1. Before Philosophy (from the Upanishads to Homer)

This is that I summarized or reorganized what I learned from great ideas of Philosophy and other things.
All rights belong to Yohan Kim.
P.S. If there is a problem of copyright, please let me know. I will delete this.

1. Before Philosophy (from the Upanishads to Homer)

Do you know the difference between animal and human? I think it's that man can think and meditate but animal can't.

From the birth of human, there has been a lot of questions coming out of human's ideas, such as "what is the world? what should I do? how are our lives to be ordered?" These kinds of questions may be called the problem of knowledge, the problem of conduct, and the problem of governance. The answers of those questions had been explained by song, poetry and epic tales for a long time. The moment it began to proliferate was between 800 and 600 B.C.

Both the Hindu Upanishads and Homer's famous epics are rich in what may be called pre-philosophical reflections on the human condition and the point and purpose of life.

A. the Upanishads is the notions that the universe itself exists in Atman, which is the fundamental power or force, a kind of cosmic soul. Hindu people believed that all comes from the soul(Atman).

B. moving from East to West, we can make certain comparisons between the Upanishads and the famous epics of the blind poet Homer.

What moves the Homeric actors is not precepts coming from above.

He composed Iliad and Odyssey. He try to explain the problem of knowledge, conduct, governance.

The Upanishads would merge us with the eternal cosmic soul, but Iliad and Odyssey assert that we are beings of this earth.