| Challenging prevalent contemporary assumptions, Ian Leask
argues that Platonism is not nascent Hegelianism, but is, instead,
a 'philosophy of finitude', an open-ended Way oriented towards
a divine goal beyond logos or any metaphysical structure.
While post-Heideggerian thought may see ancient Platonism as
a kind of alpha to Hegel's omega, Leask stresses fundamental
distinctions: Plato and Plotinus, he shows, direct their intellectual
effort towards a supra-intellectual goal, beyond Being; by contrast,
Hegel's deep-rooted Hobbesianism sees him absolutize volitional
subjectivity and strive to overcome any 'divine otherness'.
Accordingly, Leask argues, presenting ancient Platonism as 'Hegelian'
involves hermeneutical violence which provides inverted 'confirmation'
of Hegel's own, hermeneutically violent account. Liberated from
both Hegelian and inverted Hegelian 'narratives' of Western
thought, Leask goes on to suggest that a modern instantiation
of Platonism (qua finitude) can indeed be found within
'German Idealism' - or, rather, within its Schellingian immanent
self-critique. Thus, he concludes, it not Hegel's onto-theology,
but, instead, the later Schelling's 'consititutive incompletion'
and non-totalizing recognition of a divinity beyond Being that
is properly Platonic. |
| By providing a more nuanced approach to the so-called Tradition
- refusing to accept either Hegel's self-serving account of
'Platonism' or the (equally totalizing) post-Heideggerian inversion
of this narative - Leask demonstrates the continued relevance
of a genuine, 'finite' Platonism. |
| Ian Leask teaches in the Department of Scholastic Philosophy
at the Queen's University of Belfast. |
|
