What we have learned since Plato is that general ideas are tools for practical purposes, purposes which are forgotten as time goes by, but that particular images survive. Nowadays we can do better in the way of moral ideals, social arrangements, and human beings than Homer imagined. As Nabokov puts it, "In the imaginary battle of [homo] americus versus [homo] homericus, the first wins humanity's prize." But Homer survives because his images survive. Boys who adopt Achilles' ethic ("always outdo the others") are just boring bullies, but certain Homeric epithets still make their quieter classmates tingle. … The question of retirement to a Sabine farm has gone stale, but we bow toward Horace whenever we describe a passage as purple. Plato himself, though generally wrong about general ideas, survives as the first white magus. He is the enchanter who spun the first strands of that web of metaphor which Derrida calls the West's "white mythology."
Plato himself, though generally wrong about general ideas, survives as the first white magus. He is the enchanter who spun the first strands of that web of metaphor which Derrida calls the West's "white mythology."
CIS p.151
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Derrida