Can we a have a general Advaita Vedanta / Neoplatonism thread?

[Anonymous No.16083397]

[Anonymous No.16083444]

Doesn't the word Vedanta in essence imply a development in tradition?
The neo in Neoplatonism is a 19th century invention, if one wants to still use the term you should redefine it as revival, that Plotinus was the restitution of Original Platonism after its downfall through the Skeptics to Sulla and the confusion of middle Platonism + gnosticism.

And as always—fuck monism.

[Anonymous No.16083461]

I'm really interested in a lot of this stuff, particularly the sofia perennis in general. I'm yet to read Guénon or Plotinus unfortunately.


Here's a few questions to get the thread started:
> 1. Is it legitimate to say that Neoplatonism and Advaita Vedanta generally share the same theological framework or are their similarities exaggerated?

> 2. How important is it to read the Vedas before I read the Upanishads?

> 3. Is there any justification for vegetarianism (or animal welfare) in advaita or Neoplatonism?

> 4. What would be the political / sociologist implications of AV and Neoplatonism? Reactionary Traditionalism?

5. Why would I want to be released from the eternal rebirth and metempsychosis? Is that not just longing death?

[Anonymous No.16083462]

I would be careful about reading Advaita Vedanta interpretations such as Shankara's as a commentary to the Upanishads, they are extremely reliant on Buddhist philosophy (Shankara is called a "cryptobuddhist" by most Hindus, and most scholars agree). If you want to read the Upanishads, work through them with editions and commentaries that aren't sectarian, or at least read an interpretation that is closer to the original meaning of the Upanishads, rather than Shankara's 9th century AD quasi-buddhism.

[Anonymous No.16083473]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16083515]

>>16083462
Who the fuck are you and where do you come from???

For the love of God, Shankaracharya distinguishes himself from Buddhism by saying the latter believes in no notion of Self.

[Anonymous No.16083517]

>>16083444
> Doesn't the word Vedanta in essence imply a development in tradition?
I thought it just came from the word Vedas I'm retarded lol
> the neo is a modern thing
In in agreement there, just easiest to use the neo so pol understand in talking about plotlines nor Plato.
> fuck monisn
Is Neoplatonism not a sort of monisn? Surely the One is monistic? I guess generally its pluralistic
>>16083462
Didn't the Upanishads kinda reflect some Buddhist teaching tho? They're certainly different in themes than the Gitas I've read, like The Bhagavad Gita

[Anonymous No.16083526]

>>16083515
Yeah I think I see this same guy in every Shankara thread, with the same mediocre meme lol

[Anonymous No.16083531]

Advaita = cryptobuddhism

[Anonymous No.16083537]

>>16083461
>1.
No
> 3.
Pythagoreans were vegetarians, likewise Porphyry wrote a book against eating meat; but Plutarch of Athens, the refounder of the Athenian Academy, objected to Proclus extreme vegetarian diet. Telling him to, if he wants to not eat meat, let him die.
Plato's Republic would refrain from eating meat because it as a commodity leads to conflict, likely because it requires so much land.
5. You shouldn't, only those who wish to reach it in order to descend and help others ascend, actually do ascend.
Returning to the cave willingly is the true salvation.

[Anonymous No.16083624]

>>16083461
As somebody who's read the literature, here are my answers to your questions. I'd love to stimulate discussion so I'll love to see replies

1) Neoplatonism's understood through the Platonic-Aristotlian framework, whereas Advaita Vedanta's the truth. I say the real relationship between then is the former's more intellectual, and Advaita gives steps to Meditation, signifying intuition. Taken together, they're powerful ideas.

2) Upanishads are (in the) Vedas but Vedas are not Upanishads. The so-called "four Vedas" are actually the same Rig-Veda put into a particular form, whether in song (Saman), sacrifice (Yajur), or Invokation (Atharva). Nevertheless, you don't have to "read" the "other Vedas" and two of the Mukhya (most important Upanishads), are themselves part of other texts. The Aitteriya Upanishad's already in the Rig-Veda, and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad's already in Shatapatha Brahmana. The Upanishads which are not Mukhya are not relevant, and are mostly sectarian.

3) Lol simply, it's the animal's destiny to be my food, and my destiny to eat it. That's all I've got for so-called dietary restrictions.

4) There's no politics nor identity politics. Advaita frees one of the clutches of "poopoo-peepeeist" movements. The return to Tradition is not intended to be political (though there's nothing for us to organize, mobilize, if we do), but rather a spiritual struggle.

Shivoham
Shivoham

[Anonymous No.16083638]

>>16083624
"Nothing wrong for us if we mobilize"*
I meant to say

The entire idea of Advaita is to be free from these frameworks. They close one off from the ultimate reality.

You can't solve every problem with a hammer.

[Anonymous No.16083653]

>but plotinus and shankara told me i was indistinct from the perfect self

[Anonymous No.16083670]

>>16083517
>Trying to refute Advaita
>Uses "ism."

Lmao

[Anonymous No.16083700]

An interesting trend I've seen is that the so-called "Dualists" are salty, whereas the so-called "Advaitans" and "Neoplatonists" are calm and collected.

From here it's already evident who're the most actualized.

[Anonymous No.16083725]

>>16083700
>An interesting trend I've seen is that the so-called "Dualists" are salty, whereas the so-called "Advaitans" and "Neoplatonists" are calm and collected.

This is an actual post by /lit/'s resident nondualist
>It's been 24 hours and none of you ming-mongs have replied to this. All the more embarrassing considering YoU CaN't HaVe Up WiThOuT dOwN mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111! was intended to be the epic GOTCHA retort. Writhing animals.

[Anonymous No.16083733]

>>16083700
i suggest you to look into the archives. the plotinus dude especially is fueled by anger, even against hinduism. and buddhists and hindu larpers are always throwing cow manure at each other as well. but ofc you are baiting

[Anonymous No.16084431]

>>16083462
You schizo show up in any Advaita thread. You're like an AI constantly refreshing the catalogue day and night, waiting to post your retarded pasta. Not only you're the most pathetic poster on this board, you're the most pathetic human being i'm yet to encounter on the internet.

[Anonymous No.16084448]

>>16083700
>whereas the so-called "Advaitans" and "Neoplatonists" are calm and collected.
LOL

[Anonymous No.16084473]

>>16083700
>"Advaitans"
>calm and collected

[Anonymous No.16084476]

Advaita vedanta is hipster shit research dvaita

[Anonymous No.16084499]

>>16084476
Nah son, research Shuddhadvaita or Bhedabheda

[Anonymous No.16084504]

>>16084499
>not resurrecting pudgalavada

[Anonymous No.16084520]

>>16084476
>>16084473
Seething corporate Mcbuddhists, angry at their corporate friends for discovering a more obscure eastern religion.

[Anonymous No.16084529]

>>16084520
>advaita
>obscure

Theosophy is not obscure, it had a large influence on secular Indians for much of the 20th century.

[Anonymous No.16084536]

>>16083461
> 1. Is it legitimate to say that Neoplatonism and Advaita Vedanta generally share the same theological framework or are their similarities exaggerated?
They do have a good deal of similarities, but not necessarily more so than other schools of Hindu philosophy like Vishishtadvaita, Bhedabheda or some Shaivite/Shaktist schools, which in some cases agree with it more than Advaita does. The comparison just happens to be made often because Advaita is one of the schools which western scholars have often devoted more attention to in comparison to other Hindu schools. Further complicating things is that the Neoplatonists disagree on various issues among themselves. In some way each Neoplatonist who wrote out his own systematized interpretation of Platonism etc is like a different school of Vedanta. As an example of one parallel with Advaita; to Plotinus, there really is no 'fall of the soul' but the soul sends an image (eídōlon) of itself into the material world and its ‘return’ is the disappearance of this image.

In Ennead 1.1.12. Plotinus writes when speaking of the sinless Soul which does not really fall "Then the Soul has let this image fall? And this declension is it not certainly sin? If the declension is no more than the illuminating of an object beneath, it constitutes no sin: the shadow is to be attributed not to the luminary but to the object illuminated; if the object were not there, the light could cause no shadow. And the Soul is said to go down, to decline, only in that the object it illuminates lives by its life. And it lets the image fall only if there be nothing near to take it up; and it lets it fall, not as a thing cut off, but as a thing that ceases to be: the image has no further being when the whole Soul is looking toward the Supreme."

This is not identical with but it has parallels to the "fall of the soul" in Advaita where the Jiva is an appearance caused by Brahman's power, and the Jiva appears to be an individualized consciousness when it's really an image of the real Consciousness which never 'falls' or transmigrates. Shankara makes similar points as Plotinus does above when he writes about the luminous Atman being sinless and untouched and unaffected by that which It witnesses. Similarly, all manifestation in Advaita essentially lives by being endowed which contingent existence by Brahman which is luminous Awareness. However later Neoplatonists disagreed with Plotinus on this and maintained that there really was a 'fall' for the soul.

[Anonymous No.16084542]

>>16084536
There are some other areas where Plotinus and Shankara disagree, but in some of them there is another Neoplatonist who happens to differ with Plotinus in a way that sort of agrees with Shankara. Amid all this it makes it hard to come to any definitive statement about how close Advaita is Neoplatonism in comparison to other Hindu schools, whether the Platonism of Plotinus, or another Platonic thinker. This is a good book-length article which explores that subject.

https://dbnl.org/tekst/staa009adva01_01/staa009adva01_01.pdf

> 2. How important is it to read the Vedas before I read the Upanishads?
Not at all, I think it's better to read the Upanishads first actually. I would mainly recommend reading at least one good book about Hindu philosophy before getting into reading the full texts

> 3. Is there any justification for vegetarianism (or animal welfare) in advaita or Neoplatonism?
In one of the Chandogya Upanishad verse 2.19.2 it presents going vegetarian for a year or for life as examples of a religious vow. Vegetarianism has been very popular historically in India and various sects practice it. Vegetarianism is practiced among orthodox members of the Smarta Brahmin sect which traces its founding to Shankara. Philosophically it could be seen as following from viewing all animals as being animated by the same Consciousness as your own. So are plants too, but they evidently have less capacity to experience suffering via not having complex nervous systems, and being eaten is sorta their ordained karma anyway. I know that Shankara does and also I believe most other Vedantists all agree with the Brahma Sutras in their respective commentaries on the verse where it says that animal sacrifices don't produce bad karma because it's mandated by the Vedic scriptures (which arguably implies that non-sacrificial harming of animals is bad karma). Condemnations of meat-eating as immoral and depraved occur in popular texts like the Mahabharata and various Puranas.

