DOCSLIB.ORG

Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES N. LLEGE LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/anaximanderorigiOOkahn ANAXIMANDER AND THE ORIGINS OF GREEK COSMOLOGY AXAXIMANDKR Small portrait relief, probably early Roman Empire after Hellenistic original (Museo Nazionale Romano) ANAXIMANDER AND THE ORIGINS OF GREEK COSMOLOGY By CHARLES H. KAHN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK 1960 THE STANWOOD COCKEY LODGE FOUNDATION HAS GENEROUSLY PROVIDED FUNDS TO ASSIST IN THE PUBLICATION OF THIS VOLUME Published igSo, Columbia University Press, New Tork Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-116'jy Published in Great Britain, India, and Pakistan by the Oxford University Press London, Bombay, and Karachi Printed in Great Britain To Kurt von Fritz 19 CONTENTS PREFACE Xi ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES USED IN CITATION XV BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Xvii INTRODUCTION 3 The Documentary Evidence for Anaximandefs Views INTRODUCTION TO THE DOXOGRAPHY 1 Theophrastus and His Excerptors, 12. Theophrastus as an Historian of Early Greek Philosophy, 17. Supplementary Note: On the Relative Accuracy of Aristotle and Theophrastus in the Use of Documentary Material, 22. ARRANGEMENT OF THE DOXOGRAPHY 25 Topics of the Doxography for Anaximander, 26. Abbreviations of Authors in the Doxography, 27. Correspondence with the Arrangement in Diels-Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 27. THE doxography: TEXTS AND COMMENTARY 28 The Cosmology of Anaximander I. THE MILESIAN THEORY OF THE NATURAL WORLD 75 Position of the Earth, 76. Form of the Earth, 81. Antipodes, 84. Formation of the Heavens; Stars and Sun; The Moon; Size, Position, and Distance of the Rings, 85. Meteorology, 98. Wind; Rain; Lightning and Thunder, 100. Origin of the Sea, Origin of Life; Descent of 102. Animal Man, 109. The 'p''-'XV' 114. Supplementary Note: The Earliest Doctrine of a Spherical Earth, 1 15. II. ELEMENTS AND OPPOSITES : THE MEMBERS OF THE WORLD II The Classic Doctrine, 121. The Origins, 133. Supplementary Note: On the Chronological Relationship Between Anaxagoras and Empedocles, 163. 1 vm CONTENTS III. anaximander's fragment: the universe governed by law 1 66 The Language of the Fragment, i68. A Literal Interpretation, 178. The Philosophic Sense of the Fragment, 183. Supplemen- tary Note: The Earlier Interpretations of the Fragment, 193. Conclusion MILESIAN SPECULATION AND THE GREEK PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 1 99 Appendices I. THE USAGE OF THE TERM KOSMOSW EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY SIQ II. THE AUEIPON OF ANAXIMANDER 23 note: THE FIRST GREEK PROSE TREATISE 24O Indices SUBJECTS 243 NAMES AND CITATIONS 245 GREEK TERMS 25O ILLUSTRATIONS ANAXIMANDER Frontispiece PLATE I. BABYLONIAN MAP OF THE WORLD Facing page 88 PLATE n. Facing page 8g A. PLANISPHERE OF BIANCHINI B. CREATION WITH COMPASSES - PREFACE THIS essay has grown out of a study of the poem of Parmenides which was begun a number of years ago. I had come to the con- clusion that Parmenides' argument was to be understood only against the background of a new rational view of the physical universe, a view which was not his own creation, but which permitted him to take for granted such basic conceptions as the true Nature of things {(f)vais) and the ordered structure of the World {Koayios:) . What I have tried to do here is to reconstruct this pre-Parmenidean view, proceeding on the assumption that its source must be located in sixth-century Miletus. This assumption is implicit in all the ancient accounts of the origins of Greek philosophy, and seems to be justified by the radical contrast between the physical ideas of Homer and Hesiod on the one hand, and those of Anaximander and Anaximenes on the other. The view of the historical development presented here differs from the traditional scheme in only two respects. I have discounted the originality of Pythagoras as a figment—or at least an exaggeration— of the Hellenistic imagination. In other words, so far as the study of nature is concerned, I have treated the Italian school as an offshoot of the Ionian philosophy and not as its rival. Furthermore, the scale on which the three Milesians are depicted is not as uniform as it generally appears. In the monumental style of ancient historiography, the Milesians are presented as three