The latter take as their profession the task of systematically justifying the logical claims of Plato and the Platonist philosophers, as a purely intellectual exercise. The former practice philosophy through derangement.
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The latter have long since forgotten to see philosophy as a practice. The former see philosophy as a practice, albeit an aesthetic one.
aug 31, 2025, 3:50 pm • 4 0 • view
Am somewhat convinced that the philosophical basis of "Western Civilisation" is a bunch of post-Roman European intellectuals trying to appropriate the rationalistic aspects of the broad Platonist philosophical project, merge it with Aristotelianism, and bury the whole decivilising part of gnosis.
aug 31, 2025, 4:00 pm • 3 0 • view
You see it in the fact that people like Plato and his descendants when they talk about beauty, goodness, truth and all that as being pre-existent Forms, from which they derive a metaphysical rational-idealist theory of objective morality, but have no interest in theia mania.
aug 31, 2025, 4:03 pm • 3 0 • view
And that's a problem because Plato sees divine madness as the best form of access perceiving the divine world, which pre-exists the material cosmos, and describes four kinds of madness given by the gods. So it's taking up the rationalism of Platonism, but not its real heart.
aug 31, 2025, 4:05 pm • 2 0 • view