Schopenhauer’s theory of ideas

The article is devoted to the Arthur Schopenhauer’s contradictory doctrines of ideas. The analysis is accompanied by a discussion of historical and philosophical mysteries di­rectly related to Schopenhauer’s doctrines of ideas. His theory of ideas is explored in its ontological and aesthetic aspects as well as in its relation to Schopenhauer’s ethics. In the article, Schopenhauer’s definition of idea is analyzed in comparison with that of Plato and Kant. Despite the fact that Schopenhauer himself claimed that he understood the notion of idea in its true, Platonic sense, the article claims that he largely departed from Plato. Since the idea is enriched by the properties of thing-in-itself, it remains a rep­resentation accessible to cognition and becomes an intermediate link between the will and the individual. The article discusses the place of ideas in Schopenhauer’s ontology. The article distinguishes and characterizes the stages of objectification of the will, which Schopenhauer calls ideas. The ambivalent status of the idea gives rise to many other his­torical and philosophical problems. One of them is the determination of the status of a comprehensible (intelligible) character, which Schopenhauer declares to be another di­rect objectification of the will, besides ideas. Further, the article investigates the process of cognizing an idea. The author discusses Schopenhauer’s aesthetic teaching in connec­tion to the fact that Schopenhauer declares that cognition of the world of ideas is the goal of art. The article examines Schopenhauer’s classification of arts and separately prob­lematizes the status of music. The relationship between the philosophy of art and Schopenhauer’s ethical doctrines, in which he offers two ways to salvation, is discussed. The concepts of asceticism and genius are compared. The article suggests that Schopen­hauer's ethical doctrine can be presented as a complement to his doctrine of ideas. The fi­nal part of the article briefly formulates the main problems of Schopenhauer’s theory of ideas and discusses their possible solutions.

CLASSICAL NOMADOLOGIES

However, precisely because Plato did not yet have at his disposition the constituted categories of representation (these appeared with Aristotle), he had to base his decision on a theory of Ideas. What appears then, in its purest state, before the logic of representation could be deployed, is a moral vision of the world. It is in the first instance for these moral reasons that simulacra must be exorcized and difference thereby subordinated to the same and the similar. For this reason, however, because Plato makes the decision, and because with him the victory is not assured as it will be in the established world of representation, the rumbling of the enemy can still be heard. Insinuated throughout the Platonic cosmos, difference resists its yoke. Heraclitus and the Sophists make an infernal racket. It is as though there were a strange double which dogs Socrates’ footsteps and haunts even Plato's style, inserting itself into the repetitions and variations of that style.

Una versione progredita della teoria delle idee nel papiro di Ai Khanoum: una scoperta nella scoperta

The paper firstly focuses on a rare vox, that is, the verb μετίσχω, as a new finding in two different sources: the Π text of Methaphysics Lambda 1075b19 and the “Ai Khanoum philosophical papyrus” (not only at column II.9, but arguably at II.11 and IV.8–9 as well). Using the verb μετίσχω testifies for a “2.0 version” of the theory of ideas, in a subsequent phase to Plato’s Parmenides. Xenocrates is likely to have played a role. This suggests a deeper connection than previously thought between Aristotelian theories and Plato’s Academy.

Il Teeteto e il suo rapporto con il Cratilo

With the use of a particular metaphor, which appears at the end of the Cratylus and is taken up with perfect symmetry at the beginning of the Theaetetus, Plato certainly wanted to indicate the succession of Cratylus–Theaetetus as an order for reading the two dialogues, which Trasillus faithfully reproduced in structuring the second tetralogy of Platonic dialogues. The claim of the theory of ideas, with which the Cratylus ends, must therefore be considered the background in which to place not only the analysis of the name carried out in the Cratylus, but also the discussion and criticism of the epistemological theories examined and refuted in the Theaetetus. The transition from the discussion of the name to that of the logos is another important theoretical element that connects the two dialogues. Another one is the theory of knowledge, already precisely elaborated in the Cratylus, and taken up and deepened in the Theaetetus. Finally, the theme of false and error is a third theoretical element common to the two dialogues, which, starting from Euthydemus, finds its solution in the Sophist.

