The Archaic takes as its major reference points C.G. Jung's classic essay, 'Archaic Man' (1930), and Ernesto Grassi's paper on 'Archaic theories of history' (1990). Moving beyond the confines of a Jungian framework to include other methodological approaches, this book explores the concept of the archaic. Defined as meaning 'old-fashioned', 'primitive', 'antiquated', the archaic is, in fact, much more than something very, very old: it is timeless, inasmuch as it is before time itself. Arch,̇ Urgrund, (...) Ungrund, 'primordial darkness', 'eternal nothing' are names for something essentially nameless, yet whose presence we nevertheless intuit. This book focuses on the reception of myth in the tradition of German Idealism or Romanticism (Creuzer, Schelling, Nietzsche), which not only looked back to earlier thinkers (such as Jacob Boehme) but also laid down roots for developments in twentieth-century thought (Ludwig Klages, Martin Heidegger). The Archaic also includes: - studies of the Germanic dimension of the archaic (Charles Bambach, Alan Cardew) - a discussion of the mytho-phenomenological approach to the archaic (Robert Josef Kozljani)̈ - a series of articles on Jung's understanding of the archaic (Paul Bishop, Susan Rowland, Robert Segal). This book will be of interest to psychoanalysts, anthropologists and phenomenologists, as well as students of psychology, cultural studies, religious studies, and philosophy, as it seeks to rehabilitate a concept of demonstrable and urgent relevance for our time. (shrink)

The Archaic takes as its major reference points C.G. Jung's classic essay, 'Archaic Man' (1930), and Ernesto Grassi's paper on 'Archaic theories of history' (1990). Moving beyond the confines of a Jungian framework to include other methodological approaches, this book explores the concept of the archaic. Defined as meaning 'old-fashioned', 'primitive', 'antiquated', the archaic is, in fact, much more than something very, very old: it is timeless, inasmuch as it is before time itself. Arch,̇ Urgrund, (...) Ungrund, 'primordial darkness', 'eternal nothing' are names for something essentially nameless, yet whose presence we nevertheless intuit. This book focuses on the reception of myth in the tradition of German Idealism or Romanticism (Creuzer, Schelling, Nietzsche), which not only looked back to earlier thinkers (such as Jacob Boehme) but also laid down roots for developments in twentieth-century thought (Ludwig Klages, Martin Heidegger). The Archaic also includes: - studies of the Germanic dimension of the archaic (Charles Bambach, Alan Cardew) - a discussion of the mytho-phenomenological approach to the archaic (Robert Josef Kozljani)̈ - a series of articles on Jung's understanding of the archaic (Paul Bishop, Susan Rowland, Robert Segal). This book will be of interest to psychoanalysts, anthropologists and phenomenologists, as well as students of psychology, cultural studies, religious studies, and philosophy, as it seeks to rehabilitate a concept of demonstrable and urgent relevance for our time. (shrink)

Cultural evolution, producing group‐level adaptations, is more problematic than the cultural evolution of individually confirmable skills, but it probably has occurred. The “conformist transmission,” described by Boyd and Richerson (1985), leads local social units to become homogeneous in anadaptive, as well as adaptive, beliefs. The resulting intragroup homogeneity and inter‐group heterogeneity makes possible a cultural selection of adaptive group ideologies.All archaic urban, division‐of‐labor social organizations had to overcome aspects of human nature produced by biological evolution, due to the predicament (...) of genetic competition among the cooperators. The universal norms found in archaic moral systems are seen as curbs to this human nature, reinforced by beliefs in invisible sanction systems and rewarding and punishing afterlives (as in heaven or reincarnation). Perhaps the ubiquity of lavishly wasteful royal funerals is to be explained as contributing to this function. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Achilles, Agamemnon, and Fair Distribution Justice as “Distinctively Human” Institutions and Values of the Early Polis What is Justice? The Voice of the Oppressed and the Origins of Political Thought The Egalitarian Response The Elitist Response Case Study: Sparta and the Politics of “Courage” A Second Case Study: Archaic Athens and the Search for Justice.

