The Filipino Group discussion

Hello, and welcome to the The Great Ideas of Philosophy buddy reading thread!

***We are currently on CHAPTER 11: Hippocrates and the Science of Life****
(Here are the guide questions and link to the audio file for Chap 11.)

We officially started our trek in the myriads of philosophical thought on May 6, 2013. It's quite a long book, and one quite something to chew on, so we don't have an official pacing for the meantime. Do check in from time to time, though, as we may be discussing a topic you may be interested in :)

We've got the files uploaded for everyone's reference, and you may check them out here (do let us know if it's not working for you) -> https://drive.google.com/folderview?i...

(In case you were wondering, it's actually a package of some 50 audio-chapters, plus an ebook guide.)


*You don't need to be dedicated all the way (that is, from Book 1 to Book 50) for the discussion :) You may just check in with us from time to time; we'll be discussing a plethora of topics after all :D
*Each audio file is standalone, so you don't need to check out each and every chapter to join the discussion. If the current topic interests you, go ahead and check out the audio file of the chapter for discussion! No need to check out all the earlier ones :)
*To start off, do try and listen to at least the first 2-3 books, to get a feel of them.
*For the pacing (c/o Ycel): Each track is a ~60-minute lecture. We can do one track each day, or slice and dice the topic as long as we want and move on. (view spoiler)[Let's see how it goes for the Antiquity philosophers. The lectures follow the progression of the history of ideas, so it gets complex later on. (hide spoiler)] The aim is not to rush through the course, but to discuss it as thoroughly as we want :)
*The ebook is somewhat like a guide, not necessarily a transcript. It has the major points of the audio-chapters :)

This is what Ycel posted as overview on the audiobook, by the way :)

Scope: (view spoiler)[
This course of 60 lectures (trimmed down to 50 in the audio book) is intended to introduce the student to main currents and issues in philosophical thought from the founding of the subject in ancient Greece to more contemporary studies. The lectures are organized around three abiding problems: the problem of knowledge (epistemology and metaphysics), the problem of conduct (ethics and moral philosophy), and the problem of governance (political science and law). Each of these has by now evolved into a specialized subject treated rigorously in professional texts and journals. But even in these more technical projections, the problems remain largely as they were when the schools of Plato and Aristotle dealt with them and imposed on them the features they still retain.

More than a series of lectures on the great philosophers, this course is designed to acquaint the student with broader cultural and historical conditions that favored or opposed a given philosophical perspective. Attention is paid to the influence that scientific developments had on the very conception of philosophy and on the scientific rejection of “metaphysics” that took place when the “two cultures” began to take separate paths.

Needless to say, the vast terrain that philosophy seeks to cover extends far beyond what can be explored in 60 lectures—or in 200 lectures! Entire areas of active scholarship have been ignored. But still other areas have been more carefully examined than is customary in an introductory course: philosophy of law, philosophy and aesthetics, evolutionary and psychoanalytic theory. The hope and expectation is that, informed by these lectures, the interested student will press on, will fashion a fuller curriculum of study, and will return to these lectures for the more general framework within which the specialized knowledge ultimately must find a place. (hide spoiler)]

The Actual Chapters: (view spoiler)[
01 - From the Upanishads to Homer (May 6- http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... )
02 - Philosophy-What is It and Did the Greeks Invent It? (May 8- http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... )
03 - Pythagoras and the Divinity of Number (May 14- http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... )
04 - The Pre-Socratics and the Ultimate Stuff of the Universe (May 23- http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... )
05 - The Greek Tragedians on Man's Fate (June 3- http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... )
06 - Know Thyself - Herodotus and the Lamp of History (June 13- http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... )
07 - Socrates on the Examined Life (July 5- http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... )
08 - Plato's Search for Truth (July 31- http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... )
09 - Can Virtue Be Taught (2014! March 31- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... )
10 - Plato's Republic - Man Writ Large (April 22 - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... )
11 - Mind and Body - Hippocrates and the Science of Life (Aug 2- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... )
12 - Aristotle on the Knowable
13 - Aristotle on Friendship
14 - Aristotle on the Perfect Life
15 - Rome, the Stoics, and the Rule of Law
16 - The Stoic Bridge to Christianity
17 - Roman Law - Making a City of the Once-Wide World
18 - The Light Within - Augustine's Idea of Human Nature
19 – Islam
20 - Secular Knowledge - The Idea of the University
21 - The Reappearance of Experimental Science
22 - Scholasticism and the Theory of Natural Law
23 - Erasmus and Luther
24 - Let Us Burn the Witches to Save Them
25 - Francis Bacon's Great Instauration
26 - Descartes and the Skeptical Mind
27 - Newton - The Saint of Science
28 - Thomas Hobbe's Leviathan and the Science of State Craft
29 - John Locke on Human Understanding
30 - Berkeley and the Challenge of Materialism
31 - Skepticism and the Pursuit of Happiness
32 - Thomas Reid and the Scottish School
33 - France and the Philosophies
34 - The Federalist Papers and the Great Experiment
35 - Kant on Freedom and the Forms of Knowledge
36 - Kant and the Moral Imperative
37 - The Phrenologists - Early Sciences of Mind and Brain
38 - The Idea of Freedom
39 - Human History as the Unfolding of the Ideal
40 - The Aesthetic Movement
41 - Dark Corners of the Soul - Nietzsche at the Twilight
42 - The Liberal Tradition - J.S. Mill on Liberty
43 - Darwin and the (Blind) Purposes of Nature
44 - Marxism - Dead But Not Forgotten
45 - The Freudian World
46 - The Radical William James
47 - William James's Pragmatism
48 - Wittgenstein and the Discursive Turn
49 - Alan Turing in the Forest of Wisdom
50 - Four Theories of the Good Life (hide spoiler)]

About the speaker / author:
(view spoiler)[Daniel Robinson is Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Georgetown University, where he taught from 1971 to 2001. He is a member of the philosophy faculty of Oxford University and former Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Columbia University. Although his doctorate was earned in neuropsychology (1965, City University of New York), his scholarly books and articles have established him as an authority in the history and philosophy of psychology, history of ideas, philosophy of mind, and kindred subjects.

Dr. Robinson’s books include The Enlightened Machine: An Analytical Introduction to Neuropsychology (Columbia, 1980), Psychology and Law (Oxford, 1980), Philosophy of Psychology (Columbia, 1985), Aristotle’s Psychology (1989), An Intellectual History of Psychology (3rd edition, Wisconsin, 1995), and Wild Beasts and Idle Humours: The Insanity Defense from Antiquity to the Present (Harvard, 1996). He has served as principal consultant to PBS for the award-winning series The Brain and the subsequent nine-part series The Mind. He is past president of two divisions of the American Psychological Association: the Division of the History of Psychology and the Division of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Dr. Robinson also serves on the Board of Scholars of Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, is a member of the American Philosophical Association, and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. (hide spoiler)]

Just a couple of simple rules:

1. Do try to stay on topic as much as possible.
2. Don't feed the trolls. (view spoiler)[(Don't take the bait that some people will throw your way to get you offtrack!) (hide spoiler)]
3. Respect other people's opinions.
4. Do keep an open mind because all our earlier preconceptions about ideas, biases, prejudices, political leanings, religious beliefs, etc. will be challenged. So be prepared to have our beliefs and ideas tested. (view spoiler)[Scary, but a good way to learn :) (hide spoiler)]
5. Don't forget that we're here to learn and have fun!

