Volume 33, Number 19 · December 4, 1986
The Theater of Ethics
By Bernard Knox
The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy
by Martha C. Nussbaum
Cambridge University Press, 544 pp., $19.95 (paper)
'There is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry,' says Plato's Socrates, as, in Book X of the Republic, he reconfirms his decision to banish Homer and the tragic poets from his ideal city. And indeed it is true that long before Plato such philosophers as Xenophanes and Heraclitus had inveighed against the poets for, among other things, their presentation of gods engaged in unjust or immoral activities. Poets working in what Plato called the imitative poetic media, epic and tragedy, were of course unable to reply in kind (though some passages of tragic lyric reflect a critical reaction to current philosophical speculation), but Pindar complained that the natural philosophers (tous physiologous) were 'harvesting the fruit of wisdom unripe.'
Review, 7410 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |