Borges and the two Platos
Keywords:
Zeno, Heraclitus, Forms, qualityAbstract
Some specialists consider Plato’s philosophy to be a static and rigid system, while others – a minority, yet with irrefutable arguments – interpret it as a dynamic process that allows us to separate a “first Plato” from a “second Plato.” In his early references to the philosopher, Borges sides with the first group and does not hesitate to describe Platonic Forms as “rigid archetypes.” However in the reissue of certain texts some thirty years later, he discovers – like a true specialist – the existence of a “second Plato” and exclaims: “I don’t know how I could compare Plato’s forms to ‘immobile museum pieces’ and how I failed to understand [...] that they are alive, powerful, and organic.
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