The Platonic dialogues contain passages that seem to point in quite opposite directions on the question of the moral equality of women with men. Rep. V defends the view that sexual difference need not be relevant to a person’s capacity for philosophy and thus for virtue. Tim. 42a-c, however, makes incarnation in a female body a punishment for failure to master the challenges of embodiment. This paper examines the different ways in which two subsequent Platonists, Proclus (d. 485 CE) and (...) Theodore of Asine (d. c. 360 CE), dealt with this tension. (shrink)

The human soul has been believed to be immaterial and immortal element which exclusively inheres in the human body. Ukpugho ukpong (soul transplant) is an ancient meta-medical science of the Annang and Ibibio people, which is hinged on the belief that the human soul is transcendent and it exclusively inheres in proxy animal; that the soul is mortal, and can be surgically transplanted in the likeness of somatic tissue transplant. This study aimed at carrying out a philosophical critique of this (...) belief in order to determine its significance as a metaphysical concept. It also aimed at critically examining the philosophical as well as sociological discussions on the subject of ukpuho ukpong. The study was discussed on the framework of African concept of mind which holds that the soul has dual nature, namely – the Active Principle and the Quiescent Counterpart. The paper debunks the doctrines of metempsychosis and transmigration as alien to African metaphysics. The method of ordinary language analysis was employed to analyze the concepts ukpong and mbukpong. In conclusion, the paper made the following observations that: the soul is transcendent but perishable substance, the mind has dual nature, the soul does not transmigrate and the science of ukpuho ukpong is not a pseudo-metaphysical concept but was founded on African logic of dualistic mind. The paper notes that the science of ukpuho ukpong is bugged with a number of unresolved philosophical problems. Despite that the paper discovered that the science of ukpuho ukpong can contribute significantly to meta-medicine and sustainable environmental values. (shrink)

Resumen: En La actualidad de lo bello, Gadamer hace una referencia reveladora a la improvisación musical y a la importancia de la escucha musical, además de poner en primer plano la necesidad de justificación del arte. Situando este debate a través de Goethe y Platón, junto con las Lecciones de Estética de Adorno de finales de la década de 1950 y una discusión sobre Nietzsche y la Antigüedad, es posible establecer que lo que está en juego es la afinación, así (...) como una tensión que invita a un debate ulterior tanto sobre la detención del amante en Carson como el demorarse en Heidegger. Al revisar la hermenéutica gadameriana de la programación y la interpretación musical, incluida la improvisación y el desafío de la nueva música, las reflexiones de Gadamer sobre la cultura musical en el contexto de la cultura social y su reflexión no solo pueden ser leídas a través de Platón y Goethe, sino también a partir de las concepciones de "lo bello" en Hölderlin y Rilke. Se trata de una "conversación" cultural en la que la contribución del público puede estar en tensión con la programación musical progresiva, además de la dinámica de respuesta que surge en la energeia de la improvisación tanto para el intérprete como para el oyente.// Abstract: Gadamer’s On the Relevance of the Beautiful makes telling reference to musi-cal improvisation and the importance of musical listening in addition to fore-grounding the need for justification. Situating this discussion via Goethe and Plato along with Adorno’s late 1950s lectures on Aesthetics together with a discussion of Nietzsche and antiquity, what is at stake is attunement and a tension which invites a discussion of Carson on the lover’s arrest and Heidegger on tarrying. By reviewing Gadamer’s hermeneutic of musical pro-gramming and performance, including improvisation and the challenge of new music, Gadamer may be read on music culture in the context of social culture and his reflection not only via Plato and Goethe but Hölderlin and Rilke on ‘the beautiful.’ At work is a cultural ‘conversation’ where audience input can be in tension with progressive musical programing along with the dynamic of response emergent in the energeia of improvisation for performer and listener. (shrink)

This article concerns the place of Plato’s eschatology in his philosophy. I argue that the theory of reincarnation appeals to Plato due to its power to explain how non-human animals came to be. Further, the outlines of this theory are entailed by other commitments, such as that embodiment disrupts psychic functioning, that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished, and that the soul is immortal. I conclude by arguing that Plato develops a view of reincarnation as the chief tool that (...) the gods have to ensure that virtue is victorious over vice throughout the whole cosmos. (shrink)

