2015-11-20 NSPRM - Plato - Parmenides - hyp3 - Why Would Ousia Even Want to Participate in Time? - Free Audiobook

Dialogue(s): parmenides

Chapters: hyp3

Sections: 155e,156a

Attendees: Pierre, Barbara, David, Regina, Bradley, AdinaB, JeffS

Studying Plato through the eyes of Aristotle vs truly capturing the 3rd hypothesis

Moderns: Time plus Space

Plato/Timaeus: Place before Space

0:04:20 Barbara transcribed part of the dialogue from yesterday (not archived)

0:08:57 Discussion-proper starts

DC: How can Ousia be corrupted? Why would Ousia want to even participate in time?

PG: You got it. (Quoting Parm) ..'..then when it is One, it participates in Time and Ousia'

0:10:53 PG- do you think we should do the Derveni papyrus tonight (at Friday night NS meeting)?

0:13:40 DC- Is there a transformation in Ousia, or a motion?

(referring back to diagram of two days ago, and apparently adding to it but not archived here, unfortunately)

0:16:00 The mystery of time. That means there is no Ousia in the moment (the frame). There is no intelligibility. Therefore it's only an image. It doesn't have Ousia. No ability to reflect upon itself.

RU: Time is elevated to almost a 'god' position

0:18:00 PG: Where does that go, if true? And where would this idea on Ousia fit with that?

RU: I was seeing it hierarchically: One and Many participating in Time and Time participating in Ousia. And so Ousia the highest. And Time then a subsidiary 'god' of which One and Many participate.

0:21:20 PG (to RU): This is a major point you are making, if you could relate it to the Timaeus (127-129), the dynamic of Time. The God reflects, desires, etc. Creation dependent upon the god reflecting, Time, Ousia..

0:23:58 DC: Again, as yesterday, the Greek world conception of Time must have been so very different from our own.

Timaeus: Time - like Gold, 'such-like'. Transformation of the elements.

RU: Sounds more like Ousia than Time

0:27:45 Barb repeats Pierre's question from yesterday: What is language in the mind of a philosopher?

0:33:30 Returning to the text 155e (Parm2): 'Take notice then, is it possible..'

Problem of the 'it': Is he talking about the One? Or Ousia?

The Self (beginning of 156a).

0:36:50 DC returns to the first sentence in hyp3 (Parm1), 155e, and re-translates it:

From:

'Is it not necessary that the Self is One and Being and Many..' (makes no sense)

To:

'Is it not necessary that it is both Self and One and Many..' (PG chuckles)

0:39:00 PG: why is it (the Self) submerged in western culture?

0:43:00 What does it mean.. Ousia is participating in Time! So Time must have some mode of existence. It is not just a measure of motion.

(..vs. an article JeffS found on physics world: 'What is Time?' (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/2013/oct/24/what-is-time . Author: Adam Frank, theoretical astrophysicist at the Univ of Rochester, New York, USA. It is not accessible except through subscription. Blech.)

0:47:20 To reflect upon onesself (Ousia) presupposes Time. (The act of reflecting).

(Again, I think Pierre is referring to the diagram from 2 days ago, which is still sitting on the table.)

0:49:20 PG: 'When you look at your image in the mirror, it doesn't have the ability to reflect.' (Har, har)

0:49:30 Bradley: How would the object of Ousia be in the moment then?

(I could have missed something here, but I am not sure PG actually answered Bradley's question.. Instead, he refers to the rationality of each subsequent moment. Unless he means not *in* the moment, but that the moment is reflected on by Ousia as it also creates? But that seems to obfuscate the functioning..)

0:53:30 Reading from the Timaeus (29), and keeping 3rd hyp in mind. Demiurgos creating. Reflecting.

0:58:15 Therefore it presupposes Providence.

0:59:00 The mystery is Time. And Time could take the Eternal and make it temporal.

0:59:30 DC: Is the Timaeus the 3rd hyp?

1:00:00 Ousia presupposes Providence (keep in mind we're in the 3rd here)

Providence: A force that precisely matches for each thing its good appropriate to its condition exactly in response to its need. It is very precise, everywhere.

1:02:00 The difficulty in writing a sentence that would be intelligible to these people [these ancient Greeks philosophers, or perhaps even most ancient Greeks] is that it presupposes that they will allow in their hearing the necessity for metaphysics.

1:03:25 Back again to attempting to translate the 1st sentence of 3rd hypothesis (155e, P1.)

pote - then, not 'time' like chronou

1:11:37 Does it look he is making a distinction in time? Making divisions? What do you make of that?

A different order of 'participation'. Not participation in ideas. Participation in Time. That is a different kind of time.

1:15:08 How does that (unique mode of Time) relate to the Self (in the text)?

With this dynamic going on, where would you put the Self?

1:17:17 DC finds it: 156a: 'For only thus, will it be possible for It to Participate and not Participate of the Self.'

PG: Therefore?

