"What if truth were a woman?" asked Nietzsche. In ancient Greek thought, truth in language has a special relation to the female by virtue of her pre-eminent art-form--the one Freud believed was even invented by women--weaving. The essays in this book explore the implications of this nexus: language, the female, weaving, and the construction of truth. The Homeric bard--male, to be sure--inherits from Indo-European culture the designation of his poetry as a weaving, the female's art. Like her tapestries, his "texts" can suspend, reverse, and re-order time. He can weave the content from one world into the interstices of another. The male poet shares the ambiguous power of the female Muses whose speech he channels. "We can say false things like to real things, and whenever we wish, we can utter the truth."
This distinctive collection of original articles features contributions from many of the leading scholars of ancient Greek philosophy. They explore the concept of reason and the method of analysis and the central role they play in the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They engage with salient themes in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political theory, as well as tracing links between each thinker’s ideas on selected topics. The volume contains analyses of Plato’s Socrates, focusing on his views of moral psychology, the obligation to obey the law, the foundations of politics, justice and retribution, and Socratic virtue. On Plato’s Republic, the discussions cover the relationship between politics and philosophy, the primacy of reason over the soul’s non-rational capacities, the analogy of the city and the soul, and our responsibility for choosing how we live our own lives. The anthology also probes Plato’s analysis of logos (reason or language) which underlies his philosophy including the theory of forms. A quartet of reflections explores Aristotelian themes including the connections between knowledge and belief, the nature of essence and function, and his theories of virtue and grace. The volume concludes with an insightful intellectual memoir by David Keyt which charts the rise of analytic classical scholarship in the past century and along the way provides entertaining anecdotes involving major figures in modern academic philosophy. Blending academic authority with creative flair and demonstrating the continuing interest of ancient Greek philosophy, this book will be a valuable addition to the libraries of all those studying and researching the origins of Western philosophy.
Slatkin's influential book explores the superficially minor role of Thetis in the Iliad, showing how our awareness of alternative myths brings a far greater understanding of Thetis's place in the Epic's thematic structure. This edition also includes six additional essays, which cover a broad range of topics in the study of the Greek Epic.
Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.
This collection examines major Greek authors from the early 19th century through the present day, spanning from romantic to post-modern authors, poets, and playwrights. The essays focus on intersections between oral and written traditions in nineteenth and twentieth century Greece. Major authors discussed included Solomos, Vizyenos, Papadiamantis, Seferis, and many others.
These essays represent the full range of Dodds' literary and philosophical interests, and his ability to combine profound scholarship with the lucid humanity of a teacher convinced of the value of Greek studies to the modern world.