statues of the same size and rank, standing at the head of a long gallery of peers. I have tried to adjust the magnitude of the figures to the importance of their role in the history of ideas. Thales and Anaximenes still have their respective places next to Anaximander, as his precursor and disciple. But they are dwarfed by the comparison to the master. Another deviation from the usual treatment is dictated by the scope of the essay. In dealing with Heraclitus and Parmenides (and, even more, with their successors) I have largely neglected the fundamentally new ideas which are their characteristic achievement. Since this is not a history of early Greek philosophy but a study of the Milesian cos- mology, later thinkers must be regarded here primarily as the heirs and debtors of the Milesians. I would like to mention one recent publication, The Presocratic XU PREFACE Philosophers, by G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven (Cambridge, 1957), which reached me too late for systematic reference in the notes. On several points the authors' close analysis of the evidence has led me to re- formulate my own position. Their work provides an important state- ment on many of the questions discussed here, and should be compared in extenso. A number of other relevant studies have appeared since my manu- script was completed, while a few earlier ones have only recently come to my attention. In one or two cases a new discussion would now be called for. Probably the most important example of this kind is Pro- fessor W. K. C. Guthrie's article on "The Presocratic World-Picture," Harvard Theological Review, XLV (1952), 87, which I encountered only after the book had gone to press. His suggestion that the Koaixos was from the beginning distinguished from the circumambient divine stuff or vepiexov—and hence that the Stoic distinction between /cda/xo? and TO Trdv is really pre-Socratic—seems to me very plausible, and I would now want to take up this idea in Appendix I. (I think it is already implicit in Appendix II.) I could scarcely be in more complete agree- ment with Professor Guthrie's general thesis, that "a common picture of the nature of the Universe, of living creatures, and of divinity was shared by a surprising number of Greek philosophical and religious thinkers of the 6th and early 5th centuries b.c." But I am obliged to ' part company with him when he goes on : 'This world-picture was not the creation of any one of them, but rather seems to have been assumed by all at the outset, as is also suggested by certain indications in Greek literature that it was shared by the unphilosophical multitude." That elements of one or more pre-philosophic views are incorporated in the Ionian cosmology is, I would say, agreed upon by all. But the quality which is lacking in the older world views is precisely what is most essential in the case of the philosophers : the systematic concern for rational clarity and coherence. The recent tendency to assimilate Anaximander to Hesiod—which also underlies Cornford's brilliant treatment of him in Principium Sapientiae—can only serve to blur the distinguishing features of each, by confounding the very different atti- tudes toward Nature that characterize the Greek epic poets and the early philosophers. If these first philosophers had been able to take for granted a coherent, ready-made cosmology, then they would not have been the first after all. On the other hand, once the Milesians and their successors had worked out a consistent cosmic scheme, it naturally PREFACE XllI exerted a powerful influence on the poets and on the educated public in general. Hence when we find traces of such a scheme in Euripides or in the Potidaea epitaph of 432—or in the undated Orphic poems—wc must recognize this as evidence for the diffusion of the Ionian cosmology, not for its pre-existence in the popular imagination. Acknowledgment is due to the Soprintendenza alia Antichita di Roma I for permission to reproduce the photograph of the frontispiece, to the Trustees of the British Museum for Plate I, to the Archives Photographiques, Paris, for Plate IIa, and to the Austrian National Library for Plate IIb. I wish to thank Professors Otto J. Brendel, Evelyn B. Harrison, and O. Neugebauer, as well as Professor M. Borda of the Museo Nazionale in Rome and Mr. D.J. Wiseman of the British Museum, for information concerning one or more of the monuments reproduced. As