Sunday 23 February 2014

Etymology - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original Article: "Etymologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology


Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.  By an extension, the term "the etymology of [a word]" means the origin of the particular word.  For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during earlier periods of their history and when they entered the languages in question.  Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information to be available.  By analyzing related languages with a technique known as the comparative method, linguists can make inferences about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In this way, word roots have been found that can be traced all the way back to the origin of, for instance, the Indo-European language family.  Even though etymological research originally grew from the philological tradition, currently much etymological research is done on language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian.  The word etymology is derived from the Greek word ἐτυμολογία, etymologia, itself from ἔτυμον, etymon, meaning "true sense" and the suffix -logia, denoting "the study of".
  
Etymon is also used in English to refer to the source word of a given word.  For example, Latin candidus, which means "white", is the etymon of English candid.

Allegory of the Cave - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original Article: "Allegory of the Cave" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

The Allegory of the Cave (Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave, Parable of the Cave) is presented by the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato in the Republic to compare "the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature".  It is written as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter. 

The Allegory of the Cave is presented after the Analogy of the Sun and the Analogy of the Divided Line.  All three are characterized in relation to dialectic (διάλεκτος) at the end of books VII and VIII. 

Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. 

The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to designate names to these shadows.  The shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality.  He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners. 

The Allegory may be related to Plato's Theory of Forms, according to which the "Forms" (or "Ideas"), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.  Only knowledge of the Forms constitutes real knowledge.  Socrates informs Glaucon that the most excellent must learn the greatest of all studies, which is to behold the Good.  Those who have ascended to this highest level, however, must not remain there but must return to the cave and dwell with the prisoners, sharing in their labors and honors.  Plato's Phaedo contains similar imagery to that of the Allegory of the Cave; a philosopher recognizes that before philosophy, his soul was "a veritable prisoner fast bound within his body... and that instead of investigating reality by itself and in itself it is compelled to peer through the bars of its prison.

Anagoge - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original Article: "Anagoge" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anagoge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

Anagoge (ἀναγωγή), sometimes spelled anagogy, is a Greek word suggesting a "climb" or "ascent" upwards.  The anagogical is a method of spiritual interpretation of literal statements or events, especially scriptural exegesis that detects allusions to the afterlife.  

Certain medieval theologians describe four methods of interpreting the Scriptures: literal/historical, allegorical, tropological (moral), and anagogical.  Hugh of St. Victor, in De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris, distinguished anagoge from allegory.  In an allegory, a visible fact is signified by another visible fact.  On the other hand, with respect to an anagoge (‘leading above'), from a visible fact, an invisible is declared.  The four methods of interpretation point in four different directions: The literal/historical backwards to the past, the allegoric forwards to the future, the tropological downwards to the moral/human, and the anagogic upwards to the spiritual/heavenly.