Philosophical concept of Satan

Reply to Maks23

Hi...I would start here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pleasure/

The Philosopher's Index will help narrow down your search. You can access it at a library or through an online account.

Adam Kotsko just published a very well received book on the subject, The Prince of This World, which will be an excellent starting point for your research. If you can get your hands on it, you should find plenty of contemporary citations for you.

Reply to StreetlightX Really, really, thanks, that book is awesome

Reply to StreetlightX looks a fascinating book.

Reply to Maks23 I'd like to point out 'Paradise Lost' as an interesting source of new perspectives on Satan. When I read it a long time ago it really shifted my traditional view on the conception of Satan. (BTW this is a classic poem, not quite academic. Still interesting and provoking, while diversifying your source material)

Quoting StreetlightX

Adam Kotsko just published a very well received book on the subject, The Prince of This World, which will be an excellent starting point for your research. If you can get your hands on it, you should find plenty of contemporary citations for you.

Thanks for that, I will look that up to read.

I would also like to add Mikhail Bulgakov' The Master and Margarita, a framed narrative concerning biblical morality through the eyes of Stalinist Russia and the wayward decline viz., spiritual love both individually and within a social and political atmosphere. The plotline links the love story between the Master, a writer in despair, his lover Margarita and her sacrificial and almost divine love for the Master along with the machinations of Woland or Satan tempting her away, and the symbolic conversation between Yeshua or Jesus with Pontius Pilate.

For Bulgakov, there exists a psychological line segment where on one end you have good and on the other evil, with the mean being love. The formula, as such, of reaching the midpoint between good and evil is usually followed by a proof, a test that verifies the intent and is usually authenticated by taking a "leap of faith" which is the reason for Woland' presence in the novel. Margarita' love is unconditional, transcending any utilitarian or deontological modes of moral action; she loves him and neither good nor evil can change that. It is also sacrificial, demonstrated biblically with Jesus, which is the reason for the addition of another narrative based during the time of Jesus in Jerusalem, where a conversation between Yeshua and Pontius Pilate takes place, the latter a representation of Russia and the former of the spiritual.

The presence of Satan in the book is really about clarity of the ultimate maxim - love - that cannot be corrupted when done so through free will. Kant offered a secular theory toward the concept of evil, whereby humans by nature are naturally inclined toward goodness but also evil under the umbrella of a radically free will. As a consequence, only by free will are we able to choose what is right and thus when we do not make the choice to do good, we are thus evil. But the latter ‘evil’ is graded into several levels, being:

“The possibility of hubris is accounted for by the concept of freedom. There are thus three levels or gradations of evil: (1) mere counterlegality, (2) the lower level of countermorality, occasional single-cases of evil, and (3) the worse level of evil “as a rule”… full-fledged evil designates the constitution of an agent or of an agents maxim.”

The similarity with Johann Goethe’ Faustus is clear but his greed for knowledge leads Satan or Mephistopheles to seduce him away from love in pursuit of vanity or desire toward Gretchen, only saved in the end because he felt grievously ashamed, a realisation of the importance of our moral responsibility toward others as part of our endeavours toward reaching happiness. Mephistopheles is banished to the ‘Eternal Empty’ or symbolically the unhappy place of living without the fulfilment one receives when choosing the will to be good since Faust finally tames his desires that he experiences happiness and able to reach God.

Quoting Maks23

I'm writtin an essay about philosophical concept of Satan based on the analisys of the poem by Charles Baudelaire "Litanies of Satan" (incl. "Prayer").
So, in the text, i need to mention two different philosophical sourses that must be printed and published after 1970.
What's the problem? I am a first year student, not a philosophical direction, and I do not know how to distinguish between philosophical text from non-philosophical.

I'd say Satan is a religious concept, not philosophical. Baudelaire's "philosophical" claims have little to do with philosophy. Instead they were deliberately obfuscatory and controversial, a way for the romantic poet to market himself as a public figure.

Quoting jkop

I'd say Satan is a religious concept, not philosophical. Baudelaire's "philosophical" claims have little to do with philosophy. Instead they were deliberately obfuscatory and controversial, a way for the romantic poet to market himself as a public figure.

Would you say the same of God? Satan is an antithetical representation of good and though religious, functions as a symbol of evil and therefore is worthy of moral consideration.

Quoting TimeLine

Would you say the same of God?

God is a religious concept.

Quoting TimeLine

. . .functions as a symbol of evil and therefore is worthy of moral consideration.

Why would you consider whether the word 'satan' is evil? Can a symbol of evil be evil? I don't think so.

For example, we can't ask the word to apologize, confess its sins, send it to prison, nor expect it to improve its behaviour etc. It's a word, not a moral agent.

Quoting jkop

God is a religious concept.

Hence, philosophy of religion.

Quoting jkop

Can a symbol of evil be evil? I don't think so.

Vat? <- (with a thick Russian accent for added effect)

Quoting jkop

For example, we can't ask the word to apologize, confess its sins, send it to prison, nor expect it to improve its behaviour etc. It's a word, not a moral agent.

This is truly the most random comment I have ever read. :-} Uhm, ok, no, you can't send the word 'evil' to prison, probably because, well, it's a word.

But, let us assume that moral agency is a 'person' - self-aware - who is capable of making moral judgements; dialectical reasoning enables contrasts that articulates the process of the internalisation. It is the reason why I quoted Kant who offers us an explanation of 'evil'.