/lit/ - Literature

>>22569089
go look at the index of The Reign of Quantity and Ctrl+f "Aristotle", "Plato", and "Greek"

>>22569100
Yes what’s your point Guenon states in east and west that Plato is not esoteric

>>22569089
No, Evola certainly emphasises Plato and Plato (alongside Metternich, de Maistre etc) is one of the few thinkers included in his reading list for young rightists. In fact, Evola's entire work is replete with Platonic, Neoplatonic and Hermetic elements.
Guenon on the other hand did not esteem Plato very highly. I am not sure why that is. Perhaps he simply didn't read or understand the Platonic canon. Alternatively, his hostility may have been owed to his tunnel vision on the contemplative intellect, which, while supreme, is not the only important or valuable type there is. The Platonic canon gives you a solid basis with both the contemplative and discursive intellects, and also establishes a link between them.

seems to me the entire point of the weltanschaung in both is that dianoetic knowledge and thus the starting point of "philosophy" as the latter is understood in the west represent something that being fundamentally human can't rise beyond humanness, and that this fixation on dianoia at the expense of the gradual atrophizing of disciplines/doctrines of effective super-human aka super-dianoetic realization is part of the problem
of course, you need to believe that the latter is indeed a possibility, that real knowledge is ultimately akin to vision and thus you can't throw words at the problem as refined and articulated as they could be

that isn't to say that Plato denies this "vision", but perhaps the issue is that the tradition which begins with the Greeks was already going the wrong way from their point of view

The final redpill is realizing that Plotinus was right but Plato was wrong

>>22569255
They are literally in agreement.

Philosophy is pointless and as trivial as it seems at first glance.

>>22569255
How so anon?

>>22569143
>No, Evola certainly emphasises Plato
Where?

Yeah. My thoughts are that these people weren’t real philosophers, theologians, or metaphysicians. They were orientalists that also wrote political polemic. That’s it.

>>22569302
It may be the essay collection, I think Hungarian, something including "right-wing youth". The collection contains Orientations and a number of other essays. But I can't guarantee that the reference is there. I've read almost everything by Evola - I remember what he's said, but not necessarily where he's said it.

>>22569302
>>22569432
I should note that this is for the explicit reference to and recommendation of Plato. Looking at Evola's work more broadly, anyone with some background in Platonism will be able to spot the Platonic backdrop to his work.

>>22569089
Guénon emphasised Plato only as an emulator to an Indian or Egyptian doctrine. But his early dialogues appear to him as focused on minor details.
However, Coomaraswamy considers Plato very highly. In fact, he discovered a perennial wisdom by comparing Greek and Indian texts.

>>22569689
Why do you think Guenon didn’t adore Plato like Coomaraswamy did?

>watch out folks , a realizer is coming through

>>22569089
Guenon didn't understand the Germanic spirit, so he didn't understand the Greeks. It's that simple. The Germans were the first to show the world who the Greeks really were and one must always have recourse to them in the study off Greece. While Guenon was blinded by the over-preponderance of Latinate elements in his cultural ancestry, being a son of France and the Catholic Church. Evola on the other hand was deeply influenced by Nietzsche and the German Idealists.

>>22569878
>The Germans were the first to show the world who the Greeks really were

Explain?

>>22569837
Realising what exactly?

>>22569089
i've come to realize this guy's problem in Reign of Quantity is no universal measure? real measure is likely the third man argument

>Guenon in particular seems to eschew the Greeks not really considering them as all that profound and even a precursor to western rationalism.
He's right. But its also true that the Greeks are very important for the West and one needs to return to the Greeks from our current position first in order to then have a chance at going further. Guenon even admits that the Greeks were much closer to the East than we are to the Greeks.
Read Schuon, he talks about Plato and Aristotle fairly often and has great insight on them and their relevance to the Westerner.

>>22569143
>contemplative intellect, which, while supreme, is not the only important or valuable type there is.
It is the the only important valuable type.
>discursive intellect
A literal parasite.

>>22569089
He does, and the first chapter in Reign of Quantity is explanation of Aristotle's idea of act and potency and he mentions platonic ideas as well, he just doesn't cite or source much of his metaphysical principles that he explains and points to throughout his works, my opinion of why he does so is because he recognizes the timelessness of metaphysics and therefore confining them to a certain period as if they are a result of a person or time period is wrong and source of modern confusion about the timelessness of eternal truths. For example, it is convention to call the entire intellective realm "Platonic Ideas" as if owing the idea (pun intended) to Plato himself, or even Socrates for that matter. (You could go into the argument that Socrates got it from Diotima, but she must have got it from somewhere etc.) When the idea of citing in general presupposes that ideas originate in humans which ignores the simple truth that metaphysics is knowledge not originated in humanity but instead is considered a gift from that which is above human to humanity, and therefore saying that the origin of a metaphysical idea is a person then that amounts to impiety and declaring that humans are the origin of universal and timeless ideas. Or amounts to misunderstanding the universality, timelessness, and unchanging aspect of metaphysical principles, by convention of citation which amounts to confining it to a particular time that is subject to change in a human person.

