Humanism, neo-humanism, third humanism – all of these are noble but unsuccessful attempts to overcome a problematic and critical spiritual situation of the times through a new actualization of Hellenic values of antiquity which are, in the attempt itself, viewed as ideal and self-sufficient. Christianity, which in many ways represents the realisation and completion of classical Hellenic culture, should no more be regarded as an injustice to that culture, since the encounter of Hellenism and Christianity is precisely the event which (...) produced European culture. Apart from a culturological meaning, that may bear a meaning of principle too: we need a new rationality which may acquire salvific meaning today through the Hellenic idea of Logos (not only as cognitive and demonstrative reason, but also as capacity for discerning good from evil) and through the Christian idea of Logos as sacrifice for the other. We need a rationality which will not be of an order of nought, that is, an extended self-survival instinct – which will not be interested in usefulness only but also in goodness, not in legality only but in justice as well. Namely, the problem is that contemporary culture is forgetful both of Socrates and of Christ. That is not to mean that a civilisation which forgets Christ may by the same token appease its conscience by not forgetting Socrates. (shrink)

The paper highlights some related features of allegorical interpretations of Odysseus and Abraham. Both figures were interpreted as souls on a quest. The affinity between exegetical depic­tions of these quests may have prompted the later synthesis of ancient readings regarding Odys­seus’ intellectual pursuits. The comparison of Penelope and her maids to philosophy and lesser dis­ciplines influenced Philo’s image of Abraham as the husband of wisdom, and the mirror image of Philo himself as the husband of philosophy. There are grounds to (...) question whether Philo’s exegesis subsequently formed a background against which Odysseus’ pursuits were expounded. Among the similarities between his Abraham and Eustathios’ Odysseus the philosopher, the portrayal of these characters as stargazers is the most conspicuous. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 217 [Access article in PDF] Bogoljub Sijakovic. Bibliographica Praesocratica: A Bibliographical Guide to the Studies of Early Greek Philosophy in its Religious and Scientific Contexts with an Introductory Bibliography on the Historiography of Philosophy. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2001. Pp. 700. Cloth, €18,00. Professor Sijakovic has given us an invaluable reference work for the Presocratics and for early Greek thought (...) generally: a bibliography of 17,664 entries covering the period 1450-2000. It has some advantages over its principal predecessor, Paquet et al., Les Présocratiques: Bibliographie Analytique (Montreal and Paris, 1988-95), which covers work up to 1980. Sijakovic includes more recent material and aims at complete coverage of works in the Slavic languages and Modern Greek. He does not cover the Sophists, but does include works on topics that extend more widely than the Presocratics. Unlike Paquet, Sijakovic does not provide summaries of articles nor does he list reviews of books, unless they have interest in their own right, or include translations of works into other modern languages. He provides indexes of subjects, Greek terms, proper names, and authors.The ambition of the work is revealed by the subject headings other than those on familiar Presocratic thinkers and the issues they treated. The bibliography begins with a long section on Historiography and Philosophy of the History of Philosophy (with 932 entries) and concludes with one on Presocratics in the Intellectual Tradition (590) from before Plato to the present, with subsections on figures such as Francis Bacon (5), Nietzsche (74), Heidegger (56), and Popper (6). Other sections are labelled Theories of Myth (550), Greek Mythmaking and Religion (667), Orpheus and Orphism (642), Homer (154), Hesiod (147), Theogonies, Greek and Oriental (159), From Myth to Philosophy (365), Mathematics (137), Medicine (86), and Hippocrates of Cos (199). It is here that ambition leads to weakness, since the section on Homer, for example, is obviously not a complete bibliography of Homeric studies, and yet it is not restricted to works on Homer that bear on "presocratic" topics. The absence of an explanatory preface to these sections leaves the principles of selection mysterious and decreases their usefulness.Another feature that limits the value of the book is the arrangement within sections. This is generally chronological, but not always. The irregularities are so pervasive that the cause must be due to some unannounced division into unlabelled subsections, and the result is that we must read through more entries than we should have to. Two other minor complaints: the language of the book is English (aside from the trilingual prefatory material), but there are mistakes of usage and grammar which a copyreader should have caught; and there are occasional unexplained words at the end of entries, frequently in a different type-face, that are not part of the bibliographical entry.I do not mean to detract from the great service Professor Sijakovic has done (seemingly laboring alone over many years) for all who work in the area of early Greek thought—and principally, he notes in a preface, written as NATO was bombing his country, scholars from Western Europe and the United States. We are deeply indebted to him. The book has replaced Paquet as my primary bibliographical resource on the Presocratics. Richard McKirahan Pomona College... (shrink)