/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16668071]

Would Plato have been a Buddhist?

[Anonymous No.16668081]

>>16668071
No, but there's arguments to be made about Plotinus being influenced by Indian thought (He went with Emperor Gordian III to India to meet the 'Gymnosophists' aka the ascetics) and Pyrrho probably adapted Nagarjunan philosophy

[Anonymous No.16668131]

>>16668081
Didn't Pyrrho come before Nagarjuna? Didn't Pyrrho influence Nagarjuna?

[Anonymous No.16668269]

>>16668071
Well, there are some similarities with buddhism and platonism regarding resurrection and the travel of the soul to topos uranus/nirvana. But I don't think that Plato had an influence on Buddhism, it might just be a coincidence.

[Anonymous No.16668279]

>>16668071
intellectuals prefer circle jerking over buddhism, this is why they made up mahayana

[Anonymous No.16668284]

>>16668279
>made up Mahayana
>implying it isn't truer to the Buddha's original intentions and open-mindedness

[Anonymous No.16668350]

>>16668071
The short answer is no. Plato had studied with Italo-Greek Pythagoreans, who believed in metempsychosis and ascetic practice, like Buddhists do (but the formers' beliefs mainly trace back to Egypt while the latters' are Indian; any further shared origin is very speculatory). Platonism and Buddhism also differ significantly in ultimate end-goal: our souls according to Plato are to seek union with a theistic One; the Buddha's final unity he left as so indescriptive that his successors were forced to elaborate for the sake of their audiences, with the only thing they totally agree on is it being a cessation of personal birth/becoming, immortal souls and a Supreme Being are not emphasized or they are denied.

[Anonymous No.16668364]

>>16668350
Plato are to seek union with a theistic One

What book?

[Anonymous No.16668382]

>>16668364
I'm not sure what the anon is referring to, but it's only a union in the sense of living perfectly Good in accordance with the One.

[Anonymous No.16668383]

>>16668364
The Timaeus and a bunch of the dialogs. For a systematized version read Plotinus. For secondary sources Uzdavinys is probably the most accessible.

[Anonymous No.16668386]

>>16668382
>>16668383

Cheers.

[Anonymous No.16668471]

>>16668383
Also Phedrus and Phaedo. He is really intertextual and themes often leave the conversation to reemerge in a different text.

[Anonymous No.16668488]

looks ok

[Anonymous No.16668504]

>>16668386
Plotinus is fantastic, but he's still doing something different to Plato and especially in regards to late Plato misses a lot of essential ideas and revelations for Plato.

[Anonymous No.16669292]

>>16668081
Do you have a source for this?

[࿇ C Œ M G E N V S ࿇ !KNDYYIIins No.16669390]

>>16668071


NO —HE WOULD HAVE BEEN CHRISTIAN.

STOP PAGANISTICALLY FANTASIZING, AND TURN TO GOD IN THE TRUE FAITH —CHRISTIANITY—, IN THE TRUE CREED —CATHOLICISM.

[Anonymous No.16669396]

>>16669390

>NO —HE WOULD HAVE BEEN CHRISTIAN.

>STOP PAGANISTICALLY FANTASIZING, AND TURN TO GOD IN THE TRUE FAITH —CHRISTIANITY—, IN THE TRUE CREED —CATHOLICISM.

[Anonymous No.16669402]

>>16669396
>>16669390

[Anonymous No.16669412]

>>16669402
face a pure indo-european blooded aryan catholic fascist

[Anonymous No.16669422]

>>16669390
>PAGANISTICALLY FANTASIZING

[Anonymous No.16669440]

>>16669390
Gay. All I saw in church was gossip, pedophilia, authoritarianism, and embezzlement. Go gargle pastor's nuts some more.

[Anonymous No.16669555]

>>16669390
This, honestly. If you think Plato would've stayed a pagan after Jesus Christ, you don't understand Plato.

