*2.3
This one was okay. Nothing too special.

Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Fall 2022

⭐⭐⭐ OK/Good.

Read for class

Es opúsculo me ha hecho pensar que la mala reputación de los sofistas (compartimiento estanco donde cabe todo aquéllo que molestó a Platón) resultas a ratos infundada. No se ha encontrado mejor defensa del honor de Helena que este texto. Es interesante subrayar que mientras esta defensa habría exculpado a Helena, la Apología de Sócrates en cambio condujo al resultado contrario, a la condena del gran pensador heleno.

Personal milestone: this is the first unadapted historical text that I have read in full in the original Ancient Greek. Three years of prior devoted study, and still was not an easy go.

Among other turns of eloquence, the sophist compares logos (speech, word) to drugs, τὰ φάρμακα, in its both or by turns toxic, healing, elating effect.

Grazie Gorgia per difendere Elena ❤️

Haha I love Gorgias-- he's hilarious.
Don't agree with any of his nihilism or anything, but Encomium of Helen is fun&short read.

lindo perfeito maravilhoso

shitty

One of the perks of having children in college is that I have been exposed to lots of great works of writing that I missed in my youth. My youngest is an auditory learner and a classics major, so I have spent countless hours reading writings from the ancient world to him. Many of the works of ancient Greeks and Romans have been lost forever or are only known because other writers have paraphrased their work. Gorgias was luckier than that. He was a Sophist of the 5th century BCE and four of his works survive to the modern age. His defense of Helen is an interesting example of rhetoric that is disconnected from a moral and ethical stance. The Sophists were slammed by Socrates and his acolytes for just this problem—no moral compass. The good news is that his rhetoric is very accessible.

Helen was at the center of the disastrous war with Troy. It went on for ten years, led to the destruction of Troy, and spawned three epics (The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid).

Gorgias’ contended that Helen could have been bewitched by the gods so that it was her fate to leave her husband and go with Paris. That is my assessment and I was surprised to find out that she was blamed in the ancient world. The other options that Gorgias considers are that she was forced to go against her will, that she fell in love with Paris (which he argues leaves her blameless—others might disagree) and then most interestingly, he argues that she might have been deceived by Paris’ rhetoric. He gives a discourse on how a good persuasive speech can be dangerously effective. He says that Helen should be forgiven if she fell for such a persuasive speech, because such rhetoric is overwhelmingly seductive to the point of being witchcraft. I was initially quite skeptical, and then I thought about the current Republican candidates for president, and realized that Gorgias could easily be talking about Donald Trump.

Letto per la challenge 7 libri in 7 giorni.

Gorgia da Lentini e gli altri sofisti sono stati spesso accusati di aver perfezionato l'arte della parola fino ad arrivare a non curarsi più della verità: la logica sarebbe stata utilizzata da loro in un modo fine a se stesso, al punto da arrivare a difendere il falso per il gusto della mistificazione.

Beh, leggendo oggi l'encomio di Elena e l'encomio di Palamede di tutto ciò non c'è traccia. Anzi, la logica sembra essere utilizzata in modo virtuoso, per difendere la verità anche se contro l'opinione comune (un po' come fece Socrate dopo la battaglia delle Arginuse e il successivo naufragio, difendendo gli ammiragli ateniesi che non ne avevano colpa nonostante la maggioranza volesse condannarli). Insomma, questa lettura perde un po' di senso se filtrata con la morale del terzo millennio: ovviamente per noi Elena non ha colpa del suo rapimento e semmai deve essere biasimato Paride, se lo ha perpetrato contro il suo volere. Anche nel caso in cui Elena si sia innamorata, dice Gorgia, non possiamo condannarla, dal momento che Eros è una forza irresistibile.

Il terzo scritto qui raccolto, Intorno al non-essere, invece pare più mistificatorio, dal momento che il filosofo arriva a negare l'esistenza dell'essere, attraverso un astuto gioco verbale.

Sconsiglio l'edizione delle Paoline, che contiene uno stucchevole saggio introduttivo che applica esplicitamente la visione del mondo cristiana più e più volte. Assolutamente evitabile.