Which Is More Fundamental: "Existence" or "Relationship"?

[Σoφíα]

And in what sense does Nietzsche saying, "Christianity is Platonism for the people" relate to Plato's dialogue, the Sophist, where existence and being are examined for what they are, meaningless, unless we are told 'how' something exists. Indeed, 'how' something exists involves 'relationship.' And, if we look at Augustine's theory of the Trinity, we see that Plato is indeed exploring ground that is the basis of Augustine's ideas. Therefore we see that Plato is a pre-Christian philosopher. For 'relationship' and the 'Trinity' are all tied together, and no religion I know of deals adeptly with the concept of the Trinity.

[Joe]

Theopompus (according to Benardete) wrote "Plato says: One is not even one, two is one hardly." Being is only the 'power' to affect or be affected, as the Eleatic Stranger indicated.. Being thus = power? Or Being = intersubjectivity... Or, Being = Eros! How one answers is a confession; what is genuinely great about Plato and Nietzsche is how they force us to reveal who we are when we read them.

'Two is barely one', Plato is supposed to have indicated. Are we to conclude from this that three is Truly One?

"[A]nd no religion I know of deals adeptly with the concept of the Trinity." Yes, they (I mean the other monotheisms) all see it as a pagan vestige. But, if 'being is relation' then the Trinity (or something like it) becomes necessary. Why three, why not two? (If I can be allowed a conjecture here.) Because a relation between two is too simple; it is, at its extremes, either rape or blind devotion. Three is the first political relationship, involving a give and take between all parties. A Duality could be merely Power but a Trinity must involve some type of Amity, that is, Love.

[Chiron]

Joe,

I am impressed by your knowledge both of Plato, Strauss, and Christianity. This is a profound meditation on the Trinity of Christian theology, which reminds me of Vladimir Lossky's book The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. I am not sure if you are familiar with it, or even if you are Christian, but I have never read a more succinct discussion of the Trinity anywhere else.

Right now I am reading Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption and Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Re... by Leora Batnitzky... and I am learning now why Leo Strauss was reluctant about Christianity. It has nothing to do with his Orthodox Jewish faith, but the rather compelling fact that Christianity caused the Enlightenment of modernity.

If you recall anything from Strauss's writings, you realize he was also very reluctant about modernity, the Enlightenment philosophy in particular. Why? Because the Enlightenment covers over the medaeval enlightenment of Moses Maimonides, al-Farabi, and to a lesser extent, Thomas Aquinas. If you notice something unusual about Jewish and Islamic societies from medieval times, you are not alone: they had no modernity. They had no Enlightenment philosophy. They had nothing like what happened in the West with the rise of atheism and secularism.

There is something about Christianity which is also responsible for some of the most devastating movements in the 20th century. There is something about Christianity also which is responsible for the Enlightenment philosophy. I.E. there is a kind of nihilism and despair inherent in Christianity which caused the West's modernity to bring about some of the worst holocausts and gulags ever known to man. Note also: socialism and Communism, Stalinism, Nazism, Maoism, just about every kind of -ism in the world is because of Christianity.

Note also that nothing in medieval times, of Jewish and Islamic civilization, comes close to the kind of devastation that Christianity is responsible for. Christianity brought modernity, postmodernity, just about every problem you can think of. Let me drop one more hint: it's not because Christianity is a religion, but because there is something about Christian theology which is lacking in Islam and Judaism. It involves law and revelation. It involves the Aristotelian influence on Christianity...

-C.

[Joe]

Thank you for the kind words. I am not a Christian, Platonist, Straussian or Nietzschean. But I have immense respect for them all. I am but another nihilistic reader of philosophical texts. (By 'nihilist' I mean to indicate my doubts as to the possibility of grounding any Authority on Reason. I have utterly no doubts, btw, that there are existing things...) I have not read Lossky; although, since he has been recommended several times to me, I know I must.

