Thank you so much for adding slides with text and images to make the lecture more engaging! I had previously heard another lecture by Dr Peikoff, but it was just audio, and it was difficult for me to focus on what he was saying. But, thanks to the slides with text and images that you added, it was so much easier for me to concentrate. Thank you for putting the extra effort! Also, the lecture itself was amazing!
Thomas Jefferson, 7/5/1814 letter to Adams: "... I amused myself with reading seriously Plato’s republic... while wading thro’ the whimsies, the puerilities, & unintelligible jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this? how the soi-disant Christian world indeed should have done it, is a piece of historical curiosity. but how could the Roman good sense do it?... but fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities, & incomprehensibilities, and what remains? in truth he is one of the race of genuine Sophists, who has escaped the oblivion of his brethren, first by the elegance of his diction, but chiefly by the adoption & incorporation of his whimsies into the body of artificial Christianity. his foggy mind, is for ever presenting the semblances of objects which, half seen thro’ a mist, can be defined neither in form or dimension. yet this which should have consigned him to early oblivion really procured him immortality of fame & reverence... the Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from it’s indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power & pre-eminence. the doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained... it is fortunate for us that Platonic republicanism has not obtained the same favor as Platonic Christianity; or we should now have been all living, men, women and children, pell mell together, like the beasts of the field or forest. yet ‘Plato is a great Philosopher,’ said La Fontaine. but says Fontenelle ‘do you find his ideas very clear’?-‘oh no! he is of an obscurity impenetrable.’-‘do you not find him full of contradictions?’-‘certainly, replied La Fontaine, he is but a Sophist.’ yet immediately after, he exclaims again, ‘oh Plato was a great philosopher.’..."
Mr.Leonard Peikoff, But Aristotle contradicts himself when he posits that secondary matter and form (our existence) is induced out of primary matter and form by an active agent (undefined). He defines primary matter and form as undetectable and pervasive which of course is no definition at all according to his own definition of existence and its necessary 10 predicaments and 5 predicables. Only by resorting to Plato in an inverse manner was he able to explain the 'coming to be' of matter. Of course, he had no knowledge of the law of the conservation of matter and thus, no doubt, would have resorted to it.
Anyone know how the Platonic and Aristotelian Greeks knowledge of the structure and relationships of language affected their individual view of philosophy?
I'm having a hard time understanding your question. While Plato doesn't have any works explicitly about language, Aristotle has his short work "On Interpretation", or "De Interpretatione", which I think targets your specific question in the first 4 chapters (each chapter is only a few short paragraphs). In the first chapter he explains that while we may have different languages and use different words, we all have the same "mental experiences" and so can communicate about the same things. If that sounds like it's getting at the root of your question, I highly recommend just taking a few minutes and reading the actual work for yourself classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/interpretation.1.1.html Hope this helps.
At min 35-36, Aristotle is father of primacy of existence: First we start with reality with what it is Then we ask what are the appropriate methods to get knowledge of reality This seems contradictory, isn't "what in fact is" some knowledge? If figuring out appropriate method comes later then with what method did we aquire the first knowledge of what reality is and how do we know it's valid? Perhaps there is some primitive method that just is. Perception via senses? It's neither valid nor invalid but just is. And objects of perception are entities or primary substances and they are neither valid nor invalid but just are?
What he means here is that before you can know facts about reality, you must know that reality IS - it is axiomatic, it is the beginning from which all further knowledge follows. The fact that "what is, is" is axiomatic means that you cannot explain it using other concepts as there are no other concepts preceding it. You grasp the fact of reality as soon as you are conscious. This is difficult to get your head around, i agree.
It's annoying when he asserts as a fact that Aristotle's philosophy is true. This is an opinion and many people disagree. For example, it's obvious that the forms don't exist within particulars. The forms are clearly mental projections. They reveal how we instinctively categorise reality. These categories aren't actually 'embedded' within the objects. There is only matter, and form is a mental projection. Of course, Aristotle is an improvement on Plato, nonetheless.
Many people disagree about the truth of biology, that doesn't make them right just because they have an opinion that reality is not reality. Peikoff asserts that Aristotle's philosophy is true because it is true, and taking a vote amongst people that deny reality doesn't make Peikoff's statement just an opinion. Your argument about the forms is so off base and clouded by the results you want to come to that there is no real argument presented, your argument is both a bad strawman and its results are powered by the end goal as opposed to being worked up to. As Peikoff puts it in the start "Aristotelianism is philosophy as a rational science versus philosophy as a rationalization for subjective whims or mystic trances." Your "they reveal how we instinctively categorise reality" is a rationalization for the purpose of having and holding subjective whims or mystic trances.
@@ExistenceUniversity to be clear, I don't think that the forms are mere subjective whims. This is a strawmanning of my own position. To a large extent we don't have a choice over how we conceptualise the world and the forms reflect genuine similarities and differences that exist within reality (or that part of reality that exists beyond the mind, since the subjective is also part of reality - I have to clarify because peikoff oftentimes equates reality with external reality only). I know I wasn't presenting an argument. This is because it is a mere RU-vid comment, not a doctoral thesis. I was merely presenting my own opinion. I don't believe I was strawmanning. Aristotle argues that forms exist within objects themselves, hence the term hylomorphism. I agree with you that just because people disagree with a proposition does not mean that the proposition is true, but it does mean that *work needs to be done* to argue for the truth of the proposition. Peikoff merely asserts his opinion as fact without argument. But I appreciate your comment and have a nice day.
You do realize that Leonard Peikoff follows Ayn Rand's philosphy, that this video was uploaded by the Ayn rand Institute, and that the base of Ayn Rand's philosophy is Aristotle's philosphy? Obviously he's going to say that Aristotle's philosphy is true: it's the basis of the philosophy he deeply believe in. If you want someone to disagree with Aristotle, just watch a lecture by literally any other philosopher, or anyone that doesn't endorse Ayn Rand. This lecture was done by people who believe that Aristotle was right, for people who believe that Aristotle was right. You just took the entire leture out of context.
@@alfiecollins5617 Uh... we do have a choice of how to conceptualize reality. It's called "pick your religion". Conceptualization is in effect, a categorization. This does not validate the categorization. What is your position anyway? Is it that "there is only material"? Or is it that "perception is reality along with the material"? Because, it is clear to me that perception is not matter in and of itself. And if you believe the latter, you agree with at least one of Peikoff's essences (or at least an essence he believes in and tries to outline), from what I've interpreted. What hypothetical essences do you disagree with? What are your hypothetical essences? Essence: A base perception or matter that is defined as precisely as possible, with no constituent parts.
