And your favourite Philosopher is...?

[Psychonaut]

Heraclitus at the moment.

My current signature agrees heartily with your choice.

[Cato]

My current signature agrees heartily with your choice.

[Belenus]

I'm also looking into Heraclitus. Other than him, some all-time favourites are Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Julius Evola (a major favourite until recently - now I'm starting to question some of his claims), and Friedrich Nietzsche. I don't accept all of the teachings of any of the above, but there are aspects of each that really appeal to my senses.

Other than these philosophers, I am inspired in my view on life by Homer and other heroic mythologies of Europe, especially those of the Celts. The Roman concept of 'numen' also figures prominently in my intuitive outlook, but I sensed it and believed in it long before I ever heard of 'numen' in the Roman context.

A pair of philosophers who I don't agree with much at all but find very intriguing are Han Fei Tzu and Shang Yang, both Chinese Legalists. Their philosophy was embraced by Shihuangdi, the first emperor of China, who unified the warring states after a long epoch of uninterrupted war. Legalism was vehemently opposed to, well, a lot of things... it's definitely worth the time it takes to read up on it.

[Svipdag]

Immanuel Kant. Would that modern physicists would read and understand Kant's ideas on ontology and epistemology. It might force them to consider whether their beloved mathematical models really make sense and really have any physical significance.

It was Kant's view that space and time are nothing but modes of cognition .
If this is true, can a mode of cognition spontaneously turn into matter as some modern physicists claim that space can ?

"A Critique of Pure Reason" would be a breeze of fresh air to blow away the cobwebs in the ivory towers of the cosmologists and modsrn physicists. Perhaps they might even concern themselves with the question of whether their speculations make sense.

[Psychonaut]

I'm also looking into Heraclitus.

I you end up sympathizing with Heraclitus' stance on the ontological primacy of flux (Πάντα ῥεῖ), then I'd heartily suggest picking up Nicholas Rescher's overview of Process Philosophy—the modern continuation of Heraclitus' thought.

The Roman concept of 'numen' also figures prominently in my intuitive outlook

Have you read Otto yet?

[Belenus]

I you end up sympathizing with Heraclitus' stance on the ontological primacy of flux (Πάντα ῥεῖ), then I'd heartily suggest picking up Nicholas Rescher's overview of Process Philosophy—the modern continuation of Heraclitus' thought.



Have you read Otto yet?

Thanks for the Rescher recommendation. It looks interesting and I may well follow up Fragments with that.

I haven't read Otto yet, but The Idea of the Holy is somewhere in my to-read list. How does Otto's thinking specifically relate to numen? My chief sources for what I know about numen are Evola's essay The Sacred in the Roman Tradition and Georges Dumézil's Archaic Roman Religion.

Some of Mircea Eliade's ideas in The Sacred and the Profane also relate to my understanding of what numen is. The Romans tended to focus on the numinosity of spaces, but Eliade shows how Time is just as pregnant with divine forces. For instance:

"For religious man time too, like space, is neither homogeneous nor continuous. On the one hand there are the intervals of a sacred time, the time of festivals (by far the greater part of which are periodical); on the other there is profane time, ordinary temporal duration, in which acts without religious meaning have their setting. Between these two kinds of time there is, of course, solution of continuity; but by means of rites religious man can pass without danger from ordinary temporal duration to sacred time.

One essential difference between these two qualities of time strikes us immediately: by its very nature sacred time is reversible in the sense that, properly speaking, it is a primordial mythical time made present."

- Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask, p.68

I would only add to this that, in addition to and quite apart from ceremonial ritual, it is possible to tap into eternal sacred time through intense faith, meditation, and magical workings.

The Celts especially had a strong sensitivity to the numinosity of Time. Their entire view of the cosmos was based on a divine wheeling motion/duration, through which the earth is constantly reborn. Their entire religion was seasonal.

[Psychonaut]

How does Otto's thinking specifically relate to numen? My chief sources for what I know about numen are Evola's essay The Sacred in the Roman Tradition and Georges Dumézil's Archaic Roman Religion.

Some of Mircea Eliade's ideas in The Sacred and the Profane also relate to my understanding of what numen is.

If you've read Eliade, you've probably already got a good idea of where Otto is coming from since Eliade borrows Otto's ideas quite liberally. The chief point is of the otherness of the religious experience. So, whatever it is that is experienced as holy—be it a rock, tree or sunset—is experienced as a unique center of subjectivity, not as an inert object. The numen radiates a sense of self in the same way that the prehending subject (you) does.

[Raskolnikov]

Dr. Pangloss

[Piparskeggr]

Elbert Hubbard: "Never strive to keep up with the Jonses; always drag them down to your level."

[Cato]

At the moment, Seneca and Epictetus, who're teaching me to accept circumstance as they happen.