Platonists and Participation



Platonists and Participation

• Author	Stephen R.L. Clark
  Rights	© 2015 Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural | © 2015 Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia
  Volume	71
  Issue	2-3
  Pages	249-266
  Publication	Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia
  ISSN	0870-5283; 2183-461X
  Date	2015
  DOI	10.17990/RPF/2015_71_2_0249
  Language	English
  Abstract	Resumo: O autor começará por examinar a noção de participação, tal como é aplicada por Platão, primeiro à distinção gramatical entre identidade e predicação e depois às questões metafísicas acerca de sujeitos reais, sendo eles indivíduos contáveis, de um “material” subjacente, ou Formas que aparecem mais ou menos reconhecíveis na nossa experiência. Mesmo os materialistas modernos admitem uma distinção entre a realidade tal como ela “é” e tal como “aparece”. Surge então a questão, mais ainda para os modernos do que para Platão, sobre a possibilidade de conhecer algo do mundo “tal como ele é” além de como “aparece”. O autor conclui, sugerindo a hipótese de um conhecimento “participativo”, de um tipo agora associado ao pensamento “right brain” em vez de “left brain”. Termina reiterando que podemos conhecer a realidade como ela é “a partir do interior”, uma vez que nela estamos inseridos.  Palavras-chave: formas, matéria, participação, Plotino, predicação  Abstract: A brief examination of the notion of participation, as it is applied by Plato first to the grammatical distinction between identity and predication, and then to metaphysical questions about the real subjects, whether these are countable individuals, an underlying “stuff”, or the Forms that appear more or less recognizably in our experience. Even modern materialists admit a distinction between the world as it appears, very variously, to us, and the world “as it is”. The question then arises, for moderns even more than for Plato, how we could hope to know anything of the world “as it is”, apart from its appearance to us and others. I conclude by gesturing toward the possibility of “participatory” knowledge, of a kind now associated with “right brain” rather than “left brain” thinking. We can know what reality is “from the inside”, since we ourselves are inside it.  Keywords: Participation, predication, Forms, Matter, Plotinus
  Date Added	28/07/2015, 12:02:32
  Modified	21/10/2015, 15:26:49

  Tags:

  • Forms
  • Matter
  • Participation
  • Plato
  • Plotinus
  • predication

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