leckysupport philosophy thread

[leckysupport]

ITT: Philosophy and similar stuff.

[leckysupport]

Just a nerd speaking into a microphone for 2 hours in excruciating and illuminating detail about the Madhyamaka roots of Pyrrhonian scepticism.



It's a nice contrast to the usual Hellenistic/western modern based contextual analysis.

Fun facts: Sextus Empiricus' writings are the first extant texts to mention the problem of induction and he greatly influenced Al-Ghazali the Islamic mystic, theologian and philosopher.

[Raver]

I'm a big fan of Alan Watts, here is one clip of his:

[leckysupport]

Plato's Erotic World

Philosophy professor makes the case that eroticism (Eros) is the unifying theme throughout many of Plato's dialogues. I haven't read the book yet, I listened to this podcast back in 2013 or 14 and the book cost a billion pounds back then, but maybe one day I'll get to it. This podcast alone got me reading Plato again and I even made a new years resolution to read all of his works in a year a couple years ago but I only made it a third of the way through.

Direct link to audio:

http://files.newbooksnetwork.com/phi...ophygordon.mp3

Extras:
http://newbooksnetwork.com/jill-gord...dge-up-2012-2/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Platos-Erot...2699836&sr=8-1

Also while you're at it read The Symposium, it's barely a dialogue, good literature and it gets all weird, cool and mystical at the end.

[Exodus]

Just a nerd speaking into a microphone for 2 hours in excruciating and illuminating detail about the Madhyamaka roots of Pyrrhonian scepticism.



It's a nice contrast to the usual Hellenistic/western modern based contextual analysis.

Fun facts: Sextus Empiricus' writings are the first extant texts to mention the problem of induction and he greatly influenced Al-Ghazali the Islamic mystic, theologian and philosopher.

The influence on Al-Ghazali - I guess this is referring to the general idea of skepticism, which is a relatively small aspect of Ghazali's thought as a whole.

The main problem I see with Western analyses like this is the tendency to see religion as only a belief or set of doctrines. It's clear that the Buddhist school was talking about an actual spiritual practice of "inspection" rather than an intellectual stance like the Greeks. It's not difficult to see who might have influenced whom.

[Not A Communist Shill]

My positive opinion of Spinoza has increased markedly over the last year (me and @mu4 were disagreement over him in the chatbox many moons ago...).

I also rather enjoyed Nietzsche's The Gay Science in recent times, which was a significant part of my positive reassessment of him also (Bettany Hughes's recent documentary played a part, as well as various little things before that). It is certainly true however that different aspects of his works are highly polarising).

My view of existentialism has also increased significantly.

I recently concluded that Leibniz was somewhat pointless, and that George Berkeley should not even be considered a philosopher (even though in general, I consider everybody to be a philosopher).

[leckysupport]

The main problem I see with Western analyses like this is the tendency to see religion as only a belief or set of doctrines.

I don't believe he is doing that, comparing doctrines is not the same as saying the religion is simply a set of doctrines. Also for Ancient Madhyamaka and Pyrrhoniam the doctrines are all we have.

It's clear that the Buddhist school was talking about an actual spiritual practice of "inspection" rather than an intellectual stance like the Greeks.

He's making the case that "inspection" was a spiritual practice of the Pyrrhonians, FYI Pyrrhonism has been considered a spiritual practice for a while (along with a few other Greek philosophies) in modern scholarship (see. Pierre Hadot).

It's not difficult to see who might have influenced whom.

I agree but investigating this clarifies a lot about Pyrrhonism.

[leckysupport]

SPEAKING OF PIERRE HADOT

I can't find a lecture or any listenable content online completely supporting his view that ancient Greek philosphy served as a way of life. Some content relating to his ideas:

Internet Encycolopia of Philosophy section relating to his ideas on this ~ http://www.iep.utm.edu/hadot/#SH4b
Excerpt from Philosophy as a Way of Life ~ http://www61.homepage.villanova.edu/...tWayofLife.pdf

Link to his book on the subject:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Phi...+a+way+of+life
http://www61.homepage.villanova.edu/...tWayofLife.pdf


This guy kind of makes the same case in his lecture focusing on Socrates:

[leckysupport]

BBC English adaptation of Sartre's play No Exit:

[leckysupport]

Nussbaum is always on my radar but I've managed to avoid reading any of her stuff.

She reminds me Maritsa

[leckysupport]

Ways of Seeing by John Berger (RIP)

[leckysupport]

More Berger and some Sontag on Stories:

[leckysupport]

Iain McGilchrist on Architecture

His book is primarily about neuroscience but extends into many areas with much depth and clarity along with sensible speculations. I absolutely love this guy, he's one of the few living intellectuals who I actually care to really listen to.



His book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-His-...d+his+emissary

[leckysupport]