Divination in the Ancient World, from Plato to the Neo-Platonists by Way of Aristotle and the Stoics. A Review of Peter T. Struck’s  Divination and Human Nature

doi:10.1558/jch.34134

Journal of Cognitive Historiography, Vol 3, No 1-2 (2016)

Divination in the Ancient World, from Plato to the Neo-Platonists by Way of Aristotle and the Stoics. A Review of Peter T. Struck’s Divination and Human Nature

Massimo Pigliucci

Issued Date: 29 Mar 2018

Abstract

Divination is nowadays considered a pseudoscience or a parlor trick. Consequently, we are inclined to dismiss the ancient Greco-Romans’ interest in it as misguided and an intellectual dead end. But a new book by Peter Struck traces an intellectual history of divination from Plato to Aristotle and from the Stoics to the Neoplatonists, re-interpreting the concept as an early attempt to make sense of what we today call intuition.

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DOI: 10.1558/jch.34134

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