Philosophy Now - Issue 151 - August-September 2022

70 Pages·2022·8 MB·English

ISSUE 151 AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2022
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in In This Self We Deserve: A Quest after Modernity,
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Editorial
What Have the Greeks
Ever Done for Us?
“Criticism, the Greekest of Greekness.... When criticism was overlooked In truth it is hard to avoid the Greeks. They were the first
we had the dark ages. A bit of bile on the Ionian Coast and we’re on our to think of many of philosophy’s best moves and pithiest
way to the stars.” Tibor Fischer, The Thought Gang concepts. So why shouldn’t we try out their tools on the
problems we face today? But Prof Sansom warns in his article
Two and a half thousand years ago, the shores of the that we have to be careful to understand the social and
Aegean were home to dozens of Greek city states, historical contexts of ancient thinkers and their works and to
statelets, and colonies, trading, squabbling, fiercely apply their opinions to today’s problems only with the utmost
competing, making and breaking alliances. The intellectual caution. Our world is very different from theirs. For example,
competition was just as fierce. In places like the port of they had slavery, and a tightly hierarchical society that
Miletus on the Ionian Coast, some of the first philosophers excluded women. Their thoughts and dreams were haunted by
were speculating about what the universe was made of, or an astonishing array of gods and superstitions. The cool of
about the nature of change, constantly disputing, always classical marble statues and their association with the
trying to pick holes in one anothers’ theories and develop Renaissance reinforces the impression of all ancient Greeks as
better ones. In Athens, starting just a little later, were philoso- paragons of cool reasonableness. But in their own time those
phers making the most sophisticated arguments about ethics statues and buildings were painted in all sorts of garish hues,
and justice and piety, and what we owe to the gods and to and the reasonable arguments of the philosophers no doubt
each other. A.N. Whitehead once wrote that “The safest were coloured with the emotions and passions of the reasoners
general characterization of the European philosophical – passions now inaccessible to us. This doesn’t mean we can’t
tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” use them as inspiration, but should perhaps hesitate before
People are often drawn into philosophy by the fascinating invoking them as authorities to back up our own theories.
and vital questions with which it deals. How should we live? The ancient Greeks knew little science, because they had
What can we know? They are sometimes impatient when only just invented it. The last of the articles in our special
they hear of modern philosophers spending all their time on section is about Eratosthenes and his ingenious and accurate
the texts of Plato and Aristotle. “Come on,” they say, “why measurement of the Earth’s circumference. You might
not write something new about these important questions? complain that this is an example of science or mathematics,
Surely philosophy must have progressed at least a little in all not philosophy, but the modern division between science and
the centuries since? Leave Plato and Epicurus to the classics philosophy is only a few centuries old. In Ancient Greece and
scholars in their dusty libraries.” Yet philosophers carry on for long after, it was all seen as the same activity: the use of
finding the writings of the Greeks to be (as Whitehead, again, reason to understand the cosmos. Even the word ‘scientist’
put it) “an inexhaustible mine of suggestions.” So, in this issue was only invented in 1834. Anyway, to put it in modern terms,
our theme section looks at whether ancient Greek philosophy the Greeks were the progenitors not only of philosophy today
really can help us in modern times. but also of today’s science too. That, for both better and
Appropriately, several articles in this issue are in dialogue worse, is part of what the Greeks have done for us. All the
format. Plato wrote exclusively dialogues in which his old blessings and dangers of modern science flow from that time.
teacher Socrates was the main character. To give a clearer How should we feel about that? The Greeks and their myths
idea of how this worked, Michael Baumann’s ‘The Pandemos’ again help us to process the world. Pandora opened her
imagines Socrates debating with a Covid sceptic. Writing famous box and out of it flew every kind of misery, but the last
realistic-sounding dialogues is tricky, but Baumann captures thing left in the box was hope.
the atmosphere and style of Plato’s very well. He conveys a The philosophical legacy of the Greeks in terms of theories
good sense of how Plato’s dialogues are structured, and of was rich and gives us many ideas we can apply today. Perhaps,
how Socrates’ method of philosophical inquiry, known as though, as the novelist Tibor Fischer implies in the quotation
elenchus or co-operative debate, proceeded. If the dialogue at the top of this page, their most valuable legacy is not any
irritates you, if you spring up saying “No Socrates, that’s not particular theory but a general attitude of scepticism, a will-
fair, that’s not quite what the other guy meant!”, then that’s ingness to dispute any intellectual authority, to criticize any
good, for it means that you are getting something like the full theory, to try to pull it down, look for its weaknesses, to poke
Socrates experience. After all, he was a thinker so annoying holes in it, to develop a better theory.
that a jury of his fellow citizens, self-declared democrats, Rick Lewis
sentenced him to drink hemlock for nothing worse than (Many thanks to Anthony Arthurton for helping us put together the Greek
asking a few questions. Philosophy section of this issue).
August/September 2022 ● Philosophy Now 3
Now
Philosophy
ISSUE 151
August/September 2022
Now
Philosophy 8

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Editor-in-Chief Rick Lewis
Editors Grant Bartley, Anja Steinbauer
Guest Commissioning Editor NS
Anthony Arthurton O
M
Digital Editor Bora Dogan M
N O
FBiolmok E Rdeitvoier wTsh oEmditaos rW Taerrteesnab Berrigt ton T INMA TIVE C
Assistant Editor Alex Marsh LIN REA
DAensjaig Snt eGinrbanaut eBra rtley, Rick Lewis, C A 1953 C
Marketing Sue Roberts R
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Administration Ewa Stacey, Alex Marsh Editorial & News M
A
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Advertising Team Y
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Jay Sanders, Stella Ellison 3 Editorial Rick Lewis UKI 46
[email protected] Z
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UK Editorial Board 6 News Anja Steinbauer
Rick Lewis, Anja Steinbauer,
Bora Dogan, Grant Bartley 7 Shorts Matt Qvortrup: Coffee General Articles
US Editorial Board
Prof. Timothy J. Madigan (St John 28 Levinas & Post-Pandemic Masking
Fisher Univ.), Prof. Teresa Britton The Greeks
Adam Birt wants to throw his mask away
(Eastern Illinois Univ.), Prof. Peter
Adamson, Prof. Massimo Pigliucci 31 How To Be A Really Good Person
(CUNY City College) 8 An Ancient Conversation About Motion
Robert Griffiths reveals the secret
Contributing Editors
Matei Tanas gets things moving
Alexander Razin (Moscow State Univ.) ă
40 Was Spinoza Actually an Atheist?
Laura Roberts (Univ. of Queensland) 11 Plato’s Myths
David Boersema (Pacific University) Kenneth Novis inquisits the pantheist
Neel Burton asks why the great reasoner
UK Editorial Advisors
Piers Benn, Constantine Sandis, Gordon resorted to myth-making Focus on Digital Liberty
Giles, Paul Gregory, John Heawood 14 The Pandemos
US Editorial Advisors 34 Mill, Free Speech & Social Media
Michael Baumann dialogues the pandemic
Prof. Raymond Angelo Belliotti, Toni
Vogel Carey, Prof. Harvey Siegel, 19 Aristotle’s Guide to Living Well Nevin Chellappah explores the links
Prof. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong 38 Digital Freedom
Cover Image by Alex Lawrence Evans tells us how to be happy
Roberta Fischli & Thomas Beschorner report
Printed by Acorn Web Offset Ltd 22 The Uses & Misuses of Socrates
Loscoe Close, Normanton Ind. Estate, Reviews
Dennis Sansom on texts and their contexts
Normanton, W. Yorks WF6 1TW
Worldwide newstrade distribution: 26 Of Clouds & Shadows
52 Books: Metaphysical Animals
Select PS ([phone])
Heiner Thiessen on how an ancient Greek
[email protected] by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman
Australian newstrade distribution: accurately calculated the size of the Earth The Women Are Up To Something
Ovato
26 Rodborough Road by Benjamin J.B. Lipscomb
Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 W Two books on four female philosopher friends,
[email protected] RE
The opinions expressed in this ND reviewed together by Katie Barron
A
magazine do not necessarily reflect MC 54 Book: The Life Inside: A Memoir of Prison,
the views of the editor or editorial EN
board of Philosophy Now. RR Family & Philosophy
A
Philosophy Now BY D by Andy West
H
is published by Anja Publications Ltd C Reviewed by Amna Whiston
O
ISSN 0961-5970 URD 56 Film: Don’t Look Up
SSuhbospc pri.p6t1ions p.60 IRIS M 52 Dylan Skurka says duck!
