Substack notes on Phaedo 83.
Thomas Merton, Journals, vol. 4, p. 57 (10 October 1960):
The superb moral and positive beauty of the Phaedo. One does not have to agree with Plato, but one must hear him. Not to listen to such a voice is unpardonable, it is like not listening to conscience or nature.
Absolutely right.
The writings of Plato are inexhaustible in their riches. For years I read and taught the Phaedo dialogue, without appreciating the theory of relations contained therein until I read Plato's "Phaedo" Theory of Relations by Héctor-Neri Castañeda. I spent the summer of 1984 with Hector in Bloomington at Indiana University on an NEH summer seminar grant. Little did I know at the time that Frithjof Schuon, a very different type of philosopher than Hector, and one I admire more than Hector, was living in Bloomington at the same time. An opportunity missed!
Hector was a brilliant man, a creative powerhouse, and most generous in the help he gave his younger colleagues, but his approach to philosophy was merely theoretical; I discerned no spiritual depth in him. Schuon was roughly the opposite: spiritually deep but in need of some analytic discipline. Plato combined the attributes of spiritual depth and analytic penetration that fall asunder in lesser mortals.
For Weil, Plato "has genius whereas only the word talent applies to Aristotle." ("Human Personality" in Simone Weil, An Anthology, p. 67)
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