Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People. by Josiah Ober Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. by Mogens Herman Hansen The Classical Athenian Democracy. by David Stockton The Greek Discovery of Politics. by Chistian Meier Athens from Cleisthenes to Pericles. by Charles W. Fornara; Loren J. Samons II Freedom: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture. by Orlando Patterson.

This study explains how the myths of Greece and Rome were transmitted from antiquity to the Renaissance. Luc Brisson argues that philosophy was ironically responsible for saving myth from historical annihilation. Although philosophy was initially critical of myth because it could not be declared true or false and because it was inferior to argumentation, mythology was progressively reincorporated into philosophy through allegorical exegesis. Brisson shows to what degree allegory was employed among philosophers and how it enabled myth to take on (...) a number of different interpretive systems throughout the centuries: moral, physical, psychological, political, and even metaphysical. How Philosophers Saved Myths also describes how, during the first years of the modern era, allegory followed a more religious path, which was to assume a larger role in Neoplatonism. Ultimately, Brisson explains how this embrace of myth was carried forward by Byzantine thinkers and artists throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance after the triumph of Chistianity, Brisson argues, myths no longer had to agree with just history and philosophy but the dogmas of the Church as well. (shrink)

Christianity shaped Europe and Europe shaped Christianity until the Enlightenment broke of from earlier institutions and dogmas. Was this to eliminate them or to bring them to a better realization? The relationship of Modernity to Christianity has been interpreted in different ways: as an alternative. as a better realization or as a secularized continuation. Looking to the future, can Christianity exist without Europe, an can Europe exist without Chistianity? After listing what are the values and undeniable achievements of Christianity, without (...) wich Europe would cease to be what it has been, the author highlights the contribution of Christianity to a new use of reason, and he concludes with a reflection on the relationship between Christianity and his-tory (continuity-innovation, sinking-rebirth). (shrink)

This study aims to analyze the different translations and interpretations of χώρα that appears in Chalcius’ Commentary on Timaeus, for demonstrate that all modifications of the original platonic text was introduced with the purpose to associate the Timaeus with the Old Testament. With this aim, we analyze five points: Chalcidius’s substitution of χώρα by ὕλη the relation among the space and the second genre of the being; the identity between matter and nothing; the relations among matter, intellect and necessity; and (...) the problems of the human perception. (shrink)

The article is situated in the area of inter-religious dialogue, one of the great paradigms of actual theology. After Vatican Council II, which treated about the salvation of non Christians and of the members of other religions, theology deepened this theme and appeared several proposals for an inter-religious dialogue. For theologians it imposed the challenge of joining the constructive necessity of Jesus Christ for the salvation of all and the place of other religious traditions in God’s salvation plan. The proposal (...) of the French Catholic theologian, Christian Duquoc, which he called postponed symphony, arouses attention to its singularity in affirming the positive side of the divisions and fragments. His approach is situated within the Catholic Theology that emerged after Vatican II, in which there are several prospects for interreligious dialogue. His theology emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in building the possible unity in diversity of fragments. The present article evaluates the theological importance of the French theologian’s proposal in favor of inter-religious dialogue. (shrink)