Download or read book Myth and Philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato written by Kathryn A. Morgan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-08-17 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the dynamic relationship between myth and philosophy in the Presocratics, the Sophists, and in Plato - a relationship which is found to be more extensive and programmatic than has been recognized. The story of philosophy's relationship with myth is that of its relationship with literary and social convention. The intellectuals studied here wanted to reformulate popular ideas about cultural authority and they achieved this goal by manipulating myth. Their self-conscious use of myth creates a self-reflective philosophic sensibility and draws attention to problems inherent in different modes of linguistic representation. Much of the reception of Greek philosophy stigmatizes myth as 'irrational'. Such an approach ignores the important role played by myth in Greek philosophy, not just as a foil but as a mode of philosophical thought. The case studies in this book reveal myth deployed as a result of methodological reflection, and as a manifestation of philosophical concerns.
Download or read book Myth and Philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato written by Kathryn A. Morgan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-18 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the complex relationship between myth and philosophy in writings by Greek intellectuals between the late-sixth and mid-fourth centuries BC. Although philosophy may seem far removed from mythological stories, closer examination reveals that Plato and others realized that philosophic accounts too were "stories" about reality. Kathryn Morgan shows how these philosophers used myth to express philosophic problems. Her book traces a tradition of strictly rational and philosophical myth through two centuries.
Download or read book Likeness and Likelihood in the Presocratics and Plato written by Jenny Bryan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies the philosophical development of the meaning of the Greek word eoikos, which can be used to describe similarity, plausibility or even suitability. It focuses on Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato's Timaeus and shows how such a study serves to enhance our understanding of their epistemology and methodology.
Download or read book Allegory in Early Greek Philosophy written by Jennifer Lobo Meeks and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Allegory in Early Greek Philosophy examines the role that allegory plays in Greek thought, particularly in the transition from the mythic tradition of the archaic poets to the philosophical traditions of the Presocratics and Plato. It explores how a mode of speech that "says one thing, but means another" is integral to philosophy, which otherwise seeks to achieve clarity and precision in its discourse. By providing the early Greek thinkers with a way of defending and appropriating the poetic wisdom of their predecessors, allegory enables philosophy to locate and recover its own origins in the mythic tradition. Allegory allows philosophy simultaneously to move beyond mythos and express the whole in terms of logos, a rational account in which reality is represented in a more abstract and universal way than myth allows.
Download or read book The Anatomy of Myth written by Michael W. Herren and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Anatomy of Myth is a comprehensive study of the methods of interpreting authoritative myths from the Presocratic philosophers to the Neoplatonists and their adoption by the Church Fathers.
Download or read book Brill s Companion to the Reception of Presocratic Natural Philosophy in Later Classical Thought written by Chelsea C. Harry and published by Brill's Companions to Philosop. This book was released on 2021 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Brill's Companion to the Reception of Presocratic Natural Philosophy in Later Classical Thought, contributions by Gottfried Heinemann, Andrew Gregory, Justin Habash, Daniel W. Graham, Oliver Primavesi, Owen Goldin, Omar D. Álvarez Salas, Christopher Kurfess, Dirk L. Couprie, Tiberiu Popa, Timothy J. Crowley, Liliana Carolina Sánchez Castro, Iakovos Vasiliou, Barbara Sattler, Rosemary Wright, and a foreword by Patricia Curd explore the influences of early Greek science (6-4th c. BCE) on the philosophical works of Plato, Aristotle, and the Hippocratics. Rather than presenting an unified narrative, the volume supports various ways to understand the development of the concept of nature, the emergence of science, and the historical context of topics such as elements, principles, soul, organization, causation, purpose, and cosmos in ancient Greek philosophy"--
Download or read book Philosophy Before Socrates written by Richard D. McKirahan and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its publication in 1994, Richard McKirahan's Philosophy Before Socrates has become the standard sourcebook in Presocratic philosophy. It provides a wide survey of Greek science, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy, from their roots in myth to the philosophers and Sophists of the fifth century. A comprehensive selection of fragments and testimonia, translated by the author, is presented in the context of a thorough and accessible discussion. An introductory chapter deals with the sources of Presocratic and Sophistic texts and the special problems of interpretation they present. In its second edition, this work has been updated and expanded to reflect important new discoveries and the most recent scholarship. Changes and additions have been made throughout, the most significant of which are found in the chapters on the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles, and the new chapter on Philolaus. The translations of some passages have been revised, as have some interpretations and discussions. A new Appendix provides translations of three Hippocratic writings and the Derveni papyrus.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy written by Professor of Philosophy Patricia Curd and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2008-10-27 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook brings together leading international scholars to study the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute presocratic philosophy. The study presents interpretations and evaluations of the Presocratics' accomplishments, from Thales to the sophists and from theology to science.
Download or read book Classical Philosophy written by Peter Adamson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014-06 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readership: Anyone interested in philosophy, the history of ideas, or the ancient Greek world
Download or read book Myth and Philosophy written by Lawrence J. Hatab and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hatab's work is more than an interpretative study, inspired by Neitzsche and Heidegger of the historical relationship between myth and philosophy in ancient Greece. Its conclusions go beyond the historical case study, and amount to a defence of the intelligibility of myth against an exclusively rational or objective view of the world.
