Copyright 2009 J V Bews. All Rights Reserved.
eWARNING!
If you think philosophy will give you all the answers to life's big questions, think again! If you think you might be better off feeding the cat or kicking a ball against your garden wall - well, so did the French philosopher Voltaire. He said - after a lot of thought - 'il faut cultiver le jardin' - we should all stop thinking so much and do sensible practical things like digging the garden.
He didn't follow his own advice though!
But if you want to know about some ancient ideas right at the beginnings of philosophy, then here's the place to begin.
Philosophy is something that, once started, you can't help doing. It's like peeling layers off an onion bulb - each layer taking you deeper down to layers and depths you hadn't known were there.
It's like eating a peach, and each bite takes you nearer to the stone, which is the absolutely brilliant, astounding thought or idea that makes your brain tingle with excitement.
It's like a space voyage, guided by the rules and knowledge of the known universe, heading towards the vast, tremendous unknown...
The Ancient Philosophers started us off on our exciting journeys of the mind, and this little ebook is dedicated to them.
That sounds really exciting. I think there is so much stuff that we don't know about the world. I don't think anyone knows everything! Did the ancient philosophers think they knew everything?
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ReplyDeleteI think it is amazing that we can find evidence of "thoughts" from so long ago.It is even more amazing that they can link to our thoughts today. It's like a piece of music that was written years ago being played today, and being just as enjoyable. Is the Heraclitus from Ephasus the same one I learnt a poem about a long time ago? I only remember the beginning and no-one ever told me he was a philosopher. In fact I always had this mental picture of 2 boys sitting on a rock, watching the sun go down as they talked. This as much as I remember:
ReplyDeleteThey told me Heraclitus, they told me you were dead.
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept as I remembered how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.
Pam,
ReplyDeleteThat poem sounds like it could have been written about a great thinker. It makes me feel sad at his death! But, due to the immortality of the written word, he still lives on 2,500 years later every time we read his words or ponder upon his statements.
I wonder where the poem came from?
I often wonder..what if we didnt have language? Would we still 'think' as much..or would we just go on in a practical way like animals do.
ReplyDeleteTaylor, North wales