Otherwise Than the Binary

Jessica Elbert Decker is Associate Professor at California State University San Marcos. Danielle A. Layne is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University. Monica Vilhauer is Founder of Curious Soul Philosophy.

• IntroductionJessica Elbert Decker and Danielle A. LaynePart I: Myth, Divination, and the Pre-Platonic 1. Was Homer's Circe a Witch?Andrew Gregory2. The Oracle as IntermediarySasha Biro3. The Roots of Life and Death in the Homeric Hymns and Presocratic PhilosophyJessica Elbert Decker4. The Intelligibility of Difference: Anaxagoras' and Lugones' Ontologies of SeparationHolly MoorePart II: Platonic Transformations 5. As Much Mixture as Will Suffice: Socrates' Embodied Intermediacy in Plato's Phaedo and SymposiumHilary Yancey and Anne-Marie Schultz6. Overturning Soul-Body Dualism in Plato's TimaeusMonica Vilhauer7. The Argument of Socrates' Action in Republic VMary TownsendPart III: Late Antique Destabilizations 8. Divine Mothers: Plotinus' Erotic Productive CausesDanielle A. Layne9. Beyond Maleness and Femaleness? The Case of the Virgin Goddesses in Proclus' MetaphysicsJana Schultz10. Hekate and the Liminality of SoulsWilliam Koch11. Christian Platonists in Support of Gender Equality: Bardaisan, Clement, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and EriugenaIlaria L. E. RamelliContributorsIndex

"…this book gives several fascinating views on aspects of ancient philosophy and culture, with consequences for our time … it [is] immensely captivating and thought-provoking." — Wiccan Rede"Overall, the concept of 'the otherwise' is a richly generative site for all manner of questioning, and the editors are to be commended for offering a volume which will no doubt provoke further questions and conversations both along and beyond the lines of inquiry established on the pages here." — Bryn Mawr Classical Review"This volume rests on an innovative impulse to look anew at binaries in Greek thought. The essays take up a range of binaries that historiographies trace back to the Greeks, and it troubles these binaries, while also linking them to sex/gender binaries at the same time. For example, muthos/logos, stasis/change, same/different, male/female, mind/body, and so forth. And as the editors' interest in the marginalized signals, the collection specifically examines these binaries with an eye toward their internal hierarchical relationships (e.g., mind is superior to body) and how these have shaped social ontology. While building on some of the feminist and deconstructive work on this issue, the collection moves considerably beyond that, taking up new texts, figures, and issues. The essays are engaging, intelligent, and certainly will further the productive engagement with these texts." — Jill Gordon, Colby College