In occasione del bimillenario della morte del poeta latino Ovidio, l’articolo analizza l’influenza del poema delle Metamorfosi come fonte primaria di Giordano Bruno. L’esposizione della dottrina pitagorica, esposta nel libro XV del poema, si adatta perfettamente all’ontologia del Nolano e alla sua fede nella metempsicosi. In particolare il mito di Diana e Atteone viene adottato dal filosofo, nel De gl’Heroici furori, come ideale rappresentazione della propria esperienza conoscitiva. La tormentosa vicenda del cacciatore Atteone, tramutato in cervo per aver sorpreso la (...) Diana nuda, simboleggia in Bruno il passaggio dall’amore profano a quello divino. -/- On the occasion of the two thousandth anniversary of the death of the Latin poet Ovid, the article analyzes the influence of the poem of the Metamorphoses as a primary source of Giordano Bruno. The exposition of the Pythagorean doctrine, contained in the XV book of the poem, fits perfectly with the ontology of the Nolan and his faith in metempsychosis. In particular, the myth of Diana and Actaeon is adopted by the philosopher, in De gl'Heroici furori, as an ideal representation of his own cognitive experience. The tormenting story of the hunter Atteone, turned into a deer for having surprised the “naked Diana”, symbolizes in Bruno the passage from the profane love to the divine one. (shrink)

As Leibniz points out in the Méditation sur la notion commune de la jus tice, justice—defined as charity of the wise and universal benevolence—belongs “to the necessary and eternal truths about the nature of things, as numbers and proportions.” According to the interpretation of Patrick Riley, from this perspective the two manuscripts usually regarded as belonging to the Méditation should be seen as complementary parts of a unitary Platonizing work. According to Riley, the manuscript that now constitutes the first part (...) of the Méditation is concerned with definitions of ethical concepts viewed as “quasi-mathematical, demonstrable ‘eternal verities’”, whereas the manuscript that now constitutes the second part of the Méditation is concerned “with Platonic ‘ascent’, in the manner of Phaedrus and Symposium,” which recommends the transition from mere negative forbearance from harm to doing positive good. In formulating these claims, Riley uses scare quotes to indicate that he uses the terms “eternal verities” and “ascent” in an unusual way that diverges from the views of the historical Plato. According to his interpretation, Leibniz’s modifications of Platonism are restricted to peripheral parts such as the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul or Pythagorean components such as the doctrine of metempsychosis. Therefore, Riley claims that when Leibniz is talking about knowing eternal truths, what he has in mind is literally the view that we know the same truths as the truths that the gods know and love but do not cause or change. (shrink)

