CLA160H1 Lecture Notes - Odysseus, Natural Philosophy, Euhemerism
Document Summary
Lecture 1 - introduction - course requirements - teaching goals. The main difference between us and our closest cousin the chimp is the tradition of story telling. We will cover how myths arise, the functions they perform for individuals or the societies in which they are recited and what they accomplish. Considered a producer of myth and his epics are presentations of myth (the iliad and the. They also reflect on the nature of storytelling and myth-making. This is evidenced by the technique of telling stories within stories (odysseus to alkinoos). In the late 7th and 6th century bc and on into plato greek philosophers find themselves in conflict with mythological tradition. The goals and methods of the early greek philosophers, both the pre-socratics and socrates/plato, were determined by their antagonism toward and interaction with the mythological tradition. They wanted to determine what was the truth and what was reality and how the truth compares or contrasts with myth.
