Pythagorean Plato
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Prayer – Seeing Things from God's Perspective I Like Flying (In a Plane
Prayer – Seeing Things from God’s Perspective I like flying (in a plane, of course). It gives me a new perspective. From thousands of feet up I can see snow-capped mountains, arid deserts dissected by dry watercourses, cultivated fields in neat rows, meandering rivers, busy highways, rugged coastlines, clouds, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and occasionally other aircraft. I have flown on and off most of my adult life and, with a few exceptions, have enjoyed it. But from time to time I think about where I am. From the relative comfort (never easy because I have long legs) of a spacious wide-body jet, watching a recent movie or interpreting airline food, it is easy to think that we and our fellow-passengers are alone, safe and in a “big space”. It is easy to forget that, from 40,000 feet, the reason the landscape below seems so small is that we are a long way above the surface of the earth. From the vantage point of someone on the ground looking up at the jet passing overhead, we are a long way up, and the aircraft looks very, very small in a huge expanse of nothing. We are vulnerable, to the elements, the reliability of the plane and the potential for mechanical or pilot error. We make an assumption that we will reach our destination, and forget that such a conclusion is only our perspective, which may turn out not to be correct after all. Witness the recent disappearance and protracted search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370. When there is turbulence, our perspective can change quickly; we recall airline accidents attributed to clear air turbulence, severe tropical storms, lightning (I have been in a plane struck by lightning, when the electrical systems appeared to fail, for a few long seconds) or engine problems. -
Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, Book Five
Binghamton University The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB) The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter 12-1986 The Lives of the Peripatetics: Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, Book Five Michael Sollenberger Mount St. Mary's University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Ancient Philosophy Commons, and the History of Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Sollenberger, Michael, "The Lives of the Peripatetics: Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, Book Five" (1986). The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter. 129. https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/129 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter by an authorized administrator of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact [email protected]. f\îc|*zx,e| lîâ& The Lives of the Peripatetics: Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosoohorum Book Five The biographies of six early Peripatetic philosophers are con tained in the fifth book of Diogenes Laertius* Vitae philosoohorum: the lives of the first four heads of the sect - Aristotle, Theophras tus, Strato, and Lyco - and those of two outstanding members of the school - Demetrius of Phalerum and Heraclides of Pontus, For the history of two rival schools, the Academy and the Stoa, we are for tunate in having not only Diogenes' versions in 3ooks Four and Seven, but also the Index Academicorum and the Index Stoicorum preserved among the papyri from Herculaneum, But for the Peripatos there-is no such second source. -
Skepticism and Pluralism Ways of Living a Life Of
SKEPTICISM AND PLURALISM WAYS OF LIVING A LIFE OF AWARENESS AS RECOMMENDED BY THE ZHUANGZI #±r A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY AUGUST 2004 By John Trowbridge Dissertation Committee: Roger T. Ames, Chairperson Tamara Albertini Chung-ying Cheng James E. Tiles David R. McCraw © Copyright 2004 by John Trowbridge iii Dedicated to my wife, Jill iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completing this research, I would like to express my appreciation first and foremost to my wife, Jill, and our three children, James, Holly, and Henry for their support during this process. I would also like to express my gratitude to my entire dissertation committee for their insight and understanding ofthe topics at hand. Studying under Roger Ames has been a transformative experience. In particular, his commitment to taking the Chinese tradition on its own terms and avoiding the tendency among Western interpreters to overwrite traditional Chinese thought with the preoccupations ofWestern philosophy has enabled me to broaden my conception ofphilosophy itself. Roger's seminars on Confucianism and Daoism, and especially a seminar on writing a philosophical translation ofthe Zhongyong r:pJm (Achieving Equilibrium in the Everyday), have greatly influenced my own initial attempts to translate and interpret the seminal philosophical texts ofancient China. Tamara Albertini's expertise in ancient Greek philosophy was indispensable to this project, and a seminar I audited with her, comparing early Greek and ancient Chinese philosophy, was part ofthe inspiration for my choice ofresearch topic. I particularly valued the opportunity to study Daoism and the Yijing ~*~ with Chung-ying Cheng g\Gr:p~ and benefited greatly from his theory ofonto-cosmology as a means of understanding classical Chinese philosophy. -
