J Keyser writes:

> The later, so called, Pythagoreans presented what might be called a
> cosmological ontology. Extension is limited in the direction
> of the great,
> number in the direction of the small. When one divides the
> whole in all of
> its extendedness its multiplicity increases. The small of
> number and the
> great of extension are one and the same.
>
> Plato studied these propositions and found their true origin
> neither among
> the mathematicals nor in the imagination but in the ver
> predicament which
> makes it possible for us to be what we are. Any cosmology is
> a likely story.
> A story because it is indeed poetry. Likely because the very
> power of any
> poetry to preserve itself by capturing the fascination of a
> people is found
> in its likeness to something more fundamental than poetry
> shall ever be.
> This is the initial reason why Plato (as well as Aristotle)
> took the poets,
> sophists, casually spoken phrases, public rhetoric, etc.
> seriously. Anything
> which is ever upon the lips of the people is somehow
> somewhere fundamentally
> human. If we may see our way to what makes these slippery and
> often foolish
> opinions attractive and memorable we may understand what
> constitutes these
> people and what principals govern in that constitution. This
> is the second
> reason for contemplating the origins of commonplaces: they
> will provide the
> understanding and the means necessary to govern, to take a
> people toward
> their perfection.
>
> This teaching was not wasted on Aristotle. The most
> conspicuous feature of
> the revolution Aristotle initiated may be expressed in this
> way. Plato, as
> his Socrates, refused to take responsibility for the learning
> of another.
> Although people take curiously troublesome arguments away from Plato's
> writings there is no Platonic orthodoxy. He wished for his listener's
> learning to be their own. Those who are failed by his efforts
> to resist
> engendering a discipleship find themselves in a predicament
> as preposterous
> as that of one seriously defending Aristotle's astronomy.
> Aristotle does
> present an astronomy as well as a cosmology (an articulation
> of the look of
> the visible whole). He seems to take an "ontological
> cosmology" seriously.
> Yet, none of his crucial teachings (his various exercises for
> the sake of
> virtue) rest or depend in any way upon that cosmology. It is
> plain that
> Aristotle concluded that an orthodoxy was choice worthy. The means to
> measure what Aristotle says about epistHmai kai nous alHthHs
> te doxa is
> available to everyone who thinks and has heard what Aristotle
> has said. The
> rest is, to use the shorthand, poetry. Perhaps the closest we
> will ever come
> to the look of an eternally cognizing soul is that of the
> "sphere of the
> fixed stars" sempiternal rotation in place. By investing that
> sight with the
> image of his god Aristotle saw to it that truth a true
> opinion would be kept
> near for those who made their way to it. Consider the economy
> of this work.
> When the Aristotelian imagination gazes upon the heavens it sees in a
> proportion which will hold when its gaze is turned upon the ways of
> cognizance itself. Not only will the newly informed one chuckle at
> Aristotle's cosmic comedy but he will also at one and the same time be
> instructed in how to teach on both levels at once: doing
> right by those who
> will remain but one's people while preparing the way for
> those who will find
> themselves subjected to that danger forced upon them when
> their horizon is
> suddenly broadened and broadened by a means ever unavailable to any
> political order. Aristotle demonstrates a thousand times over
> that he is
> truly Socratic.
>
> METAPHYSICS [1074b] A tradition has been handed down by the ancient
> thinkers of very early times, and bequeathed to posterity in
> the form of a
> myth, to the effect that these heavenly bodies are gods, and
> that the Divine
> pervades the whole of nature. The rest of their tradition
> has been added
> later in a mythological form to influence the vulgar and as a
> constitutional
> and utilitarian expedient; they say that these gods are
> human in shape or
> are like certain other animals, and make other statements
> consequent upon
> and similar to those which we have mentioned. Now if we
> separate these
> statements and accept only the first, that they supposed the primary
> substances to be gods, we must regard it as an inspired
> saying and reflect
> that whereas every art and philosophy has probably been
> repeatedly developed
> to the utmost and has perished again, these beliefs of theirs
> have been
> preserved as a relic of former knowledge. In this way only,
> then, are the
> views of our forefathers and of the first thinkers intelligible to us.
>
> With Best Regards,
>
> J Keyser
>
> p.s. Poetry is the only substitute for truth.

