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identical with the thing ítself and cannot be substítuted with
another thought. Sameness, though, is without content without
a separation. Let us think of the Pelasgian creation myth (I will
mention another example later).
In the beginning, Eurynome, The Goddess of All Things (same), rose
naked from Chaos, but found nothing substantial for her feet to rest
upon, and therefore divided the sea from the sky (other), dancing
lonely upon its waves. She danced towards the south, and the wind
set in motion behind her seemed something new (other) and apart
with which to begin a work of creation (new same). Wheeling about,
she caught hold of this north wind, rubbed it between her hands,
and behold! the great serpent Ophion. Eurynome danced to warm
herself, wildly and more wildly, until Ophion, grown lustful, coiled
about those divine limbs and was moved to couple with her. Now,
the North Wind, who is also called Boreas, fertilizes; which is why
mares often turn their hind-quarters to the wind and breed foals
without aid of a stallion. So Eurynome was likewise got with child.
(Graves 1960. p.18)?
This is a very early example of the dialectic of sameness and oth¬
erness, and of the fact that the Greeks suspected something that
should come as no surprise to us: it is wise to listen to them. The
philosophers I discuss, and love did. (Even if there are some who
would say that the celebration of Greek culture is latent racism,
as they find the exclusion of African and Asian philosophy from
the history of European philosophy xenophobic and call it the
Eurocentric “whitewashing” of philosophy.’)
2 The Pelasgian Creation Myth (The terms in brackets are my own observations.)
3 Ex. Peter K. J. Park: Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy. Racism in the
Formation of the Philosophical Canon, 1780-1830. As we shall see, the
term “race” had an entirely different meaning in the 18th century than it
does today. Of course, in order to understand this, we should not just write
but also read, and we have to understand what we read. Whether we like it
or not, the history of philosophy, which is tied to the history of European