TY - JOUR
T1 - The symposium
T2 - Culture as daimonic conversation
AU - Gurevitch, Zali
PY - 1998
Y1 - 1998
N2 - The present essay focuses on the relation between conversation and culture. Through a reading of Plato's "Symposium," it highlights a conversation which reflects on culture while in its midst, combining critique with erotic ritual. Eros, the selected topic of the Symposium, is described by Socrates as a Daimon, a being between God and mortal, whose intermediary state reflects back on conversation itself as daimonic, and on culture as daimonic conversation. This notion of conversation serves as a basis for a cultural critique, on the one hand, of an anthropology that limits itself to an observation of culture as closed and defined forms and, on the other hand, of demonic rather than daimonic notions of conversation.
AB - The present essay focuses on the relation between conversation and culture. Through a reading of Plato's "Symposium," it highlights a conversation which reflects on culture while in its midst, combining critique with erotic ritual. Eros, the selected topic of the Symposium, is described by Socrates as a Daimon, a being between God and mortal, whose intermediary state reflects back on conversation itself as daimonic, and on culture as daimonic conversation. This notion of conversation serves as a basis for a cultural critique, on the one hand, of an anthropology that limits itself to an observation of culture as closed and defined forms and, on the other hand, of demonic rather than daimonic notions of conversation.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0002008526&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1023/A:1005445917438
DO - 10.1023/A:1005445917438
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AN - SCOPUS:0002008526
SN - 0163-8548
VL - 21
SP - 437
EP - 454
JO - Human Studies
JF - Human Studies
IS - 4
ER -