University of St Andwers

Philosophy and Religion

in Ancient Greece and the Islamic World

Description and organization

The School of Classics at St Andrews is holding a one-day workshop on the interface between philosophy and religion in the ancient Greek and Islamic worlds. The workshop will be held in person (School of Classics, Room S11) and online (via MS Teams).

Organisers: Olaf Almqvist (oha1@st-andrews.ac.uk) and Alex Long (agl10@st-andrews.ac.uk).

 

Programme

9.30am Olaf Almqvist, St Andrews
‘God is day night, winter summer, war peace, golden winged, two horned, and born from an egg: Reflections on the Orphic Protogonos and Presocratic Theology’

10.30am Tom Harrison, St Andrews
‘The unknowability of the divine in classical Greek thought’

[short break]

12 noon Zhenyu Cai, Cambridge
‘Al-Fārābī, Avicenna, and Averroes on Reason and Revelation’

[lunch]

1.30pm Fedor Benevich, Edinburgh
‘Personal Identity in Islamic Philosophy of Religion’

2.30pm Feriel Bouhafa, Cambridge
‘Different Grounds for Human Moral Obligation (Taklīf) in Islamic Theology and Philosophy’

[short break]

4pm Peter Adamson, LMU
‘Do Giraffes Have an Afterlife? A Muslim Theologian-Philosopher on Animal Souls’

Contact

agl10@st-andrews.ac.uk

oha1@st-andrews.ac.uk

Link

https://events.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/philosophy-and-religion-in-ancient-greece-and-the-islamic-world/

Plotinus and the Presocratics

A Philosophical Study of Presocratic Influences in Plotinus’ Enneads

Giannis Stamatellos, New York: Suny Press, 2008

Description

Filling the void in the current scholarship, Giannis Stamatellos provides the first book-length study of the Presocratic influences in Plotinus’ Enneads. Widely regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (204–270 AD) assimilated eight centuries of Greek thought into his work. In this book Stamatellos focuses on eminent Presocratic thinkers who are significant in Plotinus’ thought, including Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the early Pythagoreans, and the early Atomists. The Presocratic references found in the Enneads are studied in connection with Plotinus’ fundamental theories of the One and the unity of being, intellect and the structure of the intelligible world, the nature of eternity and time, the formation of the material world, and the nature of the ensouled body. Stamatellos concludes that, contrary to modern scholarship’s dismissal of Presocratic influence in the Enneads, Presocratic philosophy is in fact an important source for Plotinus, which he recognized as valuable in its own right and adapted for key topics in his thought.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Origins of Plotinus’ Philosophy

1. 1 Plotinus’ Predecessors
1. 2 Plotinus’ Philosophical Method
1. 2.1 Lectures and Writings
1. 2.2 Language, Simile, and Metaphor
1. 2.3 Quoting Predecessors
1. 3 Plotinus’ Philosophical Sources
1. 3.1 Plato
1. 3.2 Aristotle
1. 3.3 Stoics and Epicureans
1. 3.4 Middle-Platonists, Aristotelians, and Neopythagoreans
1. 3.5 Gnostics, Christians, the Orient, and other Contemporary Movements
1. 4 Plotinus and the Presocratics

2. One and Unity

2. 1 The One in Plotinus
2. 2 The Presocratic One in the Enneads
2. 3 Parmenides’ Monism
2. 4 The Ineffable One
2. 4.1 The Apophatism of the First Principle
2. 4.2 The Pythagorean Apophatism of the Monad
2. 5 The One as First Principle
2. 5.1 Heraclitus’ One
2. 5.2 Empedocles’ Philia
2. 5.3 Anaxagoras’ Mind

3. Intellect and Being

3. 1 Plotinus’ Theory of Intellect
3. 2 Eleatic Being in the Enneads
3. 3 The Nature of Being
3. 3.1 Parmenides’ Theory of Being
3. 3.2 Plotinus on Parmenides’ Being
3. 3.3 Thinking and Being
3. 4 The Predicates of Being
3. 4.1 Ungenerated and Indestructible
3. 4.2 Indivisible and Self-identical
3. 4.3 Imperturbable and Changeless