It seems to be widely agreed by modern scholars that when Solon created his four census-classes in early sixth-century Athens he gave to at least three of them – the ππες, the ζευγται and the θτες – names which were in pre-existing use there. But what, if so, did the names signify, before being assigned their new, official, quantitative Solonic sense? The archaic Athenian θτες were presumably recognizably akin to their Homeric and Hesiodic namesakes; and despite the etymological obscurity (...) of the word in any event, in practical terms it will have denoted men who by all relevant social, economic or military tests scored a negligible rating. In the case of higher scorers, however, it becomes important for us to discover precisely which criteria are being applied, and so it is the ππες and the ζευγται who have always posed the main interpretative puzzle. For the ζευγται Ehrenberg put it succinctly enough: ‘the zeugitai can be explained either as those who owned a pair of oxen under the yoke or those who are joined to their neighbours in the ranks of the phalanx’. Both these explanations – for convenience I shall call them the agricultural and the military – have indeed long had, and continue to have, their adherents. Most of the great nineteenth-century students of Staatsaltertümer took the agricultural line, usually without argument; and the standard lexica still do. In 1894, however, Conrad Cichorius made out a strong case for the military explanation, and he has had many followers, both witting and unwitting. (shrink)

Although the Greek language of the archaic period lacked nominative expressions equivalent to the English “knowledge”, Greek speakers and writers employed a number of verbs in speaking of those who fail or succeed in knowing some fact, truth, state of affairs, or area of expertise—most commonly eidenai, gignôskein, epistamai, sunienai, and noein (in its aorist forms). In the Homeric poems, knowledge can be attained either through direct observation, through a revelatory trial or testing procedure, or from the reliable testimony (...) of others (each of these approaches figures in the discovery of Odysseus’ identity). Three broad ‘epistemic sentiments’ pervade early Greek poetry: the inability of mortals to grasp the nature of things lying beyond their immediate experience; the inability of mortals to grasp the larger course of events or ‘conceiving of what lies ahead and behind’ (prossô kai opissô); and the ability of ‘gifted’ poets and seers to overcome these limitations by drawing upon divine sources of truth and wisdom. (shrink)

This article is based on a paper given in December 2013 at a German–Italian workshop on Jürgen Habermas’ theory. Massimo Rosati had been studying Jürgen Habermas’ thought and classical sociology in the Durkheimian tradition for years. Because of his own Durkheimian reading of communicative action, he had been unsurprised when Habermas began to write systematically on religion. In this article, he addresses the new post-secular sensitivity to the remnants of mimetic and mythic worldviews within theoretical ones and discusses the sacred (...) as a universal historical structure of human consciousness. (shrink)

Studies of ancient funerary rituals lead to the philosophical problem of the opposition of life and death. Ancient cultural forms that remove this opposition are based on the specifically irrational and correlate with irrational ideas about the soul and its destination after death. The modern rational mind eliminates these forms. Based on an ontologically balanced paradigmatic synthetic approach, considering the features of ontology and myth, a dynamic model of the archaic perception of death—metaphysics of overcoming—was formed. This integrated model (...) most accurately reflects the pre-philosophical way of the transcendence of the being. The metaphysics of overcoming can be the core of the ancient ritual comprehension theory. (shrink)

The word 'archaic' derives from the Greek arkhaios, which in turn is related to the word archē, meaning 'principle', 'origin', or 'cause'; the notion of ecstasy, or ekstasis, implies standing outside or beyond oneself, a self-transcendence. How these two concepts are articulated and co-implicated constitutes the core question underlying this edited collection, which examines both the present day and antiquity in order to trace the insistent presence of the ecstatic amid the archaic. Presented in three parts, the contributors (...) to this diverse book take the concept of the archaic in an entirely new direction. Part I, 'Ecstasy and the psychological', covers topics including Jung, Freud, ancient psychotherapy, desire, and theatre. Part II, 'Ecstatic-archaic history', considers Ludwig Klages, Orestes and Dionysus. Finally, Part III, 'Ancient ecstatic in other worlds', examines Luo Guanzhong's Three Kingdoms and Enki at Eridu. The collection offers a distinctive contextualisation of the dimension of the archaic in relation to the ecstatic experience. The Ecstatic and the Archaic will appeal to readers interested in the relationship between ancient and postmodern worlds, and in how the past manifests itself in the present. It will be of great interest to academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian ideas, classical religions and the history of ideas, as well as practitioners of analytical psychology and psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Theories of writing and mind have proposed that the uses of literacy give rise to a distinct repertoire of cognitive skills, attitudes, and concepts. This paper reconsiders the earliest lexical lists of the Ancient Near East as one type of evidence on writing and mind. Past and present conceptions of the lists are briefly reviewed. Early views cast the lists as reflecting a Sumerian mentality or a uniquely literate mode of thought, while recent accounts suggest they may simply be routine (...) scribal exercises. A view from the philosophy of science, on which lists are considered a sub-type of ordering system, suggests a way of aligning a scribal practice account with aspects of earlier views by articulating the nature of list entries and the intentions of the list makers. On this account, the Ancient Near Eastern lists can be seen both as uniquely literate and as uniquely informative on the role of writing in mind. (shrink)

