Download or read book Radical Platonism in Byzantium written by Niketas Siniossoglou and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-03 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking approach to late Byzantine intellectual history and the philosophy of visionary reformer Gemistos Plethon.
Download or read book Radical Platonism in Byzantium written by Niketas Siniossoglou and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byzantium has recently attracted much attention, but principally among cultural, social and economic historians. This book shifts the focus to intellectual history, exploring the thoughts of visionary reformer Gemistos Plethon (c.1355-1452). It argues that Plethon brought to their fulfilment latent tendencies among Byzantine humanists towards a distinctive anti-Christian and pagan outlook. His magnum opus, the pagan Nomoi, was meant to provide an alternative to and escape-route from the polarity of the Orthodoxy of Gregory Palamas and Thomism. It was also a groundbreaking reaction to the bankruptcy of a pre-existing humanist agenda and to aborted attempts at the secularisation of the State, whose cause Plethon had himself championed in his two utopian Memoranda. Inspired by Plato, Plethon's secular utopianism and paganism emerge as the two sides of a single coin. On another level, the book challenges anti-essentialist scholarship that views paganism and Christianity as social and cultural constructions.
Download or read book The Philosophy of Gemistos Plethon written by Vojtech Hladký and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Gemistos Plethon (c. 1360-1454) was a remarkable and influential thinker, active at the time of transition between the Byzantine Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance. His works cover literary, historical, scientific, but most notably philosophical issues. Plethon is arguably the most important of the Byzantine Platonists and the earliest representative of Platonism in the Renaissance, the movement which generally exercised a huge influence on the development of early modern thought. Thus his treatise on the differences between Plato and Aristotle triggered the Plato-Aristotle controversy of the 15th century, and his ideas impacted on Italian Renaissance thinkers such as Ficino. This book provides a new study of Gemistos’ philosophy. The first part is dedicated to the discussion of his 'public philosophy'. As an important public figure, Gemistos wrote several public speeches concerning the political situation in the Peloponnese as well as funeral orations on deceased members of the ruling Palaiologos family. They contain remarkable Platonic ideas, adjusted to the contemporary late Byzantine situation. In the second, most extensive, part of the book the Platonism of Plethon is presented in a systematic way. It is identical with the so-called philosophia perennis, that is, the rational view of the world common to various places and ages. Throughout Plethon’s writings, it is remarkably coherent in its framework, possesses quite original features, and displays the influence of ancient Middle and Neo-Platonic discussions. Plethon thus turns out to be not just a commentator on an ancient tradition, but an original Platonic thinker in his own right. In the third part the notorious question of the paganism of Gemistos is reconsidered. He is usually taken for a Platonizing polytheist who gathered around himself a kind of heterodox circle. The whole issue is examined in depth again and all the major evidence discussed, with the result that Gemistos seems rat
Download or read book The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium written by Anthony Kaldellis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 1438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings into being the field of Byzantine intellectual history. Shifting focus from the cultural, social, and economic study of Byzantium to the life and evolution of ideas in their context, it provides an authoritative history of intellectual endeavors from Late Antiquity to the fifteenth century. At its heart lie the transmission, transformation, and shifts of Hellenic, Christian, and Byzantine ideas and concepts as exemplified in diverse aspects of intellectual life, from philosophy, theology, and rhetoric to astrology, astronomy, and politics. Case studies introduce the major players in Byzantine intellectual life, and particular emphasis is placed on the reception of ancient thought and its significance for secular as well as religious modes of thinking and acting. New insights are offered regarding controversial, understudied, or promising topics of research, such as philosophy and medical thought in Byzantium, and intellectual exchanges with the Arab world.
Download or read book Christian Platonism written by Alexander J. B. Hampton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 875 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Platonism has played a central role in Christianity and is essential to a deep understanding of the Christian theological tradition. At times, Platonism has constituted an essential philosophical and theological resource, furnishing Christianity with an intellectual framework that has played a key role in its early development, and in subsequent periods of renewal. Alternatively, it has been considered a compromising influence, conflicting with the faith's revelatory foundations and distorting its inherent message. In both cases the fundamental importance of Platonism, as a force which Christianity defined itself by and against, is clear. Written by an international team of scholars, this landmark volume examines the history of Christian Platonism from antiquity to the present day, covers key concepts, and engages issues such as the environment, natural science and materialism.
