Papers by Andrei V . Lebedev
Cognition in Ancient Greek Philosophy, ed. M.Mouzala, 2024
This chapter falls into six parts, referred to below as “sections” I toVI.
My starting point is t... more This chapter falls into six parts, referred to below as “sections” I toVI.
My starting point is the assumption that theories of knowledge do not
emerge and do not exist in a conceptual void: they are usually integral
parts of onto-epistemological complexes that we call philosophical systems.
It is impossible to obtain a clear picture of what was going on in the
early Greek epistemology without taking into account the contemporary
dominant metaphysical paradigms and theories of being. Therefore, after a
preliminary discussion of the (often neglected) problem of idealism (mentalism)
in early Greek thought and criticism of what I call pseudo-historical
developmentalism and misconceived category of ‘Presocratics’ in modern
studies of pre-Platonic philosophy (section I), I will first delineate the genesis
of two main conflicting metaphysical paradigms in their historical and
socio-cultural contexts, those of the substance dualism (resp. mentalism)
in sections II-III, on the one hand, and of the naturalistic monism in
the section IV, on the other. Relying on the results of this investigation I
will propose a general survey of the fundamental dispute between Greek
rationalists and empiricists (resp. mentalists and naturalists) in section V,
while the section VI will focus on the reflection of the conflict between
two onto-epistemological complexes in the parable of ‘gigantomachia over
being’ in Plato’s Sophist.
![Research paper thumbnail of Whom did Plato Mean in the Parable of 'Gigantomachia over Being' (Sophist 246a4 ff) [Revised and substantially expanded published version, May 2024].](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/114391275/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Philologia Classica, 2023
The mythopoetic parable of 'Gigantomachia over being' in Plato's Sophist 246a4 ff. is neither a t... more The mythopoetic parable of 'Gigantomachia over being' in Plato's Sophist 246a4 ff. is neither a theoretical construction ad hoc of some general trends, nor a reference to a single contemporary debate, e. g., between Plato's Academy and atomists in 4 th century BC. The controversy on the nature of being is described as a real battle on epic scale (ἄπλετος μάχη) between two camps, as a debate about fundamental problem of philosophy, that has always existed (ἀεὶ συνέστηκεν) and is still going on. In favor of the identification of the two camps primarily with the Ionian and Italian traditions in the pre-Platonic philosophy speaks the juxtaposition of the 'Ionian and Italian Muses' (Ἰάδες καὶ Σικελικαὶ Μοῦσαι) in the preceding context Soph. 242de. The 'unreformed giants' are the Ionian physikoi from Anaximander to Democritus, while their 'divine' adversaries, who reduce being (ousia) to immaterial forms, are the Pythagoreans, Eleatics and Platonists, as well as Socrates, who dismisses the Ionian περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία in Plato's Phaedo and who upholds the theory of ideas in the Republic and Phaedrus. The 'improved' giants of the second generation are metaphysical dualists like Anaxagoras and Empedocles who admit incorporeal causes like Mind and Love alongside with matter, as well as Heraclitus, the Ionian Sophists and Antisthenes who combined ontological naturalism with teaching arete. The general scheme of the development of theories of archai in Aristotle's Metaphysics is very similar: from those who recognized only material causes to those who admitted incorporeal moving cause (Anaxagoras and Empedocles).
![Research paper thumbnail of Anaximander and the scientific revolution in Miletus in 6th century B.C. [with a new interpretation of fragment B 1 DK, pp.741-758]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/107467000/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology, 2022
Table of contents
1. Preliminary remarks. Eliminating the wrong category of ‘Presocratics’, corr... more Table of contents
1. Preliminary remarks. Eliminating the wrong category of ‘Presocratics’, correcting the improper use of the terms ‘monists’ and ‘pluralists’, and clarifying the distinction between ‘corpuscular’ and ‘atomistic’ theories of matter. – p. 689.
2. The new concept of ‘nature’ (φύσις) and the scientific revolution in Miletus in the first half of the 6th century B.C. The emergence of the first evolutionary history of the cosmos. — p. 697
3. Aristotle’s evidence on Anaximander’s theory of primordial substance as ‘mixture’ (Ἀναξιμάνδρου μῖγμα). The term ‘intermediate’ element (τὸ μεταξύ) is Aristotle’s own conventional label for the group of theories incompatible with his own theory of elements. Misinterpretations of the quotation from ‘Anaximander and most of physiologoi’ in Phys. Γ 4. — p. 706
4. The origin of the arche-formula (τὸ ἄπειρον = ἀρχἠ) attributed to Anaximander in the Imperial doxography. — p. 716
5. The evidence of Theophrastus on the universal mixture in Anaximander. The neglected analogy of gold-washing and the theory of vortex (δίνη) in Anaximander’s cosmogony. — p. 722
6. Additional evidence on the cosmogonical vortex in Anaximander and Anaximenes provided by Epicurus in the book XI of "On nature" (Περὶ φύσεως) — p. 729
7. The ‘winnowing of seeds’ analogy in Xenophanes and in Plato’s Timaeus. Its relation to Anaximander’s analogy — p. 736
8. The true meaning of the fragment B1 DK. Anaximander’s discovery of the fundamental law of Greek physics, the law of conservation of matter ἐκ μηδενὸς μηδὲν γίνεσθαι (‘ex nihilo nihil fit’). — p. 741
9. Neglected anonymous quotations and reminiscences of Anaximander B 1. Heraclitus’ adaptation of Anaximander’s analogy to his own theory of the cosmic cycles and ‘fated changes.’ — p. 750
10. A hypothesis concerning the social status of the so-called ‘Milesian school’: a collegium or thiasos of physikoi, experts on matters of astronomy, geography, meteorology etc. under the patronage of Apollo Didymeus, serving the practical needs of the Milesian colonization, sea trade and founding new poleis. Evidence on a ‘conversation hall’ (λέσχη) as a possible seat of the collegium. — p. 758
Bibliography — p. 765
![Research paper thumbnail of Did the doxographer Aëtius ever exist? [the original 1983 paper, now see the detailed 2016 refutation of Diels's Aëtius hypothesis and of Mansfeld and Runia's attempt to save it: "The origin and transmission of the doxographical tradition Placita philosophorum..." in our "papers" section].](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/92320865/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Philosophie et Culture, Acts/Proceedings. XVII Congres mondiale de philosophie, 1988
The original 1983 manuscript of the paper "Did the doxographer Aetius ever exist?" publish... more The original 1983 manuscript of the paper "Did the doxographer Aetius ever exist?" published in microfiche form in: Philosophie et Culture, Acts/Proceedings. XVII Congres mondiale de philosophie. Montreal 1983 Edited by Venant Cauchy, Ed.du Beffroi/Ed.Montmorency, v.3 (1988 ) pp. 813 - 817. Note that that each microfiche "page number" covers 2 pages of the original manuscript.
Diels's attribution of the supposed common source of Ps.Plutarch's De placitis philosophorum and Stobaeus' Eclogae to a certain Aëtius is a mistake based on the misreading of three passages in 5th century A.D. Christian apologist Theodoretus’ Curatio. Theodoretus never quotes Aëtius as a source of any single placitum of a specified Greek philosopher. He only mentions his name in a group of three authors (Porphyrius, Plutarch and Aëtius) as a kind of general bibliography of his sources for the opinions of Greek philosophers. Diels’s attribution is based primarily on two assumptions. 1) Theodoretus is lying, his only real source is Aëtius, the addition of two famous names of Porphyrius and Plutarch is allegedly a pretentious fake (splendoris gratia). 2) The combination of particles καὶ μέντοι καί in CAG V, 16, by which the name of Aetius is introduced, allegedly has emphatic meaning ‘and especially’ thus singling him out as the main source. But the analysis of the context of the passages in CAG II and IV ff. (which Diels has never undertaken!) demonstrates that Theodoret is not lying: he indeed quotes from three stylistically different pagan sources, whereas the name of Aëtius does not correspond to the quotations from SP-Placita, and so even Theodoret himself does not ascribe SP-Placita to a writer called Aëtius. Equally unfounded is the second claim of Diels. The analysis of Theodoretus’ usage (never undertaken by Diels!) demonstrates that none out of the 80 instances of this combination in Theodoretus’ CAG has emphatic meaning assumed by Diels, it regularly introduces an additional point or example in a series (‘and also’, ‘as well as’), often of secondary importance.
![Research paper thumbnail of The Aegean origin and early history of the Greek doctrines of reincarnation and immortality of the soul: Epimenides, Pherecydes, Pythagoras, and Onomacritus' Orphica [with appendix 4 on the new Orphic fragments from Sinai palimpsest.].](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/104178641/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Festschrift in honour of Professor N.V. Braginskaya, 2023
A.V.Lebedev, The Aegean origin and early history of the Greek doctrines of
reincarnation a... more A.V.Lebedev, The Aegean origin and early history of the Greek doctrines of
reincarnation and immortality of the soul (Epimenides, Pherecydes, Pythagoras, and Onomacritus’ Orphica), in: N.B.Bogdanovich (ed.). Myth, Ritual, Literature. National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Institute of Classical Orient and Antiquity, HSE Publishing House, Moscow, 2023, pp. 238-299.
NB! Figures I-III in the published volume are insets with no page numbers. In the present pdf file they are all attached at the end. Figure I (graffiti on bone plates from Olbia) looks to p.242, figure II (portrait of diviner Pharnabazos) to p.284, figure III (Cycladic group of 'mother and daughter') to p.273.
In the section (1) a new reading and interpretation of the so-called ‘Orphic’ graffiti from Olbia is proposed on the base of superior quality photographs of the plates than the 1978 photo in the editio princeps, on which virtually all existing literature is based. Relying on Vinogradov’s 1997 photo, I read and interpret the bottom line of the recto of OF 463 as follows: Διο[νύσωι] Ὀρφικῶ[ι] λ̅ (scil. τριακάδι θύειν vel εὔχεσθαι) – “Sacrifice (or pray) to Dionysos Orphikos on the thirtieth day”. Dionysos Orphikos is Dionysos of Orpheus’ Theogony, the son of Persephone, as distinguished from the traditional Dionysos, the son of Semele. Dionysos Orphikos permanently dwells in Hades, as was clearly seen by Philodemus. The bone tablets are neither dedications to Dionysus, nor secret ‘tokens’ of the initiated members of an Orphic thiasos. They are the oldest example of fortune-telling cards (ἀγυρτικοὶ πίνακες), typologically comparable to Tarot cards and Chinese inscriptions on oracular bones, and are based on the principles of Greek cleromancy (astragalomancy), since their triadic structure (number - prophecy – name of the god to whom one should pray) coincides with that of the cleromantic oracles from Asia Minor of the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. published by Nollé. The owner of the plates was most likely “Pharnabazos, the soothsayer of Hermes”, known from another graffito from Olbia of the same period, since it was Hermes who was considered the patron of popular dice divination. The drawings on the plates are associated with the symbolism of the Orphic myth of sparagmos (dismemberment) of Dionysus by the Titans and the Pythagorean doctrine of the immortality of the soul, while pairs of opposites come from a table comparable to the Pythagorean table of 10 opposites. Conclusion: the tablets provide no evidence on the existence of ‘Orphic community’ in Olbia (let alone of a kind of ‘Orphic church’ in Greece), but they provide evidence on the circulation of “Orpheus’ Sacred Words” in the periphery of Greek world in late fifth century B.C. Pharnabazos like the wandering priests (agyrtai) and diviners (manteis) in Plato's Republic, carried “books of Orpheus” in his bag, and combined the “Orphic” sparagmos/rebirth myth with Pythagorean doctrine of the substance dualism of the mortal body and immortal soul (the opposites ψυχή σῶμα are correlated with opposites ἀλήθεια ψεῦδος), anticipating the life-style of the Pythagoristai on the streets of Athens pictured in 4th century Attic comedy.
