An Observation

[sdi]

Thomas Taylor is the kind of person whose footnotes have footnotes.

Comments

[temporaryreality]

Yes! I read his footnotes and I think "Oh gosh, who do I need to read to be able to know what he's talking about?" I'm working through his version of Sallust and I sense there's a whole tradition and subtext I need to be familiar with to even know what's meant by basic words like soul, opinion, intellect, providence... because what I think those words mean isn't necessarily what they mean.

[sdi]

About a year ago, boccaderlupo recommended On the Gods and the World to me as an introduction to Neoplatonism, and I had the exact same reaction you're having now! It's all so simple and logical until you realize that you don't have any idea what the basic cultural assumptions of the people Sallust is speaking to, are! (Hell, I don't even know the basic cultural assumptions of our time and place are! Trying to understand the assumptions of a culture distantly removed in time and space seems almost insurmountable!)

This is ultimately the trouble with books: that they're not interactive. I can't keep asking questions ad nauseam to tease apart the knot. Still, with no sane people left in the world (myself included), books seem to be what we're left with, and therefore I'm more than happy to wrap myself up in deeply nested footnotes, like a blanket.

[temporaryreality]

Right? It *is* all so nested in matroyshkas of words and works, and prior references and conversations the authors had, even with authors whose works are no longer available to us...

I am very aware that I'm hardly capable of it, so I just read and reread and figure that even a rain drop can carry a bit off a boulder to puddle in a faint dimpled crevice and make a place for lichen to grow.

I'll just be a raindrop and maybe something will enter solution.

[sdi]

I sympathize!

One of the few pieces of good advice I was given during my fundamentalist upbringing was, "Your job is not to get from A to Z. Your job is to get from C to D." That is to say, take it one step at a time.

Taylor himself says well in preface, too,

I have before observed, that this little work was composed by its author with a view of benefiting a middle class of mankind, whose souls are neither incurable, nor yet capable of ascending through philosophy to the summit of human attainments: but in order to understand this distinction properly, it is necessary to inform the reader, that human souls may be distributed into three ranks; into such as live a life pure and impassive when compared with the multitude; into such as are neither wholly pure nor yet perfectly impure; and into such as are profoundly impure. Souls of the first class, which are consequently the fewest in number, may be called divine souls, heroes and demigods, and when invested with a terrene body, form such men as Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Proclus, &c., were of old: souls of this kind, not only descend into mortality in consequence of that necessity by which all human souls are at times drawn down to the earth, but for the benevolent purpose of benefiting such as are of an inferior class; they likewise easily recover a remembrance of their pristine state, and, in consequence of this, descend no farther than to the earth. But souls of the middle class, for whom the book of Sallust is designed, in consequence of becoming vitiated and defiled, though not in an incurable degree, are incapable of acquiring in the present life philosophic perfection and purity, and are with great difficulty, and even scarcely able to ascend, after long periods, to the beatific vision of the intelligible world. But souls of the third class, are such as, from their profound impurity, and from having drank immoderately deep of oblivion, may be considered as abiding perpetually in life, as in the dark regions of Tartarus, from which, through having lost all freedom of the will, they can never emerge.

If we are not eminently capable, at least neither are we so depraved as to not try!

[boccaderlupo]

To be sure, I know what these terms mean to me, but temporaryreality and you bring up a salient point: many times these philosophers are using technical terms that may have niche connotations lost on you or I.

At the same time, I suspect Sallustius was not necessarily writing for the technical philosopher but rather for the pagan layperson with some education (not that this necessarily helps much, given the gulf of time and culture...)

It's enough for me that I feel like I get what he is saying. My fatal flaw, I suppose...:)

Axé

[sdi]

I think that's fair. For my part, when reading it, I felt totally lost! Maybe I should just write up my list of things I felt lost on and post them? Any dialogue may be of interest...

[boccaderlupo]

Indeed! That might be edifying for all of us--raising questions, perhaps, that I was not even aware of that were lurking in the background.

For what it's worth, I have the translation by Arthur Darby Nock, which contains a lot of useful references (perhaps not as dense as Taylor's.)

I also have to give plugs for Iamblichus (On the Mysteries, especially for you diviners out there) and Proclus here (especially Elements of Theology), and of course Plato's Timaeus, which I think are useful background material, as well. Plotinus of course has the Enneads, but...well, our time in these incarnations is limited.

Axé

[sdi]

Great! I was going to do another pass over Sallust shortly, anyway, so maybe I'll hop to it and get some discussion threads going here...

[barefootwisdom]

For Taylor in particular, this little glossary may be helpful: https://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/html/glossary.html

Or it may just push the problem back a level... :)

[barefootwisdom]

(I meant to post this under the matroyshkas. Whoops.)

[boccaderlupo]

This is very useful, and underscores how we are delving into technical terminology ("participation" gets quite a workout, but I remain impressed at how ecosophia managed to deftly incorporate that one in his recent definition of magic (I believe on the other blog). These terms are encountered throughout the Neoplatonist literature, to boot.

Axé

[sdi]

Thank you! At a glance, I'm lost—but I imagine it'll help a lot as I proceed.