All I'm saying is that it's wrong to condemn those who condemn socialism, as this presupposes that opposition to socialism shouldn't be allowed. Socia...
I don't think condemnation is the problem. In a democratic system, opposition should be allowed. I think the problem is that even socialists don't kno...
If we follow Plato and others who believe that learning is really to recall and remember, a process that takes place within us, then the question may ...
Some see the differences and others the similarities. The list I provided was meant for those who can see the similarities. As to the others, they'll ...
I can't disagree with that. All I'm saying is that "socialism" isn't always what believers in it think it is, as happened in the Russian revolution wh...
Of course no one knows what will be in 10 or 20 years. Maybe Europe will be taken over by China and then we'll have Chinese-style communism instead of...
The Church Fathers were indeed aware of Greek philosophy in general and of Platonism in particular as this was the dominant philosophical system espec...
It isn’t me you should be upset with, it’s the big corporations and corrupt politicians. I haven’t got anything against socialism. But true socialism ...
Funny enough, unionists didn't want to hear anything about Marx and Engels' socialist plans. And farmers and artisans even less. Marx and Engels thems...
If you want to familiarize yourself with the subject you could start with P M Gregorios, "Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy", Studies in Neoplatonism...
Well, that sounds a bit too idealistic to me. It seems to overlook the agendas of subversive groups and foreign powers using local proxies to destabil...
Then perhaps the solution is to revert to a more traditional political culture and form of governance, one that prevents the growing fragmentation of ...
The point though is that in practice you need to suppress others to some extent in order to stay in power. Nobody wants to be the underdog. The domina...
Sure. However, politics is about power which is a limited commodity. You can only acquire power for yourself by taking it from someone else and the mo...
How do you define "two-valued orientation"? We must have some concept of right and wrong otherwise social order and everything else collapses and we d...
How do you define "two-valued orientation"? We must have a concept of right and wrong otherwise social order and everything else collapses into anarch...
Bernie Sanders may have attracted some voters but far from enough. Trump only lost because of the epidemic and because he made mistakes during the ele...
I tend to agree with Alexandros. Socialism has time and again failed in the economic sphere. Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Eastern Europe, all were for...
I think socialism's alleged promotion of equality and liberty is debatable. Socialism began as a reaction to the social and economic changes brought a...
The other problem/problem of democracy is that people are a tad too quick to relinquish power to others. This lends itself to a wide spectrum of abuse...
Yes. The fundamental problem of socialism is that it started off as an offshoot of utopian philosophy. It was later modified to make it sound more “sc...
Correct. If we read Lenin, for example (State and Revolution), democracy for some socialists is not an end in itself but a means to attain Socialism w...
I believe that the close parallels between Hellenistic Platonism and Indian monism or non-dualism (Advaita) are beyond dispute. This is why I said ear...
Campbell identifies three waves of Hellenistic influence on India which he calls “increasingly massive tides”: 1. One following Alexander the Great’s ...
However, vegetarianism is not the only indicator of advanced culture. If we look at other cultural developments across the region, we see that Egyptia...
It’s a well-known fact that animal sacrifice is still practised in India. See the Wikipedia article “Animal sacrifice in Hinduism”. 70% of Indians are...
"Not all Christian views and doctrines have a counter part in Greek philosophy, some have actually opposite views." I never said anything else. On the...
I think we can only begin to understand the history of philosophy by understanding first philosophy and its close connections with astronomy and mathe...
This is a problem that’s about as old as Platonism. It’s hard to tell what Plato actually believed. It is important to bear in mind though, that in th...
The point Winternitz and others are making is that not only the designation “hor?” for Indian astrology, but the whole system was borrowed from the Gr...
The way I see it, vegetarianism in Platonism is more an ideal than an absolute obligation. Socrates' last words were "Crito, we owe a cock to (god) As...
Correct. There are numerous elements of Platonism in Christian tradition. The eastern parts of the Roman Empire were heavily influenced by Greek langu...
Well, I can't disagree with that. All religious rituals may be interpreted as "magic", depending on the inner attitude of the performer and always bea...
Thomas Burrow, The Sanskrit Language: “Occasionally words were introduced from outside India, e.g. from Iranian (v?rab?na- ‘breast plate’) or from Gre...
PS You're probably referring to "black magic" there which is a rather different thing. That's not what I was talking about. There is a wide spectrum o...
Close parallels between Platonism and Indian traditions can be identified not only on the level of philosophical vocabulary but also at the level of s...
Well, magic or "theurgy" was certainly practised but it tended to be a secret tradition and was probably of secondary importance in philosophy. Astron...
For example, we find isolated Arabic words like falsafa from Greek ????????? philosophia and karamat from Greek ????????? charismata. However, these i...
When it comes to Indian traditions of the mystical-philosophical type that emerged in the Middle Ages it may also be worthwhile considering some Plato...
I think we are on the same page there. After Alexander the Great, the western world including parts of the Middle East was very much Hellenized and He...
Exactly. Arabian culture in the Middle Ages didn't have a very developed system of philosophy, hence they borrowed it from the Greeks along with its n...
Of course they are both paths of self knowledge. That's exactly why it may be useful to establish the parallels between the two. If nothing else, we m...
The metaphysical worldview of Platonists like Plotinus, for example, is concentric and hierarchical. Everything emanates from the "centre" of the cosm...
Your "clearing away of a storm" is the same thing. It all depends on your state of mind, emotional and intellectual, that can be totally different fro...
It isn't "me" that sees Greece influencing India, it's the academic consensus that Greece influenced India in terms of art, astronomy, astrology and m...
And yes, "higher mind" and "heart" are one and the same thing. It refers to the innermost core of our being, where experience is lived in the most imm...
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