Refiguring Odysseus’ Apologue in Plato’s Protagoras (original) (raw)
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The uses of Homer in Plato's Philebus
2016
The paper presents a study on the presence of Homer in Plato's Philebus. After a brief summary of the dialogue and after indicating a couple of implicit references to Homer to be found in the Platonic text (like the figure of Aphrodite and the image of the journey of Ulysses), the work focuses on analysing the two single explicit appearances of Homer in Plato's Philebus. The first one in Philebus 47e, corresponding to the 18th book of the Iliad (108-109); the second one in Philebus 62d corresponding to the fourth book of the Iliad (450-456). The paper analyses these references in detail, examining Platoʹs use of the Homeric poems and analysing their significance, often hidden, in the dialogue as a whole. The analysis also shows the importance of the equivalences between Homer and Plato, that is, the similar or dissimilar treatment that they make of some important issues, like the description of human emotions, the confrontation between gods and men or the search for truth. ELS USOS D'HOMER AL FILEB DE PLATÓ RESUM L'escrit presenta un estudi de la presència d'Homer en el Fileb de Plató. Després d'un breu resum del diàleg i d'indicar un parell de referències implícites a Homer que es troben en el text platònic (com la figura d'Afrodita i la imatge del viatge d'Ulisses), el treball se centra en analitzar les dues aparicions explícites d'Homer en el diàleg, les quals remeten a la Ilíada. La primera es troba a Fileb 47e i ens remet al llibre 18 de la Ilíada (108-109); la segona es troba a Fileb 62d i ens remet al llibre 4 de la Ilíada (450-456). El treball analitza aquestes referències de forma detallada, observant l'ús que fa Plató dels poemes homèrics i analitzant la significació, sovint oculta, que una lectura atenta de les referències aporta a la comprensió del text platònic i també al joc d'equivalències entre ambdós autors antics, és a dir, als llocs comuns entre la manera de tractar certs problemes, com la relació entre homes i déus, les emocions o la recerca de la veritat. In Plato's Philebus, Socrates is presenting to the reader a reflection about the best possible life; the dialogue, in its description of human nature, delves into the manifold of experiences of pleasure and pain and elevates toward the contemplation of reason as the source of order both in human life and in the cosmos. As human beings we are in the in-between, in the μεταξύ, we live between a desired and never reached fulfillment and an immediate experience of emptiness and lack; we are always impelled to decide, as Socrates makes perfectly clear in the conclusive page of the dialogue, between the authority of
From 5-7 June 2024 the international conference “The Poet of the Greeks. The Genesis and Reception of Homer in Archaic and Classical Greece” took place in Basel. It was initiated by Lars Hübner, organised and hosted in cooperation with Johannes Bernhardt, Anton Bierl, and Alexandra Trachsel; it was made financially possible by the generous support of the Swiss National Science Foundation’s Exchange programme and the Basel Department of Greek Studies. The conference centred on the question of when and, above all, how Homer became the poet of the Greeks. Against the background of the various turns in cultural studies, it was based on three premises: First, it was assumed that the Homeric epics are based on an oral narrative tradition that goes, at least in parts, back to the Mycenaean period. Second, it was based on a pre-Aristotelian concept of Homer, which encompassed the entire pre-, side-, and post-stories of the Trojan War, as they have come down to us in the so-called Epic Cycle, the Thebais, and the Homeric Hymns. Third, the concept of “reception” was conceived not only as an aesthetic, but also as a historical category. By involving philology, archaeology, and history, the aim was to challenge the widespread view that it was Athens which had a decisive role in the shaping and dissemination of the Homeric epics. Instead, it aimed to take a Panhellenic perspective and record the genesis, reception, and geographical dissemination of the Homeric tradition in the stream of Greek literature, imagery, and history at a crucial time when the Greek world was taking shape.
