Dialogue on the Threshold: Dystheoric and aporetic speculations

05 July 2023

Dystheoric and aporetic speculations

Ὡς γὰρ οἱ ἐν νοσήμασι χρονίοις πρὸς τὰ κοινὰ βοηθήματα καὶ τὰς συνήθεις διαίτας ἀπειπόντες ἐπὶ καθαρμοὺς καὶ περίαπτα καὶ ὀνείρους τρέπονται, οὕτως ἀναγκαῖον ἐν δυσθεωρήτοις καὶ ἀπόροις σκέψεσιν, ὅταν οἱ κοινοὶ καὶ ἔνδοξοι καὶ συνήθεις λόγοι μὴ πείθωσι, πειρᾶσθαι τῶν ἀτοπωτέρων καὶ μὴ καταφρονεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἐπᾴδειν ἀτεχνῶς ἑαυτοῖς τὰ τῶν παλαιῶν καὶ διὰ πάντων τἀληθὲς ἐξελέγχειν·

Plutarch, Moralia 920 b-c

Just as those suffering from chronic diseases give up on the common remedies and the customary regimens and turn to purificatory offerings and periapts and dreams, so too in irreducible and insoluble speculations, when the common and generally accepted and customary arguments are unpersuasive, it is necessary to attempt those that are paradoxical and not to disdain them, but artlessly to repeat to ourselves the magic charms (*) of the ancients and to put the truth to the test by every means.

(*) Cf. Plato, Phaedo 114d, where Socrates, after recounting the eschatological myth of the immortal soul's abodes in the next world, says that it is proper and worthy for the man of sense (νοῦν ἔχων ἀνήρ) to venture to believe such things, and even that he should repeat them to himself like magic charms (χρὴ τὰ τοιαῦτα ὥςπερ ἐπᾴδειν ἑαυτῷ)