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71
Reading Groups, General / What we do as students of philosophy (our method)
« Last post by xavierhn on August 30, 2017, 07:07:18 pm »
We ask a simple question: what is, for instance, Descartes thinking about in this meditation?

With an answer to this question we allow philosophising to emerge within the text, i.e., we show what is most question worthy for the text itself to think about. Philosophising means to think about what is essential and to be taken in by it.
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Presocratics / Re: Heraclitus Essays ;D
« Last post by StircrazyReality on August 28, 2017, 08:58:37 pm »
We begin with Fragment 64: ‘Lightning steers all things’ - τὰ δὲ πάντα οἰακίζει κεραυνός.

When the principle of linguistic density is applied to ‘lightning’, two primary groups of meaning are apparent. The first is lightning as the tool of Zeus, and as fire. The second is the flash, which in an instantaneous moment lights up all things from a state of darkness, and with clarity shows all things in their relations to one another. The first group of meanings see the phenomenon of lightening as an active force, while the second group of meanings see lightning as imparting no movement of its own.

The doxographer from whom we get fragment B64, Hippolytus, interprets as follows:
“He says that this fire is intelligent and the cause of the management of the universe, expressing it thus: The Thunderbolt steers all things (B64) – by the thunderbolt he means the eternal fire”
Here thunderbolt is clearly an active force, and also one that is intelligent.

An Aristotelian reading of Heraclitus’s ontology is the he is a material monist who posits fire as the source of all things. The reading of this fragment could then be that fire, in its manifestation as lightning, is an active force that is the source of all things and drives all things. However, let us move onto the principle of resonance to see if any other readings emerge. I will list a series of resonances, and then try and find a nucleus of meaning that emerges.

There are two mentions of steering;
(B11) Every beast is driven to pasture with a blow
(B41) Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by which all things are steered through all things.

I will take (B41) as our second clue, as we try and uncover the phenomenon of ‘steering’, which is the verb of action in (B64).

There is a third fragment that resonates with ‘wisdom’ and ‘one thing’ in (B41), and ‘Zeus’(the wielder of lightning) in (B64).
(B32) The wise is one thing only. It is willing and unwilling to be called by the name of Zeus.
It appears that ‘wise’ and ‘Zeus’ can be layered on top of each other. Standing back, it appears that lightning, Zeus and wisdom are all closely ties together. If we reflect on this, both lightning and wisdom reveal things as they really are. Both lightning and wisdom are said to steer in relation to all things.

However how can there be something outside of all things that steers all things? A problem arises with having all things, and then an extra ‘one steering thing’. The ‘all things’ then does not mean all things, but only some things. We can look to fragment 108, in which we must remember that wise is layered on top of Zeus and lightning.

 (B108) Of all whose discourses I have heard, there is not one who attains to recognizing that the wise is set apart from all.

From this I get the interpretation that lightning and wisdom are not components of all things, and are not causal movers of all things in the capacity of a physical force. I reject seeing lightning as a force. It is the phenomenon of revealing that steers all things. Wisdom, and the flash of thunderbolt both show things as things, e.g earth as earth, and it is this clarity of seeing that steers. This clarity flashes out of the darkness, a darkness in which all things are indistinct.

I do not yet understand how the phenomenon of steering occurs. The answer to this can perhaps be found in examining a lack of steering.

There is more to be explored in terms of the impermanence of the flash, and man’s relation to darkness.

 (B26) Man is kindled and put out like a light in the night-time

There is more to be explored with God, wisdom and how anything can be ‘unrevealed’.

 (B78) The way of man has no wisdom, but that of the gods has

It is important to remember that a flash of lightning does not occur in clear daylight, but only when there is darkness.

Bibliography
Fink, Eugen, and Martin Heidegger. Heraclitus Seminar. Translated by Charles H. Seribert. Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1970.

Kahn, H. Charles. On reading Heraclitus. In Pre-Socratic reader. Sydney: University of Sydney

Jonathon Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy



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Presocratics / Re: Heraclitus Essays ;D
« Last post by xavierhn on August 28, 2017, 06:48:48 pm »

Panta and the arche of unity

The plural adjective panta (πάντα) found throughout eleven fragments  is translated, without a substantive, as ‘all’. One is immediately challenged with figuring out how all, as in many (beings) taken together, comes about. This is no small feat, due to Heraclitus’ claim that it is wise following logos to consider all beings are one (en panta) (Fr. 50). The challenge in understanding how all is one is in seeing what gives a unity its unifying character, i.e., what enables many beings to be considered one? In other words, Heraclitus seems to be asking, what is the arche of unity (of beings)? With this question in mind, I will turn to examine resonances of panta in fragment seven.