4 Philosophy Now ● August/September 2022
some of our
Contributors
Roberta Fischli
Roberta Fischli is a
political scientist,
journalist, and writer,
pursuing a PhD at the University of
St Gallen, Switzerland. Roberta is
currently a visiting researcher at
Georgetown University and the
Center for the Study of Law and
Society (CSLS) at UC Berkeley,
where she conducts research on
freedom and new forms of power
in the digital economy.

Lawrence Evans
Lawrence Evans is a PhD
student at University
College London. He
balances his studies with teaching
undergraduates and doing one-to-
one tuition in maths and physics
for school pupils. He is interested
in the history of philosophy, partic-
ularly the Ancient Greeks (the area
of his PhD), though he also enjoys
Descartes and Hume.

Dylan Skruka
X
ALE 8 Dylan Skurka is a
Y philosophy PhD student
B
R
E at York University in
V
O
C Canada, and currently edits his
program’s blog, ‘Brainwandering’.
Regulars Fun, Poetry & Fiction
Dylan loves to write, especially
about his favourite music and
43 Interview: Timothy Morton 10 Existential Comics Corey Mohler films through a philosophical lens.
discusses object oriented ontology 12 The Song of Ulysses Clinton Van Inman Besides completing his
dissertation, a goal of Dylan’s is to
with Thiago Pinho 23 Socrates & Xanthippe Wolfgang Niesielski
make philosophy as accessible as
46 Brief Lives: Daisetsu Suzuki 25 Simon & Finn Melissa Felder possible.
Brian Morris meditates on the life of the 65 Glaucon Before Lachesis
Zen philosopher, not the car manufacturer Mark Piper finds himself in Greek heaven Katie Barron
Katie Barron first met
49 Letters to the Editor
10 philosophy when study-
58 Tallis in Wonderland:
ing Greek at university. She
How Did We Get To Be So Different? F was surprised to find you can
L
Raymond Tallis says hurrah for the hand MSE reconstruct the thought of
HI philosophers before Socrates by
62 Question of the Month: E
CH examining fragments of their
How Do You Change Someone’s Mind? USTA works. She mentors neurodiverse
Read readers’ replies to see if they change MO university students and is the
T
your mind about changing minds EA author of Pilgrimage in Terror,
R
G exploring the tensions in peace
66 Philosophical Haiku: Thomas Aquinas THE protest from firsthand experience.
Terence Green sums up the saint

August/September 2022 ● Philosophy Now 5
(cid:129) Face-off at Microsoft
(cid:129) Museum argues over ethics of sponsorship
News
(cid:129) Philosophers meet by candlelight.
