The articles in this volume employ source-work research to trace Kierkegaard's understanding and use of authors from the Greek tradition.

Private associations abounded in the ancient Greek world and beyond, and this volume provides the first large-scale study of the strategies of governance which they employed. Emphasis is placed on the values fostered by the regulations of associations, the complexities of the private-public divide and the dynamics of regional and global networks and group identity. The attested links between rules and religious sanctions also illuminate the relationship between legal history and religion. Moreover, possible links between ancient associations and the (...) early Christian churches will prove particularly valuable for scholars of the New Testament. The book concludes by using the regulations of associations to explore a novel and revealing aspect of the interaction between the Mediterranean world, India and China. (shrink)

SummaryThis paper discusses how the notion of clock time was introduced in the Greek world. On the basis of an analysis of the earliest (potential) references to hours and clocks in texts from the late fifth to the early third century BC in their historical context, and with reference to the earliest archaeologically attested clocks, it proposes a scenario for the conception and development of this conventional system. It offers a new interpretation of the problematic passage Herodotus 2.109 and (...) argues that an hour-like unit was developed by late fifth century astronomers, under Babylonian influence, to denote the time in which a celestial body moves through a section of its diurnal circle. When this astronomical concept moved to the civic sphere in the second half of the fourth century, it changed from a scientific unit of duration to a civic unit for measuring the time of day. This shift probably took place in Athens, where the first references to hours appear in this period together with multiple experiments in clock making, as well as humorous reactions to the newfound sense of temporal precision. The paper will also show, however, that these first clocks did not yet tell seasonal hours – the type of hours that would eventually define Greco-Roman clock time – and still measured the lapse of time rather than enabling the location of moments in time. Greco-Roman clock time was only fully formed when it incorporated Egyptian notions of the hour in the Ptolemaic kingdom of the early third century BC. (shrink)

_Intellectuals in Politics in the Greek World_, first published in 1984,_ _was the first comprehensive study of this recurrent theme in political sociology with specific reference to antiquity, and led to significant revaluation of the role of intellectuals in everyday political life. The term ‘intellectual’ is carefully defined, and figures as diverse as Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle; Isocrates, Heracleides of Ponteius and Clearchus of Soli are discussed. The author examines the difference between the success of an intellectual politician, like (...) Solon, and the failure of those such as Plato who attempted to mould society to abstract ideals. It is concluded that, ultimately, most philosophers were conspicuously unsuccessful when they intervened in politics: citizens regarded them as propagandists for their rulers, while rulers treated them as intellectual ornaments. The result was that many thinkers retreated to inter-scholastic disputation where the political objects of discussion increasingly became far removed from contemporary reality. (shrink)

Diano's Form and Event has long been known in Europe as a major work not only for classical studies but even more for contemporary philosophy, anticipating the work of Deleuze, Badiou, Esposito, and Agamben. It now appears in English for the first time, with a substantial Introduction that situates the book in the genealogy of modern political philosophy.

Le texte des comptes de l’hipparque thébain Pompidas (IG VII, 2426) a suscité de nombreux commentaires depuis son édition, sans que soient pleinement élucidées les questions qu’il soulève. On propose ici de relier deux éléments du texte qui ont toujours été étudiés séparément, à savoir la vente de deux chevaux à bas prix par l’hipparque d’une part, et la distribution de sommes d’argent plus ou moins importantes à sept personnes d’autre part, pour fournir une nouvelle interprétation du texte. Celui-ci concernerait (...) la remonte de la cavalerie thébaine : les deux chevaux sont des bêtes réformées, et l’argent fourni par l’hipparque à leurs deux propriétaires et à cinq autres personnes pourrait être une indemnité destinée à faciliter l’achat d’une monture par les cavaliers. Une comparaison est proposée avec ce qu’on sait des systèmes de remonte dans les cavaleries grecques et hellénistiques. (shrink)

