We Are All Platonists Now
We are all Platonists about human behaviour, in the sense that we assume that reality cannot be what we see in front of our noses. Consider a person who behaves decently 90% of the time, and badly the remaining 10%; everyone says, pointing to one of the bad things, “Ah, that shows what he is really like.” A social mask? But now consider the case of someone who usually behaves obnoxiously; what we hear is then, “You see, she is really quite nice underneath it all”. The rule of thumb is therefore that whichever pattern is least frequent is the more “real”. “Reality” is per definition concealed beneath a “façade” – good reality underneath a bad façade – or, preferably, a bad reality beneath a good façade, because it is much more fun that way round.
on March 29, 2009 at 21:40
Permalink
Those are fascinating observations!
Perhaps we might consider the possibility that, mask or none, we do not, by and large, have a stable “I”. No?
on March 30, 2009 at 09:41
Permalink
That’s a large question, and a different one. I’m open to the idea that there is no single or coherent “I” — in the Buddhist or the David Hume mode — but the focus of the series will always be more on malicious social interaction than pure philosophy.