The Demiurge in Ancient Thought
The Demiurge in Ancient Thought

Author: Carl Séan O'Brien

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-01-29

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1316240657

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How was the world generated and how does matter continue to be ordered so that the world can continue functioning? Questions like these have existed as long as humanity has been capable of rational thought. In antiquity, Plato's Timaeus introduced the concept of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god, to answer them. This lucid and wide-ranging book argues that the concept of the Demiurge was highly influential on the many discussions operating in Middle Platonist, Gnostic, Hermetic and Christian contexts in the first three centuries AD. It explores key metaphysical problems such as the origin of evil, the relationship between matter and the First Principle and the deployment of ever-increasing numbers of secondary deities to insulate the First Principle from the sensible world. It also focuses on the decreasing importance of demiurgy in Neoplatonism, with its postulation of procession and return.

Ten Gifts of the Demiurge
Ten Gifts of the Demiurge

Author: Emilie Kutash

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2013-10-16

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1472519817

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Proclus' commentary on Plato's "Timaeus" is perhaps the most important surviving Neoplatonic commentary. In it Proclus contemplates nature's mysterious origins and at the same time employs the deductive rigour required to address perennial philosophical questions. Nature, for him, is both divine and mathematically transparent. He renders theories of Time, Eternity, Providence, Evil, Soul and Intellect and constructs an elaborate ontology that includes mathematics and astronomy. He gives ample play to pagan theology too, frequently lapsing into the arcane language of the "Chaldaean Oracles". "Ten Gifts of the Demiurge" is an essential companion to this rich but complex and densely wrought text, providing an analysis of its arguments and showing that it, like the cosmos Proclus reveres, is a living coherent whole. The book provides aides to understanding Proclus' work within the complex background of Neoplatonic philosophy, familiarising the reader with the political context of the Athenian school, analysing Proclus' key terminology, and giving background to the philosophical arguments and ancient sciences upon which Proclus draws.Above all, it helps the reader appreciate the varicoloured light that Proclus sheds on the secrets of nature.

Strategic Imperatives and Core Competencies in the Era of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
Strategic Imperatives and Core Competencies in the Era of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

Author: Batko, Roman

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2016-11-30

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1522516573

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The use of machines has changed the workplaces of today. While machinery is still not able to perform certain jobs that require creative or non-routine functions, their continuous advancements have shifted the dynamic between organizations and manual laborers. Strategic Imperatives and Core Competencies in the Era of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence focuses on contemporary organizations and their use of new competencies. Featuring coverage on new skill identification and best practices for management, this book is essential for professionals, administrators, researchers, and students seeking current research on the latest developments in technological applications in the workplace.

Law and the Making of the Soviet World
Law and the Making of the Soviet World

Author: Scott Newton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-11-20

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1317929772

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This book is an unconventional reappraisal of Soviet law: a field that is ripe for re-evaluation, now that it is clear of Cold War cobwebs; and, as this book shows, one that is surprisingly topical and newly compelling. Scott Newton argues here that the Soviet order was a work of law. Drawing on a wide range of sources – including Russian-language Soviet statues and regulations, jurisprudence, legal theory, and English-language ‘legal Kremlinology’ – this book analyses the central significance of law in the design and operation of Soviet economic, political, and social institutions. In arguing that it was an exemplary, rather than aberrant, case of the uses to which law was put in twentieth-century industrialised societies, Law and the Making of the Soviet World: The Red Demiurge provides an insightful account of both the significance of modern law in the Soviet case and the significance of the Soviet case for modern law.

The Poimandres as Myth
The Poimandres as Myth

Author: Robert A. Segal

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-10-15

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 3110860112

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Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

