January 16, 2008
If Jews had met Budhists
Great religious coincidence. Last week I wrote to a friend:
“But mainly the sense of Jewish superiority was in relation…to the idol worshipers. It would have been interesting if there were strong contact between Jews and Buddhists, but it didn’t happen. So there were not other high religions [in their world] to [give] respect [to], except in certain ways the mystery religions, but they were in a slightly different line of business.”
Today, a quote from the Talmud unlike any I’ve ever seen:
“Whoever repudiates idolatry is called a Jew.”
- Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 13a
January 5, 2008
New from Aristotle
This came in this morning’s Aristotle message:
“To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.”
It came as news to me that he had said this. He never mentioned to me before. And if I am remembering the dates right, it must have come before Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.”
(In a more serious vein, I do realize that Descartes’ point on this score was much more fundamental, that it was the starting point, and the only possible starting point, for any other knowledge whatsoever.
Which in turn electrified the challenge raised by the late Paul Feyerabend, our cantankerous and really beloved Philosophy of Science prof at UCB, who argued persuasively that it was not possible to come to know something without already knowing something.)
—David