This celebrated painting by Raphael Sanzio portrays the ancient Greek philosophers in dialogue. Among others, Plato (the face of Leonardo da Vinci) pointed to the sky, emphasising the universals while Aristotle gestured downwards, emphasising the particulars.
Apa u cakap?
Er... Take friendship... Do we have some innate idea of an ideal friendship (universal) and seek to make individual friends (particulars) in its pattern?
Or do we experience individual friends and then come up with an idea of what ideal friendship is like?
Does that appear pedantic? heheh....
Karl Marx was wide of the mark when he suggested that "philosophers have only sought to understand the world, the point however is to change it." In fact philosophers have always tried to do both. The intellectuals, scholars and academics who follow in the wake of a philosopher's ground-breaking thought usually seek to popularize or systematize the new vision. These secondary types are in effect standing on the shoulders of the giants who preceded them, and we in turn are often standing on the shoulders of the best of this group.
It is in this way that the philosophers, over time, have changed the world.
Start a quiet, desperate revolution today!
Posted by Hello
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