News reports by Anja Steinbauer
Ethics of Facial Recognition AI driven by the high error rate of facial recog- business interests and practices of your
Microsoft have decided that – for now – nition systems when it comes to some ethnic major fossil fuel sponsors go directly
they will no longer offer facial recognition groups, to gender and to identifying emo- against this.” The museum’s director, Ian
tools that can determine age, gender or tional expression. Mistakes to do with facial Blatchford, said: “We agree that climate
emotional expression. In their announce- recognition can have extremely damaging change is the most urgent challenge facing
ment they acknowledged that “The poten- consequences, especially in a police context. humanity but we don’t agree with the argu-
tial of AI systems to exacerbate societal One example is the case of Nijeer Parks, ment from some who say we should sever
biases and inequities is one of the most who was charged with aggravated assault, ties with all energy companies with an asso-
widely recognized harms associated with unlawful possession of weapons, using a fake ciation, direct or indirect, with fossil fuels.
these systems”, the tech giant promises to ID, possession of marijuana, shoplifting, We believe the right approach is to engage
keep “people and their goals at the center of leaving the scene of a crime, resisting arrest
S
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system design decisions and respecting and hitting a police officer with a car. He O
M
M
enduring values like fairness, reliability and was arrested on the strength of a ‘high pro- O
C
safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, file comparison’ from a facial recognition E
V
TI
transparency, and accountability.” Aca- scan of a photo from what turned out to be a A
E
R
demics and activists have long pointed to fake ID left at the crime scene. He spent 11 C
. N
the moral challenges of facial recognition, days in prison and was fined $5000, O
D
which they perceive to threaten fundamen- although he had been 50 km away from the ON
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tal rights, especially where it is used for crime scene at the time. , M
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surveillance purposes. In a 27 page docu- SE
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ment, the result of a two year research pro- Teachers Boycott Science Museum M
E
ject conducted by a team of experts, in Greenwash Protest NC
E
Microsoft expounds a framework of rules The Science Museum in London has had SCI
©
that the company is setting for itself with trouble recently over sponsorship deals. O
respect to the development and use of facial Last October, a former director of the OT
H
recognition. This step is no doubt also museum, climate scientist Prof Chris P
Rapley, resigned from its advisory board in
opposition to the museum accepting oil and
gas company sponsorship. Now, more than
400 educators have signed an open letter to
Science Museum preparing to answer its critics
the museum pressing it to cancel its spon-
sorship deal with a company linked to the and challenge companies and other part-
coalmining corporation Adani. Adani ners to do more to make the global econ-
Green Energy will sponsor the museum’s omy less carbon intensive.” Forty promi-
S
D
N Energy Revolution gallery, due to open nent individuals, including a former chair
A
ERL next year. The letter threatens a widespread of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
H
ET boycott over the deal with Adani Green Change as well as many leading scientists,
N
E Energy, whose parent company, Adani who have worked closely with the museum
H
T
F Group, is a large scale operator of in the past, said they were deeply con-
O
RY coalmines and coal-fired power stations. cerned about its fossil fuel sponsorship
T
NIS The letter reads “As educators, we have a deals and that they were withdrawing their
MI
N legal duty to ensure our students are receiv- support for the museum until a morato-
G
EI ing a fair and balanced education, which rium was announced.
R
FO prepares them properly for their future.
© O There is no doubt among the scientific Richard Bernstein Has Died
OT community that in order for us to turn the Academic philosopher and public intellec-
H
P tide on catastrophic warming, we have to tual Richard J. Bernstein stood out for
leave fossil fuels in the ground and end the battling to overcome the entrenched
FACE ID >> POSSIBLE MATCH?? >>GATES, B. << exploration for high carbon energy. The divide between ‘continental’ and ‘analyti-
6 Philosophy Now l August/September 2022
Shorts
Philosophy Shorts
cal’ philosophy. Partly to this end, he
entered into dialogues with prominent
by Matt Qvortrup
thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Jürgen
Habermas, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques
Derrida, Richard Rorty, Agnes Heller, and ‘More songs about Buildings and Food’ was the title of a 1978
Charles Taylor. He wrote: “It is agreeable album by the rock band Talking Heads, about all the things rock stars
to imagine a future in which the tiresome normally don’t sing about. Pop songs are usually about variations on
‘analytic–Continental split’ is looked back the theme of love; a track like Van Morrison’s 1976 hit Cleaning
upon as an unfortunate, temporary break- Windows is the odd one out.
