GENERAL INTRODUCTION

By Franz J. T. Lee

In order to introduce Philosophy, firstly, one has to be a Philosopher, has to philosophize like a philosopher; secondly, to be able to philosophize, one must be able to act cosmically a n d to think ontically, must be able to think philosophically, item: must e x i s t ; thirdly, to excel in Praxis a n d Theory, one must t r a n s c e n d in historic excellence, must surpass the ordinary, everyday, unilinear, unilateral, universal labour grayness, has to ascend to the evergreen, triverse sublime, has to enter the historic realm of Reason and Emancipation, thus, leaving all universal quagmires and absolutist cesspools behind, allowing them inexorably to perish in-and-for-themselves.

The famous German philosopher, Hegel, did state that "all that comes into being merits that it perishes", "alles, was entsteht, ist wert, dass es untergeht" ; this is surely true for unilateral formal logical or universal, dialectical Being.

Certainly, as we understand our terms, the above does not refer to our: Being a n d Existence AND Transcendence.

Not only the Gods are trimensional; also We, You and I, are "divine" . We act a n d think AND transcend. Acting is Cosmic, is Doing, is Praxis. Thinking is Intellectual, is Existential, is Theory. Transcending is Surpassing, is Excellence, is Emancipation. This Historic Trinity, Essence and Existence AND Transcendence, as Us, as You and I, is the quintessence of what We understand as Human Being.

But, We are not only BEING, only Human Beings, We are not just passive actors on a world stage. We also exist, We are thinking actors a n d exist as active thinkers; in nuce: We ere Human Existences.

Furthermore, We transcend; moreover, We excel, We reason, We surpass as Human Transcendences. Until now, the above human qualities, as a totality, were attributed to the gods, were declared to be divine; mutatis mutandis they form the very essence of the Absolute Idea, of the World Spirit, of the Holy Trinity. We do not deny this "absolute truth"; We only state that We ourselves form a Human Trinity, and much more.

To act like Us, to think like Us, and to excel like Us, presuppose that We have been all along our lives on our own trail, in our own orbit, trying to historicize, to emancipate ourselves. For this We need no recruiting, no conviction, no conscientization. For us, PHILOSOPHY is not aristocratic: it is not the "queen of sciences", or the Warehouse of Absolute Truths, or the "ivory tower of cool or small talk". In the same manner as Science is our Essence, similarly, Philosophy exists as our thinking and thought process. In this sense, to be homo sapiens, we have to exist as homo philosophicus, and not be a primitive zoon politikon or a modern homo faber.

The rulers of this world like to call their dwelling-place "the fatherland", "das Vaterland" or "la Patria"; we have nothing against the act of calling someone or something names, as long as it ends there. Nonetheless, we are happy that the "master race" has identified for us its natural habitat and its social environment. We all know what the Patria is and that sometimes euphemistically it is called "History". Our connotation of History has to do with the dialectical, better even, with the dialogical, much more better even, with the diagorical relation ("Bezug") of Nature a n d Society; and surely not with its maltreated and perverted appearances, which form the very being of the Patria.

Certainly our understanding of the concept EMANCIPATION has very little to do with the classic "Emancipation of the Slaves" or with the conventional "Women's Lib", even less with the "emancipatory" pipe- dreams of the "New Left", of the "Neo-Right" or the "Neo-Liberal". Our emancipatory human process is essentially rooted in our modus vivendi, in the Patria; however, it exists beyond these formal-logical and ideological boundaries, and it transcends all "historical" utopias, enhancing anything that we ever could aspire, and which can never be realized on this god forlorn planet, in this "heart of a heartless world".

ESSENCE is simply "What Is", is "That What Is". This is generally known as Being, for example, Human Essence is Human Being. Other familiar concepts for Essence are: esse, essentia, ousía, Wesen, Was, Washeit, Quidditas. Relevant is not the Word but the Thought which uses the Word as a Tool, as an Instrument to express itself. We are using the Percept (or Unigory, see later), usually known as "Concept", COSMOS to express Essence or Being. Essence is Being, Doing, Acting, Práxis, NATURE. Essence is Cosmic, but the COSMOS is not only essential; as we will see later, it is much more than this.

EXISTENCE, as a Concept, is not THAT which is used in everyday formal- logical language, in phrases like "human existence", e.g., "my existence is threatened", which means that I am going to "rest in peace" pretty soon. It is a philosophical concept which denotes "That something exists", simply "that", in German "dass", that something exists at all, "dass etwas ueberhaupt existiert". Existence also is not "to be there", Dasein, in Space and Time. For us, it is the "other side" (not understood in spatial terms) of Essence, its opposite; both Essence a n d Existence form a Contradiction, better, a Diagory. Existence concerns Thinking, Thought, Quodditas, Theory, Philosophy, SOCIETY. We use the Greek term EINAI to mean Existence in the above sense; its general meaning as "being, esse or sein" is included, but, as we have seen already, it exists much further than only simple being.

The Transcept ( not Concept ) TRANSCENDENCE expresses surpassing, superating, excelling, "hinueberschreiten", that is, passing from one sphere to another. This is a philosophic transcept and it includes theological connotations, but it has no "divine" meanings. It has to do with Reasoning, with Reason, but it includes Doing and Thinking. This simply means that it excels as NEITHER ESSENCE NOR EXISTENCE, or expressed in another way, as Triagory, as Essence a n d Existence AND Transcendence, in nuce, as HISTORY. It is a Historic Transcept, and Emancipatory Triagory.

In the following short lectures on the HISTORY OR WISDOM, we will expound, analyse and debate our philosophic ideas, but we will also criticize the official "HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY", which ideologically mainly reflects the historic universal superstructure of alienated Labour, of Alienation itself. We suggest that our visitors and guests should read the texts very slowly, repeatedly, and that they should not throw the philosophic towel in the patrian arena after just a single attempt of ontic combat.

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HISTORY OF WISDOM I

Quo Vadis ? What Is To Be Done ?

By Franz J. T. Lee

Before we continue with our Epistemology and Logical Method, let us scrutinize how the Patria sees its, his "History of Philosophy". Of course, in this sojourn through the wilderness of the fatherland's "historic" superstructure, we will apply our theory of knowledge, our method of thinking and analysis, draw our own intellectual and rational conclusions, and therewith, enrich our own Science a n d Philosophy.

Quo vadis ? Whither goest thou ? This answering question presupposes a dialogical Diagory: "I" a n d "Thou". "I" a n d "Thou" are related; perhaps "I" do not know where Space)"Thou" goest, also not when (Time), and worse even, how "Thou" goest (Bezug. Relation, Motion, Velocity).

"Whither" is "going" in Time, and not only in Time, is a Relation, a Bezug. The Bezug itself has a "whither", it is part and parcel of Cosmos and of Cosmos Acting ; furthermore, something or somebody is going, is acting, and it is its, her or his acting. There are zillions of relations, but this one is a cosmic relation, an act and acting, hence a certain type of "non-relation". The "quo vadis", the answering question, is asked in intellectual terms, in a space and time relation, in simple patrian motion.

This type of "whither" has a cosmic, praxical, concrete substratum, a non-relation. We should recollect here that "non" does not mean "no", no relation whatsoever, nothing in a patrian "bad" sense ; it simply means what it denotes, a non-relation, the opposite of a relation, and this is not nothing. There are relations, non-relations, non-relations a n d relations, neither non-relations nor relations, etc., zillions of Bezuege!

For the space and time being, we encounter ourselves on the planet, Mother Earth, and "I" cognize "Thou" going, acting, and "I" want to know, want to cognize "whither ?" "Thou" is going; how it or she or he acts; why acting just in a certain way? Why does a capitalist only act to acquire profits? Whether "Thou" knows anything, knows about the essence a n d existence of "I" (me), "I" still do not know as yet. To know this, "I" must get a questioning answer from "Thou".

