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 ›
Philosophy
Early Chinese Philosophy: The Humanism of Confucius
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 ›
Plato and the Allegory of the Cave: Ideas, Being and Becoming
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 ›
The Legacy of Socrates: Skepticism, Knowledge and Reason
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: The Father of Hellenic Philosophy
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 ›
Buddhist Philosophy: Impermanence, Suffering and the “No-Self”
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 ›
Upanishadic Philosophy: Brahmavidyā and the Soul
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 ›
The Ancient Hebrews: The Tanakh, Torah and Five Books of Moses
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 ›
From Language to Writing: The Dawn of History
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 ›
Overarching Themes: The Laurasian Hypothesis and a New Metaphysics
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 ›
The Hetu and Luoshu Diagrams: Numerology in Chinese Antiquity
via The Hetu and Luoshu Diagrams: Numerology in Chinese Antiquity
Plato’s Metaphysics: Being and Becoming
Perhaps Plato’s greatest contribution to Western philosophy is the idealism embedded in his Theory of Forms, which in essence breaks down existence itself as not only a physical world of inanimate and animate objects, but a theory of knowledge and understanding which is… Read More ›
Yoga and Vedanta: The Legacy of the Indo-Aryans
You didn’t have to go very far, or have too far out a view on the world, in order to be exposed to Yoga in the hustle and bustle of modern day. In modern times, what we like to call… Read More ›
Metaphysics in the Quantum Era
Thankfully we do not have to recreate the wheel to in order to try and formulate a more global and holistic intellectual paradigm through which we at least have a chance to address some of these persistent and global problems… Read More ›
Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Theology: On Being, the First Mover and Love (Eros)
One of the most preeminent philosophical principles that underpins Western thought, one of the foundational presumptions of modern Science in fact, is the notion of causality, or what we refer to more specifically within the context of 20th century Science… Read More ›
