Originally published in 1934, this book contains the Cromer Greek Prize-winning essay for that year on the subject of the still little-understood Greek religion Orphism. Watmough examines Orpheus and Orphism through a distinctly Protestant lens, arguing that both were religions 'of reform' sharing similar views on asceticism and the wages of sin in the afterlife. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Greek mysticism and ancient religion.

Souvent associé au genre poétique, à la fin du xix e siècle, on peut observer une application de la philosophie artistique de l’orphisme au genre romanesque. Si la finalité du poète orphique de l’époque 1900 était de créer une œuvre dans laquelle les paroles incarnent une facette du divin, tel n’est pas le souhait du romancier orphique, qui cherche plutôt à avertir un lecteur béotien de la réalité et la possibilité d’une expérience mystique — et ce afin de fournir un (...) contrepoint spirituel au climat de pessimisme engendré par la laïcisation et la décadence de la société d’alors. Dans un tel contexte, les romans de l’écrivain gallois Arthur Machen paraissent particulièrement intéressants. Reconnaissant toute forme d’expression humaine comme insuffisante pour brosser la complexité intégrale de Dieu, ainsi que toute expérience mystique, Machen n’ambitionne pas de décrire le divin, mais plutôt ses effets sur l’esprit de l’individu. Ceci se fait par une modification de la syntaxe narrative qui cherche désormais à reproduire les modulations internes que subit la pensée humaine lorsque le sujet passe entre dans un état d’extase en présence du divin. Ainsi, les romans mystiques de Machen ont pour finalité d’agir comme un catalyseur, déclenchant un éveil chez le lecteur, et le poussant à renouer avec sa propre spiritualité en-dehors du monde diégétique. (shrink)

Many recent discoveries have confirmed the importance of Orphism for ancient Greek religion, philosophy, and literature. However, its nature and role are still very controversial. The key problem of its relationship to Christianity has been discussed by ancient and modern authors from many different viewpoints, albeit too often tainted with apologetic interests and unconscious projections. This free and thorough study of the ancient sources sheds light on these questions and illuminates the complexity of the encounter between Classical culture and (...) Jewish-Christian tradition. New perspectives on the relationship between Classical and Jewish-Christian culture On the avowed subject of Orphism Author is specialist within the field. (shrink)

Cet article cherche à montrer qu’une métaphysique s’engendre au sein même de l’orphisme, par l’auto-exégèse du mythe, métaphysique qui irriguera le platonisme et le néo-platonisme. Elle se place sous la figure d’un personnage conceptuel, Dionysos, depuis lequel se pensent les rapports de l’Un et du multiplie et par conséquent aussi, la façon dont les âmes s’engendrent à partir de l’Un.

This paper develops two central themes of the Canti Orfici, intrinsically connected to each other: Orphism, with particular attention to La Notte, and Dino Campana’s relationship with Nietzschean sources, in order to deepen the latent trace of a Nietzscheanism scattered in the metaphors and symbols of the poetic word. È forse un azzardo addentrarsi negli incerti sentieri sul crinale tra letteratura e filosofia, dove il confine non risulta visibilmente tracciato e non vi è alcun segno certo ch...

This article reconsiders the historical and typological relation between Greek maturation rituals and Greek mystery religion. Particular attention is given to the word κλεινός (‘illustrious’) and its ritual uses in two roughly contemporary Late Classical sources: an Orphic-Bacchic funerary gold leaf from Hipponion in Magna Graecia and Ephorus’ account of a Cretan pederastic age-transition rite. In both contexts, κλεινός marks an elevated status conferred by initiation. (This usage finds antecedents in Alcman'sPartheneia.) Without positing direct development between puberty rites and mysteries, (...) the article argues on the basis of shared vocabulary and other ritual elements that age-transitions influenced the ideology of mystery cults. It is further claimed that puberty rites and mysteries performed similar functions in their respective social contexts, despite obvious differences of prestige and visibility. Age-transition rites have been analysed in Bourdieu's terms as ‘rites of institution’, in which young elites were publicly affirmed in civic roles: private mysteries can be described in analogous but opposed terms as rites of ‘counter-institution’, in which familiar ritual language and symbols of elite status were used to construct an alternative ‘imagined community’ of mystery initiates. (shrink)

