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polluted with Platonism, the more Aristotelian thinkers were driven to science. Could you clarify this? Plato & Aristotle have both gone in & out of fashion wi

polluted with Platonism, the more Aristotelian thinkers were driven to science. Could you clarify this? Plato & Aristotle have both gone in & out of fashion within different communities of thought over the centuries, sometimes in with one group and out with another at the same time. Humanism and Platonism came together around the 14th century in a push back against pure Aristotelian thought, and that seems like it would be much earlier than the shift you have observed. Further down the road, Leibniz described himself as closer to Plato than Aristotle but was part of the natural philosophy tradition that evolved into modern science. More recently both, Bertrand Russel and Kurt Godel were both platonists of some flavor. = Is the shift more recent, the past half-century or so? Or a specific aspect of platonism that has taken hold?

willcipriano 5y ago
> Could you clarify this? Plato & Aristotle have both gone in & out of fashion within different communities of thought over the centuries To this point, I have a few things to say. Plato's more abstract and metaphysical thinking is largely compatible with the teachings of the Catholic Church. It is my reading of history that when we have embraced these more metaphysical ideas, it has often lead to great suffering and barbarism. The inquisition, the crusades, etc. There was a time where only the clergy were able to talk about religion, as a common person you would simply be ignored out of hand. I see that sort of thinking in the allegory of the cave. I see this sort of thinking today where it is claimed that someone without a degree can't have a opinion on a scientific topic. In contrast, the Wikipedia article for Aristotelianism claims that: "In the Islamic Golden Age, Avicenna and Averroes translated the works of Aristotle into Arabic and under them, along with philosophers such as Al-Kindi and Al-Farabi, Aristotelianism became a major part of early Islamic philosophy."[0] This is why lots of stars have Arabic names, during their golden age they were the first to discover and chart them. From there, it is my view that Aristotle's ideas form the core of thinking that lead to the Renaissance as access to his works became more common in Europe. The Renaissance obviously was a huge influence on the founding fathers. America with it's right of free speech, is probably the only place that something like modern scientific thinking could take off. In contrast to the allegory of the cave above, Aristotle was the first to speak about "common sense"[1]. He elevated the common man (it was almost two thousand years ago, cut him some slack) where Plato felt them unworthy. > Is the shift more recent, the past half-century or so? Or a specific aspect of platonism that has taken hold? It's subtle, and I'll be the first to admit this isn't something I can prove, it's more how I feel. Roughly 15 years ago I noticed the start of the idea that someone needs credentials to speak on a topic within the skeptic community, prior to that you'd be called out for making argument from authority[2]. We went from, lets have a debate to shut up, are you a expert, show me your papers. I'm no philosopher, but I see the former as more Aristotelian and the latter as Platonism. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelianism [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
- kelseyfrog 5y ago
  It's not all roses though. Aristotle's teleology for example, made it's way into both religion (with enormous harm via Thomas Aquinas) and the sciences. We're still trying to stamp it out of the latter when it occasionally still pops up in places like evolutionary biology.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Thanks-- so more recently then. I agree about Plato and the common man, though I think a lot of that also came more from later interpretations by christeo platonists who espoused a sort dualism where spirit was good and matter was bad. But yeah, his idea of "philosopher kings" ruling over things doesn't really elevate then common man either, and that's without getting into criticism of the idea itself. I do like his way if talking out a problem with ever more precise questions disections and dissections if a problem, but it's a little too strong on pure reason and not enough on empiricism. My own observations on the recent issues of authority are a little different though, viewing it as part of a longer trend. From my (limmited) perspective it seemed like before the power of the internet, Expertise ruled the day. When the internet really hit mainstream in the early 00's there began a great skepticism of experts, that there was no reason to regard their assessment any higher than another. And there's a little something to that since there's no inherent reason why a non expert can't understand something too. But then it seemed to go too far-- expertise is sort of just another way of saying someone has a lot of experience, which can provide a useful perspective. And citing authority is not always a fallacy of appeal to authority. But the push against expertise went too far, and people began discounting someone's point of view precisely because they were an expert if there was a disagreement rather than on the merits. I saw this play out in things like Wikipedia Talk pages about topics. Now perhaps the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction again. I guess the hope is that at some point, at least for a while, it will stay in the middle for a while. As Aristotle liked to say: "The mean between extremes". I've always tried to keep that outlook-- skepticism towards most extremes. So it goes