> 4. What would be the political / sociologist implications of AV and Neoplatonism? Reactionary Traditionalism?
Historically in India, Advaitins (many of whom were Brahmins) have supported the traditional hierarchies of medieval Indian society, following the example of Shankara who in his works praises the system of castes and ashramas as being a divinely-ordained institution which produces a harmonious society which allows for men to come to know God. The subject of your question is broached to some extent in some of Guenon's books like Crisis of the Modern World and Reign of Quantity.

[Anonymous No.16084549]

>>16083515
Guenonfag does this so he can then "refute" it. No one's really sure that that means precisely because he's ESL, but he's adamant that he's doing it. Someone else can post the other breakdowns of it.

[Anonymous No.16084566]

>>16084529
>Theosophy
Get better bait

[Anonymous No.16084570]

>>16084536
>>16084542
Aww yea he's here

[Anonymous No.16084573]

>>16084536
>>16084542
Are you pizzapal?

[Anonymous No.16084599]

>>16084566
Theosophy was very popular among Westerners, and theosophists were big in Vedanta, I'm not sure what you're getting at. It's viewed as whacky horseshit by academia today, but then religion as a whole (ESPECIALLY Indian religion) is viewed as whacky horseshit by academia.

[Anonymous No.16084602]

>>16083461
>5. Why would I want to be released from the eternal rebirth and metempsychosis? Is that not just longing death?
No, because liberation in Advaita is awakening to or remembering your true nature as eternally present liberated bliss-awareness. It is taught to be a supreme bliss which is undecaying and which is incomparably superior to any pleasure or satisfaction experienced through the apparatus of the body or the mind/intellect.

[Anonymous No.16084622]

>>16084573
No, his main interest seemed to be Kashmir Shaivism and Tantric Buddhism. The few times I believe I spoke with him about Advaita it seemed like he just knew it from reading the Kashmir Shaivite criticisms of it but never actually studied it in depth himself or knew much about it.

[Anonymous No.16084639]

>>16084622
When was the last time you spoke to him? He seemed like a decent enough guy.

[Anonymous No.16084732]

>>16084639
I think I spoke with him maybe 4 to 6 months ago, I forget exactly when. I think we exchanged a few posts about Advaita vs Kashmir Shaivism before one of the recurring neurotic posters who inordinately concern themselves with creating drama in these types of threads dredged up a bunch of the pizzaguys other online posts, I'm not sure if I've seen him since. Fortunately, there seem to be a few other /lit/ browsers who are also knowledgeable about Kashmir Shaivism who I can recall seeing before or speaking too including one of the tripfags.

[Anonymous No.16084774]

>>16083397
The real question at hand is 'what is the best version of the classic Shankara sitting image?'

I like this one

[Anonymous No.16084893]

>>16083461
>to read Guénon or Plotinus unfortunately.
reading intellectuals will not help

[Anonymous No.16084932]

>>16083624
>2) Upanishads are (in the) Vedas but Vedas are not Upanishads. The so-called "four Vedas" are actually the same Rig-Veda put into a particular form, whether in song (Saman), sacrifice (Yajur), or Invokation (Atharva). Nevertheless, you don't have to "read" the "other Vedas" and two of the Mukhya (most important Upanishads), are themselves part of other texts. The Aitteriya Upanishad's already in the Rig-Veda, and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad's already in Shatapatha Brahmana. The Upanishads which are not Mukhya are not relevant, and are mostly sectarian.
this is completely false

>>16083624
>1) Neoplatonism's understood through the Platonic-Aristotlian framework, whereas Advaita Vedanta's the truth. I say the real relationship between then is the former's more intellectual, and Advaita gives steps to Meditation, signifying intuition. Taken together, they're powerful ideas.
Hindus copied meditation from the jains. Huge brainlet larps.

[Anonymous No.16084950]

>>16084932
No one talks about the jains here enough. What did they contribute?

[Anonymous No.16085120]

>Advaita
Absolute cringe

Bhakti-Dvaita is BASED

[Anonymous No.16085134]

>Appayya Dikshita (often "Dikshitar") 1520–1593 CE was a performer of yajñas as well as an expositor and practitioner of the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy but however, with a focus on Shiva or Shiva Advaita.

[Anonymous No.16085151]

>>16084932
>Hindus copied meditation from the jains.
The historical founder of Jainism Mahavira lived in the 6th century BC and was roughly contemporaneous with Buddha, and there are earlier teachings about meditation in multiple pre-Buddhist Upanishads from the 8th and 7th centuries BC like the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads which describe various meditational and yogic practices and use words like Nididhyāsana in verses like Brihadaranyaka 4.5.6 which has the meaning of profound and repeated meditation, or unceasing awareness/knowledge. There isn't enough evidence for the mythical earlier tirthankaras before Mahavira existing to seriously substantiate the claim that Jainism predated these earliest Upanishads which mention meditations.

[Anonymous No.16085152]

>>16083700
>whereas the so-called "Advaitans" and "Neoplatonists" are calm and collected.
>'Seething corporate Mcbuddhists, angry at their corporate friends for discovering a more obscure eastern religion.'

[Anonymous No.16085159]

>>16085134
>(often "Dikshitar")

[Anonymous No.16085295]

>>16085151
>The historical founder of Jainism Mahavira lived in the 6th century BC and was roughly contemporaneous with Buddha
False, Mahavira wasn't the founder he was the 24th tirthankara (spiritual leader). The earliest historical record of a tirthankara is the 23rd tirthankara Parshvanatha, dated to 700-900 BCE. However Jain tradition points to the 1st tirthankara Rishabhanatha as the founder of Jainism who is mentioned in the Yajurveda along with Ajitanatha (2nd tirthankara), and some scholars even back date Rishabhanatha to Rig veda book 10.

[Anonymous No.16085370]

>>16085295
There is no hard evidence that those people actually existed at that time or taught Jainism outside of the claims of the Jains themselves, but they don't have any texts of these alleged people which survived which have been dated by experts to being before the earliest Upanishads. The Vedas predate Jainism, the Vedas just mention those peoples names but they don't describe them as teachers of Jainism and its doctrines like meditation etc. Their names in the Vedic literature which has countess names does not prove they were real teachers of Jainism, just as the occurrence of the name Kapila in some of the primary Upanishads is not necessarily a reference to the founder of Samkhya named Kapila, as Samkhya developed later after the Upanishads.

[Anonymous No.16085561]

>>16085370
>There is no hard evidence that those people actually existed at that time
Pic related is dated to 700 BCE.

>or taught Jainism outside of the claims of the Jains themselves
"Parshvanatha is the earliest Jain tirthankara who is generally acknowledged as a historical figure.[5][6][7]" (Heehs 2002,
Jaini 2001, Zimmer 1853) all of them are scholars.

>but they don't have any texts of these alleged people which survived which have been dated by experts to being before the earliest Upanishads
Jain agamas have been lost to history just like Advaita commentaries prior to Gaudapada have been lost to history, however scholars don't date Jains based on text since by that logic Jainism started in the 11th century CE (which is absurd given the physical evidence).

>The Vedas predate Jainism, the Vedas just mention those peoples names but they don't describe them as teachers of Jainism and its doctrines like meditation etc. Their names in the Vedic literature which has countess names does not prove they were real teachers of Jainism, just as the occurrence of the name Kapila in some of the primary Upanishads is not necessarily a reference to the founder of Samkhya named Kapila, as Samkhya developed later after the Upanishads.
I mean they mention at least 3 tirthankaras by name, that isn't a coincidence. Also Samkhya isn't post-upanishad, proto-Samkhya was around the same time as the 2 earliest upanishads.

[OP No.16086194]

>>16083537
Interesting on the Pythagoreans, I'm personally a vegan but I don't have an ethical opposition to giving an animals healthy and happy lives and then killing them with little pain. As Linkola would say their life is more important than their death. I'd take a free life with a painful death as opposed to enslaved life with a pleasant death.


>>16083624
Apologies I'm from the UK so only getting around to replying now (had to go to sleep). Thanks for stimulating discussion tho

> 1. Neoplatonism is Platonic-Aristotelian
That's interesting how so? I've heard Plotinus was trying to build a theological framework which was more detailed than what Plato provides in the Timaeus.
> 2
So would you say I'd have to read The Rig Veda before the Upanishads? I only have a copy of the latter :'(
> 3. It's a spiritual struggle
Interesting, so there's not much of a collective action you could draw from.Advaita? Like it wouldn't have an opinion on the Kali Yuga? I could see Neoplatonism having more of a political orientation I guess.

Thanks!


>>16083700
Based

[OP No.16086268]

>>16084536
Yeah I've heard Plato was influenced by Egyptian and Indian thought, and I think it's claimed by Porphry that Plotinus may have studied Hinduism.

Also is Schopenhauer an adherent of Advaita?


>>16084542
> 2.
Good to hear, I don't want to sit through 800+ pages of the Vedas just to get to the philosophy
> 3. Vegetarianism
Yeah mostly asking because obviously you Schopenhauer and Porphry going vegetarian and they were at least in some way interested in Indian thought. I'm pretty sure the Law of Manu as well says something about treating animals with respect
> 4. Sociology of AV
Yeah that's good to hear, I've seen too many moderns trying to make the argument that AV is some totally amoral nihilistic faith just for the individual.


