About the "theology" of the early Greek philosophers

Abstract

This article examines W. Jaeger’s work The theology of the early Greek philosophers: The Gifford Lectures, 1936. We believe that in addition to an extensive introductory article by V. V. Prokopenko, several points should be clarified. The first point is to reveal the ideological context within which this work was created and which it belonged to. The second point is to understand how W. Jaeger views the early Greek philosophers and what picture of early ancient intellectualism he paints. The disclosure of these two moments in unity lets us both to take a fresh look at the early ancient tradition of philosophizing and, to some extent, extrapolate this view by shifting the emphasis from the myth and logos plane to the area where mythopoetics (mythical theology) turns into theopoetics (philosophical theology).