I find it interesting to note that Plato has thus a two principled idea of > the 'Good' and that he labels the 'aesthetic' as the 'female principle' and > demotes it in relation to the male principle. I still do not understand why > this was done (translated into various religious/ social/ economic PoV's). > Was Plato influenced by Eastern philosophy or philosophers? (still Eastern > philosophy has incorporated the female principle (e.g Yin/Yang). > > I hope this is a little coherent and that my questions are clear. > Yes and yes. You bring up (for me anyway), some fascinating points I'd never considered before. Thanks. John Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
