tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post746952590591541708..comments2024-03-28T06:07:03.667-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: "WEIRD AND CREEPY?"Robert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-84685498222677209842012-07-30T16:01:11.683-04:002012-07-30T16:01:11.683-04:00Professor, you in fact did find the correct Willia...Professor, you in fact did find the correct William Blattner. And thank you for answering my question. Do you think the following would be a fair gloss on what you're trying to say:<br /><br />(a) You find many of the beliefs in Mormon doctrine to be <b>weird</b>.<br /><br />(b) You find some of the practices of the Mormon Church, esp. its institutional infrastructure, <b>creepy</b>.<br /><br />(c) But you don't really want to <b>insult</b> individual Mormons, esp. not as a blanket act. I think it may be hard to avoid doing so, if you want to defend the weirdness and creepiness claims, but it's your blog. I myself think that it is not conducive to civil discourse and mutual understanding to do so. To quote John Dewey, "Intolerance, abuse, calling of names because of differences of opinion about religion or politics or business, as well as because of differences of race, color, wealth or degree of culture are treason to the democratic way of life. For everything which bars freedom and fullness of communication sets up barriers that divide human beings into sets and cliques, into antagonistic sects and factions, and thereby undermines the democratic way of life" ("Creative Democracy – The Task Before Us").<br /><br />I hope not to sound too "sanctimonious," as I was accused of being in the prior thread. I address you in this way out of respect based on a lifetime of your achievement and insight.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15245076859855725726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-35952616596889434802012-07-29T18:53:10.561-04:002012-07-29T18:53:10.561-04:00You're welcome.
Actually, after writing, I too...You're welcome.<br />Actually, after writing, I took a quick peak at the passage; so, I think my memory was more or less correct. <br />I also had the after-thought that Aristotle might have somewhere said something about this in his lost work "On the Ideas" because it contains lines of the sort: "The Platonists say that there are no forms of negations...". (A commentary on the lost work survives.)<br />Anyway, I think the "Parmenides" passage is significant insofar as there is a line of interpretation of Plato that says the Forms are objects of "value" or some such thing.....The Parm. passage is part of the body of evidence that shows he had something more subtle in mind (at least by the time of Parm.).....<br />(All of this should be read with a grain of salt as I'm not au courrant with the most recent scholarship....though it is surprising how little I've learned when I manage to find time to view a few things by active and prominent scholars. Many of the deepest confusions are purely philosophical and cannot be settled by philology or "careful reading".....formerly a wage slavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-10454039526644908812012-07-29T05:46:17.441-04:002012-07-29T05:46:17.441-04:00Boy, it is so many decades since I read the passag...Boy, it is so many decades since I read the passage I am vaguely recalling that I suspect you are quite right. That is what happens when you toss in a throw-away line without a little fact checking. Thanks for keeping me honest.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-90281999324638306142012-07-29T05:14:36.891-04:002012-07-29T05:14:36.891-04:00Are you sure Aristotle said there is no form of mu...Are you sure Aristotle said there is no form of mud? So far as I know, when we speak about Plato and Aristotle in English, it is usual to say Aristotle believed in universals, Plato "forms".. I suspect you have mis- remembered a passage in the Parmenides, a passage which is frequently mis- interpreted. It is not that there are no forms for dirt, mud, and hair. On the contrary, the character of Socrates inclines in that direction, but the Stranger wants to suggest ( and so Plato wants to suggest) that a better reason is needed, that more systematic reasons are needed for making an ontological commitment. As I say, I do think people mis- understand this, but I write late at night/ early in the morning, and from memory.....( incidentally the point about forms versus universals matters because there are different metaphysical theories possible once nominalism is rejected, and the move to Platonism is not automatic --- a point I recently saw muddled by a "Platonist" of my acquaintance linked at the illustrious Leiter reports.......)formerly a wage slavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-34773255666403504982012-07-28T22:14:48.731-04:002012-07-28T22:14:48.731-04:00I'm reading Strauss at the moment. I'm cu...I'm reading Strauss at the moment. I'm curious to know what you may find distasteful. I've read his On Tyranny, the famous persecution and the art of writing article and I've been listening to his lectures. He seems to be doing two main things. The most important thing is his idea that there is a core agreement between all the ancients that knowledge of the 'fundamental problems' is attainable only for some, and so it should be restricted as a matter of good policy (that seems to be the implication, and it is rather Platonic/totalitarian). And he does some other things, he is against 'positivists' and modern Machiaveilli and Hobbes', because of their power obsessed picture of human motivation (later recreated in a similar and more intense phsycological incarnation in Kojeve's reading of Hegel). <br />Anyway, I find him really quite interesting, although I don't know much about any cult associated with his name apart from various accusations thrown around when neo-cons were more powerful in the U.S. These to me, it seemed, were false simply because they were so far fetched, and because of my own understanding of what is possible or achieveable in politics.Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14073192158114213734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-17802657110502652072012-07-26T22:07:18.078-04:002012-07-26T22:07:18.078-04:00Not to mention that the founder of Mormonism, Jose...Not to mention that the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, was an obvious charlatan and fraud. His troubled relationship with the law due to lying to people about his wild treasure-hunting schemes, as well as his convenient "revelations" requiring men to go into "plural marriage" are telling.<br /><br />In addition, the Mormon Church was an officially racist organization until 1978, when another "revelation" showed that God apparently changed his mind about Black people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people_and_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_SaintsScotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02563179015787569536noreply@blogger.com