Philosophical Speculations

Hedge90 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 20, 2021 11:27 pm What's the book, for those of us who just want to know?

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 12:46 am

Hedge90 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 20, 2021 11:27 pm What's the book, for those of us who just want to know?

For those who are so extremely busy, or just indifferent, to checkout the description on youtube, the book is What is Ancient Philosophy? by Pierre Hadot. Although, more precisely, it's an investigation into the roots of Western philosophy, rather than ancient philosophy in general.

Ashvin wrote:Maimonides (~1150 A.D.) - The "Kabbalistic Tree of Life" depicted above is a Hebrew mythic representation of the ten spheres of Aristotle and Aquinas. The most well-known and prolific Jewish philosopher of the middle ages was Maimonides, and I am including him here as a stark contrast to Aquinas and those philosophizing from within the Christ-impulse. The Reason of Aquinas was striving upwards from the sense-world manifestations to their spiritual archetypes, attempting to understand all that is sensible in terms of the revealed spiritual, while the intellect of Maimonides was working in the opposite direction - it desired to understand all that was spiritually revealed in terms of the sense-world. That is not to diminish his brilliance or say he lacked insight, but it is simply relaying the fact of the matter as we discern from his philosophy.

Almost everything spiritual becomes highly intellectualized in Maimonides' thought, while the timeless, changeless, immaterial God remains forever beyond human knowledge. This system of thought goes to show that integral mythology-philosophy does not only flow in one linear and uninterrupted direction. This flow is manifested by a continual resistance - a poise and counterpoise of pressure and suction - just as water flowing through a pipe. In this particular case, the spiritual resistance is what later leads to the large temporal gap referenced earlier between Aquinas' nascent spiritual science and that of Goethe. It constrained Western philosophy, religion, and science on a centuries-long path of abstract intellect and demythologized religion; a path only seeking the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 12:46 am

Hedge90 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 20, 2021 11:27 pm What's the book, for those of us who just want to know?

For those who are so extremely busy, or just indifferent, to checkout the description on youtube, the book is What is Ancient Philosophy? by Pierre Hadot. Although, more precisely, it's an investigation into the roots of Western philosophy, rather than ancient philosophy in general.