Fixed nature and dynamic processes in Hahnemann's thought

Background and Aims. At least since classical Greek philosophy two opposite vews are facing, the one of Heraclitus, affirming that all things are in a continuous flux, and the other of Parmenides, the assertor of changelessness. The aim of present contribution is to consider if and how the tension between such views continues to permeate several features of the culture, including the thought of S. Hahnemann. Methods. This will be achieved through the examination of some cases in the natural sciences and human sciences, including Hahnemann’s writings. Few examples are presented here. The living being can be viewed as a thing genetically determined, or as an open and dynamic complex of processes interacting mutually and with the environment at metabolic and informational levels. The central nervous system is seen to underlie both automatic, and creative behaviours. A species is considered a pure ideal type, or a historically varying population of similar individuals. The basic traits of human behaviour are attributed to an unchanging nature (better, a nature undergoing slow Darwinian changes), or to a culture evolving in a rapid Lamarckian way. Within an integrated view of the person one may consider both the four fixed human constitutions (see H. Bernard; M. Martiny; N. Pende; A. Negro), and their four changing constitutional stages (see H. Bernard). Classical culture highlights the paramount importance of universal principles, while postmodern culture highlights proteanism, liquid state, patchwork. In particular, we may encounter such two views in the thought of Hahnemann on diseases. They are found in his writings respectively on the chronic diseaes, and on the so-called non-miasmatic diseases. About chronic diseases, he wrote that they are primitive, deeply-rooted, underlying external symptoms, old, universal, always recurring, internal, and do not desappear even when external symptoms of acute diseases desappeared, while the whole symptoms of them must be extensivery taken into account. About non-miasmatic diseases, he wrote that the complex of symptoms of a single case, which is always different for each individual case, cannot be foreseen, nor schematized, nor taken as a model, nor treated by an a priori chosen remedy or with a priori rules different from the strict application of the so-called law of similars, experimentally established. Conclusions. We may conclude that Hahnemann’s integrated consideration of diseases takes into account both the fixed characteristics of the chronic ones and the dynamic processes of the acute ones, so that the two above views appear to be not opposed, but perfectly integrated.

The Role of Mass Communication & Globalization in Global Islamic Perspective Futuristic and Predictive Study of Modern Muslim World

The analysis mainly deals with the processing of the qualitative data that is collected from the secondary method. The data analysis process involves collecting the qualitative data pertaining to the concept of globalization and mass communication. In accordance with the literature review, the data analysis would be analyzing the concept of globalization in light of Islam and its teachings. The data analysis would mainly be analyzing the literature obtained from the past research, news article and website. The data analysis would be mainly be looking for the concept of globalization and mass communication and its significance in light of the Islam perspective.[1] Hence the analysis technique is content analysis. The article mainly focused on the contemporary academic and media approach toward different modules of mass communication. The integration of the philosophical legacy of antiquity in the Islamic world was a major enabling factor in the use of philosophical tradition among Muslim intellectuals. It gave rise to figures such as al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes), and others, who became well-known to mediaeval Europe as philosophers, commentators and exponents of the classical tradition going back to Plato and Aristotle. The public discourse of 'adab, grounded in philosophical and moral language and concerns, represents a significant part of the cosmopolitan heritage of ethics in Islam and reflects efforts to reconcile religiously and scripturally derived values with an intellectually and morally based ethical foundation. The Muslim philosophical tradition of ethics is therefore doubly significant: for its value in continuing and enhancing classical Greek philosophy and for its commitment to synthesizing Islam and philosophical thought.

SOME ASPECTS OF "MISCELLANY OF 1073" PHILOSOPHICAL TERMS TRANSLATION: PHILOSOPHY OF COGNITION

This research article is devoted to the research of philosophical terms of the famous Kyivan Rus’ artifact on translation of the 11th century – “Miscellany (Izbornyk) of 1073”. Scientists studied this subject in the past. However, they were focused on logical terminology, reflected in the famous fragment of “Miscellany”, which was called “philosophical treatise”. The author of this research article, unlike other scientists, has researched a part of the text “Joseph on the Maccabees”. It is no less important for clarifying the peculiarities of the philosophical terms use than the already mentioned “philosophical treatise”. The chapter “Joseph on the Maccabees” in “Miscellany” is a translation of fragments of the 4 Maccabees from Greek into Old Church Slavonic, which raises the issue – how passions can be guided by reflection. This well-known apocrypha is quite saturated with receptions of classical Greek philosophy, primarily Platonism, Aristotelianism and Stoicism. It is also extremely valuable as an illustration of the complex process of the translator’s selection of ancient Slavic equivalents of Greek philosophical terms related to the philosophy of knowledge and ethics. Some of them were subsequently established in our philosophical language. In particular, the features of translation of such Greek words as “λογισμὸς”, “νοῦς”, “λόγου”, “σοφία” reflected in “Miscellany” into Old Church Slavonic have been analyzed, and the possibility of Old Church Slavonic terms translation into modern Ukrainian has also been considered. The result of the study is recognition of the need to raise the issue of modern Ukrainian philosophical terms ability to reproduce ancient Greek or even ancient Slavic terms associated with philosophy of knowledge in the process of translation. In particular, when dealing with “Miscellany”, it becomes clear that it is wrongful to reflect all cognitive processes and psychic instances with the concept “mind” in the modern terminological scheme. When dealing with old handwritten material in Old Church Slavonic, in particular “Miscellany of 1073”, it is necessary to define and distinguish the concepts of “reflection”, “mind”, “intellect”, “wisdom”, since they had specific meaning generated by attempt to translate them from Greek.