willcipriano 5y ago

> Could you clarify this? Plato & Aristotle have both gone in & out of fashion within different communities of thought over the centuries To this point, I have a few things to say. Plato's more abstract and metaphysical thinking is largely compatible with the teachings of the Catholic Church. It is my reading of history that when we have embraced these more metaphysical ideas, it has often lead to great suffering and barbarism. The inquisition, the crusades, etc. There was a time where only the clergy were able to talk about religion, as a common person you would simply be ignored out of hand. I see that sort of thinking in the allegory of the cave. I see this sort of thinking today where it is claimed that someone without a degree can't have a opinion on a scientific topic. In contrast, the Wikipedia article for Aristotelianism claims that: "In the Islamic Golden Age, Avicenna and Averroes translated the works of Aristotle into Arabic and under them, along with philosophers such as Al-Kindi and Al-Farabi, Aristotelianism became a major part of early Islamic philosophy."[0] This is why lots of stars have Arabic names, during their golden age they were the first to discover and chart them. From there, it is my view that Aristotle's ideas form the core of thinking that lead to the Renaissance as access to his works became more common in Europe. The Renaissance obviously was a huge influence on the founding fathers. America with it's right of free speech, is probably the only place that something like modern scientific thinking could take off. In contrast to the allegory of the cave above, Aristotle was the first to speak about "common sense"[1]. He elevated the common man (it was almost two thousand years ago, cut him some slack) where Plato felt them unworthy. > Is the shift more recent, the past half-century or so? Or a specific aspect of platonism that has taken hold? It's subtle, and I'll be the first to admit this isn't something I can prove, it's more how I feel. Roughly 15 years ago I noticed the start of the idea that someone needs credentials to speak on a topic within the skeptic community, prior to that you'd be called out for making argument from authority[2]. We went from, lets have a debate to shut up, are you a expert, show me your papers. I'm no philosopher, but I see the former as more Aristotelian and the latter as Platonism. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelianism [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

kelseyfrog 5y ago
It's not all roses though. Aristotle's teleology for example, made it's way into both religion (with enormous harm via Thomas Aquinas) and the sciences. We're still trying to stamp it out of the latter when it occasionally still pops up in places like evolutionary biology.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ineedasername 5y ago
Thanks-- so more recently then. I agree about Plato and the common man, though I think a lot of that also came more from later interpretations by christeo platonists who espoused a sort dualism where spirit was good and matter was bad. But yeah, his idea of "philosopher kings" ruling over things doesn't really elevate then common man either, and that's without getting into criticism of the idea itself. I do like his way if talking out a problem with ever more precise questions disections and dissections if a problem, but it's a little too strong on pure reason and not enough on empiricism. My own observations on the recent issues of authority are a little different though, viewing it as part of a longer trend. From my (limmited) perspective it seemed like before the power of the internet, Expertise ruled the day. When the internet really hit mainstream in the early 00's there began a great skepticism of experts, that there was no reason to regard their assessment any higher than another. And there's a little something to that since there's no inherent reason why a non expert can't understand something too. But then it seemed to go too far-- expertise is sort of just another way of saying someone has a lot of experience, which can provide a useful perspective. And citing authority is not always a fallacy of appeal to authority. But the push against expertise went too far, and people began discounting someone's point of view precisely because they were an expert if there was a disagreement rather than on the merits. I saw this play out in things like Wikipedia Talk pages about topics. Now perhaps the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction again. I guess the hope is that at some point, at least for a while, it will stay in the middle for a while. As Aristotle liked to say: "The mean between extremes". I've always tried to keep that outlook-- skepticism towards most extremes. So it goes