Philosophy Discussion Forums

Belinda wrote: ↑January 29th, 2016, 5:55 am It has often been done, by poets especially, that ideas are treated as if they are spirits. The Greek Pantheon was composed of gods who were basically ideas. The trouble with such personifications now is that some people take a personification to be a reference to a material thing, for instance some people regard God as a person, or as something that exists as a tree, or a mountain, exists, rather than an idea.

-- Updated Fri Jan 29, 2016 5:01 am to add the following --

It has often been done, by poets especially, that ideas are treated as if they are spirits. The Greek Pantheon was composed of gods who were basically ideas. The trouble with such personifications now is that some people take a personification to be a reference to a material thing, for instance some people regard God as a person, or as something that exists as a tree, or a mountain, exists, rather than an idea.

Maybe the interesting thing about considering ideas as spirits is that , if ideas were real like a person or a dog is real, the idea-spirit would harbour intentions of its own so that if it were a mischievous spirit, it would intend and succeed in mischief making. I think that Satan is pictured thus, and various sorts of fairies have been considered to be mischief- makers that must be propitiated with small gifts of food.

I am interested in personification. You should know that I write philosophy and I am somewhat of a poet. And I think of the gods as Platonic Forms. Or rather I should say that the Platonic Forms are gods.

I myself am a Platonic Realist. I believe the Forms exist and I am prepared to dialectically, that is to say, analytically argue the point. The upshot of all that is that I don’t believe in personification. Personification, like reification, is a psychological act and I certainly don’t believe in what Husserl called psychologism, the act of reducing philosophy to psychology.

You worry that idea-spirits would harbor intentions and that that spirit might be mischievous. I think you should rather say demonic. Here in Hinduland, where there are so many gods – they are probably infinite in number - most have a demonic/trickster/mischievous side. Consider the goddess one prays to, to get rid of smallpox. She also causes smallpox. You might say she is the personification of smallpox. There is no doubt a god of motorcycle repair that also causes your bike to break. Just imagine the motorcycle god. Think of any act or occupation or process or whatever and there is a god for that. Be nice to that god or goddess or bad things will happen. I personally think there is a god that governs my attempt to cook. My food is consistently bad. I wish I knew the mantra or gestures to make to make it not so. Not to worry though, if you come to eat at my place, you will not be poisoned because I have a Nepali boy who is a marvelous cook. He is also the guy who cut off the head of the goat in sacrifice festivals in his village. These deities are not vegetarians.

In my writings I am concerned with the god of philosophy. He is a trickster for sure. Sexual and one who will take your money. A real looker. If you know Plato’s dialogues you have already been introduced to him. BTW, I consider Christianity to be Platonism hooked onto that old Jewish phallic cult on the High Places. I am a Christian. I pray to Jesus. I pray hard.

TimLear wrote: ↑January 21st, 2016, 1:14 am As the title says, could ideas be considered spirits?

I say this because ideas are:
Intangible
Can influence people
are transmitted through medium (art, movies, writing, songs, ect)
need to be tranmitted from person to person to stay alive.

Spirits if one reads about their behavior works the same way.

An idea is transmitted through physical media, speech, or deed.
They are encoded in memory, which is a complex of physical connections in the brain. When received via physical media, the next brain interprets the idea via his/her own set of preconceptions and the idea is modified to be transmitted mutated the next time it is communicated.
I'm puzzled as to where you think the "spirit" comes into all this.