this book is the fruit of some ten years' study, it has been in- fluenced by more teachers and scholars than I can mention here. I think above all of Professors David Grene and Yves R. Simon of the University of Chicago, who first introduced me to Greek literature and philosophy—and first impressions are lasting ones. In a more immediate way, I am indebted to Professor Moses Hadas and the other members of the examining committee who read and criticized the bulk of the manuscript in its original form as a doctoral dissertation for Columbia University. The readability ofthe whole work has benefited in particular from the comments of Professor Gilbert Highet, who called my atten- tion to many an opaque argument and many a clumsy phrase. My friend Professor Martin Ostwald has often come to my assistance with excellent advice and has in addition read through a full set of proofs.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Enthymema XXIII 2019 the Technê of Aratus' Leptê Acrostich
    Enthymema XXIII 2019 The Technê of Aratus’ Leptê Acrostich Jan Kwapisz University of Warsaw Abstract – This paper sets out to re-approach the famous leptê acrostich in Aratus’ Phaenomena (783-87) by confronting it with other early Greek acrostichs and the discourse of technê and sophia, which has been shown to play an important role in a gamut of Greek literary texts, including texts very much relevant for the study of Aratus’ acrostich. In particular, there is a tantalizing connection between the acrostich in Aratus’ poem that poeticized Eudoxus’ astronomical work and the so- called Ars Eudoxi, a (pseudo-)Eudoxian acrostich sphragis from a second-century BC papyrus. Keywords – Aratus; Eudoxus; Ars Eudoxi; Acrostichs; Hellenistic Poetry; Technê; Sophia. Kwapisz, Jan. “The Technê of Aratus’ Leptê Acrostich.” Enthymema, no. XXIII, 2019, pp. 374-89. http://dx.doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/11934 https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/enthymema Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License ISSN 2037-2426 The Technê of Aratus’ Leptê Acrostich* Jan Kwapisz University of Warsaw To the memory of Cristiano Castelletti (1971-2017) Λεπτὴ μὲν καθαρή τε περὶ τρίτον ἦμαρ ἐοῦσα εὔδιός κ’ εἴη, λεπτὴ δὲ καὶ εὖ μάλ’ ἐρευθὴς πνευματίη· παχίων δὲ καὶ ἀμβλείῃσι κεραίαις 785 τέτρατον ἐκ τριτάτοιο φόως ἀμενηνὸν ἔχουσα ἠὲ νότου ἀμβλύνετ’ ἢ ὕδατος ἐγγὺς ἐόντος. (Arat. 783-87) If [the Moon is] slender and clear about the third day, she will bode fair weather; if slender and very red, wind; if the crescent is thickish, with blunted horns, having a feeble fourth-day light after the third day, either it is blurred by a southerly or because rain is in the offing.
    [Show full text]
  • The Magic of the Atwood Sphere
    The magic of the Atwood Sphere Exactly a century ago, on June Dr. Jean-Michel Faidit 5, 1913, a “celestial sphere demon- Astronomical Society of France stration” by Professor Wallace W. Montpellier, France Atwood thrilled the populace of [email protected] Chicago. This machine, built to ac- commodate a dozen spectators, took up a concept popular in the eigh- teenth century: that of turning stel- lariums. The impact was consider- able. It sparked the genesis of modern planetariums, leading 10 years lat- er to an invention by Bauersfeld, engineer of the Zeiss Company, the Deutsche Museum in Munich. Since ancient times, mankind has sought to represent the sky and the stars. Two trends emerged. First, stars and constellations were easy, especially drawn on maps or globes. This was the case, for example, in Egypt with the Zodiac of Dendera or in the Greco-Ro- man world with the statue of Atlas support- ing the sky, like that of the Farnese Atlas at the National Archaeological Museum of Na- ples. But things were more complicated when it came to include the sun, moon, planets, and their apparent motions. Ingenious mecha- nisms were developed early as the Antiky- thera mechanism, found at the bottom of the Aegean Sea in 1900 and currently an exhibi- tion until July at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris. During two millennia, the human mind and ingenuity worked constantly develop- ing and combining these two approaches us- ing a variety of media: astrolabes, quadrants, armillary spheres, astronomical clocks, co- pernican orreries and celestial globes, cul- minating with the famous Coronelli globes offered to Louis XIV.
