How Philosophers Saved Myths

How Philosophers Saved Myths
Author: Luc Brisson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2008-11-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0226075389

This study explains how the myths of Greece and Rome were transmitted from antiquity to the Renaissance. Luc Brisson argues that philosophy was ironically responsible for saving myth from historical annihilation. Although philosophy was initially critical of myth because it could not be declared true or false and because it was inferior to argumentation, mythology was progressively reincorporated into philosophy through allegorical exegesis. Brisson shows to what degree allegory was employed among philosophers and how it enabled myth to take on a number of different interpretive systems throughout the centuries: moral, physical, psychological, political, and even metaphysical. How Philosophers Saved Myths also describes how, during the first years of the modern era, allegory followed a more religious path, which was to assume a larger role in Neoplatonism. Ultimately, Brisson explains how this embrace of myth was carried forward by Byzantine thinkers and artists throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance; after the triumph of Chistianity, Brisson argues, myths no longer had to agree with just history and philosophy but the dogmas of the Church as well.

Plato the Myth Maker

Plato the Myth Maker
Author: Luc Brisson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2000-12-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780226075198

We think of myth as a fictional story, and Plato was the first to use the term muthos in that sense. But Plato also used muthos to describe the practice of making and telling stories, the oral transmission of all that a community keeps in its collective memory. In the first part of Plato the Myth Maker, Luc Brisson reconstructs Plato's multifaceted and not uncritical description of muthos in light of the latter's famous Atlantis story. The second part of the book contrasts this sense of myth, as Plato does, with another form of speech that he believed was far superior: the logos of philosophy. Appearing for the first time in English, Plato the Myth Maker is a solid and important contribution to the history of myth, based on the privileged testimony of one of its most influential critics and supporters.

Myth

Myth
Author: Robert Alan Segal
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2015
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0198724705

This Very Short Introduction explores different approaches to myth from several disciplines, including science, religion, philosophy, literature, and psychology. In this new edition, Robert Segal considers both the future study of myth as well as the impact of areas such as cognitive science and the latest approaches to narrative theory.

Myth and Philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato

Myth and Philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato
Author: Kathryn A. Morgan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2000-08-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139427520

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.

Plotinus

Plotinus
Author: Stephen R. L. Clark
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2018-02-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 022656505X

"Plotinus, the Roman philosopher (c. 204-270 CE) who is widely regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism, was also the creator of numerous myths, images, and metaphors, which have frequently been dismissed by modern scholars as merely ornamental. In this book, distinguished philosopher Stephen R. L. Clark shows that they form a vital set of spiritual exercises by which individuals can achieve one of Plotinus's most important goals: self-transformation through contemplation. Clark examines a variety of Plotinus's myths and metaphors within the cultural and philosophical context of his time, asking probing questions about their contemplative effects. Through rich images and structures, Clark casts Plotinus as a philosopher deeply concerned with philosophy as a way of life." -- Résumé de l'éditeur.

Intentionality and the Myths of the Given

Intentionality and the Myths of the Given
Author: Carl B Sachs
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317317599

Intentionality is one of the central problems of modern philosophy. How can a thought, action or belief be about something? Sachs draws on the work of Wilfrid Sellars, C I Lewis and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to build a new theory of intentionality that solves many of the problems faced by traditional conceptions.

Why Socrates Died

Why Socrates Died
Author: Robin Waterfield
Publisher: Emblem Editions
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2010-05-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0771088639

A revisionist account of the most famous trial and execution in Western civilization — one with great resonance for modern society In the spring of 399 BCE, the elderly philosopher Socrates stood trial in his native Athens. The court was packed, and after being found guilty by his peers, Socrates died by drinking a cup of poison hemlock, his execution a defining moment in ancient civilization. Yet time has transmuted the facts into a fable. Aware of these myths, Robin Waterfield has examined the actual Greek sources, presenting a new Socrates, not an atheist or guru of a weird sect, but a deeply moral thinker, whose convictions stood in stark relief to those of his former disciple, Alcibiades, the hawkish and self-serving military leader. Refusing to surrender his beliefs even in the face of death, Socrates, as Waterfield reveals, was determined to save a morally decayed country that was tearing itself apart. Why Socrates Died is then not only a powerful revisionist book, but a work whose insights translate clearly from ancient Athens to the present day.

Plato's Myths

Plato's Myths
Author: Catalin Partenie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009-02-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521887909

A collection of essays by eminent philosophers examining the ways in which Plato's most famous myths are interwoven with his philosophy.

Thinking Through Myths

Thinking Through Myths
Author: Kevin Schilbrack
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2003-09-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 113452322X

Embracing a radical balance between myths illusory and functional status these eight outstanding essays, from leading academics, deconstruct problems of rationality, imagination and narrative to trace the influence of myth in our own beliefs.

A Philosophy of Political Myth

A Philosophy of Political Myth
Author: Chiara Bottici
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2007-07-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139466798

In this book, originally published in 2007, Chiara Bottici argues for a philosophical understanding of political myth. Bottici demonstrates that myth is a process, one of continuous work on a basic narrative pattern that responds to a need for significance. Human beings need meaning in order to master the world they live in, but they also need significance in order to live in a world that is less indifferent to them. This is particularly true in the realm of politics. Political myths are narratives through which we orient ourselves, and act and feel about our political world. Bottici shows that in order to come to terms with contemporary phenomena, such as the clash between civilizations, we need a Copernican revolution in political philosophy. If we want to save reason, we need to look at it from the standpoint of myth.