Philosophers, likewise, tend to have a narrow focus on
down of communication – a future in
epistemology, metaphysics and trifles like the meaning of life. But
which Sellars and Habermas, Davidson
occasionally great minds stray from their turf and write about other
and Gadamer, Putnam and Derrida, Rawls
matters, for example buildings (Martin Heidegger), food (Hobbes), tomato juice (Robert
and Foucault, are seen as fellow-travelers
Nozick) and the weather (Lucretius and Aristotle) This series of Shorts is about these
on the same journey, fellow-citizens of
unfamiliar themes; about the things philosophers also write about.
what Michael Oakeshott called a civitas
pelegrina.” In his 1975 book Praxis and
Philosophers on Coffee
Action, Bernstein gave a clear and insight-
ful overview of pragmatist, Marxist, exis-
tentialist and analytical positions on these
two concepts. In The Restructuring of Social Coffee brings clarity, and perhaps that year-old penned this masterpiece he was
and Political Theory (1976) he questioned is why Immanuel Kant swore by the pondering a very important existentialist
the choice of the social sciences to increas- black stuff. “There were two things in life question: to drink or not to drink coffee?
ingly model their approach on the natural for which Kant had an intolerable liking; It’s either-or. For, as he explained, “... when
sciences. A lifelong critical pragmatist, coffee and tobacco,” reported Thomas De I drink coffee, my nausea comes from
Bernstein had an illustrious academic Quincy in The Last Days of Kant (p.118). drinking coffee, and when I do not drink
career, teaching philosophy at Yale, Philosophers disagree on many things, coffee, my nausea comes from not drinking
Haverford College and The New School however. Iris Murdoch, the Anglo-Irish coffee. And so with us humans. The whole
for Social Research in New York. In 1989 philosopher and novelist, did not share earthly Life is a kind of malaise; in some the
Bernstein was elected President of the Kant’s obsession: “Coffee, unless it is very reason is too much effort, in others too
Eastern Division of the American Philo- good and made by somebody else, is little.” The peculiar way he drank his coffee
sophical Association. Bernstein died on 4 pretty intolerable at any time” (The Sea, might explain the ill effects of his habit.
July 2022 at the age of 90. The Sea, p.90). Kierkegaard reportedly, “delightedly…
Wittgenstein was a philosopher preoc- seized hold of the bag containing the sugar
Midnight Philosophy cupied with words and their meaning. and poured sugar into the coffee cup until it
A Philosophy Now online initiative to How better to ponder this than by writing was piled up above the rim. Next came the
combat the isolation of thinkers during the about, well, coffee? incredibly strong, black coffee, which
Covid-19 Pandemic has become so well slowly dissolved the white pyramid.”
established that it looks set to continue “Describe the aroma of coffee. Why can’t it be (Garff, Kierkegaard, p.288).
even now that face-to face philosophy done? Do we lack the words? And for what are Voltaire – him of Candide and ‘the best
gatherings have resumed. When Anja words lacking? But how do we get the idea that of all possible worlds’ fame – reportedly
Steinbauer started Midnight Philosophy in such a description must after all be possible? Have drank fifty-five cups of coffee a day.