It could hardly be denied that 'la scelta di un metodo esegetico comporta automaticamente un'idea di poetica', 1 and for this reason 'pare assurdo pensare che Aristarco non avesse idee proprie sulla poetica'. The problem is that we struggle to find positive evidence of them. But that should not be a surprise, since 'è troppo ovvio trovare scarsi indizi su questioni teoriche ed epistemologiche nei frammenti filologico-esegetici conservati'. 2 The history of research on this topic shows that this difficulty has not led to discouragement -quite the contrary. Two approaches have been explored and remain fundamentally in play. The first is the historical reconstruction of the two phenomena -the Athenian Peripatos and the Alexandrian Museum -and their respective contexts, accompanied by a focus on figures, circumstances, and situations where the two overlap. The second approach consists in recovering methods and content specific to each of the two cultural experiences, in order to document and measure at a formal level their degree of affinity and relation. Interaction between these two points of view is useful, and methodologically desirable, in order to prevent partial and unbalanced readings. In other words, once we admit in general and intuitive terms the difference between the two realities (philosophy and philology), the comparison of Peripatetic reflection on the art of poetry with the practice of Alexandrian philology on literary texts in the Hellenistic period will gain by focusing on the corresponding historical, conceptual, and critical categories, and by translating the 1 Montanari 1987, 17 ('the choice of an exegetical method automatically brings with it an idea of poetics'). 2 Both passages are from Montanari 1993a, 263 ('it seems absurd to suppose that Aristarchus did not have ideas of his own about poetics', 'it is quite natural to find only a few indications of theoretical and epistemological questions in the philological-exegetical fragments which are preserved'), who continues (n. 62): 'Che la Poetica di Aristotele non sia citata negli scolii è un'ovvietà che non dimostra niente: perché dovrebbe esserlo, a commento di quale passo (soprattutto considerando la riduzione del materiale)? Fornì invece strumenti di pensiero e posizioni critiche' ('That the Poetics of Aristotle is not cited in the scholia is a self-evident point that proves nothing: why would it need to be, in comment upon which passage (above all considering the reduction of the material)? Yet it provided tools of thought and critical positions').
A Homeric Challenge: The Purpose and Meaning of the Poetry Critique in Book 10 of Plato’s Republic
This article defends and develops a dialectical interpretation of the book 10 poetry critique of Plato’s Republic. Socrates’ attack on Homer is argued to be ironic and designed to test Glaucon in various ways, and generate interest in the concept of imitation and Homeric poetry in the context of the psychology of the Republic. This article also shows how Socrates subtly indicates how a successful defense of Homer might proceed.
Indo-Europen Linguistics and Classical Philology, 2010
Why did western Greek philosophers (Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles), unlike their Eastern Ionian colleagues, chose the Homeric hexameter rather than prose to express their thought? It has been thought by some that these philosophical poems represent a continuation or adaptation of the Homeric tradition for didactic purposes. We reject this interpretation because it ignores the fundamental difference between the Ionian and Italian philosophical traditions. The Ionian tradition was scientific in spirit and therefore used Ionian prose. The Italian tradition starting from Pythagoras was a revolt against the Ionian naturalistic monism and an attempt to restore the traditional religious world-view in a new quasi-scientific form. Western Greek philosophy from the start was ethical-religious in its aims, and therefore it chose the most “hieratic” poetic medium of the time, the language of Pythia and Apollo. And in doing so it did not aim so much at the “continuation” of the Homeric tradition as at “replacing” the old bad mythology of the poets with a good new one, just as Plato later tried to replace bad old myths with new philosophical myths of his own. Western Greek philosophical poems, consequently, should be viewed not as a revival of the old epic poetry, but as its radical reform and a peritrope. In Greek dialectics peritrope was a technical term for “turning over” of the opponent’s argument against himself. We use this term in a less technical and a wider sense of a polemical device which aims at “defeating an opponent with his own weapons”. Peritrope is an often neglected polemical device of the Greek culture of the philosophical debate. E.g. the cosmogony of Plato’s “Timaeus” can be interpreted as a creationist peritrope of the Ionian (and atomistic) naturalistic determinist physics. And the Derveni papyrus (i.e. "Horai" of Prodicus of Ceos) presents exactly the reverse case: a polemical naturalistic peritrope of the creationst Orphic (i.e. Pythagorean) theogony.