[Anonymous No.16669604]

>>16668131
>>16669292
Not him, but
>Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism, by Adrian Kuzminski
(It's up on libgen).

tl;dr Pyrrho goes east with Alexander and friends and picks up Buddhism along the way. He comes back with a non-soteriological form of Buddhism. Think "Buddhist Atheism" or "Buddhist Modernism", but actually genuinely engaging with the religion and taking his methods of cessation of suffering and putting them towards the broader Greek goal of achieving ataraxia. There's no nirvana, no enlightenment (hence why I describe it as "non-soteriological"), but there is meditation, and the general "everything is made of parts" conception of dependent origination, alongside Buddhist epistemology.

I don't know what he meant by "Nagarjunan", although Pyrrho would have gone go the Gandharan region, which would be the forefront of the Mahayana later. At this point in Buddhist history (roughly 250BC) the Mahayana-Theravada distinction wasn't anything near what it is today.

>>16668350
At a more grug level, dependent origination completely rejects the idea of the Forms, the Soul (as Plato understands it), and The One/Good (again, as Plato understands it), OR makes them absolutely detached from reality to such a degree that they might as well not exist.

>>16669555
>yeah he was an enthusiastic practitioner of Greek polytheism and took part in the cult of athleticism despite it being one of the single biggest things the Christians had a problem against, but he was totally a good Muslim who was fluent in Classical Arabic and prayed towards Mecca bro
lol retard.

[Anonymous No.16669758]

>>16669604
I heard that Pyrrho was influenced by Buddhist thought and in turn influenced their thought? Nevertheless there is no doubt his philosophy is distinctly Western, even complete converts to Buddhism from the West(as in modernity) are completely Western, and hence the butt of many jokes about their inauthenticity and LARPiness. All Western philosophers or artists who borrow from the East are distinctly Western still, and it is the creatively developing of something (necessarily Western) through being inspired or influenced by the East which makes it a successful interaction. Just take Schopenhauer, Jung, Heidegger etc.

I can appreciate this about Pyrrho.

[Anonymous No.16669782]

the guy who wrote the yellow book on Pyrrho seethes about muh original sources in india, but does not do the same for the greek texts

also he confuses buddhism with madhyamaka

Anyway, nobody knows who the fuck were the srmanas when the greek visited, it's not like there was only buddhists, brahmins and jains larping has hermits.

[Anonymous No.16669808]

>>16669758
Pyrrho isn't a Buddhist, he takes Buddhist epistemology and practice and introduces it into the Greek philosophical world, for the shared Greek philosophical goal of ataraxia. The central point of his philosophy, however, went COMPLETELY over everyone but a handful of people's heads, and the Skeptic school, which he is traditionally credited as founding, takes his teachings (which are really just him repurposing the Buddha's teachings) as a form of radical small-s skepticism that is little more than LMFAO YOU CAN'T KNOW NUFFING (which Buddhists, and Pyrrho, would disagree with).

Adrian Kuzminski makes this distinction between the Pyrrhonic Skeptics, who accept that you can actually have knowledge about some things, and the Academic Skeptics, who are basically ancient Daniel Dennett in that they argue claims that are so zany that people feel the need to argue against them simply because of their zaniness. The Academic Skeptics take off like wildfire, whereas the Pyrrhonic Skeptics get left behind in the dust perhaps Pyrrho's methods were so effective in the Greek context that Pyrrhonic Skeptics did not feel the need to evangelize. Alternatively, they were just lazy. Augustine, in one of his many blunders, falsely attributes this form of radical small-s skepticism to Pyrrho.

To this day, we still see people make the same mistake about Buddhism when confronted with its epistemology. Pyrrho's system apparently lacked something like the Two Truths, at least in an explicit sense (it's implied). I've noticed on /lit/ that the Two Truths Doctrine tends to make people really mad, and I've never figured out why, so perhaps if Pyrrho had something like it, other Greeks would get really butthurt about it and advertise his philosophy for him.

[Anonymous No.16669809]

>>16669604
So you really think that Plato was not at least a henotheist but a polytheist in the same way as the average greek citizen?

[Anonymous No.16669833]

>>16669808
>Pyrrho isn't a Buddhist
Anon, that's what I said.

