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On Calling the Gods by the Right Names

On Calling the Gods by the Right Names Abstract: Do you need to know the name of the god you’re praying to? If you get the name wrong what happens to the prayer? What if the god has more than one name? Who gets to decide whether the name works (you or the god or neither)? What are names anyway? Are the names of the gods any different in how they work from any other names? Is there a way of fixing the reference without using the name so as to avoid the problems of optional names? There is a type of formula used in prayer in ancient Greece which I call (in this paper) a “precautionary formula”. The person praying uses expressions like “whether you want to be called (x) or (y)”, and “if this is the name by which you would like to be called”. I also include here the practice of adding definite descriptions that identify the god by means other than the name (e.g. their place of birth or residence, their deeds etc). In this paper I ask what these formulae were for, why so many occur in philosophical work, particularly Plato, and whether the puzzles about the names of the gods go back to the Presocratics. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Rhizomata de Gruyter

On Calling the Gods by the Right Names

Rowett, Catherine
Rhizomata , Volume 1 (2) – Dec 1, 2013
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26 pages

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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the
ISSN
2196-5102
eISSN
2196-5110
DOI
10.1515/rhiz-2013-0008
Publisher site
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Abstract

Abstract: Do you need to know the name of the god you’re praying to? If you get the name wrong what happens to the prayer? What if the god has more than one name? Who gets to decide whether the name works (you or the god or neither)? What are names anyway? Are the names of the gods any different in how they work from any other names? Is there a way of fixing the reference without using the name so as to avoid the problems of optional names? There is a type of formula used in prayer in ancient Greece which I call (in this paper) a “precautionary formula”. The person praying uses expressions like “whether you want to be called (x) or (y)”, and “if this is the name by which you would like to be called”. I also include here the practice of adding definite descriptions that identify the god by means other than the name (e.g. their place of birth or residence, their deeds etc). In this paper I ask what these formulae were for, why so many occur in philosophical work, particularly Plato, and whether the puzzles about the names of the gods go back to the Presocratics.

Journal

Rhizomata – de Gruyter

Published: Dec 1, 2013

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