Byzantine Incursions on the Borders of Philosophy

This book represents a series of incursions or philosophical forays between realms of Byzantine and Russian thought and territory long claimed by Western philosophy and theology. Beginning with thoughts inevitably rooted in the West, it seeks to penetrate as deeply as possible into Byzantine and Russian philosophical and spiritual landscapes, and to return with fresh insights. These are also incursions that move back and forth between the visible and the invisible realms, in the traditions of Plato and his successors as well as the great monastics of Eastern Christianity. Foltz argues from various perspectives that the problematic relation between transcendence and immanence finds its answer in the philosophical and theological legacy of Eastern Christian thought, which has always sought to bring together strands tenaciously held separate in the West. This book transports contemporary readers to an ancient conceptual landscape as it expertly handles both Western and Byzantine ideas with a familiarity unusual to contemporary scholars. It is essential reading for all those wishing to engage the heart of Byzantine thought and employ its lessons to address the problems which plague Western philosophy and culture. 

Bruce V. Foltz received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the Pennsylvania State University. He is Professor Emeritus at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and he has served regularly as a Visiting Professor at St. John's College Graduate Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Foltz has founded or co-founded three professional societies, including the International Association for Environmental Philosophy and the Society for Nature, Philosophy, and Religion. His writings have focused on Heidegger, Russian and Byzantine Philosophy, mysticism, and the philosophy of the natural environment, and his approach to philosophy draws on Ancient Greek, Byzantine, and Russian philosophy as well as contemporary European methodologies such as hermeneutics and phenomenology. His monographs include Inhabiting the Earth: Heidegger, Environmental Ethics, and the Metaphysics of Nature and The Noetics of Nature: Environmental Philosophy and the Holy Beauty of the Visible. He is also co-editor of two volumes: Rethinking Nature: Essays in Environmental Philosophy and Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation.  His writings have been translated into Arabic, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, and Russian.