Maybe the departure of ideals from our lives is all to the good. Surely ideals are dangerous: those […]
Category Archive: Articles
Welcome to the Department of Philosophy and Mythology! The big questions are being answered here, from why we are here to what is beauty?
At the dawn of history, God was a she—or so it appears. Our paleolithic forebears, thirty or more millennia ago, conceived of Nature or the Divine as a cosmic female. They delighted in immortalizing her image on cave walls and in the form of statuettes carved out of stone, bone, ivory, or coal. Undoubtedly, they also used more perishable materials to depict the Great Mother, though these did not survive the ravages of time. The belief in the universal Female was deeply ingrained and vital. However, it underwent a significant transformation during the neolithic age. For, as human experience and conceptual capacities leaped forward, the Great Mother became increasingly personified. She was endowed with special characteristics, a personal if legendary history, and a name.
Each of us human beings has an invisible friend and guide to accompany us on our journey through life and death. Whether it manifests as a still-small voice, an innate urge, vivid intuition or an actual entity, each one of us has a teleos, or purpose, particular to our own soul’s journey, negotiating the relationship between Self and ego according to our uniqueness.
The ancient warrior culture of Japan produced a sophisticated martial philosophy that we know today as Bushido—the Way of the Warrior. There are eight virtues of Bushido, the code of the samurai: justice, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor, loyalty, and self-control. These virtues comprise the essence of Japanese cultural beliefs, which are still present today.
Until the eighteenth century, it was assumed that human beings are unequal by nature — i.e., that there was a natural human hierarchy. This postulate collapsed with the advent of the idea of natural right and its assumption of an equality of natural order among all human beings.
Plato’s critique of democracy is that democracy does not place a premium on wisdom and knowledge seeking as an inherent good, much like timocracy and oligarchy. Instead, democracy suffers from the failures of the aforementioned systems insofar as it prioritizes wealth and property accumulation as the highest good.
Many naturally assume that growing Western world belief in reincarnation is primarily based on a simultaneous increasing influence of Eastern religion and thought. This assumption is due, in part, that (many) Eastern religions have long known spiritual traditions that incorporate the concept of reincarnation.
Magical, mysterious, and mischievous, fairies never fail to enchant us. But what are they really? Most people consider fairies the products of human imagination—cartoon characters in animated movies or charming creatures in stories we read to children at bedtime—and unless you’re under the age of six, you probably don’t believe they exist.
The meaning of life is a philosophical question concerning the significance of life or existence in general. It can also be expressed in different forms, such as “Why are we here?”,”What is life all about?”, and “What is the purpose of existence?” It has been the subject of much philosophical,scientific, and theological speculation throughout history.