/lit/ - Literature

>>16151939
I’ve gathered from reading various things, that, not surprisingly, they had a lot of different outlooks on life. The original inhabitants, the invaders, the regular folks and the elites. They had their pirates and farmers and so on. Mythology seems to have put them on an axis Nietzsche described (and maybe others. I’m not sure if this was his own idea) as the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The controlling order freak and the libertarian, naturalistic hedonist.
The duality and acceptance of the two can create a nice culture. Maybe Winkelmann writes about it too.

>>16151972
I'm currently reading Nietzsche and started with Twilight of the Idols, but I wanted to see if there's a first hand source on this information. Or maybe that's just their mythology I should read and interpret for myself? Maybe they didn't bother with philosophy to the extent we do today before Socrates? Maybe the Greeks didn't have a "way of life" and 5BC Athens was just a product of politics and other fortunate circumstances that could not be replicated today? I meditate on these sorts of questions a lot

>>16152010
Hesiod and Homer are now your best friends.
Although simply reading them doesn't fix the problem that our thinking is essentially the opposite of the myths. I think this is clarified in the great mistakes Nietzsche made, if the classical Greeks are nearly impossible for us to understand then what of the archaic people and those of the dark ages?

Of any modern artist Holderlin was likely closest to the Greeks, and much better than Nietzsche. I'll link two recent posts that are related. The first is an attempt to understand myth through our relation to art, the Greek understanding of time and the Muses.
>>/lit/thread/S15970158#p15977486

In this I try to explain in what sense the gods are real, a mythic relation quite different from the Christian, and give an idea of where we might be in relation to someone like Odysseus.
>>/lit/thread/S16138133#p16139418

There was no φιλοσοφία, only σοφία. Socrates is the first philosopher, Plato the one who invented the term. If I remember correctly, Plato's socrates explains it very well in Phaedon, where he calls philosophy δεύτερος πλους (the second sailing), where he has to row (use dialogue and the dialectical method to uncover the truth), whereas the ancient σοφοί simply sailed with the wind (had wisdom as immediate revelation of λόγος)

>>16152238
>if the classical Greeks are nearly impossible for us to understand then what of the archaic people and those of the dark ages?
Finley was a great help on this for me.

>everybody shifted their philosophy to that of Plato and/or Aristotle after they wrote their works
What else, did every Hindu follow the sydtematisations? Did local cults disappear over night?
Anyways, there's multiple interpretations of how the Greeks understood themselves and their world
As far as religion goes, Walter Burkert is pretty good
As far as morality and attitudes went, Davidson is nice

>>16152238
>Another difference in the Greek myths is that both mortals and immortals are subject to the total violence of law.
Can you explain this? I don't know much about Greek myth.

Is this what is represented by how the gods seems to be subservient and subjected to the Fates/Destiny? Is this what you mean by the violence of the law?

Read Dodds Greeks and the Irrational and Jaeger Paideia

And Burckhardt History of Greek Culture

>>16152583
I'm not him but that's probably what he means
The number 1 power in the greek cosmos was Zeus and after him was Moira, fate or destiny, and Zeus himself was known as the Moiragètēs or the guide/leader/Führer of fate
Everybody else is subservient to the power of Moira though it is worth noting that the gods can theoretically break the bonds of Moira but doing so would yield such catastrophic consequences upon the universe that nobody did

>>16151939
God I wish that were me

>>16151939
I'd love to slap that ass on the right, hard, then split the soft cheeks and fill the asshole with my hard prick while the rest of the bitches look at the dicking

>>16152278
I think this is true for the most part, although discounted both in the myths and history. There is always a divide, a chasm of thought, we can see this in the art and technology of all eras. Even the primitive man has to take up the artificial eye to sever a stone into the precise angles of a cutting tool; or the aerial view in which he sees the mistakes of a young hunter.

In the myths this is the Gigantes and Titanes. Their being is often regarded as the greatest division, and yet even within their own types there is a division of what we refer to as perception - of insight and the instincts, the rational and the imaginative. The Giants have the Cyclopes and Antaeus, the Titans have Prometheus and Epimetheus.

