Western Philosophy

How useful is it for enlightenment?

Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash

I’d like to talk a bit about “western philosophy”. By that I mean, the tradition of thought that passes through Socrates. Socrates is an interesting figure, because the essence of his message can be seen as very Zen-like. It is a kind of “not-this” and “not-that” pointing to ignorance.

Directly confronting ignorance is the same as wisdom.

Specifically, I’d like to think about how useful it is, or at least, has been for me, in pursuing “the missing thing”.

Frustrating.

But necessary?

For me, my personality wanted to find some kind of rational or logical approach to avoid fooling myself into credulity. At the same time, I knew pretty quickly that my own mind and power wasn’t enough. A tricky situation.

The problem with western philosophy is it got hijacked and sidetracked by materialistic science. Remember that science began as “natural philosophy”. Along the way, the success of this manipulating matter spawned an abomination, an unbalanced hobgoblin, that is to say, the idea that matter created mind.

So you have to search diligently to find the living thread of philosophy. Several of the books I mention above are in that vein. Most philosophy you encounter in the mainstream…