The Platonic view of reality rests on the understanding that the universe, both seen and unseen, is an overflowing of power from an ineffable first principle outwards and downwards towards the last of things. But what kind of power? This session explores a response to this question: that it is causal power.
We will consider the various kinds of causes philosophers in the Platonic tradition have postulated, and whether these causes themselves have differing strengths – some of them reaching further than other in terms of effects – and, too, whether different causes are centred in different kinds of things (such as Gods, intellects, souls, bodies, and so on).
We can explore questions of the transcendence and immanence of causes; active and passive causes; the ways in which the tradition refined its understanding of causes as it pondered the mysteries the Platonic dialogues set before it; our own participation in causes; and the changing perspectives of these things in recent times.
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.
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 will make available (as a PDF download) the text we are studying, well before the date of the meeting.
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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