Main Influences and Sources for
The Way of Being

Anil Mitra © January 2018—December 2023
Latest Update Sunday, December 03, 2023 9:50:54

For further influences and sources, see writers and bibliographies. A newer but shorter collection of influences is the 2021 suggested reading list.

Home

Contents

Introduction

Arrangements

Notation

Development

The document

Sources

A Summary of Manifest Influences

Philosophers

Scientists

Religious leaders

Main Influences by Contribution and Person

Humanities

Philosophy

Thales of Miletus* | Heraclitus | Parmenides** | Socrates** | Democritus* | Plato* | Aristotle* | Epicurus** | Augustine** | Samkara, Adi* | Johannes Scotus Eriugena* | Thomas Aquinas* | William of Ockham** | Descartes, Rene* | Baruch Spinoza | John Locke** | Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm** | Berkeley, George | Hume, David* | Kant, Immanuel* | Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich** | Schopenhauer, Arthur* | Mill, John Stuart | Karl Marx* | Nietzsche, Friedrich* | Hans Vaihinger | Husserl, Edmund | Alexander, Samuel * | Whitehead, Alfred North* | Russell, Bertrand, Arthur, William* | Wittgenstein, Ludwig* | Heidegger, Martin* | Popper, Karl Raimund* | Quine, Willard Van Orman* | Searle, John* | Nagel, Thomas* | Kripke, Saul Aaron** | Lewis, David** | Lowe, E. J.** | Chalmers, David

Concrete sciences

Physics

Newton, Isaac* | Maxwell, James Clerk | Einstein, Albert* | Schrödinger, Erwin* | Heisenberg, Werner | Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice | Feynman, Richard*

Biology

Darwin, Charles* | Mayr, Ernst*

Psychology

Freud, Sigmund

Sociology

Weber, Max*

Anthropology

Campbell, Joseph | Nelson, Richard K

Religious study

James, William** | Eliade, Mircea | Smith, Huston Cummings | Hick, John*

Political science

Marx, Karl

Economics

Keynes, John Maynard | Samuelson, Paul*

Technology

Frank Tippler

Abstract sciences

Metaphysics

Logic

Frege, Gottlob* | Gödel, Kurt*

Mathematics

Computer science

Linguistics

Action

Civilization

Technology

Politics

Alexander the Great | Julius Caesar | Gengis Khan | Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov | Castro, Fidel

Economics

Religion

Rishis of the Vedas | Mythic Sages of the Upanishads | Valmiki | Gautama Buddha | Jesus | Vyasa, Veda | Samkara, Adi* | Baker, Ian

Schools of Thought

Indian philosophy

Original Hindu

Veda | Upanishad | Bhagavad Gita

Āstika

Samkhya | Yoga | Advaita Vedanta

Nāstika

Buddhism

Western philosophy

Ancient

Atomism | Skepticism

Medieval

Patristic period | High scholastic period

Enlightenment

Rationalism | Positivism | Idealism | British Idealism | Empiricism

Modern

Analytic philosophy | Continental philosophy | Existentialism | Emergentism | Holism | Intuitionism | Language philosophy | Logical positivism | Logical empiricism | Materialism | Physicalism | Pragmatism | Process philosophy | Realism

Main Influences by Concept

Being

Becoming

Writers on becoming

Being

Writers on Being and the real

Experience

Writers on experience

Perfect categories

Writers

Kinds of being

Writers

Reason

Writers on reason

Metaphysics

Writers on metaphysics

Real elements of Being

Writers on the real

Cosmology

Writers on cosmology

The Way of Being

Thinkers, writers, actors for The Way

Main Influences for
The Way of Being

Introduction

Arrangements

The arrangements are by discipline and by concept and include cross-reference.

Notation

essential ideaS are in small capitals.

An asterisk* marks a significant influence that may be worthy of further study.

A double asterisk** marks a priority for further study.

Development

The document

Make a simple listing—the immediate need is to fill out gaps in what has influenced my thought. Here, there is no intent at completeness.

Continue—

Cross reference influences and concepts (concepts.html, system of human knowledge, reason, practice, and action).

Parallel up date with topics and concepts for the way, the docs above, and the database.

Long term—

Import of influences and concepts.

Simplify.

Sources

Some documents on this site with further sources—

conceptual outline-essential: thinkers.

history of human experience.

action, charisma, and history.

history of thought and action.

history of western philosophy.

system of human knowledge.

A Summary of Manifest Influences

The following lists, very partial even as personal sources, are of persons whose writings have taught and inspired me.

Philosophers

The list below is mainly of philosophers.

Veda Vyasa (date and authenticity unclear), Thales of Miletus (624-525 BC), Parmenides (dates uncertain, born about 530 BC) , Democritus (460 BC-370 BC), Plato (424/423 BC-348/347 BC), Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC), Adi Samkara (788-820), Johannes Scotus Eriugena (815-877), Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274), René Descartes (1596-1650), Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), David Hume (1711-1776), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Hans Vaihinger (1852-1933), Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), AO Lovejoy (1873-1962), Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), CK Ogden (1889-1957), IA Richards (1893-1979), Karl Popper (1902-1994), Ernst Mayr (1904-2005), Carl G. Hempel (1905-1997), Kurt Friedrich Gödel (1906-1978), Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000), Herbert A. Simon (1916-2001), John Searle (1932-), Richard K. Nelson (1941-), author of Make Prayers to the Raven (1983), Hugh Brody (1943-), author of The Other Side of Eden (2000).

The most influential include Plato, Samkara, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Popper, Quine, and Searle.

I admire persons, but hold that, from history, it is the ideas that are most important. The main use of the ideas may require interpretation but is not interpretation as such—it is to attempt to go and see further. This use is best facilitated by finding what is best in the works which requires appreciation over detraction and evaluation over mere criticism (true criticism is of course identical to true evaluation).

The anthropologists Richard Nelson and Hugh Brody have made up for my lack of actual experience with primal cultures in appreciating the beauty and power (and problems) of a primal way of life, especially in the far north of the American Continent. If you have the impression that I admire that way of life you are correct; however, I hope not to judge that versus my present way.

Scientists

Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Charles Darwin (1809-1882), James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Ernst Mayr (1904-2005), and the creators and developers of quantum mechanics and modern physical cosmology.

Religious leaders

Religion stands against the secular assertion that the secular is the only real and the only value. In this religion is true.

I have found the religions and their leaders, in fact or legend, informative to my thought and inspiring in my life.

Any movement is likely to have negative sides and uses. However, the problem of our or any time is to attempt to understand and negotiate beyond the secular in a way that is best for the time.

I have admired what I have read of the lives many religious persons and leaders and saint like persons, especially Buddha, Jesus, and Gandhi. However, I make no recommendation to the reader except to follow their own path (or non-path).

Main Influences by Contribution and Person

This is the main division of the document. The subsequent divisions are resources.

Information includes area of contribution, dates, philosophical orientation if any, and optional: main concepts, works and schools.

Humanities

Philosophy

Metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and ethics; education; religion

Thales of Miletus*

substance , theoretical inquiry

c. 624 BCE – c. 548 BCE

Orientation: rationalist

Heraclitus

becoming

c. 535 BCE – c. 475 BCE

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Parmenides**

c. 500 BCE – c. 450 BCE

Philosopher of permanence—change is relative; known written work—a metaphysical poem On Nature (probably not its real name), which includes an argument that whatever is, is permanent—seemingly concluded as from thoughts such as: whatever ‘is’ is observed but what was or will be is posited; Being vs becoming

Though Parmenides is the first western philosopher to apply deductive a priori arguments, it is at least questionable whether the arguments were conclusive.

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Socrates**

c. 470 BCE – c. 399 BCE

Socratic method—dialogue that simulates imaginative critical thought

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

To add: Socratic method, reason

Democritus*

c. 460 BCE – c. 370 BCE

atomism, cosmology

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

To add: atomism

Plato*

c. 428 BCE – c. 348 BCE

Cosmology: Timaeus—a main source for Plato’s metaphysics; an account of the formation of the universe with an explanation of its beauty and order

Knowledge: Parmenides (theory of forms)

Politics: Republic
Being, becoming, power, philosophy as logic (or dialectic), metaphysics, and ethics

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

To add: Logic, logic, ethics

Aristotle*

c. 384 BCE – c. 322 BCE

metaphysics, categories, logic

Logic [Organon]

Metaphysics [Ta meta ta physika]

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

To add: categories

Epicurus**

c. 341 BCE – c. 270 BCE

principle of plenitude (without proof)

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

To add: principle of plenitude

Augustine**

354 CE – 430 CE

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

To add: ontological argument, God

Samkara, Adi*

c. 700 CE – c. 750 CE, speculatively

Samkara, Adi (Advaita Vedanta)

