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Author: Carl Séan O'Brien Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316240657 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 351
Book Description
How was the world generated and how does matter continue to be ordered so that the world can continue functioning? Questions like these have existed as long as humanity has been capable of rational thought. In antiquity, Plato's Timaeus introduced the concept of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god, to answer them. This lucid and wide-ranging book argues that the concept of the Demiurge was highly influential on the many discussions operating in Middle Platonist, Gnostic, Hermetic and Christian contexts in the first three centuries AD. It explores key metaphysical problems such as the origin of evil, the relationship between matter and the First Principle and the deployment of ever-increasing numbers of secondary deities to insulate the First Principle from the sensible world. It also focuses on the decreasing importance of demiurgy in Neoplatonism, with its postulation of procession and return.
Author: Carl Séan O'Brien Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316240657 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 351
Book Description
How was the world generated and how does matter continue to be ordered so that the world can continue functioning? Questions like these have existed as long as humanity has been capable of rational thought. In antiquity, Plato's Timaeus introduced the concept of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god, to answer them. This lucid and wide-ranging book argues that the concept of the Demiurge was highly influential on the many discussions operating in Middle Platonist, Gnostic, Hermetic and Christian contexts in the first three centuries AD. It explores key metaphysical problems such as the origin of evil, the relationship between matter and the First Principle and the deployment of ever-increasing numbers of secondary deities to insulate the First Principle from the sensible world. It also focuses on the decreasing importance of demiurgy in Neoplatonism, with its postulation of procession and return.
Author: Emilie Kutash Publisher: A&C Black ISBN: 1472519817 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
Proclus' commentary on Plato's "Timaeus" is perhaps the most important surviving Neoplatonic commentary. In it Proclus contemplates nature's mysterious origins and at the same time employs the deductive rigour required to address perennial philosophical questions. Nature, for him, is both divine and mathematically transparent. He renders theories of Time, Eternity, Providence, Evil, Soul and Intellect and constructs an elaborate ontology that includes mathematics and astronomy. He gives ample play to pagan theology too, frequently lapsing into the arcane language of the "Chaldaean Oracles". "Ten Gifts of the Demiurge" is an essential companion to this rich but complex and densely wrought text, providing an analysis of its arguments and showing that it, like the cosmos Proclus reveres, is a living coherent whole. The book provides aides to understanding Proclus' work within the complex background of Neoplatonic philosophy, familiarising the reader with the political context of the Athenian school, analysing Proclus' key terminology, and giving background to the philosophical arguments and ancient sciences upon which Proclus draws.Above all, it helps the reader appreciate the varicoloured light that Proclus sheds on the secrets of nature.
Author: Ilsetraut Hadot Publisher: American Philosophical Society ISBN: 9780871699411 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 166
Book Description
An updated & slightly abridged English translation of the author's previous work on the 5th century B.C. Neoplatonist Hierocles, published in various places. This work allows Hierocles' median position in the history of Neoplatonic philosophy, between Iamblichus & Syrianus-Proclus, to emerge. Contents: (I) Biographical Elements; (II) Hierocles' Ideas on the History of Platonic Philosophy; (III) Hierocles' Philosophical Ideas on Matter, the Demiurge, & the Soul; & (IV) Hierocles' Philosophical Ideas on Providence. Translated from the French.
Author: Gretchen J. Reydams-Schils Publisher: Brepols Pub ISBN: 9782503506562 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 297
Book Description
Of the rich legacy of the Timaeus, this study deals with the cross-pollination between Stoic and Platonist readings of Timaeus, spanning the period from Plato's writings to that of the so-called Middle Platonist authors. Plato's Timaeus and Stoic doctrine had their fates intertwined from very early on, both in polemical and reconciliatory contexts. The blend of Platonic and Stoic elements ultimately constituted one of the main conceptual bridges between the pagan tradition on the one hand and the Judeo-Christian, in its own search for the distinction between transcendence and immanence, on the other. Contrary to the received opinion, later platonist authors do not merely borrow Stoic terminology. Rather, in a genuine 'discourse of assimilation' the Stoic analysis of the universe has left a profound mark on Platonist views of the principles, of the place of humans in the universe, as well as of human freedom and its interaction with divine Providence.
Author: Carl Séan O'Brien Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 110707536X Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 351
Book Description
This book examines religious and 'scientific'/philosophical accounts of world-generation as represented by the figure of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god.
Author: Scott Newton Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317929772 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 357
Book Description
This book is an unconventional reappraisal of Soviet law: a field that is ripe for re-evaluation, now that it is clear of Cold War cobwebs; and, as this book shows, one that is surprisingly topical and newly compelling. Scott Newton argues here that the Soviet order was a work of law. Drawing on a wide range of sources – including Russian-language Soviet statues and regulations, jurisprudence, legal theory, and English-language ‘legal Kremlinology’ – this book analyses the central significance of law in the design and operation of Soviet economic, political, and social institutions. In arguing that it was an exemplary, rather than aberrant, case of the uses to which law was put in twentieth-century industrialised societies, Law and the Making of the Soviet World: The Red Demiurge provides an insightful account of both the significance of modern law in the Soviet case and the significance of the Soviet case for modern law.
Author: Sheldon J. Pacotti Publisher: Booklocker.com ISBN: 9780990879909 Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Solving crimes in the Information Age is hard enough, since people can teleport, copy, and morph themselves. Then Detective Cramer steps into a telepod and comes out, weeks later, as a copy. His new assignment? The original version of himself, who has left his family and run off with another woman - on stolen computer time. This time the mystery is himself. Or does everyone in 2996 covet a life that is virtual, reckless, and limitless?