>>16084602
I mean why would I be interested in that if I can't even conceptualize what it would be like at all?


>>16084774
Comfy

[Anonymous No.16086311]

Couple more questions I'll answer a tad sooner this time:

>1. Anyone have a decent introductory reading list? For AV I'm assuming Guénon but for Neoplatonism generally is there any decent modern scholars?

>2. Is there anything to the idea that AV shares some similarities with some quantum mechanics theories? I know there's that theory of the world as Hologram.

> 3. Why are some Satanists like Crowley and the Theosophists interested in Hinduism?

> 4. Are there like apologetics for the defense of AV? Like Aquinas Proofs or Zeno's Paradoxes?

> 5. Also, what is the AV / Neoplatonic take on Zeno's Paradoxes?

[Anonymous No.16086315]

Chill thread

[Anonymous No.16086334]

>>16085561
>Pic related is dated to 700 BCE.
It is incredibly sad that you believe that.

[Anonymous No.16086337]

>>16083462
>>16083531

literal schizo posts

[Anonymous No.16086350]

>>16086334
>no argument
cope

[Anonymous No.16086356]

>>16086337

[Anonymous No.16086368]

>>16086356
lol this is some genuine autism

[OP No.16086393]

Also I was wondering about the Aryan Question. My understanding is the Nazis were wrong insofar as the original I proto-ndo-europeans didn't actually descend from India but the Baltic Steppe. My understanding is the Indians were one branch who grew out of them just as Europeans did. But they retained the mythology.

Is this correct? Can you have hindu nazism

[Anonymous No.16086408]

>>16086393
>Is this correct?
Yes.
>Can you have hindu nazism
Sure why not? The specific geographical origin of the Aryan race was hardly the necessary and foundational part of Nazism.

[Anonymous No.16086444]

>>16083700
Kek. Dualism believing is the essence of being salty. It means you're believing in the real existence of opposites, like light and dark, wet and cold, boring or exciting, pleasure and pain, satiety and hunger, etc. When these things don't actually have a real existence but are like the waves on the ocean. Waves don't really exist, they are just ripples in the water caused by temporary disqeuilibrium (wind). When the winds are still waves stop existing, they never really existed; It was just the water in a chaotic state. The chaotic state can only exist as a variation of the permanent, orderly state.

[Anonymous No.16086448]

>>16086311
>Anyone have a decent introductory reading list? For AV I'm assuming Guénon but for Neoplatonism generally is there any decent modern scholars?
Just read the commentaries, Guenon is actually terrible start for AV considering he has a Traditionalist narrative superimposed in his analysis (don't let resident schizo tell you otherwise). Read actual Hindu authors, not Islamic authors. Same for Neoplatonism, read the source material, there are clear translations.

>Is there anything to the idea that AV shares some similarities with some quantum mechanics theories? I know there's that theory of the world as Hologram.
According to Schopenhauer there are some similarities with the older interpretation of QM but its quite crude and the best proponent of this mold in modern times Deepak Chopra, a known fraud. I would be cautious about it.

>Why are some Satanists like Crowley and the Theosophists interested in Hinduism?
Crowley's foray into Hinduism is just a larp (he was actually more into Buddhism and even became a bhikkhu briefly). Blavatsky was a little more serious about it, Theosophy itself is built on the a template of Hinduism with Neoplatonism and some western occult splashed into it. This is why some have observed that Guenon basically ripped from Theosophy.

>Are there like apologetics for the defense of AV? Like Aquinas Proofs or Zeno's Paradoxes?
The apologetics consist mostly of trying to make their ideas consist with the Sruti scriptures while also consistent with western formal logic (which they often fail to do). They only incorporate western proofs when it suits them really, otherwise its all contingent on the consistency of the Vedas and Brahma Sutras.

>Also, what is the AV / Neoplatonic take on Zeno's Paradoxes?
Neoplatonists affirm the paradox. As far as AV is concerned, I dont think the commentaries explicitly answered the paradox but the doctrine of Maya (illusion) sounds analogous to Zen's Paradox and how plurality/movement are illusory according that argument.

[Anonymous No.16086460]

>>16086448
Jesus Christ, whatever you do don't take this retarded Anon's advice.

[Anonymous No.16086464]

>>16086460
not an argument

[Anonymous No.16086467]

>>16086460
Nothing he said was false though

[Anonymous No.16086474]

>>16086311
>1.
John M Dillon
Uzdavinys
There's been a massive growth in platonic studies the past 30 years, there are hundreds. Dillon and Gerson practically operating as Scholarchs.
Simplicius and Olympiodorus

[Anonymous No.16086475]

>>16086444
>It means you're believing in the real existence of opposites, like light and dark, wet and cold, boring or exciting, pleasure and pain, satiety and hunger, etc
this actually seems sensible though

>When these things don't actually have a real existence but are like the waves on the ocean. Waves don't really exist, they are just ripples in the water caused by temporary disqeuilibrium (wind). When the winds are still waves stop existing, they never really existed; It was just the water in a chaotic state. The chaotic state can only exist as a variation of the permanent, orderly state.
now this is just fantasy...

[Anonymous No.16086476]

>>16086467
>>16086464
Yea it was, and it was such low-effort that I'm not gonna bother. It's retarded and gay shitposting.

[Anonymous No.16086477]

>>16086460
This is the cope of a pseud right here

[Anonymous No.16086480]

>>16086476
>Yea it was,
prove it then

>I'm not gonna bother
I thought not...

[Anonymous No.16086482]

>>16086476
>retarded and gay shitposting.
Looks like that's all you are capable of, being retarded and gay and all.

[Anonymous No.16086485]

>>16086475
It sure is "sensible"... It makes me think that it's typical for modern westerners to rely on the bodily senses to interpret reality.

>>16086477
>>16086480
>>16086482

Yea yea I won't join your stupid game, this is the final (You) for you boys.

[Anonymous No.16086492]

>>16086485
Thanks for conceding defeat, hope you come back with actual arguments.

[Anonymous No.16086495]

>>16086485
Okay, just stop posting then.
Literally nothing of value will be lost.
Just like if you shut the fuck up forever.

[Anonymous No.16086499]

>>16086444
>It means you're believing in the real existence of opposites, like light and dark, wet and cold, boring or exciting, pleasure and pain, satiety and hunger, etc
Yes. We do.
The sin of Advaita is delusion that opposites imply good and evil. It's binary thought that there's only either polarity or one pole, not realizing the answer is Triads.
The Five Greatest Kinds all exist in Harmony.

[Anonymous No.16086508]

>>16086499
Who is saying that opposites imply good and evil? You? Or someone else, what do you mean?

[Anonymous No.16086513]

>>16086311
>5. Also, what is the AV / Neoplatonic take on Zeno's Paradoxes?
Read Plato's Parmenides and Sophist
>>16086485
Go and be a reductionist bald fatty somewhere else

[Anonymous No.16086520]

>>16086508
Nondualism, the idea that "dualism" implies Zoroastrianism, that there isn't the third way, which can only be found in Platonism.

[Anonymous No.16086526]

>>16086520
By Zeus please dab on these niggas

[Anonymous No.16086528]

>>16086520
I don't understand you. I just wanted to point out (in my first post) that opposites don't have a real existence... With emphasis on the word "real". And it's funny that Anon said "dualists" are "salty", because there's a lot of frustration associated with believing in the real existence of opposites such as pleasure and pain, riches and poverty, male and female, and so on.

[Anonymous No.16086529]

>>16086520
>the idea that "dualism" implies Zoroastrianism

[Anonymous No.16086682]

>>16086529
As in conflict Mr Midwit, of course I shouldn't have assumed nondualist could think in non-absolute terms.
>>16086528
The Opposites are real, Limit and Unlimited, Rest and Change, the Great and the Small, Likeness and Unlikeness, the Good and its Privation.
If we start with the last one, if the Good didn't have a opposite, in our understanding as privation itself (not a state but descent into lesser goods, everything that exist is good in its own way. But the higher shouldnt seek the lower.) Anyway, if evil didn't "exist", then privation would not be possible and illusion would not be possible, as in: Maya and Moksha are the same (recognize that these are dualities).

[Anonymous No.16086717]

>>16086682
What I mean with the third way instead of nondualism or dualism.
Is the Triads. Yes the Limit absolutely exists and the Unlimited absolutely exist, but what also exists is "the Mixed", which is express as the Harmony in all levelS of Existence. Shouldn't really confuse this with 'Synthesis", even if that's a derivative idea of this.
Between, around, amongst, the Great and Small, or Like and Unlike, is the Equal.

[Anonymous No.16086756]

>>16086717
Saying the mixed/equal exists seems silly to me when they get their entire existence and are wholly dependent on the other two through mixture. If something is upheld by two other it is common practice to; when you are looking for the true reality of things, to negate this conditioned state as being the true nature of whatever you're looking into.

[Anonymous No.16086793]

nondualism entails the idea of non-binary genderism, this is what they're fighting for

[Anonymous No.16086810]

>>16086793
Pack your autism and back to >>>/pol/ with you.

[Anonymous No.16086818]

why is advaita/theosophy so popular on /lit/?

[Anonymous No.16086829]

>>16086818
Midwits can't think beyond the binary

[Anonymous No.16086831]

>>16086756
One would think that. Even Proclus wavered between that and what I'm about to say.
What mixes the Mixed?

[Anonymous No.16086833]

>>16086810
>boys and girls don't exist, its all maya
nothing wrong this, just taking non dualism to its logical conclusion

[Anonymous No.16086841]

>>16086793
Gender is a social construct, yes.

[Anonymous No.16086844]

>>16086810
Not him but is the ability to discriminate(recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another) a /pol/ position that must be purged from /lit/?

