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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