Abstract

In his Masterly Study of the Presocratic philosophers, Jonathan Barnes considers the refinements made by the early Greek sophists to the related concepts of cause and responsibility. Barnes judges Gorgias's Helen to have treated "in philosophical depth the issue of responsibility," in apparent contrast to Antiphon's second tetralogy, which, presumably, does not.1 The tetralogy itself comprises four speeches, two each by an imaginary plaintiff and a fictitious defendant. Certain facts are undisputed. In the course of an athletic contest among youths of training age, the defendant threw his javelin with the intention of hitting the prescribed target. Instead, the javelin hit a young man charged with picking up ..