To ask answering questions, "I" should at least act, and should express this Act in words, in language, in a question. And "I" can formulate any question, and can address it to anything, to anybody, to "Thou". "Thou" can be Anything: Cosmos, Act, Relation, I Myself, Man, Capital, Einstein, Marx, a Goat, a Burning Bush, my Computer, etc. The above, Marx had formulated as follows:

"It is not sufficient that Thought aspires towards Reality, Reality itself must aspire towards Thought".("Es genuegt nicht, dass der Gedanke zur Wirklichkeit draengt, die Wirklichkeit selbst muss zum Gedanken draengen.")

Thales of Miletus: What Is The Best?

The "Best Man" in Ancient Greece was the Aristocrat. Everybody was aspiring to be manly, to act aristocratic. Everybody was looking for the aristocratic essence of things. To be aristocratic is to be wise, to be a "Wise Man", and because the Number Seven was the "best", was aristocratic, hence there could always only be "Seven Wise Men", Seven World Wonders. The "Wise Men" forgot that Number Seven was the Goddess Diana, Artemis. In any case, Miletus was already a "man's world", a shipping and commercial seaport. Man was already winning many a "Desert Storm", many a "veni, vidi, vici".

Hence, Thales, himself a "Wise Man", one of the "Seven Chosen Few", was thinking about "What Is?", about Essence, about Quodditas. And, true to the "Zeitgeist", to the "Spirit of His Time", he asked the philosophic question: What Is The Best? His questioning answer was: "ariston men hydor" (Water is The Best). "What Is" is Water, "Water" is "What Is": What Is" is

"Water", is "The Best". Thus, the arche, the hyle, cosmos, matter, was still slave-aristocratic, not yet slave-democratic. This is the road which "Thou" was still blazing. However, this was already the masculine philosophic "Quo Vadis?"

The "Mythological" Quo Vadis

Long before Thales, Beings on Earth were acting, were trying to express "What Is" in words, in language. Many were already thinking, were asking ontological questions. And they were not only "Human Beings", in other words, not only Male Beings, Ruling, Cratic Beings! "Homo (Man) Kenyapithecus" or the "Neanderthal Man" probably did not even know that they were Men, were Machos.

If it is true what our "modern scientists" say, then among these Beings on Earth were also monkeys, apes and chimpanzees. At least, Charles Darwin already knew this. And, nowadays we know, that "Humans share 98.5 percent of their genes with chimpanzees".

Actually, the above should be formulated as follows:

"Chimpanzees share 98.5 percent of their genes with humans." After all, the chimpanzees are elders, they were born long before the sonorous homo sapiens saw light on this planet. The above is a typical arrogant manly "scientific" formulation. These are not redundant remarks, also they have nothing to do with sophistry or hair-splitting, they indicate what patrian ideology and hegemony are all about.

Certainly, "Primitive Man" was not only performing "monkey business", he was also asking simple, crucial questions. How he asked these questions, by what method of communication? This is another topic. That he had a "brain", that he was acting, that is certain, and that is, in the first place, what concerns us here.

Long before Thales, as early as 2000 B.C., in the slave-owning society of Paranoiac Egypt, where one of the ancient "Seven Wonders", the pyramids, reflected a strong "this-sided" modus vivendi, atheistic crypto-materialist conceptions were rife. In one of the extant papyrus manuscripts of that remote epoch, we can read: "Man disintegrates and his body changes itself into earth." In the City of Death, "earth" was emphasized as an important archaic element. These ancient Egyptians were very much "down to earth", and for them, "earth" was one of the magical material elements of "What Is", of Essence.

A thousand years later, in faraway "Mother India", the Upanishads , the Sanskrit theosophical and philosophic treatises dealt with cosmic materialist doctrines. Five primordial elements were expounded: water, air, fire, time and space. This was long before Thales declared "water" as being aristocratic, or before Anaximenes of Miletus had declared "air" to be the arche.

The Chandogya-Upanishad stated:

"When water evaporates, then it becomes air, truly, air consumes everything."

Hence we find in ancient India an anticipatory transhistoric fata morgana a priori of the Milesian School. Around 700 B.C., when Ancient Greece was still directed from the Oracle of Delphi, the oriental Samkhya School taught that everything originated from the prakrti , an infinite, eternal, primordial principle. Furthermore, before the dawn of the "Wise Men" in Greece, the Chinese Dschou Jan School also taught about five elements : water, fire, earth, wood and metal. The only philosophic novelty about Thales, in the age towards monotheism, -- towards God, The Father, The Son, and The Male Holy Ghost, The Holy Trinity, All-In-One, is that he made Water a Hen-Kai-Pan, an Unomnia, a One-And-All.

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HISTORY OF WISDOM II

By Franz J. T. Lee

Western Or Bantu Philosophy?

Generally, all "thought" that is not born in the "Cradle" of "Western Civilization"-- that is, all intellectual and rational reflection prior to Thales -- is not considered as being "Ancient Philosophy"; for this very reason, everything else is classified as mythology, theosophy,animism, superstition or magic. In the previous lecture, we indicated that this is simply inborn arrogance or well-bred ignorance. Of course, nowadays as byproduct of the European alma mater, even "Bantu Philosophy" is being taught at African Universities, but an African Plato or Hegel, Marx or Trotsky, will never see the Visionary Light, will never leave the "Cave of Underdevelopment". With sophia or wisdom this attitude surely had very little to do. However, since the advent of Labour on Planet Earth, no matter where it was born, essentially it was generated as a non-relation, and henceforth it persisted as maltreated Nature vis-a-vis perverted Society, as Alienation per se.

Labour & Original Sin!

Ever since the "Neolithic Revolution", ever since the Great Agricultural Revolution, Physical Labour -- no matter its "historical" level, also, no matter its geographic birthplace - was directed at the Economic Exploitation of Nature, in the service of "human need", better, in the service of "human greed" for "survival" purposes. Mother Nature produced "Man" and she surely did not forget to forge the "survival gene". Labour or Work was surely not on her production and reproduction agenda. Originally, the Almighty Yahweh also found his non-labouring human creatures "good", and he did not plan that "Work" should be performed in the "Garden of Eden". Only later, when "Man" ate from "the tree of life", became a "moral" human being, who could distinguish between "good" and "evil" he was ingloriously thrown out of Paradise, into Hell, into "History", into the coming Orwellian "1984"; only then "tilling the soil" with "sweat on the brow" became a historic reality. In nuce, the "Original Sin" against Mother Nature unravels itself as Labour.

Intellectual Property is Theft!

The historical ideological superstructure, Intellectual Labour -- no matter its specific degree of Political Domination -- was produced as the expression of maltreated Nature and perverted Society. This Non-Relation, this "and", was and is its "Truth"; all this is euphemistically called the Patria, Fatherland or Heimat, Culture or Civilization.

The superstructure of the Patria on a global scale was not constructed exclusively by European philosophers and thinkers, although the latter provided the "lion's share", as can be verified in the "History of Philosophy". However, as we already indicated, the privatization of thought, private property of thought, intellectual property rights, all fall in the realm of Proudhon's excellent discovery: Property is Theft! Firstly, a global "discovery and colonization" of "Intellectual Labour" took place; secondly, it was christianized as "European Thought", and finally, all traces and relations of "philosophy" to extra-European intellectual sources were carefully erased, burnt by the Inquisition fires. Only then, after the intellectual "holocaust" was accomplished, the "Wise Men", the "Renaissance", the "Reformation", the "Enlightenment" could flourish ; and there is no doubt about the superb degree of "European" philosophic genius, about the triumphant forward march of the Accumulation of Capital.

