Introduction to Part 5: possibilities of existence—making and changing subjectivities and (ancient) worlds

Abstract

This Part contains three chapters—(12) ‘How the Ancient World Learned to Sin’; (13) ‘Anchoring religious innovation: the social psychology of deification in Athens 307 BCE’; and (14) ‘Cyrus’ learning curve: views of adolescent psychology in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia’—all of them illuminating our understanding of the ancient world by taking us through very different time-scopes and textual ranges. Despite these differences, the three chapters share a common concern with two concepts that are central in social-psychological theorising—the concepts of anchoring, essential for the first two chapters, and cognitive dissonance—as well as an interest in neuropsychological research, prominent in the third chapter. In this introduction, I will highlight how anchoring is predominantly used as a how process—both in these chapters and in social psychology in general—whereas cognitive dissonance tends to be used as a why process, or with what we can call the ambition of explanation for prediction. However, cognitive dissonance can also function as a how process. In those cases it powerfully illuminates the psychosocial dimension, and is indicative of an ambition of processual comprehension. I will briefly highlight some notable differences between the chapters, while simultaneously substantiating this argument of mine.