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The Platonic Tradition and the Heideggerian Humanism of Ernesto Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2015 Dwelling Poetically, Proceeding Orphically: The Platonic Tradition and the Heideggerian Humanism of Ernesto Grassi Geoffrey Alexander Leeves Bain Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Bain, Geoffrey Alexander Leeves, "Dwelling Poetically, Proceeding Orphically: The lP atonic Tradition and the Heideggerian Humanism of Ernesto Grassi" (2015). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2768. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2768 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. DWELLING POETICALLY, PROCEEDING ORPHICALLY: THE PLATONIC TRADITION AND THE HEIDEGGERIAN HUMANISM OF ERNESTO GRASSI A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Interdepartmental Program in Comparative Literature by Geoffrey Alexander Leeves Bain B.A., Louisiana State University, 2006 M.A., University of Kentucky, 2008 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2011 M.A., Notre Dame Seminary, 2013 May 2015 To my wife, Emily, who has suffered so much stress, anxiety and grief over the composition of this work and whose joy at its completion may surpass even my own. You are a true wise, willful and wonderful woman (and wife). ii Acknowledgements Without the patience and assistance of my committee, this dissertation would have been entirely impossible. To my director, Dr. Greg Stone, for introducing me to the works of Ernesto Grassi and therefore without whom this dissertation would quite literally have been completely impossible. To Dr. Adelaide Russo for her kindness, dedication to the students in the program and most of all for her unwavering confidence in our ability to succeed. I am quite convinced that you believe in all of us much more than we believe in ourselves. To Dr. Willie Major for first initiating me into the world of Greek language and literature a decade ago. It has quite literally changed my entire life. To Dr. Ed Henderson who has been a mentor and a friend through the rough terrain of philosophy—especially where it intersects the theological—and endured with me on this study, despite his retirement, which removed from Louisiana State University such a wonderful and warm presence in the classroom. Finally, among the faculty, I would like to give a special acknowledgement to Dr. Ian Crystal who served as the Dean’s Representative during my general exams but subsequently tragically passed away, far too young. Dr. Crystal provided me with my first formal instruction in philosophy and was my companion through the sea of the Presocratics, Plato and the Hellenistic philosophers for many years. He is sorely missed. Outside of the faculty, I would like to give a special thanks and acknowledgement to my wife, who helped me with this dissertation in ways which are too numerous to count; to Ryan Carruth, who assisted me in the editing process (though, of course, all remaining errors are entirely my own); and to my mother, without whose assistance with my young daughter this composition would have been completely impossible. Finally, I would like to thank my father for inspiring me with a life long desire for learning and a critical stance towards the world. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………...iii Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………..v Introduction: The Danger of Technological Thinking and Its Alleged Platonic Roots……………………....1 Chapter One: Humanism and Its Interpreters……………………………………………………………….19 Chapter Two The Humanist Plato…………………………………………………………………………..60 Chapter Three Neoplatonism Against Metaphysics………………………………………………………….98 Chapter Four Christian Neoplatonism and the Oblivion of Being………………………………………...120 Chapter Five Marsilio Ficino, the Humanists and Proceeding Orphically……………………………..…148 Conclusion Platonism, Humanism and the Overcoming of Technological Thinking…………………...172 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………177 Vita………………………………………………………………………………………….186 iv Abstract Martin Heidegger exerted an immense influence over twentieth century thought by providing profound insights into the nature of Being as well as scathing social critiques, focused on the destructive force of late modern technological reductionism. As part of Heidegger’s project, he elaborated upon a sophisticated history of Being in which two great monsters of Platonism and Humanism are cast as Antichrist and False Prophet. Subsequently, however, his own student Ernesto Grassi argued that Renaissance Humanism was not a stepping stone towards subjectivism and technological thinking, but rather stood in conformity with the fundamental essence of Heidegger’s own project. This study seeks to perform the same service for the much maligned history of Platonic thinking. After reviewing the important details of the positions held by Heidegger and Grassi in the Introduction and Chapter One, I move on to an examination of the history of the interpretation of Plato in Chapter Two. Here I show that, when we approach Plato correctly, his thought conforms to insights later offered by Heidegger and Grassi. In the remaining chapters of the study, I demonstrate that this misunderstanding afflicts not only Plato himself, but it has also affected the interpretation of the entire Neoplatonic tradition. Thus, in Chapter Three, I show that Plotinus receives and expands upon the core insights which Plato possessed, and that Platonism’s role in the development of technological enframing has been gravely mistaken. In Chapter Four, I show how the later integration of Neoplatonic thought into some of the greatest Christian Platonists did nothing to eliminate these core insights of the Platonic tradition. Finally, in Chapter Five, I show that Marsilio Ficino, the Platonist painted by Grassi as the arch-villain who undermined the Heideggerian project of the Renaissance continued to maintain the fundamental insights of the Platonic tradition. v Ultimately, therefore, Platonism, far from being the foundation of technological enframing in the modern era, is able to offer great assistance to the Heideggerian-Grassian project of renewing poetic and rhetorical speech as the foundation of philosophical thinking. vi Introduction The Danger of Technological Thinking and Its Alleged Platonic Roots On April 3, 1996, officers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation descended upon the cabin of Theodore Kaczynski and uncovered 40,000 pages of handwritten journals, bomb components, a live explosive and the original typed manuscript of Kaczynski's manifesto, "Industrial Society and Its Future." This event would mark the end of Kaczynski's seventeen year campaign of terror in which he killed three people and wounded twenty-three others with homemade bombs. What could drive this man—brilliant mathematician, educated at Harvard and the University of Michigan, and the youngest ever appointed professor at the University of California at Berkeley—to retreat to the wilds of Montana and begin such a murderous rampage?1 According to Kaczynski's own words in "Industrial Society and Its Future,"2 the primary motivation for the bombing campaign was to initiate a revolution to bring about the collapse of the "industrial technological system" because it had caused a monumental reduction in the autonomy of persons by absorbing them into "leftish" collectivist ideologies. In particular, as part of his extensive critique of modern, technological culture he claimed "[i]n the future, social systems will not be adjusted to suit the needs of human beings. Instead, human beings will be adjusted to suit the needs of the system" (Kaczynski 85). To avoid this calamity, Kaczynski argued that it was necessary to launch a full-scale revolution against the weaknesses of industrial technological society and utterly destroy it, because, in his view, no part of the system can be 1 This question is not meant to direct us towards the life events of Theodore Kaczynski that contributed to directing his mind towards the conclusions at which he arrived, but rather the reasons themselves which he expressed. For more information on the biographical and psychological causes of Kaczynski's activity see Alston Chase, A Mind for Murder: The Education of the Unabomber and the Origins of Modern Terrorism. 2 All citations from "Industrial Society and Its Future" are taken from the edition of Kaczynski's essays found in the volume Technological Slavery: The Collected Writings of Theodore J. Kaczysnki, a.k.a. "The Unabomber." 1 redeemed because all its components are interconnected (74). As such, he sought for a band of revolutionaries with this singular cause in mind—the destruction of the technological world, by any means necessary (102). Kaczynski, however, is hardly the only person to make an observation about the negative effects of industrial and technological society on humanity. While he was on trial for his campaign of bombings, he was approached and befriended by the anarchist philosopher John Zerzan. While Zerzan did not actively advocate
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