Review (PDF) Philosophy Before The Greeks: The Pursuit Of Truth In Ancient Babylonia
There is a growing recognition that philosophy isn’t unique to the West, that it didn’t begin only with the classical Greeks, and that Greek philosophy was influenced by Near Eastern traditions. Yet even today there is a widespread assumption that what came before the Greeks was "before philosophy." In Philosophy before the Greeks, Marc Van De Mieroop, an acclaimed historian of the ancient Near East, presents a groundbreaking argument that, for three millennia before the Greeks, one Near Eastern people had a rich and sophisticated tradition of philosophy fully worthy of the name.In the first century BC, the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily praised the Babylonians for their devotion to philosophy. Showing the justice of Diodorus’s comment, this is the first book to argue that there were Babylonian philosophers and that they studied knowledge systematically using a coherent system of logic rooted in the practices of cuneiform script. Van De Mieroop uncovers Babylonian approaches to knowledge in three areas: the study of language, which in its analysis of the written word formed the basis of all logic; the art of divination, which interpreted communications between gods and humans; and the rules of law, which confirmed that royal justice was founded on truth.The result is an innovative intellectual history of the ancient Near Eastern world during the many centuries in which Babylonian philosophers inspired scholars throughout the region—until the first millennium BC, when the breakdown of this cosmopolitan system enabled others, including the Greeks, to develop alternative methods of philosophical reasoning.
File Size: 4124 KB
Print Length: 295 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press (October 20, 2015)
Publication Date: October 20, 2015
Sold by: Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00WY4OYC0
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray: Not Enabled
Word Wise: Not Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #822,641 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #329 in Books > History > Ancient Civilizations > Assyria, Babylonia & Sumer #332 in Books > History > Ancient Civilizations > Mesopotamia #453 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Greek & Roman
For those who work in the field of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, especially with a focus on texts, Van De Mieroop's volume has great implications. It also brings clarity to some of the puzzling areas of the ANE written record, not just in Babylon, but throughout the Levant, Anatolia, and Egypt (although he does not deal with these other geographic areas in depth). The major short-coming, from my perspective, is that the title of this volume mistakenly leads those who do not know Van De Mieroop's previous work and are not familiar with ancient Babylonian writings to assume that this book has more to do with philosophy and Greeks than it actually does.I am actually very grateful that the Greeks are not center-stage in this book, because it is important to understand the Babylonians on their own accord and not just as a foil to the Greek way of philosophy. That being said, I did want a more fleshed-out answer to the question "So what?" at the end of the book. I was able to follow all of Van De Mieroop's arguments about the various genres he discussed, but I wanted to hear more of the author's thoughts about how text-as-first-philosophy shaped the ancient Near Eastern mind and experience. Van De Mieroop is, after all, one if not the most learned scholar of ancient Babylonian texts of this generation and this book has such a great potential to hit home that I wanted to have a richer take-away than Van De Mieroop provides --- however, this book is now in my head. I know it has implications that are significant, but those are for the reader to explore for him/herself.
Readable introduction to the Mesopotamian written culture. But Mieroop totally blows it on epistemology. He comes nowhere close to proving his claim that the Babylonians had a theory of knowledge. Based on his other work, I was hoping this would be an intellectual history on the order of Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane, but it was not by a long shot. For an in-depth review, please see:https://ritterreviewblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/13/did-the-babylonians-have-philosophy/
Utterly unconvincing.
Philosophy before the Greeks: The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia Sumerians: The Land Of The Civilised Kings: Discover The Truth About - The Sumerians (Babylonia, Nibiru, Gilgamesh & Planet X) (Genesis, Assyrians, Ziggurat, Lexicon, Pantheon, Mesopotamia, Sumer) Egyptian Mythology: Discover the Ancient Secrets of Egyptian Mythology (Egypt, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Civilizations, Gods, Pharaohs, Ra, Isis, Set) (Ancient Civilizations and Mythology) Sixto Diaz Rodriguez's Philosophy: Rodriguez's eBook Guide to Happiness (How to Live Before Dying, How to Live Before You Die; Leadership for our Times) Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud Researches into the Origin of the Primitive Constellations of the Greeks, Phoenicians and Babylonians. Vol. II Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (Hinges of History) Documents of Judean Exiles and West Semites in Babylonia in the Collection of David Sofer (Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology) The Worship Of The Dead Or The Origin And Nature Of Pagan Idolatry And Its Bearing Upon The Early History Of Egypt And Babylonia The End of Comparative Philosophy and the Task of Comparative Thinking: Heidegger, Derrida, and Daoism (SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture) ... Chinese Philosophy and Culture (Paperback)) The Death of Innocence : The Untold Story of JonBenet's Murder and How Its Exploitation Compromised the Pursuit of Truth The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World History: Greatest Ancient Civilization History: (History Rome, Romans, Egypt, SPQR, Aztec, Ancient China, Ancient Greece, Julius Caesar, Jesus, Muhammed, Alexander the Great) Sumerians: Discover History's First Civilization: Everything You Need to Know About the Sumerians of the Ancient World (Ancient History, Ancient Civilizations Handbook) The Night Before the Night Before Christmas Testifying Before Congress: A Practical Guide to Preparing and Delivering Testimony Before Congress and Congressional Hearings for Agencies, Assoc 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (1,000... Before You Die Books) The Physics and Philosophy of the Bible: How Relativity, Quantum Physics, Plato, and History Meld with Biblical Theology to Show That God Exists and That ... Live Forever (The Inevitable Truth Book 1) They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (Journal of African Civilizations) The Ancient Canaanites: The History of the Civilizations That Lived in Canaan Before the Israelites
