Prehistoric philosophy and spiritual culture in Europe

 

The close connection of the grammatical structure of Old Church Slavonic to Sanskrit (and Indo-European in general) is fascinating. The Glagolithic alphabet is curious and more interesting are pre-Christian Slavic scripts such as the Alekanovo inscription.  There is nothing 'crude' or non-sophisticated about having a writing system of the Ogham type (Hrabar's чръты и рѣзы, črŭty i rězy).  On the the contrary, it indicates a high level of arithmetical symbolic (or cryptograhic) thinking, which Hrabar probably was not even able to understand.  Take a really good look at the 'Sun ship' from Bronze-age Poland.

 The  Byzantine historical attestation of the Bandura (Ukrainian: бандура) among ancient Bulgarians  points to a survival of an ancient musical tradition (the counterpart of the Celtic Bards).

We entertain the idea that certain peoples among the ancient Slavs may have possessed a form of Buddhism (we see, as attested in the Pali suttas themselves,  Gotama's doctrine and practice as a restoration of something even more ancient) or a similar system of yoga or spiritual cultivation. A common view would be that ancient Scythians and Sarmatians may have played a role (also with later manichean connections: consider the Bogomils and the story of Barlam and Josaphat, this last name being an adaptation of a middle Persian rendition of Bodhisattva). However we obviouly reject arbitrary occultist fantasies (without any serious scientific basis) about Slavic prehistory - which are often unfortunately aligned to questionable political ideologies. But we note also that much of 'mainstream' theories of history and prehistory are equally tainted by ideological agendas and prejudice (just as the account of the pre-Christian Slavs by early Christian writers is not reliable).  Can we find a correlation between the elegance and sophistication of a language (its closeness to Sanskrit or some other measure) and the cultural and spiritual level of its speakers ? And by cultural and spiritual level, we mean consciousness and implementation of universal ethical principles regarding human beings and animals, philosophical consciousness (that is to say, TPC and TPC) and spiritual cultivation based on it, the development of formal logic and analysis, the template of the scientific method, the refined development of the arts, etc. 

From an historical and archaeological perspective we argue strongly against and completely reject the opposition between so-called 'polytheism' and 'monotheism' and all the ideologies and connotation such an opposition or distinction implies. The theological doctrines (cf. kathenotheism, henotheism, etc.)  of Proclus' Elements of Theology are the same as that of the Vedas and the Avesta. Christianity in most of its historical manifestations was never  quite 'monotheistic' in the crude sense and the same goes for the esoteric teachings and practices in Iran.  For indeed the absolute (the good) is that which is beyond all gods which are in the highest sense are its emanations (angels) and mediators (henads). And the absolute as well as the highest gods are essentially to be sought within.

Historically we find high levels of idolatry, anthropomorphism, materialism, violence and barbarism among so-called 'monotheistic' cultures. This so-called monotheism is just a cultural expression of political supremacist ambitions of certain peoples wherein a tribal deity is given traditional attributes of a military conqueror and emperor.

What is far more important is how the concept of divinity is essentially united to that of universal moral principles and philosophically to that of TPC and TPP. 

Returning to the Slavs (the so-called Slavic deities alignment to the natural cycle of the seasons and to the experience of love and beauty  may have been a sign of an elevated philosophical spirituality akin to the Vedic one),  we note that the ancient Slavic woodcraft was quite sophisticated and must have made use of considerable knowledge of geometry and physical engineering. The archaeological site at Biskupin in Poland (c. 8th century BCE) could be proposed as an example, but of course we cannot know how precise and sophisticated this structure originally was. The artifacts related to this site are of exquisite beauty. 

We discussed briefly the prehistory of the Slavs (the Slavic or proto-Slavic speakers) and the thesis of the existence of a higher spiritual literate culture akin to Vedic culture which included a complete system of spiritual realization as well as certain types of science (like Paninian grammar). Furthermore we have hinted elsewhere that the western Slavic  (and Baltic) substrate in the territories of what is now Germany played a central role in higher philosophical and cultural manifestations (for instance Bach, Leibniz and Kant and Frege, mother's name Bialloblotzky). Bach (like Eckhart) was born in Thuringia. 

