“Philosophers of ancient Greece and India sought an answer to this question [What is matter made of] centuries before Christ.”

— C. N. R. Rao

Source: Understanding Chemistry (1999), p. 7

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C. N. R. Rao 40

Indian chemist 1934

J. R. Partington (1886–1965) British chemist

A Short History of Chemistry (1937)
Context: In Alexandria two streams of knowledge met and fused together... The ancient Egyptian industrial arts of metallurgy, dyeing and glass-making... and... the philosophical speculations of ancient Greece, now tinged with ancient mysticism, and partly transformed into that curious fruit of the tree of knowledge which we call Gnosticism.... the result was the "divine" or "sacred" art (... also means sulphur) of making gold of silver.... during the first four centuries a considerable body of knowledge came into existence. The treatises written in Greek... in Alexandria, are the earliest known books on chemistry.... The treatises also contain much of an allegorical nature... sometimes described as "obscure mysticism."... the Neoplatonism which was especially studied in Alexandria... is not so negligible as has sometimes been supposed.... The study of astrology was connected with that of chemistry in the form of an association of the metals with the planets on a supposed basis of "sympathy". This goes back to early Chaldean sources but was developed by the Neoplatonists.

“How does the philosophical question differ from the non-philosophical question? To philosophize means, we said, to direct one's view toward the totality of the world. So is that a philosophical question (and that alone) which has for its explicit and formal theme the sum-total of all existing things? No! What is peculiar and distinctive about a philosophical question is that it cannot be posed, considered, or answered (so far at least as an answer is possible) without "God and the world" also coming into consideration, that is, the whole of what exists.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Since "the answers of the special sciences" do not reach "the horizon of total reality", they are given "without having to speak at the same time of 'God and the world.'" (p. 96)
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, p. 95

“On seeing his shadow fall on such ancient rocks, he had to question himself in a different context and ask the same old question as before, "Who am I?", and the answer now came more emphatically than ever before, "No-one."”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

But a no-one with a crown of light about his head. He would remember a verse from Pindar: "Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet."
Neb [No-one] (1985)

“Synthesizing as it does the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries, this book appears as the final achievement of ancient philosophy.”

John Scotus Eriugena (810–877) Irish theologian

George Bosworth Burch Early Medieval Philosophy (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1951) p. 5.

Of De Divisione Naturae.
Criticism

“The best teachers still taught in a Socratic style, asking questions, responding to the answers with still another question. And in all of our courses, we were taught that what mattered most was asking the right question — having posed the question well, answering the question was often a relatively easy matter.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz (1943) American economist and professor, born 1943.

Autobiographical Essay (2001)

“There was an outflow of people from India before the fifteenth century BC.”

F. E. Pargiter (1852–1927) British civil servant and orientalist

Ancient Indian Historical Tradition (1962)

“No one knows the origin of life, or of matter, or of what we call mind. The whence and the whither are questions that no man can answer. In the presence of these questions all intellects are upon a level. The barbarian knows exactly the same as the scientist, the fool as the philosopher. Only those who think that they have had some supernatural information pretend to answer these questions, and the unknowable, the impossible, the unfathomable, is the realm wholly occupied by the “inspired.””

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

“According to me, the influence of Sanskrit literature on our time will not be lesser than what was in the 16th century Greece's influence on Renaissance. One day, India's wisdom will flow again on Europe and will totally transform our knowledge and thought.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book The World as Will and Representation

preface of his The World as Will and Representation., quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

“The answer to the ancient question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" would then be that ‘nothing’ is unstable.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Quoted in an article, "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/why_is_there_something_rather_than_nothing, by Victor Stenger (June 2006).

“In ancient Greece she would have been a Stoic; in the era of the Reformation, a Calvinist; in King Charles's time, a Puritan; but in this nineteenth century, by the very laws of her being, she is a Reformer.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Susan B. Anthony (1884)

“Philosophers of ancient Greece and India sought an answer to this question [What is matter made of] centuries before Christ.”

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C. N. R. Rao 40

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