Cosmos of the Ancients

Comsos of the Ancients

The Greek Philosophers on Myth and Cosmology



Theagenes

W restling with the same unwillingness to accept that illustrious gang of gods in the works of Homer and Hesiod, Theagenes of Rhegium, also in the 6th century BC (flourished around 525 BC), was the first to find an allegorical way of reading the myths, where they were to be understood as expressions of natural forces. The battles of the gods, as Homer described them, were really wars of the elements and fundamental qualities of the world, as they related to one another in opposites — fire against water, hot against cold, light against heavy.


Cosmos of the Ancients. Book by Stefan Stenudd. Cosmos of the Ancients
by Stefan Stenudd
In this book I present the Greek philosophers and what they thought about cosmology, the myths, and the gods. Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).


       In this menagerie, fire was represented by Apollo, Helios and Hephaestus, water by Poseidon and Scamander, air by Hera, and so forth. Also abstract qualities had divine representation — wisdom with Athene, desire with Aphrodite, reason with Hermes and folly, no less, with Ares. For gods to actually do battle, in the way Homer has it, would be unbecoming to them.

       No writing of his own remains, nor any fragments of his words.


Literature

Freeman, Kathleen, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Oxford 1946.


© Stefan Stenudd 2000



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The Greek Philosophers.

The Greek Philosophers


Introduction
Thales
Anaximander
Anaximenes
Pherecydes of Syros
Pythagoras
Xenophanes
Theagenes
Hecataeus
Heraclitus
Pindar
Parmenides
Anaxagoras
Empedocles
Herodotus
Gorgias
Melissus
Protagoras
Euripides
Prodicus of Ceos
Leucippus
Democritus
Critias
Antisthenes
Diagoras of Melos
Plato
Aristotle
Epicurus
Euhemerus
Table of the Greek Philosophers
Literature
The book


Aristotle

Aristotle


Introduction
Aristotle's Life
Timeline
Aristotle's Poetics
Aristotle's Cosmology


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Stefan Stenudd

Stefan Stenudd


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I'm a Swedish author of fiction and non-fiction books in both English and Swedish. I'm also an artist, a historian of ideas, and a 7 dan Aikikai Shihan aikido instructor. Click the header to read my full bio.