An excellent and delightful post.

As I love poetry, it is hard for me not to accept the final post scriptum.

The cosmological issue in Aristotle comes down to a god, an indeterminate
theos, on the final sphere of the universe. All things are moved,
ultimately by this theos. Let me take this one step further. Aquinas
accepts this god as his own and Christianizes him. In both cases, this god
does not exist. He has died a terrible death. Or, I could be more like Mr.
Sorensen, who would say something to the effect, "This god never existed."

What are to we to say regarding this problem? Aquinas is simply wrong about
god. To what point do we thus take Aquinas seriously? If the god upon which
he predicates this entire opus does not exist, how can we truly take
anything he says as truth? There are no separate intelligences; the higher
order of beings that constitute angels do not exist; there is no heaven to
which anyone goes after death; nor is there any genuine way by which we can
make the connection between the higher orders and this universe. How can
anyone take Aquinas's theology as anything more than a work of poetry and
rather absurd poliitcs (the ordering of the Church and the political regime
in accordance to something that does not exist).

And it is the connection between metaphysics and this world that is at
issue. While Aristotle denegrated his predecessors, Aristotle also believed
and asserted that he _knew_ the world was eternal and that it was ordered
in concentricity and directly moved by a particular metaphysical being. He
could know that because the universe is eternal. He discovered the eternal
universe. The entire Aristotlean ediface is built upon this purported
knowledge. Eventually, the Aristotlean revolution is based on his knowledge
of something that did not exist, a teleology, a teleology which his
greatest student, Aquinas, accepted with modifications.

So I would ask, then, what is the status of the eror of Aristotle and
Aquinas? In the latter, of course, we can just discount and consign the
entire Christianity of Aquinas to the oblivion it deserves. However, with
Aristotle, a philosopher, error is a necessary part of the search for
truth. What troubles me is that the orthodoxy about Aristotle, even today,
is that he is read by many of his lovers in a way that fails to deal with
the cosmological error that is plainly there. Do we not have to reread the
Politics, for example, in an entirely different light when we know there is
no unmoved mover? Or do we simply compartmentalize Aristotle to what we
like and ignore what is not true and what we don't like? Do we simply take
out the nuggets and throw out the dross and pretend that they were never
together at any time? Is that logographic necessity?

Mr. Keyser apparently thinks we can, because Aristotle is not truly linked
to this cosmology. He makes an amusing case, but I think it would be naive
not to see that the quote he provides us from the Metaphysics implies the
very eternity of the univese Aristotle believed he discovered. What makes
Aristotle so remarkable is how seamless the entire ediface is, even when he
is completely wrong and utterly stupid, as when asserts seriously that
women see red in mirrors when they are menstruating. The cosmological
support is there in all his work. It is the armature of the structure. It
is the DNA of this cellular structure.

I believe that we face this problem in Strauss in the way Strauss simply
ignores the cosmological problems and simply accepts that Aristotle is
wrong about teleology at the beginning of NRH. But there is an implied
criticsm of Plato in Strauss as well. For we never get Strauss giving us
close reading of Plato's cosmology and how it works. Strauss does not
calculate the nuptial number for us, nor does he seem to care what it is.
What we get as well from Strauss is the Xenophonic reading of political
philosophy where there is no discussion of cosmology and where the
metaphysical is strictly human and where the metaphysical connection to
what is not human is at best problematic.

I bring this up because it appears to me that Strauss, by his own
procedures, appears to accept the notion that one can take a little of this
and a little of that from the ancients to suit one's own philosophical
purpose. Thus, we don't have to worry about the rest that is simply wrong.
Error is error and we go beyond it. All that matters is what is true and
what we can know of what is true. There seems to be a great deal of
flexibility in Strauss and that flexibility appears to have been passed on
his students.

Yet, again, is that reading Aristotle as Aristotle understood himself? Or
is this Aristotle, like that we find in CM, Strauss's poetry?

Best regards,

Kalev Pehme