The Prayer of Surrender
THE PRAYER OF SURRENDER I was scheduled to fly from Philadelphia to Pittsburg this week to do a television show. On a good day it takes me about 80 minutes to drive to the Philadelphia airport from my house. Snow flurries were forecast for Tuesday but they weren’t supposed to last. But they did and got heavier and heavier as the morning wore on. I began to worry. I have a disease my children have dubbed, “Worst Case Scenario Disease.” Perhaps you have it too. My mind began imagining the worst things that might happen while I was driving to the airport in the snow. For example, I might miss my plane or it would be cancelled and I wouldn’t be able to get to the television show. Or, I might get in a terrible accident and never make my plane. Or, the plane would crash because the wings got icy. Crazy, I know, but I’m just being real. But the good news is, I have learned how to get myself out of such emotional quicksand and I want to teach you how too. It’s called the prayer of surrender. We all have many desires – good and legitimate desires, nothing God would disapprove of. But what starts to happen to us when our desires get delayed, frustrated or denied? My desire in that moment was to get to the airport, make my plane and fulfill my responsibilities to be on that television show. Perhaps your desire is to have a stress free Christmas, a nice family dinner, a spouse that loves you, children who obey you, and a paycheck that supports your financial obligations. -
Seriously Playful: Philosophy in the Myths of Ovid's Metamorphoses
Seriously Playful: Philosophy in the Myths of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Megan Beasley, B.A. (Hons) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Classics of The University of Western Australia School of Humanities Discipline of Classics and Ancient History 2012 1 2 For my parents 3 4 Abstract This thesis aims to lay to rest arguments about whether Ovid is or is not a philosophical poet in the Metamorphoses. It does so by differentiating between philosophical poets and poetic philosophers; the former write poetry freighted with philosophical discourse while the latter write philosophy in a poetic medium. Ovid, it is argued, should be categorised as a philosophical poet, who infuses philosophical ideas from various schools into the Metamorphoses, producing a poem that, all told, neither expounds nor attacks any given philosophical school, but rather uses philosophy to imbue its constituent myths with greater wit, poignancy and psychological realism. Myth and philosophy are interwoven so intricately that it is impossible to separate them without doing violence to Ovid’s poem. It is not argued here that the Metamorphoses is a fundamentally serious poem which is enhanced, or marred, by occasional playfulness. Nor is it argued that the poem is fundamentally playful with occasional moments of dignity and high seriousness. Rather, the approach taken here assumes that seriousness and playfulness are so closely connected in the Metamorphoses that they are in fact the same thing. Four major myths from the Metamorphoses are studied here, from structurally significant points in the poem. The “Cosmogony” and the “Speech of Pythagoras” at the beginning and end of the poem have long been recognised as drawing on philosophy, and discussion of these two myths forms the beginning and end of the thesis. -
Glaucon's Dilemma. the Origins of Social Order
[Working draft. Please do not circulate or cite without author’s permission] Glaucon’s Dilemma. The origins of social order. Josiah Ober Chapter 2 of The Greeks and the Rational (book-in-progress, provisional title) Draft of 2019.09.20 Word count: 17,200. Abstract: The long Greek tradition of political thought understood that cooperation among multiple individuals was an imperative for human survival. The tradition (here represented by passages from Plato’s Republic, Gorgias, and Protagoras, and from Diodorus of Sicily’s universal history) also recognized social cooperation as a problem in need of a solution in light of instrumental rationality and self-interest, strategic behavior, and the option of free riding on the cooperation of others. Ancient “anthropological” theories of the origins of human cooperation proposed solutions to the problem of cooperation by varying the assumed motivations of agents and postulating repeated interactions with communication and learning. The ways that Greek writers conceived the origins of social order as a problem of rational cooperation can be modeled as strategic games: as variants of the non-cooperative Prisoners Dilemma and cooperative Stag Hunt games and as repeated games with incomplete information and updating. In book 2 of the Republic Plato’s Glaucon offered a carefully crafted philosophical challenge, in the form of a narrative thought experiment, to Socrates’ position that justice is supremely choice-worthy, the top-ranked preference of a truly rational person. Seeking to improve the immoralist argument urged by Thrasymachus in Republic book 1 (in order to give Socrates the opportunity to refute the best form of that argument), Glaucon told a tale of Gyges and his ring of invisibility.1 In chapter 1, I suggested that Glaucon’s story illustrated a pure form of rational and self-interested behavior, through revealed preferences when the ordinary constraints of uncertainty, enforceable social conventions, and others’ strategic choices were absent. -