About death, grief, mourning, life after death and immortality. Why should we die like humans to survive as a species. -/- "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears (...) out the old to make way for the new." (Steve Jobs) -/- CONTENTS: -/- Death - Philosophy of death - Religions - - Animism - - Atheism - - Buddhism - - Christianity - - Hinduism - - Islam - - Jainism - - Jehovah's Witnesses - - Judaism - - Latter-day Saints - - Spiritism - Symbolism - Personification of Death - - Notable personifications - - In mythologies - - - Hindu mythology - - - In Japan - - - Slavic paganism - - - Lithuanian paganism - - In the three monotheistic religions - - - Judaism - - - Christianity - - - In Mexico - - - Islam - Axiochos - - The characters of dialogue - - Dialogue - - Prologue - - Arguments - - Citations - Paradise - - Greco-Roman mythology - - Mesopotamian mythology and influences - - According to Judaism - - According to Christianity - - - According to Catholicism - - - According to Protestantism - - - According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - - According to Islam - - According to Hinduism - - According to modern spiritualities - - - According to the esoteric - Hell - - Mesopotamian origins - - According to Christianity - - - Names appearing in the biblical texts - - - Medieval artistic representations - - - Concepts according to Christian movements - - According to Judaism - - According to Islam - - According to Buddhism - - According to Hinduism - - According to modern esotericism - - - According to Aïvanhov - - - According to Allan Kardec - - Philosophy - - - Jewish Kabbalah - - - Sartre - - - Popular wisdom Funerals - The funeral ritual: a rite of passage - Prehistory - Ancient death customs - - The family bereavement - - Mummification - - Sarcophagi - - Funerals - - Ancient Greece - - Ancient Rome - - Celts, Germans and Scandinavians - Religious funeral rites - - Buddhism - - Judaism - Christianity - - Protestantism - - Islam - Funeral rites by continent - - In Africa - - In Europe - The contemporary era - Mourning (Grief) - - Steps - - - Death of a close - - Loss events without mourning value (white factors) - - Duration and manifestations - - Risks - - Colors - Graveyards (Cemeteries) - - First cemeteries - - Cemeteries today - Funerary art - Dolmens - - Types of dolmens - - Function - - Location - Passage graves - Cenotaphs - - Famous cenotaphs - Lanterns of the Dead Afterlife - History - Questions about death and immortality - Testimonials - - Spiritualistic experiences - - Popular literature on the afterlife - - "Memories" and reminiscences - - Early studies of the science of the 19th century and early 20th century - Types of scenarios - Some religious and philosophical concepts - - Afterlife in Buddhism - - Afterlife in Christianity - - According to Hinduism - - According to Islam - - According to Judaism - - According to Mormonism - - According to the ancient philosophies - - According to Spiritism - - According to Native American traditions - - According to Vedism - - According to Esotericism - In science - Near-death experiences - - Clinical death - - NDE frequency - - Effects of depth of NDE on survival - - Near-death experiences and shared-death experience - - - The first contemporary testimonials - - - Experience according to Moody - - - The concept of "shared death" - - - The NDE scales - - The study of Pim van Lommel - - Spiritual and patient point of view - - - Survivalists studies - - - The religious understanding of the phenomenon - - Scientific views - - - Physiological explanation - - - Psychological explanation - Reincarnation - - Religions - - - In Hinduism - - - In Jainism - - - In Buddhism - - - In Judaism - - - In Christianity - - - In Islam - - In contemporary times - - - Esotericism - - - Works of the psychiatrist Ian Stevenson - - - Radical increase in life expectancy and artificial reincarnation - - Criticism - - - Arthur Schopenhauer - - - Ramana Maharshi - - - Rene Guenon - - - Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy - Metempsychosis - - Theories - - Ideas - Maschalismos Immortality - Immortality of the soul and religious traditions - - Buddhism - - Christianity - - Islam - - Mormonism - Contemporary perception of the immortality of the body - - Observation in the animal kingdom - - Perspectives for mankind - Immortality in science - - Alexis Carrel - - Jean Rostand - - Hayflick limit - - Étienne-Émile Baulieu and DHEA - - Aubrey de Grey - - Professor Skulachev - - Regenerative medicine - - Professor Christopher Jaeger - Eternal Return - - According to the Mesopotamians - - According to Heraclitus and the Stoics - Fountain of Youth - - History of myth and relatives myths - - - In Roman mythology, Germanic, Celtic and Irish - - - In the Middle-East - - - In Spain - - - In the Bible - - The fountain in art and literature - - Painting - - - Literature and cinema - - Persistent of the myth until today - Senescence - - Why do we age? - - Gene regulation - - Cellular senescence Undead - Ghoul - Lich - Mummy - Skeleton - Vampire - Zombie - Other legendary creatures - Creatures specific to a particular universe - Spiritism - - Point out - - Origins of spiritism - - - The traditions through the ages - - - Advent of Christianity in Europe - - - The survival of necromancy - - - The precursors - - - Relations of spiritualism to science - Mediumship - - History - - Skeptical point of view - - Favorable doctor's viewpoint - Ghosts - - Appearance - - Belief in ghosts - - Origin - - - Duality and return dead - - - Ancient roots - - Typology - - - Poltergeists - - - Revenants - - - Ghosts - - - Banshees - - - Apparitions of crisis - - - Phantasms of the living - - - Vision of his own double - - - Ghost armies - - - Ghosts of animals - - - Means of transport - - Science perspective - - - Hallucinations - - - Sleep paralysis - - - Induced ghosts - - - Aches and infrasounds - - - Magnetic fields - Vampires - - Characteristics - - - Vampire transformation - - - Identification - - - Faculties - - Protection against the vampires - - - Precautions at death and burial - - - Apotropaic objects and places - - Destruction of vampires - Zombie - - The concept - - Africa and voodoo - - - West Africa - - - South Africa - - - In Haiti (and the Caribbean) - - - Scientific research - - The "revenants" in the Western imaginary Death in art - Memento mori - - History - - - Antiquity - - - Christianity - - - Mexican syncretism - - Performing arts - - - In painting - - - In literature - - - In movies - - - In video games - - - In Japanese animation - - - In music - The iconography of Weighing of souls (Particular judgment) - - Origin - - Written sources - - Weighing in Romanesque art - - Weighing in Gothic art - - Weighing in the late Middle Ages: to a new iconography - - Weighing of souls or actions? - Poems - - Charlotte Brontë, “On the Death of Anne Brontë” - - Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee” - - Edna St. Vincent Millay, “And you as well must die” - - Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death” - - Emily Dickinson, “If I Should Die” - - Lord Byron, “Epitaph to a Dog” - - Pablo Neruda, “Only Death” - - Stephen Crane, “God Lay Dead in Heaven” - - W. B. Yeats, “He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead” - - Rainer Maria Rilke, “Death” - Paintings - - The Three Dead Kings - - The Death of Nelson - - Beata Beatrix - Sculptures - - The Kiss of Death - - Background - - Imagery - - Angel of Grief - - Fallen Astronaut - Quotes References About the author - Nicolae Sfetcu - - By the same author - - Contact Publishing House - MultiMedia Publishing -/- DOI: 10.58679/TW44411. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze a previously unpublished Leibniz text from the early 1700s. I give it the title “On Unities and Transmigration” since it contains an outline of his doctrine of unities and an examination of the doctrine of transmigration. The text is valuable because in it Leibniz considers three very specific versions of transmigration that he does not address elsewhere in his writings; these are (1) where a soul is released by the destruction of its body and is (...) then free to pass into another body, (2) where souls are exchanged without any destruction of bodies, and (3) where human souls (minds) are exchanged, again without any destruction of bodies. I show that when tackling these three versions of transmigration in “On Unities and Transmigration,” Leibniz develops a series of objections that are not found anywhere else in his published writings, despite his lifelong opposition to the doctrine of transmigration. This paper is completed by two appendices, the first of which presents the previously unpublished “On Unities and Transmigration” text in full, in the original French (with all deletions indicated), while the second presents its English translation. (shrink)

