This is topic help me figure out the name of this philosopher! in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Toretha (Member # 2233) on :
 
No, not for class work, just started thinking about the ideas and am being driven nuts by not having a name to put to them. He had this depressing idea that everyone was controlled by their desires and the only way to escape this control was in aesthetics or by living a life completely denying all pleasure except aesthetic pleasures. Ideas? anyone?
 

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Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
 
Apostrophes?
 

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Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
 
*thwap*

I remember learning 'bout this. It could be Plato, but I'm not sure it's platonic. Crap.

I KNOW it's a greek philosopher.
 

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Posted by Toretha (Member # 2233) on :
 
No, it isn't we covered the greeks really early, and I can remember all their names. It was someone we covered around the time we covered Heidegger, Kant and Kierkegaard. And it was someone who believed in God.
 

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Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
 
It's Aristotle. And it would've started with the ancient greeks and later philosophers went from there.
 

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Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
 
Schopenhauer?
 

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Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 
Actually that is a theme that is fairly constant throughout a lot of philosophers (Eastern and Western) over a lot of ages, so its hard to say for sure who you're thinking of. But if I had to guess...

Is it possible you're thinking of Spinoza?
 

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Posted by Toretha (Member # 2233) on :
 
Zal, YES, thank you! that's it! *hugs*

and thanks, to all of yall for helping me in my crazy quest for a name
 

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Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
 
Not an exact fit, but seems to be in the right direction:

quote:

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Schopenhauer's violence-filled vision of the daily world leads him on a quest for tranquillity, and he pursues this end by retracing the path through which the will is objectified. Schopenhauer discovers more peaceful states of mind by directing his everyday, practically-oriented consciousness towards more extraordinary, universal and less-individuated states of mind, since he believes that the violence that a person experiences, is proportional to the degree to which that person's consciousness is individuated and objectifying. He believes that with less individuation and objectification, there is less conflict, less pain and more peace.
One way to achieve a more tranquil state of consciousness, according to Schopenhauer, is through aesthetic perception. This is a special state of perceptual consciousness, where we apprehend some spatio-temporal object and discern through this object, the Platonic Idea that corresponds to the type of object in question. In this special form of perception, Schopenhauer maintains, we lose ourselves in the object, we forget about our individuality, and we become the clear mirror of the object. For example, through the aesthetic perception of an individual tree, we perceive shining through it, the archetype of all trees (i.e., the Ur-phenomenon, as Goethe would describe it).

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