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"the beginning of great intellectual adventure" - Curd

After our class discussion yesterday, suggesting that ancient classical philosophy emerged from the mytho-poetic traditions of the ancient world has provided me with an opinion and an idea that I was able to apply to the world today. Let me explain more…

The stories that arise from the mytho-poetic literature served as stimuli for the first philosophers to see themselves, their values and actions, being reflected in such stories. By ancient philosophers perceiving what was sublime in the stories they were able to identify the topics heroism, mysticism, obedience, etc. and were able to make them the hallmarks of their society by the constantly questioning. This is supported by what Patricia Curd’s Introduction to her book “A Presocratics Reader” mentions. She explains that the Presocratics did not see physics, math, engineering, art, philosophy, etc. as separate. Them not divide the knowledge perceived, tells us that it all the knowledge most have come from one source and then eventually they were differentiated to give birth to the different fields that we now know. That unifying beginning was therefore important for the development of the different fields. The mythopoetic tradition provided this necessary unification.

I feel that the ancient philosophers just taught us a lesson. They teach us that if we want to be able to start a tradition of inquiry for ourselves, we must be able to analyze what is in front of our eyes. Find that unifying point to get the whole picture. What is in front of our eyes now? It frequently is the media. Just as the ancient philosophers did, they started to search for a reflection of their values in their mytho-poetic stories and this triggered their reflective and examining nature that the mind innately has. Our society urgently needs the philosophy that can arise from reflecting on our current traditions.


There is lot to learn from philosophy even from its birth itself.

Comments

  1. Anne-Marie SchultzJanuary 16, 2017 at 6:20 PM

    I like that way of putting it, stimuli to see ourselves. that is pretty much philosophy for me. I totally agree that philosophy is an urgent need.

    ReplyDelete

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