Philosophy

Posted on October 2, 2012

Tags: misc

1 Intro

Western philosophy is a dialogue, a dialectic between the mainstream thought vs alternative thought
The term “metaphysics” displays a dialectic as metaphysics implies beyond physics, so we have a dialogue between physics vs beyond physics

Main Concept: Static Being is reality
Dialectic: Reality(Way of Reality, Aletheia) vs Appearance(Way of Opinion, Doxa)
Summary
- Aletheia: Reality is One, unchanging, indivisible
  - Only Being exists because it is impossible to conceive of nothing
  - Time and change is an illusion on this big chunk of Reality
  - Key Assumption:
    - There can not be “Nothing”
    - Therefore what is real must be something, a continuous indivisible something
- Doxa: Our 5 senses perception of reality is an illusion
  - Our conscious thoughts create an illusion through divisions and categorizations
    - Divisions are gaps of “Nothing” which contradicts Aletheia(Reality) therefore divisions are not real but an illusion
Synthesis:
- Thinking and Being are deeply intertwined
- Thinking of _ implies that concept _ exists
  - Contrapositive: Concept ’s non-existence implies cannot be thought of
  - Concept _ non-existence is an alias to Paremnide’s “Nothing”
- Language is downstream of conscious thinking (you have to think to speak) so Language is also an inaccurate reflection of Reality

In Calvinism, God’s divine plan is eternal, perfect, and unchanging—much like Parmenides’ concept of Being
From a human perspective, people experience time as a sequence of events, but in Calvinism, this flow of time is an illusion in the sense that, from God’s perspective, everything has already been determined. God exists outside of time and sees the past, present, and future as a unified whole, much like Parmenides’ timeless Being.
In Calvinism, this reality is God’s will and his predetermined plan, which unfolds within time but is already complete from God’s eternal standpoint.
In Parmenides’ philosophy, this reality is Being, which simply is, without becoming or change, and all perceived change is illusory.

Main Concept: Dynamic Becoming is Reality
Summary
- Reality is always in the process of Becoming as opposed to Parmenides Being
- Chiasmus(Greek letter x) Unity of opposites that forms a third

Main Concept: Philosophy of Deconstruction
Differance refers to 2 concepts, Differ and Defer
Differ
- Meaning is made through difference and all meaning is derived from relationships
Defer