Myth Of Prometheus Research Articles

Psychoanalysis and the acquisition of knowledge.

From the myth of Prometheus to the trial of Galileo, history and literature are replete with examples of the clash between institutionally-bound power structures which exploit ignorance and ignore reality, and those that attempt to develop some movement towards scientific and personal truth. Within society as we know it, the genius or messiah figure and the establishment are bound together in an attempt to establish a relationship which can be of constructive relevance to both. The challenge of incorporating new and disruptive, though not necessarily disintegrative thought on the one hand, is contrasted with an uncompromising attack upon those who would lay claim to the previously exclusive rights of the established organisation and the power which accrued from them. Psychoanalysis today is joined in the battle with internal and external prohibitions against the acquisition of knowledge, which may in time point towards the truth of human personality, behaviour and existence.

Psychoanalysis and the Acquisition of Knowledge

From the myth of Prometheus to the trial of Galileo, history and literature are replete with examples of the clash between institutionally-bound power structures which exploit ignorance and ignore reality, and those that attempt to develop some movement towards scientific and personal truth. Within society as we know it, the genius or messiah figure and the establishment are bound together in an attempt to establish a relationship which can be of constructive relevance to both. The challenge of incorporating new and disruptive, though not necessarily disintegrative thought on the one hand, is contrasted with an uncompromising attack upon those who would lay claim to the previously exclusive rights of the established organisation and the power which accrued from them. Psychoanalysis today is joined in the battle with internal and external prohibitions against the acquisition of knowledge, which may in time point towards the truth of human personality, behaviour and existence.

Work on Myth.

In this rich examination of how we inherit and transform myths, Hans Blumenberg continues his study of the philosophical roots of the modern world. Work on Myth is in five parts. The first two analyze the characteristics of myth and the stages in the West's work on myth, including long discussions of such authors as Freud, Joyce, Cassirer, and ValA(c)ry. The latter three parts present a comprehensive account of the history of the Prometheus myth, from Hesiod and Aeschylus to Gide and Kafka. This section includes a detailed analysis of Goethe's lifelong confrontation with the Prometheus myth, which is a unique synthesis of psychobiography and history of ideas.Hans Blumenberg is Professor of Philosophy at the University of MA nster. Work on Myth is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

The Arts of the Practical: Variations on a Theme of Prometheus

Towards the beginning of Plato's Protagoras, Socrates asks Protagoras to account for the evident differences between political and scientific problems and between politicians and scientists. Socrates wonders why people turn to for questions about ship-building and architecture, while everyone has an equal voice on whether to go to war; he wonders why, in matters calling for expertise, any speaker not an expert is laughed at and shouted down, while in issues of justice and honor, anyone claiming not to know enough to have an opinion is ridiculed. Socrates asks Protagoras whether these differences don't prove that political wisdom,justice, and virtue cannot be taught. Protagoras responds with his version of the Prometheus myth: particular crafts, particular kinds of science and technology, were stolen from Hephaestus and Athena by Prometheus and distributed among men in a pattern modeled after Epimetheus' distribution of specialized modes of life among the animal species, since one trained doctor suffices for many laymen, and so with other experts (Protagoras, 322c). But when Zeus saw that these could not live together, he ordered Hermes to give each man a share injustice and eloquence deeming that these could not be subjects for specialization. While technical questions remain subjects for a few experts, questions of justice and politics are within everyone's ken. Protagoras claims to teach virtue and justice, enabling anyone to become more practically effective. Joseph Schwab's career can be read as a series of explorations into the consequences of the Prometheus myth for effective action today. Like Protagoras, Schwab wants to teach virtue, to teach people to deliberate better and act more effectively; his arts of the practical are a modern version of the art of justice that Zeus sent to mankind. But Schwab is aware that current practical problems cannot be solved by acting as though we were still citizens in a Greek democracy; his arts of the quasi-practical

Il mito di Prometeo riscritto

The Prometheus myth is an essential part of European culture, observed in each literary epoque, being variously interpreted and adopted. This article aims to examine the presence and meaning of the myth about the Titan in one of the works of Giacomo Leopardi La scommessa di Prometeo basing on both ancient and earlier Italian literary tradition in depicting the deity. Leopardi, well familiar with ancient and contemporary culture, rewrites the myth in the way to express his vision of human life. Although his idea seems original and new he obviously makes use of many motives already present in earlier tradition transforming them and reinterpreting to create a new and significant quality.

Prometeo: tradición y progreso

En este trabajo se analiza el mito de Prometeo en las versiones de los poemas de Hesíodo (Teogonía y Los trabajos y los días) y de la tragedia Prometeo encadenado, pieza atribuida a Esquilo. Con la comparación de tales relatos, se busca explicar los conceptos de tradición y progreso, de acuerdo con el contexto en que se produjeron los materiales literarios aludidos.

