Forwarded on behalf of Rick Benitez and Paul McMullen. Please contact <[email protected]>
Gerard Naddaf (York University, Canada) Sacred Texts: From Inspiration to Philosophy and Allegory The transition from myth to reason, muthos to logos, marks the birth of philosophy. Much has been written about this “miracle.” But how did the proponents of myth respond? They fought back with mutho-logia, that is, with a logos about myth. This “rational” approach invoked the same logos as that associated with philosophia. In fact, philosophia and mythologia were at times so intimately connected that it was difficult to distinguish between them. This is due to the “spell” of myth, particularly Greek/Homeric myth, or to be more precise, because of the allegorical interpretation of Homeric myth. The practice of allegorical interpretation preserved the notion that the “first” poets were divinely inspired men with access to “divine” secrets about the universe. In this lecture, I will begin with Homer and Hesiod, turn to the origin of philosophy, move on to the first quarrel between philosophy and poetry, and then review the birth of the practice of allegorical interpretation. I will give an overview of the role allegory played in the philosophic, religious, and even scientific traditions from this period to at least the Enlightenment. I will also endeavour to show how believers practiced allegorical interpretation in relation to the Torah, the Christian Bible, and later the Qur’an. In doing so, I will show that, although there has always been a struggle between the literal and allegorical interpretations of sacred texts, the practitioners of allegory commonly viewed both religious and philosophical texts as emanating from the same divine source — that is, as inspired by God. I will end with some reflections on the interpretative clashes between competitive “inspired” texts. Gerard Naddaf is a specialist in ancient Greek philosophy, particularly the origins of philosophy, the Presocratics and Plato. He is a lecturer in Philosophy in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at the University of York, Ontario, Canada. When: Friday, 11th November 2011, 6:00-8:00 pm Where: New Law School Lecture Theatre 101, Eastern Avenue, University of Sydney, Camperdown Cost: Free R.S.V.P. Paul McMullen <[email protected]> -- Professor John Sutton Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science (http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/) Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia Phone: +61 (0)2 9850 4132 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.phil.mq.edu.au/staff/jsutton/ Memory Studies journal: http://mss.sagepub.com/ ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD): http://www.ccd.mq.edu.au/ _______________________________________________ SydPhil mailing list: http://sydphil.info 1000+ subscribers now served!! To UNSUBSCRIBE, change your MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS, find ANSWERS TO COMMON PROBLEMS, or visit our ONLINE ARCHIVES, please go to the LIST INFORMATION PAGE: http://sydphil.info
