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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2017 23:21:23 GMT -5
Rather than cope with the unbearable loneliness of their condition, men will continue to seek their shattered god, and for his sake, they will love the very serpents that dwell amongst his ruins, Uncle Henry! Due to unprecedented demand from around the world, everyone reading ' Serious Topics', ' The Third' and other social media websites online is cordially invited to the British Museum this November to see the exhibition, Living with gods. Join us promptly at 15:00 on Sunday 19 November 2017, and afterwards, for afternoon tea in the Great Court Restaurnat from 17:00! If you cannot make it in person, Uncle Henry, follow the exhibition at the British Museum online!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2017 11:44:23 GMT -5
I ought, Uncle Henry, therefore I can!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2017 21:34:14 GMT -5
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2017 1:09:40 GMT -5
All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2017 7:14:41 GMT -5
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2017 13:58:05 GMT -5
Come up, sometime, Alistair, and see me!
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Post by ahinton on Oct 7, 2017 15:04:10 GMT -5
Come up, sometime, Alistair, and see me! Before I consider contemplating any such thing (and I do not even know where you are located in any case), might you care to write and offer some kind of explanation for your most recent post about the work that you have commissioned? Thank you in advance.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2017 15:13:37 GMT -5
I cannot account for the money! An audit must be undertaken!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2017 8:08:33 GMT -5
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2017 6:26:32 GMT -5
Plato rejected democracy and used 'The Republic' to criticise it for its alleged flaws, such as susceptibility to demagogues, rule by unfit 'barbarians' etc. The concepts of democracy and of Utopia as depicted in 'The Republic' are tied to the city-states of ancient Greece and their relevance to modern states is questionable. So what is justice? Justice is defined as a state where everyone is to do their own work while not interfering with the work of others. This conception of justice, striking to the modern reader, is closely linked to the Greek conception of fate or necessity, such as that embodied later in Aristotle's final cause. This definition of justice leads to a social structure radically different from most previous and subsequent states.
The ideal city as depicted in 'The Republic' should be governed by philosopher-kings, Uncle Henry; disinterested persons who are to rule not for their personal enjoyment but for the good of the City-State. Socrates points out the human tendency to corruption by power and thus tyranny; therefore ruling should only be left to a certain class of people whose only purpose is to govern in what is deemed a just manner, and who are somehow immune to corruption. This is hardly new or recent conservatism, as it was first proposed well over two thousand years ago. You might say that 'The Republic' stands for the conviction that inquiry really does not cease until death, because every question is connected to every other question. For example, Plato begins with the straightforward question, "What is justice?" That leads on to the question, "Is justice a benefit to its possessor?"
The central task of 'The Republic' is in fact to demonstrate that justice is ultimately a benefit to its possessor; it is what you need most of all if you are to be happy, whereas the unjust person is the most miserable of all creatures. The onus is not on everyone else to improve their behaviour. It is on everyone to improve their behaviour. What matters is how we both act and react, Jason. And what the greatest of philosophers, Plato, aspired to do, Lord Byron, modern science has in a way done. If you want to do justice to the complexities of our cosmos, where materialism is giving too simple a story, Plato's programme for gaining an understanding of the world and our place in it can be very interesting indeed. In the words of one of the greatest of Europeans, Sir Winston Churchill, democracy expects extraordinary things of ordinary people. Perhaps this is one way in which 'rule by the people' can be made to work.
When Socrates asked the question ‘How should man live?’, Plato and Aristotle answered that man should live a life of virtue. But where does the motivation for virtue come from? Do we need rules to tell us how to behave or can we rely on our feelings of compassion and empathy towards other human beings? William Shakespeare’s Iago says the following in his great tragedy on jealousy, 'Othello':
“Virtue! A fig! ‘tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.”
So is virtue a character trait possessed by some but not others? Is it derived from reason? Or does it flow from the innate sympathies of the human heart? What do you think, Thoughtful? For the last two thousand years philosophers have grappled with these ideas, but now in the twenty-first century a modern reappraisal of virtue is taking the argument back to basics with Aristotle. In terms of morality, Aristotle uses this image: he says that just as an architect is not going to try to measure a complex fluted column with a straight ruler, so too the ethical judge is not going to take a simple and inflexible set of rules into the complexities of a practical situation.
Instead, just as the architect measures with a flexible strip of metal, Lord Byron, when we address the complexities of the human condition, we have to have our faculties open and responsive, ready to shape ourselves to the complex, perhaps unique and non-repeateable, demands of a particular situation. We don't ultimately control our moral environment, and we cannot therefore be self-contained moral entities. In biblical terms, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat (choice):
"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
Bible Gateway - Genesis 2:17 (King James Version)
Have we individually and collectively eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? If so, we shall surely die. The c solution to the universal paradox of choice is that principle of freedom, both on an individual and collective level, needs to be carefully weighed against the principle of duty. We have been weighed in the balance and all too often, found wanting. This is not so much an admission of failure, as a reasoned response to a rapidly changing world. In Kantian terms, I ought, Alistair, therefore I can.
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Post by ahinton on Oct 17, 2017 7:04:08 GMT -5
In Kantian terms, I ought, Alistair, therefore I can. Then do; (I imagine that you are well aware of the specific context in which I urge you thus)...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2017 7:19:24 GMT -5
I live, therefore I ought!
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Post by ahinton on Oct 17, 2017 7:21:27 GMT -5
I live, therefore I ought! Therefore please proceed; you know how to contact me.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2017 9:33:11 GMT -5
René Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. Dubbed the father of modern western philosophy, much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. A native of the Kingdom of France, he spent about 20 years (1629–49) of his life in the Dutch Republic after serving for a while in the Dutch States Army of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder of the United Provinces. He is generally considered one of the most notable intellectual representatives of the Dutch Golden Age.
Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes's influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system (see below) was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, used in the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the scientific revolution.
Descartes refused to accept the authority of previous philosophers. He frequently set his views apart from those of his predecessors. In the opening section of the Les passions de l'âme, a treatise on the early modern version of what are now commonly called emotions, Descartes goes so far as to assert that he will write on this topic "as if no one had written on these matters before". His best known philosophical statement is Cogito ergo sum (French: Je pense, donc je suis; I think, therefore I am), found in part IV of Discours de la méthode (1637; written in French but with inclusion of Cogito ergo sum and §7 of part I of Principles of Philosophy (1644; written in Latin). As if one would want to cogitate for so long, Alistair?
Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like Augustine, Uncle Henry. In his natural philosophy, he differed from the schools on two major points: first, he rejected the splitting of corporeal substance into matter and form; second, he rejected any appeal to final ends, divine or natural, in explaining natural phenomena. In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of God's act of creation. Do you, Uncle Henry?
Descartes laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all well-versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well. What about your contribution, Jason? How can your contribution be ignored for so long?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 6:13:14 GMT -5
Ignorance is bliss, Jason?
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