Artykuł stanowi obszerne, krytyczne omówienie książki Przedracjonalne źródła racjonalnej refleksji filozoficznej autorstwa Jadwigi Skrzypek-Faluszczak. Krytyka obejmuje kolejne części monografii — „Wstęp” oraz trzy rozdziały, a zakończona jest wskazaniem na rozmaite uchybienia formalne, jakie w tej monografii się pojawiają. Rozważania nie ograniczają się do aspektu krytycznego, lecz prezentują rozmaite ujęcia danych kwestii obecne w literaturze przedmiotu, a nie zostały ujęte przez autorkę monografii, a także propozycje własnych autorskich rozwiązań.

This communication wants to deal with the relations between the Philosophy of Plato and the cult of Dionysus in Ancient Greece. This makes necessary to distinguish the cult of Dionysus with its feasts and secret rituals, especially the maenadic rites of women, from orphism. The Maenads practiced rites closely associated with mania and those rites included bloody sacrifice (sparagmos) and the consommation of raw flesh (omophagy). As we assumed in our book“Dionysos em transe: la voix des femmes”, this cult (...) was an iniciatic feminine rite, connected to biological transformations particular to women, as pregnance and birth. At the other side, orphism is an asceptic and vegetarian sect, which clearly influenced some platonic theories, as exposed in Cratyle or Gorgias, concerning “the body as the tomb of the soul”. What we want to show here is the dionysiac character of some other theories, as those about the mania in Phaedrus or even the so called “platonic theory of Love” in the Symposium. We are dealing than with the definition of Philosophy itself in platonic dialogs: is Philosophy a study about death as orphic influence demands or is it a work of birth, as dionysiac influence suggests? (shrink)

