TERMS STARTING WITH
Plato (427-347 B.C.) recognized the person in his doctrine of the soul, but turned the direction of thought toward dominance by the abstract Idea.
Plato: (428-7 - 348-7 B.C.) Was one of the greatest of the Greek philosophers. He was born either in Athens or on the island of Aegina, and was originally known as Aristocles. Ariston, his father, traced his ancestry to the last kings of Athens. His mother, Perictione, was a descendant of the family of Solon. Plato was given the best elementary education possible and he spent eight years, from his own twentieth year to the death of Socrates, as a member of the Socratic circle. Various stories are told about his supposed masters in philosophy, and his travels in Greece, Italy, Sicily and Egypt, but all that we know for certain is that he somehow acquired a knowledge of Pythagoreanisrn, Heracleitanism, Eleaticism and othei Pre-Socratic philosophies. He founded his school of mathematics and philosophy in Athens in 387 B.C. It became known as the Academy. Here he taught with great success until his death at the age of eighty. His career as a teacher was interrupted on two occasions by trips to Sicily, where Plato tried without much success to educate and advise Dionysius the Younger. His works have been very well preserved; we have more than twenty-five authentic dialogues, certain letters, and some definitions which are probably spurious. For a list of works, bibliography and an outline of his thought, see Platonism. -- V.J.B.
Plato ::: Ancient Greek philosopher (4th century B.C.E.), student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, whose identification of reality with the non-material world of ideas (“the ideal world”) played an enormous role in subsequent philosophy and religion (see neo-Platonism). Father of “Platonism” and the Platonic Academy as a philosophical institution in Athens.
Platon ::: Distributed language based on asynchronous message passing.[Message Passing Communication Versus Procedure Call Communication, J. Staunstrup, Soft Prac & Exp 12(3):223-234 (Mar 1982)].[Platon Reference Manual, S. Soerensen et al, RECAU, U Aarhus, Denmark].
Platon Distributed language based on asynchronous message passing. ["Message Passing Communication Versus Procedure Call Communication", J. Staunstrup, Soft Prac & Exp 12(3):223-234 (Mar 1982)]. ["Platon Reference Manual", S. Soerensen et al, RECAU, U Aarhus, Denmark].
Platonic Forms ::: These are viewed as constructs of the higher Mental Plane that sculpt the raw foundations of dualistic, experiential reality. See Archetype.
Platonic philosophy speaks of the soul (psyche) as able to ally itself either with divine mind (nous) or with passion (thymos); thus we have the same distinction as between buddhi-manas and kama-manas. Sometimes, however, psyche is used without qualification as the lower mind in contrast with the higher mind or nous.
Platonic realism ::: A belief in the existence of universals as articulated by Plato. Platonic realism is often called Plato's theory of Forms.
Platonic Realism: See Realism. Platonism: The philosophy of Plato marks one of the high points in the development of Greek philosophical genius Platomsm is characterised by a partial contempt for sense knowledge and empirical studies, by a high regard for mathematics and its method, by a longing for another and better world, by a frankly spiritualistic view of life, by its use of a method of discussion involving an accumulation of ever more profound insights rather than the formal logic of Aristotle, and, above all, by an unswerving faith in the capacity of the human mind to attain absolute truth and to use this truth in the rational direction of human life and affairs.
Platonic School The philosophers of the Academy, who followed Plato and can be traced down to the days of Cicero, gradually undergoing change during that period and divisible into schools connected with the names of prominent philosophers. Distinguished from the Aristotelian or Peripatetic school, much as philosophy is distinguished from science or as idealism is distinguished from naturalism. The principal feature is the Platonic dualism: of noumenon and phenomenon, of the self-moving and that which is moved, of the Idea and its manifestation in an organic being, of the permanent and the impermanent, of soul and body, nous and psyche, etc. In epistemology this dualism appears as philosophia and sense experience — the wisdom which apprehends reality and that which forms concepts from the data of sense experience; in morals, as the contrast between the Good, which is altruistic because it apprehends the unity of all beings, and the ethic of self-seeking based on the illusion of separateness.
Platonic Solid ::: A regular, convex polyhedron. These are used to represent the raw form of the classical elements in Hermetic cosmology.
Platonism as a political philosophy finds its best known exposition in the theory of the ideal state in the Republic. There, Plato described a city in which social justice would be fully realized. Three classes of men are distinguished: the philosopher kings, apparently a very small group whose education has been alluded to above, who would be the rulers because by nature and by training they were the best men for the job. They must excel particularly in their rational abilities: their special virtue is philosophic wisdom; the soldiers, or guardians of the state, constitute the second class; their souls must be remarkable for the development of the spirited, warlike element, under the control of the virtue of courage; the lowest class is made up of the acquisitive group, the workers of every sort whose characteristic virtue is temperance. For the two upper classes, Plato suggested a form of community life which would entail the abolition of monogamous marriage, family life, and of private property. It is to be noted that this form of semi-communism was suggested for a minority of the citizens only (Repub. III and V) and it is held to be a practical impossibility in the Laws (V, 739-40), though Plato continued to think that some form of community life is theoretically best for man. In Book VIII of the Republic, we find the famous classification of five types of political organization, ranging from aristocracy which is the rule of the best men, timocracy, in which the rulers are motivated by a love of honor, oligarchy, in which the rulers seek wealth, democracy, the rule of the masses who are unfit for the task, to tyranny, which is the rule of one man who may have started as the champion of the people but who governs solely for the advancement of his own, selfish interests.
Platonism, medieval: Plato's works were not accessible to the medievil writers previous to the 13th century. They possessed only part of the Timaeus in the translation and commentary by Chalcidius. Nor were they acquainted with the writings of the Neo-Platonists. They had the logical texts by Porphyrius; little besides. St. Augustine, the greatest authority in these ages, was well acquainted with the teachings of the "Academy" of his time and became a source for Neo-Platonic influences. Furthermore, there were the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius of which first Alcuin had made a rather insufficient, later Scotus Eriugena a readible translation. Scotus himself was thoroughly Neo-Platonic in his philosophy, however "Christianized" his Platonism may have been. The medieval "Platoniststs" held, among some propositions of minor importance, that universals were existent substances (Realism, q.v.), that body and soul were two independent substances, united more or less accidentally; they assumed accordingly a "plurality of forms" in one substance. Some believed that Plato had been given a peculiar insight even in the mysteries of Christian faith. Thus they went so far as to identify the anima mundi, which they believed to be a Platonic notion, with the Holy Ghost (e.g. Abelard). Even after the revival of Aristotelian philosophy, against which the "Platonists" reacted violently, Platonism, or as they afterwards preferred to call it, Augustinianism persisted in many schools, especially in those depending on the Franciscans. -- R.A.
Platonism ::: See Plato. ::: Pliny the Elder (ca. 23-79 A.D.)
Platonism ::: The school of philosophy founded by Plato. Often used to refer to Platonic idealism, the belief that the entities of the phenomenal world are imperfect reflections of an ideal truth. In metaphysics sometimes used to mean the claim that universals exist independent of particulars. Predecessor and precursor of Aristotelianism.
Plato’s message was that of a person initiated in the sacred Mysteries, but under the usual necessity of reticence, of speaking in veiled language, and of casting his knowledge into the prevalent molds of thought.
Plato's theory of knowledge can hardly be discussed apart from his theory of reality. Through sense perception man comes to know the changeable world of bodies. This is the realm of opinion (doxa), such cognition may be more or less clear but it never rises to the level of true knowledge, for its objects are impermanent and do not provide a stable foundation for science. It is through intellectual, or rational, cognition that man discovers another world, that of immutable essences, intelligible realities, Forms or Ideas. This is the level of scientific knowledge (episteme); it is reached in mathematics and especially in philosophy (Repub. VI, 510). The world of intelligible Ideas contains the ultimate realities from which the world of sensible things has been patterned. Plato experienced much difficulty in regard to the sort of existence to be attributed to his Ideas. Obviously it is not the crude existence of physical things, nor can it be merely the mental existence of logical constructs. Interpretations have varied from the theory of the Christian Fathers (which was certainly not that of Plato himself) viz , that the Ideas are exemplary Causes in God's Mind, to the suggestion of Aristotle (Metaphysics, I) that they are realized, in a sense, in the world of individual things, but are apprehended only by the intellect The Ideas appear, however, particularly in the dialogues of the middle period, to be objective essences, independent of human minds, providing not only the foundation for the truth of human knowledge but afso the ontological bases for the shadowy things of the sense world. Within the world of Forms, there is a certain hierarchy. At the top, the most noble of all, is the Idea of the Good (Repub. VII), it dominates the other Ideas and they participate in it. Beauty, symmetry and truth are high-ranking Ideas; at times they are placed almost on a par with the Good (Philebus 65; also Sympos. and Phaedrus passim). There are, below, these, other Ideas, such as those of the major virtues (wisdom, temperance, courage, justice and piety) and mathematical terms and relations, such as equality, likeness, unlikeness and proportion. Each type or class of being is represented by its perfect Form in the sphere of Ideas, there is an ideal Form of man, dog, willow tree, of every kind of natural object and even of artificial things like beds (Repub. 596). The relationship of the "many" objects, belonging to a certain class of things in the sense world, to the "One", i.e. the single Idea which is their archetype, is another great source of difficulty to Plato. Three solutions, which are not mutually exclusive, are suggested in the dialogues (1) that the many participate imperfectly in the perfect nature of their Idea, (2) that the many are made in imitation of the One, and (3) that the many are composed of a mixture of the Limit (Idea) with the Unlimited (matter).
platometer ::: n. --> See Planimeter.
platonic ::: a. --> Alt. of Platonical ::: n. --> A follower of Plato; a Platonist.
platonical ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Plato, or his philosophy, school, or opinions.
Pure, passionless; nonsexual; philosophical.
platonically ::: adv. --> In a Platonic manner.
platonic solids: A convex regular polyhedron - regular in the sense that a linear transformation of any vertex to any other vertex of the polyhedra, such that an edge adjacent to the originating vertex coincides with an edge adjacent to the destinating edge will ensures that all other vertices and edges also coincide with another vertex/edge respectively.
platonism ::: n. --> The doctrines or philosophy by Plato or of his followers.
An elevated rational and ethical conception of the laws and forces of the universe; sometimes, imaginative or fantastic philosophical notions.
platonist ::: n. --> One who adheres to the philosophy of Plato; a follower of Plato.
platonized ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Platonize
platonizer ::: n. --> One who Platonizes.
platonize ::: v. i. --> To adopt the opinion of Plato or his followers. ::: v. t. --> To explain by, or accomodate to, the Platonic philosophy.
platonizing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Platonize
platoon ::: n. --> Formerly, a body of men who fired together; also, a small square body of soldiers to strengthen the angles of a hollow square.
Now, in the United States service, half of a company.
platoons ::: groups or squads of people working, travelling, or assembled together.
TERMS ANYWHERE
2. According to Plato, a prophetic prediction is a form of inspired "frenzy" which produces a good result which could not be obtained in a normal state of mind (Phaedrus). The other two forms of this abnormal activity are poetic inspiration and religious exaltation. This concept has been exalted by Christian theology which gave to it a divine origin: the gift of prediction is an attribute of a saint, and also of the biblical prophets.
(2) From 200 to circa 450: With the catechetic school of Alexandria and in particular with Clement and Origen, the work of reconciliation between Hellenistic philosophy and the Christian religion formally begins. This period is characterized by the formulation of Christian truths in the terminology and frame work of Greek thought. It ends with the gigantic synthesis of Augustine (354-430), whose fusion of Neo-Platonic thought and Christian truth molded society and furnished the tradition, culture and mental background for Christian Europe up to the end of the 14th century.
(2) In ethics: in the narrower traditional sense, intuitionism is the view that certain actions or kinds of action may be known to be right or wrong by a direct intuition of their rightness or wrongness, without any consideration of the value of their consequences. In this sense intuitionism is opposed to utilitarian and teleological ethics, and is most recently represented by the neo-intuitionists at Oxford, H. A. Prichard, E. F. Carritt, W. D. Ross. It is sometimes said to involve the view that the organ of ethical insight is non-rational and even unique. It takes, according to Sidgwick, three forms. Perceptual intuitionism holds that only judgments relating to the rightness or wrongness of particular acts are intuitive. Dogmatic intuitionism holds that some general material propositions relating to the rightness or wrongness of kinds of acts may also be intuited, e.g. that promises ought to be kept. Philosophical intuitionism holds that it is only certain general propositions about what is right or wrong that are intuitive, and that these are few and purely formal. In the wider more recent sense, intuitionism includes all views in which ethics is made to rest on intuitions, particular or general, as to the rightness, obligatoriness, goodness, oi value of actions or objects. Taken in this sense, intuitionism is the dominant point of view in recent British ethics, and is represented in Europe by the phenomenological ethics of M. Scheler and N. Hartmann, having also proponents in America. That is, it covers not only the deontological intuitionism to be found at Oxford, but also the axiological and even teleological or utilitarian intuitionism to be found in J. Martineau, H. Sidgwick, H. Rashdall, G. E. Moore, J. Laird. Among earlier British moralists it is represented by tho Cambridge Platonists, the Moral Sense School, Clarke, Cumberland, Butler, Price, Reid, Whewell, etc.By saying that the basic propositions of ethics (i.e. of the theory of obligation, of the theory of value, or of both) are intuitive, the intuitionists mean at least that they are ultimate and underivative, primitive and uninferable, as well as synthetic, and sometimes also that they are self-evident and a priori. This implies that one or more of the basic notions of ethics (rightness, goodness, etc.) are indefinable, i.e. simple or unanalysable and unique; and that ethics is autonomous. Intuitionists also hold that rightness and goodness are objective and non-natural. Hence their view is sometimes called objectivism or non-naturalism. The views of Moore and Laird are also sometimes referred to as realistic. See Deontological ethics, Axiological ethics, Teleological ethics, Utilitarianism, Objectivism, Realism, Autonomy of ethics, Non-naturalistic ethics. -- W.K.F.
2. In its rational aspect, as developed especially by Plato and Aristotle, aristocracy is the rule of the best few, in a true, purposeful, law-abiding and constitutional sense. As a political ideal, it is a form of government by morally and intellectually superior men for the common good or in the general interests of the governed, but without participation of the latter. Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing the best men for directing the life of the community, and of setting in motion the process of training and selecting such models of human perfection, aristocracy becomes practically the rule of those who are thought to be the best. [Plato himself proposed his ideal State as "a model fixed in the heavens" for human imitation but not attainment; and in the Laws he offered a combination of monarchy and democracy as the best working form of government.] Though aristocracy is a type of government external to the governed, it is opposed to oligarchy (despotic) and to timocracy (militaristic). With monarchy and democracy, it exhausts the classification of the main forms of rational government.
(3) From 450 to the 18th century: During this period there is a general decline until the Carlovingian renaissance. Great names are not lacking, such as those of Pseudo-Denis the Areopagite, John Damascene, Boethius and Isidore of Seville. however, the originality and spiritual elevation of an Augustine are not to be found. The period is generally characterized by the elaboration and systematization of truths already formulated. Platonic and Neo-Platonic influences predominate, though Aristotle's logic holds an honored place throughout this pre-Scholastic era. Cf. Migne's Patrologiae Latinae -- H.Gu.
A Platonic deity who orders or fashions the material world out of chaos. 2. (in Gnostic and some other philosophies) The creator of the universe, supernatural but subordinate to the Supreme Being. Demiurges.
Abravanel, Judah: Or Judah Leon Medigo (1470-1530), son of Don Isaac, settled in Italy after the expulsion from Spain. In his Dialoghi d'Amore, i.e., Dialogues about Love, he conceives, in Platonic fashion, love as the principle permeating the universe. It emanates from God to the beings, and from the beings reverts back to God. It is possible that his conception of universal love exerted some influence upon the concept of Amor Dei of Spinoza. -- M.W.
academic ::: a. --> Alt. of Academical ::: n. --> One holding the philosophy of Socrates and Plato; a Platonist.
A member of an academy, college, or university; an academician.
academical ::: a. --> Belonging to the school or philosophy of Plato; as, the Academic sect or philosophy.
Belonging to an academy or other higher institution of learning; scholarly; literary or classical, in distinction from scientific.
Academy: (Gr. akademia) A gymnasium in the suburbs of Athens, named after the hero Academus, where Plato first taught; hence, the Platonic school of philosophy. Plato and his immediate successors are called the Old Academy; the New Academy begins with Arcesilaus (c. 315-c. 241 B.C.), and is identified with its characteristic doctrine, probabilism (q.v.). -- G.R.M.
academy ::: n. --> A garden or grove near Athens (so named from the hero Academus), where Plato and his followers held their philosophical conferences; hence, the school of philosophy of which Plato was head.
An institution for the study of higher learning; a college or a university. Popularly, a school, or seminary of learning, holding a rank between a college and a common school.
A place of training; a school.
A society of learned men united for the advancement of the
According to the dating in the Esoteric table, the third root-race was at its peak in the Jurassic period, becoming denser in the Cretaceous period and ending in the early Cenozoic era. It overlapped the fourth root-race, commonly called the Atlantean, which reached its middle period 8-9,000,000 years ago, near the beginning of the earliest division of the Cenozoic era, the Paleocene. The disastrous breaking up of the main Atlantean continental area occurred in the Miocene period, but portions such as the great islands, Ruta and Daitya, lingered until much later, and Plato’s small “island of Atlantis” perished only 11-12,000 years ago.
Aeschylus One of the three greatest Greek tragic poets, born at Eleusis (525-456 BC), the seat of the Mysteries of Demeter, into which he undoubtedly was initiated. Of his perhaps 90 plays, only seven survive. Plato accuses him of impiety and Cicero describes him as almost a Pythagorean. He profaned the Mysteries in the eyes of the Athenians (e.g. in the real meaning of the allegories present in Prometheus Bound and The Eumenides) and has been accused of introducing antagonism among the celestial powers, transferring the political radicalism and demagogy of Athens from the agora to Olympus. His works introduced a second actor, thus creating true dramatic dialogue; he also introduced masks and imposing headdresses and costumes for the actors.
Aesthetics. Any system or program of fine art emphasizing the ideal (s.) is Aesthetic Idealism. The view that the goal of fine art is an embodiment or reflection of the perfections of archetypal Ideas or timeless essences (Platonism). The view of art which emphasizes feeling, sentiment, and idealization (as opposed to "literal reproduction" of fact). The view of art which emphasizes cognitive content (as opposed to abstract feeling, primitive intuition, formal line or structure, mere color or tone). Psychology. The doctrine that ideas or judgments are causes of thought and behavior, and not mere effects or epiphenomena, is Psychological Idealism.
Agathon, To (Greek) The good (principle), the highest or supreme good in a moral sense, summum bonum; Plato’s name for that aspect of the divine otherwise called the unmanifest or First Logos. Although sometimes equated with atman, which corresponds to the Greek pneuma, paramatman is a better equivalent for to agathon. It is likewise equivalent to the Buddhist alaya (the indissoluble or everlasting).
Agnoia or Anoia (Greek) [cf Sanskrit jna; Latin gnosco, nosco; English know, etc.] Mindlessness, folly; the opposite of nous. In Plato the soul (psyche) attaches itself either to nous or to anoia, which is analogous to the theosophical teaching regarding buddhi-manas and kama-manas.
(a) In metaphysics: Theory which admits in any given domain, two independent and mutually irreducible substances e.g. the Platonic dualism of the sensible and intelligible worlds, the Cartesian dinlism of thinking and extended substances, the Leibnizian dualism of the actual and possible worlds, the Kantian dualism of the noumenal and the phenomenal. The term dualism first appeared in Thomas Hyde, Historia religionis veterum Persarum (1700) ch. IX, p. 164, where it applied to religious dualism of good and evil and is similarly employed by Bayle m his Dictionary article "Zoroaster" and by Leibniz in Theodicee. C. Wolff is responsible for its use in the psycho-physical sense, (cf. A. Lalande, Vocabulaire de la Philosophie. Vol. I, p. 180, note by R. Eucken.)
Aistheton (Greek) Sensible, perceived by the senses; used by Plato in contrast with noeton (intelligible) to indicate the visible aspect of the primeval cause of the manifested world. (FSO 194)
Albertus, Magnus: St., O.P. (1193-1280) Count of Bollstädt, Bishop of Ratisbon, Doctor Universalis, was born at Lauingen, Bavaria, studied at Padua and Bologna, entered the Dominican Order in 1223. He taught theology at the Univ. of Paris from 1245-48, when he was sent to Cologne to organize a new course of studies for his Order; St. Thomas Aquinas was his student and assistant at this time. Later his time was given over to administrative duties and he was made Bishop of Ratisbon in 1260. In 1262 he gave up his bishopric and returned to a life of writing, teaching and controversy. Of very broad interests in science, philosophy and theology, Albert popularized a great part of the corpus of Aristotelian and Arabic philosophic writings in the 13th century. His thought incorporates elements of Augustinism, Aristotelianism, Neoplatonism, Avicennism, Boethianism into a vast synthesis which is not without internal inconsistencies. Due to the lack of critical editions of his works, a true estimate of the value of his philosophy is impossible at present. However, he must have had some influence on St. Thomas, and there was a lively Albertinian school lasting into the Renaissance. Chief works: Summa de Creaturis, Comment, in IV Lib. Sent., Philos, Commentaries on nearly all works of Aristotle, De Causis, De intellectu et intellig., Summa Theologiae (Opera Omnia, ed. Borgnet, 38 vol., Paris, 1890-99). -- V.J.B.
Alexandrian-Roman Period. Fed by Eastern ideas, later Alexandrian-Roman thought was essentially idealistic. In neo-Pythagorean, Neo-Platonic and Alexandrian Christianity, matter was identified with non-being, and placed at the metaphysical antipodes with respect to God or the Absolute. Early Christianity identified itself with the personalistic theism of Israel, Pauline spiritualism, and the neo-Platonism of Alexandria.
Alexandrian School: A convenient designation for the various religious philosophies that flourished at Alexandria from the first to the fourth centuries of the Christian era, such as Neo-Pythagoreanism, the Jewish Platonism of Philo, Christian Platonism, and Neo-Platonism. Common to all these schools is the attempt to state Oriental religious beliefs in terms of Greek philosophy. -- G.R.M.
Alexandrian School Alexandria flourished from the 4th century BC to the 7th AD, being a remarkable center of learning due to the blending of Greek and Oriental influences, its favorable situation and commercial resources, and the enlightened energy of some of the Macedonian Dynasty of the Ptolemies ruling over Egypt. The Alexandrian school was formed of the Neoplatonist philosophers whose appearance marks the later outburst of Alexandrian culture; and with them may perhaps be classed those Gnostic schools which originated there. This philosophy is a characteristic presentation of parts of the archaic wisdom-religion, being derived from contact with India and with knowledge still then accessible in Egypt.
Alexandrists: A term applied to a group of Aristotelians in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Besides the Scholastic followers of Aristotle there were some Greeks, whose teaching was tinged with Platonism. Another group, the Averroists, followed Aristotle as interpreted by Ibn Rushd, while a third school interpreted Aristotle in the light of the commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias, hence were called Alexandrists. Against the Averroists who attributed a vague sort of immortality to the active intellect, common to all men, the Alexandrists, led by Pomponazzi, asserted the mortality of the individual human soul after its separation from universal reason. -- J.J.R.
Al Farabi: Died 950, introduced Aristotelian logic into the world of Islam. He was known to posterity as the "second Aristotle". He continued the encyclopedic tradition inaugurated by Al Kindi. His metaphysical speculation influenced Avicenna who found in the works of his predecessor the fundamental notion of a distinction between existence and essence, the latter not implying necessarily in a contingent being the former which therefore has to be given by God. He also emphasizes the Aristotelian notion of the "first mover". The concretization of the universal nature in particular things points to a creative power which has endowed being with such a nature. Al Farabi's philosophy is dependent in certain parts on Neo-Platonism. Creation is emanation. There is an anima mundi the images of which become corporeal beings. Logic is considered as the preamble to all science. Physics comprises all factual knowledge, including psychology; metaphysics and ethics are the other parts of philosophy. Cl. Baeumker, Alfarabi, Ueber den Vrsprung der Wissensehaften, Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. MA. 1916. Vol. XIX. M. Horten, Das Buch der Ringsteine Farabis. ibid. 1906. Vol. V. -- R.A. Al
Al Kindi, Al Farabi, and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) were the first great philosophers who made large use of Aristotelian books. Their writings are of truly encyclopedic character and comprise the whole edifice of knowledge in their time. Their Aristotelianism is, however, mainly Neo-Platonism with addition of certain peripatetic notions. Avicenna is more of an Aristotelian than his predecessors. Al Farabi, e.g., held that cognition is ultimately due to an illumination, whereas Avicenna adopted a more Aristotelian theory. While these thinkers had an original philosophy, Averroes (Ibn Roshd) endeavored to clarify the meaning of the Aristotelian texts by extensive and minute commentaries. Translations from these writings first made known to medieval philosophy the non-logical works of the "Philosopher", although there existed, at the same time, some translations made directly from Greek texts.
Alogon (Greek) Used by Pythagoras and Plato for the irrational soul in man, divided into the thymichon and epithymichon; the rational soul was called logos. (BCW 7:229)
Ammonius, Saccus: Teacher of Plotinus and Origen and reputed founder of Neo-Platonism. -- M.F.
Analogy: Originally a mathematical term, Analogia, meaning equality of ratios (Euclid VII Df. 20, V. Dfs. 5, 6), which entered Plato's philosophy (Republic 534a6), where it also expressed the epistemological doctrine that sensed things are related as their mathematical and ideal correlates. In modern usage analogy was identified with a weak form of reasoning in which "from the similarity of two things in certain particulars, their similarity in other particulars is inferred." (Century Dic.) Recently, the analysis of scientific method has given the term new significance. The observable data of science are denoted by concepts by inspection, whose complete meaning is given by something immediately apprehendable; its verified theory designating unobservable scientific objects is expressed by concepts by postulation, whose complete meaning is prescribed for them by the postulates of the deductive theory in which they occur. To verify such theory relations, termed epistemic correlations (J. Un. Sc. IX: 125-128), are required. When these are one-one, analogy exists in a very precise sense, since the concepts by inspection denoting observable data are then related as are the correlated concepts by postulation designating unobservable scientific objects. -- F.S.C.N. Analogy of Pythagoras: (Gr. analogia) The equality of ratios, or proportion, between the lengths of the strings producing the consonant notes of the musical scale. The discovery of these ratios is credited to Pythagoras, who is also said to have applied the principle of mathematical proportion to the other arts, and hence to have discovered, in his analogy, the secret of beauty in all its forms. -- G.R.M.
IDEAS OF THE CAUSAL WORLD
The ideas of the world of ideas are objective forms as well as being subjective, and thus the ideas are faithful representations of enduring objective and subjective realities. Every intuition corresponds to a mental system of reality ideas. Lower worlds exist in the ideas of the world of ideas and thus the knowledge of these lower worlds is contained in the idea systems of the intuitions. &
Anamnesis: (Gr. anamnesis) Calling to mind; recollection; in Plato, the process whereby the mind gains true knowledge, by recalling the vision of the Ideas which the soul experienced in a previous existence apart from the body. -- G.R.M.
Anamnesis: Greek for recollection. Plato used this term for the memory which human consciousness has of facts and events in an earlier incarnation.
Anamnesis (Greek) [from ana back again + mimnesco remember] Recollection; used by Plato in his theory of knowledge. He taught that the human elements of consciousness sprang from seeds of inherent knowledge in the soul, present in the mind as the result of past experiences of the egoic center or reincarnating ego. Thus the acquisition of knowledge is a process of reminiscence or recollection of former experiences.
anatreptic ::: a. --> Overthrowing; defeating; -- applied to Plato&
Angelology A hierarchical system of angels, messengers, celestial powers or emanations, especially those of the Jews and Christians. The Jewish system is Qabbalistic; the Christian system, chiefly due to the Celestial Hierarchy and to the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Dionysius the pseudo-Aeropagite, was adopted from the 5th or 6th centuries and had an immense influence on later Christian theology. It was divided into a tenfold plan after the manner of Pythagoras and the Neoplatonists, the summit of this Christian hierarchy being the divine, termed God. The hierarchy includes: 1) Expanse of the Divine Presence; 2) Seraphim; 3) Cherubim; 4) Thrones; 5) Dominations or Dominions; 6) Virtues; 7) Powers; 8) Principalities; 9) Archangels; and 10) Angels.
Angel(s) [from Greek angelos messenger, envoy, announcer] In the Old Testament, used to translate the Hebrew mal’ach (messenger); in Christian, Jewish, Moslem, and some other theologies, either a messenger of God or one of various hierarchies of celestial beings, the idea of a guardian angel also being familiar. However, the idea of hosts of formative powers, rectores mundi, or other beings between divinity and man, serving as intermediaries or means of communication between man and high spiritual entities has largely vanished from popular Christianity, though Angels, Principalities, and Powers are mentioned by Paul, and the archangel Michael by Jude; while the influence of the Gnostics, Neoplatonists, and Jews on early Christianity gives a wider meaning to the term.
Angels of the Presence In Christianity, the seven Virtues or personified attributes of God, which were created by him and became the archangels. Equivalent to the seven manus produced by the ten prajapatis created by Brahma. “As it is the Lipika who project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the universe, upon which the ‘Builders’ reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who stand parallel to the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christians recognise in the Seven ‘Planetary Spirits’ or the ‘Spirits of the Stars;’ for thus it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation” or of Plato’s divine thought (SD 1:104) (SD 2:237, 573).
Anglo-Catholic Philosophy: Anglo-Catholicism is the name frequently used to describe the Church of England and her sister communions, including the Episcopal Church in America. As a religious system, it may be described as the maintenance of the traditional credal, ethical and sacramental position of Catholic Christianity, with insistence on the incorporation into that general position of the new truth of philosophy, science and other fields of study and experience. Historically, the Anglo-Catholic divines (as in Hooker and the Caroline writers) took over the general Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy of the schools; their stress, however, was more on the Platonic than the Aristotelian side: "Platonism", Dr. Inge has said, "is the loving mother-nurse of Anglicanism." Statements of this position, modified by a significant agnosticism concerning areas into which reason (it is said) cannot penetrate, may be found collected in Anglicanism (edited by More and Cross). A certain empiricism has always marked Anglo-Catholic theological and philosophical speculation; this is brought out in recent writing by Taylor (Faith of a Moralist), the writers in Lux Mundi (edited by Gore) and its modern successor Essays Catholic and Critical.
animism ::: "Animism" has been applied to many different philosophical systems. This includes Aristotle's view of the relation of soul and body held also by the stoics and scholastics. On the other hand, monadology (Leibniz) has also been described as animistic. The name is most commonly applied to vitalism, which makes life, or life and mind, the directive principle in evolution and growth, holding that life is not merely mechanical but that there is a directive force that guides energy without altering its amount. An entirely different class of ideas, also termed animistic, is the belief in the world soul, held by Plato, Schelling and others. Lastly, in discussions of religion, "animism" refers to the belief in indwelling souls or spirits, particularly so-called "primitive" religions that consider everything inhabited by spirits.
Another movement of thought worthy of note was Neoplatonism. Grounded by Ulrich of Srassburg on texts found in Albert the Great, this movement gathered momentum, particularly in Germany under Dietrich of Freiberg until it ended in the mysticism of Meister Eckehart (+1327).
Anselmian argument: Anselm (1033-1109) reasoned thus: I have an idea of a Being than which nothing greater can be conceived; this idea is that of the most perfect, complete, infinite Being, the greatest conceivable; now an idea which exists in reality (in re) is greater than one which exists only in conception (in intellectu); hence, if my idea is the greatest it must exist in reality. Accordingly, God, the Perfect Idea, Being, exists. (Anselm's argument rests upon the basis of the realistic metaphysics of Plato.) -- V.F.
Apeiros (Greek) The boundless, infinite; frontierless expansion. Used by Anaximander and Anaximenes, and by Plato in Philebus; the equivalent term apeiria was used by Anaxagoras and Aristotle. Corresponds to ’eyn soph, and according to Porphyry to the Pythagorean monad (one), the “cause of all unity and measure of all things” (SD 1:353, 426; FSO 71).
Aphrodite (Greek) Greek Goddess of love and beauty, in older times regarded as signifying the harmony of cosmos. Originally the daughter of Zeus and Dione, a lunar deity like Aphrodite, both being represented with the horns of the moon or of the zodiacal sign Taurus; but the same deity in ancient mystical philosophy may be at once mother, wife, and daughter — so difficult is it to find among our common notions a symbolism that will convey the full meaning anciently intended. Later, under Eastern influence, she was said to have been born from the sea foam and to have landed in a seashell on the isle of Cythera. A sea goddess as well as an earth goddess of gardens, groves, and springtime, she was the wife of Hephaestus and connected also with Ares and Adonis; mother of Eros. As Aphrodite Urania, she was identified with the goddess of heaven Astarte, and later under Platonic influence came to represent spiritual love as opposed to earthly love, represented by Aphrodite Pandemos. Among her analogs are Isis, Ishtar, Mylitta, Eve, Vach, etc., all the mother of all living beings and of the gods, cosmically. The Romans identified Aphrodite with Venus, and the Egyptians with Hathor.
Apocatastasis (Greek) Restoration, return; used by Plato and Plutarch for a return of the stars to the same places.
Apology: (Gr. apologia) A speech or writing in defense. Plato's Apology of Socrates purports to be the speech delivered by Socrates in his own defense at the trial in which he was condemned to death. -- G.R.M.
A PRIORI (Lat.) In advance, i.e. without prior investigation or experience. Opposite: a posteriori = afterwards, after investigation or experience.
The correct explanation of the aprioristic in our apprehension was given long ago by
Platon. According to him, there is another kind of certainty than that of ordinary experience. This certainty is the outcome of remembering anew concepts acquired in previous incarnations. Everything aprioristic is thus obtained ultimately from experience. K 5.28.14
Apuleius, Lucius Second-century Latin writer, born and educated in North Africa. Student of Platonism at Athens and initiate into many of the Mysteries of his time; best known for his Golden Ass (Metamorphoseon libri XI de Asino Aureo), a satire on mores and religious conditions.
Arabic Philosophy: The contact of the Arabs with Greek civilization and philosophy took place partly in Syria, where Christian Arabic philosophy developed, partly in other countries, Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt and Spain. The effect of this contact was not a simple reception of Greek philosophy, but the gradual growth of an original mode of thought, determined chiefly by the religious and philosophical tendencies alive in the Arab world. Eastern influences had produced a mystical trend, not unlike Neo-Platonism; the already existing "metaphysics of light", noticeable in the religious conception of the Qoran, also helped to assimilate Plotinlan ideas. On the other hand, Aristotelian philosophy became important, although more, at least in the beginning, as logic and methodology. The interest in science and medicine contributed to the spread of Aristotelian philosophy. The history of philosophy in the Arab world is determined by the increasing opposition of Orthodoxy against a more liberal theology and philosophy. Arab thought became influential in the Western world partly through European scholars who went to Spain and elsewhere for study, mostly however through the Latin translations which became more and more numerous at the end of the 12th and during the 13th centuries. Among the Christian Arabs Costa ben Luca (864-923) has to be mentioned whose De Differentia spiritus et animae was translated by Johannes Hispanus (12th century). The first period of Islamic philosophy is occupied mainly with translation of Greek texts, some of which were translated later into Latin. The Liber de causis (mentioned first by Alanus ab Insulis) is such a translation of an Arab text; it was believed to be by Aristotle, but is in truth, as Aquinas recognized, a version of the Stoicheiosis theologike by Proclus. The so-called Theologia Aristotelis is an excerpt of Plotinus Enn. IV-VI, written 840 by a Syrian. The fundamental trends of Arab philosophy are indeed Neo-Platonic, and the Aristotelian texts were mostly interpreted in this spirit. Furthermore, there is also a tendency to reconcile the Greek philosophers with theological notions, at least so long as the orthodox theologians could find no reason for opposition. In spite of this, some of the philosophers did not escape persecution. The Peripatetic element is more pronounced in the writings of later times when the technique of paraphrasis and commentary on Aristotelian texts had developed. Beside the philosophy dependent more or less on Greek, and partially even Christian influences, there is a mystical theology and philosophy whose sources are the Qoran, Indian and, most of all, Persian systems. The knowledge of the "Hermetic" writings too was of some importance.
Arcanum: An old term almost identical with occultism, its recent equivalent. Arcana were originally used to cover the sacred objects, such as the Playthings of Dionysus in the Eleusinian rites, and a cognate is ark, as in the Ark of the Covenant. Arcesilaus: (315-241 B.C.) Greek philosopher from Pitane in Aeolis. He succeeded Crates in the chair of the Platonic Academy and became the founder of the second or so-called middle academy. In opposition to both Stoicism and Epicureanism, he advocated a scepticism that was not so extreme as that of Pyrrho although he despaired of man's attaining truth. Suspended judgment was to him the best approach. -- L.E.D.
Archetype: (Gr. arche, first; and typos, form) The original pattern of forms of which actual things are copies. (Platonic). -- J.K.F.
Archytas of Tarentum (flourished 400-365 BC) Greek Pythagorean philosopher, general, statesman, scientist, and mathematician, contemporary of Plato. He was the first to distinguish harmonic progression from arithmetical and geometric progression, is credited with inventing the pulley, and contributed to the study of acoustics, music, and mathematics.
Arete; Means "virtue". In Platonic ideal it is a reference to the importance of meaning above technical skill (techne). In other words it denotes mythological value within a literate framework or craft. Later philosophical movements Would refer to this notion as "High Art" vs. "Low Art".
Aristotelianism. In this group there are two broad currents of thought. The first attempted to harmonize Aristotle with St. Augustine and the Church's dogmas. This line was founded by St. Albert the Great (+1280), who amassed the then known Aristotelian literature but failed to construct any coherent synthesis. His pupil, St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274) succeeded to a remarkable degree. From the standpoint of clarity and formularization, St. Thomas marks the apex of medieval Scholasticism. Pupils and adherents worthy of note among Albert's, Hugo and Ulrich of Strassburg, this latter (+c. 1277), together with Dietrich of Freiberg (+c. 1310) revealing marked Neo-platonic tendencies; among Thomas', Aegidius of Lessines (+1304), Herveus Natalis (Herve Nedelec, +1318), John (de Regina) of Naples (+c. 1336), Aegidius Romanus (+1316), Godfrey of Fontaines ( + 1306 or 1309), quite independent in his allegiance, and the great Dante Alighieri (+1321).
Aristotelianism ::: The philosophical tradition that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle and the Peripatetic school. Sometimes contrasted by critics with the rationalism and idealism of Plato, Aristotelianism is understood by its proponents as critically developing Plato's theories. Most particularly, Aristotelianism brings Plato's ideals down to Earth as goals and goods internal to natural species that are realized in activity. This is the characteristically Aristotelian idea of teleology.
Aristotelianism: The philosophy of Aristotle, (384-322 B.C.). Aristotle was born in the Greek colony of Stagira, in Macedon, the son of Nicomachus, the physician of King Amyntas of Macedon. In his eighteenth year Aristotle became a pupil of Plato at Athens and remained for nearly twenty years a member of the Academy. After the death of Plato he resided for some time at Atarneus, in the Troad, and at Mitylene, on the island of Lesbos, with friends of the Academy; then for several years he acted as tutor to the young Alexander of Macedon. In 335 he returned to Athens, where he spent the following twelve years as head of a school which he set up in the Lyceum. The school also came to be known as the Peripatetic, and its members Peripatetics, probably because of the peripatos, or covered walk, in which Aristotle lectured. As a result of the outburst of anti-Macedonian feeling at Athens in 323 after the death of Alexander, Aristotle retired to Chalcis, m Euboea, where he died a year later.
Aristotle: A Greek philosopher who lived from 384 BC to 322 BC. Aristotle wrote on numerous subjects including poetry, physics, music, politics and biology. He was the student of Plato. Alongside Plato and Socrates, Aristotle is considered an important figure to the founding of Western knowledge.
Aristotle and Plato believed in angels (Aristotle called them intelligences). Socrates, who
Aristotle ::: Aristotle was a famous Greek thinker (died in 322 B.C.E.), a student of Plato, whose interpretation of what constitutes reality (metaphysics, ontology) and of how reality is organized was widely influential both in ancient times and in the “medieval” period of Judaism and Christianity, influenced by the “classical” period of Islamic learning. See e.g., scholasticism.
Aristotle, medieval: Contrary to the esteem in which the Fathers held Platonic and especially Neo-Platonic philosophy, Aristotle plays hardly any role in early Patristic and Scholastic writings. Augustine seems not to have known much about him and admired him more as logician whereas he held Plato to be the much greater philosopher. The Middle Ages knew, until the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century, only the logical texts, mostly in the translations made by Boethius of the texts and of the introduction by Porphyrius (Isagoge). During the latter third of the 12th, mostly however at the beginning of the 13th century appeared translations partly from Arabian texts and commentaries, partly from the Greek originals. Finally, Aquinas had William of Moerbeke translate the whole work of Aristotle, who soon came to be known as the Philosopher. Scholastic Aristotelianism is, however, not a simple revival of the Peripatetic views; Thomas is said to have "Christianized" the Philosopher as Augustine had done with Plato. Aristotle was differently interpreted by Aquinas and by the Latin Averroists (q.v. Averroism), especially in regard to the "unity of intellect" and the eternity of the created world. -- R.A.
Arithmomancy Interpretation by means of numbers, or divination by means of numbers. The Pythagoreans and Plato used the numerical key in theogony and cosmogony, based on the science of correspondences as prevailing among gods, men, and numbers or numerical quantities. Hence, the numerical key to nature can be used as the basis of various methods of divination for the discovery of truth or error.
As Plato puts it in the Timaeus, the universe was constructed by divinity in accordance with geometrical laws, the first cosmogonic basis of which was the dodecahedron — outside of the ever-productive and cosmically fecund One. Philo Judaeus likewise regarded twelve as a sacred number, writing that the sun visits serially the signs of the zodiac monthly, during the twelve months of the year, “and it is to honour that sign that Moses divided his nation into twelve tribes, established the twelve cakes (Levit. xxiv, 5) of the shewbread, and placed twelve precious stones around the ephod of the pontiffs (See De Profugis)” (SD 1:649).
A surprising number of very ancient traditions besides those of Greece support the Atlantean hypothesis. Some of the widespread deluge stories, certainly those surviving during the Classic period in the nations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, relate only to Plato’s relatively small island, Poseidonis, more or less the size of modern Ireland, if we follow Plato’s statements of size; but in addition to these there have been many deluges noticed in the traditions of other peoples scattered over the face of the globe. The chief great flood referred to the principal collapse of Atlantis, the main sinking occurring during the Miocene period several million years ago. Other island-continents sank later, e.g., Daitya and Ruta (Sanskrit name for one of the last great islands of the Atlantean system in the Pacific Ocean) which went down during the Pliocene times — in Geikie’s Nomenclature, about 850,000 years ago. (SD 2:314).
Athenagoras Second century Christian apologist and philosopher, said to have been influenced by Ammonius Saccus and to have been “thoroughly instructed in the Platonic philosophy, and comprehended its essential unity with the oriental systems” (Wilder, New Platonism and Alchemy, p. 3-4) (BCW 14:305-8).
Atlantidae (Greek) Descendants of Atlantis; “The ancestors of the Pharaohs and the forefathers of the Egyptians, according to some, and as the Esoteric Science teaches. . . . Plato heard of this highly civilized people, the last remnant of which was submerged 9,000 years before his day, from Solon, who had it from the High Priests of Egypt. Voltaire, the eternal scoffer, was right in stating that ‘the Atlantidae (our fourth Root Race) made their appearance in Egypt. . . . It was in Syria and in Phrygia, as well as Egypt, that they established the worship of the Sun.’ Occult philosophy teaches that the Egyptians were a remnant of the last Aryan Atlantidae” (TG 42).
Atlantis In Theosophical literature the fourth great land-massif or continental system which composed the land area of this globe several million years ago, and which was the home of the fourth root-race. Atlantis was not the name of this land area when inhabited by its own populations, but is borrowed by theosophists from Plato.
At the time that the Neoplatonists voiced their teachings, the Mediterranean world was in a condition similar in some respects to that of today: the Roman imperium had brought about a commingling of many cultures, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, so that there was a suitable field for revival of the ancient wisdom-religion as the common source and reconciler of all faiths. Such a system may be called eclectic in a sense; but the expression is unjust if it is meant to imply a mere patchwork of borrowed fragments.
Aufklärung: In general, this German word and its English equivalent Enlightenment denote the self-emancipation of man from mere authority, prejudice, convention and tradition, with an insistence on freer thinking about problems uncritically referred to these other agencies. According to Kant's famous definition "Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority, which is the incapacity of using one's understanding without the direction of another. This state of minority is caused when its source lies not in the lack of understanding, but in the lack of determination and courage to use it without the assistance of another" (Was ist Aufklärung? 1784). In its historical perspective, the Aufklärung refers to the cultural atmosphere and contrlbutions of the 18th century, especially in Germany, France and England [which affected also American thought with B. Franklin, T. Paine and the leaders of the Revolution]. It crystallized tendencies emphasized by the Renaissance, and quickened by modern scepticism and empiricism, and by the great scientific discoveries of the 17th century. This movement, which was represented by men of varying tendencies, gave an impetus to general learning, a more popular philosophy, empirical science, scriptural criticism, social and political thought. More especially, the word Aufklärung is applied to the German contributions to 18th century culture. In philosophy, its principal representatives are G. E. Lessing (1729-81) who believed in free speech and in a methodical criticism of religion, without being a free-thinker; H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768) who expounded a naturalistic philosophy and denied the supernatural origin of Christianity; Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) who endeavoured to mitigate prejudices and developed a popular common-sense philosophy; Chr. Wolff (1679-1754), J. A. Eberhard (1739-1809) who followed the Leibnizian rationalism and criticized unsuccessfully Kant and Fichte; and J. G. Herder (1744-1803) who was best as an interpreter of others, but whose intuitional suggestions have borne fruit in the organic correlation of the sciences, and in questions of language in relation to human nature and to national character. The works of Kant and Goethe mark the culmination of the German Enlightenment. Cf. J. G. Hibben, Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1910. --T.G. Augustinianism: The thought of St. Augustine of Hippo, and of his followers. Born in 354 at Tagaste in N. Africa, A. studied rhetoric in Carthage, taught that subject there and in Rome and Milan. Attracted successively to Manicheanism, Scepticism, and Neo-Platontsm, A. eventually found intellectual and moral peace with his conversion to Christianity in his thirty-fourth year. Returning to Africa, he established numerous monasteries, became a priest in 391, Bishop of Hippo in 395. Augustine wrote much: On Free Choice, Confessions, Literal Commentary on Genesis, On the Trinity, and City of God, are his most noted works. He died in 430. St. Augustine's characteristic method, an inward empiricism which has little in common with later variants, starts from things without, proceeds within to the self, and moves upwards to God. These three poles of the Augustinian dialectic are polarized by his doctrine of moderate illuminism. An ontological illumination is required to explain the metaphysical structure of things. The truth of judgment demands a noetic illumination. A moral illumination is necessary in the order of willing; and so, too, an lllumination of art in the aesthetic order. Other illuminations which transcend the natural order do not come within the scope of philosophy; they provide the wisdoms of theology and mysticism. Every being is illuminated ontologically by number, form, unity and its derivatives, and order. A thing is what it is, in so far as it is more or less flooded by the light of these ontological constituents. Sensation is necessary in order to know material substances. There is certainly an action of the external object on the body and a corresponding passion of the body, but, as the soul is superior to the body and can suffer nothing from its inferior, sensation must be an action, not a passion, of the soul. Sensation takes place only when the observing soul, dynamically on guard throughout the body, is vitally attentive to the changes suffered by the body. However, an adequate basis for the knowledge of intellectual truth is not found in sensation alone. In order to know, for example, that a body is multiple, the idea of unity must be present already, otherwise its multiplicity could not be recognized. If numbers are not drawn in by the bodily senses which perceive only the contingent and passing, is the mind the source of the unchanging and necessary truth of numbers? The mind of man is also contingent and mutable, and cannot give what it does not possess. As ideas are not innate, nor remembered from a previous existence of the soul, they can be accounted for only by an immutable source higher than the soul. In so far as man is endowed with an intellect, he is a being naturally illuminated by God, Who may be compared to an intelligible sun. The human intellect does not create the laws of thought; it finds them and submits to them. The immediate intuition of these normative rules does not carry any content, thus any trace of ontologism is avoided. Things have forms because they have numbers, and they have being in so far as they possess form. The sufficient explanation of all formable, and hence changeable, things is an immutable and eternal form which is unrestricted in time and space. The forms or ideas of all things actually existing in the world are in the things themselves (as rationes seminales) and in the Divine Mind (as rationes aeternae). Nothing could exist without unity, for to be is no other than to be one. There is a unity proper to each level of being, a unity of the material individual and species, of the soul, and of that union of souls in the love of the same good, which union constitutes the city. Order, also, is ontologically imbibed by all beings. To tend to being is to tend to order; order secures being, disorder leads to non-being. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal each to its own place and integrates an ensemble of parts in accordance with an end. Hence, peace is defined as the tranquillity of order. Just as things have their being from their forms, the order of parts, and their numerical relations, so too their beauty is not something superadded, but the shining out of all their intelligible co-ingredients. S. Aurelii Augustini, Opera Omnia, Migne, PL 32-47; (a critical edition of some works will be found in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna). Gilson, E., Introd. a l'etude de s. Augustin, (Paris, 1931) contains very good bibliography up to 1927, pp. 309-331. Pope, H., St. Augustine of Hippo, (London, 1937). Chapman, E., St. Augustine's Philos. of Beauty, (N. Y., 1939). Figgis, J. N., The Political Aspects of St. Augustine's "City of God", (London, 1921). --E.C. Authenticity: In a general sense, genuineness, truth according to its title. It involves sometimes a direct and personal characteristic (Whitehead speaks of "authentic feelings"). This word also refers to problems of fundamental criticism involving title, tradition, authorship and evidence. These problems are vital in theology, and basic in scholarship with regard to the interpretation of texts and doctrines. --T.G. Authoritarianism: That theory of knowledge which maintains that the truth of any proposition is determined by the fact of its having been asserted by a certain esteemed individual or group of individuals. Cf. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent; C. S. Peirce, "Fixation of Belief," in Chance, Love and Logic, ed. M. R. Cohen. --A.C.B. Autistic thinking: Absorption in fanciful or wishful thinking without proper control by objective or factual material; day dreaming; undisciplined imagination. --A.C.B. Automaton Theory: Theory that a living organism may be considered a mere machine. See Automatism. Automatism: (Gr. automatos, self-moving) (a) In metaphysics: Theory that animal and human organisms are automata, that is to say, are machines governed by the laws of physics and mechanics. Automatism, as propounded by Descartes, considered the lower animals to be pure automata (Letter to Henry More, 1649) and man a machine controlled by a rational soul (Treatise on Man). Pure automatism for man as well as animals is advocated by La Mettrie (Man, a Machine, 1748). During the Nineteenth century, automatism, combined with epiphenomenalism, was advanced by Hodgson, Huxley and Clifford. (Cf. W. James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, ch. V.) Behaviorism, of the extreme sort, is the most recent version of automatism (See Behaviorism). (b) In psychology: Psychological automatism is the performance of apparently purposeful actions, like automatic writing without the superintendence of the conscious mind. L. C. Rosenfield, From Beast Machine to Man Machine, N. Y., 1941. --L.W. Automatism, Conscious: The automatism of Hodgson, Huxley, and Clifford which considers man a machine to which mind or consciousness is superadded; the mind of man is, however, causally ineffectual. See Automatism; Epiphenomenalism. --L.W. Autonomy: (Gr. autonomia, independence) Freedom consisting in self-determination and independence of all external constraint. See Freedom. Kant defines autonomy of the will as subjection of the will to its own law, the categorical imperative, in contrast to heteronomy, its subjection to a law or end outside the rational will. (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, § 2.) --L.W. Autonomy of ethics: A doctrine, usually propounded by intuitionists, that ethics is not a part of, and cannot be derived from, either metaphysics or any of the natural or social sciences. See Intuitionism, Metaphysical ethics, Naturalistic ethics. --W.K.F. Autonomy of the will: (in Kant's ethics) The freedom of the rational will to legislate to itself, which constitutes the basis for the autonomy of the moral law. --P.A.S. Autonymy: In the terminology introduced by Carnap, a word (phrase, symbol, expression) is autonymous if it is used as a name for itself --for the geometric shape, sound, etc. which it exemplifies, or for the word as a historical and grammatical unit. Autonymy is thus the same as the Scholastic suppositio matertalis (q. v.), although the viewpoint is different. --A.C. Autotelic: (from Gr. autos, self, and telos, end) Said of any absorbing activity engaged in for its own sake (cf. German Selbstzweck), such as higher mathematics, chess, etc. In aesthetics, applied to creative art and play which lack any conscious reference to the accomplishment of something useful. In the view of some, it may constitute something beneficent in itself of which the person following his art impulse (q.v.) or playing is unaware, thus approaching a heterotelic (q.v.) conception. --K.F.L. Avenarius, Richard: (1843-1896) German philosopher who expressed his thought in an elaborate and novel terminology in the hope of constructing a symbolic language for philosophy, like that of mathematics --the consequence of his Spinoza studies. As the most influential apostle of pure experience, the posltivistic motive reaches in him an extreme position. Insisting on the biologic and economic function of thought, he thought the true method of science is to cure speculative excesses by a return to pure experience devoid of all assumptions. Philosophy is the scientific effort to exclude from knowledge all ideas not included in the given. Its task is to expel all extraneous elements in the given. His uncritical use of the category of the given and the nominalistic view that logical relations are created rather than discovered by thought, leads him to banish not only animism but also all of the categories, substance, causality, etc., as inventions of the mind. Explaining the evolution and devolution of the problematization and deproblematization of numerous ideas, and aiming to give the natural history of problems, Avenarius sought to show physiologically, psychologically and historically under what conditions they emerge, are challenged and are solved. He hypothesized a System C, a bodily and central nervous system upon which consciousness depends. R-values are the stimuli received from the world of objects. E-values are the statements of experience. The brain changes that continually oscillate about an ideal point of balance are termed Vitalerhaltungsmaximum. The E-values are differentiated into elements, to which the sense-perceptions or the content of experience belong, and characters, to which belongs everything which psychology describes as feelings and attitudes. Avenarius describes in symbolic form a series of states from balance to balance, termed vital series, all describing a series of changes in System C. Inequalities in the vital balance give rise to vital differences. According to his theory there are two vital series. It assumes a series of brain changes because parallel series of conscious states can be observed. The independent vital series are physical, and the dependent vital series are psychological. The two together are practically covariants. In the case of a process as a dependent vital series three stages can be noted: first, the appearance of the problem, expressed as strain, restlessness, desire, fear, doubt, pain, repentance, delusion; the second, the continued effort and struggle to solve the problem; and finally, the appearance of the solution, characterized by abating anxiety, a feeling of triumph and enjoyment. Corresponding to these three stages of the dependent series are three stages of the independent series: the appearance of the vital difference and a departure from balance in the System C, the continuance with an approximate vital difference, and lastly, the reduction of the vital difference to zero, the return to stability. By making room for dependent and independent experiences, he showed that physics regards experience as independent of the experiencing indlvidual, and psychology views experience as dependent upon the individual. He greatly influenced Mach and James (q.v.). See Avenarius, Empirio-criticism, Experience, pure. Main works: Kritik der reinen Erfahrung; Der menschliche Weltbegriff. --H.H. Averroes: (Mohammed ibn Roshd) Known to the Scholastics as The Commentator, and mentioned as the author of il gran commento by Dante (Inf. IV. 68) he was born 1126 at Cordova (Spain), studied theology, law, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy, became after having been judge in Sevilla and Cordova, physician to the khalifah Jaqub Jusuf, and charged with writing a commentary on the works of Aristotle. Al-mansur, Jusuf's successor, deprived him of his place because of accusations of unorthodoxy. He died 1198 in Morocco. Averroes is not so much an original philosopher as the author of a minute commentary on the whole works of Aristotle. His procedure was imitated later by Aquinas. In his interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics Averroes teaches the coeternity of a universe created ex nihilo. This doctrine formed together with the notion of a numerical unity of the active intellect became one of the controversial points in the discussions between the followers of Albert-Thomas and the Latin Averroists. Averroes assumed that man possesses only a disposition for receiving the intellect coming from without; he identifies this disposition with the possible intellect which thus is not truly intellectual by nature. The notion of one intellect common to all men does away with the doctrine of personal immortality. Another doctrine which probably was emphasized more by the Latin Averroists (and by the adversaries among Averroes' contemporaries) is the famous statement about "two-fold truth", viz. that a proposition may be theologically true and philosophically false and vice versa. Averroes taught that religion expresses the (higher) philosophical truth by means of religious imagery; the "two-truth notion" came apparently into the Latin text through a misinterpretation on the part of the translators. The works of Averroes were one of the main sources of medieval Aristotelianlsm, before and even after the original texts had been translated. The interpretation the Latin Averroists found in their texts of the "Commentator" spread in spite of opposition and condemnation. See Averroism, Latin. Averroes, Opera, Venetiis, 1553. M. Horten, Die Metaphysik des Averroes, 1912. P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin, 2d ed., Louvain, 1911. --R.A. Averroism, Latin: The commentaries on Aristotle written by Averroes (Ibn Roshd) in the 12th century became known to the Western scholars in translations by Michael Scottus, Hermannus Alemannus, and others at the beginning of the 13th century. Many works of Aristotle were also known first by such translations from Arabian texts, though there existed translations from the Greek originals at the same time (Grabmann). The Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle was held to be the true one by many; but already Albert the Great pointed out several notions which he felt to be incompatible with the principles of Christian philosophy, although he relied for the rest on the "Commentator" and apparently hardly used any other text. Aquinas, basing his studies mostly on a translation from the Greek texts, procured for him by William of Moerbecke, criticized the Averroistic interpretation in many points. But the teachings of the Commentator became the foundation for a whole school of philosophers, represented first by the Faculty of Arts at Paris. The most prominent of these scholars was Siger of Brabant. The philosophy of these men was condemned on March 7th, 1277 by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, after a first condemnation of Aristotelianism in 1210 had gradually come to be neglected. The 219 theses condemned in 1277, however, contain also some of Aquinas which later were generally recognized an orthodox. The Averroistic propositions which aroused the criticism of the ecclesiastic authorities and which had been opposed with great energy by Albert and Thomas refer mostly to the following points: The co-eternity of the created word; the numerical identity of the intellect in all men, the so-called two-fold-truth theory stating that a proposition may be philosophically true although theologically false. Regarding the first point Thomas argued that there is no philosophical proof, either for the co-eternity or against it; creation is an article of faith. The unity of intellect was rejected as incompatible with the true notion of person and with personal immortality. It is doubtful whether Averroes himself held the two-truths theory; it was, however, taught by the Latin Averroists who, notwithstanding the opposition of the Church and the Thomistic philosophers, gained a great influence and soon dominated many universities, especially in Italy. Thomas and his followers were convinced that they interpreted Aristotle correctly and that the Averroists were wrong; one has, however, to admit that certain passages in Aristotle allow for the Averroistic interpretation, especially in regard to the theory of intellect. Lit.: P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin au XIIIe Siecle, 2d. ed. Louvain, 1911; M. Grabmann, Forschungen über die lateinischen Aristotelesübersetzungen des XIII. Jahrhunderts, Münster 1916 (Beitr. z. Gesch. Phil. d. MA. Vol. 17, H. 5-6). --R.A. Avesta: See Zendavesta. Avicehron: (or Avencebrol, Salomon ibn Gabirol) The first Jewish philosopher in Spain, born in Malaga 1020, died about 1070, poet, philosopher, and moralist. His main work, Fons vitae, became influential and was much quoted by the Scholastics. It has been preserved only in the Latin translation by Gundissalinus. His doctrine of a spiritual substance individualizing also the pure spirits or separate forms was opposed by Aquinas already in his first treatise De ente, but found favor with the medieval Augustinians also later in the 13th century. He also teaches the necessity of a mediator between God and the created world; such a mediator he finds in the Divine Will proceeding from God and creating, conserving, and moving the world. His cosmogony shows a definitely Neo-Platonic shade and assumes a series of emanations. Cl. Baeumker, Avencebrolis Fons vitae. Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. MA. 1892-1895, Vol. I. Joh. Wittman, Die Stellung des hl. Thomas von Aquino zu Avencebrol, ibid. 1900. Vol. III. --R.A. Avicenna: (Abu Ali al Hosain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina) Born 980 in the country of Bocchara, began to write in young years, left more than 100 works, taught in Ispahan, was physician to several Persian princes, and died at Hamadan in 1037. His fame as physician survived his influence as philosopher in the Occident. His medical works were printed still in the 17th century. His philosophy is contained in 18 vols. of a comprehensive encyclopedia, following the tradition of Al Kindi and Al Farabi. Logic, Physics, Mathematics and Metaphysics form the parts of this work. His philosophy is Aristotelian with noticeable Neo-Platonic influences. His doctrine of the universal existing ante res in God, in rebus as the universal nature of the particulars, and post res in the human mind by way of abstraction became a fundamental thesis of medieval Aristotelianism. He sharply distinguished between the logical and the ontological universal, denying to the latter the true nature of form in the composite. The principle of individuation is matter, eternally existent. Latin translations attributed to Avicenna the notion that existence is an accident to essence (see e.g. Guilelmus Parisiensis, De Universo). The process adopted by Avicenna was one of paraphrasis of the Aristotelian texts with many original thoughts interspersed. His works were translated into Latin by Dominicus Gundissalinus (Gondisalvi) with the assistance of Avendeath ibn Daud. This translation started, when it became more generally known, the "revival of Aristotle" at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. Albert the Great and Aquinas professed, notwithstanding their critical attitude, a great admiration for Avicenna whom the Arabs used to call the "third Aristotle". But in the Orient, Avicenna's influence declined soon, overcome by the opposition of the orthodox theologians. Avicenna, Opera, Venetiis, 1495; l508; 1546. M. Horten, Das Buch der Genesung der Seele, eine philosophische Enzyklopaedie Avicenna's; XIII. Teil: Die Metaphysik. Halle a. S. 1907-1909. R. de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l'Avicennisme Latin, Bibl. Thomiste XX, Paris, 1934. --R.A. Avidya: (Skr.) Nescience; ignorance; the state of mind unaware of true reality; an equivalent of maya (q.v.); also a condition of pure awareness prior to the universal process of evolution through gradual differentiation into the elements and factors of knowledge. --K.F.L. Avyakta: (Skr.) "Unmanifest", descriptive of or standing for brahman (q.v.) in one of its or "his" aspects, symbolizing the superabundance of the creative principle, or designating the condition of the universe not yet become phenomenal (aja, unborn). --K.F.L. Awareness: Consciousness considered in its aspect of act; an act of attentive awareness such as the sensing of a color patch or the feeling of pain is distinguished from the content attended to, the sensed color patch, the felt pain. The psychologlcal theory of intentional act was advanced by F. Brentano (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte) and received its epistemological development by Meinong, Husserl, Moore, Laird and Broad. See Intentionalism. --L.W. Axiological: (Ger. axiologisch) In Husserl: Of or pertaining to value or theory of value (the latter term understood as including disvalue and value-indifference). --D.C. Axiological ethics: Any ethics which makes the theory of obligation entirely dependent on the theory of value, by making the determination of the rightness of an action wholly dependent on a consideration of the value or goodness of something, e.g. the action itself, its motive, or its consequences, actual or probable. Opposed to deontological ethics. See also teleological ethics. --W.K.F. Axiologic Realism: In metaphysics, theory that value as well as logic, qualities as well as relations, have their being and exist external to the mind and independently of it. Applicable to the philosophy of many though not all realists in the history of philosophy, from Plato to G. E. Moore, A. N. Whitehead, and N, Hartmann. --J.K.F. Axiology: (Gr. axios, of like value, worthy, and logos, account, reason, theory). Modern term for theory of value (the desired, preferred, good), investigation of its nature, criteria, and metaphysical status. Had its rise in Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas (Idea of the Good); was developed in Aristotle's Organon, Ethics, Poetics, and Metaphysics (Book Lambda). Stoics and Epicureans investigated the summum bonum. Christian philosophy (St. Thomas) built on Aristotle's identification of highest value with final cause in God as "a living being, eternal, most good." In modern thought, apart from scholasticism and the system of Spinoza (Ethica, 1677), in which values are metaphysically grounded, the various values were investigated in separate sciences, until Kant's Critiques, in which the relations of knowledge to moral, aesthetic, and religious values were examined. In Hegel's idealism, morality, art, religion, and philosophy were made the capstone of his dialectic. R. H. Lotze "sought in that which should be the ground of that which is" (Metaphysik, 1879). Nineteenth century evolutionary theory, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics subjected value experience to empirical analysis, and stress was again laid on the diversity and relativity of value phenomena rather than on their unity and metaphysical nature. F. Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885) and Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887) aroused new interest in the nature of value. F. Brentano, Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (1889), identified value with love. In the twentieth century the term axiology was apparently first applied by Paul Lapie (Logique de la volonte, 1902) and E. von Hartmann (Grundriss der Axiologie, 1908). Stimulated by Ehrenfels (System der Werttheorie, 1897), Meinong (Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie, 1894-1899), and Simmel (Philosophie des Geldes, 1900). W. M. Urban wrote the first systematic treatment of axiology in English (Valuation, 1909), phenomenological in method under J. M. Baldwin's influence. Meanwhile H. Münsterberg wrote a neo-Fichtean system of values (The Eternal Values, 1909). Among important recent contributions are: B. Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value (1912), a free reinterpretation of Hegelianism; W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God (1918, 1921), defending a metaphysical theism; S. Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity (1920), realistic and naturalistic; N. Hartmann, Ethik (1926), detailed analysis of types and laws of value; R. B. Perry's magnum opus, General Theory of Value (1926), "its meaning and basic principles construed in terms of interest"; and J. Laird, The Idea of Value (1929), noteworthy for historical exposition. A naturalistic theory has been developed by J. Dewey (Theory of Valuation, 1939), for which "not only is science itself a value . . . but it is the supreme means of the valid determination of all valuations." A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936) expounds the view of logical positivism that value is "nonsense." J. Hessen, Wertphilosophie (1937), provides an account of recent German axiology from a neo-scholastic standpoint. The problems of axiology fall into four main groups, namely, those concerning (1) the nature of value, (2) the types of value, (3) the criterion of value, and (4) the metaphysical status of value. (1) The nature of value experience. Is valuation fulfillment of desire (voluntarism: Spinoza, Ehrenfels), pleasure (hedonism: Epicurus, Bentham, Meinong), interest (Perry), preference (Martineau), pure rational will (formalism: Stoics, Kant, Royce), apprehension of tertiary qualities (Santayana), synoptic experience of the unity of personality (personalism: T. H. Green, Bowne), any experience that contributes to enhanced life (evolutionism: Nietzsche), or "the relation of things as means to the end or consequence actually reached" (pragmatism, instrumentalism: Dewey). (2) The types of value. Most axiologists distinguish between intrinsic (consummatory) values (ends), prized for their own sake, and instrumental (contributory) values (means), which are causes (whether as economic goods or as natural events) of intrinsic values. Most intrinsic values are also instrumental to further value experience; some instrumental values are neutral or even disvaluable intrinsically. Commonly recognized as intrinsic values are the (morally) good, the true, the beautiful, and the holy. Values of play, of work, of association, and of bodily well-being are also acknowledged. Some (with Montague) question whether the true is properly to be regarded as a value, since some truth is disvaluable, some neutral; but love of truth, regardless of consequences, seems to establish the value of truth. There is disagreement about whether the holy (religious value) is a unique type (Schleiermacher, Otto), or an attitude toward other values (Kant, Höffding), or a combination of the two (Hocking). There is also disagreement about whether the variety of values is irreducible (pluralism) or whether all values are rationally related in a hierarchy or system (Plato, Hegel, Sorley), in which values interpenetrate or coalesce into a total experience. (3) The criterion of value. The standard for testing values is influenced by both psychological and logical theory. Hedonists find the standard in the quantity of pleasure derived by the individual (Aristippus) or society (Bentham). Intuitionists appeal to an ultimate insight into preference (Martineau, Brentano). Some idealists recognize an objective system of rational norms or ideals as criterion (Plato, Windelband), while others lay more stress on rational wholeness and coherence (Hegel, Bosanquet, Paton) or inclusiveness (T. H. Green). Naturalists find biological survival or adjustment (Dewey) to be the standard. Despite differences, there is much in common in the results of the application of these criteria. (4) The metaphysical status of value. What is the relation of values to the facts investigated by natural science (Koehler), of Sein to Sollen (Lotze, Rickert), of human experience of value to reality independent of man (Hegel, Pringle-Pattlson, Spaulding)? There are three main answers: subjectivism (value is entirely dependent on and relative to human experience of it: so most hedonists, naturalists, positivists); logical objectivism (values are logical essences or subsistences, independent of their being known, yet with no existential status or action in reality); metaphysical objectivism (values --or norms or ideals --are integral, objective, and active constituents of the metaphysically real: so theists, absolutists, and certain realists and naturalists like S. Alexander and Wieman). --E.S.B. Axiom: See Mathematics. Axiomatic method: That method of constructing a deductive system consisting of deducing by specified rules all statements of the system save a given few from those given few, which are regarded as axioms or postulates of the system. See Mathematics. --C.A.B. Ayam atma brahma: (Skr.) "This self is brahman", famous quotation from Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19, one of many alluding to the central theme of the Upanishads, i.e., the identity of the human and divine or cosmic. --K.F.L.
Augoeides [from Greek auge bright light, radiance + eidos form, shape] Bulwer-Lytton in Zanoni adopted the term from Marcus Aurelius (who says that the sphere of the soul is augoeides), using it to denote the radiant spiritual-divine human soul-ego. In Isis Unveiled it denotes the spiritual monad, atma-buddhi, and is collated with the Persian ferouer or feruer, the Platonic nous, etc. In a high degree of initiation the initiant comes face to face with this radiant presence, the luminous radiation streaming from the divine ego at the heart of the monad. When the Augoeides touches with its rays the inferior monads in the human constitution and awakens them to activity, these then becomes the various lower egos or manifested children of the divine ego.
Avalokitesvara (Sanskrit) Avalokiteśvara [from ava down, away from + the verbal root lok to look at, contemplate + īśvara lord] The lord who is perceived; the divinity or lord seen or contemplated in its inferior or “downward-seen” aspect. The essential meaning in theosophy is the Logos, whether considered in its kosmic aspect or in its function in an entity dwelling in such kosmos. “Simultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom of Adi-Buddha — the One Supreme and eternal — manifests itself as Avalokiteshwara (or manifested Iswara), which is the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of the Hermetic philosopher, the Logos of the Platonists, and the Atman of the Vedantins” (SD 1:110).
bagworm ::: n. --> One of several lepidopterous insects which construct, in the larval state, a baglike case which they carry about for protection. One species (Platoeceticus Gloveri) feeds on the orange tree. See Basket worm.
Bahya, ben Joseph Ibn Padudah: (c. 1050) Philosopher and ethicist. The title of his work, The Duties of the Heart (Heb. Hobot ha-Leba-bot), indicates its purpose, i.e., to teach ethical conduct. First part demonstrates pure conception of God, unity and attributes. His basic principle of ethics is thankfulness to God, for His creating the wonderful world; the goal of religious ethical conduct is love of God. A second work ascribed to him is the Torot ha-Nefesh, i.e., Doctrines of the Soul, which deals primarily with the soul, but also with other subjects and evinces a strong neo-Platonic strain. See Jewish Philosophy -- M.W.
Bee(s) Greek and Roman writers, having in mind the terminology of the Mysteries, used the term bees (melissai) to denote both priestesses and women disciples. Thus it was used for the priestesses of Delphi and other Mysteries, and by the Neoplatonists for pure and chaste persons. Honey and nectar are symbols of wisdom.