    [Show full text]
  • Plato's Tyrant in Neoplatonic Philosophy
    Chapter 8 Plato’s Tyrant in Neoplatonic Philosophy Dominic J. O’Meara This chapter contains two main parts. In the first part (I), I propose taking the figure of the tyrant, as it appears in Plato’s dialogues, with a view to describing the ways in which the Platonist philosophers of Late Antiquity interpreted this figure in their works. I will discuss in particular the work of Proclus (412–485), one of the major representatives of the Athenian school of Neoplatonism, con- centrating on his commentary on Plato’s Republic. Other texts by Proclus and by other Neoplatonists will also be considered. My purpose is not to comment on the value of these late ancient readings of Plato, as regards the interpre- tation of Plato himself, but to sketch the ways in which these philosophers viewed the nature and origins of tyranny, in the context of their reading of Plato. In the second part of the chapter (II), I will attempt to see to what extent these philosophers used their reading of Plato as a way of describing and analyzing the political realities of their time, in particular the form of politi- cal power which prevailed in the late Roman (or early Byzantine) Empire. I will suggest that Plato’s tyrant provided these philosophers with conceptual tools useful for diagnosing the evils brought by the rule of the emperors of their period. Thus the exegesis of Plato, for these philosophers, was relevant to understanding and criticizing the political conditions in which they lived: for them the Christian imperial rule of their time was indeed that described in Plato’s account of the tyrannical regime.
    [Show full text]
  • The Phenomena and Diosemeia of Aratus
    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 0002035357^ Qass-TA 3 87 3 " Book- A £ 4 164-8 THE PHENOMENA AND DIOSEMEIA A RAT US $3r(ntetr at tije SEniDersttj $ress. 4 \ : THE PHENOMENA AND DIOSEMEIA OF ARATUS, TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE, WITH NOTES, BY JOHN LAMB, D.D. MASTER OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND DEAN OF BRISTOL. UavO' 'Hyrjcnava^ re kcli 'Epfiimros ra Kar aldprjv Tetpea, Kai 7roXXot ravra cpaivo/xeva Bt/3Xois iyKaredevTO' aixoaKOTTioL §' dcpapaprow AAAA TO AEIITOAOrOY 2KHHTPON APAT02 EXEI. LONDON JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. M.DCCC.XLVIII. Page 40, line 200, for Cythia read Cynthia. THE LIFE OF ARATUS, WHEN Cilicia, in the days of Cicero*, boasted of being the birth-place of the Poet Aratus, there was reserved for her a far higher honour, the giving birth to one of the noblest of mankind, if true nobility consist in the power of benefiting the human race, and in the exercise of that power to the greatest extent by the most unexampled self-denial. Soli, the native city of Aratus, was not far distant from Tarsus, the birth-place of St Paul; and the fame of the heathen Poet has been considerably enhanced by a passage from his writings having been quoted by his countryman, the christian Apostle. One biographer indeed states that Aratus was a native of Tarsus, and he is occasionally called Tarsensis; but the more probable opinion is, that he was born at Soli, and he is commonly called Solensis. The date of his birth is about 260 years before the Christian sera. The names of his parents were Athedonorus and Letophila, they were persons of some conse- * Cicero was Proconsul of Cilicia a.
    [Show full text]
  • Download File
    Cicero Among the Stars: Natural Philosophy and Astral Culture at Rome Ashley Ariel Simone Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2020 © 2020 Ashley A. Simone All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Cicero Among the Stars: Natural Philosophy and Astral Culture at Rome Ashley Ariel Simone This dissertation examines Cicero’s contribution to the rise of astronomy and astrology in the literary and cultural milieu of the late Republic and early Empire. Chapter One, “Rome’s Star Poet,” examines how Cicero conceives of world building through words to connect Rome to the stars with the Latin language. Through a close study of the Aratea, I consider how Cicero’s pioneering of Latin astronomical language influenced other writers, especially his contemporaries Lucretius and Catullus. In Chapter Two, “The Stars and the Statesman,” I examine Cicero’s attitudes towards politics. By analyzing Scipio’s Dream and astronomy in De re publica, I show how Cicero uses cosmic models to yoke Rome to the stars. To understand the astral dimensions of Cicero’s philosophy, in Chapter Three, “Signs and Stars, Words and Worlds,” I provide a close reading of Cicero’s poetic quotations in context in the De natura deorum and De divinatione to show how Cicero puts the Aratean cosmos to the test in Academic fashion. Ultimately, I argue that Cicero profoundly shaped the Roman view of the stars and cemented the link between cosmos and empire.
    [Show full text]
  • Notes on Aristotle and the Cynics
    The Good in Ancient Philosophy 6 Notes on Aristotle and the Cynics 1. Dikaiosune This derives from dikaios (δίκαιος), which can mean loyal, equal, well-balanced, fair, right, or just, of course. The suffix -sunē turns the adjective into a noun, just as -ia turns eudaimon into eudaimonia. So we get justice or rightness. Remember: the goddess Dikē holds balances and a sword and is blind-folded. 2. Aristotle: ‘Happy-ing’ 1. Eudaimonia is not instrumental: if it were, we would seek happiness in order to achieve something else, a further goal (see, e.g., NE I.7). But there is none. So, eudaimonia is not a means to a further end, it is The End. If we were constantly on the way to something else, we would miss the eudaimon moment. 2. Contrast. For Plato, the Good (as such, unqualified) is super-categorical— the end of the line, the top Idea. So, the ideal is to become good, or perfect or ‘bestest’ (as Lola would have it); and that good is absolute also in the sense that it is not relative to human concerns. For Aristotle, when we become good, we become good or perfect exemplars of the human kind—ideally the best possible instances of humanity. 3. Function. The good is the end (aim) of all action. The highest good (i.e. the ariston) is self-sufficient (autarkes) and final (teleion), and so the (super-)end of action (tōn praktōn ousa telos; NE I.7 1097b20). Everything has a function (ergon) associated with the good. (A ‘good’ painter is one that paints well—so fulfils her function well, or better than others, or just best.) We live our lives best insofar as we perform the human function well or ‘bestly’.
    [Show full text]
  • The Antikythera Shipwreck and Sinope's Culture During The
    The Antikythera Shipwreck and Sinope’s Culture during the Mithridatic Wars Attilio Mastrocinque During the last years my curiosity has been kept alive by the research of Giovanni Pastore, a great expert in engineering, who has studied all the possibilities of an instrument, which was found in the shipwreck of Anti- kythera.1 This instrument is a box into which a series of 31 gear wheels have been placed in order to make astronomic calculations with a precision and of a complication that one had thought could only be attained in modern times.2 In the 1950’s D. de Solla Price studied this machine and reached the conclusion that it was a sort of clock, which had been adjusted in about 80 BC.3 He put forward the hypothesis that two boards existed on the main surfaces. On the first side pointers indicated the placement of both the Sun and the Moon in the Zodiac, and on the other side other astrological conjunc- tions were shown. The pointers were moved by means of a driving wheel or handle. Michael T. Wright has recently put forward new results for the instrument, noting that it was more complex than was previously thought, since it is not complete and we do not know how many pieces are missing.4 According to his reconstruction, the first side of the instrument was used to indicate the motion of the Sun, probably following the heliocentric theory of Aristarchos, and the motion of other planets. The opposite clock-face was perhaps a year calculator, which gave equivalences between the Egyptian year and other calendars and allowed the calculations of eclipses.