>Augustine, in one of his many blunders, falsely attributes this form of radical small-s skepticism to Pyrrho.
I agree with everything else you said in this paragraph, but that's a bit harsh on Augustine isn't it? As you said yourself wouldn't it be more to blame the laziness of the Pyrrhonic Skeptics?

>Two Truths
I completely agree, this seems like something almost implied in every inch of his philosophy.

[Anonymous No.16669863]

>>16669808
>>16669833
Plato literally addresses something, if not exactly the same as at least similar to, like the Two Truths doctrine in the Republic, no? He literally says that the world is between being and non-being, just like opinion is between knowledge and ignorance. In the same way this is obvious in most religions that this world has a dependent existence on the true Reality that is God. How is any of this original to Buddhism?

[Anonymous No.16669870]

>>16669782
Madhyamaka wasn't developed until 400-500 years after Pyrrho's death. His epistemology is distinctly Buddhist, and he uses a number of parables and metaphors that are used by the Buddha himself. I am unsure how someone can "LARP" as a hermit. Are you sure you aren't applying /lit/ memes to people who lives thousands of years ago? You aren't seriously arguing that someone who goes out and lives in the woods with no possessions for years at a time is only "pretending", are you?

>>16669809
Plato pretty clearly believed in the existence of Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, etc in some form as distinct entities. He pretty clearly believed that these entities could be interacted with for material and spiritual gain. In a purely colloquial sense, he did indeed believe in multiple Gods. The fact that he argued about what and how these Gods were, and that there were forces and entities higher than them, doesn't make him a monotheist, or a henotheist. The man partook in rituals to Poseidon, what more does one need to do to be a "polytheist"? These terms, polytheism and monotheism and henotheism, only have meaning in a distinct context. In that context, Plato is indeed a polytheist. Outside of that context, we shouldn't use terms like monotheism, polytheism, henotheism, we should just describe what things are.

Plato believed in multiple entities higher than man that could be religiously interacted with for spiritual and material gain. One of these entities was Poseidon. Plato did not speak Classical Arabic. We have no evidence to suggest that Plato prayed towards Mecca, or had memorized the Quran.

[Anonymous No.16669874]

>>16668071
Absolutely not lol

[Anonymous No.16669937]

>>16669833
Perhaps I worded it poorly, as I would agree that it, alongside many of Augustine's "blunders", aren't really his fault for not knowing better.

>>16669863
The Two Truths Doctrine isn't about being vs non-being, but rather how we know things. A Conventional Truth is one that is rooted in other truths, such as what a "cat" is. Lacking something like the Form Of The Cat, we instead come up with words that mean "that thing there". Conventional Truths are rooted in "you know what I mean". And you do know what I mean, this is how we communicate. Stating a Conventional Truth is to take a section of the vast infinitely complex web of interrelations and say "everything in this circle".

An Ultimate Truth, meanwhile, is big-brain things that are true independent of "you know what I mean". How exactly you can say these things is a point of contention in Buddhism, with the Madhyamaka and common Theravada understanding being "You literally cannot say an Ultimately True statement in language, or using conceptuality, you HAVE to directly experience it in some manner". All schools of Buddhism are reacting to this, most schools of Buddhism agree with this entirely, but a number allow for ways to get around this in some manner. How they "agree exactly" varies, however.

This is how we can both say "people are Sunyata and made of parts" and "killing is bad". You can reach one from the other, and vice versa. But it's far, far simpler to just make the Conventional-Ultimate distinction, and work with that, because "killing is bad" is nestled in an ENORMOUS web, and you simply cannot extricate it from that web.

