Old 07-07-2006, 01:37 PM
  # 28 (permalink)  
paulmh
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I was gently suggesting that the Greeks didn't undertake their philosophical investigations to refute Judaism.

And Plato/Socrates, in the exploration of the notion of Forms, is trying to find a rational basis - and a fundamental premise - from which a set of natural laws can be deduced to form the backbone of the ideal society. Plato/Socrates' imperative remains the social and the political. And the question which fascinated the pre-Aristotlean philosophers, and one of the reasons they had I think a natural affinity with Jewish teachers, was their attempts to answer the question - how shall a man live?

I'm nothing like as familiar with Aristole as I could be. I know more about his life in context than I do about the work of the man himself. I know that he was more concerned with science than with religion, and it is in this that the great legacy of the ancients still comes down to us.

Thank God for the Arabs, who kept all this stuff alive in the Dark Ages.

Best wishes

Paul
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