I Nietzsche claims that the way in which we picture the world affirms or denies what we are ready to put in it, in short, that our representations rely on a pre-representational basis, inasmuch as we see what we see depending on how we are inclined to value it. In other words, he underscores the…
Category: Religion?
‘Aγχιβασίην…
In a Buddhist temple (with its elaborate architecture, the internal division of the enclosure into sections, etc.) the sacred is delimited by markedly human categories (Buddha of compassion, Buddha of wisdom, etc.), plus it is planned and organized. Conversely, a Shinto shrine (consisting of a small, red portico at the bend of a forest path,…
“It’s a Giraffe” – or, the Dangers of Russian Mysticism
We have written elsewhere on Russian Christian Neo-Fascism. When, in February 2022, Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine we were temporarily residing in St. Petersburg, where Sofya was involved in several artistic projects and Carlos was about to start teaching contemporary philosophy at the European University. In the wake of the invasion we left St….
Russian Christian Neo-Fascism and the Twilight of Practical Reason
Kant’s statue in Kaliningrad, vandalised by Russian hooligans in 2018 “No You Kan’t!” – The Telling Provocation of a Russian Vice-Admiral In September 2020 we illustrated an entry titled “What Is Philosophy?” with a picture of Kant’s statue in present-day Kaliningrad (former Königsberg) splashed with pink paint by Russian hooligans as a mean to protest…
Mythology’s Oblivion
An epoch – any epoch – can be assessed by both the quantity and the quality of its gods. Christianity has accustomed us to imagine a single god: an all-powerful Father as the hypostasis of human hope; and once that god has been declared dead, the two only gods we still seem capable of evoking…
Enigma and Early Greek Thinking
People say that [Homer] died on the island of Ios when he found himself undone because he could not solve the riddle of the fishing boys. The riddle was: “We left whatever we caught and carry whatever we didn’t”. They were obscuring in riddle the fact they actually had discarded whichever of the lice they…
The Poetics of Aidos: On Pindar, Parmenides, and Bacchylides
(N.B. This entry complements our entry “Aidos Before What Is: On Homer and Parmenides“) Michel Briand has recently noticed a number of poetic parallelisms between Pindar and Parmenides, as regards the images they both employ.(⊙) Yet in our view, their affinity is even deeper. Take, for example, Parmenides’s well-known fragment (our translation): τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ…
Aidos Before What Is: On Homer and Parmenides
(N.B. This entry complements our entries “Hybris Over What Is: On Aeschylus” and “Hybris’s Reverse: On Heraclitus and Pindar”) this gleam (kosmos), the same for all things, neither the gods nor men have made it, but it always was, is, and will be an ever-living fire measuredly kindling and measuredly going out – Heraclitus, DK…
Hybris’s Reverse: On Heraclitus and Pindar
(N.B. This entry complements the previous one, titled “Hybris over What Is: On Aeschylus.”) Heraclitus (fl. 504–501 BCE), Pindar (c. 518–438), and Parmenides (fl. 475) were roughly contemporary with one another; and with Aeschylus (c. 525–455). Pindar is commonly considered to be a poet, Aeschylus a tragedian, and Heraclitus and Parmenides philosophers. But this is…
Hybris Over What Is: On Aeschylus
(N.B. This entry follows from the conclusion to the previous one, titled “Τhe Last God.”) hybris (“excess”) must be extinguished more than a fire (ὕβριν χρὴ σβεννύναι μᾶλλον ἢ πυρκαῖήν) – Heraclitus, DK B43(⊛) “Prometheus,” προμηθεύς (pro-metheus) means “forethought” (from προ- [pro-, “fore-”] + μανθάνω [manthano, to “think”]). It is paramount to make clear the…