[Anonymous No.16669948]

>>16669870
You either don't know what henotheism means or you have never read any Plato. His partaking in rituals to Poseidon does not mean he did not, as he writes in his dialogues like literally, asserted a One-Being (I beg you to read Sophist, Republic, Parmenides, Phaedrus) conditioning all other beings. He was not as radical as Plotinus in ignoring the lesser entities to the exclusivity of the One, but more like Iamblichus and Proclus (who were henotheists).
When Plato refers to God and is describing as a higher Being, he writes like in the Republic:

Republic 379
>οὐδ᾽ ἄρα, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὁ θεός, ἐπειδὴ ἀγαθός, πάντων ἂν εἴη αἴτιος, ὡς οἱ πολλοὶ λέγουσιν, ἀλλὰ ὀλίγων μὲν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις αἴτιος, πολλῶν δὲ ἀναίτιος: πολὺ γὰρ ἐλάττω τἀγαθὰ τῶν κακῶν ἡμῖν, καὶ τῶν μὲν ἀγαθῶν οὐδένα ἄλλον αἰτιατέον, τῶν δὲ κακῶν ἄλλ᾽ ἄττα δεῖ ζητεῖν τὰ αἴτια, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τὸν θεόν.

ὁ θεός. Ho Theós.
Singular Nominative.

τὸν θεόν. Tòn Theón.
Singular Acusative.

>what more does one need to do to be a "polytheist"?
One needs not to assert a higher being (or higher -arché- principle) above other entities and principles. Simple.

>These terms, polytheism and monotheism and henotheism, only have meaning in a distinct context.
Yes, the distinct context is the context of Plato's writings and what we have from his agrapha dogmata. You are contextualizing Plato in his epoch dismissing literally everything he wrote and believed.

>Plato believed in multiple entities higher than man that could be religiously interacted with for spiritual and material gain.
Just like christians believe in Seraphins? Querubins? Lesser angels? Saints?

[Anonymous No.16669959]

>>16669937
>Perhaps I worded it poorly, as I would agree that it, alongside many of Augustine's "blunders", aren't really his fault for not knowing better.
I thank you for your curtesy and explaining so much anon, be well and I hope I can talk to you again about this topic some time.

[Anonymous No.16669964]

>>16668071
No, Plato is much closer to Vedanta and Hindu Tantra

[Anonymous No.16670007]

>>16669937
>The Two Truths Doctrine isn't about being vs non-being
For Plato being and non-being are epistemological conditions, that is why he (and I in that post) showed how they can have a parallel with knowledge (being) and ignorance (non-being). The phenomena are in-between these, having a true aspect in respect of their being and being illusory or empty (non-being) as you would say in themselves (that is, apart from their true being which conditions them).

>A Conventional Truth is one that is rooted in other truths
Just like Opinions, things in-between being and non-being. They in themselves are nothing (non-being) but are something in relation, dependence, on their true being (being).

>n Ultimate Truth, meanwhile, is big-brain things that are true independent of "you know what I mean".
Yes, anon, this is what I meant in my post referring to Plato's literally saying this in the Republic, lol.


Anyway, I thought you were familiar with Plato and could see the relation between the two and Plato's predating Nagarjuna's thought.

[Anonymous No.16670015]

>>16669948
>Just like christians believe in Seraphins? Querubins? Lesser angels? Saints?
Indeed, and that's the entire point: Christians would not classify these entities as Gods because they (Christians) are acting within a specific context. "God" has a very precise meaning. But, can one not make a deal with Michael, and be given material benefit in order for fulfilling some end? Yes. This is precisely why Jews and Muslims argue that Christians are polytheists. Jews and Muslims argue that by giving God the capacity to even be anything but uniform and discrete, Christians are polytheists. To Muslims, they very idea that God could have hands is polytheism, and phrases like "the hand of God" or "the eye of God" are utter blasphemy.

Within the context of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, Plato was a polytheist. Many Christians in the Ancient world would readily agree with me, which is why there was a deeply anti-Platonic tradition within early Christian. Many Christian Aristotelians used this precisely as evidence of Aristotle's superiority to Plato, as Aristotle's system can be more readily adapted to a Christian framework (or so they argued).

