Philosophy and combat sports

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Acratophorus

My friend The Mountain Stoic on the relationship between philosophy and the practice of warriors.

“The art of life is more like the wrestler’s art than the dancer’s,in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected.”
— Marcus, Meditations, Book VII

This weekend I am headed to Philadelphia to compete in the US Amateur Nationals Competition in Japanese Sumo Wrestling. I have been training in Sumo for a short six months, and competed in two regional competitions so far. Sumo is a bit more complicated than the American stereotype: there are 82 different winning moves, and more than a handful of moves which cause you to immediately lose. It is the successor to a Shintō ritual, a cosmological archetype of law vs chaos. The Way of Salt, is quite a thing to become familiar with.

Many ancient philosophers participated in or used as reference combat sports. Plato was a boxer, the Cynics and Antisthenes literally…

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The Emerald Tablet with Commentary

Posted on March 3, 2020 by Acratophorus

Hermes3x

True, true, without doubt, certain:

The below is as the above, and the above as the below, to perfect the wonders of the One.

The Hermetic maxim, so often repeated but so seldom analyzed and understood. What is the ‘above’ and what the ‘below’? How are they ‘as’ each other, and what is this One so full of wonders? Let us start at the end and work backwards.

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Royce, a (Very) Brief Introduction

Posted on February 22, 2019 by Acratophorus

Royce_beginning

In early December I started reading The Philosophy of Josiah Royce.

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Good, Evil and the Sage

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Acratophorus

A friend wrote me last week asking for some advice. While not an orthodox Taoist he has been studying the tradition for many years, and finding himself in a difficult living situation, turned to the I-Ching oracle for assistance. He found the response puzzling and had difficulty reconciling it with his understanding of the Taoist philosophy. He wrote:

“The Zang Zi seems to advise that rulership as such is a lost cause, one should aspire to the nature of the sage, and then without doing, the kingdom will be in order. It cautions against differentiating between that which is good and that which is bad.

the 44th hexagram in the Yi, encourages a ruler to weed out the evil influence in his court.

How are these reconciled?”

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Ignis Aurum Probat

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Acratophorus

Today I graduated from the Marcus Aurelius School of the College of Stoic Philosophers. The following eleven aphorisms were written by me during my final quarter. We call this practice hypomnemata, a term perhaps best translated as “remembrances”. More than simply well wishes, or expressions of hope, hypomnema are records of struggle. Each “remembrance” is an application of Stoic dogma to a real problem we encountered in our day. I hope you enjoy them.

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On Political Discourse, in the voice of Seneca

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Acratophorus

seneca

I wrote this piece during my 3rd term of the Marcus Aurelius school. My goal was self-instruction through dramaturgy, to capture the voice of Seneca’s excellent letters on virtue. Seneca wrote these letters to various friends and confidants expressing the principles of Stoic philosophy in practical terms. The largest extent collection we have is his letters to Lucilius. Rather than insert myself into this venerable and enlightening conversation, I invented an imaginary interlocutor, Pugilius. Anything the reader finds enlightening in this exercise can be attributed to the Stoic school and the wisdom of the imitated author Seneca. Anything that grates on the ear or rings false is the fault of the actual author.

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