Douglas Cairns

Aidôs: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature

Introduction Aidos in Homer From Hesiod to the Fifth Century Aeschylus Sophocles Euripides The Sophists, Plato, and aristotle References Glossary Index of Principal Passages General Index.

Hybris, dishonour, and thinking big

The focal point of this article is the detailed study of the concept of hybris recently published by N.R.E. Fisher, and the differences of interpretation which exist between that study and other recent work on the concept. Though I dispute much of what Fisher has to say about hybris , I also defend many of his most important insights, and readily admit that my own task has been made immeasurably lighter by his industry and integrity in the presentation of a wealth of valuable data. That I take issue with his thesis is no token of disesteem, rather a recognition that he has made a strong case for his interpretation and that disagreement with a study as well documented as his must rest on detailed discussion of individual passages.

The meadow of Artemis and the character of the Euripidean Hippolytus

This article deals with the character of the Euripidean Hippoly tus-, to some extent this will involve the normal (and perfectly legiti mate) business of evaluating what the character says, does, and suf fers, and what other characters say about him. But I shall also contend that the speech in which Hippolytus dedicates his garland to Artemis (Hippolytus 73-87) performs the function of characterization in a rather different way, by locating Hippolytus in a particular cultural milieu as a sociocultural constructi. This is less a matter of the poets suggesting that Hippolytus is who he is because of his history as an in dividual in society, than of his characterizing (or categorizing) him by symbol and association, in a technique which one might almost call characterization through metaphor 2. Under the orthodox view of the character of Hippolytus, the speech in which he dedicates his garland manifests all the signs of an unbalanced personality 3. But Hippolytus has always had his defend

Veiling, αίδώς, and a Red-Figure Amphora by Phintias

At p. 319 n. 203 of my recent book, I discuss the appearance of the letters ΑΙΔΟΣ … designating the figure of Artemis on an Attic red-figure amphora (depicting the rape of Leto by Tityos) by Phintias (Louvre G42; ARV 2 23,1 [ Paralipomena 323, Addenda 154; see now also LIMC ii pl. 275, Apollon 1069, vi, Leto 34; PLATE I] …). That this constitutes an association between the goddess and aidos is the position of Kretschmer [ Die griechischen Vaseninschriften (Gutersloh 1894) 197], Norwood [ Essays on Euripidean drama (Berkeley 1954) 76 n. 2], and Schefold [ Gotterund Heldensagen der Griechen in der spatarchaischen Kunst (Munich 1978) 68].

The Form of the Good and the Good in Plato's Republic

THE GOOD AND THE GOOD: THE LARGER PICTURE This chapter addresses a topic that everyone will agree in locating at the very centre of Platos philosophy: his conception of the good. However I propose to address the topic from a perspective which, for at least some readers, will appear an unusual one. The standard view, at any rate in Anglophone circles, is that the treatment of ‘the form of the good’ in the Republic , and in consequence perhaps the Republic itself, represent a new departure for Plato. According to this view, the Plato of the Republic differs significantly from the Plato of that set of dialogues that the same Anglophone scholars are in the habit of describing as ‘early’, or ‘Socratic’: this later Plato, the one of the Republic , is a metaphysician, as he – and his main character, Socrates – were not before; and the approach to ethical philosophy they use is also different. That is, the Plato of the Republic is a believer in forms, of a distinctively Platonic sort (existing independently of the human or even the divine mind, outside time and space, different from but somehow causative of corresponding sensible particulars, and so on); and he is a proponent of a kind of good – the form of the good – that is significantly different from the good that the Socrates of the ‘Socratic’ dialogues continually insists that we need to get knowledge of, along with knowledge of its opposite, the bad. That good is the good of each of us, our happiness.