I think he would have dismissed the second part ('nothing good lies outside him'), which sounds worthy of the most devoted pessimists on this forum. But the first part may be interpreted as suggesting that a necessary condition for eudaimonia is to gain better control of one's own mind - one's reaction to events and one's desires - and that seems to me to be quite Epicurean, as well as Stoic and Buddhist.Once the man is a Sage, the means of happiness, the way to good, are within, for nothing is good that lies outside him. — Plotinus
What do you reckon Epicurus would make of that? — Wayfarer
To be entirely honest, I think Wayfarer is committing a great moral error. Virtue gives your best chance for happiness as Aristotle understood, but it doesn't guarantee it. Wayfarer still talks of ways of being etc. which guarantee happiness, which is just nonsense. There are no guarantees around. The best you can do (virtue) is the best you can do, and if at the end of the day you're still not happy, well you couldn't have done any better!I think he would have dismissed the second part ('nothing good lies outside him'), which sounds worthy of the most devoted pessimists on this forum. But the first part may be interpreted as suggesting that a necessary condition for eudaimonia is to gain better control of one's own mind - one's reaction to events and one's desires - and that seems to me to be quite Epicurean, as well as Stoic and Buddhist. — andrewk
There are no guarantees around. — Agustino
I still have to provide for my kids and so forth. What has changed? Have I become better able to provide for them? Has my relationship with my wife improved? Am I more loving, not in an abstract kind of way, but in a practical kind of way? — Agustino
I think he would have dismissed the second part ('nothing good lies outside him'), which sounds worthy of the most devoted pessimists on this forum. — andrewk
No but tell me Wayfarer. What is lacking in the scenario I described above, in the good one? Do those people need a meta-cognitive change? Would they be helped by one in any way? It's an honest question. You seem to be shying away from answers all the time, so of course I have to be straight up and ask you for them.Strangely, I thought we were in a philosophy forum. I don't know where you think you are. — Wayfarer
What is lacking in the scenario I described above, in the good one? Do those people need a meta-cognitive change? Would they be helped by one in any way? It's an honest question. You seem to be shying away from answers all the time, so of course I have to be straight up and ask you for them. — Agustino
Well again - her life wasn't great. Her life was only apparently great to those on the outside. Maybe her husband didn't love her. Maybe she was upset he lost the bid for president. Maybe she had everything but was bored out of her mind, didn't know what to do with her life - as she says, she didn't feel alive. But again - we're not all like that. We're not all in need of a meta-cognitive change. That's why I referred to Spinoza. It's absurd to think that that's the natural disposition of everyone.I don't see the point of the question. The answer would depend on a lot of factors. There are plenty of people who have apparently fantastic lives but are deeply unhappy. I read a newspaper article yesterday about the wife of a US politician who was so misereable she had to get shock therapy and now has become an advocate for Electro-Convulsive Therapy! That's one way to achieve a meta-cognitive change, but I'm sure you agree meditation would be preferable. — Wayfarer
My problem is that it seems to me - I'm not saying it is the case - but it seems to me that you're not willing to rationally analyse the matter from beginning to end - logically. It seems to me that you're biased in other words. That's why it's pushing buttons. It seems to me utterly absurd why someone would think we're all in need of some meta-cognitive change... Or that this could actually be helpful. Because again - it is absurd to me, that someone, in the absence of this meta-cognitive change, would proceed to pour poisons down their throat. I don't know. Is that something you'd do if you didn't have a meta-cognitive change? Because it's not something I would do.So, what's the problem? — Wayfarer
Yeah, of course I agree meditation has benefits. This worldly benefits :P (and I sometimes do practice it)That's one way to achieve a meta-cognitive change, but I'm sure you agree meditation would be preferable. — Wayfarer
My problem is that it seems to me - I'm not saying it is the case - but it seems to me that you're not willing to rationally analyse the matter from beginning to end - logically. It seems to me that you're biased in other words. — Agustino
I don't see the argument. Where's the argument? All I see is that my questions go unanswered and yet you claim to be right.I'm not biased, I'm presenting a philosophical argument — Wayfarer
Metanoia is an insight, a change of heart, a movement away from the material and towards God, repentance. It's important for Plato because he considers the relationship with the transcendent to be necessary for the well-ordering of the human soul. Does me reciting stuff like a school child change anything?So what is the meaning of 'metanoia', why was that regarded as important in Platonist philosophy? — Wayfarer
If by higher you mean living with love, compassion, courage, loyalty, devotion, and the other virtues and avoiding hatred, improper sexual conduct, etc, then yes there is something higher. But there is nothing higher than that.So - is there a 'higher'? Is the belief that there is 'a higher truth' simply 'a bias'? You tell me. — Wayfarer
Not having understood the game they're in, or that they're in a game, it's like 'let's make the best of it'. But from the viewpoint of a Plotinus, whatever good Epicurus makes of it, is temporary, transient, subject to decay, unsatisfactory. They're actually in a situation of grave peril, which they don't understand. — Wayfarer
Does me reciting stuff like a school child change anything? — Agustino
If by higher you mean living with love, compassion, courage, loyalty, devotion, and the other virtues and avoiding hatred, improper sexual conduct, etc, then yes there is something higher. But there is nothing higher than that. — Agustino
But what of the wisdom in making peace with the temporary? The itch for something beyond all mortal things (some ineffable transcendence of the game) can itself be framed as one of the "false" or "unwise" desires to mastered. — R-13
I think the question is, what can possibly rationalise or provide the motivation for that? — Wayfarer
I don't believe it is. I respect anyone else's right to believe it is, but that's what I'm challenging. — Wayfarer
This is Spinoza's point. — TheWillowOfDarkness
What, in the end, replaces the passionate love for ephemeral “goods” is an intellectual love for an eternal, immutable good that we can fully and stably possess, God. The third kind of knowledge generates a love for its object, and in this love consists not joy, a passion, but blessedness itself. Taking his cue from Maimonides’s view of human eudaimonia, Spinoza argues that the mind’s intellectual love of God is our understanding of the universe, our virtue, our happiness, our well-being and our salvation.