-Ycel & DC

Yay! I'm excited with this. Though madugo siya. And medyo slow learner ako kapag audio book. But still, I want to participate :D

This starts on Monday, right? :)

Monday it is.

If you want to see our erudite (and should I say avuncular) professor in action, you may check him out here.

Lecture One: From the Upanishads to Homer

The introductory lecture alone is so laden with great ideas that I was literally having a field day the first time I came across this material. I am not exactly a fan of the Upanishads and the Brahma variety, it does not appeal to me the way the Homeric epics do. If you have not read the Iliad, I bet your curiosity is piqued :) (do get the Robert Fitzgerald version for maximum enjoyment).(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)]

I have been a fan of mythology ever since I read it in high school, and I’ve always wondered then why the gods behaved like humans (extramarital affairs, family feud, inciting conflict among the mortals). I was completely thrown off when my English teacher said(view spoiler)[, “But what do you expect? The Greeks invented them” (hide spoiler)]. Yet it did not stop me from reading mythology, even the latest reincarnation of the gods in the hands of Rick Riordan because it’s true, we see ourselves in these epics. To think how a dude from pre-philosophical era was able to weave an attempt to explain why things work the way they do, 750 years before Christ was born, was truly remarkable (no matter how flawed).

What I like best about Lecture One is the way Prof. Robinson simplified the three core problems of philosophy (view spoiler)[(no college professor has presented it to me this way) (hide spoiler)]: the problem of knowledge, the problem of conduct, and the problem of governance. I met a very learned guy two years ago who said that all great universities classify their course offerings under 3 headings to answer 3 great questions:
(1) (view spoiler)[where did we come from? (geology, physics, astronomy, archaeology, etc.), (hide spoiler)]
(2) (view spoiler)[how do we live? (almost all courses neatly categorized under engineering, medicine, economics, social sciences and humanities), (hide spoiler)] and
(3) (view spoiler)[where are we going? (religion/theology) (hide spoiler)].

In a way, Prof. Robinson’s structure is quite helpful in helping one understand question #1 (to some extent, if one is disciplined enough to pursue it) and a great deal of question #2. And my hope is that by pursuing the ideas presented here, I would be able to face question #3 with courage truly worthy of a Greek hero. Because in the end, isn’t question #3 the most important question of all?

Which makes me think that I shouldn't ignore the Brahma variety after all.

01. From the Upanishads to Homer

I will take on the role of the working student (because I will most likely listen to most of the lectures while at work). And as a working student, I hereby present you with my haphazardly taken notes.

(view spoiler)[

*Myths as answers to philosophical questions - It came first to me as ironic because nothing is concretely answered in myths. They have, in my case, provided more questions than they ought to, which is really the point of it. And this reminds me that I should reread my mythology because I have forgotten most of the mythological references. Any recommendations aside from Edith Hamilton's? How about The Greek Myths:?

*The problem of knowledge - asked by people who are afraid.
*The problem of conduct - asked to minimize pain.
*The problem of governance - asked to face political realities.

-This is like book club management, hahaha. These are also the three central problems that TFG has, at least as of the meantime.

*Quest for knowledge is natural undertaking. - Is it? But why do a lot of people seem to suppress it? Is it because they are more prepared, therefore courageous than the people seeking knowledge, or they prefer ignorance because they are more afraid? If it's the latter, all people must be afraid.

*Upanishads vs. Homeric verses - I tend to lean more on the latter although I haven't read Iliad or Odyssey yet (shame!). Okay, I will buy those. I have seen a couple of copies at Book Sale.

*That's not our fate, our place is in Earth, it's a place of war, love, failed aspirations, heroic gestures. - I just love it. I am not a super fast typist so this is paraphrased.

*There's no way of telling how things are going to come out. - Yes, and that is why I believe luck is a major factor in determining one's fate.

*Nature as a god - Nature and luck is more like it to me.

(hide spoiler)]

First of all: I like hearing Daniel Robinson talk. He seems like he's just brimming with all these ideas he's so eager to share with all of us :) And it seems that he talks with great knowledge and authority too, something like a sage old uncle.

(He DOES look like one in the video link you noted, Ycel! Though I hope he wasn't standing the whole time o_O But the vid's nice! It's got pics :D)

As for the actual listening, I think it's a great start off to the entire series. I like that he begins with the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, and then he starts connecting the signficance of the metaphor, and then of the connection of the myth to philosophy. It's sort of like breaking you into the entire realm at your fingertips :D

I have to confess, by the way, that I haven't heard of the Upanishads before this lecture ^^; I only took the guess that they're related to the Hindu religion (especially due to Robinson's note of the Brahman, Atman and all that). There's an entire realm of philosophical thought under that wide umbrella, apparently - more than the "wise men" notion of Robinson. Very deep stuff, the Upanishads. Here's the Wikipedia link -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads

A note on Homer: the last time I've read of him was in high school! I better get to reading him again. And maybe sneak some movies on the Trojan Horse? :D

Ycel wrote: " I was completely thrown off when my English teacher said..."
(view spoiler)[>>> LOL. Although it makes one think: the Greeks aren't the FIRST ever civilization in history, right? But I don't think there's a religion pre-Greek that had gods as fickle as the Greeks? Hmm. (view spoiler)[Though I have to admit that I've gone off to the second chapter, and have heard something about the fickle gods and goddesses of Greek lore. (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]


Ycel wrote: "... the problem of knowledge, the problem of conduct, and the problem of governance. I met a very learned guy two years ago who said that all great universities classify their course offerings under 3 headings to answer 3 great questions... "
(view spoiler)[>>> This is interesting, Ycel. I guess the universities are more concerned with the practical applications of the thought, as opposed to philosophers who are more concerned with the actual answering of questions? (OR asking of more questions, whichever :D) Though of course it probably depends on the region / cultural logic of the colleges / intellectuals involved. (hide spoiler)]

Ycel wrote: "And my hope is that by pursuing the ideas presented here, I would be able to face question #3 with courage truly worthy of a Greek hero. Because in the end, isn’t question #3 the most important question of all?"
(view spoiler)[>>> Wait, did you mean question #3 of the universities, or #3 of Robinson? At any rate, I personally believe that the most important question is something that's different to each of us. For one thing, I would like very much to hear more on the arguments for Robinson's question #2, that of conduct.

