The wisdom of Affinities

[Dunamis]

We’ve heard it a thousand times, philosophy is the “love” of “wisdom”, whatever that is vaguely supposed to be in English, but buried in the word is another meaning, perhaps more specific to its creation. In Greek a compound can be read in either direction, with left to right most often holding the primary meaning, but in the word philosophia we have a potent etymology. Not only the love of wisdom, but reflexively the wisdom (sophos) of love (philia). To understand this though, the Greek term philia must be grasped. It means primarily “affiliation” and with affiliation, “affection”, particularly those that arise by blood tie or marriage commitment. In the Antigone for instance the word is elemental enough for Antigone to say simply in alarm to her sister:

“You’ve harken’d it? Or are you darken’d to
Loved ones (philous) marched on by hatred’s ill (kakos)." lines 9-10

So philosophy is the wisdom of affiliation, the wisdom of the ties that bind two things together. The word embraces everything from “alliance”, to “likeness in kind”. Before Plato, Empedocles reasoned that the world was composed of two forces, Love (philotes) and Strife (neikos). Love was the force that bound things together, strife that which divided them.

“Contemplate her with the mind, and do not sit staring dazed; she is acknowledged to be inborn also in the bodies of men, and because of her their thoughts are friendly and they work together, giving her the name Joy, as well as Aphrodite.” Fragment (8)17

Philosophy is the sophia (skill, knowledge, judgment, wisdom) of bindings, the power of discovering the ways by which things are held together, whether they be concepts, social bodies or objects. It is the science of holding together. We are of the habit of reading love in only a personal, self-gratifying sense, but the philia that philosophy originally refers to is much wider, but also less arbitrary in concept, embracing not only all human communal promise, but also by implication, all physical interaction between bodies and thus between ideas.

Dunamis

[Impenitent]

but philosophy is much more than the skill of binding…

the bindings are fleeting at best…

the virtue of binding…

finding dionysian joy by making the bindings…

especially when one understands the joyous futility of sisyphus…

only then can one see the dream behind the veil of the eternal recurrence as opposed to the dread of the void…

keeping the liquid in your grasp and struggling to grasp even more…

“That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.” -Nietzsche

-Imp

[Dunamis]

Imp,

I like all of your observations, particularly the Dionysian. If I may point out in sympathy to the point:

“but philosophy is much more than the skill of binding…”

In Greek “skill” is much more than menial work, although a workman’s knowledge is included in the word. It processes an overtone of cleverness, a knowing that is not necessarly to be contained. The “skill of binding” for instance has long been associated with magic, the power to hold things together, in fact Giordano Bruno makes much of this reading of the philia in his theory of magic. So the weaving of things in their intricate power is evoked in this term. The “skill of binding” is that of doing, the power of making. Among many other things.

"the bindings are fleeting at best… "

It is for this reason I see the process as immanent, but you know where I stand on that.

Dunamis

[xanderman]

This is beautiful. I’ll treasure this insight for many moons. It’s a truly original answer to that perennial question.

Are there any other notable Greek compounds that benefit from this way of reading them?

[Dunamis]

Xander,

Thanks for the good words. None so notable that I can think of.

Dunamis

[Impenitent]

@xanderman

Are there any other notable Greek compounds that benefit from this way of reading them?

not greek - but italian or latin, in this context, virtue has a slightly different meaning: “Not contentedness but more power; not peace but war; not virtue but fitness {proficiency} (Renaissance-style virtue, virtù, moraline-free virtue).” -Nietzsche

-Imp

[Dunamis]

Imp,

This of course is Nietzsche in his own way, expounding on the Greek ideal of arete, with his own valuation. Arete is “excellence”, also translated as “virtue”. Nietzsche, rather romantically - in keeping with his German Romanticism - ultimately seeks to return to the Homeric sense of arete, which is a kind of physical prowess, as exemplified by Achilles, in contradistinction to Odysseus, who is the clever word-turner. I agree with Nietzsche in the sense that we must return to a physicality of prowess, but believe he has made a nostalgic error. All thought is physical. The turning of the word of Odysseus, is a kind of physical dominance, something that Nietzsche cannot stomach. Nietzsche’s imposed valuations are just another metaphysics, and in some ways a nostalgic, romanticized metaphysics at that.

Dunamis

[Dunamis]

In following up upon Imp’s observation about dissolution, the brevity of bindings, what comes to mind is the destructive aspect of love in the history of Greek language. Eros, which in Plato is put in the service of an ever higher climb to greater unity of ever greater abstraction, is in its archaic reputation a destroyer of sense, the madness inducer.