This paper argues that there were women involved with philosophy on a fairly constant basis throughout Greek antiquity. It does so by tracing the lives and where extant the writings of these women. However, since the sources, both ancient and modern, from which we derive our knowledge about these women are so sexist and easily distort our view of these women and their accomplishments, the paper also discusses the manner in which their histories come down to us as well (...) as the histories themselves. It discusses in detail the following women: the Pythagorean women philosophers of the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., Aspasia and Diotima of the 5th century B.C., Arete, Hipparchia, Pamphile and the women Epicureans-all from the 4th century B.C. the five logician daughters of a famous Stoic philosopher of the 3rd century B.C., and finally Hypatia who lived in the 4th century A.D. (shrink)

The idea that the womb moved freely about a woman's body causing spasmodic disease enjoyed great popularity among the ancient Greeks, beginning in the classical period with Plato and the Hippocratic writers and continuing on into the Roman and Byzantine periods. Armed with sophisticated analyses of the medical tradition and new texts pertaining to the magical, this essay describes how both approaches to the wandering womb develop side by side in mutual influence from the late classical period onwards. Of special (...) interest will be the tendency in both traditions to imagine both demons and errant wombs as wild animals and to use fumigations to control both. It concludes with a discussion of the historical development of and consequences for the idea that women alone possessed an internal organ that was variously interpreted as a mechanically defective body-part, a sentient and passionate animal, and then finally a demon with malicious intent, who bites and poisons the female body. It also argues against the hypothesis or assumption that midwives or wet-nurses were the original source for the idea of the wandering womb, suggesting that the syndrome never fit comfortably into the category of gynecological illness, because the womb was not the site of disease, but rather a cause of spasmodic disease in other areas of the body. (shrink)

본 논문은 사랑을 성애로 환원하는 최근의 성적 환원주의와 사랑이 가능한 한 사적으로 유지돼야 한다는 자유주의적 이상에 맞서 고대 그리스의 정치-사랑 개념 쌍을 살펴보고자 한다. 이를 통해 현대 학문 영역에서 상대적으로 간과되고 있는 고대 그리스의 정치 이론에 나타난 공적 에로스론인‘폴리스-에로스론’을 고찰하려는 데에 그 목적이 있다.BR 성적 욕망은 에로스의 제한된 유형일 뿐이라는 논점을 위해, 2절에서는 헤시오도스의 『신통기』에 나타난 에로스 신의 기원에 관한 두 가지 설명이 차례로 분석될 것이다. 헤시오도스의 신화적이고 시적인 설명에 따르면, 고전기의 정치적 에로스에 대한 최초의 기원이 아프로디테 이전의 최초의 오래된 (...) 에로스라는 것이 드러날 것이다. 이 원초적인 에로스가 비성적이거나 성적인 것 외부에 있는 비육체적인 대상들에 적용됐던 정치적 에로스의 모태임이 밝혀질 것이다. 다음으로 3절은 시칠리아 원정, 페리클레스의 장례식 연설 그리고 뮈틸레네 논쟁을 통해 투퀴디데스의 정치적 에로스 담론의 지형도가 그려진다. 투퀴디데스의 정치적 에로스 담론은 더 많이 가지려는 욕망(pleonexia), 구혼자들처럼 도시를 사랑하는 자들(erastai)이 되라는 페리클레스의 촉구, 그리고 개인적 에로스와 공동체적 에로스의 공속 관계를 통해 잘 드러나고 있다. 그리고 4절에서는『향연』의 파이드로스의 연인군대, 파우사니아스의 참주정과 소년애, 아리스토파네스의 남성-남성 욕망의 합법화 그리고 소크라테스-디오티마 연설의 불사적 명예에 대한 사랑을 통해, 정치적 에로스에 관한 담론이 논급된다. 연인군대, 참주정과 소년애, 남성-남성 욕망의 합법화 그리고 불사하는 명예에 대한 사랑(philotimia) 각각은 정치와 에로스의 공속 관계를 다시 한 번 확인시켜 줄 것이다.BR 이상의 정치적 에로스 담론에 관한 헤시오도스의 신화적이고 시적인 전통과 투퀴디데스의 실증주의적 역사, 그리고 플라톤의『향연』을 통해, 우리는 에로스가 성애를 초과하여 좀 더 넓은 의미로 사용됐고, 특히 국가적 차원에서 에로스의 정치적 함의를 확인할 수 있었다. 그러나 에로스가 정치적 저항 운동의 에너지원이고, 완전히 다른 삶의 형식, 완전히 다른 사회를 향한 혁명적 욕망의 원천이라는 진단에는 에로스의 정치적 잠재성과 동시에 그것의 위험들에 대한 경고도 함께 들어 있다. (shrink)

