From Word to Silence, 1. The Rise and Fall of Logos

Chapter III. Thought As Sight

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:55:21 PDT

Chapter Contents: Nous - Omitted by Snell 61; von Fritz on intellect as vision and intuition 61; thought as holistic perception 62; thought and being are identical 63; critique of Guthrie's discussion of Parmenides66; Anaxagoras' vous as Being 68; Empedocles' thought like sensation 69; Democritus 71; Plato on truth and thought 72; Plato on intellect as a cause 75; conclusion 76.

Bibliography, Index

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:55:20 PDT

Chapter VIII. Conclusion

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:55:18 PDT

[Extract] The ideas outlined thus far establish the setting in which the via negutiva of late Greek thought was able to flourish. Logos begins as a type of rational account, a canon of material about the world which exists, myth-like, independently of the individual thinker and philosopher. It was a touchstone, an instrument of checking and measuring the validity of the sense-data and notions generated in the human mind. It denoted the language of science, as against the language of common-sense, in much the same way as we might distinguish between the scientist's account of things, and that given in popular lore. Logos exercised a strong fascination over the Greek, in this early period of blooming confidence in the power of rational investigation, and within a short time it came to be seen as having an existence in itself. The Greek tendency is to objectify, to give reality to concepts, thereby creating the material of ontology and metaphysics. The word logos, once isolated as a concept, could not fail to fall prey to this reifying tendency, with the result that even as early as Aristotle, there are signs of logos becoming an originating principle, an arche like that sought by the Presocratic seekers after a single essential substance. The tendency issues most clearly in the creation of a new verb in late Greek, to "enreason" (logoo). This linguistic fact is a most important datum in the history of ideas, since it shows that a new aspect of the word logos was endeavouring to assert itself. Logos becomes a Force, or principle of rationality at work in reality. It becomes an existent.

Chapter VII. Thinking Negatively : The Foundations Of The Via Negativa

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:55:16 PDT

Chapter Contents: Where does it come from? 125; how to interpret the Parmenides 127; Speusippus on the ineffable One 132; the negative in Plato 135; the negative in Aristotle 137; abstraction 141; the idea of reality which accompanies the method of abstraction 144; the Sceptics on the value of aphaireiir 150; Philo and the Gnostics on negative language 154.

Chapter VI. The Silence Beyond Names

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:55:12 PDT

Chapter Contents: The early suspicions about discourse 110; silence in Greek tragedy 112; silence as pharmakon 112; the silence of the mysteries 113; Plato on the word 115; Aristotle on discourse and silence 117; Philo and the value of silence 11 8; the centrality of silence in the Gnostics 122; a development noted 124.

Chapter V. Naming And Being

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:54:58 PDT

Chapter Contents: Socrates on the pharmacy of language 94; Parmenides and Heraclitus on names and reality 95; Plato's reaction in the Tirnaeus and the Cratylus 96; Aristotle and language as a convention 98; on names and reality 100; Stoic, Epicurean and Sceptical views on the relation between names and nature 101; Philo on the identity of names and beings 103; names and reality in the Gnostic Gospel of Truth 107.

Chapter IV. Thought As Self-Thought

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:54:54 PDT

Chapter Contents: Aristotle on the identity of being and thought 77; Aristotle on mind thinking itself 81; Nous in the Epicureans 82; the Stoics 83; the Sceptics 84; Philo continues the tradition of Nous as cause, as part of the pool of cosmic being, and the question of thought's self-thought 86; the Gnostics on self-thought and naming 88; Christ as Nous in Basilides 91; general conclusions on intellect. in the Greek tradition 92.

Chapter II. Logos Appropriated By Ontology

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:54:44 PDT

Chapter Contents: Philo on language and reason 39; the reified logos 42; logos in reality 44; logos as Hermes, the messenger 46; the holy logos descends (the Hermetic treatises) 47; the new stage of hypostatization -John's Gospel 49; the historicisation of logos 50;. the Gnostic reaction to the human logos; the Gnostic logos 51; Marcus and the silence-breaking logos, logos as voice 53; the logos as the principle of intellectual failure in the Tripartite Tractate 57.

Chapter I. Logos Identified

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:54:27 PDT

Chapter Contents: From myth to logos 11; the meaning of logos/reason 12; logos as new-style myth 13; logos as autonomous, separate from individual exponents 18; Flats's attempts to define logos 20; the Sophists' caricature 21; Aristotle on logos as the human capacity, and logos as in nature 25; the stoic seminal logos 30; the Sceptics and their analysis of the invenrion of their predecessors; the failure of logos 33.

Frontismatter, preface, table of contents.

Raoul Mortley — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:54:14 PDT

[Extract]: This book is the result of some years' interest in negative theology and owes much to the stimulus of my friend and colleague, David Dockrill. It has taken a broader perspective than originally planned, and seeks to situate the development of negative theology within the context of the whole Greek concept of thought. The first volume deals with the classical period, with its enormous confidence in logos, the focal point of rationality, and with the gradual undermining of this faith. The sources studied include the major philosophical, but also deal more widely with literature and religion. Gnosticism, Christianity and the works of Philo are treated towards the end of each chapter, because each of these strands is crucial on the formation of Patristic and Medieval philosophy.