Contrary to the hypothesis of the northern or "shamanistic" origin of the ancient Greek doctrines of the reincarnation and immortality of the soul, a completely new theory of Aegean origin is argued in this work based on the fact that all four of the earliest representatives of this tradition either were directly related to Crete (Epimenides) and the Cyclades (Pherecydes of Syros), or had significant religious and philosophical contacts with the Cretan mantics (Onomacritus, the author of the ancient Orphic Theogony according to Aristotle) and the cult of Apollo Hyperborean on Delos (Pythagoras), which allowed only "bloodless" sacrifices, the religious and moral justification of which was the belief in the kinship of all living beings and reincarnation with the consequent prohibition of any bloodshed and animal sacrifice. A typology and an attempt at diachronic filiation of early versions of the doctrine of reincarnation are given. It is hypothesized that the “classical” Orphic-Pythagorean version was created by Pythagoras of Samos in the last third of the 6th century BC in Magna Graecia: it was a synthesis of the ancient Aegean version of Epimenides’ Theogony (c. 600 BC going back to the Aegean Bronze age doctrines of ‘rebirth’ reflected in the so-called Cycladic idols), which did not associate reincarnation with "punishment" for sins, but understood it as a continuation of eternal life in this world, and ancient Egyptian eschatology: the judgment of the soul in the afterlife, the osirification of the deceased, etc. Pythagoras based his doctrine of the human nature (immortal soul and mortal body) on a metaphysical substance dualism of peras and apeiron. The court diviner of the Peisistratidai in Athens in the late 6th century B.C. Onomacritus, who was probably a Pythagorean himself, according to the reliable evidence of Aristotle, expounded it in a mythopoetic form (the myth of the sparagmos of the divine child Dionysus by the evil Titans) in the Orphic Theogony which he ascribed to the mythical singer of times immemorial Orpheus. It was this Pythagorean (ethicized) version of the doctrine that was adopted by Plato, the Platonic tradition and - in an expurgated form – by the Church fathers who admitted only the post-mortem immortality of the soul, but rejected its pre-existence and reincarnation (except Origen).
![Research paper thumbnail of Indo-Aryan names in the saga of Argonauts, onomastics of Colchis, and Greek inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea region. [History and myth in the saga of Argonauts. In Russian with detailed English abstract].](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/99573342/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Indo-European linguistics and classical philology, 2021
A.V.LEBEDEV. INDO-ARYAN NAMES IN THE SAGA OF ARGONAUTS, ONOMASTICS OF COLCHIS AND GREEK INSCRIPTI... more A.V.LEBEDEV. INDO-ARYAN NAMES IN THE SAGA OF ARGONAUTS, ONOMASTICS OF COLCHIS AND GREEK INSCRIPTIONS OF THE NORTHERN BLACK SEA REGION.
English summary: 728-730.
I. Introduction to the problem. Research plan –731.
II. Indo-Aryan names in the Argonauts saga: personal names of heroes – 736.
III. Indo-Aryan names in the toponymy of the legend and its geographical area – 743.
IV. Indo-Aryan names of three Colchians of the royal blood (Saulacus, Suvarmachius, Nabarnugius), the Scythian leader Saumacus and the owner of the ring from Vani Dedatos – 751.
V. Indo-Aryan personal names in the inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea region (Olbia and Bosporus) - 766.
Vi. Ethno-linguistic affiliation of the ancient Colchians – 775.
ИНДОАРИЙСКИЕ ИМЕНА В САГЕ ОБ АРГОНАВТАХ, ОНОМАСТИКЕ
КОЛХИДЫ И НАДПИСЯХ СЕВЕРНОГО ПРИЧЕРНОМОРЬЯ Содержание: I. Введение в проблему. План исследования – 731 II. Индоарийские имена в саге об аргонавтах: личные имена героев – 736 III. Индоарийские имена в топонимике легенды и ее географического ареала – 743. IV. Индоарийские имена трех колхов царского рода (Савлак, Сувармахий, Набарнугий), скифского вождя Савмака и владельца перстня из Вани Дедатоса – 751. V. Индоарийские личные имена в надписях Северного Причерноморья (Ольвия и Боспор) – 766. VI. Этноязыковая принадлежность древних колхов – 775. Ключевые слова: Аргонавты, Миф о золотом руне, Колхида, греческая мифология, история Грузии, истории Армении, история металлов и металлургии, Восточное Причерноморье в древности, индоарийцы, греческая эпиграфика Северного Причерноморья.
Aristeas. Philologia classica et historia antiqua, 2021
This is a full text of the review of M. Sassi's monograph 'The beginnings of philosophy in Gr... more This is a full text of the review of M. Sassi's monograph 'The beginnings of philosophy in Greece' (2018), a very brief exposition of which has been published previously in Classical Review. While passing a generally favorable verdict on the value of Sassi''s contribution to the study of this much-debated topic, the author also criticizes somewhat excessive 'pluralism' of 'beginnings' admitted by Sassi, by emphasizing the fundamental and leading role of the two main 'beginnings', represented by the Ionian Peri physeos historia, a detached scientific study of nature (physis), on the one hand, and the Italian (Pythagorean and Eleatic) 'search for wisdom' (philosophy as a way of life), primarily centered on psyche and setting life-building and educational goals. By engaging in a dialogue with Sassi, the author takes opportunity to expose his own views on the origin of Greek philosophy and science that disagree with much of what one can read in modern histories of ancient philosophy about Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoreans, Alcmaeon and other Pre-Platonic thinkers. This disagreement results not so much from the invention of new interpretations, as from the rejection of the 19th - 20th centuries hypercritical approach to the sources of Preplatonic philosophy, as well as from the rejection of the false category of 'Presocrastics' together with the ill-founded doxographical theory of Diels, and a return to the ancient tradition combined with respect to the opinion of the ancient readers of the lost Preplatonic works: the study of 'hermeneutical isoglosses' and reliance on the consensus of independent ancient readers who possessed the complete texts of the lost Pre-Platonic works. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae provides a powerful tool for this research, unknown to previous generations of scholars.
![Research paper thumbnail of Democritus on Iranian magi and ancient religion: a quotation from Avesta (Yt.1,7) in Democritus fr.580 Luria. [With some remarks on the fictitious character of "Leucippus", p.141-142]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/94046611/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Indo-European linguistics and classical philology, 2020
In this paper a new reconstruction of the text and interpretation of the fragment 580 Luria /... more In this paper a new reconstruction of the text and interpretation of the fragment 580 Luria / B 30 DK is proposed. The author refutes the widespread opinion going back to Reinhardt (1912), according to which the fragment speaks of ancient sages, and argues that those who pray in the open air and call ‘Zeus’ air, are Iranian magi performing a Zoroastrian ritual. The fragment comes from the ‘Small Diakosmos’ of Democritus, which expounded the history of civilization and the origin of religion. For the reconstruction of the ancient phase of religion, Democritus uses the principle “as among barbarians now, so among the Greeks in ancient times”, which was widespread in the epoch of Sophists. The worship of the elements, preserved by the Persians, the absence of temples and statues, is a relic of the ancient phase of religion, which was replaced in Greece by the worship of anthropomorphic gods invented by the poets, a religion of “fools” (axynetoi).
First systematic study of Heraclitus' metaphorical language with a typology of metaphorical codes... more First systematic study of Heraclitus' metaphorical language with a typology of metaphorical codes (sets of related metaphors) and explanation of the meaning and interrelation of key conceptual metaphors that provides a clue for the understanding of the fundamental philosophical doctrines of Heraclitus including epistemology, philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophical theology, anthropology, psychology, ethics and politics.
Table of contents
Models of the cosmos, analogies and metaphorical codes: general introduction-2 2 Grammatical analogy: the cosmos as a logos (metaphor of Liber naturae)-5 3 Mantic metaphorical code: the cosmos as an oracle-6 4 Agonistic model: the cosmos as a stadium-9 5 Military model: the cosmos as a battlefield-15 6 Economic model: the cosmos as a household-19 7 Game model of the cosmos: Lusoria tabula-21 8 Sacral model: the cosmos as a Templum naturae-23 9 Biomorphic metaphorical code: the cosmos as a living organism-25 10 Technomorphic (demiourgical) analogies: metallurgy, pottery etc.-32 11 Sociomorphic model: Cosmopolis or the City of Zeus-35 12 Hebdomadism in Heraclitus philosophy of nature?-37 13 Bibliography-43
UNNOTICED QUOTATIONS FROM HERACLITUS IN PLATO AND THE PLATONIC TRADITION. (COMMENTARY TO FRAGMENT... more UNNOTICED QUOTATIONS FROM HERACLITUS IN PLATO AND THE PLATONIC TRADITION. (COMMENTARY TO FRAGMENTA PROBABILIA 1-15 LEB.) ANDREI LEBEDEV This is English translation of the portion of our commentary to the new edition and collection of fragments of Heraclitus relating to the group Fragmenta Probabilia. Our edition of the fragments of Heraclitus comprises three sections: 1) The main corpus of authentic fragments (1-160) quoted with Heraclitus' name. 2) Fragmenta probabilia (1-15) and 3) Dubia et spuria. We have distinguished 'Fragmenta probabilia" from "Dubia et spuria" because we regard them as authentic rather than not, but we have not included them in the main corpus because they are quoted without Heraclitus name. The attribution of each of these fragments to Heraclitus is argued for in the commentary, the assessment of the probability of their authenticity and the textual "authenticity grade" (verbatim quotation, paraphrase, adaptation, reminiscence etc.) may vary from case to case. For the convenience of reader I have added to the commentary to each fragment the Greek text with translation which in the original published version are printed separately from the commentary as a continuous text. Please, refer to the pages of the published version indicated for each fragment. А.В. Лебедев, Логос Гераклита: реконструкция мысли и слова (с новым критическим изданием фрагментов), Санкт-Петербург, «Наука», 2014, 533 с. A.V.Lebedev, The Logos of Heraclitus: A Reconstruction of his Thought and Word (with a
The Derveni Papyrus has been often misread and misunderstood for six main reasons. (1)... more The Derveni Papyrus has been often misread and misunderstood for six main reasons. (1) First, because the papyrus was falsely labeled as ‘Orphic’ in the very first report. (2) Second, because another misleading label – ‘Presocratic’ – was soon after that attached to its author. (3) Third, because the rhetorical/grammatical terms of the Derveni author τὰ κοινά καὶ τὰ ἴδια (sc. ὀνόματα or ῥήματα) “common and peculiar names” that provide a clue for understanding his theory of language and the origin of religion have been misunderstood as alleged ‘echoes’ of Heraclitus’ own terminology. (4) Fourth, because of the failure to distinguish between two types of pantheism in early Greek thought, the naturalistic and the ethico-religious. (5) Fifth, because of the failure to distinguish between two types of allegoresis of myth: constructive (friendly and apologetical in purpose) and deconstructive (polemical or atheistic). (6) And, last but not least, the widespread (after Tsantsanoglou [1997]) misinterpretation of πάριμεν in PDerv., col. V as an alleged indication of the author’s religious profession. Mistake (1) is addressed in § (II), mistake (3) in § (IV), mistake (5) in § (II), mistake (6) in § (XI).
The attribution of PDerv. to Prodicus of Ceos proposed in this article is based on verbal coincidences of peculiar phrases and terms in PDerv. and Prodicus’ fragments; Prodicus’ peculiar theory of the origin of the names of gods and religion from agriculture and other τέχναι ‘useful’ for human race is directly attested in PDerv.; there is also the evidence found in both Aristophanes and Themistius that Prodicus wrote an allegorical interpretation of the Orphic theogony.
The demonstration of our thesis is presented in 11 sections (§) and three appendices (App.). After preliminary remarks on the necessary distinction of the two types of pantheism and allegoresis in Greek thought (§ [I]) we define in § (II) the literary genre, the general purpose, and the hermeneutical method of the Derveni treatise, and draw a preliminary intellectual portrait of its author describing his peculiar features, a kind of ‘composite image.’ In § (III), we argue for Prodicus as the author of PDerv. and present the 19 testimonia on which this attribution is based. These include both the verbatim quotations with Prodicus’ name that find an exact correspondence in the text of PDerv and the common peculiar features of language and style.
