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General Discussion / Re: Wisdom, Sophos, Prajna
« Last post by xavierhn on September 12, 2017, 06:12:06 pm »Here is a excerpt from Heidegger's Lecture What is Philosophy? to aid in our thinking about 'wisdom' and 'philosophy'.
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The Greek word φιλόσοφία goes back to the word φιλόσοφος. This word is originally an adjective like φιλάργυρος, loving silver, like φιλότιμος, loving honor. The word φιλόσοφος was presumably coined by Heraklitus. This indicates that for Heraklitus φιλόσοφία did not yet exist. An ἀνὴρ φιλόσοφος is not a "philosophical" man. The Greek adjective φιλόσοφος expresses something completely different from the adjective philosophical. An ἀνὴρ φιλόσοφος is ὅς φιλεῖ τὸ σοφόν, he who loves the σοφόν; φιλεῖν, to love, signifies here, in the heraclitean sense, ὀμολογεῖν, to speak in the way in which λόγος speaks, in correspondence with the λόγος. This correspondence is in accord with the σοφόν. Accordance is ἁρμονία. That one being reciprocally unites itself with another, that both are originally united to each other because they are at each other's disposal--this ἁρμονία is the distinctive feature of φιλεῖν, of "loving" in the Heraclitean sense.
There's an interesting line from Aristotle Book I of the metaphysics (982 20-24). Aristotle characterises sophon (the wise) and sophias (wisdom) as a knowledge of what is most present in all things "panta ta hypokeimena"
Paragraph 22
The Greek word φιλόσοφία goes back to the word φιλόσοφος. This word is originally an adjective like φιλάργυρος, loving silver, like φιλότιμος, loving honor. The word φιλόσοφος was presumably coined by Heraklitus. This indicates that for Heraklitus φιλόσοφία did not yet exist. An ἀνὴρ φιλόσοφος is not a "philosophical" man. The Greek adjective φιλόσοφος expresses something completely different from the adjective philosophical. An ἀνὴρ φιλόσοφος is ὅς φιλεῖ τὸ σοφόν, he who loves the σοφόν; φιλεῖν, to love, signifies here, in the heraclitean sense, ὀμολογεῖν, to speak in the way in which λόγος speaks, in correspondence with the λόγος. This correspondence is in accord with the σοφόν. Accordance is ἁρμονία. That one being reciprocally unites itself with another, that both are originally united to each other because they are at each other's disposal--this ἁρμονία is the distinctive feature of φιλεῖν, of "loving" in the Heraclitean sense.
There's an interesting line from Aristotle Book I of the metaphysics (982 20-24). Aristotle characterises sophon (the wise) and sophias (wisdom) as a knowledge of what is most present in all things "panta ta hypokeimena"