Being, hierarchy of: (Scholastic) The Neo-Platonic conception of a hierarchy of "emanations" from the "One" persisted throughout the Middle-Ages, though it was given another meaning. Emanationism properly speaking is incompatible with the notion of creation. But the medieval writers agree that there is a hierarchy, comprising within the visible world inanimate beings, plants, animals, and rational beings, men; above them rank the immaterial substances (subsistent forms, angels) and finally God Who, however, is so far distant from any created being that he cannot be placed in line. Whatever is asserted of God is so only "analogically" (see Analogy). There is analogy also between the grades of created beings; their various levels are not of one kind, no transition exists between inanimate and animate bodies, or between material and spiritual substances. Though the original meaning has been abandoned, the term "emanation" is still used, even by Aquinas. -- R.A.
Being: In early Greek philosophy is opposed either to change, or Becoming, or to Non-Being. According to Parmenides and his disciples of the Eleatic School, everything real belongs to the category of Being, as the only possible object of thought. Essentially the same reasoning applies also to material reality in which there is nothing but Being, one and continuous, all-inclusive and eternal. Consequently, he concluded, the coming into being and passing away constituting change are illusory, for that which is-not cannot be, and that which is cannot cease to be. In rejecting Eleitic monism, the materialists (Leukippus, Democritus) asserted that the very existence of things, their corporeal nature, insofar as it is subject to change and motion, necessarily presupposes the other than Being, that is, Non-Being, or Void. Thus, instead of regarding space as a continuum, they saw in it the very source of discontinuity and the foundation of the atomic structure of substance. Plato accepted the first part of Parmenides' argument. namely, that referring to thought as distinct from matter, and maintained that, though Becoming is indeed an apparent characteristic of everything sensory, the true and ultimate reality, that of Ideas, is changeless and of the nature of Being. Aristotle achieved a compromise among all these notions and contended that, though Being, as the essence of things, is eternal in itself, nevertheless it manifests itself only in change, insofar as "ideas" or "forms" have no existence independent of, or transcendent to, the reality of things and minds. The medieval thinkers never revived the controversy as a whole, though at times they emphasized Being, as in Neo-Platonism, at times Becoming, as in Aristotelianism. With the rise of new interest in nature, beginning with F. Bacon, Hobbes and Locke, the problem grew once more in importance, especially to the rationalists, opponents of empiricism. Spinoza regarded change as a characteristic of modal existence and assumed in this connection a position distantly similar to that of Pinto. Hegel formed a new answer to the problem in declaring that nature, striving to exclude contradictions, has to "negate" them: Being and Non-Being are "moments" of the same cosmic process which, at its foundation, arises out of Being containing Non-Being within itself and leading, factually and logically, to their synthetic union in Becoming. -- R.B.W.
Bernard of Chartres: (died c. 1130) Has been called the "most perfect Platonist of his century'" by John of Salisbury (Metalogicus, IV, 35, PL 199, 938) but he is known only at second-hand now. He taught in the school of Chartres from 1114-1119 and was Chancellor of Chartres from 1119-1124. According to John of Salisbury, Bernard was an extreme realist in his theory of universals, but he taught that the forms of things (formae nativae) are distinct from the exemplary Ideas in the Divine Mind. A treatise, De expositione Porphyrii has been attributed to him. He is not to be confused with Bernard Silvestris of Chartres, nor with Bernard of Tours. E. Gilson. "Le platonisme de Bernard de C.", Revue Neoscolastique, XXV (1923) 5-19. -- V.J.B.
Betrayal of the Mysteries Ancient writers affirm that the prime requisite of every candidate seeking entrance into the Mysteries was a pledge of utter secrecy. Persons guilty of the betrayal of the Mysteries were rigidly excluded from participation in the celebration of the rites. Likewise those were debarred who accidentally were guilty of homicide or any major crime, or who had been proved guilty of sorcery. If merely unfortunate mediums, they were taken care of in hospitals maintained for that purpose in the neighborhood of temples, and if possible restored to health; if consciously traitorous or wicked, they were dealt with in other ways. Thus it is clear that even in the degenerate days dating from before Plato’s time in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, abuse of occult power was considered one of the most heinous of human offenses, for it struck directly at the roots of society, and it was for this last reason that betrayal of the Mysteries, sorcery, or similar offense was punished by the State itself.
Boethius: (470-525) An influential commentator on Aristotle and Cicero, who, in his own thinking, reflected a strong influence of Neo-Platonism and Augustinianism. De Consolatione Philosophiae (Migne PL, 63-4, 69-70). -- R.B.W.
Plato (427-347 B.C.) recognized the person in his doctrine of the soul, but turned the direction of thought toward dominance by the abstract Idea.
Plato: (428-7 - 348-7 B.C.) Was one of the greatest of the Greek philosophers. He was born either in Athens or on the island of Aegina, and was originally known as Aristocles. Ariston, his father, traced his ancestry to the last kings of Athens. His mother, Perictione, was a descendant of the family of Solon. Plato was given the best elementary education possible and he spent eight years, from his own twentieth year to the death of Socrates, as a member of the Socratic circle. Various stories are told about his supposed masters in philosophy, and his travels in Greece, Italy, Sicily and Egypt, but all that we know for certain is that he somehow acquired a knowledge of Pythagoreanisrn, Heracleitanism, Eleaticism and othei Pre-Socratic philosophies. He founded his school of mathematics and philosophy in Athens in 387 B.C. It became known as the Academy. Here he taught with great success until his death at the age of eighty. His career as a teacher was interrupted on two occasions by trips to Sicily, where Plato tried without much success to educate and advise Dionysius the Younger. His works have been very well preserved; we have more than twenty-five authentic dialogues, certain letters, and some definitions which are probably spurious. For a list of works, bibliography and an outline of his thought, see Platonism. -- V.J.B.
Plato ::: Ancient Greek philosopher (4th century B.C.E.), student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, whose identification of reality with the non-material world of ideas (“the ideal world”) played an enormous role in subsequent philosophy and religion (see neo-Platonism). Father of “Platonism” and the Platonic Academy as a philosophical institution in Athens.
Platon ::: Distributed language based on asynchronous message passing.[Message Passing Communication Versus Procedure Call Communication, J. Staunstrup, Soft Prac & Exp 12(3):223-234 (Mar 1982)].[Platon Reference Manual, S. Soerensen et al, RECAU, U Aarhus, Denmark].
Platon Distributed language based on asynchronous message passing. ["Message Passing Communication Versus Procedure Call Communication", J. Staunstrup, Soft Prac & Exp 12(3):223-234 (Mar 1982)]. ["Platon Reference Manual", S. Soerensen et al, RECAU, U Aarhus, Denmark].
Platonic Forms ::: These are viewed as constructs of the higher Mental Plane that sculpt the raw foundations of dualistic, experiential reality. See Archetype.
Platonic philosophy speaks of the soul (psyche) as able to ally itself either with divine mind (nous) or with passion (thymos); thus we have the same distinction as between buddhi-manas and kama-manas. Sometimes, however, psyche is used without qualification as the lower mind in contrast with the higher mind or nous.
Platonic realism ::: A belief in the existence of universals as articulated by Plato. Platonic realism is often called Plato's theory of Forms.
Platonic Realism: See Realism. Platonism: The philosophy of Plato marks one of the high points in the development of Greek philosophical genius Platomsm is characterised by a partial contempt for sense knowledge and empirical studies, by a high regard for mathematics and its method, by a longing for another and better world, by a frankly spiritualistic view of life, by its use of a method of discussion involving an accumulation of ever more profound insights rather than the formal logic of Aristotle, and, above all, by an unswerving faith in the capacity of the human mind to attain absolute truth and to use this truth in the rational direction of human life and affairs.
Platonic School The philosophers of the Academy, who followed Plato and can be traced down to the days of Cicero, gradually undergoing change during that period and divisible into schools connected with the names of prominent philosophers. Distinguished from the Aristotelian or Peripatetic school, much as philosophy is distinguished from science or as idealism is distinguished from naturalism. The principal feature is the Platonic dualism: of noumenon and phenomenon, of the self-moving and that which is moved, of the Idea and its manifestation in an organic being, of the permanent and the impermanent, of soul and body, nous and psyche, etc. In epistemology this dualism appears as philosophia and sense experience — the wisdom which apprehends reality and that which forms concepts from the data of sense experience; in morals, as the contrast between the Good, which is altruistic because it apprehends the unity of all beings, and the ethic of self-seeking based on the illusion of separateness.
Platonic Solid ::: A regular, convex polyhedron. These are used to represent the raw form of the classical elements in Hermetic cosmology.
Platonism as a political philosophy finds its best known exposition in the theory of the ideal state in the Republic. There, Plato described a city in which social justice would be fully realized. Three classes of men are distinguished: the philosopher kings, apparently a very small group whose education has been alluded to above, who would be the rulers because by nature and by training they were the best men for the job. They must excel particularly in their rational abilities: their special virtue is philosophic wisdom; the soldiers, or guardians of the state, constitute the second class; their souls must be remarkable for the development of the spirited, warlike element, under the control of the virtue of courage; the lowest class is made up of the acquisitive group, the workers of every sort whose characteristic virtue is temperance. For the two upper classes, Plato suggested a form of community life which would entail the abolition of monogamous marriage, family life, and of private property. It is to be noted that this form of semi-communism was suggested for a minority of the citizens only (Repub. III and V) and it is held to be a practical impossibility in the Laws (V, 739-40), though Plato continued to think that some form of community life is theoretically best for man. In Book VIII of the Republic, we find the famous classification of five types of political organization, ranging from aristocracy which is the rule of the best men, timocracy, in which the rulers are motivated by a love of honor, oligarchy, in which the rulers seek wealth, democracy, the rule of the masses who are unfit for the task, to tyranny, which is the rule of one man who may have started as the champion of the people but who governs solely for the advancement of his own, selfish interests.
Platonism, medieval: Plato's works were not accessible to the medievil writers previous to the 13th century. They possessed only part of the Timaeus in the translation and commentary by Chalcidius. Nor were they acquainted with the writings of the Neo-Platonists. They had the logical texts by Porphyrius; little besides. St. Augustine, the greatest authority in these ages, was well acquainted with the teachings of the "Academy" of his time and became a source for Neo-Platonic influences. Furthermore, there were the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius of which first Alcuin had made a rather insufficient, later Scotus Eriugena a readible translation. Scotus himself was thoroughly Neo-Platonic in his philosophy, however "Christianized" his Platonism may have been. The medieval "Platoniststs" held, among some propositions of minor importance, that universals were existent substances (Realism, q.v.), that body and soul were two independent substances, united more or less accidentally; they assumed accordingly a "plurality of forms" in one substance. Some believed that Plato had been given a peculiar insight even in the mysteries of Christian faith. Thus they went so far as to identify the anima mundi, which they believed to be a Platonic notion, with the Holy Ghost (e.g. Abelard). Even after the revival of Aristotelian philosophy, against which the "Platonists" reacted violently, Platonism, or as they afterwards preferred to call it, Augustinianism persisted in many schools, especially in those depending on the Franciscans. -- R.A.
Platonism ::: See Plato. ::: Pliny the Elder (ca. 23-79 A.D.)
Platonism ::: The school of philosophy founded by Plato. Often used to refer to Platonic idealism, the belief that the entities of the phenomenal world are imperfect reflections of an ideal truth. In metaphysics sometimes used to mean the claim that universals exist independent of particulars. Predecessor and precursor of Aristotelianism.
Plato’s message was that of a person initiated in the sacred Mysteries, but under the usual necessity of reticence, of speaking in veiled language, and of casting his knowledge into the prevalent molds of thought.
Plato's theory of knowledge can hardly be discussed apart from his theory of reality. Through sense perception man comes to know the changeable world of bodies. This is the realm of opinion (doxa), such cognition may be more or less clear but it never rises to the level of true knowledge, for its objects are impermanent and do not provide a stable foundation for science. It is through intellectual, or rational, cognition that man discovers another world, that of immutable essences, intelligible realities, Forms or Ideas. This is the level of scientific knowledge (episteme); it is reached in mathematics and especially in philosophy (Repub. VI, 510). The world of intelligible Ideas contains the ultimate realities from which the world of sensible things has been patterned. Plato experienced much difficulty in regard to the sort of existence to be attributed to his Ideas. Obviously it is not the crude existence of physical things, nor can it be merely the mental existence of logical constructs. Interpretations have varied from the theory of the Christian Fathers (which was certainly not that of Plato himself) viz , that the Ideas are exemplary Causes in God's Mind, to the suggestion of Aristotle (Metaphysics, I) that they are realized, in a sense, in the world of individual things, but are apprehended only by the intellect The Ideas appear, however, particularly in the dialogues of the middle period, to be objective essences, independent of human minds, providing not only the foundation for the truth of human knowledge but afso the ontological bases for the shadowy things of the sense world. Within the world of Forms, there is a certain hierarchy. At the top, the most noble of all, is the Idea of the Good (Repub. VII), it dominates the other Ideas and they participate in it. Beauty, symmetry and truth are high-ranking Ideas; at times they are placed almost on a par with the Good (Philebus 65; also Sympos. and Phaedrus passim). There are, below, these, other Ideas, such as those of the major virtues (wisdom, temperance, courage, justice and piety) and mathematical terms and relations, such as equality, likeness, unlikeness and proportion. Each type or class of being is represented by its perfect Form in the sphere of Ideas, there is an ideal Form of man, dog, willow tree, of every kind of natural object and even of artificial things like beds (Repub. 596). The relationship of the "many" objects, belonging to a certain class of things in the sense world, to the "One", i.e. the single Idea which is their archetype, is another great source of difficulty to Plato. Three solutions, which are not mutually exclusive, are suggested in the dialogues (1) that the many participate imperfectly in the perfect nature of their Idea, (2) that the many are made in imitation of the One, and (3) that the many are composed of a mixture of the Limit (Idea) with the Unlimited (matter).
Bradley, Francis Herbert: (1846-1924) Dialectician extraordinary of British philosophy, Bradley sought to purge contemporary thought of the extremely sensationalistic and utilitarian elements embodied in the tradition of empiricism. Though owing much to Hegel, he early repudiated the Hegelian system as such, and his own variety of Absolute Idealism bases itself upon no scheme of categories. His brilliant attack upon the inadequate assumptions of hedonistic ethics (Ethical Studies, 1877) was followed in 1883 by The Principles of Logic in which his dialectic analysis was applied to the problems of inference and judgment. It was, however, his Appearance and Reality (1893) with its famous theory of "the degrees of truth" which first disturbed the somnambulism of modern metaphysics, and led Caird to remark upon "the greatest thing since Kant". In later years Bradley's growing realization of ultimate difficulties in his version of the coherence theory led him to modify his doctrines in the direction of a Platonic mysticism. See Essays on Truth and Reality, the second edition of the Logic Collected Essays, etc. -- W.S.W.
b) The intimate union of the soul with God in contemplation as in NeoPlatonism. -- V.F.
b) The usual meaning of the term the doctrine of the Trinitarians who hold that the nature of God is one in substance and three in embodiment (Latin: persona). Upon the basis of Platonic realism (q.v.) which makes the universal fundamental and the particulars real in terms of the universal, the Christian Trinitarians made philosophically clear their doctrine of one Godhead and three embodiments, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: three and yet one. The doctrine was formulated to make religiously valid the belief in the complete Deity of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit (referred to in the New and the Old Testaments) and to avoid the pitfalls of polytheism. Jesus had become the object of Christian worship and the revealer of God and thus it was felt necessary to establish (together with the H.S.) his real Deity along with monotheistic belief. A long controversy over the relationship of the three led to the formulation by the Council of Nicea in 325, and after further disputes, by the Council of Constantinople in 381 of the orthodox Trinitarian creed (the Niceno-Constantinopolitan). Roman and Greek Catholicism split on the doctrine of the status of the H.S. The Western church added the expression "filioque" (the H.S. proceeding "and from the Son") making more explicit the complete equality of the three; the Eastern church maintained the original text which speaks of the H.S. as "proceeding from thet Father." Orthodox Protestantism maintains the Trinitarian conception. -- V.F.
“But it is probable that the theosophic effort which Jesus attempted to initiate did not endure for fifty years after his death. Almost immediately after his passing, his disciples, all half-instructed, and in some cases almost illiterate, men . . . foisted upon the world of their time the forms and beliefs of early Christianity; and had there been nothing but these, that religious system had not lived another fifty years. But what happened? During the oncoming of the dark cycle after Jesus (which began as before said about the time of Pythagoras), the last few rays from the setting sun of the ancient light shone feebly in the minds of certain of these Christian Fathers, Clement of Alexandria for one, and Origen of Alexandria for another, and in one or two more like these, who had been initiated at least in the lowest of some of the then degenerate pagan Mysteries; and these men entered into the Christian Church and introduced some poor modicum of that light, . . . which they still cherished; and these rays they derived mainly from the Neo-pythagorean and the Neoplatonic system” (Fund 486-7).
Cambridge Platonists: A small group of 17th century Cambridge thinkers whose views represented a kind of revival of Platonism. Esp. Ralph Cudworth and Henry More. Remembered chiefly, perhaps, for holding that ethics rests on certain absolute and self-evident truths. -- W.K.F.
Campanella was a political philosopher. In his City of the Sun he conceived a Utopia built on Platonic lines. He was also an ardent champion of the temporal power of the Papacy and of its political as well as its religious sovereignty through the world. -- B.A.G.F.
CATO ::: Fortran-like CAI language for PLATO system on CDC 1604. CSL PLATO System Manual, L.A. Fillman, U Illinois, June 1966.
CATO Fortran-like CAI language for PLATO system on CDC 1604. "CSL PLATO System Manual", L.A. Fillman, U Illinois, June 1966.
CAUSAL WORLD Atomic world 47 (47:1) and molecular world 47:2,3 in the solar system. The causal world (47:1-3) is the world of Platonic ideas and man&
Characteristically Plotinian is the teaching that man must first turn his mind away from the inferior things of sense toward the inner reality of his own soul. He must learn to regard his soul as part of the World-Soul. He must transcend the multiple things of the realm of Mind and endeavor to achieve that communion with the One, which is his ultimate good. There is no question of personal immortality and so the goal of human life is a merging with universal Spirit. In his politics, Plotinus favored a sort of community life incorporating many of the idealistic suggestions to be found in Plato's Republic.
Christos (Greek) Anointed; applied in the Greek Mysteries to a candidate who had passed the last degree and become a full initiate. Also the immanent individual god in a person, equivalent in some respects to Dionysos, Krishna, etc. The Hebrew word for anointed (mashiah) is generally written in English as Messiah. What we know as Christianity is a syncretism of borrowings from Neoplatonism, neo-Pythagoreanism, Greek Gnosticism, and Hebrew religion. Christos was commonly used in the Greek translation of the Bible as a title of the Jewish Kings, those who had been anointed for reigning — a symbolic rite taken originally from the Mysteries. St. Paul’s use of the word shows that he understood its true mystical meaning, but spoke with precaution in his public epistles or writings.
Clement of Alexandria: (150-217) An early Christian thinker and theologian who attempted to raise the attitude of faith to the level of knowledge; he was influenced by Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Philo Judaeus. -- R.B.W.
Clement of Alexandria, as an initiated Neoplatonist, knew that Agathodaimon was the kosmic Christos and the true spiritual savior of mankind, like Prometheus — an early form of the Agathodaimon teaching applied to the enlightening of the human race through the influence of an incarnating spiritual power. Opposite to him stands a Kakodaimon, the evil genius or lower serpent, the Satan who bids Christ worship him and “I will give thee all the kingdoms of the earth.” Kakodaimon is the nether or inferior aspect of Agathodaimon, kama-manas the deluder as opposed to buddhi-manas the redeemer.
Cohen, Hermann: (1842-1918) and Paul Natorp (1854-1924) were the chief leaders of the "Marburg School" which formed a definite branch of the Neo-Kantian movement. Whereas the original founders of this movement, O. Liebmann and Fr. A. Lange, had reacted to scientific empiricism by again calling attention to the a priori elements of cognition, the Marburg school contended that all cognition was exclusively a priori. They definitely rejected not only the notion of "things-in-themselves" but even that of anything immediately "given" in experience. There is no other reality than one posited by thought and this holds good equally for the object, the subject and God. Nor is thought in its effort to "determine the object = x" limited by any empirical data but solely by the laws of thought. Since in Ethics Kant himself had already endeavored to eliminate all empirical elements, the Marburg school was perhaps closer to him in this field than in epistemology. The sole goal of conduct is fulfillment of duty, i.e., the achievement of a society organized according to moral principles and satisfying the postulates of personal dignity. The Marburg school was probably the most influential philosophic trend in Germany in the last 25 years before the First World War. The most outstanding present-day champion of their tradition is Ernst Cassirer (born 1874). Cohen and Natorp tried to re-interpret Plato as well as Kant. Following up a suggestion first made by Lotze they contended that the Ideas ought to be understood as laws or methods of thought and that the current view ascribing any kind of existence to them was based on a misunderstanding of Aristotle's. -- H.G.
Conceptual Realism: Theory which ascribes objectivity of some sort to conceptual cognition, includes extreme or Platonic realism and conceptualism but excludes nominalism. See Conceptualism. -- L.W.
contemplatist ::: n. --> A contemplator.
contemplator ::: n. --> One who contemplates.
Cosmically this highly esoteric story refers to the cosmic Logos building the universe and becoming thereby not only its inspiriting and invigorating soul, but likewise the divinity guiding manifestation from Chaos to complete fullness of evolutionary grandeur; and in the case of mankind, the legend refers to the origin, peregrinations, and destiny of the human monad, itself a spiritual consciousness-center, from unself-consciousness as a god-spark, through the wanderings of destiny until becoming a fully self-conscious god. The key to the symbolism of Zagreus-Dionysos is given by Plato in the Cratylus: “The Spirit within us is the true image of Dionysos. He therefore who acts erroneously in regard to It . . . sins against Dionysos Himself,” i.e., the inner god, the divinity in man. The legend thus contains not only past cosmic as well as human history, but contains as a prophecy what will come to pass in the distant future.
cosmogony ::: n. --> The creation of the world or universe; a theory or account of such creation; as, the poetical cosmogony of Hesoid; the cosmogonies of Thales, Anaxagoras, and Plato.
CratyIus of Athens: A Heraclitean and first teacher of Plato. Carried the doctrine of irreconcilability of opposites so far that he renounced the use of spoken language. Plato's dialogue of same name criticized the Heraclitean theory of language. -- E.H.
(c) The result of this elaborate critique of Platonism is sometimes called the Aristotelian-Thomistic synthesis. It is better, however, to call it simply a Thornistic synthesis, not only because St. Thomas criticized Aristotle on several occasions, but also because the real and historical meaning of Aristotle as a philosopher in the fourth century B.C. is still very much in dispute. In any case it ought to be pretty much beyond dispute that St. Thomas was quite aware that Aristotle was not the author of all the doctrines which he attributed to him.
Cudworth, Ralph: (1617-1688) Was the leading Cambridge Platonist (q.v.). His writings were devoted to a refutation of Hobbesean materialism which he characterized as atheistic. He accepted a rationalism of the kind advanced by Descartes. He found clear and distinct fundamental notions or categories reflecting universal reason, God's mind, the nature and essence of things and the moral laws, which he held to be as binding on God as the axioms of mathematics. His two most important works are The True Intellectual System of the Universe, and A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality. -- L.E.D.
Cusa. Nicholas of: (1401-1464) Born in Cusa (family name: Krebs), educated in the mystical school of Deventer, and at the Universities of Heidelberg, Padua and Cologne. He became a Cardinal in 1448, Bishop of Brixen in 1450, and died at Todi. He was interested in mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and ecclesiastical policy. His thought is Neo-Platonic and mystical, he is critical of Aristotelian Scholasticism. His theories of "learned ignorance" and the "concordance of contraries" have been historically influential. Chief works: De concordantia Catholica, De docta ignorantia, De conjecturis (Opera, Paris, 1514). E. Van Steenberghe, Le Card. N. de Cuse,l'action, la pensee (Paris, 1920). -- V.J.B.
Daemon or Demon [from Greek daimon, Latin daemon] A god, angel, or celestial power or spirit, of varying degrees of ethereality, and ranging from the supreme deity of the hierarchy, through the greater gods, down to mere genii and lemures. Originally the term applied to deity in general, but later it usually was referred to beings intermediate between the gods and mankind, representing the powers and functions of gods. The Greeks and Romans sometimes used the term for the human divine egos. Philsophers such as Plato divided the daemons into three classes, “the first two are invisible; their bodies are pure ether and fire (Planetary Spirits); the Daimons of the third class are clothed with vapoury bodies; they are usually invisible, but sometimes, making themselves concrete, become visible for a few seconds. These are the earthly spirits, or our astral souls” (BCW 6:187).
D'Alemhert, Jean Le Rond: (1717-1783) Brilliant French geometer. He was for a time an assistant to Diderot in the preparation of the Encyclopaedia and wrote its "Discours Preliminaire." He advanced a noteworthy empirical theory of mathematics in opposition to the stand of Plato or Descartes. He was greatly influenced by Bacon in his presentation of the order and influence of the sciences. He was greatly opposed to organized religion and sceptical as to the existence and nature of God. His ethical views were based on what he characterized as the evidence of the heart and had sympathy as their mainspring. -- L.E.D.
Damascius: The last head of the Platonic Academy and a commentator on the works of Plato -- M.F.
Decussated Crossed at an acute angle like the letter X; the decussated cross in a circle was used by Plato to symbolize “the Second God who impressed himself on the Universe in the form of the Cross,” the cosmic Man “crucified” in space.
Demiurge: (Gr. demiourgos) Artisan, craftsman, the term used by Plato in the Timaeus to designate the intermediary maker of the world. -- G.R.M Democritus of Abdera: (c 460-360 B.C.) Developed the first important materialist philosophy of nature, unless we are to count that of Leukippus. His influence was transmitted by Lucretius' poem till the centuries of the Renaissance when scholars' attention began to turn toward the study of nature. He taught that all substance consists of atoms, that is, of indivisible and imperceptibly small particles. The variety of atomic forms corresponds to, and accounts for, the variety of material qualities) the finest, smoothest, and most agile atoms constitute the substance of mind. Human perception is explained by him as an emanation of tiny copies of sensible things (eidola). which, through their impact upon the atoms of mind, leave impressions responsible for facts of memory. Diels, Fragm der Vorsokr, 4a; F. A. Lange, Gesch. der Materialismus, bd. I. -- R.B.W.
Demiurge: Greek (demiurgos) for worker for the people—an old Greek term for craftsman. In Platonic philosophy, the term was applied to the Creator of the World, and the Gnostics used it in this sense to designate the inferior deity, creator of the evil world of matter.
Demiurge ::: (Greek. “maker”). A philosophical concept found in Platonic philosophy used to designate the divine agency by which the physical world came into existence. The idea was taken over in Christian gnosticism to distinguish the creator of the physical world (often seen as evil) from the superior/good God who is completely unconnected with matter.
demiurges ::: 1. A Platonic deity who orders or fashions the material world out of chaos. 2. (in Gnostic and some other philosophies) The creator of the universe, supernatural but subordinate to the Supreme Being. ::: Demiurges.
Denotation: The subjects (i.e., those entities which possess attributes) of which a term may be predicated, e.g., the term "man" denotes Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc. (J. S. Mill) "Denotation" in this sense should be distinguished from "extension" in the sense in which that signifies the subclasses of the class determined by the term. The former indicates the various individual instances in which a common nature is manifested; the latter signifies the variety of kinds over which the predication of a term may extend. (H. W. B. Joseph.) -- C.A.B.
Determination: (Lat. determinare, to limit) The limitation of a reality or thought to a narrower field than its original one. In a monistic philosophy the original, single principle must be considered as narrowed down to various genera and species, and eventually to individual existence if such be admitted, in order to introduce that differentiation of reality which is required in a multiple world. In Platonism, the Forms or Ideas are one for each type of thing but are "determined" to multiple existence by the addition of matter (Timaeus). Neo-Platonism is even more interested in real determination, since the One is the logical antecedent of the Many. Here determination is effected by the introduction of negations, or privations, into successive emanations of the One. With Boethius, mediaeval philosophy became concerned with the determination of being-in-general to an actual manifold of things. In Boethianism there is a fusion of the question of real determination with that of logical limitation of concepts. In modern thought, the problem is acute in Spinozism: universal substance (substantia, natura, Deus) must be reduced to an apparent manifold through attributes, modes to the individual. Determination is said to be by way of negation, according to Spinoza (Epist. 50), and this means that universal substance is in its perfect form indeterminate, but is thought to become determinate by a sort of logical loss of absolute perfection. The theory is brought to an almost absurd simplicity in the Ontology of Chr. Wolff, where being is pictured as successively determined to genera, species and individual. Determination is also an important factor in the developmental theories of Hegel and Bergson. -- V.J.B.
Dialectic: (Gr. dia + legein, discourse) The beginning of dialectic Aristotle is said to have attributed to Zeno of Elea. But as the art of debate by question and answer, its beginning is usually associated with the Socrates of the Platonic dialogues. As conceived by Plato himself, dialectic is the science of first principles which differs from other sciences by dispensing with hypotheses and is, consequently, "the copingstone of the sciences" -- the highest, because the clearest and hence the ultimate, sort of knowledge. Aristotle distinguishes between dialectical reasoning, which proceeds syllogistically from opinions generally accepted, and demonstrative reasoning, which begins with primary and true premises; but he holds that dialectical reasoning, in contrast with eristic, is "a process of criticism wherein lies the path to the principles of all inquiries." In modern philosophy, dialectic has two special meanings. Kant uses it as the name of that part of his Kritik der reinen Vernunft which deals critically with the special difficulties (antinomies, paralogisms and Ideas) arising out of the futile attempt (transcendental illusion) to apply the categories of the Understanding beyond the only realm to which they can apply, namely, the realm of objects in space and time (Phenomena). For Hegel, dialectic is primarily the distinguishing characteristic of speculative thought -- thought, that is, which exhibits the structure of its subject-matter (the universal, system) through the construction of synthetic categories (synthesis) which resolve (sublate) the opposition between other conflicting categories (theses and antitheses) of the same subject-matter. -- G.W.C.
dialogue ::: n. --> A conversation between two or more persons; particularly, a formal conservation in theatrical performances or in scholastic exercises.
A written composition in which two or more persons are represented as conversing or reasoning on some topic; as, the Dialogues of Plato. ::: v. i.
Dialogues of Plato, (tr.) B. lowett. 2 vols. New York:
Dianoia (Greek) [from dianoia thought] Used by Plato and Aristotle often in contrast with soma (body); synonymous with logos, it is divine ideation and the root of all thought.
Diasteme or Diastrem (Greek) diastema. An interval; used in Platonic philosophy to signify the intervals between musical tones.
Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite (florished 6th century) Author of the Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies, influential Neoplatonic, neo-Pythagorean texts attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite of the New Testament. The mystical hierarchical ideas imbodied in these texts exercised a profound spiritualizing influence on later Christian thought.
"Dionysius" used the word to express a type of "Theology" rather than an experience. For him and for many interpreters since his day, Mysticism stands for a religious theory or system, which conceives of God as absolutely transcendent, beyond reason, thought, intellect and all approaches of mind. The way up is a via negativa. It is Agnostia, "unknowing knowing". This type of Mysticism, which emerged from the Neo-Platonic stream of thought might be defined as Belief in the possibility of Union with the Divine by means of ecstatic contemplation.
Diorism: The Greek term in Plato's usage signifies division, distinction; in that of Aristotle, distinction, definition, which is also the meaning today. In mathematics, a statement of the conditions needed in order to solve a problem. -- J.J.R.
disciple ::: n. --> One who receives instruction from another; a scholar; a learner; especially, a follower who has learned to believe in the truth of the doctrine of his teacher; an adherent in doctrine; as, the disciples of Plato; the disciples of our Savior. ::: v. t. --> To teach; to train.
Dodecahedron ::: The Platonic solid associated with the Fifth Element: Azoth.
Dodecahedron The regular solid with twelve pentagonal faces, or the rhombic dodecahedron of crystallography; in The Secret Doctrine usually a synonym of dodecad, a group of twelve or the number twelve. Plato in Phaedo says that the world, if seen from above, would look like a ball covered with twelve differently colored pieces of leather. The Pythagoreans investigated regular solids, attaching great importance to them as symbols, including the regular dodecahedron which was a symbol of the universe in full manifestation.
Dunamis (Greek) Potency; used by Aristotle in contrast to energeia (act), for the invisible aspect of the universe as opposed to the visible or manifest; equivalent to Plato’s noeton (intelligible) and aistheton (sensible) (FSO 194).
Eckhart, Meister: (1260-1327) Was born in Hochheim (Gotha), may have studied with St. Albert in Cologne, received his doctorate at Paris in 1302. He taught theology at various times, devoted much time to preaching in the vernacular, and filled various administrative posts in the Dominican Order. Mystical, difficult in terminology, his thought appears to contain elements of Aristotelianism, Augustinism, Neoplatonism and Avicennism. Accused of Pantheism and other theological errors, he was the subject of a famous trial in 1326; he abjured publicly any possible religious errors which he may have made. Chief works Opus Tripartitum, Quaestiones Parisienses, Deutsche Predigten. (Pfeiffer, F., Deutsche Mystiker des 14 Jahrh., Bd. II, Leipzig, 1857; tr. Evans, London, 1924.) B. J. Muller-Thym, University of Being in M. Eckhart (N. Y., 1939). -- V.J.B.
E. Frank, Plato und die sogenannten Pythagoreer (1923).
endeictic ::: a. --> Serving to show or exhibit; as, an endeictic dialogue, in the Platonic philosophy, is one which exhibits a specimen of skill.
Enneads [from Greek ennead group of nine] A work of Plotinus (205? - 270) — one of the last and most famous of the Neoplatonic philosophers, and pupil of Ammonius Saccas — published by his disciple Porphyry. Each of its six books contained nine chapters.
Ephesus was one of the foci of the universal secret doctrine, a laboratory whence sprang light derived from the quintessence of Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Chaldean philosophy (IU 2:155). It was such in the early days of Christianity, and from it spread that Gnosis to which the Church was later so bitter an antagonist. It was “famous for its great metaphysical College where Occultism (Gnosis) and Platonic philosophy were taught in the days of the Apostle Paul. . . . It was at Ephesus where was the great College of the Essenes and all the lore the Tanaim had brought from the Chaldees” (TG 114).
Epicurean Philosophy School founded by Epicurus (b. 341 BC), an atomist philosopher popularly associated with later travesties of his teachings. His actual teachings and way of living prove that his chief aim and good was happiness rather than pleasure; for he taught and practiced abstemiousness of living. In this he reacted to the travestied forms of Platonism which existed in his time, moving away from a barren idealism towards a concrete practicality, trying to substitute realities for empty abstractions, both in philosophy and ethics. For this reason he lays the chief stress on ethics, to the comparative neglect of logic and philosophy.
Epistemology. Theistic Platonism maintains that the archetypes of existent things are eternal ideas in the mind of God. Epistemological Idealism teaches that all entities other than egos or subjects of experience are exclusively noetic objects, i.e. have no existence or reality apart from the relation of being perceived or thought. Transcendental Idealism (Critical Idealism) is Kant's name for his doctrine that knowledge is a synthetic, relational product of the logical self (transcendental unity of apperception). Phenomenology is Husserl's name for the science that investigates the essences or natures of objects considered apart from their existential or metaphysical status.
Epithumia (Greek) In Greek metaphysics, equivalent in the human constitution to kama or the desire principle. Psyche or soul was a union of bios (physical vitality, prana), epithumia, and phren or mens (mind, manas). (BCW 1:292, 365) “Pythagoras and Plato both divided soul into two representative parts, independent of each other — the one, the rational soul, or logos, the other irrational, alogos — the latter being again subdivided into two parts or aspects the thymichon and the epithymichon, which, with the divine soul and its spirit and the body, make the seven principles of Theosophy” (BCW 7:229). See also PRINCIPLES
Eros: (Gr.) 1. Possessive desire or love, commonly erotic. 2. In Platonic thought, the driving force of life aspiring to the absolute Good; hence the motive underlying education, fine art, and philosophy. The connotation of aesthetic fascination, impersonality, and intense desire is retained in Plato's use of the term. Hence Eros is to be distinguished from the Indian Bhakti (selfless devotion), the Buddhist Metta (disinterested benevolence), the Confucian Jen (humanity, charity), and Ai (personal love), and the Christian Agapao (sacrificial, protective brotherly love), and Phileo (personal affection or fondness). -- W.L.
Eros: In Platonism, the driving force of life aspiring to the absolute Good.
ESOTERICIAN The esoterician has once and for all left the world of illusions and fictions, which mankind prefers living in, to enter into the world of reality. K 1.43.6
The mystic thinks that man&
Esthetic: See Aesthetic. Eternal object: A. N. Whitehead's term essentially synonymous with Plato's "Idea" or Aristotle's "form"; a potential form determining and limiting the qualitative characteristics of actuality, a universal attributed to reality -- R.B.W.
Eusebius of Caesarea: (265-340) Is one of the first great historians of the Christian Church. He was born at Caesarea, in Palestine, studied at the school of Pamphilus, became Bishop of Caesarea in 313. His works are in Greek and include a Chronicle, Ecclesiastical History, and a treatise On Theophanies (PG 19-24). His philosophical views are those of a Christian Platonist and he contributed to the development of the allegorical method of Scriptural exegesis. -- V.J. B.
Exemplary cause: (Lat. exemplum, pattern or example) A form of causality resembling that exercised by the Ideas in Platonism, the rationes aeternae in Augustinianism and Thomism. The role of an archetypal, or "pattern" cause is much discussed in Scholastic metaphysics because of the teaching that the universe was created in accord with a Divine Plan consisting of the eternal ideas in the Mind of God. -- V.J.B.
Exteroceptor: See Receptor. Extramental: (Lat. extra + mens, mind) Possessing a status external to and independent of the knowing mind. Extramental status is attributed to physical objects by physical realists and to universals by Platonic realists. -- I.W.
Ezra, Abraham Ibn: Jewish exegete and philosopher (1093-1167). Born in Spain he wandered in many lands, sojourned for a time in Italy and Provence. His philosophy is expressed largely in his commentaries but also in several short treatises, such as the Yesod Mora, i.e. Foundation of the Knowledge of God, and the Shaar ha-Shamayyim, i.e., The Gate to Heaven. Main problems he deals with are that of the right conception of the universe and its becoming and that of knowledge. He was influenced by teachings of neo-Platonism and Gabirol. -- M.W.
Faculty Psychology: (Lat. facultas, faculty or ability) The conception of mind as the unity in a number of special faculties, like sensibility, intelligence, volition, by reference to which individual processes of sensation, thought or will are explained. Faculty psychology, which originated in Plato's division of the soul into the appetitive, the spirited and the rational faculties was the dominant psychology of the Middle Ages and received its most influential modern statement by C. Wolff (1679-1754) in his Rational Psychology, 1734. Faculty psychology is usually associated with the Soul Substance Theory of Mind. See Soul Substance. The common criticism of the theory is its circularity in attempting to explain individual mental processes in terms of a faculty which is merely the hypostatization of those processes. See J. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690. Bk. II, Ch. xxi, § 17. -- L.W.
Faculty psychology: The conception of mind as the unity in a number of special faculties, like sensibility, intelligence, volition, by reference to which individual processes of sensation, thought or will are explained. Faculty psychology, which originated in Plato’s division of the soul into the appetitive, the spirited and the rational faculties, was the dominant psychology of the Middle Ages. It is usually associated with the Soul Substance Theory of Mind.
Ficino, Marsilio: Of Florence (1433-99). Was the main representative of Platonism in Renaissance Italy. His doctrine combines NeoPlatonic metaphysics and Augustinian theologv with many new, original ideas. His major work, the Theologia Ptatonica (1482) presents a hierarchical system of the universe (God, Angelic Mind, Soul, Quality, Body) and a great number of arguments for the immortality of the soul. Man is considered as the center of the universe, and human life is interpreted as an internal ascent of the soul towards God. Through the Florentine Academy Ficino's Platonism exercised a large influence upon his contemporaries. His theory of "Platonic love" had vast repercussions in Italian, French and English literature throughout the sixteenth century. His excellent Latin translations of Plato (1484), Plotinus (1492), and other Greek philosophers provided the occidental world with new materials of the greatest importance and were widely used up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. -- P.O.K.
Florentine Academy: It was a loose and informal circle of scholars and educated persons which gathered in Florence around the Platonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino. Its activities consisted in regular lectures on Platonic philosophy as well as in informal discussions and parties. "Platonic" love or friendship was considered as the spiritual link between the members of the group which was organized and named after the model of Plato's Academy. The main documents describing it are Ficino's correspondence and a number of dialogues like Ficino's commentary on Plato's Symposion, Landino's Disputationes Camaldulenses , and Benedetto Colucci's Declamationes. Outstanding members or associates of the Academy were Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de'Medici, Angelo Poliziano, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. The Academy which was first founded in 1462, dissolved after the revolution in Florence (1494) and after Ficino's death (1499), but the tradition of Platonic philosophy was continued in other private circles as well as at the universities of Florence and Pisa throughout the sixteenth century. -- P.O.K.
Formless Equivalent to the Sanskrit arupa (without body or form). Because an absolutely formless thing on its own plane would have no qualities by which it could be distinguished from any other entity or thing there, the word seems rather to mean without body or form as seen from our earthly point of view. Hence it implies that entities in the arupa spheres exist as what Plato would call ideas, which will become imbodied in the various lower planes in one or another period during the immensely long cosmic existence. Cosmic pralaya is not such for arupa entities, as only the rupas are dissolved; but this statement, while true, is made from our earthly standpoint.
“Founder of the religion variously called Mazdaism, Magism, Parseeism, Fire-Worship, and Zoroastrianism. The age of the last Zoroaster (for it is a generic name) is not known, and perhaps for that very reason. Zanthus of Lydia, the earliest Greek writer who mentions this great lawgiver and religious reformer, places him about six hundred years before the Trojan War. But where is the historian who can now tell when the latter took place? Aristotle and also Eudoxus assign him a date of no less than 6,000 years before the days of Plato, and Aristotle was not one to make a statement without a good reason for it. Berosus makes him a king of Babylon some 2,200 years b.c.; but then, how can one tell what were the original figures of Berosus, before his MSS. passed through the hands of Eusebius, whose fingers were so deft at altering figures, whether in Egyptian synchronistic tables or in Chaldean chronology? Haug refers Zoroaster to at least 1,000 years b.c.; and Bunsen . . . finds that Zarathustra Spitama lived under the King Vistaspa about 3,000 years b.c., and describes him as ‘one of the mightiest intellects and one of the greatest men of all time. . . . the Occult records claim to have the correct dates of each of the thirteen Zoroasters mentioned in the Dabistan. Their doctrines, and especially those of the last (divine) Zoroaster, spread from Bactria to the Medes; thence, under the name of Magism, incorporated by the Adept-Astronomers in Chaldea, they greatly influenced the mystic teachings of the Mosaic doctrines, even before, perhaps, they had culminated into what is now known as the modern religion of the Parsis. Like Manu and Vyasa in India, Zarathustra is a generic name for great reformers and law-givers. The hierarchy began with the divine Zarathustra in the Vendidad, and ended with the great, but mortal man, bearing that title, and now lost to history. . . . the last Zoroaster was the founder of the Fire-temple of Azareksh, many ages before the historical era. Had not Alexander destroyed so many sacred and precious works of the Mazdeans, truth and philosophy would have been more inclined to agree with history, in bestowing upon that Greek Vandal the title of ‘the Great’ ” (TG 384-5).
Further, the data of scientific induction are sensory percepts; and no amount of such data will enable us to ascertain the truth about the causal worlds which underlie phenomena. If we admit, with Plato, the existence of intuition or direct perception of essential truths, or if we accept his doctrine of the existence of soul memories latent in the mind, we have a resource which will free us from complete reliance on this synthetic method of reaching general truths. See also BACONIAN METHODS
Gazali: Born 1059 in Tus, in the country of Chorasan, taught at Bagdad, lived for a time in Syria, died in his home town 1111. He started as a sceptic in philosophy and became a mystic and orthodox afterwards. Philosophy is meaningful only as introduction to theology. His attitude resembles Neo-Platonic mysticism and is anti-Aristotelian. He wrote a detailed report on the doctrines of Farabi and Avicenna only to subject them to a scathing criticism in Destructio philosophorum where he points out the self-contradictions of philosophers. His main works are theological. In his writings on logic he wants to ensure to theology a reliable method of procedure. His metaphysics also is mainly based on theology: creation of the world out of nothing, resurrection, and so forth. Cf. H. Bauer, Die Dogmatik Al-Ghazalis, 1912. -- R.A.
Gnosis (Greek) [cf Sanskrit jnana knowledge] Knowledge; used by Plato and the Neoplatonists to signify the divine knowledge (gupta-vidya) attained through initiation; and means for the student the active penetration into and going beyond the veils of mind, by which process a true vision of reality is to be obtained.
Good, Highest: (sometimes the greatest, or supreme, good. Lat. summum bonum) That good which transcends yet includes all the others. According to Augustine, Varro was able to enumerate 288 definitions. For Plato, the supreme Idea, the totality of being. For Aristotle, eudemonism (q.v.), which consists in the harmonious satisfaction of all rational powers. For the Epicureans, pleasure. For Aquinas, obedience to and oneness with God. The all-inclusive object of desire. -- J.K.F.
Goodness: (AS. god) The extrinsic elections of things. The positive object of desire. For Plato, coextensive with being. For the Romans, duty. For Kant, that which has value. For Peirce, the adaptation of a subject to its end. In psychology: the characteristic actions which follow moral norms. Opposite of evil. See Ethics. -- J.K.F.
Gorgias: (c. 480 - c. 375 B.C.) Celebrated orator, rhetorician and philosopher from Leontini in Sicily. He was numbered among the leading Sophists. He spent the major part of his long life in Greece, particularly in Athens. The Platonic dialogue bearing his name indicates in some measure the high esteem in which he was held. -- L.E.D.
"Greatest Happiness": In ethics, the basis of ethics considered as the highest good of the individual or of the greatest number of individuals. The feeling-tone of the individual, varying from tranquillity and contentment to happiness, considered as the end of all moral action, as for example in Epicurus, Lucretius and Rousseau. The welfare of the majority of individuals, or of society as a whole, considered as the end of all moral action, as for example in Plato, Bentham and Mill. The greatest possible surplus of pleasure over pain in the greatest number of individuals. Although mentioned by Plato in the Republic (IV, 420), the phrase in its current form probably originated in the English translation, in 1770, of Beccaria's Dei delitti e delle pene, where it occurs as "la massima felicita divisa nel maggior numero", which was rendered as "the greatest happiness of the greatest number", a phrase enunciated by Hutcheson in 1725. One of a number of ethical ideals or moral aims. The doctrine with which the phrase is most closely associated is that of John Stuart Mill, who said in his Utilitarianism (ch. II) that "the happiness which forms the . . . standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent's own happiness, but that of all concerned". -- J.K.F.
Great Nest of Being ::: Ken Wilber’s reframing of the Great Chain of Being to more accurately reflect what the premodern sages themselves originally meant: each expanding “link” in the Great Chain transcends and includes its juniors, and is therefore actually a Great “Nest” of Being. In Integral Theory, the Great Nest of Being is not a Platonic given but the result of evolutionary Kosmic habits.
Greece. Homeric thought centered in Moira (Fate), an impersonal, immaterial power that distributes to gods and men their respective stations. While the main stream of pre-Socratic thought was naturalistic, it was not materialistic. The primordial Being of things, the Physis, is both extended and spiritual (hylozoism). Soul and Mind are invariably identified with Physis. Empedocles' distinction between inertia and force (Love and Hate) was followed by Anaxagoras' introduction of Mind (Nous) as the first cause of order and the principle of spontaneity or life in things. Socrates emphasized the ideological principle and introduced the category of Value as primary both in Nature and Man. He challenged the completeness of the mechanical explanation of natural events. Plato's theory of Ideas (as traditionally interpreted by historians) is at once a metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. Ideas, forming a hierarchy and systematically united in the Good, are timeless essences comprising the realm of true Being. They are archetypes and causes of things in the realm of Non-Being (Space). Aristotle, while moving in the direction of common-sense realism, was also idealistic. Forms or species are secondary substances, and collectively form the dynamic and rational structure of the World. Active reason (Nous Poietikos), possessed by all rational creatures, is immaterial and eternal. Mind is the final cause of all motion. God is pure Mind, self-contained, self-centered, and metaphysically remote from the spatial World. The Stoics united idealism and hylozoistic naturalism in their doctrine of dynamic rational cosmic law (Logos), World Soul, Pneuma, and Providence (Pronoia).
Gyges (Greek) One of three giants having a dual aspect as a god and a mortal, imprisoned by Kronos for their rebellion against him. The Ring of Gyges is a familiar metaphor in European literature. Plato relates that Gyges was a Lydian who murdered King Candaules and then married his widow. He once descended into a chasm and found a brazen horse with an opening in its side in which was the skeleton of a man, on whose finger was a brass ring. Gyges took the ring and when placed upon his own finger, it made him invisible.
H. B. Curry, Consistency and completeness of the theory of combinators, ibid , pp. 54-61. Comedy: In Aristotle (Poetics), a play in which chief characters behave worse than men do in daily life, as contrasted with tragedy, where the main characters act more nobly. In Plato's Symposium, Socrates argues at the end that a writer of good comedies is able to write good tragedies. See Comic. Metaphysically, comedy in Hegel consists of regarding reality as exhausted in a single category. Cf. Bergson, Le rire (Laughter). Commentator, The: Name usually used for Averroes by the medieval authors of the 13th century and later. In the writings of the grammarians (modistae, dealing with modis significandi) often used for Petrus Heliae. -- R.A.
Hence in its widest sense Scholasticism embraces all the intellectual activities, artistic, philosophical and theological, carried on in the medieval schools. Any attempt to define its narrower meaning in the field of philosophy raises serious difficulties, for in this case, though the term's comprehension is lessened, it still has to cover many centuries of many-faced thought. However, it is still possible to list several characteristics sufficient to differentiate Scholastic from non-Scholastic philosophy. While ancient philosophy was the philosophy of a people and modern thought that of individuals, Scholasticism was the philosophy of a Christian society which transcended the characteristics of individuals, nations and peoples. It was the corporate product of social thought, and as such its reasoning respected authority in the forms of tradition and revealed religion. Tradition consisted primarily in the systems of Plato and Aristotle as sifted, adapted and absorbed through many centuries. It was natural that religion, which played a paramount role in the culture of the middle ages, should bring influence to bear on the medieval, rational view of life. Revelation was held to be at once a norm and an aid to reason. Since the philosophers of the period were primarily scientific theologians, their rational interests were dominated by religious preoccupations. Hence, while in general they preserved the formal distinctions between reason and faith, and maintained the relatively autonomous character of philosophy, the choice of problems and the resources of science were controlled by theology. The most constant characteristic of Scholasticism was its method. This was formed naturally by a series of historical circumstances, The need of a medium of communication, of a consistent body of technical language tooled to convey the recently revealed meanings of religion, God, man and the material universe led the early Christian thinkers to adopt the means most viable, most widely extant, and nearest at hand, viz. Greek scientific terminology. This, at first purely utilitarian, employment of Greek thought soon developed under Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Origin, and St. Augustine into the "Egyptian-spoils" theory; Greek thought and secular learning were held to be propaedeutic to Christianity on the principle: "Whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians." (Justin, Second Apology, ch. XIII). Thus was established the first characteristic of the Scholastic method: philosophy is directly and immediately subordinate to theology. Because of this subordinate position of philosophy and because of the sacred, exclusive and total nature of revealed wisdom, the interest of early Christian thinkers was focused much more on the form of Greek thought than on its content and, it might be added, much less of this content was absorbed by early Christian thought than is generally supposed. As practical consequences of this specialized interest there followed two important factors in the formation of Scholastic philosophy: Greek logic en bloc was taken over by Christians; from the beginning of the Christian era to the end of the XII century, no provision was made in Catholic centers of learning for the formal teaching of philosophy. There was a faculty to teach logic as part of the trivium and a faculty of theology. For these two reasons, what philosophy there was during this long period of twelve centuries, was dominated first, as has been seen, by theology and, second, by logic. In this latter point is found rooted the second characteristic of the Scholastic method: its preoccupation with logic, deduction, system, and its literary form of syllogistic argumentation. The third characteristic of the Scholastic method follows directly from the previous elements already indicated. It adds, however, a property of its own gained from the fact that philosophy during the medieval period became an important instrument of pedogogy. It existed in and for the schools. This new element coupled with the domination of logic, the tradition-mindedness and social-consciousness of the medieval Christians, produced opposition of authorities for or against a given problem and, finally, disputation, where a given doctrine is syllogistically defended against the adversaries' objections. This third element of the Scholastic method is its most original characteristic and accounts more than any other single factor for the forms of the works left us from this period. These are to be found as commentaries on single or collected texts; summae, where the method is dialectical or disputational in character. The main sources of Greek thought are relatively few in number: all that was known of Plato was the Timaeus in the translation and commentary of Chalcidius. Augustine, the pseudo-Areopagite, and the Liber de Causis were the principal fonts of Neoplatonic literature. Parts of Aristotle's logical works (Categoriae and de Interpre.) and the Isagoge of Porphyry were known through the translations of Boethius. Not until 1128 did the Scholastics come to know the rest of Aristotle's logical works. The golden age of Scholasticism was heralded in the late XIIth century by the translations of the rest of his works (Physics, Ethics, Metaphysics, De Anima, etc.) from the Arabic by Gerard of Cremona, John of Spain, Gundisalvi, Michael Scot, and Hermann the German, from the Greek by Robert Grosseteste, William of Moerbeke, and Henry of Brabant. At the same time the Judae-Arabian speculation of Alkindi, Alfarabi, Avencebrol, Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides together with the Neoplatonic works of Proclus were made available in translation. At this same period the Scholastic attention to logic was turned to metaphysics, even psychological and ethical problems and the long-discussed question of the universals were approached from this new angle. Philosophy at last achieved a certain degree of autonomy and slowly forced the recently founded universities to accord it a separate faculty.
Hermes Trismegistus: The fabled author of Neo-Platonic, Judaic, Kabalistic, alchemical and astrological works, studied as sacred writings by the Egyptian priests. Identified with the Egyptian god Thoth.
Historically, one may say that, in general, Greek ethics was teleological, though there are deontological strains in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. In Christian moralists one finds both kinds of ethics, according as the emphasis is on the will of God as the source of duties (the ordinary view) or on the goodness of God as somehow the end of human life (Augustine and Aquinas), theology and revelation taking a central role in either case. In modern philosophical ethics, again, both kinds of ethics are present, with the opposition between them coming out into the open. Starting in the 17th and 18th centuries in Britain are both "intuitionism" (Cambridge Platonists, Clarke, Butler, Price, Reid, Whewell, McCosh, etc.) and utilitarianism (q.v.), with British ethics largely a matter of controversy between the two, a controversy in which the teleological side has lately been taken by Cambridge and the deontological side by Oxford. Again, in Germany, England, and elsewhere there have been, on the one hand, the formalistic deontologism of Kant and his followers, and, on the other, the axiological or teleological ethics of the Hegelian self-realizationists and the Wertethik of Scheler and N. Hartmann.
Huperouranioi (Greek) Hyperuranii (Latin) Above the heavens, or in highest heaven; the name given by Plato, Proclus, and other Greek philosophers to the highest orders of celestial beings, those above the enkosmioi (intercosmic gods).
Hyparxis (Greek) Essential nature; Neoplatonic term for the summit, beginning, or hierarch of a hierarchy: “this army of beings in any one hierarchy is . . . more than a mere collective entity, because it is united in its apex, in what is actually the fount of that hierarchy. This fount is the hyparxis or spiritual sun from which all the other nine planes or classes of the hierarchy emanate . . .; even as the hyparxis of any one hierarchy is the lowest class or plane of a superior hierarchy, and so practically ad infinitum” (Fund 108-9). Equivalent to the First Logos.
Hypothesis: In general, an assumption, a supposition, a conjecture, a postulate, a condition, an antecedent, a contingency, a possibility, a probability, a principle, a premiss, a ground or foundation, a tentative explanation, a probable cause, a theoretical situation, an academic question, a specific consideration, a conceded statement, a theory or view for debate or action, a likely relation, the conditioning of one thing by another. In logic, the conditional clause or antecedent in a hypothetical proposition. Also a thesis subordinate to a more general one. In methodology, a principle offered as a conditional explanation of a fact or a group of facts; or again, a provisional assumption about the ground of certain phenomena, used as a guiding norm in making observations and experiments until verified or disproved by subsequent evidence. A hypothesis is conditional or provisional, because it is based on probable and insufficient arguments or elements; yet, it is not an arbitrary opinion, but a justifiable assumption with some foundation in fact, this accounts for the expectation of some measure of agreement between the logical conclusion or implications drawn from a hypothesis, and the phenomena which are known or which may be determined by further tests. A scientific hypothesis must be proposed after the observations it must explain (a posteriori), compatible with established theories, reasonable and relevant, fruitful in its applications and controllable, general in terms and more fundamental than the statements it has to explain. A hypothesis is descriptive (forecasting the external circumstances of the event) or explanatory (offering causal accounts of the event). There are two kinds of explanatory hypotheses the hypothesis of law (or genetic hypothesis) which attempts to determine the manner in which the causes or conditions of a phenomenon operate and the hypothesis of cause (or causal hypothesis) which attempt to determine the causes or conditions for the production of the phenomenon. A working hypothesis is a preliminary assumption based on few, uncertain or obscure elements, which is used provisionally as a guiding norm in the investigation of certain phenomena. Often, the difference between a working hypothesis and a scientific hypothesis is one of degree; and in any case, a hypothesis is seldom verified completely with all its detailed implications. The Socratic Method of Hypothesis, as developed by Plato in the Phaedo particularly, consists in positing an assumption without questioning its value, for the purpose of determining and analyzing its consequences only when these are clearly debated and judged, the assumption itself is considered for justification or rejection. Usually, a real condition is taken as a ground for inferences, as the aim of the method is to attain knowledge or to favor action. Plato used more specially the word "hypothesis" for the assumptions of geometry (postulates and nominal definitions) Anstotle extended this use to cover the immediate principles of mathematics. It may be observed that the modern hypothetico-deductive method in logical and mathematical theories, is a development of the Socratic method stripped of its ontological implications and purposes.
Idea, as Plato pointed out, means primarily a prototype existing in the cosmic mind and manifested in forms by the action of cosmic energy, guided by ideation, working in matter. Therefore it must be regarded as innate, and our thoughts are mental manifestations of ideas. With Plato and Aristotle (when not using the word to denote species), ideas were the fundamental roots of manifested things, as viewed under the aspect of consciousness rather than under that of matter. Hence the faculty of ideation, considered cosmically, is originative and creative of what lies latent in ideation itself, and can be so in the human being, since each individual is a microcosm. This is quite different from the faculty of making mental images of sensory experiences, these images being really what the Greeks called phantasmata. Yet even this is a degree of the original process and may be called, perhaps, astral ideation.
IDEA—A thought which is conceived to be in a measure independent of the thinker, and, in a sense, self existent, "Thought" is used to name the presentation which is the direct product of the active mind and which would not and could not exist apart from the acting mind, while "idea" is used to name the presentation of the mind which is no longer considered as acting; a presentation which might even exist apart from, and independently of, a mind or its activities. A thought is felt to be peculiar to the one thinking it, while the idea is felt to be, in a measure, self-determined or due to the nature of that with which it is associated so that all minds would foam it the same; the term still feels the influence of Plato's conception of the ideas as the forms of fundamental reality.
Idea: (Gr. idea) This term has enjoyed historically a considerable diversity of usage. In pre-Platonic Greek: form, semblance, nature, fashion or mode, class or species. Plato (and Socrates): The Idea is a timeless essence or universal, a dynamic and creative archetype of existents. The Ideas comprise a hierarchy and an organic unity in the Good, and are ideals as patterns of existence and as objects of human desire. The Stoics: Ideas are class concepts in the human mind. Neo-Platonism: Ideas are archetypes of things considered as in cosmic Mind (Nous or Logos). Early Christianity and Scholasticism: Ideas are archetypes eternally subsistent in the mind of God. 17th Century: Following earlier usage, Descartes generally identified ideas with subjective, logical concepts of the human mind. Ideas were similarly treated as subjective or mental by Locke, who identified them with all objects of consciousness. Simple ideas, from which, by combination, all complex ideas are derived, have their source either in sense perception or "reflection" (intuition of our own being and mental processes). Berkeley: Ideas are sense objects or perceptions, considered either as modes of the human soul or as a type of mind-dependent being. Concepts derived from objects of intuitive introspection, such as activity, passivity, soul, are "notions." Hume: An Idea is a "faint image" or memory copy of sense "impressions." Kant: Ideas are concepts or representations incapable of adequate subsumption under the categories, which escape the limits of cognition. The ideas of theoretical or Pure Reason are ideals, demands of the human intellect for the absolute, i.e., the unconditioned or the totality of conditions of representation. They include the soul, Nature and God. The ideas of moral or Practical Reason include God, Freedom, and Immortality. The ideas of Reason cannot be sensuously represented (possess no "schema"). Aesthetic ideas are representations of the faculty of imagination to which no concept can be adequate.
Idealism: Any system or doctrine whose fundamental interpretative principle is ideal. Broadly, any theoretical or practical view emphasizing mind (soul, spirit, life) or what is characteristically of pre-eminent value or significance to it. Negatively, the alternative to Materialism. (Popular confusion arises from the fact that Idealism is related to either or both uses of the adjective "ideal," i.e., (a) pertaining to ideas, and (b) pertaining to ideals. While a certain inner bond of sympathy can be established between these two standpoints, for theoretical purposes they must be clearly distinguished.) Materialism emphasizes the spatial, pictorial, corporeal, sensuous, non-valuational, factual, and mechanistic. Idealism stresses the supra- or non-spatial, non-pictorial, incorporeal, suprasensuous, normative or valuational, and teleological. The term Idealism shares the unavoidable expansion of such words as Idea, Mind, Spirit, and even Person, and in consequence it now possesses usefulness only in pointing out a general direction of thought, unless qualified, e.g., Platonic Idealism, Personal Idealism, Objective Idealism, Moral Idealism, etc.
IDEAS, WORLD OF = PLATONIC WORLD OF IDEAS is the causal world (47:1-3), the goal of man in the human kingdom. (K 1.11.5)
IDIOLOGY The constructions of life-ignorance, from idios,
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II. Early Scholastics (12 cent.) St. Anselm of Canterbury (+1109) did more than anyone else in this early period to codify the spirit of Scholasticism. His motto: credo, ut tntelligam taken from St. Augustine, expressed the organic relation that existed between the supernatural and the natural during the Middle Ages and the interpretative and the directive force which faith had upon reason. In this period a new interest was taken in the problem of the universals. For the first time a clear demarcation was noted between the realistic and the nominalistic solutions to this problem. William of Champeaux (+1121) proposed the former and Roscelin (+c. 1124) the latter. A third solution, concepiualistic in character, was proposed by Abelard (+1142) who finally crystalized the Scholastic method. He was the most subtle dialectician of his age. Two schools of great importance of this period were operating at Chartres and the Parisian Abbey of St. Victor. The first, founded by Fulbert of Chartres in the late tenth century, was characterized by its leanings toward Platonism and distinguished by its humanistic tendencies coupled with a love of the natural sciences. Many of its Greek, Arabian and Jewish sources for studies in natural sciences came from the translations of Constantine the African (+c. 1087) and Adelard of Bath. Worthy to be noted as members of or sympathizers with this school are Bernard and Thierry of Chartres (+c. 1127; c. 1150); William of Conches (+1145) and Bernard Silvestris (+1167). The two most important members of the School were Gilbert de la Poiree (+1154) and John of Salisbury (+1180). The latter was a humanistic scholar of great stylistic skill and calm, balanced judgment. It is from his works, particularly the Metalogicus, that most of our knowledge of this period still derives. Juxtaposed to the dialectic, syllogistic and rationalistic tendencies of this age was a mystical movement, headed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux (+1153). This movement did not oppose itself to dialectics in the uncompromising manner of Peter Damiani, but sought rather to experience and interiorize truth through contemplation and practice. Bernard found a close follower and friend in William of St. Thierry (+1148 or 1153). An attempt to synthesize the mystic and dialectical movements is found in two outstanding members of the Victorine School: Hugh of St. Victor (+1141) who founded its spirit in his omnia disce, videbis postea nihil esse supervuum and Richard of St. Victor (+1173), his disciple, who introduced the a posteriori proof for God's existence into the Scholastic current of thought. Finally, this century gave Scholasticism its principal form of literature which was to remain dominant for some four centuries. While the method came from Abelard and the formulas and content, in great part, from the Didascalion of Hugh of St. Victor, it was Robert of Melun (+1167) and especially Peter the Lombard (+1164) who fashioned the great Summae sententiarum.
In ancient Egypt there were thirty Dynasties of kings, as enumerated by the historian Manetho. But the Egyptian priests told Herodotus that there were three divine dynasties which preceded the reign of the human kings: that of the gods, of the demigods, and of the heroes. China too had its divine dynasties which preceded the human dynasties: thus the Chow rulers are placed at 1100 BC, but they were again preceded by the Sheng and the still earlier Hea (or Hia) dynasties. The Greeks taught the existence of divine dynasties followed by human, and Plato tells of divine and semi-divine instructors who first taught mankind the arts, sciences, and agriculture. The same general tradition is found in ancient America. The ancient Chaldeans used the figures 4 3 2 in their calculations concerning the time periods of their dynasties, which they said extended backwards from themselves for a length of 432,000 years.
Inductive Method, Induction In logic, the process of reasoning from the parts to the whole, from the particular to the general, or from the individual to the universal; contrasted with the deductive method, which reasons from the whole to the parts, from the general to the particular, from the universal to the individual. It is associated with Aristotle as contrasted with Plato, also with Francis Bacon and modern science in general. Science endeavors to establish general laws by reasoning from particular observations; but it is necessary to assume that what is true in an individual case will be true in the general case of which it is only an instance. The hypotheses thus framed are necessarily and naturally regarded as provisional, subject to modification in the light of subsequent, more extended observations of nature. This method endeavors to come to an understanding of nature by a continued process of trial and error, the formulation of its laws becoming ever wider. But an essential part of this method itself is deductive, since we continually reason back from the provisional hypotheses we have laid down to the new facts which we seek to discover in support or in refutation of them. For this reason, the method of science has often been called a deductive-inductive method. Indeed, pure induction is probably inconceivable, since we cannot enter upon a mental process unless we first entertain some general ideas. Induction and deduction are interdependent functions of the ratiocinative mind.
In Greece: the cosmic matrix of the Ionians, the One of the Eleatics, the Being or Good of Plato, the World Reason of Stoicism, the One of Neo-Platonism.
Intelligences—the neo-Platonic equivalent of
In the cosmic sense the sadhyas signify the names collectively of the twelve great gods, the first twelve cosmic hierarchs emanating from Brahma, out of which flow not only the twelve cosmic planes, but the hierarchies inherent in these twelve planes. Their importance lies in the fact that they are the earliest emanations in serial order from the formative and productive Brahma-prakriti, and therefore are really the origin of all beings and things in the cosmos arranged from the beginning in the duodenary hierarchical scheme. Plato had the same thought when he spoke of Divinity forming the universe according to the number twelve. They are reminiscent of the Latin dii consentes, taken over from the ancient mystical Etruscans who stated that these twelve “agreeing or consenting divinities” form the council of Jupiter, the Latin Brahma. The twelve dii consentes consisted of six feminine and six masculine divinities, and the Etruscan theology stated that they govern not only the world, but time also, coming into existence periodically at the commencement of a world period, and passing into rest or pralaya when the world period ended.
In the field of the philosophy of religion, Platonism becomes obscure. There is little doubt that Plato paid only lip-service to the anthropomorphic polytheism of Athenian religion. Many of the attributes of the Idea of the Good are those of an eternal God. The Republic (Book II) pictures the Supreme Being as perfect, unchangeable and the author of truth. Similar rationalizations are found throughout the Laws. Another current of religious thought is to be found m the Timaeus, Politicus and Sophist. The story of the making of the universe and man by the Demiurgus is mythic and yet it is in many points a logical development of his theory of Ideas. The World-Maker does not create things from nothing, he fashions the world out of a pre-existing chaos of matter by introducing patterns taken from the sphere of Forms. This process of formation is also explained, in the Timaeus (54 ff), in terms of various mathematical figures. In an early period of the universe, God (Chronos) exercised a sort of Providential care over things in this world (Politicus, 269-275), but eventually man was left to his own devices. The tale of Er, at the end of the Republic, describes a judgment of souls after death, their separation into the good and the bad, and the assignment of various rewards and punishments. H. Stephanus et J. Serranus (ed.), Platonis Opera (Paris, 1578), has provided the standard pagination, now used in referring to the text of Plato, it is not a critical edition. J. Burnet (ed.), Platonis Opera, 5 vol. (Oxford, 1899-1907). Platon, Oeuvres completes, texte et trad., Collect. G. Bude (Paris, 1920 ff.). The Dialogues of Plato, transl. B. Jowett, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1920). W. Pater, Plato and Platonism (London, 1909). A. E. Taylor, Plato, the Man and his Work (N. Y., 1927). P. Shorey, What Plato Said (Chicago, 1933). A. Dies, Autour de Platon, 2 vol. (Paris, 1927). U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Platon, 2 vol. (Berlin, 1919). John Burnet, Platonism (Berkeley, 1928). Paul Elmer More, Platonism (Oxford, 1931). Constantm Ritter, Essence of Plato's Philosophy (London, 1933). Leon Robin, Platon (Paris, 1935). Paul Shorey, Platonism, Ancient and Modern (Berkeley, 1938). A. E. Taylor, Platontsm and Its Influence (London, 1924). F. J. E. Woodbridge, The Son of Apollo (Boston, 1929). C. Bigg, The Christian Platomsts of Alexandria (Oxford, 1913). T. Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists (Cambridge, 1918, 2nd ed ). John H. Muirhead, The Platonic Tradition in Angle-Saxon Philosophy (New York, 1931). F. J. Powicke, The Cambridge Platonists (Boston, 1927). -- V.J.B.
In the orthodox Christian view of its theological Trinity the three persons of the Godhead are not three gods but one God, and yet three Persons or individuals. So that we have one Godhead who is three-in-one, and yet one-in-three, which is not three gods, nor yet one God, but both. Moslems aver that the Christian Trinity is not one God in three aspects, but actually three gods manifesting as one, and the strict monotheism of Islam refuses to admit the logical monstrosity. The Christian Churches lost sight of the mystical origin of its own trinity out of the neo-Pythagorean and Neoplatonic mysticism.
In the theory of value the first question concerns the meaning of value-terms and the status of goodness. As to meaning the main point is whether goodness is definable or not, and if so, how. As to status the main point is whether goodness is subjective or objective, relative or absolute. Various positions are possible. Recent emotive meaning theories e.g. that of A. J. Ayer, hold that "good" and other value-terms have only an emotive meaning, Intuitionists and non-naturalists often hold that goodness is an indefinable intrinsic (and therefore objective or absolute) property, e.g., Plato, G. E. Moore, W. D. Ross, J. Laird, Meinong, N. Hartman. Metaphysical and naturalistic moralists usually hold that goodness can be defined in metaphysical or in psychological terms, generally interpreting "x is good" to mean that a certain attitude is taken toward x by some mind or group of minds. For some of them value is objective or absolute in the sense of having the same locus for everyone, e.g., Aristotle in his definition of the good as that at which all things aim, (Ethics, bk. I). For others the locus of value varies from individual to individual or from group to group, i.e. different things will be good for different individuals or groups, e.g., Hobbes, Westermarck, William James, R. B. Perry.
Isocahedron ::: The Platonic solid associated with the element of Water.
Jamblicus: (c. 270-330 A.D.) A Syrian Neo-Platonist, who wrote extensive commentaries on Hellenic and Oriental theology and transformed Plotinus' teachings into a dogmatic theology of metaphysical pantheism. -- R.B.W.
