/lit/ - Literature

Epicurus, so you can learn the truth

>>18557207
>I now know that my soul exists and is immortal
>Where do I go from there?

Buddhism

>>18557210
What truth would that be?
>>18557224
Fuck off

>>18557225
Even if there were a soul, it isn’t immortal.
Your life is finite. This is not the anteroom to a better life. Make this one count, and get your head out of that cave

>>18557233
I don't care about your nihilism and what you have to say, this isn't the thread for you.

>>18557207
You open up your guts with a blade like Cato did after reading it.

>>18557241
It's not time for me to die yet

>>18557244
No way of knowing that. When it's time, it's time.

>>18557248
Plato argued against suicide, did he not?

>>18557238
Epicurus isn’t nihilism.
I’ll bet you believe Nietzsche was nihilism.
I get it. You’re scared. Not ready yet.
Well, don’t be too long in your fantasy world.

>>18557207

You don't know that, as a necessary component of knowledge is truth.

>>18557252
I thought I was responding to the guy recommending buddhism. You're wrong though, and your condescension tells me everything I need to know. You most likely have nothing of value to say.
>>18557254
There is nothing more true than the soul's existence and immortality.

>>18557260
You make the mistake and I’m wrong?
I’m right. You are frightened and sound very underage for this site.

>>18557280
Whatever you say, nihilist.

>still misattributing nihilism.

>>18557207
>After reading this, I now know that my soul exists and is immortal,
After that you open "Symposium" and realize that all of the Socrates doctrines are actually bullshit, since Socrates took his doctrines from Diotima, who (as directly stated) is a sophist and gave him nothing but "Just trusssst me, dude".

"I was astonished at her words, and said: "Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?" And she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist: "Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;"

Further hinted upon by Alcibiades
"And another thing, my dear friend: do you really believe what Socrates said just now? Do you realise that the truth is entirely the opposite of what he was saying?"

>>18557290
Being convinced by Phaedo doesn't hinge on Socrates' authority. If you want a "refutation" you could just read Parmenides, that's not the point.

>>18557207
Read Phaedrus and Timaeus. We need to go deeper, Socrates.

>>18557233
>Even if there were a soul, it isn’t immortal.
[citation needed]

>>18557295
Yes, Phaedrus is next on my list. Should I move on to Plotinus once I'm done with Plato's works?

>>18557290
Thank you

>>18557298
>arguing with annihilationists

>>18557298
>[citation needed]

>>18557288
>>18557299
>nihilist
>phoneposter
>avatarfag

>>18557298
>>18557300
First you must point the soul out. YOU have to cite it. Once this is done we can check to see how immortal it is.
We’re still waiting.

>>18557311
>why is the soul not observable through my physicalist reductionist means?
Exasperating. Please come back once you've turned 18

>>18557308
>Misattributing nihilism still
Slander is all you’ve got?
I am posting from my library actually.

>>18557316
>you jus godda buleev!
>It was reeeel REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE LUH
You’re the reductionist for not accepting the ACTUAL world, you boob

>>18557328
>>18557282

>>18557311
>If there is a soul
Ok
>it is not immortal
Where is your proof?

>>18557330
YOU
HAVE
TO
PROVIDE
THE
CITATION
NOW

/sleeps

Disregard the annihilationist NPCs for a minute, I have a question:
How do people usually go from Platonism to Christianity? Back when the Platonism general wasn't moved to /his/, I remember some people claiming that Christianity was the logical conclusion of Plato's philosophy. However, one of the main points Socrates makes in the dialogues about death and the soul is that 1. death is nothing to fear, 2. metempsychosis is true, 3. the purpose of material incarnation is a purification.
I can see how 3. can be tied back to the original sin, but the first two seem clearly incompatible with Christian doctrine.

>>18557335
Soul: Consciousness and rationality
I am conscious and capable of rationality, ergo I "have" a soul.
Is it possible to be conscious of non-consciousness (ie conscious of not having/being a soul)? No. We can conclude the soul cannot not exist because its very nature provides the possibility of non-existence (consciousness of non-existence). If the soul did not exist, non-existence would not exist, ergo the soul would not not exist.
Ergo the soul is immortal because it cannot not exist.

>>18557233
"This one" literally can't count if it is all there is. Implying anything else is but mere cope.

>>18557346
>I remember some people claiming that Christianity was the logical conclusion of Plato's philosophy.
Christians have been saying nonsense like this for a long time. Ignore it. The logical conclusion of Platonism is polytheist Platonism like every Platonist philosopher was until centuries after Christ.

