Platonism and Enchantment

Part 2, You Might Be a Platonist

In reading an essay by Clifton Stringer published on the Eclectic Orthodoxy blog, I encountered the research of Lloyd Gerson on the history of Platonism. 

What interrupted me about Gerson's work was his argument for what he calls Ur-Platonism, and its influence upon the Western philosophical tradition. 

Gerson argues that we need to make a distinction between Plato's philosophy and Platonism proper. Plato's philosophy, in this view, is just one example of a larger Platonic metaphysical worldview. Gerson argues, for example, that when we step back and consider what they shared in common, Aristotle can be properly described as a Platonist. To be sure, Aristotle rejected his teacher's theory of the Forms, but taken as a whole Aristotle's philosophy still operates within a Platonic paradigm. This goes to Gerson's point. We shouldn't reduce Platonism to any particular teaching of Plato. If we don't reduce Platonism to, say, the theory of the Forms, we can step back to discern in streams of Greek thought a set of philosophical commitments that characterize a shared metaphysical worldview. According to Gerson, these philosophical commitments capture the DNA of Platonism, an Ur-Platonism, a philosophical worldview that shows how, in critical particulars, both Plato and Aristotle worked within a shared metaphysical system. 

Relevant to this series are the features of Ur-Platonism described by Gerson. If you've ever read any of Plato's Dialogues you're aware of how their Socratic style can make it difficult to discern the positive content of Plato's philosophy. But we can trace, argues Gerson, what is consistently rejected across the Dialogues. These negations, says Gerson, reveal the heart of Ur-Platonism, the shared commitments of the Platonic worldview. 

What, then, are the elements of Platonism? Here's Gerson's list, with selected quotations from a chapter of his entitled "Was Plato a Platonist?":

• Antimaterialism: "the view that it is false that the only things that exist are bodies and their properties"

• Antimechanism: "the view that the only sort of explanations available in principle to a materialist are inadequate for explaining the natural order"

• Antinominalism: "the view that it is false that the only things that exist are individuals, each uniquely situated in space and time"

• Antirelativism: "the denial that...'man is the measure of all things.'"

• Antiskepticism: "the view that knowledge is possible"

Some of this list and its philosophical relevance might seem obscure. But I expect that some of the list will resonate with you. For this series, I'm interested in how this description of Platonism can be used to have a conversation about enchantment and disenchantment. 

For example, as I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, a disenchanted worldview is characterized by a materialistic and mechanistic view of the cosmos. An enchanted worldview, by contrast, is Platonic, characterized by antimaterialism and antimechanism. 

Further, something I also discuss in Hunting Magic Eels concerns the relationship between materialism and moral duty. Specifically, the challenge of Hume's Dictum: "You can't get an ought from an is." That is to say, a purely materialistic description of the world has no moral content. Science cannot describe or reveal goodness, moral truth, or value. In a word, materialism implies moral relativism. The antirelativist, Platonic position, by contrast, contends that, in Gerson's words, "goodness is a property of being." 

Stepping back and connecting with the prior post, it should be clear how Christianity is "Platonic" insofar as it is antimaterialistic, antimechanistic, and antirelativistic, among other things. As I suggested in the last post, Greek can be good. 

And as you read the list above, I expect you might have had the thought, "I might be a Platonist."