Attempting to come up with neat little boxes, "polytheism", "henotheism", "monotheism", "peepootheism", so you can say "ah, yes, this is X, it is BAD, this is Y, it is GOOD" is dumb. It is not helpful. In fact, it is directly harmful, and leads to people like you misunderstanding the usage of theos and deus in pre-Christian societies. It leads to you misunderstanding the word "God" ("invoked one") in English. It leads you to thinking the point of philosophy is arguing with nerds on the internet for assenting to BAD THING instead of spiritual growth. Not understanding what things are, and what is good and bad, and why, is directly harmful to spiritual growth.

It is far better to describe things by their characteristics. And, as I said, some of those characteristics are
>Plato believed in multiple entities higher than man that could be religiously interacted with for spiritual and material gain. One of these entities was Poseidon. Plato did not speak Classical Arabic. We have no evidence to suggest that Plato prayed towards Mecca, or had memorized the Quran.
If you have a problem with any of that, that's your problem, not Plato's, nor is it mine.

[Anonymous No.16670034]

>>16669863
>How is any of this original to Buddhism?
the middle way is not about a compromise like westerners think, it is rejection of both extremes. Too be fair Nagarjuna fails to see that too and went full autistic screeching with his nothing arises and nothing ceases shit.
Same thing about pleasures. They think ''you can have delight of sense pleasures without craving'' and ''renunciation is already craving'' and ''trying to avoid sensual pleasures is craving too teehee'', which leads to the famous mahayanists monks just being coomers glorified by either women (for vajrayna monks) or braindead men (for zen shit) with daddy issues desperate to have some authority figure in their life.

In buddhism, the stuff about being (even after death) and not-being (even before death) is that they are 100% wrong, not each 50% wrong.
In buddhism there is no salvage of wrong views like being and not-being, you just throw that away and stick to dependent origination from the start, until you get enlightened.

[Anonymous No.16670037]

>>16668071
If you ask this question, then you are a LITERAL retard. I mean it.

[Anonymous No.16670047]

>>16669604
>>yeah he was an enthusiastic practitioner of Greek polytheism
You mean the guy who tried to get the Gods to fit his narrative of what ideal God(s) should be?

[Anonymous No.16670056]

>>16670015
Plato was a polytheist because he had no other reference point. If he learned of Jesus Christ and Christianity he would have jumped on that train. This is the point we're trying to make, and your ramblings are irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.16670078]

>>16670015
Thank you for making it clear that you are arguing purely for the sake of appearing to be right and not in fact being. Look at the absurdity you wrote:
>Within the context of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, Plato was a polytheist.
My citing Plato's own text, telling how literal Platonists understood Plato and what they believed is ''attempting to come up with neat little boxes'' and ''harmful leading people misuderstanding the usage of theos''. We are talking about the PLATONIC conception of Theós, not the Islamic estimation of Plato's beliefs.

If you had read any platonist you would know that there is a distinction between gods and God, between principles and Principle (they later even asserting a Principle above the Principle that is above principles, like the Ineffable beyond the One that is above the henads).

>Not understanding what things are, and what is good and bad, and why, is directly harmful to spiritual growth.
Well, my point is exactly that your misinformation can obstruct other people's understanding of what Plato thought, but this anyone with a true philosophical spirit can discern by themselves reading the dialogues directly.

>Christians on angels, etc.
This is another discussion. I would be open to discuss it with you but seeing you are dishonest to the point of rejecting Plato's texts and other platonists to your own retarded opinion makes it impossible.

[Anonymous No.16670092]

>>16670056
Don't listen to that imbecile, anon.

[Anonymous No.16670100]

>>16670078
This was already discussed, see >>16669870 and >>16670015. At this point you're being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian.

>>16670056
That's a different point entirely, and is not what anon is arguing.

[Anonymous No.16670121]

>>16670100
Yes, and those were replied here >>16670078 and here >>16669948. Both of which you ignored completely to write that Plato was a polytheist because Islamic and Judaic people think so. Plato literally talking about God as a single and supreme entity? ὁ θεός? ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τὸν θεόν? Nah... I'll stick to some rabbi who never read plato.

[Anonymous No.16670134]

Democritus went to India, so says Diogenes Laertius. Surely he was influenced, our great laughing philosopher.

