Herodotean Inquiries - Softcover

Benardete, Seth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1587313626 ISBN 13: 9781587313622

Publisher: St. Augustines Press, 2009

Synopsis

Herodotus' Inquiries should be regarded as our best and most complete document for pre-Socratic philosophy. Without being a work of philosophy, its plan and intention cannot be understood apart from philosophy. Here an attempt is made to uncover Herodotus' plan and intention and to link them with their philosophic roots. This attempt requires that Herodotus' way of telling a story be examined, for Herodotus primarily reveals himself in the stories themselves and not in the moral he sometimes draws from them. Once one sees the importance Herodotus himself places in his own Inquiries, his account of Egypt, which has long been a stumbling block on any interpretation, can be appreciated; and Egypt in turn supplies the basis for understanding Book II on Persia and IV on Scythia and Libya. These three books prove to be the core of the Inquiries, for they establish the necessary conditions for both Greekness and the understanding of Greekness, and hence for the following five books on the Persian Wars.

About this title

About the Author

Seth Benardete teaches in the Classics Department at New York University.

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Augustines Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1587313626
• ISBN 13: 9781587313622
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 230