June 2020, lockdowns were in force all you ever felt the lack of such a description? Have Which seems remarkable. And according
over the world. For one hour fortnightly you tried to describe the aroma of coffee and not to his physician, rather dangerous. When
on Thursdays, at midnight London time, succeeded?” (Philosophical Investigations, §610) the doctor warned the eighty-year-old
thinkers from all over the world started Enlightenment philosopher that it was a
getting together on Zoom to consider Coffee must have been a bit of a preoc- ‘slow poison’, Voltaire responded sto-
issues from everyday life, from “food” to cupation for philosophers in England at ically, “Yes, I have been taking it every day
”prejudice”, “love” to “boredom” from a the time, for Elizabeth Anscombe (who for more than eighty years” (Mercure de
philosophical point of view. The meetings translated Wittgenstein, as well as being a France, October 4, 1783).
continue to thrive, with regular and new first rate philosopher herself) used it as an So, coffee is not necessarily unhealthy.
participants from Europe, the USA, Aus- example to explain why a word’s intention It can even be a life-affirming thing.
tralia, Jordan, Malaysia, South Africa, had to be specific: that it did not allow Simone de Beauvoir had one of her char-
Canada and more. It’s free and anyone “pouring out coffee when I meant to pour acters say, “I am going to have a cup of
interested in ideas and constructive discus- out tea to be an action, being intentional coffee in the bistro on the corner. I’ll be
sions is welcome to join. You can find full under the description ‘pouring out liquid back in a few minutes” (The Mandarins,
details in advance of each meeting on the from this pot’” (Ethics and Medical Deci- p.827). I’ll do the same.
Philosophy Now London Meetup page at sion-Making, p.223). © PROF. MATT QVORTRUP 2022
https://www.meetup.com/London-Philosophy- Søren Kierkegaard’s most famous work Matt Qvortrup is Professor of Political Science
Now-Meetup-Group/ R.L. is Either-Or. When the then twenty-nine- at Coventry University.
August/September 2022 l Philosophy Now 7
The Greeks
Parmenides Changing
Yet Unchanging
by Clint Inman
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An Ancient Conversation About Motion
Matei Tanas imagines the sort of conversation about change, motion,
ă
appearance and reality that philosophers were having in ancient Athens.
(Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno, and Pyrrhon are sitting at a table in But something cannot be behind itself, nor can it be in front of
Athens. A worried looking Athenian approaches.) itself, above itself, or under itself. Thus nothing can push or pull
itself. Therefore, nothing can be moved by itself.
Athenian: Oh, you who are the wisest of men, I long for free- Athenian: You seem not to be wrong.
dom from illusion, the hardest of chains and cruellest of servi- Parmenides: So, the only way in which something can move is
tudes! if it is moved by another. Yet nothing can move something if it
Heraclitus: Tell us your problem with no hesitation. We gladly does not itself move first. Since the mover needs to be moved,
help the ones who seek for knowledge. we need a second mover to move the first. The same we need
Athenian: I have heard it said that many philosophers claim for the second mover. And so we need an initial mover that is
that movement – that which seems most evident of all – is not moved by nothing other than itself. Nothing can move itself, as
real, but a mere phantasm. Tell me now, you with the bright- said already, so such an initial mover cannot exist. Thus there
est minds, is this so or is it not? is no movement, and any movement you may think you see is a
Parmenides: You came to the right place, friend, and I shall mere illusion.
answer your question. Tell me, is it not true that if something Athenian: By Zeus!
moves, it either moves itself or is moved by another? Heraclitus: But, Parmenides, how do you know, I wonder, that
Athenian: Indeed. the only way in which something is moved is either by pushing
Parmenides: Yet all that moves does so as a result of either or by pulling? It is true that these are the only ways we have seen;
pulling or pushing, may it be in whatever direction. So, if some- yet from this we cannot say they are the only ways that exist. Even
thing moves itself, something needs to either pull or push itself. more, I have heard that Democritus claims movement to never
8 Philosophy Now ● August/September 2022
The Greeks
have started, yet exists. So movement, even if it is only a result of the appearances are simply the product of our own minds, then
pushing and pulling, does not actually require an initial mover. it means only we change. But in both cases, change exists. But
Zeno: May it be as you say Heraclitus. Let’s assume that Socrates if there is change, then there must be movement.
moves from place A to B. It seems clear that he would have to Parmenides: How so?
