To us, the phrase “self-knowledge” means little more than “psychologizing” about ourselves; that is, obtaining emotionally stimulating opinions about ourselves, against the background of the view of human nature insinuated into us by our own abnormal social order.
Or it means conceptual analysis, which cannot penetrate into our emotions and body because the faculty of thinking itself is encapsulated within us. Thoughts about myself have no penetrating action upon the emotions and instincts.
Socratic self-knowledge is self-attention, which is a force that can exist and act with tremendous power within ourselves. For Socrates, it develops and grows in relationship to the various functions of the whole human structure, in the midst of the “citizens of Athens,” in “the marketplace.”
- Excerpt from The Heart of Philosophy
March 24 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
America – the physical, actual America that we see and live in – this America needs to be understood not as in itself sacred but as a privileged, temporary corner of “the world” where men and women are granted the liberty to search for truth and the life within. Behind all the political and economic machinations of the Founders of this country, there existed in their minds and hearts the passion to create “an American place” in the midst of the world, where the Good can be sought and lived. They believed there existed the Good – some called it God, others called it Reason – and that the Good – could enter human life. Of course, political freedom exists now in many countries of the world, often due to the influence of American ideas, but we will never “know what we have here” if we do not understand that the founding basis of this country was not land or tribe, but the call for people to assemble together and work together for the Good. Perhaps America’s people no longer come together for this purpose; perhaps political liberty and the great rule of law serve now only to protect the cravings for meaningless comfort and meaningless power; perhaps the nation’s physical strength seduces us into imagining that physical strength is true strength, that physical safety is true safety, that external freedom is true freedom, external democracy the true equality of people. If so, if we believe that the outer America is the real America, we are deceived by ourselves, and as the prophets of Israel warned, we are certain to perish – first inwardly and then outwardly.
- Excerpt from The American Soul
Cover of The American Soul
March 16 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments »