The 1981 book Genes, Mind and Culture by Edward O. Wilson and Charles J. Lumsden attempts to offer a comprehensive theory of the linkage between biological and cultural evolution. In the following 21 May 1982 radio broadcast, produced by Julian Brown under the auspices of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Wilson is joined by a philosopher, a geneticist, and a religion scholar in a discussion of “gene culture co‐evolution” and of other issues raised by sociobiology. The discussion is introduced and chaired (...) by the editor of Nature, John Maddox. (shrink)

By questioning the modern categories of Plato and Platonism, this book offers new ways of reading the Platonic dialogues and the many traditions that resonate ...

This book explores the intimate connections, conflicts and discontinuities between religion and philosophy in the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions from Antiquity to the early Medieval period. It presents a broader comparative view of Platonism by examining the strong Platonist resonances among different philosophical/religious traditions, primarily Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Hindu, and suggests many new ways of thinking about the relation between these two fields or disciplines that have in modern times become such distinct and, at times, entirely separate domains.

The essays in Practicing Gnosis demonstrate that the Gnostics were not necessarily trendy intellectuals seeking epistomological certainities. Instead, this book explores how Gnostics were seeking religious experiences that relied on practices including ritual, magic, liturgy, and theurgy. This book celebrates the career of Birger A. Pearson.

This book explores the intimate connections, conflicts and discontinuities between religion and philosophy in the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions from Antiquity to the early Medieval period. It presents a broader comparative view of Platonism by examining the strong Platonist resonances among different philosophical/religious traditions, primarily Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Hindu, and suggests many new ways of thinking about the relation between these two fields or disciplines that have in modern times become such distinct and, at times, entirely separate domains.

Al-Maʾmūn, the Inquisition, and the Quest for Caliphal Authority. By John Abdallah Nawas. Resources in Arabic and Islamic Studies, vol. 4. Atlanta: Lockwood Press, 2015. Pp. xvi + 340. $45.

Part I. Gnosticism and other religious movements of antiquity -- part II. Crossing boundaries : Gnosticism and Platonism.

In his book on Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze puts forth an idiosyncratic interpretation of the eternal return: “However far they go, however deep the becoming-reactive of forces, reactive forces will not return. The small, petty, reactive man will not return.”1 The idea of eternal return is particularly suited to James Joyce’s Ulysses. This is because Joyce’s book concerns the return of the hero Ulysses in the person of Leopold Bloom. One way that the hero wanders is by incarnating as the unlikely (...) Bloom. What is to be the nature of Bloom’s relation to Ulysses? Joyce’s vision of an interpenetration of present and past corresponds to the terms Deleuze lays down. There is to be a return but not verbatim. Thus, Joyce .. (shrink)

v. 1. From Plato and the old academy to middle platonism -- v. 2. Middle platonic and gnostic texts.