路 road

You are traveling again. But why so sad?

The nature of Metaphysics, from Plutarch, Life of Alexander, chapter seven

It would appear that Alexander received from him [Aristotle] not only his doctrines of Morals and Politics, but also something of those more abstruse and profound theories, which the philosophers, by the very names they gave them, professed to reserve for oral communication to the initiated, and did not allow many to become acquainted with. For when he was in Asia, and heard Aristotle had published some treatises of that kind, he wrote to him, using very plain language to him in behalf of philosophy, the following letter: "Alexander to Aristotle, greeting. You have not done well to publish your books of oral doctrine; for what is there now that we excel others in, if those things which we have been particularly instructed in be laid open to all? For my part, I assure you, I had rather excel others in the acquaintance of what is best than in my power. Farewell." And Aristotle, soothing this passion for pre-eminence, speaks, in his excuse for himself, of these doctrines as in fact both published and not published: as indeed, to say the truth, his books on metaphysics are written in a style which makes them useless for ordinary teaching, and instructive only, in the way of memoranda, for those who have been already trained in that sort of learning.

The fact that Aristotle didn't mind publishing the oral doctrine suggests that neither reading the books of Metaphysics nor listening to oral doctrine of Metaphysics is the right way in which the training of "that sort of learning" is done. The difference is not between written and unwritten, but between publishable and unpublishable. Hence the real task of reading Metaphysics is unlike what Neoplatonism has done, namely, to reach Plato's unwritten doctrines through Aristotle's written words, because both the written and the unwritten are publishable. The real difficulty is in fact how to reach the unpublishable through what is published.

In the preparation part (102b-105c) we have seen how Socrates moved from the opposites itself (Form of Hotness) to the opposites in particular things (heat in whatever is hot) and finally to the essential carriers of the opposites (fire), it's not until all the three kinds of things are proved to be incapable of admitting the relevant other opposite (coldness) that Socrates began to demonstrate soul's immortality, because for him soul is more like fire, which is the essential carrier of certain opposite (aliveness), than the opposite itself (Form of Aliveness) or opposite in particular things (aliveness in us).

But what is still unclear is the implication of this structure, is it simply because Plato has built his linguistic model (especially the language of perishing and retreating) upon soul and life, and then, in order to construct an argument, imported it into cases like largeness and smallness where this model can hardly make any sense?

When I was reading this part of Phaedo, I was thinking about Theaetetus and Burnyeat's accurate portray of what a Protagorean-Heraclitean world would look like in his "Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes Saw and Berkeley Missed", page 4-5. But in a Platonic world, the "encounter" or "binding together" of things and opposites (Aristotle would say substances and qualities) as well as the observer and the observation of them and their relationships (e.g. Phaedo's observation of Socrates' being smaller than Simmias) are not any random matter, but are organized by unbroken causal lines from Forms to things. If David is right about the casual explanation principles of Plato (as mentioned by Ben), then we should be surprised of how neat things are in Plato's world: among numerous causal lines, not a single one interferes with any other. One cause one effect in the best cosmos, just like one man one job in the best polis. I think it is precisely this kind of "super neat casual explanation" that really has a chance to fulfill Socrates' teleological expectation of natural philosophy.

Royal Mile, Edinburgh

Hyde Park, London

The philosophic eros for Plato is always pointed to something impersonal and universal, but in Symposium, Diotima made it very clear that we must climb the ladder from the bottom, in the sense that if one never loves a single beautiful body, it'll be very doubtful that he or she should be able to reach the beauty of conduct, law and knowledge, not to mention Beauty itself. However, in Phaedo, it seems that Plato took on a radical dualist attitude towards the soul-body relationship, much stronger than anywhere else, that attributes everything irrational and personal to the body while everything rational and pure to the soul, and makes them at constant war with each other. This always makes one wonder which doctrine is more Platonic, the one in Symposium that puts body and soul in proper order and encourages us to make the ascent, or the one in Phaedo that urges us to separate our souls from our bodies, as possible as we can. Maybe these elements just co-exist in Plato, and the tension between them was passed down, in various ways, to late Platonic philosophers like Plotinus, and early Church fathers like Augustine. For the former, the truthful adherence to the "practice of death" is vexed with the worry about the philosopher's personal fate. And for the latter, the conviction that death is but the beginning of true life in Heaven is unable to hold the philosopher's tear for his mother, although she died as a pious Christian. An impersonal soul is just too impersonal for any one to care for, even in the case of philosophers. And our bodies, as well as the bodies of others, are always hard to be dismissed for any philosophic purpose, unless we have a radical understanding of body as something intrinsically evil, or a revolutionary concept of soul that is both spiritual and personal. As I understand it, eventually, the first option is adopted by Plotinus, while the second, Augustine.

