Thucydides and the philosophical origins of history
History Historiography Greece e-böcker
Cambridge University Press
2007
EISBN 9780511349775
Introduction.
Restoring the wonder of Thucydides.
Theoretical preliminaries.
Short outline.
Thucydides's vision.
Introduction--six features of Thucydides's text.
The first sentence.
The archaeology.
The empire of logos.
What the Athenians did not know.
Thucydides on his method--disclosure about disclosure.
The causes of the war.
Conclusion.
The case of Pericles.
War--Pericles's first speech.
Who we are--Pericles's funeral oration.
Rhetoric and adversity--Pericles's third speech.
Transition--the dissemination of Pericles.
Plague.
Cleon and Diodotus.
Brasidas and Hermocrates.
Nicias and Alcibiades.
Thucydides.
Themistocles.
Identity and disclosure.
Conclusion.
Deinon, logos, and the tragic question concerning the human.
Introduction.
Tragedy.
Introducing the Deinon.
Tragic elements in Thucydides.
Deinon in pretragic literature--summary.
Aeschylus.
Sophocles.
Euripides.
Thucydides revisited (the Deinon and Epieikeia).
Plato.
Conclusion.
Thucydidean temporality.
Introduction.
The metaphysics of praise--Pericles and Socrates on Athens.
Plato's Menexenus.
Thucydides and Plato in the philosophical tradition.
Heraclitus.
Thucydides as a cure for platonism.
Thucydidean realism.
Book eight.
Philosophical implications.
Conclusion.
Appendix one: Restoring key terms 1.1--1.23.
Unconcealedness (Aletheia).
What is appropriate (Ta Deonta).
Pretext (prophasis).
Compulsion (Ananke).
Kind (Toioutos).
Appendix two: Pretragic history of Deinon.
Introduction.
Etymology and history of interpretation.
Homer and Hesiod.
Conclusion.
Appendix three: Wittgenstein on fly-bottles, aspect seeing, and history.
Introduction.
Aspect seeing.
Aspect seeing and history.
Conclusion: Forms of life and logos.
Appendix four: Heidegger on world and originary temporality.
Introduction.
World.
Ontological difference.
Originary temporality.
Phenomenological bestiary.
An internal defense.
This book addresses the question of how and why history begins with the work of Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War is distinctive in that it is a prose narrative, meant to be read rather than performed. It focuses on the unfolding of contemporary great power politics to the exclusion of almost all other elements of human life, including the divine. The power of Thucydides' text has never been attributed either to the charm of its language or to the entertainment value of its narrative, or to some personal attribute of the author. In this study, Darien Shanske analyzes the difficult language and structure of Thucydides' History and argues that the text has drawn in so many readers into its distinctive world view precisely because of its kinship to the contemporary language and structure of Classical Tragedy. This kinship is not merely a matter of shared vocabulary or even aesthetic sensibility. Rather, it is grounded in a shared philosophical position, in particular on the polemical metaphysics of Heraclitus.
Restoring the wonder of Thucydides.
Theoretical preliminaries.
Short outline.
Thucydides's vision.
Introduction--six features of Thucydides's text.
The first sentence.
The archaeology.
The empire of logos.
What the Athenians did not know.
Thucydides on his method--disclosure about disclosure.
The causes of the war.
Conclusion.
The case of Pericles.
War--Pericles's first speech.
Who we are--Pericles's funeral oration.
Rhetoric and adversity--Pericles's third speech.
Transition--the dissemination of Pericles.
Plague.
Cleon and Diodotus.
Brasidas and Hermocrates.
Nicias and Alcibiades.
Thucydides.
Themistocles.
Identity and disclosure.
Conclusion.
Deinon, logos, and the tragic question concerning the human.
Introduction.
Tragedy.
Introducing the Deinon.
Tragic elements in Thucydides.
Deinon in pretragic literature--summary.
Aeschylus.
Sophocles.
Euripides.
Thucydides revisited (the Deinon and Epieikeia).
Plato.
Conclusion.
Thucydidean temporality.
Introduction.
The metaphysics of praise--Pericles and Socrates on Athens.
Plato's Menexenus.
Thucydides and Plato in the philosophical tradition.
Heraclitus.
Thucydides as a cure for platonism.
Thucydidean realism.
Book eight.
Philosophical implications.
Conclusion.
Appendix one: Restoring key terms 1.1--1.23.
Unconcealedness (Aletheia).
What is appropriate (Ta Deonta).
Pretext (prophasis).
Compulsion (Ananke).
Kind (Toioutos).
Appendix two: Pretragic history of Deinon.
Introduction.
Etymology and history of interpretation.
Homer and Hesiod.
Conclusion.
Appendix three: Wittgenstein on fly-bottles, aspect seeing, and history.
Introduction.
Aspect seeing.
Aspect seeing and history.
Conclusion: Forms of life and logos.
Appendix four: Heidegger on world and originary temporality.
Introduction.
World.
Ontological difference.
Originary temporality.
Phenomenological bestiary.
An internal defense.
This book addresses the question of how and why history begins with the work of Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War is distinctive in that it is a prose narrative, meant to be read rather than performed. It focuses on the unfolding of contemporary great power politics to the exclusion of almost all other elements of human life, including the divine. The power of Thucydides' text has never been attributed either to the charm of its language or to the entertainment value of its narrative, or to some personal attribute of the author. In this study, Darien Shanske analyzes the difficult language and structure of Thucydides' History and argues that the text has drawn in so many readers into its distinctive world view precisely because of its kinship to the contemporary language and structure of Classical Tragedy. This kinship is not merely a matter of shared vocabulary or even aesthetic sensibility. Rather, it is grounded in a shared philosophical position, in particular on the polemical metaphysics of Heraclitus.
