Overview

This volume addresses the means and ends of sacrificial speculation by inviting a selected group of specialists in the fields of philosophy, history of religions, and indology to examine philosophical modes of sacrificial speculation - especially in Ancient India and Greece - and consider the commonalities of their historical raison d'etre. Scholars have long observed, yet without presenting any transcultural grand theory on the matter, that sacrifice seems to end with (or even continue as) philosophy in both Ancient India and Greece. How are we to understand this important transformation that so profoundly changed the way we think of religion (and philosophy as opposed to religion) today? Some of the complex topics inviting closer examination in this regard are the interiorisation of ritual, ascetism and self-sacrifice, sacrifice and cosmogony, the figure of the philosopher-sage, transformations and technologies of the self, analogical reasoning, the philosophy of ritual, vegetarianism, and metempsychosis.

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9781781791257

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Reviews

.. .For thinking about how sacrifice was re-interpreted in some specific religious traditions (obviously, the chapters do not wander beyond Indian, Greek, and early Christian contexts) -- philosophized, psychologized, subjectivized, and interiorized -- Philosophy and the End of Sacrifice is interesting and thought-provoking. --David Eller, Anthropology Review Database, 16 April 2016 [This] is an engaging book. The chapters are learned and well-written, and often dialogue with each other -- at least with some help from the reader, who in the process is stimulated towards more nuanced thinking about rituals of sacrifice. --Ingvild SAelid Gilhus, University of Bergen, Numen 65 (2018)

.. .For thinking about how sacrifice was re-interpreted in some specific religious traditions (obviously, the chapters do not wander beyond Indian, Greek, and early Christian contexts) -- philosophized, psychologized, subjectivized, and interiorized -- Philosophy and the End of Sacrifice is interesting and thought-provoking. --David Eller, Anthropology Review Database, 16 April 2016

Author Information

Peter Jackson is Professor at the department of History of Religions at Stockholm University, Sweden. His most recent book is The Transformations of Helen: Indo-European Myth and the Roots of the Trojan Cycle (2007). Anna-Pya Sjodin is Senior lecturer in the study of religions at Mid- Sweden University in the department of Humanities and affiliated researcher at Uppsala University in the department of Linguistics and Philology.

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