It's worth noticing that in Plato's trilogy dialogues about Socrates on trial (Apology, Crito, Phaedo) Socrates compared himself with Achilles in his first defense (Apology, 24b, 28b-29a) and with Odysseus in his second (98d1-2). Following the courage of Achilles Socrates is prepared to adhere to the practice of philosophy in font of death, and just like Odysseus he is not going to sail alone. It's not the fault of Odysseus but the human weakness of the sailors that makes the first voyage impossible and the second one necessary (Odyssey, 10.65). Socrates not only has to live with other people but is doomed by god's mission to care about his fellow citizens (Apology, 23b4-9). This makes philosophy as an odyssey towards soul's true home so difficult that the philosopher not only has to defense his choice of life in front of the state but also has to defense his choice of death in front of his friends. In some sense it is exactly by failing to save his life that Socrates was able to demonstrate his Achilles-like courage most dramatically, but if he can save the arguments (89C), he will be able to put Achillean courage upon Odyssean wisdom and demonstrate the virtue of bravery in the truest sense (68c5-d9).

“我做梦的时候梦到，确实梦到过，这个世界没有一个安静的地方可以容纳我们的爱情，村子里没有，别的任何地方都没有。所以，我想象有一个窄窄的、深深的坟墓，我们拥抱着躺在里面，就像用钳子夹紧在一起。我把脸贴在你的身上，你把脸贴在我的身上，我们再也不会叫人看见了。”

竟然梦见曼联和尤文踢欧冠决赛，这让人情何以堪。

很快的一个月过去了。或许是因为实在太忙，以至于一直没有“在异乡”的感觉，直到今天又听花伦的歌。从住的地方到系里再回来，正好听完一张专辑。剑桥终于开始下雨了，否则真要以为比北京还干燥，今天就是因为下雨没有办法骑车才戴mp3出门的。熟悉的音乐差点让我以后是在北京，在双泉堡那条小河边，或者在玉桃园的小区里。这两个礼拜为了写论文读了很多书，实在是有点累了，在疲惫的时候意识到我的亲人和朋友们都那么远，事实上是第一次这么远，实在是一件可怕的事情。好在我在这里也并不孤单，而且那些能够给我力量的东西也触手可及：莎莎的画，吴老师的文章，还有mp3里花伦的歌，这些事物让我更加清楚地意识到我在异乡，不过也让我更加清楚地记得我是谁，我的使命。

DISASTER.

斯多亚主义研究实在是良莠不齐，以至于读到一篇好的二手文献简直如获至宝。

Peter House College

总算安顿下来了，第一个礼拜花了300镑。

“谁的父亲死了，请你告诉我如何悲伤。谁的爱人走了，请你告诉我如何遗忘”。2011年9月14日的北京，只有他知道这两句歌词的含义。吉他给了丁茂，Mogwai的盘给了菲路，谢谢你们给我送行。

At first, this person experiences pain and is blinded by the light streaming into the cave from the higher world. Now comes aporia: “and if someone should compel him, by questioning, to say what each of the things at hand really is, don’t you think that he would experience aporia and believe that the things he saw before were truer than the things that are now being revealed to him?”. Here, it is after he is released from bonds that the person feels aporia. In Aristotle, by contrast, aporia reveals that the mind is in fetters, not yet released: aporia reveals the presence of these fetters and points to a problem that needs to be solved. When the mind discovers the solution to the puzzles, it exits from aporia and is “released” from ignorance.

对于亚里士多德来说，aporia是纯认知性的吗？Nightingale忽视了《尼各马可伦理学》中道德德性向理智德性的过渡：形而上学在道德生活中也应该有一席之地。