In § (IV), we propose a reconstruction and interpretation of the text of col. IV that contains a quotation from Heraclitus. This column is of primary importance for understanding the aims and allegorical method of the author in general, as well as for his theory of names. In § (V), the problems of the original title and the date of the Derveni treatise are addressed, as well as its relation to the psephisma of Diopeithes (432 BC). In § (VI), the philosophical sources of Derv.T are discussed. Apart from the Anaxagorean source of the Derveni author’s cosmology and theory of matter recognized long ago, we discuss the possible influence of Democritus while dismissing “Leucippus”, Diogenes of Apollonia, and the Eleatics. We point to Protagoras as an important source of anthropology for the Derveni author and to Heraclitus as the source of his philosophy of language (including functionalist semantics) and criticism of popular religion. In § (VII), we briefly present our reasons for rejecting the ascription of PDerv. to other authors (Epigenes, Stesimbrotos, Euthydemus, Diagoras of Melos). § (VIII) expands the discussion of Prodicus’ atheistic sobriquet ‘Tantalos’ in § (III) by focusing on two cryptic Tantalos passages in Euripides’ Orestes. Taking the torture of Anaxagoras before his trial as a historical fact (which the new reconstruction of Philodemus’ account by Eduardo Acosta Méndez has brought to light, and which Christian Vassallo confirms in this volume, DAPR, T7), we interpret the tortures of Tantalos as an allusion to Anaxagoras’ trial, a cryptic commemoration of the 20th anniversary of his death, and a makarismos of the heroic martyr of science, analogous to Euripides’ cryptic commemoration of Protagoras’ death in Ixion. § (IX) searches for further reflections of the ‘avian’ theme (ὀρνίθειον in PDerv., cols. ΙΙ and VI) in Aristophanes’ Birds and Clouds. It starts with the attribution of a neglected comedy fragment in the Suda Lexicon to Aristophanes’ Seasons and connects the comic passages in the Clouds on ἀλεκτρυών with Prodicus’ orthoepeia. The passage on ‘Persian cock’ as a prehistoric king in Birds 481–492 is interpreted as a parody of Prodicus’ theory of the origin of religion and civilization. § (X) discusses three ‘Heraclitizing’ passages (apart from col. IV) in cols. V, XX, and XXII, and arrives at the conclusion that cols. V and XX contain either hidden verbatim quotations from Heraclitus or paraphrases close to the original text with authentic terms and phrases, whereas col. XXII contains a summarizing exposition of Heraclitus’ philosophy of lan- guage and religion (the invention of polytheism by poets due to their ‘ignorance’). In § (XI), the hypothesis that Euripides may have taken with him to Macedonia a copy of Prodicus’ work on religion, since he quotes it in the Bacchae on which he worked at that time, is advanced. A copy of it may have been made for the library of Archelaus in Pella. In App. (1) we defend the traditional 5th cent. date and the Preplatonic character of PDerv. in response to Luc Brisson’s Stoic hypothesis. App. (2) clarifies our use of the term peritrope and explains the Derveni treatise as a naturalistic peritrope of a religious text. App. (3) identifies a neglected reflection of Prodicus’ benefaction theory of religion in Xenophon’ Memorabilia with parallels from PDerv.
Indo-European linguistics and classical philology, 2019
Abstract and table of contents
(1) Preliminary criticism of the presuppositions of the denial... more Abstract and table of contents
(1) Preliminary criticism of the presuppositions of the denial of existence of idealism in early Greek thought: pseudohistorical evolutionism, Platonocentrism that ignores the archaic features of Plato’s metaphysics and psychology, and the modern stereotype of «Presocratics» as physicalists, a product of the late 19th century (excessive) positivist reaction against Hegelianism and German idealism in the English-speaking historiography of Greek phiosophy. p.653
(2) Demiourgos and creationism in Pre-Platonic philosophy. Creation by divine mind is a form of objective idealism (mentalism). p,.658
(3) The thesis of Myles Burnyeat and Bernard Williams (no idealism in Greek philosophy) is criticised. We point to scholastic and ancient (Platonic) roots of Descartes’ substance dualism of body and mind, as well as to the even more ancient Pythagorean roots of Plato’s doctrine of immortal soul. p.661
(4) A provisional taxonomy of different types of idealism (mentalism) in ancient Greek philosophy is proposed. 11 types are distinguished. p.663
(5) The evidence of the Orphic-Pythagorean graffiti from Olbia on the early Pythagorean substance dualism of body and soul proves its Preplatonic origin. p.673
(6) Criticism of modern naturalistic interpretations of Pythagorean first principles peras and apeiron (Burkert, Huffman and others). Peras and apeiron (a geometrical analogue of later terms form and matter) are self-subsistent incorporeal mathematical essences, out of which physical bodies are «constructed» (ἁρμόζειν, another geometrical term for «construction») by the divine mind-demiourgos. P.674
(7) The identity of Being and Mind in Parmenides. A refutation of the grammatically impossible anti-idealist interpretation of fr. B 3 by Zeller, Burnet and their followers. Parmenides’ Kouros is a poetic image of Pythagoras as the originator of the Western Greek monotheistic theology of the noetic One, concieved as a Sphere of immutable thinking divine light (the conceptual metaphor of the Invisible Sun of Justice that «never sets»). p.675
(8) The psychological and ethical dimensions of the Eleatic doctrine of Being, almost totally neglected in the mainstream of the post-Burnetean literature. The Pythagorean doctrine of the indestructible soul serves as a practical tool of military psychological engineering: the education of fearless warriors. Strabo’s commonly neglected report on invincible Eleatic warriors, educated by Parmenides’ nomoi, is to be taken seriously. p.681
(9) The «battle of gods and giants over being» (Gigantomachia peri tes ousias) in Plato’s Sophist 246a as a testimony on the Prelatonic metaphysical idealism (mentalism). It is argued that the two warring camps should not be confined to contemporary atomists and academics only: the whole Ionian (naturalism) and Italian (idealism) traditions, mentioned in Plato’s context, are meant, i.e. the whole history of Greek philosophy. p.689
(10) Some clarifications on the use of the terms idealism, naturalism, dualism etc. p.694
Keywords: Ancient Greek philosophy, Preplatonic philosophy, Pythagoras, Pythagorean school, Eleatic school, Parmenides, Melissus, Empedocles, Epicharmus, Heraclitus, idealism, naturalism, philosophical theology, body and mind.
As I have repeatedly stated since 1989 on different occasions, “Presocratics” is a misleading ter... more As I have repeatedly stated since 1989 on different occasions, “Presocratics” is a misleading term of the modern historiography of Greek philosophy which is both historically incorrect (was Socrates “Presocratic”?) and philosophically meaningless. The ancients saw the truth: there were two, not one, beginnings of Greek philosophy. The Ionian tradition starting with Thales was a secular empirical science. The Italian tradition started by Pythagoras had a religious- ethical dimension and was educational in scope. These two traditions originated in totally diferrent sociocultural contexts and were different in their goals. The term φιλοσοφία comes from the Italian tradition, the Ionian word for the new science was ἱστορία, a word which is often associated with travel and collecting information. The birth of the Ionian tradition of ἡ
περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία was triggered by the practical/economic needs of the Milesian polis, first of all by seafaring, sea trade and colonization (more that 90 colonies according to Plinius). Navigation requires knowledge of astronomy, geography and meteorology, three subjects that constitute the core of any Ionian treatise Περὶ φύσεως.
A study of peculiar features of Heraclitus' language and style that combines formal analysis wi... more A study of peculiar features of Heraclitus' language and style that combines formal analysis with a special emphasis on their philosophical implications relating to the philosophy of language, metaphysics and epistemology. The following 10 topics are discussed: 1. Anсient critics on the "obscurity" and "ambiguity" of Heraclitus' style……….43
2. Syntactic polysemy. Asyndeton………………………………………………..44
3. The omission of the conjunction καί ‘and’ between the opposites……………49
4. The use of connective particles………………………………………………...51
5. Ellipsis of copula: the omission of the verb ἐστίν in certain contexts…………51
6. The use of the article……………………………………………………………53
7. Pluralis poeticus (or philosophicus?)…………………………………………...54
8. Folklore elements. Proverb, parable, riddle……………………………………54
9. Fränkel's “proportion”………………………………………………………….55
10. Chiasmus……………………………………………………………………….57
It is argued that in most cases the peculiarities at issue cannot be reduced to rhetorical or stylistic devices, but are grounded in a serious philosophical work and experimental attempt to reform the ordinary language, i.e. to bring it in line with physis, the objective order of things. The regular omissiοn of the verb "to be" (ἐστί), of the conjunction καί ῾and῾ between the opposites, and of articles in the "cosmic" fragments relating to the cyclic interchange of opposites, is a linguistic implementation of the metaphysical doctrines of identity (and lack οf substantiality) of opposites and of Universal flux in the phenomenal world of plurality.This fact proves once again that the doctrine of the Universal Flux is a genuine doctrine of Heraclitus and not Plato's invention. In the last section several types of chiasmus in Heraclitus are distinguished and compared with the ring-composition in Homer and archaic Greek culture.
This chapter focuses on the assessment of the first book of the Hippocratic treatise De diaeta as... more This chapter focuses on the assessment of the first book of the Hippocratic treatise De diaeta as a source for the reconstruction of the lost book of Hetaclitus. We argue that this is an invaluable source which – with due precautions and reservations – leads to the reconsideration of the nature and purpose of Heraclitus' book. 20 out of 24 "crafts" (τέχναι) and other practices adduced in chapters 11-24 of De diaeta, book I are attested in the authentic fragments of Hercalitus or in the Heraclitean tradition. This transforms Heraclitus from a physicist into anthropologist and once again confirms the correctness of the evidence of Diodotus that the book of Heraclitus "was not about nature, but about politeia". In their original context the examples from various τέχναι were conceived as empirical proofs (tekmeria) in support of the thesis "craft imitates nature" (ἡ τέχνη μιμεῖται τὴν φύσιν) which in turn demonstrates that in their works (ἔργα, ποιεῖν) humans unconsciously imitate the divine law of the harmony of opposites that permeates the Universe and the world of polis. Heraclitus' book is the first theory of natural law and the first political utopia anticipating Plato's Republic.
This chapter sets Heraclitus and his work in the historical context of the Ionian revolt (499 - ... more This chapter sets Heraclitus and his work in the historical context of the Ionian revolt (499 - 494 B.C.).The combined external evidence and the ipsissima verba of Heraclitus lead to the conclusion that the book of Heraclitus was not only a philosophical treatise, but also a program of radical political and religious reforms whose aim was the creation of a federal state of Ionian Greeks (presumably with further expansion of it into a Panhellenic state) in order to match and to surpass the military might of the Persian empire. In religious sphere the Homeric anthropomorphic polytheism had to be replaced by a monotheistic cult of Apollo the Sun (being a visible manifestation of his Father Zeus, the imperceptible «ever-living fire» imbued with mind, the creator of the Universe) who would unite the Greeks as a «common» (ξυνός) patron of the unified mega-polis. Heraclitus was an ideologue of the Ionian revolt and probably was connected with the «party of war» in Ephesus, hence his glorification of the fallen in battle who would be awarded with a «better portion» in afterlife and become commensals of gods in the Sun region, according to the neglected verbatim fragment in Zenobius Sophista (fr. 159A Lebedev). Heraclitus intentional «obscurity» and metaphorical language can be explained both as imitation of the oracular language of Apollo (whose prophet he claims to be by the prophetic formula “listening not to my logos…”) and as a conspiratorial protection against the spies of the Great king. Heraclitus’ project probably failed because of the destruction of Miletus (494 B.C.), but his Panhellenic ideas may have influenced the founders of the Delian League who made the Delian Apollo the patron of the new confederation. And his dream was finally realised in full by Alexander the Great.
