On Aug 31, 2011, at 9:47 PM, Evergreen Readers and Writers wrote:
> Dennis Claxton wrote:
>
> "If I remember right, Alexander was enlightened relative to others,
> but I forget why.
>
> Having Aristotle as a tutor probably helped."
>
> It is not any matter of pleasure that our ancestors were savage and
> barbarian. And amongst them was one Alexander--the barbarian robber,
> the
> bigger Chimpanzee.
>
Like him or not, Alexander founded the greatest city in the world.
For some 700 years, until the Christian barbarians destroyed its soul,
Alexandria was the center of civilization, the fount of philosophy,
technology, and learning.
>
> Alexander put Aristotle and all the towering Greek Philosophers to
> total
> disgrace in fact. The proof of which is: Aristotle's works were not
> published for many centuries after his death. And the survival of
> Aristotle's works is in fact a miracle.
>
Alexander's political project, unification of the Hellenic world
starting from the East, was directly inspired by Aristotle after he
left the Academy for the Persian-ruled Levant and then Macedonia
following Plato's death.
Aristotle's most important works, his dialogues, were published in his
lifetime and were immensely popular.
They did not survive the Christian barbarians' destruction of the
Alexandria Bibliotheque.
The lecture-notes of his students were preserved and published by the
Arabic civilization only to be seized on by the Christian barbarians
as adumbrations of their scholastic dogma.
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos