What is your preferred way of looking at the world? Of assessing it? Of discriminating between various options and choosing your course of action? Not easy questions, no easy answers. Unless there is one Way to rule them all. But is there? Photo by Alex Kalinin on Unsplash Having read a discussion between two philosophers …
Category: On Philosophy
Xenophanes from Colophon – a Pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher (ca. 540 BCE)
In my last article on the exploration of the historical context of the time around 130 years before Socrates, we discovered the events of roughly 50 years of the 6th century BCE. It was the time when most known philosophical activity of the Greeks was still taking place in their Ionian city-states, on the coast …
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Spreading the Word: Philosophy vs Democracy (and what Socrates thought about it)
In this week's "Spreading the Word", I share with you a short video. It is a provocative invitation to assess our uncritical value of democracy as the ultimate good. To what extent is it good, really? I found it interesting that both crucial achievements of Ancient Greeks - philosophy and democracy - were far from …
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130 Years Before Socrates: Historical Exploration (Part 1 – Persians Conquer Ionia)
Last week I wrote an introduction article giving an overview of the historical ground we will cover in the roughly 130 years leading up to the famous Greek philosopher Socrates. This post is the first part of our journey. We will visit the Asian side of Greek city-states (Asia Minor): the Ionian region where, so …
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130 Years Before Socrates: Historical Exploration (Introduction)
Pre-Socratics in the history of philosophy are a group of Greek thinkers who lived and contemplated the nature of reality before the great Master of Western philosophy (a bit like Yoda from Star Wars), Socrates, was born. By the way, he was born in Athens in 469 BCE. Despite his monumental role, Socrates was not …
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Why do We Like Happy Endings?
Many people like stories with happy endings. I am among them. We prefer such stories. We are ready to accept almost any hardship that the characters of a narrative face while the story unfolds, as long as it ends well. As the famous John Lennon`s quote goes: "Everything will be okay in the end. If …
The Quest for the Unknown in the Familiar: Insights
Having now returned from my vacation and my exploration quest, I would like to offer some insights - to you and myself. This year vacation was a little unusual. I went back home and tried looking at it with fresh eyes, instead of going to some new and yet unfamiliar place. It was a conscious, …
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What Can Books Teach us About Change?
While still on my journey through hometown, exploring the unknown in the familiar, I wanted to share with you this quote. I saw it at the same exhibition I mentioned previously. It seems to me that it captures the idea of change wonderfully. We all know that change is inevitable in life and yet we …
Travelling at Home or Finding the Unknown in the Familiar
Going for a trip on vacation is difficult these days. I live in Europe, and at the time of writing it is possible to travel, albeit with some restrictions. However, it's pretty clear that it will not be your usual vacation experience. So, what to do? Well, isn't this the perfect time to think about …
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What Does It Mean to Be a Hero?
One day many, many years ago I was working on an assignment for my literature class at school. We had read the story of the national mythological hero and had to write an essay on it. I can no longer remember the exact title of the essay, but it had to do with heroism and …