Our sense of the impossible is caused by this divide, which can be widened by either type of thought. The poet is an Epimethean figure, but also a descendent of Antaeus; the politician is of the genealogy of Prometheus and the Cyclopes. The very idea of Sophia is itself a division, one which proscribes thought to the law of the Olympians. This is already a decline.

One may see an outline of this in the story of Marcellus and Archimedes at the Siege of Syracuse. Marcellus, taking flight, sees the great machines of Archimedes turning his ships into ladles of the ocean, and curses him as a 'geometrical Briareus who outdoes the hundred-handers of mythology. And in the war for Troy, the lines of soldiers overrun by Diomedes as a falling tidal wave, returning Aphrodite herself to the moment of creation.

>>16153130
2
This was also the Dionysian vision Ernst Junger had at Langemarck, a vision completely opposite to Holderlin's madness, and yet its equal. "The world ends in every moment." The law of the mechanical clock but also apocatastasis. This is the only appropriate myth of our time, one which only the dead may see. The world falling away as a wave was too real to be seen by the living. One who is overwhelmed by Giants cannot see anything else, and yet they become the eye of a Cyclops. It was only before the machine gun, before an eternity within the smallest frame of time, that one could catch a glimpse of this world. Junger learned this from his brother, the unknown soldiers his Muse, our myth of Troy which may never be retold.

Kant and Nietzsche are the mythic figures of our time, ones who resist the curse of time only through proscribing it, becoming it. It is in the law of execration that the world of churches disappears, something more devastating than morality and what may be found in either perpetual peace or eternal reccurence. But one cannot see this even when laid out as a simplistic inversion of myth, the popularisers of Kant and Nietzsche succeed in what is little more than a church planting of the mind process. Neither the literary nor the analytic has any effect, suggesting that Nietzsche's law - his is more significant and destructive than Kant's laws - must be something other than it appears. Their vision is that of Arachne, of its woven curse but with nothing of a divine quality. What this speaks to is a law of laws, without its hierarchy and warring efforts one becomes blinded by what he attempts to see. The opposite law of the Cyclopes.

https://youtu.be/jPld3OS7W7U

>>16151972
>>16152010
>>16152238
exoteric aspect of greek mythology and superficial understanding of its culture, that is what you want, that is why nietzsche befits your demands. be happy living this way.

Would highly recommend Aristocracy in Greek Society by Arnheim. Also a survey of the preSocratics and Homer and Hesiod would do you well too. Thucydides is also a very oldschool style of thinker. Additionally, “Aristotle’s Poetics: the Argument” by Else sheds a lot of light on the aristocratic assumptions that Arnheim describes, even though it’s about a later thinker.

>>16153273
>>16152238
How is it superficial? And what is the full understanding?

>>16152621
>Jaeger Paideia
Looks interesting. You got the epub/kindle? I can only find pdf

>>16153130
Very interesting take, explicating much further than the simple distinction I have observed in the history of the movements of greek thought (and a great song too)
Where i do not agree with you is in relating σοφία exclusively with νους, and it with thought. The archaic wisemen did not proscribe thought to gods, but law (Parmenides - δική, Heraclitus - λόγος), and divine Law being above the gods is very widespread in greek thought.
Of course, you know this, but the way they concieved thinking is very wider than we do. Empedocles even mentions the "palms of the mind", while Platon, although είδος is a form, a "seeing" (cyclops) in his esoteric doctrine mentions the highest knowledge a "touch" with Being after a spark lights up within us (havent read the 7th letter in greek so dont know the specific terms he uses)
Also, when you mention the "literary" and "analytic", are thos synonyms for μύθος and λόγος?
Also, i do not see how kant is a mythic figure simply with his interiorization of time, since, as fichte and schelling pointed out and kant hinted at it, the root of this "other" which is the foundation of this exterior form of interiority is unknown, and its immersion in the subject is completed with schelling.

