It appears in the third paragraph of chapter 1 of Part II of Process and Reality.
"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."
The next three sentences, though, give that one some important context.
"I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systemization, have made his writings an inexhausible mine of suggestions."
It becomes clear that Whitehead is not interested in the overly thoroughly mined Republic and, say, the myth of the cave. He is much more interested in the esoteric Timeaus as a source for suggestions. On the next page, Whitehead is telling us that "the given" is a key datum from Timeaus. Even the most powerful creative being creates from that which is given, that which could have been otherwise.
Why does he find THAT notion so intriguing? I propose to leave that question alone for now and to raise another one. In an earlier post I told you that Whitehead said he takes his chief inspiration from the line of canonical philosophers from Descartes to and including Hume. What does THIS have to do with Plato? Ah, now that I have read a bit of this book I will try to speak to that....
In the same chapter that includes, early on, the above quoted meditation about Plato there is a more sustained discussion of a point in John Locke's philosophy: and here, too, it is not a point one finds in the popularizations. Whitehead praises something Locke wrote about power. Substances have power -- that is how they are distinguished from their mere attributes. This power can be either passive or active, as in "fire has a power to melt gold ... and gold has a power to be melted." Whitehead admires this way of thinking, in which gold and fire are seen as intermeshed by nature.
The idea of power as integral to notions of substance, though, fared poorly at the hands of David Hume. Whitehead pairs Locke and Hume as common sort of duo -- one with an "adequacy" of ideas, the other with a "rigid consistency" in working them through. ["Adequacy" may sound lukewarm, but from Whitehead about Locke it is high praise -- his ideas were adequate to the world he was seeking to describe.] Every trend in philosophy has two great presiding spirits: the champion of adequacy and that of consistency. And generally, as here, the drive to make the ideas of the former consistent leads to some of them getting dropped out of the picture.
Reading Whitehead on Locke versus Hume I had to wonder whether he was reflecting here on his own work with Russell. Can we say that Whitehead was trying to be to Locke of analytical logicism whilst Russell was trying to be the Hume?
At any rate: Whitehead also tells us that he sees Locke as "in British philosophy ... the analogue to Plato".
I wonder, though, if Locke is to be paired with Hume, something like gold and fire in the smelter of history ... who was Plato's Hume? Who subjected Plato's ideas to the demand for rigid consistency? Unbidden, my mind turns to Plotinus.
Everyone has a favorite quote, from one era or another. From one *giant*, or another. My own favorite came from my grandfather, a poor farmer: you DO with what you GOT. Many years later, I added to his simple pronouncement. Try harder. Think better. Do the best you can with what you have and know. Emmett was a simple man. His reality was no more or less than his neighbors.. There was no NEED...
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