The Adventure of the Human Intellect :Self, Society, and the Divine in Ancient World Cultures ( Ancient World: Comparative Histories )

Publication subTitle :Self, Society, and the Divine in Ancient World Cultures

Publication series :Ancient World: Comparative Histories

Author: Kurt A. Raaflaub  

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc‎

Publication year: 2016

E-ISBN: 9781119162599

P-ISBN(Paperback): 9781119162575

P-ISBN(Hardback):  9781119162551

Subject: B12 Ancient Philosophy

Keyword: Ancient Egypt Mesopotamia Israel Greece and Rome Early China Vedic India Maya Aztecs and native North Americans chronosophy sacrifice divination cosmology archaeology intellectual history speculative thought rational and abstract thinking beginnings of philosophy social relations and values spiritual experiences human and divine worlds

Language: ENG

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Description

The Adventure of the Human Intellect presents the latest scholarship on the beginnings of intellectual history on a broad scope, encompassing ten eminent ancient or early civilizations from both the Old and New Worlds.

  • Borrows themes from The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (1946), updating an old topic with a new approach and up-to-date theoretical underpinning, evidence, and scholarship
  • Provides a broad scope of studies, including discussion of highly developed ancient or early civilizations in China, India, West Asia, the Mediterranean, and the Americas
  • Examines the world view of ten ancient or early societies, reconstructed from their own texts, concerning the place of human beings in society and state, in nature and cosmos, in space and time, in life and death, and in relation to those in power and the world of the divine
  • Considers a diversity of sources representing a wide array of particular responses to differing environments, circumstances, and intellectual challenges
  • Reflects a more inclusive and nuanced historiographical attitude with respect to non-elites, gender, and local variations
  • Brings together leading specialists in the field, and is edited by an internationally renowned scholar

Chapter

Chapter 1 A Critique of the Cognitive-historical Thesis of The Intellectual Adventure

Notes

References

Chapter 2 The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: Revisiting a Classic

I Introduction

II Genesis

III Orientation: the book as a whole

1 Structure

2 Mythopoeia

IV Assessment

Abbreviations

Notes

References

Chapter 3 The World of Ancient Egyptian Thought

Cosmology and cosmogony

Gods and god

The individual in Egyptian thought

Order and chaos

Conclusion

Abbreviations

Notes

References

Further reading

Chapter 4 On Speculative Thought in Ancient Mesopotamia

Mesopotamian metaphysics

Mesopotamian physics

Mesopotamian politics and ethics

Authority and problem-solving

Authority and innovation

Modes of speculative thought

The individual

Conclusion

Note

References

Chapter 5 Self, Substance, and Social Metaphysics: The Intellectual Adventures of Israel and Judah

Israel in Judah’s hall of mirrors

The intelligentsia’s toolkits

The cuneiform substratum

West Semitic means to national scripts

Social metaphysics

The body politic

Tohû, bohû, man, woman

The strong anthropic principle

The social god and the social contract

A once and future adventure

Notes

References

Chapter 6 Ancient Greece: Man the Measure of All Things

Prologue

Archaic Greece: man the competitor

Classical Athens: man the “political being”

Abbreviations

Notes

References

Chapter 7 The Thought-World of Ancient Rome: A Delicate Balancing Act

Note

References

Further reading

Chapter 8 Self, Cosmos, and Agency in Early China

Introduction

The Chinese written record

Metaphysics

State and society

Ethics and self-cultivation

Transforming qi

Fate and free will

Autonomy and the mantic traditions

Appendix 1: Timeline

Appendix 2: Major excavated texts (in order of date)

Notes

References

Chapter 9 Vedic India: Thinking and Doing

X.129 Creation (trans. J.P. Brereton)

X.90 The Man (trans. J.P. Brereton)

References

Further reading

Chapter 10 “Chronosophy” in Classic Maya Thought

Abbreviation

Notes

References

Chapter 11 The Word, Sacrifice, and Divination: Aztec Man in the Realm of the Gods

Introduction

The word, sacrifice, and creation of man

Aztec kingship: sacrifice and identity

The calendar, divination, destiny, and free will

Conclusion

Notes

References

Chapter 12 Night Thoughts and Spiritual Adventures: Native North America

I

II

III

IV

V

Notes

References

Further reading

Index

EULA

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