This book further develops Professor Seaford's innovative work on the study of ritual and money in the developing Greek polis. It employs the concept of the chronotope, which refers to the phenomenon whereby the spatial and temporal frameworks explicit or implicit in a text have the same structure, and uncovers various such chronotopes in Homer, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Presocratic philosophy and in particular the tragedies of Aeschylus. Mikhail Bakhtin's pioneering use of the chronotope was in literary analysis. This study by contrast derives the variety of chronotopes manifest in Greek texts from the variety of socially integrative practices in the developing polis - notably reciprocity, collective ritual and monetised exchange. In particular, the Oresteia of Aeschylus embodies the reassuring absorption of the new and threatening monetised chronotope into the traditional chronotope that arises from collective ritual with its aetiological myth. This argument includes the first ever demonstration of the profound affinities between Aeschylus and the (Presocratic) philosophy of his time.
An exercise in Open Philosophy -- a worldview open to the full range of human experience including science, spirituality and traditional philosophy. Naturalism is exposed as a closed, a priori worldview. God is not an alternative to, but the completion of, scientific explanation. The foundations and data of evolution do not show randomness, but Mind in nature. Evolution aims at verifiable targets and develops means in advance of need. While God is proven deductively, the fine-tuning argument makes a strong case despite the anthropic principle. The rules of evidence are discussed critically before reviewing data on mind ranging from neuroscience, connectionism, & cybernetics to introspection, parapsychology, near death experiences & mysticism -- even I-Thou relationships. Current theories are inadequate to important data points. Traditional philosophy suggests a single substance, two-subsystem theory integrating a data processing brain and an intentional, immaterial soul to solve the mind-body problem.
How were the Greeks of the sixth century BC able to invent philosophy and tragedy? In this book Richard Seaford argues that a large part of the answer can be found in another momentous development, the invention and rapid spread of coinage, which produced the first ever thoroughly monetised society. By transforming social relations monetisation contributed to the ideas of the universe as an impersonal system, fundamental to Presocratic philosophy, and of the individual alienated from his own kin and from the gods, as found in tragedy.
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.
The popularity of Stephen Hawking's work has put cosmology back in the public eye. The question of how the universe began, and why it hangs together, still puzzles scientists. Their puzzlement began two and a half thousand years ago when Greek philosophers first 'looked up at the sky and formed a theory of everything.' Though their solutions are little credited today, the questions remain fresh. The early Greek thinkers struggled to come to terms with and explain the totality of their surroundings; to identitify an original substance from which the universe was compounded; and to reconcile the presence of balance and proportion with the apparent disorder of the universe. Rosemary Wright examines the cosmological theories of the `natural philosophers' from Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes to Plato, the Stoics and the NeoPlatonists. The importance of Babylonian and Egyptian forerunners is emphasised. Cosmology in Antiquity is a comprehensive introduction to the cosmological thought of antiquity, the first such survey since Neugebauer's work of 1962.
In this book, author Lucas Murrey argues that the thinking of the modern German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1944–1900) is not only more grounded in antiquity than previously understood, but is also based on the Dionysian spirit of Greece which scholars have still to confront. This book demonstrates that Nietzsche’s philosophy is unique within Western thought as it retrieves the politics of a Dionysiac model and language to challenge the alienation of humans from nature and one another. Murrey develops here a new picture of Greece, reminding readers how money emerged and rapidly developed in Greece during the sixth century B.C.E. The event of monetization created the new art form of tragedy: money-tyrants struggling against the forces of earth and communities who consequently suffered isolation, blindness, and death. As Murrey points out, Nietzsche (unconsciously) retrieves the battle among money, nature, and community and adapts its lessons to our time. Additionally, Nietzsche’s philosophy not only adapts the wisdom of Dionysus to question the unlimited “glow and fuel” of a “ponderous herd” of money-tyrants today, but it also draws attention to Greece’s warnings about the lethal danger of the eyes in myth, cult, and theatre. This work introduces a much needed vision of Nietzschean thought, and it emphasizes the relevance of an interdisciplinary approach combining philosophy with literary studies and psychology with religious and visual/media studies. When applied to our present circumstance, the approach of this book reveals how a dangerous visual culture, through its support of the limitlessness of money, is harming our relationship with nature and each other.
This book casts new light on the work of the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770 – 1843), and his translations of Greek tragedy. It shows Hölderlin’s poetry is unique within Western literature (and art) as it retrieves the socio-politics of a Dionysiac space-time and language to challenge the estrangement of humans from nature and one other. In this book, author Lucas Murrey presents a new picture of ancient Greece, noting that money emerged and rapidly developed there in the sixth century B.C. This act of monetization brought with it a concept of tragedy: money-tyrants struggling against the forces of earth and community who succumb to individual isolation, blindness and death. As Murrey points out, Hölderlin (unconsciously) retrieves the battle between money, nature and community and creatively applies its lessons to our time. But Hölderlin’s poetry not only adapts tragedy to question the unlimited “machine process” of “a clever race” of money-tyrants. It also draws attention to Greece’s warnings about the mortal danger of the eyes in myth, cult and theatre. This monograph thus introduces an urgently needed vision not only of Hölderlin hymns, but also the relevance of disciplines as diverse as Literary Studies, Philosophy, Psychology (Psychoanalysis) as well as Religious and Visual (Media) Studies to our present predicament, where a dangerous visual culture, through its support of the unlimitedness of money, is harming our relation to nature and one another. “Here triumphs a temperament guided by ancient religion and that excavates, in Hölderlin’s translations, the central god Dionysus of Greek tragedy.” “Lucas Murrey shares with his subject, Hölderlin, a vision of the Greeks as bringing something vitally important into our poor world, a vision of which few classical scholars are now capable.” —Richard Seaford, author of Money and the Early Greek Mind and Dionysus. “Here triumphs a temperament guided by ancient religion and that excavates, in Hölderlin’s translations, the central god Dionysus of Greek tragedy.” —Bernhard Böschenstein, author of “Frucht des Gewitters”. Zu Hölderlins Dionysos als Gott der Revolution and Paul Celan: Der Meridian. “Lucas Murrey takes the god of tragedy, Dionysus, finally serious as a manifestation of the ecstatic scream of liberation and visual strategies of dissolution: he pleasantly portrays Hölderlin’s idiosyncratic poetic sympathy.” —Anton Bierl, author of Der Chor in der Alten Komödie. Ritual and Performativität “Hölderlin most surely deserved such a book.” —Jean-François Kervégan, author of Que faire de Carl Schmitt? “...fascinating material...” —Noam Chomsky, author of Media Control and Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe.