Fragment Seven

The thrust of the fragment reads in that even with the distorting presence of smoke a distinction between all (beings) and existent (beings) remains perceptible by a human sense.  That Heraclitus has chosen smoke  for showing a perceptible difference in an obscuring way –as smoke simultaneously screens off and indicates–suggests that panta ta onta are close together yet essentially different. The difference presented is seen through a commonality lying in that panta ta onta characterise beings as a whole ; panta show all beings to be seen as one, while onta beings as actual. Here, the similarity is about beings in terms of a difference between the mode of presence that beings take , one or actual – yet neither difference show us the arche, of what makes beings, one or existent, it simply is sensed.

Diagnoien translated as distinguish taken literally means ‘knowing-through’ as in a careful discerning that differentiates things. To be discerning, sets apart, but also allows comparisons to emerge, hence the ‘knowing’ aspect. Diagnoien as a verb enables us to discern that all beings (panta) are ‘present’ through smoke, a presence not of existence (onta). This distinguishing characteristic of panta is deepened in several fragments. Fragment 10, where out of all beings one emerges, and out of one (en) all beings; fragment 80, panta comes into being (ginomena) from strife. The movement of distinguishing, present in fragments 10 and 80, as from out of something, and as opposed to something, now appears to be a characteristic of panta, i.e., all has an embracing and dismantling quality.   This seems to make sense when we think about the transition from many different beings and how they could be considered to belong together as one, which fragment 64 itself brings out that panta is steered through by lightning; lightning which has the chief characteristic of a compact movement enabling many different beings to brought to appearance. Herein lies the unifying character in the movement towards appearance, for we say that all beings come forward to appear in like manner, the moving toward appearance is what characterises all beings as one: they show themselves.

Conclusion

To give a provisional answer to our question of what unifying aspect characterises panta is opened up from lightning in fragment 64. The belonging together of beings is the result of being brought forward to appearance, in the open light of lightning, beings stand presently as one. We call this movement of panta gathering. Such a standing of beings taken collectively brought from without, stands opposed to receding into not-being, namely strife. Strife like war is that which threatens beings as a whole with the prospect of not-being. Panta as a dynamic movement pulls beings as a whole between gathering and strife; between being present and not-being at all.

My interpretation of identifying the nature of panta as one of movement, namely, a pulling towards being present and not-being has found great support in Kahn’s principles. With resonance, it has allowed me to start from fragment 7 on distinguishing, then, to see an implicit movement there and to draw out thematic connections with three other fragments that deal with the moving qualities of panta (Fr. 10, 80, 64). Likewise, ambiguity, shows in smoke being both a veiling and counterveiling force that I drew into connection with several fragments, that, in turn, deepened panta as containing moving oppositions (gathering-dismantling).
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Presocratics / Heraclitus Essays ;D
« Last post by pdrsn on August 28, 2017, 02:31:28 pm »
 Let's post all our Heraclitus essays here. I think this is the best way to develop our thinking as well as develop the society!

Heraclitus : Bow, Life and Death

   FRAGMENTS

“The bow (βιός) is called life (βίος), but its work is death.” [B 47]
“Immortals are mortals, mortals immortals: living their death, dying their life.” [B 62] (p52 Barnes)
“For souls it is death to become water, for water death to become earth; but from earth water comes into being, from water soul.” [B 36] (p63 Barnes)
“…the death of earth is to become water, and the death of water to become air, and of air fire, and the reverse.” [B 76] (p65 Barnes)
“Men do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tension, like that of the bow and the lyre.” [B 51]
“All the things we see when awake are death, even as all we see in slumber are sleep.” [B 21]

   QUESTION

Looking at the fragment [B47] mentioning life and death how are we to understand them? The purpose of a bow and arrow is to kill, this is simple enough. However Heraclitus goes on to say that the function of life is death. We must find out what the words could have meant for Heraclitus, in this way resonance and density has the potential to steer us away from simplistic or anachronistic interpretations.

   HOW ARE THE WORDS USED?

H. in one sense could be speaking about life in terms of nature and observing that many lifeforms are born and then cause the death of other lifeforms.

