Inventing Origins? Aetiological Thinking in Greek and Roman Antiquity
Inventing Origins? Aetiological Thinking in Greek and Roman Antiquity
- Brill 2022
- 1 online resource (228 p.)
- Euhormos: Greco-Roman Studies in Anchoring Innovation .
Free-to-read
Aetiologies seem to gratify the human desire to understand the origin of a phenomenon. However, as this book demonstrates, aetiologies do not exclusively explore origins. Rather, in inventing origin stories they authorise the present and try to shape the future. This book explores aetiology as a tool for thinking, and draws attention to the paradoxical structure of origin stories. Aetiologies reduce complex ambivalence and plurality to plainly causal and temporal relations, but at the same time, by casting an anchor into the past, they open doors to progress and innovation.
All rights reserved
English
9789004500143 9789004500433
10.1163/9789004500433 doi
History
aetiological; Greek; Roman; Antiquity; etiologisch; Grieks; Romeins
Free-to-read
Aetiologies seem to gratify the human desire to understand the origin of a phenomenon. However, as this book demonstrates, aetiologies do not exclusively explore origins. Rather, in inventing origin stories they authorise the present and try to shape the future. This book explores aetiology as a tool for thinking, and draws attention to the paradoxical structure of origin stories. Aetiologies reduce complex ambivalence and plurality to plainly causal and temporal relations, but at the same time, by casting an anchor into the past, they open doors to progress and innovation.
All rights reserved
English
9789004500143 9789004500433
10.1163/9789004500433 doi
History
aetiological; Greek; Roman; Antiquity; etiologisch; Grieks; Romeins