classics digests, reflections and reviews
The Natural Law The word morality comes from the Latin root mos (meaning “custom or law”), which in turn is a translation of the Greek word ἠθικός (“character or moral nature”). The idea of natural law originated with Plato and the Stoics, and found its full expression in Cicero. God, who governs the universe, has implanted the immortal soul in man from His own divine nature. The Mind of God […]
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The Meaning of Reality I’ve learned since childhood that reality is what exists independently of human perception and knowledge. We gain knowledge of reality if and only if our ideas correspond to it. Fantasy is that which has no correspondence in reality, and exists only in the mind of an individual. Unless he communicates his fantasy, others have no way of knowing it. George Berkeley shows a different way of […]
Read moreAs thinkers, mankind have ever divided into three sects: 1. The Materialist: “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” 2. The Transcendentalist: “Though we should soar into the heavens, though we should sink into the abyss, we never go out […]
Read moreA life at odds with Fortune resembles a wintry torrent, for it is turbulent, muddy, difficult to pass, violent, noisy and brief; A soul conversant with virtue resembles a perpetual fountain; for it is clear, gentle, agreeable, sweet, serviceable, rich, harmless and innocent. They who have a good constitution of body can bear heat and cold; and so they who have a right constitution of soul can meet anger and […]
Read morePapal Authority vs. Imperial Authority In Monarchia, Dante addresses three questions concerning monarchy: 1. Whether universal monarchy is necessary to the well-being of the world 2. Whether the Roman people took on Empire by right 3. Whether imperial authority comes from God directly or from Papal authority 1. The Priest and King Argument Argument for Papal Authority: From 1 Kings, they take the creation and deposition of Saul, and say […]
Read moreWhy is Socratic Method so Effective? Most dabblers in philosophy, myself included, are the contentious sort. We assert our opinion and reject others’ offhand, without giving any reason as to why our opinion is better. Consequently, discussions tend to end in futility, with both sides going away unaffected and unimpressed. By contrast, the Socratic Method often ends in unanimous consensus among the interlocutors, with others agreeing with Socrates and seemingly unable […]
Read moreThe Philosophical vs Practical Mind The part of the soul which is possessed of reason has two divisions, of which one is the deliberative faculty, the other the faculty by which we know. That they are different from one another will be evident from their subject-matter. For as colour and flavour and sound and smell are different from one another, so also nature has rendered the senses whereby we perceive […]
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