I really like Epicurus's friendly feeling toward the gods understood as models for emulation. — R-13
For me this isn't anything supernatural but just the heights of human thought and feeling "crystallized" in culture. — R-13
The wise part of the wise man is blessed and immortal — R-13
Yes this is it. This is exactly what you're not understanding. Let me quote Spinoza:I think the question is, what can possibly rationalise or provide the motivation for that? — Wayfarer
I see the Buddha's 'world-transcending wisdom' as the acme of the teaching — Wayfarer
And in your very posing the question, you understand this. It's not the spiritual philosophy that matters at all - at best, that's merely a motivating factor for what TRULY matters - for the real highest - the virtuous life in this world — Agustino
Well what's the point of finding excuses for answering? Whether or not I'm venting spleen or whatever is irrelevant to the contents of my post. Why do you deal in these superficialities instead of tackling the very real philosophical problems that I'm bringing up for you?The rest of your post is basically venting of spleen. Hope you feel better for it. — Wayfarer
Yes I did. But as you see Spinoza identifies blessedness with virtue. The intellectual love of God is merely understanding of the world. He who understands the world will be virtuous, because again, if you understand, would you pour poisons down your throat? >:ODidn't you notice the very phrase from Spinoza that I quoted to Willow about the 'intellectual love of God', which is the pinnacle of Spinoza's system? — Wayfarer
Well I can see that.Mind you, I can hardly make head or tail of Spinoza, but he did at least say that. — Wayfarer
And what, according to Spinoza, was the acme, the highest point, of the philosopher's life? — Wayfarer
Whether or not I'm venting spleen or whatever is irrelevant to the contents of my post. — Agustino
The intellectual love of God is merely understanding of the world. — Agustino
God is immanent for Spinoza. Not a transcendent force that makes the world meaningful or produces an escape from the meaningless world, but an expression of the world-- the eternal, the value, meaning and significance produced by each state. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Spot God in today's news, then. 25 dead in head-on smash in Thailand. US Republicans decide to scrap the Ethics Office, then change their minds. Somewhere, no doubt, numbers of women and children slaughtered by jihadis. Hey, it's all God, right? 'Nothing to transcend here, folks, move right along — Wayfarer
We ought to act so these sort events don't happen again. — TheWillowOfDarkness
This is not a question of "transcending" the world. It's being a part of it. — TheWillowOfDarkness
But this is what I'm asking you. You claim that there is something higher than this. And I don't see how there can be something higher than this, from a logical point of view.The contents of your post basically amounts to: be good — Wayfarer
Bodhidharma? One of my favorite Buddhists. I loved his pragmatism.Chinese Buddhism, wherein an emperor asks a Buddhist master, 'what is it you teach?' - to which the reply comes 'learn to do good, cease to do evil, purify the mind'. The Emperor a replies 'a child of seven knows that', to which the master says 'but many men of 70 have failed to practice is.' — Wayfarer
Exactly, but what is there to do more than this?He did go to the trouble of constructing lengthy and recondite texts, in the style of geometrical propositions, the aim of which is to remedy ignorance and to advocate the supreme importance of virtue, and was ostracised by his own culture for so doing. — Wayfarer
'Supernatural' is such a boo-word, isn't it? Meaning, what? — Wayfarer
I see the Buddha's 'world-transcending wisdom' as the acme of the teaching. (The other profound difference with Greek philosophy, however, is that Mahāyāna Buddhism says that ultimately Nirvāṇa and Samsara are not different - 'Nirvāṇa is samsara released, samsara is Nirvāṇa grasped'.) — Wayfarer
That is much nearer to Plotinus than Epicurus. — Wayfarer
For man loses all semblance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings. — Epicurus
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