Metaxy
Metaxy (μεταξύ) as defined from Plato's Symposium, via the character Priestess Diotima, is the "in-between". Metaxy or metaxi is defined as the "in-between" or "middle ground" were as Diotima as the tutor to Socrates uses the term to show how oral tradition can be perceived by different people in different ways. In her depiction in the poem by Socrates showing that Eros was not an extreme or purity. That Eros as a daimon was in-between the divine Gods and mankind. Thus showing the flaws of the oral tradition in its use of contrast to express the truth showing oral tradition's weakness to sophistry. Pointing to the idea that reality is perceptive though ones character which includes ones desires and prejudges and ones limited understanding of logic. That man moves through the world of becoming or the ever changing world of sensory perception into the world of being which is the world of forms, absolutes and transcendence. Man transcends his place in the becoming by eros, were man reaches the Highest Good, an intuitive and mystical state of consciousness. Neoplatonists like Plotinus later used the term to express an ontological placement of Man between the Gods and animals.[1] Much like Diotima did in expressing that Eros as daemon was in-between the Gods and mankind.
Modern Use
Other Philosophers like political philosopher Eric Voegelin used the term to mean the permanent place where man is in-between two poles of existence. Such as the infinite (Apeiron) and the finite (the divine mind or Nous) reality of existence or between the beginning of existence (Aperion) and the Beyond existence (epekeina). As a technical usage Voegelin defined Metaxy as the connection of the mind or nous to the material world and the reverse of the material world's connection to the mind as "consciousness of being". Under Voegelin it can also be interpreted to mean a form of perception in contrast to consciousness a template of the mind (or nous) in contrast to the dynamic and unordered flow of experiential consciousness. As a form of reflectiveness in-between two poles of experience (finite and the infinite or immanent and transcendent). The whole of existence being expressed as the cosmos. The Metaxy being man's connection to the material world this as the ground of being.[2] Voegelin taught that those who sought political power for its own end were sophists and those whom where seeking meaning and truth in life or union with the knowable and true, were philosophers. Each position manifesting a different view to Plato's becoming and being and again the in-between each of these poles of experience is metaxy.
See also
- phronesis
- tertiary symbols
- daimonios aner
- philosophy of consciousness
- Transfinite
- Becoming
- sobornost
References
- ^ Rise and Decline of the Roman World By Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang Haase pg 706 Text Enneads 3, Verse 8 line 4 "But humanity, in reality, is poised midway between gods and beasts, and inclines now to the one order, now to the other; some men grow like to the divine, others to the brute, the greater number stand neutral."
- ^ Eric Voegelin, “Reason: The Classic Experience,” in Voegelin, Published Essays, 1966-1985, vol. 12 of The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 289-90; Order and History, Volume IV: The Ecumenic Age, vol. 17 of The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, ed. Michael Franz (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2000), 408.
Bibliography
- Navia, Luis E., Socrates, the man and his philosophy, pp. 30, 171. University Press of America ISBN 0-8191-4854-7.
- Cooper, John M. & Hutchinson, D. S. (Eds.) (1997). Plato: Complete Works, Hackett Publishing Co., Inc. ISBN 0-87220-349-2.
- Micael P. Federici, Eric Voegelin The Restoration of Order (2002) ISI Books ISBN 1-882926-74-9