Konx-om-pax (Greek) Mystic words used in the Eleusinian Mysteries, said to be an imitation of Egyptian words used in the mystical Isiac rites, whose meaning is still unknown. Possibly an ancient Atlantean phrase brought over into Egypt from the Atlantic island which Plato calls Atlantis, when Atlantean emigrants left their island for the purpose of colonizing the Egyptian delta and brought their mysteries with them.
Lamennais, R.: (1782-1854) Leader of a Platonic-Christian movement in the Catholic clergy of France. He advanced the idea of "inspired mankind." He attacked the eighteenth century for its principles and its method. In finding dissolution and destruction as its aftermath, he advocated a return to the Catholic Church as the solution.
Leibniz's philosophy was the dawning consciousness of the modern world (Dewey). So gradual and continuous, like the development of a monad, so all-inclusive was the growth of his mind, that his philosophy, as he himself says, "connects Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the Scholastics with the moderns, theology and morals with reason." The reform (if all science was to be effected by the use of two instruments, a universal scientific language and a calculus of reasoning. He advocated a universal language of ideographic symbols in which complex concepts would be expressed by combinations of symbols representing simple concepts or by new symbols defined as equivalent to such a complex. He believed that analysis would enable us to limit the number of undefined concepts to a few simple primitives in terms of which all other concepts could be defined. This is the essential notion back of modern logistic treatments.
Lipika (Sanskrit) Lipika [from the verbal root lip to write] A scribe; divine beings connected with karma, recorders who impress on the astral light a record of every act and thought, great or small, in the phenomenal universe. The lipika are active cosmic karmic intelligences, the highest class of architects, which lay down from manvantara to manvantara the tracks of karmic evolution to be followed by all evolving entities within the manvantara about to begin; and these tracks are rigidly begun, and their direction controlled, by the endpoint of the paths of karmic achievement in the preceding manvantara. They “project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the universe, upon which the ‘Builders’ reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, . . . it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation — or, as called by Plato, the ‘Divine Thought’ ” (SD 1:104). The lipika thus are in every sense the agents of karmic destiny, for they are both the vehicles of divine ideation in their work, and yet the expressions of karmic law arising in the past and projected on the background of the future. Their intelligence and vitality permeate their particular universe and all the beings in it, so that the lipikas are stamped with whatever takes place.
Logos (Greek) plural logoi. Word; expressive cosmic intelligence manifested in every rational being. With Plato, that power of the mind which is manifested in speech; its relation to nous or intelligence is not always clearly distinguished. With reference to the logos in man, an important distinction was made by the ancients between the logos endiathetos (ideal or unspoken word) and the logos prophorikos (expressed or spoken word), the former being an unexpressed idea in the mind. The word was adopted by Christian theologians mingled with ideas taken from the Hebrews, used in the second sense, as found in the first chapter of John, where the Logos seems almost anthropomorphized.
Machagistia The divine theologic magic of ancient Persia and Chaldea; Magianism in its purest and highest form. Ammianus Marcellinus (4th Century) remarks that “Plato, that most learned deliverer of wise opinions, teaches us that Magiae is by a mystic name Machagistia, that is to say, the purest worship of divine beings; of which knowledge in olden times the Bactrian Zoroaster derived much from the secret rites of the Chaldaeans; and after him Hystaspes, a very wise monarch, the father of Darius” (Roman History 23, 6, 32).
Manticism [from Greek mantis seer from mainomai to act ecstatically under a divine impulse] A seer, one inspired with divine ecstasy; according to Plato, one who uttered oracles while under a divine impulse, which in its lowest forms was a kind of frenzy, while a prophetes (prophet) was one who interpreted the oracles. Frenzy, now used only to denote madness or anger, meant in classic times a state of exaltation both of mind and psychical nature which enabled inner faculties of perception to come into play, whereby seership and prophetic power were attained. Certain exhalations from the earth would often act upon the body of the seer or seeress, inducing a state of physical receptivity, as occurred in the grotto of Delphi; and Cicero speaks highly of the better side of the power thus conferred. The condition produced by Bacchic rites was similar, but in later times degenerated into mere frenzy or ravings in the modern sense of the word; and as these rites became degraded into profligacy, the meaning of the word frenzy naturally altered pari passu.
Many-valued logic: See propositional calculus, many-valued. Marburg School: Founded by Herman Cohen (1842-1918) and Paul Natorp (1854-1924) and supported by Ernst Cassirer (1874-), the noteworthy historian of philosophy, and Rudolf Stammler (1856-1938), the eminent legal philosopher, the school revived a specialized tendency of critical idealism. Stress is laid on the a priori, non-empirical, non-psychological and purely logical of every certain knowledge. Cohen and Natorp register an emphatic opposition to psychologism, and sought to construct a system upon pure thought on the basis of Kant and the Kantian reconstruction of Platonism. The logical and a priori in aesthetics, ethics, psychology and law is, being also independent of experience, the essential basis of these fields. Cf. Natorp, Kant u.d. Marburger Schule, 1915. -- H.H.
Mean: In general, that which in some way mediates or occupies a middle position among various things or between two extremes. Hence (especially in the plural) that through which an end is attained; in mathematics the word is used for any one of various notions of average; in ethics it represents moderation, temperance, prudence, the middle way. In mathematics: The arithmetic mean of two quantities is half their sum; the arithmetic mean of n quantities is the sum of the n quantities, divided by n. In the case of a function f(x) (say from real numbers to real numbers) the mean value of the function for the values x1, x2, . . . , xn of x is the arithmetic mean of f(x1), f(x2), . . . , f(xn). This notion is extended to the case of infinite sets of values of x by means of integration; thus the mean value of f(x) for values of x between a and b is ∫f(x)dx, with a and b as the limits of integration, divided by the difference between a and b. The geometric mean of or between, or the mean proportional between, two quantities is the (positive) square root of their product. Thus if b is the geometric mean between a and c, c is as many times greater (or less) than b as b is than a. The geometric mean of n quantities is the nth root of their product. The harmonic mean of two quantities is defined as the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of their reciprocals. Hence the harmonic mean of a and b is 2ab/(a + b). The weighted mean or weighted average of a set of n quantities, each of which is associated with a certain number as weight, is obtained by multiplying each quantity by the associated weight, adding these products together, and then dividing by the sum of the weights. As under A, this may be extended to the case of an infinite set of quantities by means of integration. (The weights have the role of estimates of relative importance of the various quantities, and if all the weights are equal the weighted mean reduces to the simple arithmetic mean.) In statistics, given a population (i.e., an aggregate of observed or observable quantities) and a variable x having the population as its range, we have: The mean value of x is the weighted mean of the values of x, with the probability (frequency ratio) of each value taken as its weight. In the case of a finite population this is the same as the simple arithmetic mean of the population, provided that, in calculating the arithmetic mean, each value of x is counted as many times over as it occurs in the set of observations constituting the population. In like manner, the mean value of a function f(x) of x is the weighted mean of the values of f(x), where the probability of each value of x is taken as the weight of the corresponding value of f(x). The mode of the population is the most probable (most frequent) value of x, provided there is one such. The median of the population is so chosen that the probability that x be less than the median (or the probability that x be greater than the median) is ½ (or as near ½ as possible). In the case of a finite population, if the values of x are arranged in order of magnitude --repeating any one value of x as many times over as it occurs in the set of observations constituting the population --then the middle term of this series, or the arithmetic mean of the two middle terms, is the median. --A.C. In cosmology, the fundamental means (arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic) were used by the Greeks in describing or actualizing the process of becoming in nature. The Pythagoreans and the Platonists in particular made considerable use of these means (see the Philebus and the Timaeus more especially). These ratios are among the basic elements used by Plato in his doctrine of the mixtures. With the appearance of the qualitative physics of Aristotle, the means lost their cosmological importance and were thereafter used chiefly in mathematics. The modern mathematical theories of the universe make use of the whole range of means analyzed by the calculus of probability, the theory of errors, the calculus of variations, and the statistical methods. In ethics, the 'Doctrine of the Mean' is the moral theory of moderation, the development of the virtues, the determination of the wise course in action, the practice of temperance and prudence, the choice of the middle way between extreme or conflicting decisions. It has been developed principally by the Chinese, the Indians and the Greeks; it was used with caution by the Christian moralists on account of their rigorous application of the moral law. In Chinese philosophy, the Doctrine of the Mean or of the Middle Way (the Chung Yung, literally 'Equilibrium and Harmony') involves the absence of immoderate pleasure, anger, sorrow or joy, and a conscious state in which those feelings have been stirred and act in their proper degree. This doctrine has been developed by Tzu Shu (V. C. B.C.), a grandson of Confucius who had already described the virtues of the 'superior man' according to his aphorism "Perfect is the virtue which is according to the mean". In matters of action, the superior man stands erect in the middle and strives to follow a course which does not incline on either side. In Buddhist philosophy, the System of the Middle Way or Madhyamaka is ascribed more particularly to Nagarjuna (II c. A.D.). The Buddha had given his revelation as a mean or middle way, because he repudiated the two extremes of an exaggerated ascetlsm and of an easy secular life. This principle is also applied to knowledge and action in general, with the purpose of striking a happy medium between contradictory judgments and motives. The final objective is the realization of the nirvana or the complete absence of desire by the gradual destruction of feelings and thoughts. But while orthodox Buddhism teaches the unreality of the individual (who is merely a mass of causes and effects following one another in unbroken succession), the Madhyamaka denies also the existence of these causes and effects in themselves. For this system, "Everything is void", with the legitimate conclusion that "Absolute truth is silence". Thus the perfect mean is realized. In Greek Ethics, the doctrine of the Right (Mean has been developed by Plato (Philebus) and Aristotle (Nic. Ethics II. 6-8) principally, on the Pythagorean analogy between the sound mind, the healthy body and the tuned string, which has inspired most of the Greek Moralists. Though it is known as the "Aristotelian Principle of the Mean", it is essentially a Platonic doctrine which is preformed in the Republic and the Statesman and expounded in the Philebus, where we are told that all good things in life belong to the class of the mixed (26 D). This doctrine states that in the application of intelligence to any kind of activity, the supreme wisdom is to know just where to stop, and to stop just there and nowhere else. Hence, the "right-mean" does not concern the quantitative measurement of magnitudes, but simply the qualitative comparison of values with respect to a standard which is the appropriate (prepon), the seasonable (kairos), the morally necessary (deon), or generally the moderate (metrion). The difference between these two kinds of metretics (metretike) is that the former is extrinsic and relative, while the latter is intrinsic and absolute. This explains the Platonic division of the sciences into two classes: those involving reference to relative quantities (mathematical or natural), and those requiring absolute values (ethics and aesthetics). The Aristotelian analysis of the "right mean" considers moral goodness as a fixed and habitual proportion in our appetitions and tempers, which can be reached by training them until they exhibit just the balance required by the right rule. This process of becoming good develops certain habits of virtues consisting in reasonable moderation where both excess and defect are avoided: the virtue of temperance (sophrosyne) is a typical example. In this sense, virtue occupies a middle position between extremes, and is said to be a mean; but it is not a static notion, as it leads to the development of a stable being, when man learns not to over-reach himself. This qualitative conception of the mean involves an adaptation of the agent, his conduct and his environment, similar to the harmony displayed in a work of art. Hence the aesthetic aspect of virtue, which is often overstressed by ancient and neo-pagan writers, at the expense of morality proper. The ethical idea of the mean, stripped of the qualifications added to it by its Christian interpreters, has influenced many positivistic systems of ethics, and especially pragmatism and behaviourism (e.g., A. Huxley's rule of Balanced Excesses). It is maintained that it is also involved in the dialectical systems, such as Hegelianism, where it would have an application in the whole dialectical process as such: thus, it would correspond to the synthetic phase which blends together the thesis and the antithesis by the meeting of the opposites. --T.G. Mean, Doctrine of the: In Aristotle's ethics, the doctrine that each of the moral virtues is an intermediate state between extremes of excess and defect. -- O.R.M.
Medieval Period. Medieval Christian thought, axiomatically idealistic, united the personalism of Israel and the speculative idealism of neo-Platonism and Aristotle. Similarly, Islamic thought, centering at Bagdad and Cordova, attached Mohammedan religious idealism to neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism.
Metempsychosis: (Gr. meta, over + empsychoun, to animate) The doctrine that the same soul can successively reside in more than one body, human or animal. See Immortality. The doctrine was part of the Pythagorean teaching incorporated in mythical form in the Platonic philosophy (see Phaedrus, 249; Rep. X, 614). The term metempsychosis was not used before the Christian era. -- L.W.
Methodology: The systematic analysis and organization of the rational and experimental principles and processes which must guide a scientific inquiry, or which constitute the structure of the special sciences more particularly. Methodology, which is also called scientific method, and more seldom methodeutic, refers not only to the whole of a constituted science, but also to individual problems or groups of problems within a science. As such it is usually considered as a branch of logic; in fact, it is the application of the principles and processes of logic to the special objects of the various sciences; while science in general is accounted for by the combination of deduction and induction as such. Thus, methodology is a generic term exemplified in the specific method of each science. Hence its full significance can be understood only by analyzing the structure of the special sciences. In determining that structure, one must consider the proper object of the special science, the manner in which it develops, the type of statements or generalizations it involves, its philosophical foundations or assumptions, and its relation with the other sciences, and eventually its applications. The last two points mentioned are particularly important: methods of education, for example, will vary considerably according to their inspiration and aim. Because of the differences between the objects of the various sciences, they reveal the following principal methodological patterns, which are not necessarily exclusive of one another, and which are used sometimes in partial combination. It may be added that their choice and combination depend also in a large degree on psychological motives. In the last resort, methodology results from the adjustment of our mental powers to the love and pursuit of truth. There are various rational methods used by the speculative sciences, including theology which adds certain qualifications to their use. More especially, philosophy has inspired the following procedures: The Soctattc method of analysis by questioning and dividing until the essences are reached; the synthetic method developed by Plato, Aristotle and the Medieval thinkers, which involves a demonstrative exposition of the causal relation between thought and being; the ascetic method of intellectual and moral purification leading to an illumination of the mind, as proposed by Plotinus, Augustine and the mystics; the psychological method of inquiry into the origin of ideas, which was used by Descartes and his followers, and also by the British empiricists; the critical or transcendental method, as used by Kant, and involving an analysis of the conditions and limits of knowledge; the dialectical method proceeding by thesis, antithesis and synthesis, which is promoted by Hegelianlsm and Dialectical Materialism; the intuitive method, as used by Bergson, which involves the immediate perception of reality, by a blending of consciousness with the process of change; the reflexive method of metaphysical introspection aiming at the development of the immanent realities and values leading man to God; the eclectic method (historical-critical) of purposive and effective selection as proposed by Cicero, Suarez and Cousin; and the positivistic method of Comte, Spencer and the logical empiricists, which attempts to apply to philosophy the strict procedures of the positive sciences. The axiomatic or hypothetico-deductive method as used by the theoretical and especially the mathematical sciences. It involves such problems as the selection, independence and simplification of primitive terms and axioms, the formalization of definitions and proofs, the consistency and completeness of the constructed theory, and the final interpretation. The nomological or inductive method as used by the experimental sciences, aims at the discovery of regularities between phenomena and their relevant laws. It involves the critical and careful application of the various steps of induction: observation and analytical classification; selection of similarities; hypothesis of cause or law; verification by the experimental canons; deduction, demonstration and explanation; systematic organization of results; statement of laws and construction of the relevant theory. The descriptive method as used by the natural and social sciences, involves observational, classificatory and statistical procedures (see art. on statistics) and their interpretation. The historical method as used by the sciences dealing with the past, involves the collation, selection, classification and interpretation of archeological facts and exhibits, records, documents, archives, reports and testimonies. The psychological method, as used by all the sciences dealing with human behaviour and development. It involves not only introspective analysis, but also experimental procedures, such as those referring to the relations between stimuli and sensations, to the accuracy of perceptions (specific measurements of intensity), to gradation (least noticeable differences), to error methods (average error in right and wrong cases), and to physiological and educational processes.
Monadology: (also Monadism) The doctrine of monads, the theory that the universe is a composite of elementary units. A monad may also be a metaphysical unit. The notion of monad can be found in Pythagoras, Ecphantus, Aristotle, Euclid, Augustine, et al. Plato refers to his ideas as monads. Nicolaus Cusanus regards individual things as units which mirror the world. Giordano Bruno seems to have been the first to have used the term in its modern connotation. God is called monas monadum; each monad, combining matter and form, is both corporeal and spiritual, a microcosm of the whole. But the real founder of monadology is Leibniz. To him, the monads are the real atoms of nature, the elements of things. The monad is a simple substance, completely different from a material atom. It has neither extension, nor shape, nor divisibility. Nor is it perishable. Monads begin to exist or cease to exist by a decree of God. They are distinguished from one another in character, they "have no windows" through which anything can enter in or go out, that is, the substance of the monad must be conceived as force, as that which contains in itself the principle of its changes. The universe is the aggregate, the ideal bond of the monads, constituting a harmonious unity, pre-established by God who is the highest in the hierarchy of monads. This bond of all things to each, enables every simple substance to have relations which express all the others, every monad being a perpetual living mirror of the universe. The simple substance or monad, therefore, contains a plurality of modifications and relations even though it has no parts but is unity. The highest monad, God, appears to be hoth the creator and the unified totality and harmony of self-active and self-subsistent monnds. -- J.M.
More, Paul Elmer: An American literary critic and philosopher (1864-1937), who after teaching at Bryn Mawr and other colleges, edited The Nation for several years before retiring to lecture at Princeton University and write The Greek Tradition, a series of books in which he argues for orthodox Christianity on the basis of the Platonic dualism of mind-body, matter-spirit, God-man. In The Sceptical Approach to Religion he gave his final position, as ethical theism grounded on man's sense of the good and consciousness of purpose, and validated by the Incarnation of God in Christ. -- W.N.P.
Most of the basic problems and theories of cosmology seem to have been discussed by the pre-Socratic philosophers. Their views are modified and expanded in the Timaeus of Plato, and rehearsed and systematized in Aristotle's Physics. Despite multiple divergencies, all these Greek philosophers seem to be largely agreed that the universe is limited in space, has neither a beginning nor end in time, is dominated by a set of unalterable laws, and has a definite and recurring rhythm. The cosmology of the Middle Ages diverges from the Greek primarily through the introduction of the concepts of divine creation and annihilation, miracle and providence. In consonance with the tendencies of the new science, the cosmologies of Descartes, Leibniz and Newton bring the medieval views into closer harmony with those of the Greeks. The problems of cosmology were held to be intrinsically insoluble by Kant. After Kant there was a tendency to merge the issues of cosmology with those of metaphysics. The post-Kantians attempted to deal with both in terms of more basic principles and a more flexible dialectic, their opponents rejected both as without significance or value. The most radical modern cosmology is that of Peirce with its three cosmic principles of chance, law and continuity; the most recent is that of Whitehead, which finds its main inspiration in Plato's Timaeus.
Mundus intelligibilis: (Lat.) The world of intelligible realities; Plato's realm of Ideas, or St. Augustine's rationes aeternae in the Divine Mind. Each species of things is represented here by one, perfect exemplar, the pattern for the many, imperfect copies in the world of sense. See Mundus sensibilis. -- V.J.B.
Mundus sensibilis: (Lat.) The world of things perceived by the human senses. In Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Augustinism, and some Renaissance thought (Ficino) this realm of sensible objects was regarded as an imitation of the superior world of Intelligible realities. See Mundus intelligibilis. -- V.J.B.
Mysteries, The [from Greek mysteria Mysteries from mystes one initiated into the Mysteries from mueo to initiate from muo to close the eyes or lips] Applies chiefly to Greece, but once extended to Asiatic cults of religio-philosophical character, it acquired a wider range under the Romans, and is used in The Secret Doctrine in reference to equivalent institutions in any part of the world. The most celebrated in Greece were those of Eleusis pertaining to Demeter and Persephone, which gave rise to many branches and influenced schools of older foundation. Others were those of Samothrace, the Orphic Mysteries, and the Festivals devoted to Dionysos. Schools like that of Pythagoras diffused their influence, as did Academies such as that of Plato. The history of Greece furnishes notable examples of great men who had been initiated into such Mysteries. The Mysteries came into Greece from India and Egypt, and their origin goes back to Atlantean times. They were in historic times, what remained of the means whereby man’s divine ancestors communicated truths concerning the mysteries of cosmos and of human nature and of the communion between divinity and man.
Mysticism The doctrine that the nature of reality can be known by direct apprehension, by faculties above the senses, by intuition. “Mysticism demands a faculty above reason, by which the subject shall be placed in immediate and complete union with the object of his desire — a union in which the consciousness of self has disappeared, and in which therefore subject and object are one” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed. “Mysticism”). It overlaps in meaning such terms as the Neoplatonic ecstasis, and the theosophy of Iamblichus.
Natorp, Paul: (1854-1924) Collaborating with Cohen, Natorp applied the transcendental method to an interpretation of Plato, to psychology and to the methodology of the exact sciences. Like Cohen, Natorp really did not contribute to the scientific development of critical philosophy but prepared the way for philosophical mysticism. Cf. Platos Ideenlehre, 1903; Kant u. d. Marburger Schule, 1915. -- J. K.
Neo-Platonism ::: A line of development from the philosophy of Plato that emphasized the mystical dimensions of its dualistic view of reality, so that union with the ultimate One was a major goal. Influenced the development of mysticism in each of the three religious traditions.
neo-Platonism ::: A school of philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century A.D. The school was characterized by a systematization of Platonic metaphysics along with a pursuit of mystical union with the divine.
Neo-Platonism: The mystic philosophical system established by Plotinus (205-270 A.D.). Its center is the Godhead, the One, the Absolute Good, the Source, an undivided and undifferentiated Unity, from which a succession of emanations radiate out in stages of decreasing splendor and reality.
Neo-Mohism: Sec Mo che and Chinese philosophy. Neo-Platonism: New Platonism, i.e. a school of philosophy established perhaps by Ammonius Saccus in the second century A.D., in Alexandria, ending as a formal school with Proclus in the fifth century. See Plotinism. -- V.J.B.
neoplatonic ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or resembling, Neoplatonism or the Neoplatonists.
neoplatonician ::: n. --> A neoplatonist.
neoplatonism ::: n. --> A pantheistic eclectic school of philosophy, of which Plotinus was the chief (A. D. 205-270), and which sought to reconcile the Platonic and Aristotelian systems with Oriental theosophy. It tended to mysticism and theurgy, and was the last product of Greek philosophy.
neoplatonism ::: Neoplatonism/Neo-Platonism The modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy which took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus (205270 AD), a major Greek philosopher, and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists.
Neoplatonism, Neoplatonists This famous school of Platonic theosophy originated in the 2nd century at Alexandria, with Ammonius Saccas (170-243), and was developed by his pupils, of whom Plotinus (204-270) was the outstanding philosopher and under whom Neoplatonism reached its culmination. Other famous representatives were Porphyry (the pupil of Plotinus, 233-305); Iamblichus (d. 330); Hypatia (d. 415); Synesius (378-430); Proclus (412-485); and concluding with Olympiodorus (6th century). Among other pupils of Ammonius Saccas were Longinus and Origen.
neoplatonist ::: n. --> One who held to Neoplatonism; a member of the Neoplatonic school.
Neo-Pythagoreanism: A school of thought initiated in Alexandria, according to Cicero, by Nigidius Figulus, a Roman philosopher who died in 45 B.C. It was compounded of traditional Pythagorean teachings, various Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic doctrines, including some mystical and theosophical elements. -- J.J.R.
Neopythagoreans The Pythagoreans of Alexandria and other cities on the Mediterranean coast in the 1st century with whom Apollonius of Tyana is often classed. As happened to the Neoplatonists, the atmosphere of the later Greco-Roman world was not conducive to abstract philosophy, and hence the tendency of the times produced the practical mysticism characterizing both the viewpoint of the Pythagoreans and the Neoplatonists. Both schools were highly philosophic and used abstract philosophic speculation; yet predominant in both was the yearning for the attainment of inner spiritual illumination by practices of physical abstinence and by purity of life.
New Academy: Name commonly given to what is also called the Third Academy, started by Carneades (214-129 B.C.) who substituted a theory of probability for the principle of doubt which had been introduced into Plato's School by Arcesilaus, the originator of the Second or Middle Academy. The Academy later veered toward eclecticism and eventually was merged with Neo-Platonism. -- J.J.R.
N. Hartmann, Platos Lehre vom Sein, 1909; Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis, 1921; Ethik, 1926 (Eng. tr. 1932); Die Philosophie des Deutschen Idealismus I, 1923; II, 1929; Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie, 1935; Möglichkeit u. Wirklichkeit, 1938. See his own exposition of his views in Deutsch Syst. Philos. nach ihr. Gestalten, 1931. -- H.H.
Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu: (Lat.) Nothing is in the intellect which was not first in sense. All the materials, or content, of higher, intellectual cognition are derived from the activity of lower, sense cognition. A principle subscribed to by Aristotle, St. Thomas and Locke; opposed by Plato, St. Augustine and Leibniz (who qualified the proposition by adding: nisi intellectus ipse, i.e. except for what is already present as part of the innate nature of the intellect, thus making it possible for Kant to suggest that certain forms of sensibility and reason are prior to sense experience). -- V.J.B.
Nous(Greek) ::: This is a term frequently used by Plato for what in modern theosophical literature is usuallycalled the higher manas or higher mind or spiritual soul, the union and characteristics of thebuddhi-manas in man overshadowed by the atman. The distinction to be drawn between the nous on theone hand, and the animal soul or psyche and its workings on the other hand, is very sharp, and the twomust not be confused. In occultism the kosmic nous is the third Logos, and in the case of man's ownconstitution, or in human pneumatology, the nous is the buddhi-manas or higher manas or spiritualmonad.
Nous: In Neo-Platonism, theosophy and other occult doctrines, the Mind or Spirit, the first and most sublime stage of the emanations which issue forth from the Godhead, the Absolute Good, as light emanates from a luminous body. The Divine Mind in man. It is defined in the Rosicrucian Manual as “that energy, power and force emanating from the Source of all Life, possessing positive and negative polarity, manifesting it in vibrations of various rates of speed which, under certain conditions and obeying the dictates of natural law, establish the world of form, be that form visible or invisible.”
Octahedron ::: The Platonic solid associated with the element of Air.
Ogyges is an early king in the legends of Boeotia and Attica, a son of Poseidon, in whose reign a great flood overwhelmed the land. It refers to the tradition of the sinking of one of the last remnants of Atlantis and previous migrations of some of its inhabitants to Greece, where they founded new settlements. Ogygia was one of the last islands of the vast Atlantean continental system, and it may very readily be but another name for the Poseidonis referred to by Plato. As Egypt was settled originally by emigrants from Poseidonis or Ogygia, Egypt’s most ancient name was Ogygia.
Oracle A divine saying, or the place or means by which a divine message is communicated. The soul, according to Plato, has a certain innate prophetic power. The person in whom this power is fully manifest needs no means of communication; in some it may be manifest temporarily and under certain conditions. In the Greek Heroic ages, deities spoke or appeared directly to man, as we see in Homer. Later, indirect means of communication were used, which may be classed under the general name of oracular. In some cases the intervention of a seer was employed, as in the Sibyllae of Rome and the Pythian seeress of Delphi. Sometimes the “spirits” of the dead were consulted, as in the case of Saul and the wise woman of Endor, and Aeneas and Anchises. The earth and the chthonic deities played an important part: at Delphi, though Apollo was consulted, yet the priestess was entranced, as alleged, through the influence of vapors from the earth; sometimes descent into subterranean caves was necessary, and the inquirer might have to undergo experiences analogous to those of one who dies, as in initiation. Again, it was often customary for the inquirer to sleep in a sacred place to obtain in a dream a revelation from the presiding deity. Or the message might be conveyed by some sign requiring the skill of a diviner for its interpretation, but this comes under the head of divination and omens. The whole purpose was to supplement the intelligence of the incarnate man by appealing to truly spiritual intelligences.
Other figures worthy of mention who fit wholly into none of the above currents of thought are Raymond Lull (+1315), an active opponent of Averroism and the inventor of the famous Ars magna which intrigued young Leibnitz; Roger Bacon (+c. 1293) who under the influence of Platonism, furthered the mathematical and experimental methods; William of Moerbeke (+1286), one of the greatest philologists of the M.A., who greatly improved the translations of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic literature by consulting directly Greek sources; the first proponents of the via moderna doctrine in Logic, William Shyreswood (+1249) and Petrus Hispanus (+1277).
Pantheism [from Greek pan all + theos god] According to Plato, theos is derived from theein (to move); hence pantheism may be defined as belief in an all-moving or all-living principle. It is the doctrine that the root-essence of the universe is utter divinity, that divinity pervades throughout and is the substratum, the inmost, of all beings and things — every atom, sun, universe, man, god. Theosophic pantheism excludes the idea that deity is separate from the universe; and while denying monotheism and polytheism when these two are regarded as being exclusive of each other, theosophy recognizes both as complementary albeit partial statements of truth. Everything that is, is a manifestation, in one degree or another, of the all-permeant, divine essence.
Paracelsus, Theophrastus Bombast: (1493-1541) Of Hohenheim, was a physician who endeavored to use philosophy as one of the "pillars" of medical science. His philosophy is a weird combination of Neo-Platonism, experimentalism, and superstitious magic. He rejected much of the traditional theory of Galen and the Arab physicians. His works (Labyrinthus, Opus paramirum, Die grosse Wundarznei, De natura rerum) were written in Swiss-German, translated into Latin by his followers, recent investigators make no attempt to distinguish his personal thought from that of his school. Thorndyke, L., Hist. of Magic and Experimental Science (N. Y., 1941), V, 615-651. -- V.J.B.
Paradigma: The Latin foim of the Greek noun, which denotes model. Plato called his ideas in the world of ideas, models on which were patterned the things of the phenomenal world. -- J.J.R.
Parousia: (Gr. presence) In Plato's philosophy, the presence of the Idea in the thing which, in turn, pirtakes of the Idea; in theology, the presence of Christ after his prophesied return to earth. -- K.F.L.
Pascal-80 A successor of Platon. Developed at RC International for systems programming. Later it was renamed Real-Time Pascal. "PASCAL80 Report", J. Staunstrup, RC Intl, Denmark Jan 1980.
Pascal-80 ::: A successor of Platon. Developed at RC International for systems programming. Later it was renamed Real-Time Pascal. PASCAL80 Report, J. Staunstrup, RC Intl, Denmark Jan 1980.
P. Bernays, Sur le platonisme dans les mathematiques, and Quelques points essentiels de la metamathematique, l'Enseignement Mathematique, vol. 34 (1935), pp. 52-95.
Philaletheians [from Greek phil lovers + aletheia truth] Truth lovers; a name given to the Neoplatonic school, founded at Alexandria, Egypt, by Ammonius Saccas in the 3rd century. It lasted for two or three hundred years, and has often since been called a school of Analogeticists and Theosophists.
Philo of Alexandria: (30 B.C.- 50 A.D.) Jewish theologian and Neo-Platonic philosopher. He held that Greek thought borrowed largely from Mosaic teachings and therefore justified his use of Greek philosophy for the purpose of interpreting Scripture in a spiritual sense. For Philo, the renunciation of self and, through the divine Logos in all men, the achievement of immediate contact with the Supreme Being, is the highest blessedness for man. -- M.F Philosopheme: (Gr. philosophema) An apodictic syllogism (Aristotle). -- G.R.M.
Philosophers have in the past been concerned with two questions covered by our definition, though attempts to organize the subject as an autonomous department of philosophy are of recent date. Enquiries into the origin of language (e.g. in Plato's Kratylos) once a favorite subject for speculation, are now out of fashion, both with philosophers and linguists. Enquiries as to the nature of language (as in Descartes, Leibniz, and many others) are, however, still central to all philosophical interest in language. Such questions as "What are the most general characters of symbolism?", "How is 'Language' to be defined?", "What is the essence of language?", "How is communication possible?", "What would be the nature of a perfect language?", are indicative of the varying modulations which this theme receives in the works of contemporaries. Current studies in the philosophy of language can be classified under five hends: Questions of method, relation to other disciplines, etc. Much discussion turns here upon the proposal to establish a science and art of symbolism, variously styled semiotic, semantics or logical syntax, The analysis of meaning. Problems arising here involve attention to those under the next heading. The formulation of general descriptive schemata. Topics of importance here include the identification and analysis of different ways in which language is used, and the definition of men crucial notions as "symbol'', "grammar", "form", "convention", "metaphor", etc. The study of fully formalized language systems or "calculi". An increasingly important and highly technical division which seeks to extend and adapt to all languages the methods first developed in "metamathematics" for the study of mathematical symbolism. Applications to problems in general philosophy. Notably the attempt made to show that necessary propositions are really verbal; or again, the study of the nature of the religious symbol. Advance here awaits more generally acceptable doctrine in the other divisions. References:
Philosophes: French 18th century philosophers, e.g. Condorcet, Condillac, Rousseau, Voltaire (q.v.). Philosopher King: In Plato's theory of the ideal state rulership would be entrusted to philosopher kings. These rulers would reach the top by sheer talent and merit after a long period of training in the school of everyday work and leadership and by a prescribed pattern of formal discipline and study. The final test of leadership lay in the ability to see the truth of the Platonic vision of a reality governed by universal ideas and ideals. -- V.F.
Phoebus (Greek) Pure, bright, radiant, beaming; the solar regent, and in Latin mystic mythology the sun god, offspring of Zeus and Latona: also known by the Greeks as Apollo or Phoebus-Apollo. This deity represented both physical and spiritual purity and radiance to the Greeks; and to the Greek mind the solar divinity bore intimate relationships with mankind through his Oracle at Delphi, situated on the slopes of Mount Parnassus in Phocis, where a temple and oracular sanctuary were erected in his honor, to which consultants and suppliants thronged from all parts of the ancient world. Inscribed on the temple was the phrase associated with Socrates and Plato — gnothi seauton (know yourself). See also APOLLO; ORACLE
Phoronomy: Noun derived from the Greek, phorein, used by Plato and Aristotle in the sense of motion, and nomos, law; signifies kinematics, or absolute mechanics, which deals with motion from the purely theoretical point of view. According to Kant it is that part of natural philosophy which regards motion as a pure quantum, without considering any of the qualities of the moving body. -- J.J.R.
planimeter ::: n. --> An instrument for measuring the area of any plane figure, however irregular, by passing a tracer around the bounding line; a platometer.
platometer ::: n. --> See Planimeter.
platonic ::: a. --> Alt. of Platonical ::: n. --> A follower of Plato; a Platonist.
platonical ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Plato, or his philosophy, school, or opinions.
Pure, passionless; nonsexual; philosophical.
platonically ::: adv. --> In a Platonic manner.
platonic solids: A convex regular polyhedron - regular in the sense that a linear transformation of any vertex to any other vertex of the polyhedra, such that an edge adjacent to the originating vertex coincides with an edge adjacent to the destinating edge will ensures that all other vertices and edges also coincide with another vertex/edge respectively.
platonism ::: n. --> The doctrines or philosophy by Plato or of his followers.
An elevated rational and ethical conception of the laws and forces of the universe; sometimes, imaginative or fantastic philosophical notions.
platonist ::: n. --> One who adheres to the philosophy of Plato; a follower of Plato.
platonized ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Platonize
platonizer ::: n. --> One who Platonizes.
platonize ::: v. i. --> To adopt the opinion of Plato or his followers. ::: v. t. --> To explain by, or accomodate to, the Platonic philosophy.
platonizing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Platonize
platoon ::: n. --> Formerly, a body of men who fired together; also, a small square body of soldiers to strengthen the angles of a hollow square.
Now, in the United States service, half of a company.
platoons ::: groups or squads of people working, travelling, or assembled together.
Plotinism is a theocentric form of thought. As reality becomes more intelligible, it becomes more spiritual and Divine. The Ideas in the sphere of Nous are Divine and in later Neo-Platonism become gods; hence the system is polytheistic.
Plotinism: See: Neo-Platonism.
plotinist ::: n. --> A disciple of Plotinus, a celebrated Platonic philosopher of the third century, who taught that the human soul emanates from the divine Being, to whom it reunited at death.
Plutarch of Athens: (5th century AD) Founder of Athenian Neo-Platonism, author of commentaries on Platonic and Pythagorean writings. Plutarch of Chaeronea: (about 100 AD) Famous biographer and author of several philosophical treatises. -- M.F.
Political Philosophy: That branch of philosophy which deals with political life, especially with the essence, origin and value of the state. In ancient philosophy politics also embraced what we call ethics. The first and most important ancient works on Political Philosophy were Plato's Politeia (Republic) and Aristotle's Politics. The Politeia outlines the structure and functions of the ideal state. It became the pattern for all the Utopias (see Utopia) of later times. Aristotle, who considers man fundamentally a social creature i.e. a political animal, created the basis for modern theories of government, especially by his distinction of the different forms of government. Early Christianity had a rather negative attitude towards the state which found expression in St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei. The influence of this work, in which the earthly state was declared to be civitas diaboli, a state of the devil, was predominant throughout the Middle Ages. In the discussion of the relation between church and empire, the main topic of medieval political philosophy, certain authors foreshadowed modern political theories. Thomas Aquinas stressed the popular origin of royal power and the right of the people to restrict or abolish that power in case of abuse; William of Ockham and Marsiglio of Padua held similar views. Dante Alighieri was one of the first to recognize the intrinsic value of the state; he considered the world monarchy to be the only means whereby peace, justice and liberty could be secured. But it was not until the Renaissance that, due to the rediscovery of the individual and his rights and to the formation of territorial states, political philosophy began to play a major role. Niccolo Machiavelli and Jean Bodin laid the foundation for the new theories of the state by stressing its independence from any external power and its indivisible sovereignty. The theory of popular rights and of the right of resistance against tyranny was especially advocated by the "Monarchomachi" (Huguenots, such as Beza, Hotman, Languet, Danaeus, Catholics such as Boucher, Rossaeus, Mariana). Most of them used the theory of an original contract (see Social Contract) to justify limitations of monarchical power. Later, the idea of a Natural Law, independent from divine revelation (Hugo Grotius and his followers), served as an argument for liberal -- sometimes revolutionary -- tendencies. With the exception of Hobbes, who used the contract theory in his plea for absolutism, almost all the publicists of the 16th and 17th century built their liberal theories upon the idea of an original covenant by which individuals joined together and by mutual consent formed a state and placed a fiduciary trust in the supreme power (Roger Williams and John Locke). It was this contract which the Pilgrim Fathers translated into actual facts, after their arrival in America, in November, 1620, long before John Locke had developed his theorv. In the course of the 17th century in England the contract theory was generally substituted for the theory of the divine rights of kings. It was supported by the assumption of an original "State of Nature" in which all men enjoyed equal reciprocal rights. The most ardent defender of the social contract theory in the 18th century was J. J. Rousseau who deeply influenced the philosophy of the French revolution. In Rousseau's conception the idea of the sovereignty of the people took on a more democratic aspect than in 17th century English political philosophy which had been almost exclusively aristocratic in its spirit. This tendency found expression in his concept of the "general will" in the moulding of which each individual has his share. Immanuel Kant who made these concepts the basis of his political philosophy, recognized more clearly than Rousseau the fictitious character of the social contract and treated it as a "regulative idea", meant to serve as a criterion in the evaluation of any act of the state. For Hegel the state is an end in itself, the supreme realization of reason and morality. In marked opposition to this point of view, Marx and Engels, though strongly influenced by Hegel, visualized a society in which the state would gradually fade away. Most of the 19th century publicists, however, upheld the juristic theory of the state. To them the state was the only source of law and at the same time invested with absolute sovereignty: there are no limits to the legal omnipotence of the state except those which are self imposed. In opposition to this doctrine of unified state authority, a pluralistic theory of sovereignty has been advanced recently by certain authors, laying emphasis upon corporate personalities and professional groups (Duguit, Krabbe, Laski). Outspoken anti-stateism was advocated by anarchists such as Kropotkin, etc., by syndicalists and Guild socialists. -- W.E.
Porphyry: (c. 232-304 B.C.) A disciple of Plotinus, who adapted Aristotelian logic to Neo-Platonic philosophy. His method of classification by means of dichotomy is known as the "Tree of Porphyry" (q.v.). Cf. Isagoge (tr. by Boethius, q.v.). -- R.B.W.
Poseidonis Plato’s Timaeus gives a story related to Solon by Egyptian priests, that a great island called Atlantis with a numerous population and a high culture, once existed west of the Pillars of Hercules and opposite Mt. Atlas. The name Poseidonis is given to this island in The Secret Doctrine, and it is said to have sunk in 9564 BC (ML 151). This last remnant in the Atlantic Ocean of the originally vast Atlantean continent, was said by ancient Mediterranean writers such as Plato to have been approximately the size of Ireland and, due to the wickedness of its otherwise highly civilized inhabitants, to have been swallowed up and submerged by the ocean in a night and a day.
Posidonius of Rhodes: (c. 135-50 B.C.) An eclectic philosopher of the Stoic School, who incorporated into his thought many doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. -- R.B.W.
Proclus: (411-485) A prominent Neo-Platonist and theological commentator, who taught that man becomes united with God through the practice of love, truth and faith. Main works: Commentaries on Timeus, on Republic, on Parmenides; Instit. Theol.; In Platonis Theol., Comment on First Book of Euclid. -- R.B.W.
Psyche (Greek) [from psycho breathe, blow; cf Greek pneuma from pneo to breathe, blow; Latin anima, spiritus all connected with breath, wind, spirit, life, soul] Used in classic Greek as vaguely as is our word soul; but in Platonic philosophy and theosophical usage, the lower or carnally influenced aspect of the mind or soul, as contrasted with the higher or spiritually influenced aspect: kama-manas as against buddhi-manas, the latter represented by the Greek nous. From these two words are derived the adjectives psychic and noetic.
Pythagoreanism: The doctrines (philosophical, mathematical, moral, and religious) of Pythagoras (c. 572-497) and of his school which flourished until about the end of the 4th century B.C. The Pythagorean philosophy was a dualism which sharply distinguished thought and the senses, the soul and the body, the mathematical forms of things and their perceptible appearances. The Pythagoreans supposed that the substances of all things were numbers and that all phenomena were sensuous expressions of mathematical ratios. For them the whole universe was harmony. They made important contributions to mathematics, astronomv, and physics (acoustics) and were the first to formulate the elementary principles and methods of arithmetic and geometry as taught in the first books of Euclid. But the Pythagorean sect was not only a philosophical and mathematical school (cf. K. von Fritz, Pythagorean Politics in Southern Italy, 1941), but also a religious brotherhood and a fellowship for moral reformation. They believed in the immortality and transmigration (see Metempsychosis) of the soul which they defined as the harmony of the body. To restore harmony which was confused by the senses was the goal of their Ethics and Politics. The religious ideas were closely related to those of the Greek mysteries which sought by various rites and abstinences to purify and redeem the soul. The attempt to combine this mysticism with their mathematical philosophy, led the Pythagoreans to the development of an intricate and somewhat fantastic symbolism which collected correspondences between numbers and things and for example identified the antithesis of odd and even with that of form and matter, the number 1 with reason, 2 with the soul, etc. Through their ideas the Pythagoreans had considerable effect on the development of Plato's thought and on the theories of the later Neo-platonists.
Pythagoreanism ::: The set of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras and his followers (known as the Pythagoreans), who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism greatly influenced Platonism. Later revivals of Pythagorean doctrines led to what is now called Neopythagoreanism.
quadrants ::: As in the four quadrants, which represent four basic dimensions of all individual holons: the interior and exterior of the individual and collective. These are designated as the Upper Left (interior-individual), Upper Right (exterior-individual), Lower Left (interiorcollective), and Lower Right (exterior-collective). The quadrants correspond with “I,” “We,” “It,” and “Its,” which are often summarized as the Big Three: “I,” “We,” and “It/s.” The Big Three are correlated with, although not identical to, the value spheres of Art, Morals, and Science, and with Plato’s value judgments of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. The 8 zones refer to the inside and outside of the four quadrants.
Quaternary A group of four; the number four, fourfold. Many quaternary groupings may be made. The septenate is divisible into three and four, usually as the higher triad and the lower quaternary; here the quaternary is terrestrial as opposed to celestial, mortal as opposed to immortal, material as opposed to spiritual. It is seen in the four lower human principles, the four lower cosmic elements, the fourfold shapes in physical bodies, etc. It is the square of the number 2; the first of the regular polyhedra is the tetrahedron or triangular pyramid, having four sides and four corners. The septenate may otherwise be regarded as two triangles and a central point, as in Solomon’s seal; and this gives two quaternaries, a higher and a lower, by adding the point to either of the triangles. These two quaternaries are also called the higher and lower — or celestial and terrestrial — tetraktys. The higher group is given in Platonism as: to agathon, nous, psyche, and hyle; and the lower group is the four cosmic elements of fire, earth, air, and water. The lower tetraktys is said to be the root of illusion or mahamaya, and this is what the Tetragrammaton, or four-lettered name, becomes in materialized Judaism.
realism ::: n. --> As opposed to nominalism, the doctrine that genera and species are real things or entities, existing independently of our conceptions. According to realism the Universal exists ante rem (Plato), or in re (Aristotle).
As opposed to idealism, the doctrine that in sense perception there is an immediate cognition of the external object, and our knowledge of it is not mediate and representative.
Fidelity to nature or to real life; representation without
Realism: Theory of the reality of abstract or general terms, or umversals, which are held to have an equal and sometimes a superior reality to actual physical particulars. Umversals exist before things, ante res. Opposed to nominalism (q.v.) according to which universals have a being only after things, post res. Realism means (a) in ontology that no derogation of the reality of universals is valid, the realm of essences, or possible umversals, being as real as, if not more real than, the realm of existence, or actuality; (b) in epistemology: that sense experience reports a true and uninterrupted, if limited, account of objects; that it is possible to have faithful and direct knowledge of the actual world. While realism was implicit in Egyptian religion, where truth was through deification distinguished from particular truths, and further suggested in certain aspects of Ionian philosophy, it was first explicitly set forth by Plato in his doctrine of the ideas and developed by Aristotle in his doctrine of the forms. According to Plato, the ideas have a status of possibility which makes them independent both of the mind by which they may be known and of the actual world of particulars in which they may take place. Aristotle amended this, so that his forms have a being only in things, in rebus. Realism in its Platonic version was the leading philosophy of the Christian Middle Ages until Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) officially adopted the Aristotelian version. It has been given a new impetus in recent times by Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) in America and by G. E. Moore (1873-) in England. Moore's realism has been responsible for many of his contemporaries in both English-speaking countries. Roughly speaking, the American realists, Montague, Perry, and others, in The New Realism (1912) have directed their attention to the epistemological side, while the English have constructed ontological systems. The most comprehensive realistic systems of the modern period are Process and Reality by A. N. Whitehead (1861-) and Space, Time and Deity by S. Alexander: (1859-1939). The German, Nicolai Hartmann, should also be mentioned, and there are others. -- J.K.F.
Realistic Idealism recognizes the reality of non-ideal types of being, but relegates them to a subordinate status with respect either to quantity of being or power. This view is either atheistic or theistic. Realistic theism admits the existence of one or more kinds of non-mental being considered as independently co-eternal with God, eternally dependent upon Deity, or as a divine creation. Platonic Idealism, as traditionally interpreted, identifies absolute being with timeless Ideas or disembodied essences. Thtse, organically united in the Good, are the archetypes and the dynamic causes of existent, material things. The Ideas are also archetypes of rational thought, and the goal of fine art and morality. Axiological Idealism, a modern development of Platonism and Kantianism, maintains that the category of Value is logically and metaphysically prior to that of Being.
Renaissance: (Lat. re + nasci, to be born) Is a term used by historians to characterize various periods of intellectual revival, and especially that which took place in Italy and Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The term was coined by Michelet and developed into a historical concept by J. Burckhardt (1860) who considered individualism, the revival of classical antiquity, the "discovery" of the world and of man as the main characters of that period as opposed to the Middle Ages. The meaning, the temporal limits, and even the usefulness of the concept have been disputed ever since. For the emphasis placed by various historians on the different fields of culture and on the contribution of different countries must lead to different interpretations of the whole period, and attempts to express a complicated historical phenomenon in a simple, abstract definition are apt to fail. Historians are now inclined to admit a very considerable continuity between the "Renaissance" and the Middle Ages. Yet a sweeping rejection of the whole concept is excluded, for it expresses the view of the writers of the period itself, who considered their century a revival of ancient civilization after a penod of decay. While Burckhardt had paid no attention to philosophy, others began to speak of a "philosophy of the renaissance," regarding thought of those centuries not as an accidental accompaniment of renaissance culture, but as its characteristic philosophical manifestation. As yet this view has served as a fruitful guiding principle rather than as a verified hypothesis. Renaissance thought can be defined in a negative way as the period of transition from the medieval, theological to the modern, scientific interpretation of reality. It also displays a few common features, such as an emphasis on man and on his place in the universe, the rejection of certain medieval standards and methods of science, the increased influence of some newly discovered ancient sources, and a new style and literary form in the presentation of philosophical ideas. More obvious are the differences between the various schools and traditions which cannot easily be brought to a common denominator Humimsm, Platonism, Aristotelianism, scepticism and natural philosophy, to which may be added the group of the founders of modern science (Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo). -- P.O.K.
Said to be an abridgment of one of the Books of Thoth by a Platonist of Alexandria, remodeled in the 3rd century after old Greek and Phoenician manuscripts by a Jewish Qabbalist and called the Genesis of Enoch (SD 2:267n); said also to have been disfigured by Christian Qabbalists. Pymander as Hermes is described as the oldest and most spiritual of the logoi of the Western continent.
Same and Other: One of the "persistent problems" of philosophy which goes back at least to Parmenides and Heraclitus (q.v.). In its most general form it raises the question: Is reality explicable in terms of one principle, ultimately the same in all things (monism), or is reality ultimately heterogeneous, requiring a plurality of first principles (pluralism)? Plato really developed the problem (in the Sophist, Parmenides and Timaeus) by suggesting that both sameness and otherness are required for a complete explanation of things. It is closely related to the problems of One and Many, Identity and Difference, of Universal and Individual in Mediaeval Scholasticism. With Hegel and Fichte the problem becomes fused with that of Spirit and Matter, or of Self and Not-self. -- V.J.B.
Sankha-dvipa (Sanskrit) Śaṅkha-dvīpa Spoken of in the Puranas as one of the nine divisions of Bharata-varsha or India. Blavatsky identifies it with the Poseidonis of Plato’s Atlantis, which Solon declared to have reached its end some 9,000 years before his time. All the history given in the Puranas about Sankha-dvipa and Sankhasura is geographically and ethnologically Plato’s Atlantis in Hindu dress. The Puranic account speaks of the island as still existing.
Santayana, George: For Santayana (1863-), one of the most eminent of contemporary naturalists, consciousness, instead of distorting the nature of Reality immediately reveals it. So revealed, Reality proclaims itself an infinity of essences (Platonic Ideas) subsisting in and by themselves, some of which are entertained by minds, and some of which are also enacted in and by a non-mental substratum, substance or matter, which adds concrete existence to their subsistence. The presence of this substratum, though incapable of rational proof, is assumed in action as a matter of animal faith. Furthermore, without it a selective principle, the concrete enactment of some essences but not of others is inexplicable.
Schopenhauer, Arthur: (1738-1860) Brilliant, manysided philosopher, at times caustic, who attained posthumously even popular acclaim. His principal work, The World as Will and Idea starts with the thesis that the world is my idea, a primary fact of consciousness implying the inseparableness of subject and object (refutation of materialism and subjectivism). The object underlies the principle of sufficient reason whose fourfold root Schopenhauer had investigated previously in his doctoral dissertation as that of becoming (causality), knowing, being, and acting (motivation). But the world is also obstinate, blind, impetuous will (the word taken in a larger than the dictionary meaning) which objectifies itself in progressive stages in the world of ideas beginning with the forces of nature (gravity, etc.) and terminating in the will to live and the products of its urges. As thing-in-itself, the will is one, though many in its phenomenal forms, space and time serving as principia individuationis. The closer to archetypal forms the ideas (Platonic influence) and the less revealing the will, the greater the possibility of pure contemplation in art in which Schopenhauer found greatest personal satisfaction. Propounding a determinism and a consequential pessimism (q.v.), Schopenhauer concurs with Kant in the intelligible character of freedom, makes compassion (Mitleid; see Pity) the foundation of ethics, and upholds the Buddhist ideal of desirelessness as a means for allaying the will. Having produced intelligence, the will has created the possibility of its own negation in a calm, ascetic, abstinent life.
See Trivium for the other three of the seven liberal arts, first proposed for education by Plato, Republic, III.
Self-consciousness Awareness of oneself as the experiencer, attribution of one’s experiences to an ego, consciousness of being a separate individual; whereas consciousness in the abstract is merely awareness of the experience. Animals and very young children are conscious, man is self-conscious; yet the adult, when engrossed in an experience, may lose his self-consciousness for a while. But even man is only partially self-conscious, because he can contemplate only part of his being; that in him which is now the contemplator may become part of what is contemplated. As the subject, the knower, shifts upwards and inwards, so to speak, more and more of the vestures pass into the category of objects or what is known. The Unknown manifests the universe in order to attain full self-consciousness; and in man, the microcosm, an unself-conscious spark of divinity passes through stages of evolution and experience in order to achieve relatively full self-consciousness. The potentiality of self-consciousness, however, is in every atom. In order to become self-conscious, spirit must pass through every cycle of cosmic being, until every ego has attained full self-consciousness as a human being or equivalent entity. Man’s self-consciousness depends on his triple nature; it is man who is the separator of the One into various contrasted aspects.
Simplicius: (6th cent.) A prominent commentator on Aristotelian works in the closing years of the New Academy of Plato. -- M.F.
Socrates: (c. 470-399 B.C.) Was one of the most influential teachers of philosophy. The son of an Athenian stone cutter, named Sophroniscus, and of a mid-wife, Socrates learned his father's trade, but, in a sense, practised his mother's. Plato makes him describe himself as one who assists at the birth of ideas. With the exception of two periods of military service, he remained in Athens all his life. He claimed to be guided by a daimon which warned him against what was wrong, and Plato suggests that Socrates enjoyed mystic experiences. Much of his tirne was spent in high-minded philosophic discussion with those he chanced to meet in the public places of Athens. The young men enjoyed his easy methods of discussion and delighted in his frequent quizzing of the Sophists. He was eventually charged in the Athenian citizen court with being irreligious and corrupting the young. Found guilty, he submitted to the court and drank the poison which ended the life of one of the greatest of Athenians. He wrote nothing and is known through three widely divergent contemporary accounts. Aristophanes has caricatured him in the Clouds, Xenophon has described him, with personal respect but little understanding of his philosophical profundity; Plato's dialogues idealize him and probably develop the Socratic philosophy far beyond the original thought of his master. Socrates personifies the Athenian love of reason and of moderation; he probably taught that virtue is knowledge and that knowledge is only true when it reaches the stage of definition. See Socratic method. -- V.J.B.
Socratic method: (from Socrates, who is said by Plato and Xenophon to have used this method) is a way of teaching in which the master professes to impart no information, (for, in the case of Socrates, he claimed to have none), but draws forth more and more definite answers by means of pointed questions. The method is best illustrated in Socrates' questioning of an unlearned slave boy in the Meno of Plato. The slave is led, step by step, to a demonstration of a special case of the Pythagorean theoiem. Socrates' original use of the method is predicated on the belief that children are born with knowledge already in their souls but that they cannot recall this knowledge without some help, (theory of anamnesis). It is also associated with Socratic Irony, i.e., the profession of ignorance on the part of a questioner, who may be in fact quite wise. -- V.J.B.
Soul (Scholastic): With few exceptions (e.g., Tertullian) already the Fathers were agreed that the soul is a simple spiritual substance. Some held that it derived from the souls of the parents (Traducianism), others that it is created individually by God (Creationism), the latter view being generally accepted and made an article of faith. Regarding the union with the body, the early Middle-Ages, following St. Augustine, professed a modified Platonic Dualism: the body is a substance in itself to which the soul is added and with which it enters a more or less accidental union. With the revival of Aristoteleanism, the hylemorphic theory became general: the soul is the substantial form of the body, the only origin of all vital and mental performances, there is no other form besides. This strictly Aristotelian-Thomistic view has been modified by later Scholastics who assume the existence of a forma corporeitatis distinct from the soul. (See Form) -- The soul is simple but not devoid of accidents; the "faculties" (q.v.) are its proper accidents; every experience adds an accidental form to the soul. Though a substance in itself, the soul is naturally ordained towards a body; separated, it is an "incomplete" substance. It is created in respect to the body it will inform, so that the inheritance of bodily features and of mental characteristics insofar as they depend on organic functions is safeguarded. -- As a simple and spiritual substance, the soul is immortal. It is not the total human nature, since person is the composite of niatter informed by the soul. -- Animals and plants too have souls, the former a sensitive, the latter a vegetative soul, which function as the principles of life. These souls are perishable, they too are substantial forms. The human soul contains all the powers of the two other souls and is the origin of the vegetative and sensitive performances in man. -- R.A.
Space: In Aristotle, the container of all objects. In the Cambridge Platonists, the sensorium of God. In Kant: the a priori form of intuition of external phenomena. In modern math., name for certain abstract invariant gioups or set's. See Space-Time. -- P.P.W.
speculator ::: n. --> One who speculates. Specifically: (a) An observer; a contemplator; hence, a spy; a watcher.
One who forms theories; a theorist.
One who engages in speculation; one who buys and sells goods, land, etc., with the expectation of deriving profit from fluctuations in price.
Stoicheia (Greek) [plural of stoichos a row of steps, succession of similar things] First principles, elements as used by Plato and Aristotle; employed by Greek physicists for the first and simplest component parts; likewise the elements of a science, or the points, lines, and surfaces in geometry, or the signs of the zodiac in astrology. It corresponds quite loosely with the planes, degrees, or stages in a cosmic hierarchy — the degrees or divisions of the one undivided divine element. Yet the reference here is not to boundless infinitude, but to the summit of a cosmic hierarchy or universe.
St. Thomas was a teacher and a writer for some twenty years (1254-1273). Among his works are: Scriptum in IV Libros Sententiarum (1254-1256), Summa Contra Gentiles (c. 1260), Summa Theologica (1265-1272); commentaries on Boethius. (De Trinitate, c. 1257-1258), on Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (De Divinis Nominibus, c. 1261), on the anonymous and important Liber de Causis (1268), and especially on Aristotle's works (1261-1272), Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, On the Soul, Posterior Analytics, On Interpretation, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption; Quaestiones Disputatae, which includes questions on such large subjects as De Veritate (1256-1259); De Potentia (1259-1263); De Malo (1263-1268); De Spiritualibus Creaturis, De Anima (1269-1270); small treatises or Opuscula, among which especially noteworthy are the De Ente et Essentia (1256); De Aeternitate Mundi (1270), De Unitate Intellecus (1270), De Substantiis Separatis (1272). While it is extremely difficult to grasp in its entirety the personality behind this complex theological and philosophical activity, some points are quite clear and beyond dispute. During the first five years of his activity as a thinker and a teacher, St. Thomas seems to have formulated his most fundamental ideas in their definite form, to have clarified his historical conceptions of Greek and Arabian philosophers, and to have made more precise and even corrected his doctrinal positions, (cf., e.g., the change on the question of creation between In II Sent., d.l, q.l, a.3, and the later De Potentia, q. III, a.4). This is natural enough, though we cannot pretend to explain why he should have come to think as he did. The more he grew, and that very rapidly, towards maturity, the more his thought became inextricably involved in the defense of Aristotle (beginning with c. 1260), his texts and his ideas, against the Averroists, who were then beginning to become prominent in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris; against the traditional Augustinianism of a man like St. Bonaventure; as well as against that more subtle Augustinianism which could breathe some of the spirit of Augustine, speak the language of Aristotle, but expound, with increasing faithfulness and therefore more imminent disaster, Christian ideas through the Neoplatonic techniques of Avicenna. This last group includes such different thinkers as St. Albert the Great, Henry of Ghent, the many disciples of St. Bonaventure, including, some think, Duns Scotus himself, and Meister Eckhart of Hochheim.
Stumpf, Carl: (184-8-1936) A life long Platonic realist, he was philosophically awakened and influenced by Brentano. His most notable contributions were in the psychology of tone and music, and in musicology. Metaphysics is, in his opinion, best constructed inductively as a continuation of the sciences. -- H.H.
Substance is the term used to signify thit which is sought when philosophers investigate the primary being of things. Thus Plato was primarily concerned with investigating the being of things from the standpoint of their intelligibility. Hence the Platonic dialectic was aimed at a knowledge of the essential nature (ousia) of things. But science is knowledge of universals. so the essence of things considered as intelligible is the universal common to many; i.e., the universal Form or Idea, and this was for Plato the substance of things, or what they are primarily.
Sufi, Sufi, Sufiism [from Arab suf wool; sufi he who wears woolen garments] A school of thought that emphasizes the superiority of the soul as opposed to the body. A Sufi wears harsh, raw woolen garments constantly irritating his skin to remind him that the body is the part which prevents the soul from attaining higher goals. The first public pronouncement of mysticism in Moslem lands is attributed to Rabi‘a, who lived in the 1st century of the Hejira (622 AD) and expounded the theory of divine love: God is love, and everything on earth must be sacrificed in order eventually to attain union with God. However even before the time of Mohammed there were two principal schools of Arabic thought: the Meshaiuns (the walkers), who later became the metaphysicians after the appearance of the Koran, and the Ishrachiuns (the contemplators) who became affiliated with the Sufis. The Sufis, in fact, put an esoteric interpretation on the Koran, as well as the collected saying of Mohammed, the Sufi movement representing an infiltration into the rigidity of Islamic doctrine of the pre-Islamic mystical or quasi-occult stream of thought, especially from Persia. Blavatsky states that the Sufis acquired their “proficient knowledge in astrology, medicine, and the esoteric doctrine of the ages” from the descendants of the Magi” (IU 2:306).
Syncretism: (Gr. syn., with; and either kretidzein, or kerannynai, to mix incompatible elements) A movement to bring about a harmony of positions in philosophy or theology which are somewhat opposed or different. Earliest usage (Plutarch) in connection with the Neo-Platonic effort to unify various pagan religions in the 2nd and 4th centuries A.D. Next used in Renaissance (Bessarion) in reference to the proposed union of the Eastern and Western Citholic Churches, also denoted the contemporary movement to harmonize the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle; again in 17th century used by Georg Calixt in regard to proposed union of the Lutheran with other Protestant bodies and also with Catholicism. -- V.J.B.
sys-frog /sis'frog/ (the {PLATO} system) A playful variant of "{sysprog}". [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-04)
sys-frog ::: /sis'frog/ (the PLATO system) A playful variant of sysprog.[Jargon File] (1994-11-04)
Temple, William: For many years Archbishop of York, Temple (born 1881) has written extensively on the philosophy of religion. In Mens Creatrix and most recently in Nature Man and God, he has argued for a universe of levels, culminating in value, and pointing to God as Supreme Value and hence Ultimate Reality. Recent work on the nature of revelation has given him the definition of revelation as "coincidence of divinely guided event and divinely guided apprehension", in this setting he places (see Christ the Truth) the Incarnation as central and most significant event apprehended by the Christian community. He is a Platonist in tendency, although within recent years this has been modified by scholasticism, and a study of Marxian philosophy. -- W.N.P.
tenet ::: n. --> Any opinion, principle, dogma, belief, or doctrine, which a person holds or maintains as true; as, the tenets of Plato or of Cicero.
Ten One of the most sacred fundamental numbers in occultism, for ten — or more accurately perhaps twelve, as Plato pointed out — is the key of the numerical structure upon which the universe is laid and built. Where seven represents the manifested universe or brahmanda, ten or twelve includes the unmanifested aspects as well. Ten is the foundation of the decimal system and because of this is universal in its relations. With the Pythagoreans ten was the most sacred number, the mystical dekad involving and expressing the mysteries of the entire kosmos, “the absolute All manifesting itself in the Word or generative Power of Creation” (SD 2:553); and among certain other schools, as in the Orient, ten was symbolically synthesized by the vertical line traversing the circle.
Tetrahedron ::: The Platonic solid associated with the element of Fire. Probably the most important of the Platonic solids to become familiar with. Finds many usages in certain visualization practices and etheric work.
The Academy continued as a school of philosophy until closed by Justinian in 529 A.D. The early scholars (Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemo, Crates) were not great philosophers, they adopted a Pythagorean interpretation of the Ideas and concentrated on practical, moral problems. Following the Older Academy (347-247 B.C.), the Middle and New Academies (Arcesilaus and Carneades were the principal teachers) became scepticil and eclectic. Aristotle (384-322 B.C. ) studied with Plato for twenty years and embodied many Platonic views in his own philosophy. Platonism was very highly regarded by the Christian Fathers (Ambrose, Augustine, John Damascene and Anselm of Canterbury, for instance) and it continued as the approved philosophy of the Christian Church until the 12th century. From the 3rd century on, Neo-Platonism (see Plotinism) developed the other-worldly mystical side of Plato's thought. The School of Chartres (Bernard, Thierry, Wm. of Conches, Gilbert of Poitiers) in the 12th century was a center of Christian Platonism, interested chiefly in the cosmological theory of the Timaeus. The Renaissance witnessed a revival of Platonism in the Florentine Academy (Marsilio Ficino and the two Pico della Mirandolas). In England, the Cambridge Platonists (H. More, Th. Gale, J. Norris) in the 17th century started an interest in Plato, which has not yet died out in the English Universities. Today, the ethical writings of A. E. Taylor, the theoiy of essences developed by G. Santayana, and the metaphysics of A. N. Whitehead, most nearly approach a contemporary Platonism. -- V.J.B.
“The ancients believed in the power of man by magic practices to command the services of the gods: which gods, are in truth, but the occult powers or potencies of Nature, personified by the learned priests themselves, in which they reverenced only the attributes of the one unknown and nameless Principle. As Proclus the Platonist ably puts it: ‘Ancient priests, when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual sympathy and similarity. . . . and applied for occult purposes, both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they deduced divine virtues into this inferior abode.’ Magic is the science of communicating with and directing supernal, supramundane Potencies, as well as of commanding those of the lower spheres; a practical knowledge of the hidden mysteries of nature known to only the few, because they are so difficult to acquire, without falling into sins against nature” (TG 197).
The Platonic philosophy of art and aesthetics stresses, as might be expected, the value of the reasonable imitation of Ideal realities rather than the photographic imitation of sense things and individual experiences. All beautiful things participate in the Idea of beauty (Symposium and Phaedrus). The artist is frequently described as a man carried away by his inspiration, akin to the fool; yet art requires reason and the artist must learn to contemplate the world of Ideas. Fine art is not radically distinguished from useful art. In both the Republic and the Laws, art is subordinated to the good of the state, and those forms of art which are effeminate, asocial, inimical to the morale of the citizens, are sternly excluded from the ideal state.
the Platonic powers or intelligences, or with the
The Platonic theory of education is based on a drawing out (educatio) of what is already dimly known to the learner. (Meno, Repub. II-VII, Theaetetus, Laws.) The training of the philosopher-ruler, outlined in the Republic, requires the selection of the most promising children in their infancy and a rigorous disciplining of them in gymnastic, music (in the Greek sense of literary studies), mathematics and dialectic (the study of the Ideas). This training was to continue until the students were about thirty-five years of age; then fifteen years of practical apprenticeship in the subordinate offices of the state were required; finally, at the age of fifty, the rulers were advised to return to the study of philosophy. It should be noted that this program is intended only for an intellectual elite; the military class was to undergo a shorter period of training suited to its functions, and the masses of people, engaged in production, trading, and like pursuits, were not offered any special educational schedule.
The causes which it is the aim of scientific inquiry to discover are of four sorts: the material cause (that of which a thing is made), the efficient cause (that by which it comes into being), the formal cause (its essence or nature, i.e. what it is), and the final cause (its end, or that for which it exists). In natural objects, as distinct from the products of art, the last three causes coincide; for the end of a natural object is the realization of its essence, and likewise it is this identical essence embodied in another individual that is the efficient cause in its production. Thus for Aristotle every object in the sense world is a union of two ultimate principles: the material constituents, or matter (hyle), and the form, structure, or essence which makes of these constituents the determinate kind of being it is. Nor is this union an external or arbitrary one; for the matter is in every case to be regarded as possessing the capacity for the form, as being potentially the formed matter. Likewise the form has being only in the succession of its material embodiments. Thus Aristotle opposes what he considers to be the Platonic doctrine that real being belongs only to the forms or universals, whose existence is independent of the objects that imperfectly manifest them. On the other hand, against the earlier nature-philosophies that found their explanatory principles in matter, to the neglect of form, Aristotle affirms that matter must be conceived as a locus of determinate potentialities that become actualized only through the activity of forms.
The declared purpose of the Neoplatonists was to demonstrate the reality of a fundamental wisdom, to draw together the elect of every faith, and likewise to sow the seeds for a unification of faiths. The teachings are religious in the sense that they appeal to the religious instincts and inculcate the loftiest and purest morality; but on the other hand no church or creed was founded. The conditions of the times did not call for a scientific presentation of the ancient teachings; the regimentation of external life had turned men’s hopes inward. Such a system could not be created by merely putting together borrowings from Plato and Pythagoras, the Jews, and Gnostics, etc. Behind the movement must have been minds initiated in the lore of ancient Egypt and India, and thus supplied with the design which alone could make a unity out of the elements. Through succeeding centuries, revivals of Neoplatonism have appeared, sometimes using the name itself. It deeply influenced the Christian church, not only in early times but later under the influence of the pseudo-Dionysius and still later of Erigena.
The differences begin when the questions of the mode of creation and mediators between God and the world are dealt with. In these matters there are to be noted three variations. Saadia rejected entirely the theory of the emanation of separate intelligences, and teaches God's creation from nothing of all beings in the sublunar and upper worlds. He posits that God created first a substratum or the first air which was composed of the hyle and form and out of this element all beings were created, not only the four elements, the components of bodies in the lower world, but also the angels, stars, and the spheres. Bahya's conception is similar to that of Saadia. The Aristotelians, Ibn Daud, Maimonides, and Gersonides accepted the theory of the separate intelligences which was current in Arabic philosophy. This theory teaches that out of the First Cause there emanated an intelligence, and out of this intelligence another one up to nine, corresponding to the number of spheres. Each of these intelligences acts as the object of the mind of a sphere and is the cause of its movement. The tenth intelligence is the universal intellect, an emanation of all intelligences which has in its care the sublunar world. This theory is a combination of Aristotelian and neo-PIatonic teachings; Ibn Daud posits, however, in addition to the intelligences also the existence of angels, created spiritual beings, while Maimonides seems to identify the angels with the intelligences, and also says that natural forces are also called angels in the Bible. As for creation, Ibn Daud asserts that God created the hyle or primal matter and endowed it with general form from which the specific forms later developed. Maimonides seems to believe that God first created a substance consisting of primal matter and primal form, and that He determined by His will that parts of it should form the matter of the spheres which is imperishable, while other parts should form the matter of the four elements. These views, however, are subject to various interpretations by historians. Gabirol and Gersonides posit the eternal existence of the hyle and limit creation to endowing it with form and organization -- a view close to the Platonic.
The early Gnostics also considered ten to contain the knowledge of the universe, both metaphysical and material. The Pythagorean dekad “representing the Universe and its evolution out of Silence and the unknown Depths of the Spiritual Soul, or anima mundi, presented two sides or aspects to the student. It could be, and was at first so used and applied to the Macrocosm, after which it descended to the Microcosm, or Man. There was, then, the purely intellectual and metaphysical, or the ‘inner Science,’ and the as purely materialistic or ‘surface science,’ both of which could be expounded by and contained in the Decade. It could be studied, in short, from the Universals of Plato, and the inductive method of Aristotle. The former started from a divine comprehension, when the plurality proceeded from unity, or the digits of the decade appeared, but to be finally re-absorbed, lost in the infinite Circle. The latter depended on sensuous perception alone, when the Decade could be regarded either as the unity that multiplies, or matter which differentiates, its study being limited to the plane surface; to the Cross, or the Seven which proceeds from the ten — or the perfect number, on Earth as in heaven” (SD 2:573).