>>16152583
Not sure if I referenced Pindar in that, but he speaks of this totality of law reigning through violence over both mortals and immortals. This is also what Plato discusses in the Euthyphro.
The Fates are a good example, as are the divine wars. In Prometheus we see the rule of law as a form of total war: even the gods are subject to the war within themselves and that which rules over the heavens. Prometheus is imprisoned, and only through a war of time does he overcome the law which proscribes him. He returns to his father and his brother, beings who rule even in their absence.

It is quite difficult to explain and you almost certainly need to read the myths in total to understand even a single god. Much of the thinking is paradoxical, counter-intuitive, and the intent is not really to reveal a meaning.

In simple terms one might say the gods can be killed and yet they return. As we see with Aphrodite's bleeding in the Trojan war, if the gods die then it is just as the men of the golden age - clothed in mist and falling away as if in a dream.

>>16152238
I'm reading through your links, and while I don't necessarily disagree, I can't quite see what you're getting at in the second. Could you clarify, or condense it down?

>>16153416
Thanks for that response, anon. Your thoughts are very good and helpful for my own working through this. From my notes
>Speculative realism or abstract expressionism, the only two possibilities for a traditional philosophy and art in our time. While they appear, at least on the surface, to be entirely distinct, of their own world, they are in method and essence the same. The great revolution of values also destroys all distinction, other than the divided world of conflicting appearances. The chasm of thought is greater than the length of all the walls in the world, and yet each form remains one. The myopia of inner sight.

Sophia as nous is basically the opposite of my intent. With the point on sophia what I was attempting to get at was the war of the gods and its impact on symbols, words, naming. Where a word becomes identified with a single god, especially one whose rule is certain, it begins to lose its form, its dominion. For example, is it not best that a city be named in dedication formed of conflict rather than pure dedication alone? Athens is stronger for its conflict between Athena and Poseidon, but the potential for war between them is also the mark of its fate. It cannot be a mistake that Athens fell to sea forces after betraying its oath before the Temple of Athena.

Opposite to this is the building methods of the Christians. God must be total, and so the very rite of the city cannot be formed with the mark of the Devil. Anything resembling the forces of the underworld must be built away from the city, and with iron so far away that it must not be heard. The very danger in this method is that it lays the ground for other laws to be proscribed. Both the siege and heresy is in its foundations; neutralisation appears as a force from within the katechon.

We may understand Plato's Forms as the force opposed to the law of violence which rules over both gods and mortals. All of the philosophers participated in this to some degree, but in Apology we see Socrates as Nietzsche's madman. All who know understand that the instincts are nothing, and the daimon everything. This is a form of violence born of greater laws than Nietzsche could ever imagine, his proscribed violence appearing only in the devastation of his own words.

>>16154801
2
Our understanding, wisdom, or sophia, requires both great insight and imagination. One must see images and figures, not ideas and simple lines. This is in the power of art which takes us away to other worlds as if in a dream. It is of the intellect, but also formed of something more. Today we hear of headless men, aképhalos, and rather than fight them most will use whatever is left of their intellect to join their mass.

We may best to understand this world of forms through the very image of warfare. The form is really born of dominion, as in the Roman pomerium (I'm not sure if there is a Greek equivalent, but this is still useful since Tyche is a corresponding goddess). The held territory outside of the pomerium serves as a transitional place of opposing laws. In it one may sense great threats, and yet the presence of war is also a strengthening factor, a natural law which may only strengthen the pomerium. Tyche is a diplomat for the warring gods of a city. As an Oceanid we see that the great boundary of the world also exists as the law of a city. Permanent war may be equated with perpetual peace because this greatest of laws. Total violence is what rules over the gods, but also gives birth to them and allows them to return from punishment or death.

Our own understanding of war is opposite to this. The paradox of a strong defense is the explication of armaments, building towards that which will inevitably overwhelm. Mere territory is eroded and borders force themselves into the divine territory of friend and enemy without regard for any other law. This is, in its origin, opposite to the law of conquest in which the territory of the defeated enemy threatens to spill its blood into the homeland. The Roman Triumphal Arches are also gates of hell, the coffered vaults as eyes of the plunder watching over the triumphal procession.

