Delphic Podcast by Michael R D James

Philosophical and Theological thinking have for a considerable period of time been at loggerheads with each other over the issue of the nature and character of man, especially the issue of whether he is in a sense an autonomous Being, striving in his activity for The Good. Original Sin questions the Aristotelian Kantian view of man which is not in need of salvation from some external power. There...

Ancient Athens was a form of direct democracy probably because of its size. The BBC in a program about direct Democracies make the claim that the USA may be an example of this form of rule and that a tyrant was certain to emerge from a state of affairs in which children no longer respect their parents and students are afraid of their teachers. The idea of a representative form of constitutional go...

Tyranny for Plato and Aristotle was a pathological form of monarchy in which one tyrant with unnecessary and unlawful desires  leads a whole community to ruin and destruction. Totalitarianism Arendt argues is a different phenomenon because it is tolerated by the masses  who have lost trust in the political system. Hitler and Stalin used the laws of the state to undermine our historically establish...

Kant argues that there is a fundamental human right to roam the world and this fact requires from everyone the response of hospitality: a response based on the categorical imperative which demands that every human treats every other human as an end-in-themselves. The original Great Trek From Africa  might have been an act of necessity or an act of exploration but whatever was the case it required...

There is a logical relation Plato and Aristotle argued between personal identity and political identity which, if true, would legitimise the use of psychoanalytical theory in any political diagnosis. Freud must have recognised Germany as a Pathological nation state  given its open anti-semiticism and he  would clearly have recognised the USA of today  to also fall into this  category. For Freud te...

Kissinger believes in a strong America well into the 21st century and emerging powers of equal rank which include Europe. Europe was an attempt to integrate a number of different West European Nations and the Soviet Union attempted to unify a number of different Easter nationalities. Kissinger does not see any value in a world order created by the values of the United Nations, an idea from the 18t...

Aristotle's Politics is still the North Star of modern Politics because of its understanding of the nature of man and his flaws. Shakespeare inherited this understanding as well as  Aristotelian pluralism which insisted that either one man or a group of men could rule wisely as long as the principles of justice were followed in lawmaking and law-administration processes. http://michaelrdjames...

The military form of Globalisation began by Alexander had its causes and consequences related to the Golden Mean Principle which had not as yet manifested itself in the form of the nation-state. It was Empires such as the Roman Empire that colonised other parts of the world that eventually led to the rise of nation states and their sovereignty. The Philosophy of the Ancient Greeks contained the pr...

Humanistic liberalism as conceived by Paul Ricoeur  has Kantian elements in spite of Ricoeurs preference for  a more interpretative view of the ethical good. Ricoeur claims that criminal law is instrumentally constituted for the purpose of vengeance but a true humanistic liberal would claim that the punishment combines both retributive and educational components. Trumps executive order to stop tra...

Globalisation forces Cassirer argues were influenced by Stoicism. Kants Enlightenment Critical Practical Philosophy was undermined by a theoretical view of action proposed by Hegel which eventually resulted in the Romantic movement and an attempt to poeticise the world and restore the ancient concept of a hero which had been eclipsed by Socratic resoluteness in the face of injustice. Totalitariani...

An argument with my AI servant Copilot over who the Ancient Greek Oracles supported  in the Peloponnesian war. Thucydides suggested that the Oracle supported Sparta but this is unlikely given firstly, their view of the importance of "Know thyself" and the wisdom of Socrates  and secondly, their view, reported in Plato's Republic, "everything created by man will lead to ruin and...

History, for Heidegger is related to Time which can be regarded as both actual and potential. The form of our Being-in-the world determines the way in which we express our existence in the realm of the temporal. Certain events are world-historical, possessing a significance of magnitude. Merleau-Ponty's account of the lived body and its relation to language expresses one way in which the body...