The Roles of Solon in Plato's Dialogues
The Roles of Solon in Plato’s Dialogues Dissertation Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Samuel Ortencio Flores, M.A. Graduate Program in Greek and Latin The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Bruce Heiden, Advisor Anthony Kaldellis Richard Fletcher Greg Anderson Copyrighy by Samuel Ortencio Flores 2013 Abstract This dissertation is a study of Plato’s use and adaptation of an earlier model and tradition of wisdom based on the thought and legacy of the sixth-century archon, legislator, and poet Solon. Solon is cited and/or quoted thirty-four times in Plato’s dialogues, and alluded to many more times. My study shows that these references and allusions have deeper meaning when contextualized within the reception of Solon in the classical period. For Plato, Solon is a rhetorically powerful figure in advancing the relatively new practice of philosophy in Athens. While Solon himself did not adequately establish justice in the city, his legacy provided a model upon which Platonic philosophy could improve. Chapter One surveys the passing references to Solon in the dialogues as an introduction to my chapters on the dialogues in which Solon is a very prominent figure, Timaeus- Critias, Republic, and Laws. Chapter Two examines Critias’ use of his ancestor Solon to establish his own philosophic credentials. Chapter Three suggests that Socrates re- appropriates the aims and themes of Solon’s political poetry for Socratic philosophy. Chapter Four suggests that Solon provides a legislative model which Plato reconstructs in the Laws for the philosopher to supplant the role of legislator in Greek thought. -
A History of Cynicism
A HISTORY OF CYNICISM Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com A HISTORY OF CYNICISM From Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. by DONALD R. DUDLEY F,llow of St. John's College, Cambrid1e Htmy Fellow at Yale University firl mll METHUEN & CO. LTD. LONDON 36 Essex Street, Strand, W.C.2 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com First published in 1937 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com PREFACE THE research of which this book is the outcome was mainly carried out at St. John's College, Cambridge, Yale University, and Edinburgh University. In the help so generously given to my work I have been no less fortunate than in the scenes in which it was pursued. I am much indebted for criticism and advice to Professor M. Rostovtseff and Professor E. R. Goodonough of Yale, to Professor A. E. Taylor of Edinburgh, to Professor F. M. Cornford of Cambridge, to Professor J. L. Stocks of Liverpool, and to Dr. W. H. Semple of Reading. I should also like to thank the electors of the Henry Fund for enabling me to visit the United States, and the College Council of St. John's for electing me to a Research Fellowship. Finally, to• the unfailing interest, advice and encouragement of Mr. M. P. Charlesworth of St. John's I owe an especial debt which I can hardly hope to repay. These acknowledgements do not exhaust the list of my obligations ; but I hope that other kindnesses have been acknowledged either in the text or privately. -
Plato's Symposium: the Ethics of Desire
Plato’s Symposium: The Ethics of Desire FRISBEE C. C. SHEFFIELD 1 Contents Introduction 1 1. Ero¯s and the Good Life 8 2. Socrates’ Speech: The Nature of Ero¯s 40 3. Socrates’ Speech: The Aim of Ero¯s 75 4. Socrates’ Speech: The Activity of Ero¯s 112 5. Socrates’ Speech: Concern for Others? 154 6. ‘Nothing to do with Human AVairs?’: Alcibiades’ Response to Socrates 183 7. Shadow Lovers: The Symposiasts and Socrates 207 Conclusion 225 Appendix : Socratic Psychology or Tripartition in the Symposium? 227 References 240 Index 249 Introduction In the Symposium Plato invites us to imagine the following scene: A pair of lovers are locked in an embrace and Hephaestus stands over them with his mending tools asking: ‘What is it that you human beings really want from each other?’ The lovers are puzzled, and he asks them again: ‘Is this your heart’s desire, for the two of you to become parts of the same whole, and never to separate, day or night? If that is your desire, I’d like to weld you together and join you into something whole, so that the two of you are made into one. Look at your love and see if this is what you desire: wouldn’t this be all that you want?’ No one, apparently, would think that mere sex is the reason each lover takes such deep joy in being with the other. The soul of each lover apparently longs for something else, but cannot say what it is. The beloved holds out the promise of something beyond itself, but that something lovers are unable to name.1 Hephaestus’ question is a pressing one. -