Tommaso Giannini (1556-1638) was a prominent professor at the Ferrara Studium between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century. Probably influenced by Platonic sympathies nurtured by the Court and partly by the University milieu, in 1587 he published his first work titled De providentia ad sententiam Platonis et Platonicorum liber unus, which was a catalyst for his academic career. His De providentia displays a large amount of sources always tacitly used: Marsilio Ficino, Jacques Charpentier, Giulio Serina, Stefano Tiepolo, Teofilo Zimara, Bessarion, (...) Agostino Steuco, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and amid the ancients Plotinus, Plutarch, Sirianus, Proclus (read through Teofilo Zimara and Leonico Tomeo), Iamblichus, Apuleius, Calcidius, Ammonius, Psellus. Though a compilative work, the De providentia retains nonetheless a great importance insofar as it contributes to focus the bibliotheca platonica of the time, furthermore in the same years and place of Francesco Patrizi da Cherso’s teaching. (shrink)

The article deals with the doctrines of Orpheus and Pythagoras about the immortality of the soul in the context of the birth of philosophy in ancient Greece. Orpheus demonstrated the closeness of heavenly (divine) and earthly (human) worlds, and Pythagoras mathematically proved their fundamental identity. Greek philosophy was “an investment in the afterlife future”, being the product of the mystical (Orpheus) and rationalist (Pythagoras) theology.