Not in His Image
Not in His Image

Author: John Lamb Lash

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing

Published: 2006-11-15

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 1603580204

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"Lash is capable of explaining the mind-bending concepts of Gnosticism and pagan mystery cults with bracing clarity and startling insight. . . . [His] arguments are often lively and entertaining."—Los Angeles Times In Not in His Image John Lamb Lash explains how a little-known messianic sect propelled itself into a dominant world power, systematically wiping out the great Gnostic spiritual teachers, the Druid priests, and the shamanistic healers of Europe and North Africa. Early Christians burned libraries and destroyed temples in an attempt to silence the ancient truth-tellers and keep their own secrets. But as Lash reveals the truth cannot be hidden or destroyed. Not in His Image delves deeply into the shadows of ancient Gnostic writings to reconstruct the story early Christians tried to scrub from the pages of history, exploring the richness of the ancient European Pagan spirituality–the Pagan Mysteries, the Great Goddess, Gnosis, the myths of Sophia and Gaia. Long before the birth of Christianity, monotheism was an anomaly; Europe and the Near East flourished under the divine guidance of Sophia, the ancient goddess of wisdom. The Earth was the embodiment of Sophia and thus sacred to the people who sought fulfillment in her presence. This ancient philosophy was threatening to the emerging salvation-based creed of Christianity that was based on patriarchal dominion over the Earth and lauded personal suffering as a path to the afterlife. As Derrick Jensen points out in the afterword, in Lash’s hands Jesus Christ emerges as the agent provocateur of the ruling classes. "Sometimes a book changes the world. Not in His Image is such a book. It is clear, stimulating, well-researched, and sure to outrage the experts. . . . Get it. Improve not just your own life, but civilization’s chances for survival."—Roger Payne, author of Among Whales

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity
Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity

Author: Harold Tarrant

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-04-03

Total Pages: 679

ISBN-13: 9004355383

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Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity offers a comprehensive account of the ways in which ancient readers responded to Plato, as philosopher, as author, and more generally as a central figure in the intellectual heritage of Classical Greece, from his death in the fourth century BCE until the Platonist and Aristotelian commentators in the sixth century CE. The volume is divided into three sections: ‘Early Developments in Reception’ (four chapters); ‘Early Imperial Reception’ (nine chapters); and ‘Early Christianity and Late Antique Platonism’ (eighteen chapters). Sectional introductions cover matters of importance that could not easily be covered in dedicated chapters. The book demonstrates the great variety of approaches to and interpretations of Plato among even his most dedicated ancient readers, offering some salutary lessons for his modern readers too.

Plato's Moral Realism
Plato's Moral Realism

Author: Lloyd P. Gerson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-08-31

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1009329987

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Demonstrates that Plato's ethics rests upon a metaphysical foundation, the Idea of the Good, the first principle of all.

One Book, The Whole Universe
One Book, The Whole Universe

Author: Richard D. Mohr

Publisher: Parmenides Publishing

Published: 2010-05-05

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 193097261X

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The much-anticipated anthology on Plato'sTimaeus-Plato's singular dialogue on the creation of the universe, the nature of the physical world, and the place of persons in the cosmos-examining all dimensions of one of the most important books in Western Civilization: its philosophy, cosmology, science, and ethics, its literary aspects and reception. Contributions come from leading scholars in their respective fields, including Sir Anthony Leggett, 2003 Nobel Laureate for Physics. Parts of or earlier versions of these papers were first presented at the Timaeus Conference, held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in September of 2007.To this day, Plato's Timaeus grounds the form of ethical and political thinking called Natural Law-the view that there are norms in nature that provide the patterns for our actions and ground the objectivity of human values. Beyond the intellectual content of the dialogue's core, its literary frame is also the source of the myth of Atlantis, giving the West the concept of the "e;lost world."e;

Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy III
Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy III

Author: John P. Anton

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1989-07-03

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0791495043

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The Plato who emerges from these essays is the seminal thinker, the profound philosopher, the master of dialectic who offers, together with his insights into reality and human values, a systematically developed set of powerful devices for the articulation and defence of his ideas. In each case the discussion unfolds not as advocacy of Platonic doctrines but as critical assessment of argument, and is meant as judicious explication of the logical form of significant theses often believed, during centuries of Platonic commentary, to be cornerstones of a monumental speculative system. It demonstrates a shared and strikingly high regard for Plato as a major thinker in the western philosophical tradition, a recognition that the dialogues he wrote continue to exert influence as well as attract theoretical attention. Taken together with the material on Plato in Volume II, Volume III displays a definite continuity in direction, scope, and quality, strengthening the conviction that Platonic scholarship has entered a new and different phase and has consolidated the approach that this new movement introduced.