The philosophical shift towards classicism and its effect on spirituality

Arts, Philosophy, Spirituality & Wisdom
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Luigi
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The philosophical shift towards classicism and its effect on spirituality

Postby Luigi » Sun Dec 09, 2018 9:03 am

A topic I often read about is how once the renaissance hit Europe there was a much greater focus on classical civilization and thenceforth romantic reflections on the past, and during the age of enlightenment this entered the intellectual and philosophical ideas of the time. This was an important era because spirituality started to be conceptualized in ways more complex than the previous era of highly dogmatic catholicism. Basically people started thinking outside the box, and this allowed spirituality to develop in new ways. Its a topic that I often see addressed in a cursory manner but never treated in depth, so I thought I would make a thread just in case I want to add something here to accumulate info on it. The figures mentioned here are in no order, its just a free for all info depository:

Johann Gottfried Herder - known for literary criticism, classicism, new ideas about how knowledge was inbued in the souls of people, and concepts of some lifeforms being more advanced which can be viewed as proto-evolutionary theory. He was notable for taking the classicism which focused mainly on Greece and broadened it to include other civilizations, such as the early medieval Goths, who Herder recognized as having affinity with his own German-speaking society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gottfried_Herder

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

A very well known philosopher, he developed the concept of the geist, cognate to English ghost, which he used as an abstract concept of spirit which he saw as "the historical manifestation of the logical concept." In his worldview he equates God with geist. His view was a synthesis of Christian and ancient Greek concepts of divinity. He was concerned with the decline of folk beliefs and called for a "new myth" to fill the void.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wil ... rich_Hegel

Friedrich Nietzsche

Another very well known philosopher, and his writings are too varied and prolific to really summarize.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche
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Masato
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Postby Masato » Tue Dec 18, 2018 1:51 pm

Not enough love for Luigi’s posts in this subthread. This is great stuff man

Just need more time than the average forum-scan to read through & respond properly

This is really interesting. I’ve enjoyed your Scandinavian threads too even though I haven’t been posting in them

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Edge Guerrero
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Postby Edge Guerrero » Wed Dec 19, 2018 11:37 pm

Masato wrote:Not enough love for Luigi’s posts in this subthread. This is great stuff man

Just need more time than the average forum-scan to read through & respond properly

This is really interesting. I’ve enjoyed your Scandinavian threads too even though I haven’t been posting in them


- Me too! Love your threads man.
Theyre far ahead from the knowledge i was presented years ago. Love learning new things about our past!
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Regret won't waste my life again
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Luigi
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Postby Luigi » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:55 am

François Hemsterhuis - A Dutch writer and philosopher from the 1700s who studied Hellenic philosophy and incorporated it into his writings. His philosophy has been characterized as Socratic in content and Platonic in form. Its foundation was the desire for self-knowledge and truth, unfettered by the bonds of any particular system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_Hemsterhuis

Novalis - A German poet, author, mystic, and philosopher of the late 1700s who played a prominent role in the romantic movement. The core of his literary works is the quest for the connection of science and poetry, and the result was supposed to be a "progressive universal poesy”. His mystical worldview, education and philosophical influences led him to reach a new concept of Christian faith he called "magical idealism." Here is a link to his famous poem: "Hymns to the Night": https://logopoeia.com/novalis/hymns.html and his wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novalis

Friedrich Schlegel - German poet, philosopher and linguist specializing in Indian languages and religions from the late 1700s and early 1800s. Studied Greco-Roman history and philosophy, then learned Sanskrit and other Indian languages and recognized their similarities to European languages. Based on this he argued that Europeans came from a civilization that migrated out of India. The idea is now outdated but he was a forerunner for thinking about these ideas at this time. I also wanted to include him because he was a very early example of Western philosopher influenced by Indian material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Wilh ... h_Schlegel

Max Muller - German orientalist from the 1800s. Max almost doesnt quite fit in this list, because while he would have had a good grounding in the classics being an academic at that time, it was never his love as he very early on fell in love with India while the rest of Europe was falling in love with Helen and Roma. He translated numerous Indian philosophical and religious texts, and was especially interested in the Rigveda as it was the most ancient of the Sanskrit religious texts and held a special religious significance to him. He recognized the ancient link between Indian and European religions and sought to better understand European religion through the lens of Hinduism. He did however, develop his own original ideas about religion. He began to understand religion as a development from nature worship gradually towards his ideal spirituality he called theosophy or psychological religion, a kind of perennialism which he believed was closer to Protestantism than any other religion. He commented on Indian, Greek, Roman, and Norse myths and interpreted them as having nature worshiping origins with the deities as representations of the forces of nature that were later deified. Many of his views are outdated and discounted but I find it interesting he was considering these things at the time. While modern scholars characterize him as a Christian chauvinist who looked down on other religions, the contemporary authorities accused him of being anti-Christian because he spoke of the merits of Hinduism, nature worship and pagan religions. Im just gonna quote the criticism verbatim cause its so out there:
Mr. Thomson (Minister of Ladywell) moved a motion that Müller's teaching was "subversive of the Christian faith, and fitted to spread pantheistic and infidel views amongst the students and others" and questioned Müller's appointment as lecturer.[31] An even stronger attack on Müller was made by Monsignor Alexander Munro in St Andrew's Cathedral. Munro, an officer of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland (and Provost of the Catholic Cathedral of Glasgow from 1884 to 1892), declared that Müller's lectures "were nothing less than a crusade against Divine revelation, against Jesus Christ, and against Christianity". The blasphemous lectures were, he continued, "the proclamation of atheism under the guise of pantheism" and "uprooted our idea of God, for it repudiated the idea of a personal God".
/endquote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_M%C3%BCller
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Postby Som-Pong » Mon Aug 10, 2020 7:13 am

Great stuff man!


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