The Great Books Corner discussion

Info about Plato to be posted here

I'm currently reading The Spirit of the Liturgy for another group and on page 126 of that text -- in a chapter on "Art and Liturgy" -- Pope Benedict XVI is discussing the shift in 1200s from the portrayal of the mysterious aspects of God to the historical and narrative aspects. He believes that at least part of this shift in perspective was due to 'the turn from Platonism to Aristotelianism during the thirteenth century ... Platonism sees sensible things as shadows of the eternal archetypes. In the sensible we can and should know the archetypes and rise up through the former to the latter. Aristotelianism rejects the doctrine of Ideas. The thing, composed of matter and form, exists in its own right ... Something of this Platonic foundation lives on in the theology of the icons, even though the Platonic ideas of the beautiful and of vision have been transformed...'

Hardly an adequate introduction to the Father of Philosophy and his student, but it's a start...

Cheers!