Subject: Holistic Thinking - Periander
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 23:56:20 -0800


Anthony,

The unwise cannot think or concern themselves with the
whole.

Periander's admonition to 'take into care beings as a whole'
also means, according to preface writer Gary Aylesworth,
"the wise concern themselves with the whole, while the
unwise consider themselves with only a part of the whole. In
other words, the wise consider everything in its totality,
but the unwise pursue only their own partial interests."
[Basic Concepts]

Heidegger reflects on this saying and states

" - that means, consider that everything depends upon the
whole of beings, upon what addresses [anspricht] humanity
from there. Always consider the essential, first and last,
and assume the attitude that matures us for such reflection.
Like everything essential, this attitude must be simple, and
the suggestion that intimates this attitude (which is
knowing) to us must be simple as well. It suffices for this
suggestion to distinquish what humanity, having come to
itself, must attend to." [Basic Concepts, p.3]

In Basic Concepts, as elsewhere, it is clear that holistic
thinking, and it's paradigm, are a basic requirement for
wisdom. Knowledge therefore is really a 'relation'
addressing a subjectless self about an external object; in a
pluralistic universe then, according to what Nietzsche
claimed, the unwise, and the ungodly, avoid truth: they lie
to themselves without knowing, and thus are
'self-delusional'. The delusion is the end product of a
fantasy which transmutates into a fixed idea. The fixed idea
finally becomes a delusion.

"Generally a little dose of assualt, meanness, or
insinuation suffices" to "force blood into the eyes and
eliminate fairness from the view" of men. {Nietzsche}

john foster

at swim two birds










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