Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE
Herodotus' Histories was composed well before the genre of Greek historiography emerged as a distinct narrative enterprise. This book explores it within its fifth-century context alongside the extant fragments of Presocratic treatises as well as philosophizing tragedy and comedy. It argues for the Histories' competitive engagement with contemporary intellectual culture and demonstrates its ambition as an experimental prose work, tracing its responses to key debates on relativism, human nature, and epistemology. In addition to expanding the intellectual milieu of which the Histories is a part and restoring its place in Presocratic thought, K. Scarlett Kingsley elucidates fourth-century philosophy's subsequent engagement with the work. In doing so, she contributes to a revision of the sharp separation between the ancient genres of philosophy and history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
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Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE
Herodotus' Histories was composed well before the genre of Greek historiography emerged as a distinct narrative enterprise. This book explores it within its fifth-century context alongside the extant fragments of Presocratic treatises as well as philosophizing tragedy and comedy. It argues for the Histories' competitive engagement with contemporary intellectual culture and demonstrates its ambition as an experimental prose work, tracing its responses to key debates on relativism, human nature, and epistemology. In addition to expanding the intellectual milieu of which the Histories is a part and restoring its place in Presocratic thought, K. Scarlett Kingsley elucidates fourth-century philosophy's subsequent engagement with the work. In doing so, she contributes to a revision of the sharp separation between the ancient genres of philosophy and history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
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Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE

Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE

by K. Scarlett Kingsley
Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE
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Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE

Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE

by K. Scarlett Kingsley

Overview

Herodotus' Histories was composed well before the genre of Greek historiography emerged as a distinct narrative enterprise. This book explores it within its fifth-century context alongside the extant fragments of Presocratic treatises as well as philosophizing tragedy and comedy. It argues for the Histories' competitive engagement with contemporary intellectual culture and demonstrates its ambition as an experimental prose work, tracing its responses to key debates on relativism, human nature, and epistemology. In addition to expanding the intellectual milieu of which the Histories is a part and restoring its place in Presocratic thought, K. Scarlett Kingsley elucidates fourth-century philosophy's subsequent engagement with the work. In doing so, she contributes to a revision of the sharp separation between the ancient genres of philosophy and history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781009338547
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 03/14/2024
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 6.22(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

K. Scarlett Kingsley is an assistant professor of Classics at Agnes Scott College. She is the co-editor, with Tim Rood and Giustina Monti, of The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022), and is currently co-authoring The End of the Histories: Land, Wealth, and Empire in Herodotus (forthcoming) with Tim Rood.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: transtextual histories: history, philosophy, and intellectual culture; 2. Relativism, king of all; 3. The pull of tradition: egoism and Persian revolution; 4. History peri physeos; 5. Physis on the battlefield; 6. Historical inquiry and presocratic epistemology; 7. Herodotean philosophy.
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