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eBook Category: Spiritual/Religion
eBook Description: In modern times, Hellenic philosophy is almost always equated with "rationalism," pure and simple, devoid of any spiritual contents. This could not be further from the truth. The unique approach in this book corrects the modern view of what Hellenic philosophy is and what kind of wisdom it presents. In reality, the Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy is a way of life and a means of spiritual realization. Its objective is to establish for practitioners a harmony with the cosmos, purifying their souls, and leading to union with the Divine Intellect and the One. Such philosophy is closer to the eternal Mysteries than to the fashions of Western logicians. By the Platonists and Pythagoreans themselves, their philosophy has been regarded as the "Golden Chain" of succession and transmission of essential and unchangeable knowledge.

eBook Publisher: World Wisdom, Inc
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2005

Available eBook Formats:
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Adobe Reader ISBN: 1933316098   What's this?

"This Anthology will be very precious for the serious scholars and students of philosophy, because it comprises in one volume rare Platonic, Neo-Platonic, Pythagorean and Neo-Pythagorean texts, which constitute a truly golden chain of philosophic wisdom."--Christos Evangeliou, Professor of Philosophy at Towson University, and Vice President of ISNS

"The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy by Algis Uzdavinys (a Research Fellow at the Institute of Culture, Philosophy, and Arts) reveals that Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy is not directly equitable with our contemporary concept of "rationalism" and therefore devoid of any spiritual content. Rather, Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy in ancient Greece was seen as a way of life and as a means of spiritual realization. The object in Hellenic times was to establish for its practitioners of the philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras a harmony with the cosmos, purifying their souls and leading them into union with the Divine Intellect and the One. The Hellenic philosophies were closer to the Eternal Mysteries than to the 20th century fashions of Western logicians. The Golden Chain is informed and informative reading which is most especially recommended to the attention of philosophy students and the non-specialist general reader with an interest in how philosophy can free us from the chains of desire driven materialism and the rationalized hubris that is such a hallmark of contemporary western cultures."--Midwest Book Review

The present anthology of the Pythagorean and Platonic tradition disagrees in certain important respects with the modern understanding of philosophy in general and of Platonism and Pythagoreanism in particular. Following the valuable insights of Pierre Hadot (supported by the witness of countless traditional sages throughout the world) we regard ancient philosophy as essentially a way of life: not only inseparable from ?spiritual exercises," but also in perfect accord with cosmogonical myths and sacred rites. In the broader traditional sense, philosophy consists not simply of a conceptual edifice (be it of the order of reason or myth); but of a lived concrete existence conducted by initiates, or by the whole theocentric community, treated as a properly organized and wellguided political and theurgical "body" attended to the principle of maat--"truth" and "justice" in the ancient Egyptian sense of the word.

In Plato's definition of philosophy as a training for death (Phaedo 67cd) an implicit distinction was made between philosophy and philosophical discourse. Modern Western philosophy (a rather monstrous and corrupted creature, initially shaped by late Christian theology and post-Descartesian logic) has been systematically reduced to a philosophical discourse of a single dogmatic kind, through the fatal one-sidedness of its professed secular humanistic mentality, and a crucial misunderstanding of traditional wisdom. The task of the ancient philosophers was in fact to contemplate the cosmic order and its beauty; to live in harmony with it and to transcend the limitations imposed by sense experience and discursive reasoning. In a word, it was through philosophy (understood as a kind of askesis) that the cultivation of the natural, ethical, civic, purificatory, theoretic, paradigmatic, and hieratic virtues (aretai) were to be practiced; and it was through this noetic vision (noesis) that the ancient philosophers tried to awaken the divine light within, and to touch the divine Intellect in the cosmos. For them, to reach apotheosis was the ultimate human end (telos). Christos Evangeliou correctly observes that, "Neither Aristotle nor any other Platonic, or genuinely Hellenic philosopher, would have approved of what the modern European man, in his greedy desire for profit, and demonic will to power, has made out of Hellenic philosophia."

The purpose of our highly selective anthology is to glimpse the Pythagorean and Platonic tradition from the traditional Hellenic and especially Neoplatonic perspective. However, one ought to remember that the term "Neoplatonism" itself was an artificial invention of the 18th century Protestant scholars and preachers of the Enlightenment era, who rejected the claim that Plato's philosophy was propounded in unwritten doctrines and oral teachings, and the "Neoplatonic presumption" of harmony between Plato and Aristotle. These founders of modern philosophical hermeneutics pretended to understand Plato better than the latter understood himself. Looking down upon Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus from the tower of their so-called "Enlightenment," they claimed to have discovered "the real Plato"--one who had to be thoroughly cleansed from the filth of Neoplatonic interpretations.