Abstract
Andrew Hayes explores the thought of St Ephrem the Syrian who is often, and quite mistakenly, believed to have been a proponent of anti-intellectualism or fideism. He shows that, despite some of his criticisms of Greek thought, St Ephrem heavily engaged with, reacted to, and borrowed from many ideas and themes found in late antique philosophy. He accomplishes this by analysing St Ephrem’s understanding of the purpose of cognitive activity and showing that, for St Ephrem, the pursuit of wisdom is the very aim of our cognitive faculties. He also explores the role of sensation or perception in St Ephrem’s thought and explains how his ideas anticipate and even offer fresh insights into Marshall McLuhan’s theories about media ecology. Ultimately, Hayes provides us with a striking overview of St Ephrem’s approach to philosophy and with an example to emulate, a roadmap for how Eastern Christian thought might fruitfully be brought into conversation with contemporary philosophy.
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Hayes, A. (2022). St Ephrem and the Pursuit of Wisdom. In: Siemens, J., Brown, J.M. (eds) Eastern Christian Approaches to Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10762-7_2
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