Download or read book Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism written by Sergei Mariev and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-03-20 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byzantine intellectuals not only had direct access to Neoplatonic sources in the original language but also, at times, showed a particular interest in them. During the Early Byzantine period Platonism significantly contributed to the development of Christian doctrines and, paradoxically, remained a rival world view that was perceived by many Christian thinkers as a serious threat to their own intellectual identity. This problematic relationship was to become even more complex during the following centuries. Byzantine authors made numerous attempts to harmonize Neoplatonic doctrines with Christianity as well as to criticize, refute and even condemn them. The papers assembled in this volume discuss a number of specific questions and concerns that drew the interest of Byzantine scholars in different periods towards Neoplatonic sources in an attempt to identify and explore the central issues in the reception of Neoplatonic texts during the Byzantine era. This is the first volume of the sub-series "Byzantinisches Archiv - Series Philosophica", which will be dedicated to the rapidly growing field of research in Byzantine philosophical texts.
Download or read book The Cambridge Guide to Homer written by Corinne Ondine Pache and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 974 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From its ancient incarnation as a song to recent translations in modern languages, Homeric epic remains an abiding source of inspiration for both scholars and artists that transcends temporal and linguistic boundaries. The Cambridge Guide to Homer examines the influence and meaning of Homeric poetry from its earliest form as ancient Greek song to its current status in world literature, presenting the information in a synthetic manner that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the different strands of Homeric studies. The volume is structured around three main themes: Homeric Song and Text; the Homeric World, and Homer in the World. Each section starts with a series of 'macropedia' essays arranged thematically that are accompanied by shorter complementary 'micropedia' articles. The Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.
Download or read book The Game of Saturn written by Peter Mark Adams and published by Scarlet Imprint. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2017 Esoteric Book of the Year As voted by the membership of the Occult of Personality’s Chamber of Reflection Dr. Joscelyn Godwin, Colgate University, emeritus “Besides gratifying the bibliophile, the contents follow scholarly principles, and the notes and documentation are as thorough as one could wish .... Even if only partially provable, The Game of Saturn opens a new and darker vista on the pagan Renaissance. No student of that current should ignore it” Renaissance Quarterly Volume LXXI, No. 2 Niketas Siniossoglou. National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens “The Game of Saturn by Peter Mark Adams is a fascinating read. The author calls it “a literary detective story”, but this may well be an understatement ... Adams decodes astral, alchemical, and sexual associations that are plausible, and shows how they may have been redeployed into visual format ... The Game of Saturn is a stimulating read, and it is difficult to put it down. It will appeal to all scholars of Renaissance intellectual history, esotericism, and Plethon. Published by Scarlet Imprint, the book is a rare example of fine printmaking, featuring beautiful reproductions of the Sola-Busca deck.” Aries - Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 18 (2018) 287–304. The Game of Saturn is the first full length, scholarly study of the enigmatic Renaissance masterwork known as the Sola-Busca tarot. It reveals the existence of a pagan liturgical and ritual tradition active amongst members of the Renaissance elite and encoded within the deck. Beneath its beautifully decorated surface, its imagery ranges from the obscure to the grotesque; we encounter scenes of homoeroticism, wounding, immolation and decapitation redolent of hidden meanings, violent transformations and obscure rites. For the first time in over five hundred years, the clues embedded within the cards reveal a dark Gnostic grimoire replete with pagan theurgical and astral magical rites. Careful analysis demonstrates that the presiding deity of this ‘cult object’ is none other than the Gnostic demiurge in its most archaic and violent form: the Afro-Levantine serpent-dragon, Ba’al Hammon, also known as Kronos and Saturn, though more notoriously as the biblical Moloch, the devourer of children. Conveyed from Constantinople to Italy in the dying years of the Byzantine Empire, the pagan Platonist George Gemistos Plethon sought to ensure the survival of the living essence of Neoplatonic theurgy by transplanting it to the elite families of the Italian Renaissance. Within that violent and sorcerous milieu, Plethon’s vision of a theurgically enlightened elite mutated into its dark shadow – a Saturnian brotherhood, operating within a cosmology of predation, which sought to channel the draconian current to preserve elite wealth, power and control. This development marks the birth of an ‘illumined elite’ over three centuries before Adam Weishaupt’s ‘Illuminati.’ The deck captures the essence of this magical tradition and constitutes a Western terma whose talismanic properties may serve to establish an initiatory link with the current. This work fully explores the historical context for the deck’s creation against the background of tense Ferrarese-Venetian diplomatic intrigue and espionage. The recovery of the deck’s encoded narratives constitutes a significant contribution to Renaissance scholarship, art history, tarot studies and the history of Western esotericism.
