MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 03064cam a2200337 a 4500
001 2011025237
003 DLC
005 20120523161408.0
008 110613s2011 enk b 001 0 eng
010 $a 2011025237
020 $a9781107013032
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dDLC
042 $apcc
050 00 $aB785.P564$bS56 2011
082 00 $a186/.4$223
084 $aPHI002000$2bisacsh
100 1 $aSiniossoglou, Niketas.
245 10 $aRadical platonism in Byzantium :$billumination and utopia in Gemistos Plethon /$cNiketas Siniossoglou.
260 $aCambridge ;$aNew York :$bCambridge University Press,$cc2011.
300 $axvi, 454 p. ;$c23 cm.
490 0 $aCambridge classical studies
520 $a"Byzantium has recently attracted much attention, but principally among cultural, social and economic historians. This book shifts the focus to intellectual history, exploring the thoughts of visionary reformer Gemistos Plethon (c.1355-1452). It argues that Plethon brought to their fulfilment latent tendencies among Byzantine humanists towards a distinctive anti-Christian and pagan outlook. His magnum opus, the pagan Nomoi, was meant to provide an alternative to and escape-route from the polarity of the Orthodoxy of Gregory Palamas and Thomism. It was also a groundbreaking reaction to the bankruptcy of a pre-existing humanist agenda and to aborted attempts at the secularisation of the State, whose cause Plethon had himself championed in his two utopian Memoranda. Inspired by Plato, Plethon's secular utopianism and paganism emerge as the two sides of a single coin. On another level, the book challenges anti-essentialist scholarship that views paganism and Christianity as social and cultural constructions"--$cProvided by publisher.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 427-446) and index.
505 8 $aMachine generated contents note: Introduction: Plethon and the notion of Paganism; Part I. Lost Rings of the Platonist Golden Chain: 1. Underground Platonism in Byzantium; 2. The rise of the Byzantine Illuminati; 3. The Plethon affair; Part II. The Elements of Pagan Platonism: 4. Epistemic optimism; 5. Pagan ontology; 6. Symbolic theology: the mythologising of Platonic ontology; Part III. Mistra versus Athos: 7. Intellectual and spiritual utopias; Part IV. The Path of Ulysses and the Path of Abraham: 8. Conclusion; Epilogue: 'Spinozism before Spinoza', or the pagan roots of modernity.
600 10 $aGemistus Plethon, George,$d15th cent.
600 10 $aGemistus Plethon, George,$d15th cent.$tNomōn syngraphēs ta sōzomena.
650 7 $aPHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical.$2bisacsh
856 42 $3Cover image$uhttp://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/13032/cover/9781107013032.jpg
856 42 $3Contributor biographical information$uhttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1113/2011025237-b.html
856 42 $3Publisher description$uhttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1113/2011025237-d.html
856 41 $3Table of contents only$uhttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1113/2011025237-t.html