Platonic Legacies

John Sallis

Description

In Platonic Legacies John Sallis addresses certain archaic or exorbitant moments in Platonism. His concern is to expose such moments as those expressed in the Platonic phrase "beyond being" and in the enigmatic word chora. Thus he ventures to renew chorology and to bring it to bear, most directly, on Platonic political discourse and Plotinian hyperontology. More broadly, he shows what profound significance these most archaic moments of Platonism, which remained largely unheeded in the history of philosophy, have for contemporary discussions of spacings, of utopian politics, of the nature of nature, and of the relation between philosophy and tragedy. Thus addressing Platonism in its bearing on contemporary philosophy, Platonic Legacies engages, in turn, a series of philosophers ranging from Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Arendt to certain contemporary American Continental philosophers. These engagements focus on the way in which these recent and contemporary philosophers take up the Platonic legacies in their own thought and on the way in which the exposure of an archaic Platonism can redirect or supplement what they have accomplished.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Nietzsche's Platonism

2. The Politics of the Cïra

3. Daydream

4. Platonism at the Limit of Metaphysics

5. Grounders of the Abyss

6. Uranic Time

7. What's the Matter with "Nature"?

8. Tragedy from Afar

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de l'esprit
• Philosophie antique
• Ancient philosophy
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791484357
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

John Sallis

Platonic
Legacies

A VOLUME IN THE SUNY SERIES IN CONTEMPORARY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

PLATONIC LEGACIES

SUNYSERIES IN CONTEMPORARY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

Dennis J. Schmidt, editor

PLATONIC
LEGACIES

JOHN SALLIS

State University of New York Press

“Daydream,” previously published inRevue International de Philosophie, vol. 52, no. 205 (October
1998), pp. 397–410, is reprinted here as chapter 3 with permission.

Published by
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sallis, John, 1938–
Platonic legacies / John Sallis.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in contemporary continental philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-6237-4 (alk. paper)ISBN 0-7914-6238-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Plato. 2. Plato—Influence. 3. Platonists. I Title. II. Series.

B395.S24 2004
184—dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2003068664

For Nancy

With Gratitude

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Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Nietzsche’s Platonism

CONTENTS

2 ThePolitics of theCÔra

3 Daydream

4 Platonism at the Limit of Metaphysics

5 Groundersof the Abyss

6 Uranic Time

7 What’sthe Matter with“Nature”?

8 Tragedyfrom Afar

Index

ix

1

7

27

47

61

79

103

129

143

157

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung and the Fulbright
Commission I am grateful for the fellowships that allowed me to prepare this
book during an extended stayin Freiburgin 2002–03.am grateful I
also to theRevue Internationale de Philosophie,to theGraduate Faculty
Philosophy Journal,to Ind andiana University Press for permission to
draw upon previously published papers.Thanks also to Nancy Fedrow
and to Ryan Drake for their generous and expert assistance.

Boalsburg
February 2004

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INTRODUCTION

LEGACY DOES NOT GOunconsideredin the Platonic dialogues.
Almost the entirety of the long first part of theTheaetetus, ostensibly
addressed to theidentification of knowledge as perception,is engaged
with the legacy of Protagoras.Socratesintroduces this legacy as saying
in a somewhat different way what Theaetetus has just declared, that
knowledgeis perception. Thelegacy consistsin the maxim that
declares human beings to be the measure of all things.Socrates cites the
maximinits precise formulation, and then,immediately, he asks
1
Theaetetus: “Surely you’ve read that?” Theaetetusassures Socrates
that he has readit often, and this affirmation serves to confirm how
thoroughlyitis a legacy thatis atissue here,indeed something passed
along not just by word of mouth but also by dissemination through
writing. Itis not long before Socrates extends this legacy,in fact to
such an extent thatit comes to coincide with virtually the entire
legacy of Greek philosophy and poetry, with the sole exception of
Parmenides and his followers.says Socrates: “And about this let all
the wisein succession except Parmenides converge, Protagoras and
Heraclitus, and Empedocles, as well as the topmost poets of each kind
of poetry, Epicharmus of comedy and Homer of tragedy” (152e).
Yet what counts mostis the capacity to receive the legacy, or
rather to take up whatever withinitis genuine and true. Abit later

1.Theaetetus152a.All subsequent references to Platonic dialogues are givenin the
text.Translations are my own, though I have consulted Allan Bloom’s translation of theRepublic (New
York:Basic Books, l968), Seth Benardete’s translation of theTheaetetus(Chicago:University of
Chicago Press, l984), and the translation of thePhaedoby Eva Brann, Peter Kalkavage, and Eric
Salem (Newburyport, MA: FocusPublishing, l998).