It has been much disputed to what extent thinkers in Greek and Roman antiquity adhered to ideas of evolution and progress in human affairs. Did they lack any conception of process in time, or did they anticipate Darwinian and Lamarckian hypotheses? The Origins of Civilization in Greek and Roman Thought, first published in1986, comprehensively examines this issue. Beginning with creation myths – Mother Earth and Pandora, the anti-progressive ideas of the Golden Age, and the cyclical theories of Orphism – (...) Professor Blundell goes on to explore the origins of scientific speculation among the Pre-Socratics, its development into the teleological science of Aristotle, and the advent of the progressivist views of the Stoics. Attention is also given to the ‘primitivist’ debate, involving ideas about the noble savage and reflections of such speculation in poetry, and finally the relationship between nature and culture in ancient thought is investigated. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Christian Humanism in the Age of Critical Philology:Ralph Häfner's Gods in ExileMartin MulsowHäfner's book is a monumental study and a milestone of German-language research.1 He delineates, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the Christian humanism of European philologists in the era of criticism. Recovering an immense wealth of forgotten sources, the book reveals the complex interaction and tension between pagan mythology and Christian culture in philological controversies. (...) Though authors might denounce the pagan histories of gods as fabulae, they were constitutive for the productive and emulative reception of ancient Greco-Roman patterns in Renaissance and Baroque culture. How could the peculiar logic of this paganizing be handled? Was it advisable to have faith in the integrative power of Christian truth, which was capable of finding precursors or even proofs of one's own truth in pagan patterns, or should the pagan be selectively separated from the Christian? And what was the role of philology in this process? Did the growing expertise in criticism advance the process of dissociation of paganism and Christianity? Did it further new possibilities of synthesis in the spirit of Apologetics? [End Page 659]The reconstruction of these processes involves much more than what the book's very specific title suggests. It is a large-scale history of scholarship written from the perspective of the most important tensions that Christian humanism had to overcome in its final stage. From an Anglo-American perspective, this book contributes to recent reconstructions of ideas of early modern men of learning, as well as the growing number of studies on antiquarianism and the history of religion.2 The final stage of Christian humanism, the period of time covered by the book, begins in the late sixteenth century and ends in the 1730s, a point in time which Häfner presents, with some justification, as the end of an era.Hymnology and PolymathyThe study consists of three basic parts. The first one is the "Persistence of Orphic-Platonic Hymnology in Christian Humanism" ("Fortleben der orphisch-platonischen Hymnologie im christlichen Humanismus"). This topic, apparently very specialized and marginal, proves to be a key arena of early modern scholarship, an arena traversed by the battle lines between pagan tradition and Christianity as well as between poetry and theology. Were hymns inspired poetry? What kind of inspiration could and should be conceded to hymns to Jupiter and the sun? Of course, those humanists who reappropriated Orphism and Neo-Platonism were interested in this genre. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and even into the mid-sixteenth century, this was not yet a problem. However, the more philological consciousness (and confessionalization) evolved, the more the genre's scope was delimited. What scope remained? Häfner relates the problem to the revival of an "eclectic Platonism" in the wake of the Second Sophistic. This "eclectic Platonism," which was particularly influential from 1500 on, combined Platonism with rhetorics, and the claim of comprehensive polymathy with the joyful presentation of the findings of reading. In this respect, Apuleius and Aulus Gellius were two model authors for early modern polyhistors. We must include Martianus Capella as a continuation of the "Renaissance of the Second Sophistic into Early Christian Encyclopedism" [End Page 660] ("Renaissance der Zweiten Sophistik bis in die frühchristliche Enzyklopädie hinein," p. 18).Häfner's approach is starkly original and, in my opinion, highly productive for the current debates about early modern encyclopedism and "cultures of knowledge" that are sometimes deadlocked.3 Too frequently, polymathy is used synonymously for encyclopedism, which is often associated with modern concepts of systematic classification. Yet, according to Häfner, this is a misunderstanding. It neglects the playful elements and skillful rhetorical options of throwing questions out into the open rather than narrowing them dogmatically. Perhaps the only addition to Häfner's sources could have been Louis de Cressolles's Theatrum veterum Rhetorum, which, according to Marc Fumaroli in L'age de l'éloquence, marked the return of the Second Sophistic.4 The analysis of the work of Gerhard Johannes Vossius, a classical philologist who resided in Leyden and Amsterdam, is the first test for Häfner... (shrink)

Dans ses efforts pour la renaissance et la reconnaissance de l'Afrique, Léopold Sédar Senghor a élaboré une philosophie de l'art fondée sur l'identification des paradigmes inhérents au style afro-diasporique : le génie du rythme et l'hégémonie du mouvement, source d'un négro-orphisme où l'émotion apparaît consubstantielle de la commotion. S'inscrivant dans la continuité de la pensée senghorienne, le présent ouvrage met en place la théorie d'une esthétique kinésique et tente de l'appliquer à l'étude des pratiques oratoires, musicales, sportives, chorégraphiques afro-diasporiques. Il (...) montre comment l'idiosyncrasie africaine a servi de matrice à de nouveaux langages plastiques et musicaux tant en Europe qu'aux Amériques. Il en est ainsi de la geste jazzistique de Wynton Marsalis, examinée ici en lien avec la statuaire oraculaire nkisi nkondi du Congo, les polyphonies des peuples "pygmées", le bwiti et le mvet, culte et art verbal d'Afrique centrale. L'esthétique du jazz, du basket-ball, du hip-hop, des cultes religieux et des musiques diasporiques se rattache essentiellement à l'Afrique noire par la virtuosité expressive, la vitalité kinesthésique et la démocratisation du rythme. Libératrice, jouissive, délice dionysiaque, elle traduit le goût, la passion d'exister ainsi que la faculté de résistance d'une sensibilité culturelle qui a su surmonter les tragédies de l'Histoire avant de trouver de nouvelles voies de régénération et de dissémination dans le corps et l'âme des sociétés postmodernes. (shrink)

