Aristotle and Menander on the Ethics of Understanding

229 Pages·2011·1.58 MB·English

Aristotle and Menander on the Ethics of Understanding

Submitted by Valeria Cinaglia to the University of Exeter
as a thesis for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Classics
In January 2011

This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material
and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper
acknowledgement.

I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and
that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree
by this or any other University.

Signature:

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ABSTRACT

This doctoral thesis explores a subject falling in the interface between ancient Greek
philosophy and literature. Specifically, I am concerned with common ground between
the New Comedy of Menander and aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy. The thesis does
not argue that the resemblance identified between the two writers shows the direct
influence of Aristotle on Menander but rather thay they share a common thought-world.
The thesis is structured around a series of parallel readings of Menander and Aristotle;
key relevant texts are Menander’s Epitrepontes, Samia, Aspis, Perikeiromene and
Dyscolos and Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, De
Anima and Poetics. My claim is that Menander’s construction of characters and plots
and Aristotle’s philosophical analyses express analogous approaches on the subject of
the relationship between knowledge and ethics.

Central for my argument is the consideration that in Aristotle’s writings on ethics, logic,
and psychology, we can identify a specific set of ideas about the interconnection
between knowledge-formation and character or emotion, which shows, for instance,
how ethical failings typically depend on a combination of cognitive mistakes and
emotional lapses. A few years later than the composition of Aristotle’s school-texts,
Menander’s comedies, as expressed in the extant texts, present to a wider audience a
type of drama which, as I argue, reflects an analogously complex and sophisticated
understanding of the interplay between cognitive or rational understanding and
character or emotion.

More broadly, Aristotle and Menander offer analogous views of the way that
perceptions and emotional responses to situations are linked with the presence or
absence of ethical and cognitive understanding, or the state of ethical character-
development in any given person. Thus, I suggest, the interpersonal crises and the
progress towards recognition of the identity of the crucial figures in Menandrian
comedies embody a pattern of thinking about perception, knowledge and the role of
emotion that shows substantial linkage with Aristotle’s thinking on comparable topics.
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LIST OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD ........................................................................................................................ 5

NOTES ON CONVENTIONS .................................................................................................. 8

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 11
1. Setting the scene: Aristotle and Menander ................................................................. 11
2. The questions underlying my hypothesis.................................................................... 14
2.1 Menander and Theophrastus on Character(s)?..................................................... 14
2.2 Menander and the previous dramatic tradition?.................................................... 18
3. The structure of the thesis and the method of enquiry ................................................ 23

CHAPTER 1. Setting the broader background................................................................... 27
1. Understanding, ethics and ancient philosophy ........................................................... 28
2. Understanding, ethics and aesthetic pleasure ............................................................. 32

CHAPTER 2. Degrees of understanding: Menander and Aristotle on how we
understand ....................................................................................................................... 38
1. Epitrepontes: recognition and understanding. ............................................................ 40
2. Notes on recognition in Euripides’ Electra ................................................................ 50
3. Grasping the sense ...................................................................................................... 57
3.1 Understanding and missing understanding ........................................................... 60
3.2 Grasping and missing the grasp ............................................................................ 64
4. Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 72

CHAPTER 3. The misleading power of perceptions and emotions ................................... 75
1. “Is this plausible?” (Men. Sam. 216) .......................................................................... 78
1.1 Demeas .................................................................................................................. 78
1.2 Moschion .............................................................................................................. 94
2. Aristotle on the vulnerability of correct (ethical) reasoning ....................................... 98
2.1 Thinking about one’s own perceptions ............................................................... 100
2.2 Acting on the basis of one’s own perceptions .................................................... 104
3. Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 112
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CHAPTER 4. Luck, ignorance and human agency .......................................................... 114
1. A play of chance / a chance to play. ......................................................................... 117
1.1 Perikeiromene ..................................................................................................... 117
1.1.1 The prologue of Ἄγνοια ......................................................................... 118
1.1.2 Polemon and Moschion .......................................................................... 123
1.2 Aspis .................................................................................................................... 129
1.2.1 The prologue of Τύχη ............................................................................. 129
1.2.2 Smikrines and Daos ................................................................................ 131
1.3 Divine prologue speakers and related matters .................................................... 134
2. Aristotle on chance, ignorance and rational agents .................................................. 140
2.1 Prologues and likelihood .................................................................................... 140
2.2 Aristotle, Τύχη and Ἄγνοια ................................................................................ 142
2.2.1 Chance and mere chance ........................................................................ 144
2.2.2 Voluntary, non-voluntary, involuntary actions ....................................... 150
3. Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 155

