Category: Philosophy
Abstract–Knowing Characters and Knowing Authors: “Poetic Knowledge” in Ancient Greece and Early China
| April 16, 2013 | Posted by Wei Zhang under E-journal, Language/Literature, Philosophy, Research Symposium |
This essay submits the earliest articulation of explicit poetics in ancient Greece and ancient China to a comparative study, with special focus on the formulation of the notion of “poetic knowledge” in each tradition. Placed in their respective cultural process, explicit poetics can be seen as the outcome of philosophical confrontation with poetry and its potentially intractable experience in rational attempts to subsume it under a philosophical mode of knowing. While Socrates, Plato and Aristotle deployed a variety of mimetic models to construct a “poetic knowledge”, culminating in the Poetics with the knowledge of characters represented in the fictional world of men in action, in the Ruist tradition from Confucius to the Major Preface poetry was construed to be a special way of knowing the authors, their paradigmatic moral dispositions in attending historical circumstances. When put into a comparative perspective, what essentially distinguished the two modes of “poetic knowledge” can… more
The Hadron Collider Quest in Antiquity
| March 4, 2013 | Posted by Anna Marmodoro under Blog, Philosophy |
What is there at the bedrock of reality? What are the ultimate building blocks out of which everything else is constituted? Are they things (objects, particles), or are they activities of some sort? Or is there something else, even more fundamental than they are? These questions fascinated and challenged the ancients as much as they challenge and fascinate us. Yet, there is evidence that the ancients conceived of the building blocks of reality very differently than has traditionally been thought. I am currently exploring a new hypothesis about how the ancients conceived of the universe and its contents during the first millennium of Western civilization (from the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus). The ramifications of this hypothesis, if correct, are far reaching with respect to our understanding of ancient thought. The traditional view is that the ancients conceived of the universe either as built out of objects (whether concrete or abstract) or… more
Socrates Plays Stesichorus
| May 9, 2012 | Posted by Andrea Capra under Blog, Language/Literature, Mythology/Religion, Philosophy |
CHS Research Symposium, April 27-28 2012 Socrates Plays Stesichorus Andrea Capra I will take my cue from Attic comedy. Here is a sleight of hand scene where Socrates plays Stesichorus to the lyre while stealing a wine jug: 1. δεξάμενος δὲ Σωκράτης τὴν ἐπιδέξι’ 〈ἄιδων〉 Στησιχόρου πρὸς τὴν λύραν οἰνοχόην ἔκλεψεν (Eupolis, 395 PCG) A possible connection between Stesichorus and Socrates, as well as with Plato, provides some background to my argument. Stesichorus was very much in vogue among Plato’s Pythagorean friends. They had appropriated his biography and interpreted his verse so as to make him the champion of a purified form of poetry. This was part of a broader strategy: as Marcel Detienne has shown, their final goal was to moralize the epic heroes, and especially Helen and Achilles. Plato, then, had every reason for ‘playing’ Stesichorus himself. In a way, Socrates does play Stesichorus in the Phaedrus, and… more
Abstract: Pyrrhonism and Disagreement
| April 11, 2012 | Posted by Diego Machuca under Philosophy, Research Symposium |
Disagreement is a pervasive feature of human life, not only because people constantly disagree with each other over any possible issue but also because one tends to disagree with oneself over time. The existence of persistent and widespread disputes poses serious difficulties. For although the mere existence of a disagreement does not by itself entail that it is not possible to attain knowledge or justified belief about the disputed matter, one has to find an effective way of settling it. Unfortunately, we all know that in many cases this is not an easy task. The epistemic and practical implications of disagreement are a central topic of discussion in the extant works of Sextus Empiricus, our main source for Pyrrhonian skepticism. He constantly refers to both actual and possible disputes in any area of philosophy or ordinary life, and points out that, since the Pyrrhonist is unable to resolve such disagreements,… more
Abstract: Socrates plays Stesichorus
| April 11, 2012 | Posted by Andrea Capra under Language/Literature, Philosophy, Research Symposium |
ABSTRACT FOR THE CHS RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM Title: “Socrates plays Stesichorus” During my stay at the CHS I have worked on Plato’s authorial voice against the background of archaic poetry, with an emphasis on Plato’s “self-disclosures”, that is passages where he implicitly refers to his dialogues (see below, outline of the book in progress). One such passage, namely the myth of the cicadas in the Phaedrus, was the subject of my work-in-progress research talk: I interpret it as a scene of poetic initiation, comparable to the Dichterweihe of such figures as Hesiod, Archilochus, Epimenides and Aesop. At 259c-d, the myth mentions four Muses (Terpsichore, Erato and the couple Ourania – Kalliope). I read this as a hint at the “ingredients” of philosophical discourse: Ourania and Calliope, the most philosophical Muses, introduce the second, dialectical part of the dialogue, whereas Terpsichore and Erato point back to Socrates’ great speech, which in many… more
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