This is also the law of bronze, the mirror of the form; and the Aegis, that great mirror of divine warfare. The procession of worlds, where one confronts death in its totality, even invites the death of absolute law. Bronze and the Aegis are reflections of the world of "utmost violence". Beauty is one of the greatest laws of war, and where bronze is abandoned one must assume that Aphrodite and Ares have been killed.

>>16154811
3
The War and Peace of Westphalia against all laws of Tyche. Not only does the divine territory of the city disappear, but wealth becomes indistinguishable from ruin. Leonardo's Anghiari is lost to fate, and we are left with the image of Poseidon and his horses. Neutralisaton is also an overwhelming defense of the earth forces, against the Triumphal Arches we are left with the image of Dulle Griet.

Against this war of dominion and the law of violence we can imagine a single law of our own era. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." This is Pindar's Law deprived of all quality, it is the cyclopean vision which can only appear inwards - the very law of time which replaces cathedrals with clocktowers and then the abstract image of the Doomsday Clock. Atomic warfare in the complete opposite sense of the presocratics. The complete stalling of time through division, the irreconcilable laws of contradiction formed of the katechon and eschaton. This is how modern man sees the world a dead vision, from the corpse of the Cyclops rather than God.

To finally answer your questions, I am attempting to use these words in a mythic sense. The reference to Kant as a mythic figure is intended to be ironic, he is the complete opposite of a mythic figure. The thought of the gods is, as you suggest, descended from law. And in the same way, the literary and analytic are descendants of myth and law, but so far removed from their power as to be almost useless. Their quality tends to be of a revealing only through accident, which is perhaps why the technical takes on the appearance of a snake path. Or as the law of modern technology tells us, cutting off the tip of the pyramid only widens the base until a desert is formed. Nothing remains but burial grounds, all unworthy of death (Junger).

>>16154816
4
Is nomos the parent of dike and logos, just as Themis is the parent of Dike and Eunomia? I think it is likely, but as is the case with all language analysis and etymology one must be careful of falling into technicalism and bare associations. It is also a problem of reading backward. Also interesting in this is seeing logos as a divided law from all the descendants of Themis.

That may have been the mistake Socrates made, or at least what he was accused of. His wisdom through force can easily be mistaken for upsetting the laws of perception of the gods, especially those that may be perceived as evil.

That is what I was getting at with the comment on the giants and titans. Law is their rule, and even in someone like Epimetheus who is often misread as a fool, one who causes a great mistake, we see it is rule of law that matters. Intellect cannot be the governining law, just as love or piety are not. There is nothing divisible in the gods, they are of a law of laws.

Or in other words, physiomachy is ruled over by the nomomachy theomachy. Atheism and nihilism are their opposite pillars, descendants of the physiomachy, and formed as if at the end of the universe. From chaos to the void. Hence the appearance of the absolute within the mundane for the moderns. Nietzsche, the Great Dionysus who is brought to an eternity of tears before a child's cup of wine.

Hopefully that all makes some sense, it gets pretty scattered at the end. Any comments are appreciated.

>>16151939
god i wish that were me

Also worth noting how Nietzsche's expectation of Socrates is ridiculous. What the dialogues represent is the opposite side of life to the festivals, a sort of saturnalia of the laws of violence, where the mundane of everyday life may retain its divine quality. This is completely lost to the modern way of thinking, and here we see how the stoics were superior to Nietzsche's thought. Better to be a slave to the festivals than a criminal only in one's mind.

>>16153500
Sorry, anon, just wrote a crazy amount. But maybe later I can try to clarify.
A more specific question might also help.

>>16154832
What are they doing to him?

>>16155656
Nymphs mad a satyr was peeping at their titties

From the thumbnail I thought it was some bacchanalian revelers tearing a man limb from limb. There are records of them doing that. Or the Erinyes tormenting Orestes.

>>16152278
>Socrates is the first philosopher
Bahahahahahahah.
>Plato the one who invented the term
BAHAHAHHAHAHA LMAOO!!

Jesus Christ look at this fucking dilettante brainlet trying so hard with the Greek characters and transliteration. Insane cringe, please kill yourself.

