Full name: From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation

Author: Francis Macdonald Cornford Year: 1912 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Philosophy, History, Religion Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780691020761 9780486433721 0691020760 0486433722

In this exploration of the very first utterance of philosophers, F. M. Cornford showed that the remarkable burst of abstract speculation among pre-Socratic thinkers of the sixth century B.C. emerged directly from the religious thought of the preceding era in Greece. Combining profound classical scholarship with striking anthropological and sociological insight, Cornford rejected the post-Darwinian rationalist assumption that religion and philosophy are fundamentally different from each other. His book supplies a needed reminder of the intricate connections between critical scientific thought and social and emotional experience. As he probes the mythic antecedents of such persistent metaphysical concepts as Destiny, God, Soul, Substance, Nature, and Immortality, Cornford warns us that unless we have some grasp of that history [of myth], we are not likely to understand the speculation, which, however scientific its spirit may be, constantly operates with these religious ideas, and is to a large extent confined in its movement within the limits already traced by them. Classicists, historians of religion, students of ancient history, and everyone concerned with the subject of myth will find this lucid and highly original work to be a source of rich insights about the organic nature and continuity of Western thought. Similar books: Critique of Religion and Philosophy by Walter Arnold Kaufmann The Faith of a Heretic by Walter Kaufmann A Secular Age by Charles Taylor Between Man and Man by Martin Buber Tears and Saints by E. M. Cioran God's Debris by Scott Adams Tragic sense of life by Miguel de Unamuno Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil Religion and Science by Bertrand Russell Plato by Julia Annas Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley Eclipse of God by Martin Buber The Last Superstition by Edward Feser Plato at the Googleplex by Rebecca Goldstein The Great Chain of Being by Arthur O. Lovejoy The Occult by Colin Wilson The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt The Age of Faith by Will Durant