Greek Thought Research Articles

Diversity and Ancient Democracy

W HAT CAN ONE LEARN about democracy from fifth and fourth century practice of and theory about Athenian democratic institutions? Joel Schwartz's review of my book Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought (1992) in November 1994 Political Theory (vol. 22, pp. 685-8) implicitly raises this question. While issue was at best subsidiary in a book that focused primarily on ancient theorists' explorations of political consequences of an epistemological search for an unseen, underlying unity, question of how ancient democracy can help us understand most common modern political regime is an important one and worthy of more consideration than I can offer in these brief comments on Schwartz's review of my book. Ours is a world in which democracies constantly have to address demands for unity, ethnic or otherwise, as well as demands for an openness to diverse populations. Our ability to accept the other, to acknowledge difference at same time that we recognize need for a unity based on some set of similarities, is central to preservation and successful functioning of democratic institutions. Schwartz reads argument of my book as turning demos into totalizing modernist, unable to accept differences that derive from particular bodies of individual members of community, and as suggesting that aristoi become champion of diversity (1994, 686). The former point deserves primary consideration; latter is simply a misreading of argument, but in itself indicates difficulties we often have with acknowledging tensions within democratic regimes between a need for a unity based on identity of members as opposed to a unity that can incorporate and build from differences. To approach this as a conflict between aristocracy and democracy with all normative baggage that accompanies those words is to ignore that those tensions plague democracies and is to limit possibility

Concepts of Space in Greek Thought

Commentaire de l'ouvrage de K. Algra intitule «Concepts of space in greek thought» (1995) qui analyse les differentes fonctions d'un concept d'espace dans la philosophie grecque de la nature. Examinant la topographie philosophique dans laquelle s'inscrit Algra, l'A. montre que la theorie du topos developpee par Aristote necessite une conception geometrique du mouvement local continu

Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought

This wide-ranging book locates the origin of political science in the everyday world of ancient Greek life, thought, and culture. Arlene Saxonhouse contends that the Greeks, confronted by the puzzling diversity of the physical world, sought a force that would unify, constrain, and explain it. This drive toward unity did more than value the mind over the senses: it led the Greeks to play down the very real complexities-particularly regarding women, the family, and sexuality-in both their political and personal lives. Saxonhouse opens up fresh understandings of such issues as the Greeks' fear of the feminine and their attempts to ignore the demands that gender, reproduction, and the family inevitably make on the individual.

Cities of the Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought

Cities of the Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought

Cities of the Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought.

Cities of the Gods is a historical study of the theory of Utopian communism in ancient Greek thought, identifying and assessing its several currents. The author looks at the reason for the decline of the Utopian traditions after c. 150 BC and suggests that the main factor was the Roman conquest of the Greek world, which produced a more conservative intellectual climate. He concludes by looking at the evidence for the survival of utopian traditions, particularly their influence on early Christianity.

Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought

Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought

Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought.Arlene W. Saxonhouse

<i>Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought.</i>Arlene W. Saxonhouse

Divine Infinity in Greek and Medieval Thought

Divine Infinity in Greek and Medieval Thought

The musical image: a theory of content

Introduction and Theory Archetypal Criticism, or an Alternate Poetics of Music The Archetypal Model Music in Ritual and Education: Ethos Dialectic between Ethos and Pathos in Ancient Greek Thought Ethos of the Christian Liturgy Ethos of Courtly Love Classical Humanism: Pathos Reawakening of Pathos Emotional Music, or the Rhetorical Variety of Pathos The Pastoral Mode, I The Pastoral Mode, II The Epic/Heroic Mode The Satiric Mode The Many Faces of Classicism Transcendental Humanism ... and Beyond: Logos Romanticism and Melodrama Innigkeit, the Romantic Alternative Age of Irony: Modernist Music Formalist Alterations of the Archetypes Epilogue Analysis and Culture Bibliography Subject Index Music Index

Divine Infinity in Greek and Medieval Thought

Divine Infinity in Greek and Medieval Thought

Constantinople and the West: Essays on the Late Byzantine (Palaeologan) and Italian Renaissances and the Byzantine and Roman Churches.

