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Reality. Wynand De Beer
Читать онлайн.Название Reality
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isbn 9781532686474
Автор произведения Wynand De Beer
Жанр Религия: прочее
Издательство Ingram
In a later chapter we will see how Plato appropriated this Indo-European social organization in his political philosophy. Now, when considering traditional Indo-European thought, we could say that Indian and Hellenic philosophy represent its Eastern and Western branches, respectively. Henceforth, we will focus on various themes encountered in Hellenic philosophy and their continuation (in a qualified manner) in traditional Christian theology, both Greek and Latin, as well as in socio-political thought, including forms of government.
1. Quiles and López-Menchero, Grammar, 58–66; Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 104–111.
2. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 105–106.
3. Wikipedia: Indo-European migrations; Campbell, Race and Religion, 9; King, Origins, 28–33.
4. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 107; Yockey, Imperium, 323.
5. Quiles & López-Menchero, Grammar, 67, 75.
6. In the scientific sense, as used here, ‘race’ means a subspecies within a given species, since most animal and plant species consist of subspecies, or races. Consequently, there is no such entity as ‘the human race,’ as one often hears in political propaganda and media disinformation. Instead, the human species (Homo sapiens) consists of several races, or subspecies.
7. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 112–113.
8. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 112–113.
9. Yockey, Imperium, 276, 282, 289.
10. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 63, 66.
11. Campbell, Race and Religion, 8, 13–14.
12. Wikipedia: Beltane; Campbell, Race and Religion, 8–10.
13. Schuon, Ancient Worlds, 64.
14. Günther, Religious attitudes, 51; Marlow, “Hinduism and Buddhism,” 39.
15. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 38.
16. Haudry, Indo-Europeans, 38–39; Wikipedia: Caste system in India.
17. Schuon, Castes, 11–14, 33, 36.
18. Wikipedia: Ṛita; Günther, Religious attitudes, 33–34.
Being and Non-being
Why is there something instead of nothing? This question may at first glance appear to be irrelevant or even foolish, but it is actually one of the most important of all questions. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, also called the Law of Entropy, the total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time. In other words, a net loss of energy is inevitably taking place within any closed system. And since the universe in which we live is a closed system (albeit an unimaginably vast one), it should be inexorably moving away from things that exist to a state of nothingness. But instead, we observe a plethora of new things arising all the time, from the birth of solar systems to new life-forms appearing through evolutionary processes.
Our initial question could also be cast in ontological terms: why are there beings at all instead of only non-being? Broadly speaking, ‘being’ denotes that which exists and ‘non-being’ indicates that which does not exist, or nothingness. The study of being has come to be known as ontology. The Greek word ousia means the being, substance, or essence of a thing, while ‘ontology’ is derived from the Greek ta onta, meaning the things which actually exist;19 in other words, that which has being, or reality. Ontology is therefore an investigation into the nature of being. The purpose of such an undertaking is to distinguish that which is real from that which is unreal, and, since there are different levels of reality, also the more real from the less real. In other words, ontology deals with reality in the widest sense of the word.
The first Western thinker to distinguish between being and non-being was Parmenides (fifth century B.C.), who hailed from the Hellenic colony at Elea in southern Italy. It is not widely known that during the first millennium B.C. and continuing well into the Christian era, there was such a large Hellenic population in southern Italy, including Sicily, that the Romans referred to these areas as Magna Graecia, meaning Great Greece. In an influential poem titled On Nature (the contents of which was revealed to him by an unnamed goddess), Parmenides wrote about “the one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be,” and “the other, that it is not and that it is necessary for it not to be” (Fragment 2). An identical terminology is encountered in the Indian spiritual classic, the Bhagavad Gita: “What is non-Being is never known to have been, and what is Being is never known not to have been” (2:16).
The numerous and striking parallels between classical Indian and Hellenic philosophy have been explored by various authors. Hellenic thinkers mentioned in this regard include Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Plato. Concluding his informative survey of these parallels, A.N. Marlow suggests that Indian influence probably reached the Hellenic world through Iran as intermediary.20 Without denying a flow of thought in either direction, we suggest that these parallels should be ascribed primarily to a common spiritual-intellectual inheritance. For instance, the Indo-European names for the supreme Deity (of which more later) certainly indicate a common origin.
The characteristics of being, as Parmenides understands it, have been summarized as follows: (i) It is without origin or cessation, since it could only arise from or return to non-being, which does not exist other than as an abstraction; (ii) it is an indivisible whole, which is to say a homogeneous continuity; (iii) it is motionless, since motion requires empty space, but that is non-being (which does not really exist); and (iv) it is perfect, since any lack therein would imply the existence of non-being, which is impossible.21 Again, an identical ontology is presented in the Bhagavad Gita: “Know that to be imperishable whereby all this is pervaded.