"History of Philosophy" or "History of Plagiarism"?

In the previous lecture we indicated that crypto-hylozoistic thought was already developed in Ancient Egypt, India, Iran, China and Japan. Below we will briefly expound some of these philosophic reflections; after all, India had been a Great Culture and Civilization long before the dawn of Hellas. Along the Ganges, already millennia before, physical and intellectual labour was highly developed, more advanced than anywhere in "Europe".

However, in no way we mention this in order to glorify or deify the ancient wise Indian thinkers, or to belittle the "poor" Europeans who were practically still trying to descend from the "trees" or to leave the dark "caves". Au contraire, we are just emphasizing the uneven and combined development of physical and intellectual labour on a world scale towards its logical transhistoric Nirvana: Capital, Accumulation, Profits, Imperialism, Monopoly, Intellectual Property Rights, Globalization.

After the Neolithic Revolution, in toto, "mankind" had entered a historic level of production and reproduction which necessarily created materialist and idealist conceptions of the world. Of course, related to its level of physical production, Ancient India had brought forth its own "Wise Men", teaching panpsychic or hylozoistic materialist doctrines. A superficial survey of the collections of ancient Indian hymns or prayers, of the Vedas, dating back to 3000 B.C., will reveal caustic anti-dogmatism, atheistic and materialist tendencies. It is of interest to note that the concept "veda", in Sanskrit, does not mean "prayer" or "hymn", it denotes "knowledge".

The above tendencies are especially emphasized in the older Upanishads, among them, Isa, Taittiriya, Svestasvatara, Chandogya, Brhadaranyaka, Kena and Katha. In these Vedas a strong anti-Brahmanism with materialist ideological undertones can be detected. The Rgveda, X, 129 states:

"Who knows from where Being came? The Gods only came into Being after It already existed. - Who can say from where It came?"

This perpetual materialist-idealist, natural-social contradiction in Indian philosophy can be traced even in the old epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana, also in the "Laws of Manu". From their very inception, Jainism and Buddhism had criticized Brahmanism. Until as late as the 4th Century B.C., these philosophic schools had attacked each other with the same scientific-philosophic stringency that we are accustomed to in Platonism, Aristotelianism and Atomism. Numerous Indian philosophers were hated by the Brahman establishment; they were persecuted and their works destroyed.

"In the Beginning was Water"

Nevertheless, today still, we can read in the Brhadaranyaka-Upanishad that "In the Beginning was Water", not the "Word", simply Water. Hence, Thales was not that original after all! The Upanishads were downgraded to theosophy, and "ariston men hydor" was upgraded to philosophy. According to the above veda, knowledge: Brahman, the Gods and the World Itself, all originated from Water. Furthermore, the soul originated from water, air, earth and fire, and it returns to these elements. Here we have the complete ancient Greek Philosophy-Chemistry, which formed the material basis of the Carvaka doctrines. The burning philosophic issue which had given the Ionians headaches, that is the problem of sense-perception and cognitive knowledge, was already debated in Ramayana, by Rama and Jabali, the ancient Indian materialist. Ancient India had its own "Seven Wise Men", one of them, the famous Brhaspati, was a kind of "Thales", a hylozoistic materialist, who stated: "Life originated from Matter" - c'est-a-dire, from prakrti. There was really "nothing new under the philosophic sun" in Ancient Hellas.

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HISTORY OF WISDOM III

Towards Philosophy: Thales

By Franz J. T. Lee

Thinking a n d Thought

Introductory Remark

True to our logical method, We are patrian, historic, philosophic, scientific and human, but We are not ONLY the before-mentioned, We are much MORE. To understand the official "History of Philosophy" , We have to be patrian and historic philosophers. Yet, We are not ONLY the aforesaid; historically, We also have to be THAT a n d to exist AND to transcend as OURSELVES. In this philosophic "spirit", We will now display some philosophical reflections about Thinking and Thought; afterwards We will introduce the natural a n d social environment of the "First Philosopher", of the "Wise Man", Thales of Miletus.

Cosmos and Thinking

Within the eviternal boundless cosmic process, Thinking commences somewhence, nowhence, everywhence; somewhere, nowhere, everywhere; somewhither, nowhither, everywhither.

According to "modern scientists", some twenty-five million years ago, on the "Dark Continent", with the advent of the Ape Man or Man Ape, Proconsul, the melodrama of "human history" had begun. Thus, in the bosom of "Mother Africa", the seeds for cogitare (Thinking) and cogitatio (Thought) were born. Nonetheless, in the alma mater, officially we are being taught that around 600 B.C., with Thales of Miletus scientific and philosophic Thinking and Thought began.

A Question par excellence!

However, it is certain that the Milesian philosophic "synthesis" was filled with "cultured" and "civilized" Aurora; measured by "continental" standards, it was new and original, id est, it was primeval, primogenital, primordial. Now, what was the "subject" matter of this Milesian archaic thinking? Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes wanted to know: what is, what is the arche? What is Being? What is the Essence of Being, of Things? What is Human Being? What is the Essence of Human Being?

Of course, a posteriori, it is nearly impossible to decipher what exactly the Milesians were thinking, what their concepts precisely denoted, but some erudite scholars have tried to throw light on this sphinxlike labyrinth. Unfortunately, we have to depend on the "official" interpretations of these experts, who generally affirm the status quo; notwithstanding, we will reorientate their elucidations with our own supersensitive oscillating magnet needle of thinking and thought. As we indicated in our last lecture, concerning Ancient Greek Philosophy, the maxim, ex oriente lux, definitively merits academic, educative consideration.

Miletus: Cradle of Western Philosophy

Fiat lux! Let us spotlight ancient Miletus. Many ancient cities, like Babylon, Athens or Rome, are world-renowned, strange enough, the birthplace of Western Philosophy is nearly unknown. Yet, between the 8th and 5th Centuries B.C., Miletus was a flourishing sea-port, which reflected the original primitive accumulation of Capital in Asia Minor.

From the harbour of the "Ornament of Ionia" (Herodotus), the Milesian ships sailed in all directions in the Mediterranean region, a colossal merchant navy, protected by an invincible war fleet. They were fully laden with merchandise, with fabrics woven and dyed in its local industry, with decorated garments carpets and pottery. Its woollens were highly in demand in Athens and Southern Italy. The famous cloak of Antisthenes of Sybaris was produced in Ionia; its zones of exotic flowers and beautiful pictures was a Milesian masterpiece of embroidery in Oriental style. On all ancient Mediterranean markets Milesians were present.

Ancient Beverly Hills & Haute Couture

Miletus was a mighty colonial power, it conquered commercial cities from the Hellespont to the Black Sea (Euxine). Ionia was also the cradle of "high society" and "culture". About the ruling classes, A. Jarde, a French scholar, gave us a vivid picture:

"Phocacea, Ephesos, and the other great towns of Ionia, peopled, like Miletus, by a busy throng of merchants, craftsmen, and sailors, were all the scene of the like activity and the like wealth. Everywhere there was the same taste for luxury, the same love of fine fabrics and rich jewels; everywhere there were the same banquets and festivals. The courtesans of Ionia were models of elegance and culture, and all antiquity would marvel at the friend of Pericles, Milesian Aspasia."

Well, Ionia had its Miss Cosmos International beauty contests, its own "Irene Saez", the beloved courtesan "wife" of Pericles, Aspasia. Xenophanes of Colophon vividly portrayed this wealthy class, whose honoured members were strolling on the Agora "clad all in purple, with their hair beautifully dressed, shedding the perfume of subtle ointments.
 

