The Essence of Philosophy

Today, on the Julian Calendar, the Orthodox Church commemorates St. Basil. We read a little bit from the account of his life in The Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints this morning after Matins. To say he is an important figure in the life of the Christian Church is a gross understatement. However, I know very little about him...just what I've gleaned from chanting the Divine Services and reading the Lives of Saints. One thing that stood out to me this morning during the reading was Basil's answer to his teacher who asked, "What is the essence of philosophy?" His answer astonished me: The essence of philosophy lies in the fact that it imparts to man the remembrance of death." This answer was part of a three-day conversation between teacher (Ebbulus-not sure of the spelling) and student (Basil). After that three-day conversation, during which time neither man ate or drank anything, the roles were reversed - the Sophist teacher begged Basil to take him on as a disciple, and converted to Christianity.

The following isn't really related (at least to my darkened mind) to the post above, but I happened upon it and thought it was a brilliant understanding of real intelligence:

Real intelligence is live-wire wisdom in the full biblical sense -- knowledge of beings and things that gets your juices flowing and turns you into a player in the cosmic economy. It's like Heinlein's 'grok' or gestalt vision.

This is taken from a comment to a post at Xanthikos. I recommend reading the post and ensuing comments. Great discussion.