Owl of Athena

The owl of Minerva is a symbol of prudence and wisdom.

Origin

The owl - in fact, the little owl (Athene noctua) - was the Greek goddess Athena, goddess of wisdom and the patron goddess of Athens, sacred. There was this bird of prey on the slopes of the Acropolis not rare, especially on gems and Athenian coins were pictures of the owl of Athena widespread. The comic poet Aristophanes coined around 400 BC, the phrase carrying coals to Newcastle for a useless, senseless act.

In Roman mythology, Minerva was identified with Athena. She was also associated with the owl. In ancient times, the symbolism of the owl was varied: As an animal of Minerva / Athena, a figment in the literal sense, they stood for wisdom and prudence, but at the same time she was also feared as a misfortune and death bird.

Use in modern times

In modern times outweighs the association of the owl with intellectuality and rationality. The Illuminati, a radical Enlightenment secret society that existed from 1776 to 1785, used the owl was still sitting in addition to an open book, as a symbol of wisdom.

The German philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel likened in 1820 in his Elements of the Philosophy of Right philosophy with the night-active owl of Minerva:

" When philosophy paints its gray in gray, then a form of life has grown old, and with gray on gray it can not be rejuvenated but only understood; the owl of Minerva begins with the falling of the dusk flight. "

As owls begin only fly around at dusk, is the philosophy that could provide explanations only when the phenomena to be explained are already history. Philosophers could only interpret the past. The philosophy set thus requiring experience of reality and can not develop by itself utopian fantasies; it always go to her to the realization of what is.

This was one of the most quoted sayings of Hegel, Ernst Bloch 's view, it is one of the great parables of world literature, " one that would be worthy of Shakespeare ". Karl Ludwig Michelet added in 1827 in an interview with Hegel that philosophy is not only owls flight, but " also tap beat of a new dawning morning [ ... ] announcing a tapered shape of the world ." Herbert Marcuse criticized on the basis of Hegel's owl metaphor resigned the train of his philosophy that no longer dare to change the world. Louis Althusser understands the phrase as a metaphor for the seeming eternity of the status quo: Hegel's philosophy is only self-reflection of his presence, which he never had mentally can transcend.