Would not Plato remind you that the true models for all patterns and forms exist, for lack of a better designation, elsewhere, and that we--like the fellow who perceives only shadows on the cave wall--perceive and experience only imitations of a greater reality? This is where, I think, Judaism and Christianity come close to Platonism. Perhaps you will disagree.
Postscript: Forms and patterns, of course, only hint at the ineffable reality, just as our metaphorical constructs of “God” only hint at the ultimate ineffable reality. This is often where some philosophers and psychologists (and we might as well include atheists) hit the wall: their unwillingness to accept reality as ineffable.
Would not Plato remind you that the true models for all patterns and forms exist, for lack of a better designation, elsewhere, and that we--like the fellow who perceives only shadows on the cave wall--perceive and experience only imitations of a greater reality? This is where, I think, Judaism and Christianity come close to Platonism. Perhaps you will disagree.
ReplyDeletePostscript: Forms and patterns, of course, only hint at the ineffable reality, just as our metaphorical constructs of “God” only hint at the ultimate ineffable reality. This is often where some philosophers and psychologists (and we might as well include atheists) hit the wall: their unwillingness to accept reality as ineffable.
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