Wandering Souls: The Doctrine of Transmigration in Pythagorean Philosophy

Contents

Introduction: The Topos of Transmigration

Chapter One: Sources of the Doctrine of Transmigration

Chapter Two: Beyond Mysticism and Science: Symbolism and Philosophical Magic

Chapter Three: The Emergence of Mystic Cults and the Immortal Soul

Chapter Four: Philolaus and the Character of Pythagorean Harmony

Chapter Five: The Alleged Critique of Pythagoras by Parmenides

Chapter Six: Between the Earth and the Sky, On the Pythagorean Divine

Chapter Seven: The Pythagorean Bios and the Doctrine of Transmigration

The Path of the Event

The Path of Remembrance, or Return

Chapter Eight: The Platonic Rupture: Writing and Difference

Chapter Nine: Plotinus: The Ascent of the Soul toward the One

Chapter Ten: Plotinus as Neoplatonic Mystic: Letter to Flaccus

Epilogue: The Pythagorean Doctrine of Transmigration

Introduction: The Poetic Topos of Transmigration

I made up rhymes in dark and scary places,

And like a lyre I plucked the tired laces

Of my worn-out shoes, one foot beneath my heart.

(Rimbaud, ‘Wandering,’ Stanza 4)

Remind yourself that all men assert wisdom is the greatest good,

but that there are few, who, strenuously endeavor to obtain

this greatest good.

(attributed to Pythagoras by Stobaeus)

The mythical narrative of transmigration tells the story of myriad wandering souls, each migrating from body to body along a path of recurrence amid the becoming of the All. Yet, for the Pythagoreans, this story does not describe the passive revolution of a circle, but a pathway for an active exploration of the All and return to the divine. This endeavor is strenuous as it occurs amidst a suspension within the double bind of nativity and fatality, again and again to be born and to die, and to be reborn as still another being.[1] The thread of the narrative, of reminiscence, is always severed with each demise amid the labyrinth of mortal existence. Yet, as the narrative is a rope of many threads, the persistent re-articulation of the narrative instigates a mnemopoiesis of remembrance that transcends the individual mortal life amid the broader travels of the soul.

The Pythagoreans, along with others, cultivated an ethos of an immortal soul, one thought to be capable of communion with the divine. For Homer, such a desire would have been hubris, even if it was not in the end articulated outside of his mythological ontology. Pythagoras, against the background of Homer’s portrayal of the thirsting soul, maintained the requirement of a body, of a ‘substance’, for its life and its expansion (but only during life, as the soul had its own integrity beyond body). Pythagoras articulated a philosophy of return of the soul to its divine source through yet another - though forbidden - possibility in the Homeric constellation. He turned the necessity of body into a virtuous topos of return of finitude to the infinite. Indeed, despite this ‘mingling of essences,’ Pythagoras remained true to the Homeric valorization of the life of the body, of this self that is remembered by the passive soul. Yet, as the shade can return to another body, and as the divine is the cosmos, the body becomes the site from which the pursuit of the All commences, finds its way, and it is the variety of bodies which are the successive abodes of the soul amid its transmigration through each of the circuits of the All.

To read the entire book, please visit:

http://luchte.wordpress.com/wandering-souls-the-doctrine-of-transmigration-in-pythagorean-philosophy/

Under the Aspect of Time

Under the Aspect of Time

(“sub specie temporis”)

Heidegger, Wittgenstein and the Place of the Nothing

James Luchte


But some of the greatest achievements in philosophy could only be compared with taking up some books which seemed to belong together, and putting them on different shelves; nothing more being final about their positions than that they no longer lie side by side. The onlooker who doesn’t know the difficulty of the task might well think in such a case that nothing at all had been achieved. (Blue Book, p. 44-45)

It is often said that there has been relatively little work devoted to the relationship between Heidegger and Wittgenstein. It has also been argued that this is due, to a great extent, to the barriers of the ‘Analytic-Continental’ divide. Yet, over the last two decades interest in the relationship (or non-relationship) between the two philosophers has intensified and has been articulated in what can be provisionally laid out as four distinct streams of interpretation: Analytic, Pragmatic (both Analytic and Continental), Mystical and Phenomenological. What is surprising (or, perhaps, not surprising) about the discussion of the relationship, however, is the relative lack of awareness of each of the streams to the others, as they trickle blindly, impervious to the others. Indeed, it is not that there has not been any work on this relationship, but that the work has remained segregated by a network of blindnesses, barriers or dams. This network has served to impede any synoptic or perspicuous interpretation of the relationship.

The purpose of this essay will be to invite these streams to break their banks and coalesce into a larger river of interpretation – and by showing one way this could be done.


To read the rest of this essay, please visit:

http://luchte.wordpress.com/under-the-aspect-of-time


Welcome to my site for philosophy.

This site is devoted to works in progress and other materials which do not fit into the format of contemporary philosophical journals, such as poetry, fiction, and dialogues.

There is also the issue of the timeliness that is necessary for an active philosophical dialogue, as it often takes up to a year for an article to finally appear in a journal.

I hope that this site will offer a place for such active, timely dialogue, experimentation, and an intensification of philosophical interest.

I invite other sites with a philosophical interest to send me your link and to enter into a fruitful philosophical dialogue.