Siniossoglou, Niketas
Radical Platonism in Byzantium: Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon (Cambridge Classical Studies)
- ISBN 13:
- 9781316629598
- author:
- Siniossoglou, Niketas
- format:
- Paperback
- publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
- language:
- English
- Publication Year:
- 2016
- Pages:
- 472
- Dimensions:
- 21.6 x 14 x 2.4 centimetres (0.5
- Genre:
- Nonfiction, Philosophy, History & Surveys,
- Condition:
- New
- Availability:
- Item usually sent within 10 working days
Description
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. Plethon's 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. His 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. The book provides new insights into Plethon's ideas and their significance in Byzantine intellectual history. It is an important contribution to our understanding of this period and its lasting impact on Western thought.
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