Started a book on Plotinus that looks really good so far.
Stephen R. L. Clark, Plotinus - Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical Practice
The author suggests that Plotinus' Enneads aren't -- or aren't ONLY -- intended as philosophical argument in which facts and reasons are argued out in order to persuade us. This is the way we think of philosophy nowadays, as any book by Locke or Kant or Thomas Nagel will be like that.
Instead, he says that Plotinus' work is to be read as a kind of guided meditation. Almost Jungian, in the way that the process of reading and the different metaphors we come across will subtly but effectively improve our thinking -- if we're open to it.
I like this a lot, as it blends the boundaries we have between logical discourse and art.
Scientific truth, they say, is that which can be translated into a different language. A paper on chemistry published in English can be translated into Japanese and the meaning of it will be exactly the same. Science papers are meant to deliver truth-contents, which can be restated or taken away from the delivery vehicle.
Art, on the other hand, is an object and an experience. If you translate a work of art into another medium or language, you get some new version, but not the thing itself. Restating a summary of Proust is NOT Proust. The work of art or literature must be experienced -- lived through.
I like the idea that what is true of art is true of some philosophy as well.
Stephen R. L. Clark, Plotinus - Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical Practice
The author suggests that Plotinus' Enneads aren't -- or aren't ONLY -- intended as philosophical argument in which facts and reasons are argued out in order to persuade us. This is the way we think of philosophy nowadays, as any book by Locke or Kant or Thomas Nagel will be like that.
Instead, he says that Plotinus' work is to be read as a kind of guided meditation. Almost Jungian, in the way that the process of reading and the different metaphors we come across will subtly but effectively improve our thinking -- if we're open to it.
I like this a lot, as it blends the boundaries we have between logical discourse and art.
Scientific truth, they say, is that which can be translated into a different language. A paper on chemistry published in English can be translated into Japanese and the meaning of it will be exactly the same. Science papers are meant to deliver truth-contents, which can be restated or taken away from the delivery vehicle.
Art, on the other hand, is an object and an experience. If you translate a work of art into another medium or language, you get some new version, but not the thing itself. Restating a summary of Proust is NOT Proust. The work of art or literature must be experienced -- lived through.
I like the idea that what is true of art is true of some philosophy as well.