HISTORY OF WISDOM IV

BIOGRAPHIC DATA: THALES OF MILETUS

By Franz J. T. Lee

A WISE MAN

Beyond any reasonable doubt, for any scholar of the "History of Philosophy" Thales of Miletus was a "Wise Man", a sophós; in fact, he was the first philósophos, the Arch-Lover of Wisdom. Let us illuminate this ancient "Age of Wisdom", the natural habitat and the social environment of this famous hylozoist, of the Father of Philosophy.

Know Thyself!

Between the 7th and 6th Century B.C., a hybridous process between Cosmogony and Philosophy was ushered in: the qualitative leap from magical beliefs to "scientific knowledge". It is well-known that the most important cosmogonic sanctuary in Ancient Greece was the Oracle of Delphi, the Temple of Apollo, the Sun-God, who had extradited the ancient Great Mother, Gaia. It had the wise inscription: gnothi seautón (Know Thyself!). This is surely a wise "Commandment" to remember. This oracle ordained sophía, Wisdom; and its Divine Superintendent was the Goddess Minerva (Athena). It is pertinent to note that the ancient "Seven Wise Men" still had their genesis and sanction in Greek mythology and cosmogony. In this sonorous "group of seven" always appeared: Thales of Miletus, Solon of Athens and Bias of Priene. Other interchangeable erudite thinkers were Pittakos of Mytilene, Periander, the Tyrant of Corinth, Epimenides of Crete, Cheilon and Anarcharsis, the Schyte.

Knowledge is Power!

Obviously, the Greek Sophos was a pagan, a chthonic artisan, a banausikos, a handicraftsman, who also involved himself in matters of the Polis. He saw his social task as not to be "banausian", not to be a vulgar member of the community, on the contrary, he wanted to be active, cosmic, praxical. His praxical real life experiences the Sophos reflected and reproduced in his mind, in his intellect. This mental product he expressed as a gnome (Latin: sententia), as a guide for future social praxis and theory. Truly, this has nothing to do with goblins or dwarfs, or, in a modern sense, it has no philosophic relation to the capitalist Gnomes of Zurich, Switzerland. These wise gnomes were inspired by gnosis, by "Know Thyself"! In essence, Knowledge was related to "human" power, to social power. If we exclude the gifted Athenian courtesan, Aspasia, the hetaira of Pericles, we have to realize that the "Wise MEN" were already well on their way to patriarchal empiricism, to "Knowledge is Power" (Francis Bacon).

Fire of Heracleitus and Prometheus

Surely this intellectual process reflected severe economic and social tension and conflict in Hellas, especially in the "colonies" of Asia Minor, particularly in Miletus and Ephesus, the flourishing commercial and cultural centres. Permanently, social conflicts had haunted Miletus, the birthplace of Thales. They did not only involve the wealthy social classes, more so, the "free" population, the slaves, the "wretched" of Ancient Greece. The latter occasionally killed aristocratic wives and children; in revenge, in style of the Inquisition, the rulers publicly burned alive the plebeian underdogs on the market squares.

Crucifixion, Gas Chambers and Extermination of Vietcong

Everywhere in the Greek colonies such burning, living, non-human torches were serving as horrendous warnings against any future attempts to change the status quo, the slave-owning society. Later this practice was continued in the Greco-Roman Empire, by means of crucifixion, in the "Third Reich" as gas chambers for "dirty, filthy Jews", and in the Vietnam War, as extermination of the "communist" Vietcong.

The ancient Greek slave hirrient death-cries, and the hesternal Spartacus sparks in agony, were destined to reach the contemporary colonial, neo-colonial and anti-imperialist emancipatory movements. In this macabre atmosphere Thales and "Western Philosophy" were born, and it still flows in this "river of blood", in this "vale of sorrows".

To Learn About Life, For Life

Let us continue our display of the natural habitat and social environment of Thales of Miletus. In the last lecture we explained the essence a n d existence of philosophic gnomes. Generally, a gnome expresses the essence a n d existence of the philosophy of a specific thinker. For example: pánta rhei (Everything Flows - Heracleitus) or omnia mecum porto mea (All I have I carry with me - Bias). Similarly, Thales formulated his sententia: ariston men hydor (The Best is Water).

Of course, the above is also valid for us, for us as philosophers. Even more so, for us the following general "gnome" is quintessential: non scholae, sed vitae discimus, we learn not for the school, but for life, for our life. However, we have to be watchful; "wise" formal logical statements like "What Will Be, Will Be", "Everything Is Possible" and "I believe that ...", after a while, have an ideological tendency to become, not watchwords, but catchwords, to become petrified slogans, losing all their dynamite or dynamism, that is, if they ever had something of the like. Of course, naked theories or intellectual nudities cannot grasp a multilogical cosmic a n d ontic "reality", they cannot historicize or emancipate patrian class-ridden living circumstances and conditions. There are no capitalistic, industrial "extracts" for the Relation "Cosmos and Einai", "Nature a n d Society" or "Praxis a n d Theory"; no Nescafe, no Nesphilosophy can substitute Thinking and Reasoning. The latter can never ever be produced as "Intellectual Property" in a Factory of Platonic Education, not in an industrial society, not in a postindustrial mode of production, nowhere where Labour, Capital and Profits reign. Nowhere else, except in History, in Emancipation, this wise don, this free, invincible gift, has its natural a n d social modus vivendi.

Aristotle's story

But, let us return to our epicentral philosophic venture, the precise, concise, original formulation of the Thalean gnome is not preserved. Only through second-hand information we know about its existence. It was Plato (427-347 B.C.), Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) and Herodotus (484-425 B.C.) who had informed us about its philosophic existence.

In his Metaphysics, Aristotle stated that Thales had taught that the arche was Water. Concerning his historic life, Herodotus (I. 75 and 170) told us that Thales had prophesied the total eclipse of the sun of May 28, 585 B.C., at the time of the Ionian Wars between Lydians and Medes. Besides similar fragmentary information, we know very little about him, it is not even sure whether he ever had written anything.

SYNOPSIS OF THALEAN PHILOSOPHY

Aristotle had explained to us his philosophic method of reasoning. According to him, how did Thales come to the philosophic gnome that Water is the Original, Archaic Principle? Using his simple "common sense", he argued, because "wood swims on water", consequently, "the earth rests on water"; furthermore, because a magnet can move iron, hence it must have a psyche, a moving force.

We could smile at this type of philosophical logic, but we cannot deny ist childlike, not childish, auroralike nature. Still in the 20th Century, the general natural scientific hypothesis was prevalent that hydrogen is the arche; this element forms two-thirds of water, and water forms about four-fifths of the human body. Relevant for us is that Thales did not explain the Cosmos as a divine product, or as a gift of Olympus, or as a material excrement of the World Spirit or Absolute Idea, but he tried to explain Being-Out-Of-Itself. That he postulated only Being, a sole Being, only Water, a Single Principle, that is another story, which we will relate elsewhere.

Another Platonic Story

Plato reminded us that Thales was a sophos, "an able craftsman", the originator of "many skilful discoveries in the arts and other activities". In modern terminology, Thales was the following, all in one: engineer, navigator, mathematician, geographer, meteorologist, chemist, physicist, panpsychologist, viticulturer, merchant and statesman, et hoc genus omne. Well, no problem, this is precisely what a philosopher should be, and much, much more. At least, it was still a patrian time, when philosophía was not yet royal, not yet aristocratic, not yet the "Queen of All Sciences", seated in the "Ivory-Tower" of the Orwellian "Republic of Intellect and Reason". All sophia, gnosis and episteme, all science and philosophy, were represented in the "Democratic Commonwealth of Knowledge". Those were still the good, old, patrian days. The industrial epoch of Charlie Chaplin scientifically putting on caps to filled Coca-Cola bottles, master of this one and only trade, was still far away off!!! But, as we were told, the viticulturer, Thales, very carefully, had mixed the necessary ingredients of science and philosophy into the ancient olive industry, and with superb marketing success, he had already indicated how Intellectual Labour could improve financial profits. Ab ovo, even Thales was already on the Information Highway!