1:20:15 DC: Different modes of Self?

PG: Well, you can talk about a lack of Self and a presence of Self. Question is where are you going to put it (in hyp3)?

1:20:07 Barbara / Derveni papyrus copying

1:20:40 PG: Is it possible that that papyrus might throw some light on this subject (hyp3, Time, Ousia, Self).

We could read it tonight (at the NS meeting) and compare with Timaeus, etc..

1:24:10 PG (to Barbara): Say, what do you like about Heraclitus? B: His position wrt the Logos. PG: Isn't it astonishing?

1:25:09 PG reading from Wheelwright, The PreSocratics, probably Heraclitus): 'Although the Logos is eternally valid, yet men are unable to understand it. Not only before hearing it, but even after they've heard it for the first time. That is to say, even though all things come to pass in accordance with the Logos, men seem to be totally without any experience of it... My own method is to distinguish each thing according to its nature and to specify how it behaves.' [PG: ie., 'function! Nature and function'] So this is his method for grasping the Logos. (continuing..) 'We should let ourselves be guided by what is common to all, yet, although the Logos is common to all, men live as if each of them have their own private intelligence of their own... Wisdom is One and unique. It is willing and not willing to be called by the name of Zeus.' (stepping out of mythology, connecting with philosophy, having fun..)

DC: Isn't this like Parmenides?

1:27:50

PG: Yes! This presumed war (that some in academia have argued for) between Plato/Parmenides and Heraclitus is a myth!

1:28:15 DC: Is there any time when the Self does not participate fully in Ousia?

PG: That's it! You got it! Well, if there is such a thing as the Self, which can function purely, this is doing an Ousia trip.

1:29:09 PG: The Buddhists' idea of 'jiriki' -- Is that the condition for Ousia? (a la Roshi Philip Kapleau, 'Three Pillars of Zen'). Or is that Ousia functioning? Jiriki: When one can act appropriately in respect to all things without making any particular judgement about which is which. And that is why it is cultivated by samurai's -- that spontaneity. Spontaneity, PLUS it is appropriate for every circumstance and situation. Their level of response is much lighter, greater, than people who have not developed that. They want to develop that. DC: They are much more well-considered in the moment.

PG: Right. Now is that Self?

And the caution in Zen is: Don't take that to be Prajna (Wisdom). It is just a preliminary state.

(Me: = Justice, in The Republic?)

PG gives example: Arjuna with Krishna: Should Arjuna even be fighting? (Arjuna does not consider this question. So Arjuna has this [preliminary] state, but again, it is without wisdom. It is blind.)

1:33:30 German who wrote a book with a phrase in it, 'Field of Iron Crosses'. He's got that state. He does incredible things. But whether he should be there in that war, he can't ask. The failure of 'duty' to be complete. The problem of loyalty. Also Niche.

1:38:00 Bradley: back to prajna and jiriki. How can you tell the diff?

1:40:40 PG: In WW2, it was always interesting to go against Hitler's best regiments, because of their state of mind.

Barbara finds a book by Willi Heinrich, 'The Willing Flesh', that Pierre might be referring to. (I also see later, while taking these notes, that Heinrich had another book, 'Cross of Iron'. I'm betting this is the book. ISBN-10: 153289581X, ISBN-13: 978-1532895814)

PG: 1:44:50 - Also interesting to see it flatten out: At the end of the war, they lost their sense of duty/loyalty. It tore them apart.

1:45:25 JeffS: Das Boot - one of the implied underlying questions of this movie: What am I doing? Why am I here?

PG: It may have taken them facing defeat in order for them to ask the question.

1:47:15 PG: Another war story: I and a couple of other guys going into Italy: We had to decide whether we would go into the Rangers, or the 36th division. We just asked one question: Where's the action? (A: 36th). Okay, we go to the 36th. (That Ranger group though, later went to Anzio, and stopped a German tank division without any artillery. Lost about 80% of their people.)

1:48:00 DC Another war story. A motorcycle revealing an entire Panzer division.

1:50:00 Regina's question about accuracy of artillery/bombing. Today, drones/collateral. JeffS: Researchers are estimating about 90% of the drone strike kills are 'collateral damage'. PG: Yes, creating more terrorists (because of this). Recruiting drone pilots from teenagers who like video games. These young pilots getting PTSD (thousands of miles away!) and quitting.

more war stories and injustice of war...

2:09:31 cut to discussion outside in driveway

Adina: Why not just be? What is the need for understanding, when you can just BE?

PG: But if you can Be WITH understanding, that's Being. (Also) Without Understanding, Love is Tyranny.

Working from Plato's Parmenides: The Juan and Maria Balboa Translation

More info: [http://noeticsociety.org/psg](http://noeticsociety.org/psg)

Image Chichen Itza MEX - Caracol 07 courtesy of Flickr user Daniel Mennerich under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives 2.0 license when downloaded on 2017-09-12.