But at the end of it, I don't like the idea of a heartless, lawless, stateless character. I guess at one point or another we'd have to choose what to think, how to act, and how we respond to other people. I think to act otherwise would be bordering on anti-socialism? (hide spoiler)]

Ycel wrote: "Which makes me think that I shouldn't ignore the Brahma variety after all. "
(view spoiler)[>>> Yes, indeed! I have always been curious about their religious texts (and stories - I think I only know about Shakuntala). (hide spoiler)]

Angus wrote: "It came first to me as ironic because nothing is concretely answered in myths. They have, in my case, provided more questions than they ought to, which is really the point of it. "
(view spoiler)[>>> Myths are, I believe, mirrored on the human experience, and can somewhat be like parables... Well, the Greek ones in particular, since they're very, well, humanized there. And yeah, philosophy IS all about asking more questions, as opposed to answering most of them, I believe :P (hide spoiler)]

Angus wrote: "Is it? But why do a lot of people seem to suppress it? Is it because they are more prepared, therefore courageous than the people seeking knowledge, or they prefer ignorance because they are more afraid? If it's the latter, all people must be afraid."
(view spoiler)[>>> Ignorance is bliss. I also think that some people are not given the means, the opportunity to allow thinking. It depends on the culture, I believe. Take for example the iron fist China's Communist Party has over its people (view spoiler)[and remember how, some time ago, they killed the students at the Tianamen Square for defying them (hide spoiler)]. But I also believe that you're right about the afraid part... and maybe a bit lazy too? Thinking requires space, time and an open mind. Some are comfortable in their old notions, in their comfort zones. (hide spoiler)]

Angus wrote: "*There's no way of telling how things are going to come out. - Yes, and that is why I believe luck is a major factor in determining one's fate. "
(view spoiler)[>>> What an interesting time it must be to delve into predestination and all that then - when we get there :D (hide spoiler)]

Oh, and here are some questions to consider, according to the guide notes:

1. Summarize the implications that follow when the soul of the cosmos is assumed to be within the person, in contrast to the sharp Homeric division between the human and the divine.

2. The Upanishads feature a search for wisdom; Homer’s epics, for heroic achievement. Describe how both may be regarded as “perfectionist” in their aims but in quite different ways.

thanks for adding the link.

DC:
Wait, did you mean question #3 of the universities, or #3 of Robinson?
I am quite interested in the question “where are we going?” although I would put more emphasis on the journey, not the destination :)

But at the end of it, I don't like the idea of a heartless, lawless, stateless character. I guess at one point or another we'd have to choose what to think, how to act, and how we respond to other people. I think to act otherwise would be bordering on anti-socialism?
Did you mean being anti-social?
I think Homer was referring to someone who will not submit to the rule of law and the common punishment during that time was ostracism.

ANGUS:
Any recommendations aside from Edith Hamilton's? How about The Greek Myths?
Wow! I like!

*Quest for knowledge is natural undertaking. - Is it? But why do a lot of people seem to suppress it? Is it because they are more prepared, therefore courageous than the people seeking knowledge, or they prefer ignorance because they are more afraid? If it's the latter, all people must be afraid.
"ALL men by nature desire to know,” said Aristotle. That is why we have our senses, which are our primary mode of acquiring knowledge. To not use them and therefore not to acquire knowledge is unnatural. A child is naturally curious, and by God, they want to know things. But surrounded by lazy adults, a child’s natural curiosity dies, and grows to be like the lazy adults who project themselves on the child. Nature and nurture go hand in hand. It is quite unbelievable for me to think that people are afraid of knowledge. We only fear what we do not know. If it is the work that they need to put in that they fear, then they’re just plain lazy in my eyes.

*That's not our fate, our place is in Earth, it's a place of war, love, failed aspirations, heroic gestures. - I just love it. I am not a super fast typist so this is paraphrased.
He has a lot more of these in store :)

Ycel wrote: "I am quite interested in the question “where are we going?” although I would put more emphasis on the journey, not the destination :)"
(view spoiler)[>>> I agree with you on that :D Though... I think I just got bit by the existential nihilist bug again, what with the whole journey/destination thing >_> (hide spoiler)]

Ycel wrote: "Did you mean being anti-social?
I think Homer was referring to someone who will not submit to the rule of law and the common punishment during that time was ostracism."
(view spoiler)[>>> Oh yes, I like the story behind root of that word :) (OSTRAKA!) But it must have been something to be thought of as being against the flow or an undesirable in society - to be ostracized, especially in those times! To be known as heartless, lawless, stateless - whether by your choice or by the view of others. It's like you're thought of as less than an acceptable human being in their society. Anti-social and therefore unacceptable. (Or vice versa.)

Of course there's the issue of governing policy, of discrimination, etc, but it just seems too cruel to call someone without heart, without law (or personal restraint), without state. (hide spoiler)]


Ycel wrote: "A child is naturally curious, and by God, they want to know things. But surrounded by lazy adults, a child’s natural curiosity dies, and grows to be like the lazy adults who project themselves on the child."
>>> So Little Prince :) <3

will read homer and Upanishads.

Ycel and DC: I concur that social and cultural factors are important in nurturing one's quest for knowledge. Your examples on laziness and political suppression demonstrate a person's rather stunted sense of curiosity.

BTW, I am exclusively listening to the audio books. I haven't read the PDF thing yet, and I am not sure if I could.

Angus: The PDF is just a guide and summarizes the important points of the lecture. You won't miss much if you don't read it. We will just post the guide questions here.

Gasp, I nearly forgot my assignment: The Guide Questions.

(view spoiler)[

1. I think the former assumption has strong ties with the school of romanticism. To assume that the universe lies within the self makes me think that the self is connected to everything, that we are one cohesive whole that cannot be taken apart as opposed to the school of individualism where every little thing is significant and can stand alone. (I am summoning whatever it is that I remember from my 3 units of philo and my reading of Sophie's World.)

2. Oh, I didn't think of heroic achievement as perfectionist although in a different perspective, it is perfectionist because the hero will continue to struggle despite of the challenges that will be thrown at him, despite the fact that he may fall down.

Really, I did not answer the questions. Heh.

(hide spoiler)]

02.What is It and Did the Greeks Invent It?

I'm posting my working student notes now. Don't feel pressured, guys. Besides, my thoughts aren't neatly processed. :D

(view spoiler)[

*Environment as a factor in philosophizing - Again, nature plays a role. It could be right. There are just places where mental activities are best done. Like reading. One can't read inside a bar for obvious reasons. I wonder if I should really be listening to the audiobooks here are at the office during my coffee breaks, haha.

*It is to test the most fundamental beliefs, and to test them if they are right. - I wonder though if it's always about being able to successfully test your convictions. I think that it's more about getting a feeling of certain satisfaction, that feeling that somehow, your beliefs make sense regardless of being right or wrong.

*What is the rule that governs what I can't have? - Children say the darndest things. That's why it's tiresome dealing with precocious kids. It's sometimes fun, but sometimes, it just saps the energy out of you. Like when my sister was four or five. We were traversing the length of NLEX when she saw Mt. Arayat and then asked me why were there mountains. I said that very strong earthquakes made them. Why the earthquakes? Because of the movement of the different plates of the earth. Why the movement? Because of certain forces (such as gravity, inertia, etc.). Of course, my answers to her weren't exactly right, but maybe I should have just answered her in a way the toddlers can understand. Nagmagaling pa kasi ako, hahaha.

*The need for an intelligible world begins with the fearfulness of prephilosophical, preliterate societies facing an unpredictable world of change, and trying to make sense of it. - So it again boils down to the fear of the unknown, no? Fear, I believe now, is the most fundamental human feeling. All other feelings branch out from it.

