[Buddha-l] The Shape of Ancient Thought

[curt]

Richard Hayes wrote:
> 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?
>   

 From Plato and others we know that philosophers did not necessarily 
write anything. Socrates and Epictetus appear to have been in that 
group. Pythagoras may have been, too. Later "Pythagorean" writings claim 
that Pythagoras insisted on a great deal of secrecy - including the 
requirement that students pass through a 5 year novitiate in which they 
weren't allowed to speak - this was evidently meant to weed out 
blabbermouths. Maybe this is why we know next to nothing about 
Pythagoras actually taught!

There is no reason to believe that "philosophizing" hadn't already been 
going on for thousands of years prior to the invention of any sort of 
writing. The fact is that pretty much as soon as the Greeks learned how 
to read and write (apparently from the Phoenicians) we find them 
philosophizing - which strongly implies that there had been "oral" 
philosophizing before that.

In Plutarch's famous essay "Isis and Osiris" we find a Greek philosopher 
writing to an Egyptian Priestess - from the essay it looks pretty 
obvious that Plutarch considered himself and his Priestess friend to be 
"in the same line of work."  Frances Cornford in his "From Religion to 
Philosophy" argues that what we now call philosophy is to a great extent 
an extension of religion. Perhaps it's difficult to tell where one stops 
and the other starts. And it's certainly difficult to say when and where 
and by who Religion got started.

One last point - Porphyry makes clear several times in his biography of 
Plotinus that both he and his teacher drew no clear bright line between 
their philosophizing and the spiritual teachings and practices of Egypt, 
Persia and India. If pressed I can provide exact quotes - but the 
biography is extremely short and there's no reason not to just read the 
danged thing in its entirety: 
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plotenn/enn001.htm.

> 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? 

If you really don't believe that there is any such thing as people who 
claim that the Greeks invented philosophy, then just do a google search 
on the names "Allan Bloom" and "Mary Lefkowitz". They even have their 
own wikipedia entries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Bloom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lefkowitz


> Or is this just another of your many irresponsible and 
> unsubstantiated anti-Orientalist rants?
>   

I represent that statement!

- Curt