Demythologization of Princes of Darkness

The Labour Process, at the level of Ancient Greek "Society", necessitated a new ideological superstructure, innovative Intellectual Labour, a brand new "Philosophy". Thales had the "historic" task to introduce this intellectual novelty, to erect its philosophic materialistic base. Later Plato would decorate the idealistic roof for this future kleptocratic edifice.

The primitive accumulation of Capital in the Ancient Mediterranean Region could not prosper under the outdated ruling cosmogonic outlook of Homer and Hesiod, under obsolete relations of production. Earthly money, chthonic exchange values, were already on the order of the day in the ancient Greek colonies; hylozoism, cryptic materialism had to reflect this flourishing commercial economy in its ideological superstructure. Slave-owning Intellectual Labour had to hold water, to express itself in a maritime philosophic fashion.

Chimeras and phantasmagorias, dwarfs and goblins, were no more suitable to explain the functions and objectives of a "modern" fleet of trading ships and its protective "invincible" navy. In everyday life, no manna or nectar was raining from the topos ouranios, from heaven; on the contrary, hard cash was flowing, and so did the rivers and the seas, in one word, everything was flowing, money coins were everything, and in Ionia, in Miletus, they were flowing like water. Small wonder that "ariston men hydor"!

WATER: IN A NUT-SHELL!

What did Thales discover, think? Exactly that what a child of its, of his "time", a healthy body a n d a sane mind logically would deduce.

In the philosophic field, sensuously Thales had noted that water is wet, is damp, and that seeds germinate in dampness, that what seeds, insects, plants and animals nourish on are usually damp and wet; it is water which gives rise to wetness, to dampness, which brings about ice in rivers, which evaporates as "air", it is water which comes from the heavens, and from the bowels of the earth, from the womb of the mother, in which a child is born. What a keen, a key, a scientific observation, void of ghosts, angels, devils and gods! It is filled with Agatha Christie and Sinbad, The Sailor.

However, for the Patria, Thales is exceptional: he laid the foundation for the One and Only, for the Unomnia, for the Hen kai Pan, for the One Great God, the One Great Man, the One Great Race. Why is Thales consecrated as the "Father of Philosophy"? Simply because of his intrepid patrian statement that the arche is unitary, uniform, only flowing in itself, in flux at rest, alive in death. Motion, Change, can only come from Inside, from Repose, from the Status Quo. He is the Father of Political Reformism, of Capitalist Democracy, which only progresses from within, moves from within, which forever evolves and revolves on the very same spot. He laid the cornerstone of a Single Unitary Being, a Unified One Principle, for all patrian philosophers, here and now, and forever more: Amen.

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HISTORY OF WISDOM VI

Anaximander of Miletus (610 - 546 B.C.)

By Franz J. T. Lee

A Friend, A Pupil

A Friend in need, is a Friend indeed, in deed. Friends are very rare to find on Planet Earth; to find Friendly Pupils, the sine qua non is first to find the famous needle, not in the haystack, but in the profound waters of the Pacific Ocean. Nonetheless, in the philosophic element, in Ionian turbulent waters, Anaximander found an amigo, a maestro, Thales.

Another Milesian Sophos

Like his teacher, Anaximander was an educated "man", a master of all trades. He was an astrologist, astronomist, cosmogonist, cosmologist, meteorologist, geologist, geographer, seismologist, anthropologist, evolutionist, id genus omne. His famous writing,

On Nature (Physis), is lost; only a very important fragment is preserved. By the way, it should be noted here that the Greek concept "physis" is not synonymous to the term "Nature" which is in current usage. Mutatis mutandis, it had the same connotation as the arche or hyle, as the original principle, as something which eternally gives birth, as an universal Mother.

Chaos as Arche !

Now, "believe" it or not, here we have the first "Chaos" Philosopher, the Father of the Chaos Theory. The arche of Anaximander is the apeiron, is Chaos, is a mixture of ALL elements, of even the unknown ones. Also, by the way, in our Philosophy, Chaos is a trialogical mension, a trimension, of Nothing (Nihil) in the Postulate: Cosmos a n d Einai AND Nothing (See: Previous Lectures of Our Home Page). Furthermore, even the known elements do not appear in the Apeiron, in Chaos, in their known form, but in their archaic (pure) unknown form. Also, this important identification a n d differentiation was taken into account in our Logical Method.

Chaos -- The Yawning Vacuum ! <

Chaos is a mythical concept; it is derived from chanein, which denotes a ghastful, gaping, yawning vacuum. (See: Hesiod's

Theogony, 116, 700). Later, by Ovid (43 B.C. - 18 A.D.), in his

Metamorphoseis (I, 7), Chaos is described a a "raw mass". Anaximander conceptualized "Chaos" as a hylozoistic term, as a substantial essence, void of characteristics, conditions or limitations, as the Apeiron, the Infinite, the Timeless, the Shapeless. This is a

stringent philosophical term, with no religious or theological tohu wa bohu, void of any Lutheran connotations of "wuest und leer" (desolate and empty).

The Cosmic Apeiron

Certainly, Anaximander is postulating a single, original principle;

for him, only one world, the beloved Patria, existed, and his "historic" task was to find its philosophic explanation. The Patria had to be affirmed, future Capital must be eternalized, Man must be internalized, "hegemonized".

Hence, the Apeiron, Chaos, is eternal, is limitless, is internally, intensively automated, is self-moving. Only in these terms, we can speak of Apeiron as archaic substance, as matter. It did not come into existence, it cannot pass away.

Normally, we can only "believe" in timeless beings, in Gods, but,

at least, Anaximander could think about something beyond the parameters of Space a n d Time; definitely, not everything on Earth, and in the Universe, is determined by these Kantian categories of the Intellect. Surely, this is not usual, the ideologically infested, manipulated and indoctrinated brains of most "human beings" have lost the intellectual a n d rational capacity to reason beyond formal-logical temporal and spatial categories, beyond Motion-At-Rest. Philosophically, Anaximander affirmed Mickey Mouse, running in his cage, on his eternal carousel at rest; a priori, he affirmed the reconciliatory democratic policy of Nelson Mandela, previously exercising in his small cell No. 5, on Robben Island, always "running on the same spot". This is Patrian Progress, Development.

Automatism and Autodynamism

The above guarantees that "everything is possible", that everything within the system can possibly be changed, also that "what will be, certainly, will be", when not by itself, then the Inquisition, the Gas Chambers, the Bombs on Kosovo, will help out a little bit; simply, because this closed uniform, unitary system necessarily has its own Dynamo, Automation and Autodynamism. Later, Aristotle will explain to us its dynamei on, its own In-Possibility-Being, and the Marxist, Ernst Bloch, will derive from it the "Principle of Hope" for Mankind.

Because of its autodynamism, the Apeiron, Chaos, like a universal chameleon, can take on all forms of appearances: slavery, tyranny, feudalism, democracy, world peace, human rights, racism, fascism, real socialism, nazism, apartheid. In fact, internal motion, contradiction, dialectics, in essence, Anaximander was already explaining.

Depending on their weight, nowadays we would say atomic weight, things are formed and emerge from the Apeiron. According to him, first emerges water, the element of his teacher, as a result of the contradiction "coldness - warmth", in other words, hydor is now the synthesis of the above thesis - antithesis. This simply means that Anaximaander had deepened the arche of his teacher, he transformed it into "still waters run deep". In these profound waters, new contradictions arise, forming new substances, new creations; eventually, the sun, the stars, the animals, the plants, human beings, came into existence. He gave his own version of

the Theory of Evolution, hence he even paved the road for Charles Darwin and Social Darwinism.