1

2

PLATONIC LEGACIES

in the dialogue Socrates tells Theaetetus that he will join himin
“searching out the hidden truth of the thought of a renowned man,
or rather, of renowned men” (155e). Asthey set out on this search,
Socrates advises Theaetetus to look around and make sure none of the
uninitiated (™m§htoV) or unmusical (†mousoV) are listening, none
of those crude personsincapable of apprehending anything except
what they can grasp with their hands.Taking up a legacy requires the
capacity to see the unapparent, the mysteries (tΩ must–ria), and
thisis whyit can be supposed that what Protagoras told his disciples
in private was quite different from what he said publicly to the many.
Yet nowitis solely a matter of legacy:at the time of the conversation
in theTheaetetus, Protagorasis dead, andindeeditis mentioned that
Calliasis“the guardian of his things” (165a),the one appointed to
look after his legacy.
Parmenides and his disciples are the only ones excluded from
the expanded Protagorean legacy. IntheTheaetetus Socratesrecalls
his youthful meeting with Parmenides, whom he describes with the
Homeric phrase“as awesome to me as uncanny [aÎdoƒ¬V t° moi d'in¬V
t']” (183e). Heforgoes taking up the Parmenidean legacy (“so I’m
afraid that we’ll fail as much to understand what he was saying as we’ll
fall far short of what he thought when he spoke” [184a]). Itis, then,
hardly less wondrous that when, by common consent, Socrates,
Theodorus, and Theaetetus meet early the next day at the same place,
the Parmenidean legacyis literally brought to the scenein the person
of the Eleatic Stranger. Inthe conversation that follows, this legacy
is taken up, but not justin the sense of repetition or refinement;
rather, at the risk of being charged with patricide, the Stranger
submits the Eleatic legacy to rigorous critique and transformative
appropriation.Without this critical appropriation of the Eleatic legacy, the
Platonic legacy would have been unthinkable.

▼ ●◆

In this history of philosophy since Plato,in what today one calls the
history of metaphysics, critical appropriation of the Platonic legacy
never ceases, not evenif and when that history reaches a certain end.
Yetin the ever recurrent appropriation, the Platonic legacyis
repeatedly reconstituted. Thusit assumes various and disparate guises. Itis
pluralized so thoroughly that there could be little hope of recovering

INTRODUCTION

3

any unity other than the reference back to the Platonic texts; and
even the waysin which this reference would be carried out and made
binding would be so various and disparate that one would still be left
with a manifold of Platonic legacies.
Heidegger underlines the enormous role that the Platonic legacy
inits various guises has playedin the history of philosophy from Plato
to Nietzsche, thatis,in the history of metaphysics.In a late essay he
writes: “Throughout the entire history of philosophy Plato’s thinking
remains,inits various forms, decisive [massgebend]. Metaphysicsis
2
Platonism.Nietzsche designates his philosophy asinverted Platonism.”
From Plato to Nietzsche there are only forms of Platonism, various
and disparate forms, to be sure, and finally, with Nietzsche, a formin
which Platonismis stood onits head,in which, as Heidegger says,
“the most extreme possibility of philosophyis attained” andits end
3
thus reached.
Metaphysicsis Platonism—nothing but Platonism, or at least
nothing quite separable from Platonism, from the Platonic legacies.
The studies gathered here under this title areintended to supplement
this equation.Yet onlyin a few cases will they do so by showing how
Platonismisintrinsic to the work of thinkers within the span of
metaphysics.most consp Theicuous—though already extreme—case
is the discussion of Nietzsche’s Platonism, his manifold Platonism.
Augustine will, to be sure, be taken upin connection with the
question of time, but more with a view to the legacy he passes along than
to the legacy taken over from earlier Platonism.In addition, the“old
quarrel between philosophy and poetry” (Rep. 607b),already thus a
legacy when taken upinto Platonism and madeintegral toits legacy,
will be portrayed asitis variously resumedin the relation between
tragedy and philosophy that a recent study has shown to be decisive
for the history of post-Kantian German philosophy.
Granted that, with the qualifications required, metaphysicsis
Platonism, the question to which these studies are more persistently
addressedis whether the equation can be reversed, whether,
mathematically speaking, the relationis commutative.one say that Can

2.Martin Heidegger,“Das Ende der Philosophie und die Aufgabe des Denkens,” inZur Sache
des Denkens (Tübingen: MaxNiemeyer, l969), 63.
3.Ibid.

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PLATONIC LEGACIES

Platonismis metaphysics? Or are there not moments within certain
Platonic legacies that exceed metaphysics? One such moment,
decisive for Plotinus,is expressedin the Platonic phrase÷p°k'ina t›V
4
o¶s√aV (beyondbeing). Still more decisive for these studiesis the
recovery of that momentin theTimaeus thatgoes under—among
others—the namecÔraand that, called a third kind (tr√ton g°noV)
alongside what will be calledintelligibleandsensible,both escapes and
disrupts the governing order of the Platonism thatis metaphysics.
Thus,in these studies, which draw on the recovery of thecÔra,it
will be a matter, forinstance, ofinscribing chorology within the
Platonic discourse on politics, aninscription promisedin reverse at the
outset of theTimaeusdesp yet,ite the political frame of the dialogue,
not realized.such an Throughinscriptionit becomes possible to
rethink the