Description
Book SynopsisClaims that while we are in many ways different from the Greeks the differences are not to be traced to a shift in basic conceptions of ethical life. This book argues that we are more like the ancients than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we grasp our differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery.
Trade Review"A dazzlingly clever and agile assault. . . . Williams's treatment of shame is brilliant. . . . Mr Williams's mind is subtle, his reasoning complex. In places this is a difficult book, but always because the argument requires it; essentially, it is a model of philosophical lucidity. And though it is deeply serious, we can often catch an ironic inflection in the author's voice." * New York Times *
"Brilliant, demanding, disturbing." * New York Review of Books *
"Poets often prove to be much better observers of human thought, character and action than philosophers, historians or psychologists, who are apt to launch into theory and generalisation before they have a good description of what they are setting out to explain. This is what Williams's discussions of the ancient texts bring out in every instance, and what makes his book worth reading, not just for those who are interested in the question whether we have made any real moral progress, but also for those who are interested in the Greeks, or in the varieties of ethical experience." * London Review of Books *
"Clearly written, well argued, and carefully documented." * Library Journal *
Table of ContentsPreface
Foreword to the 2008 Edition
I. The Liberation of Antiquity
II. Centres of Agency
III. Recognising Responsibility
IV. Shame and Autonomy
V. Necessary Identities
VI. Possibility, Freedom, and Power
Notes
Endnote I: Mechanisms of Shame and Guilt
Endnote 2: Phaedra's Distinction:
Euripides Hippolytus 380-87
Bibliography
General Index
Index Locorum