In another sense we could understand ‘life’ in terms of the lived human experience and taking Nussbaum’s interpretation of [B62], [B47] could be taken as: that which makes life is the fact of mortality (death), that is, just as a bow must be able to kill to be considered a good bow then so too life must include death to be considered a good life. However, in [B36] and [B76] death seemingly plays a different role in which the fragments could be interpreted as a theory on matter and its different states. How death in [B47] relates to death in [B36] and [B76] is not clear at all. And so Nussbaum’s interpretation of death as an empty existence does not seem to hold across the fragments, of course we could posit that H. uses death in different ways across the fragments.

We find a clue in [B51] the only other time where ‘bow’ is mentioned. Here the use of bow is in relation to its string being in tension. We can now return to [B47] and interpret H. as saying that like the attuned string of the bow, where the top and bottom are pulled with equal force and thus stay in a harmony so too life and death are two opposing forces whose struggle results in a balance. It seems obvious then that a primary reading can be established as one in which H. is concerned with the nature of nature. This reading melds somewhat with the states of matter interpretation of [B36] and [B76] in that the theme revolves around physics or nature. Building on this reading [B21] could be tenuously interpreted to refer to hyle (‘dead’ matter) but maybe this goes too far as we must keep in mind that the same fragment could be interpreted as making an observation about the experience of life.

   CONCLUSION

The interpretation of H. as a phusikoi is well evidenced but in an attempt to resolve the ambiguities we could say that H. is talking about opposites not just in nature but in our lived experience, all in all an observation of being. So we have speculated as to H.’s subject but what does he say of being? I cannot say but perhaps it is to do with a unity between mind and world, that there is no ‘distance’ as Descartes thinks but something underlying, basic and ‘flowing’ throughout.
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Presocratics / Re: Presocratics
« Last post by pdrsn on August 22, 2017, 05:32:15 pm »
Very interesting, you've given me a lot of think about. Would you like to expand of what you think Heraclitus is "on about" as a whole?
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Presocratics / Re: Presocratics
« Last post by xavierhn on August 20, 2017, 05:15:10 pm »
Here are some thoughts of mine on fragment 64 of Heraclitus.

Lightning

The chief characteristic of lightning is its capacity for bringing to appearance relations among beings. Lightning, in this sense, allows beings to shine forth.

The crack of lightning is without pretension nor precedence. the bolt of lightning doesn’t tell us how to think, it merely enables us to think (essential freedom).

Pretension. Neither declares existence of beings, nor informs us what beings are. Simply allows for beings to show themselves as they are.

Precedence. Steering says nothing of ‘perspectivism’, nor ‘objectivity’ least of all arbitrariness. What is steered is from the stroke of lightning opening a path from nowhere and collapses back into nothing.

(road fragment).

Lightning at night.

Beings recede into ‘darkness’ - nothing can be said of them, neither after nor before the flash of lightning. It is only with the instant of the stroke of light that beings are brought from out of such a receding, and are brought forward into appearance. Lightning snatches beings from the possibility of not-being, as darkness primarily means, and brings beings forward to be spoken about.

Lightning and arche

Let's assume lightning, as a fleeting phenomenon, is not an ‘arche’ for it does not rule throughout beings as a whole. However, Heraclitus states that lightning as a strike steers everything through everything. So, the question now appears as whether steer is the same as arche understood as the beginning that rules, governs throughout. Can the flash of lightning rule in this way?

Some oppositions within lightning.

The boom of lightning brings everything to a standstill. One ‘stands back in awe’ upon the sight of what is brought out in the open. (correlation with wonder).

Somehow the instance of lightning brings ‘movement’ to a standstill, through the moving flash of a single thunderbolt.

  • Standing back in awe - as a spectating human we are stopped from our everyday motions.
  • Moves beings into the calm of presentation, the effect of being in the midst of a storm.

Lightning disrupts and overturns the state of things into a calm gathering like being within the 'eye of the storm'.
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Philosophical Resources / Presocratics
« Last post by xavierhn on August 13, 2017, 01:45:53 pm »
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BzIKW4ljaQIlNENTNmI1OExaWWs?usp=sharing

Contains:

Heidegger, M.
- Early Greek Thinking
- Four Seminars
- Parmenides
- Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy
- Heraclitus Seminar
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Philosophical Resources / Philosophy and Serenity
« Last post by StircrazyReality on August 12, 2017, 05:08:50 pm »
Quote
...some schools of Buddhist philosophy, much
like [the] Stoics, sought to raise “the individual from an inauthentic condition of life
[to] an exact vision of the world, inner peace, and freedom.”

