Greek Philosophy as a Religious Quest for the Divine

James Bernard Murphy

Greek Philosophy as a Religious Quest for the Divine

Article

28/1 – Spring 2023, pages 85-97

Date of online publication: 22 juin 2023

Date of publication: 22 juin 2023

Abstract

Philosophy has always been parasitic on other bodies of knowledge, especially religious thought. Greek philosophy in Italy emerged as a purification of Orphic religious traditions. Orphic votaries adopted various disciplines in the attempt to become divine, which led Pythagoras and Empedocles to define philosophy as a path to divinity. According to Plato and Aristotle, the goal of philosophy is to become “as much like a god as is humanly possible.” Classical Greek philosophy is not the study of the divine but the project of becoming divine, a project which it shares with Christianity. Greek philosophy and Christianity have different paths to the divine, but they share a common aspiratio

Keywords

Cite this article

Murphy, James Bernard. 2023. “Greek Philosophy as a Religious Quest for the Divine.” Forum Philosophicum 28 (1): 85–97. doi:10.35765/forphil.2023.2801.05

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