The Epic Cycle and the uniqueness of Homer

1977 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 39-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasper Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Large Body ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
The Other ◽  
Short Account ◽  
Heroic Poetry ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

The Homeric poems are the subject of such a flood of print that a definite justification is needed by one who adds to it. Especially perhaps is this so if the Epic Cycle is to be involved; ‘enough and too much has been written about the Epic Cycle’, said T. W. Allen in 1908. My argument will be that the Cycle has still not been fully exploited as a source to show, by comparison and contrast, the particular character and style of the two great epics, particularly the Iliad. With the domination of Homeric scholarship in English by formulaic studies on the one hand and archaeology on the other, the poems themselves have perhaps been less discussed than might have been expected, and the uniqueness of the Homeric style and picture of the world has not been fully brought out. Most treatments of the Cycle have been concerned to assert or to deny that it contained poems or incidents earlier than the surviving epics, a question which will not be raised here. Most recent writers on Homer have more or less ignored the Cycle; even Hermann Fränkel, the first part of whose book Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums (2nd edition 1962; now available in English, Poetry and Philosophy in Early Greece [1975]), is perhaps the most illuminating single work to have appeared on Homer in this century, does not discuss it, although it could have been made to support many of his arguments. No inferences are based on it, for example, in Wace and Stubbings, Companion to Homer, nor by Sir Maurice Bowra in his posthumous Homer. ‘My remarks are restricted to the two epics’, says J. B. Hainsworth in his short account; and G. S. Kirk, who does refer to the style of the fragments, does so summarily and without quotation. Yet after all the Cycle was a large body of early Greek heroic poetry, composed at a time not too far removed from that of the great epics, and at least passing as being in the same manner. We have some 120 lines quoted in the original, and a good deal of information about the content of the poems. If it proves possible to draw from this material any clear contrast with the Iliad, it may be felt that this will bring out the individuality of the latter even more strikingly than does the epic poetry, currently more often invoked, of the ancient Hittites or the modern Yugoslavs.

The Animistic Way: Contemporary Paganism and the Posthuman

Poligrafi ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 107-127
Author(s):  
Victoria Dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Julia Kristeva ◽  
The Other ◽  
Relational Ontology ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Human World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Contemporary Paganism

This article aims to explore the affinities between contemporary Paganism and the posthuman project in how they approach the non-human natural world. On the one hand, posthumanism explores new ways of considering the notion of humans and how they are linked with the non-human world. On the other hand, Neopaganism expands this reflection to the spiritual domain through its animistic relational sensibility. Both perspectives challenge the modern paradigm where nature and humans are opposed and mutually disconnected. They instead propose a relational ontology that welcomes the “different other.” This integrated relationship between humans and the “other than human” can be understood through the semiotic Chora, a notion belonging to Julia Kristeva that addresses how the subject is not symbolically separated from the world in which it is contained.

Ibn al-‘Arabi, Muhyi al-Din (1164–1240)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal Robinson
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Inner Experience ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Creation ◽  
One And Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Southeast Spain ◽  
The Way

Ibn al-‘Arabi was a mystic who drew on the writings of Sufis, Islamic theologians and philosophers in order to elaborate a complex theosophical system akin to that of Plotinus. He was born in Murcia (in southeast Spain) in AH 560/ad 1164, and died in Damascus in AH 638/ad 1240. Of several hundred works attributed to him the most famous are al-Futuhat al-makkiyya (The Meccan Illuminations) and Fusus al-hikam (The Bezels of Wisdom). The Futuhat is an encyclopedic discussion of Islamic lore viewed from the perspective of the stages of the mystic path. It exists in two editions, both completed in Damascus – one in AH 629/ad 1231 and the other in AH 636/ad 1238 – but the work was conceived in Mecca many years earlier, in the course of a vision which Ibn al-‘Arabi experienced near the Kaaba, the cube-shaped House of God which Muslims visit on pilgrimage. Because of its length, this work has been relatively neglected. The Fusus, which is much shorter, comprises twenty-seven chapters named after prophets who epitomize different spiritual types. Ibn al-‘Arabi claimed that he received it directly from Muhammad, who appeared to him in Damascus in AH 627/ad 1229. It has been the subject of over forty commentaries. Although Ibn al-‘Arabi was primarily a mystic who believed that he possessed superior divinely-bestowed knowledge, his work is of interest to the philosopher because of the way in which he used philosophical terminology in an attempt to explain his inner experience. He held that whereas the divine Essence is absolutely unknowable, the cosmos as a whole is the locus of manifestation of all God’s attributes. Moreover, since these attributes require the creation for their expression, the One is continually driven to transform itself into Many. The goal of spiritual realization is therefore to penetrate beyond the exterior multiplicity of phenomena to a consciousness of what subsequent writers have termed the ‘unity of existence’. This entails the abolition of the ego or ‘passing away from self’ (fana’) in which one becomes aware of absolute unity, followed by ‘perpetuation’ (baqa’) in which one sees the world as at once One and Many, and one is able to see God in the creature and the creature in God.