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Indo-European linguistics and classical philology, 2023
I. GREEK PHILOSOPHY AS A REFORM AND THERAPY OF THE ORDINARY LANGUAGE;
II. HERACLITUS’ EXPERIME... more I. GREEK PHILOSOPHY AS A REFORM AND THERAPY OF THE ORDINARY LANGUAGE;
II. HERACLITUS’ EXPERIMENTS WITH LANGUAGE, GRAMMAR AND STYLE
The first part of this investigation draws attention to one understudied, and yet philosophically important approach to language in Greek philosophy from archaic times to Aristotle: the reform of ordinary language, word-making and attempts to discover or to create an ideal language or a language “conforming to nature”. The following cases at point are discussed: the critique of the ordinary language as a product of doxastic imagination in Heraclitus and Parmenides associated with linguistic idealism and the theory of “linguistic error” of mortals in ancient times that resulted in the origin of polytheism and belief in the reality of the phenomenal world of many things misnamed by empty words. The elimination of the words for “birth and death”, “generation and de- struction” as “deceptive” and their systematic replacement by new “correct” mechanistic terminology of “excretion from mixture, recombination and dissolution” of material particles in Ionian physics (Anaximander, Anaxagoras) and Empedocles. The theory of the “disease of language” as the root of mythology and anthropomorphic polytheism of poets in Sophists (Prodicus, the Derveni papyrus), Aristotle’s attempts to give names to “anonymous” moral qualities in Nicomachean Ethics. The idea of a “divine language” is to some extent anticipated in the Homeric topos of the “language of gods” which has Indo-European roots. A suggestion is made en passant that if the author of the “dream theory” in Plato's Theaetetus, quoted by Wittgenstein in Philosophical investigations, I.46 as an ancient antecedent of his simple “objects” in the Tractatus, is Heraclitus rather than Antisthenes (as we argue on the ground of the new reconstruction of grammatical analogy in Heraclitus’ logos-fragments), then a historical link can be established between Wittgenstein's linguistic idealism and Heraclitus’ analogies of “cosmic grammar” and “alphabet of nature”, although in Wittgenstein’s perception it was, of course, a theory of “Socrates” and Plato, not of Heraclitus. Part II is a case at point study of language and style in Heraclitus including following topics: oracular features, syntactic polysemy (hyperbaton), omission of the conjunction καί between opposites, omission of the verb ‘to be’ in the desсriptions of phenomenal change, omission of article with words referring to ‘appearances’ (τὰ φανερά, τὰ δοκέοντα), replacing a standard singularis (ποταμός) with pluralis (ποταμοί), because what we see is a series of rivers
changing every moment, Fränkel’s “proportion” as a means of approaching the unknown, forms of chiasmus, chiastic (amoebean) structure of fragments as a mimesis of the natural cyclical processes (the ‘road up and down’).
Keywords: ancient philosophy, theories of language, origin of religion and mythology, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Greek sophists, Prodicus, Plato, Aristotle, the Derveni papyrus.
Indo-Europen Linguistics and Classical Philology, 2010
Why did western Greek philosophers (Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles), unlike their Eastern Ion... more Why did western Greek philosophers (Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles), unlike their Eastern Ionian colleagues, chose the Homeric hexameter rather than prose to express their thought? It has been thought by some that these philosophical poems represent a continuation or adaptation of the Homeric tradition for didactic purposes. We reject this interpretation because it ignores the fundamental difference between the Ionian and Italian philosophical traditions. The Ionian tradition was scientific in spirit and therefore used Ionian prose. The Italian tradition starting from Pythagoras was a revolt against the Ionian naturalistic monism and an attempt to restore the traditional religious world-view in a new quasi-scientific form. Western Greek philosophy from the start was ethical-religious in its aims, and therefore it chose the most “hieratic” poetic medium of the time, the language of Pythia and Apollo. And in doing so it did not aim so much at the “continuation” of the Homeric tradition as at “replacing” the old bad mythology of the poets with a good new one, just as Plato later tried to replace bad old myths with new philosophical myths of his own. Western Greek philosophical poems, consequently, should be viewed not as a revival of the old epic poetry, but as its radical reform and a peritrope. In Greek dialectics peritrope was a technical term for “turning over” of the opponent’s argument against himself. We use this term in a less technical and a wider sense of a polemical device which aims at “defeating an opponent with his own weapons”. Peritrope is an often neglected polemical device of the Greek culture of the philosophical debate. E.g. the cosmogony of Plato’s “Timaeus” can be interpreted as a creationist peritrope of the Ionian (and atomistic) naturalistic determinist physics. And the Derveni papyrus (i.e. "Horai" of Prodicus of Ceos) presents exactly the reverse case: a polemical naturalistic peritrope of the creationst Orphic (i.e. Pythagorean) theogony.
Complete English translation of the article published originally in Russian (2015).
... more Complete English translation of the article published originally in Russian (2015).
Summary
It is commonly believed that the epic Theogony of Epimenides of Crete derives from the corpus of pseudepigrapha under his name and that it was composed by anonymous author (with Pythagorean background) after 500 B.C. We demonstrate (mainly on the basis the reconstruction of the proem of the Theogony) that such influences do not exist and we arrive at the conclusion that the Theogony was written by Epimenides himself around 600 B.C. Aristotle who was sceptical about the authorship of the poems attributed to Orpheus and Musaeus, cites Epimenides without reservations as the real author of the verses he cites. Therefore the common elements between Epimenides on the one hand, and the Orphics and Pythagoreans on the other (Night as the first principle, the cosmic egg, the immortality and reincarnation of the soul), should be interpreted as borrowings by the latter from Epimenides, not vice versa. As a “priest of Zeus and Rhea” Epimenides belongs to the ancient Cretan hieratic clan that claimed descendance from Aiakos, son of Zeus; in view of the extreme conservatism of Cretan cultural, political and religious traditions, the sources of Epimenides’ divine wisdom should be sought not in the hypothetical “northern” or eastern quarters, but in the local oral traditions that go back the Late Minoan times and are closely tied with the cults and myths of the region around Mount Ida and similar oracular caves. The discussion of Epimendes’ herbal medicine shows that it is connected both with therapeutuc use of herbs and with cathartic rituals; Indian Ayurveda provides a close typological parallel to this, so common Indo-European roots are possible. After this we address the problem of the origin and thesources of the Orphic Theogony and propose a new solution. Taking at its face value Aristotle’s information on Onomacritus as the author of the Orphic epic Theogony, we discuss the “Cretan connections” of Onomacritus and adduce in favour of our hypothesis numerous literary and epigraphical- archeological pieces of evidence that connect early Orphism and the belief in the reincarnation with the Idaen cave and the region around it (Orphic golden plates and epistomia from Eleutherna and Sfakaki near Rethymno collected and studied by Tzifopoulos). Inter alia, we also propose a new interpretation of the Orphic graffiti written on bone plates from Olbia as divinatory devices (mantic cards, the oldest known ancestor of the cards Tarot) that probably belonged to the “diviner of Hermes” Pharnabazos of Olbia and were connected with the dice divination (astragalomanteia), the proper art of Hermes. The divinatory dodecahedron found in the Idaean cave seems to be connected with astragalomanteia, as well.
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Papers by Andrei V . Lebedev
My starting point is the assumption that theories of knowledge do not
emerge and do not exist in a conceptual void: they are usually integral
parts of onto-epistemological complexes that we call philosophical systems.
It is impossible to obtain a clear picture of what was going on in the
early Greek epistemology without taking into account the contemporary
dominant metaphysical paradigms and theories of being. Therefore, after a
preliminary discussion of the (often neglected) problem of idealism (mentalism)
in early Greek thought and criticism of what I call pseudo-historical
developmentalism and misconceived category of ‘Presocratics’ in modern
studies of pre-Platonic philosophy (section I), I will first delineate the genesis
of two main conflicting metaphysical paradigms in their historical and
socio-cultural contexts, those of the substance dualism (resp. mentalism)
in sections II-III, on the one hand, and of the naturalistic monism in
the section IV, on the other. Relying on the results of this investigation I
will propose a general survey of the fundamental dispute between Greek
rationalists and empiricists (resp. mentalists and naturalists) in section V,
while the section VI will focus on the reflection of the conflict between
two onto-epistemological complexes in the parable of ‘gigantomachia over
being’ in Plato’s Sophist.
1. Preliminary remarks. Eliminating the wrong category of ‘Presocratics’, correcting the improper use of the terms ‘monists’ and ‘pluralists’, and clarifying the distinction between ‘corpuscular’ and ‘atomistic’ theories of matter. – p. 689.
2. The new concept of ‘nature’ (φύσις) and the scientific revolution in Miletus in the first half of the 6th century B.C. The emergence of the first evolutionary history of the cosmos. — p. 697
3. Aristotle’s evidence on Anaximander’s theory of primordial substance as ‘mixture’ (Ἀναξιμάνδρου μῖγμα). The term ‘intermediate’ element (τὸ μεταξύ) is Aristotle’s own conventional label for the group of theories incompatible with his own theory of elements. Misinterpretations of the quotation from ‘Anaximander and most of physiologoi’ in Phys. Γ 4. — p. 706
4. The origin of the arche-formula (τὸ ἄπειρον = ἀρχἠ) attributed to Anaximander in the Imperial doxography. — p. 716
5. The evidence of Theophrastus on the universal mixture in Anaximander. The neglected analogy of gold-washing and the theory of vortex (δίνη) in Anaximander’s cosmogony. — p. 722
6. Additional evidence on the cosmogonical vortex in Anaximander and Anaximenes provided by Epicurus in the book XI of "On nature" (Περὶ φύσεως) — p. 729
7. The ‘winnowing of seeds’ analogy in Xenophanes and in Plato’s Timaeus. Its relation to Anaximander’s analogy — p. 736
8. The true meaning of the fragment B1 DK. Anaximander’s discovery of the fundamental law of Greek physics, the law of conservation of matter ἐκ μηδενὸς μηδὲν γίνεσθαι (‘ex nihilo nihil fit’). — p. 741
9. Neglected anonymous quotations and reminiscences of Anaximander B 1. Heraclitus’ adaptation of Anaximander’s analogy to his own theory of the cosmic cycles and ‘fated changes.’ — p. 750
10. A hypothesis concerning the social status of the so-called ‘Milesian school’: a collegium or thiasos of physikoi, experts on matters of astronomy, geography, meteorology etc. under the patronage of Apollo Didymeus, serving the practical needs of the Milesian colonization, sea trade and founding new poleis. Evidence on a ‘conversation hall’ (λέσχη) as a possible seat of the collegium. — p. 758
Bibliography — p. 765
Diels's attribution of the supposed common source of Ps.Plutarch's De placitis philosophorum and Stobaeus' Eclogae to a certain Aëtius is a mistake based on the misreading of three passages in 5th century A.D. Christian apologist Theodoretus’ Curatio. Theodoretus never quotes Aëtius as a source of any single placitum of a specified Greek philosopher. He only mentions his name in a group of three authors (Porphyrius, Plutarch and Aëtius) as a kind of general bibliography of his sources for the opinions of Greek philosophers. Diels’s attribution is based primarily on two assumptions. 1) Theodoretus is lying, his only real source is Aëtius, the addition of two famous names of Porphyrius and Plutarch is allegedly a pretentious fake (splendoris gratia). 2) The combination of particles καὶ μέντοι καί in CAG V, 16, by which the name of Aetius is introduced, allegedly has emphatic meaning ‘and especially’ thus singling him out as the main source. But the analysis of the context of the passages in CAG II and IV ff. (which Diels has never undertaken!) demonstrates that Theodoret is not lying: he indeed quotes from three stylistically different pagan sources, whereas the name of Aëtius does not correspond to the quotations from SP-Placita, and so even Theodoret himself does not ascribe SP-Placita to a writer called Aëtius. Equally unfounded is the second claim of Diels. The analysis of Theodoretus’ usage (never undertaken by Diels!) demonstrates that none out of the 80 instances of this combination in Theodoretus’ CAG has emphatic meaning assumed by Diels, it regularly introduces an additional point or example in a series (‘and also’, ‘as well as’), often of secondary importance.
reincarnation and immortality of the soul (Epimenides, Pherecydes, Pythagoras, and Onomacritus’ Orphica), in: N.B.Bogdanovich (ed.). Myth, Ritual, Literature. National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Institute of Classical Orient and Antiquity, HSE Publishing House, Moscow, 2023, pp. 238-299.
NB! Figures I-III in the published volume are insets with no page numbers. In the present pdf file they are all attached at the end. Figure I (graffiti on bone plates from Olbia) looks to p.242, figure II (portrait of diviner Pharnabazos) to p.284, figure III (Cycladic group of 'mother and daughter') to p.273.