The glory of the Italian Renaissance came not only from Europe's Latin heritage, but also from the rich legacy of another renaissance - the palaeologan of late Byzantium. This nexus of Byzantine and Latin cultural and ecclesiastical relations in the Renaissance and Medieval periods is the underlying theme of the diverse and far-ranging essays in Constantinople and the Addressing the disputed, provocative question of Palaeologan influence on Italian Renaissance humanism, the author systematically demonstrates that Byzantine scholars were not merely transmitters of ancient Greek writings to the West. More significantly, the Byzantine emigre scholars in Italy, through their intimate knowledge of the Alexandrian and Byzantine traditions, alone were able to unlock and authentically interpret the more difficult texts of Aristotle, Plato, Hermogenes, and other Greek thinkers. Geanakoplos shows that the Byzantine refugee scholars and their Italian disciples were able to promote a fusion of elements of both the Italian and Palaeologan renaissances. Other essays concern the careers of influential Palaeologan humanists such as Theodore Gaza, the leading secular Aristotelian of the early Italian Renaissance, and John Argyropoulos, who was probably chiefly responsible for shifting the emphasis of Florentine humanism from rhetoric to Platonic philosophy. The essays in the second half of the book deal primarily with ecclesiastical relations. The author probes deeply into encounters between Greek and Roman churches at councils in Lyons, Florence, and elsewhere, which reflect the centuries of recurring religious schism and attempted reunion. He also offers a revealing glimpse of the Greek exaltation, and of Hagia Sophia and its properties, after Constantinople's liberation from Latin rule in 1261. While all of the essays have been printed previously, the author has revised and brought them entirely up to date for this volume. Constantinople and the West should be invaluable to those interested in the Byzantine and Italian Renaissance, and reward students of Medieval history, church history, and those who are interested in the comparative history of the East and West.

Book Review: Divine Infinity in Greek and Medieval Thought

Book Review: Divine Infinity in Greek and Medieval Thought

Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought. By Arlene W. Saxonhouse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. 253p. $29.95. - Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition.” By Charles Taylor. With Commentary by Amy Gutmann, editor, Steven C. Rockefeller, Michael Walzer, Susan Wolf. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. 112p. $14.95.

Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought. By Arlene W. Saxonhouse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. 253p. $29.95. - Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition.” By Charles Taylor. With Commentary by Amy Gutmann, editor, Steven C. Rockefeller, Michael Walzer, Susan Wolf. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. 112p. $14.95.

Aristotle and Diversity - Arlene W. Saxonhouse: Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Pp. xiv, 253. $29.95.)

Aristotle and Diversity - Arlene W. Saxonhouse: Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Pp. xiv, 253. $29.95.)

ΕΚΩΝ and ΑΚΩΝ in Early Greek Thought

ΕΚΩΝ and ΑΚΩΝ in Early Greek Thought

Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche's Notebooks of the Early 1870s (review)