*Civilizations without philosophical activities. - Wait, is this even possible? Ancient civilizations must have done some of these. They must have formulated a system for something (like their political and judicial systems), although I doubt that most of us will approve of what they produced.

*Sunshine theory - Similar to the essay written by Jose Rizal, The Indolence of the Filipinos, if I remember it right. Something about the direct proportion of heat to productivity.

*On slavery - I think we have this need to control others. Perhaps slavery is an answer to the third central question, the question of governance.

*On religion - Isn't religion also another form of philosophy? Religion provides us with answers on the three central questions, but I think the difference it has with philosophy is that it restricts people from questioning the answers provided. The strings of reason are cut from the people because if you do so much as tug it a tiny bit, one is excommunicated and considered a heretic.

*We are like puppets, and the gods can move us any which way they will by pulling on these strings, but we have one string that we can pull back on, and it's the Golden String of Reason. - Nice one. Let's keep pulling our respective Golden Strings!

*Those who share our conception of culture, are Hellenes. It isn't something ethnic, it's a cultural conception. Those who come together with us in what we take to be the most important aspects of life are Hellenes. - This pretty much answers the question of who invented it.

(hide spoiler)]

*Ignoring Angus' Lecture Two notes for now. Teehee.*

1. Summarize the implications that follow when the soul of the cosmos is assumed to be within the person, in contrast to the sharp Homeric division between the human and the divine.
(view spoiler)[I’d like to think that the former suggests oneness, harmony and that we are one with the divine. I feel that it’s consistent with the idea that all things are made up of matter, and therefore all things here on earth and ultimately the universe are made up of the same basic stuff, so when our corporeal body disintegrates and returneth to dust we shall become the earth, the sea, the air or even a black hole or a quasar (once our star explodes and all of us get mixed up with other galaxies). Not very pretty, I know, but that’s how I imagine how we can be truly one (literally) with the cosmos.

The latter implies that we are far removed from the workings of the divine, as heaven and earth are separated by a huge gap. I am reminded of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy – that we have only ourselves to rely on, and we have only one life (this life) and nothing beyond to live. Did I hear somebody gasp? (hide spoiler)]

2. The Upanishads feature a search for wisdom; Homer’s epics, for heroic achievement. Describe how both may be regarded as “perfectionist” in their aims but in quite different ways.
(view spoiler)[As the Upanishad believes that Atman (Individual Self) and Brahman (the infinite Spirit Source) are One and the same, I see them promoting a pacifist, harmonious co-existence, and for some reason this guy’s image flashes in my head:(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)]; whereas the Homeric epics’ emphasis on heroic achievement makes me see somebody who will do everything that needs to be done even if it kills him: (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)]. (hide spoiler)]

Billy wrote: "will read homer and Upanishads."

Oh, hey Billy! Welcome! We'll be looking forward to your thoughts :D


I’m guessing the questions are more for opinions, so I won’t go back to my notes to answer them :D

1. Summarize the implications that follow when the soul of the cosmos is assumed to be within the person, in contrast to the sharp Homeric division between the human and the divine.

(view spoiler)[In comparison, having the “soul of the cosmos” thought kind of equates you to somehow being a god, right? So you have a kind of offhand divinity, a sort of oneness with what's happening to the world. You would know about EVERYTHING, all-knowledgeable and all that. (view spoiler)[To quote: "(The Upanishads) speak of the worlds that exist beyond ours, the importance of knowledge and ignorance, the attributes of an evolving soul... the need to transcend the senses to experience the Truth behind all illusions." [source] (hide spoiler)]

On the other hand, the Homeric division would mean that you're alone, that you're human, that you only have yourself and the environment to work with. You have to work with what you have, VS working with the environment to get what you want. (hide spoiler)]


2. The Upanishads feature a search for wisdom; Homer’s epics, for heroic achievement. Describe how both may be regarded as “perfectionist” in their aims but in quite different ways.

(view spoiler)[I heard a story once about two people. One of them was a scholar who locked himself up in a high, high, HIGH tower so that he could see the whole world, and studied all that he could see from there. He observed, speculated, and generally took in the scenery while making his studies.

The other one was a thinker who was widely traveled. He would never stop too long in one place, and would always be moving about. He went from town to town, talking to people and gathering information this way.

Both have their own ways of looking at the environment they both see. They are both correct, since they gathered information based on what's available to them, and their ways are both admittedly good. They will, however, probably have different views on, say, the night sky, because they are viewing the same thing from different perspectives.

I think that the Upanishads/Homer question is something like the two people in the story. They both are looking at fundamental truths of the same questions, but they come from different perspectives. The Upanishads glorify the journey of the soul to reach epistemological heights (which, I assume, is why the Brahmin class of Hindu societies were known to be the "best"), and thus aim to get to the top of the heap by scholarly duties. (view spoiler)[Wikipedia may not be the best reference, but here's a passage from there: "Vedic Brāhmanas have six occupational duties, of which three are compulsory — studying the Vedas, performing Vedic rituals and practicing dharma... By spreading its philosophy, and by accepting back from the community, the Brahmins receive the necessities of life." (hide spoiler)]

The heroes of Homer’s epics, on the other hand, are all about the duties they must perform as, well, heroes. (I believe Robinson himself said something of the kind in the narrative.) Thinking about it twice, however, I’m not sure how “perfectionist” Homer’s heroes ought to be. I mean, they go through life by their own hand, dictated mostly by their own passions (VS their reason), such as that of lyssa, the wolf rage. (hide spoiler)]

BILLY: Hullo there. I haven't read the Upanishads but heard about them in Asian History waaaaay back in college. Edith Hamilton's Mythology (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] will give you a good overview on The Iliad.

DC wrote: "I heard a story once about two people. One of them was a scholar who locked himself up in a high, high, HIGH tower so that he could see the whole world..."
Is that where they got the ivory tower metaphor? *Curious*

Angus: GO ANGUS GO!!! Hahaha! (view spoiler)[I saw your tweets, hahaha. Chapter 1 pa lang tayo! There are only 59 more to go? :P (hide spoiler)]

Angus wrote: "I think the former assumption has strong ties with the school of romanticism..."
(view spoiler)[>>> Angus, we're still in Antiquity! Don't go there yet! Hahaha! But good points, nevertheless. (hide spoiler)]

Angus wrote: " Oh, I didn't think of heroic achievement as perfectionist although in a different perspective, it is perfectionist because the hero will continue to struggle despite of the challenges that will be thrown at him, despite the fact that he may fall down."
(view spoiler)[>>> I didn't get the perfectionist angle for Homeric epics too, but yes, I believe that's just it. It's quite a manly / oozing with machismo thought, isn't it? (hide spoiler)]

Ycel wrote: "... so when our corporeal body disintegrates and returneth to dust we shall become the earth, the sea, the air or even a black hole or a quasar (once our star explodes and all of us get mixed up with other galaxies). "
(view spoiler)[>>> My head exploded at the mention of "quasar". Hahaha, hardcore Ycel in the house!

