The Philosophical Stage: Drama and Dialectic in Classical Athens

Description

A bold new reconception of ancient Greek drama as a mode of philosophical thinking The Philosophical Stage offers an innovative approach to ancient Greek literature and thought that places drama at the heart of intellectual history. Drawing on evidence from tragedy and comedy, Joshua Billings shines new light on the development of early Greek philosophy, arguing that drama is our best source for understanding the intellectual culture of classical Athens. In this incisive book, Billings recasts classical Greek intellectual history as a conversation across discourses and demonstrates the significance of dramatic reflections on widely shared theoretical questions. He argues that neither "literature" nor "philosophy" was a defined category in the fifth century BCE, and develops a method of reading dramatic form as a structured investigation of issues at the heart of the emerging discipline of philosophy. A breathtaking work of intellectual history by one of today’s most original classical scholars, The Philosophical Stage presents a novel approach to ancient drama and sets a path for a renewed understanding of early Greek thought. Cover Contents Acknowledgments Note on the Text Introduction: Tragedy in the Philosophical Age of the Greeks 1. Catalogs and Culture Cataloguing the Human Palamedes: The Catalog and Invention Prometheus between Divine and Human The Gifts of the God: Euripides’ Suppliants Polar Anthropology: Antigone Fictions of Divinity: The Sisyphus Fragment 2. Intrigue and Ontology Deception and Dikē Apatē and Ontology The Ethics of Intrigue: Sophocles’ Electra On Not Being Female: Aristophanes’ Women at the Thesmophoria Language and Necessity: Sophocles’ Philoctetes (I) Deception, Myth, and Truth: Sophocles’ Philoctetes (II) Trust and Community: Iphigenia at Aulis 3. Agōn and Authority Debating Wisdom Suspicions of the Sophos: Antiope (I) Praise of Sophia: Antiope (II) Old and New Learning: Frogs (I) Sophia and Salvation: Frogs (II) Reasoning Divinity: Bacchae (I) “What Is the Wise?”: Bacchae (II) Conclusion: The Stages of Early Greek Thought Works Cited Index