[Buddha-l] The Buddha, an 'emotional weakling'?

[curt]

I dragged Bloom in because he is much more widely recognized and his 
ideas are more "mainstream" than Hospers'. But Bloom, like Hospers, is a 
conservative political ideologue and he is treated as such by his 
supporters and his critics alike. There is no demonization involved in 
pointing this out. Having a political perspective is essential for 
anyone who "thinks big" - as Bloom and Hospers do. The idea that one can 
make sweeping analyses of cultures and societies without some kind of 
ideological basis is just a cover used by people who want you to believe 
that their particular ideology is the only "rational" one - so they are 
not being ideological, merely "rational".

Cornfield's translation of the Republic is actually very good. Of course 
if you want something better you can use Thomas Taylor's translation, 
which also includes almost all of Proclus' commentary. Taylor's 
translations are painfully literal - and his English is 200 years old so 
it sounds funny. Robin Waterfield also has a relatively recent 
translation (1998), which I haven't read - but I enjoyed his translation 
of the Gorgias very much, and my favorite living classicist, Julia 
Annas, says that Waterfield's is "certainly the best translation of the 
Republic available."

And speaking of classicism and ideology, there is a very nice book on 
Plato's Republic from a Marxist perspective that people might be 
interested in. Its by Sean Sayers - who not only defends Plato's 
"utopianism" and "coummunitarianism" but also provides a Marxist defense 
of the theory of forms! (see 
http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/ss/plato.htm)

- Curt

Dan Lusthaus wrote:
> Curt wrote:
>
>   
>> People like Hospers and Alan Bloom
>> specialize in anachronistic misrepresentations of classical philosophy
>> and literature to promote and support contemporary right-wing
>> intellectual fads and fancies.
>>     
>
> How did Bloom get dragged into this? What's true about Bloom is that very
> left-leaning unreflective self-styled philosophers united in demonizing him
> some decades ago, because he addressed contemporary political and ethical
> issues using *contemporary* philosophical tools, promoting a thinking
> conservative (there is such a thing whether one agrees with that position or
> not) perspective. The appropriate response (by a Buddhist criterion) for
> those who disagree and deem themselves philosophical would be to engage his
> arguments, rather than demonize the man. As it turns out, his translation
> (with copious annotations) of Plato's Republic is probably the best -- and
> most accurate -- English rendering we have of any of Plato's work. Blows
> Jowett, Cornfeld, et al., out of the water. It is only incidental to note
> that the folks who attack Bloom would also be very uncomfortable with
> Plato's political theories (that is not something that Bloom himself
> stressed at all).
>
> As this list illustrated awhile back, the same types who condemn Bloom for
> his politics despite his superior scholarship, are likely to be eager to
> make excuses for real right-wing 20th century Zen masters, who were real
> anti-semitic fascists (in the true, not merely derogatory sense of those
> terms). I guess if you shave your head you can get away with it. What's
> wrong with that picture?
>
> Dan Lusthaus
>
>
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