This essential reference text on the life, thought and writings of Plato uses over 160 short, accessible articles to cover a complete range of topics for both the first-time student and seasoned scholar of Plato and ancient philosophy. It is organized into five parts illuminating Plato’s life, the whole of the Dialogues attributed to him, the Dialogues’ literary features, the concepts and themes explored within them and Plato’s reception via his influence on subsequent philosophers and the various interpretations of his (...) work. This fully updated 2nd edition includes 19 newly commissioned entries on topics ranging across comedy, tragedy, Xenophon, metatheatre, gender, musical theory, animals, Orphism, political theory, religion, time, Hellenistic philosophy and post-Platonic ancient commentaries. It also features revisions to the majority of articles from the 1st edition, including 8 which have been completely re-written, and 12 which have had the references substantially revised. Reflecting the growing diversity of Plato scholarship across the world, this edition includes contributions from a wide range of scholars who enrich the field and provide students and scholars with a vital resource for study and reference. (shrink)

The aim of the following paper is to show that it is not possible to penetrate into the depths of Nikolay Raynov's universe and to comprehend its wholeness, without posing and investigating the question about the origin or the foundation of his various creative occupations, i.e his novels, philosophic and theosophic writings, art history and critique, paintings, decorative design etc. This question is far too complex to be answered briefly without being simplified, and therefore two main directions will be articulated: (...) the recption of Orphism developed in Plotinus' and Porphyry's Neoplatonism – which is the basis of modern Theosophy –, and the synthetic understanding of art, which puts Raynov's views in close proximity to Wassily Kandinsky and Nicholas Roerich. (shrink)

The purpose of the conference "On Pythagoreanism", held in Brasilia in 2011, was to bring together leading scholars from all over the world to define the status quaestionis for the ever-increasing interest and research on Pythagoreanism in the 21st century. The papers included in this volume exemplify the variety of topics and approaches now being used to understand the polyhedral image of one of the most fascinating and long-lasting intellectual phenomena in Western history. Cornelli's paper opens the volume by charting (...) the course of Pythagorean studies over the past two centuries. The remaining contributions range chronologically from Pythagoras and the early Pythagoreans of the archaic period (6th-5th centuries BCE) through the classical, hellenistic and late antique periods, to the eighteenth century. Thematically they treat the connections of Pythagoreanism with Orphism and religion, with mathematics, metaphysics and epistemology and with politics and the Pythagorean way of life. (shrink)

En este artículo sostengo, frente a las explicaciones de carácter general basadas en supuestos doctrinales (p.ej., Allen y Falco), que el tipo de platonismo (y su relación con el orfismo) que revive con las labores filosóficas de Marsilio Ficino está anclado en el ejercicio de las tecnologías textuales que hereda de los neoplatónicos tardíos. Para mostrarlo, examino la negativa de Ficino de comentar el pasaje del Banquete (179d) donde se presenta a Orfeo como contraejemplo del valor de los amantes y (...) la comparo con la posición de Pico della Mirandola. Con ello pretendo distinguir el platonismo ficiniano del posible platonismo piquiano y subrayar su importancia como transmisor de la tradición platónica que incluye, en su caso, un orfismo comprometido no sólo doctrinalmente, sino también textualmente. In this paper I propose, against general explanations based on doctrinal assumptions (e.g., Allen and Falco), that the kind of Platonism (and its relationship with Orpheus) reviving in the philosophical works of Marsilio Ficino is anchored in the exercise of textual technologies inherited from the late Neoplatonists. To show this, I examine Ficino's refusal to comment on Symposium (179d) where Orpheus is presented as a counterexample of the lovers' courage and I compare it to the position of Pico della Mirandola on the same passage. This way, I distinguish Ficino's Platonism from Pico's and I emphasize its importance as a transmitter of the Platonic tradition that includes a committed Orphism not only doctrinally but also in a textual manner. (shrink)