Definitely, the above has a cosmic, creative character; within the realm of demythologization, it has nothing to with the Olympus, or with future monotheistic Gods. On the contrary, Anaximander, like Thales, explains Being-Out-Of-Itself, it lays a materialist, hylozoistic, panpsychic foundation, it points towards Hobbes, towards bourgeois mechanical materialism, towards the philosophic superstructure for the "Leviathan" and for Orwell's "Big Brother". Anaximander personifies Dominant Man Himself, His Dawning Self-Consciousness, the Archaic Accumulation of Bourgeois Reason, of Creative, Future, Intellectual Profiteering and Mongering.

Apeiron: In A Nut-Shell

In nuce, the Apeiron, Chaos, Matter is permanently fermenting, germinating and brewing, encompassing all productive processes of

combined and uneven development; this will later be explained by

Leon Trotsky in his Theory of Permanent Revolution. Anaximander himself stated that the Apeiron "encompasses all the worlds".

In his Physics ( III, 8 208a 8), Aristotle told us exactly why he chose the Apeiron as arche: " in order that becoming must not pass away"; this is already a transhistoric fata morgana of the panta rhei of Heracleitus. Furthermore, the arche becomes logical, cognitive, "abstract", becomes an "object of thought", a "

Gedankending", a "thing of thought", a philosophic concept.

Anaximander taught us that "seeing is not necessarily believing",

that sense perception could lead to cognition, but it may be dangerously deceptive, it can be an essential instrument for indoctrination and ideology. Also, Anaximander did not only characterize the Apeiron as eternal, also Internal Motion, intensive Change, Systemic Development, is spaceless, is timeless. For the eternal existence of the Patria this is quintessential, also for future superstructural ideology. Of course, we can only remark: Dream On !

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HISTORY OF WISDOM VII

The Fragment of Anaximander

By Franz J. T. Lee

A Retrocognitive Reminder

As we stated before, we have to depend heavily on "officially" preserved philosophic data; we do not know what exactly the Milesian philosophers "really thought" or what they "really meant". At any event, it is not even decisive what they really expounded; as part of the ideological superstructure, they have been censured; just as "unfavourable" passages of the "Holy Bible" were time and again reproved, in order to serve ruling class interests; similarly, across the ages, philosophic fragments were interpreted in a way which best suited the ideological interests of various dominant "historic" forces. For example, during the Dark Ages, Psyche, Ananke, Apeiron, Logos, Nous, Summum Bonum, Form, all were baptized as the Christian Roman Catholic God, Our Father Almighty. Anything "spiritual" became "divine". This practice has continued until modern times; across the globe, today still, unnecessarily, students of philosophy have to wreck their brains with these ideological products of dogmatic censorship. "Freedom of Thought" and "Freedom of Speech", when they clash directly with economic exploitation and political domination, simply magically transform themselves into modern chimeras and phantasmagorias.

Wein, Weib und Gesang !!

In addition to this, traduttore traditore played havoc with original texts. From "bad" to "worse", there are many Old Greek words, like "komos", which nobody has the foggiest notion what they should denote, probably expressing things or relations which are non-existent in our modern times. Some "experts" associate the above term with an extinct social intercourse, with a specific jolly happening. In this case, certainly the ancient Greeks would have encountered a similar embarrassing situation, if they had to translate the German "Wein, Weib und Gesang". How would they know that it is a patrian, masculine nocturnal procession of semi-intoxicated elitist youth, frolicking along the streets, in "Romeo and Julia" style, singing, boozing and dancing in front of the moonlit windows of their sweethearts, of their beloved "Fräulein". For sure, this is not exactly the pendant to the Greek concept "komos".

Furthermore, as reminder, we do not claim "intellectual property rights", we are not interested in "correct" translations and interpretations; in fact, anybody can believe whatever she or he wants to, also everybody should enjoy the consequences of her or his convictions. For us, who or what is "right" or "wrong" is completely irrelevant. Who or what is neither "right", nor "wrong", certainly interests us. We state what we think; who likes it or does not like it, that is not our problem, that is not our "business"; but "who still have ears to hear, let them hear us!"

De facto, we can only analyse that what we can comprehend; epistemologically, we can only understand that what we know; and logically, in accordance with the above, we are able to interpret any philosophic trilemma which may present itself to us. Any other method, learning by rote, in parrot fashion, will definitely end up in academic disasters and social mayhem. In this sane, healthy, philosophic "spirit", we will now continue with our philosophic deliberations.

The Strange Ways of Ananke

In this short lecture, we will just take a philosophic glance at the most important fragment of Anaximander, from "On Nature".

"Out of Necessity (Anánke), into that from

which things come-into-existence, they pass

away, for they make reparation and satisfaction

to one another for their injustice, according to

the order of time."

(Our Free Translation)

"Woraus aber die Dinge ihr Entstehen haben,

dahin geht auch ihr Vergehen nach der

Notwendigkeit, denn sie zahlen einander Strafe

und Buße für ihre Ruchlosigkeit nach der

festgesetzten Zeit."

(Ernst Bloch, Gesamtausgabe, Band 12,

Zwischenwelten in der Philosophiegeschichte,

edition suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main,

1977, S. 23)

Firstly, who or what is anánke ?

In Plato's Symposium (195C, 197 B), Ananke appears as a Divinity of Fate, as a Schicksalsgöttin, as a Goddess of Fortune. Sometimes she is also called Adrásteia, (Plato, Phaedr. 248 C; Plotin, Enn. III 2, 13. A.), die Unentrinnbare, the Inescapable.

According to Homer and Hesiod, but also Archilochos, in mythological times, the Greeks feared Fate, the wrath of their gods. but they were also victims of "bad fortune", of their own mortal impotence; they feared Death, the Moira, the Daemon, Ananke. In philosophic times, in Ionia and elsewhere, Fate, Ananke, acquired a more updated connotation. Now, with hybris, with pride (Hochmut), the Greeks could determine their lives themselves, in spite of the fangs of Fate. Feminine Ananke was transformed into Masculine Necessity; the Cosmic Order, which was guaranteed by Zeus, directly from Olympus, now also included individual fates.

The contradiction "Fateful Necessity -- Human Free Will" entered the scene of philosophy.

Hence, in Milesian times, Ananke had already acquired masculine, deterministic, necessary, Patrian features. To interpret the above

preserved fragment is well-nigh impossible, because every original ancient Greek word had a specific philosophic meaning, which today we can just intelligently guess or deduce logically. "Ananke"

not only meant fate, a divine force, necessity; it also included other meanings like "a strict, generally accepted, behaviour pattern", "according to habit", etc.

Furthermore, "according to the order of time", "nach der festgesetzten Zeit", does not simply mean "according to history", in a modern sense. This phrase has a cosmogonic, mythological tone; it comes from the Olympus, from where Father Chronos spoke, ordered and ordained. The main clause, the philosophic gist of this fragment, is hard to explain. The German philosopher, Ernst Bloch, attempted to interpret its meaning, and according to him, in the Apeiron, in the process of Being-Becoming, the things, in their individual agon (strife), file themselves away, slough themselves off, and this occurs, according to the "order of time", according to the ordinances of Chronos. However, what is decisive, is that the things do not pay reparation or make satisfaction to the Apeiron or to Chronos, but rather to one another, to themselves. This is a kind of self-sacrifice for their own coming-into-being.