>>18557389
>polytheist Platonism
What do you make of Neoplatonism then?

>>18557394
It's still polytheist. It just has a qualified monism principle, The One. The gods are still taken as real beings by the Neoplatonists (which might explain why they were never considered a Christian sect). It's a similar situation with Aristotle. He proves an unmoved mover, and then proceeds to speculate on how there can be multiple of these. To understand the One, I highly recommend reading Parmenides, particularly one of the first statements: "The One neither is nor is not one."

>>18557238
Kys.

>>18557431
Cope nihilistranny

>>18557429
But since everything is an emanation of the One, is it really polytheism? Is the object of contemplation not the One and only it?

>>18557224
Underrated.

>>18557444
>no new IP

>>18557442
Depends, would you prefer to call it qualified monism? The fact that it still acknowledges numerous gods seems to me as though it's not entirely erroneous to refer to it like that, especially when The One is so mysterious in itself. Many pagan religions of old viewed the cosmos in the same way, in that it sprung from a central divine principle into divine multiplicity (ie not necessarily the material world), and these same religions are called polytheist. Admittedly, they are not intellectual like Neoplatonism. Others simply acknowledge the primacy of, say, Zeus or Uranus (Uranus being the original generating principle of the Greek pantheon), over all other gods.

>>18557297
No, you need to read Aristotle before moving on to Plotinus. At least De Anima, Physics, and you should be somewhat familiar with his ethical writings and the organon. After that, Plotinus, of course, and then you can move on to the early moderns, or engage with the christians depending of what you think. You should at least read St. Augustine, but Big T might be of interest as well.

>>18557480
Except pagan religions only worshiped the personal gods that emanated from that divine principle, they didn't really care about the principle itself as far as rituals went.

>>18557429
I unironically came to the same conclusions before reading the neoplatonists because I had a dream where Godel came to me and started explaining "the infinitely emanating pattern of non-reducible information".

>>18557528
How do you get such interesting dreams? Mine are about buying groceries or doing weird meaningless shit.

>>18557580
Mine are usually mundane too, I think this one was due to divine revelation.

>>18557592
>divine revelation.
Was it following a period of prayer?

>>18557632
No, I am an atheist

>>18557364
>I am conscious and capable of rationality, ergo I "have" a soul. [citation needed]
>Is it possible to be conscious of non-consciousness (ie conscious of not having/being a soul)? No. [citation needed] We can conclude the soul cannot not exist [citation needed] because its very nature provides the possibility of non-existence (consciousness of non-existence). If the soul did not exist, non-existence would not exist, [citation needed] ergo the soul would not not exist.
>Ergo the soul is immortal [citation needed] because it cannot not exist.

>>18558226
Read Phaedo and stop being an underage edgelord
No need to (you) me I don't care

>>18557207
Back

>>18558232
Annihilationism is pure reddit; you go back

>>18557207
Back

>>18558241
Cringe

>>18558229
If you don’t care to finish the citation, don’t bump your shit thread
>Oh um, it’s in the book! Read it!
Pull it out. You had hours and all you got is
>a soul cannot not exist drrrrrrr. Souls are consciousness nrrrrr

>>18558247
Not the guy you responded to. Not everyone who thinks you're a retarded underageb& is the same person

>make a thread that mentions the word "soul"
>seething buddhacuck NPCs immediately come out of the woodwork to screech autistically for hours about their crypto-physicalist garbage
lmao blow it out your ass

hey hey hey im reading this also!! wow what a coimcidensene hahahahhaha

>>18557364
Today, I learned that animals and the retarded DO NOT have souls.

>>18558247
>>18558596
>>18558226
>literally no valid counterargument
I actually thought someone would point out the obvious flaw by now. I guess no one here has even read Kant.

>>18557364
It is not possible to be conscious of consciousness, so it's a moot point.

>>18558662
Yes it is, it's called self-consciousness. This is at least a better retort than the others, so I'll give you that.

>>18558697
Self-consciousness exists as much as self-sight and self-taste, which is to say, it does not exist.

>>18558697
>let me just add a prefix to this
>whew. I saved my metaphysics that was a close one

If you need to question the existence of the soul (if it isn't immediately obvious to you without needing to resort to gay shit like metaphysics) then you're most likely a golem, so in a way you're not wrong about its nonexistence in your personal case

>>18558713
Both of those things do exist through self-consciousness. Sight and taste do not even have meanings without referring to consciousness itself.
>>18558726
Prefixes can generally be excluded when they're sufficiently obvious.

