....... HOME ....... MAIN ARTICLE VERSION 1 ... HISTORY ... DISCUSSION .... GALERY .... EDIT V 1 Contents Introduction * Ancient Philosophy Keywords See Also References Bibliography PHILOSOPHY III Definition Mental Discipline Old Version - 1, updated Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 2:8:29, 4058 bytes - by wlacourt. This article is for information and educational purposes only and is not intended to give medical, legal or professional advice. [(())] Discipline which focuses on the knowledge of the mind, existence, reality, beauty, spirituality, and religion. INTRODUCTION Philosophy is traditionally divided into east and west. Eastern philosophy being the most cohesive of the two, retaining practices and beliefs that go back hundreds if not thousands of years. Western philosophy has experienced a more volatile existence, in which students and teachers have a more rebellious nature. A student of Buddhism may expand on the Buddhist way, bringing about new practices. Said discipline may evolve in a gradual manner, but still, retain the essence of its ancestral teaching. Zen Buddhism is still Buddhism and Buddhism is still in many ways Hinduism. In the case of Western thought, ideas tend to evolve in a more predatorial manner. From Hegelian dialectics, came about both Fascism and Marxism, two philosophies which are opposite, with completely different world views, who see themselves as the only true redeemers of mankind. Its no wonder that throughout the twentieth century, many of the bloodiest conflicts came about through the absolutist tendencies of both philosophies. In turn, Hegel believed that his “idealism” was also the “truest of the bunch” rejecting Kantian philosophy, a philosophy which defined eighteenth-century Europe. This is not to say that western philosophy is always cannibalistic, many philosophies tend to look back into older knowledge for inspiration. There were, after all, “Neo-Platonists”, in the roman empire. As there are Neo-Platonists today. [( Human Study)] Whether or not philosophy had a beginning, is a highly debated topic. Not to say that the act of contemplation was invented at some point in history, rather, when did “philosophy” as we see it today begin. In the case of eastern philosophy, there is a very different conception of when something is. Hinduism to us began as a set of different beliefs that originated some time ago near the year 2000 BC, slowly conglomerating with other belief systems of the area. But to the Hindus, Hinduism has always been, it’s more of an abstract description of the world which was discovered rather than created. The same applies to the Chinese Tao, “the way”, envisioned as an eternal set of principles, in stark contrast with the western conception of philosophy (generally speaking), in which philosophy becomes very personal, fleeting. Existentialism is a way of seeing the world, not “the way” of seeing it; it has different flavors, Camus envisions his brand of existentialism differently that Kierkegaard or Beauvoir did. ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY There is a common idea that philosophy began to develop in ancient Greece when collective interested shifted from the natural world to the mental one. Experts regard this change as the mythos-logos transition. Gradually thinkers began to gravitate towards the more metaphysical aspects of life in stark contrast with the pre-Socratic (mythological) thinkers which concentrated on the base substance of things. Atomic theory as such began in ancient Greece with pre-philosophers such as Democritus and Protagoras developing their conception of the theoretical composition of the universe. Others like Pythagoras concentrated on the mathematical description of reality. Figures like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle began to appear in the 5th and 4th centuries before Christ, developing ideas such as the distinction of form (the metaphysical essence of things) and matter (the physical essence of things). These ideas fermented in various forms throughout the end of ancient Greece and the beginning of the roman empire, with various philosophies emerging as a product of inbreeding between the theories, falling out and sometimes instances of inspired individuals providing a new way to see the world. The Romans did not particularly add much to the already existent Greek schools of thought, rather choosing to develop. KEYWORDS The following keywords are alternate terms which can be used to access this page. philosophy_iii SEE ALSO REFERENCES BIBLIOGRAPHY top