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278 Reviews dominated Western philosophy since the Presocratics" (353). Whereas the understanding of a literary text inevitably occurs "inside a historical context in which the criteria of truthfulness and falsity are . . . time-bounded," the demoticists' need "to declare the truthfulness of their literary production drove them to a-historicism and to an illusion of objectivity . . . that assumed not only that conditions of objective truth and falsity exist, but that people have access to them" (352-353). Having fostered the conception of literature as an imitation of national life, ethnocentrism then "foregrounded the distinction of falsity or truthfulness as a criterion of evaluation in order to sustain the claim for an indigenous literature" (353). In this provocative, well-researched study, Tzióvas allows us to glimpse demoticism's deep structure by means of an analysis that is broadly cultural instead of narrowly linguistic, sociological, or political . The moral would seem to be Greece's inescapable participation in European culture despite so much energy expended by so many factions to define (rather, invent) a specifically Greek ethnismós. Peter Bien Dartmouth College Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Iosipos Moisiodax. The Coordination of Balkan Thought in the Eighteenth Century (In Greek). Athens. Cultural Foundation of the Bank of Greece. 1985. Pp. 396. Paschalis Kitromilides' study of the life and work of the eighteenth -century philosopher and educator Iosipos Moisiodax is the fifth in a series of prosopographical studies published by the Cultural Foundation of the Bank of Greece. The main objective of the volumes is to fill a gap in modern Greek culture by focusing on the life and accomplishments of prominent neohellenes. It is a distinguished series and both author Kitromilides and subject Moisiodax are in good company. Moisiodax belongs to the constellation of educated modern Greeks (despite his non-Greek background) at home and abroad usually credited with having contributed to the development of the so-called "Neohellenic Enlightenment" or the "revival of Greek thought," by first becoming conversant with and then diffusing the ideas of the European enlightenment in eastern and southeastern Europe . In the process of "reeducating" themselves and their fellow Greeks, especially during the eighteenth century, all these members of the modern "Greek intelligentsia," as they have sometimes been Reviews 279 described, had to come to terms with two basic issues: the European intellectual and cultural climate with its emphasis on science, philosophy and mathematics, of which they were in some respects the offspring , and their own classical and Christian heritage which they sought to uphold or modify. It constituted part of the well-known struggle between the ancients and the moderns. Whatever their differences , they all contributed toward the development of a modern Greek consciousness with philosophical underpinnings frequently at odds with established custom and tradition. This phenomenon also amounted to a form of cultural nationalism which in the long run contributed to the emergence of Balkan nationalism in general and Greek nationalism in particular. Moisiodax was rather central in these intellectual and cultural stirrings of the eighteenth century in southeastern Europe. Chronologically , his life spanned the last three quarters of the century (ca 1730-1800), and geographically, his presence was felt in the Danubian Principalities where he was born and in Greece. He received his elementary education and later taught and wrote in the Principalities ; in Greece he continued his education in a number of schools and had come under the influence of a variety of teachers, especially Eugenios Voulgaris at Ioannina and Mount Athos, although later he became a sharp critic of Voulgaris. Like many of his contemporaries, he joined the ranks of the Orthodox clergy and also attended Italian universities, especially at Padua where he studied philosophy, mathematics and physics. And like the rest, he traveled extensively in eastern and western Europe. He was clearly a modernist, and a controversial one at that. As educator and "publicist," he introduced the study of philosophy based on mathematics not logic, preferred the texts of the classical instead of religious writers and, more importantly , he favored the simple spoken Greek as a means of expression. Indeed he was the first who attempted to present philosophical subjects through the "demotic" language. He was also an advocate of John Locke's...

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