Mythos And Logos

This book contains fifteen essays all seeking to regain the original meaning of philosophy as the love of wisdom. Mythos and Logos are two essential aspects of a quest that began with the ancient Greeks. As concepts fundamental to human experience, Mythos and Logos continue to guide the search for truth in the twenty-first century.

From Mythos to Logos: Andrea Palladio, Freemasonry and the Triumph of Minerva explores how myth was used to encode architecture and frescoed interiors with insights that promote peace, freedom and kindness as ways of being in the world. The author, Michael Trevor Coughlin argues that Freemasonry took root in the Italian city of Vicenza as early as 1546, and that its precepts, conveyed through the intersection of myth and philosophy, were disseminated widely in buildings and images, as well as texts, prescribing tolerance and an understanding of the divine that exists in each and everyone.

Marková offers a dialogical perspective to problems in daily life and professional practices involving communication, care, and therapy.

In this book, originally published in 2007, Chiara Bottici argues for a philosophical understanding of political myth. Bottici demonstrates that myth is a process, one of continuous work on a basic narrative pattern that responds to a need for significance. Human beings need meaning in order to master the world they live in, but they also need significance in order to live in a world that is less indifferent to them. This is particularly true in the realm of politics. Political myths are narratives through which we orient ourselves, and act and feel about our political world. Bottici shows that in order to come to terms with contemporary phenomena, such as the clash between civilizations, we need a Copernican revolution in political philosophy. If we want to save reason, we need to look at it from the standpoint of myth.

The author explores and defends the bold thesis that the idea of the collective unconscious can be reconciled with a scientific world outlook as he sketches a big picture from Jung's psychological viewpoint. In his examination of Jung's archetypes, Shelburne considers the chief critical views of the scientific import of Jung's thesis as he discusses the issue of rationality posed by the theory. There is also a discussion of how the ideas of James Hillman contrast with those of Jung on the issue of the scientific nature of archetypes. Shelburne presents scientific evidence for the existence of archetypes and shows how the theory fits in with modern evolutionary biology.

The author explores and defends the bold thesis that the idea of the collective unconscious can be reconciled with a scientific world outlook as he sketches a big picture from Jung's psychological viewpoint. In his examination of Jung's archetypes, Shelburne considers the chief critical views of the scientific import of Jung's thesis as he discusses the issue of rationality posed by the theory. There is also a discussion of how the ideas of James Hillman contrast with those of Jung on the issue of the scientific nature of archetypes. Shelburne presents scientific evidence for the existence of archetypes and shows how the theory fits in with modern evolutionary biology.

There are few more contentious issues than the relation of faith to power or the suggestion that religion is irrational compared with politics and peculiarly prone to violence. The former claim is associated with Juergen Habermas and the latter with Richard Dawkins. In this book David Martin argues, against Habermas, that religion and politics share a common mythic basis and that it is misleading to contrast the rationality of politics with the irrationality of religion. In contrast to Richard Dawkins (and New Atheists generally), Martin argues that the approach taken is brazenly unscientific and that the proclivity to violence is a shared feature of religion, nationalism and political ideology alike rooted in the demands of power and social solidarity. The book concludes by considering the changing ecology of faith and power at both centre and periphery in monuments, places and spaces.

John Médaille maintains that philosophers-beginning with the consummate dialectician Socrates who gives Euthyphro a thorough drubbing-have illegitimately stifled the special access that theologian-poets have to ultimate truths at the heart of all human experience. Thomas Storck objects: the power to see reality as it is, to discover principles and arrive at conclusions, is as natural to man as breathing and walking; after all, even Scripture says we have no excuse if we fail to recognize God in his works, if we fail to yield to the testimony of miracles and the evidence for revelation. But what is reason, after all? Are there even facts apart from judgments, judgments apart from interpretations, and interpretations apart from worldviews developed through the stories we learn and tell one another? Back and forth it goes, as Storck defends philosophy, objectivity, and Thomism, while Médaille seeks to expose their vulnerable flanks. In a world of sound bites and short attention spans, how rare is an amiable, penetrating, sustained dialogue between two thinkers of great intelligence and undoubted good will, who, though disagreeing about many things, are still drawn back, again and again, to the central mystery of Christ, supreme Logos and sacrificial Lamb?