>>16156417
This. I also want to make a post with nothing but insults, because it's all that dumbass deserves, but it can be easily dismissed as it has no justification. So let me just point out that tradition say that it was Pythagoras that invented the term and he was, of course, a presocratic. Pick up any history of philosophy and read the first 20 pages and you'll find out as much. Fucking hell, why don't idiots just stay silent on shit they know nothing about.

>>16156417
>>16156468
He doesn't mean it literally brainlets.

>>16156489
Oh sure, you can invent a term metaphorically. That's very smart of you, but I don't mean this literally.

>>16156489
Socrates being a new quality is platonic propaganda and even when Plato talks of ancient sophoi he means people like the seven wise guys. You can also get that from the first 20 pages of any history of philosophy, you just need to read it a bit more carefully.

Every philosopher thought he was a God or prophet until Plato.

>>16157488
Which is ironic, considering that the first one to actually be any of those things was Plato.

>>16151939
They sacrificed children, had lots of gay sex.
Sounds just like the kind of shit you'd be into.

>>16157529
Socrates felt that homosexuality was unethical. That's why OP hates him.
>>16156417
Plato is the first person to write it down, brainlet.

>>16151939
>Ywn get gangraped by a bunch of women innawoods

>>16152010
>Maybe the Greeks didn't have a "way of life"
The Greeks weren't even a monolithic culture in the classical era. They had varying cultural practices across regions with some similarities but in other senses stark differences. Examining Mycenae is even moreso complicated, most of what is known about it is what sustained into the classical era and pretty much all of that is filtered through a lens of some drastic societal changes. They have an amalgamation of PIE and Egyptian mythologies, Egyptian styled initiatory systems of which the doctrine and practices are unknown, Phoenician script which derives from Egyptian - etc. Plato/Socrates represents a mystic union of Egyptian/Pythagorean metaphysics and practice expressed in a more universally digestable tone. Saying Plato/Socrates "ruined philosophy" is pretty fucking hilarious considering it -IS- philosophy, in the purest sense of the word that is possible. The word being invented by Pythagoras, whos practices and studies are embodied and best expressed within Platonism - makes Platonism the heir and successor, for us the greatest link. It is philosophy, pure and simple - and a method of death and rebirth which philosophy was always intended.

>>16157591
talk for yourself

A fool is excited by every word.
Dogs bark at everyone they do not know.
What understanding or intelligence have they? They put their trust in popular bards and take the mob for their teacher, unaware that most people are bad, and few are good.
Every beast is driven to pasture by blows.
Heraclitus of Ephesus

>>16151939
If you had been born in Athens, you would have lived your whole life there. The Athenians were very fond of their freedom, but they were too much attached to their home. They could not bear to leave it, no matter how much more joyous their lives might have been elsewhere.

The great Romans could not settle anywhere. They might have lived happily in the woods, but they could not endure a life in one place. Perhaps that is why they became conquerors, and destroyed all those places. But the Greeks were content to remain at home.

When Socrates saw he would not persuade others to leave, he decided that his own conviction was insufficient. Knowing this, he determined to persuade himself first. The day he convinced himself that he was ready, the first thing he did was to go into the public square and take a rope tied to a tree and hang himself. When he died he left no writings, and ever since then his wisdom has been debated by those who would draw some conclusion from it.

Greece has been dead for more than two thousand years now. It is time to draw your own conclusions.

And yes, you are like the Greeks. You value freedom, but you would not sacrifice your life to preserve it. You have preferred to remain at home, knowing that it is only there that you may find liberty. But it is not enough to simply remain at home. If that were all, this house would be the happiest place in the world. You must spread your own wings and fly to other horizons. As you have learned from your own experiences, certainty is not to be found in one's surroundings. The only certainty is that which is learned from experience

>>16153144
>>Kant and Nietzsche are the mythic figures of our time, ones who resist the curse of time only through proscribing it,
nah, only the mythic figures of the bourgeois always trying to hype the intellectual and the free thinker.

>>16151972
>reading various things
any source on those? I'm interested

>>16158173
-rupi kaur

>>16158349
except that she is shit
and not greek
or ancient

>>16158296
That's what I was getting at.

>>16151939
They cute.

bump for arm chair philsopphy