CHAPTER 5. Character, ethics and human relationships: Menander and Aristotle on
how we learn to be good and how we become bad ...................................................... 157
1. The young man and the old man ............................................................................... 162
1.2 Other examples of young men and old men ....................................................... 173
2. Aristotle on the individual and his community ......................................................... 183
2.1 Listening and watching friends ........................................................................... 185
2.2 Talking and living with friends ........................................................................... 193
3. Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 199

CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................ 203
1. The main ideas .......................................................................................................... 203
2. Further implications of the thesis .............................................................................. 206

BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................. 211
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FOREWORD

This thesis has evolved as a natural progression from my undergraduate degree in
philosophy and my studies, at Master level, in classical drama in its intellectual and
social context. As an undergraduate in Bologna, I decided to write my final dissertation
on the problem of self-knowledge in Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. There, I interpreted
Oedipus’ discovery as an epistemological problem and, at the time, I argued that human
knowledge and its limits are the elements that constitute the main issue of this play and
other Sophoclean tragedies such as Trachiniae. This dissertation represented a first
attempt to bring together my two main interests as an undergraduate student: philosophy
and ancient drama. My experience of trying to combine these two subjects increased my
interest in this project and this is what brought me to Exeter. While studying for my
Master of Arts there, I had the opportunity to study Menander’s comedies and I
observed that Menander often presents characters that, like Oedipus, think they know
the truth but are mistaken. The dramatic consequence of such partial knowledge is that,
in most cases, they act wrongly. It seemed to me that this feature was not only similar to
Attic tragedy but also evoked certain aspects of Aristotelian ethical and epistemological
thought. I decided that this feature of Menander’s drama merited further investigation,
and in my Master dissertation, I examined, in a preliminary way, Menander’s
presentation of the state of knowledge of his characters, the limits of their knowledge
and the consequences that these states of mind lead to. In that occasion, I also pointed
out, again in a preliminary way, that there were potentially close parallels between
Menander’s presentation of these topics and various aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy.
This thesis is an attempt to take forward this line of thought and to develop a path of
research started some years ago. Although the current thesis establishes decisively, to
my mind, the resemblance between Menander and Aristotle that struck me some years
ago, it raises broader questions that merit further research beyond the thesis, as outlined
in the Conclusions.
This thesis has been written in its present form at the University of Exeter in
2007-2010 and it would not have been realised without the support of the Department of
Classics. To each member of the Department is addressed my deepest thanks for
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creating the lively, intellectually stimulating and exceptionally supportive environment
that has accompanied my research from begin to end. I would like to thank, in
particular, my two supervisors Christopher Gill and John Wilkins who have been
always responsive to my ideas and available in offering tirelessly help and support until
the very last stages of my dissertation. To them go my sincere esteem as scholars and
inspirational models of human beings.
I would also like to thank the Department of Classics of Brown University –
Providence, RI (USA) that in the fall term of 2008/09 and again in April 2010
welcomed me warmly as visiting student and allowed me to participate in the numerous
activities going on in the Department. Special thanks go to David Konstan and Pura
Nieto whose incredible enthusiasm, warmth and availability as hosts really made a
difference during my stay in Brown. David Konstan, Marie Louise Gill and Adele
Scafuro also offered advise and help on specific parts of this thesis (especially Chapters
2, 3 and 5) and gave me precious suggestions of which I hope to have made good use.
In this respect, I would also like to thank Dana Munteanu for having variously discussed
some parts of my thesis (Chapters 2 and 4 in particular) and having responded to my
ideas with much promptness and enthusiasm.
The development of this thesis has also been taken forward by seminar papers
and research visits taking place during the whole period of research and composition in
Exeter, Cork, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Providence and Geneva. In particular, Chapter 2 has
been the subject of discussion in the panel ‘Re-examining dramatic’ recognition at the
Classical Association Annual Meeting (Glasgow, April 2009). The panel was aiming to
explore the ideological, dramaturgical and structural significance of dramatic
recognition processes. I thank Rowan Fraser and Anne-Sophie Nöel for having allowed
me to take part in this exciting and enriching project. Chapter 3 has been variously
discussed during a departmental research seminar in Exeter (November 2009): the
comments received in that occasion have been of crucial importance for the
understanding of certain topics and, more precisely, to formulate further hypoteses
raised by my research. In particular, I thank Barbara Borg and Richard Seaford for
having pointed out to me possible questions and issues to which I have tried to give a
tentative answer in the Conclusions.
Finally, I would like to record some more personal debts. I would like to thank
friends and colleagues whose presence, liveliness, kindness and availability to discuss
any imaginable topic in any imaginable setting made these years in Exeter so enjoyable:
Daniele Carrieri, Mattia Gallotti, Daniel King, Hadeel Maaitah, Michiru Nagatsu,
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Pierre-Olivier Methot and Rafael Scopacasa. The period of research of this thesis has
coincided with my moving to England and my subsequent marriage with Pascal, whose
presence and deep comprehension have given to me unimaginable help and the
necessary strength needed to complete this project. To him goes my profound thanks
with much love. Finally my last acknowledgement goes to my family in Narni and
Vasto, to my sister Claudia and to my parents Lucia and Paolo to whom this thesis is
dedicated: their vigorous, deep and unshakable love and support was vital to sustain this
project, as each project that I have so far undertaken, especially in the moments in
which I, as first, was not believeing in it. For this, grazie.
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NOTES ON CONVENTIONS

