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Allegory in Early Greek Philosophy examines the role that allegory plays in Greek thought, particularly in the transition from the mythic tradition of the archaic poets to the philosophical traditions of the Presocratics and Plato. It explores how a mode of speech that "says one thing, but means another" is integral to philosophy, which otherwise seeks to achieve clarity and precision in its discourse. By providing the early Greek thinkers with a way of defending and appropriating the poetic wisdom of their predecessors, allegory enables philosophy to locate and recover its own origins in the mythic tradition. Allegory allows philosophy simultaneously to move beyond mythos and express the whole in terms of logos, a rational account in which reality is represented in a more abstract and universal way than myth allows.
About the author
Jennifer Lobo Meeks, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Perimeter College of Georgia State University. She specializes in ancient Greek philosophy and in the history of modern European philosophy.
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"Professor Meeks, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Perimeter College of Georgia State University, manifests writing mastery and loving expertise on the technicalities and history of her subject. I recognized a book I wanted to savor; anyone interested in the roots of philosophy in Homeric and Hesiodic myths would. […] Beginning with the first section of the first chapter, “A Concise History of Allegory,” who would have thought that the history of how allegory was understood and used over the last 3,000 years could be so interesting? And how wonderful that scholars like the author to have studied so thoughtfully its use in composition and interpretation?"—Morris Dean (Moristotle), moristotle.blogspot.com, 26.03.2021
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"Professor Meeks, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Perimeter College of Georgia State University, manifests writing mastery and loving expertise on the technicalities and history of her subject. I recognized a book I wanted to savor; anyone interested in the roots of philosophy in Homeric and Hesiodic myths would. [...] Beginning with the first section of the first chapter, "A Concise History of Allegory," who would have thought that the history of how allegory was understood and used over the last 3,000 years could be so interesting? And how wonderful that scholars like the author to have studied so thoughtfully its use in composition and interpretation?"-Morris Dean (Moristotle), moristotle.blogspot.com, 26.03.2021