But it begs the question: How are we formed? Through space dust, essentially? (hide spoiler)]

Ycel wrote: "I am reminded of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy – that we have only ourselves to rely on, and we have only one life (this life) and nothing beyond to live. "
(view spoiler)[>>> *shivers* (hide spoiler)]

Ycel wrote: "As the Upanishad believes that Atman (Individual Self) and Brahman (the infinite Spirit Source) are One and the same..."
(view spoiler)[>>> I enjoyed the GIFs! Nice touch :D (hide spoiler)]

Ycel wrote: "DC wrote: "I heard a story once about two people. One of them was a scholar who locked himself up in a high, high, HIGH tower so that he could see the whole world..."
Is that where they got the ivo..."
>>> Considering the very early release of the Songs of Solomon, I'd guess it's the other way around xD (view spoiler)[But the story may have been convoluted already since, I believe, it was used for class in a praxis example kind of way :) (hide spoiler)]

But the whole Ivory Tower thing... (view spoiler)[reminds me of armchair activists.

"From the 19th century it has been used to designate a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life."

(hide spoiler)]

Ycel wrote: "ANGUS:
Any recommendations aside from Edith Hamilton's? How about The Greek Myths?
Wow! I like!

*Quest for knowledge is natural undertaking. - Is it? But why do a lot of people seem to suppress it..."

"ALL men by nature desire to know,” said Aristotle. as quoted by Ycel. It is natural for men to ask, to be curious and to make sense of his environment. If we will continue with Aristotle's argument of this it is because in nature we are all ontologically good therefore we humans are inclined to what is good. And acquiring knowledge is also ontologically good. More detailed explanation of this can be found on The One and Many by Norris Clarke. :)

sa sinabi na to ni DC "In comparison, having the “soul of the cosmos” thought kind of equates you to somehow being a god, right? So you have a kind of offhand divinity, a sort of oneness with what's happening to the world. You would know about EVERYTHING, all-knowledgeable and all that."

pretty sums up what i'm about to say sa Guide question na un. sa Indian Philo mejo ganito ung approach. the idea of oneness for me is already dismissed pag naiisip ko yung mga rebuttals sa premises neto. Though I personally believe that of course every creature finds its way to be in harmony with one another. Oneness at harmony can be two seperate things.

Hi, Sarah! Thanks for the heads up on Norris Clarke :) The titles are very interesting.

DC wrote: "From the 19th century it has been used to designate a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life."

Oh, right.I usually see it in reference to tenured Ivy League professors :)

*Signing off to catch sleep...and think about Angus' notes* :)

Oh no wait, nahihiya na tuloy akong magpost, hahaha. I feel like I haven't really thought about my thoughts. I just type whatever it is that I have in mind. But I'm glad too that I do that because I see the flaws of my thought processes (although I still insist that no manner of thinking is the best one) and I love picking up brilliant ideas from your learned opinions. :)

Bukas na ulit ako magrereact. Magfafangirl moment muna ako. #JamesMcAvoy

Hi Ycel, DC and Angus: I'm super loving your posts, keep it coming :)

Just a few observations and random reflections for CHAPTER 1: From the Upanishads to Homer:

I haven't read the Upanishads but I've come across some of their teachings in some of my readings over the years and one thing that struck me about these Indian texts is that they are all saying that the very goal of ALL spiritual striving is the union and absorption with the Cosmic Source of all there is, and that each life humans have was an attempt to escape the endless cycle of birth and rebirth, and that this world we're living in was Maya, an illusion, and integral to this escape was to pierce through this illusion of division and duality. The ancient Indian sage, if I am to hazard a guess, felt himself more at home with the spirit and yearned to be liberated from bondage and thus attain Moksha; he considered this material incarnation a heavy burden and full of suffering.

We find a radical shift in the Greek mythological worldview articulated by Homer. In contrast with the ancient Indians, The world was finally felt to be a proper place for the striving of man. In Robinson's words: there is something terribly immediate and awesomely human and ideal in the Homeric epics. Men didnt seek to escape this life through absorption with the infinite, the afterlife was pictured as something not very alluring, Hades was a darkness populated by shades and souls whose brilliance can never rival the light of being alive. Life was not an illusion to be disregarded, but was home for man's struggles. The earth itself was perceived to be vibrantly alive, teeming with elementals and every tree and river populated by spirits and the Olympian gods themselves intervene quite regularly with the affairs of men. The Greeks felt a natural affinity towards the material world. It was in this milieu that the task of the Greeks to awaken the individual was finally enacted in the birth of philosophy.

Now I wonder whether the difference between the worldview of the Upanishad and the Homeric epics was only a matter of varying priorities or just a difference in setting. What if the essential difference lies somewhere deeper? I think it is not so farfetched to consider that the inner constitution of the ancient Indians were as different from the ancient Greeks as we are different from the people of Homer's time. It's possible that those who wrote the Upanishads beheld a qualitatively different world than the Greeks did, thus their relation and their engagement with the world was also quite different. It is here that I find the concept of Chronolgical Snobbery, which I learned from CS Lewis, quite helpful. As per Wikipedia: Chronological snobbery, a term coined by friends C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, is a logical argument (and usually when thus termed, considered an outright fallacy) describing the erroneous argument that the thinking, art, or science of an earlier time is inherently inferior to that of the present, simply by virtue of its temporal priority. As Barfield explains it, it is the belief that "intellectually, humanity languished for countless generations in the most childish errors on all sorts of crucial subjects, until it was redeemed by some simple scientific dictum of the last century." We are guilty of this if we think that the ancients were simply wrong in their mythical conceptions of the world. Implicit in this is the assumption that the ancients think and perceive the world as we moderns do, that they became aware with a blank slate and with a shortage of ideas, that they were ignorant of so many things and were so fearful of the chaos and the unknown that they populated the world with their imaginings and fears. This prejudice is also reflected when in the telling of the history of philosophical ideas, it just becomes a neat story of linear progression, that as we go nearer and nearer our time, the philosophical ideas are becoming more and more truthful and correct. I'm not sure if I'm entirely convinced of the veracity of this claim, and if this is how D.Robinson will proceed with his lectures.

Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead, in her essay, Reclaiming a Sense of the Sacred, powerfully describes this typical modern consideration of the past (lengthy quote ahead):
(view spoiler)[
'This is the anthropologists' answer to the question, why are people almost always, almost everywhere, religious. Another answer, favored by those who claim to be defenders of science, is that religion formed around the desire to explain what prescientific humankind could not account for. Again, this notion does not bear scrutiny. The literatures of antiquity are clearly about other business.

Some of these narratives are so ancient that they clearly existed before writing, though no doubt in the forms we have them they were modified in being written down. Their importance in the development of human culture cannot be overstated. In antiquity people lived in complex city-states, carried out the work and planning required by primitive agriculture, built ships and navigated at great distances, traded, made law, waged war, and kept the records of their dynasties. But the one thing that seems to have predominated, to have laid out their cities and filled them with temples and monuments, to have established their identities and their cultural boundaries, to have governed their calendars and enthroned their kings, were the vivid, atemporal stories they told themselves about the gods, the gods in relation to humankind, to their city, to themselves.