[Anonymous No.16670143]

>>16670121
Thank you for proving my point.

[Anonymous No.16670153]

>>16670134
why did plato want to burn his books? was he a nazi?

[Anonymous No.16670187]

>>16670153
I don’t remember exactly why, but Plato was like that with most things. He thought art and not-his-philosophy would destroy the polis

[Anonymous No.16670191]

>>16670187
He was right.

[Anonymous No.16670225]

>>16670134
Maybe he studied under Kanada or some adherent to Vaisheshika. Who knows...

>>16670143
>plato was a polytheist because my imam told me

[Anonymous No.16670231]

>>16670191
almost right. those things destroyed the entire west

[Anonymous No.16670747]

>>16669948
>>16670056
Do you retards actually think that Plato would have sided with anarchists in Rome? Come the fuck on. He would have sooner sided with Jews and the Old Testament, and even then, he was too Greek to do that.

[Anonymous No.16670790]

>>16668071
where can I read more about plato's unwritten doctrines, the neoplatonists?

[Anonymous No.16670794]

>>16670790
Ficino

[Anonymous No.16670807]

>>16669604
So Pyrrho was a faggy Western Buddhist before faggy Western Buddhism became en vogue?

[Anonymous No.16670812]

>>16670807
No, because he's doing something productively Western with it.

[Anonymous No.16670818]

>>16670790
Heidegger.

[Anonymous No.16670854]

>>16670056
>if he'd heard of monotheism + incarnation + trinities he'd have given up polytheism
Nice fanfiction. Plato and the Platonists already had Ouranos-Kronos-Zeus and many other gods and relationships between them. At no point are the gods other than the One taken to be false in affirmation of a monotheism anachronistic to Plato. He'd also have to give up metempsychosis to become an Abrahamist, but then we lose our explanation of how souls work under Platonism, and they have to be created ex nihilo by God at conception or something like that, since Christians believe in an afterlife and not any before-lives. I think Christians realized they made a mistake here and introduced the Holy Spirit for the sake of converting the Greeks and Romans, but that is my own opinion.

[Anonymous No.16670900]

>>16670807
Western Buddhists don't even believe in Buddhism because they are mere anti-Christians and haven't worked anything else out beyond that and wanting to be ethical without being religious. The ones who deny rebirth or the supernatural powers of Buddhas or any other such 'religious' elements of Buddhism and just think its fancy psychology are performing an aggressively ideological interpretation which they don't even recognize as cultural appropriation, a phenomenon California and New York Buddhists I am sure are ready to point out in secular life. Nagarjuna and Pyrrho (as conveyed by Sextus Empiricus) are highly similar, even using the same example of confusing a rope for a snake to show the illusions of consciousness, but that does not make them both Buddhists, even if they either shared influences or influenced one another. In any event, Pyrrhonists were certainly more rigorous in their skepticism than any modern person, as the modern tends to grasp for utilitarianism or hedonism after denying as many competing antinomies as he can.

[Anonymous No.16670918]

>>16670790
Wait until you find out Homer is allegorical too, now that will blow your mind

[Anonymous No.16670941]

>>16668071
Who gives a shit. There will be similarities and contrasts in every philosophy. Past or present, ten years a part or a thousand years a part. What’s best is to study them as individual entities and subtly compare. It doesn’t have to be this “what if” game, or ____ would have been____. I see this in politics and media, and it’s just a waste of time.

[Anonymous No.16671142]

yes

[Anonymous No.16671974]

>>16670056
>If he learned of Jesus Christ and Christianity
Holy fuck you Christian filth are truly subhuman.

[Anonymous No.16672001]

>>16670854
>I think Christians realized they made a mistake here and introduced the Holy Spirit for the sake of converting the Greeks and Romans, but that is my own opinion.
How does the Holy Spirit help them?

