Paine

Yes. I think those two elements are intertwined. The witches in Macbeth do play an important part of why he thought he was invincible. In the midst of...

King Lear is not a voice for moral nihilism because it is recognized that through her death, Cordelia was the faithful one through her refusal to appr...

Rivas makes good points. Hubris is an important part of the action. There is the relief of not experiencing the bad luck as pointed out by Moliere quo...

How does an essence come into being in the language of Aristotle?

Sophocles' Oedipus the King is worthy of notice in this regard. Oedipus unwittingly accelerates his demise by uncovering the attempts of his parents t...

Your hypothetical does not take into account the way Aristotle views human life in relation to the life of other animals. An excellent overview of thi...

According to one particular story, we were kicked out of a tended garden and forced to struggle hard for our survival. There is still an order to the ...

Who are these people who seek what is good for themselves at the expense of the good itself?

In Phaedrus, Socrates demands to see the scroll Phaedrus is quoting from. The argument about the limits of the written word in that dialogue would be ...

I did not mean to contradict your reference to the Cathars. In looking at more ancient sources, the desire for purification finds expression in the pe...

The word goes further back than that. It invokes different ideas of purification important to the Greeks, in their great variance of opinion.

Agreed, not a new argument. Coincidence requires the absence of a pattern. There is a pattern. It will be interesting to hear what the appeal process ...

I understand and try to practice a version of reducing harm by changing what is in my power while knowing that it is hopefully a kind of subtraction o...

I am the hysterical side of the partnership. The one who has to be talked down from quitting out of anger, getting into needless conflicts, or arreste...

Thank you for the article. The play of tragic and comedic elements is important in Plato's work and life. I will try to address that later as I need t...

Wow. Or maybe whoa. A true believer emerges. I will leave you to your own devices.

Nor are your comparisons. I was employing sarcastic irony.

Justice Thomas wrote a separate bit in the recent immunity decision aimed at Special Counsels and Cannon received the lateral pass and ran with it. Sh...

A shot in the crowd of a Capitol invasion and you hit a member of a militia group. More to chew upon. I am just glad the shooter did not have a bump s...

It is hard to tell. I read him as demarking a difference in kind that is expressed as the limit of psychology in Concept of Anxiety. Psychology is not...

Perhaps the piercing of the ear so close to the brain will cause the man to awaken from his monomaniacal dream and see life the way Andrei did in War ...

That is an interesting question. It is easy when pointing at large mythological elements. I will have to think about it as related to more subtle them...

I have not participated in this discussion. I recognize that you think that I need further education in these matters. I don't see how saying that adv...

Yes, the externalized cost model pays penalties as the price of doing business rather than changing behavior to avoid them. Another side of accidents ...

I get that you connect your view of the 'theological' with a renunciation of the 'material' It is the trick of your pony, as you admitted upthread. Yo...

Strauss does make distinctions between Greek thought and 'revealed' religion that I know you would disagree with. Strauss acknowledges that Heidegger ...

Plotinus is not talking about the relationship between knower and known but the experience of being a soul descended into a body which is not its natu...

Not all discussion of religion involves the same things. And if you want to argue for some element of that, I support your effort. But I object to thi...

As this does not involve the Gerson thesis, I feel it is okay for me to push back upon this reading. The same article says: No reader of Natural Right...

I am also nostalgic for both. I enjoyed our conversation. I recently re-read the Sophist and was struck at how Plato expressed a kind of nostalgia in ...

Plato is tricky on the issue of 'reverence for the past' as a political form of life. In the Statesman, Chronos is shown running the course of the uni...

I wish that there was an equivalent to Horan's translations of Plato's Dialogues available to present what Plotinus wrote. Then it would be easier to ...

I understand the passage as demonstrating the vast difference between Plato and Plotinus when they speak of the philosopher's return to the cave. The ...

Given the importance to how matter plays an important role in the present thinking, can you accept that Plotinus was talking about something else?

What "matter" means in the different texts is not an agreed upon point of departure but what seems to require the most argument.

I apologize for the dismissive manner I dealt with this upthread. What I am trying to underline in the discussion is the particular way Plotinus offer...

If Gerson is absorbing all of Platonism into his understanding of Plotinus, he does not need the Ur-Platonism for his own purposes. The 'via negativa'...

Seconded.

One quality about the "Joyous science" that differs from the other works is the sense of freedom to do something different. The works before and after...

How do you perceive Plotinus in that context? He presents the experience of the ascent of the soul as involving:

Your first question is very tough to answer. In the context of the Sophist, The Stranger seems to suggest that the 'reformation" will keep changing th...

With a bit of Swift's Battle of the Books, pitching the Ancients against the Moderns, thrown in for extra flavor. Grumpy old men fight on both sides o...

Yes. It is odd how an appeal to a lost age cancels the argument of what is essential to being human by insisting upon the force that brings about its ...

I have been thinking about Burnyeat's view of utopia and wanted to make some comments outside of his project of undermining Strauss. I agree with Burn...

I appreciate the story about the pony. I am more of a donkey. I support taking breaks.

I understand your interests. You have repeated your thesis many times.

During our years of discourse, I have been trying to narrow definitions rather than explain differences in the most general terms. I accept your objec...

I am mindful of that post. In a twist of fate, the argument there is supported by Leo Strauss in his Natural Right and History. I have problems with t...

Since we are all talking about other people at the moment, I want to talk about ways past discussions intersect with this one for me. I first became a...

I would not have done it if I had not been included in the comment. This is briefest way to express my discomfort with the comparison.