Crossing The Stream Leaving The Cave

Crossing the Stream, Leaving the Cave

Crossing the Stream, Leaving the Cave brings philosophers from two of the world's great philosophical traditions--Platonic and Indian Buddhist--into joint inquiry on topics in metaphysics, epistemology, mind, language, and ethics. An international team of scholars address selected questions of mutual concern to Buddhist and Platonist: How can knowledge of reality transform us? Will such transformation leave us speechless, or disinterested in the world around us? What is cause? What is self-knowledge? And how can dreams shed light on waking cognition? What do the paradoxes thrown up by abstract thought about fundamental notions such as being and unity reveal? Is it possible to attain unity in ourselves, and should we even try? Would doing so make us happy--and is such happiness consistent with both contemplation of reality and action in the world? With close readings of texts by Buddhaghosa, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, Bhaviveka, Santideva; by Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry, Olympiodorus, and Damascius (among others), these studies consider not just the different answers Buddhists and Platonists might give to these questions, but also the criticisms they might bring to each other's positions, the sort of arguments they use, and the use they put these arguments to. Bringing Platonic and the Buddhist perspectives jointly to bear creates a cosmopolitan philosophical exchange which yields greater conceptual clarity on the questions and the terms in which they are cast, reveals unnoticed conceptual connections, and opens up new possibilities for addressing central philosophical concerns.

The Trail of the Old Ones

In the Ice Age, mountains of ice grew where the ice did not melt, as more ice formed from the rains. Cave men had to compete with all animals for shelter and food. He depended on the ability of other creatures to survive.This made him one of the deadliest of animals. He showed no mercy. He kiled to borrow what he could not produce. Animals produce fur, to keep them warm. Man had to take the furs from animals to survive. He also had to take their meat, bones, and innards. In Spring wild green things sprouted and grew. Man learned to sort and use these. Some leery, more careful people began to notice medical properties of these plants They remembered these properties. Soon others of the clan became dependent on these people who could remember what to use for this or that ailment. They became the Shaman. Their job became as important as the hunter. Salt became an important commodity in the later Ice Age. Man crave it. If you had salt, you could trade it for meat, furs, and weapons. But if they had nothing to trade, then they would revert to borrowing.

Uncle Sam's Secrets