Life as a process is the pole of flux and becoming; it can be lived, but not known. Forms is stable and has structure; it is the pole of being and is intelligible. Life experience expresses that there are many Worlds that serve the individual. Neither Being nor Becoming, neither the One nor the Many, holds exclusive sway. The tension between the poles of these antitheses is a permanent feature of the World. Knowledge, art, religion, value, and philosophy are among the important forms (or World forms) by which humans have shaped the realm of contents. Reality, too, is only one such form and enjoys no privileged status; the objects of reality constitute the World of practice—those objects which we perceive and manipulate in our daily lives. There are other forms and other Worlds, however; one of these tasks of the philosopher is to distinguish and analyze them. In virtue of this productiveness of human life, one begins to learn that life is more-than-life. These products constitute the realm of culture and include not only works of science, history, and art, but social and political institutions and religious theories and practices as well. These objects stand in a twofold relationship to human life: their genesis lies in human experience and, once in existence, they are independently subject to being experienced in various ways. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7

If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. Experience is formative; to see how form arises thus requires an understanding of the natural history of experience. There is a stage in human life in which all needs are instantly satisfied, in which there is no gap between desire and fulfillment. Such a stage of life would be prior to experience (the act of living) and hence prior to any differentiation of subject and object, there would neither be self nor sugar, but only sweetness. However, the World is clearly not so organized that life could actually be lived in this way, and in the gap between need and fulfillment both experience and form are born. In becoming conscious, we distinguish between ourselves as subject and that which we experience as objects. Experience, however, is not all of a piece: we gain knowledge in in different modes. It is one thing to know an object, another thing to appreciate it as beautiful, and still another to revere it as an object of worship. Just because people are exposed to the same stimuli, does not mean they will share the same visions, feelings, and emotions. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7

For the most part, humans act to fulfill their needs. Their experience gives shape to contents only to the extent to which the immediate requirements of a situation demand it. Terminus a quo (the origin) and terminus as quem (the goal) of objects produced by ordinary experience—of whatever mode—remain within the biography of the individual producing them. As a result of this subservience to the needs of individuals, form in ordinary experience is not pure, and the objects that are produced in this way are not yet properly the objects of culture. As along as life sets the goals of action (characteristic of the phase of life is called teleological or pragmatic), knowledge is tentative and limited—not yet science; art is homespun and primitive—not yet fully aesthetic; religion is simple and sporadic—not yet embodied in a theology and in institutions. The form is proto-form (unspecified, free-flowing, metallic matter layered over basic robotic systems) and objects are proto-culture (the passing of behaviours from one generation to another). God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose. All your circumstances are in the hands of God. We know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit, but we do not often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prayers in us which we cannot utter to ourselves. God searches your heart to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7

However, the bonds of the teleology of life can be broken. The terminus ad quem of human’s actions need not reside within their lives: they can act for the sake of a form, a type of free action. Instead of knowing for the sake of acting, some humans act in order to know; instead of seeing for the sake of living, some humans—artists—live in order to see. In acting for the sake of a form, experience relevant form is refined; the structure inchoate in ordinary experience is made explicit and worked out. Form proper is born and the objects of culture are produces. Academcea was the name of a public park, equipped with a gymnasium and lecture facilities, located about a mile northwest of Dipylon Gate of ancient Athens. There, probably shortly after 387 Before Christ, Plato bought a house and estate and began to teach, so successfully that his school dominated the facilities of the area, was named after the park, and continued until Justinian’s closure of the pagan schools of philosophy. Plato’s life began some thirty years before the end of the fifth century Before Christ, and ended soon after the middle of the fourth century. Plato died in 347 Before Christ at the age of about 81. He never married. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7

 Plato came from an aristocratic and wealthy family, several members of which has been politically prominent on the anti-democratic side. The victory of the democratic cause left Plato and his surviving relatives without political influence or prospects. Plato’s attitude toward the leaders of the democracy—that is, the demagogues—is what could be expected. The account in Letter VII of frustration of Plato’s political ideals and ambitions is likely to be true in substance. Plato certainly saw military service in the war against Sparta. It is probable that he belonged to the cavalry. He was a close associate of Socrates, anyhow during the last few years of Socrates’ life, which ended when Plato was about 31. The story is quite likely true that after the execution of Socrates (allegedly for witchcraft and corrupting the youth by failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges and introducing new gods) Plato and others’ of Socrates’ circle found it politically expedient to take refuge in Megara, where Euclides seems to have had some sort of school. Plato’s school was very important. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7

Aristotle, who was 37 when Plato died, had belonged to the Academy for the last twenty years of Plato’s life. Yet in his voluminous writings that have come down to us there is next to no personal information about Plato. No one knows much about his personal life. Certainly Aristotle’s lectures would not have been thought the proper places for casual anecdote or personal gossip; but we search them equally vainly for reports of Plato’s replies to objections or of his developments or revisions of his earlier idea. Hardly one whisper of the tutorial voice of Plato is relayed to us by Aristotle, even on philosophical matters. The Christian worker must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. When we preach the historical scriptures and facts of life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred. God uses these words, on the basis of His redemption, to create something in those who listen which otherwise could never have been created. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7

 The orator Isocrates lived in Athens for nearly a hundred years. Though he was born before Plato and outlived him, in his orations he never mentions by name Plato or the Academy of Speusippus, Xenocrates, Eudoxus, or Aristotle or, for that matter, any contemporary politician or rhetorician. His speeches and letters do contain, however, a number of indubitable anonymous references, as well as many other likely or merely possible references, as well as many other likely or merely possible references to Plato and the Academy and even one or two to Aristotle. These references tend to be acidulated. A careful sifting, especially of his Helen, Busiris, Antidosis, and Panathenaicus, might give us more information about Plato than all that we can cull from Plato’s other contemporaries. Plato had an indefinable sense of largeness about him, and he so radiated vigor and kindliness that any pettiness of thought seemed to fade away beneath his keen gaze. He always made you feel that there was so much of interest in the Universe, so many fascinating things to observe and to think about, that it was a criminal waste of time to indulge in gossip or trivial discussion. He possessed a remarkable kaleidoscopic brain. Plato turns that head of his and these things come out as in a kaleidoscope, in various combinations, most of which penetrate your mind and get you to think.  #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7