I suppose it was in the 18th century of our era that the notion became solidly fixed in the Western mind that all this narrative was an attempt at explaining what science would one day explain truly and finally. Phoebus drives his chariot across the sky, and so the sun rises and sets. Marduk slays the sea monster Tiamat, who weeps, whence the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is true that in some cases physical reality is accounted for, or at least described, in the terms of these myths. But the beauty of the myths is not accounted for by this theory, nor is the fact that, in literary forms, they had a hold on the imaginations of the populations that embraced them which expressed itself again as beauty. Over time these narratives had at least as profound an effect on architecture and the visual arts as they did on literature. Anecdotes from them were painted and sculpted everywhere, even on household goods, vases, and drinking cups.

This kind of imaginative engagement bears no resemblance whatever to an assimilation of explanatory models by these civilizations. Perhaps the tendency to think of classical religion as an effort at explaining a world otherwise incomprehensible to them encourages us to forget how sophisticated ancient people really were. They were inevitably as immersed in the realm of the practical as we are. It is strangely easy to forget that they were capable of complex engineering, though so many of their monuments still stand. The Babylonians used quadratic equations.

Yet in many instances ancient people seem to have obscured highly available real-world accounts of things. A sculptor would take an oath that the gods had made an idol, after he himself had made it. The gods were credited with walls and ziggurats, when cities themselves built them. Structures of enormous shaped stones went up in broad daylight in ancient cities, the walls built around the Temple by Herod in Roman-occupied Jerusalem being one example. The ancients knew, though we don't know, how this was done, obviously. But they left no account of it. This very remarkable evasion of the law of gravity was seemingly not of great interest to them. It was the gods themselves who walled in Troy.'
(hide spoiler)]

Like Ycel, I am really interested in the nature, meaning and origin of myths. Are they just projections of early man to a world he barely understands, or are the mythical stories passed down to us mere inklings of a participatory consciousness that is still united with the world's primordial strength, an awareness that is so alien to us wide awake moderns that we can barely understand their nature and meaning? I think a close approximation of the mythical consciousness in us moderns is when we dream: where we are so caught up with the narrative of the soul, where we are surrounded by vibrant images and unknown powers, where the distinction between what is inside us and outside us is still confused, when and our sense of self is not that focused and defined. Which is why from the dream like quality of myths, the birth of philosophy in Greece is like the awakening of the individual from sleep. If before truths came from the outside in the form of revelations from the spiritual world or the mouth of its priests and sages, truth-seeking is now slowly becoming the property of every man through the free inner activity of his thinking. And as man was becoming more and more concerned and interested in the material world and the earth that he inhabits, when he began to think rationally in abstract concepts and felt subjectivity contracted in himself, the more the gods of the myths and the vibrancy of the world recede and vanish. I think this partly explains why in our current scientific worldview, the basic existentialist angst of modern man is meaninglessness and alienation, since the world appears as such: cold, random and lacking any true meaning. Thus the story of the great ideas of philosophy, in my opinion, is really incomplete without taking into account the evolution of consciousness underpinning each and every idea in every age.

Welcome, Sarah, JL, to the discussion! Thanks for your thoughts. (Will react later :D)

I hope it's all right if we move on to the next chapter today, just so we can keep the discussion moving forward :D Don't, however, hesitate to add in your opinions and whatnot to the discussion, even if it's in reference to Chapter 1.

Next chapter:
Chapter 2: Philosophy-What is It and Did the Greeks Invent It?

I woke up to two great things today: the Ender's Game first official trailer is finally out, and JL's post completely blew me away! Wooooooooooooot!!! *digesting more thoughts*

Sagutin ko lang ‘to before I run to a series of meetings today. I will check in again tonight to comment on JL’s fantabulous post.

DC wrote: “But it begs the question: How are we formed? Through space dust, essentially?”

Are you familiar with the “Higgs boson” particle theory? You might have encountered it if you read Angels and Demons. Made huge headlines last year. I especially liked Randy David’s take on the matter .

The discussion here is so hardcore, I don't even know where to start.

*Takes a welcome break*

Hullo, Bennard. Just hop in! Don't be intimidated by JL. LOL!

Seriously, the reason why I shared these materials is to be able to discuss the ideas. So I am looking forward to seeing other people's understanding and so far it's been very instructive. So fear not and let's learn together :)

And if you haven't taken any Philo course this is a great intro!

SARAH: May I know if you're a Philosophy major? The last person I heard to say "ontological", aside from Prof. Robinson, is a friend who has a degree in Philosophy. *Curious*

Welcome, Bennard! Huwag matakot! Hahaha! (view spoiler)[JL kasi :P (hide spoiler)]

Sarah wrote: "Though I personally believe that of course every creature finds its way to be in harmony with one another. Oneness at harmony can be two seperate things. "
(view spoiler)[>>> Oneness and harmony, hmm. Is this something like how 1+1 could be equal to 2 mathematically, and how 1+1 could be equal to 1 due to synergy? I have to think about this oneness and harmony being separate things, but thanks for the thought. I'll digest it along with JL's post. *nomnomnom* (hide spoiler)]

Ycel wrote: "Are you familiar with the “Higgs boson” particle theory? You might have encountered it if you read Angels and Demons. Made huge headlines last year. I especially liked Randy David’s take on the matter .
(view spoiler)[>>> Oh yes, I remember when it was on the headlines. The God particle. Thanks for the link to David's article. I particularly liked the end sentence. (view spoiler)["Her mother shot back: “Ok, my child, just do not forget who created that particle.” (hide spoiler)] Nice, very nice. :D (hide spoiler)]

And now... "That time I trolled JL".

JL, might I begin by saying: (view spoiler)[WTF, "A FEW" observations?! Stop drinking that KoolAid! HAHA! Peace ^.^v (hide spoiler)]

JL wrote: "... that this world we're living in was Maya"
(view spoiler)[>>> I'm pretty sure you haven't read it yet, but have you heard of Jostein Gaarder's Maya? (hide spoiler)]

JL wrote: (view spoiler)["It is here that I find the concept of Chronolgical Snobbery, which I learned from CS Lewis, quite helpful. "
JL wrote: "As per Wikipedia: Chronological snobbery... is a logical argument (and usually when thus termed, considered an outright fallacy) describing the erroneous argument that the thinking, art, or science of an earlier time is inherently inferior to that of the present, simply by virtue of its temporal priority."
JL wrote: "I'm not sure if I'm entirely convinced of the veracity of this claim"
(emphasis supplied) (hide spoiler)]
(view spoiler)[>>> JL, TROLL. LOL. Nanggulo lang, o :P (Joke!)

I like the term, by the way. I think that Robinson only highlighted certain parts of the Upanishads and of Homer's epics (goodness knows that both have more than just that to offer) to give a sort of starting point, a good dichotomy. We haven't actually delved into the Upanishads, really, nor in Homer's epics. A mere dip in the pond, not a dive in the sea :D

Although your whole paragraph about it reminded me of Occam's Razor :) (hide spoiler)]


JL wrote: "Like Ycel, I am really interested in the nature, meaning and origin of myths. Are they just projections of early man to a world he barely understands, or are the mythical stories passed down to us mere inklings of a participatory consciousness that is still united with the world's primordial strength, an awareness that is so alien to us wide awake moderns that we can barely understand their nature and meaning? "
(view spoiler)[>>> I find your usage of the term "moderns" to be unfairly generalizing and discriminatory :P

But, on another note, have you heard of the argument about how people, from the beginning of time, have always looked for something to worship? Whether it was the sun, the moon, the wind, the sea, etc? (By the way, I've heard that this line of thought ultimately leads to an argument of the existence of God (or A god, or Gods, whichever). Also, I think the essay you posted by Robinson - Marilynne - somehow notes this.) What you said about that participatory consciousness just makes me think about that.