The early Greek notion of the universe as ordered by destiny or fate was gradually refined until the time of Plato and Aristotle who conceived the world as ordered by an intelligent principle (nous) of divine justice or harmony; Plato, Philebus, 30: ". . . there is in the universe a cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges . . ."; and Aristotle, Physics, 252a-12: "nature is everywhere the cause of order". This cosmic view was an essential element of the Stoic metaphysics, and was later incorporated into medieval philosophy and theology as the divine governance or ordering of creation, i.e. providence.
The elevating and unifying influence of these institutions was acknowledged by Greek and Roman authorities and is apparent from a study of Greek history. With the advance of a cycle of materialism, the Mysteries became degraded, especially in Asia Minor in Roman times; the symbolism was perverted and even made to palliate licentious practices. What little was left to abolish was formally abolished by Justinian, who closed the mystic and quasi-esoteric Neoplatonic School of Athens in 529.
The ethics of Platonism is intellectualistic. While he questions (Protagoras, 323 ff.) the sophistic teaching that "virtue is knowledge", and stresses the view that the wise man must do what is right, as well as know the right, still the cumulative impetus of his many dialogues on the various virtues and the good life, tends toward the conclusion that the learned, rationally developed soul is the good soul. From this point of view, wisdom is the greatest virtue, (Repub. IV). Fortitude and temperance are necessary virtues of the lower parts of the soul and justice in the individual, as in the state, is the harmonious co-operation of all parts, under the control of reason. Of pleasures, the best are those of the intellect (Philebus); man's greatest happiness is to be found in the contemplation of the highest Ideas (Repub., 583 ff.).
The Golden Age was under the rule of Kronos (Saturnus) who, according to Plato, not believing that men could rule themselves, caused them to be ruled by gods. It was a time of innocence and happiness: truth and justice prevailed, the earth brought forth without toil all that was necessary for mankind, perpetual spring reigned, and the heroes passed away peacefully into spiritual existence. Equivalent to the Hindu satya yuga.
The history of rationalism begins with the Eleitics (q.v.). Pythagoreans and Plato (q.v.) whose theory of the self-sufficiency of reason became the leitmotif of neo-Platonism and idealism (q.v.).
The human soul is considered by Plato to be an immaterial agent, superior in nature to the body and somewhat hindered by the body in the performance of the higher, psychic functions of human life. The tripartite division of the soul becomes an essential teaching of Platonic psychology from the Republic onward. The rational part is highest and is pictured as the ruler of the psychological organism in the well-regulated man. Next in importance is the "spirited" element of the soul, which is the source of action and the seat of the virtue of courage. The lowest part is the concupiscent or acquisitive element, which may be brought under control by the virtue of temperancc The latter two are often combined and called irrational in contrast to the highest part. Sensation is an active function of the soul, by which the soul "feels" the objects of sense through the instrumentality of the body. Particularly in the young, sensation is a necessary prelude to the knowledge of Ideas, but the mature and developed soul must learn to rise above sense perception and must strive for a more direct intuition of intelligible essences. That the soul exists before the body (related to the Pythagorean and, possibly, Orphic doctrine of transmigration) and knows the world of Ideas immediately in this anterior condition, is the foundation of the Platonic theory of reminiscence (Meno, Phaedo, Republic, Phaedrus). Thus the soul is born with true knowledge in it, but the soul, due to the encrustation of bodily cares and interests, cannot easily recall the truths innately, and we might say now, subconsciously present in it. Sometimes sense perceptions aid the soul in the process of reminiscence, and again, as in the famous demonstration of the Pythagorean theorem by the slave boy of the Meno, the questions and suggestions of a teacher provide the necessary stimuli for recollection. The personal immortality of the soul is very clearly taught by Plato in the tale of Er (Repub. X) and, with various attempts at logical demonstration, in the Phaedo. Empirical and physiological psychology is not stressed in Platonism, but there is an approach to it in the descriptions of sense organs and their media in the Timaeus 42 ff.
“The Neo-Platonists were the same as the Philaletheians and the Analogeticists; they were also called Theurgists, and by various other names. They were the Theosophists of the early centuries. Neo-Platonism is Platonic philosophy plus ecstasy, divine Raja-Yoga” (Key 340).
theocrasy ::: n. --> A mixture of the worship of different gods, as of Jehovah and idols.
An intimate union of the soul with God in contemplation, -- an ideal of the Neoplatonists and of some Oriental mystics.
Theodidaktos (Greek) [from theos god + didaktos taught] God-taught; used in Christian writings, e.g., “Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another” (1 Thessal 4:9); also applied to Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the Neoplatonic Eclectic School at Alexandria in the 4th century, because he was taught by divine wisdom.
The origin, nature, and the continued existence or immortality of the soul is widely discussed in Jewish philosophy. As to origin, Saadia believes that each individual soul is created by God -- considering, of course, creation a continuous process -- and that it is of a fine spiritual substance. As to its faculties, he accepts the Aristotelian-Platonic division of the soul into three parts, namely, the appetitive, emotional, and cognitive. Ibn Daud thinks that the soul exists prior to the body potentially, i.e., that the angels endow the body with form; he further considers it a substance but says that it undergoes a process of development. The more it thinks the more perfect it becomes, and the thoughts are called acquired reason, it is this acquired reason, or being perfected which remains immortal. Maimonides does not discuss the origin of the soul, but deals more with its parts. To the three of Saadia he adds the imaginative and the conative. Gersonides' view resembles somewhat that of Ibn Daud, except that he does not speak of its origin and limits himself to the intellect. The intellect, says he, is only a capacity residing in the lower soul, and that capacity is gradually developed by the help of the Active Intellect into an acquired and ultimately into an active reason. All thinkers insist on immortality, but with Saadia and ha-Levi it seems that the entire soul survives, while the Aristotelians assert that only the intellect is immortal. Maimonides is not explicit on the subject, yet we may surmise that even the more liberal thinkers did not subscribe to Averroes' theory of unitas intellectus, and they believed that the immortal intellect is endowed with consciousness of personality. To this trend of connecting immortality with rational reflection Crescas took exception, and asserts that it is not pure thought which leads to survival, but that the soul is immortal because it is a spiritual being, and it is perfected by its love for God and the doing of good.
Theory: (Gr. theoria, viewing) The hypothetical universal aspect of anything. For Plato, a contemplated truth. For Aristotle, pure knowledge as opposed to the practical. An abstraction from practice. The principle from which practice proceeds. Opposite of practice. -- J.K.F. Hypothesis. More loosely: supposition, whatever is problematic, verifiable but not verified. (As opposed to practice) systematically organized knowledge of relatively high generality. (See "the theory of light"). (As opposed to laws and observations): explanation. The deduction of the axioms and theorems of one system from assertions (not necessarily verified) from another system and of a relatively less problematic and more intelligible nature. (Note: Since criteria of what is 'intelligible' and 'problematic' are subjective and liable to fluctuation, any definition of the term is bound to be provisional. It might be advisable to distinguish between laws (general statements in a system), principles (axioms), and theories (methods for deriving the axioms by means of appropriate definitions employing terms from other systems). -- M.B.
Theosebeia (Greek) Reverence for divinity; used by Plato and others as the adjective theosebes (plural theosebeis), “those who know.” It imbodies the principle of occult training that reverence for spiritual things is based on intuition, and hence those who are intuitive or reverent in their attitude towards truth are those who know. Skepticism itself closes the door to the gaining of larger increments of knowledge: there are none so blind as those who refuse to know.
theosophy ::: n. --> Any system of philosophy or mysticism which proposes to attain intercourse with God and superior spirits, and consequent superhuman knowledge, by physical processes, as by the theurgic operations of some ancient Platonists, or by the chemical processes of the German fire philosophers; also, a direct, as distinguished from a revealed, knowledge of God, supposed to be attained by extraordinary illumination; especially, a direct insight into the processes of the divine mind, and the interior relations of the divine nature.
The phenomenon of acquired association has long been recognized by philosophers. Plato cites examples of association by contiguity and similarity (Phaedo, 73-6) and Aristotle in his treatment of memory enumerated similarity, contrast and contiguity as relations which mediate recollection. (De Mem. II 6-11 (451 b)). Hobbes also was aware of the psychological importance of the phenomenon of association and anticipated Locke's distinct!p/n between chance and controlled association (Leviathan (1651), ch. 3; Human Nature (1650), ch. 4). But it was Locke who introduced the phrase "association of ideas" and gave impetus to modern association psychology.
The philosophers, dramatists, and historians who held the Dionysian mythos to be purely allegorical and symbolic take in the great names of antiquity, including Plato, Pythagoras, all the Neoplatonists, the greatest historians, and a few of the early Christian Fathers, notably Clement of Alexandria; Eusebius, Tertullian, Justin, and Augustine, also write of it.
The salient feature of Manichaeism is its uncompromising dualism, for it recognized a world of light and a world of darkness as eternally coeval; and there is a God of light opposed to a hostile Satan. Teachings of the esoteric gnosis as taught by Neoplatonists, Gnostics, and others were materialized, and both doctrine and ritual assumed forms less exacting and therefore better calculated for perpetuation in an age of increasing materialism. It showed little affinity for Christianity or facility for combination with it, and Manichaeism and Christianity may be regarded as Oriental and Occidental products of the same materializing influence transforming and adapting the original gnosis. It has more affinity with Gnostic than with ecclesiastical Christianity, for there was a large amount of truly esoteric thought and teaching in what for centuries passed under the name of Manichaeism.
The second question in value-theory is the question "What things are good? What is good, what is the highest good, etc.;" On this question perhaps the main issue historically is between those who say that the good is pleasure, satisfaction, or some state of feeling, and those who say that the good is virtue, a state of will, or knowledge, a state of the intellect. Holding the good to be pleasure or satisfaction are some of the Sophists, the hedonists (the Cyrenaic, the Epicureans, Hobbes, Hume, Bentham, Mill, Sidgwick, Spencer, Schlick). Holding virtue or knowledge or both to be good or supremely good are Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Neo-Platonists, Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, G. E. Moore, H. Rashdall, J. Laird, W. D. Ross, N. Hartmann.
The system of Aristotle as contrasted with that of Plato, is more scientific, and its tendency is to dispense with the immanence of the divine. The growing naturalistic tendency culminated with Strabo, who professed to need no divine in nature at all. Peripatetic applies to the commentators and exegetists of Aristotle who followed upon Andronicus’ editing of Aristotle’s works in the 1st century BC — although soon after his death the Peripatetic school, like all the other offshoots, merged into what is termed Neoplatonism.
The teachings of the Neoplatonists are essentially those of modern theosophy; the later teachers of the schools laid much stress upon theurgy, and its practical aspect, the application of the teachings to self-development. Though these teachers emphasize the distinction between theurgy or divine magic and its evil counterpart, sorcery or necromancy, in so corrupt an age many deleterious cults supervened upon the withdrawal of the genuine schools.
The term appeared in the later 17th century to name (a) the theory of archetypal Ideas, whether in the original Platonic teaching or as incorporated into Christian Platonic and Scholastic theism; (b) the epistemological doctrine of Descartes and Locke, according to which "ideas," i.e., direct objects of human apprehension, are subjective and privately possessed. Since this latter view put in doubt the very existence of a material world, the term began to be used in the early 18th century for acosmism (according to which the external world is only the projection of our minds), and immaterialism (doctrine of the non-existence of material being). Its use was popularized by Kant, who named his theory of knowledge Critical or Transcendental Idealism, and by his metaphysical followers, the Post-Kantian Idealists.
The Theosophical Societies at present existing in the world are parts of a spiritual and intellectual movement which, known or unknown, has been active in all ages. Indeed, this movement took its rise in the earliest origins of self-conscious humanity. At times this movement has disappeared from sight, during “periods of spiritual barrenness,” as Plato expressed it, yet its work continues, although not always recognized and known. The aims and purposes of the Society are religious, philosophical, and scientific, as well as distinctly humanitarian or philanthropic: it aims to restore to mankind its ancient heritage of wisdom — knowledge of the truths of being — and to inculcate in human hearts and minds the great worth and intrinsic beauty of its lofty ethical code. The Theosophical Society is nonpolitical and nonsectarian. It has members belonging to different races who may or may not be likewise members of other religious or philosophical bodies. It has no creed or dogmas in the modern sense, and its members are essentially searchers and lovers of truth.
theurgy ::: n. --> A divine work; a miracle; hence, magic; sorcery.
A kind of magical science or art developed in Alexandria among the Neoplatonists, and supposed to enable man to influence the will of the gods by means of purification and other sacramental rites.
In later or modern magic, that species of magic in which effects are claimed to be produced by supernatural agency, in distinction from natural magic.
The word became familiar to Greeks in the 3rd century with Ammonius Saccas and the Alexandrian Neoplatonists or Theurgists, who taught of divine emanations, whereby the entire universe as well as humans and all other beings are shown to be descendants of the highest gods. Theosophist is also applied to mystics in later times such as Eckhart, Boehme, and Paracelsus. It was adopted in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky and others associated with her at the founding of the Theosophical Society as the name for the modern form of the archaic wisdom-religion which she promulgated. This wisdom-religion “was ever one and being the last word of possible human knowledge, was, therefore, carefully preserved. It preceded by long ages the Alexandrian Theosophists, reached the modern, and will survive every other religion and philosophy” (Key 7-8).
The works of Plato are chiefly in the form of dialogues, remarkable for their literary as well as for their philosophic qualities. The following list includes all the dialogues recognized as authentic by modern authorities.
Thoth, Thot (Greek) Tehuti (Egyptian) Teḥuti. Egyptian god of wisdom, equivalent to the Greek Hermes, Thoth was often represented as an ibis-headed deity, and also with a human head, especially in his aspect of Aah-Tehuti (the moon god), and as the god of Mendes he is depicted as bull-headed. Although best known in his character of the scribe or recorder of the gods, holding stylus and tablet, this is but another manner of showing that Thoth is the god of wisdom, inventor of science and learning; thus to him is attributed the establishment of the worship of the gods and the hymns and sacrifices, and the author of every work on every branch of knowledge both human and divine. He is described in the texts as “self-created, he to whom none hath given birth; the One; he who reckons in heaven, the counter of the stars; the enumerator and measurer of the earth [cosmic space] and all that is contained therein: the heart of Ra cometh forth in the form of the god Tehuti” — for he represents the heart and tongue of Ra, reason and the mental powers of the god and the utterer of speech. It has been suggested that Thoth is thus the equivalent of the Platonic Logos. Many are his epithets: his best known being “thrice greatest” — in later times becoming Hermes Trismegistus.
Though Socrates, Plato and Aristotle had propounded doctrines of virtues, they were concerned essentially with Good rather than with rightness of action as such. The Stoics were the first to develop and popularize the notion that man has a duty to live virtuously, reasonably and fittingly, regardless of considerations of human happiness. Certain elements in Rabbinical legalism and the Christian Gospel strained in the same direction, notably the concept of the supreme and absolute law of God. But it was Kant who pressed the logic of duty to its final conclusion. The supreme law of duty, the categorical imperative (q.v.), is revealed intuitively by the pure rational will and strives to determine the moral agent to obey only that law which can be willed universally without contradiction, regardless of consequences.
Three senses of "Ockhamism" may be distinguished: Logical, indicating usage of the terminology and technique of logical analysis developed by Ockham in his Summa totius logicae; in particular, use of the concept of supposition (suppositio) in the significative analysis of terms. Epistemological, indicating the thesis that universality is attributable only to terms and propositions, and not to things as existing apart from discourse. Theological, indicating the thesis that no tneological doctrines, such as those of God's existence or of the immortality of the soul, are evident or demonstrable philosophically, so that religious doctrine rests solely on faith, without metaphysical or scientific support. It is in this sense that Luther is often called an Ockhamist. Bibliography: B. Geyer, Ueberwegs Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Phil., Bd. II (11th ed., Berlin 1928), pp. 571-612 and 781-786; N. Abbagnano, Guglielmo di Ockham (Lanciano, Italy, 1931); E. A. Moody, The Logic of William of Ockham (N. Y. & London, 1935); F. Ehrle, Peter von Candia (Muenster, 1925); G. Ritter, Studien zur Spaetscholastik, I-II (Heidelberg, 1921-1922). --E.A.M. Om, aum: (Skr.) Mystic, holy syllable as a symbol for the indefinable Absolute. See Aksara, Vac, Sabda. --K.F.L. Omniscience: In philosophy and theology it means the complete and perfect knowledge of God, of Himself and of all other beings, past, present, and future, or merely possible, as well as all their activities, real or possible, including the future free actions of human beings. --J.J.R. One: Philosophically, not a number but equivalent to unit, unity, individuality, in contradistinction from multiplicity and the mani-foldness of sensory experience. In metaphysics, the Supreme Idea (Plato), the absolute first principle (Neo-platonism), the universe (Parmenides), Being as such and divine in nature (Plotinus), God (Nicolaus Cusanus), the soul (Lotze). Religious philosophy and mysticism, beginning with Indian philosophy (s.v.), has favored the designation of the One for the metaphysical world-ground, the ultimate icility, the world-soul, the principle of the world conceived as reason, nous, or more personally. The One may be conceived as an independent whole or as a sum, as analytic or synthetic, as principle or ontologically. Except by mysticism, it is rarely declared a fact of sensory experience, while its transcendent or transcendental, abstract nature is stressed, e.g., in epistemology where the "I" or self is considered the unitary background of personal experience, the identity of self-consciousness, or the unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifoldness of ideas (Kant). --K.F.L. One-one: A relation R is one-many if for every y in the converse domain there is a unique x such that xRy. A relation R is many-one if for every x in the domain there is a unique y such that xRy. (See the article relation.) A relation is one-one, or one-to-one, if it is at the same time one-many and many-one. A one-one relation is said to be, or to determine, a one-to-one correspondence between its domain and its converse domain. --A.C. On-handedness: (Ger. Vorhandenheit) Things exist in the mode of thereness, lying- passively in a neutral space. A "deficient" form of a more basic relationship, termed at-handedness (Zuhandenheit). (Heidegger.) --H.H. Ontological argument: Name by which later authors, especially Kant, designate the alleged proof for God's existence devised by Anselm of Canterbury. Under the name of God, so the argument runs, everyone understands that greater than which nothing can be thought. Since anything being the greatest and lacking existence is less then the greatest having also existence, the former is not really the greater. The greatest, therefore, has to exist. Anselm has been reproached, already by his contemporary Gaunilo, for unduly passing from the field of logical to the field of ontological or existential reasoning. This criticism has been repeated by many authors, among them Aquinas. The argument has, however, been used, if in a somewhat modified form, by Duns Scotus, Descartes, and Leibniz. --R.A. Ontological Object: (Gr. onta, existing things + logos, science) The real or existing object of an act of knowledge as distinguished from the epistemological object. See Epistemological Object. --L.W. Ontologism: (Gr. on, being) In contrast to psychologism, is called any speculative system which starts philosophizing by positing absolute being, or deriving the existence of entities independently of experience merely on the basis of their being thought, or assuming that we have immediate and certain knowledge of the ground of being or God. Generally speaking any rationalistic, a priori metaphysical doctrine, specifically the philosophies of Rosmini-Serbati and Vincenzo Gioberti. As a philosophic method censored by skeptics and criticists alike, as a scholastic doctrine formerly strongly supported, revived in Italy and Belgium in the 19th century, but no longer countenanced. --K.F.L. Ontology: (Gr. on, being + logos, logic) The theory of being qua being. For Aristotle, the First Philosophy, the science of the essence of things. Introduced as a term into philosophy by Wolff. The science of fundamental principles, the doctrine of the categories. Ultimate philosophy; rational cosmology. Syn. with metaphysics. See Cosmology, First Principles, Metaphysics, Theology. --J.K.F. Operation: "(Lit. operari, to work) Any act, mental or physical, constituting a phase of the reflective process, and performed with a view to acquiring1 knowledge or information about a certain subject-nntter. --A.C.B. In logic, see Operationism. In philosophy of science, see Pragmatism, Scientific Empiricism. Operationism: The doctrine that the meaning of a concept is given by a set of operations. 1. The operational meaning of a term (word or symbol) is given by a semantical rule relating the term to some concrete process, object or event, or to a class of such processes, objectj or events. 2. Sentences formed by combining operationally defined terms into propositions are operationally meaningful when the assertions are testable by means of performable operations. Thus, under operational rules, terms have semantical significance, propositions have empirical significance. Operationism makes explicit the distinction between formal (q.v.) and empirical sentences. Formal propositions are signs arranged according to syntactical rules but lacking operational reference. Such propositions, common in mathematics, logic and syntax, derive their sanction from convention, whereas an empirical proposition is acceptable (1) when its structure obeys syntactical rules and (2) when there exists a concrete procedure (a set of operations) for determining its truth or falsity (cf. Verification). Propositions purporting to be empirical are sometimes amenable to no operational test because they contain terms obeying no definite semantical rules. These sentences are sometimes called pseudo-propositions and are said to be operationally meaningless. They may, however, be 'meaningful" in other ways, e.g. emotionally or aesthetically (cf. Meaning). Unlike a formal statement, the "truth" of an empirical sentence is never absolute and its operational confirmation serves only to increase the degree of its validity. Similarly, the semantical rule comprising the operational definition of a term has never absolute precision. Ordinarily a term denotes a class of operations and the precision of its definition depends upon how definite are the rules governing inclusion in the class. The difference between Operationism and Logical Positivism (q.v.) is one of emphasis. Operationism's stress of empirical matters derives from the fact that it was first employed to purge physics of such concepts as absolute space and absolute time, when the theory of relativity had forced upon physicists the view that space and time are most profitably defined in terms of the operations by which they are measured. Although different methods of measuring length at first give rise to different concepts of length, wherever the equivalence of certain of these measures can be established by other operations, the concepts may legitimately be combined. In psychology the operational criterion of meaningfulness is commonly associated with a behavioristic point of view. See Behaviorism. Since only those propositions which are testable by public and repeatable operations are admissible in science, the definition of such concepti as mind and sensation must rest upon observable aspects of the organism or its behavior. Operational psychology deals with experience only as it is indicated by the operation of differential behavior, including verbal report. Discriminations, or the concrete differential reactions of organisms to internal or external environmental states, are by some authors regarded as the most basic of all operations. For a discussion of the role of operational definition in phvsics. see P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics, (New York, 1928) and The Nature of Physical Theory (Princeton, 1936). "The extension of operationism to psychology is discussed by C. C. Pratt in The Logic of Modem Psychology (New York. 1939.) For a discussion and annotated bibliography relating to Operationism and Logical Positivism, see S. S. Stevens, Psychology and the Science of Science, Psychol. Bull., 36, 1939, 221-263. --S.S.S. Ophelimity: Noun derived from the Greek, ophelimos useful, employed by Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) in economics as the equivalent of utility, or the capacity to provide satisfaction. --J.J.R. Opinion: (Lat. opinio, from opinor, to think) An hypothesis or proposition entertained on rational grounds but concerning which doubt can reasonably exist. A belief. See Hypothesis, Certainty, Knowledge. --J.K.F- Opposition: (Lat. oppositus, pp. of oppono, to oppose) Positive actual contradiction. One of Aristotle's Post-predicaments. In logic any contrariety or contradiction, illustrated by the "Square of Opposition". Syn. with: conflict. See Logic, formal, § 4. --J.K.F. Optimism: (Lat. optimus, the best) The view inspired by wishful thinking, success, faith, or philosophic reflection, that the world as it exists is not so bad or even the best possible, life is good, and man's destiny is bright. Philosophically most persuasively propounded by Leibniz in his Theodicee, according to which God in his wisdom would have created a better world had he known or willed such a one to exist. Not even he could remove moral wrong and evil unless he destroyed the power of self-determination and hence the basis of morality. All systems of ethics that recognize a supreme good (Plato and many idealists), subscribe to the doctrines of progressivism (Turgot, Herder, Comte, and others), regard evil as a fragmentary view (Josiah Royce et al.) or illusory, or believe in indemnification (Henry David Thoreau) or melioration (Emerson), are inclined optimistically. Practically all theologies advocating a plan of creation and salvation, are optimistic though they make the good or the better dependent on moral effort, right thinking, or belief, promising it in a future existence. Metaphysical speculation is optimistic if it provides for perfection, evolution to something higher, more valuable, or makes room for harmonies or a teleology. See Pessimism. --K.F.L. Order: A class is said to be partially ordered by a dyadic relation R if it coincides with the field of R, and R is transitive and reflexive, and xRy and yRx never both hold when x and y are different. If in addition R is connected, the class is said to be ordered (or simply ordered) by R, and R is called an ordering relation. Whitehcid and Russell apply the term serial relation to relations which are transitive, irreflexive, and connected (and, in consequence, also asymmetric). However, the use of serial relations in this sense, instead ordering relations as just defined, is awkward in connection with the notion of order for unit classes. Examples: The relation not greater than among leal numbers is an ordering relation. The relation less than among real numbers is a serial relation. The real numbers are simply ordered by the former relation. In the algebra of classes (logic formal, § 7), the classes are partially ordered by the relation of class inclusion. For explanation of the terminology used in making the above definitions, see the articles connexity, reflexivity, relation, symmetry, transitivity. --A.C. Order type: See relation-number. Ordinal number: A class b is well-ordered by a dyadic relation R if it is ordered by R (see order) and, for every class a such that a ⊂ b, there is a member x of a, such that xRy holds for every member y of a; and R is then called a well-ordering relation. The ordinal number of a class b well-ordered by a relation R, or of a well-ordering relation R, is defined to be the relation-number (q. v.) of R. The ordinal numbers of finite classes (well-ordered by appropriate relations) are called finite ordinal numbers. These are 0, 1, 2, ... (to be distinguished, of course, from the finite cardinal numbers 0, 1, 2, . . .). The first non-finite (transfinite or infinite) ordinal number is the ordinal number of the class of finite ordinal numbers, well-ordered in their natural order, 0, 1, 2, . . .; it is usually denoted by the small Greek letter omega. --A.C. G. Cantor, Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers, translated and with an introduction by P. E. B. Jourdain, Chicago and London, 1915. (new ed. 1941); Whitehead and Russell, Princtpia Mathematica. vol. 3. Orexis: (Gr. orexis) Striving; desire; the conative aspect of mind, as distinguished from the cognitive and emotional (Aristotle). --G.R.M.. Organicism: A theory of biology that life consists in the organization or dynamic system of the organism. Opposed to mechanism and vitalism. --J.K.F. Organism: An individual animal or plant, biologically interpreted. A. N. Whitehead uses the term to include also physical bodies and to signify anything material spreading through space and enduring in time. --R.B.W. Organismic Psychology: (Lat. organum, from Gr. organon, an instrument) A system of theoretical psychology which construes the structure of the mind in organic rather than atomistic terms. See Gestalt Psychology; Psychological Atomism. --L.W. Organization: (Lat. organum, from Gr. organon, work) A structured whole. The systematic unity of parts in a purposive whole. A dynamic system. Order in something actual. --J.K.F. Organon: (Gr. organon) The title traditionally given to the body of Aristotle's logical treatises. The designation appears to have originated among the Peripatetics after Aristotle's time, and expresses their view that logic is not a part of philosophy (as the Stoics maintained) but rather the instrument (organon) of philosophical inquiry. See Aristotelianism. --G.R.M. In Kant. A system of principles by which pure knowledge may be acquired and established. Cf. Fr. Bacon's Novum Organum. --O.F.K. Oriental Philosophy: A general designation used loosely to cover philosophic tradition exclusive of that grown on Greek soil and including the beginnings of philosophical speculation in Egypt, Arabia, Iran, India, and China, the elaborate systems of India, Greater India, China, and Japan, and sometimes also the religion-bound thought of all these countries with that of the complex cultures of Asia Minor, extending far into antiquity. Oriental philosophy, though by no means presenting a homogeneous picture, nevertheless shares one characteristic, i.e., the practical outlook on life (ethics linked with metaphysics) and the absence of clear-cut distinctions between pure speculation and religious motivation, and on lower levels between folklore, folk-etymology, practical wisdom, pre-scientiiic speculation, even magic, and flashes of philosophic insight. Bonds with Western, particularly Greek philosophy have no doubt existed even in ancient times. Mutual influences have often been conjectured on the basis of striking similarities, but their scientific establishment is often difficult or even impossible. Comparative philosophy (see especially the work of Masson-Oursel) provides a useful method. Yet a thorough treatment of Oriental Philosophy is possible only when the many languages in which it is deposited have been more thoroughly studied, the psychological and historical elements involved in the various cultures better investigated, and translations of the relevant documents prepared not merely from a philological point of view or out of missionary zeal, but by competent philosophers who also have some linguistic training. Much has been accomplished in this direction in Indian and Chinese Philosophy (q.v.). A great deal remains to be done however before a definitive history of Oriental Philosophy may be written. See also Arabian, and Persian Philosophy. --K.F.L. Origen: (185-254) The principal founder of Christian theology who tried to enrich the ecclesiastic thought of his day by reconciling it with the treasures of Greek philosophy. Cf. Migne PL. --R.B.W. Ormazd: (New Persian) Same as Ahura Mazdah (q.v.), the good principle in Zoroastrianism, and opposed to Ahriman (q.v.). --K.F.L. Orphic Literature: The mystic writings, extant only in fragments, of a Greek religious-philosophical movement of the 6th century B.C., allegedly started by the mythical Orpheus. In their mysteries, in which mythology and rational thinking mingled, the Orphics concerned themselves with cosmogony, theogony, man's original creation and his destiny after death which they sought to influence to the better by pure living and austerity. They taught a symbolism in which, e.g., the relationship of the One to the many was clearly enunciated, and believed in the soul as involved in reincarnation. Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Plato were influenced by them. --K.F.L. Ortega y Gasset, Jose: Born in Madrid, May 9, 1883. At present in Buenos Aires, Argentine. Son of Ortega y Munillo, the famous Spanish journalist. Studied at the College of Jesuits in Miraflores and at the Central University of Madrid. In the latter he presented his Doctor's dissertation, El Milenario, in 1904, thereby obtaining his Ph.D. degree. After studies in Leipzig, Berlin, Marburg, under the special influence of Hermann Cohen, the great exponent of Kant, who taught him the love for the scientific method and awoke in him the interest in educational philosophy, Ortega came to Spain where, after the death of Nicolas Salmeron, he occupied the professorship of metaphysics at the Central University of Madrid. The following may be considered the most important works of Ortega y Gasset: Meditaciones del Quijote, 1914; El Espectador, I-VIII, 1916-1935; El Tema de Nuestro Tiempo, 1921; España Invertebrada, 1922; Kant, 1924; La Deshumanizacion del Arte, 1925; Espiritu de la Letra, 1927; La Rebelion de las Masas, 1929; Goethe desde Adentio, 1934; Estudios sobre el Amor, 1939; Ensimismamiento y Alteracion, 1939; El Libro de las Misiones, 1940; Ideas y Creencias, 1940; and others. Although brought up in the Marburg school of thought, Ortega is not exactly a neo-Kantian. At the basis of his Weltanschauung one finds a denial of the fundamental presuppositions which characterized European Rationalism. It is life and not thought which is primary. Things have a sense and a value which must be affirmed independently. Things, however, are to be conceived as the totality of situations which constitute the circumstances of a man's life. Hence, Ortega's first philosophical principle: "I am myself plus my circumstances". Life as a problem, however, is but one of the poles of his formula. Reason is the other. The two together function, not by dialectical opposition, but by necessary coexistence. Life, according to Ortega, does not consist in being, but rather, in coming to be, and as such it is of the nature of direction, program building, purpose to be achieved, value to be realized. In this sense the future as a time dimension acquires new dignity, and even the present and the past become articulate and meaning-full only in relation to the future. Even History demands a new point of departure and becomes militant with new visions. --J.A.F. Orthodoxy: Beliefs which are declared by a group to be true and normative. Heresy is a departure from and relative to a given orthodoxy. --V.S. Orthos Logos: See Right Reason. Ostensible Object: (Lat. ostendere, to show) The object envisaged by cognitive act irrespective of its actual existence. See Epistemological Object. --L.W. Ostensive: (Lat. ostendere, to show) Property of a concept or predicate by virtue of which it refers to and is clarified by reference to its instances. --A.C.B. Ostwald, Wilhelm: (1853-1932) German chemist. Winner of the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1909. In Die Uberwindung des wissenschaftlichen Materialistmus and in Naturphilosophie, his two best known works in the field of philosophy, he advocates a dynamic theory in opposition to materialism and mechanism. All properties of matter, and the psychic as well, are special forms of energy. --L.E.D. Oupnekhat: Anquetil Duperron's Latin translation of the Persian translation of 50 Upanishads (q.v.), a work praised by Schopenhauer as giving him complete consolation. --K.F.L. Outness: A term employed by Berkeley to express the experience of externality, that is the ideas of space and things placed at a distance. Hume used it in the sense of distance Hamilton understood it as the state of being outside of consciousness in a really existing world of material things. --J.J.R. Overindividual: Term used by H. Münsterberg to translate the German überindividuell. The term is applied to any cognitive or value object which transcends the individual subject. --L.W. P
Thrones An angelic group in the Christian celestial hierarchy, as outlined by the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The Thrones rank third in the ninefold scheme, being preceded by the Seraphim and Cherubim; the second and intermediate triad is formed of Dominions, Virtues, and Powers; while the third triad is formed of Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. This scheme was derived from Hebrew angelology, which comes from the Chaldean; although this Christian angelic scheme has been philosophically powerfully affected by Neoplatonic and neo-Pythagorean thought. “They who are called in Theology ‘the Thrones,’ and are the ‘Seat of God,’ must be the first incarnated men on Earth” (SD 2:80). The Zohar states that the Benei ’Elohim (sons of god) belong to the tenth subdivision of the Thrones. The ancient Syrians defined their world of Rulers similarly to the Chaldeans: the lowest world was the sublunary, our earth, ruled by Angels; then Mercury, Archangels; Venus, Principalities; Sun, Powers; Mars, Virtues; Jupiter, Dominions; and Saturn, Thrones.
Thumoeides (Greek) [from thymos passional soul + eidos form] The name given by Plato to a division of the psychomental nature, the animal or passional soul, kama-manas, in contrast with a still lower division of kama-manas which he called epithumetikon (appetitive, or that which has appetite for). Above both these, which together comprise what other Greek philosophers called the psyche, is the nous, the seat of inspiration, intuition, the highest intellection, and similar noble attributes or faculties, corresponding to the buddhi-manas or atma-buddhi-manas.
Timaeus (Greek) A dialogue of Plato in which the Pythagorean philosopher Timaeus gives an account of aspects of cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis. Timaeus himself is stated to have written what was regarded by Pythagoras as a book of great worth entitled Peri Psyche Kosmou Kai Physeos (On the Soul of the World and of Nature).
Tiryns A city in Argolis, belonging to the Achaean age, said to have been founded by Proetus, brother of Acrisius, who was succeeded by Perseus; and the scene of the early life of Heracles. The site was excavated by Schliemann and Dorpfeld, and an ancient palace discovered. The walls, together with cyclopean masonry in other places, were constructed under the guidance of very late Atlantean initiates, who colonized parts of Europe when it had begun to arise from under the waters of the Atlantic, and when their own vast continental system had largely disappeared. Actually, it may be that the builders of the so-called cyclopean stonework or masonry structures in Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor, and perhaps elsewhere, were immigrants from Plato’s Atlantis or Poseidonis, as related in the Timaeus, and referred to by other Greek and Roman writers.
To be an Aristotelian under such extremely complicated circumstances was the problem that St. Thomas set himself. What he did reduced itself fundamentally to three points: (a) He showed the Platonic orientation of St. Augustine's thought, the limitations that St. Augustine himself placed on his Platonism, and he inferred from this that St. Augustine could not be made the patron of the highly elaborated and sophisticated Platonism that an Ibn Gebirol expounded in his Fons Vitae or an Avicenna in his commentaries on the metaphysics and psychology of Aristotle. (b) Having singled out Plato as the thinker to search out behind St. Augustine, and having really eliminated St. Augustine from the Platonic controversies of the thirteenth century, St. Thomas is then concerned to diagnose the Platonic inspiration of the various commentators of Aristotle, and to separate what is to him the authentic Aristotle from those Platonic aberrations. In this sense, the philosophical activity of St. Thomas in the thirteenth century can be understood as a systematic critique and elimination of Platonism in metaphysics, psychology and epistemology. The Platonic World of Ideas is translated into a theory of substantial principles in a world of stable and intelligible individuals; the Platonic man, who was scarcely more than an incarcerated spirit, became a rational animal, containing within his being an interior economy which presented in a rational system his mysterious nature as a reality existing on the confines of two worlds, spirit and matter; the Platonic theory of knowledge (at least in the version of the Meno rather than that of the later dialogues where the doctrine of division is more prominent), which was regularly beset with the difficulty of accounting for the origin and the truth of knowledge, was translated into a theory of abstraction in which sensible experience enters as a necessary moment into the explanation of the origin, the growth and the use of knowledge, and in which the intelligible structure of sensible being becomes the measure of the truth of knowledge and of knowing.
To On (Greek) [from to the + einai to be] That which is, the reality as opposed to the seeming; the essence or real nature of a thing, used by Plato for the ineffable All of the universe, equivalent to the First Logos.
TUTOR ::: A Scripting language on PLATO systems from CDC.[The TUTOR Language, Bruce Sherwood, Control Data, 1977].
TUTOR A Scripting language on {PLATO} systems from {CDC}. ["The TUTOR Language", Bruce Sherwood, Control Data, 1977].
twirling baton ::: (graphics) The overstrike sequence -/|\-/|\- which produces an animated twirling baton. If you output it with a single backspace between characters, the baton spins from left to right. If you output BS SP BS BS between characters, the batton spins from right to left.The twirling baton was a popular component of animated signature files on the pioneering PLATO educational time-sharing system. The archie Internet service is perhaps the best-known baton program today; it uses the twirling baton as an idler indicating that the program is working on a query.[Jargon File] (1995-02-23)
twirling baton "graphics" The overstrike sequence -/|\-/|\- which produces an animated twirling baton. If you output it with a single {backspace} between characters, the baton spins in place. If you output the sequence BS SP between characters, the baton spins from left to right. If you output BS SP BS BS between characters, the batton spins from right to left. The twirling baton was a popular component of animated signature files on the pioneering {PLATO} educational {time-sharing} system. The "{archie}" {Internet} service is perhaps the best-known baton program today; it uses the twirling baton as an idler indicating that the program is working on a query. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-23)
Unity of Science, Unified Science: See Scientific Empiricism IIB. Universal: (Lat. universalia, a universal) That term which can be applied throughout the universe. A possibility of discrete being. According to Plato, an idea (which see). According to Aristotle, that which by its nature is fit to be predicated of many. For medieval realists, an entity whose being is independent of its mental apprehension or actual exemplification. (See: Realism). For medieval nominalists, a general notion or concept having no reality of its own in the realm of being (see Nominalism). In psychology: a concept. See Concept, General, Possibility. Opposite of: particular. -- J.K.F.
Universals A philosophical and logical term, used in opposition to particulars. For example, matter may be called a universal, and material bodies may be called particulars; or life may be a universal, and living beings particulars. The universal is sometimes defined as that which is left when all particularities or differences have ceased to be. The question arises as to which shall be considered real. If the particulars are realities, then the universals become mere abstract ideas: thus mankind would be merely an indefinite number of human beings. But if the universal is real, then we regard particular humans as being each a manifestation on respective lower planes of man, the Heavenly Man or Qabbalistic ’Adam Qadmon. Again, if living beings are real, then life becomes an abstraction. But if life is a real entity in itself, then living beings are its particular manifestations. The philosophy which starts with universals and proceeds to particulars is called deductive: it is that of theosophy and of Pythagoras and Plato. The inductive philosophy of Aristotle and Francis Bacon proceeds from particulars to universals. Space, motion, duration, intelligence, etc., in themselves abstract realities, are regarded by theosophy as universals, whereas from the opposite viewpoint they appear as only abstractions from experience. The deductive method has its uses in applied science, but in fact it tacitly assumes certain universals and reasons back to them from particulars.
Until the mid-twentieth century, the principal extant Gnostic writings were quotes in surviving attacks against the Gnostics made by early Christian writers, the Pistis Sophia and “two Books of Jeu,” and the Neoplatonic Corpus Hermeticum (Hermes Trimegistos, Divine Pymander, etc.). With the discovery of the Nag-Hammadi scrolls, many more Gnostic writings have come to light and scholars are gaining a wider understanding of both Christian and non-Christian Gnosticism.
Utopia: (Gr. ou-topos, the Land of Nowhere) An expression used by Sir Thomas More in his book "De optimo reipublicae statu deque nova insular Utopia," 1516, which in the form of a novel described an ideal state. Phto's Politeia is the first famous Utopia. Plato, however, hid several predecessors and followers in this type of literature. From the Renaissance on the most famous Utopias besides Thomas More's book were: Tommaso Campanella: The City of the Sun, 1612; Francis Bacon, New Atlantis, 1627; Cabet, Voyage en Icarie, 1842; Bellamy, Looking Backward, 1888. -- W.E.
Virtues One degree in the celestial hierarchy of Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite, whose doctrines, arising about the 4th or 5th century, have exercised a great influence on Christian thought. He divides the heavenly host into three triads: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. As a hierarchy of emanating powers, this system is allied to, and in large part derivative from, Neoplatonic teachings of the time, as well as having strong elements of Pythagorean thought. The Virtues correspond to the planet Mars, according to the hierarchical scheme of the Syrians. See also ANGELOLOGY
“was founded by Iamblichus among certain Alexandrian Platonists. The priests, however, who were attached to the temples of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and Greece, and whose business it was to evoke the gods during the celebration of the Mysteries, were known by this name, or its equivalent in other tongues, from the earliest archaic period. Spirits (but not those of the dead, the evocation of which was called Necromancy) were made visible to the eyes of mortals. Thus a theurgist had to be a hierophant and an expert in the esoteric learning of the Sanctuaries of all great countries. The Neo-platonists of the school of Iamblichus were called theurgists, for they performed the so-called ‘ceremonial magic,’ and evoked the simulacra or the images of the ancient heroes, ‘gods,’ and daimonia (divine, spiritual entities). In the rare cases when the presence of a tangible and visible ‘spirit’ was required, the theurgist had to furnish the weird apparition with a portion of his own flesh and blood — he had to perform the theopaea, or the ‘creation of gods,’ by a mysterious process well known to the old, and perhaps some of the modern, Tantrikas and initiated Brahmans of India” (TG 329-30).
water ::: Water Water is one of the four classical elements in Alchemy. It is considered to be both cold and wet, and according to Plato is associated with the icosahedron, a twenty-sided polyhedron where all sides are equidimensional.
What St. Thomas appears to have insisted on most in thus using Aristotle as a pillar of his own thought was the rehabilitation of man and the universe as stable realities and genuine causes. This insistence has been by some called his naturalism. Against the tendency of thirteenth century Augustinians to disparage the native ability of the human reason to know truth, St. Thomas insisted on the capacity of the reason to act as a genuine and sufficient cause of true knowledge within the natural order. Against the occasionalistic tendencies of Avicennian thought, which reduced both man and the world of change around him to the role of passive spectators of the sole activity of God (i.e., the intellectus agens), St. Thomas asserted the subordinate but autonomous causality of man in the production of knowledge and the genuine causality of sensible realities in the production of change. Ultimately, St. Thomas rests his defense of man and other beings as efficacious causes in their own order on the doctrine of creation; just as he shows that the occasionalism of Avicenna is ultimately based on the Neo-platonic doctrine of emanation.
Wheat Brought to earth by Lords of Wisdom from other spheres, as were all the grains, and indeed all plants and animals. Yet wheat is said not to be known in the wild state nor to have been developed from any grass. Plato speaks of inventors — gods and demigods incarnate in human beings — who appeared successively among the races of mankind after their divine rulers had departed, and discovered fire, wheat, and wine. The kabiri and also Isis are said to have brought wheat, as is Isis. In Egyptian symbology the Osirified defunct becomes Khem, who gleans the field of Aaru — i.e., “he gleans either his reward or punishment, as that field is the celestial locality (Devachan) where the defunct is given wheat, the food of divine justice” (SD 1:221).
Whether the Greek logos or Latin verbum is used, the philosophical meaning is the same and arose from the fact that a word is the audible expression of the inner, ever-active but silent idea. Hence cosmic spirit, the field of cosmic ideation, by its very activity of producing cosmic thought manifests itself as the word — or words. A person has a thought to which he gives utterance as a word; similarly the cosmic Logos was metaphorically spoken of in Greek philosophy, especially by the Platonists, as the cosmic Word of the secret idea or thought of the cosmic intelligence. Parallel also to the Hindu Vach.
With reference to the approach to the central reality of religion, God, and man's relation to it, types of the Philosophy of Religion may be distinguished, leaving out of account negative (atheism), skeptical and cynical (Xenophanes, Socrates, Voltaire), and agnostic views, although insertions by them are not to be separated from the history of religious consciousness. Fundamentalism, mainly a theological and often a Church phenomenon of a revivalist nature, philosophizes on the basis of unquestioning faith, seeking to buttress it by logical argument, usually taking the form of proofs of the existence of God (see God). Here belong all historic religions, Christianity in its two principal forms, Catholicism with its Scholastic philosophy and Protestantism with its greatly diversified philosophies, the numerous religions of Hinduism, such as Brahmanism, Shivaism and Vishnuism, the religion of Judaism, and Mohammedanism. Mysticism, tolerated by Church and philosophy, is less concerned with proof than with description and personal experience, revealing much of the psychological factors involved in belief and speculation. Indian philosophy is saturated with mysticism since its inception, Sufism is the outstanding form of Arab mysticism, while the greatest mystics in the West are Plotinus, Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Ruysbroek, Thomas a Kempis, and Jacob Bohme. Metaphysics incorporates religious concepts as thought necessities. Few philosophers have been able to avoid the concept of God in their ontology, or any reference to the relation of God to man in their ethics. So, e.g., Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, Schelling, and especially Hegel who made the investigation of the process of the Absolute the essence of the Philosophy of Religion.
World soul: 1. An intelligent, animating, indwelling principle of the cosmos, conceived as its organizing or integrating cause, or as the source of its motion; thus posited on the analogy of the hurnan soul and body. Such a doctrine, common among primitive peoples, was taught by Plato, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Renaissance Platonism, Bruno, etc.
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1 James V. Schall
1 Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola
1 Georg C Lichtenberg
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1 Dr Robert A Hatch
1 Catherine Pickstock
1 Arthur Lovejoy
1 Aquinas ST I q110 a1
1 Sri Aurobindo
1 Saint Augustine of Hippo
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1:God ever geometrizes. ~ Plato, #KEYS
2:Look for the divine in all things. ~ Plato, #KEYS
3:He was a wise man who invented God. ~ Plato, #KEYS
4:Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~ Plato, #KEYS
5:The prisoner grows to love his chains. ~ Plato, #KEYS
6:Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil. ~ Plato, #KEYS
7:the unseen, can make the soul look upwards. ~ Plato, #KEYS
8:The universe is comprised of sixes and fours. ~ Plato, #KEYS
9:At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
~ Plato,#KEYS
10:The first and best victory is to conquer self.
~ Plato,#KEYS
11:No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
~ Plato,#KEYS
12:The beginning is the most important part of the work. ~ Plato, #KEYS
13:The beginning is the most important part of the work.
~ Plato,#KEYS
14:Make intelligent use of the Muses as an aid to the soul. ~ Plato, #KEYS
15:A true artist is someone who gives birth to a new reality. ~ Plato, #KEYS
16:Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
~ Plato,#KEYS
17:All loves should be simply stepping stones to the love of God.
~ Plato,#KEYS
18:The love of God is the root and foundation of Plato's philosophy. ~ Simone Weil, 'God in Plato', #KEYS
19:The right question is usually more important than the right answer.
~ Plato,#KEYS
20:Everything that deceives may be said to enchant. ~ Plato, Republic, III, 413-C, #KEYS
21:The older I get, the more it looks like Plato was onto something.… ~ Jan Zwicky, A Ship from Delos, #KEYS
22:The true creator is necessity, which is the mother of our invention.
~ Plato,#KEYS
23:Who are the true philosophers? Those whose passion is to love the truth. ~ Plato, #KEYS
24:Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand. ~ Plato, #KEYS
25:We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.
~ Plato,#KEYS
26:The Good is not Being, but is beyond Being in rank and power. ~ Plato, Republic 509b8-10, #KEYS
27:To begin is the most important part of any quest and by far the most courageous." ~ Plato, #KEYS
28:As it is, the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him.
~ Plato,#KEYS
29:There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain. ~ Plato, #KEYS
30:The passionate are like men standing on their heads, they see all things the wrong way. ~ Plato, #KEYS
31:The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil ment
~ Plato,#KEYS
32:A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something." ~ Plato, #KEYS
33:If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.
~ Plato,#KEYS
34:We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
~ Plato,#KEYS
35:The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
~ Plato,#KEYS
36:Those who think that Aristotle disagrees with Plato disagree with me, who make a concordant philosophy of both. ~ Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola, On Being and the One, #KEYS
37:The Great spiritual geniuses, whether it was Moses, Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Jesus, or Emerson... have taught man to look within himself to find God.
~ Ernest Holmes,#KEYS
38:Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom.
~ Plato,#KEYS
39:Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. ~ Plato, #KEYS
40:The city in which those who are going to rule are least eager to rule is necessarily governed best and with the least divisiveness. ~ Plato, Republic 520d, #KEYS
41:Those, on the contrary, who contemplate the immutable essence of things, have knowledge and not opinions. ~ Plato: Republic, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
42:Philosophy is free thought applied to the conditions of possibility of politics and history, as we have known it since Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Ethics and Politics. ~ Paul Ricoeur, #KEYS
43:The wisdom of Plato is not a philosophy, a search for God by means of human reason.... The wisdom of Plato is nothing other than an orientation of the soul towards grace. ~ Simone Weil, 'God in Plato', #KEYS
44:Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
45:Someone who's free ought not to learn any learnable thing slavishly. Forced labor performed by the body doesn't make the body any worse, but no forced study abides in a soul. ~ Plato, Republic vii.536e, #KEYS
46:...if a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest. ~ Plato, The Republic and Other Works, #KEYS
47:Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.
~ Plato,#KEYS
48:If the soul is immortal, we must care for it, not only in respect to this time, which we call life, but in respect to all time, and if we neglect it, the danger now appears to be terrible. ~ Plato, Phaedo, 107c, #KEYS
49:A focus on inconsequential things is presumably what's most contrary to a soul that intent on constantly reaching out toward the whole that comprises all of what is divine and human together. ~ Plato, Republic 486a, #KEYS
50:He who is only an athlete is too crude, too vulgar, too much a savage. He who is a scholar only is too soft, to effeminate. The ideal citizen is the scholar athlete, the man of thought and the man of action.
~ Plato,#KEYS
51:Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child's natural bent. ~ Plato, #KEYS
52:All the virtues have a copy of themselves in the morality of the great beast [that is, the crowd], except humility. This is the key to the supernatural. Thus it is mysterious, transcendent, indefinable, and unrepresentable. ~ Simone Weil, 'God in Plato', #KEYS
53:Therefore, we may consequently state that: this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related. ~ Plato, Timaeus, #KEYS
54:But in fact the one which is really beautiful and delicate, flawless and endowed with every blessing, is the beloved object, while the one which loves is by contrast of an entirely different character, such as I have just described. ~ Plato, Symposium, 204c, #KEYS
55:Is not the whole of human life turned upside down; and are we not doing, as would appear, in everything the opposite of what we ought to be doing?" ~ Plato, (428/427 or 424/423 - 348/347 BC) Athenian philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, Wikipedia., #KEYS
56:Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his enemies, and win in the contest." ~ Plato, (428/427 or 424/423 - 348/347) Greek philosopher, Wikipedia., #KEYS
57:Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as none but the temperate can carry. ~ Plato, Phaedrus, sec. 279, #KEYS
58:There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric....But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman. ~ Plato, #KEYS
59:For all the series of the ruling Gods (θεοὶ ἄρχοντες), are collected into the intellectual fabrication as into a summit, and subsist about it. And as all the fountains are the progeny of the intelligible father, and are filled from him with intelligible union, thus likewise, all the orders of the principles or rulers, are suspended according to nature from the demiurgus, and participate from thence of an intellectual life. ~ Proclus, The Theology of Plato, #KEYS
60:Paul Brunton in his book A Search in Secret Egypt repeatedly speaks of Atlantis. I always thought that belief in Atlantis was only an imagination of the Theosophists. Is there any truth in the belief?
Atlantis is not an imagination. Plato heard of this submerged continent from Egyptian sources and geologists are also agreed that such a submersion was one of the great facts of earth history. 22 June 1936 ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art,#KEYS
61:I often think . . . that the bookstores that will save civilization are not online, nor on campuses, nor named Borders, Barnes & Noble, Dalton, or Crown. They are the used bookstores, in which, for a couple of hundred dollars, one can still find, with some diligence, the essential books of our culture, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Plato, Augustine, and Pascal. ~ James V. Schall, On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs: Teaching, Writing, Playing, Believing, Lecturing, Philosophizing, Singing, Dancing, #KEYS
62:The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each other, insatiable as they are. ~ Plato, #KEYS
63:Arguably, the best advice for a serious student is to read a few hundred carefully selected books. An orgy of reading 30 or 40 first-rate books in a month ranks at the top of the usual list of human pleasures. If you wish, as an undergraduate, you could do it. You have time and energy, and with luck, you have the curiosity and courage to risk a month or two. Read Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Pascal, Voltaire, Berkeley, Hegel, Marx, and Kanetz. Or you could just play Frisbee on the Plaza of the Americas. Life is choice and there is much to learn. Not making a choice is a choice. ~ Dr Robert A Hatch, How to Study, #KEYS
64:In Plato's Symposium, the priestess Diotima teaches Socrates that love is not a deity, but rather a 'great daemon' (202d). She goes on to explain that 'everything daemonic is between divine and mortal' (202d-e), and she describes daemons as 'interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above...' (202e). In Plato's Apology of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have a daimonion (literally, a 'divine something')[16] that frequently warned him-in the form of a 'voice'-against mistakes but never told him what to do.
~ Wikipedia, Daemon,#KEYS
65:To take the last issue, the difficult issue, first. The first great Dharma systems, East and West, all arose, without exception, in the so-called "axial period" (Karl Jaspers), that rather extraordinary period beginning around the 6th century B.C. (plus or minus several centuries), a period that saw the birth of Gautama Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Moses, Plato, Patanjali—a period that would soon give way, over the next few centuries, to include Ashvaghosa, Nagarjuna, Plotinus, Jesus, Philo, Valentinus…. Virtually all of the major tenets of the perennial philosophy were first laid down during this amazing era (in Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity….) ~ Ken Wilber, Integral Life, right-bucks, #KEYS
66:I too have been into the underworld, like Odysseus, and will often be there again; and I have not only sacrificed just rams to be able to talk with the dead, but my own blood as well. There have been four pairs who did not refuse themselves to me: Epicurus and Montaigne, Goethe and Spinoza, Plato and Rousseau, Pascal and Schopenhauer. With these I had come to terms when I have wandered long alone, and from them will I accept judgment. May the living forgive me if they sometimes appear to me as shades, so pale and ill-humored, so restless and, alas!, so lusting for life. Eternal liveliness is what counts beyond eternal life. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Human All Too Human, "Assorted Opinions and Maxims," §408 (edited)., #KEYS
67:But in what circumstances does our reason teach us that there is vice or virtue? How does this continual mystery work? Tell me, inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago, Africans, Canadians and you, Plato, Cicero, Epictetus! You all feel equally that it is better to give away the superfluity of your bread, your rice or your manioc to the indigent than to kill him or tear out his eyes. It is evident to all on earth that an act of benevolence is better than an outrage, that gentleness is preferable to wrath. We have merely to use our Reason in order to discern the shades which distinguish right and wrong. Good and evil are often close neighbours and our passions confuse them. Who will enlighten us? We ourselves when we are calm. ~ Voltaire, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
68:'And I protested. ''What do you mean, Diotima? Are you actually saying Love is ugly and bad?''
''Watch what you say!'' she exclaimed. ''Do you really think that if something is not beautiful it has to be ugly?''
''I certainly do''.
''And something that is not wise is ignorant, I suppose? Have you not noticed that there is something in between wisdom and ignorance?''
''And what is that?''
''Correct belief. 148 I am talking about having a correct belief without being able to give a reason for it. Don't you realise that this state cannot be called knowing - for how can it be knowledge 149 if it lacks reason?
And it is not ignorance either - for how can it be ignorance if it has hit upon the truth? Correct belief clearly occupies just such a middle state, between wisdom 150 and ignorance''. ~ Plato, Symposium, 202a,#KEYS
69:To The Works Of:
Aristotle, Cassius J. Keyser, Eric T. Bell, G. W. Leibnitz, Eugen Bleuler, J. Locke, Niels Bohr, Jacques Loeb, George Boole, H. A. Lorentz, Max Born, Ernst Mach, Louis De Brogue, J. C. Maxwell, Georg Cantor, Adolf Meyer, Ernst Cassirer, Hermann Minkowsja, Charles M. Child, Isaac Newton, C. Darwin, Ivan Pavlov, Rene Descartes, Giuseppe Peano, P. A. M. Dirac, Max Planck, A. S. Eddington, Plato, Albert Einstein, H. Poincare, Euclid, M. Faraday, Sigmund Freud, Josiah Royce, Karl F. Gauss, G. Y. Rainich, G. B. Riemann, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Graham, Ernest Rutherford, Arthur Haas, E. Schrodinger, Wm. R. Hamilton, C. S. Sherrington, Henry Head, Socrates, Werner Heisenberg, Arnold Sommerfeld, C. Judson Herrick, Oswald Veblen, E. V. Huntington, Wm. Alanson White, Smith Ely Jeluffe, Alfred N. Whitehead, Ludwig Wittgenstein
Which Have Creatly Influenced My Enquiry
This System Is Dedicated ~ Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity,#KEYS
70:Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars. He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions. "In the morning, - solitude;" said Pythagoras; that Nature may speak to the imagination, as she does never in company, and that her favorite may make acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves to serious and abstracted thought. 'Tis very certain that Plato, Plotinus, Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth, did not live in a crowd, but descended into it from time to time as benefactors: and the wise instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul in the disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and habits of solitude. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
71:''He is a great spirit,151 Socrates. All spirits are intermediate between god and mortal''.
''What is the function of a spirit?'' I asked.
''Interpreting and conveying all that passes between gods and humans: from humans, petitions and sacrificial offerings, and from gods, instructions and the favours they return. Spirits, being intermediary, fill the space between the other two, so that all are bound together into one entity. It is by means of spirits that all divination can take place, the whole craft of seers and priests, with their sacrifices, rites and spells, and all prophecy and magic. Deity and humanity are completely separate, but through the mediation of spirits all converse and communication from gods to humans, waking and sleeping, is made possible. The man who is wise in these matters is a man of the spirit,152 whereas the man who is wise in a skill153 or a manual craft,154 which is a different sort of expertise, is materialistic.155 These spirits are many and of many kinds, and one of them is Love''. ~ Plato, Symposium, 202e,#KEYS
72:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit]
1. Homer - Iliad, Odyssey
2. The Old Testament
3. Aeschylus - Tragedies
4. Sophocles - Tragedies
5. Herodotus - Histories
6. Euripides - Tragedies
7. Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War
8. Hippocrates - Medical Writings
9. Aristophanes - Comedies
10. Plato - Dialogues
11. Aristotle - Works
12. Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus
13. Euclid - Elements
14.Archimedes - Works
15. Apollonius of Perga - Conic Sections
16. Cicero - Works
17. Lucretius - On the Nature of Things
18. Virgil - Works
19. Horace - Works
20. Livy - History of Rome
21. Ovid - Works
22. Plutarch - Parallel Lives; Moralia
23. Tacitus - Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania
24. Nicomachus of Gerasa - Introduction to Arithmetic
25. Epictetus - Discourses; Encheiridion
26. Ptolemy - Almagest
27. Lucian - Works
28. Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
29. Galen - On the Natural Faculties
30. The New Testament
31. Plotinus - The Enneads
32. St. Augustine - On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine
33. The Song of Roland
34. The Nibelungenlied
35. The Saga of Burnt Njal
36. St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica
37. Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy
38. Geoffrey Chaucer - Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
39. Leonardo da Vinci - Notebooks
40. Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
41. Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly
42. Nicolaus Copernicus - On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
43. Thomas More - Utopia
44. Martin Luther - Table Talk; Three Treatises
45. François Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel
46. John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion
47. Michel de Montaigne - Essays
48. William Gilbert - On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
49. Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote
50. Edmund Spenser - Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene
51. Francis Bacon - Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis
52. William Shakespeare - Poetry and Plays
53. Galileo Galilei - Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
54. Johannes Kepler - Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World
55. William Harvey - On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals
56. Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan
57. René Descartes - Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy
58. John Milton - Works
59. Molière - Comedies
60. Blaise Pascal - The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises
61. Christiaan Huygens - Treatise on Light
62. Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics
63. John Locke - Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education
64. Jean Baptiste Racine - Tragedies
65. Isaac Newton - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics
66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology
67.Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe
68. Jonathan Swift - A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal
69. William Congreve - The Way of the World
70. George Berkeley - Principles of Human Knowledge
71. Alexander Pope - Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man
72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu - Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws
73. Voltaire - Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary
74. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones
75. Samuel Johnson - The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets
~ Mortimer J Adler,#KEYS
73:Although a devout student of the Bible, Paracelsus instinctively adopted the broad patterns of essential learning, as these had been clarified by Pythagoras of Samos and Plato of Athens. Being by nature a mystic as well as a scientist, he also revealed a deep regard for the Neoplatonic philosophy as expounded by Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus. Neoplatonism is therefore an invaluable aid to the interpretation of the Paracelsian doctrine.
Paracelsus held that true knowledge is attained in two ways, or rather that the pursuit of knowledge is advanced by a two-fold method, the elements of which are completely interdependent. In our present terminology, we can say that these two parts of method are intuition and experience. To Paracelsus, these could never be divided from each other.
The purpose of intuition is to reveal certain basic ideas which must then be tested and proven by experience. Experience, in turn, not only justifies intuition, but contributes certain additional knowledge by which the impulse to further growth is strengthened and developed. Paracelsus regarded the separation of intuition and experience to be a disaster, leading inevitably to greater error and further disaster. Intuition without experience allows the mind to fall into an abyss of speculation without adequate censorship by practical means. Experience without intuition could never be fruitful because fruitfulness comes not merely from the doing of things, but from the overtones which stimulate creative thought. Further, experience is meaningless unless there is within man the power capable of evaluating happenings and occurrences. The absence of this evaluating factor allows the individual to pass through many kinds of experiences, either misinterpreting them or not inter preting them at all. So Paracelsus attempted to explain intuition and how man is able to apprehend that which is not obvious or apparent. Is it possible to prove beyond doubt that the human being is capable of an inward realization of truths or facts without the assistance of the so-called rational faculty?