Identity of Atman and Brahman; tat tvam asi

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

To add: Atman

Johannes Scotus Eriugena*

c. 815 CE – c. 877 CE

universe as all that there is and that there is not over all time and space; being, nonbeing

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Thomas Aquinas*

1225 CE – 1274 CE

Aeternitas

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

William of Ockham**

c. 1287 CE – 1347 CE

To add: superfluous universals (ockham’s razor)

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Descartes, Rene*

1596 CE – 1650 CE

Analysis of certainty and experience

Discours de la méthode [Discourse on Method], 1637

Meditationes de Prima Philosophia [Meditations on First Philosophy in Which Is Proved the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul; includes Descartes’ reflections on methodical doubt] 1641

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

To add: certainty

Baruch Spinoza

1632 CE – 1677 CE

On the Improvement of Understanding, unfinished, 1662

The Ethics, completed 1674, published posthumously, 1674

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

John Locke**

1632 CE – 1704 CE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690

Two Treatises of Government, 1690

Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1693

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm**

1646 CE – 1715 CE

The monad (interiority of experience), necessity

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

To add: monad, necessity

Berkeley, George

1685 CE – 1753 CE

To be is to be perceived (esse est percipi), interpreted as the object without influence on experience does not exist rather than things exist only when perceived and certainly not as perception creates the object

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Hume, David*

1711 CE – 1776 CE

critic of induction as necessary

A Treatise of Human Nature: Book 1 Of the Understanding, Book 2 Of the Passions, Book 3 Of Morals, 1739–40

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (a rewriting of the first book of the Treatise which Hume repudiated as immature, with addition of the essay On Miracles), originally titled Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, 1748.

Essays, Moral and Political, 1741–42

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 1751

Political Discourses, 1752

Four Dissertations, 1757

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 1779

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Kant, Immanuel*

1724 CE – 1804 CE

categories of experience are categories of Being

Critique of Pure Reason, trs. 1929, 1951, original German edition, Critik der reinen Vernunft, 1781, rev. ed. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1787

Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, trs. 1951, Prolegomena zur einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, 1783

Critique of Practical Reason, trs. 1949, Critik der practischen Vernunft 1788

Critique of Judgment, vol. 1, Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgment and vol. 2, Critique of Teleological Judgment, 1911–28, republished 1952, Critik der Urteilskraft 1790, 2nd ed. 1793

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich**

1770 CE – 1831 CE

The Phenomenology of Mind, 1807, trs. J. B. Baille, 1967

Science of Logic, 1812-1816 [Objective Logic, 1812 and Subjective Logic, 1816]

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline, 1817 [Logic, Nature, Mind]

The Philosophy of Right, 1821, trs. J. B. Baille, 1952

Lecture Notes on Aesthetics, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of History, and History of Philosophy, written about 1823-1827

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Schopenhauer, Arthur*

1788 CE – 1860 CE

will, categories

On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: a Philosophical Essay, 1813

The World as Will and Representation, in two volumes, Volume I, trs. E. F. J. Payne, 1958, original German edition, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 1819; Volume II, trs. E. F. J. Payne, 1958, the original German edition of Volume II appears with the second edition of the work in 1844 in which Volume I is essentially unchanged; a third German edition was published in 1859

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

To add: will

Mill, John Stuart

1806 CE – 1873 CE

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Karl Marx*

1818 CE – 1883 CE

philosopher, political economist, political theorist

critique of culture and convention, authenticity

The Communist Manifesto, with Friedrich Engels, 1848; Das Kapital, 1867 – 1883

Orientation: materialist-rationalist

Nietzsche, Friedrich*

1844 CE – 1900 CE

critique of culture and convention, authenticity

The Birth of Tragedy, trs. W. Kaufmann, 1954; original German, 1872

Daybreak, trs. R. J. Hollingdale, 1982; 1881

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trs. R. J. Hollingdale, 1968; 1883-5

Beyond Good and Evil, trs. R. J. Hollingdale, 1966; 1886

The Twilight of the Idols, trs. R. J. Hollingdale, 1968; 1889

The Anti-Christ, R. J. Hollingdale, 1968; 1895

Nietzsche against Wagner, trs. W. Kaufmann in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. W. Kaufmann, 1954; 1895

Ecce Homo, trs. W. Kaufmann, 1968; 1908

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Hans Vaihinger

1852 CE – 1933 CE

The Philosophy of As-If, 1922

Orientation: idealist-anti-realist

Husserl, Edmund

1859 CE – 1938 CE

Logical Investigations, trs. JN Findlay, 1970, from Logische Untersuchungeng, 1900–1

