Antiquated philosophies

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Antiquated philosophies

Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Fri Jul 09, 2004 9:39 pm

Salvete!

Question: is there any philosophy from the Ancients you think is now well antiquated, meaning that it has become useless, refuted or surpassed? We are constantly talking about how some philosophies may apply to our modern world and mind, but are there any that don't, or won't?

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Postby Curio Agelastus on Sat Jul 10, 2004 12:36 am

Salvete,

I may be about to offend a few people, but I think that there are indeed some philosophies that just aren't applicable to modern situations. Some of the more extreme (and indeed some of the more moderate) parts of Pythagoreanism are, by modern standards, simply laughable. And if it wasn't for the fact that I'm terrified of Piscinus' uncanny knowledge, I might even suggest that parts of neo-platonism are somewhat antiquated. *cringes* :lol:

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Postby Horatius Piscinus on Sat Jul 10, 2004 1:47 pm

Salvete

Is that Curio cringing behind a quarterstaff? Universal truths are never antiquated. Ancient philosophical systems are antiquated in that the assumptions that ancients held about nature and on what they based some of their ideas has since proven incorrect. Neoplatonism remains an important philosophy because it still remains to this day the basic language of Western religious ideas. The NT was written in the time of Midplatonism and thus includes some ideas from that philosophy. Neoplatonism was adopted as a Christian philosophy and even later Christian Aristotlism is more Neoplatonist than it is Peripatetic. Meanwhile Late Paganism combined the various schools of ancient philosophy into Neoplatonism, so that that philosophy also becomes a language by which various modern pagans can explain their own religious ideas. Neoplatonism is also a language by which Christians and non-Christians can discuss their divergent ideas. For that reason I find it important, but I am no Neoplatonist.

One thing about scientific paradigms is that they tend to fall as our knowledge increases. The Hellenistic scientific paradigm lasted quite long. Newtonian physics is no longer quite the scientific paradigm that I was taught in the 1950-60's. Einstein's scientific paradigm now has to be modified, and quantum physics is still evolving into a new paradigm. I find it interesting that the new physics is approaching a conception of the universe that appears close to ancient ideas. I was just reading Cicero's Academia where Varro's discussion of the Cosmos (I.7.28) can be reasonably assimilated to modern ideas on the subatomic universe.

The focus of modern philosophy is on metaphysics. Is this a determinist universe or not? Ancient philosophy primarily focused on ethics. Modern ethics are relativistic and individually subjective. Ancient philosophy recognized man as a social animal and saw the need for all people to live together in harmony. It was an urban philosophy, where everyone was to receive their due. We are now a much more urban society, quite diverse in each of our communities as were ancient cities. So I think ancient ethics still has much to teach us today.
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Postby Curio Agelastus on Sat Jul 10, 2004 10:47 pm

Salve Piscine,

In the circumstances I think my cringing was entirely justified. 8)

I agree entirely with your argument that ancient ethics have a place in the modern world. It is not neo-platonist ethics that I consider antiquated, but neo-platonist metaphysics. Admittedly, in my opinion modern philosophy should put more emphasis on ethics and less on metaphysics and related topics; however, Plotinus' descriptions of reality have always seemed to me vaguely antiquated, with the idea that corporeal form is the least perfect of forms of existence - my atheistic mind just doesn't consider Plotinus' Nous or Plato's ideal forms to have any real purpose in the modern world. Having said that, the question itself is entirely subjective, so I suspect there will be as many opinions on the subject as there are forum members.

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Postby Horatius Piscinus on Sun Jul 11, 2004 2:30 pm

Salvete Curio et philosophi omnes

By nature and habit I am a Stoic and find their ethics still applicable to modern society. The Stoics put forth the idea of a Brotherhood of Mankind, recognizing a wider society than just the one we find ourselves living in. Also the Stoics emphasized the individual's role in society and his or her duty to interact with others since we are all responsible for improving society. By not acting, one is still responsible for what happens in society. That is an idea I find still relevent to today's world.

Our ethical systems are based in how we view the world, so you cannot neglect metaphysics in developing an ethical system. The ancients understood the universe as an ever evolving "continuum united with all its parts." Humans being a part of that universe are also ever changing, growing, maturing. Human society likewise is ever changing, and can mature. One thing I like about the ancient systems is that unlike modern philosophy they understood that people held different positions in societyand individuals did change as they matured. There are no absolutes. Ethics is about choice between relative goods, and what choices are presented to a child, or young adult are different from what an older person faces. Also the individual's responsibilities change with age. Modern society seems to focus too greatly on what is to be attained by age 30. It neglects instructing children on what they should attain at their stage of life. It neglects to prepare people for their later lives. The focus on 'making it' is rarely seen today as a progressive process that happens over a life-time, with each stage of life having different goals to achieve and different responsibilities. This does not accord the individual with society since he or she will always be trying to attain something one cannot be. That only leads to the individual's disaffection with society as a whole, with others around him, and with himself. A woman at 35 looks around and sees she hasn't the relationship she had hoped for as a child, does not have the career or social position or family she was taught to expect, or the figure of a child anymore, and then becomes concerned on what she should have done in the past rather than face her future life. The same occurs with men, and by age 40 they chase after what they thought should have been their youth rather than look ahead to the life they still need to live. That does not set them up well for making good ethical choices or for benefitting society. It was quite different in ancient society where people were allotted according to their age group and what they were to achieve was determined according to position and age. It made an entirely different set of parameters in which to make ethical choices.

