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Parmenides as a Source of Religious Philosophy in Antiquity
Abstract
This article discusses the rise of a philosophy of religion in antiquity. The author points out the only effective method of defining a philosophy of religion — an intuitive judgment of its components together with the elimination of all elements which do not pertain to the subject. The works of Proclus and Plato, especially the latter’s Dialogue on Parmenides are taken as the author’s starting point. Religion exists as the object of reflection not only on a philosophical level but also on lower levels where it appears as religious phenomena which are unable however to reveal their common molecular origin. Thus, Metaphysics first of all attempts to give a meaning to religion and later becomes its concomitant. Metaphysics itself traces its origin in religious principles, at the same time interpreting these same principles for the human mind. This is apparent from the history of the interpretation of religion in antiquity of which the Poem of Parmenides serves as an eminent example. The author concludes that for the ancient Greeks, religion and religious phenomena were so tightly linked with the concept of truth, that truth was itself viewed as sacred knowledge, available only to initiates
Keywords
Plato, Proclus, Hegel, Parmenides, Habermas ◆ Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Ancient Philosophy
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