The philosophy of Plato and his continuing tradition rests on an affirmation that reality – however that term is understood – is a systematic unity, one which embraces the extended multiplicity we see around us. It is essentially a top-down system so that the First Principle of this ‘All’ is held to be the cause of all: as Plato’s Seventh Letter poetically puts it, it is “the cause of beautiful things.”
This fundamental affirmation underpins every aspect of the tradition’s philosophy – metaphysical, ethical, psychological, and so on: for this reason, advances made by the seeker after wisdom in one area enhances his or her understanding of other areas. The seeming difficult complexity facing us as we contemplate the great sweep of philosophy is thus, perhaps, less daunting than might otherwise be imagined. One of the great keys to the serious cultivation of Platonic wisdom is triadic thinking: once one begins to look at texts of both Plato and the Platonists of late antiquity (“Neoplatonists”) it becomes clear that triads abound.
We will look at a few examples in this short paper, which is designed to be an introduction to the concept of triads in Platonic philosophy as a technique for learning. We hope that this will form the basis of an interesting evening’s discussion – it is, of course, very far from an exhaustive treatment of the subject, but leaves space for participants to explore this usually neglected area.
These evenings include short talks and/or readings from Platonic writings – but we hope they will be genuinely interactive, with all participants invited to contribute to our collaborative search for truth. No previous experience of formal philosophy is required.
Admission is free, but we do encourage those who are able to donate £5 in order to cover our costs, either as cash on the day or donating through this website
Most of these evenings are self-contained and every effort is made to make them accessible to the newcomer, while allowing the great profundity of the Platonic tradition to step forward and speak to us at whatever level our present understanding sits. Some of these sessions are coupled together, in order to give us the space to examine more fully particular texts and themes, but even here we will ensure that if those attending have missed the first of the two sessions a recap of what has gone before will help all participants to pick up the main threads of the theme.
We paper is available as a PDF download.
The Trust has run similar activities for some 18 years, and in our experience they allow the most profound questions concerning human life, the nature of reality, and our interactions, to be explored at once both seriously and with good cheer. Our aim is to provide a forum for honest and straight-forward enquiry, but which is unafraid to explore inward-moving paths too often neglected by modern schools of thought.
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