Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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samseva
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by samseva »

Dhammanando wrote: Fri Feb 01, 2019 11:48 pm
samseva wrote: Fri Feb 01, 2019 5:57 pm Do you know how all of his works perished (they were all in one place and were destroyed by a natural disaster, for example)? Or they were maybe scattered in different places and it could be possible that some of his works turn up in the future?
I don't know how it happened.
Apparently, from what I found yesterday, some parts of his works On Providence and Logical Questions are part of the Herculaneum papyri:
The Stoic philosopher Chrysippus is attested to have written over 700 works,[30] all of them lost, with the exception of a few fragments quoted by other authors.[31] Segments of his works On Providence and Logical Questions were found among the papyri;[31] a third work of his may have been recovered from the charred rolls.[32]
"The first of Chrysippus' partially preserved two or three works is his Logical Questions, contained in PHerc. 307 ... The second work is his On Providence, preserved in PHerc 1038 and 1421 ... A third work, most likely by Chrysippus is preserved in PHerc. 1020," Fitzgerald 2004, p. 11
However, unrolling them seems to be quite the task:
[...] the institution began a new method of unrolling. Using the 'Oslo' method, the CISPE team separated individual layers of the papyri. One of the scrolls exploded into 300 parts, and another did similarly but to a lesser extent.[1]
They are making progress, though:
Since 1999, the papyri have been digitized by applying multi-spectral imaging (MSI) techniques. International experts and prominent scholars participated in the project. On 4 June 2011 it was announced that the task of digitizing 1,600 Herculaneum papyri had been completed.[17][18]
And indeed Seales presented in 2018 readability of parts of a Herculaneum papyri (P.Herc. 118) from the Bodleian Libraries, at Oxford University, which was given by the King Ferdinand of Naples to the Prince of Wales in 1810. The imaging method Seales used involved a hand-held 3-D scanner called an Artec Space Spider.[13] The same year he demonstrated readability success of another Herculaneum scroll, with help of the particle accelerator Diamond Light Source, through a powerful x-rays imaging technique, letter ink which contains trace amounts of lead were detected. This technique could possibly open the door in reading the remaining unopened 500 Herculaneum scrolls.[13] Prior to this he demonstrated successful virtual unrolling without detecting ink on Herculaneum scrolls.[28]
Bundokji
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by Bundokji »

chownah wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 1:08 pm So, he went and faced death in the eye......did it work?
chownah
Well, after the war he published the tractatus logico-philosophicus, the most important book in the philosophy of language in the twentieth century according to many. It was the last attempt to defend the traditional view that language can copy reality precisely. Therefore, what cannot be said clearly is not in the world and we should pass over it with silence.

After publishing the book, he resigned from Cambridge and went to teach at a kindergarten in the Austrian countryside. He used to beat the kids like hell, but after many years, he went back and apologized :popcorn:
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
Bundokji
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by Bundokji »

Manopubbangama wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 3:43 pm That reminds me of Ernst Junger.

An excellent man and WWI vet.
There is also Jean Paul Sartre who joined the French army during WWII, and Martin Heidegger who was a member of the Nazi party and who betrayed his teacher Edmund Husserl.
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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Manopubbangama
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by Manopubbangama »

Bundokji wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 4:36 pm
Manopubbangama wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 3:43 pm That reminds me of Ernst Junger.

An excellent man and WWI vet.
There is also Jean Paul Sartre who joined the French army during WWII, and Martin Heidegger who was a member of the Nazi party and who betrayed his teacher Edmund Husserl.
I don't care for Heidegger. I think his work is intellectual masturbation, just like harold musson. Heidegger was a bs artist who went wherever the wind led him.

Ernst Junger was at least an accomplished scientist, not to mention a man of courage who stood up to Hitler.

Some of the cowards on this board can't even stand up for their own opinions, much less stand up to a demogogue for their views.

I respect Junger as a man and as a scientist, but not really as a 'philosopher.'
Last edited by Manopubbangama on Sat Feb 02, 2019 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bundokji
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by Bundokji »

Kim OHara wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 10:39 am I came across it last year and it held my interest long enough that I finished it, although I'm not madly interested in philosophy of this period.

