Peter Struck - "Plato on Divination as a form of Cognition"

Tue 5/18/2010 5:00 ~ 6:30 PM

Classics Department
Main Quad, Building 110
Stanford, CA
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This talk provides a look at divination in antiquity not as a social-historical phenomenon used to consolidate public opinion by controlling divine authority, nor as a paranormal practice guided by personal intervention from gods or spirits. Instead, the philosophers approach it as a form of cognition. As such, divination looks like the result of a long (and still ongoing) human attempt to acculturate extra-rational forms of knowledge (akin to "intuition") rather than the result of exotic theological commitments.