In the section (1) a new reading and interpretation of the so-called ‘Orphic’ graffiti from Olbia is proposed on the base of superior quality photographs of the plates than the 1978 photo in the editio princeps, on which virtually all existing literature is based. Relying on Vinogradov’s 1997 photo, I read and interpret the bottom line of the recto of OF 463 as follows: Διο[νύσωι] Ὀρφικῶ[ι] λ̅ (scil. τριακάδι θύειν vel εὔχεσθαι) – “Sacrifice (or pray) to Dionysos Orphikos on the thirtieth day”. Dionysos Orphikos is Dionysos of Orpheus’ Theogony, the son of Persephone, as distinguished from the traditional Dionysos, the son of Semele. Dionysos Orphikos permanently dwells in Hades, as was clearly seen by Philodemus. The bone tablets are neither dedications to Dionysus, nor secret ‘tokens’ of the initiated members of an Orphic thiasos. They are the oldest example of fortune-telling cards (ἀγυρτικοὶ πίνακες), typologically comparable to Tarot cards and Chinese inscriptions on oracular bones, and are based on the principles of Greek cleromancy (astragalomancy), since their triadic structure (number - prophecy – name of the god to whom one should pray) coincides with that of the cleromantic oracles from Asia Minor of the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. published by Nollé. The owner of the plates was most likely “Pharnabazos, the soothsayer of Hermes”, known from another graffito from Olbia of the same period, since it was Hermes who was considered the patron of popular dice divination. The drawings on the plates are associated with the symbolism of the Orphic myth of sparagmos (dismemberment) of Dionysus by the Titans and the Pythagorean doctrine of the immortality of the soul, while pairs of opposites come from a table comparable to the Pythagorean table of 10 opposites. Conclusion: the tablets provide no evidence on the existence of ‘Orphic community’ in Olbia (let alone of a kind of ‘Orphic church’ in Greece), but they provide evidence on the circulation of “Orpheus’ Sacred Words” in the periphery of Greek world in late fifth century B.C. Pharnabazos like the wandering priests (agyrtai) and diviners (manteis) in Plato's Republic, carried “books of Orpheus” in his bag, and combined the “Orphic” sparagmos/rebirth myth with Pythagorean doctrine of the substance dualism of the mortal body and immortal soul (the opposites ψυχή σῶμα are correlated with opposites ἀλήθεια ψεῦδος), anticipating the life-style of the Pythagoristai on the streets of Athens pictured in 4th century Attic comedy.
Contrary to the hypothesis of the northern or "shamanistic" origin of the ancient Greek doctrines of the reincarnation and immortality of the soul, a completely new theory of Aegean origin is argued in this work based on the fact that all four of the earliest representatives of this tradition either were directly related to Crete (Epimenides) and the Cyclades (Pherecydes of Syros), or had significant religious and philosophical contacts with the Cretan mantics (Onomacritus, the author of the ancient Orphic Theogony according to Aristotle) and the cult of Apollo Hyperborean on Delos (Pythagoras), which allowed only "bloodless" sacrifices, the religious and moral justification of which was the belief in the kinship of all living beings and reincarnation with the consequent prohibition of any bloodshed and animal sacrifice. A typology and an attempt at diachronic filiation of early versions of the doctrine of reincarnation are given. It is hypothesized that the “classical” Orphic-Pythagorean version was created by Pythagoras of Samos in the last third of the 6th century BC in Magna Graecia: it was a synthesis of the ancient Aegean version of Epimenides’ Theogony (c. 600 BC going back to the Aegean Bronze age doctrines of ‘rebirth’ reflected in the so-called Cycladic idols), which did not associate reincarnation with "punishment" for sins, but understood it as a continuation of eternal life in this world, and ancient Egyptian eschatology: the judgment of the soul in the afterlife, the osirification of the deceased, etc. Pythagoras based his doctrine of the human nature (immortal soul and mortal body) on a metaphysical substance dualism of peras and apeiron. The court diviner of the Peisistratidai in Athens in the late 6th century B.C. Onomacritus, who was probably a Pythagorean himself, according to the reliable evidence of Aristotle, expounded it in a mythopoetic form (the myth of the sparagmos of the divine child Dionysus by the evil Titans) in the Orphic Theogony which he ascribed to the mythical singer of times immemorial Orpheus. It was this Pythagorean (ethicized) version of the doctrine that was adopted by Plato, the Platonic tradition and - in an expurgated form – by the Church fathers who admitted only the post-mortem immortality of the soul, but rejected its pre-existence and reincarnation (except Origen).
English summary: 728-730.
I. Introduction to the problem. Research plan –731.
II. Indo-Aryan names in the Argonauts saga: personal names of heroes – 736.
III. Indo-Aryan names in the toponymy of the legend and its geographical area – 743.
IV. Indo-Aryan names of three Colchians of the royal blood (Saulacus, Suvarmachius, Nabarnugius), the Scythian leader Saumacus and the owner of the ring from Vani Dedatos – 751.
V. Indo-Aryan personal names in the inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea region (Olbia and Bosporus) - 766.
Vi. Ethno-linguistic affiliation of the ancient Colchians – 775.
ИНДОАРИЙСКИЕ ИМЕНА В САГЕ ОБ АРГОНАВТАХ, ОНОМАСТИКЕ
КОЛХИДЫ И НАДПИСЯХ СЕВЕРНОГО ПРИЧЕРНОМОРЬЯ Содержание: I. Введение в проблему. План исследования – 731 II. Индоарийские имена в саге об аргонавтах: личные имена героев – 736 III. Индоарийские имена в топонимике легенды и ее географического ареала – 743. IV. Индоарийские имена трех колхов царского рода (Савлак, Сувармахий, Набарнугий), скифского вождя Савмака и владельца перстня из Вани Дедатоса – 751. V. Индоарийские личные имена в надписях Северного Причерноморья (Ольвия и Боспор) – 766. VI. Этноязыковая принадлежность древних колхов – 775. Ключевые слова: Аргонавты, Миф о золотом руне, Колхида, греческая мифология, история Грузии, истории Армении, история металлов и металлургии, Восточное Причерноморье в древности, индоарийцы, греческая эпиграфика Северного Причерноморья.
Table of contents
Models of the cosmos, analogies and metaphorical codes: general introduction-2 2 Grammatical analogy: the cosmos as a logos (metaphor of Liber naturae)-5 3 Mantic metaphorical code: the cosmos as an oracle-6 4 Agonistic model: the cosmos as a stadium-9 5 Military model: the cosmos as a battlefield-15 6 Economic model: the cosmos as a household-19 7 Game model of the cosmos: Lusoria tabula-21 8 Sacral model: the cosmos as a Templum naturae-23 9 Biomorphic metaphorical code: the cosmos as a living organism-25 10 Technomorphic (demiourgical) analogies: metallurgy, pottery etc.-32 11 Sociomorphic model: Cosmopolis or the City of Zeus-35 12 Hebdomadism in Heraclitus philosophy of nature?-37 13 Bibliography-43
The attribution of PDerv. to Prodicus of Ceos proposed in this article is based on verbal coincidences of peculiar phrases and terms in PDerv. and Prodicus’ fragments; Prodicus’ peculiar theory of the origin of the names of gods and religion from agriculture and other τέχναι ‘useful’ for human race is directly attested in PDerv.; there is also the evidence found in both Aristophanes and Themistius that Prodicus wrote an allegorical interpretation of the Orphic theogony.
The demonstration of our thesis is presented in 11 sections (§) and three appendices (App.). After preliminary remarks on the necessary distinction of the two types of pantheism and allegoresis in Greek thought (§ [I]) we define in § (II) the literary genre, the general purpose, and the hermeneutical method of the Derveni treatise, and draw a preliminary intellectual portrait of its author describing his peculiar features, a kind of ‘composite image.’ In § (III), we argue for Prodicus as the author of PDerv. and present the 19 testimonia on which this attribution is based. These include both the verbatim quotations with Prodicus’ name that find an exact correspondence in the text of PDerv and the common peculiar features of language and style.
In § (IV), we propose a reconstruction and interpretation of the text of col. IV that contains a quotation from Heraclitus. This column is of primary importance for understanding the aims and allegorical method of the author in general, as well as for his theory of names. In § (V), the problems of the original title and the date of the Derveni treatise are addressed, as well as its relation to the psephisma of Diopeithes (432 BC). In § (VI), the philosophical sources of Derv.T are discussed. Apart from the Anaxagorean source of the Derveni author’s cosmology and theory of matter recognized long ago, we discuss the possible influence of Democritus while dismissing “Leucippus”, Diogenes of Apollonia, and the Eleatics. We point to Protagoras as an important source of anthropology for the Derveni author and to Heraclitus as the source of his philosophy of language (including functionalist semantics) and criticism of popular religion. In § (VII), we briefly present our reasons for rejecting the ascription of PDerv. to other authors (Epigenes, Stesimbrotos, Euthydemus, Diagoras of Melos). § (VIII) expands the discussion of Prodicus’ atheistic sobriquet ‘Tantalos’ in § (III) by focusing on two cryptic Tantalos passages in Euripides’ Orestes. Taking the torture of Anaxagoras before his trial as a historical fact (which the new reconstruction of Philodemus’ account by Eduardo Acosta Méndez has brought to light, and which Christian Vassallo confirms in this volume, DAPR, T7), we interpret the tortures of Tantalos as an allusion to Anaxagoras’ trial, a cryptic commemoration of the 20th anniversary of his death, and a makarismos of the heroic martyr of science, analogous to Euripides’ cryptic commemoration of Protagoras’ death in Ixion. § (IX) searches for further reflections of the ‘avian’ theme (ὀρνίθειον in PDerv., cols. ΙΙ and VI) in Aristophanes’ Birds and Clouds. It starts with the attribution of a neglected comedy fragment in the Suda Lexicon to Aristophanes’ Seasons and connects the comic passages in the Clouds on ἀλεκτρυών with Prodicus’ orthoepeia. The passage on ‘Persian cock’ as a prehistoric king in Birds 481–492 is interpreted as a parody of Prodicus’ theory of the origin of religion and civilization. § (X) discusses three ‘Heraclitizing’ passages (apart from col. IV) in cols. V, XX, and XXII, and arrives at the conclusion that cols. V and XX contain either hidden verbatim quotations from Heraclitus or paraphrases close to the original text with authentic terms and phrases, whereas col. XXII contains a summarizing exposition of Heraclitus’ philosophy of lan- guage and religion (the invention of polytheism by poets due to their ‘ignorance’). In § (XI), the hypothesis that Euripides may have taken with him to Macedonia a copy of Prodicus’ work on religion, since he quotes it in the Bacchae on which he worked at that time, is advanced. A copy of it may have been made for the library of Archelaus in Pella. In App. (1) we defend the traditional 5th cent. date and the Preplatonic character of PDerv. in response to Luc Brisson’s Stoic hypothesis. App. (2) clarifies our use of the term peritrope and explains the Derveni treatise as a naturalistic peritrope of a religious text. App. (3) identifies a neglected reflection of Prodicus’ benefaction theory of religion in Xenophon’ Memorabilia with parallels from PDerv.
(1) Preliminary criticism of the presuppositions of the denial of existence of idealism in early Greek thought: pseudohistorical evolutionism, Platonocentrism that ignores the archaic features of Plato’s metaphysics and psychology, and the modern stereotype of «Presocratics» as physicalists, a product of the late 19th century (excessive) positivist reaction against Hegelianism and German idealism in the English-speaking historiography of Greek phiosophy. p.653
(2) Demiourgos and creationism in Pre-Platonic philosophy. Creation by divine mind is a form of objective idealism (mentalism). p,.658
(3) The thesis of Myles Burnyeat and Bernard Williams (no idealism in Greek philosophy) is criticised. We point to scholastic and ancient (Platonic) roots of Descartes’ substance dualism of body and mind, as well as to the even more ancient Pythagorean roots of Plato’s doctrine of immortal soul. p.661
(4) A provisional taxonomy of different types of idealism (mentalism) in ancient Greek philosophy is proposed. 11 types are distinguished. p.663
(5) The evidence of the Orphic-Pythagorean graffiti from Olbia on the early Pythagorean substance dualism of body and soul proves its Preplatonic origin. p.673
(6) Criticism of modern naturalistic interpretations of Pythagorean first principles peras and apeiron (Burkert, Huffman and others). Peras and apeiron (a geometrical analogue of later terms form and matter) are self-subsistent incorporeal mathematical essences, out of which physical bodies are «constructed» (ἁρμόζειν, another geometrical term for «construction») by the divine mind-demiourgos. P.674
(7) The identity of Being and Mind in Parmenides. A refutation of the grammatically impossible anti-idealist interpretation of fr. B 3 by Zeller, Burnet and their followers. Parmenides’ Kouros is a poetic image of Pythagoras as the originator of the Western Greek monotheistic theology of the noetic One, concieved as a Sphere of immutable thinking divine light (the conceptual metaphor of the Invisible Sun of Justice that «never sets»). p.675
(8) The psychological and ethical dimensions of the Eleatic doctrine of Being, almost totally neglected in the mainstream of the post-Burnetean literature. The Pythagorean doctrine of the indestructible soul serves as a practical tool of military psychological engineering: the education of fearless warriors. Strabo’s commonly neglected report on invincible Eleatic warriors, educated by Parmenides’ nomoi, is to be taken seriously. p.681
(9) The «battle of gods and giants over being» (Gigantomachia peri tes ousias) in Plato’s Sophist 246a as a testimony on the Prelatonic metaphysical idealism (mentalism). It is argued that the two warring camps should not be confined to contemporary atomists and academics only: the whole Ionian (naturalism) and Italian (idealism) traditions, mentioned in Plato’s context, are meant, i.e. the whole history of Greek philosophy. p.689
(10) Some clarifications on the use of the terms idealism, naturalism, dualism etc. p.694
Keywords: Ancient Greek philosophy, Preplatonic philosophy, Pythagoras, Pythagorean school, Eleatic school, Parmenides, Melissus, Empedocles, Epicharmus, Heraclitus, idealism, naturalism, philosophical theology, body and mind.
περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία was triggered by the practical/economic needs of the Milesian polis, first of all by seafaring, sea trade and colonization (more that 90 colonies according to Plinius). Navigation requires knowledge of astronomy, geography and meteorology, three subjects that constitute the core of any Ionian treatise Περὶ φύσεως.
2. Syntactic polysemy. Asyndeton………………………………………………..44
3. The omission of the conjunction καί ‘and’ between the opposites……………49
4. The use of connective particles………………………………………………...51
5. Ellipsis of copula: the omission of the verb ἐστίν in certain contexts…………51
6. The use of the article……………………………………………………………53
7. Pluralis poeticus (or philosophicus?)…………………………………………...54
8. Folklore elements. Proverb, parable, riddle……………………………………54
9. Fränkel's “proportion”………………………………………………………….55
10. Chiasmus……………………………………………………………………….57
It is argued that in most cases the peculiarities at issue cannot be reduced to rhetorical or stylistic devices, but are grounded in a serious philosophical work and experimental attempt to reform the ordinary language, i.e. to bring it in line with physis, the objective order of things. The regular omissiοn of the verb "to be" (ἐστί), of the conjunction καί ῾and῾ between the opposites, and of articles in the "cosmic" fragments relating to the cyclic interchange of opposites, is a linguistic implementation of the metaphysical doctrines of identity (and lack οf substantiality) of opposites and of Universal flux in the phenomenal world of plurality.This fact proves once again that the doctrine of the Universal Flux is a genuine doctrine of Heraclitus and not Plato's invention. In the last section several types of chiasmus in Heraclitus are distinguished and compared with the ring-composition in Homer and archaic Greek culture.
II. HERACLITUS’ EXPERIMENTS WITH LANGUAGE, GRAMMAR AND STYLE
The first part of this investigation draws attention to one understudied, and yet philosophically important approach to language in Greek philosophy from archaic times to Aristotle: the reform of ordinary language, word-making and attempts to discover or to create an ideal language or a language “conforming to nature”. The following cases at point are discussed: the critique of the ordinary language as a product of doxastic imagination in Heraclitus and Parmenides associated with linguistic idealism and the theory of “linguistic error” of mortals in ancient times that resulted in the origin of polytheism and belief in the reality of the phenomenal world of many things misnamed by empty words. The elimination of the words for “birth and death”, “generation and de- struction” as “deceptive” and their systematic replacement by new “correct” mechanistic terminology of “excretion from mixture, recombination and dissolution” of material particles in Ionian physics (Anaximander, Anaxagoras) and Empedocles. The theory of the “disease of language” as the root of mythology and anthropomorphic polytheism of poets in Sophists (Prodicus, the Derveni papyrus), Aristotle’s attempts to give names to “anonymous” moral qualities in Nicomachean Ethics. The idea of a “divine language” is to some extent anticipated in the Homeric topos of the “language of gods” which has Indo-European roots. A suggestion is made en passant that if the author of the “dream theory” in Plato's Theaetetus, quoted by Wittgenstein in Philosophical investigations, I.46 as an ancient antecedent of his simple “objects” in the Tractatus, is Heraclitus rather than Antisthenes (as we argue on the ground of the new reconstruction of grammatical analogy in Heraclitus’ logos-fragments), then a historical link can be established between Wittgenstein's linguistic idealism and Heraclitus’ analogies of “cosmic grammar” and “alphabet of nature”, although in Wittgenstein’s perception it was, of course, a theory of “Socrates” and Plato, not of Heraclitus. Part II is a case at point study of language and style in Heraclitus including following topics: oracular features, syntactic polysemy (hyperbaton), omission of the conjunction καί between opposites, omission of the verb ‘to be’ in the desсriptions of phenomenal change, omission of article with words referring to ‘appearances’ (τὰ φανερά, τὰ δοκέοντα), replacing a standard singularis (ποταμός) with pluralis (ποταμοί), because what we see is a series of rivers
changing every moment, Fränkel’s “proportion” as a means of approaching the unknown, forms of chiasmus, chiastic (amoebean) structure of fragments as a mimesis of the natural cyclical processes (the ‘road up and down’).
Keywords: ancient philosophy, theories of language, origin of religion and mythology, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Greek sophists, Prodicus, Plato, Aristotle, the Derveni papyrus.
Summary
It is commonly believed that the epic Theogony of Epimenides of Crete derives from the corpus of pseudepigrapha under his name and that it was composed by anonymous author (with Pythagorean background) after 500 B.C. We demonstrate (mainly on the basis the reconstruction of the proem of the Theogony) that such influences do not exist and we arrive at the conclusion that the Theogony was written by Epimenides himself around 600 B.C. Aristotle who was sceptical about the authorship of the poems attributed to Orpheus and Musaeus, cites Epimenides without reservations as the real author of the verses he cites. Therefore the common elements between Epimenides on the one hand, and the Orphics and Pythagoreans on the other (Night as the first principle, the cosmic egg, the immortality and reincarnation of the soul), should be interpreted as borrowings by the latter from Epimenides, not vice versa. As a “priest of Zeus and Rhea” Epimenides belongs to the ancient Cretan hieratic clan that claimed descendance from Aiakos, son of Zeus; in view of the extreme conservatism of Cretan cultural, political and religious traditions, the sources of Epimenides’ divine wisdom should be sought not in the hypothetical “northern” or eastern quarters, but in the local oral traditions that go back the Late Minoan times and are closely tied with the cults and myths of the region around Mount Ida and similar oracular caves. The discussion of Epimendes’ herbal medicine shows that it is connected both with therapeutuc use of herbs and with cathartic rituals; Indian Ayurveda provides a close typological parallel to this, so common Indo-European roots are possible. After this we address the problem of the origin and thesources of the Orphic Theogony and propose a new solution. Taking at its face value Aristotle’s information on Onomacritus as the author of the Orphic epic Theogony, we discuss the “Cretan connections” of Onomacritus and adduce in favour of our hypothesis numerous literary and epigraphical- archeological pieces of evidence that connect early Orphism and the belief in the reincarnation with the Idaen cave and the region around it (Orphic golden plates and epistomia from Eleutherna and Sfakaki near Rethymno collected and studied by Tzifopoulos). Inter alia, we also propose a new interpretation of the Orphic graffiti written on bone plates from Olbia as divinatory devices (mantic cards, the oldest known ancestor of the cards Tarot) that probably belonged to the “diviner of Hermes” Pharnabazos of Olbia and were connected with the dice divination (astragalomanteia), the proper art of Hermes. The divinatory dodecahedron found in the Idaean cave seems to be connected with astragalomanteia, as well.
My starting point is the assumption that theories of knowledge do not
emerge and do not exist in a conceptual void: they are usually integral
parts of onto-epistemological complexes that we call philosophical systems.
It is impossible to obtain a clear picture of what was going on in the
early Greek epistemology without taking into account the contemporary
dominant metaphysical paradigms and theories of being. Therefore, after a
preliminary discussion of the (often neglected) problem of idealism (mentalism)
in early Greek thought and criticism of what I call pseudo-historical
developmentalism and misconceived category of ‘Presocratics’ in modern
studies of pre-Platonic philosophy (section I), I will first delineate the genesis
of two main conflicting metaphysical paradigms in their historical and
socio-cultural contexts, those of the substance dualism (resp. mentalism)
in sections II-III, on the one hand, and of the naturalistic monism in
the section IV, on the other. Relying on the results of this investigation I
will propose a general survey of the fundamental dispute between Greek
rationalists and empiricists (resp. mentalists and naturalists) in section V,
while the section VI will focus on the reflection of the conflict between
two onto-epistemological complexes in the parable of ‘gigantomachia over
being’ in Plato’s Sophist.
1. Preliminary remarks. Eliminating the wrong category of ‘Presocratics’, correcting the improper use of the terms ‘monists’ and ‘pluralists’, and clarifying the distinction between ‘corpuscular’ and ‘atomistic’ theories of matter. – p. 689.
2. The new concept of ‘nature’ (φύσις) and the scientific revolution in Miletus in the first half of the 6th century B.C. The emergence of the first evolutionary history of the cosmos. — p. 697
3. Aristotle’s evidence on Anaximander’s theory of primordial substance as ‘mixture’ (Ἀναξιμάνδρου μῖγμα). The term ‘intermediate’ element (τὸ μεταξύ) is Aristotle’s own conventional label for the group of theories incompatible with his own theory of elements. Misinterpretations of the quotation from ‘Anaximander and most of physiologoi’ in Phys. Γ 4. — p. 706
4. The origin of the arche-formula (τὸ ἄπειρον = ἀρχἠ) attributed to Anaximander in the Imperial doxography. — p. 716
5. The evidence of Theophrastus on the universal mixture in Anaximander. The neglected analogy of gold-washing and the theory of vortex (δίνη) in Anaximander’s cosmogony. — p. 722
6. Additional evidence on the cosmogonical vortex in Anaximander and Anaximenes provided by Epicurus in the book XI of "On nature" (Περὶ φύσεως) — p. 729
7. The ‘winnowing of seeds’ analogy in Xenophanes and in Plato’s Timaeus. Its relation to Anaximander’s analogy — p. 736
8. The true meaning of the fragment B1 DK. Anaximander’s discovery of the fundamental law of Greek physics, the law of conservation of matter ἐκ μηδενὸς μηδὲν γίνεσθαι (‘ex nihilo nihil fit’). — p. 741
9. Neglected anonymous quotations and reminiscences of Anaximander B 1. Heraclitus’ adaptation of Anaximander’s analogy to his own theory of the cosmic cycles and ‘fated changes.’ — p. 750
10. A hypothesis concerning the social status of the so-called ‘Milesian school’: a collegium or thiasos of physikoi, experts on matters of astronomy, geography, meteorology etc. under the patronage of Apollo Didymeus, serving the practical needs of the Milesian colonization, sea trade and founding new poleis. Evidence on a ‘conversation hall’ (λέσχη) as a possible seat of the collegium. — p. 758
Bibliography — p. 765
Diels's attribution of the supposed common source of Ps.Plutarch's De placitis philosophorum and Stobaeus' Eclogae to a certain Aëtius is a mistake based on the misreading of three passages in 5th century A.D. Christian apologist Theodoretus’ Curatio. Theodoretus never quotes Aëtius as a source of any single placitum of a specified Greek philosopher. He only mentions his name in a group of three authors (Porphyrius, Plutarch and Aëtius) as a kind of general bibliography of his sources for the opinions of Greek philosophers. Diels’s attribution is based primarily on two assumptions. 1) Theodoretus is lying, his only real source is Aëtius, the addition of two famous names of Porphyrius and Plutarch is allegedly a pretentious fake (splendoris gratia). 2) The combination of particles καὶ μέντοι καί in CAG V, 16, by which the name of Aetius is introduced, allegedly has emphatic meaning ‘and especially’ thus singling him out as the main source. But the analysis of the context of the passages in CAG II and IV ff. (which Diels has never undertaken!) demonstrates that Theodoret is not lying: he indeed quotes from three stylistically different pagan sources, whereas the name of Aëtius does not correspond to the quotations from SP-Placita, and so even Theodoret himself does not ascribe SP-Placita to a writer called Aëtius. Equally unfounded is the second claim of Diels. The analysis of Theodoretus’ usage (never undertaken by Diels!) demonstrates that none out of the 80 instances of this combination in Theodoretus’ CAG has emphatic meaning assumed by Diels, it regularly introduces an additional point or example in a series (‘and also’, ‘as well as’), often of secondary importance.
reincarnation and immortality of the soul (Epimenides, Pherecydes, Pythagoras, and Onomacritus’ Orphica), in: N.B.Bogdanovich (ed.). Myth, Ritual, Literature. National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Institute of Classical Orient and Antiquity, HSE Publishing House, Moscow, 2023, pp. 238-299.
