Abstract
The theme of fear is a recurrent and relevant one in the great Athenian philosophies of the fourth century. In the Platonic corpus, the theme is differently divided between ethics, politics and religion. Aristotle, in Rhetoric and Poetics, extends the theme of fear to discourses and their effects.
This study is aimed at exposing the relationship between dramaturgy – the one we still read – and its philosophical rationalisation. Concerning the more specific theme of fear, what do the Platonic dialogues and the Aristotelian treatises of tragic phobos (as we can still perceive it) capture and what do they leave aside? What do they retain and what do they modify? Some tragic contexts seem more significant than others to recall into question the theme of pathe and of phobos, in particular, which philosophy inherits from dramaturgy. Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Sophocles’ Oedipus King and the late Oedipus at Colonus are extremely revealing case studies.
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Notes
- 1.
See the tripartite discourse on government (logos tripolitikos), esp. III 80, 3–4 of Otanes’ speech against personal power, which ends with the motif of the ruler’s envy towards the best and his complacency towards the worst.
- 2.
Aristotle takes up the parable of the tallest ears of wheat in the midst of his analysis contrasting the basileus (king) – the guardian of collective well-being in view of the absolute good (to kalon) – with the tyrannos (tyrant) – who only pursues his own personal interests in view of pleasure (to hedy) and despises the people and notables. However, Aristotle inverts the two characters’ roles, portraying Periandros as an adviser. On the wide circulation of the anecdote, its endurance, and the Aristotelian version, which gives prominence to Periandros, see Zizza (2016, commentary ad locum, p. 464) and Zizza (2012, 179–181).
- 3.
Polus describes a man of his day. Archelaus ruled from the 413 to the 399 and was a pro-Greek tyrant. For instance, he invited members of the Athenian intelligentsia, including Euripides, to his court in Pella.
- 4.
With regard to the relation between fear, obedience, and courage in this passage, cf. Nicomachean Ethics 1154a26–31, in line with the treatment of the topic provided in the Laches.
- 5.
On the relation between these two texts, see Gastaldi (2017, 63–65).
- 6.
See also Politics I 1253a35–37. The man without virtue and who is given over to bodily pleasures is defined as the most impious (anosiotatos) and uncivilised (agriotatos) of all beings.
- 7.
The passage 1314b18–20 echoes the closing section of Aeschylus’ Eumenides.
- 8.
On the meanings of compassion in philosophy and public life, see Nussbaum (2001, 359–540).
- 9.
An exception is passage Rhetoric 1382b25–26.
- 10.
Scholars of Aristotle had made too much of purification or katharsis, which is only mentioned in passing in the Poetics, but on the basis of sound arguments it was put into perspective by Bernays (1857; see also Ugolini 2012) and further elaborated by Lanza(1987) and Donini (2008, XCII–CXX). Halliwell (2003) seems to reconsider his previous, over-cautious views on the topic. He reassesses purification or katharsis as a facteur ajouté of tragic pleasure.
- 11.
See n. 9.
- 12.
The first part of trilogy (Agamemnon) starts from the murder of Agamemnon, the victor of Troy. He is killed on his return to Argos by his wife Clytemnestra and his cousin Aegistus, who take the throne. The second part (Libation-Bearers) shows Apollo who forces Orestes to commit the matricide of his mother Clytemnestra, in order to avenge his father Agamemnon. Finally, Aeschylus ends the trilogy with the Eumenides. This last drama culminates with the pacification of the city through the intervention of Athena, with the absolution of Orestes, with the reconversion of the Erinyes of revenge in the benevolent Eumenides, goddesses of concord. Athena promises then a new polis, that will be rebuilt on the establishment of courts and positive laws, that in turn will have to overcome the customary rule of the blood-for-blood punishment.
- 13.
Clitemnestra too, with tragic irony, had associated disorder with the lack of authority. She reveals to Agamemnon that she had feared he might die in Troy and foretells that the fall of the legitimate sovereign would lead to anarchy (see Agamemnon 883).
- 14.
Meier (1988, 141 ff., 178) offers a cautiously conciliatory and pacifying reading of Athena’s intervention and of the trilogy’s ending.
- 15.
Athena expresses her plan in an assertive way, using volitional future forms and peremptory imperatives (Eumenides 681–710; 734–735; 794–807; 832; 858–863).
- 16.
The term was probably added to the title after Aristotle’s time: see Knox (1979, 87).
- 17.
We find at least nine references: 1452a24–25; 1452a32–33; 1453a11–20; 1453b3–6; 1453b29–31; 1454b6–8; 1455a16–18; 1460a26–30; 1462b1–3.
- 18.
On the dread Oedipus experiences when hearing evil tales from others: see Stella (2010, 17–18).
- 19.
Compassion is also the dominant emotion in Sophocles’ Philoctetes (409 BC): see Prauscello (2010).
- 20.
The theme of filth is taken up in the extensive speech of the messenger (logos angelikos; cf. vv. 1586–1666): a character who in the exodos recounts Oedipus’ miraculous disappearance (v. 1597).
- 21.
The idea of a prodigy is introduced by the beginning of the speech of the messenger (logos angelikos) in v. 1587 (cf. kapothaymasai). It is confirmed in the closing section of this same discourse, when the character describes the disappearance of Oedipus as a miracle (cf. thaumastos in v. 1665).
- 22.
- 23.
Oedipus directs two curses against Creon and his offspring (vv. 951–952), as well as against his own sons Eteocles and Polynices (1372–1384, 1389, 1405–1410). But he also offers salvation to Theseus and Athens (1518–1534) with the magical power of performative words, which are effectively gestures that alter the existing order. On archaic kingship, see Vernant (1962, 86–100).
- 24.
On Archelaus’ cruelty, see also Aristotle, Politics, V, 1311b8–36. A far more edifying figure is Archelaus the forefather of the Macedonian kings, according to the version provided by Euripides, who would appear to have composed the tragedy Archelaus in Macedon, in the winter of 408/407, as a homage to his host. See Life of Euripides, 1, 10–11 and Jouan and Van Looy (1998, pp. 275–291).
- 25.
On the interplay between public and private in Pericles’ democracy, see Musti (1985).
- 26.
All English translations are based on the LOEB Classical Library edition (with slight changes), except in the case of Plato’s Laws, where I have used R.G. Bury’s translation (London: Heinemann. 1966–1968).
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Beltrametti, A. (2021). Philosophical Fear and Tragic Fear: The Memory of Theatre in Plato’s Images and Aristotle’s Theory. In: Giacomoni, P., Valentini, N., Dellantonio, S. (eds) The Dark Side: Philosophical Reflections on the “Negative Emotions”. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55123-0_6
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