The Form/Matter RGM of The Greeks
The Form/Matter motif is not entirely original with Dooyeweerd, but his treatment is exceptional. Nietzsche argued that Greek values from the time of Homer to that of Plato and Aristotle were in a constant state of tension between a volarization of a Dionysian natural orgiastic devotion to the life force, celebrated in the annual Baccanal at Delphi, presided over by that Temple's Oracle through whom Dionysios would communicate in riddles and puzzles of a prophetic but obscure kind. The other Greek volorization turned on the order of the city and its justice achieved by calm thought in accord with an Apollonian devotion situated in the Temple of Athena. Perhaps the best articulation of this side of the bipolar tension of values can be seen in the tragic drama where the Furies are constrained and given a place below the Temple's altar where they can no longer unleash themselves in the historic form of a blood revenge.
Read more about this topic: Religious Ground Motive
Famous quotes containing the words form, matter and/or greeks:
“Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to baths, diet, exercise, and air?”
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“Essay writing is perhaps ... the easiest for the author and requires little more than what is called a fluency of words and a vivacity of expression to avoid dullness; but without ... a real foundation of matter ... an essay writer is very apt, like Dogberry in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, to think that if he had the tediousness of a king, he would bestow it all upon his readers.”
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““The Greeks used to say,” he said bitterly, using a phrase that had been a long time on his mind, “that when a man became a slave, on the first day he lost one-half of his virtue.””
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)