NB! Figures I-III in the published volume are insets with no page numbers. In the present pdf file they are all attached at the end. Figure I (graffiti on bone plates from Olbia) looks to p.242, figure II (portrait of diviner Pharnabazos) to p.284, figure III (Cycladic group of 'mother and daughter') to p.273.
In the section (1) a new reading and interpretation of the so-called ‘Orphic’ graffiti from Olbia is proposed on the base of superior quality photographs of the plates than the 1978 photo in the editio princeps, on which virtually all existing literature is based. Relying on Vinogradov’s 1997 photo, I read and interpret the bottom line of the recto of OF 463 as follows: Διο[νύσωι] Ὀρφικῶ[ι] λ̅ (scil. τριακάδι θύειν vel εὔχεσθαι) – “Sacrifice (or pray) to Dionysos Orphikos on the thirtieth day”. Dionysos Orphikos is Dionysos of Orpheus’ Theogony, the son of Persephone, as distinguished from the traditional Dionysos, the son of Semele. Dionysos Orphikos permanently dwells in Hades, as was clearly seen by Philodemus. The bone tablets are neither dedications to Dionysus, nor secret ‘tokens’ of the initiated members of an Orphic thiasos. They are the oldest example of fortune-telling cards (ἀγυρτικοὶ πίνακες), typologically comparable to Tarot cards and Chinese inscriptions on oracular bones, and are based on the principles of Greek cleromancy (astragalomancy), since their triadic structure (number - prophecy – name of the god to whom one should pray) coincides with that of the cleromantic oracles from Asia Minor of the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. published by Nollé. The owner of the plates was most likely “Pharnabazos, the soothsayer of Hermes”, known from another graffito from Olbia of the same period, since it was Hermes who was considered the patron of popular dice divination. The drawings on the plates are associated with the symbolism of the Orphic myth of sparagmos (dismemberment) of Dionysus by the Titans and the Pythagorean doctrine of the immortality of the soul, while pairs of opposites come from a table comparable to the Pythagorean table of 10 opposites. Conclusion: the tablets provide no evidence on the existence of ‘Orphic community’ in Olbia (let alone of a kind of ‘Orphic church’ in Greece), but they provide evidence on the circulation of “Orpheus’ Sacred Words” in the periphery of Greek world in late fifth century B.C. Pharnabazos like the wandering priests (agyrtai) and diviners (manteis) in Plato's Republic, carried “books of Orpheus” in his bag, and combined the “Orphic” sparagmos/rebirth myth with Pythagorean doctrine of the substance dualism of the mortal body and immortal soul (the opposites ψυχή σῶμα are correlated with opposites ἀλήθεια ψεῦδος), anticipating the life-style of the Pythagoristai on the streets of Athens pictured in 4th century Attic comedy.
Contrary to the hypothesis of the northern or "shamanistic" origin of the ancient Greek doctrines of the reincarnation and immortality of the soul, a completely new theory of Aegean origin is argued in this work based on the fact that all four of the earliest representatives of this tradition either were directly related to Crete (Epimenides) and the Cyclades (Pherecydes of Syros), or had significant religious and philosophical contacts with the Cretan mantics (Onomacritus, the author of the ancient Orphic Theogony according to Aristotle) and the cult of Apollo Hyperborean on Delos (Pythagoras), which allowed only "bloodless" sacrifices, the religious and moral justification of which was the belief in the kinship of all living beings and reincarnation with the consequent prohibition of any bloodshed and animal sacrifice. A typology and an attempt at diachronic filiation of early versions of the doctrine of reincarnation are given. It is hypothesized that the “classical” Orphic-Pythagorean version was created by Pythagoras of Samos in the last third of the 6th century BC in Magna Graecia: it was a synthesis of the ancient Aegean version of Epimenides’ Theogony (c. 600 BC going back to the Aegean Bronze age doctrines of ‘rebirth’ reflected in the so-called Cycladic idols), which did not associate reincarnation with "punishment" for sins, but understood it as a continuation of eternal life in this world, and ancient Egyptian eschatology: the judgment of the soul in the afterlife, the osirification of the deceased, etc. Pythagoras based his doctrine of the human nature (immortal soul and mortal body) on a metaphysical substance dualism of peras and apeiron. The court diviner of the Peisistratidai in Athens in the late 6th century B.C. Onomacritus, who was probably a Pythagorean himself, according to the reliable evidence of Aristotle, expounded it in a mythopoetic form (the myth of the sparagmos of the divine child Dionysus by the evil Titans) in the Orphic Theogony which he ascribed to the mythical singer of times immemorial Orpheus. It was this Pythagorean (ethicized) version of the doctrine that was adopted by Plato, the Platonic tradition and - in an expurgated form – by the Church fathers who admitted only the post-mortem immortality of the soul, but rejected its pre-existence and reincarnation (except Origen).
English summary: 728-730.
I. Introduction to the problem. Research plan –731.
II. Indo-Aryan names in the Argonauts saga: personal names of heroes – 736.
III. Indo-Aryan names in the toponymy of the legend and its geographical area – 743.
IV. Indo-Aryan names of three Colchians of the royal blood (Saulacus, Suvarmachius, Nabarnugius), the Scythian leader Saumacus and the owner of the ring from Vani Dedatos – 751.
V. Indo-Aryan personal names in the inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea region (Olbia and Bosporus) - 766.
Vi. Ethno-linguistic affiliation of the ancient Colchians – 775.
ИНДОАРИЙСКИЕ ИМЕНА В САГЕ ОБ АРГОНАВТАХ, ОНОМАСТИКЕ
КОЛХИДЫ И НАДПИСЯХ СЕВЕРНОГО ПРИЧЕРНОМОРЬЯ Содержание: I. Введение в проблему. План исследования – 731 II. Индоарийские имена в саге об аргонавтах: личные имена героев – 736 III. Индоарийские имена в топонимике легенды и ее географического ареала – 743. IV. Индоарийские имена трех колхов царского рода (Савлак, Сувармахий, Набарнугий), скифского вождя Савмака и владельца перстня из Вани Дедатоса – 751. V. Индоарийские личные имена в надписях Северного Причерноморья (Ольвия и Боспор) – 766. VI. Этноязыковая принадлежность древних колхов – 775. Ключевые слова: Аргонавты, Миф о золотом руне, Колхида, греческая мифология, история Грузии, истории Армении, история металлов и металлургии, Восточное Причерноморье в древности, индоарийцы, греческая эпиграфика Северного Причерноморья.
Table of contents
Models of the cosmos, analogies and metaphorical codes: general introduction-2 2 Grammatical analogy: the cosmos as a logos (metaphor of Liber naturae)-5 3 Mantic metaphorical code: the cosmos as an oracle-6 4 Agonistic model: the cosmos as a stadium-9 5 Military model: the cosmos as a battlefield-15 6 Economic model: the cosmos as a household-19 7 Game model of the cosmos: Lusoria tabula-21 8 Sacral model: the cosmos as a Templum naturae-23 9 Biomorphic metaphorical code: the cosmos as a living organism-25 10 Technomorphic (demiourgical) analogies: metallurgy, pottery etc.-32 11 Sociomorphic model: Cosmopolis or the City of Zeus-35 12 Hebdomadism in Heraclitus philosophy of nature?-37 13 Bibliography-43
The attribution of PDerv. to Prodicus of Ceos proposed in this article is based on verbal coincidences of peculiar phrases and terms in PDerv. and Prodicus’ fragments; Prodicus’ peculiar theory of the origin of the names of gods and religion from agriculture and other τέχναι ‘useful’ for human race is directly attested in PDerv.; there is also the evidence found in both Aristophanes and Themistius that Prodicus wrote an allegorical interpretation of the Orphic theogony.
The demonstration of our thesis is presented in 11 sections (§) and three appendices (App.). After preliminary remarks on the necessary distinction of the two types of pantheism and allegoresis in Greek thought (§ [I]) we define in § (II) the literary genre, the general purpose, and the hermeneutical method of the Derveni treatise, and draw a preliminary intellectual portrait of its author describing his peculiar features, a kind of ‘composite image.’ In § (III), we argue for Prodicus as the author of PDerv. and present the 19 testimonia on which this attribution is based. These include both the verbatim quotations with Prodicus’ name that find an exact correspondence in the text of PDerv and the common peculiar features of language and style.
In § (IV), we propose a reconstruction and interpretation of the text of col. IV that contains a quotation from Heraclitus. This column is of primary importance for understanding the aims and allegorical method of the author in general, as well as for his theory of names. In § (V), the problems of the original title and the date of the Derveni treatise are addressed, as well as its relation to the psephisma of Diopeithes (432 BC). In § (VI), the philosophical sources of Derv.T are discussed. Apart from the Anaxagorean source of the Derveni author’s cosmology and theory of matter recognized long ago, we discuss the possible influence of Democritus while dismissing “Leucippus”, Diogenes of Apollonia, and the Eleatics. We point to Protagoras as an important source of anthropology for the Derveni author and to Heraclitus as the source of his philosophy of language (including functionalist semantics) and criticism of popular religion. In § (VII), we briefly present our reasons for rejecting the ascription of PDerv. to other authors (Epigenes, Stesimbrotos, Euthydemus, Diagoras of Melos). § (VIII) expands the discussion of Prodicus’ atheistic sobriquet ‘Tantalos’ in § (III) by focusing on two cryptic Tantalos passages in Euripides’ Orestes. Taking the torture of Anaxagoras before his trial as a historical fact (which the new reconstruction of Philodemus’ account by Eduardo Acosta Méndez has brought to light, and which Christian Vassallo confirms in this volume, DAPR, T7), we interpret the tortures of Tantalos as an allusion to Anaxagoras’ trial, a cryptic commemoration of the 20th anniversary of his death, and a makarismos of the heroic martyr of science, analogous to Euripides’ cryptic commemoration of Protagoras’ death in Ixion. § (IX) searches for further reflections of the ‘avian’ theme (ὀρνίθειον in PDerv., cols. ΙΙ and VI) in Aristophanes’ Birds and Clouds. It starts with the attribution of a neglected comedy fragment in the Suda Lexicon to Aristophanes’ Seasons and connects the comic passages in the Clouds on ἀλεκτρυών with Prodicus’ orthoepeia. The passage on ‘Persian cock’ as a prehistoric king in Birds 481–492 is interpreted as a parody of Prodicus’ theory of the origin of religion and civilization. § (X) discusses three ‘Heraclitizing’ passages (apart from col. IV) in cols. V, XX, and XXII, and arrives at the conclusion that cols. V and XX contain either hidden verbatim quotations from Heraclitus or paraphrases close to the original text with authentic terms and phrases, whereas col. XXII contains a summarizing exposition of Heraclitus’ philosophy of lan- guage and religion (the invention of polytheism by poets due to their ‘ignorance’). In § (XI), the hypothesis that Euripides may have taken with him to Macedonia a copy of Prodicus’ work on religion, since he quotes it in the Bacchae on which he worked at that time, is advanced. A copy of it may have been made for the library of Archelaus in Pella. In App. (1) we defend the traditional 5th cent. date and the Preplatonic character of PDerv. in response to Luc Brisson’s Stoic hypothesis. App. (2) clarifies our use of the term peritrope and explains the Derveni treatise as a naturalistic peritrope of a religious text. App. (3) identifies a neglected reflection of Prodicus’ benefaction theory of religion in Xenophon’ Memorabilia with parallels from PDerv.
