Ambivalences of Rationality - Ancient and Modern Cross-Cultural Explorations

Cross-cultural examination of notions and practices of rationality in ancient and modern societies, drawing on philosophy, ethnography and cognitive science.

List of contents

1. Aims and methods; 2. Rationality reviewed; 3. Cosmology without nature; 4. Seeming and being; 5. Language, literacy and cognition; 6. Gods, spirits, demons, ghosts, mysticism, miracles, magic, myth; 7. Conclusions: the ambivalences of rationality.

About the author

G. E. R. Lloyd is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Science at the University of Cambridge, former Master of Darwin College Cambridge and Senior Scholar in Residence at the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge. He has held Visiting Professorships in Europe, North America, the Far East and Australasia. He is the author of twenty-three books and editor of a further five. He won the Sarton Medal for History of Science in 1987, the Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies in 2007, the Dan David prize in 2013, the Fyssen prize in 2014, and he was knighted for services to the history of thought in 1997.

Summary

Cross-cultural examination of rationality and the irrational across ancient societies (Greece and China especially) and modern ones (as revealed by ethnography). Are rationality and the irrational well-defined universals or merely cultural constructs? This study shows how to avoid the weaknesses of both extreme positions.

Product details

• Authors: G E R Lloyd, G. E. R. Lloyd, G. E. R. (Needham Research Institute Lloyd, G. E. R. (University of Cambridge) Lloyd
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.12.2017
• EAN: 9781108420044
• ISBN: 978-1-108-42004-4
• No. of pages: 132
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; Philosophy of Mind, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge, Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Philosophy: epistemology and theory of knowledge