Thuringia has significant historical Slavic influence, primarily from the Sorbs (Wends) who settled the region in the Early Middle Ages. This influence is most evident in place names and the genetic ancestry of modern inhabitants

A similar and very strong argument could be carried out for a certain substratum of Celtic-speakers, specially in Ireland, Wales and the regions of what now are Belgium and France. This substratum expresses both the persistence of an original higher spiritual culture (and here we cannot go into the question of how proto-Celtic relates to proto-Slavonic) and specially a propensity and affinity for TPC. The testimony of classical authors leaves no doubt as to the high and central place that was given to philosophy (Druids), science (Ovates) and art (Bards). Also a high place accorded to women (cf. the Druidesses Veleda and Aurinia).

Just consider the extraordinary TPC luminaries that arose from northern Celtic soil: 9th-century neoplatonist Scotus Erigena, Berkeley and above all Hume - who can be considered a kind of Celtic Vasubandhu or Nagarjuna. William James' grandfather was from County Cavan, Ireland. British neo-Hegelian McTaggart had (as evidenced by the family name) Scottish roots.

For Celtic France (including the territories of what now is Belgium) we have of course the spiritual culture of  the Troubadours/Trovères, the Cathars (and Gleizes may be a distant heir), the Grail literature of which much could be said regarding its expressing a continuation of an older traditions (Manichean, Buddhist, Hermetic, Avestan, Druidic, etc.). Noteworthy are the philosophical-spiritual writings of Marguerite Porete (a 13th-century Beguine from Hainault, now Belgium) who may have been a source for her more famous contemporary Eckhart.

Beyond Ireland and Scotland, in England there has always been a tension and duality between opposing tendencies, a great number of things high, noble and beautiful flowing forth from the Welsh-Brythonic substrate. And much could be said about the history of the Welsh Quakers.

As for France (whose first great philosopher was Jean Buridan),  there is an evident presence of TPC in the schools of Descartes and Malebranche with a strong connection to Leibniz. Of particular interest is the later merging with the Kantian tradition in such figures as Maine de Biran, Renouvier and Lachelier, showing the essential affinity of the French philosophical genius for TPC-oriented philosophy. Indeed if Husserl's phenomenology certainly has some affinity to TPC then nowhere has this philosophy been expounded with such meticulous care as by Gaston Berger or René Schérer. Whether French existentialism, phenomenology and psychoanalysis had some positive and valuable elements from the perspective of TPC and TPP - following the suggestion of Paul Demiéville in a preface to a book by Walpola Rahula - is something to be investigated.

There were also TPP-oriented poets like Mallarmé. Very noteworthy were the Belgian scholars Louis de La Vallée Poussin and Étienne Lamotte  who were the first to study and expound the Madhyamaka based on the original sources (and already in 1849 H. Chavée produced an indo-european lexicology). While Belgian philosophy (which does not compare to Belgian mathematics and linguistics), beyond the unfortunate influence of neothomism (even Maréchal's more interesting Kantian version),  has been dominated by ad hoc anglo-american neuro-reductionist/functionalist and  'analytic'  influences (Gochet, Devaux, Barzin), the poet François Jacqmin (Le Livre de la Neige) represented a pure and unique expression of the wedding of absolute philosophical insight (TPC) and personal spiritual realization (TPP). Jacqmin was likely a reader of de Waelhens' books on Heideggerian phenomenology (Husserlian phenomenology is represented rather by Marc Richir). 

This 1960 paper by Jean Ladrière is interesting (formal systems as 'doubles' or projections of thought).

We could also investigate the existence of a prehistoric higher spiritual culture among certain branches of Germanic-speakers in certain regions (for instance Frisia, Brabant, the study of the Beguine mystics like Beatrice of Nazareth and what might be authentic in the Oera Linda boek - or certain traditions in Scandinavia related to Baldur). This is a complex topic that we cannot enter into here. 