I have not read Rosenzweig in a long time and have yet to read the book by Batnitzky. - Though eventually I want to. Yes, of course that is right, Strauss' opposition to our Modern Enlightenment is a key point, for him, against Christianity. However, you must keep in mind that his respect for the medieval enlightenment cannot be simply unequivocal. Why? Because the first argument between the ancients and moderns was between the ancients and medievals. The 'moderate' enlightenment of the medievals is already a sign that something has gone wrong...

How? Strauss wants to secure the safety of philosophy to continue its researches unimpeded. So did Farabi and Maimonides. What were the obstacles faced by these medieval philosophers? They both faced monotheisms that had been 'informed' by Philosophy. The original Jewish religion disappeared (at the latest) with the Temple. It re-forms, in part, around philosophic (or Platonic) elements. (See Philo of Alexandria.) The same can be said of Islam; like Christianity, it too is a 'platonism for the people.'

The Esotericism of the medieval Falasifa (they are genuine philosophers, not philosophical artifacts) was not a 'free' choice; they had to resort to it. See Farabi's 'Philosophy of Plato & Aristotle'. For Farabi, philosophy in his time was lost or destroyed. It was the monotheisms around him that had 'lost' or 'destroyed' philosophy. The turn to the esoteric spreading of 'enlightenment' to a tiny minority among the ruling cliques was a desperate response to very bad circumstances. Medieaval Esotericism was not a Triumph of Philosophy; it was a tactic that was forced on it by (for them) contemporary circumstances...

This tactical maneuver failed the Islamic philosophers. They lost out to the Islamic theologians and, then, to the 'populism' of the Sunnah. If the moderate medieval enlightenment was as successful as Strauss sometimes expects us to understand it then the Falasifa would not have disappeared in Islam.

Yes, Islam had no modernity; it also ended up with no philosophy. Strauss would not have considered this a recommendation. And yes, I know, Christianity brought no Law; (Have you looked at 'the Law of God' by Brague?) Nietzsche has long ago focused our attention on the similarities between Christianity and Anarchism. However, it is difficult for me to quantify the difference in the degree of iniquity between a society (Islam) that ends up with no philosophy and one (Christianity) that has (ahem) far too much...

Joe

[Chiron]

Joe,

It is rather apparent that you've read far more than me and I'm grateful for your participation here.

Yes, of course that is right, Strauss' opposition to our Modern Enlightenment is a key point, for him, against Christianity. However, you must keep in mind that his respect for the medieval enlightenment cannot be simply unequivocal. Why? Because the first argument between the ancients and moderns was between the ancients and medievals. The 'moderate' enlightenment of the medievals is already a sign that something has gone wrong...

I had only discovered the 'moderate' enlightenment about nine months ago reading Tanguay's intellectual biography of Strauss and Pangle's Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham, both of which pointed me to Thoughts on Machiavelli and of the lowering purview of modernity. This was quite a turning point in my own philosophical journey, so I was quite enamored by the 'moderate' medieval enlightenment.

Have you looked at 'the Law of God' by Brague?

I was just thinking of reading that before replying to you. I have read some good and bad reviews of it, one or two of which I'll post later.

it is difficult for me to quantify the difference in the degree of iniquity between a society (Islam) that ends up with no philosophy and one (Christianity) that has (ahem) far too much...

Well that's just the question, isn't it? Because we are living in a global and information age, the question is inevitable. I have been reading the memoirs of those growing up in Islamic societies because I want to understand how they view the West. Do they become atheist? Enlightenment philosophers? Are they enamoured by the West, or do they look back on their Islamic past and regret leaving it? How could they regret repressive regimes?

And yet the question is complicated by the fact that Islam today and Islam yesterday are not the same... and it is the very encroachments of the West, Western ideas such as socialism and totalitarianism, (even National Socialism) which contaminated Islamic society... so everywhere we go, we are looking at Western ideas and their effects. Marxism tainted the Middle East and now democracy is tainting it. We are all Westerners now.

-C.