1. Ancient authors

In the footnotes I abbreviate names and works of ancient authors as in H. G. Liddell &
R. Scott (eds.), Greek-English Lexicon (1st ed.1843), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996
and in P. G. W. Glare (ed.), Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
I have used Greek texts from the TLG 1992 Thesaurus Linguae Grecae,
University of California, 1992 on Compact Disk. I have underlined the Greek text in
words or phrases that I consider especially relevant. At times, in quoting Greek or Latin
texts, I choose to omit certain sentences or parenthetical expressions: this will be
indicated with the sign ‘[...]’. Words or expression that are considered interpolations
will be identified by square brackets both in the Greek or Latin text and in the English
translation.
Translations of Greek texts are my own unless otherwise specified. I have used
published translations, usually modified by me, for the following works of Aristotle:
APOSTLE, H. G. 1969, Aristotle’s Physics, trans. with introduction and notes,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
— 1975, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. with introduction and notes, Dordrecht:
Reidel.
BARNES, J. 1984, ‘Eudemian Ethics’, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, trans. J.
Solomon, vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
— 1994, Aristotle: Posterior Analytics, trans. with introduction and notes, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
HICKS, D. R. (ed.) 1907, Aristotle: De Anima, trans. with introduction and notes,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
KENNEDY, G. A. 2007, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, trans. with
introduction and notes, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
JANKO, R. (ed.) 1984, Aristotle on Comedy: Towards a Reconstruction of Poetics II,
trans. with introduction and notes, Berkeley: University of California Press.
REEVE, C. D. C. 1988, Aristotle: Politics, trans. with introduction and notes,
Indianapolis: Hackett.
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2. Modern Works

The following modern works are abbreviated:

DNP H. von Cancik and H. Schneider (eds.), Der Neue Pauly, 16
vols., Stuttgart; Weimar: J. B. Metzler Verlag, 1996/2003.
LIMC Fondation pour le LIMC (ed.), Lexicon Iconographicum
Mythologiae Classicae, 8 vols., Zürich und München: Artemis
Verlag, 1981.
LSJ H. G. Liddell, R. Scott and Jones H. S. (eds.), Greek-English
Lexicon (first edition 1843), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

All secondary literature is cited in footnotes with name of the author(s) and year of
publication; it is given in full form in the Bibliography.
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A Mo e Pò
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