File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9709, message 206


Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:24:20 +0200
From: Paul Mathias <pmat-AT-ext.jussieu.fr>
Subject: Re: PLC: Playing with Greek


Reg Lilly wrote:

> Paul,
>         You play fullly remark "Silly Greeks!  How could we ever have
> taken them
> seriously!"  As a person that teaches a fair amount of Greek
> philosophy, I'm
> finding that not only students, but colleagues, especially women, are
> expressing
> greater disdain for Greek culture and thought than ten or fifteen
> years ago.

(...)

> A student I had, actually a very bright one,

(...)

>         I was wondering if others in philosophy and literature have
> experienced this
> rejection of Greece and what you think of it.  Even teaching "cultural
>
> relativity" seems to go only a short way, especially with
> philosophers.
>
> Reg
> rlilly-AT-scott.skidmore.edu

As a  matter of fact, I may just be "playfully" teaching Philosophy
myself. Now as far as expressing disdain for Greek culture is concerned,
since the Greeks had slaves and may not have had such repect for Man --
or women, which is somehow the same --, it seems to me that it is like
reproaching the sky with being blue, and the sea with being green. But
you know -- I'm only French and, oh my God! a man too!

Now people may believe Aristotle was a damn *$%=£"&!!!# for saying that
some men were slaves "by nature", others by nature free. Thus they would
reproach him with having not thought of the "Rights of Man", conceived
some 2000 years later... Not to mention that they would also
misinterpret "by nature", which refers not to birth and the
chronological course of events, but the "function" an individual
"operates" within his/her own "natural" element (oikos or polis).

"Cultural relativity" is thus at hand. Being bright on one continent
seems to be able to compare and judge other peoples' arguments, for it
is an absolute right to make one's *own* opinions. On another continent,
and in the old times, it may have been to just be able to be in peace in
one's arguments, provided everybody was in peace with their own -- "own"
meaning, in this case, that everybody is equally able to "give the
reasons" for having *these* thoughts, not others or opinions (logon
didonai)... Apparently, sophistry is vigorous enough to find its way
through "philosophical correctness" to flat and redundant thinking...

But you know, I'm talking like an old man referring to a very old story.
People like to be their own masters nowadays...  Not everywhere though,
and I don't think it would come to a French student's mind to be
"appalled" by Aristotle's or Plato's philosophy.
Which makes me think of "laughable" and "laughter", as a French
metaphysicist friend of yours would put it, thinking of one of his
favorite authors... But I would also say: *you* must be seriously
confronted to such "active discrimination" of Greek culture, otherwise
it wouldn't occur to you to make it a subject of concern. And this is
not laughable, not laughable at all.

Cheers,

pM



   

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