    [Show full text]
  • The Aratus Latinus and Revised Aratus Latinus (Aratus Latinus Recensio Interpolata)
    The Aratus latinus and Revised Aratus latinus (Aratus latinus recensio interpolata) Some time during the Alexandrian age, a number of related Greek texts started to appear alongside the original Greek version of the Phaenomena of Aratus to form a new astronomical corpus.1 These appended texts included some spurious prefaces, various versions of the life of the poet, one or two lists of constellations attributed to Eratosthenes and Hipparchus and discussions of the constellations as they appear on the sphere. This compilation also included abbreviated versions of the catasteristic myths associated with each constellation and descriptions of the shapes of the individual constellations with disposition of the stars within each figure. Some of these texts are associated with an astronomical treatise attributed to Eratosthenes (ca. 276 BC– ca. 195 BC), the details of which are described in the section on pseudo-Eratosthenes. The Alexandrian compilation seems to have been extremely popular across the Graeco-Roman world, appearing in several different formats with varying additions and subtractions and serving as the inspiration for numerous authors and poets in both languages. A definitive version of the Aratean corpus, with a set group of texts ordered in a particular fashion, appears to have come together some time between the beginning of the 2nd and end of the 3rd century AD. No complete version of this compilation, 1. The best scholarly work on this complicated subject can be found in MARTIN 1956, esp. pp. 69 ff. 1 which philologists usually refer to as ‘Φ’, has survived, but its contents have been largely reconstructed by combining a number of the later Greek and Latin fragments that formed a part or were derived from the original version of the original grouping of texts.
    [Show full text]
  • Dialogues, Vol. 4 - Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus [1892]
    The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. Plato, Dialogues, vol. 4 - Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus [1892] The Online Library Of Liberty This E-Book (PDF format) is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit, educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. 2010 was the 50th anniversary year of the founding of Liberty Fund. It is part of the Online Library of Liberty web site http://oll.libertyfund.org, which was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. To find out more about the author or title, to use the site's powerful search engine, to see other titles in other formats (HTML, facsimile PDF), or to make use of the hundreds of essays, educational aids, and study guides, please visit the OLL web site. This title is also part of the Portable Library of Liberty DVD which contains over 1,000 books and quotes about liberty and power, and is available free of charge upon request. The cuneiform inscription that appears in the logo and serves as a design element in all Liberty Fund books and web sites is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash, in present day Iraq. To find out more about Liberty Fund, Inc., or the Online Library of Liberty Project, please contact the Director at [email protected].
    [Show full text]
  • 8 · the Foundations of Theoretical Cartography in Archaic and Classical Greece
    8 · The Foundations of Theoretical Cartography in Archaic and Classical Greece PREPARED BY THE EDITORS FROM MATERIALS SUPPLIED BY GERMAINE AUJAe Greek civilization started in the Minoan-Mycenaean age Likewise, it is not always realized that the vast ma­ (2100-1100 B.C.) and arguably continued to the fall of jority of our knowledge about Greek cartography in this the empires of Byzantium and Trebizond in the fifteenth early period is known from second- or third-hand ac­ century. Within this span of some three thousand years, counts. We have no original texts of Anaximander, Py­ the main achievements in Greek cartography took place thagoras, or Eratosthenes-all pillars of the development from about the sixth century B.C. to the culminating of Greek cartographic thought. In particular, there are work of Ptolemy in the second century A.D. This sem­ relatively few surviving artifacts in the form of graphic inal era can be conveniently divided into several peri­ representations that may be considered maps. Our carto­ ods around which the following chapters are shaped: graphic knowledge must therefore be gleaned largely the archaic and classical period (to the fourth cen­ from literary descriptions, often couched in poetic lan­ tury B.C.), the Hellenistic period (fourth and third guage and difficult to interpret. In addition, many other centuries B.C.), the early Greco-Roman period (second ancient texts alluding to maps are further distorted by century B.C. to the second century A.D.), and the age of being written centuries after the period they record; they Ptolemy (second century A.D.).1 too must be viewed with caution because they are sim­ It has often been remarked that the Greek contribution ilarly interpretative as well as descriptive.
