Advertise on podcast: Delphic Podcast by Michael R D James

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 government came from Aristotle and it is designed specifically to prevent tyrants from usurping power and ruling. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 established sense of justice. Fanatical interpretations of  Laws of Nature and History are invoked for justifications for mass murder. The inner conversation for Arendt is disturbed and the public political space is corrupted http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 bravery  and resourcefulness. The Chinese in response to the challenge as to why in the past they have not resisted migrations simply argue that after three generations these migrants will be Chinese so, they ask, wisely, what exactly is the point  given experience has shown that these migrants contribute to the welfare of the common good.  http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 technical terms such as narcissism, paranoia etc were not  accompanied with the negative emotion that is characteristic of their use today. They were clinical, descriptive/explanatory terms with clinical criteria. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 18th century Political Philosophy of Kant. Nor does he view Globalisation in the same moral and legal terms as Kant, http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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.org Delphic Podcast

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 principles necessary to understand  the Changes that were occurring in the world which included the marginalisation of the very form of thought we needed to comprehend what was happening. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 travel to the US from 7 Muslim countries is according to humanistic  liberalism constitutionally illegal. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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. Totalitarianism developed because of a lack of faith in  the moral personality and an belief in the power of   sophistical rhetoric to move  the masses into action. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 destruction". Co pIlot begins by arguing for the relativity of morality and not seeing  the humanistic heritage  we received from Ancient Greece, but changes its position when challenged, just like a politician eager for your vote. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 lives in time. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 interrogative but rather  a form of non-observational knowing is involved (a form  Heidegger calls "circumspectful concern"). In relating to other humans our concern is one of solicitude, a form of holistic Care for their Being, which we share.    http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 stood on this question but hylomorphic theory is in accordance with such an evolutionary account. This is Kants view and was probably shared by Freud and Piaget (who conducted an experiment on lake and sea organisms to demonstrate the effect of the environment on the structure of future generations). It is not clear where Mythology stands on these questions. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 presence. There must be some form of analogous inference to this realm. Mythology attempts to concretise this realm with anthropomorphic actualities which are illegitimately conceived to be objectively universal. At best these are aesthetic ideas  which can only have a subjective form of universality http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

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 scale. The span of time that it will take to reach a Kantian Kingdom of ends, however, is on a  cosmic scale, i.e. one hundred thousand years. Christianity and the heritage of Ancient Greece, were very different perspectives involving very different powers of the human psuché. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast