Sunday, August 4, 2013

Who Is the Zen Stoic?


By Dan Hagen
Why, you may ask, am I interested in tracing parallels between a 2,400-year-old Athenian philosophical school and the 1,500-year-old Chinese and Japanese iteration of a 2,500-year-old Indian religion?
Precisely because they were spawned in such vastly different places and times. Thinkers who share no history can’t possibly reflect the same cultural presuppositions and prejudices. So the points at which their ideas about the human existential reality intersect — and there are several — are likely to reflect insights about the underlying truth of human nature.
Comparing apples and oranges? Sure. That can give you the fundamental facts about fruit.

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