(Download) "Ideology and Philosophy in Byzantium: The Meanings of Ideology Before Modern Times (Report)" by Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Ideology and Philosophy in Byzantium: The Meanings of Ideology Before Modern Times (Report)
- Author : Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies
- Release Date : January 22, 2009
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 254 KB
Description
Ideology before the modern times: arguments Enunciating a title like the one of the present study could seem quite hazardous considering that the term "ideology" and its connections to philosophic grounds appear to refer only to the horizon and the concerns of modernity. Both terms, "ideology" and "philosophy", received a different approach from what we understand now and this is why an analysis of such perspective regarding the Byzantine cultural paradigm is not forthcoming. The usage of the term ideology is associated with the changes of mentality that accompanied the French Revolution. Destutt de Tracy saw ideology as "a science of ideas", the sources of this vision being Locke's and Condillac's philosophical doctrines. Tracy affirmed that the entire knowledge is knowledge of ideas. In time, the term receives a more specialized and limited usage, so that Britannica defines ideology as a type of theory with practical intention or any attempt to make politics in the light of a system of ideas, with reticence upon the existence of difficulties in the clear definition of the sense. Today the term receives a double connotation: a positive one and one that refers to the negativity of the experiments and social manipulations of the XXth century. The totalitarian experiments and the collective manipulations brought a reaction regarding everything that refers to ideology and a certain adversity towards this term. However, by ideology we must understand more than the totalitarian social experiment. Certainly the evolutions of the society and also of the cultural paradigm in the modern times cannot be explained without identifying the active role that ideologies had. Typical of modernism is the fact that the advancement of ideology was a conscious one which regarded the applications of certain social theories. But could we talk about this kind of attitude before the modern times? If the answer is yes than it is certainly the case of the Byzantine state. For the beginning, it seems too daring to talk about a State, in the full meaning of the word, before modernism. As McCormick said, the term "state" seems almost a historic anomaly in the medieval world. Nevertheless, Byzantium--the only one in the Christian Middle Ages--knew how to maintain a political system based on an institutional class of professional employees which was to define the structure and the final feature of the Byzantine aristocracy by the XIIth century (1).
 "Ideology and Philosophy in Byzantium: The Meanings of Ideology Before Modern Times (Report)" by Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}