Allegorical interpretation of the ancient Greek myths began not with the grammarians, but with the philosophers. As speculative thought developed, there grew up also the belief that in mystical and symbolic terms the ancient poets had expressed profound truths which were difficult to define in scientifically exact language. Assuming that the myth-makers were concerned to edify and to instruct, the philosophers found in apparent immoralities and impieties a warning that both in offensive and in inoffensive passages one must look beneath (...) the surface for the true significance of the tales. Thus allegory was originally positive, not negative, in its aim; its purpose was not so much to defend the poetic traditions against charges of immorality as to make fully explicit the wealth of doctrine which ex hypothesi the myths contained. Those who wrote to defend the poets could, if they chose, make some use of the results of the allegorical method; passages to which exception had been taken could be shown by allegorical treatment to be quite consistent with the view that the poets were wise and divinely inspired. But the first dim beginnings of allegory can be traced to another and a weightier motive—namely, the desire of speculative thinkers to appropriate for their own use some at least of the mythical traditions. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the same motive was the main driving force in the later history of allegorical interpretation. Objectionable passages were, indeed, regarded as among the richest in deeper meaning; but the leading allegorists applied their method to offensive and inoffensive passages alike. (shrink)

It is clear, then, that Plato's strictures on Homer ought not to have given any encouragement to allegorical interpretation. The eulogists of Homer ought to have sought other grounds for the defence which he invited them to make; while the allegorizing philosophers, if they persisted in treating interpretation of the poets as an instrument of knowledge, ought to have answered Plato not by multiplying allegories but by producing a defence of the allegorical method. The question with which we are concerned (...) is, of course, not what ought to have been done, but what actually happened. But the foregoing considerations ought to warn us against assuming without evidence that all those who allegorized after Plato did so in order to answer his attack on the poets, and were directly incited by that attack to engage in allegorical interpretation. The fact that the early Stoics were prolific in such interpretations is in itself no proof that they intended in this way to answer Plato's criticism of the myths. Other evidence is required to prove that it was the desire to answer Plato which impelled them to wallow in allegory. (shrink)

I have shown in an earlier article that from the second half of the fifth century onwards the desire to defend Homer and Hesiod against accusations of immorality was certainly not the main motive which actuated the allegorical interpreters of the early poets. That desire, no doubt, existed; but the part which it played was wholly a subordinate one. In the present article I propose first to consider allegorism in its earlier stages, and to state my case for holding that (...) the practice of allegorical interpretation cannot have originated in this desire of Homeric partisans to exculpate the poet. My view is that the function of allegorism was originally not negative or defensive but rather positive or exegetical. (shrink)

Allegorical interpretation of the ancient Greek myths began not with the grammarians, but with the philosophers. As speculative thought developed, there grew up also the belief that in mystical and symbolic terms the ancient poets had expressed profound truths which were difficult to define in scientifically exact language. Assuming that the myth-makers were concerned to edify and to instruct, the philosophers found in apparent immoralities and impieties a warning that both in offensive and in inoffensive passages one must look beneath (...) the surface for the true significance of the tales. Thus allegory was originally positive, not negative, in its aim; its purpose was not so much to defend the poetic traditions against charges of immorality as to make fully explicit the wealth of doctrine which ex hypothesi the myths contained. Those who wrote to defend the poets could, if they chose, make some use of the results of the allegorical method; passages to which exception had been taken could be shown by allegorical treatment to be quite consistent with the view that the poets were wise and divinely inspired. But the first dim beginnings of allegory can be traced to another and a weightier motive—namely, the desire of speculative thinkers to appropriate for their own use some at least of the mythical traditions. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the same motive was the main driving force in the later history of allegorical interpretation. Objectionable passages were, indeed, regarded as among the richest in deeper meaning; but the leading allegorists applied their method to offensive and inoffensive passages alike. (shrink)

Having thought out the Enlightenment project of individualism, privacy, and autonomy to its end, Anglo-American ethical theory now finds itself unable to respond to the collapse of community in which the practices justified by this project have resulted. In the place of reasonable deliberation about the goals to be chosen and the means to them, we now, it seems, have only what MacIntyre has aptly called “interminable debate” among “rival” positions, debate in which each party merely contends with the others (...) for its own advantage. And this circumstance MacIntyre himself seems unable to escape despite his best efforts. In further elaborating Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutical reception of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, and Hegel, and in referring simultaneously to Edmund Burke’s parallel political rhetoric, among other tradition-oriented arguments in the English language, this book seeks a recollection of shared ethical principles, a recollection which alone, it is argued, might prevent the devolution of discussion into war with words and make possible some measure of consensus, however provisional and shadowed by dissent it will be. (shrink)