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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Sun Jul 11, 2004 6:01 pm

Salvete!

I consider most major philosophies from Antiquity interesting, but it's not because they are interesting or historically important, that they can't be wrong. For example, some of the basic premises of the Pythagorean school of thought are wrong (like the fact that there are imperfect, unending numbers such as pi). While Platonism definitely put a big stamp on christianity and marked many philosophers to come after him, I take exception at many Platonic ideas, especially his political ones. The State he described would never work. I also think it's wrong to see morality as something coming or imposed from without rather than within.

While I suppose Plato could be debated or argued for to a certain extent, in the case of most presocratics, their systems have also been defeated by reality. I'm thinking of Thales's theory that water is the basis of everything, or the paradox of the turtle and Achilleus.

Also, there's no shame in admitting some philosophies are wrong or inadequate. For example, nowadays no one will believe Leibniz's theory of the monads.

M Moravi Horati Piscine wrote:One thing I like about the ancient systems is that unlike modern philosophy they understood that people held different positions in societyand individuals did change as they matured. There are no absolutes.


The Socratic-Platonic ethics sound pretty absolute to me!

M Moravi Horati Piscine wrote: Ethics is about choice between relative goods, and what choices are presented to a child, or young adult are different from what an older person faces. Also the individual's responsibilities change with age. Modern society seems to focus too greatly on what is to be attained by age 30. It neglects instructing children on what they should attain at their stage of life. It neglects to prepare people for their later lives. The focus on 'making it' is rarely seen today as a progressive process that happens over a life-time, with each stage of life having different goals to achieve and different responsibilities. This does not accord the individual with society since he or she will always be trying to attain something one cannot be. That only leads to the individual's disaffection with society as a whole, with others around him, and with himself. A woman at 35 looks around and sees she hasn't the relationship she had hoped for as a child, does not have the career or social position or family she was taught to expect, or the figure of a child anymore, and then becomes concerned on what she should have done in the past rather than face her future life. The same occurs with men, and by age 40 they chase after what they thought should have been their youth rather than look ahead to the life they still need to live. That does not set them up well for making good ethical choices or for benefitting society. It was quite different in ancient society where people were allotted according to their age group and what they were to achieve was determined according to position and age. It made an entirely different set of parameters in which to make ethical choices.


That's an interesting thought and one I would agree with. A thing I might add here is that (at least for the Greeks) in Antiquity, the way you died was considered more important than the way you lived: the great heroes of Antiquity were defined by their tragic, by their deaths (or by their tragic deaths). Modern society defines great people by what they did in their prime. It would be possible to argue for and against either society, however.

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Postby Curio Agelastus on Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:28 am

Salvete Piscine et Draco-

Piscine, I must disagree: ethics is not based on how we view the world, but on how we view people, society and the actions of both. Ethics is both a luxury of success and a human invention. Animals follow certain instinctive behavioural commands but wouldn't make moral decisions as we know them. In this way, ethics may have something to do with psychological imperatives, but there is no necessity to consider metaphysical realities along with ethical realities.

Draco, if the Pythagoreans' mathematical ideas were occasionally a little strange, how about the concept that touching white animals was a bad idea?

I'll discuss your comments on Platonic morality on another thread, since I suspect it may turn into its own discussion.

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Postby Quintus Pomponius Atticus on Sun Aug 01, 2004 11:06 am

Salvete,

In my view, there are some signals that the great ethical philosophies of antiquity are making a modest come-back.

Since the late Michel Foucault (obiit 1984) entered upon the theme of "self-care" (le souci de soi) in his later works, the theme of "the art of life" appears to be re-emerging in contemporary philosophy, after the postmodernist debâcle of the 1970-80's (it would be an interesting point of discussion if we have shed the skin of postmodernism and -if so- how to characterise the phase of intellectual development we are now in).