According to Paracelsus, intuition was possible because of the existence in nature of a mysterious substance or essence-a universal life force. He gave this many names, but for our purposes, the simplest term will be appropriate. He compared it to light, further reasoning that there are two kinds of light: a visible radiance, which he called brightness, and an invisible radiance, which he called darkness. There is no essential difference between light and darkness. There is a dark light, which appears luminous to the soul but cannot be sensed by the body. There is a visible radiance which seems bright to the senses, but may appear dark to the soul. We must recognize that Paracelsus considered light as pertaining to the nature of being, the total existence from which all separate existences arise. Light not only contains the energy needed to support visible creatures, and the whole broad expanse of creation, but the invisible part of light supports the secret powers and functions of man, particularly intuition. Intuition, therefore, relates to the capacity of the individual to become attuned to the hidden side of life. By light, then, Paracelsus implies much more than the radiance that comes from the sun, a lantern, or a candle. To him, light is the perfect symbol, emblem, or figure of total well-being. Light is the cause of health. Invisible light, no less real if unseen, is the cause of wisdom. As the light of the body gives strength and energy, sustaining growth and development, so the light of the soul bestows understanding, the light of the mind makes wisdom possible, and the light of the spirit confers truth. Therefore, truth, wisdom, understanding, and health are all manifesta tions or revelations ot one virtue or power. What health is to the body, morality is to the emotions, virtue to the soul, wisdom to the mind, and reality to the spirit. This total content of living values is contained in every ray of visible light. This ray is only a manifestation upon one level or plane of the total mystery of life. Therefore, when we look at a thing, we either see its objective, physical form, or we apprehend its inner light Everything that lives, lives in light; everything that has an existence, radiates light. All things derive their life from light, and this light, in its root, is life itself. This, indeed, is the light that lighteth every man who cometh into the world. ~ Manly P Hall, Paracelsus,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Even the gods love jokes. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 2:Knowledge is true opinion. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 3:The good is the beautiful. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 4:Life must be lived as play. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 5:Your silence gives consent. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 6:Democracy passes into despotism. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 7:Philosophy begins in wonder. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 8:Love is a serious mental disease. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 9:All learning has an emotional base. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 10:He was a wise man who invented God. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 11:The wisest have the most authority. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 12:Courage is knowing what not to fear. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 13:It is right to give every man his due. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 14:No human thing is of serious importance. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 15:Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 16:There is no such thing as a lovers' oath. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 17:Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 18:You should not honour men more than truth. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 19:Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 20:There is no harm in repeating a good thing. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 21:At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 22:Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 23:Plato was right, but not quite right. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 24:Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 25: Death is not the worst that can happen to men. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 26:One man cannot practice many arts with success. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 27:Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 28:Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 29:The gods' service is tolerable, man's intolerable. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 30:How does a man become brave? By doing brave things. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 31:They certainly give very strange names to diseases. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 32:The part can never be well unless the whole is well. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 33:Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 34:Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 35:Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 36:To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 37:He who is not a good servant will not be a good master. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 38:No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 39:For good nurture and education implant good constitutions. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 40:Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 41:This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 42:When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 43:Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 44:No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 45:There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 46:If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 47:Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 48:The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 49:I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 50:The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 51:Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 52:As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 53:Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 54:He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 55:The cure of the part should not be attempted without the cure of the whole. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 56:Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 57:Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 58:It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 59:Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 60:Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 61:We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 62:They who are of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressures of age. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 63:Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 64:Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 65:The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 66:Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 67:Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 68:Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 69:If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 70:The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 71:There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, and lovers of gain. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 72:Most people do not understand until old age what Plato tells them when they are young. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 73:All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 74:The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 75:To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 76:He who steals a little, steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 77:Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 78:And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 79:A tyrant is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 80:To be curious about that which is not one's concern while still in ignorance of oneself is absurd. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 81:This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 82:Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 83:Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 84:Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 85:Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 86:The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 87:Each man is capable of doing one thing well. If he attempts several, he will fail to achieve distinction in any. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 88:Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 89:One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 90:The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 91:Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 92:Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 93:The Gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies; they are the trees and the plants and the seeds. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 94:No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 95:A state arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 96:May I consider the wise to be rich, and may I have such riches as only a person of self-restraint can bear or endure. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 97:There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who when danger is pressing in will not acknowledge the divine power. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 98:Plato used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was rough and morose, "Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 99:Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 100:Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 101:The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 102:Was not this ... what we spoke of as the great advantage of wisdom - to know what is known and what is unknown to us? ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 103:Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 104:I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 105:Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 106:Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well? ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 107:Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 108:Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 109:People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 110:Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 111:Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power... become lovers of wisdom. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 112:A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 113:Cicero called Aristotle a river of flowing gold, and said of Plato's Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to speak, it would be in language like theirs. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 114:Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 115:Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 116:Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none, or very slight ones. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 117:He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 118:The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 119:What is at issue is the conversion of the mind from the twilight of error to the truth, that climb up into the real world which we shall call true philosophy. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 120:Wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man could ever err, and therefore he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 121:The stage is a supplement to the pulpit, where virtue, according to Plato's sublime idea, moves our love and affection when made visible to the eye. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 122:To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 123:How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state? ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 124:Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 125:Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 126:Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 127:The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 128:The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 129:Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, "Behold Plato's man!" ~ diogenes, @wisdomtrove 130:Our tradition of political thought had its definite beginning in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I believe it came to a no less definite end in the theories of Karl Marx. ~ hannah-arendt, @wisdomtrove 131:Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia because they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosophers couldn't compete successfully with poets. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 132:S. Lewis, Plato, Aristotle and many more names that I could add, including Einstein's, were individuals who were able to see the innate order in life, which others perceive as chaos. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 133:Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 134:The sight of day and night, and the months and the revolutions of the years, have created number and have given us conception of time, and the power of inquiring about the nature of the Universe. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 135:A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 136:Do not train children in learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 137:I think a man's duty is to find out where the truth is, or if he cannot, at least to take the best possible human doctrine and the hardest to disprove, and to ride on this like a raft over the waters of life. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 138:All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 139:Moderation, which consists in an indifference about little things, and in a prudent and well- proportioned zeal about things of importance, can proceed from nothing but true knowledge, which has its foundation in self- acquaintance. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 140:I would believe any religion that could prove it had existed since the beginning of the world. But when I see Socrates, Plato, Moses, and Mohammed I do not think there is such a one. All religions owe their origin to man. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 141:By education I mean justice that training in excellence from youth upward which makes a man passionately desire to be a perfect citizen, and teaches him to rule, and to obey, with justice. This is the only education which deserves the name. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 142:A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 143:The weight of the world is on our shoulders, its vision is through our eyes; if we blink or look aside, or turn back to finger what Plato said or remember Napoleon and his conquests, we inflict on the world the injury of some obliquity. This is life. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 144:The man who finds that in the course of his life he has done a lot of wrong often wakes up at night in terror, like a child with a nightmare, and his life is full of foreboding: but the man who is conscious of no wrongdoing is filled with cheerfulness and hope. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 145:There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 146:Art- speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day and that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth. The truth lives from day to day, and the marvelous Plato of yesterday is chiefly bosh today. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 147:Modern physics has definitely decided for Plato. For the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word: they are forms, structures, or – in Plato’s sense – Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics. ~ rupert-sheldrake, @wisdomtrove 148:Perfect wisdom has four parts, namely wisdom, the principle of doing things aright; justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private; fortitude, the principle of not flying danger, but meeting it; and temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 149:No space, no time, no gravity, no electromagnetism, no particles. Nothing. We are back where Plato, Aristotle and Parmenides struggled with the great questions: How Come the Universe, How Come Us, How Come Anything? But happily also we have around the answer to these questions. That's us. ~ john-wheeler, @wisdomtrove 150:Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki's first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke's Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino's of Plato in the fifteenth. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 151:Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but reality (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 152:Was it Aristotle who said the human soul is composed of reason, will, and desire?No, that was Plato. Aristotle and Plato were as different as Mel Torm√© and Bing Crosby. In any case, things were a lot simpler in the old days,Komatsu said. Wouldn’t it be fun to imagine reason, will, and desire engaged in a fierce debate around a table? ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 153:I imagine that whenever the mind perceives a mathematical idea, it makes contact with Plato's world of mathematical concepts... When mathematicians communicate, this is made possible by each one having a direct route to truth, the consciousness of each being in a position to perceive mathematical truths directly, through the process of & 154:If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 155:There have been many men who left behind them that which hundreds of years have not worn out. The earth has Socrates and Plato to this day. The world is richer yet by Moses and the old prophets than by the wisest statesmen. We are indebted to the past. We stand in the greatness of ages that are gone rather than in that of our own. But of how many of us shall it be said that, being dead, we yet speak? ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 156:Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of Imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of thirteenth century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 157:A writer must always try to have a philosophy and he should also have a psychology and a philology and many other things. Without a philosophy and a psychology and all these various other things he is not really worthy of being called a writer. I agree with Kant and Schopenhauer and Plato and Spinoza and that is quite enough to be called a philosophy. But then of course a philosophy is not the same thing as a style. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 158:The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 159:When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism,in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 160:Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine. A man who uses reminders of these things correctly is always at the highest, most perfect level of initiation, and he is the only one who is perfect as perfect can be. He stands outside human concerns and draws close to the divine; ordinary people think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is possessed by god. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 161:When I was young, we thought that Oscar Wilde was a great nobleman who had thrown his life away for love. Nothing could be less true. He slept with East Enders who were procured for him by Lord Alfred Douglas. He knew them only & 162:“Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.” ~ william-james, @wisdomtrove 163:Do you, like a skilful weigher, put into the balance the pleasures and the pains, near and distant, and weigh them, and then say which outweighs the other? If you weigh pleasures against pleasures, you of course take the more and greater; or if you weigh pains against pains, then you choose that course of action in which the painful is exceeded by the pleasant, whether the distant by the near or the near by the distant; and you avoid that course of action in which the pleasant is exceeded by the painful. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 164:God has no needs. Human love, as Plato teaches us, is the child of Poverty ‚Äì of want or lack; it is caused by a real or supposed goal in its beloved which the lover needs and desires. But God's love, far from being caused by goodness in the object, causes all the goodness which the object has, loving it first into existence, and then into real, though derivative, lovability. God is Goodness. He can give good, but cannot need or get it. In that sense , His love is, as it were, bottomlessly selfless by very definition; it has everything to give, and nothing to receive. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 165:Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime& 166:There is great reason to hope that death is good; for one of two things - either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man ... even the great king will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? ~ plato, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Even the Gods love jokes. ~ Plato, #NFDB
2:Even the gods love jokes. ~ Plato, #NFDB
3:Habit is not unimportant. ~ Plato, #NFDB
4:Is there a perfect world? ~ Plato, #NFDB
5:Let brother help brother. ~ Plato, #NFDB
6:Si vis pacem, para bellum ~ Plato, #NFDB
7:The god is the beautiful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
8:Excellent things are rare. ~ Plato, #NFDB
9:I know that I know nothing ~ Plato, #NFDB
10:Knowledge is true opinion. ~ Plato, #NFDB
11:Light is the shadow of god ~ Plato, #NFDB
12:The good is the beautiful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
13:Pleasure is the bait of sin ~ Plato, #NFDB
14:porque si teme, es esclavo. ~ Plato, #NFDB
15:Your silence gives consent. ~ Plato, #NFDB
16:No one ever dies an atheist. ~ Plato, #NFDB
17:Philosophy begins in wonder. ~ Plato, #NFDB
18:...the Gods too love a joke. ~ Plato, #NFDB
19:Life should be lived as play. ~ Plato, #NFDB
20:Love: a grave mental disease. ~ Plato, #NFDB
21:Modesty is becoming in youth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
22:No soul willfully does wrong. ~ Plato, #NFDB
23:But what if there are no gods? ~ Plato, #NFDB
24:No one can escape his destiny. ~ Plato, #NFDB
25:We become what we contemplate. ~ Plato, #NFDB
26:Be kind. Every person you meet ~ Plato, #NFDB
27:but I want you to put him down. ~ Plato, #NFDB
28:Courage is a kind of salvation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
29:Love is a grave mental illness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
30:Love sees no enemies…fear does. ~ Plato, #NFDB
31:Plato was a bore. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
32:All is flux, nothing stays still ~ Plato, #NFDB
33:Any peace is better than any war ~ Plato, #NFDB
34:A work well begun is half-ended. ~ Plato, #NFDB
35:Beauty is a natural superiority. ~ Plato, #NFDB
36:Beauty is the splendour of truth ~ Plato, #NFDB
37:Courage is knowing what to fear. ~ Plato, #NFDB
38:Democracy passes into despotism. ~ Plato, #NFDB
39:„Ich weiß, dass ich nicht weiß“. ~ Plato, #NFDB
40:Ignorance: the root of all evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
41:Love is a serious mental illness ~ Plato, #NFDB
42:Man is a biped without feathers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
43:Philosophy is the highest music. ~ Plato, #NFDB
44:Today Learner is Tomorrow Leader ~ Plato, #NFDB
45:Adultery is the injury of nature. ~ Plato, #NFDB
46:All knowledge is but remembrance. ~ Plato, #NFDB
47:Appearance tyrannizes over truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
48:Geometry existed before creation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
49:Kötülük ölümden daha hızlı koşar. ~ Plato, #NFDB
50:Love is a serious mental disease. ~ Plato, #NFDB
51:Love is a serious mental illness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
52:Love is a severe mental disorder. ~ Plato, #NFDB
53:Love is the pursuit of the whole. ~ Plato, #NFDB
54:States will never be happy until ~ Plato, #NFDB
55:The proud man is forsaken of God. ~ Plato, #NFDB
56:You must base the Wisdom on Love. ~ Plato, #NFDB
57:Friends have all things in common. ~ Plato, #NFDB
58:God is truth and light his shadow. ~ Plato, #NFDB
59:Ideas are the source of all things ~ Plato, #NFDB
60:Knowledge is the food of the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
61:Man was not made for himself alone ~ Plato, #NFDB
62:Our need will be the real creator. ~ Plato, #NFDB
63:Science is nothing but perception. ~ Plato, #NFDB
64:The wisest have the most authority ~ Plato, #NFDB
65:Wine fills the heart with courage. ~ Plato, #NFDB
66:Your dog is your only philosopher. ~ Plato, #NFDB
67:All learning has an emotional base. ~ Plato, #NFDB
68:He was a wise man who invented God. ~ Plato, #NFDB
69:Music gives a soul to the universe. ~ Plato, #NFDB
70:Putting the shoe on the wrong foot. ~ Plato, #NFDB
71:State is the individual writ large. ~ Plato, #NFDB
72:The beginning is half of the whole. ~ Plato, #NFDB
73:The Graces sought some holy ground, ~ Plato, #NFDB
74:There is truth in wine and children ~ Plato, #NFDB
75:The wisest have the most authority. ~ Plato, #NFDB
76:Through obedience learn to command. ~ Plato, #NFDB
77:Time is the moving image of reality ~ Plato, #NFDB
78:A dog has the soul of a philosopher. ~ Plato, #NFDB
79:Courage is knowing what not to fear. ~ Plato, #NFDB
80:Do thine own work, and know thyself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
81:He was a wise man who invented God. ~ Plato, #NFDB
82:I am smart because I know I nothing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
83:I prefer nothing, unless it is true. ~ Plato, #NFDB
84:Man is a being in search of meaning. ~ Plato, #NFDB
85:Philosophy begins in wonder." -Plato ~ Plato, #NFDB
86:Writing is the geometry of the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
87:Crito we owe a rooster to Aesculapius ~ Plato, #NFDB
88:Friends possess everything in common. ~ Plato, #NFDB
89:La peor prisión es un corazón cerrado ~ Plato, #NFDB
90:Let nobody speak mischief of anybody. ~ Plato, #NFDB
91:Necessity is the mother of invention. ~ Plato, #NFDB
92:Time is the moving image of eternity. ~ Plato, #NFDB
93:To do wrong is the greatest of evils. ~ Plato, #NFDB
94:Art has no end but its own perfection. ~ Plato, #NFDB
95:Better a good enemy than a bad friend. ~ Plato, #NFDB
96:Geometry draws the soul towards truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
97:It is right to give every man his due. ~ Plato, #NFDB
98:Plato's cave is full of freaks. ~ Jack Johnson, #NFDB
99:The prisoner grows to love his chains. ~ Plato, #NFDB
100:Virtue is voluntary, vice involuntary. ~ Plato, #NFDB
101:Abstinence is the surety of temperance. ~ Plato, #NFDB
102:Arrogance is ever accompanied by folly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
103:Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder ~ Plato, #NFDB
104:Discordance is evil. Harmony is virtue. ~ Plato, #NFDB
105:El amor es una grave enfermedad mental. ~ Plato, #NFDB
106:Every man is a poet when he is in love. ~ Plato, #NFDB
107:Everything that deceives also enchants. ~ Plato, #NFDB
108:Handwriting is the shackle of the mind. ~ Plato, #NFDB
109:Is virtue something that can be taught? ~ Plato, #NFDB
110:-Los que gustan de contemplar la verdad ~ Plato, #NFDB
111:Man's greatest victory is over oneself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
112:Only the dead have seen the end of war. ~ Plato, #NFDB
113:[The Cretans have] more wit than words. ~ Plato, #NFDB
114:The prisoner grows to love his chains. ~ Plato, #NFDB
115:the unexamined life is not worth living ~ Plato, #NFDB
116:Thinking is the soul talking to itself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
117:All men, well interrogated, answer well. ~ Plato, #NFDB
118:Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. ~ Plato, #NFDB
119:Justice is useful when money is useless. ~ Plato, #NFDB
120:No human thing is of serious importance. ~ Plato, #NFDB
121:Nothing ever is, everything is becoming. ~ Plato, #NFDB
122:ought the just to injure any one at all? ~ Plato, #NFDB
123:Plato's world of ideas is beautiful. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
124:Sin is disease, deformity, and weakness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
125:The unexamined life is not worth living. ~ Plato, #NFDB
126:The unexplored life is not worth living! ~ Plato, #NFDB
127:Those who tell the stories rule society. ~ Plato, #NFDB
128:Yes, if he is to have true music in him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
129:You cannot go into the same water twice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
130:Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
131:At the touch of love, everyone is a poet. ~ Plato, #NFDB
132:Character is simply habit long continued. ~ Plato, #NFDB
133:Friends should have all things in common. ~ Plato, #NFDB
134:Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
135:Music is a defining element of character. ~ Plato, #NFDB
136:No man should be angry with what is true. ~ Plato, #NFDB
137:The God of Love lives in a state of need. ~ Plato, #NFDB
138:There is no such thing as a lover's oath. ~ Plato, #NFDB
139:There is no such thing as a lovers' oath. ~ Plato, #NFDB
140:You can't do good if you don't feel good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
141:You should not honor men more than truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
142:Arguments, like men, are often pretenders. ~ Plato, #NFDB
143:Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom. ~ Plato, #NFDB
144:He who love touches walks not in darkness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
145:In all the good Greek of Plato ~ John Crowe Ransom, #NFDB
146:The wolf cares not, how many the sheep be. ~ Plato, #NFDB
147:Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
148:We are twice armed if we fight with faith. ~ Plato, #NFDB
149:Aspiring minds must sometimes sustain loss. ~ Plato, #NFDB
150:As the government is, such will be the man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
151:But I am too stupid to be convinced by him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
152:Do not expect justice where might is right. ~ Plato, #NFDB
153:Don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
154:He whom Love touches not walks in darkness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
155:Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
156:I like people who like Plato. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
157:Is it our chief aim in life to avoid risks? ~ Plato, #NFDB
158:I would fain grow old learning many things. ~ Plato, #NFDB
159:lo semejante se une siempre a su semejante. ~ Plato, #NFDB
160:Music is to the mind as air is to the body. ~ Plato, #NFDB
161:Only the dead will know the end of the war. ~ Plato, #NFDB
162:Pleasure is the greatest incentive to evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
163:Self conquest is the greatest of victories. ~ Plato, #NFDB
164:Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine: ~ Plato, #NFDB
165:The essence of knowledge is self-knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB
166:There is no harm in repeating a good thing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
167:To a good man nothing that happens is evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
168:A house that has a library in it has a soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
169:Always seek wisdom and live a virtuous life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
170:Always seek wisdom and live a vrituous life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
171:At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet ~ Plato, #NFDB
172:Books are immortal sons defying their sires. ~ Plato, #NFDB
173:Equals, the proverb goes, delight in equals. ~ Plato, #NFDB
174:Every unjust man is unjust against his will. ~ Plato, #NFDB
175:for the unexamined life is not worth living. ~ Plato, #NFDB
176:He whom loves touches not walks in darkness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
177:Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
178:Man is a two-legged animal without feathers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
179:The race of the guardians must be kept pure. ~ Plato, #NFDB
180:The word friend is common, the fact is rare. ~ Plato, #NFDB
181:Where love reigns, there's no need for laws. ~ Plato, #NFDB
182:At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. ~ Plato, #NFDB
183:Books are immortal sons deifying their sires. ~ Plato, #NFDB
184:Everything changes and nothing remains still. ~ Plato, #NFDB
185:Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~ Plato, #NFDB
186:The comprehensive mind is always dialectical. ~ Plato, #NFDB
187:The first and best victory is to conquer self ~ Plato, #NFDB
188:The soul of man is immortal and imperishable. ~ Plato, #NFDB
189:The soul should concentrate itself by itself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
190:The wisdom of men is worth little or nothing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
191:Thinking: The talking of the soul with itself ~ Plato, #NFDB
192:To do injustice is the greatest of all evils. ~ Plato, #NFDB
193:Wealth is well known to be a great comforter. ~ Plato, #NFDB
194:Wisest is he who knows what he does not know. ~ Plato, #NFDB
195:You cannot conceive the many without the one. ~ Plato, #NFDB
196:Arguments derived from probabilities are idle. ~ Plato, #NFDB
197:At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. ~ Plato, #NFDB
198:Be kind, for everyone is having a hard battle. ~ Plato, #NFDB
199:Death is not the worst that can happen to men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
200:Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule. ~ Plato, #NFDB
201:I must yield to you, for you are irresistible. ~ Plato, #NFDB
202:Justice is having and doing what is one's own. ~ Plato, #NFDB
203:Let no one ignorant of Mathematics enter here. ~ Plato, #NFDB
204:Necessity, who is the mother of our invention. ~ Plato, #NFDB
205:The mere athlete becomes too much of a savage. ~ Plato, #NFDB
206:The worst of all deceptions is self-deception. ~ Plato, #NFDB
207:Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
208:True friendship can exist only between equals. ~ Plato, #NFDB
209:Wisdom is a blaze, kindled by a leaping spark. ~ Plato, #NFDB
210:Attention to health is life greatest hindrance. ~ Plato, #NFDB
211:Don't ask a poet to explain himself. He cannot. ~ Plato, #NFDB
212:He who does not desire power is fit to hold it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
213:Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
214:I shall assume that your silence gives consent. ~ Plato, #NFDB
215:Necessity is literally the mother of invention. ~ Plato, #NFDB
216:One man cannot practice many arts with success. ~ Plato, #NFDB
217:Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
218:The beginning is the chiefest part of any work. ~ Plato, #NFDB
219:The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless. ~ Plato, #NFDB
220:What else can one do in the time before sunset? ~ Plato, #NFDB
221:Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences. ~ Plato, #NFDB
222:a life without investigation is not worth living ~ Plato, #NFDB
223:All learning is in the learner, not the teacher. ~ Plato, #NFDB
224:As wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves. ~ Plato, #NFDB
225:At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
~ Plato,#NFDB
226:Be kind. For everyone is fighting a hard battle. ~ Plato, #NFDB
227:Everything that deceives may be said to enchant. ~ Plato, #NFDB
228:Ignorance is the root cause of all difficulties. ~ Plato, #NFDB
229:I grow impatient at the length of your exordium. ~ Plato, #NFDB
230:Let no one destitute of Geometry enter my doors. ~ Plato, #NFDB
231:Let no one destitute of geometry enter my doors. ~ Plato, #NFDB
232:Magnus amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
233:Pepper is small in quantity and great in virtue. ~ Plato, #NFDB
234:The measure of a man is what he does with power. ~ Plato, #NFDB
235:Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
236:Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance. ~ Plato, #NFDB
237:For once touched by love, everyone becomes a poet ~ Plato, #NFDB
238:I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency ~ Plato, #NFDB
239:I'm trying to think, don't confuse me with facts. ~ Plato, #NFDB
240:It is impossible to conceive of many without one. ~ Plato, #NFDB
241:No one is more hated than he who speaks the true. ~ Plato, #NFDB
242:The first and best victory is to conquer self.
~ Plato,#NFDB
243:There is no other start to philosophy but wonder. ~ Plato, #NFDB
244:the rulers make laws for their own interests. But ~ Plato, #NFDB
245:The way up and the way down are one and the same. ~ Plato, #NFDB
246:The worst form of injustice is pretended justice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
247:Those having torches will pass them on to others. ~ Plato, #NFDB
248:Wise men speak because they have something to say ~ Plato, #NFDB
249:All wars are fought for the sake of getting money. ~ Plato, #NFDB
250:a los dioses y nobles monarcas persuaden los dones ~ Plato, #NFDB
251:I will prove by my life that my critics are liars. ~ Plato, #NFDB
252:Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous. ~ Plato, #NFDB
253:Knowledge is the rediscovering of our own insight. ~ Plato, #NFDB
254:No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
255:question—What is justice, stripped of appearances? ~ Plato, #NFDB
256:The first and the best victory is to conquer self. ~ Plato, #NFDB
257:The gods' service is tolerable, man's intolerable. ~ Plato, #NFDB
258:The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been lost. ~ Plato, #NFDB
259:Those who don't know must learn from those who do. ~ Plato, #NFDB
260:Time is the moving imago of the unmoving eternity. ~ Plato, #NFDB
261:When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
262:A good education is another name for happiness. ~ Ann Plato, #NFDB
263:All I really know is the extent of my own ignorance ~ Plato, #NFDB
264:Are not they temperate from a kind of intemperance? ~ Plato, #NFDB
265:A wise ignorance is an essential part of knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB
266:But Above all things truth beareth away the victory ~ Plato, #NFDB
267:Great parts produce great vices as well as virtues. ~ Plato, #NFDB
268:He’s garbage, he cares about nothing but the truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
269:No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding. ~ Plato, #NFDB
270:Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
271:The greatest wealth is to live content with little. ~ Plato, #NFDB
272:The highest form of pure thought is in mathematics. ~ Plato, #NFDB
273:The life which is not examined is not worth living. ~ Plato, #NFDB
274:the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base ~ Plato, #NFDB
275:To think truly is noble and to be deceived is base. ~ Plato, #NFDB
276:What is honored in a culture gets cultivated there. ~ Plato, #NFDB
277:An hour of play is worth a lifetime of conversation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
278:Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell. ~ Plato, #NFDB
279:Haughtiness lives under the same roof with solitude. ~ Plato, #NFDB
280:Nothing in human affairs is worth any great anxiety. ~ Plato, #NFDB
281:Not to help justice in her need would be an impiety. ~ Plato, #NFDB
282:Plato was right, but not quite right. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
283:The beginning is the most important part of the work ~ Plato, #NFDB
284:When the music changes, the walls of the city shake. ~ Plato, #NFDB
285:When there is crime in society, there is no justice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
286:All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth ~ Plato, #NFDB
287:An old man is twice a child, and so is a drunken man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
288:Happiness springs from doing good and helping others. ~ Plato, #NFDB
289:I have good hope that there is something after death. ~ Plato, #NFDB
290:Kindness which is bestowed on the good is never lost. ~ Plato, #NFDB
291:Must not all things at last be swallowed up in Death? ~ Plato, #NFDB
292:No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
~ Plato,#NFDB
293:Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. ~ Plato, #NFDB
294:Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance ~ Plato, #NFDB
295:Plato is my friend, but truth is a better friend. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
296:The beginning is the most important part of any work. ~ Plato, #NFDB
297:The beginning is the most important part of the work. ~ Plato, #NFDB
298:Caring about the happiness of others, we find our own. ~ Plato, #NFDB
299:God is not the author of all things, but of good only. ~ Plato, #NFDB
300:He is divine -- but then I call all philosophers that. ~ Plato, #NFDB
301:In an honest man there is always something of a child. ~ Plato, #NFDB
302:It is vain for the sober man to knock at poesy's door. ~ Plato, #NFDB
303:Man is a wingless animal with two feet and flat nails. ~ Plato, #NFDB
304:Many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics. ~ Plato, #NFDB
305:Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance. ~ Plato, #NFDB
306:The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
307:The greatest privilege of a human life is to become a ~ Plato, #NFDB
308:To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
309:Trees and fields tell me nothing: men are my teachers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
310:What is honored in a country will be cultivated there. ~ Plato, #NFDB
311:Always be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle. ~ Plato, #NFDB
312:A man is not learned until he can read, write and swim. ~ Plato, #NFDB
313:An unexamined life is not worth living. —Plato ~ K Natwar Singh, #NFDB
314:Be kind, because everyone is having a really hard time. ~ Plato, #NFDB
315:He who is not a good servant will not be a good master. ~ Plato, #NFDB
316:May not the wolf, as the proverb says, claim a hearing? ~ Plato, #NFDB
317:Not by force shall the children learn, but through play ~ Plato, #NFDB
318:No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself ~ Plato, #NFDB
319:Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
320:The best stomachs are not those which reject all foods. ~ Plato, #NFDB
321:The seen is the changing, the unseen is the unchanging. ~ Plato, #NFDB
322:The wrong use of a thing is far worse than the non-use. ~ Plato, #NFDB
323:We are bound to our bodies like an oyster to its shell. ~ Plato, #NFDB
324:We ought to live sacrificing, and singing, and dancing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
325:What essence is to generation, that truth is to belief. ~ Plato, #NFDB
326:A drunkard is unprofitable for any kind of good service. ~ Plato, #NFDB
327:let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
328:Music is that which takes silence and brings it to life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
329:Plato wove historical fact into literary myth. ~ Michael Shermer, #NFDB
330:The beginning is the most important part of the work.
~ Plato,#NFDB
331:the most important thing is not life, but the good life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
332:The only real ill-doing is the deprivation of knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB
333:To begin with the wine jar in learning the potter's art. ~ Plato, #NFDB
334:A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
335:Chi è serio, si guarda bene dallo scrivere di cose serie. ~ Plato, #NFDB
336:Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death? ~ Plato, #NFDB
337:Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety. ~ Plato, #NFDB
338:Self-conquest is the greatest of victories and vice versa ~ Plato, #NFDB
339:States are as the men, they grow out of human characters. ~ Plato, #NFDB
340:The madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings ~ Plato, #NFDB
341:They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
342:To be at once exceedingly wealthy and good is impossible. ~ Plato, #NFDB
343:Un buen consejo viene de la ciencia y no de las riquezas. ~ Plato, #NFDB
344:A good decision is based on knowledge, and not on numbers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
345:Ali,srecnice moj,mozda sam ja nista,a ti to ne primecujes. ~ Plato, #NFDB
346:A true artist is someone who gives birth to a new reality. ~ Plato, #NFDB
347:By the golden chain Homer meant nothing else than the sun. ~ Plato, #NFDB
348:Fly from the company of the wicked--fly and turn not back. ~ Plato, #NFDB
349:For good nurture and education implant good constitutions. ~ Plato, #NFDB
350:I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows. ~ Plato, #NFDB
351:justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. ~ Plato, #NFDB
352:May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me. ~ Plato, #NFDB
353:Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
354:So the well educated man can learn to sing and dance well. ~ Plato, #NFDB
355:The contemplation of beauty causes the soul to grow wings. ~ Plato, #NFDB
356:The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being. ~ Plato, #NFDB
357:Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas. ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
358:Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. ~ Plato, #NFDB
359:Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him? ~ Plato, #NFDB
360:It is beautiful to wish to add another's light to your own. ~ Plato, #NFDB
361:Justice is nothing more than the advantage of the stronger. ~ Plato, #NFDB
362:Man is the plumeless genus of bipeds, birds are the plumed. ~ Plato, #NFDB
363:May not 'the wolf,' as the proverb says, 'claim a hearing'? ~ Plato, #NFDB
364:No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul ~ Plato, #NFDB
365:...that not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued. ~ Plato, #NFDB
366:Complacent ignorance is the most lethal sickness of the soul ~ Plato, #NFDB
367:Excellence" is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
368:Honesty is for the most par less profitable than dishonesty. ~ Plato, #NFDB
369:Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty ~ Plato, #NFDB
370:Madness comes from God, whereas sober sense is merely human. ~ Plato, #NFDB
371:Menaklukan diri sendiri adalah kemenangan yang paling akbar. ~ Plato, #NFDB
372:Music gives wings to the mind and flight to the imagination. ~ Plato, #NFDB
373:Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
~ Plato,#NFDB
374:The most important stage of any enterprise is the beginning. ~ Plato, #NFDB
375:the very bad men come from the class of those who have power ~ Plato, #NFDB
376:Don't quarrel with your parents even if you are on the right. ~ Plato, #NFDB
377:Even God is said to be unable to use force against necessity. ~ Plato, #NFDB
378:...for the object of education is to teach us to love beauty. ~ Plato, #NFDB
379:He seemeth to be most ignorant that trusteth most to his wit. ~ Plato, #NFDB
380:He who is a useful keeper of anything is also a better thief. ~ Plato, #NFDB
381:If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals. ~ Plato, #NFDB
382:It is through geometry that one purifies the eye of the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
383:Mathematics is the language in which the gods talk to people. ~ Plato, #NFDB
384:No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return. ~ Plato, #NFDB
385:Philosophy is the acquisition of knowledge. ~ Plato, Euthydemus, 288d, #NFDB
386:The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. ~ Plato, #NFDB
387:The whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death. ~ Plato, #NFDB
388:Train children not by compulsion but as if they were playing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
389:Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment. ~ Plato, #NFDB
390:Education is teaching our children to desire the right things. ~ Plato, #NFDB
391:From all wild beasts, a child is the most difficult to handle. ~ Plato, #NFDB
392:Have you ever sensed that our soul is immortal and never dies? ~ Plato, #NFDB
393:If you want to silence me, silence philosophy, who is my love. ~ Plato, #NFDB
394:To remove ignorance is an important branch of benevolence. ~ Ann Plato, #NFDB
395:Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both in heaven and ~ Plato, #NFDB
396:Virtue is a kind of health, beauty and good habit of the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
397:what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth? ~ Plato, #NFDB
398:wherever the argument, like a wind, tends, thither must we go. ~ Plato, #NFDB
399:All things are in fate, yet all things are not decreed by fate. ~ Plato, #NFDB
400:In a democracy only will the freeman of nature design to dwell. ~ Plato, #NFDB
401:Integrity is your destiny-it is the light that guides your way. ~ Plato, #NFDB
402:Knowledge unqualified is knowledge simply of something learned. ~ Plato, #NFDB
403:Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education. ~ Plato, #NFDB
404:No evil can happen to a good man either in life or after death. ~ Plato, #NFDB
405:Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
406:The first step in learning is the destruction of human conceit. ~ Plato, #NFDB
407:This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are. ~ Plato, #NFDB
408:When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
409:A good education consists in knowing how to sing and dance well. ~ Plato, #NFDB
410:God is a geometrician. ~ Attributed to Plato, but not found in his works, #NFDB
411:He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god. ~ Plato, #NFDB
412:If you harm a horse do you make him better or worse?"
"Worse. ~ Plato,#NFDB
413:Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole. ~ Plato, #NFDB
414:Plato calls complacency the companion of loneliness. ~ Franz Grillparzer, #NFDB
415:Plato, quite decadently, wore an earring while young. ~ Sextus Empiricus, #NFDB
416:Take charge of your thoughts. You can do what you will with them ~ Plato, #NFDB
417:There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
418:All loves should be simply stepping stones to the love of God.
~ Plato,#NFDB
419:A nation will prosper to the degree that it honors it's teachers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
420:I am not given to finding fault, for there are innumerable fools. ~ Plato, #NFDB
421:IF A MAN NEGLECTS EDUCATION, HE WALKS LAME TO THE END OF HIS LIFE ~ Plato, #NFDB
422:Knowledge, do you say it is power? yes most mighty of all powers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
423:Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being ~ Plato, #NFDB
424:Let him take heart who does advance, even in the smallest degree. ~ Plato, #NFDB
425:Love is an intermediate state between possession and deprivation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
426:No one is so cowardly that Love could not inspire him to heroism. ~ Plato, #NFDB
427:That is very high praise, which is given you by faithful witness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
428:The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
429:What then is the right way to live? Life should be lived as play. ~ Plato, #NFDB
430:Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
431:Better to complete a small task well, than to do much imperfectly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
432:If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
433:I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times. ~ Plato, #NFDB
434:Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul ~ Plato, #NFDB
435:the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. ~ Plato, #NFDB
436:When men speak ill of thee, live so that nobody will believe them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
437:All who do evil and dishonorable things do them against their will. ~ Plato, #NFDB
438:Epicurus had rage and envy of Plato's superior style. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
439:Even the best of writings are but a reminiscence of what we know... ~ Plato, #NFDB
440:Every soul pursues the good and does whatever it does for its sake. ~ Plato, #NFDB
441:For the extreme of injustice is to seem to be just when one is not. ~ Plato, #NFDB
442:If Plato is a fine red wine, then Aristotle is a dry martini. ~ Eric Stoltz, #NFDB
443:In order to be a good soldier it is necessary to know how to dance. ~ Plato, #NFDB
444:kata-kata tanpa ketulusan bukan hanya buruk, tapi juga merusak jiwa ~ Plato, #NFDB
445:Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
446:O que digo é que é pela beleza em si que as coisas belas são belas. ~ Plato, #NFDB
447:The Earth is like one of those balls made of twelve pieces of skin. ~ Plato, #NFDB
448:The right question is usually more important than the right answer. ~ Plato, #NFDB
449:The tools that would teach men their own use would be beyond price. ~ Plato, #NFDB
450:To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed. ~ Plato, #NFDB
451:All I would ask you to be thinking of is the truth and not Socrates. ~ Plato, #NFDB
452:And is there anything more closely connected with wisdom than truth? ~ Plato, #NFDB
453:Courage is a kind of salvation. Courage is knowing what not to fear. ~ Plato, #NFDB
454:Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? ~ Plato, #NFDB
455:if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
456:La práctica del bien; he aquí precisamente cómo defino la sabiduría. ~ Plato, #NFDB
457:let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its law. ~ Plato, #NFDB
458:No attempt of curing the body should be made without curing the soul ~ Plato, #NFDB
459:Nowadays we would perhaps call Plato's state totalitarian. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
460:Philosophy did not find Plato already a nobleman ; it made him one. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
461:The ludicrous state of solid geometry made me pass over this branch. ~ Plato, #NFDB
462:The qualities of number appear to lead to the apprehension of truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
463:The tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price. ~ Plato, #NFDB
464:To be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile. ~ Plato, #NFDB
465:To win over your bad self is the grandest and foremost of victories. ~ Plato, #NFDB
466:You can’t trust everything that ass Plato wrote,” Sokrates said. ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
467:Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another. ~ Plato, #NFDB
468:Everything changes and nothing remains still. PLATO, Cratylus ~ Kate Atkinson, #NFDB
469:Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants. ~ Plato, #NFDB
470:I am not such a fool as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
471:Love consists in feeling the Sacred One beating inside the loved one. ~ Plato, #NFDB
472:Not only is the old man twice a child, but also the man who is drunk. ~ Plato, #NFDB
473:The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not. ~ Plato, #NFDB
474:The knowledge of which geometry aims is the knowledge of the eternal. ~ Plato, #NFDB
475:The power of the Good has taken refuge in the nature of the Beautiful ~ Plato, #NFDB
476:Those who refuse to engage in politics will be led by their inferiors ~ Plato, #NFDB
477:Access to power must be confined to those who are not in love with it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
478:All well bred men should have mastered the art of singing and dancing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
479:I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse. ~ Plato, #NFDB
480:I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. ~ Plato, #NFDB
481:[M]ere knowledge of the truth will not give you the art of persuasion. ~ Plato, #NFDB
482:Now, in my opinion, the procession of the native inhabitants was fine; ~ Plato, #NFDB
483:Numbers are the highest degree of knowledge. It is knowledge itself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
484:Plato rarely if ever states anything about himself clearly. ~ Thomas McEvilley, #NFDB
485:The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
486:The right question is usually more important than the right answer.
~ Plato,#NFDB
487:The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
488:Thinking is just the soul talking with itself, or so Plato says. ~ Lauren Rowe, #NFDB
489:yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. ~ Plato, #NFDB
490:All thought begins with the recognition that something is out of place. ~ Plato, #NFDB
491:Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” – Plato ~ Cora Brent, #NFDB
492:Everything that deceives may be said to enchant. ~ Plato, Republic, III, 413-C, #NFDB
493:For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories. ~ Plato, #NFDB
494:Health is a consumation of a love affair of all the organs of the body. ~ Plato, #NFDB
495:I am speaking like a book, but I believe that what I am saying is true. ~ Plato, #NFDB
496:It is impossible to improve the world if first the man does not improve ~ Plato, #NFDB
497:O que de pior acontece a qualquer pessoa é tornar-se inimigo da palavra ~ Plato, #NFDB
498:repetitions. The Greek is in places very ungrammatical and intractable. ~ Plato, #NFDB
499:The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery. ~ Plato, #NFDB
500:The true creator is necessity, which is the mother of our invention.
~ Plato,#NFDB
501:They do certainly give very strange, and newfangled, names to diseases. ~ Plato, #NFDB
502:You take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument. ~ Plato, #NFDB
503:Calligraphy is a geometry of the soul which manifests itself physically. ~ Plato, #NFDB
504:Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. ~ Plato, #NFDB
505:Give me a different set of mothers and I will give you a different world ~ Plato, #NFDB
506:The evil never attains to any real friendship, either with good or evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
507:The most famous of them all was the overthrow of the island of Atlantis. ~ Plato, #NFDB
508:They ought to be gentle to their friends and dangerous to their enemies. ~ Plato, #NFDB
509:Wealth does not bring excellence, but that wealth comes from excellence. ~ Plato, #NFDB
510:Who are the true philosophers? Those whose passion is to love the truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
511:Good actions can strengthen ourselves and inspire good actions to others. ~ Plato, #NFDB
512:Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. ~ Plato, #NFDB
513:la melodía se compone de tres elementos, que son letra, armonía y ritmo. ~ Plato, #NFDB
514:Öyleyse dostum, insanlara yapılan kötülük onları doğruluktan uzaklaştırır ~ Plato, #NFDB
515:The perfect state is one where men weep and rejoice over the same things. ~ Plato, #NFDB
516:Who are the true philosophers? Those whose passion is to love the truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
517:Wonder is the beginning of the desire to know the beautiful and the good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
518:As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser. ~ Plato, #NFDB
519:Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity ~ Plato, #NFDB
520:He who is of a calm and happy nature, will hardly feel the pressure of age ~ Plato, #NFDB
521:It doesn’t have to be perfect, and you don’t have to be Plato. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
522:La vergüenza humana surge exclusivamente de la amenaza del descubrimiento. ~ Plato, #NFDB
523:Love is a great spirit. Everything spiritual is in between god and mortal. ~ Plato, #NFDB
524:Men of sound sense have Law for their god, but men without sense Pleasure. ~ Plato, #NFDB
525:Mob rule and emasculation of the wise' and 'who will watch the guardians'? ~ Plato, #NFDB
526:Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand. ~ Plato, #NFDB
527:Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
528:The true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned. ~ Plato, #NFDB
529:Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
530:Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. ~ Plato, #NFDB
531:You can remember, a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones. ~ Plato, #NFDB
532:Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites? I ~ Plato, #NFDB
533:As it is, lovers of inquiry must follow their beloved wherever it may lead. ~ Plato, #NFDB
534:Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on Simplicity. ~ Plato, #NFDB
535:él cree saberlo aunque no sepa nada, y yo, no sabiendo nada, creo no saber. ~ Plato, #NFDB
536:Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others. ~ Plato, #NFDB
537:If the head and the body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
538:I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of [c] the stronger. ~ Plato, #NFDB
539:Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value. ~ Plato, #NFDB
540:Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand. ~ Plato, #NFDB
541:The cure of the part should not be attempted without the cure of the whole. ~ Plato, #NFDB
542:The man who hath music in his soul will be most in love with the loveliest. ~ Plato, #NFDB
543:Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
544:Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. ~ Plato, #NFDB
545:Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and all philosophy begins in wonder ~ Plato, #NFDB
546:As long as I draw breath and am able, I won't give up practicing philosophy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
547:A State would be happy where philosophers were kings, or kings philosophers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
548:If a man be endowed with a generous mind, this is the best kind of nobility. ~ Plato, #NFDB
549:It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn. ~ Plato, #NFDB
550:Querido Critão! Quão precioso o teu ardor, se alguma retidão o acompanhasse! ~ Plato, #NFDB
551:That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless ~ Plato, #NFDB
552:The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life ~ Plato, #NFDB
553:The only thing worse than suffering an injustice is committing an injustice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
554:We will be better and braver if we engage and inquire than if we indulge in ~ Plato, #NFDB
555:Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding. ~ Plato, #NFDB
556:A written discourse on any subject is bound to contain much that is fanciful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
557:Do not use compulsion, but let early education be rather a sort of amusement. ~ Plato, #NFDB
558:Geometry will draw the soul toward truth and create the spirit of philosophy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
559:Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB
560:I wonder if Socrates and Plato took a house on Crete during the summer. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
561:Music then is simply the result of the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony. ~ Plato, #NFDB
562:Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. ~ Plato, #NFDB
563:'That is the story. Do you think there is any way of making them believe it?' ~ Plato, #NFDB
564:the creative soul creates not children, but conceptions of wisdom and virtue, ~ Plato, #NFDB
565:The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
566:The greater part of instruction is being reminded of things you already know. ~ Plato, #NFDB
567:The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of a bad man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
568:Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child. ~ Plato, #NFDB
569:There is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink. ~ Plato, #NFDB
570:They (the poets) are to us in a manner the fathers and authors of the wisdom. ~ Plato, #NFDB
571:We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection. ~ Plato, #NFDB
572:...when equality is given to unequal things, the resultant will be unequal... ~ Plato, #NFDB
573:According to Plato, "The beginning is the most important part of the work. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
574:He who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
575:Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB
576:If there is no contradictory impression, there is nothing to awaken reflection ~ Plato, #NFDB
577:Love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete. ~ Plato, #NFDB
578:Perbuatlah kepada orang lain seperti yang aku inginkan mereka perbuat kepadaku ~ Plato, #NFDB
579:... the good are not willing to rule either for the sake of money or of honor. ~ Plato, #NFDB
580:The happiest man is he who has no trace of malice in his soul. PLATO ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
581:The object of knowledge is what exists and its function to know about reality. ~ Plato, #NFDB
582:...we must go where the argument carries us, as a vessel runs before the wind. ~ Plato, #NFDB
583:what Shakespeare was to the drama of England, Plato was to ancient philosophy, ~ Plato, #NFDB
584:When a man drinks wine at dinner, he begins to be better pleased with himself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
585:When you feel grateful, you become great, and eventually attract great things. ~ Plato, #NFDB
586:Yo declaro que la justicia no es otra cosa que la conveniencia del más fuerte. ~ Plato, #NFDB
587:Athenian men, I respect and love you, but I shall obey the god rather than you. ~ Plato, #NFDB
588:Better to be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of all misfortune. ~ Plato, #NFDB
589:Cuando el fin es sublime, todo lo que se sufre para conseguirlo no lo es menos. ~ Plato, #NFDB
590:He meant friends owe [10] something good to their friends, never something bad. ~ Plato, #NFDB
591:Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence. ~ Plato, #NFDB
592:Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods. ~ Plato, #NFDB
593:Madness is a divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention. ~ Plato, #NFDB
594:No one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
595:Reality is created by the mind. We can change our reality by changing our mind. ~ Plato, #NFDB
596:Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind. ~ Plato, #NFDB
597:Socrates: But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? ~ Plato, #NFDB
598:The affairs of music ought, somehow, to terminate in the love of the beautiful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
599:The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction. ~ Plato, #NFDB
600:When you admonish a wrongdoer, do so gently, that it may not lead to hostility. ~ Plato, #NFDB
601:A certain portion of mankind do not believe at all in the existence of the gods. ~ Plato, #NFDB
602:As it is, the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
603:Be of good cheer, then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body only ~ Plato, #NFDB
604:False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
605:The cause of all sins in every case lies in the person's excessive love of self. ~ Plato, #NFDB
606:To begin is the most important part of any quest and by far the most courageous. ~ Plato, #NFDB
607:We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.
~ Plato,#NFDB
608:Well, Socrates, it's by no means uncommon for people to say what is not correct. ~ Plato, #NFDB
609:You learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
610:A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things. ~ Plato, #NFDB
611:el alma no conserva ningún conocimiento que haya penetrado en ella por la fuerza. ~ Plato, #NFDB
612:I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
613:It has always been correct to praise Plato, but not to understand him. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
614:La santidad es lo que agrada a los dioses, y la impiedad es lo que les desagrada. ~ Plato, #NFDB
615:Love’ is the name for our pursuit of wholeness,
for our desire to be complete. ~ Plato,#NFDB
616:Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue. ~ Plato, #NFDB
617:No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern. ~ Plato, #NFDB
618:The flute is not an instrument that has a good moral effect - it is too exciting. ~ Plato, #NFDB
619:Those whose hearts are fixed on Reality itself deserve the title of Philosophers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
620:Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
621:You get to know someone better by playing for an hour than by talking for a year. ~ Plato, #NFDB
622:Beauty is the splendor of truth.
(Die Schönheit ist der Glanz der Wahrheit) ~ Plato,#NFDB
623:[...] en el alma, ningún conocimiento forzado es perdurable.” (Platón, República). ~ Plato, #NFDB
624:Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
625:If you are wise, all men will be your friends and kindred, for you will be useful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
626:In a city composed wholly of good men there would be a great unwillingness to rule ~ Plato, #NFDB
627:Melito representa los poetas, Anito los políticos y artistas y Licon los oradores. ~ Plato, #NFDB
628:Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was every granted by the gods to man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
629:Seek truth while you are young, for if you do not, it will later escape your grasp ~ Plato, #NFDB
630:The productions of all arts are kinds of poetry and their craftsmen are all poets. ~ Plato, #NFDB
631:There still remain three studies suitable for free man. Arithmetic is one of them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
632:The soul is like a pair of winged horses and a charioteer joined in natural union. ~ Plato, #NFDB
633:We do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection. ~ Plato, #NFDB
634:Where there is great power to do wrong, to live and to die justly is a hard thing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
635:As it is, the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him.
~ Plato,#NFDB
636:Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. ~ Plato, #NFDB
637:Being in love, as both Plato and David Bowie have pointed out, is horrible. ~ Stefano Benni, #NFDB
638:If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake. ~ Plato, #NFDB
639:Let parents then bequeath to their children not riches but the spirit of reverence. ~ Plato, #NFDB
640:Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth. ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
641:Plato's dialogues bear at least some similarities to the classical plays. ~ Benjamin Jowett, #NFDB
642:The good, of course, is always beautiful, and the beautiful never lacks proportion. ~ Plato, #NFDB
643:Everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger. ~ Plato, #NFDB
644:I know nothing more worthy of a man's ambition than that his son be the best of men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
645:Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns. ~ Plato, #NFDB
646:My mind was formed by studying philosophy, Plato and that sort of thing. ~ Werner Heisenberg, #NFDB
647:No thing more excellent nor more valuable than wine was ever granted mankind by God. ~ Plato, #NFDB
648:Our love for our children springs from the soul's greatest yearning for immortality. ~ Plato, #NFDB
649:Each citizen should play his part in the community according to his individual gifts. ~ Plato, #NFDB
650:for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. ~ Plato, #NFDB
651:I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power. ~ Plato, #NFDB
652:If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things. ~ Plato, #NFDB
653:La mayor perfección en la injusticia es parecer justo sin serlo.” (Platón, República) ~ Plato, #NFDB
654:One cannot make a slave of a free person, for a free person is free even in a prison. ~ Plato, #NFDB
655:Plato: ‘For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories. ~ Lauren Rowe, #NFDB
656:The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine. ~ Plato, #NFDB
657:The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
658:Between reason and unreason, Plato himself would be hard-pressed to pick a winner. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
659:Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. ~ Plato, #NFDB
660:Plato's Symposium shows that flirtation and philosophy can further one another. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
661:The function of the wing is to take what is heavy and raise it up in the region above. ~ Plato, #NFDB
662:The man deserved his fate, deny it who can; yes, but the fate did not deserve the man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
663:There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain. ~ Plato, #NFDB
664:We understand why children are afraid of darkness ... but why are men afraid of light? ~ Plato, #NFDB
665:And poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well? ~ Plato, #NFDB
666:For our discussion is on no trifling matter, but on the right way to conduct our lives. ~ Plato, #NFDB
667:Not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise. ~ Plato, #NFDB
668:Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, #NFDB
669:Plato was only a Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in Greek. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
670:The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things. ~ Plato, #NFDB
671:The noblest of all studies is the study of what man is and of what life he should live. ~ Plato, #NFDB
672:Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love. ~ Plato, #NFDB
673:The passionate are like men standing on their heads, they see all things the wrong way. ~ Plato, #NFDB
674:There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain. ~ Plato, #NFDB
675:Again what city ever received Plato's or Aristotle's laws, or Socrates' precepts? But, ~ Erasmus, #NFDB
676:anarchy should have no place in the life of man or of the beasts who are subject to man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
677:And if we are good, we are beneficent: for all good things are beneficial. Are they not? ~ Plato, #NFDB
678:Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave had kings among his ancestors. ~ Plato, #NFDB
679:Marx is like Plato, he has dreams that can't come true as long as people are people. ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
680:Marx is like Plato, he has dreams that can’t come true as long as people are people. ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
681:The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil ment
~ Plato,#NFDB
682:When man is not properly trained, he is the most savage animal on the face of the globe. ~ Plato, #NFDB
683:Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. ~ Plato Theaetetus, 155, #NFDB
684:Would that I were the heaven, that I might be all full of love-lit eyes to gaze on thee. ~ Plato, #NFDB
685:Anything worth knowing is already known and must be remembered and reclaimed by the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
686:If you think your child's academic studies are more important than the arts, think again. ~ Plato, #NFDB
687:Most people do not understand until old age what Plato tells them when they are young. ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
688:No reproach for a person willing to give honorable service in the passion to become wise. ~ Plato, #NFDB
689:Plato stands for the union of truth and goodness in the supreme idea of God. ~ James Mark Baldwin, #NFDB
690:Poetry and prophecy stream from the same source. Plato called it "divine madness". ~ John O'Grady, #NFDB
691:That a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed. ~ Plato, #NFDB
692:The deity on purpose [sings] the liveliest of all lyrics through the most miserable poet. ~ Plato, #NFDB
693:The worst type of man behaves as badly in his waking life as some men do in their dreams. ~ Plato, #NFDB
694:This is an unusual picture that you are presenting here, and these are unusual prisoners. ~ Plato, #NFDB
695:And now we go our separate ways, I to die and you to live, which is better God only knows. ~ Plato, #NFDB
696:And what do you say of lovers of wine... they are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine ~ Plato, #NFDB
697:A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something. ~ Plato, #NFDB
698:For our discussion is about no ordinary matter, but on the right way to conduct our lives. ~ Plato, #NFDB
699:Let praise be given equally to women as well as men who have been distinguished in virtue. ~ Plato, #NFDB
700:Ogni problema ha tre soluzioni: la mia soluzione, la tua soluzione, e la soluzione giusta. ~ Plato, #NFDB
701:Plato felt that a complete reconstruction of society's political program was needed. ~ Karl Popper, #NFDB
702:Plato found mathematics very absorbing because mathematical states never change. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
703:¿Qué es lo que es siempre y no deviene y qué, lo que deviene continuamente, pero nunca es? ~ Plato, #NFDB
704:States will never be happy until rulers become philosophers or philosophers become rulers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
705:The beginning is the most important part...for that is the time character is being formed. ~ Plato, #NFDB
706:The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
707:Until philosophers hold power, neither states nor individuals will have rest from trouble. ~ Plato, #NFDB
708:All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. ~ Plato, #NFDB
709:How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? ~ Plato, #NFDB
710:I would rather be wrong, by God, with Plato than be correct with those men. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
711:Maximize the power of the beliefs that strengthen you and neutralize those that weaken you. ~ Plato, #NFDB
712:Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB
713:Ontological priority is normatively neutral, Plato to the contrary notwithstanding. ~ Jerry A Fodor, #NFDB
714:The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles. ~ Plato, #NFDB
715:They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth. -Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE) ~ Plato, #NFDB
716:When a Benefit is wrongly conferred, the author of the Benefit may often be said to injure. ~ Plato, #NFDB
717:WISE MEN SPEAK BECAUSE THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY;FOOLS BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING. ~ Plato, #NFDB
718:Doğru olan, yalnız güçlünün işine geleni yapmak değil, tersini de, işine gelmeyeni yapmaktır ~ Plato, #NFDB
719:He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power. ~ Plato, #NFDB
720:is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge? Most undoubtedly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
721:…it’s better in fact to be guilty of manslaughter than of fraud about what is fair and just. ~ Plato, #NFDB
722:My father was a dreamy fellow - he read Plato and Socrates and watched Phillies games. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
723:.. the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes... ~ Plato, #NFDB
724:To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way. ~ Plato, #NFDB
725:When I kiss Agathon my soul is on my lips, where it comes, poor thing, hoping to cross over. ~ Plato, #NFDB
726:Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something. ~ Plato, #NFDB
727:Wise men talk because they have something to say; Fools, because they have to say something. ~ Plato, #NFDB
728:-Y así, la posesión y práctica de lo que a cada uno es propio será reconocida como justicia. ~ Plato, #NFDB
729:You need some knowledge to recognize knowledge, so where does the first knowledge come from? ~ Plato, #NFDB
730:Čežnja za filozofijom je iskra u duši koja se, kada se jednom zapali, održava i više ne gasi. ~ Plato, #NFDB
731:He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act ~ Plato, #NFDB
732:... aos seres humanos a paz, ao mar a calma;
Aos ventos o repouso, e na nossa dor o sono. ~ Plato,#NFDB
733:As Plato observes in the Republic, the tyrant “sprouts from a protectorate root.”124 ~ William McCants, #NFDB
734:E quem não se considera incompleto e insuficiente, não deseja aquilo cuja falta não pode notar ~ Plato, #NFDB
735:He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
736:In the world of knowledge, the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with effort. ~ Plato, #NFDB
737:It is not noble to return evil for evil, at no time ought we to do an injury to our neighbors. ~ Plato, #NFDB
738:Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea. ~ Plato, #NFDB
739:Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
740:Plato said, be kind to everyone you meet for we are all fighting difficult battles. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
741:Plato worries our thinking might become too reflexive and comfortable with itself. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
742:Poverty doesn't come because of the decrease of wealth but because of the increase of desires. ~ Plato, #NFDB
743:Romantic Art: The Hearts Awakening - Bouguereau At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. ~ Plato, #NFDB
744:The three wishes of every man: to be healthy, to be rich by honest means, and to be beautiful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
745:wise men talk because they have something to say fools talk because they have to say something ~ Plato, #NFDB
746:You wouldn’t know him if I told you the name. HIPPIAS: But I know right now he’s an ignoramus. ~ Plato, #NFDB
747:And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
748:Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back."
-Plato ~ Jessica Clare,#NFDB
749:Go! Have fun!” Annie said. She began walking away. “I’ll see you later! Bye, Plato! ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
750:He could not harm me, for I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse ~ Plato, #NFDB
751:Ideal goals are a menace in themselves, as much in more modern philosophers as in Plato. ~ Moses Finley, #NFDB
752:If we are to have any hope for the future, those who have lanterns must pass them on to others. ~ Plato, #NFDB
753:I read your piece on Plato. Holmes, when you strike at a king, you must kill him. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
754:SOCRATES: But you do say that he who is a good rhapsode is also a good general. ION: Certainly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
755:Those who reproach injustice do so because they are afraid not of doing it but of suffering it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
756:A fit of laughter, which has been indulged to excess, almost always produces a violent reaction. ~ Plato, #NFDB
757:All the gold upon the earth and all the gold beneath it, does not compensate for lack of virtue. ~ Plato, #NFDB
758:As there are misanthropists or haters of men, so also are there misologists, or haters of ideas. ~ Plato, #NFDB
759:«el más sabio entre vosotros es aquel que reconoce, como Sócrates, que su sabiduría no es nada.» ~ Plato, #NFDB
760:How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?" (Plato) ~ Plato, #NFDB
761:Human behavior, says Plato, flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
762:Não é possível dar a outrem o que não se tem, bem como não é possível ensinar o que não se sabe. ~ Plato, #NFDB
763:Socrates said that, from above, the Earth looks like one of those twelve-patched leathern balls. ~ Plato, #NFDB
764:The bees can abide no drones amongst them; but as soon as they begin to be idle, they kill them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
765:Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something. ~ Plato, #NFDB
766:As Plato said, “Be kind to everyone you meet, for we are all fighting a fierce battle. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
767:Human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the pursuit of the whole is called love. ~ Plato, #NFDB
768:If there is a good and wise God, then there also exists a progress of humanity toward perfection. ~ Plato, #NFDB
769:In order to seek one's own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
770:[...]make sure you raise your children by having them play in their studies, and don't use force. ~ Plato, #NFDB
771:Music is moral law. It is the essence of order and leads to all that is good, true and beautiful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
772:Plato did claim that the unexamined life was not worth living. Oedipus Rex was not so sure. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
773:There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot. ~ Plato, #NFDB
774:There are two things a person should never be angry at: what they can help, and what they cannot. ~ Plato, #NFDB
775:True, how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? ~ Plato, #NFDB
776:Welcome out of the cave, my friend. It's a bit colder out here, but the stars are just beautiful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
777:Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools speak because they have to say something ~ Plato, #NFDB
778:You will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and true man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
779:Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all. ~ Plato, #NFDB
780:Then we shan’t regard anyone as a lover of knowledge or wisdom who is fussy about what he studies… ~ Plato, #NFDB
781:Too much freedom seems to change into nothing but too much slavery, both for private man and city. ~ Plato, #NFDB
782:An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
783:A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. ~ Plato, #NFDB
784:Don't force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own. ~ Plato, #NFDB
785:Isn’t there still one other possibility ... ,” I said, “our persuading you that you must let us go? ~ Plato, #NFDB
786:Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? ~ Plato, #NFDB
787:love,' she said, 'may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good? ~ Plato, #NFDB
788:The great-eyed Plato proportioned the lights and shades after the genius of our life. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
789:Watch a man at play for an hour and you can learn more about him than in talking to him for a year. ~ Plato, #NFDB
790:And we have made of ourselves living cesspools, and driven doctors to invent names for our diseases. ~ Plato, #NFDB
791:But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily? ~ Plato, #NFDB
792:Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
793:The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so. ~ Plato, #NFDB
794:cuando estaba en buena forma espiritual, después de comer lavaba el plato inmediatamente". ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
795:If it were necessary either to do wrong or to suffer it, I should choose to suffer rather than do it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
796:Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God? ~ Plato, #NFDB
797:It is correct to make a priority of young people, taking care that they turn out as well as possible. ~ Plato, #NFDB
798:La amistad del amante no brota del buen sentido, sino como las ganas de comer, del ansia de saciarse. ~ Plato, #NFDB
799:Let no-one ignorant of geometry enter. Said to have been inscribed above the door of Plato's Academy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
800:Our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, provided the madness is given us by divine gift. ~ Plato, #NFDB
801:Serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites. ~ Plato, #NFDB
802:Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~ Plato, #NFDB
803:What I say is that 'just' or 'right' means nothing but what is in the interest of the stronger party. ~ Plato, #NFDB
804:A good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and his affairs are not neglected by the gods. ~ Plato, #NFDB
805:Berbaik hatilah, karena semua orang yang kau temui sedang berjuang dalam pertempuran yang lebih sulit. ~ Plato, #NFDB
806:Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery. ~ Plato, #NFDB
807:Let early education be a sort of amusement. You will then be better able to find out the natural bent. ~ Plato, #NFDB
808:People too smart to get involved in politics are doomed to live in societies run by people who aren't. ~ Plato, #NFDB
809:The elements of instruction should be presented to the mind in childhood, but not with any compulsion. ~ Plato, #NFDB
810:To be curious about that which is not one's concern while still in ignorance of oneself is ridiculous. ~ Plato, #NFDB
811:But I don't think we shall quarrel about a word - the subject of our inquiry is too important for that. ~ Plato, #NFDB
812:El más honrado y el más sencillo no es reprimir a los demás, sino prepararse para ser lo mejor posible. ~ Plato, #NFDB
813:It's all in Plato, all in Plato: Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools? - Digory Kirke ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
814:No matter at all, I replied; for the point is not who said the words, but whether they are true or not. ~ Plato, #NFDB
815:Of all the things which a man has, next to the gods his soul is the most divine and most truly his own. ~ Plato, #NFDB
816:The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
817:When the citizens of a society can see and hear their leaders, then that society should be seen as one. ~ Plato, #NFDB
818:Aristotle was by far a less able thinker than Plato ... he was completely overwhelmed by Plato. ~ Wolfgang Pauli, #NFDB
819:As the proverb says, "a good beginning is half the business" and "to have begun well" is praised by all. ~ Plato, #NFDB
820:Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. ~ Plato, #NFDB
821:If you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find them strange. ~ Plato, #NFDB
822:not exact, but: the two most important questions are; who will teach the children? what they teach them? ~ Plato, #NFDB
823:The one who learns and learns and doesn't practice is like the one who plows and plows and never plants. ~ Plato, #NFDB
824:There is yet something remaining for the dead, and some far better thing for the good than for the evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
825:The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth... ~ Plato, #NFDB
826:Be kind, for everybody you meet is fighting a hard battle'
attributed to Plato, and many others ~ Sue Townsend,#NFDB
827:He feels particularly ashamed if ever he is seen by his lovers to be invovled in something dishonourable. ~ Plato, #NFDB
828:He that lendeth to another in time of prosperity, shall never want help himself in the time of adversity. ~ Plato, #NFDB
829:Knowledge of the soul is the only universal truth and the only wisdom - all other knowledge is transient. ~ Plato, #NFDB
830:No civilization, including Plato's, has ever been destroyed because its citizens learned too much. ~ Robert McKee, #NFDB
831:Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
832:Self-love is the source of that ignorant conceit of knowledge which is always doing and never succeeding. ~ Plato, #NFDB
833:The laws of democracy remain a dead letter, its freedom is anarchy, its equality the equality of unequals ~ Plato, #NFDB
834:This and no other is the root from
which a tyrant springs; when he
first appears he is a protector. ~ Plato,#NFDB
835:When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income. ~ Plato, #NFDB
836:You're my Star, a stargazer too,
and I wish that I were Heaven,
with a billion eyes to look at you! ~ Plato,#NFDB
837:You two go and have fun. I have plenty of stuff here to entertain me with. Plato rocks! (Tory) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
838:And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are ill- educated, become the worst? ~ Plato, #NFDB
839:Boys should abstain from all use of wine until their eighteenth year, for it is wrong to add fire to fire. ~ Plato, #NFDB
840:Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. ~ Plato, #NFDB
841:Philosophy does not regard pedigree, she received Plato not as a noble, but she made him one. ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
842:The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
843:The most beautiful motion is that which accomplishes the greatest results with the least amount of effort. ~ Plato, #NFDB
844:Ânito e Meleto podem matar-me,
mas não me podem fazer mal."
Platão, Apologia de Sócrates (30 C-D) ~ Plato,#NFDB
845:Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds. ~ Plato, #NFDB
846:I mean this: we were right to agree that good men must be beneficent, and that this could not be otherwise. ~ Plato, #NFDB
847:That in any city, and particularly in the city of Athens, it is easier to do men harm than to do them good; ~ Plato, #NFDB
848:When ideas are manipulated for personal ends, for class or group interests, the name for this is sophistry. ~ Plato, #NFDB
849:Xenophon wrote with a swan's quill, Plato with a pen of gold, and Thucydides with a brazen stylus. ~ Joseph Joubert, #NFDB
850:cuenta Estesícoro que, por ignorancia de la verdad, se luchó ante Troya en torno a la apariencia de Helena? ~ Plato, #NFDB
851:Fields and trees are not willing to teach me anything; but this can be effected by men residing in the city. ~ Plato, #NFDB
852:For he (Cato) gives his opinion as if he were in Plato's Republic, not in Romulus' cesspool. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
853:Ich kenne keinen sicheren Weg zum Erfolg, nur einen zum sicheren Misserfolg-es jedem recht machen zu wollen. ~ Plato, #NFDB
854:Music has the capacity to touch the innermost reaches of the soul and music gives flight to the imagination. ~ Plato, #NFDB
855:[On the virtuous man] "He combines the highest, lowest and middle chords in complete harmony within himself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
856:Violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort-they are reliefs of pain. ~ Plato, #NFDB
857:When something goes wrong, accuse yourself first. Even the wisdom of Plato or Solomon can wobble and go blind ~ Rumi, #NFDB
858:Because it is correct to make a priority of young people, taking care that they turn out as well as possible. ~ Plato, #NFDB
859:He who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful ... will not, when in earnest, write them in ink. ~ Plato, #NFDB
860:In good speaking, should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of the matter about which he is to speak. ~ Plato, #NFDB
861:In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man. ~ Thomas B Macaulay, #NFDB
862:Plato's concern is not just an intellectual issue, but it is knitted with emotional life as well. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
863:There are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen. ~ Plato, #NFDB
864:To the degree that I cease to persue my deepest passions, I will gradually be controlled by my deepest fears. ~ Plato, #NFDB
865:We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light ~ Plato, #NFDB
866:Arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up. ~ Plato, #NFDB
867:Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes. ~ Plato, #NFDB
868:For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
869:good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws ~ Plato, #NFDB
870:Harmony and grace depend on simplicity… the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character. ~ Plato, #NFDB
871:Lessons, however, that enter the soul against its will never grow roots and will never be preserved inside it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
872:LISTEN SOCRATES, TO THE STORY; AS EXTRAORDINARY AS IT IS, IT IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE.” Plato Timaeus 355 BC ~ Jos Arg elles, #NFDB
873:Ma spesso ci si deve accontentare se i corpi possono riacquistare vigore e salute con un dolore non eccessivo. ~ Plato, #NFDB
874:Much more wretched than lackof health inthe body, it is to dwell with a soul that is not healthy, but corrupt. ~ Plato, #NFDB
875:The learning and knowledge that we have,is,at the most,but little compared with that of which we are ignorant. ~ Plato, #NFDB
876:The wisest of you men is he who has realized, like Socrates, that in respect of wisdom he is really worthless. ~ Plato, #NFDB
877:Those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
878:Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. ~ Plato, #NFDB
879:A state arises,as I conceive,out of the needs of mankind;no one is self-sufficing,but all of us have many wants ~ Plato, #NFDB
880:Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. ~ Plato, #NFDB
881:I do not live to play, but I play in order that I may live, and return with greater zest to the labors of life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
882:If you ask: What is the good of education? The answer is easy: Education makes good men and good men act nobly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
883:Is there anything worse for a state than to be split and disunited? or anything better than cohesion and unity? ~ Plato, #NFDB
884:Man never legislates,but destinies and accidents,happening in all sorts of ways,legislate in all sorts of ways. ~ Plato, #NFDB
885:My plainness of speech makes people hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
886:Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow... even if that someone is yourself! ~ Plato, #NFDB
887:No intelligent man will ever be so bold as to put into language those things which his reason has contemplated. ~ Plato, #NFDB
888:We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. ~ Plato, #NFDB
889:Each man is capable of doing one thing well. If he attempts several, he will fail to achieve distinction in any. ~ Plato, #NFDB
890:Love is a madness produced by an unsatisfiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world. ~ Plato, #NFDB
891:One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. ~ Plato, #NFDB
892:The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows. ~ Plato, #NFDB
893:The philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity. ~ Plato, #NFDB
894:The poets are nothing but interpreters of the gods, each one possessed by the divinity to whom he is in bondage. ~ Plato, #NFDB
895:The power of Christianity lies in its revelation in act, of that which Plato divined in theory. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
896:There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot. —Plato ~ Aleatha Romig, #NFDB
897:[T]hose who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
898:Upon consideration of the central question of the moon's toughness there can be little doubt. It is hella tough. ~ Plato, #NFDB
899:What of his beard? Are you not of Homer's opinion, who says Youth is most charming when the beard first appears? ~ Plato, #NFDB
900:Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely? That ~ Plato, #NFDB
901:And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be. ~ Plato, #NFDB
902:Conversion is not implanting eyes, for they exist already; but giving them a right direction, which they have not ~ Plato, #NFDB
903:Half of these aren't even Machiavelli. Some are Plato, Thucydides etc....doesnt anyone check these? ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, #NFDB
904:Love is a madness produced by an unsatisfiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world. ~ Plato, #NFDB
905:One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. ~ Plato, #NFDB
906:The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. ~ Plato, #NFDB
907:For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.
He was a wise man who invented beer ~ Plato,#NFDB
908:I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
909:Lord of Lords, grant us the good whether we pray for it or not, but evil keep from us, even though we pray for it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
910:Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class. ~ Plato, #NFDB
911:Reply to Plato: I seen horses I seen cows I haint never yet seen horsiness nor that there bovinity neither. ~ Edward Abbey, #NFDB
912:The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves. ~ Plato, #NFDB
913:What a handsome face he had: but if he were naked you would forget he had a face, he is so beautiful in every way. ~ Plato, #NFDB
914:A los amantes les llega el arrepentimiento del bien que hayan podido hacer, tan pronto como se les aplaca su deseo. ~ Plato, #NFDB
915:... because it is correct to make a priority of young people, taking care that they turn out as well as possible... ~ Plato, #NFDB
916:Even in reaching for the beautiful there is beauty, and also in suffering whatever it is that one suffers en route. ~ Plato, #NFDB
917:Half of these aren't even Machiavelli.
Some are Plato, Thucydides etc....doesnt anyone check these? ~ Niccol Machiavelli,#NFDB
918:Just as things in a picture, when viewed from a distance, appear to be all in one and the same condition and alike. ~ Plato, #NFDB
919:No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education. ~ Plato, #NFDB
920:Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence. ~ Plato, #NFDB
921:Plato divinely calls pleasure the bait of evil, inasmuch as men are caught by it as fish by a hook. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
922:She’s lived in Plato’s cave, staring at the shadows on the wall. Now she’s been turned around to face the fire. ~ M R Carey, #NFDB
923:Those, on the contrary, who contemplate the immutable essence of things, have knowledge and not opinions. ~ Plato: Republic, #NFDB
924:virtue does not spring from riches, but riches and all other human blessings, both private and public, from virtue. ~ Plato, #NFDB
925:You ought not to heal the body without the soul, for this is the great error of our day in treating the human body. ~ Plato, #NFDB
926:- Adică socoți dreptatea un defect?
- Nu, ci doar o nobilă neghiobie.
(Trachymarchos în Republica, de Platon) ~ Plato,#NFDB
927:And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
928:...both wealth and concord decline as possessions become pursued and honored. And virtue perishes with them as well. ~ Plato, #NFDB
929:It is Plato's portrait of Socrates that has inspired thinkers in the Western world for nearly 2.500 years. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
930:Much sleep is not required by nature, either for our souls or bodies, or for the action in which they are concerned. ~ Plato, #NFDB
931:Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are
of a certain nature; he who is not, not. ~ Plato,#NFDB
932:«Poderoso Júpiter, dadnos bienes; ya te los pidamos o no, y aleja de nosotros los males, aun cuando te los pidamos.» ~ Plato, #NFDB
933:The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies... they are the trees and the plants and the seeds. ~ Plato, #NFDB
934:We obtain better knowledge of a person during one hour's play and games than by conversing with him for a whole year ~ Plato, #NFDB
935:What you should do, said Socrates, is to say a magic spell over him every day until you have charmed his fears away. ~ Plato, #NFDB
936:Following Pythagoras, Plato, the great Grecian philosopher, taught the old-new doctrine of Rebirth. ~ William Walker Atkinson, #NFDB
937:I should not like to say ... that any kind of knowledge is not to be learned; for all knowledge appears to be a good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
938:Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
939:read Plato or Shakespeare or Dante as if we found their books in the street and had no idea who they were. I ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
940:She’s lived in Plato’s cave, staring at the shadows on the wall. Now she’s been turned around to face the fire. A ~ M R Carey, #NFDB
941:The fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown. ~ Plato, #NFDB
942:The first and best victory is to conquer self. To be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile. ~ Plato, #NFDB
943:The qualities which a man seeks in his beloved are those characteristics of his own soul, whether he knows it or not. ~ Plato, #NFDB
944:We can easily forget a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. ~ Plato, #NFDB
945:Where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is best learned from the writings of Plato. ~ George Berkeley, #NFDB
946:A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time. ~ Plato, #NFDB
947:As a human being Plato mingles regal, exclusive, and self-contained features with melancholy compassion. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
948:Before all it's necessary to look after the Soul, if you want the head and the rest of the body to function correctly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
949:Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato ~ Plato, #NFDB
950:If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools. ~ Plato, #NFDB
951:No man's nature is able to know what is best for the social state of man; or, knowing, always able to do what is best. ~ Plato, #NFDB
952:Plato was right when he said that all evil comes from ignorance. He forgot that ignorance also comes from evil. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
953:The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things shameful and vile. ~ Plato, #NFDB
954:The tyranny imposed on the soul by anger, or fear, or lust, or pain, or envy, or desire, I generally call 'injustice.' ~ Plato, #NFDB
955:virtuoso, aunque se jacte de ello, le reprenderé por desestimar lo más valioso y sobrestimar lo que tiene menos valor. ~ Plato, #NFDB
956:Was not this ... what we spoke of as the great advantage of wisdom -- to know what is known and what is unknown to us? ~ Plato, #NFDB
957:We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. ~ Plato, #NFDB
958:Antes andaba vacilante por uno y otro lado, y creyendo llevar una vida racional, era el más desgraciado de los hombres. ~ Plato, #NFDB
959:Everything changes and nothing stands still. Heraclitus of Ephesus, as quoted by Plato in Cratylus (360 BCE) ~ Martin Kleppmann, #NFDB
960:I pity you who are my companions, because you think that you are doing something when in reality you are doing nothing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
961:The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows. ~ Plato, #NFDB
962:Manusia tidak mencapai kebenaran dalam semua aspeknya, dan tidak akan terjatuh ke dalam kesalahan dalam semua aspeknya. ~ Plato, #NFDB
963:quiénes son entonces -preguntó- los que llamas filósofos verdaderos? -Los que gustan de contemplar la verdad -respondí. ~ Plato, #NFDB
964:The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. ~ Plato, #NFDB
965:The qualities, which a man seeks in his beloved, are those characteristics of his own soul, whether he knows it or not. ~ Plato, #NFDB
966:those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight. ~ Plato, #NFDB
967:You may be sure, dear Crito, that inaccurate language is not only in itself a mistake: it implants evil in men's souls. ~ Plato, #NFDB
968:Everyone should think it a disgrace and unworthy of a gentleman, if any citizen devotes the whole of any night to sleep. ~ Plato, #NFDB
969:For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind. ~ Plato, #NFDB
970:Lust is inseparably accompanied with the troubling of all order, with impudence, unseemliness, sloth, and dissoluteness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
971:May I deem the wise man rich, and may I have such a portion of gold as none but a prudent man can either bear or employ. ~ Plato, #NFDB
972:Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
973:Plato used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was rough and morose, "Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces. ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
974:To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils ~ Plato, #NFDB
975:All men are by nature equal, and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince. ~ Plato, #NFDB
976:Bana kalırsa Atinalılar bir insanın bilge olup olmadığını önemsemez, yeter ki o insan bilgeliğini başkalarına aktarmasın. ~ Plato, #NFDB
977:If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.