Source: https://www.academia.edu/11894547/_Spiritual_Exercise_and_Buddhist_Epistemologists_in_India_and_Tibet
""Spiritual Exercise" and Buddhist Epistemologists in India and Tibet"

What is the relationship between philosophy and, what can be variously called, the good life, or serenity.
What part does philosophy have in the way in which we choose to live?

Primarily concerned with Buddhist philosophy. Touches on Ancient Greek philosophy.
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Descartes / Re: Descartes Reading Group
« Last post by xavierhn on August 06, 2017, 07:17:16 pm »
What does doubt have in common with deception?

Answer: That which is most common, most present and enduring in how beings show themselves to us - subjectuum.

Doubt (dubius) breaks up into duo (two), habeo (having, hold).
Deception (decipio) breaks up into (de) concerning of cipio (ensnared, held, captured).
The common point is in the being held in a certain way.

How does this commonality in the root of the word shed light on the first meditation?

What is it to be deceived?

Being had

Appearances. The senses show us… but in reality.
Words. “I am a king”... but in reality.
States of mind. “I am awake”... but in reality.

Trickery: I believed what was shown to me were the way things are. (Link to seeing beings, to truth)
Dupery: Something that was hidden from me, yet allowed me to see things but ‘incorrectly’ not in view of the concealed. (A sense of concealment). Something was concealed and unable to be wrought from its state of being concealed, i.e., remains actively hidden.

Another consideration.

One does not say ‘i am deceived’. There is a sense of time elapsing, retrospective. Second, it is impersonal as in ‘it happened to me’.
What do all three ways of ‘being had’ have in common? They have in common the ‘way in which things come to presence’. Not in what they are (essence), which is always preserved, but how they cover up in a certain showing.

What is Doubt?

Is that which relates to the revealing of the nature of truth in relation to beings as a whole.
Conditions for doubt.
For doubt to ‘begin’ i.e., placing the foundations of opinions of how things are into question, there must have been a concealment of the way beings show what they are. In this way, doubt comes to lay bare the foundation from which beings must show themselves appropriately, i.e., to be known as such.
Link here to ‘methodos’, a stage for it.
Doubt i) clears away, and, ii) secures - which is derived from deceiption since deception holds the ‘being of things’ in a concealing way, thereby protects them in their yet to be concealed state. This is the etymological sense of ‘being held in place’, which correlates to the ‘subjectuum' latin for greek hypokeimenon, meaning that which is always present in the presenscing of beings.
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Descartes / Re: Descartes Reading Group
« Last post by xavierhn on August 05, 2017, 02:15:27 pm »
If we understand by skepticism (skepsis in greek, meaning investigation), a striving to place ourselves in the way for uncovering a method, then yes. But if we understand by skepticism, which relates to the problem of there never being one proof that will guarantee one's claim to know something, then no, Descartes is not an epistemologist.

I think you are taking that section out of context. Why bother contrasting the state of mind, the claims of a 'madman' and the state of being inside a dream? How does that relate to Descartes first demand of finding a proper foundation? So, we have to connect these two things to show what Descartes fundamental position is. We don't know just yet what it is, what his position is -what  first philosophy is? But we have a clue here. We might first off, say that there is no way of finding 'foundation' - which we must also uncover its meaning - in the perception of things in their outward appearance. So where is the issue? The outward appearance of a thing, has a deceptive quality. But what does deceptive mean exactly? I take it to mean that deception does not show itself as to what it is - mean the being of a thing does not presence. The 'madman' claims he is a king when he is a pauper -- how do we ensure that we see what really is the case in this strange claim of the men who claims what he is not? Descartes is pointing out the concealing nature, not of appearances of 'sense-data' which is always mediated by the ability to perceive, but the nature of what is true. Veracity, as the nature of truth, shows that the madman is in self-deceit - by allowing us to recognise his claims as false and seeing why they are false, because his idea of being a king does not correspond to his state of being poor. Descartes, then speaks of dreams in the same way - where does the being of truth, veracity show itself -- well, he says 'theres no sign of differentiating being awake from being asleep'. Meaning what? That the nature of what appears, things, do not house truth. Truth, as the correct correspondence of a thing and its idea, is not found in the thing's appearing to us, as such and such, because it can show itself otherwise. Descartes extend this to 'corporeal things' as not giving us the grounds of veracity, the essence of veracity.

There is still more to be worked out here. But I hope you can see that Descartes is not merely arguing that he 'does not exist'. Again, do we understand what 'existentia' here means? We need to investigate what 'existentia' and 'actuality' mean for Descartes and how this relates to the search of the essence of truth.
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