Walter Burkert

Jason, Hypsipyle, and New Fire at Lemnos. A Study in Myth and Ritual

History of religion, in its beginnings, had to struggle to emancipate itself from classical mythology as well as from theology and philosophy; when ritual was finally found to be the basic fact in religious tradition, the result was a divorce between classicists, treating mythology as a literary device, on the one hand, and specialists in festivals and rituals and their obscure affiliations and origins on the other.

Multiplizieren statt Teilen: Seiten- und Diagonalzahlen bei Platon ("Resp." 525e)

In Platons Behandlung der mathemata verweist der Satz uber Arithmetik spezifisch auf eine Rechenregel fur Seite/Diagonale des Quadrats, Approximation an

Pleading for Hell: Postulates, Fantasies, and the Senselessness of Punishment

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Qualität und Quantität in der antiken Philosophie

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Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth

If the ideal of justice includes effective punishment of offenders, an extension into afterlife must be postulated. This still involves all the questionable aspects and paradoxes of punishment that make rational and enlightened argumentation difficult. A historical survey of ancient tentatives at hell lore shows diverse starting points and interests. There is just a germ of such speculations in Sumerian. When hell fire first appears in Egypt, it goes together with the fear of magic from the dead; in Zoroastrianism and Judaism it is partisan interest which makes the adherents of the wrong religion destined for hell. In Greece we find various ethical and poetical motifs interfering, from the powerful yet enigmatic images in the Odyssey to a general proclamation of punishments in the Hymn to Demeter. The most graphic and horrible descriptions of something like hell are finally found in Plato, whose sources — besides Homer — can be postulated but not identified.

Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism

Reflexionen uber Qualitas und Quantitas — in dieser Reihenfolge — haben ihren aktuellen Bezug in der heutigen Diskussion um qualitatives statt quantitativen Wachstums und in der damit einhergehenden allgemeinen Vermutung, dass «Qualitat» im Sinne gebildeter Menschlichkeit hoher stehe als das bloss Quantitative, das unsere Wirklichkeit sowieso nur allzusehr beherrscht. Dies steht in einer gewissen Spannung zur neuzeitlichen Naturwissenschaft, die — auf spatmittelalterlichen Ansatzen aufbauend — seit Galilei und Descartes den Fortschritt in der Reduktion von Qualitaten auf das Quantitative als das Messbare und damit Objektive fand. Warme ist, was immer sie fur unser «Gefuhl» und unsere Lebensqualitat bedeuten mag, eine Molekularbewegung, d.h. messbar, quantifizierbar.