~ Plato,#NFDB
978:In spreading his ideas, Plato was willing to employ emotional appeals, state propaganda, and the use of force. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
979:I take it that our state, having been founded and built up on the right lines, is good in the complete sense of the word. ~ Plato, #NFDB
980:Mathematics is like draughts in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state. ~ Plato, #NFDB
981:Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable, inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated. ~ Plato, #NFDB
982:The idea of Plato that philosophers must be the rulers and directors of society is practiced in India. ~ Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, #NFDB
983:There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who, when danger is pressing in, will not acknowledge the divine power. ~ Plato, #NFDB
984:They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
985:To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils. ~ Plato, #NFDB
986:We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
~ Plato,#NFDB
987:When we are exalted by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the idea, to which also Plato was debtor. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
988:But tell me, this physician of whom you were just speaking, is he a moneymaker, an earner of fees or a healer of the sick? ~ Plato, #NFDB
989:First and best victory is to conquer self. To be conquered By self is, of all things. the most shameful and objectionable. ~ Plato, #NFDB
990:If it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
991:It is easy to forgive children who are afraid of the dark but the real tragedy of life is men who are afraid of the light. ~ Plato, #NFDB
992:Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens. ~ Plato, #NFDB
993:The olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
994:And yet even in reaching for the beautiful there is beauty, and also in suffering whatever it is that one suffers en route. ~ Plato, #NFDB
995:But tell me, this physician of whom you were just speaking, is he a moneymaker, an earner of fees, or a healer of the sick? ~ Plato, #NFDB
996:Few men are so obstinate in their atheism, that a pressing danger will not compel them to acknowledgment of a divine power. ~ Plato, #NFDB
997:He is the God who sits in the center, on
the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter
of religion to all mankind ~ Plato,#NFDB
998:Once Ptolemy and Plato, yesterday Newton, today Einstein, and tomorrow new faiths, new beliefs, and new dimensions. ~ Albert Claude, #NFDB
999:Perhaps there is a pattern set up in the heavens for one who desires to see it, and having seen it, to find one in himself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1000:Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned;
Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes. ~ Plato,#NFDB
1001:The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1002:There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1003:To Plato the desire for excessive and special foods ... is a hindrance to the soul's attainment of intelligence. ~ Thomas McEvilley, #NFDB
1004:Beauty is certainly a soft, smooth, slippery thing, and therefore of a nature which easily slips in and permeates our souls. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1005:Cicero once said of Cato, ‘he talks as if he were in the Republic of Plato, when in fact he is in the crap of Romulus’. ~ Mary Beard, #NFDB
1006:Every theory of love, from Plato down teaches that each individual loves in the other sex what he lacks in himself. ~ G Stanley Hall, #NFDB
1007:He who is learning and learning and doesn't apply what he knows is like the one who is plowing and plowing and doesn't seed. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1008:More will be accomplished, and better, and with more ease, if every man does what he is best fitted to do, and nothing else. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1009:The soul takes flight to the world that is invisible but there arriving she is sure of bliss and forever dwells in paradise. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1010:To fear death, gentlemen, is no other then to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1011:Wonder [said Socrates] is very much the affection of a philosopher; for there is no other beginning of philosophy than this. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1012:But whether the just have a better and happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to consider. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1013:He is unworthy of the name of man who is ignorant of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1014:Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1015:The Dance, of all the arts, is the one that most influences the soul. Dancing is divine in its nature and is the gift of God. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1016:The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1017:to suffer is better than to do evil;' and the art of rhetoric is described as only useful for the purpose of self-accusation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1018:Experience proves that anyone who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker to grasp difficult subjects than one who has not. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1019:tanto con la riqueza como con la indigencia resultan peores los productos de las artes y peores también los que las practican. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1020:The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
~ Plato,#NFDB
1021:To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be vanquished by one's own nature is the worst and most ignoble defeat. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1022:And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1023:For it is not because they fear doing unjust deeds, but because they fear suffering them, that those who blame injustice do so. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1024:I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1025:It is better to be wise, and not to seem so, than to seem wise, and not be so; yet men, for the most part, desire the contrary. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1026:Orang bijak berbicara karena ada sesuatu yang HARUS dikatakan, sedangkan orang bodoh berbicara karena INGIN mengatakan sesuatu. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1027:So the nature required to make a really noble Guardian of our commonwealth will be swift and strong, spirited, and philosophic. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1028:There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1029:When you swear, swear seriously and solemnly, but at the same time with a smile, for a smile is the twin sister of seriousness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1030:And, believe me, if I were again beginning my studies, I should follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics. ~ Galileo Galilei, #NFDB
1031:Freedom in a democracy is the glory of the state, and, therefore, in a democracy only will the freeman of nature deign to dwell. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1032:I didn't want to tell Lily that I felt we'd all been duped by Plato and the idea of a soulmate. Just in case she was mine. ~ Rachel Cohn, #NFDB
1033:Plato is never sullen, Cervantes is never petulant, Demosthenes never comes unseasonably, Dante never stays too long. ~ Nathaniel Parker, #NFDB
1034:Since the time of Plato and Aristotle philosophers have had an interest in taking note of common fallacies in reasoning. ~ Randal Marlin, #NFDB
1035:The purpose of education is to give to the body and to the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1036:There should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor again excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1037:When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know; this appears to be the great source of all the errors of the intellect. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1038:A delightful form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike! ~ Plato, #NFDB
1039:a human being is the measure of all things. of the things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1040:But far more dangerous are the others, who began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods, ~ Plato, #NFDB
1041:He who desires to be happy must pursue and practice temperance and run away from intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1042:Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the laws of the State always change with them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1043:Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well? ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
1044:Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1045:Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1046:those who make philosophy the business of their lives, generally turn out rogues if they are bad men, and fools if they are good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1047:To escape from evil we must be made as far as possible like God; and the resemblance consists in becoming just and holy and wise. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1048:Wealth and poverty; one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1049:When a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming-bath or into mid-ocean, he has to swim all the same. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1050:Aristotle and Plato are reckoned the respective heads of two schools. A wise man will see that Aristotle platonizes. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1051:... because if a human institution gets off to a good and careful start, there is a sort of divine guarantee that it will prosper. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1052:It is only just that anything that grows up on its own should feel it has nothing to repay for an upbringing which it owes no one. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1053:Of all the Gods, Love is the best friend of humankind, the helper and healer of all ills that stand in the way of human happiness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1054:Socrates, in Plato, formulates ideas of order: the Iliad, like Shakespeare, knows that a violent disorder is a great order. ~ Harold Bloom, #NFDB
1055:There is a ... matter - much more valuable and divine than natural philosophy . ... On this matter I must speak to you in enigmas. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1056:It behooves those who take the young to task to leave them room for excuse, lest they drive them to be hardened by too much rebuke. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1057:It is fear and terror that make all men brave, except the philosophers. Yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1058:I would rather have a good friend than the best cock or quail in the world: I would even go further, and say the best horse or dog. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1059:Master Plato once said that Lux est umbra Dei; light is the shadow of God. I say this way: Light is the god of shadow! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1060:Plato dramatically puts the detachment of the philosopher from his time this way: to philosophize is to prepare to die. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
1061:Plato said it best: “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: when he first appears he is a protector. ~ Craig A Falconer, #NFDB
1062:Plato says that as one learns to love, the image of any specific beloved can be left behind for knowledge of the Good. ~ William T Vollmann, #NFDB
1063:The mixture of the oral and the written traditions in the writings of Plato enabled him to dominate the history of the West. ~ Harold Innis, #NFDB
1064:The Muse herself makes some men inspired, from whom a chain of other men is strung out who catch their own inspiration from theirs. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1065:The smart people who are too smart to vote, they are governed by the decisions of the idiots who do.
- Plato, 380BC ~ Christos A Djonis,#NFDB
1066:The time we take out, whether it is to do mathematics or music, or to read Plato or Jane Austen, is time to be cherished. ~ Simon Blackburn, #NFDB
1067:Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1068:To him who disgraces his family life is no life, and to such a person there is no one a friend, neither while living nor when dead. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1069:And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, expressly writes: 'For what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek.' ~ Clement of Alexandria, #NFDB
1070:(Broad daylight; breakfast; return of cheerfulness and bons sens; Plato blushes for shame; all free spirits run riot.) ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1071:Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1072:Follow your dream as long as you live, do not lessen the time of following desire, for wasting time is an abomination of the spirit. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1073:I'm sure that if Plato hadn't been against music with a strong sexual beat, Bloom would have kept quiet about rock-and-roll. ~ E D Hirsch Jr, #NFDB
1074:Just as bees make honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so do the wise profit from the most difficult of experiences. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1075:que es dueño de sí mismo es también esclavo, y el que es esclavo, dueño; ya que en todos estos dichos se habla de una misma persona. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1076:So I spoke the truth when I said that neither I nor you nor any other man would rather do injustice than suffer it: for it is worse. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1077:Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1078:The physician, to the extent he is a physician, considers only the good of the patient in what he prescribes, and his own not at all ~ Plato, #NFDB
1079:What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1080:What Plato was really asking was perhaps why a horse was a horse, and not, for example, a cross between a horse and a pig. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
1081:By Hercules! I prefer to err with Plato, whom I know how much you value, than to be right in the company of such men. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
1082:For, let me tell you that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me are the pleasure and charm of conversation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1083:Or isn’t virtue in tension with wealth, as though each were lying in the scale of a balance, always inclining in opposite directions? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1084:Plato said "God is," and inferred all else that could be said upon that subject as depreciatory. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
1085:The like is not the friend of the like in as far as he is like; still the good may be the friend of the good in as far as he is good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1086:Al pasar cogió un puñado de cerezas de un plato y Wolf se hizo a un lado para dejarla salir. Tocaban la noche con todo su cuerpo. ~ Boris Vian, #NFDB
1087:It is no good for rulers if the people they rule cherish ambitions for themselves or form strong bonds of friendship with one another. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1088:Let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible. . . . For this is the way of happiness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1089:The truth is that we isolate a particular kind of love and appropriate it for the name of love, which really belongs to a wider whole. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1090:Wealth, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1091:For this," he said, "is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians separate the soul from the body. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1092:If a person does not attend to the meaning of terms as they are commonly used in argument, he may be involved even in greater paradoxes ~ Plato, #NFDB
1093:...in every man there is an eye of the soul, which...is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1094:Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1095:Epicurus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
1096:It is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physician; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1097:It is true, indeed, that the account Plato gives in 'Timaeus' is different from what he says in his so-called 'unwritten teachings.' ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1098:Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not. ~ Plato Protagoras ~ Plato, #NFDB
1099:Many men are loved by their enemies, and hated by their friends, and are the friends of their enemies, and the enemies of their friends. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1100:No one knows whether death is really the greatest blessing a man can have, but they fear it is the greatest curse, as if they knew well. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1101:No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1102:People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1103:Socrates had a student named Plato, Plato had a student named Aristotle, and Aristotle had a student named Alexander the Great. ~ Old Tom Morris, #NFDB
1104:Time on its back bears all things far away - Full many a challenge is wrought by many a day - Shape, fortune, name, and nature all decay ~ Plato, #NFDB
1105:Una de las mejores frases que ha sido atribuida a Pítaco, y que más han alabado los sabios, es justamente esta: es difícil ser virtuoso. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1106:We can easily forgive a child for being afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light ~Plato~ ~ S S Segran, #NFDB
1107:Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1108:Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1109:Coloro che sono capaci di vedere oltre le ombre e le bugie della propria cultura non saranno mai capiti, tanto meno creduti, dalle masse. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1110:Do not expect Plato's ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1111:For every man who has learned to fight in arms will desire to learn the proper arrangement of an army, which is the sequel of the lesson. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1112:For the rhapsode ought to interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers, but how can he interpret him well unless he knows what he means? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1113:Nay, Socrates," said Glaucon, "the measure of listening to such discussions is the whole of life for reasonable men". The Republic, 450c. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1114:We should not exercise the body without the joint assistance of the mind; nor exercise the mind without the joint assistance of the body. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1115:Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1116:Not one of them who took up in his youth with this opinion that there are no gods ever continued until old age faithful to his conviction. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1117:Socrates condemned art because he preferred philosophy and only after much internal struggle did Plato accept this judgment. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1118:To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1119:Yet as the proverb says, 'In vino veritas,' whether with boys, or without them (In allusion to two proverbs.); and therefore I must speak. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1120:All loves should be simply stepping stones to the love of God. So it was with me; and blessed be his name for his great goodness and mercy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1121:And Agathon said, It is probable, Socrates, that I knew nothing of what I had said.
And yet spoke you beautifully, Agathon, he said. ~ Plato,#NFDB
1122:Let men of all ranks whether they are successful, or unsuccessful, whether they triumph or not; let them do their duty, and rest satisfied. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1123:No matter how hard you fight the darkness, every light casts a shadow, and the closer you get to the light, the darker that shadow becomes. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1124:No town can live peacefully whatever its laws when its citizens do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love ~ Plato, #NFDB
1125:O halde, her bilgi, kendinden üstün olanın işine geleni değil, kendi yönetimi altında olanın yani güçsüzün işine geleni gözetir ve buyurur. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1126:There have been times, Socrates, when I have been driven in my perplexity to take refuge with Protagoras; not that I agree with him at all. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1127:As to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?-he whom love touches not walks in darkness. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1128:Come along,” he said. “The games will start soon.” Plato then led Jack and Annie out of the Greek house back onto the dirt road. ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
1129:el placer y el dolor no se encuentran nunca a un mismo tiempo; y sin embargo, cuando se experimenta el uno, es preciso aceptar el otro, como ~ Plato, #NFDB
1130:Hence it is from the representation of things spoken by means of posture and gesture that the whole of the art of dance has been elaborated. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1131:I can show you that the art of calculation has to do with odd and even numbers in their numerical relations to themselves and to each other. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1132:If we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1133:Intolerance is the natural concomitant of strong faith; tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous. Plato ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1134:I owe what is best in my own development to the impression made by Kant's works, the sacred writings of the Hindus, and Plato. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
1135:Next they passed a beautiful statue of a winged lady. “Who’s that?” said Jack. “She’s Nike, the goddess of victory,” said Plato. ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
1136:No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1137:the only thing he ought to consider, if he does anything, is whether he does right or wrong, whether it is what a good man does or a bad man ~ Plato, #NFDB
1138:When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest...and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war ~ Plato, #NFDB
1139:Between you and me, Plato was a hack. All that crap about higher forms and caves? He was drunk when he wrote it. I know. I was there. ~ Gene Doucette, #NFDB
1140:Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom ~ Plato, #NFDB
1141:Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1142:all of a sudden he will catch sight of something wonderfully beautiful in its nature; that, Socrates, is the reason for all his earlier labors ~ Plato, #NFDB
1143:Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1144:It is by justice, that we can truly authenticate a man's value or nullity, the absence of justice, is the absence of what makes him man. Plato ~ Plato, #NFDB
1145:Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1146:Seven years of silent inquiry are needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how to make it known to his fellow-men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1147:Those who have knowledge are more confident than those who have no knowledge, and they are more confident after they have learned than before. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1148:El alma es la que debe ocupar nuestros primeros cuidados, y los más asiduos, si queremos que la cabeza y el cuerpo entero estén en buen estado. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1149:He who advises a sick man, whose manner of life is prejudicial to health, is clearly bound first of all to change his patient's manner of life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1150:It is our duty to select the best and most dependable theory that human intelligence can supply, and use it as a raft to ride the seas of life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1151:People regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust, - about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1152:Philosophy is an elegant thing, if anyone modestly meddles with it; but if they are conversant with it more than is becoming, it corrupts them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1153:Plato didn't have as much experience of humanity as he needed when he wrote a book like the Republic,' Socrates said. 'Perhaps nobody does. ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
1154:Plato once wanted to punish one of his slaves and asked his nephew to do the actual whipping for he himself did not own his anger. ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
1155:The god, O men, seems to me to be really wise; and by his oracle to mean this, that the wisdom of this world is foolishness and of none effect. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1156:Then we got into a labyrinth, and, when we thought we were at the end,
came out again at the beginning, having still to see as much as ever. ~ Plato,#NFDB
1157:You cannot conceive the many without the one...The study of the unit is among those that lead the mind on and turn it to the vision of reality. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1158:All good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates in the soul, and overflows from thence, as if from the head into the eyes. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1159:There you have Socrates’ wisdom; [b] he himself isn’t willing to teach, but he goes around learning from others and isn’t even grateful to them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1160:Avoid compulsion and let early education be a matter of amusement. Young children learn by games; compulsory education cannot remain in the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1161:..it is by justice that we can authentically measure man's value or his nullity... the absence of justice is the absence of what makes him a man, ~ Plato, #NFDB
1162:It would be better for me ... that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1163:Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom.
~ Plato,#NFDB
1164:Plato feels that ethical abstinences and austerities are essential preconditions for the cleansing and opening of the eye of the soul. ~ Thomas McEvilley, #NFDB
1165:Debe lucharse con todo el razonamiento contra quien, suprimiendo la ciencia, el pensamiento y el intelecto, pretende afirmar algo, sea como fuere. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1166:For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago and done no good either to you or to myself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1167:From all these, then, they will be finally free, and they will live a happier life than that men count most happy, the life of victors at Olympia. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1168:Hay una diferencia entre participar e implicarse. En un plato de huevos fritos con chorizo, la gallina participa. El cerdo se implica. ~ Juan Gomez Jurado, #NFDB
1169:Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1170:On Plato’s door, it says let no one enter who does not know geometry. On Love’s door, it says let no one enter who does not know cry! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1171:Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or
superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker? ~ Plato,#NFDB
1172:There is a certain way of searching for the truth in mathematics that Plato is said first to have discovered. Theon called this analysis. ~ Francois Viete, #NFDB
1173:Thus does the Muse herself move men divinely inspired, and through them thus inspired a Chain hangs together of others inspired divinely likewise. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1174:A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1175:I didn’t want to tell Lily that I felt we’d all been duped by Plato and the idea of a soulmate. Just in case it turned out that she was mine. ~ Rachel Cohn, #NFDB
1176:I’ve almost finished The Republic. I find Plato at times a vile casuist, and almost always a reactionary. But he does write exquisite Greek. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
1177:Let every man remind their descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1178:Plato worried that philosophical writing would take the place of living conversations for which, in philosophy, there is no substitute. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
1179:The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1180:The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
1181:we both know phone inquiries aren’t handled that fast. It’s been only twenty-four hours since Plato Lowery was informed of the situation. He ~ Kathy Reichs, #NFDB
1182:we don’t live in Plato’s Commonwealth, and when we can’t have perfection we ought to comply with the measure that is least remote from it. ~ Bernard Bailyn, #NFDB
1183:Had there been no Plato, the Christians would have had a harder time selling the idea that all God really wanted from us was fraternal love. ~ Richard Rorty, #NFDB
1184:Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration can confer upon man any greater blessing than this [live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth]. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1185:«No sale de las riquezas la virtud para los hombres, sino de la virtud, las riquezas y todos los otros bienes, tanto los privados como los públicos. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1186:Socrates isguilty of corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing indeities of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the state. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1187:The prison of lust is just that very one of which the soul shuts the doors upon herself; for each act of indulgence is the shooting of a fresh bolt. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1188:We have a gymnasium at our school in Frog Creek,” said Jack. “We call it a gym.” “People all over the world copy us Greeks,” Plato said. ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
1189:As Plato, the dangerous beguiler, said: the best philosophers in the world are boys with their beards new on their chins; I am a boy again. ~ Thornton Wilder, #NFDB
1190:Cooking is a form of flattery....a mischievous, deceitful, mean and ignoble activity, which cheats us by shapes and colors, by smoothing and draping. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1191:For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates ... in the soul, and overflows from thence, as from the head into the eyes. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1192:Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1193:Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth... and to the maximum of power, I exhort all other men to do the same. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1194:The cure of many diseases is unknown to physicians because they are ignorant of the whole... For the part can never be well unless the whole is well. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1195:...there are some who are naturally fitted for philosophy and political leadership, while the rest should follow their lead and let philosophy alone. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1196:Cicero called Aristotle a river of flowing gold, and said of Plato's Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to speak, it would be in language like theirs. ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
1197:Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1198:I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning ~ Plato, #NFDB
1199:[O]ther thinkers have philosophised since the time of Plato, but that does not destroy the interest and beauty of his philosophy ~ Frederick Charles Copleston, #NFDB
1200:this is the greatest good to man, to discourse daily on virtue, and other things which you have heard me discussing, examining both myself and others, ~ Plato, #NFDB
1201:Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses. Plato ~ Wyatt Kaldenberg, #NFDB
1202:Worthy of honor is he who does no injustice, and more than twofold honor, if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1203:You ought not attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so neither ought you attempt to cure the body without the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1204:Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none, or very slight ones. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1205:For when there are no words, it is very difficult to recognize the meaning of the harmony and rhythm, or to see any worldly object is imitated by them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1206:Plato considered the golden section proportion the most binding of all mathematical relations, making it the key to the physics of the cosmos. ~ Peter Tompkins, #NFDB
1207:Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1208:Fire, air, earth, and water are bodies and therefore solids, and solids are contained in planes, and plane rectilinear figures are made up of triangles. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1209:So too Plato was, in my view, a very unreliable Platonist. He was too much of a philosopher to think that anything he had said was the last word. ~ Gilbert Ryle, #NFDB
1210:The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him, although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1211:The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics alone. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1212:Few people put veal stock in the same category as, say, the Goldberg Variations or Plato’s cave allegory, and this lack of understanding amazes ~ Michael Ruhlman, #NFDB
1213:I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long …arousing and persuading and reproaching…You will not easily find another like me. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1214:Let him alone, he has a way of stopping anywhere and losing himself without any reason. I believe that he will soon appear; do not therefore disturb him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1215:Nothing is more unworthy of a wise man, or ought to trouble him more, than to have allowed more time for trifling, and useless things, than they deserve. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1216:People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.” —Plato ~ G Michael Hopf, #NFDB
1217:The atomists , unlike Socrates , Plato , and Aristotle , sought to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1218:The good man is the only excellent musician, because he gives forth a perfect harmony not with a lyre or other instrument but with the whole of his life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1219:And the quality of good judgement is clearly a form of knowledge and skill, as it is because of knowledge and not because of ignorance that we judge well. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1220:for philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1221:Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away. . . . A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons hiom. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1222:no man should be angry at what is true. But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion. Assuredly. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1223:The problem is simply finding the right person. Ask Plato. Just make sure she finishes your thoughts and you finish hers. That's all you need. ~ Elizabeth Kostova, #NFDB
1224:Though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might be, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
1225:Üstat Plato bir keresinde şöyle demişti: Lux est umbra Dei; Işık, Tanrı’nın gölgesidir. Ben şu şekilde söylüyorum: Işık, gölgenin Tanrısıdır! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1226:Aristotle warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
1227:At an early age I sucked up the milk of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato and Euripides, diluted with that of Moses and the prophets. ~ Denis Diderot, #NFDB
1228:Each of us, then, is a token of a human, since we've been sliced like a flatfish and made two out of one. So everyone's always searching for his own token. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1229:For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakeable. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1230:Human beings have Love for one another inborn in them - Love, reassembler of our ancient nature, who tries to make one out of two and to heal human nature. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1231:La vista del entendimiento, ten por cierto, empieza a ver adecuadamente cuando la de los ojos comienza a perder su fuerza, y tú todavía estás lejos de eso. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1232:One trait in the philosopher's character we can assume is his love of the knowledge that reveals eternal reality, the realm unaffected by change and decay. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1233:Would he not say with Homer,. Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their ... ~ Plato, #NFDB
1234:Education in music is most sovereign because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the innermost soul and take strongest hold upon it ~ Plato, #NFDB
1235:For it is obvious to everybody, I think, that this study [of astronomy] compels the soul to look upward and leads it away from things here to higher things. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1236:For the plan grows under the author's hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end before he begins. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1237:He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age. But to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1238:Ölüm iki şeyden biridir: ya bir hiçlik, büsbütün şuursuzluk halidir, yahut da, herkesin dediği gibi ruhun bu dünyadan ayrılarak başka bir dünyaya geçmesidir ~ Plato, #NFDB
1239:Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1240:We’re told that Plato’s saying was always on Marcus’s lips: those states prospered where the philosophers were kings or the kings philosophers. ~ Donald J Robertson, #NFDB
1241:Few people put veal stock in the same category as, say, the Goldberg Variations or Plato’s cave allegory, and this lack of understanding amazes me. ~ Michael Ruhlman, #NFDB
1242:I know too well that these arguments from probabilities are imposters, and unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to be deceptive. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1243:those who have made their own money don’t just care about it because {5} it’s useful, as other people do, but because it’s something they’ve made themselves. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1244:It is extraordinary to think about. We still speak of Socratic or Platonic philosophy, but actually being Plato or Socrates is quite another matter. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
1245:Plato said, 'People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person, or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die. ~ Jessica Clare, #NFDB
1246:The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1247:The judge should not be young, he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1248:Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses. ~ Plato, Philosopher ~ M J DeMarco, #NFDB
1249:What is at issue is the conversion of the mind from the twilight of error to the truth, that climb up into the real world which we shall call true philosophy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1250:El muy honorable señor Loontwill, terrateniente para más señas, no se molestó en apartar la mirada de la tostada y el huevo que agonizaban en su plato. ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
1251:it meant standing truth on her head and denying perspective, the basic condition of all life, when one spoke of spirit and the good as Plato did. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1252:The great spiritual geniuses, whether it was Moses, Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Jesus, or Emerson..... have taught man to look within himself to find God. ~ Ernest Holmes, #NFDB
1253:The science [geometry] is pursued for the sake of the knowledge of what eternally exists, and not of what comes for a moment into existence, and then perishes. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1254:they think that you bear old age more [e] easily not because of the way you live but because you’re wealthy, for the wealthy, they say, have many consolations. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1255:Wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man could ever err, and therefore he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1256:And then, at this stage, every dictator comes up with the notorious and typical demand: he asks the people for bodyguards to protect him, the people's champion. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1257:for a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no longer in him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1258:I wish to understand [Plato], but to treat him with as little reverence as if he were a contemporary English or American advocate of totalitarianism. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1259:-¿Les prescribirás, pues, que se apliquen particularmente a aquella enseñanza que les haga capaces de preguntar y responder con la máxima competencia posible? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1260:The Great spiritual geniuses, whether it was Moses, Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Jesus, or Emerson... have taught man to look within himself to find God.
~ Ernest Holmes,#NFDB
1261:The stage is a supplement to the pulpit, where virtue, according to Plato's sublime idea, moves our love and affection when made visible to the eye. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #NFDB
1262:Where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1263:So in the first place, such things show clearly that the philosopher more
than other men frees the soul from association with the body as much
as possible? ~ Plato,#NFDB
1264:So their combinations with themselves and with each other give rise to endless complexities, which anyone who is to give a likely account of reality must survey. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1265:The rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those who know. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1266:The ultimate design of the Mysteries ... was to lead us back to the principles from which we descended, ... a perfect enjoyment of intellectual [spiritual] good. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1267:As Plato: What is play and delightful one kind of child is coercion and torture for another, and will not take no matter how much coercion is applied. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
1268:-De modo que, al tratar de ver el alma que es filosófica y la que no, examinarás desde la juventud del sujeto si esa alma es justa y mansa o insociable y agreste. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1269:Herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he had no desire for that of which he feels no want. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1270:I will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate. ~ Jack Kevorkian, #NFDB
1271:Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1272:The god of love lives in a state of need. It is a need. It is an urge. It is a homeostatic imbalance. Like hunger and thirst, it's almost impossible to stamp out. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1273:The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily.” - Plato ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1274:. . . the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1275:To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1276:'But the man who is ready to taste every form of knowledge, is glad to learn and never satisfied - he's the man who deserves to be called a philosopher, isn't he?' ~ Plato, #NFDB
1277:I would rather . . . that the whole world should be at odds with me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself, and contradict myself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1278:Now I am a diviner, though not a very good one, but I have enough religion for my own use, as you might say of a bad writer—his writing is good enough for him; and ~ Plato, #NFDB
1279:Wordsworth's particular grace, his charisma, as theologians say, has been granted in equal measure to so very few men since time was--to Plato and who else? ~ Robert Musil, #NFDB
1280:All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1281:How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1282:in a family there may be several brothers, and the bad may be a majority; and when the bad majority conquer the good minority, the family are worse than themselves. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1283:The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1284:Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves or their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1285:Aristotle and Plato considered Greeks so innately superior to barbarians that slavery is justified so long as the master is Greek and the slave barbarian. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1286:Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1287:He who has followed the path of love's initiation in the proper order will on arriving at the end suddenly perceive a marvelous beauty, the source of all our efforts ~ Plato, #NFDB
1288:Pero lo que ya ha sucedido es igual que un plato roto en mil pedazos. Por muy esforzadamente que lo intentes, ya no podrás devolverlo a su estado original. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1289:[Plato] was the first to envisage the idea of timeless existence and to emphasize it-against reason-as a reality, more [real] than our actual experience. ~ Erwin Schrodinger, #NFDB
1290:The mind more often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the mind's own and is not shared with the body. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1291:The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible ~ William Blake, #NFDB
1292:We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1293:A poet, you see, is a light thing, and winged and holy, and cannot compose before he gets inspiration and loses control of his senses and his reason has deserted him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1294:Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, you cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1295:Harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1296:It was about as close as you could get to the platonic ideal of a ham, if Plato had spent more time discussing hams and less time mucking about with triangles. ~ Gideon Defoe, #NFDB
1297:... Societies aren t made of sticks and stones, but of men whose individual characters, by turning the scale one way or another, determine the direction of the whole. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1298:Such, Echecrates, was the end of our comrade, who was, we may fairly say, of all those whom we knew in our time, the bravest and also the wisest and most upright man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1299:The poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his sneses, and the mind is no longer in him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1300:The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1301:Between knowledge of what really exists and ignorance of what does not exist lies the domain of opinion. It is more obscure than knowledge, but clearer than ignorance. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1302:If a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1303:Plato will have to invent a transcendence that can be exercised and situated within the field of immanence itself. This is the meaning of the theory of Ideas. ~ Gilles Deleuze, #NFDB
1304:Surely you don't consider me so inflated with the theater as not even to know that for anyone in his right mind a sensible few are more terrifying than a foolish many. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1305:-Y lo que nos lleva al recuerdo de la desgracia y a las lamentaciones, sin saciarse nunca de ellas, ¿no diremos que es irracional y perezoso y allegado de la cobardía. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1306:For as there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists, or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1307:How often when they find a sage
As sweet as Socrates or Plato
They hand him hemlock for his wage
Or bake him like a sweet potato!-Taking the Longer View ~ Don Marquis,#NFDB
1308:…if a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1309:If someone separated the art of counting and measuring and weighing from all the other arts, what was left of each (of the others) would be, so to speak, insignificant. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1310:Someone—Plato, I think—once said, 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' "
"True. But a life too closely scrutinized will lead to madness, if not suicide. ~ Ken Grimwood,#NFDB
1311:The clearest argument against Plato’s authorship is probably that Plato never wrote a work whose interpretation was as simple and straightforward as that of Alcibiades. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1312:The influence (for good or ill) of Plato's work is immeasurable. Western thought, one might say, has been Platonic or anti-Platonic, but hardly ever non-Platonic. ~ Karl Popper, #NFDB
1313:the matter is as it is in all other cases: if it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice ... ~ Plato, #NFDB
1314:The Paphian Queen to Cnidos made repair Across the tide to see her image there: Then looking up and round the prospect wide, When did Praxiteles see me thus? she cried. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1315:As they knew, Aristotle warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
1316:For a poet is an airy thing, winged and holy, and he is not able to make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his mind and his intellect is no longer in him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1317:I am the owner of the sphere, Of the seven stars and the solar year, of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain, Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1318:It is by no means certain that we advance our philosophical quest by reading Plato or Aristotle. It may increase our knowledge of history but not of the world. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
1319:Morality, said Jesus, is kindness to the weak; morality, said Nietzsche, is the bravery of the strong; morality, says Plato, is the effective harmony of the whole. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1320:Paraphrasing Plato's Republic: "Only people who have allowed themselves to be reformed by reality have it in themselves to reform their polis for the better. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
1321:Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who has knowledge?—is not that the inference? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1322:Aristotle's metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1323:As Plato wrote long ago, the only people who will no longer see war are the dead. Which, of course, is precisely why we need to understand it as best we can. ~ Martin van Creveld, #NFDB
1324:Doch jetzt ist's Zeit fortzugehen: für mich, um zu sterben, für euch, um zu leben. Wer von uns dem besseren Los entgegengeht, ist uns allen unbrkannt - das weiß nur Gott. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1325:Excellence" is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice.
We do not act "rightly" because we are "excellent",
in fact we achieve "excellence" by acting "rightly". ~ Plato,#NFDB
1326:For harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1327:He said: Who then are the true philosophers? Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth. That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean? To ~ Plato, #NFDB
1328:I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean. For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1329:Paraphrasing Plato's Republic: "Only people who have allowed themselves to be reformed by reality have it in themselves to reform their polis for the better." ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
1330:The difference between the two classes is often a trivial concern; but in a state, and when affecting really important matters, becomes of all disorders the most hateful. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1331:Plato compared the intellect to a charioteer guiding the powerful horses of the passions, i.e., he gave it both the power of perception and the power of control. ~ Raymond Cattell, #NFDB
1332:Plato, the Ancient Greek philosopher, thought human beings made correct choices when one part of the soul, rationality, prevailed over another part, irrational desire. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1333:The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1334:There's a victory and defeat-the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats-which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1335:-Así, pues, lo lleno de cosas más reales y que es más real en sí mismo, ¿está más realmente lleno que lo lleno de cosas menos reales y que es además menos real en sí mismo? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1336:-Examina si estas otras cosas no corrompen a los demás trabajadores hasta el punto de ocasionar su perversión. -¿Y cuáles son ellas? -La riqueza -contesté- y la indigencia. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1337:Kabbalah profoundly influenced the greatest thinkers of history, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Pythagoras, Plato, Newton, Leibniz, Shakespeare, and Jung. ~ Yehuda Berg, #NFDB
1338:Many modern scholars have found the asceticism expressed in Plato unacceptable; it does not sound like the advice of a reasonable man in the Cartesian tradition. ~ Thomas McEvilley, #NFDB
1339: Porque, en efecto, la injusticia produce sediciones, ¡oh, Trasímaco!, y odios y luchas de unos contra otros, mientras que la justicia trae concordia y amistad; ¿no es así? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1340:You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable. Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1341:A rhetorician is capable of speaking effectively against all comers, whatever the issue, and can consequently be more persuasive in front of crowds about… anything he likes. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1342:En efecto, lo que es santo, siendo amable en sí, amado por sí, no tiene ninguna relación con lo que es amado, y que sólo es amable en tanto que es amado. Lo primero subsiste ~ Plato, #NFDB
1343:Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1344:Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the person that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool ~ Plato, #NFDB
1345:The ancient Greeks, as Plato reports, believed that we discover truth through "reminiscence," that is by "remembering," by intuitively searching into our own experience. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
1346:To me the world of perfect forms is primary (as was Plato's own belief)-its existence being almost a logical necessity-and both the other two worlds are its shadows. ~ Roger Penrose, #NFDB
1347:Truthfulness. He will never willingly tolerate an untruth, but will hate it as much as he loves truth... And is there anything more closely connected with wisdom than truth? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1348:But now the giant heads of Plato and Socrates, each with an expression of penetrating wisdom carved on his white features, surveyed the river and the melon beds beyond. ~ J G Farrell, #NFDB
1349:Is it not the excess and greed of this and the neglect of all other things that revolutionizes this constitution too and prepares the way for the necessity of a dictatorship? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1350:Plato defines melody to consist of harmony, number and words: harmony naked of itself, words the ornament of harmony, number the common friend and uniter of them both. ~ John Dowland, #NFDB
1351:so, then it must be that the thinkers will be forever subject to the men of brute force, and Plato’s dream of a state ruled by philosophers will remain forever vain. ~ Upton Sinclair, #NFDB
1352:There will be no end to the troubles of the state or indeed of humanity until philosophers become kings or until those we now call kings really and truly become philosophers. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1353:With copious evidence ranging from Plato's haughtiness to Beethoven's tirades, we may conclude that the most brilliant people of history tend to be a prickly lot. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
1354:For the one (what is dear to the gods) is of the sort to be loved
because it is loved; the other (the holy), because it is of the sort to be loved,
therefore is loved. ~ Plato,#NFDB
1355:It's like this, I think: the excellence of a good body doesn't make the soul good, but the other way around: the excellence of a good soul makes the body as good as it can be. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1356:It’s not from money that excellence comes, but from excellence money and the other things, all of them, come to be good for human beings, whether in private or in public life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1357:Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, ~ Plato, #NFDB
1358:My mind was formed by studying philosophy, Plato and that sort of thing. ~ Werner Heisenberg, #NFDB
1359:Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are free from the grasp, not of one mad master only, but of many. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1360:repeating the commonplaces about atheism and materialism and sophistry, which are the stock-accusations against all philosophers when there is nothing else to be said of them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1361:That Plato's Republic should have been admired, on its political side, by decent people is perhaps the most astonishing example of literary snobbery in all history. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1362:the champion of justice [...] would be as a man who has fallen among wild beasts, unwilling to share their misdeeds, and unable to hold out singly against the savagery of all. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1363:Thinking and spoken discourse are the same thing, except that what we call thinking is, precisely, the inward dialogue carried on by the mind with itself without spoken sound. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1364:When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has the eye to contemplate the vision. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1365:A democracy is a state in which the poor, gaining the upper hand, kill some and banish others, and then divide the offices among the remaining citizens equally, usually by lot. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1366:For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or to be filled with malice and envy, contending against men ~ Plato, #NFDB
1367:I have found that fate is as liquid and elusive a word as love. Plato thought they were the same ... Novalis wrote that fate and soul are two names for the same principle. ~ Liz Greene, #NFDB
1368:I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
1369:Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1370:That Plato's Republic should have been admired, on its political side, by decent people, is perhaps the most astonishing example of literary snobbery in all history. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1371:And now - Plato's words mock me in the shadows on the ledge behind the flames: '...the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes. ~ Daniel Keyes, #NFDB
1372:As Plato: It is an essential feature of the just state that the wealthy be kept away from political power and that the politically powerful be kept away from wealth. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
1373:I can't refute you, Socrates," Agathon said, "so I dare say you're right."
"No," said Socrates, "it's the truth you can't refute, my dear Agathon. Socrates is a pushover. ~ Plato,#NFDB
1374:Many have rehashed the great works of Plato, and coming forward to the 20th century even Napoleon Hill gave us rehashed woo-woo when he replicated Wallace D. Wattles. ~ Stephen Richards, #NFDB
1375:Please tell me I’m not the only one who finds it endearing and encouraging that a legendary Roman philosopher had to reassure himself that it’s okay not to be Plato. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1376:Socrates: This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything]. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1377:Toda la amargura de la existencia le parecía servida en su plato, y, con el humo del cocido, subían desde el fondo de su alma algo así como otras bocanadas del hastío ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
1378:I am the owner of the sphere,
Of the seven stars and the solar year,
of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain,
Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,#NFDB
1379:Newton wrote, “Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas.” That is Latin for, “Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my best friend is truth.” When ~ Susan Wise Bauer, #NFDB
1380:Plato conceived of philosophy as necessarily gregarious rather than solitary. The exposure of presumptions is best done in company, the more argumentative the better. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
1381:According to Plato, we don't learn anything. Our soul has lived so many lives that we know everything. Teachers and education can only remind us of what we already know. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1382:But at three, four, five, and even six years the childish nature will require sports; now is the time to get rid of self-will in him, punishing him, but not so as to disgrace him. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1383:Nor at all can tell Whether I mean this day to end myself, Or lend an ear to Plato where he says, That men like soldiers may not quit the post Allotted by the Gods. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB
1384:Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, "Behold Plato's man!" ~ Diogenes, #NFDB
1385:[T]he truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1386:We ask what is the origin of marriage, and we are told that like the right of property, after many wars and contests, it has gradually arisen out of the selfishness of barbarians. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1387:And such men, you know, before finding out in what way something they desire can exist, put that question aside so they won’t grow weary deliberating about what’s possible and not. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1388:As Deng Xiaoping once said, “I don’t care if the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.” The Stoics had their own reminder: “Don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1389:Cei străini de filosofie au toate şansele să nu-şi dea seama că de fapt singura preocupare a celor care i se dăruiesc cu adevărat este trecerea în moarte şi starea care îi urmează. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1390:En esa parte del alma, verdaderamente divina, es donde es preciso mirarse, y contemplar allí todo lo divino, es decir, Dios y la sabiduría, para conocerse a sí mismo perfectamente. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1391:Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,--at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add any idea to his categories. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1392:The idea that the mind belongs to a separate realm, distinct from the body, was theorized early on, in major philosophical texts such Plato’s Phaedo (fourth century BC) ~ Stanislas Dehaene, #NFDB
1393:Una comida de treinta platos no alimenta treinta veces más que una comida de un plato solo; mirar cien cuadros puede destruir el provecho y el placer que uno de ellos daría. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
1394:A philosopher has the moderate love for wisdom and the courage to act according to wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge about the Good or the right relations between all that exists. Wherein ~ Plato, #NFDB
1395:If a painter, then, paints a picture of an ideally beautiful man, complete to the last detail, is he any the worse painter because he cannot show that such a man could really exist? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1396:I have this tattooed on my left side! I love the saying and it's a perfect description of Karma, don't judge/discriminate and don't do to someone what you wouldn't want done to you. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1397:regardless of any ulterior reason.” This is related to Plato’s idea of the Good and Kant’s Ideas of Pure Reason. And he uses similar arguments. The point is that the criteria of ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1398:Rhythm and harmony enter most powerfully into the inner most part of the soul and lay forcible hands upon it, bearing grace with them, so making graceful him who is rightly trained. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1399:The orators and the despots have the least power in their cities ... since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1400:All of [the] activities here have a surreptitious end-of-the-world feel to them:... these joggers sleepwalking in the mist like shadow's who have escaped from Plato's cave ~ Jean Baudrillard, #NFDB
1401:And tell him it's quite true that the best of the philosophers are of no use to their fellows; but that he should blame, not the philosophers, but those who fail to make use of them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1402:What is spoken of the unchanging or intelligible must be certain and true; but what is spoken of the created image can only be probable; being is to becoming what truth is to belief. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1403:And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1404:Education is the constraining and directing of youth towards that right reason, which the law affirms, and which the experience of the best of our elders has agreed to be truly right. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1405:Every serious man in dealing with really serious subjects carefully avoids writing. ... There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any writing of mine dealing with this subject. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1406:It gives me great pleasure to converse with the aged. They have been over the road that all of us must travel, and know where it is rough and difficult and where it is level and easy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1407:Our life is frittered away by detail Simplify, simplify.” Or, as Plato wrote, “In order to seek one’s own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life. ~ Duane Elgin, #NFDB
1408:Plato has dramatic strength ... but is quite unaware of the strength of the argument against his position ... and allows himself to be grossly unfair in arguing against it. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1409:The greatest mistake physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind, yet the mind and the body are one and should not be treated separately! ~ Plato, #NFDB
1410:We are like people looking for something they have in their hands all the time; we're looking in all directions except at the thing we want, which is probably why we haven't found it. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1411:cuando más, mejor y más fácilmente se produce es cuando cada persona realiza un solo trabajo de acuerdo con sus aptitudes, en el momento oportuno y sin ocuparse de nada más que de él. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1412:Our tradition of political thought had its definite beginning in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I believe it came to a no less definite end in the theories of Karl Marx. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
1413:There were no musicians or dancers, for Plato believed that educated men ought to be capable of entertaining themselves by "speaking and listening in turns in an orderly manner. ~ Tom Standage, #NFDB
1414:This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1415:You know I have complete faith in you, but what’s your backup plan if this doesn’t work?” Plato asked. Liv began dissembling the compass. “That’s not how ‘complete faith’ works. ~ Sarah Noffke, #NFDB
1416:For one can live in friendship
With verses and with cards, with Plato and with wine,
And hide beneath the gentle cover of our playful pranks
A noble heart and mind. ~ Alexander Pushkin,#NFDB
1417:Hegel would not have been possible but for Kant, who would not have been possible but for Plato. These three, more than any others, are the intellectual builders of Auschwitz. ~ Leonard Peikoff, #NFDB
1418:I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
1419:The mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal: and this is only to be attained by generation, because the new is always left in the place of the old. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1420:Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1421:From a short-sided view, the whole moving contents of the heavens seemed to them a parcel of stones, earth and other soul-less bodies, though they furnish the sources of the world order. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1422:Man's music is seen as a means of restoring the soul, as well as confused and discordant bodily afflictions, to the harmonic proportions that it shares with the world soul of the cosmos. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1423:Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light ~ Plato, #NFDB
1424:[Books] may sleep for a while and be neglected; but whenever the desire of information springs up in the human breast, there they are with mild wisdom ready to instruct and please us. ~ Ann Plato, #NFDB
1425:But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing. I ~ Plato, #NFDB
1426:The philosopher is in love with truth, that is, not with the changing world of sensation, which is the object of opinion, but with the unchanging reality which is the object of knowledge. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1427:This is the temple of Zeus. And that is a statue of Zeus himself,” said Plato. “The Olympic Games are played in his honor. He is the chief god of the Greek gods and goddesses. ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
1428:And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1429:We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1430:For we cannot suppose that States are made of 'oak and rock,' and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them? Yes, ~ Plato, #NFDB
1431:The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1432:This then is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just. I agree with you. We ~ Plato, #NFDB
1433:Where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1434:And so, from such early times human beings have had Love for one another inborn in them -- Love, reassembler of our ancient nature, who tries to make one out of two and to heal human nature. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1435:Arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tngible objects into the argument. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1436:For no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1437:How malicious philosophers can be! I do not know anything more venomous than the joke Epicurus allowed himself against Plato and the Platonists: he called them Dionysiokolakes. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1438:I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with ~ Plato, #NFDB
1439:Plato offers the amazing idea that contemplation of the way things really are is, in itself, a purifying process that can bring human beings into the only divinity there is. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht, #NFDB
1440:The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. ... This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1441:The power to learn is present in everyone's soul, and the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1442:Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1443:Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform --that God is not the author of all things, but of good only. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1444:Perhaps you reject Plato’s soul-mate line of thinking but have developed a “Christian alternative,” something along the lines of finding the one person whom God created “just for you. ~ Gary L Thomas, #NFDB
1445:So where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice ~ Plato, #NFDB
1446:The man who has no self-respect, on the contrary, will imitate anybody and anything; sounds of nature and cries of animals alike; his whole performance will be imitation of gesture and voice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1447:Trees are good for contemplation. Plato and Aristotle did their best thinking in the groves of olives and figs around Athens, and Buddha found enlightenment beneath a bo or peepul tree. ~ Colin Tudge, #NFDB
1448:We need food. We need water. We need warmth. And the lover feels he/she needs the beloved. Plato had it right over two thousand years ago. The god of love “lives in a state of need.”41 ~ Helen Fisher, #NFDB
1449:And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man. They ~ Plato, #NFDB
1450:Are these things good for any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1451:Courage, for
example, when not based on forethought, is mere recklessness; when a man is
thoughtlessly confident, he gets hurt; but when he is mindful of what he does, things go
well. ~ Plato,#NFDB
1452:My opinion is: Truth must be absolute and that you Mr. Protagoras, are absolutely in error. Since this is indeed my opinion, then you must concede that it is true according to your philosophy. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1453:Poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1454:So where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1455:There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same state to any considerable extent; one or the other will be disregarded. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1456:değeri olan bir kimse yaşayacak mıyım yoksa ölecek miyim diye düşünmemelidir. bir iş görürken yalnızca doğru mu eğri mi, yürekli bir insan gibi mi yoksa tabansızca mı davrandığını düşünmelidir. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1457:For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1458:He has a last request to make to them—that they will trouble his sons as he has troubled them, if they appear to prefer riches to virtue, or to think themselves something when they are nothing. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1459:In which, if any, of these constitutions do we find the art of ruling being practiced in the actual government of men? What art is more difficult to learn? But what art is more important to us? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1460:Remember our words, then, and whatever is your aim let virtue be the condition of the attainment of your aim, and know that without this all possessions and pursuits are dishonourable and evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1461:There will be no end to the troubles of states,Or of humanity itself,Till philosophers become kings in this world,Or till those we now call kings and rulers really And truly become philosophers ~ Plato, #NFDB
1462:What happened in the Western world was that Plato ceased to be the way people thought. Aristotle was rediscovered, and the modern, educated world moved toward Aristotelian thinking. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
1463:C. S. Lewis, Plato, Aristotle and many more names that I could add, including Einstein's, were individuals who were able to see the innate order in life, which others perceive as chaos. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1464:Great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if, under the influence of money or power, he neglect justice and virtue? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1465:Haven't you noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a poor thing? At the best it is blind—isn't anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding like a blind man on the right road? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1466:His most famous and controversial work was a hand printed, limited edition of Plato’s dialogue, Phaedrus, separately described in his “A Search for the Typographic Form of Plato’s Phaedrus”. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1467:. . . Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded. . . . ~ Plato, #NFDB
1468:I believe that Plato was correct in saying that our souls long for the Good, and that nobody chooses evil for themselves while recognizing that it is evil, though some may do it in ignorance. ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
1469:In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1470:It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from asbsolute beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute beauty, and for no other reason. Do you accept this kind of causality? ~ Plato, #NFDB
1471:John Adams was a farmer, Abraham Lincoln a small town lawyer. Plato and Socrates were teachers. Jesus was a carpenter. To equate wisdom and judgement with occupation is at best insulting. ~ Mark Sheppard, #NFDB
1472:you don’t seem to love money too much. And those who haven’t made their own money are usually like you. But those who have made it for themselves are twice as fond of it as those who [c] haven’t. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1473:for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1474:What do you mean? he asked. Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved? No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved. And ~ Plato, #NFDB
1475:whenever there are any taxes, the one who’s just pays more tax on an equal amount of property, the other less, and whenever [343E] there are allotments, the former gains nothing, the latter a lot. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1476:Wherever it has been established that it is shameful to be involved with sexual relationships with men, that is due to evil on the part of the rulers, and to cowardice on the part of the governed. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1477:And what is it, according to Plato, that philosophy is supposed to do? Nothing less than to render violence to our sense of ourselves and our world, our sense of ourselves in the world. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
1478:A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognise that the same thing happens to the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1479:A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1480:For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories... The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1481:Hope,' he says, 'cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;—hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1482:Los Estados para ser dichosos no tienen necesidad de murallas, ni de buques, ni de arsenales, ni de tropas, ni de gran aparato; la única cosa de que tienen necesidad para su felicidad es la virtud. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1483:Plato described ordinary life as unthinking, lived in a dim cave of shadowy reflections, but said that it is possible to leave the cave and see things in sunlit clarity as they actually are. ~ Huston Smith, #NFDB
1484:And were the vision of Democritus to have been adopted by Western civilization, instead of being cast aside for the pale views of Plato and Aristotle, we would be vastly further ahead today, in ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1485:For neither birth, nor wealth, nor honors, can awaken in the minds of men the principles which should guide those who from their youth aspire to an honorable and excellent life, as Love awakens them ~ Plato, #NFDB
1486:Many students of dreams, from Plato to [Sigmund] Freud, hold that the sleeping person,deprived of contact with the outside world, regresses temporarily to an irrational primitive mental state. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1487:No attempt should be made to cure the body without [curing] the soul,” wrote Plato nearly 2,400 years ago. Body and mind are inseparable; they sicken together and must be healed together. ~ Charlotte Gerson, #NFDB
1488:Observe that open loves are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honourable. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1489:The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), #NFDB
1490:That politician who curries favor with the citizens and indulges them and fawns upon them and has a presentiment of their wishes, and is skillful in gratifying them, he is esteemed a great statesman. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1491:The same is true of patience or mental quickness. A brain like a sponge and an even
temper are all very well in one who minds the proper use of such things; to anyone else,
they may bring harm. ~ Plato,#NFDB
1492:We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that
he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and
of an enemy the same may be said. ~ Plato,#NFDB
1493:A man's duty is to find out where the truth is, or if he cannot, at least to take the best possible human doctrine and the hardest to disprove, and to ride on this like a raft over the waters of life. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1494:Beauty ensnares hearts, captures minds, and stirs up emotional wildfires. From Plato to pinups, images of human beauty have catered to a limitless desire to see and imagine an ideal human form. ~ Nancy Etcoff, #NFDB
1495:Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1496:I do not know, men of Athens, how my accusers affected you; as for me, I was almost carried away in spite of myself, so persuasively did they speak. And yet, hardly anything of what they said is true. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1497:The choice of souls was in most cases based on their own experience of a previous life... Knowledge easily acquired is that which the enduing self had in an earlier life, so that it flows back easily. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1498:The only good thing that we owe to Plato and Aristotle is that they brought forward many arguments which we can use against the heretics. Yet they and other philosophers are now in hell. ~ Girolamo Savonarola, #NFDB
1499:There is a remarkable sentence of Pascal according to which we know too little to be dogmatists and too much to be skeptics, which expresses beautifully what Plato conveys through his dialogues. ~ Leo Strauss, #NFDB
1500:Consider how great is the encouragement which all the world gives to the lover; neither is he supposed to be doing anything dishonourable; but if he succeeds he is praised, and if he fail he is blamed. ~ Plato, #NFDB
63 Philosophy
60 Christianity
40 Integral Yoga
31 Poetry
27 Occultism
22 Psychology
10 Mysticism
9 Fiction
3 Yoga
3 Integral Theory
3 Hinduism
1 Theosophy
1 Sufism
1 Science
1 Mythology
1 Cybernetics
1 Baha i Faith
1 Alchemy
38 Plotinus
23 Carl Jung
21 Nolini Kanta Gupta
18 Saint Augustine of Hippo
16 Sri Aurobindo
12 Plato
10 William Butler Yeats
9 Satprem
8 Percy Bysshe Shelley
8 Jorge Luis Borges
8 Friedrich Nietzsche
7 Aleister Crowley
4 William Wordsworth
4 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
4 John Keats
4 Aldous Huxley
3 Vyasa
3 Jordan Peterson
3 James George Frazer
3 George Van Vrekhem
2 The Mother
2 Swami Krishnananda
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 A B Purani
16 City of God
15 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
10 Yeats - Poems
9 Mysterium Coniunctionis
8 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
8 Shelley - Poems
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
8 Labyrinths
7 Twilight of the Idols
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
6 Magick Without Tears
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
5 Aion
4 Wordsworth - Poems
4 The Perennial Philosophy
4 Keats - Poems
4 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
3 Vishnu Purana
3 The Phenomenon of Man
3 The Golden Bough
3 Preparing for the Miraculous
3 Maps of Meaning
3 Essays Divine And Human
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
3 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
2 The Life Divine
2 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
2 Symposium
2 Selected Fictions
2 Letters On Poetry And Art
2 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
And Swamiji added a post script to the letter: "Socratic dialogues are Plato all over you are entirely hidden. Moreover, the dramatic part is infinitely beautiful. Everybody likes it here or in the West." Indeed, in order to be unknown, Mahendranath had used the pen-name M., under which the book has been appearing till now. But so great a book cannot remain obscure for long, nor can its author remain unrecognised by the large public in these modern times. M. and his book came to be widely known very soon and to meet the growing demand, a full-sized book, Vol. I of the Gospel, translated by the author himself, was published in 1907 by the Brahmavadin Office, Madras. A second edition of it, revised by the author, was brought out by the Ramakrishna Math, Madras in December 1911, and subsequently a second part, containing new chapters from the original Bengali, was published by the same Math in 1922. The full English translation of the Gospel by Swami Nikhilananda appeared first in 1942.
In Bengali the book is published in five volumes, the first part having appeared in 1902
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Scarcely has a moment gone by since I left that I have not thought of you, but I wanted to wait for things to be clear and settled in me before writing, for you obviously have other things to do than listen to Platonic declarations.
My friends keep telling me that I am not ready and that, like R,1 whom they knew, I should go and spend some time in society. They say that my idea of going to the Himalayas is absurd, and they advise me to return to Brazil for a few years to stay with W W is an elderly American millionaire the only good rich man I knowwho wanted to make me an heir, as it were, to his financial affairs and who treats me rather like a son. He was quite disappointed when I came back to India. My friends tell me that if I have to go through a period in the outside world, the best way to do it is to remain near someone who is fond of me, while at the same time ensuring a material independence for the future.
0 1961-10-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is not surprising, therefore, that exegetes have seen the Vedas primarily as a collection of propitiatory rites centered around sacrificial fires and obscure incantations to Nature divinities (water, fire, dawn, the moon, the sun, etc.), for bringing rain and rich harvests to the tribes, male progeny, blessings upon their journeys or protection against the thieves of the sunas though these shepherds were barbarous enough to fear that one inauspicious day their sun might no longer rise, stolen away once and for all. Only here and there, in a few of the more modern hymns, was there the apparently inadvertent intrusion of a few luminous passages that might have justifiedjust barely the respect which the Upanishads, at the beginning of recorded history, accorded to the Veda. In Indian tradition, the Upanishads had become the real Veda, the Book of Knowledge, while the Veda, product of a still stammering humanity, was a Book of Worksacclaimed by everyone, to be sure, as the venerable Authority, but no longer listened to. With Sri Aurobindo we might ask why the Upanishads, whose depth of wisdom the whole world has acknowledged, could claim to take inspiration from the Veda if the latter contained no more than a tapestry of primitive rites; or how it happened that humanity could pass so abruptly from these so-called stammerings to the manifold richness of the Upanishadic Age; or how we in the West were able to evolve from the simplicity of Arcadian shepherds to the wisdom of Greek philosophers. We cannot assume that there was nothing between the early savage and Plato or the Upanishads.5
***
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
At the very outset when and where the Many has come out into manifestation in the Onehere also it must be remembered that we are using a temporal figure in respect of an extra-temporal factthere and then is formed a characteristic range of reality which is a perfect equation of the one and the many: that is to say, the one in becoming many still remains the same immaculate one in and through the many, and likewise the many in spite of its manifoldnessand because of the special quality of the manifoldnessstill continues to be the one in the uttermost degree. It is the world of fundamental realities. Sri Aurobindo names it the Supermind or Gnosis. It is something higher than but distantly akin to Plato's world of Ideas or Noumena (ideai, nooumena) or to what Plotinus calls the first divine emanation (nous). These archetypal realities are realities of the Spirit, Idea-forces, truth-energies, the root consciousness-forms, ta cit, in Vedic terminology. They are seed-truths, the original mother-truths in the Divine Consciousness. They comprise the fundamental essential many aspects and formulations of an infinite Infinity. At this stage these do not come into clash or conflict, for here each contains all and the All contains each one in absolute unity and essential identity. Each individual formation is united with and partakes of the nature of the one supreme Reality. Although difference is born here, separation is not yet come. Variety is there, but not discord, individuality is there, not egoism. This is the first step of Descent, the earliest one-not, we must remind ourselves again, historically but psychologically and logically the descent of the Transcendent into the Cosmic as the vast and varied Supermindcitra praketo ajania vibhw of the Absolute into the relational manifestation as Vidysakti (Gnosis).
The next steps, farther down or away, arrive when the drive towards differentiation and multiplication gathers momentum becomes accentuated, and separation and isolation increase in degree and emphasis. The lines of individuation fall more and more apart from each other, tending to form closed circles, each confining more and more exclusively to itself, stressing its own particular and special value and function, in contradistinction to or even against other lines. Thus the descent or fall from the Supermind leads, in the first instance, to the creation or appearance of the Overmind. It is the level of consciousness where the perfect balance of the One and the Many is disturbed and the emphasis begins to be laid on the many. The source of incompatibility between the two just starts here as if Many is notOne and One is not Many. It is the beginning of Ignorance, Avidya, Maya. Still in the higher hemisphere of the Overmind, the sense of unity is yet maintained, although there is no longer the sense of absolute identity of the two; they are experienced as complementaries, both form a harmony, a harmony as of different and distinct but conjoint notes. The Many has come forward, yet the unity is also there supporting it-the unity is an immanent godhead, controlling the patent reality of the Many. It is in the lower hemisphere of the Overmind that unity is thrown into the background half-submerged, flickering, and the principle of multiplicity comes forward with all insistence. Division and rivalry are the characteristic marks of its organisation. Yet the unity does not disappear altogether, only it remains very much inactive, like a sleeping partner. It is not directly perceived and envisaged, not immediately felt but is evoked as reminiscence. The Supermind, then, is the first crystallisation of the Infinite into individual centres, in the Overmind these centres at the outset become more exclusively individualised and then jealously self-centred.
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In ancient times too there were conscious attempts to build and remould human society. The Rishis were not merely spiritual seers, but creators of the social order also. They saw by their vision the inner truths of things, they found principles and laws, right principles and correct laws which establish peace and stability, on the one hand, no doubt, but on the other hand serve also as the frame for the growth and fulfilment of the individual being. The king with his executive body was there to see that the laws were observed and honoured. The later law-givers (the makers of codes, smritis) had not the direct and large vision of the Rishis, but they tried their best to maintain the laws as they understood them, elaborate them, change or modify wherever possible or needed under given circumstances. In ancient Europe too, it was Plato who envisaged the ideal Republic, a government of philosophers the wise who are not actively engaged in the turmoil of life, but stand aloof and detached and can see more of the game and accordingly legislate all the better. In modern times also the rise of a Feuhrer or a Dictator seems to have been a psychological necessity: the mass consciousness is in sore need of a guide, and as the right guide is not easily available, the way of the false prophet is smooth and wide open. As a protection and antidote against such a calamity, we tried here and there to found and organise a government of all talents.
But again, who are the talents and where are they? For a modern society produces at best clever politicians, but very few great souls if at all, who can inspire, guide and create. Not a system or organization, but such centres of forces, with creative vision and power, it is that that mankind sorely needs at this hour. System and organization come after, they can only be the embodiment of a creative vision.
03.02 - The Philosopher as an Artist and Philosophy as an Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Plato would not tolerate the poets in his ideal society since they care too much for beauty and very little for the true and good. He wanted it all to be a kingdom of philosophers. I am afraid Plato's philosopher is not true to type, the type set up by his great disciple. Plato's philosopher is no longeran artist, he has become a mystica Rishi in our language.
For we must remember that Plato himself was really more of a poet than a philosopher. Very few among the great representative souls of humanity surpassed him in the true poetic afflatus. The poet and the mysticKavi and Rishiare the same in our ancient lore. However these two, Plato and Aristotle, the mystic and the philosopher, the master and the disciple, combine to form one of these dual personalities which Nature seems to like and throws up from time to time in her evolutionary marchnot as a mere study in contrast, a token of her dialectical process, but rather as a movement of polarity making for a greater comprehensiveness and richer values. They may be taken as the symbol of a great synthesis that humanity needs and is preparing. The role of the mystic is to envisage and unveil the truth, the supernal reality which the mind cannot grasp nor all the critical apparatus of human reason demonstrate and to bring it down and present it to the understanding and apprehending consciousness. The philosopher comes at this stage: he receives and gathers all that is given to him, arranges and systematises, puts the whole thing in a frame as it were.
The poet-philosopher or the philosopher-poet, whichever way we may put it, is a new formation of the human consciousness that is coming upon us. A wide and rationalising (not rationalistic) intelligence deploying and marshalling out a deep intuitive and direct Knowledge that is the pattern of human mind developing in the new age. Bergson's was a harbinger, a definite landmark on the way. Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine arrives and opens the very portals of the marvellous temple city of a dynamic integral knowledge.
03.04 - The Body Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The spirit, the pure self in man is formless; but his soul the spirit cast into the evolutionary mould in manifestationhas a form: it possesses a personal identity of its own. Each soul or Psyche is a contoured consciousness, as it were: it is not a vague indefinite charge of consciousness, but consciousness having magnitude and dimensions. And the physical body is a visible formula, a graph of that magnitude, an imagea faithful image or shadow thrown upon the wall of this cave of earthly life,of a reality above and outside, as Plato conceived the phenomenon. And the human appearance too is an extension or projection of an inner and essential reality which brings out or takes up that configuration when fronting the soul in its evolutionary march through terrestrial life. A mystic poet says:
All dreams of the soul
03.04 - The Other Aspect of European Culture, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And the secret soul of this Classical culture was not inherited by those who professed to be its champions and adorers the torch-bearers of the New Enlightenment; no, its direct descendants were to be found among the builders of the Christian civilization. Plato and Pythagoras and Heraclitus and the initiates to the Orphic and the Eleusinian mysteries continued to live in and through Plotinus and Anselm and Paracelsus and the long line of Christian savants and sages. The Middle Age had its own spiritual discoveries and achievements founded on the Cult of the Christ; to these it added what it could draw and assimilate from the mystic and spiritual traditions of the Grco-Latin world. The esoteric discipline of the Jewish Kabala also was not without influence in shaping the more secret undercurrents of Europe's creative and formative genius. The composite culture which they grew and developed had undisputed empire over Europe for some ten or twelve centuries; and it was nothing, if not at heart a spiritual and religious and other-worldly culture.
Herein lay Europe's soul; and to it turned often and anon the gaze of those who, among a profane humanity, are still the guardians of the Spiritpoets and artistswho, even in the very midst of the maelstrom of Modernism, sought to hark back, back to the rock of the ages. The mediaevalism and archaicism of which a Rossetti or a Morris, for example, is often accused embodies only a defensive reaction on the part of Europe's soul; it is an attempt to return to her more fundamental life-intuition.
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Europe's spiritual soul itself in the last analysis will be found to be only a derivative of Asia's own self. For all the Mysteries and Occult Disciplines the Christian, the Platonic, the Eleusinian and Orphic, the Kabalistic, the Druidicwhich lay imbedded in Europe's spiritual and religious genius, when traced further up to the very source, will carry us straight into Asia's lap, perhaps India's.
And Europe in accepting or embracing Asia comes back to the fountain-head of her own inner being and nature.
03.08 - The Democracy of Tomorrow, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In this connection we can recall Plato's famous serial of social types from aristocracy to tyranny, the last coming out of democracy the type that precedes it, (almost exactly as we have experienced it in our own days). But the most interesting point to which we can look with profit is Plato's view that the types are as men are, that is to say, the character and nature of man in a given period determines the kind of government or social system he is going to have. There has been this cyclic rotation of types, because men themselves were rotating types, because, in other words, the individuals composing human society had not found their true reality, their abiding status. Plato's aristocracy was the ideal society, it was composed of and ruled by the best of men (aristas, srestha) the wisest. And the question was put by many and not answered by Plato himself, what brought about the decline in a perfect system. We have attempted to give our answer.
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03.09 - Buddhism and Hinduism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Buddhists deny likewise the real existence of general ideas: according to them only individuals are real existences, general ideas are mere abstractions. The Hindus, on the other hand, like Plato who must have been influenced by them, affirm the reality of general ideas-although real need not always mean material.
(IV) The Vedic Rishis declared with one voice that all existence is built upon delight, all things are born out of delight and move from delight to delight, and delight is their final culmination. Buddha said misery is the hallmark of things created; sorrow is the marrow and pith and the great secret of existence. Sabbe samkhara anichcha. Sabbe samkhara dukkha. Sabbe dhamma anatta.1
03.17 - The Souls Odyssey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the meanwhile, however, our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. A physical incarnation clouds the soul-consciousness and involves loss of memory, amnesia. The soul's travail therefore in a physical body is precisely to regain the memory of what has been forgotten. Spiritual discipline means at bottom this remembering, and all culture too means nothing more than that that is also what Plato thought when he said that all knowledge, all true knowledge consists in reminiscence.
Man, in his terrestrial body, although fallen, because shrouded and diverted from his central being of light and fire, is yet not, as I have said, wholly forsaken and cut adrift. He always carries within him that radiant core through all the peregrinations of earthly sojourn. And though the frontal consciousness, the physical memory has no contact with it, there is a stream of inner consciousness that continues to maintain the link. That is the silver lining to the dark cloud that envelops and engulfs our normal life. And that is why at timesnot unoften there occurs a crack, a fissure in the crust of our earthly nature of ignorance and a tongue of flame leaps outone or other perhaps of the seven sisters of which the Upanishad speaks. And then a mere man becomes a saint, a seer, a poet, a prophet, a hero. This is the flaming godhead whom we cherish within, Agni, the leader of our progressive life, the great Sacrifice, the child whom we nourish, birth after birth, by all that we experience and do and achieve. To live normally and naturally in that fiery elementlike the legendary Salamanderto mould one's consciousness and being, one's substance and constitution, even the entire cellular organisation into the radiant truth is the goal of man's highest aspiration, the ultimate end of Nature's evolutionary urge and the cycle of rebirth.
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
If we look at Europe once again and cast a glance at its origins, we find at the source the Grco-Roman culture. It was pre-eminently a culture based upon the powers of mind and reason: it included a strong and balanced body (both body natural and body politic) under the aegis of mens sana (a sound mind). The light that was Greece was at its zenith a power of the higher mind and intelligence, intuitively dynamic in one the earlierphase through Plato, Pythagoras, Heraclitus and the mystic philosophers, and discursively and scientifically rational through the Aristotelian tradition. The practical and robust Roman did not indulge in the loftier and subtler activities of the higher or intuitive mind; his was applied intelligence and its characteristic turn found expression in law and order and governance. Virgil was a representative poet of the race; finely sensitive and yet very self-consciousearth-bound and mind-boundas a creative artist: a clear and careful intelligence with an idealistic imagination that is yet sober and fancy-free is the very hall mark of his poetic genius. In the post-Roman age this bias for mental consciousness or the play of reason and intellectual understanding moved towards the superficial and more formal faculties of the brain ending in what is called scholasticism: it meant stagnation and decadence. It is out of this slough that the Renaissance raised the mind of Europe and bathed it with a new light. That movement gave to the mind a wider scope, an alert curiosity, a keener understanding; it is, as I have said, the beginning of that modern mentality which is known as the scientific outlook, that is to say, study of facts and induction from given data, observation and experience and experiment instead of the other scholastic standpoint which goes by a priori theorising and abstraction and deduction and dogmatism.
We may follow a little more closely the march of the centuries in their undulating movement. The creative intelligence of the Renaissance too belonged to a region of the higher mind, a kind of inspirational mind. It had not the altitude or even the depth of the Greek mind nor its subtler resonances: but it regained and re-established and carried to a new degree the spirit of inquiry and curiosity, an appreciation of human motives and preoccupations, a rational understanding of man and the mechanism of the world. The original intuitive fiat, the imaginative brilliance, the spirit of adventure (in the mental as well as the physical world) that inspired the epoch gradually dwindled: it gave place to an age of consolidation, organisation, stabilisation the classical age. The seventeenth century Europe marked another peak of Europe's civilisation. That is the Augustan Age to which we have referred. The following century marked a further decline of the Intuition and higher imagination and we come to the eighteenth century terre terre rationalism. Great figures still adorned that agestalwarts that either stuck to the prevailing norm and gave it a kind of stagnant nobility or already leaned towards the new light that was dawning once more. Pope and Johnson, Montesquieu and Voltaire are its high-lights. The nineteenth century brought in another crest wave with a special gift to mankind; apparently it was a reaction to the rigid classicism and dry rationalism of the preceding age, but it came burdened with a more positive mission. Its magic name was Romanticism. Man opened his heart, his higher feeling and nobler emotional surge, his subtler sensibility and a general sweep of his vital being to the truths and realities of his own nature and of the cosmic nature. Not the clear white and transparent almost glaring light of reason and logic, of the brain mind, but the rosy or rainbow tint of the emotive and aspiring personality that seeks in and through the cosmic panorama and dreams of
04.02 - A Chapter of Human Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The appearance of the Greeks on the stage of human civilisation is a mystery to historians. They are so different from all that preceded them. There does not seem to exist any logical link between them and the races from whom they are supposed to have descended or whose successors they were. The Minoan or Cretan civilisation is said to be cradle of the Greek, but where is the parallel or proportion between the two, judging from whatever relics have been left over from the older, the more ancient one. Indeed that is the term which best describes the situation. Whatever has gone before the Hellenic culture is ancient; they belong to the Old Regime. Egypt is old, Phoenicia is old, the Hebrews are old, all the other races of the old world are old, not merely chronologically, but psychologically. But Hellas is modern. There is a breath in the Ionian atmosphere, a breath of ozone, as it were, which wafts down to us, even into the air of today. Homer and Solon, Socrates and Aristotle, Pythagoras and Plato are still the presiding gods ruling over the human spirit that was born on Olympus and Ida.
Human evolution took a decisive turn with the advent of the Hellenic culture and civilisation. All crises in evolution are a sudden revelation, an unexpected outburst, a saltum, a leap into the unknown. Now, what the Greeks brought in was the Mind, the luminous Reason, the logical faculty that is married to the senses, no doubt, but still suffused with an inner glow of consciousness. It is the faculty mediating between a more direct and immediate perception of things, Intuition and Instinct, on the one hand, and on the other, the perception given by the senses and a power of control over material things. Take Egypt or Israel or Chaldea, what one finds prominent there is the instinctive-intuitive man, spontaneousprime-sautierimaginative, mythopoeic, clairvoyant, clairaudient (although not very clear, in the modern and Greek sense), bringing into this world things of the other world and pushing this world as much as possible into the other, maintaining a kind of direct connection and communion between the two. The Greeks are of another mould. They are a rational people; they do not move and act simply or mainly by instinctive reactions, but even these are filtered in them through a light of the Mind of Intelligence, a logical pattern, a rational disposition of things; through Mind they seek to know Matter and to control it. It is the modern methodology, that of observation and experiment, in other words, the scientific procedure. The Greeks have had their gods, their mythology; but these are modelled somewhat differently: the gods are made more human, too human, as has often been observed. Zeus and Juno (Hera) are infinitely more human than Isis and Osiris or Moloch and Baal or even the Jewish Jehovah. These vital gods have a sombre air about them, solemn and serious, grim and powerful, but they have not the sunshine, the radiance and smile of Apollo (Apollo Belvedere) or Hermes. The Greeks might have, they must have taken up their gods from a more ancient Pantheon, but they have, after the manner of their sculptor Phidias, remoulded them, shaped and polished them, made them more luminous and nearer and closer to earth and men. 1 Was it not said of Socrates that he brought down the gods from heaven upon earth?