Forms, Matter and Mind. Three Strands in Plato’s Metaphysics -/- This book offers a new interpretation of Plato’s conception of man and of how it develops in the Corpus. Commonly, Plato’s anthropology is considered to be a version of naïve Orphism with the soul being a heavenly, but fallen, daemon. This is shown to be a misleading over-simplification. An examination of three basic and interrelated strands in Plato’s thought (Forms, Matter and Mind) demonstrates how Plato’s conception of man is (...) an integrated part of his metaphysics and develops with it. Thus, a change can be seen from a fairly unreflecting Socratic beginning via a transcendent soul to a rather sophisticated ‘Aristotelianism’. What is at issue is a non-materialistic, or more precisely, a dualistic view of man that has been discredited in modern times by two preconceptions: a widespread opinion that dualism must mean or involve Cartesianism, which seems untenable, and an equally widespread and, until recently, unshaken belief that man can be exhaustively described in materialistic terms. Both assumptions are questioned today. The present work shows that Plato’s view of man is fundamentally different from Cartesianism and furthermore that he rejects the materialist view as well. Hence, the book shows Plato’s increasing relevance for the current debate on the nature and possibilities of man. (shrink)

Beginning with the origins of Western philosophy, the profound creation of the Hellenic genius, Reale presents an appreciation of the Naturalists, the Sophists, Socrates, and the Minor Socratics. Special attention is paid to the Eleatics because their problems decisively mark Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. Interpretation of the Sophists benefits from the recent reevaluation of their thought. Socrates himself would be inconceivable without the Sophists since he is one of them. Socrates is given major prominence. Plato, Aristotle, and all of Hellenistic (...) philosophy are deeply impregnated with his words and spirit. The teachings of the Minor Socratics are interpreted as one-sided reductions of the pluralistic values of Socratic thought and as anticipations of some issues that explode later in the Hellenistic Age. There are two appendices. The first concerns Orphism and contains a series of documents indispensable for the comprehension of some aspects of pre-Socratic and Platonic thought. The second explains the key to understanding the message of the Greeks—the message of “theorein”. (shrink)

This volume provides the reader with the substantial evidence, presented here for the first time in a chronological manner, of the essential place that Dionysus occupied in Greek and Roman political thought. The eleven chapters that make up the volume are authored by an interdisciplinary team of scholars (including four top specialists in the field, Cornelia Isler-Kerényi, Richard Seaford, Richard Stoneman and Jean-Marie Pailler) and cover the period from archaic Greece to the late Roman empire. The reader can therefore observe (...) how the political ideas and motifs rooted in Greek classical thought were continued, adapted, and developed in successive periods of history. The contributors reconstruct the political significance of Dionysus by examining different kinds of evidence: historiography, poetry, coins, epigraphy, art, and philosophy. They discuss the place of the god in the politics of Greek city-states, explore the long tradition of imitating Dionysus that ancient leaders, from Alexander the Great to the Roman emperors, manifested in various ways, as well as demonstrate how the political role of Dionysus was reflected in Orphism and Neoplatonist philosophy. Dionysus and Politics provides an excellent introduction to a fundamental feature of ancient political thought which until now has been largely neglected by mainstream academia. The book will be an invaluable resource to students and scholars interested in ancient politics and religion. (shrink)