Hegel and Metaphysics

We can trace much of Hegel back to Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant. But what if Spinoza and Leibniz themselves represented but an adaptation or even simplification of little known medieval philosophical  texts (much earlier than Böhme) ? And that such texts gave a firm foundation for the synthesis of Hegel with Schopenhauer? What if the unfolding of Hegel's Logic or Phenomenology of Spirit can be interpreted as representing the process of spiritual liberation, totalization  and harmonization of all states of being?

In the Zusätze to 573 of the Encyclopedia, we read:

If we want to see the consciousness of the One (...) in its finest purity and sublimity, we must consult the Mohammedans. If, e.g., in the excellent Jelaleddin−Rumi in particular, we find the unity of the soul with the One set forth, and that unity described as love, this spiritual unity is an exaltation above the finite and vulgar, a transfiguration of the natural and the spiritual, in which the externalism and transitoriness of immediate nature, and of empirical secular spirit, is discarded and absorbed.

Essence becoming actuality in the Science of Logic: beyond different models for a theory, different frames of reference for physics, representations for an algebraic structure, etc. Do we not here have the phenomenological reflection which neither attempts to have empty thought grasp directly its own structure nor is thought loosing itself in the objectified engagement in its action, but rather is the self-reflected awareness of thought in its thinking, a shift of perspective which knows itself in its process?  This goes beyond causality, computation and formal logic to inner and infinite spiritual knowledge. Spiritual knowledge is knowledge that what is in consciousness is taken and proceed from its inmost center, a revelation, veiling-unveiling, which must pass to reveal the process: the revelation is re-velation.

Hegel's treatment of modality in the section of Actuality is very relevant to contemporary discussions on possible worlds and arguments against the world being a sum of independent contingent facts. There are also connections that could be made to modal logic (i.e. the connection between possibility, actuality and necessity and the axiom $\lozenge P \rightarrow \square \lozenge P$). 

The considerations on necessity and substance (and indeed the long digressions on Newtonian forces already suggest this) can be interpreted in terms of the solutions of differential equations (or in general smooth vector fields on a manifold). The local existence and uniqueness of a solution for a given initial conditions expresses determinism which extends to a global determinism. 

The first part of Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation is divided into four books. It would be interesting to establish a correspondence with the Science of Logic.  Clearly books 1 and 2 correspond to Being and Essence while books 3 and 4 correspond to Concept. However books 1 and 2 are written from the perspective 'for us', from the point of view of transcendental reflection. From this perspective books 1 and 2 belong to Essence and their philosophical knowledge expresses with great rigor and detail Hegel's theory of appearance, existence, substance, necessity, causality and actuality.  Or maybe Hegelian substance is much like the spontaneous production and manifestation of the will in Schopenhauer. It goes beyond phenomena and appearance because the will is immanent in its manifestation, totally in each one and beyond any particular one. The will has to manifest. Transcendental reflection, artistic contemplation and spiritual development represent the will's progressive self-knowledge, return to self, the Hegelian Spirit in the form of the concept.

Category Theory: a category expresses essence. Each object is a different mode whose determination is inseparable from its relations (morphisms) to the whole (all possible determinations). An object is an expression of the category and yet not the category (for there are other objects). At the same time this circumstance of the object not being the category is itself internalized and expressed as the object being itself the sum-total of its relations (morphisms) with all other objects (i.e. with the totality of the category). This expressed also that the object is the category. 

The Concept can  be seen as arising when we have the cyclic transcendental consciousness of metatheory. That is to say: we realize that transcendental presuppositions are in cyclic dependency: to do logic we need computation, to do computation we need arithmetic and combinatorics, to these we in turn we need computation and logic. The germ of this in the reciprocal causality at the end of Essence (which we have also associated with higher groupoids). And also, as we have discussed in more detail everywhere, the partial (meta)reflection of one formal system by another (or the formal system by itself) is clearly relevant here: it is the idea of the whole being implicit to some extent in the part. For instance in ZF set theory itself we can prove that there are non-equivalent models of ZF.