La sagesse du monde : Histoire de l'expérience humaine de l'univers (Esprit de la Cité)

by Rémi Brague

When the ancient Greeks looked up into the heavens, they saw not just sun and moon, stars and planets, but a complete, coherent universe, a model of the Good that could serve as a guide to a better life. How this view of the world came to be, and how we lost it (or turned away from it) on the way to becoming modern, make for a fascinating story, told in a highly accessible manner by Rémi Brague in this wide-ranging cultural history.

Before the Greeks, people thought human action was required to maintain the order of the universe and so conducted rituals and sacrifices to renew and restore it. But beginning with the Hellenic Age, the universe came to be seen as existing quite apart from human action and possessing, therefore, a kind of wisdom that humanity did not. Wearing his remarkable erudition lightly, Brague traces the many ways this universal wisdom has been interpreted over the centuries, from the time of ancient Egypt to the modern era. Socratic and Muslim philosophers, Christian theologians and Jewish Kabbalists all believed that questions about the workings of the world and the meaning of life were closely intertwined and that an understanding of cosmology was crucial to making sense of human ethics. Exploring the fate of this concept in the modern day, Brague shows how modernity stripped the universe of its sacred and philosophical wisdom, transforming it into an ethically indifferent entity that no longer serves as a model for human morality.

Encyclopedic and yet intimate, The Wisdom of the World offers the best sort of history: broad, learned, and completely compelling. Brague opens a window onto systems of thought radically different from our own.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, Religion, Theology, Christian

333 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 24, 1999

About the author

French historian of philosophy, specializing in the Arabic, Jewish, and Christian thought of the Middle Ages. He is professor emeritus of Arabic and religious philosophy at the Sorbonne, and Romano Guardini chair of philosophy (emeritus) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Brague is the recipient of numerous awards, including honors by both the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the Academy of Moral and Political Science. In 2009, he received both the Josef Pieper Prize and the Grand prix de philosophie de l'Académie française, and he was awarded the 2012 Ratzinger Prize for Theology alongside Brian E. Daley. In 2013, he was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur.

Reviews

[Justin Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. An extremely wide ranging intellectual history, focusing on the relationship between 'world' and 'man.' If you're into laundry lists of quotes, followed by a one paragraph summary of those quotes that takes no notice whatsoever of the immense divergence between them, then this is for you. Brague is obviously well read, but this should have been an essay in some right-wing French weekly, rather than a book. The real flaw here, though, is the unbearable way he longs for a world in which the 'cosmos' has an ethical value. This is all the more ridiculous in that he's a famous Catholic intellectual: what does Christianity teach us if not that the world is not where we find ethical or moral meaning? Too bad. The cover's really nice.

[Denis Mcgrath · Rating 5 out of 5]

A unique work of scholarship depicting how we have and currently view the universe from the early history of the ancient world to the philosophical currents of the present. The text is richly annotated and excellently translated but densely academic. Very helpful in enriching one’s concept of cosmology saddled between the theological and philosophical traditions of Wisdom and the Cosmos and an emerging anthropology no longer based on the Greek, Medieval, or modernist models.

I purchased this book for my library based on the recommendation of the catholic theologian Sr. Ilia Delio’s who uses Brague as a key source in her new book “Making All things New: Catholicity, Cosmology, Consciousness.”

[Philippe Malzieu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ferry speaks about this book in the introduction of his book on Kant. It is a kind of history of the philosophy but seen by the prism of the conception of the cosmos by men.
Really I had pleasure to read it because It permit to me to understand some relation in philosophical thoughts.
I like to read phylosophical book because they calm the soul, this one particulary.

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revue excellente des origines de la cosmologie médiévale, qui a émergé comme une fusion de la cosmologie de Platon dans le Timée et des idées bibliques. Selon cette image du monde, la nature était un exemple à imiter d'un point de vue éthique.
Deux autres visions cosmologiques du monde antique ont été balayés par la cosmologie médiévale: épicurisme (ou atomisme) et la vision gnostique.
Avec le changement du modèle médiéval par le modèle de la Renaissance, l'atomisme et la cosmologie gnostique sont revenus, la seconde par la perte du sens éthique du cosmos, qui dans l'idéologie moderne devient éthiquement neutre, voire négatif, quelque chose à combattre (une vue qui est devenue dominante avec la théorie de l'évolution).
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Excellent review of the origins of medieval cosmology, which emerged as a fusion of Plato's cosmology in Timaeus and biblical ideas. According to this image of the world, nature was an example to imitate from the ethical point of view.
Two other cosmological visions of the ancient world were swept away by medieval cosmology: epicureanism (or atomism) and the Gnostic vision.
With the replacement of the medieval model by the Renaissance model, atomism and Gnostic cosmology have resurrected, the second through the loss of the ethical sense of the cosmos, which in modern ideology becomes ethically neutral or even negative, something that we must fight against (a vision that became dominant with the rise of the theory of evolution).
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Excelente revisión de los orígenes de la cosmología medieval, que surgió como una fusión de la cosmología de Platón en el Timeo y de ideas bíblicas. De acuerdo con esta imagen del mundo, la naturaleza era un ejemplo a imitar desde el punto de vista ético.
Otras dos visiones cosmológicas del mundo antiguo quedaron barridas por la cosmología medieval: el epicureísmo (o atomismo) y la visión gnóstica.
Con la sustitución del modelo medieval por el modelo renacentista, el atomismo y la cosmología gnóstica han resucitado, la segunda a través de la pérdida del sentido ético del cosmos, que en la ideología moderna pasa a ser éticamente neutro o incluso negativo, algo que hay que combatir (visión que se hizo dominante con el auge de la teoría de la evolución).

[Aaron Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history of worldviews—especially regarding the physical universe.

The universe is a complete and coherent model of the Good that serves as a guide to a better life.

Modernity has stripped the universe of its sacred and philosophical wisdom, transforming it into an ethically indifferent entity that could no longer serve as a mode for human morality.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good. Brague is careful, thoughtful, and deep. His command of the primary sources is stunning.

[Ed Wojniak · Rating 2 out of 5]

The adage "eschew obfuscation" applies here. Much repetition and tenuous and tedious elaboration.

[Doru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptionala.