Erudite Relics of Loc Huu Ho

Definitions

• adept: is an individual identified as having attained a specific level of knowledge, skill, or aptitude in doctrines relevant to a particular author or organization
• axiomatic: evident without proof or argument; of or pertaining to an axiom; obvious (layman)
  
• exegetical: related to an exegesis, which is the interpretation and understanding of a text on the basis of the text itself
• gnomon: pronounced NO-mon, a Greek word meaning “the one who knows.” The gnomon is the pointer on a sundial, the part of the sundial that “knows” the time
• interlocutor: a person who takes part in a conversation
• par excellence: being the best of its kind; being a quintessential example of the kind in question
• truth-value: a proposition
  

Definitions

• Meno: is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. Written in the Socratic dialectic style, it attempts to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning in this case virtue in general, rather than particular virtues (e.g. justice, temperance, etc.). The goal is a common definition that applies equally to all particular virtues. Socrates moves the discussion past the philosophical confusion, or aporia, created by Meno’s paradox with the introduction of new Platonic ideas: the theory of knowledge as recollection, anamnesis, and in the final lines a movement towards Platonic idealism.
• ontology: a branch of philosophy focusing upon the origins, essence and meaning of being

Notes

• Plato was motivated by a gap between the ideas we can conceive and the physical world around us. Eg. perfect justice, beauty, pious, virtuous, etc…everything in the material word has flaws.
• We have some understanding of the perfect ideals, and yet we never find them. Why is this?
• Plato’s answer is that there is a realm of Forms, which contains perfect items like Beauty, Justice, and Piety. The Forms are eternal and unchanging.
• Plato calls the physical realm the world of Becoming, because physical objects are subject to change (for better or for worse) and corruption.
• We understand the physical world or also known as the realm of ‘sights and sounds’ through the senses, but we grasp the Forms only through mental reflection (thinking) because the Forms are objects of thought and invisible.
• Plato uses the experiment (where Socrates lead a slave to the theorem that the square on the diagonal of a given square is double the area of the original square) to support a doctrine that when it comes to geometry-or the world of Being generally-what is called ‘learning’ is actually remembering from a past life, presumably a time when the soul had direct access to the world of Being.
• Plato did hold that the soul is in a third ontological category, with the ability to apprehend both the world of Being and the world of Becoming.
• For Plato, mathematics is a key step in this process. It elevates the soul, reaching beyond the material world to the eternal world of Being.

Definitions

• rationalism: platonism; branch of philosophy which emphasizes reason or intellect, rather than observation or sensory perception, as the basis for knowledge and truth.
• secular: of or relating to the doctrine that rejects religion and religious considerations

Notes

• The problems that occupied mathematicians for centuries, culminating more than 2,000 years later with the result that there are no solutions-the tasks to obtain exact solutions are impossible.
• Thomas Kuhn’s influential Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970) speaks of revolutions and ‘paradigm shifts’ that make it difficult to understand scientific works of the past. I.e., to understand previous work we have to unlearn our current science and try to immerse ourselves in the overturned world-view.
• However, there’s an exception of this when mathematics is concerned. A contemporary mathematicians does not have to do much (if any) conceptual retooling in order to read and admire Euclid’s Elements.
• Plato stands at the head of a long tradition in philosophy sometimes called rationalism or ‘Platonism’