Philosophy Archives - Page 5 of 7 - Maier Files Series Tidbits and Articles-

$Descartes$

Descartes radical shift in mathematics

If you have been the proverbial fly on the wall in Descartes’s bed-room in La Flèche, in southern France, in 1636, you may have watched Descartes laying in bed observing you. His most remarkable idea came to him while observing a fly crawl along a curved path, which he thought about illustrating in terms of its distance from the walls. A revolution in thought was in the making; mathematics would certainly never be similar. The...

Why in the world should the truth be dangerous?

Reveries on the search for Veritas … It is really crystal clear that the concept of dangerous truths has, for a very long time, been widespread, not to say a cliché. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Curiosity killed the cat. Ignorance is bliss. What you don’t know won’t hurt you. On a much deeper level, one need simply reflect on the story of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tower of...

The Glass Bead Game

Egalitarianism as a revolt against nature

Rothbard’s “Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature” displays a remarkable organic unity: the book is much more than the sum of its parts. Points made in the various essays included in the book mesh together to form a consistent worldview. The system of thought set forward in these essays, moreover, illuminates both history and the contemporary world. In the book’s initial essay, whose title has been adopted for the whole book, Murray Rothbard raises a...

Embrace Paradox to find Truth

Ulva Naumann stated in Maier files: “Knowing Ultimate Truth is only possible when you’re able to embrace paradox.” Your logical mind may find this impossible, but life itself has no problem in being paradoxical regardless. Good fortune always seems to bring happiness, but deceives you with her smiles, whereas bad fortune is always truthful because by changing she shows her true fickleness. Good fortune deceives, but bad fortune enlightens. Dualists hate paradox but in the...

This statement is a lie

The Evolution of Civilizations

The Evolution of Civilizations expresses two dimensions of its author, Carroll Quigley, that most extraordinary historian, philosopher, and teacher. In the first place, its scope is wide-ranging, covering the whole of man’s activities throughout time. Second, it is analytic, not merely descriptive. It attempts a categorization of man’s activities in sequential fashion so as to provide a causal explanation of the stages of civilization. Quigley coupled enormous capacity for work with a peculiarly “scientific” approach....

The Twelve Knights

In almost all myths all over the world the same theme reoccurs. The twelve knights, twelve tribes, twelve heroes etc. In his last and longest dialogue (Laws), Plato teaches: There are twelve feasts to the twelve Gods who give their names to the twelve tribes. Also in early christianity, the image of twelve disciples with the Godman figure at their center echoes the twelve constellations which revolve in the heavens around the pole star. Are...

The problem of consciousness

Wagner and Schopenhauer

When reading Otto Maier’s journals and stumbling on his musical (harmony) ideas, the illusionary world and the references to the division “Parzival” one will meet without doubt Wagner and Schopenhauer. Philosophical ideas profoundly inspired Wagner. Not in a dilettante fashion, but out of genuine interest, passionate need, and deep study. In early adulthood he was a real revolutionary socialist and a comrade of Mikhail Bakunin, in whose company he manned the barricades in the Dresden uprising of...

Imagination and phantasy

When following Otto Maier’s path one will meet somewhere on his/her road, Böhme. Like the contemporary student of the inner world, alchemists were concerned about differentiating imagination from fantasy. They were aware that true imagination possesses a power and depth that fantasy does not possess. Jakob Boehme was one of those who warned against the delusions of fantasy. Struggle for redemption Böhme was a mystic. Although not a practicing alchemist, he used the terminology and symbols...