Sublimity is the image of greatness of soul. The effect of elevated language upon an audience is not persuasion but transport. Skill in invention, and due order and arrangement of matter, emerging as the hard-won result not of one thing nor of two, but of the whole texture of the composition, whereas Sublimity flashing forth at the right moment scatters everything before it like a thunderbolt, and at once displays […]
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“Physics and Philosophy” by Werner Heisenberg
[Posted to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Heisenberg’s death.] Form and Potentiality in Nature Modern physics takes a definite stand against the materialism of Democritus and Epicurus, and for Plato and the Pythagoreans. The elementary particles are certainly not eternal and indestructible units of matter. They can actually be transformed into each other. All particles are of the same substance: energy. The resemblance of the modern views to those of […]
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Finding Cinderella: A Metaphor Of the Scientific Method
Philosophical Foundation of Science When quantum theory and the theory of general relativity shook the foundation of physics at the dawn of the 20th century, many physicists, such as Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg, explored and revisited ancient Greek philosophy. For they suspected there might be something wrong with the philosophical foundation of classical physics. They attempted to retrace the steps in the labyrinth and find out where the wrong […]
Read more“Moralia: On Fate and Divine Justice” by Plutarch
Divine Justice Transcends Time and Space The notion of justice presupposes the persistence of identity, not only of individual, but also of family, race and nation. An individual goes through many changes, from a newborn baby, to a child, an adult and an old man. How can one be responsible for his past action if he is not the same person who committed it? Although a family, race or nation […]
Read moreMoralia: VI. Alexander and the Republic of Zeno
Plato wrote a book on the One Ideal Constitution, but because of its forbidding character he could not persuade anyone to adopt it; but Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Grecian magistracies, and thus overcame its uncivilized and brutish manner of living. Although few of us read Plato’s Laws, yet hundreds of thousands have made use of Alexander’s laws, and continue to […]
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“The True History” by Lucian
The motives of my voyage were a certain intellectual restlessness, a passion for novelty, a curiosity about the limits of the ocean and the peoples who might dwell beyond it. The Island of the Blest As we drew near it, a marvellous air was wafted to us, exquisitely fragrant. Its sweetness seemed compounded of rose, narcissus, hyacinth, lilies and violets, myrtle and bay and flowering vine. There were meadows and […]
Read moreAugustine on the Difference between Christianity and Platonism
I might discern and distinguish what a difference there is between presumption and confession,— between those who saw whither they were to go, yet saw not the way, and the way which leads not only to behold but to inhabit the blessed country. (Confessions VII) In his Confessions, Augustine writes that it was God’s pleasure that he studied Platonism before being touched by Him though the Scriptures. Of all philosophies, […]
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