Hellenismos asks of all practitioners to consider the ethics. What they may be is up to the practitioner, but being informed and having an opinion on issues that esist in our world is a must. That can lead to a lot of black and white thinking, and 'us versus them' behavior. This is not the goal of phylosophy and ethics.
In Plutarch's essay, "How a Man May Become Aware of His Progress in Virtue" (79e), he writes something I like to remind people of every once in a while:"Rightly has it been said: Adjust the stone to fit the line, and not the line to fit the stone. But those who do not adjust their tenets to fit the facts, but rather try to force the facts into an unnatural agreement with their own assumptions, have filled philosophy with a great number of difficulties, of which the greatest is that which would assign all men to a general category of badness with the single exception of the absolutely perfect man; the result of which is to make a puzzle out of what we call progress, since it falls but little short of the utmost foolishness, and represents men who have been released by it from all kinds of passions and weaknesses as living in a state of equal wretchedness with those who have not yet been freed from a single one of the worst evils.
Now these men really refute themselves when, in their lectures, they put the wrongdoing of Aristeides on an equality with that of Phalaris, and cowardice of Brasidas on equality with that of Dolon, Band the hard-hearted attitude of Plato as actually not differing at all from that of Meletus; whereas in their life and practice they show an aversion for these latter men and avoid them as ruthless, but the former they seem to think are men of great worth, for they cite them with confidence in the most important matters.
But as for us, we observe that there are degrees in every kind of evil, and especially in the indeterminate and undefined kind that has to do with the soul. (In the same way also there are different degrees of progress produced by the abatement of baseness like a receding shadow, as reason gradually illuminates and purifies the soul.) We do not, therefore, think that consciousness of the change is unreasonable in the case of persons who are, as it were, making their way upward out of some deep gorge, but there are ways in which it can be computed.
Of these I beg you to consider the first without further preface. Just as men sailing out into the open sea calculate their run by the time elapsed in conjunction with the strength of the wind, reckoning how much distance, after spending a certain time, while carried onward by a certain force, they are likely to have accomplished; so too in philosophy a man may take for himself as a proof that he is gaining ground the uniformity and continuity of his course, which makes on the way no frequent halts, followed by leaps and bounds, but smoothly and regularly forges ahead, and goes through the course of philosophic reasoning without mishap.
For the lines: If even small upon the small you place and do this oft, dare not merely well put in regard to the increase of money, but they apply to everything, and especially to advancement in virtue, since reason thereby gains the aid of constant and effective habit. But the variation and obtuseness often shown by students of philosophy not only cause delays and stoppages in their progress on the road to knowledge, but also bring about retrogressions, since vice always makes an onset on the man who yields ground by loitering, and carries him backward in the opposite direction."
Now these men really refute themselves when, in their lectures, they put the wrongdoing of Aristeides on an equality with that of Phalaris, and cowardice of Brasidas on equality with that of Dolon, Band the hard-hearted attitude of Plato as actually not differing at all from that of Meletus; whereas in their life and practice they show an aversion for these latter men and avoid them as ruthless, but the former they seem to think are men of great worth, for they cite them with confidence in the most important matters.
But as for us, we observe that there are degrees in every kind of evil, and especially in the indeterminate and undefined kind that has to do with the soul. (In the same way also there are different degrees of progress produced by the abatement of baseness like a receding shadow, as reason gradually illuminates and purifies the soul.) We do not, therefore, think that consciousness of the change is unreasonable in the case of persons who are, as it were, making their way upward out of some deep gorge, but there are ways in which it can be computed.
Of these I beg you to consider the first without further preface. Just as men sailing out into the open sea calculate their run by the time elapsed in conjunction with the strength of the wind, reckoning how much distance, after spending a certain time, while carried onward by a certain force, they are likely to have accomplished; so too in philosophy a man may take for himself as a proof that he is gaining ground the uniformity and continuity of his course, which makes on the way no frequent halts, followed by leaps and bounds, but smoothly and regularly forges ahead, and goes through the course of philosophic reasoning without mishap.
For the lines: If even small upon the small you place and do this oft, dare not merely well put in regard to the increase of money, but they apply to everything, and especially to advancement in virtue, since reason thereby gains the aid of constant and effective habit. But the variation and obtuseness often shown by students of philosophy not only cause delays and stoppages in their progress on the road to knowledge, but also bring about retrogressions, since vice always makes an onset on the man who yields ground by loitering, and carries him backward in the opposite direction."
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