Anagogue

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The expression anagogic or anagogue (ancient Greek ἀναγωγή, anagogé "upward") denotes in Christian literature since Origen a meaning of a text passage that can be explained by an interpretation, which is further ("higher" or "lower") compared to a literal reading. Deviating from this use of the word, Aristotle describes the return of logical formulas to basic formulas. (More unspecific uses in the sense of any concrete way, up or back are not dealt with below.)

Concept history

Anágein is already used in Homer as a compound of aná and ágein in the meaning of 1. “lead up” and 2. “bring back”. Even Thucydides and Xenophanes use anagoge meaning "Up Run". In Plato there are metaphorical uses such as (belonging to the first meaning) eis phos / eis philosophian anagein , “lead to light” / “lead to philosophy” and (belonging to the second meaning) ton logon ep 'erchon anagein . Aristotle uses anagogue to refer to the return of a term to its logical origin .

The Septuagint , the New Testament and the Christian Church Fathers use anagogue in the more concrete sense of "lead up", also e.g. B. in the meaning “to lead up from death, from which Sheol ”, “to set sail”, finally to lead up (by means of) love or faith to the connection with God. Belonging to the second meaning, Justin speaks of a relationship of everything back to the Bible.

In Middle and Neo-Platonism , anagoge denotes the ascent or return to the divine, also associated with ecstasy .

Only Origen used anagoge "as a technical term for a particular form of Christian exegesis ". In doing so, he also emphasizes terminologically (such as an interpretation advocated by Wolfgang A. Bienert, among others - against, among others, Ernst von Dobschütz ) the specifics of his exegesis in relation to the allegorical method as it was pursued in ancient Homerexegesis and in Philo of Alexandria .

From anagoge speaks in this sense u. a. also Hieronymus .

To logic

In Aristotelian logic, the anagogue is a procedure by which incompletely syllogical relationships are resolved on the basis of completely syllogical ones. It must be ensured that the validity of the already known, fully syllogical relationship can be inferred from the validity of the not yet fully syllogical one. So there is equated with the anagoge something special with more general, there is always the risk of a fallacy , would be interpreted with that in the initial issue her something strange inside.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Politeia 512c, 529a
  2. ↑ Nomoi 626d
  3. ↑ Nicomachean Ethics 1113b20, Metaphysics 1005a1 u. ö.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang A. Bienert : Allegoria and Anagoge bei Didymos dem Blinden von Alexandria , de Gruyter, Berlin 1972, p. 58, from which the above references are also taken. Aristotle differentiated types of syllogistic formulas into (a) perfect ones : usable as axioms and (b) imperfect, but provable by reduction to (a) types as generally valid. He also calls this return an anagogue . See J. Mau: Article Anagogé, Apagogé, Epagogé, in: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Vol. 1, p. 212 f.
  5. ↑ Ps 29 : 3; 39.2; 71.20f. After Wolfgang A. Bienert: Allegoria and Anagoge with Didymos the Blind of Alexandria , de Gruyter, Berlin 1972, p. 59.
  6. ↑ Justin the Martyr , Dialogue with the Jew Tryphon 152,1. After Wolfgang A. Bienert: Allegoria and Anagoge bei Didymos the Blind of Alexandria , de Gruyter, Berlin 1972, lc, 59f
  7. ↑ 1 Klem 49.4f; 2 terminal 17.2; Ignatius of Antioch , Eph. 9.1; Clement of Alexandria , Stromata 7,46,7. After Wolfgang A. Bienert: Allegoria and Anagoge with Didymos the Blind of Alexandria , de Gruyter, Berlin 1972, p. 60.
  8. ↑ Dialogue with the Jew Tryphon 56:16; after Wolfgang A. Bienert: Allegoria and Anagoge bei Didymos the Blind of Alexandria , de Gruyter, Berlin 1972, p. 60.
  9. ↑ In Porphyrios in a double sense, cf. Bienert, 62f
  10. ↑ So Iamblichos von Chalkis , De myst. 3.7 u. ö., s. Wolfgang A. Bienert: Allegoria and Anagoge with Didymos the Blind of Alexandria , de Gruyter, Berlin 1972, p. 63.
  11. ↑ Wolfgang A. Bienert: Allegoria and Anagoge with Didymos the Blind of Alexandria , de Gruyter, Berlin 1972, lc, p. 58.
  12. ↑ Wolfgang A. Bienert: Allegoria and Anagoge with Didymos the Blind of Alexandria , de Gruyter, Berlin 1972, p. 64 ff.
  13. ↑ Ep. 120.8; In Isa. 1.1, v. 3.8
  14. ↑ See on this: Encyclopedia Philosophy and Philosophy of Science, Stuttgart / Weimar 1995, Vol. I, p. 97.