For many who have read something of Plato, there is a fairly simple scheme held to be “Plato’s theory of forms” which consists of two distinct orders of things – there is an powerful and active order of forms (or ideas), and then there is an order of material instantiations, or material things stamped with impressions of those forms. The first is active, the second passive; the first is the object of intellect and reason, the second is the object of sense and opinion. This is a useful but limited starting point. But this understanding presents the thinker with a number of difficult problems – all of which gather as one major question: how do the two very different orders interact. In their raw form, so to speak, they are alienated from each other and, like the worst kind of co-habitants, not really on speaking terms!
We need a much more refined understanding of how the manifested and material world proceeds from, and returns to, the unmanifested and immaterial order. According to the best of Platonic thinkers, both these processes – procession and return – work through the law and power of similarity: and since there seems to be a very great dissimilarity between the two orders, we must postulate a series of intermediaries. In this series, each intermediary must have a degree of likeness both to that which is immediately above itself, and to that which is immediately below.
Proclus, in his Commentary on the Parmenides of Plato, offers the serious student of ideas a scheme in which a series of intermediaries carrying out just such a function, and thus allow a fruitful communication between the otherwise separated orders of reality. We will look at this passage and consider whether it holds together as a viable scheme, and how it enlarges our understanding of reality at its various levels.
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 will be drawing from a paper, which we’ll make available as a PDF download a few days before the event.
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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