Much has been written on the famous transition from muthos to logos or from myth to reason. However, there is little on how the proponents of myth responded. They fought back with mutho-logia , that is, with a logos about myth. This rational approach invoked the same logos that is generally associated with philosophia . In fact, philosophia and muthologia are at times so intimately connected that until the Enlightenment period, it is often diffi­cult to distinguish between them. This is (...) due to the spell of myth or more precisely because of the allegorical interpretation of myth. In this essay, I at­tempt to shed some light on the origin and development of this rather unremarked and yet remarkable event in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

One of the most important paradigm shifts in the history of Greek philosophy was the ‘rediscovery’ of transcendence in the movement of Intermediate Platonism. Less than a century before the birth of Hellenism, Plato had advocated an intentional preoccupation with the life of the mind / soul, encouraging the individual to avoid being entrapped in the material limitations of life and instead discover its transcendental dimension. The conquest of Athens by the Macedonians, followed by the invasion of the Orient by (...) Alexander the Great, set in motion sociological and cultural changes that challenged the relevance of Platonic philosophy. The transcendental vision of Platonism left the individual still struggling to find happiness in the world created by Alexander the Great. This was the context in which the schools the of Cynicism, Stoicism, Epicureanism and Skepticism challenged Platonism with their call to happiness in this world and by means of the Hellenistic dominance and the rise of Roman supremacy stirred a renewed spiritual and philosophical effort to rediscover the world beyond; that is, the transcendental world of Plato. This was Middle Platonism and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria was one of its most prolific writers. In this paper, we will examine the concept of the soul in the writings of Philo, with an emphasis on the role that the soul plays in the act of approaching God through the means of the external / material cult. Philo offers a complex vision of the soul, one that remains critically relevant to understanding the Greek, Jewish, and Christian thought that emerged after Philo. (shrink)