Empedocles (c.494-c.434 BC), like Pythagoras, is a presocratic philosopher whom contemporary expositors either deride or ignore. Because he is a philosopher who sings, invoking the muse and articulating his doctrines as hexameter poems (D7)[1], if it is presented at all, he is presented as an object of either pity (for his alleged ignorance) or scorn …
Pythagoras on the Purpose of Philosophy In this essay, I’d like to turn from investigating Pythagorean doctrine to examining Pythagorean practice. For Pythagoras identified philosophy not with a set of abstract doctrines to be grasped by the understanding alone, but with a way of life that purified and strengthened the soul. Porphyry, for instance, describes …
In today’s essay I would like to continue our investigation of examination of the core doctrines of Pythagoreanism. Specifically, this essay will explore the Pythagorean theory of number, harmony, and cosmos. That number would play an important role in Pythagoreanism should probably not surprise us, given the famous theorem bearing the Pythagorean name and the …
Ostensibly, the Iliad presents a tale of rage. It sings of conflict, violence, and death, developing seemingly endless variations on the theme of warriors expiring at the end of a spear. But, at a deeper level, I believe that the Iliad illustrates how to live in a world of collapsing values. Specifically, I contend that …
Pythagorean Myths: Classical and Contemporary Pythagoras is one of the most elusive and intriguing figures in the history of Western philosophy. He is the rumored source of many of the core doctrines of Platonism such as the idea that the soul is immortal and reincarnates after death, that our empirical world constitutes a harmonious cosmos …
Having grown up in a Christian family, I am familiar with the fact that spiritual teachings can come in the form of letters. Every week we would go to church and hear sermons derived from epistles (letters) said to be written by apostles such as Peter, Paul, or John. Rather than being confined to a …
Just as Marcellius was aware of something rotten in the state of Denmark when Hamlet exited the stage to confer with the ghost of his murdered father haunting Elsinore castle, so too are we aware of a rot growing at the core of the neo-liberal order. As the body politic decays, and the social fabric …
Pythagoras’ miracle of the fish I have been re-reading ancient accounts of the life of Pythagoras and was struck by a story about a miracle he performed regarding fish. Porphyry, a Neo-Platonic philosopher, recounts this story in the context of others which speak of the sage’s ability to commune with animals (e.g. petting a bear …
Americans are finally beginning to reckon with the damaging effects of Evangelical purity culture. The publication of books like Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, Damaged Goods: New Perspectives on Christian Purity, and Shameless: A Case for not Feeling bad about feeling good (about …
In his book Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New Worldview, Richard Tarnas presents a sustained case for the contemporary applicability of the ancient art of astrology. The first hundred pages or so are devoted to an exposition and critique of the modern mechanistic world picture and the adumbration of what Tarnas believes to be …