Saturday, September 2, 2017

Organicism, Hierarchism, Atomism

In On the Soul,II,1, Aristotle characterizes an Organism as constituted by interdependent Parts.  However, he seems unaware of the profound antithesis to Hierarchism of Organicism--in the former, but not the latter, higher and lower are related as better to worse, but e. g. the brain of an Organism needs the foot just as much as the foot needs the brain.  The conflict is momentous when analogously magnified in the Geocentric writ large Organism , i. e. in the ancient Polis, specifically in the ruler-ruled relation--better-worse vs. interdependence. Now, Aristotle's advocacy of Holism--the priority of Whole over Part--at the outset of the Politics, strongly suggests that the subsequent doctrine is Organicist, but, unfortunately, he neglects any implication of it for Hierarchism.  Consequently, in fateful contrast, the Theological tradition that appropriates Aristotelianism is Hierarchist, and the subsequent Modernity vs. Medieval conflict is that of Egalitarianism vs. Inegalitarianism, with Aristotelianism subsumed under the latter.  Thus completely lost has been that the more fundamental antithesis between Aristotelianism and Modernism is actually that of Organicism vs. Atomism.  On that basis, presumed anti-Modernists, e. g. Strauss, because Atomist, are just as Modernist as the Egalitarianism that they oppose.

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