Philosophy
- 'the Philosopher Amongst The Stars' - A Talk By Tim Addey
'The Philosopher Amongst the Stars' [I am currently attending in London a very interesting series of 5 talks/seminars presented by the Prometheus Trust. A sample of the notes to the third talk is below with a link to the full notes on the...
- Diotima's Ladder - From Lust To Morality
Just about everyone has some idea about what platonic love is: a spiritual form of love in which what one loves is the essential nature and moral character of another human being qua person, irrespective of such accidental features as physical attractiveness,...
- Richard Feynman - Ode To A Flower
A common misconception regarding disciplines that require abstract and rigorous thinking (math, philosophy, science, etc.) is that their cold and rational nature strips the world (and our experience of it) of its natural beauty and the awe it can inspire...
- The Richard Feynman Series - Beauty
Beauty is one of those tricky concepts to define because although most of us have an intuitive sense of instances of beauty, and can usually recognize it when we see it, we can't come up with an overarching theory about why all the things we consider...
- Can't Be Done...quantification Of Human Preferences
Wired Science... The Mathematics of Beauty Not everything can be quantified, especially when it comes to matters of the human heart and mind. For decades, psychologists and biologists have tried to represent physical beauty in formula form; but even...
Philosophy
Diotima on Love - Extracts
From Plato?s book; The Symposium (The Drinking Party)
Several speakers give a short speech saying what they think love is; and then finally Socrates says what he thinks love is. His speech includes the speech of the mysterious wise woman Diotima who instructs Socrates in love when he was a young man. Below is an extract from Diotima?s wise words.
Then Diotima says to Socrates:
'These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only?out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere.
To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention: 'He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)?a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.
This, my dear Socrates,' said the stranger of Mantineia, 'is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible?you only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty?the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life?thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?'
- 'the Philosopher Amongst The Stars' - A Talk By Tim Addey
'The Philosopher Amongst the Stars' [I am currently attending in London a very interesting series of 5 talks/seminars presented by the Prometheus Trust. A sample of the notes to the third talk is below with a link to the full notes on the...
- Diotima's Ladder - From Lust To Morality
Just about everyone has some idea about what platonic love is: a spiritual form of love in which what one loves is the essential nature and moral character of another human being qua person, irrespective of such accidental features as physical attractiveness,...
- Richard Feynman - Ode To A Flower
A common misconception regarding disciplines that require abstract and rigorous thinking (math, philosophy, science, etc.) is that their cold and rational nature strips the world (and our experience of it) of its natural beauty and the awe it can inspire...
- The Richard Feynman Series - Beauty
Beauty is one of those tricky concepts to define because although most of us have an intuitive sense of instances of beauty, and can usually recognize it when we see it, we can't come up with an overarching theory about why all the things we consider...
- Can't Be Done...quantification Of Human Preferences
Wired Science... The Mathematics of Beauty Not everything can be quantified, especially when it comes to matters of the human heart and mind. For decades, psychologists and biologists have tried to represent physical beauty in formula form; but even...