(1) Preliminary criticism of the presuppositions of the denial of existence of idealism in early Greek thought: pseudohistorical evolutionism, Platonocentrism that ignores the archaic features of Plato’s metaphysics and psychology, and the modern stereotype of «Presocratics» as physicalists, a product of the late 19th century (excessive) positivist reaction against Hegelianism and German idealism in the English-speaking historiography of Greek phiosophy. p.653
(2) Demiourgos and creationism in Pre-Platonic philosophy. Creation by divine mind is a form of objective idealism (mentalism). p,.658
(3) The thesis of Myles Burnyeat and Bernard Williams (no idealism in Greek philosophy) is criticised. We point to scholastic and ancient (Platonic) roots of Descartes’ substance dualism of body and mind, as well as to the even more ancient Pythagorean roots of Plato’s doctrine of immortal soul. p.661
(4) A provisional taxonomy of different types of idealism (mentalism) in ancient Greek philosophy is proposed. 11 types are distinguished. p.663
(5) The evidence of the Orphic-Pythagorean graffiti from Olbia on the early Pythagorean substance dualism of body and soul proves its Preplatonic origin. p.673
(6) Criticism of modern naturalistic interpretations of Pythagorean first principles peras and apeiron (Burkert, Huffman and others). Peras and apeiron (a geometrical analogue of later terms form and matter) are self-subsistent incorporeal mathematical essences, out of which physical bodies are «constructed» (ἁρμόζειν, another geometrical term for «construction») by the divine mind-demiourgos. P.674
(7) The identity of Being and Mind in Parmenides. A refutation of the grammatically impossible anti-idealist interpretation of fr. B 3 by Zeller, Burnet and their followers. Parmenides’ Kouros is a poetic image of Pythagoras as the originator of the Western Greek monotheistic theology of the noetic One, concieved as a Sphere of immutable thinking divine light (the conceptual metaphor of the Invisible Sun of Justice that «never sets»). p.675
(8) The psychological and ethical dimensions of the Eleatic doctrine of Being, almost totally neglected in the mainstream of the post-Burnetean literature. The Pythagorean doctrine of the indestructible soul serves as a practical tool of military psychological engineering: the education of fearless warriors. Strabo’s commonly neglected report on invincible Eleatic warriors, educated by Parmenides’ nomoi, is to be taken seriously. p.681
(9) The «battle of gods and giants over being» (Gigantomachia peri tes ousias) in Plato’s Sophist 246a as a testimony on the Prelatonic metaphysical idealism (mentalism). It is argued that the two warring camps should not be confined to contemporary atomists and academics only: the whole Ionian (naturalism) and Italian (idealism) traditions, mentioned in Plato’s context, are meant, i.e. the whole history of Greek philosophy. p.689
(10) Some clarifications on the use of the terms idealism, naturalism, dualism etc. p.694
Keywords: Ancient Greek philosophy, Preplatonic philosophy, Pythagoras, Pythagorean school, Eleatic school, Parmenides, Melissus, Empedocles, Epicharmus, Heraclitus, idealism, naturalism, philosophical theology, body and mind.
περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία was triggered by the practical/economic needs of the Milesian polis, first of all by seafaring, sea trade and colonization (more that 90 colonies according to Plinius). Navigation requires knowledge of astronomy, geography and meteorology, three subjects that constitute the core of any Ionian treatise Περὶ φύσεως.
2. Syntactic polysemy. Asyndeton………………………………………………..44
3. The omission of the conjunction καί ‘and’ between the opposites……………49
4. The use of connective particles………………………………………………...51
5. Ellipsis of copula: the omission of the verb ἐστίν in certain contexts…………51
6. The use of the article……………………………………………………………53
7. Pluralis poeticus (or philosophicus?)…………………………………………...54
8. Folklore elements. Proverb, parable, riddle……………………………………54
9. Fränkel's “proportion”………………………………………………………….55
10. Chiasmus……………………………………………………………………….57
It is argued that in most cases the peculiarities at issue cannot be reduced to rhetorical or stylistic devices, but are grounded in a serious philosophical work and experimental attempt to reform the ordinary language, i.e. to bring it in line with physis, the objective order of things. The regular omissiοn of the verb "to be" (ἐστί), of the conjunction καί ῾and῾ between the opposites, and of articles in the "cosmic" fragments relating to the cyclic interchange of opposites, is a linguistic implementation of the metaphysical doctrines of identity (and lack οf substantiality) of opposites and of Universal flux in the phenomenal world of plurality.This fact proves once again that the doctrine of the Universal Flux is a genuine doctrine of Heraclitus and not Plato's invention. In the last section several types of chiasmus in Heraclitus are distinguished and compared with the ring-composition in Homer and archaic Greek culture.
II. HERACLITUS’ EXPERIMENTS WITH LANGUAGE, GRAMMAR AND STYLE
The first part of this investigation draws attention to one understudied, and yet philosophically important approach to language in Greek philosophy from archaic times to Aristotle: the reform of ordinary language, word-making and attempts to discover or to create an ideal language or a language “conforming to nature”. The following cases at point are discussed: the critique of the ordinary language as a product of doxastic imagination in Heraclitus and Parmenides associated with linguistic idealism and the theory of “linguistic error” of mortals in ancient times that resulted in the origin of polytheism and belief in the reality of the phenomenal world of many things misnamed by empty words. The elimination of the words for “birth and death”, “generation and de- struction” as “deceptive” and their systematic replacement by new “correct” mechanistic terminology of “excretion from mixture, recombination and dissolution” of material particles in Ionian physics (Anaximander, Anaxagoras) and Empedocles. The theory of the “disease of language” as the root of mythology and anthropomorphic polytheism of poets in Sophists (Prodicus, the Derveni papyrus), Aristotle’s attempts to give names to “anonymous” moral qualities in Nicomachean Ethics. The idea of a “divine language” is to some extent anticipated in the Homeric topos of the “language of gods” which has Indo-European roots. A suggestion is made en passant that if the author of the “dream theory” in Plato's Theaetetus, quoted by Wittgenstein in Philosophical investigations, I.46 as an ancient antecedent of his simple “objects” in the Tractatus, is Heraclitus rather than Antisthenes (as we argue on the ground of the new reconstruction of grammatical analogy in Heraclitus’ logos-fragments), then a historical link can be established between Wittgenstein's linguistic idealism and Heraclitus’ analogies of “cosmic grammar” and “alphabet of nature”, although in Wittgenstein’s perception it was, of course, a theory of “Socrates” and Plato, not of Heraclitus. Part II is a case at point study of language and style in Heraclitus including following topics: oracular features, syntactic polysemy (hyperbaton), omission of the conjunction καί between opposites, omission of the verb ‘to be’ in the desсriptions of phenomenal change, omission of article with words referring to ‘appearances’ (τὰ φανερά, τὰ δοκέοντα), replacing a standard singularis (ποταμός) with pluralis (ποταμοί), because what we see is a series of rivers
changing every moment, Fränkel’s “proportion” as a means of approaching the unknown, forms of chiasmus, chiastic (amoebean) structure of fragments as a mimesis of the natural cyclical processes (the ‘road up and down’).
Keywords: ancient philosophy, theories of language, origin of religion and mythology, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Greek sophists, Prodicus, Plato, Aristotle, the Derveni papyrus.
Summary
It is commonly believed that the epic Theogony of Epimenides of Crete derives from the corpus of pseudepigrapha under his name and that it was composed by anonymous author (with Pythagorean background) after 500 B.C. We demonstrate (mainly on the basis the reconstruction of the proem of the Theogony) that such influences do not exist and we arrive at the conclusion that the Theogony was written by Epimenides himself around 600 B.C. Aristotle who was sceptical about the authorship of the poems attributed to Orpheus and Musaeus, cites Epimenides without reservations as the real author of the verses he cites. Therefore the common elements between Epimenides on the one hand, and the Orphics and Pythagoreans on the other (Night as the first principle, the cosmic egg, the immortality and reincarnation of the soul), should be interpreted as borrowings by the latter from Epimenides, not vice versa. As a “priest of Zeus and Rhea” Epimenides belongs to the ancient Cretan hieratic clan that claimed descendance from Aiakos, son of Zeus; in view of the extreme conservatism of Cretan cultural, political and religious traditions, the sources of Epimenides’ divine wisdom should be sought not in the hypothetical “northern” or eastern quarters, but in the local oral traditions that go back the Late Minoan times and are closely tied with the cults and myths of the region around Mount Ida and similar oracular caves. The discussion of Epimendes’ herbal medicine shows that it is connected both with therapeutuc use of herbs and with cathartic rituals; Indian Ayurveda provides a close typological parallel to this, so common Indo-European roots are possible. After this we address the problem of the origin and thesources of the Orphic Theogony and propose a new solution. Taking at its face value Aristotle’s information on Onomacritus as the author of the Orphic epic Theogony, we discuss the “Cretan connections” of Onomacritus and adduce in favour of our hypothesis numerous literary and epigraphical- archeological pieces of evidence that connect early Orphism and the belief in the reincarnation with the Idaen cave and the region around it (Orphic golden plates and epistomia from Eleutherna and Sfakaki near Rethymno collected and studied by Tzifopoulos). Inter alia, we also propose a new interpretation of the Orphic graffiti written on bone plates from Olbia as divinatory devices (mantic cards, the oldest known ancestor of the cards Tarot) that probably belonged to the “diviner of Hermes” Pharnabazos of Olbia and were connected with the dice divination (astragalomanteia), the proper art of Hermes. The divinatory dodecahedron found in the Idaean cave seems to be connected with astragalomanteia, as well.
The edition under review is not only useless for a specialist (first of all because it is unreliable and falsifies the fontes), it is also dangerous for students and non specialists who may easily mistake Mr. Mouraviev’s fiction for genuine Heraclitus.
In our view, Mr. Mouraviev is more than editor of Heraclitus. Rather he is a co author of the Greek texts or he invents an unknown Greek author. It would be more appropriate to call this unknown author Mouraclitus rather than Heraclitus... We do not recommend this book to academic libraries, scholars, students or general public. Its proper place is in the recycle bin.
The edition under review is not only useless for a specialist (first of all because it is unreliable and falsifies the fontes), it is also dangerous for students and non specialists who may easily mistake Mr. Mouraviev’s fiction for genuine Heraclitus.
In our view, Mr. Mouraviev is more than editor of Heraclitus. Rather he is a co author of the Greek texts or he invents an unknown Greek author. It would be more appropriate to call this unknown author Mouraclitus rather than Heraclitus... We do not recommend this book to academic libraries, scholars, students or general public. Its proper place is in the recycle bin.
Key-terms: Ancient philosophy, Derveni papyrus, Prodicus, Sophists, Orphism, Orpheus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Heraclitus, theogony, origin of civilisation, origin of religion, origin of language, origin of mythology, allegory, psephisma of Diopeithes, ancient atheism, Greek Enlightenment, philosophy of language, ancient Athens.
Вопреки гипотезе северного или "шаманистического" происхождения древнейших греческих учений о реинкарнации и бессмертии души в работе аргументируется совершенно новая теория Эгейского происхождения, так как все четыре наиболее ранних представителя этой традиции либо по своему происхождению напрямую связаны с Критом (Эпименид) и Кикладами (Ферекид из Сироса), либо имели значимые религиозно-философские контакты с критской мантикой (Ономакрит, автор древней орфической Теогонии согласно Аристотелю) и культом Аполлона Гиперборейского на Делосе (Пифагор), допускавшим только "бескровные" жертвоприношения, религиозно-нравственным обоснованием которых была вера в родство всех живых существ и реинкарнацию с вытекающим отсюда запретом любого кровопролития. Дается типология и попытка диахронической филиации ранних версий учения о реинкарнации. Выдвигается гипотеза, согласно которой "классическая" орфико-пифагорейская версия была создана Пифагором из Самоса в последней трети. 6-го века до н.э. в Великой Греции в результате синтеза древнейшей эгейской версии Эпименида (не связывавшей реинкарнацию с "наказанием" за грехи, а понимавшей ее как продолжение вечной жизни в этом мире) и древанеегиптеской эсхатологии (суд души в загробном мире, осирификация покойника и т.д.). Пифагор основывал свою теорию природы человека и бессмертия души (при смертности тела) на метафизическом субстанциальном дуализме предела и беспредельного. Придворный гадатель Писистратидов Ономакрит, выходец из пифагорейских кругов Южной Италии, в конце 6 века до н.э. дал мифопоэтическую форму этому учению в Теогонии, которую он приписал мифическому певцу Орфею: миф о расчленении божественного младенца Диониса злыми Титанами. Именно эта пифагорейская версия была усвоена Платоном, платонической традицией и – в реформированном виде – патристикой: отказ от реинкарнации и учения о предвечности души (кроме Оригена).