On the Arrangement of the Platonic Dialogues
Ryan C. Fowler 25th Hour On the Arrangement of the Platonic Dialogues I. Thrasyllus a. Diogenes Laertius (D.L.), Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers 3.56: “But, just as long ago in tragedy the chorus was the only actor, and afterwards, in order to give the chorus breathing space, Thespis devised a single actor, Aeschylus a second, Sophocles a third, and thus tragedy was completed, so too with philosophy: in early times it discoursed on one subject only, namely physics, then Socrates added the second subject, ethics, and Plato the third, dialectics, and so brought philosophy to perfection. Thrasyllus says that he [Plato] published his dialogues in tetralogies, like those of the tragic poets. Thus they contended with four plays at the Dionysia, the Lenaea, the Panathenaea and the festival of Chytri. Of the four plays the last was a satiric drama; and the four together were called a tetralogy.” b. Characters or types of dialogues (D.L. 3.49): 1. instructive (ὑφηγητικός) A. theoretical (θεωρηµατικόν) a. physical (φυσικόν) b. logical (λογικόν) B. practical (πρακτικόν) a. ethical (ἠθικόν) b. political (πολιτικόν) 2. investigative (ζητητικός) A. training the mind (γυµναστικός) a. obstetrical (µαιευτικός) b. tentative (πειραστικός) B. victory in controversy (ἀγωνιστικός) a. critical (ἐνδεικτικός) b. subversive (ἀνατρεπτικός) c. Thrasyllan categories of the dialogues (D.L. 3.50-1): Physics: Timaeus Logic: Statesman, Cratylus, Parmenides, and Sophist Ethics: Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium, Menexenus, Clitophon, the Letters, Philebus, Hipparchus, Rivals Politics: Republic, the Laws, Minos, Epinomis, Atlantis Obstetrics: Alcibiades 1 and 2, Theages, Lysis, Laches Tentative: Euthyphro, Meno, Io, Charmides and Theaetetus Critical: Protagoras Subversive: Euthydemus, Gorgias, and Hippias 1 and 2 :1 d. -
10Great Features for Moon Watchers
Sinus Aestuum is a lava pond hemming the Imbrium debris. Mare Orientale is another of the Moon’s large impact basins, Beginning observing On its eastern edge, dark volcanic material erupted explosively and possibly the youngest. Lunar scientists think it formed 170 along a rille. Although this region at first appears featureless, million years after Mare Imbrium. And although “Mare Orien- observe it at several different lunar phases and you’ll see the tale” translates to “Eastern Sea,” in 1961, the International dark area grow more apparent as the Sun climbs higher. Astronomical Union changed the way astronomers denote great features for Occupying a region below and a bit left of the Moon’s dead lunar directions. The result is that Mare Orientale now sits on center, Mare Nubium lies far from many lunar showpiece sites. the Moon’s western limb. From Earth we never see most of it. Look for it as the dark region above magnificent Tycho Crater. When you observe the Cauchy Domes, you’ll be looking at Yet this small region, where lava plains meet highlands, con- shield volcanoes that erupted from lunar vents. The lava cooled Moon watchers tains a variety of interesting geologic features — impact craters, slowly, so it had a chance to spread and form gentle slopes. 10Our natural satellite offers plenty of targets you can spot through any size telescope. lava-flooded plains, tectonic faulting, and debris from distant In a geologic sense, our Moon is now quiet. The only events by Michael E. Bakich impacts — that are great for telescopic exploring. -
Pythagorean and Hermetic Principles in Freemasonry Doric Lodge 316 A.F
Pythagorean and Hermetic Principles in Freemasonry Doric Lodge 316 A.F. & A.M of Ontario, Canada - Committee of Masonic Education That which is below is like that which is above, that which is above is like that which is below – to do the miracles of One Only Thing. - The Emerald Tablet (Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina) Text attributed to Hermes Trimegistus, translated by Sir Isaac Newton Masonic lectures suggest that our usages and customs correspond with those of ancient Egyptian philosophers, as well as Pythagorean beliefs and systems. Pythagoras and his followers are renowned to have derived their knowledge from Egyptian and other Eastern influences, including Babylonian, Phoenician and Indian. The Egyptians are said to have revealed secrets in geometry, the Phoenicians arithmetic, the Chaldeans astronomy, the Magians 1 the principles of religion and maxims for the conduct of life. Accurate facts about Pythagoras as a historical individual are so few, and most information concerning him so faint, that it is impossible to provide more than just a vague outline of his life. Pythagoras is attributed to have founded a school of science and philosophy, a fraternity of thinkers, mystics and mathematicians who saw in numbers the key to understand how the entire universe works. They studied the philosophical meanings of numbers and their relationships (a field related to number theory, a cornerstone part of mathematics which contains questions unsolved to this day). The fraternity went as far as to attribute virtues to numbers, such as: - One was attributed to the Monad, or Singularity. The source of all numbers. Perfect, essential, indivisible.