Of course, now the term in the text, "for their injustice", acquires another connotation. "Injustice" is determined by agon, by Strife, by War. Things move, strive, are in conflict, in contradiction. Later this virulent concept will come up again in the philosophy of Heracleitus, even in the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes. In the Apeiron, in Becoming-Being, the things are in permanent violent strife; with one another, they battle for and against the location

where they find themselves according to the order of time. Already in this fragment we can trace the basics of the future Dialectical Logics.

Dialectics of Anaximander

In simple terms, this philosophic "crossroad", from feminine mythology to masculine philosophy, this dialectics, can be interpreted as follows:

The "new" special existence form of a developing phainómenon, thing or appearance, forms a contradiction to (and with) its "old" original existence form, in the womb of Father Apeiron, previously, of Gaia, the Great Mother.

But contradiction should not be, formal logic should reign. Any contradiction must be resolved, be absolved. The future Patria cannot permit contradiction, hence things, beings, human beings, must make reparation and satisfaction (for their contradictory "sins"), because only the Apeiron, only Chaos, only the One Infinite Principle Itself is Justice, is Rest. Contradiction, Motion, is Injustice! Later we will encounter this Cosmic Justice again in the Philosophy of Heracleitus of Ephesus.

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HISTORY OF WISDOM VIII

Anaximenes of Miletus

By Franz J. T. Lee

Introductory Remarks

Illustrating the philosophic process of sapientia, of sophía, within the context of the "Pre-Socratic" period, we will now continue with another Milesian hylozoistic thinker, Anaximenes of Miletus.

However, this series of "History of Wisdom" will only deal with the "Pre-Socratics", illuminating in "Society", in the Superstructure, the introduction of "Intellectual Labour", which definitely had perverted the original historic, emancipatory relations; thus we will demonstrate the transition from History to the Patria, the transvolution from "matriarchy" (feminine mythology) to "patriarchy" (masculine philosophy). We will then return to the elaboration of our Epistemology and Method, and later continue with our section "History of Wisdom".

Of course, in this part we are applying our Epistemology and Logical Method; our Philosophy includes idealist and materialist views, but we "superate" ("aufheben") them, by also taking into account "neither materialist, nor idealist" approaches; furthermore, we also transcend, we excel all these, and we focus on other mensions, within the realm of Trialogics, of Nothing, of Chaos.

Certainly, for some readers who are accustomed to formal-logical "reasoning", our thoughts might seem awkward and "chaotic", not worth the name "philosophy"; unfortunately, if this is the case, we have to appeal to intellectual patience, rational endurance and wise sobriety. Who knows, in some brain, perhaps somehow, somewhither, somewhere, sometime, the famous red "Eureka" signal might flicker, the "Groschen", the dime or penny, might fall, and like Caesar crossing the Rubicon, together we might celebrate the transcending jacta est alea (the die is cast)! In any case, due to ideological reasons, the "Truth Is Always Upside-Down", is topsy-turvy, hence the reverse might also occur, and because our views are neither "right", nor "wrong", we would be the first ones to learn something "new", something historic and emancipatory.

Anaximenes of Miletus (585 - 525? B.C.)

Seemingly, Anaximander made a retrogressive step, however, only to take two scientific paces ahead. He stated that the Arche is aêr, pneuma. Aêr can be translated as both air and mist, as fog, or even as breath, in a wider sense. Again, as we will note, all three Milesian

"Fathers of Philosophy" had the social order ("Sozialauftrag") to consolidate a single, concrete, primordial Principle for the Patriarchal Superstructure, for Patrian Philosophy. All three principles, hydor, apeiron and aêr, are different philosophic appearance forms of the very same thing, of Infinite, Eternal Being-At-Rest. Later, Parmenides of Elea, with his Sphairos will solidify, will consolidate this principle as Hen kai Pan, as Unomnia, as One And All.

By means of rarefaction of air, fire develops; through condensation of air, the clouds, water and earth come into being. However, as we stated above, aêr, breath and psyche are synonymous. In this way, Anaximenes gave an explanation of all four elements of ancient Greek panvitalistic Philosophy-Chemistry (water, air, fire and earth).

This Milesian panpsychic luminary made an important contribution to the understanding of Patrian universal motion, of affirmative action, of affirmative ideology, that is, of intensive, internal dialectical development. Although he explained kínesis, motion, yet this was not his main philosophic motive; on the contrary, it belonged to the "social order" of Heracleitus. He specifically concentrated his philosophic endeavours on the Problem of Motion. Motion should not be, more precisely, Motion should Be, everything should Be-At-Rest.

Hence he ascribed all Motion in the Pan, in the Universe, to internal changes of density within Aêr. The morphé, the form (see: Aristotle) of a thing, of a phainómenon, of a manifestation or of an appearance, is a result of the compactness or looseness of its material (solid) composition, caused by rarefaction or condensation of the Archaic Principle, of Aêr. It is noteworthy that all three Milesians were using dialectical principles, they applied concepts like kataphásis (affirmation), apóphasis (negation), thésis, antíthesis and synthesis. Hylozoism is filled with panvitalistic syzygies, with philosophic conjunction, opposition and union, in other words, with dialectics.

Compression and distension of Aêr create all things, account for the multifarious, multiplex phenomena. Obviously, Anaximenes had already introduced some of the Laws of Hegelian Dialectics, for example, that quantitative changes eventually bring about qualitative transformations.

All three Milesians taught us that we can think in a "divine" way, without creating fictional "gods", without "believing" in divinities. They warned us that we should not, by looking at the multitudinous trees, forget to "see", to think the vast forest, but also not to forget to see a n d to think, to identify a n d to differentiate, an individual tree a n d a different forest. Alétheia men hólon, as Hegel would say, "Das Wahre ist das Ganze", the Truth is the Whole, the Truth is the Whole Truth, id est, The Truth a n d The Non-Truth. We get nowhere, nowhither, with ideology, with semi-truths and "white" lies.

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HISTORY OF WISDOM IX

Heracleitus of Ephesus

( 535 - 475 B. C. )

Fiat Lux! Eternal Fieri!

Eternal, archaic, dialectical Explosion! Pyr, Tyr, Fire, Feuer, Fuego!

Fieri, Phos, Novas and Supernovas In, Into, Out of Nyx, of Chaos, of Cosmos.

In an infinitesimal realm of zillionfold Nothing, meteoric, metamorphic sparks blaze the ancient Indian vrt, the old Slavic vratiti, and belively they spotlight the Werden, the Becoming, of Hegel, Marx and Bloch.

Panta rhei! Everything Flows! In this cosmic fireworks, in this

Walpurgisnight, Heracleitus of Ephesus visualizes the omnifluent dynamic thalatta of Pyr, of Fire, his omnipresent Arche. This fiery vis vitalis, this glowing-gloaming, omnivorous Principle has its matrix in cosmogonic mythology, as Marx would say, in the prehistoric "superstructure".

Let us give a brief cosmogonic background to the philosophy of

Heracleitus, in which "war", "strife", "logos" and "eros" will play central roles.

Nyx, Chaos, Fire

Now, Who was Miss N, Miss Nyx? Nothing? Nichts? Niks? Nix? Nada? Nihil, Nihil Ad Rem?

In Greek mythology, She was a powerful cosmogonical figure,

feared by Zeus, the King of the Gods; she was the female personification of Night, Nacht, Noche. In nearly all modern patriarchal languages, most of the "N's" represent her Name, her Née, her "Negative" character: Nature, Negro, Native, Nero, Nazi, Night, Nothing, Nihil, No, Non, Not, Neither, Nor, Nefarious, Nadir, Naja, Nasik, Nasalis, Njet, Net, Netscape, News, etc.

She had many names, one of them was the "Yawning Gap", the primeval Chaos itself. She was the Great Grandmother, who gave birth to the Great Mother, Gaea. According to some censured mythological versions, it is even denied that She, as Chaos, gave birth to Gaea.