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Alexander, Samuel *

1859 CE – 1938 CE

space, time, God, categories

Space, time, and deity: the Gifford lectures at Glasgow, 1916-1918

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Whitehead, Alfred North*

1861 CE – 1947 CE

Philosophy of organism, process

The Concept of Nature, 1920

Science and the Modern World, 1925

Process and Reality, 1929, corrected ed. D. R. Griffin and D. W. Sherburne, 1967

Adventures of Ideas, 1933

Modes of Thought, 1938

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Russell, Bertrand, Arthur, William*

1872 CE – 1970 CE

Logicism, ostensive definition, theory of types, names, and descriptions

A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, 1900

The Principles of Mathematics, 1903

On Denoting, in Mind, 1905

Philosophical Essays, 1910

Principia Mathematica, with A. N. Whitehead, 3 vols., 1910-13, 2 ed., 1927

The Problems of Philosophy, 1912

The Theory of Knowledge, 1913, pub. Posthumously in Collected Papers, v. VII, 1984

Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy, 1914

The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, in Monist, 1918-19

Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, 1919

The Analysis of Mind, 1921

The Analysis of Matter, 1927

An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, 1940

Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, 1948

My Philosophical Development, 1959

Autobiography, 1967-9

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Wittgenstein, Ludwig*

1889 CE – 1951 CE

logic, metaphysics, philosophical psychology

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trs. C. K. Ogden, 1922

In the following the comments are from IEP.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1961).

His early classic.

The Blue and Brown Books, (Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1969).

From his middle period, these are preliminary studies for his later work.

Philosophical Investigations, 1953, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe (Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1963).

His late classic.

On Certainty, edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, translated by Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe (Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1979).

Like many of Wittgenstein's works, this was compiled after his death from notes he had made. In this case the notes come from the last year and a half of his life. Works of more general interest by Wittgenstein include these:

Culture and Value, translated by Peter Winch (Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1980).

These are notes from throughout Wittgenstein's life dealing with all kinds of topics hinted at by its title, including music, literature, philosophy, religion, and the value of silliness.

Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, edited by Cyril Barrett (Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1966).

For 'psychology' read 'Freud', otherwise the title is explanation enough. Hilary Putnam has recommended the section on religion as a valuable introduction to Wittgenstein's philosophy as a whole.

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Heidegger, Martin*

1889 CE – 1976 CE

Being, becoming, being human, time

Being and time, 1927

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

To add: time

Popper, Karl Raimund*

1902 CE – 1994 CE

scientific method (‘falsifiability’, necessity of testability)

The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1959, trs. of revised and expanded version of Logik der Forschung, 1934

The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945

Indeterminism in quantum physics and in classical physics, in British Journal for Philosophy of Science, 1950

The Poverty of Historicism, 1957

Conjectures and Refutations, 1963

The next three titles are the three volumes of Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery: After Twenty Years, 1982 – 1983.

The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism, 1982

Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics, 1982

Realism and the Aim of Science, 1983

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Quine, Willard Van Orman*

1908 CE – 2000 CE

logic as empirical or synthetic

On What There Is, 1953

Word and Object, 1960

Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, 1969

The Roots of Reference, 1974

Theories and Things, 1981

Pursuit of Truth, 1990

Philosophy of Logic, 1970, 2 ed, 1986

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Searle, John*

1932 CE –

On consciousness

The Rediscovery of the Mind, 1992

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Nagel, Thomas*

1937 CE –

On consciousness, ‘what it is like’

What it is Like to Be a Bat, 1974

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

To add what it is like

Kripke, Saul Aaron**

1940 CE –

Naming and Necessity, 1980

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

To add naming

Lewis, David**

1941 CE – 2001 CE

modal realism, possible worlds

Lowe, E. J.**

1950 CE – 2014 CE

Being, metaphysics, kinds of Being

Kinds of Being, 1989

More Kinds of Being, 2009

Chalmers, David

1966 CE –

On qualia

‘Qualia’ derives from the Latin ‘quale’ of what kind, was introduced by C. S. Lewis in 1929 in connection with sense-datum theory and its importance emphasized by David Chalmers in a paper Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia (1995)

The Conscious Mind, 1996

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

To add qualia

Concrete sciences

The concrete sciences

Mathematics, theoretical physics, functional and evolutionary biology, theoretical and experimental psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science and philosophy, economics

