Outstanding Problems in Philosophy
- Anyone who denies Sapir-Whorf is monolingual — at least in thought
- Anyone who denies Plato is denying that they ever had a clear idea — i.e. a thought not moored to a specific point in spacetime. IOW every human is a Platonist modulo self awareness and labels
- And presentism is a more present problem than ever in history — Google makes so many more facts available than any library ever could, we also assume a right to more attitude
Reconciling the inexorable truth of Sapir Whorf relativism with the absolute necessity of Platonism is a real and pressing problem for philosophy.
It cannot of course be done because {Plato, Sapir, Whorf...} are dead.
The best solution we have is (e.g.) Eckhart Tolle — Now is more sacred than any other point in imagined time.
In the words of Ramana Maharshi:
Question: Someone referring a quote in the newspaper: Where psychology ends philosophy begins
Ramana: And where philosophy ends spirituality begins
But then that too is presentist!! Plato probably would not have recognized the difference between philosophy and spirituality