Jay Dyer
21st Century Wire
In this talk I dive into an overview of the Enneads of Plotinus. We consider its similarity with the rest of so-called ‘perennial philosophy’ and how this doctrine is not compatible with biblical theology and why Augustine was influenced by it in his filioquism.
In this half talk for free, I detail the 8th book of Plato’s Republic where Socrates describes the degeneration of the ideal city into oligarchy, democracy and chaos. Included in book 8 is the esoteric doctrine of the Pythagorean number of man, based in the cosmology of the Timaeus. Included is an explanation of the metallurgical analogy and the relation to Homer and Achilles’ Shield (in the full talk for paid subscribers).
In Book VI of the Republic we begin to discover the deeper metaphysics of Plato, where geometry and mathematics provide the means by which the truth of the higher realms can be seen by analogy. Socrates engages in a bitter critique of the sophists and their pseudo-philosophy of crowd-pleasing and beastly, herd-like nonsense, lacking any real philosophical education. Rather, the true philosopher is spoken of as grasping the Noetic Light of the Good, the true Sun of the Intelligible realm.
