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Author: Peter Struck
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
Divination and Human Nature casts a new perspective on the rich tradition of ancient divination—the reading of divine signs in oracles, omens, and dreams. Popular attitudes during classical antiquity saw these readings as signs from the gods while modern scholars have treated such beliefs as primitive superstitions. In this book, Peter Struck reveals instead that such phenomena provoked an entirely different accounting from the ancient philosophers. These philosophers produced subtle studies into what was an odd but observable fact—that humans could sometimes have uncanny insights—and their work signifies an early chapter in the cognitive history of intuition. Examining the writings of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists, Struck demonstrates that they all observed how, setting aside the charlatans and swindlers, some people had premonitions defying the typical bounds of rationality. Given the wide differences among these ancient thinkers, Struck notes that they converged on seeing this surplus insight as an artifact of human nature, projections produced under specific conditions by our physiology. For the philosophers, such unexplained insights invited a speculative search for an alternative and more naturalistic system of cognition. Recovering a lost piece of an ancient tradition, Divination and Human Nature illustrates how philosophers of the classical era interpreted the phenomena of divination as a practice closer to intuition and instinct than magic.
Author: Peter Struck
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Get Book Here
Book Description
Divination and Human Nature casts a new perspective on the rich tradition of ancient divination—the reading of divine signs in oracles, omens, and dreams. Popular attitudes during classical antiquity saw these readings as signs from the gods while modern scholars have treated such beliefs as primitive superstitions. In this book, Peter Struck reveals instead that such phenomena provoked an entirely different accounting from the ancient philosophers. These philosophers produced subtle studies into what was an odd but observable fact—that humans could sometimes have uncanny insights—and their work signifies an early chapter in the cognitive history of intuition. Examining the writings of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists, Struck demonstrates that they all observed how, setting aside the charlatans and swindlers, some people had premonitions defying the typical bounds of rationality. Given the wide differences among these ancient thinkers, Struck notes that they converged on seeing this surplus insight as an artifact of human nature, projections produced under specific conditions by our physiology. For the philosophers, such unexplained insights invited a speculative search for an alternative and more naturalistic system of cognition. Recovering a lost piece of an ancient tradition, Divination and Human Nature illustrates how philosophers of the classical era interpreted the phenomena of divination as a practice closer to intuition and instinct than magic.
Author: J. P. F. Wynne
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107070481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
Do the gods love you? Cicero gives deep and surprising answers in two philosophical dialogues on traditional Roman religion.
Author: Donald E. Brown
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816510603
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 406
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Book Description
"Here is a book that I can strongly recommend for a variety of reasons. It is well written, it is scholarly, but its greatest appeal lies in the posing of an important question and in the offering of a satisfying (to this reviewer, at least) answer."ÑJournal of Historical Geography "This is an intriguing and stimulating study of historical differences in the indigenous historiography of parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe."ÑAmerican Anthropologist."
Author: Sarah Iles Johnston
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444303007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
The first English-language survey of ancient Greek divinatorymethods, Ancient Greek Divination offers a broad yetdetailed treatment of the earliest attempts by ancient Greeks toseek the counsel of the gods. Offers in-depth discussions of oracles, wandering diviners,do-it-yourself methods of foretelling the future, magicaldivinatory techniques, and much more Illustrates how the study of divination illuminates thementalities of ancient Greek religions and societies
Author: Elsa Giovanna Simonetti
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9462701113
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
An in-depth analysis of oracular divination in Plutarch’s thought Oracular divination was of special concern for Plutarch of Chaeronea (45–120 AD), Platonic philosopher as well as priest at the oracle of Apollo in Delphi. The peculiar nature of Delphic divination as an (im)perfect intermediary between the material and the immaterial world is fathomed in a thorough study of Plutarch’s Delphic dialogues. This in-depth philosophical-conceptual analysis will disclose an original interpretation of oracular divination in Plutarch as interconnected with his psychological and cosmological conceptions. A Perfect Medium? reveals the Delphic temple as a crucial element in Plutarch’s philosophy, as a microcosm reflecting the cosmic dynamics, and as a symbol embodying the relationship between human thirst for knowledge and divine absolute wisdom.
Author: Robert Greene
Publisher: Robert Greene
ISBN:
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 73
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Book Description
SUMMARY: This book is If you’ve ever wondered about human behavior, wonder no more. In The Laws of Human Nature, Greene takes a look at 18 laws that reveal who we are and why we do the things we do. Humans are complex beings, but Greene uses these laws to strip human nature down to its bare bones. Every law that he presents is supported by a real-life historical account, with an insightful twist to drive the point home. As you read the book, don’t be surprised if you get the feeling that everyone you know, including yourself, is described in the book! DISCLAIMER: This is an UNOFFICIAL summary and not the original book. It is designed to record all the key points of the original book.
Author: Eric Downing
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501715925
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 394
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Book Description
In The Chain of Things, Eric Downing shows how the connection between divinatory magic and reading shaped the experience of reading and aesthetics among nineteenth-century realists and modernist thinkers. He explores how writers, artists, and critics such as Gottfried Keller, Theodor Fontane, and Walter Benjamin drew on the ancient practice of divination, connecting the Greek idea of sympathetic magic to the German aesthetic concept of the attunement of mood and atmosphere. Downing deftly traces the genealogical connection between reading and art in classical antiquity, nineteenth-century realism, and modernism, attending to the ways in which the modern re-enchantment of the world—both in nature and human society—consciously engaged ancient practices that aimed at preternatural prediction. Of particular significance to the argument presented in The Chain of Things is how the future figured into the reading of texts during this period, a time when the future as a narrative determinant or article of historical faith was losing its force. Elaborating a new theory of magic as a critical tool, Downing secures crucial links between the governing notions of time, world, the "real," and art.
Author: Velma E. Love
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271061456
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159
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Book Description
Divining the Self weaves elements of personal narrative, myth, history, and interpretive analysis into a vibrant tapestry that reflects the textured, embodied, and performative nature of scripture and scripturalizing practices. Velma Love examines the Odu—the Yoruba sacred scriptures—along with the accompanying mythology, philosophy, and ritual technologies engaged by African Americans. Drawing from the personal narratives of African American Ifa practitioners along with additional ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Oyotunji African Village, South Carolina, and New York City, Love’s work explores the ways in which an ancient worldview survives in modern times. Divining the Self also takes up the challenge of determining what it means for the scholar of religion to study scripture as both text and performance. This work provides an excellent case study of the sociocultural phenomenon of scripturalizing practices.
Author: Sarah Iles Johnston
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047407962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
This book thoroughly revisits divination as a central phenomenon in the lives of ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. It collects studies from many periods in Graeco-Roman history, from the Archaic period to the late Roman, and touches on many different areas of this rich topic, including treatments of dice oracles, sortition in both pagan and Christian contexts, the overlap between divination and other interpretive practices in antiquity, the fortunes of independent diviners, the activity of Delphi in ordering relations with the dead, the role of Egyptian cult centers in divinatory practices, and the surreptitious survival of recipes for divination by corpses. It also reflects a ranges of methodologies, drawn from anthropology, history of religions, intellectual history, literary studies, and archaeology, epigraphy, and paleography. It will be of particular interest to scholars and student of ancient Mediterranean religions.
Author: Eliot Deutsch
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631213277
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 608
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Book Description
This outstanding volume offers students, teachers and general readers a complete introductory survey of the major non-western philosophical traditions.
