ARKHON:
– ‘leader’
– literally: ‘someone who performs the at of doing the first thing’, ‘initiator’
– ARKHE: ‘fundamental principle from which everything comes’
– ‘rhizomata’: ‘roots’: empedocles’ four ‘roots’ (‘elements’)
five kinds (proposed):
1) non-cognitively unreal: you imagine that two true things contradict, but actually you’re just spouting feelings (‘you and i can never ever live together [in the midst of a heated, alcohol-fueled argument about socks left on the floor]’,’a good person cannot vote for bernie’,’a subordinate cannot have spoils that his commander does not’)
– if you gain more rights then i lose some of mine IF relevant resource is unlimited
2) soluble: the contradiction is real, but it can be resolved (‘let us make a treaty’,’we shall learn one another’s languages’)
– ARISTOTLE: ‘how can a thing that initiates movement be unaffected by movement?’ answer: desire of heavens to move toward that unmoved mover
– family members with different dietary preferences
=> cf. universal design principles: designing for worst case is often better for everyone
– ‘i’m a good person but i did a bad thing’: if therapist can solve
3) cognitively unreal: you rationally judge that two things contradict, but actually you’re just mistaken and can come to know this rationally (‘blacks and whites can never live in harmony’,’the atom[‘un-cuttable’] cannot be cut’)
– if you gain more rights then i lose some of mine IF relevant resource is unlimited
4) irreducible: two things actually contradict and cannot be resolved/synthesized/reduced (‘a cute cat eats a cute mouse’,’someone is both all-powerful and all-good’,’the world seems good but people die’,’mom killed dad’)
– ‘are you happy?’ ‘i was and i wasn’t’
– BREAKOUT: ‘how can a thing that initiates movement be unaffected by movement?’ answer: desire of heavens to move toward that unmoved mover
– if you gain more rights then i lose some of mine IF relevant resource is limited
5) unknown/unknowable: two things may or may not contradict, but you can’t know which (whether because of your limitations or in themselves) (‘the highest being is both one and many’,’the universe is deterministic at one scale and probabilistic at a different scale’)
– BREAKOUT: ‘how can a thing that initiates movement be unaffected by movement?’ answer: desire of heavens to move toward that unmoved mover
– BREAKOUT: god is good but oppression exists: feeling that god hates me/us
– god, slavery, faith: (or ‘colonized god’); polytheism? which monotheism is correct?
WAS ORESTES GUILTY:
– he had a mom, so the ‘athena has no mom’ argument is irrelevant
– why is clytemnestra husband-killer not tormented? where were the old gods when agamamenon’s death needed vengeance?
— which obligation is greater: spouse-spouse, child-parent, parent-child?
— which is more important: choice or obligation?
– NOTE: debate ignores whether clytemnestra raises orestes
– what about the claims of the furies? (athena buys them off. satisfying? (their nature changes!))
…what is the fundamental injustice?
ARKHE vs. PHYSIS
– physis: ‘life’, ‘nature’
– phuo: ‘grow’, ‘come into existence as life’
CONTRADICTION BY RELATION:
– root vs root
– part vs whole
– individual vs kind/species
One Response
session notes:
ARKHON:
– ‘leader’
– literally: ‘someone who performs the at of doing the first thing’, ‘initiator’
– ARKHE: ‘fundamental principle from which everything comes’
– ‘rhizomata’: ‘roots’: empedocles’ four ‘roots’ (‘elements’)
five kinds (proposed):
1) non-cognitively unreal: you imagine that two true things contradict, but actually you’re just spouting feelings (‘you and i can never ever live together [in the midst of a heated, alcohol-fueled argument about socks left on the floor]’,’a good person cannot vote for bernie’,’a subordinate cannot have spoils that his commander does not’)
– if you gain more rights then i lose some of mine IF relevant resource is unlimited
2) soluble: the contradiction is real, but it can be resolved (‘let us make a treaty’,’we shall learn one another’s languages’)
– ARISTOTLE: ‘how can a thing that initiates movement be unaffected by movement?’ answer: desire of heavens to move toward that unmoved mover
– family members with different dietary preferences
=> cf. universal design principles: designing for worst case is often better for everyone
– ‘i’m a good person but i did a bad thing’: if therapist can solve
3) cognitively unreal: you rationally judge that two things contradict, but actually you’re just mistaken and can come to know this rationally (‘blacks and whites can never live in harmony’,’the atom[‘un-cuttable’] cannot be cut’)
– if you gain more rights then i lose some of mine IF relevant resource is unlimited
4) irreducible: two things actually contradict and cannot be resolved/synthesized/reduced (‘a cute cat eats a cute mouse’,’someone is both all-powerful and all-good’,’the world seems good but people die’,’mom killed dad’)
– ‘are you happy?’ ‘i was and i wasn’t’
– BREAKOUT: ‘how can a thing that initiates movement be unaffected by movement?’ answer: desire of heavens to move toward that unmoved mover
– if you gain more rights then i lose some of mine IF relevant resource is limited
5) unknown/unknowable: two things may or may not contradict, but you can’t know which (whether because of your limitations or in themselves) (‘the highest being is both one and many’,’the universe is deterministic at one scale and probabilistic at a different scale’)
– BREAKOUT: ‘how can a thing that initiates movement be unaffected by movement?’ answer: desire of heavens to move toward that unmoved mover
– BREAKOUT: god is good but oppression exists: feeling that god hates me/us
– god, slavery, faith: (or ‘colonized god’); polytheism? which monotheism is correct?
WAS ORESTES GUILTY:
– he had a mom, so the ‘athena has no mom’ argument is irrelevant
– why is clytemnestra husband-killer not tormented? where were the old gods when agamamenon’s death needed vengeance?
— which obligation is greater: spouse-spouse, child-parent, parent-child?
— which is more important: choice or obligation?
– NOTE: debate ignores whether clytemnestra raises orestes
– what about the claims of the furies? (athena buys them off. satisfying? (their nature changes!))
…what is the fundamental injustice?
ARKHE vs. PHYSIS
– physis: ‘life’, ‘nature’
– phuo: ‘grow’, ‘come into existence as life’
CONTRADICTION BY RELATION:
– root vs root
– part vs whole
– individual vs kind/species