Have you also read Isaac Asimov's Nemesis? It resounded in my head when you talked about it. *laughs at inside joke* (view spoiler)[I remember that young woman with the beautiful brain waves :D (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

JL wrote: "Which is why from the dream like quality of myths, the birth of philosophy in Greece is like the awakening of the individual from sleep."
(view spoiler)[>>> I feel poetry in this sentence. Nuuuuks. (hide spoiler)]

JL wrote: "And as man was becoming more and more concerned and interested in the material world and the earth that he inhabits, when he began to think rationally in abstract concepts and felt subjectivity contracted in himself, the more the gods of the myths and the vibrancy of the world recede and vanish."
(view spoiler)[>>> Do they really recede and vanish? Could it not be that they take on different forms and names instead? :D (view spoiler)[In this tycoon game I once played, I had to complete an achievement: one about placing a temple / place of worship for every religion there is in this certain city. I couldn't figure out why I was not getting the achievement, when I've already built every temple in the "places of worship" category. I left it alone, and was surprised when I got the achievement after randomly building a bank. True story, bro. (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

JL:
(view spoiler)[
Men didn't seek to escape this life through absorption with the infinite, the afterlife was pictured as something not very alluring, Hades was a darkness populated by shades and souls whose brilliance can never rival the light of being alive.

Not exactly. They also had a concept of heaven which they called the Elysian Fields or the Isles of the Blessed.

We are guilty of this (view spoiler)[Chronological Snobbery (hide spoiler)] if we think that the ancients were simply wrong in their mythical conceptions of the world. Implicit in this is the assumption that the ancients think and perceive the world as we moderns do, that they became aware with a blank slate and with a shortage of ideas, that they were ignorant of so many things and were so fearful of the chaos and the unknown that they populated the world with their imaginings and fears.

You’ll be surprised when we get to Lecture 3: (view spoiler)[Pythagoras and the Divinity of Numbers (hide spoiler)].

This prejudice is also reflected when in the telling of the history of philosophical ideas, it just becomes a neat story of linear progression, that as we go nearer and nearer our time, the philosophical ideas are becoming more and more truthful and correct. I'm not sure if I'm entirely convinced of the veracity of this claim, and if this is how D.Robinson will proceed with his lectures.

It’s not exactly linear the way science progressed. As human history marched on, we did not necessarily get philosophical ideas that are more truthful and correct (view spoiler)[ (example: Marxism) (hide spoiler)]. But I shall stop here before I spoil it any further.

Thus the story of the great ideas of philosophy, in my opinion, is really incomplete without taking into account the evolution of consciousness underpinning each and every idea in every age.

Let’s get back to this when we wrap up the course. We will list it down as JL’s great expectation :) Let’s see if Dr. Robinson will measure up.
(hide spoiler)]

Ycel

Guilty. Philo major nga ako. Last school year lang. :)

DC

Pagpasensyahan niyo na hindi kasi ako matype na tao. Mas maayos ko to mcconvey pag sinasabi ko kesa tntype ko. hahaha. :))) I'll try my best to explain my point. :)

About Oneness, imagine this scenario: "There is a vast sea and there is nothing but water wherever you look. In the context of Oneness we are all droplets. Our souls are the droplets that sooner or later we will be in the sea. We are not different from the sea in the first place, tayo ung dagat. Hindi tayo part nung dagat. TAYO ung dagat. Tayong lahat.

Sa harmony naman, this is the very evident observation on evolution (not the evolution of man perse, but evolution in general) Universe as a system composed of many parts. all creatures work together and simultaneously to produce a result. parang ganito eh. bago natin masabi na tubig eto h2o eto hindi sya kuha ka ng hydrogen atom tapos oxygen then boom tubig hindi siya random. it should be in harmony. this is what they called Irreducible Complexity.

JL

one explanation na naencounter ko sa usaping mythology. they said it is the manifestation of man's longing to God. We knew and it is innate in us to find him. thus, kahit ung mga taong kweba create their own idols na dndrawing nila sa caves. (of course this has a very biased presupposition) hahaha

sana hindi magulo ung pagkakaexplain ko. :)))

DC:
(view spoiler)[
I think I just got bit by the existential nihilist bug again, what with the whole journey/destination thing.

Por que? Hmmm…you have to elaborate on this when we meet.

Of course there's the issue of governing policy, of discrimination, etc, but it just seems too cruel to call someone without heart, without law (or personal restraint), without state.

The governing body of the polis is not perfect, as you shall see when Dr. Robinson talks about Socrates.
(hide spoiler)]

Hi guys! I just wanted to post the guide questions for Chapter 2 :)

Questions to Consider:
1. Explain how the conception of the Olympian gods liberates Greek thought.
2. Describe factors usually offered to account for the Greek philosophical achievement that were not present in earlier and highly developed civilizations.
3. How does Isocrates intend Hellene to be understood, and does this sense of the term retain its meaning today?

I just wanted to tie these 3 observations before we move on to Chapter 2:

Sarah wrote: “one explanation na naencounter ko sa usaping mythology. they said it is the manifestation of man's longing to God. We knew and it is innate in us to find him. thus, kahit ung mga taong kweba create their own idols na dndrawing nila sa caves. (of course this has a very biased presupposition)”

JL wrote: “Are they just projections of early man to a world he barely understands, or are the mythical stories passed down to us mere inklings of a participatory consciousness that is still united with the world's primordial strength, an awareness that is so alien to us wide awake moderns that we can barely understand their nature and meaning?”

Angus wrote: “*On religion - Isn't religion also another form of philosophy? Religion provides us with answers on the three central questions, but I think the difference it has with philosophy is that it restricts people from questioning the answers provided. The strings of reason are cut from the people because if you do so much as tug it a tiny bit, one is excommunicated and considered a heretic.”
(view spoiler)[
Yet my study of the history of religion has revealed that human beings are spiritual animals. Indeed, there is a case for arguing that Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus. Men and women started to worship gods as soon as they became recognizably human; they created religions at the same time as they created works of art. This was not simply because they wanted to propitiate powerful forces; these early faiths expressed the wonder and mystery that seem always to have been an essential component of the human experience of this beautiful and terrifying world. Like art, religion has been an attempt to find meaning and value in life, despite the suffering that flesh is heir to. Like any other human activity, religion can be abused, but it seems to be something that we have always done. It was not tacked on to a primordially secular nature by manipulative kings and priests but was natural to humanity.
~ Karen Armstrong, in her Introduction to A History of God
(hide spoiler)]

DC:
(view spoiler)[
DC wrote: "WTF, "A FEW" observations?! Stop drinking that KoolAid! HAHA!"

Haha, I'll stop drinking na! Bakit nga pala KoolAid? :)

DC wrote: "I'm pretty sure you haven't read it yet, but have you heard of Jostein Gaarder's Maya?"