In this work, I present a selection of mythological and cultural insights from Ancient Greece that make our ambiguous relationship with memory and oblivion explicit. From Plato to Dante, or from Orphism to Nietzsche, and even today, the experiences of memory and forgetting appear as two sides of one essential nucleus in our cultural tradition in general and in the history of philosophy in particular. I intend to present a panoramic view of the main mythological sources that mention these (...) two experiences as well as their unequal consideration. I will thus stress the personifications of both figures, taking up their features and the moral, gnoseological, and even political implications that historically have been associated with them. This is especially apparent in the strong Platonic legacy latent in the history of philosophy, where every time it insists on defining knowledge as a form of memory, the peculiar attributes of forgetting unexpectedly surface, not as a mistake or cognitive error, but as an experience which is truly saving and therapeutic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:From Death to Life: Key Themes in Plato’s Phaedo by Franco TRABATTONIAthanasia A. GiasoumiTRABATTONI, Franco. From Death to Life: Key Themes in Plato’s Phaedo. Boston: Brill, 2023. 190 pp. Cloth, $143.00In his comprehensive study of the Phaedo, Franco Trabattoni challenges the conventional interpretation of Plato’s thought by denying that Plato was ever a dogmatist or a skeptic. The opening chapter proposes that Plato employs a “third way” standing (...) on the Parmenidean distinction between dôxa (belief) and epistēme (knowledge). According to Trabattoni, the Phaedo (together with all other dialogues dealing with the distinction between sensible and intelligible reality) implies that knowledge of the forms can be obtained only after the separation of body and soul and only without the assistance of intermediaries. He contends that humans have no better instrument than lôgos to discover the intelligible realities (forms) that philosophy seeks. However, because lôgos serves as an intermediary, he believes that the mediation of lôgos introduces an unavoidable fault into the cognitive process, which is directly linked to the concept of dôxa. He maintains that this hypothesis is essential for the arguments presented in the Phaedo’s first part to make sense.Trabattoni delves into the Phaedo not just philosophically but also linguistically, particularly in passage 60c, where Cebes brings up the question of suicide. Notably, in chapter 2, Trabattoni provides a new translation of this passage that contrasts with the readings supplied by Dorter, Gallop, and Boter. Trabattoni claims that Plato responds to the problem of suicide by adhering to the eudaemonistic stance that no obligation that goes against the happiness of the individual subject to it is of any value.Chapter 3 features a counterargument to the predominant viewpoint positing an inconsistency between the Phaedo and the Republic. Trabattoni asserts that these dialogues agree in maintaining that true virtue can be ascribed only to those who believe in metaphysical realities and possess an exclusive desire to acquire knowledge of them. He posits that the disparities between the two dialogues can be attributed primarily to differing perspectives rather than a significant theoretical divide.In my opinion, chapter 4 is the book’s most interesting and original portion. Here, Trabattoni argues that Plato’s contrast in the Phaedo between genuine and false philosophers is directed at Antisthenes, specifically, that Plato opposes his Socratism to Antisthenes’ by depicting the Platonic Socrates as a genuine philosopher (philōsophos) in contrast to Antisthenes’ Socrates, who is portrayed as a false one (philōdoxos). According to Trabattoni, Plato endeavors to provide what Antisthenes’ portrayal of Socrates does not, namely, a metaphysical perspective that differentiates between opinion and truth. Though novel and charming, Trabattoni’s interpretation is not supported by the text since the Phaedo makes no direct allusion to Antisthenes’ Socrates, mentioning Antisthenes only at the beginning (58b) as someone present at Socrates’ last moments. Thus, the book’s strongest section could also be considered its weakest.Chapter 5 argues that the recollection theory is not intended to establish the possibility of a complete retrieval of the knowledge of the forms. [End Page 163] Trabattoni disagrees with Scott’s and others’ assertion that recollection is a method of inquiry on the grounds that Socrates never explains how the alleged “method” of recollection should be applied. Rather, Trabattoni contends, the function of recollection is to explain why human intellective knowledge cannot exceed the boundary of dôxa. Trabattoni argues further that the recollection theory indicates that only when the soul is separated from the body, that is, when a person dies, is it possible to gain knowledge of the forms.Chapters 6 and 7 examine in depth the philosophical, methodological, and linguistic aspects of the objections raised by Cebes and Simmias as well as Socrates’ ensuing arguments regarding the immortality of the soul. Additionally, Trabattoni explores the historical background of Plato’s Phaedo and the impact on it of Pythagoreanism, Orphism, and Eleatic philosophy.Chapter 8 is another particularly captivating section. It offers a fresh perspective on the concept of the “second voyage” (deũteros ploũs), challenging the prevailing interpretation, on which the second voyage signifies the triumph of the... (shrink)