scholarly journals Seeing God. Thomas Aquinas on Divine Presence in the World

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 739-749 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Roszak ◽  
Tomasz Huzarek
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Natural Level ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Changing World

Abstract: How to recognize the presence of God in the world? Thomas Aquinas' proposition, based on the efficient, exemplary and intentional causality, including both the natural level and grace, avoids several simplifications, the consequence of which is transcendent blindness. On the one hand, it does not allow to fall into a panentheistic reductionism involving God into the game of His variability in relation to the changing world. The sensitivity of Thomas in interpreting a real existing world makes it impossible to close the subject in the ''house without windows'', from where God can only be presumed. On the other hand, the proposal of Aquinas avoids the radical transcendence of God, according to which He has nothing to do with the world.

scholarly journals A Critic to Darwinian Theory on Resources Scarcity on the Basis of Quranic Verses

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Ramezan Mahdavi Azadboni
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biological Resource ◽  
Biological Resources ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

One of the important components in the theory of the evolution of species is the idea of natural selection. The question is, are the assumptions of the subject in the idea of natural selection compatible with the religious conception of nature and the world around? In this study, the author will discover on the base of Quranic verses that how the theory of biological resource scarcity as one of the basic assumptions in the idea of natural selection conflicts with the Qur'anic interpretation regarding nature. If we can show the lack of credibility and inaccuracy of the idea of the biological resources scarcity and the inappropriateness of biological resources with the needs of the creatures-as one of the assumptions underlying evolutionary theory-in this case, an important step has been to distort the above-mentioned theorem. In the Holy Qur'an, traits such as selfishness are often warned that are considered as the basis of excesses leads to poverty and shortages. Quraanic promises according to which righteous individuals will govern on earth, on the one hand, and the divine promise of securing the living of the beings on the other hand effectively challenges the idea of natural selection.

Conditions for Discussing and Comprehending Georationality

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 7-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vadim M. Rozin
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
The World ◽  
Single Process ◽  
Pluralistic Approach ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Independent Behavior

The article examines the debate between, on the one hand, the proponents of the position that European reason and logic are universal and therefore the dialogue between West and East will always be unequal and, on the other hand, the advocates of a pluralistic approach, who defend the equality of parties in the dialogue as well as the independence of cultures and ways of thinking in different regions of the world. The author expands the agenda of the debate, appealing to the authors of the book Dialogue of Cultures in a Globalizing World. In addition, the author clarifies the concept of globalization, used by many participants in the discussion, and also formulates his own understanding of philosophy. The author considers philosophy, firstly, as a way of deconstructing reality that has ceased to respond to the challenges of time, secondly, as a process of the creation of schemes defining new reality and objects and, thirdly, as personal and professional methods for solving these problems. The article also discusses the condition of the comprehension of procedural phenomena. Thus, there is a methodological approach that makes possible, according to Kant, to grasp the essence of complex systemic phenomena. Therefore, the author examines a case in which C.G. Jung talks about one of his own child experiences. The author argues that the conditions of the comprehension of processuality are, on the one hand, the formation of a special integrity that is personality and, on the other hand, its actions, which make it possible to assemble the discrete states identified by the researcher into a single process. The personality is considered as the subject who, starting from ancient culture, aims for independent behavior, partially overcomes social and cultural dependence, begins to build his own world and himself in this world.

The function and evasion of marriage fines on a fourteenth-century English manor

1999 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
MIRIAM MÜLLER
Keyword(s):  
Good Deal ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Black Death ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Financial Disincentives ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

Since Vinogradoff described merchet payments as ‘the most odious’ of the numerous manorial exactions for which villein tenants were liable, the fine for marriage, classically defined as a levy due from the villein upon the marriage of his daughter, has received a good deal of attention from historians. Although the issue of marriage licences has accordingly been tackled from various perspectives, in recent years the subject at the heart of a number of contributions to the topic was the question of seigneurial control. In tackling this matter, one has to ask what kind of control a manorial lord could or would want to exercise over the matters of matrimony of his social inferiors.An important contribution to the debate was provided in 1979 by Eleanor Searle. A key element in her argument was that marriage licences essentially constituted a tax on the chattels taken as dowry by the bride into her marriage, and as such were not universally enforced. Further, in her view merchet did not so much constitute a test of the status of the individual as one of tenure. At the same time she argued that merchets could be used by the lord to vet prospective marriage partners and thus control the transfers of tenant property lest the latter should slip into freehold tenure. By imposing financial disincentives, merchets, it was argued, also encouraged endogenous marriages. Richard Smith, while arguing that the rates of licences to marry were unlikely to reflect a proportional tax on dowries, nevertheless showed that merchets were not universally exacted and tended to fall predominantly upon richer tenants. Thus he took issue with R. Faith, who in a rejoinder to Searle's contribution suggested that the marriage licence constituted a tax on the marriage itself and was as such universally exacted.In order to consider these problems and test some of the propositions that have been made, this study aims to examine the practice of seigneurial exaction and hence the function of marriage licences, on the one hand, and the relevance and nature of tenant evasion of merchet payments on the other, on one manor from 1330 to 1377. Changes in seigneurial policy towards merchet payments will be analysed and placed in the wider context of the demographic and socio-economic changes affecting manorial life in this period. Within this framework three intertwined aspects of the licence to marry will be examined. First, focusing on the question of which tenants were liable to pay merchets and what constituted the criteria for this liability, the theory and practice of merchet exaction will be considered. Secondly the reasons for the lord's interest in the marriages of his tenants in conjunction with the routes open to him to influence villein marriages to his advantage will be explored. Thirdly the extent and consequences of tenant evasion of merchet fines will be assessed, whilst the clash between lord and tenant over marriage fines will be viewed in the wider context of lord–tenant friction, especially in the post-Black Death period. Central to this discussion, the role and importance of women in this particular act of non-compliance will be examined.

