Thanks for the thesis, Duncan. Nice study on slavery.
I saw the video about the form of God: it came out in my YT feed. I think it's hard to prove that "form of God" is limited to the exalted Christ. I might watch his video, but he needs to handle sufficiently, "although he was in the form of God, etc."
This might sound funny but recently I bought a DVD box set (second hand) of the Young Indiana Jones chronicles Vol 1. Not for the series which I had watched many years ago but rather the historical figures and situations this imaginary character touches on. Each episode has quite a few videos of supplemental education. For the very first episode, young Indie befriends a slave boy of similar age to him in the middle east somewhere, were slavery was still quite common at the time. The supplemental disk then had a program on the history of slavery, it was very interesting and informative. I wont go into it here but IMO its worth a watch. It also had a good one on Lawrence of Arabia. I have been to the cottage where he spent his last years, a very sad story.
Duncan, I've written about the Platonic Forms and taught that subject. I agree that morphs can mean shape among other things, but Plato uses eidos for what we know as abstract objects , which are only visible to the intellect. I can post evidence later.
You're welcome. One other thing I'll post is from my book, Investigatinbg Life's Meaning:
In order to ground an objective form of ethics, Plato (using Socrates as a vehicle) formulates a theoretical doctrine of Forms. He observed change occurring in the natural world and wondered how it might be transcended. Leaves alter their color, rivers modify their course, and bodily structures undergo continual transformation (cells are universally replaced and replenished). Yet for Plato, there are existent objects which do not undergo change: pure Ideas or immutable Forms subsist in their own unique world (Republic 507b-511e).
[See Rex Warner, The Greek Philosophers (New York: Signet, 1958), 73-74. The extent to which the language of subsistence can be taken at face value is a matter of ongoing debate in Platonic studies.]
The Platonic dialogues make a conceptual distinction between the sensible (realm of becoming) and intelligible world (realm of being). The intelligible realm is ultimately the real world for Plato, but the sensible world is subject to decay (it is unstable and mutable); the Forms that subsist in the realm of being are eternal, immutable and abstract whereas the world of becoming is infected with temporality. Plato argues that time is an imperfect reflection of eternity. It shares in the ontological defectiveness of material entities (Timaeus 36-37a-c). But what specifically are these timeless Forms? To illustrate the concept, one might think of geometrical figures (squareness, circularity, sphericity, triangularity, rectangularity, lines and points). Plato sets forth the notion that all triangles share in triangularity or all squares ontologically participate in squareness. Moreover, males participate in maleness and women in womanness. The Forms are pure Ideas or unchangeable archetypes that empirical things imitate. Plato here conceives of hierarchical abstracta that bear no cause-effect relationship to temporal entities in the realm of becoming (the sensible or empirical world).
[George Christopher Stead points out that Plato interchangeably utilizes the Greek words eidos and idea to describe the Forms. Stead translates these words respectively as “Form” and “Idea” (with initial capital letters). The spelling is conventional since we’re talking about definite or singular Forms. See Stead’s work Divine Substance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), viii-ix.]
Its interesting to note forms, in permacultre there is a the whole section ob patterning or as I title it - "what does good look like". We recognise how most plants conform to Fibonacci sequence so the clover ideal has 3 leaves rather than 4. The spikes on a pineapple and pine cone can be averaged/estimated. All things have there ideal.
1.61803398875 - "nothing in excess".
It's an extremely complex and underated science. We try to get a basic handle on open systems, and patterning seems to be a way of doing it.
13 comments:
"Form of God" refers to the Exalted Christ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAFAo4LkB8
http://repository.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10394/8401/Goede_H.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Just updated:-
Why Jesus is in the "form of God."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTRu1Q_yIWU
Thanks for the thesis, Duncan. Nice study on slavery.
I saw the video about the form of God: it came out in my YT feed. I think it's hard to prove that "form of God" is limited to the exalted Christ. I might watch his video, but he needs to handle sufficiently, "although he was in the form of God, etc."
From Duncan:
This might sound funny but recently I bought a DVD box set (second hand) of the Young Indiana Jones chronicles Vol 1. Not for the series which I had watched many years ago but rather the historical figures and situations this imaginary character touches on. Each episode has quite a few videos of supplemental education. For the very first episode, young Indie befriends a slave boy of similar age to him in the middle east somewhere, were slavery was still quite common at the time. The supplemental disk then had a program on the history of slavery, it was very interesting and informative. I wont go into it here but IMO its worth a watch. It also had a good one on Lawrence of Arabia. I have been to the cottage where he spent his last years, a very sad story.
Just picked up this comment - In Plato's theory, εἶδος (eidos) represents the "Visible Form" while, μορφή (morphē) represents the "shape".
Duncan, I've written about the Platonic Forms and taught that subject. I agree that morphs can mean shape among other things, but Plato uses eidos for what we know as abstract objects , which are only visible to the intellect. I can post evidence later.
For example, the eidos of a triangle is not its visible form, but its essence or nature. It's the concept of a triangle.
Duncan, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms
The article says eidos has a technical meaning in Plato and that he uses eidos and morphe interchangeably
Interesting, thanks.
You're welcome. One other thing I'll post is from my book, Investigatinbg Life's Meaning:
In order to ground an objective form of ethics, Plato (using Socrates as a vehicle) formulates a theoretical doctrine of Forms. He observed change occurring in the natural world and wondered how it might be transcended. Leaves alter their color, rivers modify their course, and bodily structures undergo continual transformation (cells are universally replaced and replenished). Yet for Plato, there are existent objects which do not undergo change: pure Ideas or immutable Forms subsist in their own unique world (Republic 507b-511e).
[See Rex Warner, The Greek Philosophers (New York: Signet, 1958), 73-74. The extent to which the language of subsistence can be taken at face value is a matter of ongoing debate in Platonic studies.]
The Platonic dialogues make a conceptual distinction between the sensible (realm of becoming) and intelligible world (realm of being). The intelligible realm is ultimately the real world for Plato, but the sensible world is subject to decay (it is unstable and mutable); the Forms that subsist in the realm of being are eternal, immutable and abstract whereas the world of becoming is infected with temporality. Plato argues that time is an imperfect reflection of eternity. It shares in the ontological defectiveness of material entities (Timaeus 36-37a-c). But what specifically are these timeless Forms?
To illustrate the concept, one might think of geometrical figures (squareness, circularity, sphericity, triangularity, rectangularity, lines and points). Plato sets forth the notion that all triangles share in triangularity or all squares ontologically participate in squareness. Moreover, males participate in maleness and women in womanness. The Forms are pure Ideas or unchangeable archetypes that empirical things imitate. Plato here conceives of hierarchical abstracta that bear no cause-effect relationship to temporal entities in the realm of becoming (the sensible or empirical world).
[George Christopher Stead points out that Plato interchangeably utilizes the Greek words eidos and idea to describe the Forms. Stead translates these words respectively as “Form” and “Idea” (with initial capital letters). The spelling is conventional since we’re talking about definite or singular Forms. See Stead’s work Divine Substance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), viii-ix.]
Its interesting to note forms, in permacultre there is a the whole section ob patterning or as I title it - "what does good look like". We recognise how most plants conform to Fibonacci sequence so the clover ideal has 3 leaves rather than 4. The spikes on a pineapple and pine cone can be averaged/estimated. All things have there ideal.
1.61803398875 - "nothing in excess".
It's an extremely complex and underated science. We try to get a basic handle on open systems, and patterning seems to be a way of doing it.
Here's a page that talks about the goal to be strived for http://www.surpluspermaculture.org/patterns/
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