Theories of writing and mind have proposed that the uses of literacy give rise to a distinct repertoire of cognitive skills, attitudes, and concepts. This paper reconsiders the earliest lexical lists of the Ancient Near East as one type of evidence on writing and mind. Past and present conceptions of the lists are briefly reviewed. Early views cast the lists as reflecting a Sumerian mentality or a uniquely literate mode of thought, while recent accounts suggest they may simply be routine (...) scribal exercises. A view from the philosophy of science, on which lists are considered a sub-type of ordering system, suggests a way of aligning a scribal practice account with aspects of earlier views by articulating the nature of list entries and the intentions of the list makers. On this account, the Ancient Near Eastern lists can be seen both as uniquely literate and as uniquely informative on the role of writing in mind. (shrink)

This article is based on a paper given in December 2013 at a German–Italian workshop on Jürgen Habermas’ theory. Massimo Rosati had been studying Jürgen Habermas’ thought and classical sociology in the Durkheimian tradition for years. Because of his own Durkheimian reading of communicative action, he had been unsurprised when Habermas began to write systematically on religion. In this article, he addresses the new post-secular sensitivity to the remnants of mimetic and mythic worldviews within theoretical ones and discusses the sacred (...) as a universal historical structure of human consciousness. (shrink)

More than a decade of exacting scientific research involving paleontological fragments and ancient DNA has lately produced a series of pronouncements about a purportedly novel population of archaic hominins dubbed “the Denisova.” The science involved in these matters is both technically stunning and, socially, at times a bit reckless. Here I discuss the responsibilities which scientists incur when they make inductively risky pronouncements about the different relative contributions by Denisovans to genomes of members of apparent subpopulations of current humans. (...) This science is sensational: it is science which empirically speculates, to the public delight’s and entertainment, about scintillating topics such as when humans evolved, where we came from, and who else we were having sex with during our early hominin history. An initial characterization of sensational science emerges from my discussion of the case, as well as a diagnosis of an interactive phenomenon termed amplified inductive risk. (shrink)

My article – as a first step in a comprehen- sive research program – attempts to verify the hypothesis according to which M. Eliade’s morphologi-cal and historical investigations of archaic religious- ness reveal the outlines of an archaic ontology. For this purpose, the article focuses upon Eliade’s conception of religious tradition as the carrier of the indivisible unity of sacred existence and religious experience. The ontological difference found in religious existence and revealed by religious experience is rooted in (...) the essentially hermeneutic nature of religious tradition. Therefore the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics proves very productive in the investigation of this problem. (shrink)

The present study focuses on the religious minority arising from the implementation of the Gregorian calendar in Romania. Christian religious community of the Old Style is defined both historically and through psycho-social elements that caused the secession of belivers together with clerics from the Romanian Orthodox Church. Special attention is given to magical-religious beliefs observed with ethnological research tools, including: magical perception of time and especially of the agrarian calendar, faith in miraculous natural signs, survivals of animist religion. The study (...) of this religious community provides information on internal mechanisms for the appearance and development of minority phenomenon. The research is conducted beyond the issue of minority ethnic differentiations that has dominated multiculturalism studies. On the contrary, the existence of this religious minority in the third millennium, that is intra-ethnic developed and defined by ethno-cultural values eminently conservative, may explain a specific paradox of the strong Romanian religiosity which is essentially a rural and traditionalist one. (shrink)

Basileia and tyrannis: exploding myths -- Arete and the right to rule -- Ruling families -- Rulers in the polis -- Epilogue: Athens, ruling and arete.

It is 2048 BE; the Anonyma Network, represented by a young philosopher known affectionately as Annie, offers this fiftieth anniversary edition of Mary Daly's revolutionary work of Radical Elemental Feminism, Quintessence ... Realizing the Archaic Future. Mary Daly has, for the past thirty years, been at the forefront of radical feminist thinking. Here she exposes and examines the abuses women face at the end of the twentieth century - for example, the dangerous rhetoric of the Promise Keepers; the systematic (...) rape of women in war zones like Bosnia; and the invasive manipulation of women's bodies and all of nature in genetic engineering, fertility experiments, and cloning. But she also offers a "Far-Out Vision and Hope for Wonderlusting Women" who are beginning to discover Quintessence: Spirit that fills the universe and gives it life and vitality. (shrink)