Nope, I haven't heard about Maya till now, nor have I read Sophie's World :( Am I missing anything?

DC wrote: "JL, TROLL. LOL. Nanggulo lang, o :P"

Darn, I think I stated that incorrectly. What I meant was I'm not entirely convinced that our ideas today are more true and correct than the those of the past and that I agree that Chronological Snobbery is a fallacy :)

DC wrote: "I find your usage of the term "moderns" to be unfairly generalizing and discriminatory :P "

Really? Sorry about that. It was just meant to be a general description of our present consciousness, me included: " we, wide awake moderns". if mythological/participatory consciousness was dreamlike and the birth of philosophy was waking up from that dream, then modern humans like us who have been awake the longest will have the hardest time to remember what we dreamt last night :) And being wide awake does have its positive qualities and advantages diba, so it wasn't meant to be discriminatory. And no, I also haven't read Isaac Asimov's Nemesis. Is it good?

DC wrote: "Do they really recede and vanish? Could it not be that they take on different forms and names instead?"

Hmmm, yes, in our contemporary worldview, I really do think they receded, but that doesn't mean they are gone. By 'they' I meant the pleroma perceived by the mythological consciousness. Here's how a writer described it: "By all accounts the ancients experienced themselves as living within an ensouled world — one thoroughly drenched in perceptions of goodness and value." For the ancients, the 'soulful' experience was natural and as easy as cupcake, but for us, now, I think we really need the cultivation and exercise of all our cognitive capacities (imaginative, aesthetic, moral, intellect) to once again percieve this ensouled world.
(hide spoiler)]

Ycel:
(view spoiler)[
Ycel wrote: "Not exactly. They also had a concept of heaven which they called the Elysian Fields or the Isles of the Blessed."

Yup, but I think the ancient Greeks still regarded death and the afterlife as some form of diminishing. Kaya, I think for them life on earth was very precious unlike the ancient Indians who felt life as a form of bondage. Anyway, here's a wikipedia quote about the Greek underworld: "The Greeks accepted the existence of the soul after death, but saw this afterlife as meaningless. In the underworld, the identity of a dead person still existed, but it had no strength or true influence. Rather, the continuation of the existence of the soul in the Underworld was considered a remembrance of the fact that the dead person had existed, and while the soul still existed, it was inactive. However, the price of death was considered a great one. Homer believed that the best possible existence for humans was to never be born at all, or die soon after birth, because the greatness of life could never balance the price of death."


Ycel wrote: "It’s not exactly linear the way science progressed. As human history marched on, we did not necessarily get philosophical ideas that are more truthful and correct (example: Marxism). But I shall stop here before I spoil it any further."

Yes! Marxism seems to be a monkey wrench in the linear progression belief :) Hmmm, when I wrote that paragraph, I was actually thinking of worldviews instead of ideas, so the claim that the current scientific worldview (in broad outlines) with its attendant ideas is the truest worldview, in my opinion, could be guilty of Chronological Snobbery.

As for my great expectation, I do hope Dr. Robinson measure up :)

And yehey to the Karen Armstrong quote :) I've read some of her books and its nice to see someone quoting her:)
(hide spoiler)]

Ycel and DC:
(view spoiler)[
Ycel wrote: "Are you familiar with the “Higgs boson” particle theory? You might have encountered it if you read Angels and Demons. Made huge headlines last year. I especially liked Randy David’s take on the matter ."

sorry makikisingit lng sa usapan :) Another Yehey for the Randy David article :) I'm a big big fan of Randy David hehe (Ycel, have you read some of his books?) Anway, regarding his article "The God particle", I just want to share this essay about how to best answer children who are asking the Big Questions about God, life and why the sky is blue and how our answers reveal surprising aspects about science and ourselves: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publica...
(hide spoiler)]

JL wrote: “Homer believed that the best possible existence for humans was to never be born at all, or die soon after birth, because the greatness of life could never balance the price of death."
What an utterly hopeless, dreadful prospect for the ancients indeed. This puts into perspective the great perseverance of the early Christians and the disciples to spread Christianity and its message of hope and redemption.

*Moving on*

02 – Philosophy – What is It and Did the Greeks Invent It?
(view spoiler)[
1. Explain how the conception of the Olympian gods liberates Greek thought.
The Greeks finally realized that the gods were not interested in humans, except to meddle in their affairs and start conflict. “Despite their oracles, priests, folk wisdom, and Olympian deities, there was no ultimate authority on matters of truth in their culture” (in contrast to the Middle Ages where the Church pervades all aspect of human life). Speaking of oracles, I doubt if the Oracle of Delphi looked like this: (view spoiler)[[image error] (hide spoiler)] but for purposes of aesthetics, I shall accept it (view spoiler)[(meowwwrrrr) (hide spoiler)].

Because much of Greece is un-arable land, feeding the Greeks became a major challenge so they will have to help themselves. Out of this practical necessity came the need to colonize other lands. Although slavery still existed, the Greeks were the first to practice democracy and form city-states, and schools of thought and critical inquiry started to flourish.

2. Describe factors usually offered to account for the Greek philosophical achievement that were not present in earlier and highly developed civilizations.
The most plausible explanation – discounting the sunshine theory, slave-based economy, abundant seafood –is the unique characteristic of the Greek religion, which, “unusually for the period, was not a state religion, but neither was Greek society secular: The reverential and the political were highly integrated; there was a religious attitude but not a state religion.” An odd configuration yet a philosophical approach came about because priests had no authority to pronounce on ultimate questions.

3. How does Isocrates intend Hellene to be understood, and does this sense of the term retain its meaning today?
“Those who share our conception of culture are Hellenes. It isn't something ethnic, it's a cultural conception. Those who come together with us in what we take to be the most important aspects of life are Hellenes.”

Let’ see… the Olympic games aside, the Greeks were among the first to create a diaspora. Owing to the achievements of Alexander the Great, Greek culture was not confined to the areas around the Aegean Sea but extended far into Asia, so there were a lot of Greek-speaking people although they were not native Greeks (view spoiler)[(notably Jesus and St. Paul) (hide spoiler)]. It was in this manner that the Greek achievements in architecture, literature, philosophy, politics, music, mathematics, science, medicine, etc. spread among the “barbarians” (non-Hellenes). To be a Hellene in those times is to be a fairly sophisticated, highly-cultured person so I can imagine the superiority and self-importance of a Hellene especially during the Golden Age of the Hellenistic civilization. It boggles my mind that in that part of the Mediterranean the Greek language is still spoken (and it has been spoken since remote antiquity while Latin has long been dead). To this day there are still universities offering courses in the Classics (meaning Latin and Greek) so it is a lasting testament to the legacy of the Greeks that even in the modern times, scholars are still poring over ancient texts from primary sources. Only because they gave the world a clear, systematic way to think. To think. No other civilization can lay claim to this achievement except the Hellenes. So – to use rationality to successfully traverse the challenges of daily life, to prioritize the important things, to adopt a critical mind when media insists that product x is good for us, to scrutinize a senatorial candidate’s platform and plan of action – for me, is to share in Isocrates’ idea of a Hellene.
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Ycel

Hindi ako si Shiela.. :l :))))