It's been a while since I wrote on a pedantic topic, so here's part I of my Logos series...
The Greek word logos (Gk. λόγος) is normally translated into English as word but also includes "reason", "thought", "principle" or "standard".
Plato's understanding of the universe was that our "world" was an illusion: shadows flung against the wall of a cave. We interpret the shadows as real because we know nothing else. However, Plato argued, something real must be creating those shadows. These "real things" were called "the forms" and are perfect. When we, as humans, attempt to create perfection, we are reaching beyond our imperfect world in order to copy "the form" of some intangible perfect thing. The closer an object matches its form, the better and more functional the object is: hence a chair with only two legs is less perfect than a chair with four legs.
At the top of the hierarchy was something even less tangible, called the "Unmoved Mover". The Unmoved Mover was the first cause of everything in the universe--its anima. It is without time, for there can be nothing before or after the Unmoved Mover. It is made out of pure material, indivsible into more elemental components. This was the philosophical equivalent of God.
Aristotle broke from Plato, his teacher, in some ways. He tried to ground the Unmoved Mover and changed the name of it to logos or logic as being the prime mover of the universe. This is why Aristotle is called the "Father of Logic."
7 years ago
4 comments:
logos is also sometimes translated as 'breath."
also, i'm interested in your use of the word "anima," as i've (up to now) only encountered it in its Jungian form, or as a name for soul matter. (i.e. dictionary.com: an·i·ma P Pronunciation Key (n-m)
n.
The inner self of an individual; the soul.
In Jungian psychology:
The unconscious or true inner self of an individual, as opposed to the persona, or outer aspect of the personality.
The feminine inner personality, as present in the unconscious of the male. It is in contrast to the animus, which represents masculine characteristics.)
In any case, I've not run into it as a synonym for God or the "Unmoved Mover" and maybe this is just because I have not read enough Aristotle.
Still, if soul matter is essentially God, I guess I'd agree with that.
oh, my point was...where are you reading about this? can you point me to a good essay?
Most of it is just remembered from my Philosophy 101 class in college. Though I did look at Wikipedia for some of it.
I made a mistake, though: Plato didn't call his apex the Unmoved Mover...Aristotle did. Plato called his apex the Idea of the Good. On the subject of Logos -- Plato took Logos to be an living thing: the embodiment of human reason. Aristotle didn't take it this far.
It wasn't until the Stoics that Logos became almost god-like: the animating power of the universe (i.e. anima/oversoul)--the Spermitacos Logos.
References:
The Allegory of the Cave/The Forms:
http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm
The Highest Good:
http://www.bartleby.com/65/pl/Plato.html
Stoics:
http://www.answers.com/topic/logos
Animating power:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos
Unmoved mover:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover
To see this other definition of "anima" where it combines the universal with the invididual, you can find it in Encyclopedia.com:
Lat. anima mundi, in philosophy, term denoting a universal spirit or soul that functions as an organizing principle. While many early Greek philosophers saw the world as of one principle, Plato was the first to state that this concept held the same relation to the world as the human soul did to the body...
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