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… et l’âme créa le rêve. Le traité Sur les songes de Synésios de Cyrène

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Published/Copyright: October 11, 2017
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Abstract

From Homer onwards, in both ancient Greek and Byzantine cultures, dreams were generally conceived as a phenomenon that enters the human being from outside, inasmuch as inspired by the divinity, and not as a product of human interiority. Nevertheless, there exists a distinctly dedicated work about this subject that provides a completely different point of view: it is the treatise On dreams by Synesius of Cyrene. Assuming that dreams are cognizable, Synesius argues that they must be perceived in the same way as sense perceptions. Therefore, they must pass through the center of human self-consciousness, which Synesius calls «Imaginative Spirit». This is only the beginning of a philosophical demonstration aiming to prove that all the images belonging to the Becoming, including oneiric ones, reside inside the soul and do not have their own source outside the human being.

Published Online: 2017-10-11
Published in Print: 2017-6-27

© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

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