The Greek philosophy of the person

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleἩ ἑλληνικὴ φιλοσοφία τοῦ προσώπου
3. Language term English
4. lemma author Koutalis, Vangelis
5. lemma category Modes of interaction > Conflict - Orthodox theological tradition and practice > Patristic studies - Orthodox theological tradition and practice > Premodern _modern_ postmodern - Orthodox Anthropology - Ecumenism and dialogue > Westernism and anti-westernism - Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning > Orthodox gnosiology - Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning > Materialism/Idealism - Ethics
6. Publication date 26-02-2017
7. lemma work Fragkos, Vasilis [Author]. The Greek philosophy of the person
8. lemma manifestations Ἡ ἑλληνικὴ φιλοσοφία τοῦ προσώπου - Athens: Publishing House "Astir" - Al. and E. Papadimitriou, 1986.
9. Keywords Personalism - Greek philosophy - Pre-Socratics - Patristic theology - existential crisis
10. Citations
    1. <p>Fragkos, V. [Φράγκος, Β.] (1986). <em>Ἡ ἑλληνικὴ φιλοσοφία τοῦ προσώπου</em>. Athens: Publishing House “Astir” – Al. & E. Papadimitriou.</p>
11. Lemma body

    1. The book contains a series of essays revolving around the notion of the person in the Greek philosophical and theological tradition. By covering a wide spectrum of topics, starting from the Pre-Socratic philosophy, particularly that of Heraclitus, passing through the modern dialectical philosophy of Hegel or Marx and reaching to the poems of Zoi Karellis and the novels of Gabriel Pentzikis, which are indicative of a deep consciousness of the contradictions that are inherent in the modern European mentality, the author attempts to pose what he considers as the most vital question of our era: that of the supersession of the currently dominant individualist rationalism by a new philosophical conception of the human person woven together with a comprehensive consciousness of Being.

       According to Fragos, the Greek spiritual understanding of the human being, evinced principally in Greek tragedy and in the Pre-Socratic philosophy, became the anthropological counterpart of Christian revelation, as crystallized in the Orthodox tradition. This complementarity was acknowledged, deepened and defended by the three great Fathers of the Greek Orthodoxy, Justin, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Palamas. The problems raised by the current social and existential human crisis require a new worldview, in which the one-sideness both of intellectual idealism and dialectical materialism will be remedied, through a dialectical and ontological conception of the peculiarity and ingenuity of the human person.

       Instead of dissociating scientific knowledge from the moral dimension of living, instead of putting the theoretical reason at a distance from the practical reason, and instead, also, of elevating the utilitarian basis of the existing economical mechanism to a bio-theoretical principle for the, imprisoned in their alienating cultural, social and technological framework, human beings, which find themselves in an exalted position only to the extent that they are defined as consuming individuals, the Greek philosophy of the person offers a synthetic view of the agency and ontological self-sufficiency of human beings, in which the negation of individuality serves as the prerequisite for the personal active implication in the universality of being.