The Greeks and the Irrational

Author: Eric R. Dodds
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520242300
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
In this philosophy classic, which was first published in 1951, E. R. Dodds takes on the traditional view of Greek culture as a triumph of rationalism. Using the analytical tools of modern anthropology and psychology, Dodds asks, "Why should we attribute to the ancient Greeks an immunity from 'primitive' modes of thought which we do not find in any society open to our direct observation?" Praised by reviewers as "an event in modern Greek scholarship" and "a book which it would be difficult to over-praise," The Greeks and the Irrational was Volume 25 of the Sather Classical Lectures series.

The Greeks and the Irrational

Author: Eric R. Dodds
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520931275
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Rediscovering E.R. Dodds

Author: Christopher Stray
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198777361
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
Famous for his visionary book, 'The Greeks and the Irrational' (1951), E.R. Dodds was not only a remarkable classical scholar, but also a poet with extensive links to 20th-century English and Irish literary culture. This volume explores his life, career, and legacy, including a group of memoirs by some of his pupils and friends.

The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief

Author: Eric Robertson Dodds
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 9780198143772
Category : Civilization, Greco-Roman
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
These essays represent the full range of Dodds' literary and philosophical interests, and his ability to combine profound scholarship with the lucid humanity of a teacher convinced of the value of Greek studies to the modern world.

Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?

Author: Paul Veyne
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226854342
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Book Description
An examination of Greek mythology and a discussion about how religion and truth have evolved throughout time.

The Origins of Greek Thought

Author: Jean-Pierre Vernant
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801492938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Book Description
Jean-Pierre Vernant's concise, brilliant essay on the origins of Greek thought relates the cultural achievement of the ancient Greeks to their physical and social environment and shows that what they believed in was inseparable from the way they lived. The emergence of rational thought, Vernant claims, is closely linked to the advent of the open-air politics that characterized life in the Greek polis. Vernant points out that when the focus of Mycenaean society gave way to the agora, the change had profound social and cultural implications. "Social experience could become the object of pragmatic thought for the Greeks," he writes, "because in the city-state it lent itself to public debate. The decline of myth dates from the day the first sages brought human order under discussion and sought to define it.... Thus evolved a strictly political thought, separate from religion, with its own vocabulary, concepts, principles, and theoretical aims."

Psyche

Author: Erwin Rohde
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cults
Languages : en
Pages : 668

Book Description

Foolishness to the Greeks

Author: Lesslie Newbigin
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467419087
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 181

Book Description
How can biblical authority be a reality for those shaped by the modern world? This book treats the First World as a mission field, offering a unique perspective on the relationship between the gospel and current society by presenting an outsider's view of contemporary Western culture.

The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife

Author: Jan N. Bremmer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134768222
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
Belief in the afterlife is still very much alive in Western civilisation, even though the truth of its existence is no longer universally accepted. Surprisingly, however, heaven, hell and the immortal soul were all ideas which arrived relatively late in the ancient world. Originally Greece and Israel - the cultures that gave us Christianity - had only the vaguest ideas of an afterlife. So where did these concepts come from and why did they develop? In this fascinating, learned, but highly readable book, Jan N. Bremmer - one of the foremost authorities on ancient religion - takes a fresh look at the major developments in the Western imagination of the afterlife, from the ancient Greeks to the modern near-death experience.

Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind

Author: Edith Hall
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393244121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Book Description
"Wonderful…a thoughtful discussion of what made [the Greeks] so important, in their own time and in ours." —Natalie Haynes, Independent The ancient Greeks invented democracy, theater, rational science, and philosophy. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. Yet this accomplished people never formed a single unified social or political identity. In Introducing the Ancient Greeks, acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall offers a bold synthesis of the full 2,000 years of Hellenic history to show how the ancient Greeks were the right people, at the right time, to take up the baton of human progress. Hall portrays a uniquely rebellious, inquisitive, individualistic people whose ideas and creations continue to enthrall thinkers centuries after the Greek world was conquered by Rome. These are the Greeks as you’ve never seen them before.