Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language

On Thursday, September 23, 2004, at 10:51 , Philippe Caquant wrote:

>  --- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> a écrit :
[snip]

>> such classes. In Plato's thinking the Forms are not
>> abstract; they not
>> only have a transcendent existence, they are more
>> real than anything we
>> see in the physical material world.
>
> Hmmm... "more real" doesn't mean much to me. To me,
> that's all a question of mental representation,
> limited by the possibilities of the human brain. Of
> course, in Plato's time, people probably considered
> things differently.
To be quite frank, _ordinary people_ consider things differently even now!
  Most people, for example, would say that a horse is real and a unicorn is
not. Even the ancients knew that the limitations, not merely of the brain
but also of sense organs like ears & eyes, limit or even distort our
perception of things. That is why some like Plato considered only human
reasoning could hope to discover the truth.

But IME most people have some idea that certain things have a greater
reality than others.

[snip]

> Plato's conception should probably be adapted to our
> time,
I think you've omitted a negative.

> but something from it might be re-used,
> reorienting it in a different perspective.
Plato's conceptions might be more apt. It will be found that no single
coherent system can be constructed from his writings. They leave
tantalizing ambiguities and lacunae. The thing is that he considered the
highest truths to be beyond the norms of human language and could be
explained only by parable, metaphor etc. He thought their abstruseness
would just seem ridiculous to anyone except initiates, therefore the
highest truths - his esoteric teaching - must not be put into writing. So
we are left with his exoteric writings.

It is true that Neoplatonists of later ages did elaborate complete systems,
  but we have no guarantee that any where Plato's. But, I agree, looking at
thinks the way Plato presents them

[snip]
>> Yes, but do not think Plato would see it that way at
>> all. Objects inherit
>> methods & attributes of the class of which they are
>> instantiations. But
>> humans, elephants, tables, computers, trees, etc.,
>> etc. are not for Plato
>> instantiations. But. i admit, it is not entirely
>> clear how he saw
>> _metekein_ working.
>>
> If it means "participate", then one perhaps could
> compare it to a human being participating to different
> clubs or associations, being a subscriber or a
> customer for different products, etc. You can be a
> conlanger, a vegetarian, a baseball player, a faithful
> reader of "Playboy" and an Electricite de France
> customer. None of these aspects defines you, you don't
> "belong" to any of these entities, and you can share
> in many of them at the same time.
I think that is fair comment and that Plato would probably have agreed.

Ray
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"They are evidently confusing science with technology."
UMBERTO ECO				September, 2004

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