Aufsatz(elektronisch)#120. September 2023
Sophoclean Epistemology: Justice in the Theban Plays
In: Polis: the journal for ancient greek political thought, Band 40, Heft 3, S. 369-390
ISSN: 2051-2996
Abstract
In Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles shows that neither individual reason nor piety are singularly sufficient for either individual happiness or the common good. Human understanding is dependent on a decentering of the individual, such that the reason of the wider community, including that of the gods, can augment the limitations of individual perspective. Sophocles shows not only the dependence of faith and reason on one another, but the degree to which both are dependent on reciprocal good will within a community.