Aristotle's Categories

If there are one text and one doctrine which have been integral to Western philosophy almost without interruption, be it in the form of endorsement and defense or in the form of criticism, those are a short treatise, ascribed to Aristotle and usually known under the title Categories, and the doctrine of a primitive division of being into highest genera: the categories. Since the “rediscovery” of Aristotle’s writings and their organization in a corpus in the wave of enthusiasm for classical Greek philosophy in the 1st bce, all aspects of this work have been the object of debate. Controversies concern the very authenticity of the work, its title, its general philosophical scope, and all sorts of more specific issues emerging from the single chapters. It is difficult to tell what factors exactly determined the extraordinary historical and philosophical relevance of this short text over the centuries. One feature of it which certainly played some role is that the Categories looks like an introduction to philosophy, to the inquiry into what there is and to the reflection about the way in which we think and speak about reality—or, at least, this is the impression it gave to many generations of philosophers. In fact, the Categories came to occupy a particular place in the curriculum of philosophical studies not only for those interested in Aristotelian or Peripatetic philosophy, but, more generally, for all those interested in philosophy. This place within the history of philosophy explains the enormous amount of literature devoted to this work in the last two thousand years. This bibliography is meant to provide initial orientation with respect to the main issues raised by this relatively well known and at the same time puzzling and fascinating little text. The bibliography is divided into two main parts: the first part includes the references to general works (critical editions, translations, bibliographies, commentaries, and collections of essays), whereas the second part provides references to the literature on more specific topics (authenticity, title, early reception, and specific issues concerning the single chapters or groups of chapters). In compiling select bibliographies one must, by definition, make some choices. This bibliography aims at some balance between classic studies and more recent contributions, which also include bibliographical references to the earlier literature.

“Yu Jiyuan 余紀元 and Retrofitting ‘Metaphysics’ for Confucian Philosophy: Human ‘Beings’ or Human ‘Becomings’?

In past work on Chinese “cosmology”, I have resisted using the term “metaphysics” because of the history of this term in classical Greek philosophy. Angus Graham has warned us of the equivocations that arise in eliding the distinction between Greek ontology and classical Chinese cosmology. In this essay, I have been inspired by my dear friend the late Yu Jiyuan’s distinction between classical Greek “metaphysics” and “contemporary metaphysics with ambiguous edges” to adapt the term “metaphysics” for use within the classical Confucian corpus. In the language of Confucian “metaphysics”, the ultimate goal of our philosophical inquiry is quite literally “to know one’s way around things’” (zhidao 知道) in the broadest possible sense of the term “things”. In the application of Confucian metaphysics, “knowing” certainly begins from the cognitive understanding of a situation, but then goes on to include the creative and practical activity of “realizing a world” through ars contextualis—the art of contextualizing things. I apply the insight that “metaphysics” so understood in the Confucian context provides a warrant for establishing a useful contrast between a Greek conception of the “human being” and a Confucian conception of “human becomings”.

Jorge Basadre, filósofo de la historia

ResumenToda la obra historiográfica republicana del intelectual peruano Jorge Basadre Grohmann (1903-1980) se sustenta en una rica filosofía de la historia que parte de su opción por la filosofía clásica griega, así como de la filosofía alemana moderna; sus ensayos socio-históricos son los que mejor interpretan filosóficamente la actualidad peruana, clave para comprender su vigencia y trascendencia intelectual. De cara a la conmemoración del Bicentenario de la Independencia, con el presente estudio iniciamos la exploración de esa veta filosófica que aparece, permanece yfluye en toda su obra.Palabras clave: Identidad, proyecto, posibilidad, promesa, ser, Nación, Estado, peruanidad. AbstractAll the republican historiographic research of the Peruvian intellectual Jorge Basadre Grohmann (1903-1980) is supported by a rich philosophy of history that emerges from his choice for classical Greek philosophy, as well as modern German philosophy; and his socio-historical essays remains as the best way to interpret Peru nowadays: is the key to understand its validity and intellectual transcendence. In the face of the commemoration of the Peruvian Independence Bicentennial, with this study we begin the exploration of that philosophical vein that appears and remains in all his works.Keywords: Identity, project, possibility, promise, being, Nation, State, Peruvian identity.

