Reading Assignment 2

[Rose]

This week's reading is about:

Chapter V- VI, Pages 48-57
Began Reading December 7

[Mike]

Hello Rose. I just got back from Michigan. that is about 650 miles from where I live in NY state. And I just got back on the internet. I will have some thoughts a bit later.

[Kitap]

I like this general insight from the chapter on Parmenides: "philosophical theories, if they are important, can generally be revived in a new form after being refuted as originally stated. Refutations are seldom final; in most cases, they are only a prelude to further refinements." (p. 52)

[Mike]

Hello rose. and everyone. What do people think of the concept of Heraclitus' Doctrine of Flux. and that Eternal time is something that is outside of the realm of time. Eternity neither changes nor progresses?

I am getting to Parmenides.

Thanks all chime in at any time.

[J]

Yes, many agree with Heraclitus. But isn't it metaphysical stuff we can't know, just like all else metaphysical? Is there an afterlife? Does everything, including consciousness and the "soul", just die when the body dies? None of it, that we know of, can be known.

[Kitap]

Rose, Mike, Jason, everyone - I think Heraclitus was correct in regard to all things being in flux, and that the Buddha was spot-on when he said something similar about all phenomena being impermanent. I find it interesting that so much of subsequent Western philosophy seems to be about attempting to prove Heraclitus wrong and establish something Absolute, Real, and Unchanging.

Also - does anyone else think that the driving forces of Empedocles' worldview - chance and necessity - are reminiscent of the contemporary understanding of the world via the neo-Darwinian lens?

[Mike]

I find that Empedocles is interesting in that he attributes or continues to separate science and relgion. He also "discovered" the concept of Air as one of the elements (water, fire, earth, air). He also attributes the cycles of life with the balance between Love and Strife and to the ages or cycles of the lives of people. Love being victorious at one time, and strife at others. He also states that changes in the world are governed by Chance and Necessity. This is how we move from one stage of love to strife and back. This is how the early philosophers managed to explain the development of life from the micro level of the family to the macro level of civilization.