Ancient Philosophy Commons^™

Searching For Hades In Archaic Greek Literature, Daniel Stoll

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No single volume of mythological or philological research exists for Hades. In the one moment Hades appears in archaic Greek literature, speaking for only ten lines, Hermes stands nearby. Thus, to understand and journey to Hades is to reckon with Hermes’ close presence. As I synthesize research by writers from several different disciplines, may some light be brought into the depths. May we analyze Hades’ brief appearance in archaic Greek literature, examining how what I define as the “Hermetic” emits from his breath in the one moment he physically appears and speaks.

Learning To Read In The Theaetetus: The Recuperation Of Writing In Plato's Philosophy, Luke Lea

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

In my thesis, I take up the popular question of the status of writing in Plato’s dialogues, but from a fresh perspective. Instead of approaching the question of writing head-on, I attend to the philosophical message about reading presented by two dialogues, the Phaedrus and the Theaetetus. My thesis offers interpretations of two individual dialogues whose emphasis on writing and reading as both literary themes and philosophical problems ensure that the overall meanings of these dialogues cannot be reached without attention to this subject.

Although I examine the dialogues in isolation, believing that the setting and characters unique to …

Peri Algeos: Pain In Aeschylus And Sophocles, Anda Pleniceanu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is an examination of physical pain in ancient tragedy, with the focus on three plays: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Trachiniae. The study unfolds the layers of several conceptual systems in order to get closer to the core—pain and its limits in tragedy. The first chapter aims to show that Aristotle’s model for the analysis of tragedy in his classificatory tract, the Poetics, centered on the ill-defined concept of mimesis, is an attempt to tame pain and clean tragedy of its inherent viscerality. The second chapter looks at the dualist solution advanced by Plato …

The Virtue Of Shame In Moral Development An Aristotelian Perspective, Claire Amelia Kokoska

Honors Theses

Aristotle touts the importance of performing virtuous actions in order to have a virtuous character. Yet, reason is necessary for an individual to actively change their own behavior. Aristotle believes that children are too young to have developed reason, so we may wonder how are they to become virtuous. The answer I offer is shame. Shame is a painful emotion that causes one to believe that, by acting poorly, we have lowered our worth in the eyes of those we respect and admire. I argue that shame effectively changes behavior in children because it is attached to a stigma of …

Antigone Claimed, "I Am A Stranger": Democracy, Membership And Unauthorized Immigration, Andres Fabian Henao Castro

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation offers a new framework through which to theorize contemporary democratic practices by attending to the political agency of unauthorized immigrants. I argue that unauthorized immigrants themselves, by claiming their own ambiguous legal condition as a legitimate basis for public speech, are able to open up the boundaries of political membership and to render the foundations of democracy contingent, that is to say, they are able to reopen the question about who counts as a member of the demos. I develop this argument by way of a close reading of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone[1], which allows me to …

Seeking Vita Contemplativa: A Search For Contemplation In A Secular World, Rosette Marie Cirillo

Senior Projects Spring 2014

Senior Project submitted to The Divisions of Languages and Literature and Social Studies of Bard College