Explorations of ego structures of firesetting children.

Since the dawn of prehistory, man has been fascinated and mystified by a force of nature whose control and cultivation were necessary for the emergence of civilization—fire. In mythology, folklore, and beliefs of primitive cultures, one finds expressed the seemingly universal desire to account for the origins of fire and the means by which it was rendered serviceable to the needs of man (Frazer, 1930). That fire is symbolically expressive of libidinal, particularly phallicuretheral drives, has long been the psychoanalytical position. This view was first formulated in an article by Freud, The Acquisition of Power Over Fire, (1952), in which he analyzed the Greek myth of Prometheus and linked fire, through the process of reversal, with urinary functions. In another paper, he writes, It is remarkable how regularly analytic findings testify to the close connection between ideas of ambition, fire, and urethral eroticism (1930, p

The Myth of Prometheus: Its Survival and Metamorphoses up to the Eighteenth Century

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Myth of Prometheus: Its Survival and Metamorphoses up to the Eighteenth CenturyOlga RaggioOlga Raggio Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes Volume 21, Number 1-2January–June 1958 Published for the Warburg Institute and the Courtauld Institute Views: 38Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/750486 Views: 38Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright © 1958 by The Warburg Institute. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Anita Fiderer Moskowitz Trecento Classicism and the Campanile Hexagons, Gesta 22, no.11 (Oct 2015): 49–65.https://doi.org/10.2307/766952

Zeus in the Prometheia

The controversy about Zeus in the Prometheus Vinctus started by the late Dr. L. R. Farnell (JHS liii, 40 ff.) is not settled. Answers are wanted to three sharp-sighted questions asked by Dr. R. H. Maiden (ibid. liv, 201). The first is whether any one has considered the relation of the Prometheus Vinctus to the Semitic (Babylonian) myth of the fall of man. Later Dr. Maiden writes: ‘In Genesis the myth is used as the vehicle of a mediation on the origin and nature of sin. … But what was the original form [of the myth] before it had undergone the moralising process? … It is not impossible that … the moral character of God was not beyond criticism … the idea of a deity hostile to mankind presented no difficulty to the Semitic mind.’ Thirdly, he questions the assumption made, in his answer to Dr. Farnell, by Mr. H. D. F. Kitto (ibid. liv, 14 ff.), that the High God must be all-powerful and immortal.Lately M. Dmitri Merezhkovsky has compared the myth of Prometheus with Babylonian myths (The Secret of the West, translated by J. Cournos, London, 1933, 57 ff., citing Bab. Tab. B.M. VI. 5, Beros. Babyl. ap. Damascen. de prim. princ. 125, Cuneiform Texts, I. c). Similar comparisons had been made before, for example by the late Professor A. H. Sayce in 1884 (The Ancient Empires of the East, 157. Cf. my forthcoming remarks in TAPA, lxvii; and now E. O. Forrer, Mélanges Cumont, 686 ff.) In the Babylonian myths a god must be slain to create man.

Ancient Greece and Modern Civilisation

IN his Friday evening discourse delivered at the Royal Institution on January 25, Sir Richard Livingstone discussed the relation of modern civilisation to ancient Greece. Starting in a world where men believed that Zeus made thunder and that the sun and moon were gods, the Greeks originated science. Their actual scientific and philosophic achievement was remarkable (witness Aristarchus's discovery of the heliocentric system, the anticipation of modern thought in Anaximander's notion that men originate from animals of a different species, and Democritus's atomic thory). But even more remarkable is the grasp on the ideal of science shown in such sayings as: “Thought is the supreme excellence of men and wisdom consists in saying what is true and acting according to Nature, listening to her” (Heraclitus), and “It is a sin that Reason should be the subject or servant of anyone; its place is to be ruler of all” (Plato). Further, they grasped the idea of a civilisation based on the development of the useful arts. This appears in the myth of Prometheus as expounded by Aeschylus, in the “Antigone“and in many other passages in Greek literature. In this sense the Greeks were the creators of the characteristic spirit of modern civilisation. They grasped the ideal of science as completely as any of their successors. We have carried scientific discovery and technology to heights of which they never dreamed. But they formed a clearer and perhaps higher conception than we of the life which men should lead against the background of material civilisation. They can correct our civilisation not only by the example of an existence, of which Goethe said that of all men the Greeks had dreamed the dream of life best, but also by reminding us that life is essentially a human problem and that ethics and political science are as fascinating as, and even more important than, physical science.