04.02 - Human Progress, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So it is argued that man may have built up more and more efficient organisation in his outer life, he may have learnt to wield a greater variety and wealth of tools and instruments in an increasing degree of refinement and power; but this does not mean that his character, his nature or even the broad mould of his intelligence has changed or progressed. The records and remains of Pre-dynastic Egypt or of Proto-Aryan Indus valley go to show that those were creations of civilised men, as civilised as any modern people. The mind that produced the Rig Veda or the Book of the Dead or conceived the first pyramid is, in essential power of intelligence, no whit inferior to any modern scientific brain. Hence a distinction is sometimes made between culture and civilisation; what the moderns have achieved is progress with regard to civilisation, that is to say, the outer paraphernalia; but as regards culture a Plato, a Lao-tse, a Yajnavalkya are names to which we still bow down.
One can answer, however, that even if in the last eight or ten thousand years which, they say, is the extent of the present cycle, the civilised or cultural life of humanity has not changed much, this does not mean that it cannot, will not change. The paleolithic age, it appears, covered a period of thirty to forty thousand years; the neolithic age also must have lasted some fifteen thousand years. The metal age is now not more than ten thousand years. So it does not seem to be too late; perhaps it is just time for another radical and crucial change to come as the chronological scheme would seem to demand.
05.05 - Man the Prototype, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Not only so. Our limited mind and senses are accustomed to view and recognise individuals alone as persons. But there are group personalities too. Thus each species has a generic personality, a consciousness and an ideal or intrinsic form also: the individuals on the physical plane are its various incarnations, projections and formations. Old Plato was not so naive, as we of today are apt to believe, when he spoke of the real reality of general ideas. The attributes, qualities and functions of the generic personality are the source and pattern of what the individuals that form the group actually are. The group person is the king, he is also the body of the Dharma ruling the domain. Any change in the law of being of the group person is necessarily translated in a similar change in the nature and activity of the individuals of the species. What evolutionists describe as sudden variation or mutation and whose cause or genesis they are at a loss to trace, is precisely due to an occult change in the consciousness and will of the group soul.
Man too as a species has a generic personality, his prototype. Only, in opposition to the scientific view, that is an earlier phenomenon belonging to the very origin of things. Man in his essential form and reality is found at the source and beginning of creation. When the unmanifest Transcendent steps forward to manifest, when there is the first expression of typal variations in the infinite as the basis of physical creation, then and there appears Man in his essential and eternal divine form. He is there almost as a sentinel, guarding the passage from the formless to form. Indeed, he is the first original form of the formless. A certain poet says that man is the archetype of all living forms. A bird is a flying man, a fish a swimming man, a worm a crawling man, even a plant is but a rooted man. His form belongs to a region beyond even the first principles of creation. The first principles that bring out and shape and uphold the manifested universe are the trinity: Life, Light and Delightin other terms, Sachchidananda. The whole complex of the manifest universe is resolvable into that unity of triple status. But behind even this supernal, further on towards the final disappearance into the absolute Unmanifestsumming up, as it were, in him the whole manifestationstands this original primordial form, this first person, this archetypal Man.
05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, there are four positions possible with regard to the world and reality, depending on the relation between the observer and the observed, the subject and the object. They are:(I) subjective, (2) objective, (3) subjective objective and (4) objective subjective. The first two are extreme positions, one holding the subject as the sole or absolute reality, the object being a pure fabrication of its will and idea, an illusion, and the other considering the object as the true reality, the subject being an outcome, an epiphenomenon of the object itself, an illusion after all. The first leads to radical or as it is called monistic spirituality the type of which is Mayavada: the second is the highway of materialism, the various avataras of which are Marxism, Pragmatism, Behaviourism etc. In between lie the other two intermediate positions according to the stress or value given to either of the two extremes. The first of the intermediates is the position held generally by the idealists, by many schools of spirituality: it is a major Vedantic position. It says that the outside world, the object, is not an illusion, a mere fabrication of the mind or consciousness of the subject, but that it exists and is as real as the subject: it is dovetailed into the subject which is a kind of linchpin, holding together and even energising the object. The object can further be considered as an expression or embodiment of the subject. Both the subject and the object are made of the same stuff of consciousness the ultimate reality being consciousness. The subject is the consciousness turned on itself and the object is consciousness turned outside or going abroad. This is pre-eminently the Upanishadic position. In Europe, Kant holds a key position in this line: and on the whole, idealists from Plato to Bradley and Bosanquet can be said more or less to belong to this category. The second intermediate position views the subject as imbedded into the object, not the object into the subject as in the first one: the subject itself is part of the object something like its self-regarding or self-recording function. In Europe apart possibly from some of the early Greek thinkers (Anaxagoras or Democritus, for example), coming to more recent times, we can say that line runs fairly well-represented from Leibnitz to Bergson. In India the Sankhyas and the Vaisheshikas move towards and approach the position; the Tantriks make a still more near approach.
Once again, to repeat in other terms the distinction which may sometimes appear to carry no difference. First, the subjective objective in which the subject assumes the preponderant position, not denying or minimising the reality of the object. The external world, in this view, is a movement in and of the consciousness of a universal subject. It is subjective in the sense that it is essentially a function of the subject and does not exist apart from it or outside it; it is objective in the sense that it exists really and is not a figment or imaginative construction of any individual consciousness, although it exists in and through the individual consciousness in so far as that consciousness is universalised, is one with the universal consciousness (or the transcendental, the two can be taken together in the present connection). Instead of the Kantian transcendental idealism we can name it transcendental realism.
100.00 - Synergy, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
100.304 Cheese Tetrahedron: If we make all the symmetrical Platonic solids of
firm cheese, and if we slice the cube parallel to one of its faces, the remaining
hexahedron is no longer equiedge-lengthed. So too with all the other Platonic
solids __ the dodecahedron, the octahedron, or the icosahedron __ with one, and only
10.02 - The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Marshalled the Platoons of the invisible dance;
I formed earth's beauty out of atom and gas,
10.09 - Education as the Growth of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All education, all culture means drawing this inner light to the front. Indeed the word 'education' literally means, 'to bring out.' Plato also pointed to the same truth when he said that education is remembrance. You remember what is imbedded or secreted with in, you bring to the light, the light of your physical mind, what you have within, what you already possess in your being and inner consciousness. Acquisition is not education. Indeed a miser is not a rich man, rich is he who knows how to utilise his wealth, even so a possessor of much information is only a carrier of loads.
True education is growth of consciousness. It is consciousness that carries the light and the power of the light. We are born upon earth with this consciousness at the centre of our being. And a growing child is nothing but a growing consciousness. Growth of consciousness means an increasing intensity and an increasing amplitude or wideness of the light. Unfortunately, placed as we are under the circumstances of life as it is, this light of consciousness is not allowed to grow in its natural and normal way. The external demands of life and the world put a pressure upon it which turns it away from its straight path. Things are demanded of this light or consciousness which do not belong to its nature, which are not an expression of its nature. As though it is twisted, tortured or smothered under utilitarian necessities.
1.00 - Introduction to Alchemy of Happiness, #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
It has been reserved to our own times to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with Ghazzali, and this chiefly by means of a translation by M. Pallia, into French, of his Confessions, wherein he announces very clearly his philosophical views; and from an essay on his writings by M. Smolders. In consequence, Mr. Lewes, who in his first edition of the Biographical History of Philosophy, found no place for Ghazzali, is induced in his last edition, from the evidenee which that treatise contains that he was one of the controlling minds of his age, to devote an entire section to an exhibition of his opinions in the same series with Abclard and Bruno, and to make him the typical figure to represent Arabian philosophy. For a full account of Ghazzali's [7] school of philosophy, we refer to his history and to the two essays, just mentioned. We would observe, very briefly however, that like most of the learned Mohammedans of his age, he was a student of Aristotle. While they regarded all the Greek philosophers as infidels, they availed themselves of their logic and their principles of philosophy to maintain, as far possible, the dogmas of the Koran. Ghazzali's mind possessed however Platonizing tendencies, and he affiliated himself to the Soofies or Mystics in his later years. He was in antagonism with men who to him appeared, like Avicenna, to exalt reason above the Koran, yet he himself went to the extreme limits of reasoning in his endeavors to find an intelligible basis for the doctrines of the Koran, and a philosophical basis for a holy rule of life. His character, and moral and intellectual rank are vividly depicted in the following extract from the writings of Tholuck, a prominent leader of the modern Evangelical school of Germany.
"Ghazzali," says Tholuck, "if ever any man have deserved the name, was truly a divine, and he may justly he placed on a level with Origen, so remarkable was he for learning and ingenuity, and gifted with such a rare faculty for the skillful and worthy exposition of doctrine. All that is good, noble and sublime, which his great soul had compassed, he bestowed upon Mohammedanism; and he adorned the doctrines of the Koran with so much piety and learning, that, in the form given them by him, they seem in my opinion worthy the assent of Christians. Whatsoever was most excellent in the philosophy of Aristotle or in the Soofi mysticism, he discreetly adapted to the Mohammedan theology. From every school, he sought the [8] means of shedding light and honor upon religion; while his sincere piety and lofty conscientiousness imparted to all his writings a sacred majesty. He was the first of Mohammedan divines." (Bibliotheca Sacra, vi, 233).
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
is this form here understood in the philosophical Platonic
sense as idea which we find in the course of the evolu-
--
and Plato and form the profounder part of Neo Platonism
and Gnosticism with all their considerable consequences
--
by long study as among the Platonists, not a few Gnostics
and, it seems, the Hermetists. But however acquired, it
--
what the Platonists and Manicheans appropriately called
listeners. 5
--
fluences are discernible of Pythagoranism, Platonism, the
ascetic schools referring back to Socrates, and Neo Platon-
1.01 - A NOTE ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
not in itself more vigorous or unswerving than that of a Plato or
an Augustine, and individual moral perfection is still to be mea-
--
When Plato acted it was probably in the belief that his freedom to
act could only affect a small fragment of the world, narrowly cir-
--
acts with those of Plato or Augustine? All such acts are linked, and
Plato and Augustine are still expressing, through me, the whole ex-
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
atory paraphrase of the Platonic etSo?. For our purposes this term
is apposite and helpful, because it tells us that so far as the col-
--
lost book of Plato. Helen of Troy, in her reincarnation, is
30
--
c ISos concept of Plato, and the eternal ideas are primordial
images stored up eV Wcpovpavtw to (in a supracelestial place) as
--
changes into a black horse, which in Plato's parable stands for
38 Cf. the motif of the "old king" in alchemy. Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 434ff.
1.01 - Foreward, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Pythagoras and Plato were to some extent mystics themselves or
drew many of their ideas from the mystics. In India philosophy
--
The Platonists, developing their doctrine from the early mystics,
held that we live in relation to two worlds, - a world of higher
1.01 - Historical Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
theological and philosophical thinkers, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among those devoted to the study of its theorems were Raymond Lully, the scholastic metaphysician and alchemist ; John Reuchlin, who revived Oriental Philosophy in Europe ; John Baptist von Helmont, the physician and chemist who discovered hydrogen ; Baruch Spinoza, the excommunicated " God- intoxicated " Jewish philosopher ; and Dr. Henry More, the famous Cambridge Platonist. These men, to name but a few among many who have been attracted to the
Qabalistic ideology, after restlessly searching for a world- view which should disclose to them the true explanations of life, and show the real inner bond uniting all things, found the cravings of their minds at least partially satisfied by its psychological and philosophical system.
1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Between the Catholic mystics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the Quakers of the seventeenth there yawns a wide gap of time made hideous, so far as religion is concerned, with interdenominational wars and persecutions. But the gulf was bridged by a succession of men, whom Rufus Jones, in the only accessible English work devoted to their lives and teachings, has called the Spiritual Reformers. Denk, Franck, Castellio, Weigel, Everard, the Cambridge Platonistsin spite of the murdering and the madness, the apostolic succession remains unbroken. The truths that had been spoken in the Theologia Germanica that book which Luther professed to love so much and from which, if we may judge from his career, he learned so singularly littlewere being uttered once again by Englishmen during the Civil War and under the Cromwellian dictatorship. The mystical tradition, perpetuated by the Protestant Spiritual Reformers, had become diffused, as it were, in the religious atmosphere of the time when George Fox had his first great opening and knew by direct experience.
that Every Man was enlightened by the Divine Light of Christ, and I saw it shine through all; And that they that believed in it came out of Condemnation and came to the Light of Life, and became the Children of it; And that they that hated it and did not believe in it, were condemned by it, though they made a profession of Christ. This I saw in the pure Openings of Light, without the help of any Man, neither did I then know where to find it in the Scriptures, though afterwards, searching the Scriptures, I found it.
--
It is because we dont know Who we are, because we are unaware that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, that we behave in the generally silly, the often insane, the sometimes criminal ways that are so characteristically human. We are saved, we are liberated and enlightened, by perceiving the hitherto unperceived good that is already within us, by returning to our eternal Ground and remaining where, without knowing it, we have always been. Plato speaks in the same sense when he says, in the Republic, that the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains. And in the Theaetetus he makes the point, so frequently insisted upon\by those who have practised spiritual religion, that it is only by becoming Godlike that we can know Godand to become Godlike is to identify ourselves with the divine element which in fact constitutes our essential nature, but of which, in our mainly voluntary ignorance, we choose to remain unaware.
They are on the way to truth who apprehend God by means of the divine, Light by the light.
--
Philo was the exponent of the Hellenistic Mystery Religion which grew up, as Professor Goodenough has shown, among the Jews of the Dispersion, between about 200 B. C. and 100 A. D. Reinterpreting the Pentateuch in terms of a metaphysical system derived from Platonism, Neo-Pythagoreanism and Stoicism, Philo transformed the wholly transcendental and almost anthropomorphically personal God of the Old Testament into the immanent-transcendent Absolute Mind of the Perennial Philosophy. But even from the orthodox scribes and Pharisees of that momentous century which witnessed, along with the dissemination of Philos doctrines, the first beginnings of Christianity and the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, even from the guardians of the Law we hear significantly mystical utterances. Hillel, the great rabbi whose teachings on humility and the love of God and man read like an earlier, cruder version of some of the Gospel sermons, is reported to have spoken these words to an assemblage in the courts of the Temple. If I am here, (it is Jehovah who is speaking through the mouth of his prophet) everyone is here. If I am not here, no one is here.
The Beloved is all in all; the lover merely veils Him; The Beloved is all that lives, the lover a dead thing.
1.025 - Sadhana - Intensifying a Lighted Flame, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
This is a very interesting subject in political science, where political thinkers differ in their opinions as to whether there is a total absence of improvement in quality when there is social order, and there is only a quantitative increase, or whether there is also an element of an increase of quality in thinking. This has led to divergent opinions among statesmen and political philosophers right from Plato and Aristotle onwards, through to Chanakya and other thinkers in India - where the opinion swung like a pendulum. One side held that there is absolutely no improvement in quality, though there is a large improvement in quantity, and the other side thought that there is an element of qualitative superiority. We are not going to discuss this subject at present, as it is outside the jurisdiction of our current topic.
However, the point on hand is that a larger reality should also be qualitatively superior to the discrete particulars from which the mind is supposed to be withdrawn for the purpose of the practice of yoga. Though it is somewhat easy to bring about a quantitative increase in the concept of reality by methods such as the ones I just mentioned, it is a little more difficult to introduce a qualitative increase into the concept of reality. This is the main difficulty for everyone. However much we may concentrate on God, we will not be able to improve upon the human concept, even when there is a concept of God. So we feel unhappy even when we are meditating on God, because we have not improved the quality but have only increased the quantity, so that we may think of God as a large human individual a massive individual, as expansive as the universe itself, for example. That is quite wonderful, but still this human thought does not leave us.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
geometric forms, or as a sphere, without beginning or end, symmetrical across all axes. Plato, in the
Timaeus, described the primary source as the round, there at the beginning.278 In the Orient, the world and
--
and hell have their existence; the place where Platos supra-celestial ideals reside, the ground of dream
and fantasy. It appears to have a four-dimensional structure, like that of objective space-time (and of
--
to their Platonic forms. Culture is therefore the sum total of surviving historically-determined
hierarchically-arranged behaviors and their second and third-order abstract representations, and more: it is
1.02 - Prayer of Parashara to Vishnu, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
kara Siva. The Viṣṇu who is the subject of our text is the supreme being in all these three divinities or hypostases, in his different characters of creator, preserver and destroyer. Thus in the Mārkaṇḍeya: 'Accordingly, as the primal all-pervading spirit is distinguished by attributes in creation and the rest, so he obtains the denomination of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva. In the capacity of Brahmā he creates the worlds; in that of Rudra he destroys them; in that of Viṣṇu he is quiescent. These are the three Avasthās (ht. hypostases) of the self-born. Brahmā is the quality of activity; Rudra that of darkness; Viṣṇu, the lord of the world, is goodness: so, therefore, the three gods are the three qualities. They are ever combined with, and dependent upon one another; and they are never for an instant separate; they never quit each other.' The notion is one common to all antiquity, although less philosophically conceived, or perhaps less distinctly expressed, in the passages which have come down to us. The τρεῖς ἀρχικὰς ὑποστάσεις of Plato are said by Cudworth (I. 111), upon the authority of Plotinus, to be an ancient doctrine, παλαιὰ δόξα: and he also observes, "Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato have all of them asserted a trinity of divine hypostases; and as they unquestionably derived much of their doctrine from the Egyptians, it may reasonably be suspected that the Egyptians did the like before them." As however the Grecian accounts, and those of the Egyptians, are much more perplexed and unsatisfactory than those of the Hindus, it is most probable that we find amongst them the doctrine in its most original as well as most methodical and significant form.
[2]: This address to Viṣṇu pursues the notion that he, as the supreme being, is one, whilst he is all: he is Avikāra, not subject to change; Sadaikarūpa, one invariable nature: he is the liberator (tāra), or he who bears mortals across the ocean of existence: he is both single and manifold (ekānekarūpa): and he is the indiscrete (avyakta) cause of the world, as well as the discrete (vyakta) effect; or the invisible cause, and visible creation.
1.02 - THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decline, as instruments in the
disintegration of Hellas, as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek ("The Birth
--
rational. The moral bias of Greek philosophy from Plato onward, is the
outcome of a pathological condition, as is also its appreciation of
1.02 - The Three European Worlds, #The Ever-Present Origin, #Jean Gebser, #Integral
The second structural element in von Kaschnitz-Weinbergs view is the uterine character of Grotto architecture that entered the Mediterranean area from the Orient (mainly from Iran) and survives in Roman dome architecture, as in the Pantheon or the Baths. Here space is merely a vault, a Grotto-space corresponding to the powerful cosmological conception of the Oriental matriarchal religions for, which the world itself is nothing but a vast cavern. It is of interest that Plato, in his famous allegory, was the first to describe man in the process of leaving the cave.
We are then perhaps justified in speaking of the "space" of antiquity as undifferentiated space, as a simple inherence within the security of the maternal womb;. expressing an absence of any confrontation with actual, exterior space. The predominance of the two constitutive polar elements, the paternal phallic column and the maternal uterine cave the forces to which unperspectival man was subject reflects his inextricable relationship to his parental world and, consequently, his complete dependence on it which excluded any awareness of an ego in our modern sense. He remains sheltered and enclosed in the world of the "we" where outer objective space is still non-existent.
--
This psychic inner-space breaks forth at the very moment that the Troubadours are writing the first lyric "I"-Poems, the first personal poetry that suddenly opens an abyss between man, as poet, and the world or nature (1250 A.D.). Concurrently at the University of Paris, Thomas Aquinas, following the thought of his teacher Albertus Magnus, asserts the validity of Aristotle, thereby initiating the rational displacement of the predominantly psychic-bound Platonic world.
And this occurred in the wake of Petrus Hispanus (PetrusLucitanus), the later Pope John XXI (d. 1277), who had authored the first comprehensive European textbook on psychology (De anima), introducing via Islam and Spain the Aristotelian theory of the soul. Shortly thereafter, Duns Scotus (d. 1308) freed theology from the hieratic rigors of scholasticism by teaching the primacy of volition and emotion. And the blindness of antiquity to time inherent in its unperspectival, psychically-stressed world (which amounted to a virtual timelessness) gave way to the visualization of and openness to time with a quantifiable, spatial character. This was exemplified by the erection of the first public clock in the courtyard of Westminister Palace in 1283,an event anticipated by Pope Sabinus, who in 604ordered the ringing of bells to announce the passing of the hours.
--
"Perspective is a proof or test confirmed by our experience, that all things project their images toward the eye in pyramidal lines." In addition to the fact that we again meet up with Alberti's important idea of the pyramid, now given its valid restatement by Leonardo, the remark expresses the very essence of Leonardo's rather dramatic situation: it expresses his Platonic, even pre- Platonic animistic attitude that "all things project their image toward the eye," which the eye does not perceive, but rather suffers or endures. This creates an unusual and even disquieting tension between the two parts of the sentence, since the purely Aristotelian notion of the first part not only speaks of proof but indeed proceeds from the "experience" of early science. This struggle in Leonardo himself between the scientist demonstrating things and the artist enduring them reflects the transitional situation between the unperspectival and the perspectival worlds.
A note on perspective of presumably later date is illustrative of Leonardos complete dissociation from the dominant unperspectival structure of ancient and early medieval consciousness. In Manuscript G of the Institut de France he writes: "In its measurements perspective employs two counter posed pyramids. The one has its vertex in the eye [he often calls the vertex `the point'] and its base on the horizon. The second has its base resting against the eye and its vertex at the horizon. The first pyramid is the more general perspective since it encompasses all dimensions of an object facing the eye . . . while the second refers to a specific position . . . and this second perspective results from the first."
1.037 - Preventing the Fall in Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
After that, something else can come, says Patanjali. This working for the world and merging oneself in social liberating activity cannot go on for a long time, because the world will give us a kick. All great saviours of mankind were thrown to the pits because they could not save mankind. A day comes when society will dislike and even hate us, though we are utmost sincere in trying to help it. We have only to read history that is sufficient. All masters in the political field and most sincere workers in the social field were finally doomed by society. They were either killed by the very same people for whom they were working, or they were condemned to a condition worse than death. This is what happened to great leaders of mankind right from Pedicles, Plato and Aristotle, and nobody has been exempted from this, right up to modern times which is the tragedy of human effort. Then we will realise what is in front of us. People generally leave this world with a sob and a cry, not with joy on their faces, because they realised this fact too late. There was very little time for them to live in this world, and all the time had been spent in wrong activity under the impression that it is right activity.
When it is too late to realise this, there is a deep sorrow supervening in oneself, and then people wind up all their activities, spiritual as well as temporal, and nothing happens. There is the condition of torpidity alasya, as Patanjali mentions. If there had not been lethargy in people, who would not be successful in life? We are not successful because of lethargy. We are not active, really speaking. A little finger is active, but the whole body is not active. A little part of the mind is functioning, while the other part is sleeping. Alasya, or the lethargic condition of the whole personality, will swallow up all effort. The mind and the understanding cease to function. There is a complete hibernation that takes place, and oblivion, both inward as well as outward, occurs. This oblivion is most dangerous. This total inactivity which a person may resort to, and an extreme type of negativity that may become the consequence of the difficulties on hand, may stir up another storm altogether, because these forces of nature will not allow us to keep quiet for long. They will neither allow us to do the right thing, nor will they allow us to keep quiet. They always want us to be punished, harassed and put to the greatest of hardship. This lethargic condition may continue for a long time.
10.37 - The Golden Bridge, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The liberation of the mind, at least the higher mind, as an instrument of expression for the human consciousness was achieved to a remarkable degree in the Upanishads generally, particularly in some, although the beginnings of it might be traced even in some of the earliest of the Vedic Riks. A serious and persistent attempt for this liberation was made later, in the age or rather ages of the Gita, the Mahabharata, the Darshanas. It was the rational spirit that impelled and inspired the Buddhist consciousness and in Europe it had its heyday in the age of Socrates and Plato. Those were intellectual ages and the intellect was trying to find and explore its own domain in its full and free power and sovereignty. And the human language too, as a necessary corollary was remoulded, remodelled, rationalised: it shook itself away as far as possible from the prejudices and prepossessions of the sense-bound mind. That is the inner story of the growth of language from the synthetic inflexional cohesive stage to its modern analytic discursive character.
Still, however, it is not easy to completely ignore or efface the influence of a concrete truth, a fact which is at the basis of human birth the truth and fact of the body, of the external material objects. For example, how to express That which does not belong to this world, has not the measures of this body? The Upanishad has perforce to speak negatively of the Supreme positive Reality. It has to say, "It is not this, it is not this, it is quite other than all this, it has no parallel here below although it is the source and origin of all this." We have found some positive words indeedsat-cit-nanda; but the other key-word is a negative in structureamtam, not death. Immortality means not mortality, and ananta too is a negative expression. We remember the famous lines: Na tatra srya bhti etc.,1 it is a supreme revelation, it is supremely evocative but it is built up of negatives. The Vedic rishis followed a different line, as I said; they did not evade or reject the materials of a physical life, they boldly grasped them and used them as signs, symbols, embodiments of other truths and realities. They accepted the sun, the moon, the stars, man and woman, even the normal activities of life but they gave these quite a different connotation. They filled them with a new depth and density, a higher specific gravity.
1.03 - Concerning the Archetypes, with Special Reference to the Anima Concept, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
androgynous, Platonic perfection and changed into the woeful
figure of an ordinary old woman. Thus from the very begin-
--
26 Conforming to the bisexual Original Man in Plato, Symposium, XIV, and to
the hermaphroditic Primal Beings in general.
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
a transcendent Platonic realm, but the real universe, then
its a very different story. And a French scientist states
1.03 - Reading, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Concord soil has produced, whose names are hardly known here. Or shall I hear the name of Plato and never read his book? As if Plato were my townsman and I never saw him,my next neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to the wisdom of his words. But how actually is it? His Dialogues, which contain what was immortal in him, lie on the next shelf, and yet
I never read them. We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between the illiterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all, and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects. We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were. We are a race of tit-men, and soar but little higher in our intellectual flights than the columns of the daily paper.
1.04 - Descent into Future Hell, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Integral Yoga
[London: Penguin, 1986], p. 46, line 244). Socrates distinguished four types of divine madness: (I) inspired divination, such as by the prophetess at Delphi; (2) instances in which individuals, when ancient sins have given rise to troubles, have prophesied and incited to prayer and worship; (3) possession by the Muses, since the technically skilled untouched by the madness of the Muses will never be a good poet; and (4) the lover. In the Renaissance, the theme of divine madness was talcen up by the Neo Platonists such as Ecino and by humanists such as Erasmus. Erasmus's discussion is particularly important, as it fuses the classical Platonic conception with Christianity.
For Erasmus, Christianity was the highest type of inspired madness. Like Plato, Erasmus
Descent into Future Hell
1.04 - HOW THE .TRUE WORLD. ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
"I, Plato, am the truth.")
2. The true world which is unattainable for the moment, is promised to
--
and of cheerfulness; Plato blushes for shame and all
free-spirits kick up a shindy.)
1.04 - Narayana appearance, in the beginning of the Kalpa, as the Varaha (boar), #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
παντα, set his own hand to every work, which, as Aristotle says, would be, ἀπρεπὲς τῷ θεῷ, unbecoming God; but, as in the case of Brahmā and other subordinate agents, that they should occasion p. 33 the various developments of crude nature to take place, by supplying that will, of which nature itself is incapable. Action being once instituted by an instrumental medium, or by the will of an intellectual agent, it is continued by powers or a vitality inherent in nature or the matter of creation itself. The efficiency of such subordinate causes was advocated by Plato, Aristotle, and others; and the opinion of Zeno, as stated by Laertius, might be taken for a translation of some such passage as that in our text: Ἔστι δὲ φύσις ἕξις ἐξ αὐτῆς κινο
μένη κατὰ σπερματικοὺς λόγο
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
Ever since Plato, most literary critics have connected the word thought with dialectical and
conceptual idioms, and ignored or denied the existence of poetic and imaginative thought. This attitude
1.04 - The First Circle, Limbo Virtuous Pagans and the Unbaptized. The Four Poets, Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. The Noble Castle of Philosophy., #The Divine Comedy, #Dante Alighieri, #Christianity
There I beheld both Socrates and Plato,
Who nearer him before the others stand;
1.05 - Christ, A Symbol of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
tores Platonici [Iamblichus de mysteriis Aegyptiorum], Venice, 1497).
28 "Oportuit autem ut alter illorum extremorum isque optimus appellaretur Dei
--
with which Plato . . . equips the soul in his Phaedrus." 83 The
third son, as his nature needed purifying (air oKaOdpms), fell deep-
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
powers. We read of ascending and descending angels on Jacobs and Platos ladders, and similarly there
seem to be demonic reinforcements in hea then life that account for the almost superhuman grandeur of
--
In both Plato and Aristotle mind is sharply distinguished from the body. It is the unifying and
ordering principle, the organ of logos, which brings harmony into the life of the soul, as logos is the
--
comparable to the brilliant results obtained by the earlier integrations of Platonism, Aristotelianism, and
Neo Platonism. This type of knowledge, dreamed of and partially elaborated in the eighteenth century,
--
Cornford, F.M. (1956). Platos cosmology: The timaeus of Plato. London: Routledge.
Costa, P.T., Jr. & McCrae, R.R. (1992a). Four ways five factors are basic. Personality and Individual
--
Vol. 7. Plato (pp. 200-212). Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica.
Polan, H.J. & Ward, M.J. (1994). Role of the mothers touch in failure to thrive: A preliminary
--
Eliade comments: Liber Platonis quartorum (of which the Arabic original cannot be later than the tenth century),
cited in [Eliade, M. (1978a). p. 158]. One will find the same doctrine among the Chinese alchemists [see Eliade, M.
1.06 - THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
as Plato himself). No one is responsible for the fact that he exists
at all, that he is constituted as he is, and that he happens to be in
1.06 - The Sign of the Fishes, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
truth of the matter appears." The Platonic year was then reckoned as 36,000
years. Tycho Brahe reckoned it at 24,120 years. The constant for the precession
--
the next Platonic month, namely Aquarius, will constellate the
problem of the union of opposites. It will then no longer be
--
a Platonic month of 2,143 years, one would arrive at a.d. 2154 for the beginning
of the Aquarian Age, and at a.d. 1997 if you start from star "a 113." The latter
1.06 - The Three Schools of Magick 1, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Occultism
When everyone has done laughing, I will ask you to compare the real effects produced on the course of human affairs by Caesar, Attila, and Napoleon, on the one hand; of Plato, the Encyclopaedists, and Karl Marx*[AC15] on the other.
The Yellow School of Magick considers, with complete scientific and philosophical detachment, the fact of the Universe as a fact. Being itself apart of that Universe, it realizes its impotence to alter the totality in the smallest degree. To put it vulgarly, it does not try to raise itself from the ground by pulling at its socks. It therefore opposes to the current of phenomena no reaction either of hatred or of sympathy. So far as it attempts to influence the course of events at all, it does so in the only intelligent way conceivable. It seeks to diminish internal friction.
1.07 - THE .IMPROVERS. OF MANKIND, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
priests who "improve" mankind. Neither Manu, nor Plato, nor Confucius,
nor the teachers of Judaism and Christianity, have ever doubted their
1.07 - The Literal Qabalah (continued), #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Sephiros in the descent from ideality to actuality one should possess a knowledge of philosophy from Plato to
Hegel. This triple action of movement, its negation and reconciliation (considered by Hegel to be a kind of logical controversy) is universally held to be the true method of philosophy. The Qabalah advancing by means of this
1.07 - The Psychic Center, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
absurdity: Plato and the Hottentot, the fortunate child of saints or Rishis88 and the born and trained criminal plunged from beginning to end in the lowest fetid corruption of a great modern city have equally to create by the action or belief of this one unequal life all their eternal future. This is a paradox which offends both the soul and the reason, and ethical sense and the spiritual intuition. 89 But even among awakened beings, there are vast differences. Some souls, some consciousness-forces have just been born, while others have already acquired quite distinct individualities; some souls are in the midst of their first radiant self-discoveries, but they do not know much outside their own resplendent joys (they do not even have any precise memory of their past, nor are they aware of the worlds they carry within),
while other, rare souls seem replete with a consciousness as vast as the earth. Indeed, a man can be a luminous yogi or a saint living in his soul, yet still possess a crude mind, a repressed vital, a body he ignores or crassly mistreats, and a completely virgin superconscient.
1.07 - TRUTH, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
John Smith, the Platonist
In all faces is shown the Face of faces, veiled and in a riddle. Howbeit, unveiled it is not seen, until, above all faces, a man enter into a certain secret and mystic silence, where there is no knowing or concept of a face. This mist, cloud, darkness or ignorance, into which he that seeketh thy Face entereth, when he goeth beyond all knowledge or concept, is the state below which thy Face cannot be found, except veiled; but that very darkness revealeth thy Face to be there beyond all veils. Hence I observe how needful it is for me to enter into the darkness and to admit the coincidence of opposites, beyond all the grasp of reason, and there to seek the Truth, where impossibility meeteth us.
--
John Smith, the Platonist
Mens minds perceive second causes,
1.08a - The Ladder, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Krishna, Buddha, and Plato, and a vast host of equal and lesser names, owed their power to self-hypnosis and epilepsy, then indeed we have here formed the most power- ful argument for the cultivation of epilepsy. These are the keys which, in this world, will unlock the fast-closed doors of its mystery.
But enough ! These objections arise out of a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the experience, and of the methods leading thereto. In his Birth of Tragedy, Freidrich
1.08 - Information, Language, and Society, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
their investigations to the world of Ideas of Plato.
In other words, in the social sciences we have to deal with
1.08 - RELIGION AND TEMPERAMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Significantly enough, it is in essentially similar terms that Dr. Radin classifies and (by implication) evaluates primitive human beings in so far as they are philosophers and religious devotees. For him there is no doubt that the higher monotheistic forms of primitive religion are created (or should one rather say, with Plato, discovered?) by people belonging to the first of the two great psycho-physical classes of human beings the men of thought. To those belonging to the other class, the men of action, is due the creation or discovery of the lower, unphilosophical, polytheistic kinds of religion.
This simple dichotomy is a classification of human differences that is valid so far as it goes. But like all such dichotomies, whether physical (like Hippocrates division of humanity into those of phthisic and those of apoplectic habit) or psychological (like Jungs classification in terms of introvert and extravert), this grouping of the religious into those who think and those who act, those who follow the way of Martha and those who follow the way of Mary, is inadequate to the facts. And of course no director of souls, no head of a religious organization, is ever, in actual practice, content with this all too simple system. Underlying the best Catholic writing on prayer and the best Catholic practice in the matter of recognizing vocations and assigning duties, we sense the existence of an implicit and unformulated classification of human differences more complete and more realistic than the explicit dichotomy of action and contemplation.
1.09 - SKIRMISHES IN A WAY WITH THE AGE, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
an authority than the divine Plato himself (thus does Schopenhauer
call him), upholds another proposition: that all beauty lures to
--
supposing one believes Plato. At least one realises that philosophy was
pursued differently in Athens; above all, publicly. Nothing is less
--
to Plato's style might be defined rather as an erotic competition, as a
continuation and a spiritualisation of the old agonal gymnastics and
--
of this philosophic eroticism of Plato's? A new art-form of the Greek
_Agon,_ dialectics.--In opposition to Schopenhauer and to the honour of
1.1.04 - Philosophy, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Purpose. Some minds, like Plato, like Vivekananda, feel more than others this mighty complexity and give voice to it. They pour out thought in torrents or in rich and majestic streams.
They are not logically careful of consistency, they cannot build up any coherent, yet comprehensive systems, but they quicken men's minds and liberate them from religious, philosophic and scientific dogma and tradition. They leave the world not surer, but freer than when they entered it.
1.10 - Aesthetic and Ethical Culture, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Its limitations at once appear, when we look back at its prominent examples. Early Rome and Sparta were barren of thought, art, poetry, literature, the larger mental life, all the amenity and pleasure of human existence; their art of life excluded or discouraged the delight of living. They were distrustful, as the exclusively ethical man is always distrustful, of free and flexible thought and the aesthetic impulse. The earlier spirit of republican Rome held at arms length as long as possible the Greek influences that invaded her, closed the schools of the Greek teachers, banished the philosophers, and her most typical minds looked upon the Greek language as a peril and Greek culture as an abomination: she felt instinctively the arrival at her gates of an enemy, divined a hostile and destructive force fatal to her principle of living. Sparta, though a Hellenic city, admitted as almost the sole aesthetic element of her deliberate ethical training and education a martial music and poetry, and even then, when she wanted a poet of war, she had to import an Athenian. We have a curious example of the repercussion of this instinctive distrust even on a large and aesthetic Athenian mind in the utopian speculations of Plato who felt himself obliged in his Republic first to censure and then to banish the poets from his ideal polity. The end of these purely ethical cultures bears witness to their insufficiency. Either they pass away leaving nothing or little behind them by which the future can be attracted and satisfied, as Sparta passed, or they collapse in a revolt of the complex nature of man against an unnatural restriction and repression, as the early Roman type collapsed into the egoistic and often orgiastic licence of later republican and imperial Rome. The human mind needs to think, feel, enjoy, expand; expansion is its very nature and restriction is only useful to it in so far as it helps to steady, guide and streng then its expansion. It readily refuses the name of culture to those civilisations or periods, however noble their aim or even however beautiful in itself their order, which have not allowed an intelligent freedom of development.
On the other hand, we are tempted to give the name of a full culture to all those periods and civilisations, whatever their defects, which have encouraged a freely human development and like ancient Athens have concentrated on thought and beauty and the delight of living. But there were in the Athenian development two distinct periods, one of art and beauty, the Athens of Phidias and Sophocles, and one of thought, the Athens of the philosophers. In the first period the sense of beauty and the need of freedom of life and the enjoyment of life are the determining forces. This Athens thought, but it thought in the terms of art and poetry, in figures of music and drama and architecture and sculpture; it delighted in intellectual discussion, but not so much with any will to arrive at truth as for the pleasure of thinking and the beauty of ideas. It had its moral order, for without that no society can exist, but it had no true ethical impulse or ethical type, only a conventional and customary morality; and when it thought about ethics, it tended to express it in the terms of beauty, to kalon, to epieikes, the beautiful, the becoming. Its very religion was a religion of beauty and an occasion for pleasant ritual and festivals and for artistic creation, an aesthetic enjoyment touched with a superficial religious sense. But without character, without some kind of high or strong discipline there is no enduring power of life. Athens exhausted its vitality within one wonderful century which left it enervated, will-less, unable to succeed in the struggle of life, uncreative. It turned indeed for a time precisely to that which had been lacking to it, the serious pursuit of truth and the evolution of systems of ethical self-discipline; but it could only think, it could not successfully practise. The later Hellenic mind and Athenian centre of culture gave to Rome the great Stoic system of ethical discipline which saved her in the midst of the orgies of her first imperial century, but could not itself be stoical in its practice; for to Athens and to the characteristic temperament of Hellas, this thought was a straining to something it had not and could not have; it was the opposite of its nature and not its fulfilment.
1.10 - Theodicy - Nature Makes No Mistakes, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
11 To Plato the Good was synonymous with the Supreme Being.
This adjective, with its ethical associations, applied to God has caused
1.10 - THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
suggest Plato to me. In regard to Plato I am a thorough sceptic, and
have never been able to agree to the admiration of Plato the _artist,_
which is traditional among scholars. And after all, in this matter,
--
opinion Plato bundles all the forms of style pell-mell together,
in this respect he is one of the first decadents of style: he has
--
who invented the _satura Menippea._ For the Platonic dialogue--this
revoltingly self-complacent and childish kind of dialectics--to
--
authors,--Fontenelle for instance. Plato is boring. In reality my
distrust of Plato is fundamental. I find him so very much astray
from all the deepest instincts of the Hellenes, so steeped in moral
--
I would prefer to designate the whole phenomenon Plato with the hard
word "superior bunkum," or, if you would like it better, "idealism."
--
fatality of Christianity, Plato is that double-faced fascination
called the "ideal," which made it possible for the more noble natures
--
which led to the "cross." And what an amount of Plato is still to be
found in the concept "church," and in the construction, the system
--
cure, after all Platonism, has always been Thucydides. Thucydides and
perhaps Machiavelli's _principe_ are most closely related to me owing
--
natures as Thucydides from Plato: Plato is a coward I in the face of
reality--consequently he takes refuge in the ideal: Thucydides is
1.11 - Woolly Pomposities of the Pious Teacher, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Occultism
Well, now, before going further into this, I must behave like an utter cad, and disgrace my family tree, and blot my 'scutcheon and my copybook by confusing you about "realism." Excuse: not my muddle; it was made centuries ago by a gang of cursd monks, headed by one Duns Scotus so-called because he was Irish or if not by somebody else equally objectionable. They held to the Platonic dogma of archetypes. They maintained that there was an original (divine) idea such as "greenness" or a "pig," and that a green pig, as observed in nature, was just one example of these two ideal essences. They were opposed by the "nominalists," who said, to the contrary, that "greenness" or "a pig" were nothing in themselves; they were mere names (nominalism from Lat. nomen, a name) invented for convenience of grouping. This doctrine is plain commonsense, and I shall waste no time in demolishing the realists.
All priori thinking, the worst kind of thinking, goes with "realism" in this sense.
1.12 - The Superconscient, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Perhaps It seeks to experience the same Glory and Joy in conditions seemingly contrary to Its own, in a life besieged by death, ignorance, and obscurity, in the multitudinous diversity of the world, instead of in a blank unity. Then this life and this Matter would at least have a meaning; no longer a purgatory or an empty transition to the beyond, but a laboratory where step by step through matter, plants, animals, and then an increasingly conscious human being the Spirit evolves the superman, the god: The soul has not finished what it has to do by merely developing into humanity; it has still to develop that humanity into its higher possibilities. Obviously, the soul that lodges in a Caribbee or an untaught primitive or an Apache of Paris or an American gangster, has not yet exhausted the necessity of human birth, has not developed all its possibilities or the whole meaning of humanity, has not worked out all the sense of Sachchidananda in the universal Man; neither has the soul lodged in a vitalistic European occupied with dynamic production and vital pleasure or in an Asiatic peasant engrossed in the ignorant round of the domestic and economic life. We may reasonably doubt whether even a Plato or a Shankara marks the crown and therefore the end of the outflowering of the spirit in man. We are apt to suppose that these may be the limit, because these and others like them seem to us the highest point which the mind of man can reach, but that may be the illusion of our present possibility. . . . The soul had a prehuman past, it has a superhuman future.
Sri Aurobindo is not a theoretician of evolution; he is a practitioner of evolution. We have jumped ahead in this discussion merely to shed some light upon his groping process in the Alipore jail. He could see that that cosmic and blissful vastitude was not the place where any work could be done, that one had to come back down into the body, humbly, and search there. Yet, we may ask, if "the transformation" is to take place through a power of consciousness and not by some external machinery, what consciousness higher than the cosmic consciousness can there be? Is that not the top of the ladder and therefore the limit of power? The question is relevant if we wish to understand the practical process of the discovery, and eventually experience it ourselves. We might answer with two observations.
1.13 - And Then?, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
We do not have the power because we do not have total vision. If, by some miracle, power were given to us any power, on any level we would instantly turn it into a lovely prison corresponding to our small ideas and sense of good, we would lock our whole family up in it, and the world, if we could. But what do we know of the good of the world? What do we know even of our own good, we who today lament this misfortune only to realize tomorrow that it was knocking at the door of a greater good? For the last two thousand years and more, we have been devising beneficial systems, which crumble one after another fortunately. Even the wise Plato banished poets from his Republic, much as today we would perhaps banish those useless eccentrics who roam the world and knock blindly at the doors of the future. We complain about our incapacity (to heal, help, cure, save), but it is exactly, minutely commensurate with our capacity of vision and the philanthropists are far from being the most gifted. We are forever running up against the same mistake: we want to change the world without first changing ourselves.
The superman has lost his small self, lost his small ideas of family and country, good and evil he has in effect no more ideas, or has them all, exactly when needed. And when one comes, it is carried out, very simply, because its time and moment have come. For him, ideas and feelings are simply the imperative translation of a movement of force a will-idea or force-idea which is expressed here by this gesture, there by that action or plan, this poem, that architecture or cantata. But it is one and the same Force in different languages pictorial, musical, material or economic. He is tuned in to the Rhythm, and he translates according to his particular talent and place in the whole. He is a translator of the Rhythm.
1.13 - Under the Auspices of the Gods, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
If we look at the evolutionary future from an individual standpoint instead of a collective one, the overmind does not bring us, either, the living fulfillment to which we aspire. If the goal of evolution is merely to produce more Beethovens and Shelleys, and perhaps even a few super Platos, one cannot help thinking that this is really a paltry culmination for so many millions of years and so many billions of individuals expended along the way. Beethoven or Shelley, or even St.
John, cannot be evolutionary goals, or else life has no true meaning
1.14 - Bibliography, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
xix Platonis liber quartorum [pp. 114-208]
xx Tractatus Aristotelis alchymistae ad Alexandrum Mag-
1.14 - IMMORTALITY AND SURVIVAL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
John Smith, the Platonist
I have maintained ere this and I still maintain that I already possess all that is granted to me in eternity. For God in the fulness of his Godhead dwells eternally in his image the soul.
1.14 - The Secret, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Something radically different is needed another type of consciousness. All the poets and creative geniuses have known these swings of consciousness. Even as he experienced his Illuminations, Rimbaud visited strange realms that struck him with "terror"; he, too, went through the law of dark inversion. But instead of being unconsciously tossed from one extreme to another, of ascending without knowing how and descending against his will, the integral seeker works methodically, consciously, without ever losing his balance, and, above all, with a growing confidence in the Consciousness-Force, which never initiates more resistance than he can meet, and never unveils more light than he can bear. After living long enough from one crisis to the next, we will ultimately discern a pattern in the action of the Force, and will notice that each time we seem to leave the ascending curve or even lose something we had achieved, we ultimately retrieve the same realization, but on a higher, more expanded level, made richer by the part that our "fall" has added; had we not "fallen," this lower part would never have become integrated into our higher ones. Perhaps it was the same collective process that brought about Athens' fall, so that some old barbarians, too, might be exposed to Plato. The integral yoga does not follow a straight line rising higher and higher out of sight, toward a smaller and smaller point, but, according to Sri Aurobindo, a spiral that slowly and methodically annexes all the parts of our being in an ever vaster opening based upon an ever deeper foundation. Not only will we observe a pattern behind this Force, or rather this Consciousness-Force, but also regular cycles and a rhythm as certain as that of the tides and the moons. The more we progress, the wider the cycles, and the closer their relationship with the cosmic movement itself until the day when we can perceive in our own descents the periodical descents of consciousness on earth, and in our own difficulties all the turmoil, resistance and revolt of the earth. Eventually, everything will become so intimately interconnected that we will be able to read in the tiniest things, the most insignificant events of daily life or the objects nearby, the signs of vaster depressions that will sweep over all men and compel their ascent or descent within the same evolutionary wave.
Then we will understand that we are unfailingly being guided toward a Goal, that everything has a meaning, even the slightest thing nothing moves without moving everything and that we are on our way to a far greater adventure than we had ever imagined. Soon, a second paradox will strike us, which is perhaps the very same one.
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
"most spiritual" animal. In Plato the rotundum is the world-
soul and a "blessed God." 78
--
schema in the Book of Platonic Tetralogies. 109 I have dealt with
109 An anonymous Harranite treatise entitled " Platonis liber quartorum," printed
1.15 - Index, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
bolism, 115/; Platonic month of,
ix, 149; in primitive Christianity,
--
year: Christ as, 204; Platonic, 8 in
Yehoshua/Yeshua, see Joshua
1.15 - The world overrun with trees; they are destroyed by the Pracetasas, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[7]: 'They are removed', which the commentator explains by 'are absorbed, as if they were fast asleep;' but in every age or Yuga, according to the text-in every Manvantara, according to the comment-the Ṛṣis reappear, the circumstances of their origin only being varied. Dakṣa therefore, as remarked in the preceding note, is the son of Brahmā in one period, the son of the Pracetasas in another. So Soma, in the Svāyambhuva Manvantara, was born as the son of Atri; in the Cākṣuṣa, he was produced by churning the ocean. The words of our text occur in the Hari Vaṃśa, with an unimportant variation: 'Birth and obstruction are constant in all beings, but Ṛṣis and those men who are wise are not perplexed by this;' that is, not, as rendered above, by the alternation of life and death; but, according to the commentator on the Hari Vaṃśa, by a very different matter, the prohibition of unlawful marriages. Utpatti, 'birth of progeny,' is the result of their will; Nirodha, 'obstruction,' is the law prohibiting the intermarriage of persons connected by the offering of the funeral cake; to which Ṛṣis and sages are not subject, either from their matrimonial unions being merely Platonic, or from the bad example set by Brahmā, who, according to the Vedas, approached his own daughter; we have already had occasion to advert to (p. 51. n. 5). The explanation of the text, however, given by the commentator appears forced, and less natural than the interpretation preferred above.
[8]: This is the usual account of Dakṣa's marriage, and is that of the Mahābhārata, Adi P. (p. 113), and of the Brāhma Purāṇa, which the Hari Vaṃśa, in the first part, repeats. In another portion, the Puṣkara Māhātmya, however, Dakṣa, it is said, converts half himself into a female, by whom he begets the daughters presently to be noticed: ###. This seems to be merely a new edition of an old story.
1.16 - Man, A Transitional Being, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
This imperfection should not at all be deplored, Sri Aurobindo says; it is, on the contrary, a privilege and a promise.328 If we were perfect and harmonious within our own kind, without sin or flaw, we would already be a stationary species, like the amphibians or the mollusks. But in us, who reproduce the great cosmic Play, the force has not completely found its consciousness, or our nature its own spirit. Was Plato ever satisfied or Michelangelo ever at peace? "One night I took Beauty upon my knees, and I found her bitter!" exclaimed Rimbaud. This is a sign that the peak of mental intelligence or aesthetic refinement is not the end of the journey, not total plenitude,
not the great Equilibrium of She and He together again. The spirit within, the little flame at the center that slowly awakens and grows,
1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
therefore, we can only indicate some broad lines of development, or of difficulty, without being sure whether or not they really belong to the path. The experience is in process. When it has succeeded once, just once, in a single human being, then the very conditions of the transformation will be different, because the path will have been trodden, charted, and the prime difficulties cleared away. The day Plato conceived Phaedrus, he raised up all of humankind to the possibility of Phaedrus. The day a single human being overcomes the difficulties of the transformation, he will raise up all humanity to the possibility of a luminous, immortal, true life.
It is possible, however, to have some idea in advance of the major problems confronting the seeker. When Agni burns in our mind, in our moments of inspiration, we know it creates a great tension, an almost physical heat. When it burns in our heart, in our soul-moments, we know that our breast feels like a red-hot hearth, hot enough for the skin to change color and to such a degree that even an inexperienced eye can perceive a kind of glowing radiance around the yogi. When Agni burns in our vital, and as we call the force or open to the cosmic world, there is likewise a kind of concentrated pulsation at the level of the navel, almost a tremor of fever throughout the body (since a large amount of force is entering through a tiny channel). But what about the warm gold dust, this wine of lightning,368 in the cells of the body?
--
light, etc., as we have previously tried to describe him. Short of a full supramental being (even Plato was not born in a day), we must then build in our flesh a transitional being, a link between the human and the superhuman, that is, a being who not only would have realized the supramental consciousness but whose body would also have acquired enough immortality, as it were, to last through the transition period,
and enough power and suppleness to effect its own transmutation, or to engender a supramental being through its own energy, bypassing the usual method of earthly birth. Indeed, the heavy animal and human heredity weighing on our subconscient, and automatically transmitted by physical conception, is one of the major hurdles to the
--
dwelleth the Truth"), because without the new heaven or, rather, the new supramental level of consciousness, the emergence of a new earth would not be possible. The new earth will result from the "new heaven" of the supramental consciousness, just as the present earth resulted from the old mental or overmental "heaven" of the gods and religions. So it is for all the evolutionary stages: high and low go together. But the emergence of the new "high" or new level of consciousness, at any stage of evolution, is not a magical phenomenon, which abruptly alters all the preceding levels. Between the appearance of the first amoeba in the world of Life and that of the mammal, we know that it took many millions of years to overcome Matter's inertia and to "vitalize" it. Similarly, from the Neanderthal man to Plato, thousands of years were needed to overcome the resistance of the two previous levels and to "mentalize" Life, to become the complete mental man. Even today, how many human lives are truly governed by the mind rather than by vital passions? The whole task of the pioneers of evolution, at any level, is precisely to join the new height with the former depth; when high meets low, an evolutionary cycle is completed. Likewise, when the pioneer of mental evolution suddenly emerges in the Supramental, his discovery is not a feat of magic that upsets all the former laws. He does not leap to the complete supramental being any more than the Neanderthal man leapt to Plato; he must first "supramentalize" all the previous levels.
Certainly, his consciousness is the meeting point of the supreme High and the supreme Low, Spirit and Matter, Positive and Negative, and his own powers are, of course, considerably increased, but they are increased only in proportion to the new resistance he has to encounter.
1.201 - Socrates, #Symposium, #Plato, #Philosophy
That is quite a long story, she said, but I will tell you all the same. When Aphrodite was born,156 all the gods held a feast. One of those present was Poros157 (Resource), whose mother was Metis158 (Cleverness). When the feast was over, Penia (Poverty) came begging, as happens on these occasions, and she stood by the door. Poros got drunk on the nectar in those days wine did not exist and having wandered into the garden of Zeus was overcome with drink and went to sleep. Then Penia, because she herself had no resource, thought of a scheme to have a child by Poros, and accordingly she lay down beside him and became pregnant with a son, Love. Because Love was conceived during Aphrodites birthday feast and also because he is by his daimon (the source of English demon), which can mean a god but often denotes a lesser or local deity. Here Diotima characterises Love as a lesser deity, something between a god and a human. The Greeks of Platos day would usually have thought of Love simply as a god, but not one of the most important, Olympian, deities. See Gods and Love in Glossary of names. daimonios, a man of the spirit, spiritual; see footnote 151 above. techne. 154 cheirourgia. 155 banausos (English banausic).
Diotima appears to follow the story that Aphrodite was the normally-born child of Zeus and
Dione; see 180d and footnote 53. The rest of the narrative seems to be Platos own invention.
The Greeks commonly personified natural phenomena and in so doing made them into deities (often unimportant, as here). They sometimes explained them by constructing relationships between them, as is the case here with Poros and Penia.
--
Psychic Pregnancy and Platonic Epistemology, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy XX
(summer 2001), 135. aischros.
1.26 - Sacrifice of the Kings Son, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
to Plato, after speaking of the immolation of human victims by the
Carthaginians, adds that such practices were not unknown among the
1.28 - Need to Define God, Self, etc., #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Occultism
Skeat hardly helps us at all, except by warning us that "good" has nothing whatever to do with it.[53] Dieu comes from Deus, with all its Sol-Jupiter references, and Deos, which Plato thought meant a runner; hence, Sun, Moon, Planets.
The best I can do for you, honest Injun! is the Russian word for god Bog; connected probably, though the Lithuanian, with the Welsh Bwq a spectre or hobgoblin. Bugge, too. Not very inspiring, is it, to replace the Old Hundredth by "Hush! Hush! Hush! here come the Bogey Man." Or is it?
1.35 - The Tao 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Occultism
As for ,[64] which superficially might seem the best translation of Tao as described in the text, it is the most misleading of the three. For To On possesses an extensive connotation implying a whole system of Platonic concepts, than which nothing can be more alien to the essential quality of the Tao. Tao is neither "being" nor "not being" in any sense which Europe could understand. It is neither existence, nor a condition or form of existence. Equally, TO MH ON gives no idea of Tao. Tao is altogether alien to all that class of thought. From its connection with "that principle which necessarily underlies the fact that events occur" one might suppose that the "Becoming" of Heraclitus might assist us to describe the Tao. But the Tao is not a principle at all of that kind. To understand it requires an altogether different state of mind to any with which European thinkers in general are familiar. It is necessary to pursue unflinchingly the path of spiritual development on the lines indicated by the Sufis, the Hindus and the Buddhists; and, having reached the trance called Nerodha-Sammapati, in which are destroyed all forms soever of consciousness, there appears in that abyss of annihilation the germ of an entirely new type of idea, whose principal characteristic is this: that the entire concatenation of One's previous experiences and conceptions could not have happened at all, save by virtue of this indescribable necessity.
I am only too painfully aware that the above exposition is faulty in every respect. In particular, it presupposes in the reader considerable familiarity with the subject, thus practically begging the question. It must also prove almost wholly unintelligible to the average reader, him in fact whom I especially aim to interest.
For his sake I will try to elucidate the matter by an analogy. Consider electricity. It would be absurd to say that electricity is any of the phenomena by which we know it. We take refuge in the petitio principii of saying that electricity is that form of energy which is the principal cause of such and such phenomena. Suppose now that we eliminate this idea as evidently illogical. What remains? We must not hastily answer "Nothing remains." There is some thing inherent in the nature of consciousness, reason, perception, sensation, and of the universe of which they inform us, which is responsible for the fact that we observe these phenomena and not others; that we reflect upon them as we do, and not otherwise. But, even deeper than this, part of the reality of the inscrutable energy which determines the form of our experience, consists in determining that experience should take place at all. It should be clear that this has nothing to do with any of the Platonic conceptions of the nature of things.
The least abject asset in the intellectual bankruptcy of European thought is the Hebrew Qabalah. Properly understood, it is a system of symbolism indefinitely elastic, assuming no axioms, postulating no principles, asserting no theorems, and therefore adaptable, if managed adroitly, to describe any conceivable doctrine. It has been my continual study since 1898, and I have found it of infinite value in the study of the "Tao Teh King." By its aid I was able to attribute the ideas of Lao Tze to an order with which I was exceedingly familiar, and whose practical worth I had repeatedly proved by using it as the basis of the analysis and classification of all Aryan and Semitic religions and philosophies. Despite the essential difficulty of correlating the ideas of Lao Tze with any others, the persistent application of the Qabalistic keys eventually unlocked his treasure-house. I was able to explain to myself his teachings in terms of familiar systems.
1.49 - Thelemic Morality, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Occultism
Then as to his "Means:" as he cannot possibly know for certain whether they are suitable or not, he can only rely on his inherited instincts, his learning, his traditions, and his experience. Of these all but the first lie wholly in the intellectual Sphere, the Ruach, and can accordingly be knocked into any desired shape at will, by dint of a little manipulation: and if Thelema has freed him morally, as it should have done, from all the nonsense of Plato, Manu, Draco, Solon, Paul (with his harpy brood), John Stuart Mill and Kant, he can make his decision with purely objective judgment. (Where would mathematics be if certain solutions were a priori inadmissible?) But then, what about that plaguy first weapon in his armoury? It must be these instincts, simply because we have eliminated all the other possibilities.
What are they?
1.55 - The Transference of Evil, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
for in laying down laws for his ideal state, Plato thinks it too
much to expect that men should not be alarmed at finding certain wax
1.63 - Fear, a Bad Astral Vision, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Occultism
We tracked the cause: it was frustration. Good: then we must counter it. How? Only (in the last event) by getting the mind firmly fixed in the complete philosophy of Thelema. There is no such thing as frustration. Every step is a step on the Path. It is simply not true that you were being baulked. The height of your irritation is a direct measure of the intensity of your Energy. Again, you soon come to laugh at yourself for your impatience. Probably (you surmise) your trouble is exactly that: you are pushing too hard. Your mind runs back to AL I, 44; you realize (again!) that any result actually spoils the Truth and Beauty of the Act of Will; it is almost a burden; even an insult. Rather as if I risked my life to save yours, and you tipped me half-a- crown! Here's that The Book of Lies popping out its ugly mug again: "Thou has become the Way." This is why the Ankh or "Key of Life" is a sandal-strap, borne in the hand of every God as a mark of his Godhead: a God is one who goes. (If I remember rightly, Plato derives "" from a verb meaning "to run", and is heartily abused by scholars for so doing. But perhaps the dreary old sophist was not far wrong, for once.) What you need to do, then, is to knit all these ideas into a very close pattern; to make of them a consecrated Talisman. Then, when rage takes you, it can be thrown upon the fire to stifle it: to thrust against the Demon, to disintegrate him. The great point is to have this weapon very firmly constructed, very complete. Your rage will pass in one of those two ways, which are one: Rapture and Laughter.
I want you to go over this apparatus very carefully; to analyse the argument, to make sure that there are no loose ends, to keep it keen and polished and well-oiled, ever ready for immediate use: not only against rage, but against any hampering or depressing line of thought.
1.67 - The External Soul in Folk-Custom, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
has commended itself to philosophers like Plato, as well as to
savages. It is only when the notion of a soul, from being a
1.A - ANTHROPOLOGY, THE SOUL, #Philosophy of Mind, #unset, #Integral Yoga
[5] Plato had a better idea of the relation of prophecy generally to the state of sober consciousness than many moderns, who supposed that the Platonic language on the subject of enthusiasm authorized their belief in the sublimity of the revelations of somnambulistic vision. Plato says in the Timaeus (p. 71),
'The author of our being so ordered our inferior parts that they too might obtain a measure of truth, and in the liver placed their oracle (the power of divination by dreams). And herein is a proof that God has given the art of divination, not to the wisdom, but to the foolishness of man; for no man when in his wits attains prophetic truth and inspiration; but when he receives the inspired word, either his intelligence is enthralled by sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or possession (enthusiasm).' Plato very correctly notes not merely the bodily conditions on which such visionary knowledge depends, and the possibility of the truth of the dreams, but also the inferiority of them to the reasonable frame of mind.
(d) An essential feature of this sensitivity, with its absence of intelligent and volitional personality, is this, that it is a state of passivity, like that of the child in the womb. The patient in this condition is accordingly made, and continues to be, subject to the power of another person, the magnetizer; so that when the two are thus in psychical rapport, the selfless individual, not really a 'person', has for his subjective consciousness the consciousness of the other. This latter self-possessed individual is thus the effective subjective soul of the former, and the genius which may even supply him with a train of ideas.
1.ami - The secret divine my ecstasy has taught (from Baal-i-Jibreel), #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
English version by Naeem Siddiqui Original Language Urdu The secret divine my ecstasy has taught I may convey if I have Gabriel's breath. What can these stars tell me of my fate? They are lost themselves in the boundless firmament. The total absorption of thought and vision is life, Scattered thought is selfhood's total death. Pleasures of selfhood are a blessing of God, Who makes me lose my awareness of myself. With a pure heart, a noble aim, a poignant soul. I care not for Solomon's wealth or Plato's thought. The Prophet's 'Mairaj' has taught me that heaven Lies within the bounds of human reach. This universe, perhaps, is yet incomplete, For I hear repeated sounds of "Be, And It Was." Thy mind is ruled by the magic of the West, Thy cure lies in the Fire of Rumi's faith. It is he who has given my eyes a blissful vision, It is he who has blessed my soul with light. <
1f.lovecraft - Poetry and the Gods, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Integral Yoga
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds or what vast regions hold
1.jk - Fragment. Wheres The Poet?, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;
'Tis the man who with a bird,
1.jk - Lamia. Part I, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
In the calmd twilight of Platonic shades.
Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near
1.jk - Ode To Psyche, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
'Under the date 15th of April [1819] Keats writes to his brother George and his wife, of this Ode, "The following poem, the last I have written, is the first and only one with which I have taken even moderate pains; I have, for the most part, dashed off my lines in a hurry; this one I have done leisurely; I think it reads the more richly for it, and it will I hope encourage me to write other things in even a more peaceable and healthy spirit. You must recollect that Psyche was not embodied as a goddess before the time of Apuleius the Platonist, who lived after the Augustan age, and consequently the goddess was never worshipped or sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervour, and perhaps never thought of in the old religion: I am more orthodox than to let a heathen goddess be so neglected."
This is an instance in which Keats seems to have gone beyond Lempriere's Classical Dictionary for his information; but I presume we may not unsafely take the portraiture of Cupid and Psyche in the first stanza as an adapted reminiscence of his other favourite text book, Spence's Polymetis, in Plate VI of which the well known kissing Cupid and Psyche are admirably engraved from the statue at Florence.'
1.jk - Otho The Great - Act V, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
I should have Orphean lips, and Plato's fancy,
Amphion's utterance, toned with his lyre,
1.jr - Book 1 - Prologue, #Rumi - Poems, #Jalaluddin Rumi, #Poetry
Who art our Plato and our Galen!
Love exalts our earthly bodies to heaven,
1.pbs - Charles The First, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
When all the fools are whipped, and all the Protestant writers, while the knaves are whipping the fools ever since a thief was set to catch a thief. If all turncoats were whipped out of palaces, poor Archy would be disgraced in good company. Let the knaves whip the fools, and all the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and godly slit each other's noses and ears (having no need of any sense of discernment in their craft); and the knaves, to marshal them, join in a procession to Bedlam, to entreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic contemplations, and manage the state of England. Let all the honest men who lie [pinched?] up at the prisons or the pillories, in custody of the pursuivants of the High-Commission Court, marshal them.
Enter Secretary Lyttelton, with papers.
--
Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud who would reduce a verdict of 'guilty, death,' by famine, if it were impregnable by compositionall impannelled against poor Archy for presenting them bitter physic the last day of the holidays.
Queen.
1.pbs - Epigram III - Spirit of Plato, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
object:1.pbs - Epigram III - Spirit of Plato
author class:Percy Bysshe Shelley
--
I am the image of swift Platos spirit,
Ascending heaven; Athens doth inherit
1.pbs - Epigram II - Kissing Helena, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
From the Greek of Plato.
Kissing Helena, together
1.pbs - Epigram I - To Stella, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
From the Greek of Plato.
Thou wert the morning star among the living,
1.pbs - Hellas - A Lyrical Drama, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
For this I feltby Plato's sacred light,
Of which my spirit was a burning morrow
--
Note by Mrs. Shelley: 'Hellas was among the last of his compositions, and is among the most beautiful. The choruses are singularly imaginative, and melodious in their versification. There are some stanzas that beautifully exemplify Shelley's peculiar style; as, for instance, the assertion of the intellectual empire which must be for ever the inheritance of the country of Homer, Sophocles, and Plato:--
''But Greece and her foundations are
1.pbs - HERE I sit with my paper, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
May as Junius be sharp, or as Plato
be sage,
1.pbs - Prince Athanase, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
'Then Plato's words of light in thee and me
Lingered like moonlight in the moonless east,
1.pbs - The Triumph Of Life, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
"All that is mortal of great Plato there
Expiates the joy & woe his master knew not;
--
Plato. In the lines which follow, Shelley refers to the legend that Plato in
his old age fell in love with a boy, whose name, Aster, is Greek for a star as
1.poe - Eureka - A Prose Poem, #Poe - Poems, #unset, #Integral Yoga
The wonderfully complex laws of revolution here described, however, are not to be understood as obtaining in our system alone. They everywhere prevail where Attraction prevails. They control the Universe. Every shining speck in the firmament is, no doubt, a luminous sun, resembling our own, at least in its general features, and having in attendance upon it a greater or less number of planets, greater or less, whose still lingering luminosity is not sufficient to render them visible to us at so vast a distance, but which, nevertheless, revolve, moon-attended, about their starry centres, in obedience to the principles just detailed -in obedience to the three omniprevalent laws of revolution the three immortal laws guessed by the imaginative Kepler, and but subsequently demonstrated and accounted for by the patient and mathematical Newton. Among a tribe of philosophers who pride themselves excessively upon matter-of-fact, it is far too fashionable to sneer at all speculation under the comprehensive sobriquet, "guess-work." The point to be considered is, who guesses. In guessing with Plato, we spend our time to better purpose, now and then, than in hearkening to a demonstration by Alcmaeon.
In many works on Astronomy I find it distinctly stated that the laws of Kepler are the basis of the great principle, Gravitation. This idea must have arisen from the fact that the suggestion of these laws by Kepler, and his proving them a posteriori to have an actual existence, led Newton to account for them by the hypothesis of Gravitation, and, finally, to demonstrate them a priori, as necessary consequences of the hypothetical principle. Thus so far from the laws of Kepler being the basis of Gravity, Gravity is the basis of these laws -as it is, indeed, of all the laws of the material Universe which are not referable to Repulsion alone.
1.rb - Pauline, A Fragment of a Question, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
With Plato and who had the key to life;
And I had dimly shaped my first attempt,
1.wby - All Souls Night, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
That's called Platonic love,
And that to such a pitch of passion wrought
1.wby - Among School Children, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
1.wby - His Bargain, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
Who talks of Plato's spindle;
What set it whirling round?
1.wby - Meditations In Time Of Civil War, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
Il Penseroso's Platonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadowing forth
1.wby - Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
So the Platonic Year
Whirls out new right and wrong,
--
Some Platonist affirms that in the station
Where we should cast off body and trade
1.wby - Statistics, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
"THOSE Platonists are a curse,' he said,
"God's fire upon the wane,
1.wby - The Phases Of The Moon, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
From the far tower where Milton's Platonist
Sat late, or Shelley's visionary prince:
1.wby - The Tower, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend
Until imagination, ear and eye,
--
And cry in Plato's teeth,
Death and life were not
1.wby - Two Songs From A Play, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
Made all Platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.
1.wby - What Then?, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
"What then?' sang Plato's ghost. "What then?"
Everything he wrote was read,
--
"What then?' sang Plato's ghost. " What then?'
All his happier dreams came true
--
"What then.?' sang Plato's ghost. "What then?'
The work is done,' grown old he thought,
1.whitman - The Base Of All Metaphysics, #Whitman - Poems, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Stated the lore of Platoand Socrates, greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and statedChrist divine having
1.ww - Book Ninth [Residence in France], #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Did Dion hold with Plato; ripened thus
For a Deliverer's glorious task,--and such
1.ww - Book Sixth [Cambridge and the Alps], #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Among the schoolmen, and Platonic forms
Of wild ideal pageantry, shaped out
1.ww - Dion [See Plutarch], #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere,
Fell round him in the grove of Academe,
1.ww - Epitaphs Translated From Chiabrera, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Would ill suffice: for Plato's lore sublime,
And all the wisdom of the Stagyrite,
2.01 - Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Actually to our Science this infinite or indeterminate Existence reveals itself as an Energy, known not by itself but by its works, which throws up in its motion waves of energism and in them a multitude of infinitesimals; these, grouping themselves to form larger infinitesimals, become a basis for all the creations of the Energy, even those farthest away from the material basis, for the emergence of a world of organised Matter, for the emergence of Life, for the emergence of Consciousness, for all the still unexplained activities of evolutionary Nature. On the original process are erected a multitude of processes which we can observe, follow, can take advantage of many of them, utilise; but they are none of them, fundamentally, explicable. We know now that different groupings and a varying number of electric infinitesimals can produce or serve as the constituent occasion - miscalled the cause, for here there seems to be only a necessary antecedent condition - for the appearance of larger atomic infinitesimals of different natures, qualities, powers; but we fail to discover how these different dispositions can come to constitute these different atoms, - how the differentiae in the constituent occasion or cause necessitate the differentiae in the constituted outcome or result. We know also that certain combinations of certain invisible atomic infinitesimals produce or occasion new and visible determinations quite different in nature, quality and power from the constituent infinitesimals; but we fail to discover, for instance, how a fixed formula for the combination of oxygen and hydrogen comes to determine the appearance of water which is evidently something more than a combination of gases, a new creation, a new form of substance, a material manifestation of a quite new character. We see that a seed develops into a tree, we follow the line of the process of production and we utilise it; but we do not discover how a tree can grow out of a seed, how the life and form of the tree come to be implied in the substance or energy of the seed or, if that be rather the fact, how the seed can develop into a tree. We know that genes and chromosomes are the cause of hereditary transmissions, not only of physical but of psychological variations; but we do not discover how psychological characteristics can be contained and transmitted in this inconscient material vehicle. We do not see or know, but it is expounded to us as a cogent account of Nature-process, that a play of electrons, of atoms and their resultant molecules, of cells, glands, chemical secretions and physiological processes manages by their activity on the nerves and brain of a Shakespeare or a Plato to produce or could be perhaps the dynamic occasion for the production of a Hamlet or a Symposium or a Republic; but we fail to discover or appreciate how such material movements could have composed or necessitated the composition of these highest points of thought and literature: the divergence here of the determinants and the determination becomes so wide that we are no longer able to follow the process, much less understand or utilise. These formulae of Science may be pragmatically correct and infallible, they may govern the practical how of Nature's processes, but they do not disclose the intrinsic how or why; rather they have the air of the formulae of a cosmic Magician, precise, irresistible, automatically successful each in its field, but their rationale is fundamentally unintelligible.