On the Role of Greek Philosophy in the Formation of Hellenistic Monarchies

The article deals with the question of the influence of Greek philosophy on the formation of Hellenistic monarchies. According to one point of view, theories of Greek philosophers on kingship played an important role in the formation of absolutism in the Hellenistic monarchies. It is believed that it is in the classical Greek philosophy that the ideas on absolute monarchy as the best state structure and on the legal rights of an outstanding person to royal power were developed. In the course of the study, the author infers that Greek philosophy did not have a significant impact on the formation of absolutism in Hellenistic monarchies. The Greek philosophers’ doctrines of kingship were significantly different from the type of power that was characteristic of the Hellenistic monarchies. Leading political philosophers of the IV century BC Plato and Aristotle were supporters of two types of monarchy: a moderate monarchy in which the royal power is limited by law and an absolute monarchy based on the exceptional virtue of the king. In the Hellenistic monarchies, the unlimited power of the king was originally associated with military-political power. At the same time, the author finds that Greek philosophy had an indirect influence on the formation of absolute monarchies in the period of early Hellenism. This influence consisted in the fact that Greek philosophers criticized the sociopolitical system of Greece and the main types of polity of the state – democracy and oligarchy. Plato and Aristotle sharply criticized extreme forms of oligarchy and democracy in their works. At the same time, as the author has established, philosophers were supporters of moderate democracy and oligarchy. The sophists, the cynics and the Cyrenaics also actively criticized the values and traditions of polis. Thus, Greek philosophers unwittingly contributed to the weakening of the polis and the formation of absolute monarchies. The author has also found that Greek philosophers influenced the formation of the enlightened character of the rule of individual Hellenistic kings. Philosophers contributed to the upbringing of high moral qualities in the Hellenistic kings. This influence was especially evident in Alexander the Great, Ptolemy I Soter, Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Antigonus II Gonatas. In the final part of the article, the author comes to the conclusion that the main role in the formation of absolute monarchies in the period of early Hellenism was played by the ancient Eastern political traditions, as well as by the nature of the formation of Hellenistic kingdoms and their ethnic composition.

Гермотим из Клазомен и начало афинской философии

Гермотим из Клазомен – фигура в истории греческой философии, можно сказать, маргинальная. В современной литературе он появляется разве что в ряду других колдунов и мистиков VII–VI вв. до н.э. В таком статусе он включается и в собрание Дильса. Анализируя сведения о Гермотиме, автор ставит перед собой цель найти ему место среди малоазийских философов первой величины, которых считают основателями греческой философии. Различение духа (души) и материи (тела) станет основополагающим принципом греческой философии, понятие Ума (нуса) выступит фундаментом для системы Анаксагора, первого афинского философа, с которого, собственно, и начнется история классической греческой философии. Автор разделяет точку зрения Э. Доддса и др., что появление нового для Греции представления о различии души и тела коренится в северной (гиперборейской?) ментальности, привнесенной в греческий мир во времена колонизации VII–VI вв. до н.э., а возможно – и в более ранние. Ключевые слова: история философии, Древняя Греция, Гиперборея, Гермотим из Клазомен, Анаксагор, шаманизм, нус, душа, тело Hermotimus of Clazomenae can be called a marginal figure in the history of Greek philosophy. In modern literature he is mentioned only among other sorcerers and mystics of the VIIth–VIth centuries BC. The collection of Hermann Diels describes him in the same manner. Analyzing available information about Hermotimus, the author makes an attempt to place him among the primary Anatolian philosophers who are considered the founders of Greek philosophy. The distinction between spirit (soul) and matter (body) will become the fundamental principle of Greek philosophy; the concept of Nous (cosmic Mind) will be the foundation for the system of Anaxagoras, the first Athenian philosopher, from which, in fact, the history of classical Greek philosophy begins. The author shares the point of view of E. Dodds and others that the emergence of a new concept about the difference between soul and body in Greece is rooted in the northern (Hyperborean?) mentality introduced into the Greek world during the colonization of the VIIth–VIth centuries BC or possibly in earlier times. Keywords: history of philosophy, Ancient Greece, Hyperborea, Hermotimus of Clazomenae, Anaxagoras, shamanism, nous, soul, body