[Anonymous No.16086858]

>>16086844
the problem is that he has a conception that non-dualism is part of Tradition and therefore a right wing thing

[Anonymous No.16086879]

>>16086833
>boys and girls don't exist
Yes, that is the position of all Vedanta, including the hard dualists. You have no idea what you're talking about, so take your boomer memes back to your containment board.

[Anonymous No.16086883]

>>16086879
>Yes, that is the position of all Vedanta

[Anonymous No.16086888]

>>16086833
Based, and possibly hermetic-pilled.

[Anonymous No.16086889]

>>16086883
>no argument
As usual

[Anonymous No.16086947]

>>16086879
That is not the position of Vedanta. The position is that boys and girls are both not unreal nor real. They are not unreal because they are empirically apparent but they're also not real because ultimately they are sublated and nor are they eternal.

The only way to talk on whether boys and girls have innate differences is to do it within Conventional Truth, in which multiplicity in no way is denied.

[Anonymous No.16086951]

>>16086756
>>16086831
I'll use this summary as a start

>We will, I think, assign it to the third kind, for it is not a mixture of just two elements but of the sort where all that is unlimited is tied down by limit. It would seem right, then to make our victorious form of life part of that kind. (Cooper 1961)

Neoplatonist commentators focus on 27d7, where Plato seems to say that the mixed is not composed of the two prior principles. Some commentators worry over Plato’s view here; this clarification of Plato evidently characterizes a remark of Proclus, when he says: “Let no one be astonished that Socrates in the Philebus assumes that the mixed is prior to the limit and the unlimited, whereas we in turn show that the limit and the unlimited transcend the mixed. For each of these [limit and unlimited] is in two senses, the one is prior to being, the other is in being, the one generates the mixed, and the other is an element of the mixed” (PT III 10.42.12–17).
Damascius departs from this orthodox interpretation of the Philebus, suggesting that there are not two constituents of the mixed, one unifying and the other multiplying. He also denies that the mixed is equivalent to Being. Instead, the mixed has its own function as the channel by which all things pour forth from the One into the possibility of Being. The mixed fuses the unity of the first henad with the all possibility of the second henad, to create a third nature that is the peer of the first two henads, insofar as the first henad must contain all things and the second henad must belong to the One. Hence the third henad expresses just this realization of the all in the One and the One in the all, which is in turn a fundamental feature of the reality Damascius attempts to discern.
In chapters 55–58 of the Problems and Solutions, Damascius elaborates his interpretation of the mixed qua henad, which, as he says, “‘will exist by virtue of its own nature and not as the combination of plural elements” (II 43.1–2). Criticizing Proclus’ interpretation, Damascius suggests that Proclus’ way of reading the passage necessitates an infi nite regress. There will have to be a mixed before the mixed, which gives the nature of the mixed, and then there will be two principles in this mixed, and they will have to have causes, and so on, ad infinitum:
>It will be necessary to introduce a principle for the mixed that has the unique character of the mixed, and is itself called “mixed,” as a kind of indication [representing] its nature, which subsists prior to the true “mixed” (so too with the one and the many, we also assign some other version of the one and the many before the homonymous elements in the mixed) and before the mixed there will be the two principles once more. But in this way we shall go on positing principles before principles indefinitely. (II 43)

[Anonymous No.16086957]

>>16086889
>ITT: non dualists admit to supporting gender non binary

[Anonymous No.16086962]

>>16086947
>a-a-actually if we perform this buddhist 2 truths mumbo jumbo we can talk about girls and boys as if dualism is true
cringe

[Anonymous No.16086966]

>>16086951
Here his view is difficult to recover; on the one hand, he seems critical of Proclus and Syrianus (his standard appellation for them is “the philosophers”). But what this criticism consists in is hard to say; he goes on to say that the principles of the mixed are not, in fact, limit and the unlimited, which then combine to form the mixed as Being. Instead, each, the limit and the unlimited is the principle of all things: “Rather, each of the two is the principle of all things, the one is the principle of all things as differentiated and many and indefinite, or however [one likes to express it], and the other is the principle of all things as unified, and as ones, and as informed by limit” (II 43). As if by way of agreeing that his exegesis is uncertain at this point, Damascius now reiterates the question at stake:
>Do the participations in the two principles bring about the mixed? For the argument once more reverts to the question of whether or not the one and the many are elements [of the third], a position that the philosophers come to, but that we do not accept. And so let us also bring in the seventh line of demonstration, that is, that each of the three principles is all things and also before all things. But the third principle is all things in the unity of all things, while the first is all things in the One, as a unique and perfect simplicity, and the intermediate is all things in all things. The One is the One before all things, the second is all things, and the third is the One-all as unity. (II 34
Thus Damascius tries to uproot the interpretation that sees the limit as the monad, the unlimited as the dyad, and the latter as acting upon the former in order to generate number, for example. Instead, there is no production of the mixed; it rather functions as the productive cause of the intelligible order. That Damascius is couching his interpretation as a response to Proclus is clear from a comparison with PT III 9.15–20, where Proclus says explicitly that the mixed is intelligible, and further that the mixed is “made” and that its generation is lower than that of the prior henads, the limit and unlimited, whose reality is not “made” but “manifested.” To summarize, then, in reply to Proclus’ interpretation, Damascius insists that the mixed is not generated, is a henad, and has its own distinctive nature.
>The same argument will apply both to the composite nature of the mixed which arises when this composite nature is contemplated [by us], in our own weakness, and to the purified simplicity of the mixed, even if one makes the monad and the indefinite dyad the two principles, yet contemplates the unifi ed triad as from these two, still the triad is not composed from three things, but it is itself the one of the triad, and therefore has one distinctive triadic character that contains all things in this very one.

[Anonymous No.16086971]

>>16086947
>That is not the position of vedanta
>This buddhist doctrine i pulled out of my ass is the position of vedanta
Lame

[Anonymous No.16086976]

>>16086971
oh see you don't understand, Shankara never plagiarized the 2TD, it was always in the pre-buddhist upanishads!

[Anonymous No.16086980]

>>16086976
Shankara was never part of the discussion. Take your strawmans with you back to /pol/

[Anonymous No.16086981]

>>16086962
Yes. Just like nondualism does not contradict the gods.
>>16086971
Two Truths doctrine is core Advaita.

[Anonymous No.16086985]

>>16086981
>Two Truths doctrine is core Advaita.
Sauce?

[Anonymous No.16086989]

>>16086981
>The theory of the two truths has a twenty-five century long history behind it. It has its origin in the sixth century BCE[1] India with the emergence of the Siddhārtha Gautama.
Advaitins are unashamed about their plagiarism of doctrines. They literally believe everything came out of the Upoonishads.

[Anonymous No.16086992]

>>16086985
Shankara

[Anonymous No.16086995]

>>16086989
Likely with Nagarjuna, but yeah, it's not Advaitin, at least not pre-Shankara Advaitia, it's only a bunch of retards here that claim otherwise

[Anonymous No.16086996]

>>16086989
Don't care when it was adopted, be it by themselves on the steppes of Ukraine or copypasted from the Buddhists. The point is that it is a core part of the Advaitin philosophy.

[Anonymous No.16087002]

>>16086992
Shankara is just one philosopher of Advaita, he does not represent the entire school

[Anonymous No.16087006]

>>16086995
>Likely with Nagarjuna
It's actually as old as Buddhism itself, adopted by the extinct Mahasamghika sect

[Anonymous No.16087010]

>>16086996
>copypasted from the Buddhists
how could they copy paste something they created?

[Anonymous No.16087013]

>>16087006
I'm not sure, but it's definetely not an invention of Advaita. t. Advaitin

[Anonymous No.16087015]

>>16086996
this anon literally thinks the PIE peoples were non-dualists (and held the 2 truths doctrine for that matter).

The aboslute state of Advaitins.

[Anonymous No.16087018]

>>16086995
>pre-Shankara Advaita
Completely pointless to talk about that since it is post-Shankara Advaita that we know of.

I'm not even an Advaitin. I'm just telling you that it is wrong that nondualists deny apparent multiplicity, like I said it is considered not unreal nor real at the same time. What is unreal are things like square circles or married bachelors.

[Anonymous No.16087026]

>>16087018
>nondualists deny apparent multiplicity
Who and where?

[Anonymous No.16087029]

>>16087018
>it is post-Shankara Advaita that we know of.
Even Gaudapada is pre-Shankara and we have his commentaries and texts. You are clearly out of your waters in this thread, so leave it before you embarass yourself even more.

[Anonymous No.16087036]

>>16087002
Let me know when you find a subschool of Advaita that denies the two truths doctrine.
>>16087010
dunno
>>16087015
>this anon literally thinks the PIE peoples were non-dualists
Appears you couldn't comprehend what I wrote as I literally wrote that it could have been an original Vedic doctrine or from Buddhist influence. The point being that I don't give a damn because the two truths doctrine in Advaita simply is.

[Anonymous No.16087048]

>>16087036
>subschool of Advaita that denies the two truths doctrine.
Shankara is the subschool of Advaita that incorporates the two truths, genius.

[Anonymous No.16087050]

>>16087013
The two truths doctrine was really a heuristic device used by Abhidharmikas to interpret the Buddha's words in accordance with the warning given by the Buddha in Neyyatha Sutta (AN I.60) in which a meaning within a discourse was to either be clear and not inferred, or a meaning within a discourse was to be inferred and not be presented as clear. The solution to this was to separate the ultimate meaning (paramārtha-satya) of a discourse with its conventional meaning (saṁvṛti-satya), this way the Neyyatha Sutta would be upheld.

