Probabilities, Hypotheticals, and Counterfactuals in Ancient Greek Thought PDF
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PROBABILITIES, HYPOTHETICALS, AND COUNTERFACTUALS IN ANCIENT GREEK THOUGHT This volume explores the conceptual terrain defined by the Greek wordeikos:theprobable,likely,orreasonable.AtermofartinGreek rhetoric,adefiningfeatureofliteraryfiction,aseminalmodeofhistor- ical,scientific,andphilosophicalinquiry,eikoswasawayofthinking about the probable and improbable, the factual and counterfactual, thehypotheticalandthereal.Thesethirteenoriginalandprovocative studies examine the plausible arguments of courtroom speakers and the“likelystories”ofphilosophers,verisimilitudeinartandliterature, the likelihood of resemblance in human reproduction, the limits of humanknowledge,andthepossibilitiesofethicalandpoliticalagency. ThefirstsyntheticstudyofprobabilisticthinkinginancientGreece, thevolumeilluminatesafascinatingchapterinthehistoryofWestern thought. victoria wohl is Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto.SheworksontheliteratureandcultureofclassicalAthens. HerpreviouslypublishedworkincludesLaw’sCosmos:JuridicalDis- courseinAthenianForensicOratory(2010),LoveamongtheRuins:The Erotics of Democracy in Classical Athens (2002), and Intimate Com- merce:Exchange,Gender,andSubjectivityinGreekTragedy(1998). PROBABILITIES, HYPOTHETICALS, AND COUNTERFACTUALS IN ANCIENT GREEK THOUGHT edited by VICTORIA WOHL UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridgecb28bs,UnitedKingdom CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learningandresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107050495 ©CambridgeUniversityPress2014 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2014 PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyClays,StIvesplc AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata Probabilities,hypotheticals,andcounterfactualsinancientGreekthought/editedbyVictoriaWohl. pages cm Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. isbn978-1-107-05049-5(hardback) 1.Philosophy,Ancient. 2.Reasoning. 3.Probabilities. 4.Logic,Ancient. 5.Greece–Civilization–To146B.C. I.Wohl,Victoria,1966–editorofcompilation. b187.r35p76 2014 180–dc23 2014002500 isbn978-1-107-05049-5Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof urlsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication, anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. Contents Listofillustrations pagevii Notesoncontributors viii Preface xi Introduction:eikosinancientGreekthought 1 VictoriaWohl 1 EikosargumentsinAthenianforensicoratory 15 MichaelGagarin 2 EikosinPlato’sPhaedrus 30 JennyBryan 3 Aristotleonthevalueof“probability,”persuasiveness,and verisimilitudeinrhetoricalargument 47 JamesAllen 4 “Likelystories”andthepoliticalartinPlato’sLaws 65 RyanK.Balot 5 Openandspeakyourmind:citizenagency,thelikelihood oftruth,anddemocraticknowledgeinarchaicand classicalGreece 84 VincentFarenga 6 CounterfactualhistoryandThucydides 101 RobertTordoff 7 Homer’sAchaeanwallandthehypotheticalpast 122 KarenBassi 8 Playoftheimprobable:Euripides’unlikelyHelen 142 VictoriaWohl v vi Contents 9 RevisioninGreekliterarypapyri 160 SeanGurd 10 LikenessandlikelihoodinclassicalGreekart 185 VerityPlatt 11 “Whydoesn’tmybabylooklikeme?”Likenessandlikelihood inancienttheoriesofreproduction 208 DarynLehoux 12 Galenonthechancesoflife 230 BrookeHolmes 13 Afterword 251 CatherineGallagher References 264 Indexlocorum 286 Generalindex 289 Illustrations 1 RiaceWarriorA,MuseoArcheologicoNazionale,Reggio Calabria.PhotoCredit:ErichLessing/ArtResourceNY page191 2 RiaceWarriorB,MuseoArcheologicoNazionale,Reggio Calabria.PhotoCredit:ErichLessing/ArtResourceNY 192 3 AphroditeoftheAgora,AgoraMuseum,Athens(AgoraS1882). Photo:RichardNeer 194 4 GravesteleofPausimache,NationalMuseum,Athens(3964). Imagesource:ArtResourceNY 196 5 Atticred-figurecalyxkraterattributedtotheAltamuraPainter, MuseumofFineArts,Boston(59.176) 202 6 FragmentofanApulianred-figurecalyxkraterattributedtothe PainteroftheBirthofDionysus,AllardPiersonMuseum, Amsterdam(2579).PhotocourtesyoftheAllardPierson Museum,Amsterdam 204 7 Apulianred-figurecolumn-kraterattributedtotheGroupof Boston,MetropolitanMuseumofArt,RogersFund(50.11.4). Imagecopyright,theMetropolitanMuseumofArt,NewYork. Imagesource:ArtResourceNY 205 8 ReversesideofFigure7.Imagecopyright,theMetropolitan MuseumofArt,NewYork.Imagesource:ArtResourceNY 206 vii Notes on contributors james allen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. HeistheauthorofInferencefromSigns:AncientDebatesabouttheNature ofEvidence(2001)andarticlesaboutaspectsofStoicism,Epicureanism, ancientscepticism,ancientmedicine,andAristotelianlogicanddialec- tic, among other things. He is currently working on a book about the Aristoteliandisciplinesofargument(logic,rhetoric,anddialectic). ryan k. balot is Professor of Political Science and Classics at the Uni- versityofToronto.TheauthorofGreedandInjusticeinClassicalAthens (2001), Greek Political Thought (2006), and Courage and Its Critics in Democratic Athens (2014), and editor of A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought (2009), Balot specializes in American, early modern, and classical political thought. His essays and reviews have appearedinPoliticalTheory,AncientPhilosophy,SocialResearch,Review ofPolitics,Arion,AmericanJournalofPhilology,ClassicalQuarterly,The Journal of Hellenic Studies, and Rhetorica. His current projects include workonMachiavelli’srepublicanism. karen bassi is Professor of Classics and Literature at the University of CaliforniaatSantaCruz.InadditiontoarticlesonGreekliteratureand historiography, she is the author of Acting Like Men. Gender, Drama andNostalgiainAncientGreece(1998)andco-editor,withPeterEuben, of When Worlds Elide: Classics, Politics, Culture (2010). She is currently working on a book on the relationship between visual perception and thepassingoftimeinancientGreeknarrative. jenny bryan is Lecturer in Classical Philosophy at University College London. She is the author of Likeness and Likelihood in the Presocratics andPlato(Cambridge,2012). vincent farenga isProfessorofClassicsandComparativeLiteratureat the University of Southern California. In addition to articles exploring viii
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