John Philoponus and Maximus the Confessor at the Crossroads of Philosophical and Theological Thought in Late Antiquity (original) (raw)
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A credible synthesis of the biographical and intellectual profile of the Uniate Cretan scribe John Plousiadenos is traced back to the middle of the twentieth century, worded by Manoussos Manoussakas. 1 Modern scholars tend to base their studies solely on Manoussakas' work and focus mostly on Plousiadenos' religious, apologetic and hymnographic essays. 2 Indeed, compared to his contemporary Cretan coreligionists, Plousiadenos left many remarkable treatises in favor of the Union of the Churches. 3 Among them, the Διάλεξις is considered one of the most interesting and lively works of his career. Its full title is Διάλεξις γενομένη μεταξὺ Εὐλαβοῦς τινος, καὶ Τελώνου, Ῥακενδύτου τε, καὶ ἑνὸς τῶν δώδεκα ἑνωτικῶν ἱερέων, παρόντων καὶ ἑτέρων τριῶν ἐκεῖσε, Ἀκροατοῦ δηλονότι, Μάρτυρος, καὶ Δικαιοκρίτου, περὶ τῆς διαφορᾶς τῆς οὔσης μέσον Γραικῶν καὶ Λατίνων, ἔτι τε καὶ περὶ τῆς ἱερᾶς καὶ ἁγίας συνόδου τῆς ἐν Φλωρεντίᾳ γενομένης. 4 The information in this interlocutory treatise has been used by Manoussakas and others 5 as reliable historical and autobiographical source material for the delineation of the religious state of affairs, and particularly the anti-unionist context, in Venetian Crete in the second half of the fifteenth century. However, as this * I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Antonio Rigo for his comments and suggestions. A book on John Plousiadenos' life and career, based on the author's PhD thesis, will be published shortly.
Philosophy in Antiquity: The Greeks
LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2015
This work looks at the main themes, concepts and lead figures of the Hellenic philosophical tradition that not only influenced the Greek and then Latin world in antiquity, but also had a lasting influence on intellectual and theological development in the West right up until the Age of Enlightenment. To this end, the focus is on the Socratic tradition, through Plato and then Aristotle, and then the Stoic tradition whose strong imprint can be found on early Christianity, representing the core seed of Western theological evolution via Judaism, Christianity and then Islam.
The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy
Ancient Philosophy, 2001
The format of this book is not a new one for treating the early Greek philosophers. The first 'companions' we composed by Fifth Century B.C. sophists, and were consulted by Plato and Aristotle. For most of the last two a half millennia, some form of 'companion' volume was used by just about everyone who worked on ancien philosophy. These books have always been organized either according to individual philosophers, or by topi (The present volume contains both types of essay.) Several of these, treating similar subject matter as the present volume, have been published in the last thirty years (see bibliographic entries #139-161). This volum compares favorably, but does not totally supersede them. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosop (CCEGP) is recommended especially to undergraduates interested in any aspect of philosophy, graduate stud specializing in ancient philosophy, and professional scholars interested in the history of philosophy. As a graduate student specializing in ancient philosophy, I find the book a tremendous resource, which manages consolidate a lot of information, summarize recent scholarship, and, in many cases, introduce novel ways of approaching the material. Professional ancient philosophers might find the volume more hit-and-miss than But even they will probably find it a useful 'conspectus of recent developments', a sort of Presocratics versio 9.0 or Presocratics 2000, for those who have not updated their files and operating system lately. The first two essays deal with overarching issues fundamental to the study of the early Greek philosopherstheir scope and sources. The following two essays deal with two tribes of early Greek philosophers, the Milesians and the Pythagoreans. The next five deal with individual philosophers, followed by four topical essays. Finally, there are two essays on the sophists, and a 'coda' on poetics. Rounding the volume out is a 55 entry annotated bibliography (focusing on recent, standard, or English works), an index of passages (source and philosophers), and a crucial name and subject index (many of the philosophers and topics are treated in multiple essays). The official program starts with the editor's effort to define "the scope of early Greek philosophy." This is difficult in the extreme, because we are dealing with several figures and movements that are discrete geographically, temporally, and in dialect, yet interpenetrate intellectually and topically. Already in the ancie world some of them were considered 'ancient' and obscure. They are far-flung: they spanned about 20 degre of longitude, and two and a half centuries; they practiced variously as doctors, lawyers, politicians, priests, professors, engineers, and entertainers; they wrote in poetry, prose, paradoxes, and technical handbooks. (S the CCEGP conveniently contains a map, chronology, and summary of what is known about their lives and writings.) The question of what unites them, besides the fact that they lived before, say, Aristotle (some of th
An introduction to ancient Greek philosophers and litterateurs
Anthology of ancient Greek authors (in Greek). Athens: Giourdas, 2006
The anthology of ancient Greek texts that you have in your hands is a useful guide for your access to the intellectual works of the Attic period of Greek literature, since it suggests subjects of study, which can be studied as such in depth, but also in parallel with the other thematographies and with the best-known texts of the time and it is possible to serve both informatively and critically. It expands your knowledge of the Attic orators, historians and philosophers of the period, and your familiarity with the Attic dialect of the ancient Greek language, with a range of new words and etymological information. You can use it in your lesson to cultivate students' self-activity, their ability to judge and evaluate educational goods, develop their aesthetic literacy and good supervision of the length, size and weight of their written works of the Attic period, in the genres of rhetoric, philosophy and historiography. The structure of the anthology allows you to make your approach flexible, depending on each text and author. You can, therefore, give small factual introductions, concerning the meaning, the cultural and ideological elements, and the motivations of the persons. Very important is the overview regarding the synchronic connections between the various texts, but also the timeless significance and interpretation of their content. However, each text is a whole of its own meaning and the reception of the ideas and information it offers is possible by focusing on its structure and content. We examine both the elements of form and the individual linguistic elements, in the function that exists between them. Editorial comments reveal the entire structure of the text, focus on its content, and reveal the author's temperament.
The origins of Greek thought. Review of M. Sassi, 'Beginnings of Philosophy in Greece'
Aristeas. Philologia classica et historia antiqua, 2021
This is a full text of the review of M. Sassi's monograph 'The beginnings of philosophy in Greece' (2018), a very brief exposition of which has been published previously in Classical Review. While passing a generally favorable verdict on the value of Sassi''s contribution to the study of this much-debated topic, the author also criticizes somewhat excessive 'pluralism' of 'beginnings' admitted by Sassi, by emphasizing the fundamental and leading role of the two main 'beginnings', represented by the Ionian Peri physeos historia, a detached scientific study of nature (physis), on the one hand, and the Italian (Pythagorean and Eleatic) 'search for wisdom' (philosophy as a way of life), primarily centered on psyche and setting life-building and educational goals. By engaging in a dialogue with Sassi, the author takes opportunity to expose his own views on the origin of Greek philosophy and science that disagree with much of what one can read in modern histories of ancient philosophy about Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoreans, Alcmaeon and other Pre-Platonic thinkers. This disagreement results not so much from the invention of new interpretations, as from the rejection of the 19th - 20th centuries hypercritical approach to the sources of Preplatonic philosophy, as well as from the rejection of the false category of 'Presocrastics' together with the ill-founded doxographical theory of Diels, and a return to the ancient tradition combined with respect to the opinion of the ancient readers of the lost Preplatonic works: the study of 'hermeneutical isoglosses' and reliance on the consensus of independent ancient readers who possessed the complete texts of the lost Pre-Platonic works. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae provides a powerful tool for this research, unknown to previous generations of scholars.