>The question of which discourses of the Buddha are of explicit meaning (nitattha) and which require interpretation (neyyattha) became one of the most intensely debated issues in Buddhist hermeneutics. Starting with the early Indian Buddhist schools, the debate continued in such later Mahayana sutras as the Aksayamatinirdesa and the Samdhinirmocana. The controversy continued even beyond India, in Sri Lanka, China, and Tibet. The Pali commentaries decided this issue on the basis of the Abhidhamma distinction between ultimate realities and conventional realities. Manorathapurani (II.118) states: "Those suttas that speak of one; person (puggala), two persons, etc., require interpretation, for their meaning has to be interpreted in the light of the fact that in the ultimate sense a person does not exist (paramatthato pana puggalo nama natthi) . One who misconceives the suttas that speak about person, holding that the person exists in the ultimate sense, explains a discourse whose meaning requires interpretation as one whose meaning is explicit. A sutta whose meaning is explicit is one that explains impermanence, suffering, and non-self; for in this case the meaning is simply impermanence, suffering, and non-self. One who says, 'This discourse requires interpretation/ and interprets it in such a way as to affirm that 'there is the permanent, there is the pleasurable, there is a self/ explains a sutta of explicit meaning as one requiring interpretation." The first criticism here is probably directed against the Puggalavadins, who held the person to be. ultimately existent; The latter might have been directed against an early form, of the tathagatagdrbha theory, which (in the Mahayana Parinirvana Sutra) affirmed a permanent, blissful, pure self. (B. Boddhi, 2000)

You are right though, the Hindus were not the bearers of this thought because the Upanishads themselves contradict the 2 truths doctrine
>What you call truth is one. There cannot be two truths, three truths, four truths, five truths, etc. There is only one truth – satyameva jayate. II.12, 5th Brahmana - Br Up

It is only in the 'likely' post Buddhist Mundaka upanishad that Advaitins claim to promote 2 truths in a single verse where it expresses higher knowledge (of Brahman) and lower knowledge (of Vedas, etc). Obviously this isn't the type of 2 truths that Advaitins themselves even use, it is more prioritization.

[Anonymous No.16087053]

>>16087026
>implying nondualists deny apparent multiplicity
Exactly.
>>16087029
>Gaudapada
You need to read him again because he was a proponent of the two truths doctrine.

I think this is what we call a self-own.

[Anonymous No.16087055]

>>16087053
Lol i didn't imply anything. I asked who said that, and where you got it from.

[Anonymous No.16087060]

>>16086951
>>16086966
The point here is that opposites as opposites do not harmonize themselves, if they are equal, Love doesn't beat Strife, 'something' else 'acts' upon the spheres. Someone holds the scales and transcends Fate. We call it UnifiED and MixED because he is also the unity of all in himself as well as being the cause of all Harmony.

This is echoed in the past in Philolaus:
>This is how it is with Nature and Harmony: the Being of things is eternal, and Nature itself requires divine and not human intelligence; moreover, it would be impossible for any existing thing to be even recognised by us if there did not exist the basic Being of the things from which the universe was composed, (namely) both the Limiting and the Non-Limited. But since these Elements exist as unlike and unrelated, it would clearly be impossible for a universe to be created with them unless a harmony was added, in which way this (harmony) did come into being (into The Being literally). Now the things which were like and related needed no harmony; but the things which were unlike and unrelated and unequally arranged are necessarily fastened together by such a harmony, through which they are destined to endure in the universe. . . .

Plato: SOCRATES: Let us be very careful about the starting point we take.
PROTARCHUS: What kind of starting point?
SOCRATES: Let us make a division of everything that actually exists now in the universe into two kinds, or if this seems preferable, into three.
PROTARCHUS: Could you explain on what principle?
SOCRATES: By taking up some of what has been said before.
PROTARCHUS: Like what?
SOCRATES: We agreed earlier that the god had revealed a division of what is into the unlimited and the limit.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Let us now take these as two of the kinds, while treating the one that results from the mixture of these two as our third kind. But I must look like quite a fool with my distinctions into kinds and enumerations!
PROTARCHUS: What are you driving at?
SOCRATES: That we seem to be in need of yet a fourth kind.
PROTARCHUS: Tell us what it is.
SOCRATES: Look at the cause of this combination of those two together, and posit it as my fourth kind in addition to those three.
PROTARCHUS: Might you not also be in need of a fifth kind that provides for their separation?
SOCRATES: Perhaps, but I do not think so, at least for now. But if it turns out that I need it, I gather you will bear with me if I should search for a e fifth kind. PROTARCHUS: Gladly.
SOCRATES: Let us first take up three of the four, and since we observe that of two of them, both are split up and dispersed into many, let’s make an effort to collect those into a unity again, in order to study how each of them is in fact one and many. (Monos-Proodos-Epistrophe.)

[Anonymous No.16087061]

>>16087055
>nondualists deny apparent multiplicity
>I asked who said that
You said that. Here >>16087026

Where you got it from I have no idea. Maybe the poster that denied the reality of gender.

[Anonymous No.16087063]

>>16087061
>denied the reality of gender.
Lol, cringe. Have you even read any works by Shankaracharya?

[Anonymous No.16087069]

>>16087063
i have. Believe it or not, he was male.

[Anonymous No.16087075]

>>16087069
Which of his written works did you read?

[Anonymous No.16087080]

>>16086951
>>16086966
>>16087060
Can you ever put fourth your arguments without the same copied wall of texts? Don't make me quote Einstein to you

[Anonymous No.16087081]

>>16083700
Hey bro, you've got dualism on your face. But then again, so do i.

[Anonymous No.16087088]

>>16087080
>>>The point here is that opposites as opposites do not harmonize themselves, if they are equal, Love doesn't beat Strife, 'something' else 'acts' upon the spheres. Someone holds the scales and transcends Fate. We call it UnifiED and MixED because he is also the unity of all in himself as well as being the cause of all Harmony.

[Anonymous No.16087098]

>>16087075
Introduction to the study of Vedanta doctrine

[Anonymous No.16087102]

>>16087088
>>16087080
>...the Different isn't just conformed to the Same and dissolved/corrected, rather the Harmony is the balance of chaos and order: chaos is willingly introduced and nourished in the cosmos...

>Damascius Problems and Solutions is all about how if the two principles are truly real, then they demand a third unifying principle to not be pure Dualism. Or you must make the Monad prior the Dyad as Plotinus did, sort of. But then you have priority monism not dualistic monism.
If the Different self-differs from The Same, then the Same can undo this. Likewise the Same isn't the cause of the Different for then difference would be in it and he would no longer absolutely simple, and Difference must be the absolutely indefinite and pure potentiality of all things; otherwise whatever is 'many' is again subordinate to the Absolutely Simple, and you lose true unified duality again.
The Harmony that proceeds from the two is the same Unity that precedes the two, for it is equal the two—each of them is before and after each other in the Ineffable One. The Dyad itself doesn't "emanate" from the Monad, nor does the Monad remain at rest in respect to the Dyad, for difference does not exist in it, so too Harmony isn't caused by Sameness and Difference: rather they are the principles of these aspects and natures found in nature.
I mentioned an infinite regress but did not elaborate on it: if Likeness and Unlikeness "produce" Harmony then harmony would produce harmony before them (and this harmony needs a harmony), because they need harmony to be anything but in permanent opposition, an unceasing conflict. [While you might argue that the opposite in their interaction produce Harmony, but then this, for it to be truly real, has to come from nothing. Which defeats the whole purpose of principles. And if Harmony is a necessary consequence of the interaction, that nothing else can emerge from it, doesn’t this show that Harmony already pre-exists the Duality?]

[Anonymous No.16087104]

>>16087098
So you consider yourself a dualist even after reading it?

[Anonymous No.16087110]

>>16087102
>>16087088
>>16087080
...Like the Neoplatonic Mone-Proodos-Epistrophe, one seemingly comes after the other, but this is again only how becoming/time functions, not how the eternal is. All three subsist simultaneously, eternally, and completely in their unity, bring the principles of the "music of the spheres". Every triad has a leader and this must obviously be Harmony (since if Remaining/Mone was "dominant" then there'd just be the absolute One and all multiplicity would be illusion (but the entirety of Neoplatonism is sort of an apology for the Many), and if Difference was dominant then there'd only be infinitely infinite plurality/aka Chaos). This triad is the same as the Ineffable-One in a transcendent sense, instead of the 'Simple One' we call a Monad, even if Plotinus seemingly portrays it as the ultimate Supreme.
Damascius also postulated the Ineffable itself as "beyond" the triad of the One, but I'm less keen on this since he himself says there are no distinctions between the One and the Ineffable. But also that everything we say beyond the effects of the triad as principles is pure Indication; also that that the triad is in one way "synthetic" and in another way that "the One"of the triad is" not even one". I haven't read his later work yet but I believe he even dares to abandon "the One" utterly for the idea of the Ineffable.
You're not wrong to say that the Ineffable is One as Plotinus would say, but if you only say this about him and not its unfriendly paradox of the All, then you deprave God his Life. And the fact that you can only speak of the Absolute in paradoxical terms is itself proof that he is Oneness and Otherness in a perfect Harmony.

[Anonymous No.16087111]

>>16087075
Various commentaries on the Upanishads.

Of course now you have devolved into autistic screeching and demands to prove over the internet which books we've actually read instead of the actual arguments which means you've entangled yourself in the jungle of views and as such no further progress can be made. I bid you farewell.
tl;dr
>Advaita subscribes to the two truths doctrine
>two truths doctrine does not deny apparent reality
>gender is contained and can only be spoken of within apparent reality
>Shankara had a penis
>Shankara was male

[Anonymous No.16087115]

>>16087111
I'm not the guy you were arguing with, i popped into this discussion just now. It's very "reddit" of you to believe that you are always talking to the same person all the time when you're having a discussion on 4chan, I see newfriends do this all the time.

