I attempt to provide a personal reflection on the 8 possible universes (i.e. neo-Platonic mysticism, Spinozan Naturalism, Platonic Idealism, Absurdist Universe, Stoical Rationalism, Sophist Universe, Buddhist Appearances, Perspectival Solipsism) derived from the logic in Plato's Parmenides here: www.patreon.com/posts/33175928 Hope it can provide deeper perspective on the meaning of this logical exercise for our concrete historical existence.
Fantastic. I am glad that there is someone who is creating this kind of content. The speaker is very articulate, it is clear that there has been much *thought* and *love* put into this project.
Wow...! Nobody (and I mean NOBODY) has ever explained these positions of Parmenides as clearly as this. It reminds me of a line from Hemingway's, I believe it's in ISLANDS IN THE STREAM: There is no one truth, it's all true.". CL is a true-real-true-authentic teacher. Or am I just imagining it?...na, it's REAL...enough...
Wonderful! This presentation is a great help, as I work through the dialogue, the notes regarding interpretive debates across different schools of thought I found especially useful, great work sir 🕊️
Regarding Thesis 9 at the end of this lecture, to find more examples I recommend Jay Garfields translation/interpretation of "Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way" (Mulamadhyamakakarika) as I believe Garfield presents Nagarjuna's "final" position as almost identical to Thesis 9, I may provide citations from the text at a later date
A fascinating and insight full analysis. It was only with your ninth hypothesis that you lost me I really couldn't get a grip on what you're trying to say there. It did seem to have a somewhat Buddhist flavor. I was reminded that transcending the eight Dhyanas or mundane meditation states there is said to be a ninth state of the 'absence of form & perception' that only a Buddha had access to. More pertinently perhaps post-mortem state of a Buddha is analysed in terms of four logical possibilities: existence, non-existence, both existence and non-existence, neither existence or non-existence. They are all rejected. This does sound a bit like your 9th position. However in different places Buddhist text do sound very like the position you ascribe to neoplatonists. In other places they do indeed sound like the position you yourself describe as 'Buddhist', ie that only the One exists and everything else is construction or illusion. The better word is construction Sankhara, a key Buddhist term from very early times. It indicates the provisional but intractable presentness of the constructed world. It is not simply a misty illusion that can be blown away by not believing in it... Nevertheless this One, the Deathless, the uncompounded as Buddhist texts term it, is more of an experiential than a logical absolute. And the predicates of existence and non-existence are explicitly denied to it. Which makes Buddha look a bit like parmenides in the dialogue playing with all those logical possibilities but not believing in any of them ...
Good lecture. What do you think of the dramatic readings where we have a young pre-Socratic Socrates in dialogue with Parmenides? And then the relation of this dialogue to later in dramatic-historical terms including Socrates’ discussion of the “second sailing” in the Phaedo?
I didn't see my take among the theses. There is a difference between the abstract unity of all beings and the actual being(s). Any idea found existing is an essence. The idea only exists as a full experience, not if only referenced to by a logical framework. Any experience-being is omnipotent and omnipresent, throughout itself. It doesn't mix with others. Any synthesis or unity is an abstraction. Applied abstraction allows for "other" to be conceived of without including it within its causal being. My idea of "other" is a personal map. Maps don' t actually exist; saying that there is a map in my experience is an abstraction--there's only the full experience. My full experience is more than I realize it to be (via the limited, meta-cognitive awareness of a human). An experience of enlightenment would be one without considering the possible existence of anything beyond the experience. In that way, its knowledge would be full, not referencing something that cannot be realized simultaneously. A raw experience is its own natural law, but never can be something truly paradoxical. Zero isn't invoked without something else that exists. A number line (or range) is abstract. Between all added increments, extending the line, is zero. Only one value could be present, otherwise. Zero allows entities to be distinct, yet abstractly together. All beings are separated by nonexistence, which is to say that my 1st-hand experience doesn't appear within yours, and vice-versa. When each number looks outward, it sees nothing but itself. By abstracting yourself, you can learn about others but never conjoin, else you would be a different entity than you were, and then who was it that became the new you--someone not you??
