Category Archives: Philosophical and other fragments

Augustine lived in an age of anxiety.The established state and the civilized world were being eroded by foreign elements once considered the necessary components of political stabilization and economic surety, and by political divisiveness and uncertainty as to how to … Continue reading →

Plotinus is the last flower of the world as Greek. After him it is the Roman influence that ascends in cult and culture, and its power comes in two flavours: practicality, and legality. Both these, along with Plotinus, and the … Continue reading →

In the ancient world there was a detectable ennui with the ability of any cult or philosophy to wield a binding vision. There was more serious discontent with the lack of an embraceable order to govern the acts of men. … Continue reading →

In the theories of Plato and Aristotle we have the two poles of occidental philosophical thought. All that follows orbits in some degree about one of these two understandings of how reality is constructed, and how we come to know … Continue reading →

Plato inherited a world intellectually divided between Parmenides’ vision of the constancy and immutability of being and Heraclitus’ vision of the constancy of change. Plato’s vision of reality is a strait vertical line between these two points, the immutable Ideas, … Continue reading →

In the sixth century before Christ there takes place across a wide swath of the civilized world a coup de theatre, a dramatic turn in the human psyche; in the East enter Confucius and the Buddha, in the West the … Continue reading →

I begin with a confession. I am ataxophobic. I like order. I like an orderly desk, orderly files, bookcases, ideas, events, liturgies, etc. I realize that puts be at odds with the tack of modern society. We spend a good … Continue reading →