Plato’s Symposium is a philosophical exploration of the nature and function of erotic love. Apropos the subject matter, the dialogue begins in confusion. The dialogue proper occurs between Apollodorus, someone so obsessed with Socrates that he has been given the nickname “the maniac” (173d), and an unnamed friend of his. Apollodorus recounts a story he …
The Soul and its salvation are central to various systems of religion and esoteric philosophy. Yet, despite its centrality, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is often implicitly assumed rather than explicitly argued for. Plato’s Phaedo, which recounts Socrates last dialogue before his execution at the hands of the Athenians, makes an important …
This essay concludes our discussion of the Republic by elucidating Plato’s closing arguments for the contention that justice is an intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, good. After setting forth a taxonomy of constitutions and the types of individuals that correspond to them, Plato is now in a position to return to the central question of the …
Human life, finite and incarnate, burns with desire, craving not only physical necessities such as food and drink, but yearning also for an ever elusive wholeness. As the poet Novalis observed, “we seek the unconditioned, but all we ever find are things.” Man’s life is thus one of love and longing. We learn much about …
As noted in my previous post, the Buddha is said to have articulated a middle path between the extremes of sensual indulgence and extreme asceticism. Rather than abandoning oneself to lower pleasures or mortifying one’s body by starving the flesh, Buddhists practice tranquil meditation. Advocates of the Buddha’s middle way claim that “It gives vision, …
To many, Buddhism appears to be more a philosophy than a religion. For, unlike other religions that articulate doctrines of God and how to properly worship him, Buddhism is relatively unconcerned with deities.[1] Likewise, whereas other religions deify their founders or treat them as prophets uniquely connected to the divine, Buddhists claim that their message, …