Download or read book Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion written by Esther Eidinow and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-03 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studied for many years by scholars with Christianising assumptions, Greek religion has often been said to be quite unlike Christianity: a matter of particular actions (orthopraxy), rather than particular beliefs (orthodoxies). This volume dares to think that, both in and through religious practices and in and through religious thought and literature, the ancient Greeks engaged in a sustained conversation about the nature of the gods and how to represent and worship them. It excavates the attitudes towards the gods implicit in cult practice and analyses the beliefs about the gods embedded in such diverse texts and contexts as comedy, tragedy, rhetoric, philosophy, ancient Greek blood sacrifice, myth and other forms of storytelling. The result is a richer picture of the supernatural in ancient Greece, and a whole series of fresh questions about how views of and relations to the gods changed over time.
Download or read book Plotinus and the Presocratics written by Giannis Stamatellos and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filling the void in the current scholarship, Giannis Stamatellos provides the first book-length study of the Presocratic influences in Plotinus' Enneads. Widely regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (204–270 AD) assimilated eight centuries of Greek thought into his work. In this book Stamatellos focuses on eminent Presocratic thinkers who are significant in Plotinus' thought, including Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the early Pythagoreans, and the early Atomists. The Presocratic references found in the Enneads are studied in connection with Plotinus' fundamental theories of the One and the unity of being, intellect and the structure of the intelligible world, the nature of eternity and time, the formation of the material world, and the nature of the ensouled body. Stamatellos concludes that, contrary to modern scholarship's dismissal of Presocratic influence in the Enneads, Presocratic philosophy is in fact an important source for Plotinus, which he recognized as valuable in its own right and adapted for key topics in his thought.
Download or read book The First Philosophers written by Robin Waterfield and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These first philosophers paved the way for the work of Plato and Aristotle - and hence for the whole of Western thought. This is a unique and invaluable collection of the works of the Presocratics and the Sophists. Waterfield brings together the works of these early thinkers with brilliant new translation and exceptional commentary. This is the ideal anthology for the student of this increasingly appreciated field of classical philosophy.
Download or read book Philosophy and Salvation in Greek Religion written by Vishwa Adluri and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since Vlastos’ “Theology and Philosophy in Early Greek Thought,” scholars have known that a consideration of ancient philosophy without attention to its theological, cosmological and soteriological dimensions remains onesided. Yet, philosophers continue to discuss thinkers such as Parmenides and Plato without knowledge of their debt to the archaic religious traditions. Perhaps our own religious prejudices allow us to see only a “polis religion” in Greek religion, while our modern philosophical openness and emphasis on reason induce us to rehabilitate ancient philosophy by what we consider the highest standard of knowledge: proper argumentation. Yet, it is possible to see ancient philosophy as operating according to a different system of meaning, a different “logic.” Such a different sense of logic operates in myth and other narratives, where the argument is neither completely illogical nor rational in the positivist sense. The articles in this volume undertake a critical engagement with this unspoken legacy of Greek religion. The aim of the volume as a whole is to show how, beyond the formalities and fallacies of arguments, something more profound is at stake in ancient philosophy: the salvation of the philosopher-initiate.
Download or read book Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism written by Algis Uždavinys and published by The Matheson Trust. This book was released on 2011 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A book on the religious, mystic origins and substance of philosophy. This is a critical survey of ancient and modern sources and of scholarly works dealing with Orpheus and everything related to this major figure of ancient Greek myth, religion and philosophy. Here poetic madness meets religious initiation and Platonic philosophy. This book contains fascinating insights into the usually downplaid relations between Egyptian initiation, Greek mysteries and Plato's philosophy and followers, right into Hellenistic Neoplatonic and Hermetic developments.
Download or read book Plato s Cosmology and its Ethical Dimensions written by Gabriela Roxana Carone and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-10-31 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although a great deal has been written on Plato's ethics, his cosmology has not received so much attention in recent times and its importance for his ethical thought has remained underexplored. By offering accounts of Timaeus, Philebus, Politicus and Laws X, the book reveals a strongly symbiotic relation between the cosmic and human sphere. It is argued that in his late period Plato presents a picture of an organic universe, endowed with structure and intrinsic value, which both urges our respect and calls for our responsible intervention. Humans are thus seen as citizens of a university that can provide a context for their flourishing even in the absence of good political institutions. The book sheds light on many intricate metaphysical issues in late Plato and brings out the close connections between his cosmology and the development of his ethics.
Download or read book The Concept of Presocratic Philosophy written by André Laks and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we talk about Presocratic philosophy, we are speaking about the origins of Greek philosophy and Western rationality itself. But what exactly does it mean to talk about “Presocratic philosophy” in the first place? How did early Greek thinkers come to be considered collectively as Presocratic philosophers? In this brief book, André Laks provides a history of the influential idea of Presocratic philosophy, tracing its historical and philosophical significance and consequences, from its ancient antecedents to its full crystallization in the modern period and its continuing effects today. Laks examines ancient Greek and Roman views about the birth of philosophy before turning to the eighteenth-century emergence of the term “Presocratics” and the debates about it that spanned the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He analyzes the intellectual circumstances that led to the idea of Presocratic philosophy—and what was and is at stake in the construction of the notion. The book closes by comparing two models of the history of philosophy—the phenomenological, represented by Hans-Georg Gadamer, and the rationalist, represented by Ernst Cassirer—and their implications for Presocratic philosophy, as well as other categories of philosophical history. Other figures discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Diogenes Laertius, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Nietzsche, Max Weber, and J.-P. Vernant. Challenging standard histories of Presocratic philosophy, the book calls for a reconsideration of the conventional story of early Greek philosophy and Western rationality.
