Aristotle is arguably one of, if not the, most influential philosophers in the history of Western civilization, outlining in painstaking detail not only a fully formed and comprehensive system of reason and logic, but also a comprehensive system metaphysics, what some… Read More ›
So from what intellectual and socio-political and cultural context did the works and schools of Plato and Aristotle emerge? Where did their ideas come from, even if they are altogether unique in their language, tenets and ideas and even if… Read More ›
There has been and continues to be much scholarly debate as to what extent the classical Greek philosophical tradition, what we call Hellenic philosophy herein, which classically begins with a study of the so-called “Pre-Socratics”, the bulk of which are… Read More ›
At some level, a religious tradition can be thought of as distinguished by, or even defined by, its creation story – i.e. its cosmological narrative – and the Hindu/Vedic tradition is no different in this regard although it has many… Read More ›
There are many parallels that can be drawn between early Hellenic and Upanishadic philosophy. In particular, we find many similarities between the philosophy presented by Plato in his Middle Period as he developed and fine-tuned his theory of forms – in particular… Read More ›
As the Confucian school was referred to as Rújiā, the Daoist school was referred to as Daojiā, each called out as one of the six main philosophical schools during the Warring States Period to the Early/Former Han. While a Daoist “canon”… Read More ›
The classical period of ancient Chinese philosophy runs from about the 6th century BCE till the 2nd century BCE and is marked by the proliferation and flowering of many varying philosophical schools, an era in Chinese history referred to (by Chinese… Read More ›
The first systematic treatment of philosophy, and arguably the most influential, in the West can be found in works of Plato, in particular in his works the Phaedo, the Republic and the Timaeus which are by most accounts the most influential of… Read More ›
One of the best indications of the influence of Socrates on the development of Western philosophy, what the Hellenes, or Greeks, termed philosophia, his ideas being primarily represented by the writings of his best known pupil Plato, is the more modern… Read More ›
Pythagoras, Thales of Miletus, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Zeno, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and Democritus all made contributions to Pre-Socratic philosophical thought and were referenced by later philosophers and historians to some extent or another. Although none of the complete works of Pre-Socratic philosophers survive today… Read More ›
Running parallel to the maturation and evolution of Hellenic philosophy, to the East the Indo-Aryan people were going through a similar intellectual revolution from the prevalence of ritual and ceremonial worship of gods and goddesses embedded in their mythologically steeped traditions… Read More ›
Orthodox Indian philosophy, the legacy of the Indo-Aryans, takes on a much different form than it does in the West, and in turn a much different form that it does in the Far East, despite the fact that the intellectual… Read More ›
As a specific example of how a word, a concept, can be disfigured and lose its fullness and richness of meaning as it moves through successive languages of translation and cultural evolution, let’s look at how the Hebrew word Torah, which… Read More ›
The development of alphabet based language systems in general, a development that occurs in the Mediterranean at around the end of the second millennium BCE or so, represents a major evolution in the history of mankind. It’s invention, if we… Read More ›
While we have attempted to describe the nature of the work, and its underlying “purpose”, in Aristotelian terms[1], whenever the author stops to think about it, or whenever he is asked “why” he’s doing it, there never appears to be… Read More ›
