Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson looks at what lies behind the reality that we think we are observing, in this week’s episode of The Orthodox Nationalist.
Metaphysics is the study of that which is behind phenomena, or what stands behind appearance. Appearances don't generate themselves, there's a more fundamental reality that creates them.
Philosophy, and all scholarship, is about tearing the veil from those with power, exposing them for what they are. The modern world is based on nominalism, the view that universal objects don't exist. There are good acts, but three's no overarching Goodness from which it takes its meaning. Therefore, our use of the term “good” is arbitrary. It denies that reality is substantial. In general, the real is flux – an undefinable nothing – and human language is a means whereby the will forces itself upon it.
Ultimately, this is nominalism's ultimate conclusion. It is an attack on reality itself. Properties such as weight or color certainly exist, but to what do they adhere? There is only flux. How that flux of properties and attributes gets to the fairly complex and abstract notion of “object” or “thing” is another matter.
This broadcast is a graduate level introduction to patristic metaphysics and its challenge to vulgar nominalism. Its a challenge to the very foundations of the modern world. The belief that only individual things exist comes from sin. A “passion” comes from the individual object, not its archetype. If only individual things exist, then only power exists. The challenge to this absurdity is essential to breaking out of the intellectual straitjacket of the modern world. Our life is a struggle to escape the world of coercion, power and money, into the world of spirit and truth. The church offers this escape route and it’s found in the ascetic life.
Presented by Matt Johnson
The Orthodox Nationalist: St. Maximus the Confessor and Orthodox Platonism – TON 080719
Download
The Orthodox Nationalist will be back on Radio Aryan next Wednesday at 3pm EDT/8pm BST
See the daily radio schedule for more alt-right audio available for download.
Join thechatroom and follow the feed
The first series of The Orthodox Nationalist can be found HERE
Dr Johnson’s Patreon Page
We can accept donations with this Bitcoin Wallet:
1DUSX2dez4DJHcixzK7cwMvg1e8eYdssDi
Radio Aryan on Gab
Subscribe in a reader128k Browser Stream
48k Browser Stream
Alternative Stream
Radio Aryan Full Screen Player Low-Quality
Radio Aryan Full Screen Player Hi-Quality
Radio Aryan Android Player Low-Quality
Radio Aryan Android Player Hi-Quality