Physics

Newton, Isaac*

1642 CE – 1727 CE

Maxwell, James Clerk

1831 CE – 1879 CE

Einstein, Albert*

1879 CE – 1955 CE

Schrödinger, Erwin*

1887 CE – 1961 CE

Heisenberg, Werner

1901 CE – 1976 CE

Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice

1902 CE – 1984 CE

Feynman, Richard*

1918 CE – 1988 CE

Biology

Darwin, Charles*

1809 CE – 1882 CE

Mayr, Ernst*

1904 CE – 2005 CE

Psychology

Freud, Sigmund

1856 CE – 1939 CE

Sociology

Weber, Max*

1864 CE – 1920 CE

Anthropology

Anthropology proper and study of belief including philosophy and nature of religion

Campbell, Joseph

1904 CE – 1987 CE

Nelson, Richard K

1941 CE –

Cultural anthropologist; Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest, 1983

Religious study

James, William**

1842 CE –1910 CE

Eliade, Mircea

1907 CE – 1986 CE

Smith, Huston Cummings

1919 CE – 2016 CE

Hick, John*

1922 CE – 2012 CE

Political science

Marx, Karl

1818 CE – 1863 CE

Economics

Keynes, John Maynard

1883 CE – 1946 CE

Samuelson, Paul*

1915 CE – 2009 CE

Technology

Especially language, writing, print; artificial intelligence and simulation; human-machine interface and integration; technology of civilization; technology of earth and space exploration.

Frank Tippler

1947 CE –

Abstract sciences

Metaphysics and specific abstract sciences

Metaphysics

Logic

Frege, Gottlob*

1848 CE – 1925 CE

referential meaning; logic, analytic philosophy, Platonist philosophy of mathematics

The Foundations of Arithmetic, trs. J. L. Austin, 1952; original German 1884

The Basic Laws of Arithmetic I, trs. and ed. Montgomery Furth, 1964; 1893

The Basic Laws of Arithmetic II, translations of extracts in Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege trs. and ed. P. Geach and M. Black, 1980; 1903

Orientation: materialist-empiricist

Gödel, Kurt*

1906 CE – 1978 CE

Limits to formal systems, is arithmetic synthetic

On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica And Related Systems (Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I"), 1931.

Orientation: idealist-rationalist

Mathematics

Computer science

Linguistics

Action

Civilization

The ingredients of civilization (http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/); Mesopotamia, Egypt > Indus > Aegean > China > America > Mediterranean > Regional civilizations > Global civilization

Technology

Politics

Alexander the Great

356 BCE – 323 BCE

Julius Caesar

100 BCE – 44 BCE

Gengis Khan

c. 1162 CE – 1227 BCE

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

1870 CE – 1924 CE

What is to be done? Burning Questions of our Movement, 1929 trs. from the 1902 Russian

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline, 1933, trs. from the 1916 Russian

Castro, Fidel

1926 CE – 2016 CE

Economics

Religion

Rishis of the Vedas

Rishis (Veda) is a mythic ascription of authorship according to the Vedas

Rough dates:

1700 BCE – 900 CE

Mythic Sages of the Upanishads

Mythic Sages (Upanishad)

The Upanishads, like the Vedas, are of uncertain authorship and have been ascribed to mythic sates.

Rough dates

800 BCE – 300 CE

Valmiki

Valmiki (Ramayana)

The Ramayana is attributed to Valmiki. Rough dates of writing

450 BCE – 50 BCE

Gautama Buddha

c. 563 BCE – c. 483 BCE

Jesus

c. 4 BCE – c. 30 CE

Vyasa, Veda

Vyasa, Veda (traditional: Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita)

Bhagavad Gita

Veda Vyasa is mythic with a very rough date:

3000 BCE

Samkara, Adi*

Samkara, Adi (Advaita Vedanta)

c. 700 CE – c. 750 CE, speculatively.

Baker, Ian

The Heart of the World: A Journey to Tibet’s Lost Paradise, 2004.

Schools of Thought

This division is in broad strokes. It is also selective and focuses on the main influences on my thought.

Indian philosophy

Original Hindu

Veda

Upanishad

Bhagavad Gita

Āstika

The Āstika or Orthodox schools accept the authority of the Vedas.

There are six main schools, but I list only the main influences.