Download or read book Byzantine Theology written by John Meyendorff and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Philosophy written by John Marenbon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook shows the links between medieval and contemporary philosophy. Topic-based essays on all areas of philosophy explore this relationship and introduce the main themes of medieval philosophy. They are preceded by the fullest chronological survey now available of the different traditions: Latin and Greek, Islamic and Jewish.
Download or read book Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance written by Jason König and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 619 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction: Jason Konig and Greg Woolf; Part I. Classical Encyclopaedism: 2. Encyclopaedism in the Roman Empire Jason Konig and Greg Woolf; 3. Encyclopaedism in the Alexandrian Library Myrto Hatzimichali; 4. Labores pro bono publico: the burdensome mission of Pliny's Natural History Mary Beagon; 5. Encyclopaedias of virtue? Collections of sayings and stories about wise men in Greek Teresa Morgan; 6. Plutarch's corpus of Quaestiones in the tradition of imperial Greek encyclopaedism Katerina Oikonomopoulou; 7. Artemidorus' Oneirocritica as fragmentary encyclopaedia Daniel Harris-McCoy; 8. Encyclopaedias and autocracy: Justinian's Encyclopaedia of Roman law Jill Harries; 9. Late Latin encyclopaedism: towards a new paradigm of practical knowledge Marco Formisano; Part II. Medieval Encyclopaedism: 10. Byzantine encyclopaedism of the ninth and tenth centuries Paul Magdalino; 11. The imperial systematisation of the past in Constantinople: Constantine VII and his Historical Excerpts Andres Nemeth; 12. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam: Joseph Rhakendys' synopsis of Byzantine learning Erika Gielen; 13. Shifting horizons: the medieval compilation of knowledge as mirror of a changing world Elizabeth Keen; 14. Isidore's Etymologies: on words and things Andrew Merrills; 15. Loose Giblets: encyclopaedic sensibilities of ordinatio and compilatio in later medieval English literary culture and the sad case of Reginald Pecock Ian Johnson; 16. Why was the fourteenth century a century of Arabic encyclopaedism? Elias Muhanna; 17. Opening up a world of knowledge: Mamluk encyclopaedias and their readers Maaike van Berkel; Part III. Renaissance Encyclopaedism: 18. Revisiting Renaissance encyclopaedism Ann Blair; 19. Philosophy and the Renaissance encyclpaedia: some observations D.C. Andersson; 20. Reading 'Pliny's Ape' in the Renaissance: the Polyhistor of Cai++.
Download or read book The History of Philosophy written by Alan Woods and published by Wellred Books. This book was released on with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alan Woods outlines the development of philosophy from the ancient Greeks, all the way through to Marx and Engels who brought together the best of previous thinking to produce the Marxist philosophical outlook, which looks at the real material world, not as a static immovable reality, but one that is constantly changing and moving according to laws that can be discovered. It is this method which allows Marxists to look at how things were, how they have become and how they are most likely going to be in the future, in a long process which started with the early primitive humans in their struggles for survival, through to the emergence of class societies, all as part of a process towards greater and greater knowledge of the world we live in. This long historical process eventually created the material conditions which allow for an end to class divisions and the flowering of a new society where humans will achieve true freedom, where no human will exploit another, no human will oppress another. Here we see how philosophy becomes an indispensable tool in the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of society.