The essay articulates a rhapsodic reflection on the place of images, their surfacing, and the invisible that sustains them. By way of introduction, it focuses on (1) the initial scenes of Pasolini’s Medea (1969). Following this spellbinding sequence, it addresses (2) the abiding philosophical attraction to the phenomenon of dreams and visions. This will lead to (3) the story of a momentous flight from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Western coast of Italy, sometime during the VI century BCE. One of (...) the outcomes of this event was the founding of Velia, Elea in Attic Greek. These meanderings take us to the periphery of the region “we” call “the West.” More precisely, they point to the periphery of a certain received way of thinking and may contribute to unsettle it. For what begins to emerge from this rhapsody is an unusual profile of the most celebrated pre-classical thinker: Parmenides. (shrink)

Thucydides the Historian identifies himself as the son of a certain Oloros and, since Thucydides was by birth an Athenian , and Oloros is a Thracian name, the question arises how he acquired this Thracian patronymic. According to the view which has gained almost general acceptance, Thucydides of the deme Halimous in Attica owed his Thracian patronymic to a connexion by marriage. The hypothetical reconstruction of the family tree is that Thucydides' Athenian grandfather had married a daughter of Miltiades the (...) Athenian and Hegesipyle, daughter of the Thracian ruler Oloros, and a son of this marriage was called Oloros after his maternal great-grandfather. This Athenian Oloros became, as shown in Figure, the father of Thucydides the historian – an Athenian with a Thracian patronymic. (shrink)

Statues of gods in Greek culture had lives, both metaphorically and literally. The statues of gods had complex ritual lives. They had biographies (bioi); they travelled; they were subject to peripeties (destruction, repairs, re-dedication); and they suffered violence. Although they were not an indispensable element of worship, the images psychologically prepared the worshippers to address the divinity, and this was an important factor in the efforts of worshippers to communicate with the gods. Through the arousal of emotions they provoked (...) actions that were beyond or contrary to human intentions; in this sense, they had agency. Finally, under certain conditions they were perceived as fulfilling vital functions. Since Greek gods could not be in two places at the same time, they could not continually inhabit their statues. But they manifested their power through the statue during an epiphany. A statue was a receptacle (ankeion) of a god and medium of epiphany. (shrink)

Hesiod: Kierkegaard and the Greek Gods -- Homer: Kierkegaard's Use of the Homeric Poems -- Plutarch: A Constant Cultural Reference -- Sophocles: The Tragic of Kierkegaard's Modern Antigone -- Index of Persons -- Index of Subjects.

L’ouvrage soigneusement édité par I. Salvo et T.S. Scheer se penche sur les diverses manières dont religion et éducation entrent en interaction dans la Méditerranée hellénophone. Il propose les actes d’un colloque organisé à Göttingen en 2017, dans le cadre d’un projet financé par la Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Comme il est souvent répété dans les introductions sur le thème, la religion grecque antique ne connaît ni clergé, ni autorité centralisée, ni révélation traduite en un référentie...

The idea for this volume stems from the symposium held in New York City in autumn 2016. The book consists of 11 chapters—the last one being an afterword of the editor—, a bibliography, and an index. The papers are preceded by the introduction of J.J. Peradotto. There are no internal divisions in the volume and the texts are presented in chronological order, ranging from Archaic and Classical to Roman period, focusing heavily on the former (8 out of 11 chapters). Literary (...) sources form the basi... (shrink)