Pathways Mentors

Nikolaos Bakalis

Nikolaos Bakalis was born in Northern Greece in 1957 and lived most of his life in Thessalonica, Northern Greece. As a child, he was always fascinated by the sayings of the Greek philosophers (Heraclitus, Democritus, Socrates, Aristotle). Later on in his puberty he started reading their writings and became full of enthusiasm about their wisdom, reasoning and searching for the underlying truth in all things. What really struck him, was that their sayings after thousands of years remained still actual and modern. His inquiring inclination led him to the study of Physics and Chemistry, since at this time he believed that through those Sciences he could discover how and why the world works.

After having realised that the knowledge of the laws of Physics and Chemistry was not sufficient to explain the complexity of the universe and the human nature, he turned once again to the study of philosophy, beginning then with Marxism, Empiricism and Existentialism. His philosophical enquiry went on further up to Rationalism. Skepticism, Daoism and Zen Buddhism. All that searching out led him finally to the thorough study of Greek philosophy for his Doctorate, since he realized the necessity of studying the development of the method of philosophical reasoning. Since then Greek philosophy has become his inseparable companion; therefore he decided to write his book Handbook of Greek Philosophy.

Nikolaos is a High School teacher and has lived in Düsseldorf, Germany since 2000.

Interests

Nikolaos' philosophical interests are mainly epistemological and metaphysical with a strong focus on Plato and Aristotle's philosophy, as well as Continental philosophy. His main subject of interest is that which is real (o estin), the truth (aletheia), the true belief (doxa alethes), the thing itself, etc., and the method of approaching it. He believes that the moral values and following ethics should be based on our true belief and judgement. And that can only arise from our self-awareness, both of our unique existence as human being in itself and in relation to others and the external world. Philosophy can help us to increase this awareness and understanding (Self-knowledge, knowledge of human nature). As a consequence, we can get rid of our false beliefs — about ourselves, the others and the world around us — which we adopted due to our upbringing in a certain society (space) and a certain time of the evolution of the mankind. Only then we can discover the real human values, which can help us to spiritual ascent.

Currently he is working on the comparative study of the later dialogues of Plato (Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman and Philebus) and the Metaphysics of Aristotle, since he regards these works as the foundation stone of the philosophical method, Epistemology and Metaphysics.

Apart from that, he is studying the works of Leibniz, Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in the original German, as he believes that knowledge of the language of a philosophical work can help one to understand it better.