ThinkBlog

http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/raphael/raf_ath4.html

In the front page’s logo, you see a detail from Rafaello “Raphael” Sanzio’s The School of Athens (1509-1510) in which the great philosopher Plato points upward to the sky. This is only a small part of the larger work (local mirror taken from the Web Gallery of Art).

Plato’s academy was a place of congregation and dialogue for all sorts of philosophers; most notably, Aristotle was Plato’s most precocious student, but he didn’t quite share Plato’s ideals (so to speak). Briefly, Plato believed that for everything that exists, there were ideal forms from which the actual objects sprung; and that ultimately everything else traced back to the source of all good (though he hesitated to name this Supreme Good, “God” in the monotheistic sense due to the Grecian polytheism at the time). Whereas Plato, then, was concerned with the ideal, the abstract, the possible, the conceptual and theoretical, his student Aristotle was pantheistic, more “down to earth” or “scientifically inclined,” we might say of him today: he focused on actualities, facts, nature, and the concrete.

Nowhere is this distinction in idealogy made more clear than in Raphael’s painting, which shows Plato and Aristotle in the midst of conversation, with the former pointing skyward (toward the Ideal), and the latter gesturing downward (toward nature and the Actual). (You can see a higher-quality image of them alone from this picture, also mirrored from the Web Gallery of Art.) They divide the academy: everyone you see on the left-hand side of the painting is a Platonist, and everyone on the right is Aristotelian.

I see this as a delightfully pure distinction between two opposing camps of not only philosophy, but also personality and theological outlook. Abstract thinkers, like myself, are much more prone to consider and enjoy ruminating over the possibilities and potentialities. Concrete thinkers enjoy delving into the actual, that which Is. The dynamic tension here is so exciting to behold: two studied men, engaged in a deep discussion, courteous to one another and yet holding fast their ground, each explicating his paradigm to the other. This is the nature of philosophical discourse. As I put it when adding the picture to the Philosophy Club at Greenville Technical College’s Yahoo! Group (when I was secretary thereof), “we have strongly contrasting opinions each in our pursuit of a clearer worldview, [and yet] we walk side by side in the debate, challenging and edifying one another but each looking the other in the eye.”

Incidentally, I’ve found that I enjoy the writings of the medieval Neo-Platonists, like Augustine for instance, and agree with much of what they have to say. (That this painting was done in the Renaissance-Baroque period only makes it the better, even though you can find Raphael having painted himself into the Aristotelian camp of the work.) I’d rather discuss with you theology and philosophy than business or finances any day, and what really lights my fire is a serious argument fully in the abstract. (Like, for instance, aspects of existentialism, or what have you.)

So that’s what I hope to convey through this logo. I want you to think about things you might not otherwise consider and, thereby, improve your quality of life: because if you understand the Why, the What will come to sift itself out. I’d like to be your Plato in the Conversation of our times: to point you to something beyond yourself, out of sensory range, those thoughts and patterns of life that determine how you act and think and feel. I hope to point you to Christ, instead of what the world has to offer—and I hope you’ll dialog with me, whether you agree or disagree.

http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/raphael/raf_ath4.html

In the front page’s logo, you see a detail from Rafaello “Raphael” Sanzio’s The School of Athens (1509-1510) in which the great philosopher Plato points upward to the sky. This is only a small part of the larger work (local mirror taken from the Web Gallery of Art).

Plato’s academy was a place of congregation and dialogue for all sorts of philosophers; most notably, Aristotle was Plato’s most precocious student, but he didn’t quite share Plato’s ideals (so to speak). Briefly, Plato believed that for everything that exists, there were ideal forms from which the actual objects sprung; and that ultimately everything else traced back to the source of all good (though he hesitated to name this Supreme Good, “God” in the monotheistic sense due to the Grecian polytheism at the time). Whereas Plato, then, was concerned with the ideal, the abstract, the possible, the conceptual and theoretical, his student Aristotle was pantheistic, more “down to earth” or “scientifically inclined,” we might say of him today: he focused on actualities, facts, nature, and the concrete.

Nowhere is this distinction in idealogy made more clear than in Raphael’s painting, which shows Plato and Aristotle in the midst of conversation, with the former pointing skyward (toward the Ideal), and the latter gesturing downward (toward nature and the Actual). (You can see a higher-quality image of them alone from this picture, also mirrored from the Web Gallery of Art.) They divide the academy: everyone you see on the left-hand side of the painting is a Platonist, and everyone on the right is Aristotelian.

I see this as a delightfully pure distinction between two opposing camps of not only philosophy, but also personality and theological outlook. Abstract thinkers, like myself, are much more prone to consider and enjoy ruminating over the possibilities and potentialities. Concrete thinkers enjoy delving into the actual, that which Is. The dynamic tension here is so exciting to behold: two studied men, engaged in a deep discussion, courteous to one another and yet holding fast their ground, each explicating his paradigm to the other. This is the nature of philosophical discourse. As I put it when adding the picture to the Philosophy Club at Greenville Technical College’s Yahoo! Group (when I was secretary thereof), “we have strongly contrasting opinions each in our pursuit of a clearer worldview, [and yet] we walk side by side in the debate, challenging and edifying one another but each looking the other in the eye.”

Incidentally, I’ve found that I enjoy the writings of the medieval Neo-Platonists, like Augustine for instance, and agree with much of what they have to say. (That this painting was done in the Renaissance-Baroque period only makes it the better, even though you can find Raphael having painted himself into the Aristotelian camp of the work.) I’d rather discuss with you theology and philosophy than business or finances any day, and what really lights my fire is a serious argument fully in the abstract. (Like, for instance, aspects of existentialism, or what have you.)

So that’s what I hope to convey through this logo. I want you to think about things you might not otherwise consider and, thereby, improve your quality of life: because if you understand the Why, the What will come to sift itself out. I’d like to be your Plato in the Conversation of our times: to point you to something beyond yourself, out of sensory range, those thoughts and patterns of life that determine how you act and think and feel. I hope to point you to Christ, instead of what the world has to offer—and I hope you’ll dialog with me, whether you agree or disagree.