Christopher Kirk

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@StarkConor @alexpriou Strauss was, I think, definitely trying to pull Plato's esotericism in a non-mystical direction, but I doubt Plato himself thought one had rule mysticism out in order to rule philosophy in. Christianity's Plato is conjunctive, Strauss's disjunctive.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@alexpriou Exotericism means that atheism is the deeper truth behind philosophy; esotericism means that philosophy is the deeper truth behind atheism.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@alexpriou Personally, I'm not a fan of the reductive dismissal of the ideas as simply myths, because I know of no "simple" myths. Strauss seems to see the ideas as substitutes for the gods, but rather than closing the issue it actually makes it that much deeper and more complicated.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@alexpriou The difficulty seems to me to consist in the problem of appearance, particularly how the false appearance of a being is somehow part of the being of the being, the truth in the lie. No thing can appear fully as what it is nor fully what it is not

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@alexpriou Perhaps the needle may be threaded thus: the ideas (or forms) are reifications of the "what is" question in two senses: both as its answer--necessarily indeterminate-- and as what the answer would be (or be most "like")--necessarily determinate.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@VirRomanus14 @alexpriou

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@RyanHaecker I'm not sure Aristotle is completely reliable as a reporter of his predecessors' beliefs, especially since he's hawking his own metaphysical wares as their corrective.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@zenahitz @CatherineProj

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@BrionMcClanahan I don't have an objection to political mythologies per se, since hardly anyone does without them; however, I think we can judge them by their fruits. On that basis alone, I have to conclude Lincoln's was pernicious

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@alexpriou I never proceed in any other way. How do you do it?

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@zenahitz @stjohnscollege And Mortimer Adler, who learned about great books from John Erskine's Columbia gen ed course. It bothers me sometimes how Adler gets forgotten in the SJC founding.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@JamesWHankins1 Hamilton should start a library as well. Maybe they could combine a press and a library? A publishing arm would be the best way to ensure a long-term (=centuries) legacy for the school.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@ls_foundation It seems to me that to be human means to be moral; only a god or beast could be beyond good and evil. Is the philosopher therefore not human?

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@dnduplessie Also, it seems as if the "Straussian" approach makes an analogous mistake to the Neoplatonists: the latter overemphasized metaphysics/cosmology to the detriment of the political, whereas the former does the same in reverse. Putting the two approaches in balance seems to be trick

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@dnduplessie I wonder. The "basics" to me would be the short dialogues. I think the Republic and Symposium look more accessible than they really are, whereas the Laws seems much more grounded in real, if ancient, political practice than any of the other dialogues.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@alexpriou Maybe she was trying to protect you.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@davidpdeavel @IVMiles I'm Anglican but I'll probably end up Orthodox before it's all over. I love Pelikan, btw.

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@JamesWHankins1 Or Hume

[Christopher Kirk @Christophe14861]

@alexpriou Maybe they should just give them old GRE subject tests, or develop their own.