[Buddha-l] The Shape of Ancient Thought

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 06 September 2006 21:29, curt wrote:

> That's what is most important. The Greeks did not pull
> "civilization" and "philosophy" out of their arses - and western
> scholarship has been saying that they did for at least 150 years and
> still largely continues to say so.

This raises a few questions. If the Greeks did not invent philosophy, then 
where did they get it? If they got it from someone else, then where did their 
source get it? Are you suggesting that no human beings invented philosophy? 
So does that mean it came from space aliens? Or perhaps from God? If so, then 
where did the space aliens (or God) get it?

I may run around in some rarefied intellectual circles, but offhand I can't 
think of any Western scholars these days who claim that the Greeks got 
civilization and philosophy from their donkeys. Could you provide some 
references? Or is this just another of your many irresponsible and 
unsubstantiated anti-Orientalist rants?

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes