If it's not true, what it is? Saint Augustine against the Lie
Gabriele Greggersen
Original title: Se não é Verdade, é o que? Agostinho contra a Mentira
Published in Mirabilia 4
Keywords: Lie, heresy, intencionality, truth.
If there are lies, which is their limit in relation to truth? Out of real problems that he was facing at the time, related the religious heresies and conflicts, Saint Augustine supplies insights on the subject in two texts “On Lie” (De Mendacium) and “Against Lie” (Contra Mendacium). There are good reasons to believe that his concern with the subject was recurrent, since the two texts are practically identical. Without pretensions to define what truth is, the bishop of Hippona applies his negative method to create a tipology of existing kinds of lies. Thus, he evidences a almost completely forgotten fact nowadays: beyond the diversity of species of lie, if something is not true, it only can be false.
Memory and Rhapsody: The Divine Song in Archadia
Ciléa Dourado
Original title: Memória e Rapsódia: o canto divino na Arcádia
Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism
Keywords: Poetry, Power., tradition, truth.
The poetic activity of the Greek Golden Age, better known as Archadia, grew inside a pre-literate culture which was characterized, above all, by a mythological symbolism. The Archadian poetry points to the notion of the fantastic, of the sublime and of the divine in its purest form. The archaic Poet was endowed with the power directly by the gods, and such a power was non-negotiable and non-transferable. The lineage and succession of a rhapsodist was often brought out by Arete, the choice of the nobler.
The allegorical interpretation of myths: from origins to Plato
Loraine OLIVEIRA
Original title: A interpretação alegórica de mitos: das origens a Platão
Published in Manifestations of the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Allegory, Interpretation, Myths, Philosophical discourse, truth.
The aim of this paper is to present some of the main aspects of allegory understood as hermeneutical practice. Allegory takes as certain that the text to be interpreted possesses some truth content. At the same time that the first allegorical interpretations of Homer and Hesiod appear, there also appear harsh criticisms of their poems. Such criticisms can be grouped under two main headings: the demythologization of the cosmos and the immorality of gods. Plato has behind him two centuries of disputes about the meaning of the poems, and clearly stands against allegorical practice, even though he does not abandon myths. What happens is that he displaces the truth content of the text: truth is not to be sought in poetry anymore, but in philosophical discourse.
The myth as tool of persuasion in Plato’s Phaedrus
Barbara BOTTER, Rodrigo Danúbio QUEIROZ
Original title: O mito como ferramenta de persuasão no Fedro de Platão
Published in Art, Criticism and Mysticism
Keywords: Myth, Phaedrus, Plato, truth.
The article aims to analyze Plato’s Phaedrus. Centralizes the importance of myth as a persuasion tool to achieve true dialogue. For this, a reflection took place, through dialogue, the structure of the myth; its symbology and the possibility of Plato recognize the limits of philosophical knowledge in wanting to reach the truth. The philosophical argument used by Socrates is based on the myth erotic speech. This discourse, in its mythical route reaches lovers and persuades regarding the definition of the soul, of its participation in the divine and beauty fashion. Therefore, it is evident that Plato recognizes the influence that non-rational world has about the very possibility of understanding the rational statements. The event that takes place in the dialectical movement of his maieutic.
