Questions tagged [greeks]

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When confronted with early Islamic philosophy, would one's time be better spent just reading Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus?

I have been reading Avicenna, al-Razi, al-Kindi, and others, and I have noticed that almost nothing is an original work in the realm of philosophy, especially as it applies to metaphysics. al-Farabi ...
Sermo's user avatar
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Can I get more background on quote from Democritus?

The quote from philosopher Democritus is: [I would] rather discover one cause than gain the kingdom of Persia. or I would rather discover a single demonstration [in geometry] than become king ...
Perf Lar's user avatar
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What was Borges referring to when he said “I have known what the Greeks do not know, incertitude.”? [closed]

Taken from opening paragraph of Labyrinths.
pseudosudo's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
399 views

What does this excerpt from Plato's Republic mean?

This excerpt is from Book II, concerning Plato's reasoning for censoring a certain story of Hesiod's: The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they ...
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How similar were Epicureans and Stoics to Buddhism on suffering?

One of the main goals of the Buddhist philosophy/religion is to be free of suffering. Buddhism identifies ego, desire, non acceptance of impermanence, ignorance and all negative emotions(because the ...
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4 votes
1 answer
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Which ancient Greeks are known to have commentated on Zeno's Paradoxes?

The Stanford Encycl. of Philosophy mentions that we know of Zeno's work only through various secondary sources, "principally through Aristotle and his commentators." I was wondering, which other ...
Asker's user avatar
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What translation of Lysistrata to read?

I have decided to read some Greek philosophy and chose to start with Lysistrata by Aristophanes but could not determine which translation would be truest to the original Greek version. Some ...
Matthew Smith's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
434 views

What did the Greeks call the "trial and error" reasoning process?

What did the Greeks call the "trial and error" reasoning process? Bruce Aune's review of Wilson's Peirce's Empiricism: Its Roots and Its Originality claims "The name 'empirici' is in fact traceable ...
Geremia's user avatar
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4 votes
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Did any Greek or Roman philosopher(s) say that "opposites attract"?

I know that Plato formulated the law, "like attracts like", using the Greek word philia for attraction. This is mentioned somewhere in the Republic, and is easy to verify with a Google search. But ...
ktm5124's user avatar
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1 answer
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Nietzsche's birth of tragedy

In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche describes a Dionysian satyr as a force that impregnates an Apollonian world of images giving rise to dialogue on the Hellenic stage and henceforth the Greek ...
Chris's user avatar
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3 answers
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Was Communism meant to be a telos, for Marx, or for Lenin etc.?

Was Communism meant to be a telos, for Marx, or for Lenin etc.? By that, I mean to ask whether Communism is already contained in anything that creates Communism? My apologies if my jargon is off, I ...
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What is the meaning of the quote from Anaxogoras? “even those who have occasion for a lamp supply it with oil.”

According to Plutarch, When Pericles heard that Anaxagoras was starving himself, Pericles approached Anaxagoras begging him to stop starving himself since if Anaxagoras were to die,Pericles will lose ...
Lor Dan's user avatar
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9 votes
3 answers
818 views

Did a lot of Greek philosophers believe lying is impossible?

As I understand it, Parmenides and Heraclitus were two pre-Socratic Greek philosophers whose views could not be farther apart. Parmenides believed that all change is illusory, and that there is just ...
Keshav Srinivasan's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
91 views

What is a simplistic definition of Boethius' Consolation with Philosophy?

The specific extract is where he asks Lady Philosophy about the correlation of omniscience and free will having a coherent existence together. I know the extract well, but I struggle to define it ...
Lady Philosophy's user avatar
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Aristophanes’ Clouds - What's the Significance of 3ʳᵈ Place?

After 20 years, I've circled back to reevaluate the Clouds (motivated primarily by a learned hatred of lawyers, and government in general). I think Wikipedia does a fine job of presenting the work ...
Ronnie Royston's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
148 views

Why did Parmenides rely on a fantastic fable to explain a sensitive-refusing theory?

There's one point in Parmenides' philosophy where he distinguishes between the 'Way of the Truth' and the 'Way of the Doxa' in a poem called On Nature. In said manuscript, the philosopher states the ...
xvlaze's user avatar
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Are people inherently good according to Plato?

Are people inherently good according to Plato? Are Gods subject to forms, in the sense that they are good because they are subject to the form of good, or are they independent of the forms? Because I ...
Frank Booth's user avatar
10 votes
6 answers
570 views

Plato books for a philosophy newcomer

I watched a funny philosophy crash course on youtube, and I'm very curious about Plato. As a beginner, where should I start? Original work? Other author's books about his philosophy?
Alex Alonso's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
792 views

Did Greek philosophers know about Eastern philosophies?

Were the philosophers of Ancient Greece aware of Eastern Philosophies, such as Zoroastrianism or Buddhism? Is there any mention of them, either directly, or similar concepts in existing writings?
Arif Burhan's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
137 views

Socratic thought on Greek deities as metaphor

"To be a master of metaphor," Aristotle wrote in his Poetics, "is the greatest thing by far." Not, as we know from Plato, to be "used" as a form of rhetoric (which, as far as I know, he and the ...
martin's user avatar
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Has any mainstream philosopher written extensively on the Eleusinian mysteries?

Has any mainstream philosopher written extensively on the Eleusinian mysteries? So anyone with their own SEP page. Also, I found a selection of texts (allegedly) referring to them, here. While this ...
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1 vote
2 answers
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Property of inclusion in Greek thought

In Plato's "Parmenides" at one stage inclusion is casually used as a reflexive property to argue that the 'One' (everything that is) must be included in itself. Parmenides in the text even keeps going ...
foivos's user avatar
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What underlying semantic notions connect the notion of 'thrown or hitting on both sides' to 'Amphiboly'?

Source: p 108, With Good Reason, An Introduction to Informal Fallacies (6 ed, 2000) by York U. Prof. S. Morris Engel The fallacy of amphiboly* is the product of poor sentence structure. It results ...
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4 votes
1 answer
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Reference - Heidegger on Hölderlin's translations?

Surely Heidegger was well aware of the enormous power of Hölderlin's translations, especially of Sophocles' tragedies. Did Heidegger write something about this facet of Hölderlin?
tttbase's user avatar
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Does Epictetus State "Only One Cause Motivates Us", Or "One Cause More than Others"?

1. Question: From Epictetus, Discourses, 1.11, (Perseus English Link): Is Epictetus implying there is only ever just one cause for our actions? Or, is Epictetus arguing there is one cause which ...
elika kohen's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
1k views

Did Hindu thought exercise a strong influence upon the minds of early Western thinkers?

This is an excerpt form Swami Prabhavananda's The Spiritual Heritage of India (1962) The Philonic and Johannean conceptions of the Logos may conceivably owe no debt to Indian thought, for the ...
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14 votes
7 answers
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Are there any books about postmodernism being like sophism?

I still find myself relatively often surprised by how much of the spectrum of philosophic thought was already covered at the times of ancient Greece or ancient China (think Axial Age or think ...
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