There is more to perplex us; for we see the original indeterminate Energy throwing out general determinates of itself, - we might equally in their relation to the variety of their products call them generic indeterminates, - with their appropriate states of substance and determined forms of that substance: the latter are numerous, sometimes innumerable variations on the substance-energy which is their base: but none of these variations seems to be predetermined by anything in the nature of the general indeterminate. An electric Energy produces positive, negative, neutral forms of itself, forms that are at once waves and particles; a gaseous state of energy-substance produces a considerable number of different gases; a solid state of energysubstance from which results the earth principle develops into different forms of earth and rock of many kinds and numerous minerals and metals; a life principle produces its vegetable kingdom teeming with a countless foison of quite different plants, trees, flowers; a principle of animal life produces an enormous variety of genus, species, individual variations: so it proceeds into human life and mind and its mind-types towards the still unwritten end or perhaps the yet occult sequel of that unfinished evolutionary chapter. Throughout there is the constant rule of a general sameness in the original determinate and, subject to this substantial sameness of basic substance and nature, a profuse variation in the generic and individual determinates; an identical law obtains of sameness or similarity in the genus or species with numerous variations often meticulously minute in the individual. But we do not find anything in any general or generic determinate necessitating the variant determinations that result from it. A necessity of immutable sameness at the base, of free and unaccountable variations on the surface seems to be the law; but who or what necessitates or determines? What is the rationale of the determination, what is its original truth or its significance? What compels or impels this exuberant play of varying possibilities which seem to have no aim or meaning unless it be the beauty or delight of creation? A Mind, a seeking and curious inventive Thought, a hidden determining Will might be there, but there is no trace of it in the first and fundamental appearance of material Nature.
2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Disciple: Writing about Plato, Emerson says that he is the epitome of the European mind for the last 2000 years.
Sri Aurobindo: It is true; the European mind got everything from and owes everything to the Greeks. Every branch of knowledge in which human curiosity could be interested has been given to Europe by the Greeks.
--
This is not to say that man has not made progress. It is true that the philosopher of today is not superior to Plato but there are many who can philosophise today. Also there are many more today who can understand philosophy than in the time of Plato.
17 JANUARY 1939
2.01 - On the Concept of the Archetype, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
synonymous with "Idea" in the Platonic usage. When the
Corpus Hermeticum, which probably dates from the third cen-
--
Were I a philosopher, I should continue in this Platonic strain
and say: Somewhere, in "a place beyond the skies," there is a pro-
--
anything but nomina. Anyone who continues to think as Plato
did must pay for his anachronism by seeing the "supracelestial,"
--
overwhelming victory over Plato.
l 5 Yet every victory contains the germ of future defeat. In our
--
at the same time paves the way for a rebirth of the Platonic
spirit. If it be true that there can be no metaphysics transcending
--
to Plato. The first investigator in the field of ethnology to draw
attention to the widespread occurrence of certain "elementary
--
positions, ideas in the Platonic sense, that preform and con-
tinually influence our thoughts and feelings and actions.
2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Integral Yoga
& Platonists, these are the ideas which still profoundly influence
Europe, many of which Scientific materialism has been obliged
2.03 - THE ENIGMA OF BOLOGNA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
I maintain that Aelia Laelia Crispis was one of the Hamadryads . . . who was tied to an oak in the neighbourhood of the city of Bologna, or shut up inside it. She appeared to him both in the tenderest and in the harshest form, and while for some two thousand years she had made a show of inconstant looks like a Proteus, she bedevilled the love of Lucius Agatho Priscius, then a citizen of Bologna, with anxious cares and sorrows, which assuredly were conjured up from chaos, or from what Plato calls Agathonian confusion.179
One can hardly imagine a better description of the feminine archetype that typifies a mans unconscious than the figure of this most hazardous beloved (incertissima amasia), who pursues him like a teasing sprite amid the stillness of the groves and springs. It is clear from the text of the inscription that it gives no ground for interpreting Aelia as a wood nymph. Aldrovandus tells us, however, that the Porta Mascharella in Bologna, near which the inscription was alleged to have been found, was called Junonia in Roman times, from which he concludes that Juno was obviously the spiritus loci. In support of his hypothesis that Aelia was a dryad, the learned humanist cites a Roman epitaph that was found in this region:
--
[90] Another parallel, but dating from late antiquity, is mentioned by Maier. It is one of the Platonic Riddles and runs: A man that was not a man, seeing yet not seeing, in a tree that was not a tree, smote but did not smite with a stone that was not a stone a bird that was not a bird, sitting yet not sitting.237 The solution is: A one-eyed eunuch grazed with a pumice-stone a bat hanging from a bush.238 This joke was, of course, too obvious to lend itself to alchemical evaluation. Similarly, the Epigram of the Hermaphrodite was not, so far as I know, taken up by the alchemists, though it might have been a more suitable subject for exegesis. This kind of jest probably underlies the Aelia inscription. The seriousness with which the alchemists took it, however, is justified not only because there is something serious in every joke, but because paradox is the natural medium for expressing transconscious facts. Hindu philosophy, which likewise struggled to formulate transcendental concepts, often comes very near to the paradoxes so beloved of the alchemists, as the following example shows: I am not a man, neither am I a god, a goblin, a Brahmin, a warrior, a merchant, a shudra, nor disciple of a Brahmin, nor householder, nor hermit of the forest, nor yet mendicant pilgrim: Awakener to Myself is my name.239
[91] Another source that needs seriously considering is mentioned by Richard White of Basingstoke.240 He maintains that Aelia Laelia is Niobe transformed, and he supports this interpretation by referring to an epigram attri buted to Agathias Scholasticus, a Byzantine historian:241
--
[101] The interpretive projections we have been examining are, with the exception of the last, identical with the psychic contents that dropped out of their dogmatic framework at the time of the Renaissance and the Great Schism, and since then have continued in a state of secularization where they were at the mercy of the immanentist principle of explanation, that is, a naturalistic and personalistic interpretation. The discovery of the collective unconscious did something to alter this situation, for, within the limits of psychic experience, the collective unconscious takes the place of the Platonic realm of eternal ideas. Instead of these models giving form to created things, the collective unconscious, through its archetypes, provides the a priori condition for the assignment of meaning.
[102] In conclusion, I would like to mention one more document that seems relevant to our context, and that is the anecdote about Meister Eckharts daughter:
2.03 - The Mother-Complex, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
by Plato in his Symposium.) This gives him a great capacity for
friendship, which often creates ties of astonishing tenderness
2.05 - Apotheosis, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
the gods, according to Plato), were in sex both female and male.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God
2.08 - ALICE IN WONDERLAND, #God Exists, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
There was a great man called Plato in Greece. According to Paul Deussen, the whole world has produced only three philosophers Plato, Kant and Sankara. There is some truth in what he says. There cannot be a greater philosopher than these three persons Plato, Kant and Sankara, says Paul Deussen. I was thinking about this statement. Why does he make this statement? Finally I felt that there is some truth in it, whatever it is.
The idea of the Ultimate Reality is the principal doctrine of Plato; and I started by saying that we are living in a world of ideas when we live a spiritual life, when we behave religiously, conduct worship and chant Mantras, do prayers, do Japa and even meditation; but there is a very uncomfortable consequence following the idea that, after all, the Reality is an idea.
Ideas are abstractions, notions which are supposed to correspond to realities, and as long as ideas correspond to realities, they are valid. I have an idea that there is a building in front of me. This idea is a valid idea, because it corresponds with the real existence of the building outside. So, the validity of my idea depends upon the reality of the object which is in front of it, but my idea itself has no reality. It is borrowed reality. It hangs on the existence of something else outside, in this case, the building. So, if the idea of the Ultimate Reality or God is to hang on the existence of another thing, God is not a real being. This is a very subtle difficulty that may trouble the minds of even sincere seekers. Dont you think that the world is real? It is not merely real, it is very, very real, hard to the core, flint-like and no one can gainsay that it is. Perhaps that alone is.
God is an idea that has been introduced in our minds by our ancestors, by our books, by our scriptures, by our professors and our teachers and parents, and somehow, we have been forced by the logic of this teaching to believe there should be such a thing as an other-worldly existence and we have somehow reconciled ourselves to itGod must be there. But we are accepting the existence of God against our own will. We are hungry and thirsty and this hunger and thirst of the body is more real than the idea of God. No one can say that it is not so, whatever be our devotion to God. This is so even in the case of advanced seekers and sincere Sadhaks (aspirants). This subject is the principal theme of Platos doctrine.
Ideas precede reality: this one sentence is the entire philosophy of Plato. The reality of the objective universe is subsequent to the idea of the universe. Here we have an echo of the great philosophy of Vedanta that the Hiranyagarbha (cosmic intelligence) is prior to the cosmos of physical appearance. The Panchadasi, The Upanishads and the other systems of Vedantic thinking tell us that in Hiranyagarbha the world does not exist in a concrete form as it appears, that is only an idea cosmically manifested by Isvara (God) who is even subtler than the idea. Isvara is only a possibility of the very idea that there should be a thing called the universe. So, Isvara is subtler than the idea which is Hiranyagarbha, and Virat is supposed to be the animating consciousness behind the so-called physicality of creation. So, even in the Vedantic Philosophy, there is the same doctrine of idea preceding concrete existence. But we can never believe this.
My idea that there is a desk in front of me cannot be said to be harder in its concreteness than the desk itself. I have an idea that there is a little table in front of me. Is the table more real or the idea that the table is there more real? Any man with common-sense will say that the idea is subsequent to the existence of the object called table and the idea is not preceding the object. Because there is a table, you think there is a table. You have an idea that there is an object. So, the idea that there is an object is the consequence of the existence of the object. So, the idea of God must be subsequent and not precedent.
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They cannot have any significance unless they are connected to a thing which is already there. This is the gross realistic doctrine of empirical philosophers which was highlighted by British thinkers like Locke, Berkeley and Hume, but already anticipated by people like Plato and Aristotle in a different fashion.
This is a very terrible problem before us. Notwithstanding the fact that we are devotees of God and honest religious thinkers, the concreteness of the world and the reality of the things we see with our eyes and contact with our senses cannot be abrogated merely by the notion that ideas are precedent. Ideas cannot be precedent as long as we are accustomed to thinking in the way we are thinking today. Here is a man coming: I am saying like this. This man is there; therefore I have an idea that he is coming. If the man was not there, the idea cannot be there. It is not the I think the man first than the man comes. The man is there and the idea comes afterwards.
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This problem is an indication of the state in which we are placed. How far are we advanced spiritually? Where is our spirituality, where is our God, love and God-consciousness? Incidentally, it is not a joking matter or a humor. It is a very, very serious thing for us. Whatever be the study of the scriptures, we cannot get out of the idea that we are living in a very, very hard, flint-like, iron-like, steel-like world; and we can never accept that the idea of the world is in any way more real than the world. But Plato affirms that the ideas are more real than the world. The universals are precedent to the particulars. Horse-ness is prior to the horse. Table-ness is prior to the table, buildingness is prior to the building. How could there be horse-ness before there is a horse? We cannot answer these questions easily. We know very well that there cannot be horse-ness unless the horse was already there. But mans mind is very poor. It is not wholly philosophical and we cannot understand how there could be an idea of a thing unless the thing was already there. How could Gods consciousness be there if God is only Consciousness?
We have been indoctrinated in this belief not merely in this birth, but throughout the births we have lived through in earlier incarnations. The difficulty arises on account of the impressions created in our minds by hanging on to objects of sense through the many births we have passed through.
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In a crude form, Berkeley said this. But, in a more philosophical fashion, Plato affirmed it. We can never stomach this idea that consciousness is precedent to matter, though we have attempted to convince ourselves, in our previous discussions, that consciousness is our essential reality by an analysis conducted of the three stateswaking, dream and deep sleep. We have already understood this to some extent. We have gone to the depths of our condition in deep sleep where we appear to exist only as pure consciousness minus body and mind in the state of deep sleep, that must have been what our stuff is. This so-called body of ours, this hard substance of contactual experience, and the mind which thinks of it, are subsequent evolutes; and if they were the ultimate realities that we are, they would not have perished in deep sleep also. But we had no experience of body or mind there. We were bare, featureless, unobjectified being, consciousness only. This is what we learnt in our earlier analysis of the condition of sleep. What were you in deep sleep? Not man, not woman, not human being, not body, not mind, not anything, not object. What were you then? A bare impersonal, indefinite, undivided awareness you were. So, this consciousness that you were is the same as consciousness of beingbeing inseparable from consciousness, consciousness inseparable from being.
This is the great conclusion of Vedanta philosophyBeing-Consciousness. Sat-Chit was your essential naturenot body, not mind, not anything that the senses perceive or conceive, not the world. Then, wherefrom this body came? What is this body? What is the world? What are these buildings and stony mountains and the flowing rivers and the burning sun? What is all this? From where have they come?
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Here, Berkeley rectifies himself when he says that the world is an idea, not of Mr. Berkeley, but of a larger being in whom all the individual ideas are also included. We again come to the Hiranyagarbha of Vedanta philosophy, though such words were not used by Berkeley or Plato.
Plato used the words, Idea of the good. A strange definition of his. You may say, Idea of God if you like. It is not an idea of God, but the idea which is God. Actually, God is only an idea; not your idea, but an Idea as such, which is the cause of other ideas. The Yoga Vasishtha goes into great detail in explaining this point that the whole universe is mind. Not my mind, or your mind, but mind as such. Pure impersonal existence, of which our minds and thoughts and feelings and evolutions are ripples.
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These Tanmatras are not substances, but principles behind the objects which produce these sensations. They are not hard substances like earth, water, fire, air and ether; they are comparable to the secondary qualities of Aristotle and Plato and modern scientists.
Oh, what a wonder! We seem to be living in a dreaml and like Alice in Wonderland. We are not living in a world as it appears. The primary qualities condensing themselves into secondary qualities of sensations, solidify themselves as it were into hard realities like heaviness that you feel when you get an electrical shock.
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Buddha said this. A really perceiving individual cannot exist in this world for three days. He will melt into nothing. But the fact that perception has not arisen is the reason why we are very happy here. So, ignorance is the cause of our very comfortable existence. Now this comparative study of Eastern conclusions with Western discoveries seems to make us feel that all great men are thinking alikewhe ther Plato or Aristotle, Kent or Hegel, Acharya Sankara or Vidyaranya Swami.
Ideas are therefore not ideas of things which are earlier than the ideas, just as space and time are not subsequent to what we call the objective world, but precedent to the objective world. It is the final conclusion of Sir James Jean, for instance, that God must be a mathematician. It is not a man thinking mathematical point, but mathematics itself. How can you only think mathematics, without a person thinking mathematics? He says it is a mathematical consciousness, highly abstract, purely impersonal, and the universe is nothing but conceptions of mathematical point-events.
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I brought those ideas before you to bring about a comparison between the greatest thinkers of the East like Acharya Sankara, the Rishis of the Upanishads, and Sri Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita and Western thinkers like Plato, Aristotle and Kant. They seem to be thinking alike. Only they seem to be thinking in different languages and giving different definitions.
So we are now face to face with the great reality, the God of the cosmos. We have passed through the analysis. We have conducted a study of the three stages of consciousness waking, dream and deep sleep. We studied epistomological processes the perception of the world, how we come in contact with things, and how we know that the world exists at all. This also we have concluded. Many of you may not remember it, but think over or see your diaries if you have noted anything down.
2.0 - THE ANTICHRIST, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
so did Plato, and so does every disciple of esoteric wisdom. If for
example it give anyone pleasure to believe himself delivered from sin,
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church, is not even absent in Plato. "Truth is here"; this phrase
means, wherever it is uttered: _the priest lies...._
2.14 - The Unpacking of God, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
Would that Hegel had remained in poverty (with Plato: "No treatise by me concerning it exists or ever will exist").
But Hegel decided-in part in reaction to the Eco camp's calamitous slide into regressive feeling and divine egoism-that Reason could and should develop the tongues of angels. This would have been fine, if Hegel also had more dependable paradigms, more reproducible injunctions, for the developmental unfolding of the higher and transpersonal stages. As we said, Zen masters talk about Emptiness all the time! But they have a practice and a methodology (zazen) which allows them to discover the transcendental referent via their own developmental signified, and thus their words (the signifiers) remain grounded in experiential, reproducible, fallibilist criteria.
2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Disciple: Plato says that each form has its own Idea that is, behind the form is a fixed Idea of the type and it is that which persists while it is the individual that varies. The genus remains the same on the plane of Idea.
Sri Aurobindo: But where is the Idea?
Disciple: In Plato. (Laughter)
Disciple: I do not suppose Plato meant a mental abstraction by his Idea. It may mean "creative conception".
Sri Aurobindo: Plato had very mathematical ideas about these things. If he meant by it the creative conception then there are several things in it. First of all, it is not a mental idea but what I call the Real-Idea: that is, Idea with a Reality and a Power. Now, corresponding to every form there is what may be called the archetype, the type-form, and it already exists in the Real-Idea before it exists in matter. Everything exists first in consciousness and then in matter.
Disciple: Could that be the Mahat-Brahma of which the Gita speaks?
Sri Aurobindo: I do not know if Plato had some dim intimation of the Supramental; but as his mind was mathematical he cast it into rigid rational and mental forms. That was the Greek mind.
Disciple: The Buddhists have an idea that there are Gods without form there are Rupa Devas and Arupa Devas. What could that mean?
2.20 - The Philosophy of Rebirth, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For the same reason that has made the human birth itself a culminating point of the past succession, the previous upward series, - it must be so by the very necessity of the spiritual evolution. For the soul has not finished what it has to do by merely developing into humanity; it has still to develop that humanity into its higher possibilities. Obviously, the soul that lodges in a Caribbee or an untaught primitive or an Apache of Paris or an American gangster, has not yet exhausted the necessity of human birth, has not developed all its possibilities or the whole meaning of humanity, has not worked out all the sense of Sachchidananda in the universal Man; neither has the soul lodged in a vitalistic European occupied with dynamic production and vital pleasure or in an Asiatic peasant engrossed in the ignorant round of the domestic and economic life. We may reasonably doubt whether even a Plato or a Shankara marks the crown and therefore the end of the outflowering of the spirit in man. We are apt to suppose that these may be the limit, because these and others like them seem to us the highest point which the mind and soul of man can reach, but that may be the illusion of our present possibility. There may be a higher or at least a larger possibility which the Divine intends yet to realise in man, and, if so, it is the steps built by these highest souls which were needed to compose the way up to it and to open the gates. At any rate this present highest point at least must be reached before we can write finis on the recurrence of the human birth for the individual. Man is there to move from the ignorance and from the little life which he is in his mind and body to the knowledge and the large divine life which he can compass by the unfolding of the spirit. At least the opening out of the spirit in him, the knowledge of his real self and the leading of the spiritual life must be attained before he can go definitively and for ever otherwhere. There may too be beyond this initial culmination a greater flowering of the spirit in the human life of which we have as yet only the first intimations; the imperfection of Man is not the last word of Nature, but his perfection too is not the last peak of the Spirit.
This possibility becomes a certitude if the present leading principle of the mind as man has developed it, the intellect, is not its highest principle. If mind itself has other powers as yet only imperfectly possessed by the highest types of the human individual, then a prolongation of the line of evolution and consequently of the ascending line of rebirth to embody them is inevitable. If supermind also is a power of consciousness concealed here in the evolution, the line of rebirth cannot stop even there; it cannot cease in its ascent before the mental has been replaced by the supramental nature and an embodied supramental being becomes the leader of terrestrial existence.
2.2.9.02 - Plato, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:2.2.9.02 - Plato
author class:Sri Aurobindo
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He was trying to express in a mental way the One containing the multiplicity which is brought out (created) from the One that is the Overmind realisation. Plato had these ideas not as realisations but as intuitions which he expressed in his own mental form.
There are many such thoughts in Platos philosophy. Did he get them from Indian books?
Not from Indian books something of the philosophy of India got through by means of Pythagoras and others. But I think Plato got most of these things from intuition.
8 October 1933
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Atlantis is not an imagination. Plato heard of this submerged continent from Egyptian sources and geologists are also agreed that such a submersion was one of the great facts of earth history.
22 June 1936
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In his book Plato, Taylor says that the standing Academic definition of man is Soul using a body and that the soul is the man.1 But it is not clear whether the soul is the mental being or something which uses the mind also.
The European mind, for the most part, has never been able to go beyond the formula of soul + bodyusually including mind in soul and everything except body in mind. Some occultists make a distinction between spirit, soul and body. At the same time there must be some vague feeling that soul and mind are not quite the same thing, for there is the phrase this man has no soul, or he is a soul meaning he has something in him beyond a mere mind and body. But all that is very vague. There is no clear distinction between mind and soul and none between mind and vital and often the vital is taken for the soul.
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A.E. Taylor, Plato, The Man and His Work (London: Methuen, 1926), p. 27. Taylor bases his discussion on passages from Plato's Alcibiades I and Euthydemus.Ed.
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Yes, all these phrases are loose. At most one could say that the soul must bring out or develop the inner knowledge that which is already there within or that the lower nature must receive the higher knowledge,but not that the soul must get knowledge. I believe Plato himself held that all knowledge already was there within,so even from that point of view this expression would be inaccurate.
2 July 1936
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Even in a good translation the poetry ought to come out to some extent. Plato was a great writer as well as a philosopherno more perfect prose has been written by any man. In some of his books his prose carries in it the qualities of poetry and his thought has poetic vision. That is what I meant when I said it was poetry.
3 January 1937
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How do you find Platos ideas about philosophy, about Nature, existence of the soul, etc.?
I dont know what are his ideas about philosophy or Nature. He believes in the soul and immortality and that is of course true.
2.2.9.03 - Aristotle, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I always found him exceedingly dry. It is a purely mental philosophy, unlike Platos.
9 October 1933
30.03 - Spirituality in Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is there any natural opposition between art and the spiritual life? The Puritans had cast aside poetry and music like poison. In the Talmud (the scripture of the Jews) there is the total prohibition to draw the picture of anybody, be he a man or a God. Plato in his Republicrefused to award a locus to the poet. Even in the world of to-day, behind the externals we are after Idealism that awakens the higher emotions, the spiritual perception, and inspires the spiritual life in poetry, music, painting and sculpture. We want to do away with mundane art and have the art that helps to acquaint us with God. We want to turn our eyes from the art that depicts the lower propensities of our nature and like to gaze at the one that gives us a higher, nobler and purer inspiration.
The spiritual knowledge is the supreme knowledge, and the rest is the ordinary knowledge. The spiritual life is alone the best and the only thing worth aspiring for. If this is the only truth then men will aspire for nothing except that which is helpful to the spiritual life. Men will keep aloof from whatever is an obstacle to it. Every branch of the ordinary knowledge should be made into a step towards the supreme knowledge. If there is any glory or beauty in the world then it belongs to God. So the usefulness of the ordinary knowledge lies in being subservient to the supreme Knowledge. To-day we want to found this thesis. But how far is it correct, what is its precise meaning? At the very outset we would like to say that the object of art is to create joy. There is one joy in God-realisation, and another in the company of a woman: an artist can make a joyful creation out of either of the two. The depiction of the company of a woman may be harmful to the spiritual life, but, from the standpoint of the creation of pure and simple joy, is there any hard and fast rule that its value should be low? The critic may say: "God alone is the repository of the complete joy. In the ordinary worldly life there is no lack of joy or beauty, but that joy or beauty is a portion or a shadow of God himself, a major part of it being a deformation. The story of the enjoyment of a woman may be very fascinating, but if we do not find in it anything that may lead our vision to and draw out the sweetness of God then from the side of the creation of taste too it falls short of the perfect perfection. If art were to exist in the creation of taste anyhow then the artist might deal with any subject to fulfil his object by any means. But if he wants to create the highest taste, the fulness of taste, let him manifest God in speech, painting and sculpture."
30.06 - The Poet and The Seer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Plato has exiled the poet from his Republic - in his ideal society there is no place for the poet - this is a stern condemnation. It is a matter of surprise to us, even of disbelief. Especially when we notice that there is no dearth of poetry in Plato himself - he was no dry-as-dust reasoner like his disciple Aristotle. In genius and temperament he was a true poet. The literary grace that expresses itself in his style is still regarded as something of an ideal. But why is he then so averse to the poets?
Plato's charge is that poets are no worshippers of truth. They are but servitors of imagination, of pseudo-truth or falsehood. Not only that. Their entire skill is to make falsehood appear as truth and imagination as reality; they give to an airy nothing a local habitation and a name - and, what is worse, they make this falsehood and imagination as far as possible beautiful and attractive. What then is the consequence? Men are easily deluded and fascinated by the false beauty of a visionary world and depart from truth, good and real beauty. Poetry, the sweetheart, is the enchantress, the Circe, whose only work is to delude men and turn them into pigs or at least lambs.1
Manu enjoins that the householder must abstain from vocal and instrumental music and from the dance. A dancer, a singer and a house-builder have no right to be present in the ceremonies performed for the departed soul. Chanakya has put the singer in the same category with the harlot.
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The poet indulges imagination and is by nature human in the extreme. Poetry has no direct relation or inseparable connection at all with truth. The worshipper of truth will find in poetry no utterance worthy of acceptance. Especially the poet will not be able to furnish any clue to the truth that lies beyond the ken of the human mind, beyond all that can be grasped by the daily experiences and perceptions of men, and that truth which is really the deepest and supreme in men. Plato's reasoning amounts to this in modern terms.
What Plato says does not, on reflection, appear to be utterly worthless. The vital world is the source of the poet and all other artists who are creators. When the vital is stirred things spring up from it and take shape. This vital itself is the magic power of the urge for enjoyment and action. For the satisfaction of these two urges towards delight and enjoyment the vital is constantly engaged in creating things. The spell of the vital does not care to find how far they are truth, and how much is their worth in terms of the right and the ultimate good. It is enough if it can build a castle in the air and derive joy from it. But it is not at all necessary that the castle in the air should be a reality.2
The poet says,
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It is doubtful if Plato would recognise even a seer-poet of this type. He might say the. poet whose heart is pure or has been purified, whose consciousness has transcended the human consciousness, who has direct vision of truth, that is to say, who seizes the 'Idea' by a vision in the fourth dimension, he alone deserves to be called a seer-poet, one who can express in a living manner the truth, the 'Idea' which is at once the supreme beauty and the supreme good. If Plato had known the poets of our Upanishads he might have changed his conception of the poet. The poetic genius can manifest in two ways. The one is artificial imagination, the other is divine vision or direct experience. The artificial imagination is nothing but fancy. This fancy may be superbly fascinating but that would be the restive cleverness of the fickle vital and the outward senses - the delight of thought, of the critical reason; on the other hand, the divine or direct experience illumines the thing-in-itself, the truth. This is the truth-vision of the soul, the Psychic Being. The poet who depends only on fancy may possibly be a poet but never the seer-poet who sees with the divine vision and creates. In fact, the seer-poet sees nothing save spirituality. We have shown above the difference between the spiritual and the mundane aspect of the truth. But in reality in the eyes of the seer-poet there is no such distinction at all. The divine sees the Self not only in things spiritual but also in things terrestrial. Even when the seer-poet speaks of the gross, the body, he speaks of the truth behind the gross, the truth behind the body-self. The totally material and vulgar can never be the object of fine art.
Perhaps Plato would not accept this kind of philosophy. He would not be prepared to give an equal importance to the two phenomena - the ardours of the life-process and the pleasures of poetry - balanced side by side as two separate entities of the same value. It is well and good if the poetical work can be made an aid to the discipline of life. Otherwise, just for the sake of creation of beauty, for mere enjoyment, for the skilful and sweet display of the ordinary intelligence and of the unregenerated vital, poetry should not be harboured in our consciousness. Therefore Plato wants us to become hermits of an absolute purity. Not the creation of the poet but that of the philosopher is the thing needed.
The poet wants to snatch beauty from the longings of the natural vital, Platos wisdom is all for the ultimate truth seized out of the moral sense. But there is no necessity of this duel between the poet and the philosopher. The true poet will seize beauty through the pure sense of delight in the purified vital and at the same time intuit the absolute truth with the divine vision. The vision of the Truth breaks out of the sense of delight, while the sense of delight finds its foundation in the truth-vision. Thus the poet and the seer become united and the delightful and the good stand identified.
Whatever may be the case of the poet, it is not that such a notion does not prevail in India at least about the votaries of other arts. The Buddhist Vishuddhi Magga has classed the painter with the cook, that is, both are taken to serve the same purpose, both cater only to the pleasure of the senses.
30.07 - The Poet and the Yogi, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Aristotle's preceptor, Plato, draws our attention to this side of poetry - the illusory charming power of poetry. No doubt, the world of the poet is charming. But it is equally the world of falsehood. Plato was religious to the marrow. The main cause of his looking upon the poets with considerable displeasure is that in their creations - e.g. Homer - the gods have an inferior nature even to that of a human being. It is an absurdity on the face of it. Having turned falsehood and an evil ideal into a thing of grace and delight the poets place it before man and thus they keep him away from truth, beauty and bliss.
Of course, it cannot be affirmed that in the poetic creation there can be no illusory power of Ignorance. No doubt, there are poets who have either blurred their spirituality or their inner soul by resorting to poetry. But in that case we can safely affirm that it is the poet and not his poetic creation that is in fault. It is absolutely a personal affair. If things are to be judged in this light, then there is not even a single object which does not stand as an obstacle to one's inner spiritual discipline.
3.02 - SOL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[112] In the Liber Platonis Quartorum, a Sabaean treatise, the spiritus animalis or solar sulphur is still a
, a ministering spirit or familiar who can be conjured up by magical invocations to help with the work.17
3.02 - The Psychology of Rebirth, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
chaos, or from what Plato calls Agathonian confusion." There is a similar descrip-
tion in Fierz-David, The Dream of Poliphilo, pp. i8gff.
3.03 - On Thought - II, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"It needed a Plato to identify this thing which lives and vibrates, which moves and shines, travels and is propagated through time and space, which acts and wills and freely chooses its own time and place - in short, to know the Idea as a being."
Let us take especially one phrase from this beautiful page:
3.04 - LUNA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[170] In interpreting the words your understanding increases in my sister, etc., it is well to remember that a philosophical interpretation of myths had already grown up among the Stoics, which today we should not hesitate to describe as psychological. This work of interpretation was not interrupted by the development of Christianity but continued to be assiduously practised in a rather different form, namely in the hermeneutics of the Church Fathers, which was to have a decided influence on alchemical symbolism. The Johannine interpretation of Christ as the pre-worldly Logos is an early attempt of this kind to put into other words the meaning of Christs essence. The later medievalists, and in particular the natural philosophers, made the Sapientia Dei the nucleus of their interpretation of nature and thus created a new nature-myth. In this they were very much influenced by the writings of the Arabs and of the Harranites, the last exponents of Greek philosophy and gnosis, whose chief representative was Tabit ibn Qurra in the tenth century. One of these writings, the Liber Platonis quartorum, is a dialogue in which Thebed (Tabit) speaks in person. In this treatise the intellect as a tool of natural philosophy plays a role that we do not meet again until the sixteenth century, in Gerhard Dorn. Pico della Mirandola appeals to the psychological interpretation of the ancients and mentions that the Greek Platonists described Sol as
251 and Luna as
3.1.02 - A Theory of the Human Being, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is a superstition of modern thought that the march of knowledge has in all its parts progressed always in a line of forward progress deviating from it, no doubt, in certain periods of obscuration, but always returning and in the sum constituting everywhere an advance and nowhere a retrogression. Like all superstitions this belief is founded on bad and imperfect observation flowering into a logical fallacy. Our observation is necessarily imperfect because we have at our disposal the historical data and literary records of only a few millenniums and beyond only disjected and insufficient indices which leave gigantic room for the hardly-fettered activity of the mind's two chief helpers and misleaders, inference and conjecture. Our observation is bad because, prepossessed by the fixed idea of a brief & recent emergence from immemorial barbarism, imagining Plato to have blossomed in a few centuries out of a stock only a little more advanced than the South Sea islander, we refuse to seek in the records that still remain of a lost superior knowledge their natural and coherent significance; we twist them rather into the image of our own thoughts or confine them within the still narrow limits of what we ourselves know and understand.
The logical fallacy we land in as the goal of our bad observation is the erroneous conception that because we are more advanced than certain ancient peoples in our own especial lines of success, as the physical sciences, therefore necessarily we are also more advanced in other lines where we are still infants and have only recently begun to observe and experiment, as the science of psychology and the knowledge of our subjective existence and of mental forces. Hence we have developed the exact contrary of the old superstition that the movement of man is always backward to retrogression. While our forefa thers believed that the more ancient might on the whole be trusted
3.10 - The New Birth, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
of an androgynous Christ, which is no doubt connected with the Platonic
conception of the bisexual First Man, for Christ is ultimately the
31.10 - East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Let us try to throw more light on this difference so that we may comprehend the synthetic ideal more clearly. We wilt now compare and contrast, for example, the genius of Valmiki and that of Shakespeare in the field of literature. On reading Shakespeare a stamp of characters that are human is left on our mind, and Valmiki impresses us with characters that are superhuman. Shakespeare has depicted men solely as human beings, while Valmiki read into men the symbol of some larger and higher truth. In the works of Shakespeare we feel the touch of material life and enjoy the savour of earthly pleasure, the embrace of physical bodies with each other, as it were. But Valmiki deals with experiences and realities that exceed the bounds of ordinary earthly life. Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear are the highlights of Shakespearae's creation. Valmiki's heroes and heroine are Rama, Ravana and Sita. The characters depicted by Shakespeare are men as men are or would be. But even the human characters of Valmiki contain something of the super-human, they overflow the bounds of humanity. It is not so difficult for us to grasp the clashes of sentiments that go to make up the character of Hamlet, for we are already quite familiar with them in our life; whereas the character of Rama which is not at all complex can yet hardly be adequately measured. There is a mystic vastness behind the character which can never be classed with human traits. Indeed, Rama and Ravana both are two aspects of the same Infinite. Even the drama of their earthly life is not merely founded on human qualities. The East wants to explore the Infinite, while the West wants to delve into the finite. Homer, the father of Western literature, is an illustrative example. The men of Homer's world, however mighty and powerful they may be, are after all human beings. Achilles and Hector are but the royal editions or dignified versions of our frail human nature. Never do they reflect the Infinite. The gift of the West is to bring to the fore the speciality of the finite through the senses. Plato himself did not like very much the Homerian god who to him was only "human - all too human." The gift of the East on the other hand is to manifest the Infinite and the Truth beyond the grasp of the senses with the aid of the finite, with the senses as a means.
Our object will be served better if we compare Oriental painting and sculpture with the Occidental. Let us compare the image of Venus with that of the Buddha. Wherein lies the difference? The goddess Venus is in no way superior to a human being. A finely modelled face, well-formed limbs, beautifully chiselled nose, eyes, ears, forehead - in one word, she is the paragon of beauty. Softness and loveliness are reflected in her every limb. The Greek goddess marks the highest human conception of beauty and love. But the image of the Buddha is not entirely flawless. No doubt, it is the figure of a human being, but an anatomist will certainly be able to point out many defects and flaws of composition in it. The image of the Buddha in the state of deep self-absorption does not represent a manin contemplation, but it is a symbol of concentration; it is meditation personified. This is the special character of Oriental Art. Oriental Art does not try to express sentiment and emotion through an exact portrayal. Its object is to give an adequate form to the idea itself. The Buddhist sculptor gives an expression to the supernatural state of realisation which the Buddha attained when he was on the verge of losing himself in Nirvana. The sculptor is not concerned with the elegance or correctness of the bodily limbs; his only care is to see how far the abstract idea has been expressed. Wrinkles of thought or the smoothness of peace on the forehead, fire of anger or spark of love in the eyes, the extraordinarily robust and highly muscular limbs of a man, and smooth and soft creeper-like flowing arms of a woman - such are the elements on which the Occidental artist has laid emphasis to show or demonstrate the play of psychological factors. The Oriental artist looked to the eternal truth that lies behind the attitudes of the mind and the body; he has not laboured to manifest the external gestures, the physical changes that are visible in our day-to-day life; the little that had to be done in this connection was executed in such a manner as to make it coincide with or merge into the idea of the truth itself - it became the very body of the idea. The Oriental sculptor has perpetuated in stone the eternal concepts of knowledge, compassion, energy, etc. - various glimpses of the infinite - through the images of Bodhisattwa, Avalokiteshwar, Nataraj and other deities. Raphael has succeeded in imparting a divine expression to motherhood in the visage of his Madonna, but that too is not Oriental Art. The image of the Madonna represents an ideal mother, and not motherhood. The Madonna may be called the acme of the emotional creation, but in the image of the Buddha the percepts of a suprasensual consciousness have been heaped up. The East wants to discover the true nature, the truth of things present in the ultimate unity, the Infinite. The West dwells in the finite, the diverse, the duality.
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Further, let us turn to the spiritual practices of the East and the West and their effects on life. What is the nature of European religion? Greece is the mother of modern Europe. The Europe of to-day is the outcome of Graeco-Roman culture. What was the conception of religion in Greece? Her religion surely consisted in all that is decent, lovely and harmonious. But the Greek people failed to discover or envisage the self-existent truth that reigns supreme within the heart of man. They were solely interested in external expression through rhythm; cadence and harmony of a mental or rational idealism. There was Plato, no doubt, and the Platonists and esoterics (like Pythagoras), but Aristotle and not Plato came to be their teacher and legislator. The virtue of the Romans lay in virility and the spirit of conquest and effective organisation of life. And the virtue of Europe has combined in itself the aesthetic sense of Greece and the military and state spirit of Rome. In Europe they want to regulate life through codes, moral and legal. Forced by circumstances and for the sake of mutual interest they have set up a mode of moral standard, and this they want to impose on all peoples and countries. The utmost contri bution of European religion has been a kind of temporising and understanding with the lower propensities of men and somehow presenting a smooth and decorous surface of life. Association, Arbitration, Federation, Co-existence and such other mottoes and shibboleths that are in the air to-day are but the echoes of that mentality. Deutschtum of Germany sought to transcend this religion of morality. It tried to found religion on some deeper urge within. But in its quest it took the ego for the Self and the demoniac vital energy for the Divine Power.
No doubt, the East has moral codes and in profusion, but they are not considered to be the last word on spirituality; they all fall under the category of the 'Lesser Knowledge' (Apara Vidya) and therefore the East has not confined itself within the play of the lower - the three gunasof nature. Its gaze is fixed on a still higher region. Europe claims herself to be the follower of the Christ. But how has Christianity developed there? It was the Church martyr in the beginning, it developed into the Church militant which finally turned into the Church political. The Christian church aimed at establishing the kingdom of Heaven on earth, but as a matter of fact, it has succeeded in establishing something of an earthly kingdom only. On the other hand, the religion of the East has quite a different movement. The ideal of the East is represented by Vedic seers like Vasishtha and Viswamitra who sought to realise the great Heavens - the Vast Truth. And their descendants clung to this ideal so firmly that no other thing existed for them. Vasishtha and Viswamitra have been consummated in Buddha and Shankara. The West has brought religion down to the level of the mundane and is about to lose it there, while the East has pushed religion up and is at last on the verge of losing the world in the Brahman or the Void.
3.2.05 - Our Ideal, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Indian wisdom through the thought of the Greek philosophers from Pythagoras to Plato and the Neo- Platonists; the result was
142
3.20 - Of the Eucharist, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Occultism
of Moses, Plato, and Pythagoras, and the source of their illumination.
Modern research (by profane scholars) leaves it still doubtful as
33.03 - Muraripukur - I, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Queene. One day I suddenly discovered that they had removed my Mazzini from the shelves of the library, and even the Life and Death of Socrates by Plato had disappeared. These books were no doubt supposed to turn the heads of our Indian students!
About this time, I had been several times to my home town of Rungpore. There at the local Library, I discovered a fine book on the history of Secret Societies. The book gave the story of how subject nations aspiring for freedom began their work in secret. In it the story of Ireland and Russia had been given a good deal of space. The secret societies in Russia had a system which was rather distinctive. It should have been taken over by us, so I have heard Sri Aurobindo say. They would divide the underground workers into little groups of not more than five. No group could know the others, only those belonging to a particular group would know its own members. Each group had a leader, who alone would know his immediate superior placed in charge of only four or five of such little groups. Similarly, the leader of the higher group would have dealings with the one next higher in rank who would be in charge of the bigger groups, and so on, right to the topmost man. Such a system was necessary, for in case someone got caught, that could not implicate the entire organisation but only a handful of his acquaintances. One of the main instruments in the hands of the police or the government for detecting a conspiracy is the confession extracted from the persons caught, whether by torture, through temptations, from sheer bravado, or by whatever other means. Under that system, no one could know anybody except the few members of his own group with whom he came into immediate contact through his work, nor could he know anything about the general plan of work; he had to carry out only the part assigned to him.
3.5.04 - Justice, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Justice, one says; but what is Justice? Plato's question applies to this as to every other sacred icon set up by men for their worship.
Justice for each man is what his own type of mind accepts as right and proper and equitable as between men and men. Or, it might be added, between the community and its constituents, the State and its citizens.
3-5 Full Circle, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Do not Figures V-1 and V-2 show that this knowledge, intuited long ago by Plato and now by Jonas in Literate metaphors, has come full circle, and reappears here in the geometric language and idiom of the Higher Industrial culture?
"Obviously," Jonas points out, "it is a different kind of knowledge that has to do with the desirability of ends, and a different kind that has to do with feasibility, means, and execution." p. 198.2 Figure V-2 elucidates this difference : the data of the special sciences and technologies (data mapped into the Periodic coordinate system by means of their characteristic numbers, as for instance in Figures II-14a and b) have to do with feasibility, means, and execution. The process of mapping these data into the Periodic coordinate system shows their desirability or undesirability in terms of their vector-direction : if they transmute the system over-all and in the long run (diachronically) toward they are evil and undesirable; if toward , they are desirable and good. And every human being who loves life and seeks its preservation and advancement will concur. The acquisition of the data, which occurs by means of special sciences, results in knowledge of feasibility, means and execution; the orientation of this knowledge by means of the Periodic coordinate system results in knowledge of the desirability of ends. The two together constitute our map and compass.
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"To the Greeks," says Jonas, "be it Plato or Aristotle, the number of the truly knowable things is finite, and the apprehension of first principles, whenever obtained, is definitive--subject to intermittent renewal but not to obsolescence through new discovery and better approximation." pp. 206-207.2
The present book affirms in its title that with its appearance , mankind has come full circle. It claims that to nearly all scientists--one-field specialists and Unified-Scientists alike--the point of maximum entropy , and the region of maximum ectopy , are incapable of obsolescence through new discovery and better approximation; and that the number of truly knowable systems is not infinite but finite. Until these limits were conceived and the Systemshierarchy extending between them was defined, it had been, as Hans Jonas says, "inconceivable to the modern experience of knowledge . . . that any state of theory, including the conceptual system of first principles governing it, should be more than a temporary construct to be superseded by the next vista to which it opens the way when all its implications are matched againstall the facts." pp. 206-207.2
3.6.01 - Heraclitus, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To ignore the influence of the mystic thought and its methods of self-expression on the intellectual thinking of the Greeks from Pythagoras to Plato is to falsify the historical procession of the human mind. It was enveloped at first in the symbolic, intuitive, esoteric style and discipline of the Mystics,-Vedic and Vedantic seers, Orphic secret teachers, Egyptian priests. From that veil it emerged along the path of a metaphysical philosophy still related to the Mystics by the source of its fundamental ideas, its first aphoristic and cryptic style, its attempt to seize directly upon truth by intellectual vision rather than arrive at it by careful ratiocination, but nevertheless intellectual in its method and aim. This is the first period of the Darshanas in India, in Greece of the early intellectual thinkers. Afterwards came the full tide of philosophic rationalism, Buddha or the Buddhists and the logical philosophers in India, in Greece the Sophists and Socrates with all their splendid progeny; with them the intellectual method did not indeed begin, but came to its own and grew to its fullness. Heraclitus belongs to the transition, not to the noontide of the reason; he is even its most characteristic representative. Hence his cryptic style, hence his brief and burdened thought and the difficulty we feel when we try to clarify and entirely rationalise his significances. The ignoring of the Mystics, our pristine fathers, pūrve pitaraḥ, is the great defect of the modern account of our thought-evolution.
Heraclitus - II
What precisely is the key-note of Heraclitus' thinking, where has he found his starting-point, or what are the grand lines of his philosophy? For if his thought is not developed in the severe systematic method of later thinkers, if it does not come down to us in large streams of subtle reasoning and opulent imagery like Plato's but in detached aphoristic sentences aimed like arrows at truth, still they are not really scattered philosophical reflections. There is an inter-relation, an inter-dependence; they all start logically from his fundamental view of existence itself and go back to it for their constant justification.
As in Indian, so in Greek philosophy the first question for thought was the problem of the One and the Many. We see everywhere a multiplicity of things and beings; is it real or only phenomenal or practical, māyā, vyavahāra? Has individual man, for instance,-the question which concerns us most nearly,-an essential and immortal existence of his own or is he simply a phenomenal and transient result in the evolution or play of some one original principle, Matter, Mind, Spirit, which is the only real reality of existence? Does unity exist at all and, if so, is it a unity of sum or of primordial principle, a result or an origin, a oneness of totality or a oneness of nature or a oneness of essence,-the various standpoints of Pluralism, of Sankhya, of Vedanta? Or if both the One and the Many are real, what are the relations between these two eternal principles of being, or are they reconciled in an Absolute beyond them? These are no barren questions of logic, no battle of cloudy metaphysical abstractions, as the practical and sensational man would have us contemptuously believe; for on our answer to them depends our conception of God, of existence, of the world and of human life and destiny.
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It is possible that Heraclitus may so have thought, but it is not the logical conclusion of his theory; it contradicts the evident suggestion of his metaphor about the road which implies a starting-point and a point of return; and we have too the distinct statement of the Stoics that he believed in the theory of conflagration,-an assertion which they are hardly likely to have made if this were not generally accepted as his teaching. The modern arguments against enumerated by Mr. Ranade are founded upon misconceptions. Heraclitus' affirmation is not simply that the One is always Many, the Many always One, but in his own words, "out of all the One and out of One all." Plato's phrasing of the thought, "the reality is both many and one and in its division it is always being brought together," states the same idea in different language. It means a constant current and back-current of change, the upward and downward road, and we may suppose that as the One by downward change becomes completely the All in the descending process, yet remains eternally the one ever-living Fire, so the All by upward change may resort completely to the One and yet essentially exist, since it can again return into various being by the repetition of the downward movement. All difficulty disappears if we remember that what is implied is a process of evolution and involution,-so too the Indian word for creation, sṛṣṭi, means a release or bringing forth of what is held in, latent,-and that the conflagration destroys existing forms, but not the principle of multiplicity. There will be then no inconsistency at all in Heraclitus' theory of a periodic conflagration; it is rather, that being the highest expression of change, the complete logic of his system.
Now again rejected, though that does not seem to be indubitable or final. ↩
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Practically, the active secret of life is there; all life physical or mental or merely dynamic maintains itself by constant change and interchange. Still, Heraclitus' account is so far not altogether satisfactory. The measure, the value of the energy exchanged remains unaltered even when the form is altered, but why should also the cosmic commodities we have for the universal gold be fixed and in a way unchanging? What is the explanation, how comes about this eternity of principles and elements and kinds of combination and this persistence and recurrence of the same forms which we observe in the cosmos? Why in this constant cosmic flux should everything after all remain the same? Why should the sun, though always new, be yet for all practical purposes the same sun? Why should the stream be, as Heraclitus himself admits, the same stream although it is ever other and other waters that are flowing? It was in this connection that Plato brought in his eternal, ideal plane of fixed ideas, by which he seems to have meant at once an originating real-idea and an original ideal schema for all things. An idealistic philosophy of the Indian type might say that this force, the Shakti which you call Fire, is a consciousness which preserves by its energy its original scheme of ideas and corresponding forms of things But Heraclitus gives us another account, not quite satisfactory, yet profound and full of suggestive truth; it is contained in his striking phrases about war and justice and tension and the Furies pursuing the transgressor of measures. He is the first thinker to see the world entirely in the terms of Power.
What is the nature of this exchange? It is strife, eris, it is war, polemos! What is the rule and result of the war? It is justice. How acts that justice? By a just tension and compensation of forces which produce the harmony of things and therefore, we presume, their stability. "War is the father of all and the king of all"; "All things becoming according to strife"; "To know that strife is justice"; these are his master apophthegms in this matter. At first we do not see why exchange should be strife; it would seem rather to be commerce. Strife there is, but why should there not also be peaceful and willing interchange? Heraclitus will have none of it; no peace! he would agree with the modern Teuton that commerce itself is a department of War. It is true there is a commerce, gold for commodities, commodities for gold, but the commerce itself and all its circumstances are governed by a forceful, more, a violent compulsion of the universal Fire. That is what he means by the Furies pursuing the sun; "for fear of Him" says the Upanishad "the wind blows ... and death runs." And between all beings there is a constant trial of strength; by that warfare they come into being, by that their measures are maintained. We see that he is right; he has caught the initial aspect of cosmic Nature. Everything here is a clash of forces and by that clash and struggle and clinging and wrestling things not only come into being, but are maintained in being. Karma? Laws? But different laws meet and compete and by their tension the balance of the world is maintained. Karma? It is the forcible justice of an eternal compelling Power and it is the Furies pursuing us if we transgress our measures.
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The ideas of Heraclitus on which I have so far laid stress, are general, philosophical, metaphysical; they glance at those first truths of existence, devānāṁ prathamā vratāni,1 for which philosophy first seeks because they are the key to all other truths. But what is their practical effect on human life and aspiration? For that is in the end the real value of philosophy for man, to give him light on the nature of his being, the principles of his psychology, his relations with the world and with God, the fixed lines or the great possibilities of his destiny. It is the weakness of most European philosophy-not the ancient-that it lives too much in the clouds and seeks after pure metaphysical truth too exclusively for its own sake; therefore it has been a little barren because much too indirect in its bearing on life. It is the great distinction of Nietzsche among later European thinkers to have brought back something of the old dynamism and practical force into philosophy, although in the stress of this tendency he may have neglected unduly the dialectical and metaphysical side of philosophical thinking. No doubt, in seeking Truth we must seek it for its own sake first and not start with any preconceived practical aim and prepossession which would distort our disinterested view of things; but when Truth has been found, its bearing on life becomes of capital importance and is the solid justification of the labour spent in our research. Indian philosophy has always understood its double function; it has sought the Truth not only as an intellectual pleasure or the natural dharma of the reason, but in order to know how man may live by the Truth or strive after it; hence its intimate influence on the religion, the social ideas, the daily life of the people, its immense dynamic power on the mind and actions of Indian humanity. The Greek thinkers, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, the Stoics and Epicureans, had also this practical aim and dynamic force, but it acted only on the cultured few. That was because Greek philosophy, losing its ancient affiliation to the Mystics, separated itself from the popular religion; but as ordinarily Philosophy alone can give light to Religion and save it from crudeness, ignorance and superstition, so Religion alone can give, except for a few, spiritual passion and effective power to Philosophy and save it from becoming unsubstantial, abstract and sterile. It is a misfortune for both when the divine sisters part company.
But when we seek among Heraclitus' sayings for the human application of his great fundamental thoughts, we are disappointed. He gives us little direct guidance and on the whole leaves us to draw our own profit from the packed opulence of his first ideas. What may be called his aristocratic view of life, we might regard possibly as a moral result of his philosophical conception of Power as the nature of the original principle. He tells us that the many are bad, the few good and that one is to him equal to thousands, if he be the best. Power of knowledge, power of character,-character, he says, is man's divine force,-power and excellence generally are the things that prevail in human life and are supremely valuable, and these things in their high and pure degree are rare among men, they are the difficult attainment of the few. From that, true enough so far as it goes, we might deduce a social and political philosophy. But the democrat might well answer that if there is an eminent and concentrated virtue, knowledge and force in the one or the few, so too there is a diffused virtue, knowledge and force in the many which acting collectively may outweigh and exceed isolated or rare excellences. If the king, the sage, the best are Vishnu himself, as old Indian thought also affirmed, to a degree to which the ordinary man, prākṛto janaḥ, cannot pretend, so also are "the five", the group, the people. The Divine is samaṣṭi as well as vyaṣṭi, manifested in the collectivity as well as in the individual, and the justice on which Heraclitus insists demands that both should have their effect and their value; they depend indeed and draw on each other for the effectuation of their excellences.
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Thus, for the general life of man Heraclitus has nothing to give us beyond his hint of an aristocratic principle in society and politics,-and we may note that this aristocratic bent was very strong in almost all the subsequent Greek philosophers. In religion his influence tended to the destruction of the old creed without effectively putting anything more profound in its place; though not himself a pure rationalist, he prepared the way for philosophic rationalism. But even without religion philosophy by itself can give us at least some light on the spiritual destiny of man, some hope of the infinite, some ideal perfection after which we can strive. Plato who was influenced by Heraclitus, tried to do this for us; his thought sought after God, tried to seize the ideal, had its hope of a perfect human society. We know how the Neo- Platonists developed his ideas under the influence of the East and how they affected Christianity. The Stoics, still more directly the intellectual descendants of Heraclitus, arrived at very remarkable and fruitful ideas of human possibility and a powerful psychological discipline,-as we should say in India, a Yoga,-by which they hoped to realise their ideal. But what has Heraclitus himself to give us? Nothing directly; we have to gather for ourselves whatever we can from his first principles and his cryptic sentences.
Heraclitus was regarded in ancient times as a pessimistic thinker and we have one or two sayings of his from which we can, if we like, deduce the old vain gospel of the vanity of things. Time, he says, is playing draughts like a child, amusing itself with counters, building castles on the sea-shore only to throw them down again. If that is the last word, then all human effort and aspiration are vain. But on what primary philosophical conception does this discouraging sentence depend? Everything turns on that; for in itself this is no more than an assertion of a self-evident fact, the mutability of things and the recurrent transiency of forms. But if the principles which express themselves in forms are eternal or if there is a Spirit in things which finds its account in the mutations and evolutions of Time and if that Spirit dwells in the human being as the immortal and infinite power of his soul, then no conclusion of the vanity of the world or the vanity of human existence arises. If indeed the original and eternal principle of Fire is a purely physical substance or force, then, truly, since all the great play and effort of consciousness in us must sink and dissolve into that, there can be no permanent spiritual value in our being, much less in our works. But we have seen that Heraclitus' Fire cannot be a purely physical or inconscient principle. Does he then mean that all our existence is merely a continual changeable Becoming, a play or Lila with no purpose in it except the playing and no end except the conviction of the vanity of all cosmic activity by its relapse into the indistinguishable unity of the original principle or substance? For even if that principle, the One to which the many return, be not merely physical or not really physical at all, but spiritual, we may still, like the Mayavadins, affirm the vanity of the world and of our human existence, precisely because the one is not eternal and the other has no eventual aim except its own self-abolition after the conviction of the vanity and unreality of all its temporal interests and purposes. Is the conviction of the world by the one absolute Fire such a conviction of the vanity of all the temporal and relative values of the Many?
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But there is one great gap and defect whether in his knowledge of things or his knowledge of the self of man. We see in how many directions the deep divining eye of Heraclitus anticipated the largest and profoundest generalisations of Science and Philosophy and how even his more superficial thoughts indicate later powerful tendencies of the occidental mind, how too some of his ideas influenced such profound and fruitful thinkers as Plato, the Stoics, the Neo- Platonists. But in his defect also he is a forerunner; it illustrates the great deficiency of later European thought, such of it at least as has not been profoundly influenced by Asiatic religions or Asiatic mysticism. I have tried to show how often his thought touches and is almost identical with the Vedic and Vedantic. But his knowledge of the truth of things stopped with the vision of the universal reason and the universal force; he seems to have summed up the principle of things in these two first terms, the aspect of consciousness, the aspect of power, a supreme intelligence and a supreme energy. The eye of Indian thought saw a third aspect of the Self and of Brahman; besides the universal consciousness active in divine knowledge, besides the universal force active in divine will, it saw the universal delight active in divine love and joy. European thought, following the line of Heraclitus' thinking, has fixed itself on reason and on force and made them the principles towards whose perfection our being has to aspire. Force is the first aspect of the world, war, the clash of energies; the second aspect, reason, emerges out of the appearance of force in which it is at first hidden and reveals itself as a certain justice, a certain harmony, a certain determining intelligence and reason in things; the third aspect is a deeper secret behind these two, universal delight, love, beauty which taking up the other two can establish something higher than justice, better than harmony, truer than reason,-unity and bliss, the ecstasy of our fulfilled existence. Of this last secret power Western thought has only seen two lower aspects, pleasure and aesthetic beauty; it has missed the spiritual beauty and the spiritual delight. For that reason Europe has never been able to develop a powerful religion of its own; it has been obliged to turn to Asia. Science takes possession of the measures and utilities of Force; rational philosophy pursues reason to its last subtleties; but inspired philosophy and religion can seize hold of the highest secret, uttamaṁ rahasyam.
Heraclitus might have seen it if he had carried his vision a little farther. Force by itself can only produce a balance of forces, the strife that is justice; in that strife there takes place a constant exchange and, once this need of exchange is seen, there arises the possibility of modifying and replacing war by reason as the determinant principle of the exchange. This is the second effort of man, of which Heraclitus did not clearly see the possibility. From exchange we can rise to the highest possible idea of interchange, a mutual dependency of self-giving as the hidden secret of life; from that can grow the power of Love replacing strife and exceeding the cold balance of reason. There is the gate of the divine ecstasy. Heraclitus could not see it, and yet his one saying about the kingdom of the child touches, almost reaches the heart of the secret. For this kingdom is evidently spiritual, it is the crown, the mastery to which the perfected man arrives; and the perfect man is a divine child! He is the soul which awakens to the divine play, accepts it without fear or reserve, gives itself up in a spiritual purity to the Divine, allows the careful and troubled force of man to be freed from care and grief and become the joyous play of the divine Will, his relative and stumbling reason to be replaced by that divine knowledge which to the Greek, the rational man, is foolishness, and the laborious pleasure-seeking of the bound mentality to lose itself in the spontaneity of the divine Ananda; "for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The Paramhansa, the liberated man, is in his soul bālavat, even as if a child.
36.07 - An Introduction To The Vedas, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Katha, 11.1.10. (Whatever is there in the inner world is to be found here as well). In ancient times, not only in India, but in all countries of the world, symbolism was in vogue. We cannot read through those symbols. That is why we consider them black magic or rustic customs of the uncivilised. We can partly appreciate the political and artistic genius of Egypt. So at times we consider it equal or superior to ours. But we are unable to grasp her spiritual genius. Hence we do not hesitate to relegate it to the level of barbarism. We have hardly any spiritual realisation. What we understand is at best morality. We highly admire the art and literature of Greece. But in respect of Greek spirituality our knowledge is confined to Socrates. In the earlier period of Greek civilisation there was a current of deep spiritual culture, and what they used to call the Mysteries were only mysteries of spiritual yogic discipline. We fail to understand that the water-worship of Thales and the fire-worship of Heraclitus were not merely different aspects of Nature-worship. We do not like to believe that these terms "water" and "fire" can ever be the symbols of spiritual truths. We study the philosophies of Pythagoras and Plato. But we do not delve into the spiritual culture or esoteric aspect of which their philosophies are but outer expressions. Behind the mythologies of China, Japan, old-world America and Australia there lies a science of spiritual discipline which may not be recognised by the scientists, but those practising spirituality will not find it difficult to discover it.
***
3.7.1.03 - Rebirth, Evolution, Heredity, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When we come to mind, we seehow could it be otherwise in an embodied mind?a response, interaction, connection, a correspondence if you will; but no amount of correspondence can show how a physical response can be converted into or amount to or by itself constitute in result a conscious operation, a perception, emotion, thought-concept, or prove that love is a chemical product or that Platos theory of ideas or Homers Iliad or the cosmic consciousness of the Yogin was only a combination of physiological reactions or a complex of the changes of grey brain matter or a flaming marvel of electrical discharges. It is not only that common sense and imagination boggle at these theories,that objection may be disregarded,not only that perception, reason and intuition have to be thrust aside in favour of a forced and too extended inference, but that there is a gulf of difference here between the thing to be explained and the thing by which it is sought to explain it which cannot be filled up, however much we may admit nervous connections and psycho-physical bridges. And if the physical scientist points to a number of indicative facts and hopes one day to triumph over these formidable difficulties, there is growing up on the other side an incipient mass of psychical phenomena which are likely to drown his theory in fathomless waters. The insuperability of these always evident objections is beginning to be more widely recognised, but since the past still holds considerable sway, it is necessary to insist on them so that we may have the clear right to go on to more liberal hypotheses which do not try prematurely to reduce to a mechanical simplicity the problem of our being.
One of these is the ancient view that not only incidence of body and life on mind and soul, but incidence of mind and soul on body and life have to be considered. Here too there is the evolutionary idea, but physical and life evolution, even the growth of mind, are held to be only incidental to a soul evolution of which Time is the course and the earth among many other worlds the theatre. In the old Indian version of this theory evolution, heredity and rebirth are three companion processes of the universal unfolding, evolution the processional aim, rebirth the main method, heredity one of the physical conditions. That is a theory which provides at least the framework for a harmonious explanation of all the complex elements of the problem. The scientific idea starts from physical being and makes the psychical a result and circumstance of body; this other evolutionary idea starts from soul and sees in the physical being an instrumentation for the awakening to itself of a spirit absorbed in the universe of Matter.
3.7.1.04 - Rebirth and Soul Evolution, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are theories of existence which accept the individual soul, but not soul evolution. There is, for instance, that singular dogma of a soul without a past but with a future, created by the birth of the body but indestructible by the death of the body. But this is a violent and irrational assumption, an imagination unverified and without verisimilitude. It involves the difficulty of a creature beginning in time but enduring through all eternity, an immortal being dependent for its existence on an act of physical generation, yet itself always and entirely unphysical and independent of the body which results from the generation. These are objections insuperable to the reason. But there is too the difficulty that this soul inherits a past for which it is in no way responsible, or is burdened with mastering propensities imposed on it not by its own act, and is yet responsible for its future which is treated as if it were in no way determined by that often deplorable inheritance, damnosa hereditas, or that unfair creation, and were entirely of its own making. We are made helplessly what we are and are yet responsible for what we are,or at least for what we shall be hereafter, which is inevitably determined to a large extent by what we are originally. And we have only this one chance. Plato and the Hottentot, the fortunate child of saints or Rishis and the born and trained criminal plunged from beginning to end in the lowest fetid corruption of a great modern city have equally to create by the action or belief of this one unequal life all their eternal future. This is a paradox which offends both the soul and the reason, the ethical sense and the spiritual intuition.
There is too the kindred idea, behind which a truth obscurely glimmers, that the soul of man is something high, pure and great which has fallen into the material existence and by its use of its nature and its acts in the body must redeem itself, must return to its own celestial nature. But it is evident that this one earthly life is not sufficient for all to effect that difficult return, but rather most may and do miss it entirely; and we have then either to suppose that an immortal soul can perish or be doomed to eternal perdition or else that it has more existences than this poor precarious one apparently given to it, lives or states of being which intervene between its fall and the final working out of a sure redemption. But the first supposition is subject to all the difficulties of that other paradox. Apart from the problem of the reason of the descent, it is difficult to see how straight from celestial being these different souls should have lapsed immediately to such immense differences of gradation in their fall and in such a way that each is responsible for the otherwise cruel and unequal conditions under which he has to determine so summarily his eternal future. Each must surely have had a past which made him responsible for his present conditions, if he is to be held thus strictly to account for all their results and the use he makes of his often too scanty, grudging and sometimes quite hopeless opportunity. The very nature of our humanity supposes a varying constituent past for the soul as well as a resultant future.
4.02 - BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE - THE HYPER-PERSONAL, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
is not lacking anywhere. Plato felt this and has immortalised
the idea in his Dialogues. Later, with thinkers like Nicolas of
4.03 - THE ULTIMATE EARTH, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
to say whether there are any Aristotles, Platos or St. Augustines now on earth
(how could it be proved : on the other hand why not?) But what is clear is
4.04 - Conclusion, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
of wholeness (as also does the Platonic hermaphrodite, who
later became the symbol of perfected wholeness in alchemical
4.04 - THE REGENERATION OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
The house of the sphere is the vas rotundum, whose roundness represents the cosmos and, at the same time, the world-soul, which in Plato surrounds the physical universe from outside. The secret content of the Hermetic vessel is the original chaos from which the world was created. As the filius Macrocosmi and the first man the king is destined for rotundity, i.e., wholeness, but is prevented from achieving it by his original defect.
[374] Verse 10
4.0 - The Path of Knowledge, #Theosophy, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The seeker of the Path must constantly keep watch over himself in this respect and have himself in hand. With him one thought must not link itself arbitrarily with another but only in the way that corresponds with the severely exact contents of the thought world. The transition from one idea to another must correspond with the strict laws of thought. He must as thinker be to a certain extent constantly a copy of these thought laws. He must shut out from his train of thought all that does not flow out of these laws. Should a favorite thought present itself to him, he must put it aside if the correct sequence will be disturbed by it. If a personal feeling tries to force upon his thoughts a direction not inherent in them, he must suppress it. Plato required of those who wished to be in his school that they should first go through a course of mathematical training. And mathematics with their strict laws, which do not yield to the course of ordinary sensible phenomena, form a good preparation for the seeker of the Path. If he
p. 212
5.01 - EPILOGUE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
birth of a religion. Plato, Spinoza and Hegel were able to
elaborate views which compete in amplitude with the per-
--- Overview of noun plato
The noun plato has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (15) Plato ::: (ancient Athenian philosopher; pupil of Socrates; teacher of Aristotle (428-347 BC))
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun plato
1 sense of plato
Sense 1
Plato
INSTANCE OF=> philosopher
=> scholar, scholarly person, bookman, student
=> intellectual, intellect
=> person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
=> organism, being
=> living thing, animate thing
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> causal agent, cause, causal agency
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun plato
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun plato
1 sense of plato
Sense 1
Plato
INSTANCE OF=> philosopher
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun plato
1 sense of plato
Sense 1
Plato
-> philosopher
=> nativist
=> Cynic
=> eclectic, eclecticist
=> empiricist
=> epistemologist
=> esthetician, aesthetician
=> ethicist, ethician
=> existentialist, existentialist philosopher, existential philosopher
=> gymnosophist
=> libertarian
=> mechanist
=> moralist
=> naturalist
=> necessitarian
=> nominalist
=> pluralist
=> pre-Socratic
=> realist
=> Scholastic
=> Sophist
=> Stoic
=> transcendentalist
=> yogi
HAS INSTANCE=> Abelard, Peter Abelard, Pierre Abelard
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HAS INSTANCE=> Anaximenes
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HAS INSTANCE=> Aristotle
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HAS INSTANCE=> Berkeley, Bishop Berkeley, George Berkeley
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HAS INSTANCE=> Cleanthes
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HAS INSTANCE=> Condorcet, Marquis de Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat
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HAS INSTANCE=> Descartes, Rene Descartes
HAS INSTANCE=> Dewey, John Dewey
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HAS INSTANCE=> Diogenes
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HAS INSTANCE=> Epictetus
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HAS INSTANCE=> Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Haeckel
HAS INSTANCE=> Hartley, David Hartley
HAS INSTANCE=> Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
HAS INSTANCE=> Heraclitus
HAS INSTANCE=> Herbart, Johann Friedrich Herbart
HAS INSTANCE=> Herder, Johann Gottfried von Herder
HAS INSTANCE=> Hobbes, Thomas Hobbes
HAS INSTANCE=> Hume, David Hume
HAS INSTANCE=> Husserl, Edmund Husserl
HAS INSTANCE=> Hypatia
HAS INSTANCE=> James, William James
HAS INSTANCE=> Kant, Immanuel Kant
HAS INSTANCE=> Kierkegaard, Soren Kierkegaard, Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
HAS INSTANCE=> Lao-tzu, Lao-tse, Lao-zi
HAS INSTANCE=> Leibniz, Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz
HAS INSTANCE=> Locke, John Locke
HAS INSTANCE=> Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus
HAS INSTANCE=> Lully, Raymond Lully, Ramon Lully
HAS INSTANCE=> Mach, Ernst Mach
HAS INSTANCE=> Machiavelli, Niccolo Machiavelli
HAS INSTANCE=> Maimonides, Moses Maimonides, Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon
HAS INSTANCE=> Malebranche, Nicolas de Malebranche
HAS INSTANCE=> Marcuse, Herbert Marcuse
HAS INSTANCE=> Marx, Karl Marx
HAS INSTANCE=> Mead, George Herbert Mead
HAS INSTANCE=> Mill, John Mill, John Stuart Mill
HAS INSTANCE=> Mill, James Mill
HAS INSTANCE=> Montesquieu, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat
HAS INSTANCE=> Moore, G. E. Moore, George Edward Moore
HAS INSTANCE=> Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
HAS INSTANCE=> Occam, William of Occam, Ockham, William of Ockham
HAS INSTANCE=> Origen
HAS INSTANCE=> Ortega y Gasset, Jose Ortega y Gasset
HAS INSTANCE=> Parmenides
HAS INSTANCE=> Pascal, Blaise Pascal
HAS INSTANCE=> Peirce, Charles Peirce, Charles Sanders Peirce
HAS INSTANCE=> Perry, Ralph Barton Perry
HAS INSTANCE=> Plato
HAS INSTANCE=> Plotinus
=> Popper, Karl Popper, Sir Karl Raimund Popper
HAS INSTANCE=> Pythagoras
HAS INSTANCE=> Quine, W. V. Quine, Willard Van Orman Quine
HAS INSTANCE=> Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
HAS INSTANCE=> Reid, Thomas Reid
HAS INSTANCE=> Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
HAS INSTANCE=> Russell, Bertrand Russell, Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Earl Russell
HAS INSTANCE=> Schopenhauer, Arthur Schopenhauer
HAS INSTANCE=> Schweitzer, Albert Schweitzer
HAS INSTANCE=> Seneca, Lucius Annaeus Seneca
HAS INSTANCE=> Socrates
HAS INSTANCE=> Spencer, Herbert Spencer
HAS INSTANCE=> Spengler, Oswald Spengler
HAS INSTANCE=> Spinoza, de Spinoza, Baruch de Spinoza, Benedict de Spinoza
HAS INSTANCE=> Steiner, Rudolf Steiner
HAS INSTANCE=> Stewart, Dugald Stewart
HAS INSTANCE=> Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, Sir Rabindranath Tagore
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HAS INSTANCE=> Theophrastus
HAS INSTANCE=> Weil, Simone Weil
HAS INSTANCE=> Whitehead, Alfred North Whitehead
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HAS INSTANCE=> Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johan Wittgenstein
HAS INSTANCE=> Xenophanes
HAS INSTANCE=> Zeno, Zeno of Citium
HAS INSTANCE=> Zeno, Zeno of Elea
--- Grep of noun plato
plato
plato's academy
platonic body
platonic solid
platonic year
platonism
platonist
platoon
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