The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and PhilosophyThis volume brings together Seth Benardete's studies of Hesiod's Theogony, Homer's Iliad, and Greek tragedy, of eleven Platonic dialogues, and Aristotle's Metaphysics. These essays, some never before published, others difficult to find, span four decades of his work and document its impressive range. Benardete's philosophic reading of the poets and his poetic reading of the philosophers share a common ground that makes this collection a whole. The key, suggested by his reflections on Leo Strauss in the last piece, lies in the question of how to read Plato. Benardete's way is characterized not just by careful attention to the literary form that separates doctrine from dialogue, and speeches from deed; rather, by following the dynamic of these differences, he uncovers the argument that belongs to the dialogue as a whole. The "turnaround" such an argument undergoes bears consequences for understanding the dialogue as radical as the conversion of the philosopher in Plato's image of the cave. Benardete's original interpretations are the fruits of this discovery of the "argument of the action." |
Contents
The First Crisis in First Philosophy | 3 |
Achilles and the Iliad | 15 |
The Aristeia of Diomedes and the Plot of the Iliad | 34 |
The Furies of Aeschylus | 62 |
Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus | 71 |
Euripides Hippolytus | 84 |
On Greek Tragedy | 99 |
On Platos Cratylus | 146 |
A Question of Definition | 257 |
On Platos Phaedo | 277 |
On the Way of the Logos | 297 |
On Platos Sophist | 323 |
The Plan of Platos Statesman | 354 |
On the Timaeus | 376 |
The First Two Chapters of Aristotles Metaphysics A | 396 |
Strauss on Plato | 407 |
On Platos Symposium | 167 |
Protagorass Myth and Logos | 186 |
On Platos Lysis | 198 |
On Interpreting Platos Charmides | 231 |
Other editions - View all
The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy Seth Benardete Limited preview - 2024 |
The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy Seth Benardete Limited preview - 2024 |
The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy Seth Benardete No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
Achaeans Achilles Agamemnon Alcibiades answer Antigone Aphrodite Apollo argument Aristophanes Aristotle asks Athenians Athens beautiful become beginning believe Benardete body cause Charmides Chorus Colonus cosmos courage Critias Critias's death difference Diomedes Dionysus Diotima divine eikastic Eros experience false father Furies gods Greek Hades Hector Hermogenes heroes Hesiod Hippolytus Hippothales Homer human ignorance Iliad implies interpretation justice killed kind knowledge Laches Laius logos Lysis Lysis's maieutics means Menelaus Menexenos mortal myth nature neither/nor never Nicias nonbeing Odysseus Oedipus Oedipus's once one's opinion Orestes Pentheus Phaedo Phaedra phantom philosophy Plato Platonic dialogue poetry poets political politikē possible Prometheus Protagoras Protagoras's punishment question Republic says seems self-knowledge sense shame Socrates sophist sõphrosunē soul speak speech Statesman Stranger Strauss Symposium tells Theaetetus Theaetetus's Theodorus things Thucydides Timaeus tion tragedy Trojans truth turn understanding virtue wisdom young Socrates Zeus