Heideggers account of the Being of our  Human form of "Being-in-the-world", speaks of how entities are encountered in this world.  Whilst engaged in our tasks these entities are not accessed via a form of observation that is interrogative in nature---seeking answers to questions. Rather when   entities are confronted in the mode of the ready to hand our concern with them is not interroga...

Genetics is a science  often appealed to as the cause of many phenomena which have more complex histories. In the transition of sea-life into marshland life and finally into land animals the major initial causes are environmental but the principles  mechanisms for the new body organisation must be internalised to be readily transmitted for all further generations. We do not know where Aristotle st...

The form of finality for human forms of psuché need to be projected upon them by a mind that is to some extent predetermined by its biological/psychological and higher mental functions. This mind-space is capable of embracing actualities via its intuitions and potentialities via its conceptual abilities. Because of its finitude it cannot situate itself in the realm of the sacred and intuit its pre...

The form of finality of an object refers to the way in which  the object relates to the powers of the mind involved in the experience of the object. Occidental Mythology and Oriental Mythology have very different relations to Philosophy. Occidental Mythology  is more concerned with the nature of mans Being-in-the-world" than with the inorganic causes and events that occur on a more cosmic sca...

The pleasure at the form of the Good is the highest of all forms of pleasure and it occurs especially in relation to experiences of the sublime where the mind is confronted with a challenge to the powers of its sensibility  and responds to this challenge with its powers of understanding and reason. Awe and wonder are also involved in this response. Beauty is the symbol of morality Kant argues thus...

Philosophy is concerned with the totality of the acts of man including his civilisation-building and culture-creation activities. Its form of perspicuous representation, however, is not descriptive and contained in narratives. Rather its perspicuous representation is that of a totality of conditions/principles. Whilst hylomorphic and Critical Philosophy acknowledge mans instinctive nature they are...

History, Tragedy and Rhetoric are all Ancient Greek heritages whose nature has been changed during modern times. Living in the Age of Discontentment as we do is partly a consequence of the loss of the above "forms of life" as well the religious form of life that we felt in awe of for over a thousand years. Transcendental experiences are no longer the centre of our attention which is more...

Kants Prolegomena contains the key to outlining the scope and limitations of the domain of metaphysical Discourse----a matter of vital concern for both Mythology and Religion. Kant, as we know was very concerned to define the scope and limitations of Religion to lie within the bounds of the principles of reason, namely the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Kant is not an ideali...

The existence of God is only represented with considerable difficulty by theoretical reason which falsely claims that Gods nonexistence is a contradiction. Transcendental analogy allows us to theoretically think at least one attribute of God namely his love for humanity. We are Kant argues brought closer to an understanding of God via the use of practical reasoning and the power of conceiving of a...

Mythology emphasises one mental power in a matrix of emotion rather than the repertoire of mental powers  Philosophy claims is necessary to support complex narratives relating to the Origin of the Universe and Life. Consciousness and Language are related to metaphor which Julian Jaynes argues creates a mind-space in which we can vicariously "live". We use analogies to name the unnameable...

Rhetoric and Psychology lost their characters at the end of the 1800's and this was due to a loss of commitment to ancient institutions such as the Church and a waning of commitment to the Rationality of the Ancient Greek and Enlightenment Philosophy of Kant. Herder claims that Shakespeare soul  is aging and withering. The Platonic dialogues relating to the trial and last days of Socrates hav...

The Symbolism of confessional language is to be compared with the symbolism of many of Shakespeares soliloquys where transcendental intentions reach back to the origin of all things and forward to a future end or telos of things. Freuds religious views are more iconoclastic than Kants views which seeks to retore a role for religion within the bounds of Reason. There is an apparent conflict between...

 T S Eliot did not believe Shakespeares work to be Philosophical because of his view that Religion and Philosophy shared an intimate relation which the Ancient Greeks did not believe was the case. The Ancient Greek Gods praised what is just more than what was holy and the trinity of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were in agreement. Our Western Christian Religion views mans soul as flawed with sin,...