>>18558273
every time

>>18558726
>>18558713
Here is the actual argument from Phaedo, maybe he uses terminology that you find easier to comprehend because it's less psychological:

1. Nothing can become its opposite while still being itself: it either flees away or is destroyed at the approach of its opposite. (For example, “tallness” cannot become “shortness” while still being “tall.”) (102d-103a)

2. This is true not only of opposites, but in a similar way of things that contain opposites. (For example, “fire” and “snow” are not themselves opposites, but “fire” always brings “hot” with it, and “snow” always brings “cold” with it. So “fire” will not become “cold” without ceasing to be “fire,” nor will “snow” become “hot” without ceasing to be “snow.”) (103c-105b)

3. The “soul” always brings “life” with it. (105c-d)

4. Therefore “soul” will never admit the opposite of “life,” that is, “death,” without ceasing to be “soul.” (105d-e)

5. But what does not admit death is also indestructible. (105e-106d)

6. Therefore, the soul is indestructible. (106e-107a)

>>18558966
based

>>18558966
Yeah but this actually makes no sense because "living" brings "life" with it and yet living things die, admitting "death". Of course then life ceases to be life when it encounters death, but that doesn't mean that all life is immortal. Just as the snow melts and ceases to be snow, the soul may die and cease to be a soul. While the concept of snow can never cease to be snow (the Form), an instantiation of snow can stop being snow, and so too with one soul.

>>18558966
>>18559327
I don't remember if this is the actual argument from Phaedo, but assuming it is represented accurately in this post, Plato at once distinguishes a Form of soul as being distinct from its instantiation, and conflates it with an instance of soul. It can't be both. Snow can melt, and snow ceases to be snow when it encounters heat and melts, yet the form of Snow is unmelted. Soul as a concept necessitates life, but an individual soul can cease to exist when it encounters death.

Plato knows what he's doing, of course. The intentional hypostatizing of all concepts throughout his works is not a lapse in logic, it's more of a prolepsis against dogmatic materialists (many of whom have come into this thread already).

>>18558966
i agree with this argument. its just reification though. like saying the soul is metaphysical and therefore the soul is *metaphysical*.

>>18557207
Very based.

Phaedo is one of the most profound meditations on the nature of the soul and mortality ever written, yet brainlets will get filtered by it.

A word to the not so wise, whether you take the Phaedo literal or metaphorical, there are those who see the deep truth in it and those who do not.

>>18558273
Inexorably.

>>18557207
To Aristotle, to have your faith in Plato broken down and see the holes punched in him.

>>18560146
Aristotle was a platonist, midwit

>>18557290
Diotima is an oracle and the authority she holds is because she has seen The Truth. The "accomplished sophist" is just Socratic irony. Some even argue that Diotima isn't even a real person but Socrates disguising his wisdom as to not appear like bragging. This is supported from the fact through his Diotima speech he takes several jabs at the previous speakers and "corrects" things they had said about Eros

>>18560375
>The "accomplished sophist" is just Socratic irony
Is this: "Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when the Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed the disease ten years."

From Thucydides we know that the plague happened exactly at the most unfortunate moment for Athenians, turning war into disaster. Does Socrates means Diotima intentionally harmed the city?


>Diotima is an oracle and the authority she holds is because she has seen The Truth.
In "Apology" Socrates says:
"To do this has, as I say, been enjoined upon me by the god, by means of oracles and dreams, and in every other way that a divine manifestation has ever ordered a man to do anything"

But from Symposium we know, that Socrates doesn't sleep (" the rumour ran through the wondering crowd that Socrates had been standing and thinking about something ever since the break of day. At last, in the evening after supper, some Ionians out of curiosity (I should explain that this was not in winter but in summer), brought out their mats and slept in the open air that they might watch him and see whether he would stand all night. There he stood until the following morning; and with the return of light he offered up a prayer to the sun, and went his way.").
Which is also mentioned in Xenophon's Memorabilia ("Do you think that anything is more responsible for my not
being enslaved to stomach or sleep")

Socrates equates oracles to the thing he hates and rejects.

>>18560576
>Does Socrates means Diotima intentionally harmed the city?
There are two different sources there, Socrates (Plato) and Thucydides so maybe the interpretation can be different depending on which point you view it from. Plato maybe means that the oracle tried her best to help humans but it was a play of the fates or something of the sort. He does not elaborate on this particular point i believe so we can't be sure.

