Here are a few posts that you can look forward to over the coming weeks/months:
1. A continuation of my introduction to Mimetic Theory, including the following topics: the gospel unmasking of sacrificial myths, the apocalyptic situation that results from this unmasking, the notion of “structural innocence”, the “interdividual” status of human beings, the mimetic origins of occult phenomena, hominization and the birth of meaning, and other things that may occur to me.
2. A study of the “mediation of meaning” in Peirce, Girard and Plato/Aristotle. This will compare the notions of triangular desire, the semiotic triangle and Greek notions of friendship (philia) as pointing to the same phenomenon — the mimetic origins of meaning itself in human beings.
3. A reading of the building of the City in Speech in Republic, Books II – IV and its importance in understanding the strategy and structure of the Republic as a whole.
4. A multi-part analysis of the Divided Line analogy in Republic, Book VI, which I interpret to be the ruling image of the Republic itself.
5. A discussion of the definition of justice (dikaiosyne) in Book IV as “minding one’s own business,” its opposite in “meddling in too many affairs” (polypragmosyne) and how both of these definitions are to be understood from the standpoint of both political and cognitional theory.
6. An interpretation of the role that Form (eidos, idea) plays in Platonic epistemology. I will argue that the usual critiques of the notion are faulty and that Aristotle’s criticisms miss the point if applied to Plato’s use of the term but have merit if applied to the vulgar Platonist notion.
7. A discussion of R. G. Collingwood’s “Logic of Question and Answer” and how it applies to the proper interpretation of Plato. A further exploration of the status and important of questions in Socratic method.
8. A explanation of why true opinion is not knowledge.
shared ignorance 