Let's Go (to Another Way of Viewing)...

 Even people who don't know the mechanics of Plato's dualism suspect that our rational way of thinking falls short when it comes to solving the complex issues of the times. In fact, it is self-evident that we are caught in a dualistic gridlock in the American government. It is not that we don't want to use common sense tools that are at our disposal, like arithmetic to figure out a budget. But we don't even seem to be able to do that.

What would be an alternative way to structure our thought other than Plato's dualism? DKToteras, in an unpublished manuscript, suggests that we return to the preSocratics for insight because they were among the first to argue thoughts. What did thinking look like in their hands before Plato's Idea, the form, developed?

In medicine, for example, to start your study of the body you look at the cadaver to identify the elements, at that which is no longer in motion or alive, so to speak, so you can isolate it for study. Similarly return to the beginning of thinking and thought to see its origins and isolate the elements. At first it may seem simplistic, but the arguments are deceptively powerful and the basis of many still in use today.

The first insight is that instead of being rational, thinking was poetic. It conveyed not just a thought being argued but also a feeling. The idea was intuitive. The world was not yet divided in two, there was no dualism. A view of the world had already developed that was more than just the primitive experience of the sun on your back. An elaborate "mythology" or cosmology was in place that explained where it all comes from.

The second insight is that preSocratic thinking was based on metaphysics. This was the period of time when the Greeks were rejecting their gods, their "polytheism." Socrates, who followed them, was actually charged in the court of the day with "impiety," perhaps better understood as blasphemy, therefore corrupting the youth. Philosophy and thinking is based on a rejection of religion. The thinkers were attempting a re-imagination of the story of creation, where does it all come from, if not the gods? They were, in essence, asking questions, questioning the REALITY of the day. They were questioning the view.

If a first step in developing a view is to isolate its elements, like look at the cadaver, how did they do it? What tools did they use? They were questioning. They were using poetry, the language. The Greek language had developed some peculiarities that distinguished it from languages in the East. For example, the "IS of identity," the verb "to be." 

These thinkers were looking to identify "physis," the Greek word for nature. They were interested in physical reality, how did it come to be? They wanted to understand that which they saw in front of them. And this is the basis of their  approach, seeing what is in front of you. Identifying it, which is a linguistic activity, perhaps among other things. Description. They called it (a le' thia) in Greek, which means uncovering. The original Greek word for TRUTH is a verb that means uncovering, the process that reveals.

And so we come to the fundamental question of philosophy, what is reality? How do we view our reality? Considering all the jams that we are in today, the question is urgently relevant.