[Anonymous No.16087126]

>>16087110
>>16087102
>>16087080
>Can you ever put fourth your arguments without the same copied wall of texts? Don't make me quote Einstein to you
Yes.
>Proclus was a genius, and autistically logical (which is why he's the favorite of modern academics), but while he correctly saw the order of the whole and its beauty, he erred in extreme systematization and "analytic" coherence (being the origin of Scholasticism). Proclus denied the twofold One of Iamblichus, yet he understood that all things are triadic, this is clearly a contradiction: it is here Damascius comes in, he in a way goes (poetically) full circle and returns to Plotinus and Iamblichus.
Where Plotinus mystically named Soul and Nous the One (and each as God), yet One and Many not just One. Damascius ameliorates him: Plotinus spoke of Soul as being the Matter of Intellect, and the Dyad as the Matter of the One. But if the Intelligible domain is beyond division then logically Intelligible Matter is single, thus Plotinus' Soul and his Dyad are fused by Damascius (soul itself becomes "something else"---perhaps what is changing in itself, free will incarnate). So now the Infinite/Unlimited/Indefinite Dyad is the One as All things united yet ineffably distinct, named the All-one. Plotinus sometimes called the One the Potential/Power of all things, but this contradicts (on the surface) his saying that the One is "pure Act". We now can see the Limited and Unlimited, yet these are the principles of antithesis even if each is a one/henad, and if we stayed here we'd collapse into Deleuze and Derrida. Thus Damascius enthrones Plato's One-Being/Mixed (like Dionysus and Zeus) and makes Being before Being and truly One, naming him the Unified. The Harmony of all things, equal and before and after the two Principles, now itself a true principle. Here is the Ineffable Triad, the three Henads who together are the One, a One that now we cannot call One for it is greater than even this, thus he is the Ineffable. And now after more than a thousand years, Damascius has returned to the true original doctrines of Pythagoras, Philolaus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Parmenides and Heraclitus and Plato (these three personifying the three Henads of the Absolute One, the Absolute All, and the Absolute Harmony).

[Anonymous No.16087130]

>>16087053
>Gaudapada
>two truths
You have to go back

[Anonymous No.16087131]

>>16087115
>guy doubts I've even read any works by Shankara >>16087069
>responds by saying I have read works by Shankara
>guy responds to that by asking which works of his i've actually read >>16087075
>thinks its the same person
>HOW DARE YOU THINK THESE ARE ONE AND THE SAME POSTER?!
Why must people always bring cringe?

[Anonymous No.16087137]

>>16087115
He's just a summerfag

[Anonymous No.16087138]

>>16087131
I've only asked some guy which books by Shankara he read, and you're having a rage filled greentext meltdown. Great.

[Anonymous No.16087146]

>>16087130
Read Gaudapadadiya-karika chapter 4.

[Anonymous No.16087152]

>>16087146
he didn't author that btw

[Anonymous No.16087153]

>>16087138
>y-you're mad

[Anonymous No.16087155]

>>16087146
>Gaudapadadiya-karika
Gonna look him up, thanks. May I recommend the Ashtavakra-Gita, my favourite text so far.

[Anonymous No.16087163]

>>16087111
>Shankara had a penis
where did it say this?

[Anonymous No.16087172]

>>16087152
>authorship questioning
How the mighty have fallen

[Anonymous No.16087183]

>>16087172
>Some scholars, states Karl Potter, doubt that Gaudapada Karika was written by one author.[2]

[Anonymous No.16087187]

>>16087183
Don't care. Completely irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.16087192]

>>16087187
Its actually might relevant considering the differing vibe of chapter 1-3 and chapter 4

[Anonymous No.16087195]

>>16087146
>chapter 4
Later addition, not his

[Anonymous No.16087215]

>>16087192
>>16087195
>they retreat back into modernist textual criticism when they can't refute the fact that Advaita subscribes to the two truths doctrine
Soon you'll tell me that Nagarjuna did not recover the scriptures from the nagas.

[Anonymous No.16087221]

>>16087215
>the two truths doctrine
Can you give us the quickest possible rundown on this? Since your meme:ing it quite heavily ITT.

[Anonymous No.16087230]

>>16087215
>modernist textual criticism
Knowing who wrote who is pretty important when one particular chapter of a work contrasts entirely with the rest of it.
Only a dishonest person is afraid of facts and hides behind obscurantism.

[Anonymous No.16087232]

>>16087215
>Scholars of Hinduism disagree with me
>NOOOOOOOOOO you have to dogmatically assume everything

[Anonymous No.16087234]

>>16087230
>who wrote who
Who wrote what*

[Anonymous No.16087267]

>>16087230
>Knowing who wrote who is pretty important
No it is not.

Except of course if you can actually show that there are actual Advaita subschools that only accepts that first 3 chapters. Otherwise it is irrelevant to the question of whether the two truths doctrine is a core part of Advaita or not.
>>16087232
cringe

[Anonymous No.16087271]

>>16087267
>cringe
not an argument

[Anonymous No.16087278]

>>16087271
He's correct tough, in traditional texts it doesn't matter which person wrote it. Even if some texts are written by many people, it doesn't matter if the doctrine is true.

[Anonymous No.16087280]

>>16087267
>Otherwise it is irrelevant to the question of whether the two truths doctrine is a core part of Advaita or not.
why do you keep switching the goalposts, were we not talking about gaudapada and chapter 4 of "his" karika? That was the initial premise you made >>16087146

[Anonymous No.16087283]

>>16087278
actually that other anon is correct, saying 'cringe' wasn't an argument. I'll let that other anon respond in kind.

[Anonymous No.16087286]

>>16087267
Aside from your autism. Your argument was that Advaita accepts TwoTruths. I corrected you that only Shankara does. Then you said that only post Shankara Adaita exists, to which I directed you towards Gaudapata. Then you said that Gaudapada in chapter 4 expresses TT. To that I kindly reminded you that ch4 is not written by Gaudapada.
>Knowing who wrote who is pretty important
>No it is not.
Your only resort now is refusing to accept facts and circling your argument back and forward, hoping to confuse. Pathetic and not worth replying to anymore.

[Anonymous No.16087308]

>>16087283
why thank you anon I will do so for you :3

>>16087278
It may or may not matter within the framework of Hindu practitioners regarding authorship (Hindus after all did like to scramble their sources) but we are having an objective debate about whether someone held a concept or not. This is no time to commit the fallacy of obfuscation.

[Anonymous No.16087310]

>>16086268
>Also is Schopenhauer an adherent of Advaita?
He studied and was deeply moved by a Latin translation of the Upanishads, but I'm not aware of whether he read any Vedanta works, I've never seen anything written about it. I think Shankara's works were translated into western languages much later on than the main scriptures like the Upanishads etc so Schopenhauer might have never studied it

[Anonymous No.16087317]

>>16087310
He actually references the Upanishads in his later works on biology but not of Shankara's Advaita specifically.

[Anonymous No.16087322]

>>16086268
>I mean why would I be interested in that if I can't even conceptualize what it would be like at all?
It becomes clear why once you begin to read the Upanishads and Vedantic writings which talk about it.

[Anonymous No.16087371]

>>16087286
>To that I kindly reminded you that ch4 is not written by Gaudapada.
This is not a consensus among scholars, some believe that it was written by someone else, but this has not been conclusively proved and other scholars believe that it was written by Gaudapada. You are wrongly stating this as if it's already been established when it's just one of several unproven hypotheses about the text which scholars have thrown at the wall. The 4th chapter continues to talk about Vedantic concepts like Brahman, maya and the Supreme Self but just uses a somewhat different series of points and metaphors than occur in the 3 previous chapters, which have their own respective unique character as well.

[Anonymous No.16087377]

>>16087286
>I corrected you that only Shankara does
If you think that is true then you're a straight up retard. Shankara is for all intents and purposes the dogmatizer of Advaita.

Why can't you post a single Advaita philosopher than denies the two truths?
>To that I kindly reminded you that ch4 is not written by Gaudapada
It is up to you to prove that there are actual Advaita schools(these that supposedly do not accept the two truths) accept this theory and rejects chapters beyond 3..
>Your only resort now is refusing to accept facts
Like I said... Modern textual criticism is completely irrelevant to the topic.

[Anonymous No.16087403]

>>16087371
>While the first three chapters discuss Brahman and Atman (soul, Self), Chapter Four doesn't. This, according to Murti,[8] may be because this was authored by someone else and not Gaudapada, a position shared by Richard King.[11] Further, state both Murti and King, no Vedanta scholars who followed Gaudapada ever quoted from Chapter Four, they only quote from the first three.[8][11]
So not only is your premise that the 4th chapter talks about Vedantic concepts entirely false, even your premise that Hindus accept chapter 4 as their own is false.

[Anonymous No.16087409]

>>16087403
>Advaitins BTFO themselves again
They really cannot accept facts can they? It's always about proselytizing their sect at all costs.

[Anonymous No.16087417]

>>16087377
>Why can't you post a single Advaita philosopher than denies the two truths?
You are purposefully being dishonest. No Advaita philosopher has to deny TT because in the same way that no Advaita philosopher has to deny Moses' doctrines. The first person to introduce TT in Advaita is Shankara, so of course noone before him had any reason to deny it.

[Anonymous No.16087422]

>>16087409
This is an internal Advaita argument, not one that posits Advaita against other philosophies

[Anonymous No.16087428]

>>16087417
>so of course noone before him had any reason to deny it.
that is entirely speculation

[Anonymous No.16087461]

>>16087417
We only have one Advaitin philosopher's writings before Shankara and that is Gaudapada, and his writings contain it. Unless of course you buy into textual criticism that says that he only wrote chapter 1-3. Something you've yet to provide one source of literally any Advaita subschool accepting. Also as you just implied, him not outright mentioning TT is not proof of him not holding to that doctrine.

Just to conclude... You started by saying that two truths is not an Advaitin teaching and now your last line of defense is that Gaudapada might not have written chapter 4 of his karika. I'm more than happy to admit victory in this debate. I will now have a look at what the based Neoplatonist anon wrote earlier. I will now look at what the Neoplatonist anon had to say earlier.