pass through the middle, place C, in order to get to B. Yet in Heraclitus: Well, it seems clear that if a part changes, the whole
order to get to place C, he would have to pass through the middle changes.
of the distance between A and C – let’s call that D. But the same Parmenides: Indeed.
we can say about the distance between A and D: that he would Heraclitus: So, if anything changes, then the group containing
have to pass through the middle of that distance, too. And in all the things that exist changes. Let’s call this group, ‘That which
this way we can continue forever. So it is clear that in order to is’, by which is meant, everything that is. Yet there are only three
get from place A to place B, Socrates would have to pass an ways in which something can change: by adding to it, by sub-
infinity of places, which would take an infinite amount of time. tracting from it, or by repositioning its parts.
It follows, then, that no movement is possible. Parmenides: I cannot think of any other way of change.
Heraclitus: But what if all things move by a specific distance – Heraclitus: But nothing can be added to That which is, for noth-
let’s say the distance between X and Y – and so they do not need ing exists exterior to it, and nothing can be subtracted from it
to pass through all the points between, but instead jump directly either, for nothing which is can become something which is
from X to Y? not, as you yourself claim.
Zeno: That, Heraclitus, seems unbelievable. Parmenides: I agree. No thing can turn into nothing, and no
Heraclitus: More unbelievable than the absence of movement, thing can come out of nothing.
I wonder? Heraclitus: But if that is the case, and change exists, then the
Zeno: If you are right, then this movement from X to Y would repositioning of the parts of That which is must be possible. Yet
either be instant or it would take time. If it is instant, then the we cannot talk about changing position without movement, for
result is that all things get anywhere instantaneously, for all that is absurd. Therefore, movement exists.
things would just repeat this instantaneous movement to get (Parmenides and Zeno remain silent.)
anywhere, which is absurd. Yet if the movement from X to Y Athenian: Oh the merciless gods! I came here to find answers,
would take time, then in the time in which the movement takes yet deeper in questions I’ve sunk! What should I do when I have
place, the object would either be in place X, in place Y, in both, heard such good arguments, some proving, some disproving,
or nowhere. But if it is in place X it has not yet started moving, the same thing?
and if it is in place Y is has already finished moving. The object Pyrrhon: Suspend judgement.
cannot simply disappear then reappear. So this means that it is © MATEI TANASĂ 2022
in both places at once – which is, again, absurd. Let’s, however, Matei Tanas is a student at August Treboniu Laurian National
ă
forget all this and assume that you are right. Tell me, then, can College in Romania. He was first philosophically challenged by Plato’s
an object act in a place where it is not? Apology, which he read during train rides to school in Sweden.
Heraclitus: It cannot.
Zeno: Then where does an object move – in the place in which 2
2
0
it is, or in the place in which it is not? Something cannot do 2E
anything in the place in which it is not. Yet if it moves only in WITT
the place in which it is, it does not move at all! HIL
P
Heraclitus: What about the sphere? If you rotate it perfectly, it © N
O
moves – yet it does not change its place. RTO
A
Parmenides: But the parts of the sphere change their place, do C
they not?
(Heraclitus does not answer. There is a moment of silence.)
Athenian: Oh, Zeus, what have I come to hear? Have I lived in
a mirage all my life?
Heraclitus: Tell me, Parmenides, do not our representations of
the world change? For example, earlier today it appeared to me
that we were walking towards this table, now it appears to me
that we are sitting at it.
Parmenides: Indeed, the appearances change.
Heraclitus: Yet the appearances are either the result of the rela-
tion between an object and ourselves, or they are simply the
product of our own minds, with no actual object correspond-
ing to them.
Parmenides: I agree that those are the two options.
Heraclitus: If appearances are the result of the relation between
an object and ourselves, then if the appearances change, it fol-
lows that either the world, ourselves, or both, change. And if
August/September 2022 ● Philosophy Now 9
A comic by Corey Mohler about the inevitable
anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world.
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