>Socrates doesn't sleep
There is an allusion here to the extraordinary nature of Socrates from the eyes of Plato and to do this he mentions this one particular incident where Socrates was thinking all night long (i think he was also barefoot in the snow). He certainly does not mention that Socrates never sleeps because he is a human after all. This is to show that he was some kind of ascetic whose only purpose was to find truth even at the expense of sleep or food as you mentioned

>>18560713
>This is to show that he was some kind of ascetic
This is to show, that Socrates doesn't *like* to sleep. Because when you sleep, you can't think. Even if he does sleep, he tries to do it as little as possible.
Equating gods with "unable to think", means that Socrates doesn't actually give a shit about oracles/gods/traditions. And therefore "the Truth" is a lie.

Further in Apology we encounter this gem:
"He went to Delphi at one time and ventured to ask the oracle—as I say, gentlemen, do not create a disturbance—he asked if any man was wiser than I, and the Pythian replied that no one was wiser."
"When I heard of this reply I asked myself: "Whatever does the god mean? What is his riddle? I am very conscious that I am not wise at all; what then does he mean by saying that I am the wisest?"

"No one was wiser" == "There are people equally wise"
"I am the wisest" == "There aren't people as wise as me"

Socrates isn't ordered by some divine mission. Socrates basically says "Fuck you" to the oracle and defies gods by proving that everyone else are dumbfucks.

And when Socrates compares himself to the gadfly, he literally means that he is like the insect, that inserts carnivorous maggots into a living animal to eat it alive from the inside.
Historically, Socrates inflicted upon Athens the regime of Thirty Tyrants (his pupil Critias among them), the arch-traitor tyrant-wannabe Alcibiades, and the whole batch of democracy-hating philosophers

>>18560172
Philosophers generally don't classify Aristotle as a Platonist because he rejects the Theory of Forms. Plus, a lot of his work is criticizing Plato. It's a far cry from Plotonius assailing the Gnostics for countervailing the authority of Plato.

Aristotle knew the guy and didn't think he was magic, or particularly buy what he was selling when it came to ontology. He also blew way past him in logic, basically creating the field.

There is a reason Raphael has them pointing in different directions in the famous Fresco.

>>18561135
There is also a reason why Plato points towards the sky and Aristotle towards the ground.

Advaita Vedanta.

>>18557207
The Bible

>>18557207
you’ve read phaedrus? the parmenides, and what we have left of parmenides.
it’s all here
https://sys.4channel.org/derefer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fdocument%2Fd%2F1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM%2Fmobilebasic%3Fpli%3D1

>>18557207
>>18557225
>>18557238
>>18557282
>>18557308
>>18557346
>>18558273
are you the same faggot that made threads on the afterlife a few weeks ago and starting sperging out whenever someone mentioned Hinduism or Buddhism?

>>18561516
Take your meds

>>18561516
Several people are getting tired of the annihilationist pajeet shilling on this board.

>>18557346
As a Catholic with neoplatonist sympathies, degrees in theology and philosophy, I may be able to help. Largely, it's because Plato demonstrates certain truths by reason alone (e.g. immortality of the soul, reality of universals) but can't always adequately explain them, hence dialogues often ending in aporia. Certain things remain unclear in his works (is the Good a form, or above being somehow?) and some metaphysical postulates are clunky.
If you're allowed to place the forms into the mind of the One who is the Good, things start to make more sense. I really recommend Augustine's works (specifically De Trinitate) and the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus if you want a better grip on things.

>>18558226
(Citation needed) From who. What God do you worship?

>>18562514
The Immaculately Conceived, Divinely Resurrected, Sinless, Lord Jesus Christ and his inspired work, The Bible.

>>18557207
St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas

>>18562577
The human soul is that part of a person that is eternal—the part that lives on after the body dies and decays. Jesus said we were not to fear men, who can only kill the body, but not the soul (Matthew 10:28).

>>18560876
I agree with a lot you say anon, but the gadfly image is just that of biting people awake annoyingly, he's not a botfly. The attachment to the Thirty will always be tenuous given Socrates disobeyed them.

>>18557252
cope, dilate

>>18562847
Being Epicurean is coping perfectly well. You ought to try it sometime.
My eyes are still working.

