INTRODUCTION - Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing by Arthur M. Melzer - #perchèscrivere? #teoriaeprassi #metodosocratico
INTRODUCTION What Is Philosophical Esotericism?Read more at location 171
Note: esoterismo confuso col misticismo e: una forma retorica un modo di scrivere il dilemma: teoria e prassi sono in armonia? illuminismo e classicismo 4 e.: difensivo protettivo politico pedagogico strategie e.: oralità... multilevel gradualità dell e. esoterismo tesi: regola nn eccezione Edit
In common parlance, “esoteric” is often used synonymously with “recondite” or “abstruse,”Read more at location 179
But in a stricter sense—and the one intended here—it is something difficult to understand because hidden or secret.Read more at location 181
An esoteric writer or writing would involve the following characteristics: first, the effort to convey certain truths—the “esoteric” teaching—to a select group of individualsRead more at location 182
the concomitant effort to withhold or conceal these same truths from most people;Read more at location 184
the effort to propagate for the sake of the latter group a fictional doctrine—theRead more at location 185
forms of mysticism: Theosophy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, Kabbalah, Neoplatonism, Neo-Pythagoreanism,Read more at location 188
“the phenomenon in question [esotericism] . . . is discussed under the title ‘mysticism’”1—a statement that, despite the efforts of Strauss and others, still remains largely true today.Read more at location 192
But the mystical version of esotericism is a very small part of a larger phenomenon.Read more at location 196
Here “esoteric” denotes not a particular body of secret or occult knowledge but simply a secretive mode of communication—notRead more at location 200
philosophical problem of theory and praxis—especially the question of the relation between philosophic rationalism and political community, or between “the two lives”: the vita contemplativa and the vita activa. Are the two fundamentally harmonious (essentially the Enlightenment view) or antagonistic (the dominant classical view)?Read more at location 209
Classical and medieval thinkers, by contrast, tended to practice a more concealed, more thoroughgoing esotericism—esotericism in the fullest sense—because they were motivated,Read more at location 219
by the fear that, to the contrary, rationalism, if openly communicated, would inevitably harm that world by subverting its essential myths and traditions.Read more at location 221
Their purpose for publishing books of philosophy was rooted not primarily in political schemes, as with the Enlightenment thinkers, but in educational aims.Read more at location 223
Socratic method—it forces readers to think and discover for themselves.Read more at location 225
a philosophical writer will purposely endeavor to obscure his or her true meaning either to avoid some evil or to attain some good. The evils to be avoided are essentially two: either some harm that society might do the writer (persecution) or some harm that the writer might do society (“dangerous truths”), or both. The effort to avoid these two dangers gives rise to what I will call defensive and protective esotericism, respectively.Read more at location 227
A philosopher might write nothing at all, for example, and confine himself entirely to oral teaching,Read more at location 235
Or his writings may contain multiple levels, with an exoteric teaching on the surfaceRead more at location 239
Esotericism also varies widely in degree. In some cases, the exoteric doctrine may merely be a popularized or sanitized version of the esoteric doctrine. In others, it will be radically different,Read more at location 243
not tell “the whole truth,” but they will tell “nothing but the truth.”Read more at location 245
scholars today are willing to admit that, here and there, a philosopher or two can be found who engaged in esoteric writing.Read more at location 248
esotericism has not been a curious exception—it has been the rule.Read more at location 254
the evidence can be sifted as closely as possible, placed in historical context, and evaluated in dialogue with the secondary literature.Read more at location 266
Note: CONTESTO E TESTI SECONDARI