Samkhya

Yoga

Advaita Vedanta

Nāstika

The Nāstika or Heterodox schools do not accept the authority of the Vedas. The four main Nāstika schools are Cārvāka, Ājīvika, Buddhism, and Jainism. The one with influence that is significant for my purposes (in the way of being) is Buddhism.

Buddhism

Western philosophy

See system of human knowledge, practice, and action and history of western philosophy.

Ancient

Atomism

Skepticism

Medieval

Patristic period

High scholastic period

Enlightenment

… and after

Rationalism

Positivism

Idealism

British Idealism

Empiricism

Modern

Analytic philosophy

Continental philosophy

Existentialism

Emergentism

Holism

Intuitionism

Language philosophy

Logical positivism

Logical empiricism

Materialism

Physicalism

Pragmatism

Process philosophy

Realism

Main Influences by Concept

This is for use in the main division, main influences by discipline and person.

Being

Becoming

Becoming, destiny, death, yoga, civilization, understanding, paradigm, truth.

Writers on becoming

Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Whitehead.

Being

Being, sameness, difference, existence, verb to be, abstraction-concretion, ¿why Being?

Writers on Being and the real

Being: Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger.

The real: writers on Being and Samkara, Buddha, John Hick, Kant.

Experience

experience, consciousness, the given.

experience and the world, canonical dilemmas (of experience), concept, intentionality, object, null object, concept meaning, linguistic referential meaning.

Writers on experience

The phenomenologists: Franz Brentano, Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merlau-Ponty.

On consciousness, recent: Searle, Chalmers, Nagel.

On the world: see writers on Being, i.e., on the real.

Perfect categories

the real via abstraction, ideal categories (elements), all (universe), parts (beings), null (the void), power, reason, possibility, potential.

Writers

Aristotle, Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Husserl. Samuel Alexander.

Kinds of being

kind (of Being), mode (or level of Being), model (dynamic), conceptual model (linguistic).

Writers

See writers on Being and the categories.

E. J. Lowe (Kinds of Being, 1989 and More Kinds of Being, 2009).

Reason

reason, rationalism, possibility (kinds), limitlessness, necessity, argument (Logic), science, religion, value, art.

Writers on reason

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Russell, Quine.

Metaphysics

metaphysics, possibility of metaphysics (by demonstrative example), existence of the void, fundamental principle, perfect metaphysics (dual abstract-concrete, with dual epistemology), consequences: identity, cosmology of identity and Being, Atman, Brahman.

essential problem of metaphysics—what has Being, problems of metaphysics.

Writers on metaphysics

Thales, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, David Lewis.

Real elements of Being

the real (via appropriate dual epistemology), real category, abstract-concrete, peak realization, perfect instrument, system of real categories: identity, dynamics, experiential modes.

Writers on the real

See writers on Being, and on the categories.

Cosmology

cosmology, method, general cosmology (descriptive, paradigms, models of universe—of Being and identity).

cosmology of form and formation, transient, multi-step symmetry capture (greater probability of), form.

physical cosmology (symmetry, dynamics, superposed residual indeterminism—e.g., quantum, models of cosmos), process, determinism (and indeterminism), causation, acausal process, mechanism (vs teleology); matter (Being), mind (Being-in-relation), modes of mind and matter.

life, evolution.

psychology, objectivity of experience, dimensions of experience, function, personality.

agency, transformation, dynamics (intrinsic, instrumental).

value (axiology, aesthetics, ethics).

being human, becoming human, reflexive reason, life role, remaining human, time, death, authenticity, function role, tat tvam asi, transcendence; spirit.

civilization, society, universal civilization, civilizing the universe, reason.

Writers on cosmology

General—Plato, Kant, Hegel, Whitehead.

Cosmology of formation and origins—classical metaphysics, Plato, Hegel.

Physical cosmology and physics—Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, and Feynman.

Life, evolution—Darwin, Mayr.

Psychology—Freud.

Agency—.

Value—.

Being human, anthropology—Heidegger, Richard K Nelson.

Civilization—.

The Way of Being

The Way of Being, the highest pursuit.

aim of Being, endeavor, destiny, path.

pragmatic agency, yoga (intrinsic—and as instrumental; meditation), way of life, catalyst, reason, mystic, Beyul, immersion, science, sciences (instrumental—and as intrinsic: immersive), technology.

path, eternal process, the immediate and the ultimate, death, openness to the infinite, finite resolution of significant meaning, program, template.

Thinkers, writers, actors for The Way

Buddha, Jesus, Samkara, Joseph Campbell.

Frank Tippler, The Physics of Immortality (1994).