"Calm Passions" [Plato and Jaynes]

Discussion of Julian Jaynes's second hypothesis - that before the development of consciousness, humans operated under a previous mentality called the bicameral mind.
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ignosympathnoramus
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Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2011 2:56 pm

"Calm Passions" [Plato and Jaynes]

Post by ignosympathnoramus »

It just struck me that the shortest way of explaining Jaynes is in terms of Plato: for men alive a millennia before Plato, the "calm passions" were anything but calm. In the interim, man got a hold of himself in a special way. Through certain communication technologies he became able to calm his thumos, bring it under control, educate it, sublimate it, repress it, etc. Before this time, the imagination had man, instead of man having an imagination.

Also, it occurred to me that Plato's "Meno" can be interpreted in a rather Jaynesian fashion: the discussion with the slave boy, anamnesis, etc. is a demonstration of unconscious knowledge.
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