[Anonymous No.16087464]

>>16087428
You are the one speculating that all Advaita philosophers accept TT when there is no historical or textual basis for it. For you, just because noone outright denied it means that they accepted it, which is a major error of logic.

[Anonymous No.16087466]

>>16087403
>While the first three chapters discuss Brahman and Atman (soul, Self),
>Chapter Four doesn't.
>So not only is your premise that the 4th chapter talks about Vedantic concepts entirely false,
Are you really this stupid?

The whole thing is right here, here are some examples of the references which the 4th chapter makes to Vedantic concepts like Brahman and Atman, and not Buddhist concepts

https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/mandukya-upanishad-karika-bhashya

>Mandukya Karika 4.33. All objects cognised in dream are unreal, because they are seen within the body. How is it possible for things, that are perceived to exist, to be really in Brahman which is indivisible and homogeneous.
https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/mandukya-upanishad-karika-bhashya/d/doc143745.html

>Mandukya Karika 4.45. Consciousness which appears to be born or to move or to take the form of matter, is really ever unborn, immovable and free from the character of materiality; it is all peace and non-dual.
https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/mandukya-upanishad-karika-bhashya/d/doc143756.html

>Mandukya Karika verse 4.95. They alone are said to be of the highest wisdom who are firm in their conviction of the Seif unborn and ever the same. This, ordinary men cannot understand.
https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/mandukya-upanishad-karika-bhashya/d/doc143800.html

[Anonymous No.16087473]

>>16087466
why do these advaita/plotinusfags always do this? dumping walls of text with zero context isnt a response to an argument, it just makes you look autistic.

[Anonymous No.16087498]

>>16087473
>dumping walls of text with zero context isnt a response to an argument
That's not what I did anon, try to pay closer attention. Another person was claiming that the 4th chapter of the Mandukya Karika didn't speak about Vedantic concepts like Brahman and Atman, and I just proved him wrong by citing three different verses from the Mandukya Karikas 4th chapter which do indeed talk about those Vedantic arguments.

[Anonymous No.16087501]

>>16087498
*do indeed talk about those Vedantic concepts

[OP No.16087523]

>>16086408
>Sure why not? The specific geographical origin of the Aryan race was hardly the necessary and foundational part of Nazism.
Yeah I get that, but I'm more so asking if people think someone like Savitri Devi or maybe Serrano would ground to stand on in their attempt at synthesizing National Socialist thinking with perennialist / vedic thought.

I know of course Evola and Guénon strongly opposed Fascism and NatSoc as modernist movements. Their criticism always seemed elitist and overly spergy to me. If you agree we're living in the Kali Yuga surely the greatest chance of getting out of it would be with a Third Positionist movement of that sort, while of course knowing they're not going to be perfect.

I think there's a decent argument that Third Positionism can be conceived as a sort of assertion of the eternal natural law, whether that be described as the Dharma, the LOGOS or whatever other descriptions of the highest realm of the Good in perennial thought. It's like the symbolism of the Swastika that Guénon and Evola speak of.

The central point in the middle represents the unchanging One, or Eternal Absolute. It is the central Polar point. It stands /against Time/.

[Anonymous No.16087534]

>>16087498
i really dont care about your autistic debate, im just wondering why you guys think this is an argument. dumping massive amounts of text under the assumptions that someone will take the time to read it (they wont, the textdump just makes them mad so they wont read it out of spite) AND that theyll come away with the same opinion as you (there is no guarantee of this what so ever). this is made even worse by the fact that the guy you're replying to is apparently citing secondary sources, and youre just giving him your opinion without actually stating it as such, which makes you seem like a schizo.

either take an academic tone or have some humility

[OP No.16087536]

>>16087523
Think I hit the limit there. Anyway (continued):

The arms revolving around the central point represent the constant changing and Heraclitian flux of the material world. They represent the passing seasons of the nature. The man who stands for the Dharma or LOGOS stands above and against this constant flux and decay. He stands for the eternal order and simplicity of Being. He stands for the values of Parmenides.

[Anonymous No.16087580]

>>16087534
>i really dont care about your autistic debate
I hadn't been participating in it and had actually been a third person observing the back and forth between two people arguing about the Karika, I just happened to come into the thread and happened to see someone make a factually incorrect claim about a text which I had read, so I decided to quote them show verses from it showing that what they were saying was wrong.
> dumping massive amounts of text under the assumptions that someone will take the time to read it
It was only three verses

[OP No.16087601]

>>16086448
> Guenon is actually terrible start for AV
That's unfortunate :'(
> best proponent of this mold in modern times Deepak Chopra
Christ that's embarrassing ye don't exactly want to follow his footsteps, ultimate pseud from what I remember from my atheist days. I was thinking more of Leonard Susskind. I'm a science hack hence my lack of knowledge and that subject.
> This is why some have observed that Guenon basically ripped from Theosophy.
That's a bold claim, was he not extremely critical of it claiming it is a pseudo-religion? I wouldn't have much time for Blavatsky, from what I heard she was not only a plagiarist herself but she advocated some sort of sketchy Occult Satanism that I do not want to find myself advocating. Lest I end up reading the same thinkers as the Comet Ping Pong Pizza crew.
> The apologetics consist mostly of trying to make their ideas consist with the Sruti scriptures
Fair enough
> Neoplatonists affirm the paradox.
That's what I wanted to pretty here kinda epic check


>>16086460
lol aight. Can't say I found all of his posts convincing but he was polite and answered my post so I'll bear in mind what he said.

[Anonymous No.16087624]

>>16086194
The problem with the Vedas and other Hindu texts is the lack of a formal canon one might expect with say, Judaism or Plato. This canon is entirely what I use.

There's no problem reading your copy of the upanishads though. Whenever you can, proceed.

[Anonymous No.16087629]

This is all unfalsifiable nonsense. Read Popper and Hume.

[OP No.16087644]

>>16086474
Go raibh maith agut I'll check em out.

>>16086513
>Read Plato's Parmenides and Sophist
Yeah I've read of his Parmenides and my understanding is young Socrates just gets rekt lol. I thought Parmenides criticizes the theory of the Forms in that work too tho. I'm assuming the Theory of the Forms still holds true through Neoplatonism surely. I dunno what the rebuttal of the Third Man argument is tho.

>>16086793
Can anyone explain through the autism if this is at all true? Surely there's a Platonic or eternal form of the Male or the Female? Like in Aristophanes speech in Symposium explaining how Zeus split everyone into halves (which ofc explained homosexuality).

[Anonymous No.16087649]

>>16084932
The Vedas are not a formalized canon. Most of the verses are modified and taken from the Rig Veda, and many schools have different Vedas. The principle Veda however, is the Rig, and rest of the Upanishads aside from the Brihadaranyaka are already the most important and distinguished part of the other Vedas.

[Anonymous No.16087660]

>>16083517
Vedanta means end of the veda (veda anta, "anta" is cognate with English "end"). This is usually taken to means it is the culmination of vedic spiritual knowledge. The traditional view is that all the vedas are eternal, so there is no temporal development of them.

[Anonymous No.16087693]

>>16087644
>Can anyone explain through the autism if this is at all true? Surely there's a Platonic or eternal form of the Male or the Female?
Neoplatonism is not nondualism. He was mocking Advaita, not Neoplatonism.

[Anonymous No.16087759]

>>16086311
>1. Anyone have a decent introductory reading list? For AV I'm assuming Guénon but for Neoplatonism generally is there any decent modern scholars?
I liked Guenon's books and they helped me understand Hinduism, but you should also read books by academics and Hindu religious authorities themselves for the full picture so you are not just viewing it through Guenon's lenses. If you read Guenon's first book 'Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines' and also his book 'Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta' that will teach you most of the Sanskrit philosophical terminology that you'll need to understand the translated works of Shankara and other Vedantists. Some other books that you could read by scholars to as good intros to AV include Advaita Vedanta: a Philosophical Construction by Eliot Deutsch or The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy by Chandradhar Sharma. Then if you want to read the main texts of Advaita Vedanta you can begin with Shankara's works, starting with the set of 8 of his Upanishad commentaries translated by Gambhirananda and then moving onto his other works (read all his Upanishad commentaries before his Brahma Sutra Bhasya), and there are many other Advaita texts by other thinkers which are also worth reading after Shankara.
>2. Is there anything to the idea that AV shares some similarities with some quantum mechanics theories? I know there's that theory of the world as Hologram.
There is a book on this topic called "Nondual Perspectives on Quantum Physics" by Tomaj Javidtash
> 4. Are there like apologetics for the defense of AV? Like Aquinas Proofs or Zeno's Paradoxes?
That occurs to some extent in the works of Gaudapada, Shankara and later Advaitin thinkers like Sriharsa, Chitsuka, Manusudhana Saraswati etc. There is no irrefutable proof for Advaita being true and its teachings are meant to be realized through the heart and not through dialectics, although Advaitins in their works have done things like provide arguments against those who deny that there is an unchanging witness-conciousness, and they have pointed out the various contradictions involved in the other explanations for the existence of the world which involve things like multiplicity and the plurality of interacting objects being completely real etc.
> 5. Also, what is the AV / Neoplatonic take on Zeno's Paradoxes?
Multiple Advaita thinkers make similar observations in their works and talk about how it has to do with the contradictions inherent in the materialist, atomist, dualist etc explanation of the world. Guenon is one of his books writes that this is basically what the intentions of Zeno and Parmenides were in bringing up those sorts of paradoxes.