scholarly journals Theism, atheism and pantheism in the context of solution of the central philosophical question: anthropological aspect

2021 ◽  
pp. 92-113
Author(s):  
Alexey Viktorovich Suslov ◽  
Dmitrii Alekseevich Gusev ◽  
Vasilii Aleksandrovich Potaturov
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Question ◽  
Life Orientation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Spiritual Reality ◽  
The One ◽  
The Universe

The object of this research is a centuries-old worldview polemic between the philosophical representations on the world and human associated with theism, atheism and pantheism. The subject of this research is the theoretical and practical attitudes and conclusions of anthropological nature that result from these intellectual models. The authors dwell on the worldview correlations of materialism and idealism with their worldview companions, such as atheism, evolutionism, scientism, anthropological voluntarism  on the one hand, and theism, creationism, antiscientism, providentialism – on the other. Special attention is given to examination of ideological link of atheism and pantheism with the anthropocentric attitude, as well as the questions of life navigation of a human in the context of confrontation and polemics of anthropological voluntarism  and providentialism. The novelty of this research consists in substantiation of authenticity of the philosophical idealism as a model that implies theistic and creationist view of the universe and fundamental incompatibility of the central idealistic thesis on the primacy of spiritual reality with the nature of being from the perspective of pantheism. The novelty also lies in the authors’ statement on the worldview similarity of atheism and pantheism, each of which is a specific substantiation of anthropological voluntarism  that is opposed to theistic providentialism. The conclusion consists in acknowledgment of the fundamental dichotomy of the worldview choice and life orientation of a human between the anthropocentric and providential poles, despite all ideological multifacetedness and diversity of the philosophical and religious representations.

"Land und Meer, Land und Luft, Land und Erde: Schmitt und Sloterdijk – mit Husserl gelesen"

2006 ◽  
Vol 2006 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra Gehring
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Other ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
The World ◽  
Peter Sloterdijk ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
The One

There are two phases in the philosophy of the 20. and the beginning 21. century, in which not generally ‚the world‘, but actually issues like ‚land and sea‘, ‚land and air‘, ‚land and earth‘ became philosophical references. There are on the one hand the diagnoses of geopolitical crises in the 1950th and there is on the other hand the so-called ‚spatial turn‘ of the cultural sciences and related contemporary philosophy. The article presents two exemplary positions: the geo-philosophical reflections of Carl Schmitt as well as the considerations of Peter Sloterdijk in connection with his analyses of globalization. The article doesn’t intend an final appraisal of the subject matter (or the works of both authors). Following the guideline of Husserls considerations about „earth“ is however asked, which function may have the phenomenon (and topic) of a concretized spatiality in the context of the two exemplary presented philosophical diagnoses. What makes ‚land‘ or ‚space‘ attractive to Schmitt and Sloterdijk?

scholarly journals The subject of theology of history

2008 ◽  
pp. 168-176
Author(s):  
Richard A. Gorban
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Special Position ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Thought ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The One ◽  
Theology Of History

One of the main problems that modern thought poses is the problem of the scientific and philosophical deepening of what we call "history", "the actions of the world", "historical". In the plane of Christian thought, it finds, on the one hand, a special position, because Christianity is realized in history, and on the other it encounters certain additional difficulties that take on forms of dilemmas: history is faith; historical knowledge - Revelation (God); history is Christianity. It requires a new approach to history, Christianity, Christian thought.

Bringing the Ottoman Order Back into International Relations: A Distinct International Order or Part of an Islamic International Society?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Balci
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
International Society ◽  
Large Body ◽  
International Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Age Of Exploration ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Tributary System

Abstract Long neglected in international relations (IRs), the Ottoman Empire is now getting the attention it deserves. Leaving its “Westphalian straitjacket” behind, the discipline has finally taken a keen interest in non-Western and historical cases. However, the discipline has long focused disproportionately on the Chinese tributary system and produced a large body of literature about it. Spruyt's The World Imagined presents two crucial innovations. The book, on the one hand, introduces the “Islamic international society” into the mainstream, and on the other hand, balances the dominance of the Chinese tributary system in the historical IR subfield. When Spruyt's book is read together with Mikhail's God's Shadow and White's Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean, it becomes clear that the Ottoman Empire should be treated as a distinct international order. By including another book in the debate (Casale's The Ottoman Age of Exploration), this study aims to problematize “Islamic international society” and introduce the Ottoman Empire as a distinct international order.

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