Which makes the fact that the only well-cited work he published was "Theosophy: History of a Pseudo Religion" that much more funny because he recognizes that it is human in origin despite the claims of the theosophists themselves.

Read Uzdavinys

>>22569089
Some philosophers do eschew the Greeks and Plato. Here is the breakdown as I see it, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt if you don't like it, in terms of western philosophy first past the post applies, whereas in the east egoless thoughts cannot be owned per se. In the west whoever makes it past the post first gets the biggest share of the fame, even if its posthumous. This doesn't always hold true, but in most cases it does. The Greeks recorded their thoughts and the ones that survived showed a remarkable amount of reasoning, the kind of reasoning societies didn't really offer before in some cases. Yeah I know Thales predates Plato, and so do the Sophists as well, but Plato recorded shit that is applicable in terms of thinking about society that holds true in ways his predecessors didn't, and since he was first past the post, he is unavoidable as a result in terms of philosophy. Does this mean every notable thinker has to address him? Eh probably not, but it doesn't really matter how much criticism is leveled at Plato, or how high a quality the criticism is, Plato was still first past the post. Desu, I would say you could have a publishing opportunity by exploring this topic thoroughly, idk what the mass market appeal would be but I see articles in academic journals about this type of thing often enough. Might be something to look into.

>>22570095
If you had worked harder to develop your discursive intellect, you would have realised that 1. it is indispensable for any (!) mental operation specific to the material world and 2. it can actually be used to lead you higher towards the contemplative intellect. This knowledge would have prevented you from ever making this post. Alas.

>>22569302
In metaphysics of sex Evola uses Plato's hermaphrodite from Symposium to show how he understands male and female as two halves of a primordial whole.

That's the only time I can recall he specifically mentions Plato but there may be more. As another anon said he refers to hermeticism a lot which was influenced by neoplatonism.

>>22569089
shut the fuck up. engaging with the greeks is completely redundant at this point in time.

>>22569089
Why the long face?

>>22569089

>>22570778
This

https://youtu.be/xQXK-BMLgmc

>>22570551
Yet the theory of forms seems absent in vedenta

>>22569878
>the Germanic spirit

>>22569143
>his reading list for young rightists
Where would I find that?

>>22572168
This sounds like a madness letter.

>>22572168
Yet he participated in German society, curious!

>>22572163
In Christian theology, the equivalent of the platonic forms is the eternally pre-existing foreknowledge of everything in God's intellect, the manifestation of these being the taking on form of already had a kind of virtual, latent existence in God.

In Vedanta, this same function is more or less fulfilled by Brahman's inherent and beginningless power, which has the nature of bringing out the appearance of the illusion of samsara and all its contents, all of its possible developments are contained with itself latently/virtually in its undeveloped state, everything is given its relative being directly from this power and causality as a phenomenon or law does not even exist independently of how the illusion displays itself, in this manner it shares a lot with occasionalism like al-Ghazali.

When you have this inherent potency or power in the Absolute that is responsible for all variegated phenomena then it removes the perceived necessity to posit some additional theory of forms which independent of that doctrine in order to explain the occurrence of things like conscious experience, knowledge etc.

>>22571329
If you're STEMbug or a postcolonial intersectional feminist libertarian Marxist, sure. For anyone else, it's the Greeks or bust really.

>>22569143
Where can I find this reading list?

>>22573588
I may have made this seem a bigger deal than it is. It's not a proper list, but more of a short mention given to a few thinkers that Evola recommends to young people. He listed a few of these when discussing how young people should return to studying solid principles rather than sticking to poorly defined historical forms and seeking nothing better. The authors I named in my previous post are the only ones I remember with complete accuracy - Evola may have mentioned 2-3 more in addition to these. However, I think a good reading of Plato will be plenty enough to equip a young man with a sound framework for traditionalist intellectualism. I am not familiar with the works of de Maistre and Metternich but I assume their writings are more distinctly political and perhaps religious.

>>22569089
Guenon studied Aristotle and thought brought him to the Arabs because he saw Western scholarship on the matter to be lacking

>>22569089
"platonism" was part of every esoteric tradition. it wasnt unique to plato therefore there is need to reference him specifically as "platonism" was taught in every mystery school long before plato

>>22573702
The theory of forms seems unique to Plato it’s absent in Vedanta and hermeticism