Of course, intellectual labour competition was already rife in Ancient Greece, hence we have various competing cosmogonic versions concerning Nyx and Chaos. Hesiod's Theogony (around 700 B.C.) is the only cosmogony which had survived in more than doubtful fragments. He recorded the generation of gods until Zeus and his divine contemporaries.

How does Hesiod explain Chaos, the masculine version of the female Nyx, in his Theogony?

He is either Primordial Emptiness or the Abyss of Tartarus, the Underworld. At the beginning was Chaos, and He gave birth to Gaea (Earth, Nature) and Eros (Desire). Then the Genesis continued: Gaea produced Uranus, the Mountains, and Neptune, the Sea. From Gaea's subsequent erotic union with Uranus were born the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires. ...

Hence, Eros was the son of Chaos, of Nyx, and not of Gaea, of Earth. Later censured traditions baptized him as the son of Aphrodite, also called Diana or Venus, the goddess of sexual love and beauty. It is not even sure who was his divine father. We can choose between Zeus (the King of the Gods), Ares (God of War and of Battle) and Hermes (Messenger God of Wealth and Communications).

A famous Titan was Iapetus, who fathered Prometheus and Epimetheus. It was Prometheus who had stolen Pyr, the Fire, from the Gods, and gave it to the earthly beings, to the philosopher Heracleitus. Zeus, fearing that the earthly creatures would become just "like one of us", sent them a huge Pandora Box full of lovely surprises.

This then is the mythological-philosophical genealogy from the cosmogonic, feminine Nyx, Chaos, to the hylozoistic, masculine Fire, Logos, of Heracleitus.

Heracleitus: Everything Flows!

As we have seen before, the three Milesians, Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander, had regarded the Cosmos, in its chemical essence, as composed of four major elements: water, air, fire and earth. Everything else was derived from the interaction of these elements.

The Ephesian hylozoistic aristocrat, Heracleitus, wanted to explain why things change, why they have to change? In our conception, he wanted to explain the Bezug, the Relation, internal, intensive Motion, within the One Principle, within the Cosmos, within the "World of Worlds".

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HISTORY OF WISDOM X

Heracleitus of Ephesus

( 535 - 475 B. C. )

PART II

Introduction

It was Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel who had decorated Heracleitus as the Originator of the Laws of Dialectics, and it was Friedrich Engels who had praised the Ancient Greek philosophers as having been excellent "natural-born" dialecticians. Heracleitus was the first philosophic analyser of the general Laws of Motion.

Within the framework of our Philosophy, of our Logics, let us elucidate, what exactly Heracleitus was explaining. Until now, our Logics has three sectors: Unilogics, Dialogics and Trialogics, they occupy themselves with Rest (Ruhe, Reposo), Motion (Bewegung, Movimiento) and Bezug (Relation, Relacion), respectively. Rest is a Unigory, Motion exists as a Diagory, Bezug excels as a Triagory.

These "-gories" are written, expressed, as follows:

Rest is:

(Rest) ;

Motion exists as:

(Rest a n d Motion) ;

Bezug excels as:

(Rest a n d Motion AND Bezug) .

Rest. Rest a n d Motion, Rest a n d Motion AND Bezug.

In words and language, they are identified as Percept (Rest),

Concept (Rest a n d Motion) and Transcept (Rest a n d Motion

AND Bezug), and are simply expressed as "Rest", "Motion", "Bezug", respectively.

For example:

1. "The Patria is at rest";

2. "Water exists in motion", meaning "Water is at rest a n d exists

in motion";

3. "Water, not its being hydrogen, not its existing oxygen,

extinguishes Fire", meaning, "Water (neither hydrogen, nor

oxygen) extinguishes Fire" or "Water (hydrogen a n d

oxygen AND water) extinguishes Fire".

The "Tat Twam Asi" Principle

Here, Ancient Indian Philosophy, in the Brahman tradition, can assist us a little bit to understand what is meant by this "double" expression, by the dialogical existence of a "concept". We have to think the "Tat Twam Asi" Principle. It simply means that "You" have to consider yourself as being:

"You" a n d "Everything Else", in short:

"Everything Else" !

You Are Everything Else!

In German: "das (naemlich: alles andere) bist du."

For further information, see the first "Lectures" on our Web Site:

http:www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/8545 . Also: http://franzjutta.com .

Panta rhei! a n d Motion

Now, what preoccupied Heracleitus? He wanted to know why things cannot remain as they are, at rest, and why they have to change, why they are in motion?

Certainly our concept "Motion" and the term "motion or change"

in the philosophy of Heracleitus are not identical, but they have similarities, approximations. Hence, as expressed by us, above, Heracleitus was analysing our concept, being thought as

"Rest a n d Motion", but simply expressedas Motion ; however, he treated it not as a diagorical concept, but as a dialectical one. The difference that exists between patrian dialectics and our dialogics, we will explain in other lectures. In both cases, internal, intensive, systemic Motion is being analysed. This Motion, Evolution, never transcends the system; it only reforms (affirms)

a n d revolutionizes (negates) its very essential interior. In the patrian case, the analysis does ONLY this, and nothing more. In our case, among other things, it does this, but NOT ONLY this, but MUCH MORE ! Heracleitus analyses Motion in a one-principled "closed system", in the fiery "world of worlds", in the burning Patria. We also analyse this, but much more, for example, the Patria in History, History in the Patria, but these are not the only things which are or which exist within History. Zillions of things transcend the Patria, superceed History itself.

Being in Motion, Becoming-Being

Anaximenes still had considered Fire to be rarefied Air, but Heracleitus had agitated the Arche. Precisely because he put Pyr and Phos, Fire and Light, into this primordial Being; by placing the Supreme Light Heaven, the Empyreum, and The Bringer of Light, Lucifer, together in his genetic, archaic crucible, he logically caused strife, commotion, he converted Being into Becoming-Being, thus, he set Being in Motion. As the fiery essence of cosmic dikaiosyne (justice), now Agon (Strife, War, Dialectics) agonized all Being in its totality.

As such, the cosmogonic, cosmologic Promethean Fire luciferously entered the materialist current of patrian philosophy. As we can note, it was not the mythologic "heroic" Hercules, but the philosophic "obscure" Heracleitus, who had rescued "divine" Fire to be placed productively in the service of earthly, patrian development and progress. Now we understand why Karl Marx in his Doctoral Dissertation fierily had ordained Prometheus as the first heroic saint in the philosophic calendar of historical materialism. Virgil's words are quintessentially true for Heracleitus:

flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo, If I can't move the Gods, I'll stir up Hell!

But, let Heracleitus for himself speak clarus et distinctus:

"This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods

or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever

shall be an ever-living Fire, with measures kindling and

measures going out. ... War is the father of all and the

king of all; and some he has made gods and some men,

some bond and some free. ... Homer was wrong in

saying: 'Would that Strife might perish from among

Gods and men!' He did not see that he was praying for

the destruction of the Universe; for, if his prayers were

heard, all things would pass away. ... We must know that

War is Common to All, and Strife is Justice."

(See: Diels, Fragments 30 and 53.)

In all the preserved "Fragments' of Heracleitus, about 140 in number, of which some 14 are either not genuine, or are falsified, we can trace the fiery, blazing trails of eternal gignestai (Motion, Change).

Like in the case of Thales, also Heracleitus expressed the superstructure of his epoch, of primitive accumulation of Capital. Again, let Heracleitus say it expressis verbis; he wrote:

"All Things are in exchange for Fire, and Fire for all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares." (Diels, Fragment 90)

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(TO BE CONTINUED SOON)