>>18562514
May Harry Potter forgive you your slight

>>18562263
What do you think of Hegel?

>>18562753
>I agree with a lot you say anon, but the gadfly image is just that of biting people awake annoyingly, he's not a botfly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadfly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botfly
>Gadfly most commonly refers to:
>Botfly
>Botflies, also known as warble flies, heel flies, and gadflies,
Gadflies are Botflies.

>The attachment to the Thirty will always be tenuous given Socrates disobeyed them.
Further, in Xenophon's Oeconomicus Socrates claims, that humans (his friends and foes) are his property. Socrates is above law.
The whole episode in Xenophon's Memorabilia with the Thirty Tyrants gives an impression, that Socrates is abusing his relationship with Critias. Basically, the situation hints between lines, that Critias still cares for Socrates, so that Socrates feels safe to troll around. If there weren't any Critias, he wouldn't be so bold, he wouldn't disobey.

Socrates' motivation becomes clear in another paragraph of Xenophon's Memorabilia:
("And again Antiphon once questioned him about how he could believe that he made others fit for political affairs, since he himself did not engage in political affairs-if indeed he understood how. He said, "In which case, Antiphon, would I more engage in political affairs, if I engaged in them alone, or if I should attend to there being as many as possible competent to engage in them?'' ")
Socrates doesn't obey politicians. He MAKES politicians. It is they, who should obey him.

Further there, in dialog with Aristarchus, when Aristarchus complains that his family disobeys them, Socrates gives this analogy:
("And Socrates said, "Then you aren't telling them the speech of the dog. For they say that, when the animals could speak, the ewe said to her master, 'You do an astonishing thing in giving us, who provide you with wool and lambs and cheese, nothing other than what we ourselves get from the earth, while you give the dog, who provides you with nothing of the sort, a share of your very own food.'
"And that when the dog heard this he said, 'Yes, by Zeus, for I am the one who in fact saves you sheep so that you are neither stolen by human beings nor seized by wolves, since indeed if I were not to guard over you, you would not even be able to graze out of fear that you might perish.' It is said that then even the flocks acquiesced in the dog's being preferred in honor. And so you, too, tell these women that you are, in place of a dog, their guardian and attendant, and that it is due to you that, being unjustly treated by no one, they live securely and pleasantly by their work." ")
"he ewe said to her master" vs. "you are, in place of a dog"
Aristarchus follows Socrates' advices. Aristarchus is the dog. Who's the master in this scenario?

>>18563316
ok tranny

>>18558966
This is why philosophy is retarded, it's literally play on words

>>18557207

>>18564340
>Gadfly is botfly
No, this is misusing what the term gadfly can mean today to extrapolate what it meant over 2000 years ago. See pic related. It's just horsefly, it's not a scientific term in ancient Greek, it's just the term for flies that can make horses "gad" (jump about). Socrates' image is biting the city to wake it up even when it's not clear it does anything useful for the city.

>>18564340
>Further, in Xenophon's Oeconomicus Socrates claims, that humans (his friends and foes) are his property. Socrates is above law.
Doesn't follow, but also, Socrates doesn't say that enemies are his posessions, but asks Critobulus if *he* believes it. Similarly, the belief that friends are possessions only follows from Critobulus' belief (which Socrates spells out) that wealth and possessions properly name things beneficial and advantageous, and friends being beneficial and advantageous are therefore a kind of possession. This is of course at the beginning of the text, where the rest of it is supposed to be a lesson for Critobulus.>>18564340
>The whole episode in Xenophon's Memorabilia with the Thirty Tyrants gives an impression, that...
Uh huh, I'm referring to the Leon of Salamis episode where Socrates refused to collaborate with the Thirty in Leon in to be killed.

>>18564340
>Socrates doesn't obey politicians. He MAKES politicians. It is they, who should obey him.
Doing the one doesn't prevent doing the other, and we both know Socrates did both, regardless of what his inquiry into the laws showed him about their authority.

>>18564340
>Further there, in dialog with Aristarchus, when Aristarchus complains that his family disobeys them
That's not what that passage is about; Aristarchus is taking care of a bunch of female relatives in dire straits and doesn't know how to manage, Socrates gives him sensible advice and he ends up with a fund that pays enough such that Aristarchus doesn't have to do as much work. His relatives tease him about that, and hence the Socratic fable.

>>18564340
>Aristarchus follows Socrates' advices. Aristarchus is the dog. Who's the master in this scenario?
Not Socrates; the female relatives aren't going up to complain to Socrates about his friend, now are they?

