It can be said that, in its fragility, the last in the sense of the last flash of something remains for us as a claim even after it passes. Such is its power. Entitled “The Last God” (»Der letze Gott«), the penultimate chapter of Heidegger’s posthumously-published Contributions to Philosophy opens with a reflection similar to…
Category: Greece
The Other(s) – In Homage to Borges
I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me… – Borges We have already mentioned in a different context a passage in Jean Oury’s Création et schizophrénie in which, inquired by the therapist, a schizophrenic patient evinces her lack of self-recognition: upon looking at herself on a mirror, she sees no…
Dionysos and Apollo
I Dionysos and Apollo Dionysos and Apollo shared one sanctuary: Delphi, located on a ridge of the Parnassos mountains overlooking the Valley of Phokis and the surrounding hills, near the town of Krissa north of the Gulf of Corinth in today’s region of Sterea or Central Greece. Dionysos was worshiped there in the winter, whereas…
We, Platonists (III) – or, the Untimely
PREVIOUS PART HERE From Plato to Foucault The late Foucault – the Foucault of The Care of the Self, published only a few days before his death in 1984 – goes back to a notion which is not very different from Plato’s notion of σωφροσύνη (sophrosyne, “soundness of mind”), about which we wrote in our…
We, Platonists (II) – or, Nietzsche Upside Down
FIRST PART HERE On Apollonian Temperance Γνῶθι σεαυτόν (gnothi seauton): “Know yourself.” These words connected to the Delphian Apollo are, above anything else, a recommendation about the assumption of one’s mortal condition, hence about the awareness of one’s limits against any ὕβρις (hybris, “excess”); thus too the Delphic lemma: Mηδὲν ἄγαν (meden agan), “Nothing in…
We, Platonists (I)
We want to talk about Plato. Of Plato as a modern taboo. Hence also about ourselves. About Plato and us. But first we are going to talk about horses. About apparitions and sculptures. Otherwise – we fear – we would only be able to repeat commonplace views on Plato. And we have had enough of…
Endemic Pandemic Pandemonium
SPANISH VERSION HERE A devastating plague dominates Thebes. Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, first intervention of the chorus, vv. 158-215) has its people call on the gods: First we call on Athena, deathless daughter of Zeus, / and Artemis, earth upholder, […] / and Phoebus [Apollo], the far shooter, / come to us now […] / Our…
Post-Nihilist Meanderings on the Shores of Mythology, Tragedy, Poetry, and Enigma
It wasn’t long. It only lasted four hundred years. But the beautiful thing is that we can assist to its birth and death. The beautiful thing and the sad thing. It first surfaces in Homer’s Iliad, and it dies with Aristotle, in Aristotle. Strangely, we can presence both events. Yet we can only understand the…
Oedipus Rex
Duplicity. “When Oedipus speaks he sometimes says something other than or even the opposite of what he thinks he is saying.” Yet “the ambiguity of what he says does not reflect a duplicity in his character, which is perfectly consistent, but, more profoundly, the duality of his being. He is double. He is himself a…
Walking in Beauty: Philosophy & Eros
In his Letters II and VII, Plato argues that the insights of philosophy “cannot be put into words like other subjects can be.” They are so simple that they appear to be laughable to those who do not take part in the philosophical life or way of living, as it is only through the latter…