Tourism, tourists, humility and the humble in E. M. Forster’s ‘The Story of the Siren’ (1920)

In E. M. Forster’s ‘The Story of the Siren’ (1920), humility and the humble are highlighted by the empowering status bestowed on an embedded story told by an illiterate Sicilian boatman to a sophisticated English tourist and prospective Cambridge Fellow. The latter, who is also the narrator of the embedding narrative, proves to be transformed by the qualities (philosophic, ethical and literary) promoted by the humble status of the embedded one. As the existence of the Siren of the title is problematic – she never shows up – and the story offers a case of structuring a full intrigue on the invisible, there may be a connection between the humble and the invisible. In order to investigate this assumption, I propose to explore the way in which the myth of the siren, a myth that relates to desire, is brought into dialogue with Frazer’s evolutionary theory and Plato’s theory of ideas. The interplay between philosophy, anthropology and desire provides a critique of Edwardian society and a self-criticism based on Socratic irony, itself an irony of humility. I shall eventually suggest that the humble but desirable Sicilian storyteller functions like an avatar of the Siren. Instead of writing a dissertation on the Deist Controversy and becoming an academic, the homodiegetic narrator allows himself to be seduced by the ‘Siren’s song’ – the young Sicilian’s story – and (ironically) become a writer. For, as I will attempt to demonstrate, the relationship between this short story and the life of E. M. Forster is highlighted by the figure of metalepsis, a device that reveals the author, rather than the narrator, at work.

Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy

‘PHILOSOPHY, or the doctrine and discipline of ideas’ as S. T. Coleridge understood it, is the theme of this book. It considers the most vital and mature vein of Coleridge’s prose writings to be ‘the contemplation of ideas objectively, as existing powers’. A theory of ideas emerges in critical engagement with thinkers including Plato, Plotinus, Böhme, Kant, and Schelling. A commitment to the transcendence of reason, central to what Coleridge calls ‘the spiritual platonic old England’, distinguishes him from his German contemporaries. This book pursues a theory of contemplation that draws from Coleridge’s theories of imagination and the ‘Ideas of Reason’ in his published texts and extensively from his thoughts as they developed throughout published works, fragments, letters, and notebooks. He posited a hierarchy of cognition from basic sense intuition to the apprehension of scientific, ethical, and theological ideas. The structure of the book follows this thesis, beginning with sense data, moving upwards into aesthetic experience, imagination, and reason, with final chapters on formal logic and poetry that constellate the contemplation of ideas. Coleridge’s Contemplative Philosophy is not just a work of history of philosophy; it addresses a figure whose thinking is of continuing interest, arguing that contemplation of ideas and values has consequences for everyday morality and aesthetics, as well as metaphysics. The book also illuminates Coleridge’s prose by analysis of his poetry, notably the ‘Limbo’ sequence. The volume will be of interest to philosophers, intellectual historians, scholars of religion, and of literature.

Deleuze’s Theory of Dialectical Ideas: The Influence of Lautman and Heidegger

In Différence et répétition Deleuze’s overall ontology is structured by his theory of dialectical Ideas or problems. This theory draws features from Plato, Kant, and classical calculus. However, Deleuze bring those features together by fitting them into a theory of Ideas/problems developed by the mathematician and philosopher Albert Lautman. Lautman sought to explain the nature of the problems or dialectical Ideas with which mathematics engages and the solutions or mathematical theories which attempt to comprehend them. Lautman drew heavily upon Martin Heidegger’s early ontology to develop his theory of Ideas/problems. Although Deleuze seldom cited Heidegger, understanding how Lautman serves as a mediator between the two shows that certain elements in Heidegger’s ontology indirectly shaped Deleuze’s. This line of Heidegger’s influence has been largely unrecognized and unexplored in Deleuze scholarship. In this article the author seeks (1) to clarify Deleuze’s theory of dialectical Ideas or problems through an analysis of its debts to Lautman and Heidegger and (2) to demonstrate Heidegger’s crucial influence via Lautman on Deleuze’s ontology. In order to do this he focuses on five core claims that Deleuze’s theory of dialectical Ideas adopts from Lautman’s. The article provides an extensive reconstruction of what those claims mean in Lautman’s theory and discusses Lautman’s use of Heidegger to explain key parts of his position. The five core claims of Deleuze/Lautman that the author outlines are: (1) Ideas/problems are different in kind from solutions and do not disappear with solutions; (2) Ideas/problems are dialectical; (3) Ideas/problems are transcendent in relation to solutions; (4) Ideas/problems are simultaneously immanent in those solutions; (5) the relation between Ideas/problems and solutions is genetic, that is, solutions are generated on the basis of the determining conditions of Ideas/problems.