Eidos and the Art of Perception
Eidos and the Art of Perception
Practice transforms the relation between appearance and reality
“Plato’s metaphysics is no mere ‘theory,’ a postulation of abstract entities called ‘forms,’ but is rather an account of the existential condition of human beings.”
“Seeing, or any mode of awareness, implies not a separation between subject and object but rather a joining, a being-together, of apprehension and reality.”
— Eric Perl
In this newsletter you will read about:
How Plato’s eidos (εἶδος) and idea (ἰδέα) relate phenomenologically to modes of awareness and givenness in perception
The role of practice as a mediator between soul (ψυχή) and being (τὸ ὄν), shaping our capacity for apprehension
The existential dimension of Plato’s philosophy, focusing on the “being-together” of thought and reality in Platonic parables
How practice transforms our relation to being and appearances, acting as a means of “unhiding” (ἀληθές) in Plato’s philosophy
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When we translate Plato’s εἶδος or ἰδέα as “form” and “idea,” we lose a crucial component of what Plato means by these terms, namely, the co-arising relation between seeing and seen, subject and object, thought and being. “Form” and “idea” aren’t incorrect translations, per se, but by themselves these terms don’t convey how the εἶδος or ἰδέα must be thought in tandem with the way both are given to certain modes of awareness. This relation to awareness is why Plato scholars like Eric Perl and John Sallis translate εἶδος as “look” or “appearance,” emphasizing how forms only appear in certain ways relative to certain stances or skills of perception.
For Perl, this relation to awareness opens up a phenomenological dimension to Plato’s writings. As he says, “In fact, what Plato means by ‘seeing’ is much closer to what in phenomenological terms is called ‘intuition’ (Anschauung), which may be analyzed into the intentionality of apprehension and the givenness of what is apprehended. Understood in this way, ‘seeing’ implies not extrinsic objectification but, on the contrary, the immediate togetherness of seeing and seen.” Perl dances around this relation using a variety of similar phrases: “the conjugal togetherness” of thought and being, “the being-together of soul and reality,” or “the immediate togetherness of seeing and seen.” The visual metaphor is pronounced in these phrases (as it is in the “look” or “appearance” of the εἶδος), but Perl is clear that this relation isn’t just a visual phenomenon. In discussing the Phaedrus, for example, Perl notes that the philosopher’s soul “touches” or “lays hold of” and is “nourished” by contact with the forms, suggesting a tactile relationship hidden by the distance of visual metaphor.
Philosophy in this sense is about getting in touch (or back in touch) with being.
In any case, all of these phrases point to an intrinsic relation between apprehension and reality, or in other words, of soul (ψυχή or psukhē) and being (τὸ ὄν or τοῦ ὄντος, translated in Perl’s text as “that which is”). Given the intimate relation between apprehension and reality, askēsis (practice) should be understood as those activities which transform this relation between appearance and reality. This understanding of forms as appearances or looks leads us to see that forms are not simply mysterious entities occupying another world, but the intelligible identities or “whatnesses” that enable things to be anything at all in this world. Being, as what is given to thought, consists of these intelligible “whatnesses” that show up in varying contexts, lending intelligibility and reality to the world around us. This is why Plato’s theory should be understood phenomenologically, in terms of different modes of givenness and apprehension, rather than as a theory of two separate worlds. This understanding of askēsis provides a bridge between Plato’s theoretical insights and the practical and transformative pursuit of wisdom and virtue his philosophy implies.
Askēsis in this analysis is a mediating term between psukhē and being.
Here psukhē should not be understood as though its shape and capacity were simply given. Rather, psukhē should be viewed as a dynamic process, as an achievement of askēsis in relation to being, that is, as an accomplishment of practices of transformation. This is not to say that askēsis is the only factor that determines the shape of psukhē. We could add here a long list of factors that include history, language, and context—factors that Eric Voegelin incorporates so well into his account of consciousness and soul—but askēsis does mark those actions that the soul takes on itself to deliberately and intentionally transform itself over the course of a lifetime. Psukhē in this sense is the object of askēsis, as a soul that modifies itself through askēsis and in so doing comes to see and feel the world differently, through a transformation of the personality, a refinement of perception, a therapy of the passions, and a reorientation or training of one’s reasoning ability.
