The Classical Review | 2021
QUESTIONS OF THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS
Abstract
defended with so much zeal nowadays, is, perhaps, more dominant wherever Western culture has been influenced by Protestant Christianity, because the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, at least in principle, if not in actual teaching and practice, attempted to hold on to the ancient view of Christian doctrine as vera et divina philosophia (cf. Augustine, Ep. 2.1). G. points out that in our times Platonism survives almost only within the religious, mostly Christian, context and tries to claim back the intelligible world as a rightful domain of philosophy. Thus, he questions the current orthodoxy, which pronounces – following in the wake of a certain madman who was once reported to have cried that God had been killed – that metaphysics is dead too. We are told that we are better off to leave the study of reality to specialists like Stephen Hawking or Richard Dawkins, who, far from smashing their lanterns on the ground, seem quite confident that philosophy has simply not much to offer any more. Brilliant as those scientists proved to be in their particular fields, they have displayed surprisingly little understanding of what philosophy has always been and still (possibly) is. G.’s work can be seen from this point of view as belonging to a wider intellectual movement, represented by such philosophers as David Bentley Hart (The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss [2013]), Edward Feser (Five Proofs of the Existence of God [2017]) and Thomas Nagel (Mind and Cosmos [2012]), which questions the rationality and consistency of contemporary Naturalism. Given the limited space of this review, I have not focused on the weak points of this great book. I am sure there are many other readers who will find time and place to criticise G. not only for ‘Thomizing Plotinus’ (as has already been done: D.L. Ross, ‘Thomizing Plotinus. A Critique of Professor Gerson’, Phronesis 41 [1996], 197–204), but perhaps also for ‘Platonising Aristotle’ and ‘Plotinising Plato’. As one particular blind spot, however, I would point out leaving aside the whole dimension of contemplation and spiritual exercises. G.’s view of Platonism is and has always been quite scientific and dry in that he downplays the importance of the direct experience of the intelligible world and its transformative and healing power as well as of the spiritual practices designed through the ages to access and cultivate this experience. But since the monograph is (as I confess to hope in a completely groundless bout of optimism) only an avant-garde of the new phase of philosophy’s self-understanding, what remains to be studied is not only the relationship between Platonism and the three Abrahamic religions or the contemporary natural sciences, but also the exquisite richness of Platonism as a practical way of life.