Nvm anon, this is all babby's first Straussian reading without any of the groundedness of Strauss' own readings. Pay more attention to details and stop extrapolating beyond what the text suggests.

Now you should go read some Ian Stevenson case studies.

>>18565323
It only seems like a play on words if you're incapable of intuition (which means actually seeing behind the words to what is pointed to). The old metaphor of looking at the finger (word) instead of what it points to (to the object).

>>18565698
European Cases of the Reincarnation Type
by Ian Stevenson
https://b-ok.cc/book/990080/23f2ec

>>18557207
Jesus

>>18565878
this anon gets it

>>18557429
Its not polytheist.

Everything can be reduced to "The One Itself"

All multiplicity comes posterior to this.

So its not just a qualified monism principal, its the final and absolute principal.

If you say its polytheist then by the same logic Christianity is polytheism.

>>18565693
>asks Critobulus if *he* believes it
They came to conclusion, that property is property only when useful. Meaning, conventional definitions are social constructs.
>Doesn't follow
""Nicomachides," he said, "do not hold in contempt men who are skilled at household management. For attending to private affairs differs only in terms of multitude from attending to public ones."
It does, since ownership of property is directly compared to politics in Memorabilia book III chapter 4

> I'm referring to the Leon of Salamis episode
>"the other four went to Salamis and brought in Leon, but I went home"
It merely implies that Socrates expects that Critias will shield him from the wrath of other 29 tyrants. The sole point of Socrates project of grooming Critias and Alcibiades is to have "household managers" (tyrants), who in theory should have been able to do all the dirty government administering, so to enable Socrates to relax and do nothing.
The Leon of Salamis episode merely displays that Socrates says "Fuck you" to whomever tries to boss him around. And it also an example of Socratic irony, because this episode in "Apology" was superficially supposed to prove that he is a good citizen, but proves only that he disobeys laws instead.

>we both know Socrates did both
The whole "Apology" text (where Socrates, seemingly, obeys the people's decision), is basically Socrates insulting the court into executing him.

"then, when the god ordered me, as I thought and believed, to live "the life of a philosopher, to examine myself and others, I had abandoned my post for fear of death or anything else. That would have been a dreadful thing, and then I might truly have justly been brought here for not believing that there are gods, disobeying the oracle, fearing death, and thinking I was wise when I was not. To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know."

Socrates >>18560876 doesn't believe "that there are gods", does disobey the oracle, and does think he is the wisest. From paragraph above we see, that "To fear death" is "to think oneself wise". Therefore, Socrates fears death.
Socrates named the reasons why he *should* be put to death. But it is not the people who condemn him to death, it is Socrates who condemns himself, manipulating the dumb cattle. He is merely using the opportunity to turn his death into something productive - to shitstain the reputation of Athens, since all Socrates' "philosopher-king" projects turned out to be utter failures and he is in despair.

>That's not what that passage is about; Aristarchus is taking care of a bunch of female relatives
And household management and politics are essentially the same thing.

>>18557207
I would say St. Augustine's Confessions or City of God. Saint Augustine took the idea of Platonic Ascension and defined it through a Catholic lens. Saint Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica also united faith and reason also known as Jerusalem and Athens.

>>18565716
There is nothing intuitive about theory of Forms schizo. You have to masturbate your brains out to coom to that conclusion.

Isn't Nihilism basically believing in nothing, as in, not a thing, as in, something that is not a thing, e.g., from Latin, "res", from which comes Reality?

>>18558616
No he's right. I guess your dumb ass hasnt read Schopenhauer

>>18567076
>Isn't Nihilism basically believing in nothing
Nick Land, "The Thirst for Annihilation":
"The ancient Romans are only the most famous example of the arithmetical gratuitousness of zero. When zero is absent it is not missed; no one notices the default of default. Nevertheless, counting systems enriched by zero—and the place-order associated with it—are of massively enhanced sophistication over those in which nothing is missing. Introducing nothing makes an inestimable difference.
Zero is indivisible, so that zero belief cannot be rigorously differentiated from belief in zero. It is in this sense that atheism is a religion. Not that atheism is committed to a specific conviction, quite the opposite; it is precisely the specificity of conviction that it attacks. Understood negatively it denies the false absolute of theos, but understood positively it affirms the true absolute marked by the ‘privative’ a-; the nihil from which creation proceeds, the undifferentiable cosmic zero."