[Anonymous No.16672095]

>>16672001
The Holy Spirit is a mechanism for participating in the Good, which being one of the Trinity makes it divine and eternal in nature, and we being human in nature need this. In a way, this replaces metempsychosis. It doesn't quite explain how we got separated from the Good (the Old Testament is called upon for this, in that the first humans stole wisdom from God so he zapped them out of paradise with no way back, at least not until the messiah is born in Roman Judaea). The Holy Spirit, being given to the disciples, provides us with a way back to God, provided we accept the message of Jesus (who will also be called Logos, divine word) about his heavenly Father.

[Anonymous No.16673106]

>>16668081
Plotinus never got farther than Mesopotamia.

[Anonymous No.16673121]

All of Plotinus can be derived from Plato's attested works and unwritten doctrines found in the writings of his immediate successors—like Aristotle.

[Anonymous No.16673131]

>>16671974
>>16670078
Right, not anon, ok - now: Christianity's conception was a mistake. Christianity was continuously a mistake. And now Christianity is currently a mistake. What do we do now, anon, before it's too late?

[Anonymous No.16673152]

>>16673131
why did you reply to my post? what does that have to do with this dumb post of yours? are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.16673293]

>>16673152
>God is God. Not "god" silly anons!
Running on one and one-half of a half hours of sleep. Obviously, it has everything to do with your yawn-inducing ramblings.

[Anonymous No.16674223]

>>16668071
>Would Plato have been a Buddhist?

I don't think so, but I do think that he could have been a Buddhist. There are pretty good Buddhist thinkers, but I don't necessarily attribute that to their Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.16674276]

>>16668071
Maybe but the Stoics definitely

[Anonymous No.16674909]

Hindu or Christian

[Anonymous No.16675423]

hmm

[Anonymous No.16675469]

>>16668504
>especially in regards to late Plato misses a lot of essential ideas and revelations for Plato
Expand, please.

[Anonymous No.16676209]

>>16669870
>Plato pretty clearly believed in the existence of Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, etc in some form as distinct entities.
"Clearly" is too strong. The Euthypho subverts the need to follow the gods in favor of Forms, the Republic critiques the myths as containing falsehoods if the gods are to be good (implicitly rejecting the commonly accepted myths) and eventually reduces "the gods" to "the god" and finally "the Idea of the Good", the Symposium declares Eros not a god, the Apology has Socrates speciously claim he worships Apollo by trying to prove him wrong before dropping that account entirely and then word-lawyering with Meletus over whether his private daimon is equivalent to the daimons of myth, the Phaedrus distances Socrates from his second long speech by attributing it to Steisichorus, the Parmenides posits an ontological basic principle of the One, the Timaeus uses a singular demiurge, and the Cratylus reduces gods to bunch of words for motion or its privation.

>He pretty clearly believed that these entities could be interacted with for material and spiritual gain.
Again, Euthypho criticizes that view.

>In a purely colloquial sense, he did indeed believe in multiple Gods. The fact that he argued about what and how these Gods were, and that there were forces and entities higher than them, doesn't make him a monotheist, or a henotheist.
Literally the only god whose nature is explicitly investigated is Eros, and it's denied to be a god. The Athenians didn't accuse him of not believing in the gods of the city without basis, and if the dialogues are cagey on the subject, it's precisely because Socrates was brought to trial.

>The man partook in rituals to Poseidon, what more does one need to do to be a "polytheist"?
Partaking in rituals != personal belief. Even Xenophon is cagey on that, defending Socrates on the accusation of not believing in the civic gods by saying everyone saw him sacrificing, which is pointedly not the same as belief.

[Anonymous No.16676868]

>>16669555
Lmfao. Nö

[Anonymous No.16676876]

>>16669604
>He was totally a good Muslim who was fluent in Classical Arabic and prayed towards Mecca
Based schizo

[Anonymous No.16676895]

>>16676209
form is the new god

[Anonymous No.16676911]

>>16670807
It's believed it was the Greeks who spread Buddhism into China though Bactria and the Indo-Greek kingdom
The earliest Buddha statues were made in classical style, a sure sign of Greek influence.

Buddhism wouldn't be a world religion without the Greeks, there would possible still be Theravada Buddhism in SEA.