This study juxtaposes an imaginal inquiry into the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice with a historical exegesis of the ancient religious movement generally termed Orphism, which came to be associated with it. Inviting unconscious elements into the study of myth and subsequently elaborating a theoretical analysis as well as a creative project---as this study does in the form of a screenplay adaptation---corresponds to Carl Jung's theory of the transcendent function, which states that a new level of being is possible (...) by balancing these two approaches to such material. This study unfolds the myth's latent theology by dreaming it forward in this way. ;The principal thesis---that Orpheus looks back to Eurydice with purpose and an awareness that his gaze will cause her to return to Hades---is itself an example of unconscious material emerging into consciousness. The greater part of this study is devoted to deriving meaning from the twist that this re-imagining implies for the elucidation of myth in general and for the study of this myth in particular. ;A principle question addressed is "What aspects of the latent theology found to exist in this myth can be said to constitute a founder story of Orphism?" In addition, this study proposes the figure of Orpheus as emblematic of the active masculine principle---exalted in his balancing of solar and lunar masculinity---that provides a blueprint for a dualistic cognitive model of archetypal experience. ;This model posits that the dualities found in the myth, and sometimes in life, derive their patterning from the individual's inability to experience the archetype directly. Orpheus' look back exemplifies a breaching of the veil that separates us from the archetype, allowing a momentary interpenetration of the individual's sphere of consciousness with the essence of the archetype. It is thought that integration of unconscious and conscious material follows. Finally, how these insights can be applied to the lives of men and women is addressed in this study's conclusion. (shrink)

This book is an enquiry into memory in the Western world. Specifically, memory is the framework of culture, because it links the present to the past--or tradition--and projects it into the future. For this reason, any work focusing on memory involves a double challenge: (1) to reveal the origin of concepts and (2) to glimpse the course of thoughts. This is the case of the present volume, in which the authors make several tastings of Europe's intellectual heritage, by taking into (...) account both the Greek origin of this legacy and its relevance for understanding the European philosophical heritage. In particular, these papers focus on the Aristotelian tradition, the true keystone of Europe, and on other currents of thought that have also played an essential role in the intellectual evolution of the Old Continent. In the latter field, there are contributions, for instance, on philosophical-religious traditions such as Orphism or on certain fundamental aspects of Neoplatonism both in the Classical World and in Christian authors. The volume concludes with various works on the survival of these intellectual trends from the Renaissance to the present day. Consequently, this work offers the opportunity to delve deeper into some of the aspects that define Western civilisation, observed both from its origin and its evolution over the centuries. The volume contains papers in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and English. (shrink)

While Platonists are generally committed to a non-materialist worldview and the idea that human happiness is attained by caring for the immortal soul, they show less agreement on how the founding texts of their tradition, the Platonic dialogues, should be interpreted. After a discussion of Proclus’ philosophical sources and of the curriculum of the later Neoplatonists, the author tackles the question as to Proclus’ place in the Platonic tradition first by showing how Proclus himself regarded his predecessors, before pointing to (...) the limitations of Proclus’ own perspective. The author argues that Proclus indeed belonged to the strand of Platonism ready to go beyond the Plato’s words, but that his exegesis of Plato was much more inspired by Numenius’ allegorical interpretation and by Porphyry’s and Iamblichus’ project of reconciling Plato with Orphism and the Chaldean Oracles than Plotinus’. (shrink)