Askēsis in this sense works on the structures of perception that give appearances to awareness. It is a way of influencing the structure of appearance and its mode of givenness through practices of attention (e.g., meditation, contemplation, prayer, dialectics) and transformation (e.g, physical training, fasting), to which askēsis broadly refers. Askēsis acts on the shape of appearances, on how they are given as appearances to awareness. We could say that as phenomena are given to awareness, the shape of this givenness is transformed by askēsis. Experience lies on the far side of this repetitive preparation, a preparation that makes seeing itself a practice, a practice or craft of attention. To quote Perl again: “This is of the utmost importance, for it means that unlike the English word ‘form,’ these words [εἶδος or ἰδέα] intrinsically and immediately convey a relation to awareness: to say that things have a certain εἶδος is to say something about how they show up or appear to an apprehending consciousness.”
This perspective sheds new light on Plato’s metaphors and their significance.
The “ascents” in Plato’s dialogues on Perl’s reading represent not a passage from one world to another, but a cognitive ascent from one mode of apprehension to another, enabled by practice. The “degrees of being” in Plato’s writings make more sense when we consider being as given to awareness in this sense. In Perl’s own words:
If the levels of reality are levels of presentation and apprehension, then the many “ascents” in the dialogues, the images of “going to” the forms or true being, express not a passage from one “world,” one set of objects, to another, but rather, as Plato repeatedly indicates, the ascent of the soul, a psychic, cognitive ascent, from one mode of apprehension to another, and hence not from one reality to a different reality, but from appearance to reality. This, above all, is why Plato’s metaphysics is no mere “theory,” a postulation of abstract entities called “forms,” but is rather an account of the existential condition of human beings. As Socrates says, the prisoners in the cave, seeing shadows of puppets and taking them for reality, are “like us.” (Rep. 515a5)
When Socrates says the prisoners in the cave are “like us,” we should read the cave parable as a statement about our own condition of living. Thousands of lines of ink have been spilled describing what, exactly, Plato’s “philosophy” is or isn’t, as though it were simply an abstract system describing reality. This isn’t wrong—I accept the arguments that say Plato does, in fact, argue for a view of reality—but that’s not what’s most crucial about Plato’s ideas. As the Platonic parables of the divided line, the cave, and the soul’s flight indicate, what’s most crucial in Plato is how he and his many characters give voice to our particular existential scenario. In other words, Plato’s philosophy is an account of the tangible condition of being a human; it is not merely a theory of abstract entities. This leads to the crucial insight we began with: Awareness implies a joining, a being-together, of apprehension and reality, not a stark separation between two worlds of different objects or entities. We are always “in the middle,” to use a common Platonic locution, between being and how being shows itself, but the “showing” of being cannot be other than being itself; it is simply being in the mode of appearance, an appearance that is always appearance for someone who has a particular stance, a particular set of skills of perception.
Askēsis, then, is about shaping the shape of soul, and this shaping takes place within the ecology of greater being, where apprehension and givenness are mediated by practice in relation to being. The being-together of soul and reality is anchored to and shaped by practice. Perl follows Heidegger in translating ἀληθές (alētheia or “true”) as meaning “unhidden” (a definition that Perl says is also Plato’s own), and so as the true nature of an event shows itself through the “look” or “appearance” of its εἶδος, we should understand this showing or “unhiding” as at least in part a consequence of practice. We could say that askēsis is disclosive of a form’s unhiddenness—askēsis is the practice of unhiding. This reading of askēsis is placed in a larger philosophical context that rejects nominalism as a viable view of the real, but it also rejects a two-world binary of forms and appearances, seeing them instead as a variegated continuum indexed against the skills of perception we bring to bear on phenomena.
Practice is thus a way of transforming the relation between appearance and reality—as the εἶδος shows up only in relation to our various arts of perception.