In different countries, academic philosophers again champion the high-minded ethical ways of life of antiquity against the tide (or should we say flood) of superficial self-help manuals or new-agy absurdities. I am thinking of Joep Dohmen in the Netherlands (Dutch-speakers, see his article "pleidooi voor een laatmoderne levenskunst" at http://www.human.nl/hkc/projecten/levenskunst/dohmen0.htm and his contributions in Filosofie Magazine), Pierre Hadot (Collège de France, see my earlier bibliographical posting on him), Wilhelm Schmid (thought in different German universities), Martha Nussbaum in the U.S. can be more or less linked to this movement etc.

All eminent names, and as an "adherent" of this movement (I try to live as well as I can according to my own eclectic philosophy, largely compiled from ancient sources), I can only hope that their research and thought will help the best in ancient philosophy to re-emerge and to be better known, to the advantage of many people searching for a sensible way to live their lives in an often chaotic world.

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Postby Horatius Piscinus on Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:27 pm

Salve mi Curio

Marcus Scribonius Curio wrote:
Piscine, I must disagree: ethics is not based on how we view the world, but on how we view people, society and the actions of both. Ethics is both a luxury of success and a human invention. Animals follow certain instinctive behavioural commands but wouldn't make moral decisions as we know them. In this way, ethics may have something to do with psychological imperatives, but there is no necessity to consider metaphysical realities along with ethical realities.


How we view people, society, and the actions of both is part of our world view, and often that is placed in a greater concept of a world view. Ethics is generally part of a philosophical system and therefore will have some metaphysical concept as its background. Even an amoral, unethical person has a world view to justify their lack of ethics. Hm, some Wallstreet types of the 90's come to mind, professing a 'law of the jungle' mentality. A "luxury of success," I do not understand what you mean by that. There is such a thing as 'honor among theives' with each little subgroup in society developing its own code of conduct to fit its circumstances. I do not think success is a requirement for the need of ethics. In my youth I was acquainted with a certain, em, disreputable group which had a very strong sense of propriety, and the guns to back it up. In the army I served in a time before Congress issued a decree on how intel should conduct its operations. Some rather nasty business was tolerated back then, attempts made to justify it out of necessity, but lines were drawn at what was acceptable among ourselves, and other things we left for others to deal with. It posed ethical dilemmas more than anything, when there were no guiding ethics. Some of the people I had to work with... Well, they were not allowed to return to civil society, and I doubt that they would have been accepted in a wolf pack either. But they too had a certain way of looking at things, perverse though it may have been.

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Postby Horatius Piscinus on Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:30 pm

Salve Attice

This sounds interesting to me. I am not familar with the philosophers you mention. Could you offer us some outline of their ideas?

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Postby Quintus Pomponius Atticus on Wed Aug 04, 2004 7:44 pm

Salve Piscine,

Well, basically their mission is not to spread a lot of new ideas but to offer an apologetic or incentive for the study and practice of ancient philosophy against what I call postmodernist fatalism, i.e. the idea that we cannot really shape our lives independently and certainly not by looking back to antiquity for ideas and practices for doing it (even Foucault, one of the pioneers of the resurgence of "applied philosophy" was sceptical about antiquity being able to offer solutions for modern life).

In connection with that, a number of them publish accessible guides to (ancient) philosophy, with the accent on how it was practiced and how it can still be practiced today. Pierre Hadot's "Qu'est-ce qui la philosophie antique" is a good example : a historical survey of ancient philosophy but with the accent on the "how" rather than on the "what".

The Dutch philosopher Joep Dohmen, to name another example has edited an anthology of texts around the theme of "applied philosophy" ranging from Plato to Wittgenstein. He has also created an online bibliography about the theme (http://www.human.nl/hkc/projecten/leven ... inhoud.htm) and often publishes articles in a 'popular' philosophy periodical.

The German professor Wilhelm Schmid has published a succesfull book in which he wanted to undertake a "fundamental research" of the theme of "applied philosophy", first looking at the conditions under which the formation of one's life is possible in the present age. Therefore, he analyses themes like identity, autonomy, the making of choices connected with the the complex balances of power in contemporary society etc. Schmid calls his analyses "optative" : only if people understand how life in our contemporary society works can they choose whether/how to practice the "art of life".

When I look at this 'landscape' of authors, intentions and projects I cannot but compare it with that that of the early church writers, writing apologetics, vulgarisations, trying to fit Christianity into the context of life in the Roman empire etc. Let us hope that at least some of the succes of Christianity might ensue from this interesting work :wink:.

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Postby Quintus Pomponius Atticus on Fri Aug 06, 2004 12:14 pm

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Postby Curio Agelastus on Thu Aug 12, 2004 12:34 am

Salve Piscine,

Certainly everyone have a world view to justify their ethical system, but a world view isn't the definition of metaphysics, and there is little need to associate metaphysics and ethics. In my case, for instance, where I am well aware of the importance of ethics, and spend a great deal of time considering it, as an atheist I spend very little time considering metaphysics. Why, therefore, must the two be interlinked? I see that they can be, but not that they need to be.

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