Abstract

NADDAF, Gerard. Allegory and the origins and development of philosophy from the presocratics to the Enlightenment. arete [online]. 2007, vol.19, n.1, pp.41-86. ISSN 1016-913X.

Much has been written on the famous transition from muthos to logos or from myth to reason. However, there is little on how the proponents of myth responded. They fought back with mutho-logia, that is, with a logos about myth. This rational approach invoked the same logos that is generally associated with philosophia. In fact, philosophia and muthologia are at times so intimately connected that until the Enlightenment period, it is often difficult to distinguish between them. This is due to the spell of myth or more precisely because of the allegorical interpretation of myth. In this essay, I attempt to shed some light on the origin and development of this rather unremarked and yet remarkable event in the history of philosophy.

Keywords : Myth; allegory; allegoresis; Homer; Hesiod.

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