BOOK REVIEWS i47 served by Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy. It veers with unnerving speed between the assumption that the reader knows nothing--it is explained at length that Hamburg is an important port 09)--and the assumption that the reader knows a great deal--as when it is flatly stated in a single sentence that there exists a connection between Romanticism and the origins of the term 'nihilism' 029). Inasmuch as the latter is a matter of some considerable import for a nuanced understanding of Schopenhauer , it is a pity to see it mentioned only in passing. With respect to the translation, a certain sympathy with the task Ewald Osers must have faced is unavoidable; indeed, Safranski's style is at once so passionate and so idiosyncratic as to remind one of Hegel's comment about Hamann: "he does not have a style, he /s style." Safranski's besetting sin is an apparently incurable fondness for cumberson metaphorical castles in the air, as when he repeatedly compares Kant's categories of the understanding to a rococo music-box, or when he speaks of "Kant's rococo-like eye-winking epicureanism" (lo5). In fairness it must be remarked that more passion than idiosyncrasy comes through, which is surely to Osers's credit. The most glaring omission in Safranski's book is any mention (either in the text or in the bibliography) of Arthur Hiibscher's Denker gegen den Strom (recently translated as Thinker Against the T/de).4 And with respect to the important philosophical issues, such as the understanding of Romanticism, an appreciation of the philosophical significance of Schopenhauer's contemporaries, especially Fichte and Schelling, and the knowledge of Schopenhauer's philosophical evolution, Hiibscher is indisputably superior. JAMEs SNOW Millsaps College DALE SNOW Loyola Collegein Baltimore Daniel Breazeale, ed. and trans. Philosophyand Truth: Selectionsfrom Nietzsche's Notebooks of the Early 187os. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, Inc., 199o. Pp. lxv + x65. Paper, $15.oo. In view of the fact that Nietzsche's "non-book," The Will to Power, has for a long time been the only easily accessible version of Nietzsche's Nachlass in English translation, the issuing in paperback of these notes from the early 187os is a welcome event. The translation is excellent, and the translator's introduction and explanatory notes intelligent and informative. In particular, Professor Breazeale relates the selected notes to the circumstances of Nietzsche's life and thinking at the time in a way that will be very helpful for readers unfamiliar with the relevant biographical details. His philological skill in dealing with the problems attending the editing of Nietzsche's notes is as effective as it is impressive. The translator's introduction characterizes the selections of Nietzsche's Nachlass that follow as pertaifiing primarily to issues in epistemology, as well as giving us a good idea of Nietzsche's early thinking about the relation of the philosopher to culture--to 4 Trans. J. T. Baer and D. E. Cartwright (Lewistown, NY, 1989). 148 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 30: I JANUARY i99~ art in particular--and to the ancient Greek thinkers. It thus provides a perfect orientation for the sometimes cryptic notes that form the main body of the volume, and is marred only by a few typographical errors that are unexpected in a revised edition. Malwida yon Meysenbug, for example, whose surname often gains an additional "r," in this case loses the "n"; and through inheriting a cedilla, Foucault's name as printed makes him sound--with unfortunate irony--both mad and idiotic. Of the six major sections in the volume, the one that comes closest to being a finished essay is the best known: "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" (personally I'd prefer to retain the singular of the German "lie"). Aside from the shorter "On the Pathos of Truth," which Nietzsche dedicated to Cosima Wagner, the other main sections are collections of disjointed notes. Even though "On Truth and Lies" has been" so gushed over by would-be deconstructionists and DeManiacs in recent years that it threatens to "disappear under the interpretations," it is still a thought-provoking essay and contains some vintage...

Symmetry: A Social Symbol and Two Monuments

The idea of symmetry is ancient. It has its origins in the early Greek thinkers, above all Heraclitus, Philalaos, Democritus and Plato. Important contributions to the development of this idea were later given by Johannes Kepler, who emphasized the relationship between the pure ideal 'mathematical symmetry' and the material world, regarding symmetry as the essential point of the world. The philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel recognized as inherent the dialectics between symmetry and asymmetry. Contemporary awareness of the importance of the laws of symmetry is growing. Now the idea of symmetry is understood as 'unifying human understanding', as evidenced by I. Hargittai's anthology of contributions from various sciences and by the interdisciplinary symposium on the theme of symmetry held at Technical University in Darmstadt, Germany [ 1 ]. In both publications symmetry and asymmetry are regarded as universal expressions of the dialectical unity of identity and difference, as well as of maintenance and change. This applies both to nature and to human cognition.

Nietzsche and Greek Thought. By V. Tejera

Nietzsche and Greek Thought. By V. Tejera

Nietzsche and Greek Thought

Nietzsche and Greek Thought

Name and Thing. A Problem in Early Greek Thought

Name and Thing. A Problem in Early Greek Thought