:coffee:
Kim
:thumbsup:
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

James Allen, Paul E More, Irving Babbitt, B.L. Atreya, George Santayana, Henri Bergson, Russell Kirk are some that come to mind.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
chownah
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by chownah »

Bundokji wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 4:26 pm Well, after the war he published the tractatus logico-philosophicus, the most important book in the philosophy of language in the twentieth century according to many. It was the last attempt to defend the traditional view that language can copy reality precisely. Therefore, what cannot be said clearly is not in the world and we should pass over it with silence.
Am I the only one who thinks that someone of the view that reality is defined by what can be said clearly should perhaps not be thought of as a great philosopher?....(fool comes to mind).
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retrofuturist
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Chownah,
chownah wrote: Mon Feb 04, 2019 2:07 am Am I the only one who thinks that someone of the view that reality is defined by what can be said clearly should perhaps not be thought of as a great philosopher?....(fool comes to mind).
What then of the philosopher who once spoke...
"Name has conquered everything - there is nothing greater than name. All have gone under the sway of this one thing called name."
... a fool?

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
chownah
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by chownah »

"Name has conquered everything - there is nothing greater than name. All have gone under the sway of this one thing called name."
The quote doesn't say anything about reality.
The quote doesn't say anything about what can be said clearly.

apples and oranges
chownah
Bundokji
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by Bundokji »

chownah wrote: Mon Feb 04, 2019 2:07 am Am I the only one who thinks that someone of the view that reality is defined by what can be said clearly should perhaps not be thought of as a great philosopher?....(fool comes to mind).
chownah
In his later work he took the opposite view. He concluded that most philosophical problems arise due to a myth that held us captive that words are names and that the meaning of the word is what it stands for. Instead, he explained words as tools of our social interactions and that the meaning of a word is the power it can play in furthering the game.

Personally, i see the merit in the two views. Many Buddhists speak about two truths, conventional and ultimate. Maybe the most needed skill is to use both properly. According to Wittgenstein:
“An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it.”
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
chownah
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by chownah »

....so.....his most important work (as many people judge) is something he later disagrees with!!! Is this the sign of a great philosopher?.....(fool comes to mind)......
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!
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Ensittaren
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by Ensittaren »

Sartre and Nietzsche (ironically, since he was quite ardent in bashing "slave morality" buddhism :jumping: ). I still think he was great though, and was in fact influenced by buddhism in certain regards as far as i understand.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by Ceisiwr »

David Hume

Thomas Nagel

George Berkeley

Epicurus

Sextus Empiricus

Although I’ve not read much Roger Scruton is quite interesting.
“The teacher willed that this world appear to me
as impermanent, unstable, insubstantial.
Mind, let me leap into the victor’s teaching,
carry me over the great flood, so hard to pass.”
bryozoa
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by bryozoa »

Epicurus (seems to be a popular choice, maybe because his philosophy is reminiscent of a materialistic form of Buddhism).

Jeremy Bentham (the only thing I'm not keen on is that he supported unlimited population growth).
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Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?

Post by bryozoa »

bryozoa wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 8:52 pm Epicurus (seems to be a popular choice, maybe because his philosophy is reminiscent of a materialistic form of Buddhism).

Jeremy Bentham (the only thing I'm not keen on is that he supported unlimited population growth).
I half regret naming these two philosophers as my favourites. Philosophy isn't really my bag but I suppose I chose Epicurus and Bentham because both were quite anti-life. Bentham's utilitarianism makes no distinction between human rights and the rights of nonhuman animals. Epicurus advised that people should remain unmarried so presumably frowned upon procreation as well? Also neither Epicurus and Bentham had children which increases my respect for them. I cannot relate to and struggle to have empathy with those who have offspring.

I've never really immersed myself into 19th century German pessimism as I should have done. Part of me thinks to truly appreciate these philosophers you have to read them in the original language. Although I find something stirring and heroic about Friedrich Nietzsche despite only watching a documentary about his life not having read much by him.

If I could name a polymath and sociologist I have a great amount of respect for it would be Herbert Spencer. He was a lifelong bachelor and saw some underlying purpose in nature and likened society to a social organism. He coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest' and had a total faith in human progress which could attain awareness of what he termed the 'unknowable'. He was anti-imperialistic and anti-militaristic and far from the one-sided view of him as a 'Social Darwinist' he supported charitable endeavours as well as new and sophisticated concepts of leisure time. He also designed an early variation on the paperclip.
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