[Anonymous No.16087988]

>>16087644
>third man
it only arises from a misconception

...the discussion of Socrates’ suggestion that Forms are “like patterns fixed in the nature of things”, of which things here are “likenesses”. Proclus’ only criticism of this formulation is that it appears to neglect the creative and preservative aspects of the Forms, in favour of the assimilative—unless, perhaps, he suggests (910.Iff.), we regard him as including these other aspects in assimilation, “for things that are assimilated to what ‘stands fixed’ are necessarily indissoluble, and are held together by their own reason- principles, and are conserved in their essence by them.” These things will not be sensible particulars, but rather the immanent forms of genera and species, which do enjoy a kind of eternity. He correctly draws attention to Socrates’ use of hṓsper with paradeigmata, as making clear that the term is not to be taken in any restrictively literal sense. The Forms are living and active principles, not just inert exemplars.
This brings us to the next lemma (132d5-e5), and to Parmenides’ objection that, if the image is like the exemplar, then the exemplar must be like the image, and in virtue of this “likeness” the Third Man Argument once again raises its head. “To this,” says Proclus (912.31ff.), “Socrates should have replied that ‘like’ has two senses—one, the likeness of coordinate entities, the other, the likeness which involves subordination to an archetype—and the one is to be seen as consisting in the identity of some one reason-principle, while the other involves not only identity but at the same time otherness, whenever something is ‘like’, as having the same Form derived from the other, but not along with it.”
>Proclus here seems to have exposed the flaw in Parmenides’ argument (as Cornford points out in his commentary ad loc.): the relation of a photograph to its original is not the same as that of one photograph of the same original to another. The photographs resemble each other through having the common quality of being images of the same original, but it is absurd to say that the original and the photograph have any quality in common by virtue of which they resemble some third thing. Once again, therefore, Parmenides is just provoking Socrates to deeper understanding, when he asks, “Or is there any way that what is like can avoid being like what is like it?” (914.41-42).

see pic related for the rest

[Anonymous No.16088244]

bump to keep the thread up

[OP No.16088327]

>>16087759
Thank you for answering my questions so graciously kind sir.

> 1, 2, 4.
Thank you I will look up those recs. I'm thinking of starting with Guénon's Introduction and Man and His, then reading the Upanishads and I'll see what I think from there.

I'll be concurrently reading through the history of philosophy in order so I'll be taking them at a time. I'm at the Church Fathers and Neoplatonism having read most works from Antiquity.

One last question as you seem to obliging with answering them:
Are there any decent bloggers, essay writers, podcasts that you've come across that covers AV (or Neoplatonism) in depth? I'm a big fan of this small youtube channel Aarvoll, dunno if you know him.

[Anonymous No.16088447]

Can someone please recommend the best secondary literature about these lads?

[Anonymous No.16088607]

>>16088327
> Are there any decent bloggers, essay writers, podcasts that you've come across that covers AV (or Neoplatonism) in depth? I'm a big fan of this small youtube channel Aarvoll, dunno if you know him.
Between my job, my social life and reading the actual translated Hindu scriptures and philosophical writings I haven't had much time to really get into the YouTube and podcast spheres on these topics, although I’ve occasionally listened to some videos before when cooking or doing other tasks. I knew of Aarvoll but have not watched much of his stuff, if you want to link some of his better videos I’d check them out. Swami Sarvapriyananda has a lot of good videos on YouTube about different aspects of Advaita. He is a member of the Ramakrishna order but in his videos generally follows the ideas of traditional Advaita in his explanations instead of the ‘Neo-Vedantic’ ideas associated with the order because of certain of its members like Vivekananda.

The British man Dennis Waite has an interesting blog about Advaita which features various articles by different writers

http://www.advaita.org.uk/

The YouTuber Ken Wheeler (theoria apophasis) has videos talking about Advaita and Neoplatonism, some people consider him to be a little kooky but his videos are sometimes pretty interesting and you can search his channel and find articles he has written on the metaphysics of AV and Neoplatonism, his articles are similar to Coomaraswamy’s essays on the same subject.

[OP No.16088799]

>>16088607
Thanks a lot I'll check out some of that stuff.

Aarvoll talks about a range of different stuff (mostly criticizing online dissident politics) but he covers his metaphysical worldview as well. He's generally an adherent of Advaita Vedanta, he also describes it as the Sophia Perennis. He says his biggest philosophical influences are Plato and Schopenhauer. He's also a fan of of the work of Leonard Susskind and Christopher Langan.

Here's the first of a series of videos he made on the metaphysics of his interpretation of the sophia perennis, v heady stuff but interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUH6wlVM3sM

This is a more straightforward and shorter video about ethics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dzZT_F4WWk

[Anonymous No.16089362]

>>16088447
The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy by Sharma
Advaita Vedanta: a Philosophical Reconstruction by Deutsch
Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta by Guenon
Vedanta or the Science of Reality By Iyer
Shankara and Indian Philosophy by Isayeva
Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Vol. III: Advaita Vedanta up to Samkara and his Pupils By Potter

[Anonymous No.16089380]

>>16089362
Thanks

[Anonymous No.16090712]

>>16088447
Elias and David: Introductions to Philosophy with Olympiodorus: Introduction to Logic
Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy
Simplicius - Commentary of Aristotle's Physics (you can find most of it by getting Thomas Taylor's translation of Aristotle's Physics)
John M Dillon - Iamblichus - On the Mysteries (alternatively Thomas Taylor)^- Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition: Despoiling the Hellenes
>Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition Series
like 'Iamblichus and the Foundations of Late Platonism'

Gerson - Knowing Persons: A Study in Plato - Ancient Epistemology - Aristotle and Other Platonists - From Plato to Platonism - Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy

More speculative, sometimes deeper than anything else or quite far reaching or outright wrong (the name Atum has nothing to do with the name Atman)
>Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity
>Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth
>Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism
if you want to know how to actually summon daemons and do theurgy:
>Living Theurgy: A Course in Iamblichus’ Philosophy, Theology and Theurgy

[Anonymous No.16090956]

>>16087080
>asks me to put forth my own arguments
>I do
>no response
>>16087088
>>16087102
>>16087110
>>16087126

[Anonymous No.16092352]

bump for cryptobuddhism

[Anonymous No.16093006]

>>16083517
>pol
Go back

[Anonymous No.16093356]

>>16083397
As all people here seem to be schooled, and I don't think skimming through Wikipedia would be much progress from knowing nothing, might I ask what is neo-platonism, and what do they believe, I also don't know what platonism is, but I guess it's a new current of platonism, sorry for the annoyance,have a nice day.

[Anonymous No.16093450]

>>16093356
Plato was philosopher man and had many ideas, it's conventionally thought that Plato unironically believed in a metaphysical realm of "forms" underlying apparent reality, which could only be glimpsed mystically. Plato was influenced by a lot of people and it's hard to tell what he really believed but it seems pretty clear that he had affinities with neo-pythagoreans, which were a sort of secret mystical society it's hard to say much about definitively other than that they worshiped number/geometry/mathematics as the true nature of reality and had various ascetic codes of conduct.

Plato had an "academy" in Athens where people came to study philosophy, and after he died many of his followers seem to have gone their own ways, emphasizing different parts of what he taught. Aristotle is not usually considered an orthodox Platonist, sometimes even considered a heretic from his teacher's beliefs. Others like Speusippus stuck with the Platonic forms stuff, but emphasized the neo-pythagorean aspects more.

Then you get a long period of "middle platonism," roughly contemporary with Hellenistic rule and then Roman rule, where Plato is not really formalized, and while there may have been Platonists of various kinds, other philosophies like Stoicism and Epicureanism seem to have been more common

Quite a bit later, you get so called neo-platonism, which goes back to Plato and really emphasizes the mystical ascent and idea of a world of forms, and also incorporates other influences like the mysticism and initiations of mystery cults/religions, hermeticism and so on. Early figures like Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus give way to different schools/groups that emphasize different elements, but all generally believe in higher forms of reality accessible to higher forms of knowledge, and have some form of cosmology for describing the higher realms and their structure and emanation. Some emphasize more "occult" things like magic, like Iamblichus.

Through Pseudo-Dionysius and then Eriugena and others, neo-platonism influenced Christianity greatly, like other Greek thought. When Christians wanted to think about the mystical and cosmological aspects of Christianity they often went to these Christianized neo-platonisms, sometimes to the point that they were accused of being more pagan than Christian.

[Anonymous No.16093587]

>>16093450
I don't have time to correct all the mistakes in your post but in short:
No, the Forms were never to be apprehended ''mystically'', they are literally intelligibles and Plato reiterates it all the time. The neopythagoreans were around after Plato's death, so his influence was by pythagoreans clsoer to pythagoras himself (or to the ripe movement of pythagoreanism if you don't believe pythagoras really existed). They didn't worship number/geometry/mathematics, but clothed their theology in mystical mathematics, their myth was expressed through it.
Christianity was not only influenced by these platonist christians, but also directly from platonists like Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa. The mystical aspect is inherent in any religion and not restricted to platonism, other influences for christianity's mysticism are some minor jewish sects, like merkabah mysticism. But, as mystical consciousness is inherent in all religions, christianity had its own particular mysticism with the life of Christ and the Gospels.

[Anonymous No.16093727]

>>16093587
You had enough time to say a bunch of incorrect shit and shit not related to what I said though, so why didn't you use that time to correct the mistakes instead?

You are right about neopythagorean normally being used to refer to the later movements, however in my language it means the 5th century BC and later Pythagoreans since they are so far removed from the (largely legendary) Pythagoras and his original movement. Whatever that was. True enough also that they didn't "worship" number but we know almost nothing about them, and math and geometry were highly sacred to them, so I was just being colloquial. Like saying the Jewish mystics "worshipped" angels and you go "no they worshipped God," pedantic point taken I guess.

The rest is pointless hair splitting. Of course Plato has routinely been described as a mystic, for thousands of years. There is no one definition of "mystic." Mystic can include intellectual intuition, you yourself include merkavah mysticism which is highly peculiar and imagistic. Augustine is not considered by anybody to be much of a Platonist, certainly not a major neoplatonist, and Nicholas of Cusa is 15th century while I was describing the introducers of neo-platonism into Christian thought, like Pseudo-Dionysius a thousand years earlier, and Eriugena. Did you just want to mention Cusanus at some point today and were running out of time to find an excuse?