To Live at All is Miracle Enough I read Richard Dawkins book ‘Unweaving the Rainbow’ a little while ago and there was a part that really brought me up short with one of those ‘WOW’ moments. It really brings home the sheer unliklihood and odds against any of us actually being born and being able to experience and enjoy this only too brief sojourn on earth. I have been thinking about it quite a bit lately and really wanted to reread it again. Excerpt from Chapter I, “The Anaesthetic of Familiarity,”of Richard Dawkins 1998 book Unweaving the Rainbow 'We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Moralists and theologians place great weight upon the moment of conception, seeing it as the instant at which the soul comes into existence. Napoleon started it all. Morris tells how his ancestor's enforced change of career had various knock-on effects culminating in his own interest in natural history. This is another respect in which we are lucky. In spite of these odds, you will notice that you are, as a , alive.
Belief Belief is a mental representation, treated in various academic disciplines, especially philosophy and psychology, of a sentient being's attitude toward the likelihood or truth of something.[1] From Greek two different concepts are often represented by the concept of belief: Pistis and Doxa. Simplified we may say that the first deals in trust and confidence, the latter in opinion and acceptance. Knowledge and epistemology[edit] The terms belief and knowledge are used differently in philosophy. As a psychological phenomenon[edit] Mainstream psychology and related disciplines have traditionally treated belief as if it were the simplest form of mental representation and therefore one of the building blocks of conscious thought. The concept of belief presumes a subject (the believer) and an object of belief (the proposition). This has important implications for understanding the neuropsychology and neuroscience of belief. Belief-in[edit] Belief-that, delusion[edit] Formation[edit] Desirability
Top 100 Western Philosophers: from Ancient to Contemporary Philosophers This article shows the top 100 most important philosophers in the Western civilization from the ancient Greek classics such As Socrates, Plato and Aristotle’s to contemporary philosophers such as Levi-Strauss and Foucault, passing by great masters such as Descartes or Spinoza. What is Philosophy? The word "philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia, which literally means "love of wisdom". Topics The Ancient Philosophers Ancient philosophy is that of the Greco-Roman world from the 6th century BC to the 6th century AD. The most important of the ancient philosophers (in terms of subsequent influence) are Plato and Aristotle. Top Ancient Philosophers The top ancient philosophers include: Thales of MiletosPythagoras of SamosXenophanes of ColophonParmenides of EleaHeraclitesZeno of EleaSocratesPlatoAristotleDemocritusEpicurusDiogenes of SinopeMarcus Tullius CiceroPhilo of AlexandriaLucius Anneas SenecaMarcus AureliusSextus EmpiricusPlotinus Thales of Miletos Learn more about Thales. Heraclites Plato
Baruch Spinoza 1. Biography Bento (in Hebrew, Baruch; in Latin, Benedictus: all three names mean "blessed") Spinoza was born in 1632 in Amsterdam. He was the middle son in a prominent family of moderate means in Amsterdam's Portuguese-Jewish community. As a boy he had undoubtedly been one of the star pupils in the congregation's Talmud Torah school. And then, on July 27, 1656, Spinoza was issued the harshest writ of herem, or excommunication, ever pronounced by the Sephardic community of Amsterdam; it was never rescinded. To all appearances, Spinoza was content finally to have an excuse for departing from the community and leaving Judaism behind; his faith and religious commitment were, by this point, gone. 2. The Ethics is an ambitious and multifaceted work. 2.1 God or Nature “On God” begins with some deceptively simple definitions of terms that would be familiar to any seventeenth century philosopher. Proposition 1: A substance is prior in nature to its affections. Is Spinoza, then, a pantheist? 3.
