Tag: Plato
-
2024-09-13
Levels of Knowledge
Continuing our series on the basics of Platonism, we must distinguish between two different kinds of knowledge that are appropriate to sensibles and intelligibles. The former, Plato calls *doxa* a kind of knowledge based on the way things *seem*. The latter Plato calls *episteme*, a kind of knowledge based on the timeless understanding of intelligible patterns.
-
2024-08-16
Being and Becoming
We continue our series on the fundamentals of Platonism by explaining how intelligibles are "beings" that simply are what they are while sensibles are "becomings" that unroll what they are over time.
-
2023-09-08
Freedom in the Myth of Er
In Plato's famous Myth of Er, we find a memorable image that becomes a major source of inspiration for Western thinking about freedom. In this post I argue that it encourages us to think about freedom as a kind of selection from objectively given alternatives, and that this is ultimately misleading.
-
2019-06-27
What I Mean by Platonism
Platonism has come to mean different things to different scholars. When I call myself a Platonist, I mean that I believe in the Forms, that I believe in real, eternal, immaterial, intelligible structures beyond the world of sense.
-
2018-04-05
Athens and Jerusalem Talk
I'm giving a talk at the Athens and Jerusalem Conference in Lawrenceburg KY on Saturday, April 7, 2018. The talk will be on the Platonic conception of the self as the soul, especially in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, and how this is different from the Christian conception. Anyone interested is invited.
-
2017-09-30
Narnian Platonism
I just finished reading all the Narnia books to my kids and ran across this wonderful bit about Plato...