Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Anyone have a favorite philosopher?...and why?

The Ionians and the existentialists
ER — (archived)

About 2500 years ago, a group of Greek-speaking philosophers living about the Aegean Sea came up with this idea that there is something called "nature" that exists independent of the anthropocentric world of man and his thought, and even of the gods themselves, and that this nature can be understood by human reason.

2500 years later, another group of philosophers realized that we can only know this nature through our own perception, but that we give it reality with our reason and meaning through our existence.

These are not contradictory concepts, they complement each other like the two sides of a coin. It is what ties us to the universe, what simultaneously makes us part of it but also allows us the separation to be able to contemplate it, and by extension, ourselves, at the same time. Without the universe, we are disembodied intelligences with nothing to think about, a verb without an object, a name without a referent. Without us, the universe is a meaningless wasteland, an empty desolation, a pointless chaos.

I've often fantasized the impossibility that I could sit and speak with those ancient men, share a cup of wine with them, a walk through some crowded ancient marketplace, or a stroll down a lonely beach under the stars. I think we would have understood each other perfectly.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (46 posts)