4. Eternity and Time

4. 1 Plotinus’ Theory of Eternity and Time
4. 2 Eternity and Time in the Presocratics
4. 3 The Presocratic Theories of Eternity and Time in the Enneads
4. 4 The Timelessness of Being
4. 4.1 Philolaus’ Eternal Continuance and Plato’s Eternity of the Forms
4. 4.2 Parmenides’ Timelessness of Being
4. 4.3 Plotinus’ Timelessness of Eternity
4. 5 The Eternal Life of Intellect
4. 5.1 Eternity in Heraclitus
4. 5.2 Eternal Life in Empedocles
4. 6 The Everlastingness of Time
4. 6.1 The Myth of Time
4. 6.2 The Everlastingness of the Cosmos
4. 6.3 The Movement of the Spheres, Eternal Recurrence, and Spiral Time

5. Matter and Soul

5. 1 Matter and Ensouled Body in Plotinus
5. 2 Plotinus’ Criticism of Presocratic Matter
5. 2.1 Anaximander’s apeiron
5. 2.2 Empedocles’ Theory of the Four Elements
5. 2.3 Anaxagoras’ Theory of Matter
5. 2.4 The Atomic Theory of Matter
5. 3 Plotinus’ Theory of the Ensouled Body
5. 3.1 The Presocratic Theories of the Ensouled Body in the Enneads
5. 3.2 Heraclitus’ Theory of Soul and Physical Alteration
5. 3.3 The daimo¯n in Empedocles

6. Conclusion
Appendix. Text of Presocratic Fragments in Plotinus’ Enneads
Notes
Bibliography
Index Fontium
Index of Concepts and Proper Names

Link

https://sunypress.edu/Books/P/Plotinus-and-the-Presocratics

Penser les dieux avec les présocratiques

Rossella Saetta Cottone (dir.) et al., Paris: Presses ENS, 2021

Description

À l’aube du ve siècle, les Grecs ont pris leurs distances avec les croyances traditionnelles et on voit s’élaborer les premières explications rationnelles du monde. Impliquent-elles une forme d’athéisme? Ou entraînent-elles de nouvelles conceptions religieuses comme l’ont estimé les historiens de la philosophie jusqu’à une date récente? Dans les écrits fragmentaires des sages présocratiques, les dieux sont présents différemment, les représentations religieuses antérieures mises en question et le langage des mythes se transforme jusque dans le sens des noms. Intégrant les résultats des dernières
découvertes papyrologiques, cet ouvrage met en évidence les liens inextricables qui unissent la pensée cosmologique et éthique des Anciens, leurs croyances et leur réflexion sur la langue. Pour penser contre les dieux, il aura déjà fallu les penser.

Table de matières

Avant-propos, par Rossella SAETTA COTTONE

Première partieQuestions préliminaires

Is Presocratic Cosmology Atheistic ?, par Rosemary WRIGHT

Deuxième partieGénéalogies divines

L’invention du Chaos, par Glenn MOST

The Mission of the Chosen Bard. To Reveal the History of the Gods in Order to Reform the World of the Men, par Philippe ROUSSEAU

Les dieux dans le papyrus de Derveni. À propos d’Ouranos, de Cronos et de Zeus, par Alberto BERNABÉ

Troisième partieLes dieux sur terre et dans l’univers

Le divin, les dieux et le mouvement éternel dans l’univers d’Anaximandre, par Luan REBOREDO

L’uomo divino. Azione e conoscenza in Eraclito, Parmenide e Zenone, par Federica MONTEVECCHI

Les déesses de Parménide, par Livio ROSSETTI

Are Empedoclean Daimons Really Made of Anything ? The Nature of the Daimon and Fragment 115, par Carlo SANTANIELLO

L’être et le non-être des dieux chez Protagoras, par Fulcran TEISSERENC

Quatrième partie – Les dieux dans le théâtre athénien

Ancient Orphism and “Presocratic” Philosophy in Euripides’ Tragedies. Some (Scattered) Thoughts, par Valeria PIANO

Une anthropologie religieuse à la manière de Xénophane dans l’Iphigénie en Tauride d’Euripide, par Rossella SAETTA COTTONE

Socrate psuchagogos. À propos d’Aristophane, Oiseaux, v. 1553-1564, par Alessandro STAVRU

Résumés

Bibliographie

Index des noms propres et des notions

Lien

https://www.presses.ens.fr/591-etudes-de-litterature-ancienne-penser-les-dieux-avec-les-presocratiques.html