The Platonic Myths - Softcover

Pieper, Josef; Schall, James V.; Farrelly, Dan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1587316374 ISBN 13: 9781587316371

Verlag: St Augustine's Press, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Pieper Josef

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Reseña del editor:

Pieper distinguishes between Platonic stories in which Plato crystallizes mythical fragments from the mere stories which contain them, and Platonic myths, in which he purifies the proper mythical elements, freeing them of the non-mythical elements which tend to obscure them.

Pieper succeeds in establishing the case for a truth, found particularly in the eschatological myths, that is not reducible to the rational truth normally sought by philosophers. While it is not purely rational truth, it is not inferior. It is different. It stems from tradition, which reaches back to the ultimate beginnings of man's existence -- back into our pre-history and to events of which, naturally, we have no experience. The only access we have to this truth is through `hearing' (ex akoes), which is not dependent on mere `hearsay,' but which, in Pieper's interpretation, reflects the handing on, in stories, of what the gods first communicated to man about the creation of the world and about the afterlife. These truths are to be found -- long before the New Testament (or even the Old Testament) -- in the myths of a variety of civilizations and give evidence of an extraordinary consensus: that there was a creating hand; that primeval man incurred guilt in the eyes of the gods; that he could be saved; that there is an afterlife in which man is rewarded or punished; that he can undergo a kind of purgatory for lesser offenses; and that in the afterlife he can dwell with the gods.

Cover design: Bruce Fingerhut; cover image: "Illuminated hole," ©PixAchi, Shutterstock

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: St Augustine's Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1587316374
• ISBN 13: 9781587316371
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 96