Overview
Parmenides, Empedocles, and Heraclitus each offer a description of mortal awareness and diagnose it as lacking: mortals are described as deaf and blind, wandering in a daze, totally convinced by whatever they happen to bump into, like leaves on the wind, etc. In this assignment, think carefully about the specific flaws that these philosophers suggest when it comes to mortal thinking. How are each of these philosophers attempting to demonstrate that we might practice a different kind of awareness than our usual habitual awareness?
Your paper should discuss these questions in the context of each of our three philosophical readings. It is ok to spend more time on Parmenides in your paper since we studied Parmenides in more detail in class, but make sure that you address all three philosophical texts thoroughly in your response.
Parmenides: the ‘third way’ describes mortal awareness in vivid (and mocking) detail—why are mortals “twin heads knowing nothing”? How is amechania (‘helplessness’) ‘steering’ their ‘wandering minds’? How does habit ‘force’ mortals, and how might persuasion be a better route to truth? Why is metis important in creating a new kind of awareness that moves beyond mortal habits of thinking in opposites? Why do we have to learn the doxa along with the truth in order to understand ‘it’?
Empedocles: Think about how Empedocles describes mortal awareness: “palms—so narrow and closed in—have been poured over people’s limbs. But countless worthless things keep crashing in” and explain why mortals are “totally persuaded by whatever each of them happened to bump into while being driven one way, another way, all over the place.” Why does the student have to ‘come aside’ to learn how to become more aware? How can anyone escape the deception of Aphrodite, who mixes this mortal world? Why is metis necessary to learn Empedocles’ teaching? What practices for becoming more attentive to our senses does Empedocles suggest?
Heraclitus: How does Heraclitus describe mortal awareness? Why does Heraclitus say he will tell us the logos but we still won’t understand it even after we have heard it? How do human beings fail to grasp what is obvious (like the Logos)? How does Heraclitus challenge us to think differently about opposites? How does Heraclitus describe psyche, and how might we use psyche and experience the ‘increase’ of its logos? How is psyche limitless?