
Contents
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I. The Logic of Effect: A Short Galenic Interlude I. The Logic of Effect: A Short Galenic Interlude
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II. The Pathology of Thought II. The Pathology of Thought
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A Diagnostic Phenomenology A Diagnostic Phenomenology
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Biopsychosociality Biopsychosociality
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III. The Pathology of Passions III. The Pathology of Passions
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The Turn from Nosology The Turn from Nosology
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Anger Interrogated Anger Interrogated
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Passions Personified Passions Personified
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Interrogation and Demonology Interrogation and Demonology
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From Demons to Disease From Demons to Disease
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IV. The Pathology of Embodiment IV. The Pathology of Embodiment
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“I am bound up with nature” “I am bound up with nature”
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“My door is the nature of food” “My door is the nature of food”
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“My cause is the long habit of insatiability” “My cause is the long habit of insatiability”
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The Stomach’s Innumerable Offspring The Stomach’s Innumerable Offspring
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V. John’s Cookbook, or Fasting as Biopsychosocial Therapy V. John’s Cookbook, or Fasting as Biopsychosocial Therapy
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A Brief Concluding Confession A Brief Concluding Confession
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5 Pathologies of Passion and Embodiment in the Ladder
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Published:October 2022
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Abstract
Pathologies of thought, passion, and embodiment are at the heart of John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent. John draws together ideas from Evagrius, Cassian, Mark the Monk, and others to construct a schema for the development of trains of thought from a bare suggestion to a habitual way of thinking. This, combined with his attention to the mutual affectivity of soul and body, allows John to fashion a pathology of thought. For the passions, John develops and expands on the Evagrian “eight thoughts” through a series of demonic family trees. Using imagined tribunal scenes, which owe something also to magical texts, John examines the origins and manifestations of generic passions like anger, for example, from self-esteem to derisive laughter. For embodiment, John again uses family trees to describe the operation and dysfunction of digestion and sexual activity in relation to thought and ascetic practice. The conclusion explores John’s approach to fasting, its medical background, and the relation of all these points to confession.
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