Sappho writes powerfully (7th cent B.C.),

Love, again, limb-loosener, you shook me,
Sweet and bitter, unconquerable creature.
frag 130

A “limb-loosener” is a killer, particularly in Homer descriptions. When you kill, you loosen the limbs. A sword for instance could be called a “limb-loosener”.

“Love scattered my
Mind, as wind down a mountain flies into oaks.”

Frag 47

The power of the Love to destroy can perhaps be taken up in the idea of the catalyst. A catalyst chemically is a substance that facilitates a chemical reaction, but the word in Greek means simply to “break or loosen” lysis, “down” kata. Breaking down is necessary for the making of anything. As we move from the more “primitive” images of Aphrodite as a goddess to be feared as Eros, to Philia, the production of meaning by affiliation and discourse philosophy in its own right is born. But we do not want to lose this Elemental power of Aphrodite. The archaic goddess must be embraced. She loosens. But does she loosen catalytically, so as to create greater bonds, philia? Or does she loosen indiscriminately so to create chaos? Does not the production of philia, of discourse, show some semblance to the workings of Aphrodite?

It should be noted that Aphrodite was traditionally attended to be Peitho, the god of persuasion. A speech well constructed to convince was thought to work by the power of Peitho, that the powers of logic and rhetoric work mysteriously through a kind of enchantment by Peitho. The ambiguity of the efficacy of reason, whether it is a kind of spell cast by the reasoner, or a linear building of true conclusions is resolved in the word philia. It is through affinities that argument works, affinities that are both powerfully destructive (limb-loosening Aphrodite) and a science of bindings (gnosology).

Dunamis

[Impenitent]

@Dunamis

Breaking down is necessary for the making of anything. As we move from the more “primitive” images of Aphrodite as a goddess to be feared as Eros, to Philia, the production of meaning by affiliation and discourse philosophy in its own right is born. But we do not want to lose this Elemental power of Aphrodite. The archaic goddess must be embraced. She loosens. But does she loosen catalytically, so as to create greater bonds, philia? Or does she loosen indiscriminately so to create chaos? Does not the production of philia, of discourse, show some semblance to the workings of Aphrodite?

Dunamis

embraced? not exactly…

the breaking down is necessary indeed…

but not to create bonds herself…

and certainly not to create chaos…

breaking down is a direct result of ingestion…

grist(le) for the mill…

to the advantage of the artist…

-Imp

[Dunamis]

Imp,

"to the advantage of the artist… "

With this I agree. This is the reason that poiesis (making) is at the core of philosophy. But the artist must work with the powers of binding (and loosening) so as to produce. For instance the painter must work with the powers that bind (and loosen) paints to paint, and paint to board, but also the powers that bind (and loosen) images to images, lines to line, color to color, and also idea to idea. Magic and technology and language are little different.

Dunamis

[Gamer]

Still trying to get the eq dials right on my diachrony and synchrony panel. Now the loosening and binding dials need eq adjustments as well? It’s so much easier (for me) to make it about the song and not about the amplifier settings. They keep telling me over at Guitar Center that the execution is part of the art. I hate them for it, but they didn’t make the rules, and I play to crowds full of nobody, grinning as I rhyme pajamas on with amazon with a three-stringed guitar warped by the rain in a dive where Camus and Sisyphus happen to be having coffee:

Sisyphus: You dumbass. Let’s see you roll a stone for eternity and enjoy it. Where do you come off?
Camus: Um, I wrote it FOR you. You’re the only one who needs to know it.
S: But when would I have a chance to read? I’m too busy pushing the damn stone!
C: You make time. Read with one hand.
S: Easy for you to say. I’m pushing a stone all day.
C: Well, for someone pushing a stone all day you sure spend a lot of time speaking in harsh tones in this here coffee shop.
S: True, very true.

Okay.

[Dunamis]

G.,

“Still trying to get the eq dials right on my diachrony and synchrony panel. Now the loosening and binding dials need eq adjustments as well?”

Diachrony loosens.
Synchrony binds.

Dunamis

[Gamer]

Less buttons. Well, that’s a start.

[Dunamis]

Aphrodite does both. That’s one button.

Dunamis

[Gamer]

One too many in my book. Can you do better?

[Dunamis]

Close your book.

Dunamis

[Gamer]

Well played.