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Aristotle, Oedipus, and Greek Religion uncovers a seldom explored side of Aristotle—his deep engagement with religious thought. Challenging the contemporary view of Aristotle as a rationalist or covert atheist, Louis F. Groarke presents a philosopher whose ideas are intertwined with spiritual and moral aspects.
By examining Aristotelian philosophy as a unified whole—not through isolated quotations—Groarke reveals a thinker who values religious practice, sees traces of the divine in metaphysics, and allows space for both science and faith. From tragic drama to epistemology, Aristotle’s work resonates with religious insight.
Aristotle, Oedipus, and Greek Religion is both a fresh reading of an ancient philosopher and a provocative contribution to ongoing philosophical debates.
About the Cover Design
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Note on Bibliographical Style
Chapter 1
Method and Overview
1.1. Introduction, Subject-Matter, and
Methodology
1.2. Chapter Summaries
Chapter 2
Did Aristotle Practise Religion?
2.1. A General Picture: Ancient Greek Atheism?
2.2. Aristotle and Disbelief
2.3. The Religious Aristotle: A Minority Position
2.4. First Textual Evidence
2.5. Aristotle’s Religious Practice
2.6. Jaeger: The Old Developmentalism
2.7. Melzer: The Esoteric Versus the Exoteric Aristotle
2.8. Aristotle and Prayer Generally
2.9. Aristotle and Petitionary Prayer
2.10. Aristotle’s Self-Thinking God and Petitionary Prayer
2.10.1. The Esoteric Reading
2.10.2. Loose Theology
2.10.3. A Caricature of Pagan Piety
2.10.4. Friendship with the Gods
2.10.5. A Religious Strategy: Intellectual Piety
2.10.6. Petitionary Prayer and the Philosophical Tradition
2.11. Mythology and Pagan Revelation
2.12. The Scope of Inspiration
2.13. The Paranormal: Mystery Cults and Mysticism
Chapter 3
The Cosmos as a Hall of Mirrors
3.1. Aristotle’s “Theology”
3.2. Imago Dei in an Aristotelian Vein
3.3. Eternal Duration
3.4. “Unmovedness”
3.5. Unmixedness
3.6. Immateriality
3.7. Actuality
3.8. Aristotle’s God as Final and/or Efficient Cause of the Cosmos
3.9. Incommensurable Wonder
Chapter 4
Aristotle and Fate
4.1. Terminology, Determinism
4.2. Τύχη, Science, and the Particular
4.3. Τύχη in Physics II.4–6
4.4. Bechler: Accidental Causality, Contrary to Reason?
4.5. Four Levels of Accidental Causality
4.6. Mayhew: Prayer, Τύχη, and Politics
4.7. Inspiration and Supernatural Agency
Chapter 5
Oedipus and Aristotle
5.1. Reasoning from Examples
5.2. The Story of Oedipus Tyrannos
5.3. Aristotle’s Opinion of Oedipus
5.4. Esoteric and Exoteric Interpretations
5.5. Hamartia
5.6. Oedipus and Hamartia: Adkins
5.7. Oedipus and Hamartia: Stinton
5.8. Hamartia as a Term with Moral Colour
5.9. Missing the Mark: The Aristotelian Mean
5.10. Oedipus’s Passion for Truth?
5.11. Human Agency in Oedipus and Ancient Greek Culture
5.12. Oedipus the Tyrant
5.13. Oedipus Killing Laius
5.14. Oedipus’s Excusable Crimes? Aristotle’s Ethical Exceptions
5.15. Oedipus Furious
5.16. Oedipus and Akrasia
5.17. Was Oedipus Guilty of Parricide?
5.18. Purity and Pollution (Miasma)
5.19. Guilt and Shame
5.20. Bloodguilt and Oedipus
5.21. Plato, Aristotle, and Catharsis
5.22. Sophocles’s Oedipus: A Tragedy Without Hamartia?
5.23. Oedipus and Hubris
5.24. Oedipus, Theatre, and Theôria
Chapter 6
A Phenomenology of Discovery
6.1. Aristotle and the New Testament
6.2. Aphrodite and Emmaus
6.3. Anagnôrisis: Discovery
6.4. Aristotelian Induction
6.5. Other Kinds of Aristotelian Induction
6.6. Other Aristotelian Kinds of Quick-Knowing
6.7. Putting It All Together: Formalizing the Flash of Understanding
6.8. Rapid Insight in Homer and Luke
6.9. Complications
6.9.1. Physical Resurrection?
6.9.2. Can We Have Knowledge Directly from the Divine?
6.9.3. Divine Visitation?
Chapter 7
Concluding Postscript
7.1. An Overall View
Bibliography
Index