The Soul of the Greeks: An Inquiry

249 Pages·2011·5.96 MB·English

by  Michael Davis

∏he Soul of the Greeks

∏he Soul
of the Greeks
An Inquir¥
michael davis
Th e University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
Michael Davis is professor of philosophy
at Sarah Lawrence College.
Th e University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
Th e University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2011 by Th e University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2011
Printed in the United States of America
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-13796-4 (cloth)
isbn-10: 0-226-13796-1 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davis, Michael, 1947–
Th e soul of the Greeks : an inquiry / Michael Davis.
p. cm.
Includes index.
isbn-13: 978-0-226-13796-4 (cloth: alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-13796-1 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Soul. 2. Philosophy, Ancient. 3. Greek literature—
History and criticism. 4. Soul in literature. I. Title.
b187.s6d38 2011
128'.10938—dc22 2010024178
o Th e paper used in this publication meets the minimum re-
quirements of the American National Standard for Information
Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ansi z39.48-1992.
Ode to Plato
Th e query rooted
assuredly in us—
whether we are still
born in a static world
or moved
to fend off
the crush of chaos—
yet sounds comical
to the human ear.
Were we born still
we were still to be born,
and the time would be
perilous little
which we,
in our infi nite leisure,
might selfl essly spend
on this serious riddle.
Still, we are
equally lost
when thrust
into war
against chaos,
for what one
is occupied with
at all cost
will occupy one
at the cost
of all else.
Th e curiosity of this perplexity is
that we fi nd ourselves in it.
gracie taplo

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction · Th e Soul of Achilles 1
Part One: Aristotle 19
Chapter 1 · Th e Doubleness of Soul 21
Chapter 2 · Out of Itself for the Sake of Itself 28
I. Nutritive Soul 28
II. Sensing Soul: Vision 31
III. Th inking Soul 34
A. Sensation and Imagination 34
B. Passive and Active Mind 39
C. Imagination and Th ought 43
Chapter 3 · Th e Soul as Self and Self-Aware 55
I. “Th e Father of the Logos” 55
II. “For the friend is another self” 72
Part Two: Herodotus: Th e Rest and Motion of Soul 75
Chapter 4 · Rest in Motion: Herodotus’s Egypt 77
Chapter 5 · Motion at Rest: Herodotus’s Scythians 90
Part Th ree: Euripides: Soul as Same and Other 103
Chapter 6 · Th e Fake Th at Launched a Th ousand Ships:
Th e Duplicity of Identity in the Helen 105
Chapter 7 · Euripides among the Athenians:
Th e Double Vision of Soul in Iphigeneia among the Taurians 123
Part Four: Plato 139
Chapter 8 · Th e Soul of the Law: Gyges in Herodotus
and in Plato 141
Chapter 9 · Th e Subject of Justice: On Plato’s Cleitophon 159
Chapter 10 · Th e Object of Tyranny: Plato’s Hipparchus 174
Chapter 11 · Plato’s Phaedrus: Erōs and the Structure of Soul 192
Chapter 12 · Th e Grammar of Soul:
Th e Middle Voice in Plato’s Euthyphro 205
Conclusion · Th e Soul of Socrates 223
Index 229
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to my friends Robert Berman, Ronna Burger, and Richard
Velkley, whose writings and conversations over the years have helped me to
understand the enormous complexity of the problem of soul. Gwen Grewal
read and studied with me many of the texts treated here and has been an
invaluable interlocutor. Susan Davis has been, as always, my most honest
critic. I want to thank the Earhart Foundation and Sarah Lawrence Col-
lege, both of which once again have supported my work with grants. I owe
thanks as well to John Tryneski and two anonymous readers for the Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, all of whom gently, but fi rmly, urged me to make
the shape of the whole of Th e Soul of the Greeks clearer—I hope with some
success.
Several of the book’s chapters have been published in somewhat diff er-
ent forms. Parts of chapters 2 and 3 are altered versions of “Father of the
Logos: Th e Question of the Soul in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics,” Epoché,
vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 169–87. Versions of chapter 6 appeared as “Th e
Fake Th at Launched a Th ousand Ships: Th e Question of Identity in Eu-
ripides’ Helen,” chapter 12 of Logos and Mythos, edited by William Wians
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2009); of chapter 7 as “Euripides among the
Athenians,” St. John’s Review, vol. 44, no. 2 (1998): 61–81; of chapter 8 as
“Th e Tragedy of Law: Gyges in Herodotus and Plato,” Review of Metaphys-
ics, vol. 53, no. 3 (March 2000): 635–55; of chapter 9 as “On the Intention
of Plato’s Cleitophon,” Metis: Revue d’anthropologie du monde grec ancien,
vol. 13 (1998): 271–85; of chapter 10 as “Making Something from Nothing:
On Plato’s Hipparchus,” Review of Politics, vol. 68, no. 4 (Fall 2006): 547–
63; and of chapter 12 as “Th e Grammar of the Soul: On Plato’s Euthy phro,”
in Logos and Eros, edited by Nalin Ranasinghe (South Bend, IN: St. Augus-
tine’s Press, 2006), 57–71.
Finally, I want to indicate my indebtedness to the late Seth Benardete—
the soul was in a way his life’s work. Every page of this study bears Benar-
dete’s imprint. I can only hope that the mark is true.