    [Show full text]
  • Pre-Socratic Thought in Sophoclean Tragedy
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2006 Pre-Socratic Thought in Sophoclean Tragedy Meggan Jennell Arp University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Ancient Philosophy Commons, and the Classical Literature and Philology Commons Recommended Citation Arp, Meggan Jennell, "Pre-Socratic Thought in Sophoclean Tragedy" (2006). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 473. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/473 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/473 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Pre-Socratic Thought in Sophoclean Tragedy Abstract This dissertation investigates the relationship between the plays of Sophocles and the philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The question considered is whether or not Sophocles' tragedies were influenced by pre- Socratic thought in distinction from Sophistic thought. Scholars generally have recognized the impact of the Sophists on Sophoclean tragedy and determined it to be evidence of Sophocles' primarily negative dramatic treatment of so-called 'Enlightenment' thought of the 5th century B.C.E. This study determines the presence of pre-Socratic thought in the tragedies of Sophocles and views its influence as a primarily positive instance of 5th century 'Enlightenment' thought in these plays, in contrast to the general depiction of Sophistic thought. Three works of Sophocles' extant plays are examined in separate chapters. A chapter on Sophocles' Philoctetes elucidates traces of the philosophy of Heraclitus in this tragedy. Sophocles deploys certain Heraclitean images in the character portrayal of Philoctetes, whose moral outlook contrasts with the Sophistic vision of Odysseus. A second chapter, on the Trachiniae, argues that this tragedy recalls the philosophy of Heraclitus, as well as 'Enlightenment' thought of the Ionian scientific tradition in general.
    [Show full text]
  • Aratus: Phaenomena, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Aaron Poochigian
    Aratus: Phaenomena, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Aaron Poochigian Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Pp. xxxi + 72. ISBN 978–0–8018–9465–7. Cloth $50.00 Reviewed by D. Mark Possanza University of Pittsburgh [email protected] The Hellenistic poet Aratus of Soli (ca 315 to before 240 bc)1 is known primarily as the author of Phaenomena, a poem which de- scribes the constellations and circles of the celestial sphere, and cat- alogues terrestrial, atmospheric, and celestial signs for forecasting the weather. The Greek word «φαινόμενα» in its most literal sense means ‘things that appear’ and by extension is applied, with the definite article, specifically to celestial phenomena. The word in the title of Aratus’ poem applies to both celestial and meteorological phenomena ranging from the constellation Orion to the behavior of wasps and flies; and suggests that, as objects of sense perception, they are also objects of inquiry whose behavior can be studied by human reason. Ultimately, celestial and meteorological phenomena are revealed as more than ‘things that appear’: the regularity and prognostic function of their appearances make them signs (σήματα), signifiers of a natural order that is itself the product of divine reason. To observe the constellations and comprehend the geometry of the celestial sphere is to perceive in phenomena a manifestation of the divine in the universe. The astronomical and meteorological content of the poem is based on prose sources: a treatise also called Phaenomena by the fourth century mathematician and astronomer Eudoxus of Cnidus (ca 390–ca 340 bc), the fragments of which are collected in Lasserre 1966; and a treatise called On Weather-Signs attributed to the Peri- patetic philosopher Theophrastus of Eresus (372/1–287/6 bc), which 1 See Hornblower and Spawforth 1996, s.v.
    [Show full text]