Download or read book Brill s Companion to the Reception of Socrates written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 1027 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Socrates, edited by Christopher Moore, provides almost unbroken coverage, across three-dozen studies, of 2450 years of philosophical and literary engagement with Socrates – the singular Athenian intellectual, paradigm of moral discipline, and inspiration for millennia of philosophical, rhetorical, and dramatic composition. Following an Introduction reflecting on the essentially “receptive” nature of Socrates’ influence (by contrast to Plato’s), chapters address the uptake of Socrates by authors in the Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Late Antique (including Latin Christian, Syriac, and Arabic), Medieval (including Byzantine), Renaissance, Early Modern, Late Modern, and Twentieth-Century periods. Together they reveal the continuity of Socrates’ idiosyncratic, polyvalent, and deep imprint on the history of Western thought, and witness the value of further research in the reception of Socrates.
Download or read book Proclus and his Legacy written by Danielle Layne and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-02-06 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume investigates Proclus' own thought and his wide-ranging influence within late Neoplatonic, Alexandrine and Byzantinian philosophy and theology. It further explores how Procline metaphysics and doctrines of causality influence and transition into Arabic and Islamic thought, up until Richard Hooker in England, Spinoza in Holland and Pico in Italy. John Dillon provides a helpful overview of Proclus' thought, Harold Tarrant discusses Proclus' influence within Alexandrian philosophy and Tzvi Langermann presents ground breaking work on the Jewish reception of Proclus, focusing on the work of Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (1591-1655), while Stephen Gersh presents a comprehensive synopsis of Proclus' reception throughout Christendom. The volume also presents works from notable scholars like Helen Lang, Sarah Wear and Crystal Addey and has a considerable strength in its presentation of Pseudo-Dionysius, Proclus' transmission and development in Arabic philosophy and the problem of the eternity of the world. It will be important for anyone interested in the development and transition of ideas from the late ancient world onwards.
Download or read book Plato and Theodoret written by Niketas Siniossoglou and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-02-28 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A summary of the late antique Hellenic-Christian conflict regarding the compatability of Platonism and Christianity.
Download or read book History of Ancient Greek Scholarship written by Franco Montanari and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 709 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book aims to offer a unified historical treatment of all that is usually understood as "ancient scholarship" or "ancient philology" and is the first modern work to cover a period from the beginnings to the fall of Byzantium after John Edwin Sandys' work published between 1903-1908. The field "ancient scholarship" includes the exegesis of Greek authors, the editing of their texts, orderly collections of materials useful for exegetical purposes - such as lexeis, onomatologies, collections of antiquarian materials et similia -, the study of grammar, reflection on language, and everything that can be linked to this sphere, that is to say literature and the instruments for interpreting it. If it is hard today to imagine such a work being undertaken by a single scholar, it is worth underlining the benefits offered by a volume with multiple expert voices in a field so complex and multiform. The book is based on the four historiographical chapters of Brill's Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship (2015), which have been enlarged, updated and rethought"--
Download or read book Anatomyzing Divinity written by James Kelley and published by Trine Day. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This three-part analysis of modernity assesses the impact that Western thought and philosophy has had on today's world. Making use of neglected research from the fringes of academia, "Anatomyzing Divinity" traces the circuitous path of occult wisdom from China, India, Egypt and the Hellenistic world to Byzantium and beyond. At the heart of the book is an investigation of the life and thought of G. W. Leibniz, the man who invented calculus and laid the groundwork for binary code, which in turn made computers possible. Leibniz's roots, Kelley shows, lay in the Frankish metaphysical tradition, and thus have little in common with some of his contemporaries' materialism. Along the way, sidelights are turned on 1) the occult basis of Western political systems, as well as 2) the alchemical basis of much Western philosophy and theology.