a good question - my attempt in answering it Perennial philosophy The Perennial philosophy (Latin: philosophia perennis), [note 1] also referred to as Perennialism, is a perspective in the philosophy of religion which views each of the world’s religious traditions as sharing a single, universal truth on which the foundation of all religious knowledge and doctrine has grown. Agostino Steuco (1497–1548) coined the term philosophia perennis,[1] drawing on the neo-Platonic philosophy of Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94). In the early 19th century this idea was popularised by the Transcendentalists. Towards the end of the 19th century the Theosophical Society further popularized the concept under the name of "Wisdom-Religion" or "Ancient Wisdom".[2] In the 20th century it was popularized in the English-speaking world through Aldous Huxley's book The Perennial Philosophy as well as by the strands of thought which culminated in the New Age movement. Definition[edit] Origins[edit] Neo-Platonism[edit] Steuco[edit]
Philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious vocabulary and texts, and the relationship of religion and science.[1] It is an ancient discipline, being found in the earliest known manuscripts concerning philosophy, and relates to many other branches of philosophy and general thought, including metaphysics, logic, and history.[2] Philosophy of religion is frequently discussed outside of academia through popular books and debates, mostly regarding the existence of God and problem of evil. The philosophy of religion differs from religious philosophy in that it seeks to discuss questions regarding the nature of religion as a whole, rather than examining the problems brought forth by a particular belief system. It is designed such that it can be carried out dispassionately by those who identify as believers or non-believers.[3] [edit] Aquinas
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy How to Live: Lessons from Montaigne, Godfather of Blogging by Maria Popova Don’t worry about death, pay attention, read a lot, give up control, embrace imperfection. “Living has yet to be generally recognized as one of the arts,” Karl De Schweinitz wrote in his 1924 guide to the art of living. But this is an art best understood not as a set of prescriptive techniques but, per Susan Sontag’s definition of art, a form of consciousness — which means an understanding that is constantly evolving. This idea — writing about oneself to create a mirror in which other people recognize their own humanity — has not existed forever. It had to be invented. Portrait of Michel de Montaigne by Salvador Dalí, 1947. What separated Montaigne from other memoirists of his day was that he didn’t write about his daily deeds and his achievements — rather, he contemplated the meaning of life from all possible angles, and in the process popularized the essay as a form. Don’t read him as children do, for amusement, nor as the ambitious do, to be instructed. 'Of Experience'
The Shortness of Life: Seneca on Busyness and the Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long “How we spend our days,” Annie Dillard memorably wrote in her soul-stretching meditation on the life of presence, “is, of course, how we spend our lives.” And yet most of us spend our days in what Kierkegaard believed to be our greatest source of unhappiness — a refusal to recognize that “busy is a decision” and that presence is infinitely more rewarding than productivity. I frequently worry that being productive is the surest way to lull ourselves into a trance of passivity and busyness the greatest distraction from living, as we coast through our lives day after day, showing up for our obligations but being absent from our selves, mistaking the doing for the being. Despite a steadily swelling human life expectancy, these concerns seem more urgent than ever — and yet they are hardly unique to our age. Seneca writes: It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. To those who so squander their time, he offers an unambiguous admonition: Thanks, Liz
How to Be Alone: An Antidote to One of the Central Anxieties and Greatest Paradoxes of Our Time by Maria Popova “We live in a society which sees high self-esteem as a proof of well-being, but we do not want to be intimate with this admirable and desirable person.” If the odds of finding one’s soul mate are so dreadfully dismal and the secret of lasting love is largely a matter of concession, is it any wonder that a growing number of people choose to go solo? The choice of solitude, of active aloneness, has relevance not only to romance but to all human bonds — even Emerson, perhaps the most eloquent champion of friendship in the English language, lived a significant portion of his life in active solitude, the very state that enabled him to produce his enduring essays and journals. And yet that choice is one our culture treats with equal parts apprehension and contempt, particularly in our age of fetishistic connectivity. Solitude, the kind we elect ourselves, is met with judgement and enslaved by stigma. Illustration by Alessandro Sanna from 'The River.' Donating = Loving
20-Year-Old Hunter S. Thompson’s Superb Advice on How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Meaningful Life As a hopeless lover of both letters and famous advice, I was delighted to discover a letter 20-year-old Hunter S. Thompson — gonzo journalism godfather, pundit of media politics, dark philosopher — penned to his friend Hume Logan in 1958. Found in Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (public library | IndieBound) — the aptly titled, superb collection based on Shaun Usher’s indispensable website of the same name — the letter is an exquisite addition to luminaries’ reflections on the meaning of life, speaking to what it really means to find your purpose. Cautious that “all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it” — a caveat other literary legends have stressed with varying degrees of irreverence — Thompson begins with a necessary disclaimer about the very notion of advice-giving: To give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience.