The Cosmic Republic : Notes for a non-peripatetic History of the Birth of Philosophy in Greece

by: Capizzi, A.

Price: 80,00 EURO

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According to Aristotle, philosophy had come into being in the VIth century with Thales, just as a mere, disinterested pursuit of truth, a curiosity for great problems (those even-tually called "metaphysical" ones) which were substantially identical with those which Aristotle himself and his school were now raising. This abstract reading is very similar to that which views Greek poets as inspired by "eternal beauty" or by "art's for art sake" and which is nowadays completely discredited and given up by scholars of the history of literature. Against this view the present text pro-poses a new reading of the "archaic" presocratic scientists: in fact, it is about those "sages" who lived on the bound-aries of the Greek-speaking world before the concentration of such people in Periclean Athens. They were closely linked to their native towns (Miletus, Ephesus, Croto, Vele, Acragas) where they held high office; here there oral teaching and the public reading of their texts were followed closely by their fellow citizens. Thus the picture of the "cosmic republic" arises: to the "cosmic monarchy" of Homer and Hesiod (the mythical world with Zeus as the king, gods as the ministers and nature as the subject) a different mythical world succeeds. Here the earth, the sea, the sky, the human body and, generally, the "existing thing", all behave like isonomic ("republican") towns or like the governing body of these towns. Philosophy will arise later, in Athens of the Vth century.

Front Matter
Preliminary Material
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: i–ix
Preface
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 1–7

Chapter One Archaic Thought and its Witnesses
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 11–65
Chapter Two Why the age of Aristotle Could Not Understand Archaic Wisdom
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 67–158
Chapter Three The Epic Greek World: The Numen as a Model of the City
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 161–208
Chapter Four The Peninsular Greek World: Divorce Between Numen and City
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 209–233
Chapter Five The Peripheral Greek World: Nature as a Model of Law
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 237–332
Chapter Six The Attic Greek World: Divorce Between Nature and Law
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 333–394
Chapter Seven The Socratic World and the Polemic About Philosophy
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 397–428
Chapter Eight From Polemics to Falsefication
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 429–447
Back Matter
Hypothesis of an Approximate Chronology of the Presocratics
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 449–451
Index Locorum
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 455–491
Index Nominum
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 492–506
Index Verborum
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 507–512
Index Interpretum
Author: Antonio Capizzi
Pages: 513–521

The Cosmic Republic : Notes for a non-peripatetic History of the Birth of Philosophy in Greece

by: Capizzi, A.

• ISBN-13: 9789070265557 / 978-90-70265-55-7
• ISBN-03: 9070265559 / 90-70265-55-9
• J.C. Gieben, Amsterdam, 1990

Price: 80,00 EURO

(in stock)