The East-West division with respect to worldviews and ways of thinking clearly has significant limits in interpretative utility despite its proliferation and widespread use in the academic and intellectual community, in the West in particular. Having said that it is… Read More ›
Theory of Forms
Indo-European Philosophy: On the Soul
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle: First Philosophy
Leaving aside the Indo-Aryan Vedic tradition, representing the root philosophical and religious tradition of the East, the emergence of philosophy as a branch of thought ran parallel with the advent of Ancient Greek civilization. What was unique about this development,… Read More ›
Pythagoras and Plato: From the One to Many
Philosophy to the Greeks not only helped them understand the cosmos, creation and destruction of the universe and the essence of the natural world, but also the harmony within which we as individuals should lead our lives, and in turn… Read More ›
Sacred Geometry in Plato’s Timaeus
After Pythagoras, the next in line in the propagation of core mathematical constructs, not just numbers themselves but again geometry as well, as key elements of the universal world order, is Plato. It is said that outside of the Academy… Read More ›
Middle Platonism: Greek Philosophic Adolescence
Despite the emergence of metaphysics as we know it today in classical Greece, seen most clearly in the (interpretation of) the dialogues of Plato and then more clearly elucidated in the work of Aristotle, a product of Plato’s Academy, and… Read More ›
Aristotle and Democritus: Knowledge and the Atom
Having established the premise of his thesis, what appeared to be clear cultural borrowing of mythological and cosmological themes between and among the ancient Western civilizations, themes which crystalized and evolved into monotheism as it spread throughout the West after… Read More ›